ObesityHelp

I call this Mommy and Me....

I accidentally saw a co-workers diet journal today, she had gained a pound and was all pissed off at herself.  I never really kept a journal, I write here but it all seems pretty meaningless, I mean I read back and I don't really get anything out of it to see what I should change.  I guess writing really isn't my thing and trying to figure out how I can eat perfectly all day long, and a healthy dinner of chicken and potatoes and then sit down at 9pm and eat Doritos.  Why sabotage what I work so hard for because I can't say no to something stupid like Dorito's.  I have given up so many things that are my trigger foods yet lately the Dorito's are the only snack food I want or have.  I have not been eating bagels, no brownie bites, I even made chocolate chip cookies and didn't eat any.  So whats my problem, how can I continue doing the same thing over and over and expect a different result, I know that doesn't work.  Every Monday I promise myself this week is going to be a good one, that I am going to really crack down and eat less, no snacks and more walking, I do get the more walking when I am out taking pictures but the less snacks, well not so much.  So I guess I have to start pushing myself to be more honest and stop sabotaging myself.  I am adding a pic I took over the weekend.

I just spent a half hour typing out a post about my migraines and my eye doctor appt and how I was feeling and posted it only to read the previous post and realized I had already posted the whole thing the other day.  I have no recollection of posting it.  Okay its official, my brain is fucked.  Here's a baby swan pic, atleast I can still do that right.

I spent the weekend focusing on my photography, all birds all the time basically.  I even took a drive Beardsley Park zoo to photograph the peacocks they have wandering around.  I guess you can pretty much say photography is my obsession, I rarely go on OH at all, I spend all my time on Flickr or researching more locations to shoot. I am adding one of my peacock photos.

I figured out today that my biggest problem is I eat too much, big revelation ehhh, well to that end I have decided to not eat while I am at work and start my eating with dinner and then have my protein bars as a snack.  It has merit as a diet plan, I drink tea with lemon at work and I don't even miss eating at all, but I need my protein so my bars will just move until night time.  Perfect.  If I can lose ten pounds I would be thrilled and I won't feel like I am missing out on anything. 

I don't spend much time talking about my weight or diet anymore, I guess its because I have nothing to say.  I want to lose weight but I have never been good at dieting, hmmm maybe why I needed wls in the first place.  lol  I have been taking just three protein bars with me to work so I can't eat too many.  I eat a normal dinner and then I watch tv and want to snack.  I think snacking is the work of the devil.  I try to avoid it the best I can, if I only ate when I was hungry I would be a size 2, but because I like to eat I am a fat 6.  lol lol  So thats that about my weight.  As for the one thing I lovel, my photography, its been on hold during this excruciating rain.  I am adding a pic of momma swan that I have been waiting to see her babies hatch, but I haven't gone in a couple of days because of the rain, I hope tomorrow for a break.  Isn't she beautiful?

The rain is really depressing, it kills my arthritis and makes it impossible for me to go visit my swan nest and see if my baby swans are born.  I am hoping tomorrow will be a better day.  I spend every free minute taking pictures and on Sunday I went to an all day photography seminar with Arthur Morris who is a world renowned bird photographer.  I actually met and exchanged Flickr accounts with another lady who passionately photographs birds also.  Of course I pulled away when she suggested shooting together, I guess my anti-social behaviour is alive and well, I wish it wasn't so because it would be nice to have friends with the same interests but for me thats too stressful so I avoid it.  For me photography is an escape, something I like to do alone with absolutely no stress at all, going anywhere I want to go, not having to do what anyone else wants to do.  So alas that means I cannot join any photography clubs or make friends with any other shooters.  But I do enjoy going to seminars, as long as no one talks to me.  lol lol  I did get a nice autograph from Arthur Morris and got to chat with him for a few minutes, amazing.  I took quite a few pictures over the weekend, enjoyed taking off Friday the 13th and took this picture I am adding with really kewl looking bokeh.

Those two words were used to describe me.  My coworker was conducting a class for the staff at my company and I sat in for a few minutes just to give him a hard time, I made a couple of quick suggestions and one of my coworkers taking the class said that she was so impressed she didn't know I was smart and beautiful.  lol  Really, seriously, so you just thought I was beautiful, and now you are just figuring out I am a computer geek and pretty smart too.  I have always prided myself on my intelligence, its something that no one can take away from you when you don't feel good about yourself or how you look, atleast you can fall back on your brains.  I have a very analytical mind and have been a database programmer/analyst for many years,  I love my job because it is ever changing and evolving and I like new challenges.  I know there are people I work with who have gotten by based on their looks, I know I have always been one to get by based on my brains, but I thought it was extremely sweet to hear the beautiful comment.  Honestly I could have reached over and kissed Elise for making it.  Kind of made my day.  I am adding the beautiful baby Canada goose picture of the day I took before I went to work.  I have taken off Friday as a gift to myself to focus on my photography, I have to work on Mothers days so Friday I can spend the day actually doing something I like.  Perhaps I will drag my son along for the ride.  lol  Unlikely after the last time I took him to Maine but we shall see. 

