In reading a friends livejournal post about her weight loss journey, I realized that I had stopped posting about mine – heck, I’ve mainly stopped posting.

My journey – I am at MY goal. I don’t know whether or not this is my NUT’s goal or surgeons goal, but I don’t want to get any smaller. The BMI says that anywhere between 95 and 129 is normal for my height. I seem to skate quite fluidly between 110-115 lately.

The 115 end of that scares the heck out of me. I see that scale move upward and I start to panic like all the weight is going to come right back on. I know that it’s possible for that to happen (in time – not all at once) and so I am conscious of the creeping. I just keep going back and forth between wanting to eat more than I am supposed to because I don’t want to lose weight and then panicking because my body responds very quickly to that and says OHHHH… food! Lets hold onto that… then I creep up to 112… 113… 115… and I don’t want that either. I have got to find balance between what my body needs and what I consume. The running everyday makes me hungrier. I have horrible afternoon hunger. I’m sure its mostly head hunger… its total CARB craving. Although Ive made some solid choices in regard to what kind of snacky carb I consume, I still consume WAY too much and so that I have to go back to NO carbs of that type. I am very all or nothing. I am working on that.

To battle the carb monster, I started the 5 day pouch test on Monday. This is usually used by people who think their pouch is “broken” or no longer working. I know my pouch is NOT broken, but I think that the program will break the psychological stuff surrounding carbs. I tried doing this about two weeks ago, but I wasn’t solid in my resolve. I did protein shakes all day long and then eat when I went home (because I thought I was hungry). I defeated the purpose of suffering through protein shakes all day long by eating dinner. So, the five day pouch test… this is what it entails:

Days 1 & 2: Liquid Protein: low-carb protein shakes, broth, clear or cream soups, sf gelatin and pudding.
Day 3: Soft Protein: Canned fish (tuna or salmon), eggs, fresh soft fish like tilapia, sole orange roughy.
Day 4: Firm Protein: Ground meat (turkey, beef, chicken, or lamb) shellfish, scallops, lobster, fresh salmon or halibut
Day 5: White meat poultry, beef steak, pork, lamb, wild game

There is more to it, but that’s the food part of it. There’s a website that talks about it in greater detail.

So, this past Monday and Tuesday I made it all the way through days 1 & 2 sticking exactly to plan. Today is soft proteins. I definitely feel like my pouch is tight and responding to far less food that I have previously consumed. Because of my choice of foods, my calories aren’t much lower than what I was consuming before, I am just changing the content and frequency. I don’t know if this makes sense or not…. But I need to kick carbs butt for a bit until I get a hold on my program again.

I did good until about 2:30. Then I caved and had about 1 1/2 cups of chex cereal (mixed rice chex, wheat chex,  and cinnamon chex) spread over a 45 minute period.  I noticed that I have this huge carb/starchy food craving about 2 hours after my run.  Here's the deal: I dont know if my body is trying to tell me something with this craving or if its just head hunger. If its a body thing, I want to respect what my body is trying to tell me... if its head hunger, I want to tell it to get lost. I may end up telling it to get lost anyway because what happens? Oh hell, I indulge in the carbs.... it pushes the crash off for two hours or so and then I crash anyway. So, whats the point then? Crash right at 2:30 and just feel tired for the rest of the day or eat a little carbs... feel good for about 2 more hours,... then crash anyway. I might as well save those calories if I am going to crash anyway.  For the record, I usually eat lunch after I run. Lunch usually consists 90% protein... 10% veggies... Or I just have a Premier Protein shake, which has 30 g of protein in it. I still have the same experience at about 2:30 or so. 

Other things for me to consider: 1. maybe I need to consume just a small amount of fruit or something else, instead of dry cereal or wheat crackers - try something that is LESS of a trigger. 2. I am under an unbelievable amount of stress right now with moving my entire household, perhaps this is emotional eating and the time of the day it happens just makes me think that its related to the exercise. 3. I stopped taking my welbuterin a week ago Monday - on purpose. I've been on it for over two years and even though I felt stable a long time ago, I decided to stay on it until after my one year anniversary. The exercise has done amazing things for my depression so I tapered off it. Perhaps this is causing me to have some emotional (stress) eating episodes and its again the timing of it all. I just dont know. ACK! 

I’m interested in hearing what they tell me to do at my 1yr appt. I’m curious on how they handle maintenance. I think I am at a point that I need a maintenance plan instead of a weight loss plan. Thinking that I am on a WL plan makes me nervous because I don’t want to lose any more weight. I guess I will see what Liz and Robin say when I see them. I know last time I saw Liz she said that I probably would lose more weight (below 110). I couldn’t help but cringe. I am open to the idea that my body knows what it is supposed to do and that Robin will provide me with clear direction to support my body.

OH my body. have I mentioned that I havent seen or heard of my period since late in November? Ya... Nadda. After we move I am going to visit my OB to try to figure out whats up. I've got 4-8 months to work that shit out before starting to make a baby! (thats a long post of its own).

I have lots of thoughts around watching Tina go through this process. It's much different watching it happen in someone else rather than in your own body – It's much more fun! It’s like when its happening to you, you are too close to the situation to see the fun in it…you are excited but a little alarmed because it is contrary to everything you have previously experienced about weight loss. Its fun to watch her go through it and find out that clothes are way too big… and watch her look at herself in the mirror,… or listen to her lightheartedly complain about her sagging butt. All FUN!!!

Alright, Ive been literally writing this post for two days (while at work on breaks) and once again I have run out of time. So, while I have much more to say on this whole process, I am going to post this now for fear that 6 wks from now I will still be writing it.

Interesting observations from the weekend – in no particular order of importance:  I have come a long way.

I have a long way to go.  

During this visit I realized that I have anxiety (yes, the heart racing, palms sweaty, feel like you are having a heart attack, can’t breath kind of anxiety) around seeing people who have previously made the “too skinny” comments to me (or not to me, but about me). Eventually I will learn to not invest in what other people think about my form – be it big or little. These experiences take me one more step to understanding. My thoughts:

1. If you have concern, ASK ME. Don’t talk about me… don’t talk around me like I’m not there. Sit down with me face to face and express yourself and ASK ME. (then again, I am trying to