How do you represent yourself?  Who are you really?  I remember years ago reading personal ads and everyone loves long walks on the beach, that always made me laugh because I guess I like long walks on the beach but I haven't been on one in about 5 years.  So how do you describe who you really are, because really most of my life is spent at work, so realistically I guess I am more analyst then anything else, my free time is spent on my photography. Basically I spend my days alone in my office working and my weekends alone stalking birds and wildlife. So who am I?  Am I fun loving? Passionate? Sexy? Funny? Or am I something totally different?  Do I even know?  Can you choose to be whoever you want to be?  Does losing weight and being a stranger in your own body make you a different person.  I never thought I had changed after I lost weight, but realistically everything has changed, I will never be that person I was before, whoever she was she is gone now.  Who am I now, well I guess that remains to be seen.  I spend the weekend at the park taking pictures.  My camera rig is big and obvious and today a lady came up to me with her young daughter and told me I just had to walk around the trail to see a billion turtles and take their picture.  I found the comment sweet and reminded me of my son at that age who I convinced to wear a turtle costume for Halloween by fibbing and telling him it was a Ninja Turtle.  He didn't know the difference at 5 years old, this little girl was about the same age, sadly when I looked into her eyes I didn't see my young son but I saw myself, a chubby little girl, she said she was going to feed the baby geese french fries and she wanted to eat some herself.  I wanted to scream NOOOOOOO, I didn't want her to eat them and I certainly didn't want the baby geese to eat them.  But I didn't because I didn't want to be mean or rude but I did go take pictures of her billion turtles.  I didn't feel good about saying nothing, but sometimes its all we can say.

I am posting a picture today of Lake Marie, a beautiful natural conservation area left in trust by a very gracious benefactor, Ada Wolf.  The lake is pristine and rife with wild geese, the land filled with deer and small animals, I find it very relaxing to go there and walk around and take photographs.  It is a very special place and reminds me that there are good people that care so very much about our planet and makes me want to give something back.  I plan to join the Audubon Society as soon as I can afford it and hopefully go on some of their summer trips throughout Connecticut.

It's finally Easter Sunday and I spent the morning out taking photographs of all the signs of spring, it would have been great if I could of found a bunny to photograph but that didn't happen.  I did find a lot of flowers and tons of bees and it is very hot outside compared to yesterday, it feels like upper 70's but of course its going to rain again this afternoon.  The rain is really messing with my arthritis, this week absolutely everything hurts, I hate when that happens but hopefully it will pass and I will feel okay again.  I am adding a daffodil pic I happen to really like. 

I have been watching the Ten Commandments for the last several hours because with commercials its on for like 5 hours and I typically won't watch anything with commercials but of course I can't do one thing at a time so I multitask my web browsing with tv watching.  I have been hooked on Criminal Minds recently, my boss got me started, she told me I reminded her of some anyalyst on one of these crime shows so I started watching them just to see what she was talking about and got hooked on Criminal Minds, the best part they show 3 eisodes a night on ION tv so I can probably catch up on the last 6 years pretty quickly.  lol lol  I am really not a tv person by nature but I do love DWTS and now Criminal Minds because I love the analytical aspect of profiling a suspect for a crime.  Being an analsyt is in my nature, its what I do for a living and basically how my brain processes information.  Hence the reason I believe very little of what I read, always have to find out the source and how objective the source is or who is trying to sell me what.  I remember once when I was in high school we watched a movie created by a chemical company about how wonderful chemicals were to our everyday life, it was an obvious propaganda movie to me and when we were told to write about the movie I was the only person who had picked up on who created it and fact it was  propaganda.  Of course my teacher had to embarass me and tell the class that I was the only one worthy of being a real scientist that none of them had a chance.  Yeah he was a dick, he always said my name with a foreign accent, asked how my sheep were etc. but the point is being an analyst is part of me.  It is obviously why I watch the Ten Commandments as fiction, I guess if there was some proof about god and jesus and religion but it would have to be really really big proof for me to take that leap of faith.  Sometimes I feel bad that I cannot believe, that I would like to have the comfort of the imaginary friend, I totally understand why people need it, I just can't believe it or accept that its possible.  I study facts and figures, I know how old the earth is, how long the dinosaurs lived, the fact that evolution has caused us to get where we are.  I have nothing against the bible, for the most part I believe if people really read it and acted like Christians instead of paying it lip service we would all be better off.  I don't need anyone to scare me into doing the right thing, I do it because it is the right thing to do.  I think if we all lived with WWJD in mind we would be better off, no matter who you believe he is, you have to feel his power and importance in our world.  So many have died for the cause, so very sad, once the barbaric times have finally passed maybe we can move together in peace. 

Tuesday was my wls anniversary, a day that is very important to me, one where I decided to take control of my life, my health and my future.  I was 40 years old, MO, diabetic and had debilitating arthritis, I couldn't even sleep in my bed because I couldnt raise my arms up due to the pain and sleeping the way I normally would was impossible.  For a few years prior to wls I slept on the couch, every inch of my body hurt, I was dying slowly and painfully and I was at the end of my rope, I had absolutely no hope of having any quality of life into the future.  When a co-worker had a very successful wls with Dr Aranow I decided to go try his informational seminar and see if I could qualify for surgery.  I was so thrilled when I found out I would have no problem qualifying based on the fact I was diabetic and had a bmi of 45, what didn't make me so happy was the fact my weight had ballooned to a staggering 283.5lbs, I was mortified to see that number on the scale.  In my minds eye, in my dreams in any way I thought of myself I was never MO, I was just average, just like I had been as a teenager, my twenty years of MO never caught up with how I saw myself in my mind.  No one hated being fat more then me, everything about it repulsed me, that my body was covered in hideous stretch marks, that I felt deformed and freakish and I was completely embarassed to show my naked body to anyone.  I never let my ex husband see me naked, not completely and not ever.  I never took off a bra, I even slept in them, turns out that was a good thing since I think it saved my breasts from being really saggy once I lost weight.  I spent so many years in my own private hell, hiding myself from everyone, never going to the beach or wearing shorts.  I remember all the years we went to Florida when my son was little and I was sweating my ass off because I had on long stretch pants, because if I wore dresses my thighs would rub together so badly I would get a rash.  It was such a truly horrible existance, married to a man I didn't love, who mentally tried to keep me even when he knew I wanted to leave, with a small child and a body that embarassed me.  When I finally divorced I felt free to finally live my life, but I was trapped in this body, I started dating and went on the pill, in the first few months of being on the pill I developed chronic yeast infections which they said were not from the pill but from everything else including of course my excess weight.  For two years I suffered, until finally I stopped the pill myself because I couldnt take it anymore.  I wanted a life, not just an existance and I still didn't have it.  After my mother died I was diagnosed with diabetes and then I knew I had to do something or I was going to end up in the same boat she was taking 5 shots a day and still being out of control.  I watched the paramedics work on my mother so many times, I was afraid I would find her dead for years before it finally happened.  I knew she would never live to be very old, her goal was to make it until my son graduated from high school, and maybe if she had lived he might have graduated but sadly he quit.  My mother died nearly 9 years ago next week, my son was only 12 years old at the time.  When I finally got to the point I was ready for wls, I wanted it done and over with as quickly as possible but it took 6 months to make happen.  It was such a long draw out process and it seemed to take forever for the insurance approval, but once I had the surgery it was truly the beginning for me.  I swore that very day I came home from the hospital I wasn't going to fuck this up, I had pretty much fucked up everything else in my life and this was one thing I was going to succeed at.  I know that there are people just sitting back waiting for us to fail, to either never make goal or re-gain our weight and I for one refuse to give those people even one word to talk about me, if I never eat again I will do it just so I can keep them quiet.  I can only imagine what my ex husband would say if I got fat again, no fucking way on earth would I give him that satisfaction, never fucking ever.  So for me this date on the calender is one of the most important of the year, and yes I know that no one else really gets it, but to me its the day I celebrate my life.  Not the day I was born, to a father who didn't care, who never wanted me, and a mother who did everything she could to try to make my life better.  This anniversary is all about life and living and I am happy to report I had a terrific day.  I won't talk about the two days since.  lol  Happy Anniversary to Me!

My six year anniversary is almost here, and of course I got my Period so I am bloated and miserable, why wouldn't I be.  I really wanted to get dressed up and take a picture, but that might not happen this weekend.  Of course I hope to take some pictures tomorrow, its still early spring, right in the middle of breeding season for the swans and geese, and no babies yet.  But I can't resist going out anyway, I have been working on putting together my winter pictures for my book, I guess there is going to be one for every season since I have thousands of pictures from this past winter.  I looked at the counter on my camera and I have taken over 20,000 pictures since I got my camera a little over a year ago.  I am adding a swan picture that I turned into artwork.

My six year anniversary is right around the corner, I always celebrate it like a holiday because it really is the beginning of my new life.  Not that I remember my life before wls very well.  I wish I had gotten myself back to 135 like I really wanted but I can't bitch about losing half my weight and keeping it off for 6 years.  This spring I am going to start walking because I like it and I love my photography, its my only real passion and the more I can go out doing it the more exercise I get.  I actually found a few new locations so I have more options and more places to walk.  This is a picture I took on Sunday.

Nothing really to say about today, I ate two protein bar today at work because I was too busy to have my third.  For dinner I had half of a 6 inch turkey grinder.  I made a fruit triffle for my friend at work and sampled some of the fruit, dipped a few strawberries in chocolate and ate them also, no much though.  I don't want to go through another big crash like I did last night, I could really feel it coming, my arms got heavy almost numb like and then I started sweating and my brain was very fuzzy.  I knew it was time to eat immediately, its never happened that out of the blue or suddenly before, it was kind of scary.  I will be avoiding the brownie bites from here on in.  I am adding another pic from the weekend set, I have 295 to choose from so I should be able to find a few to post.  lol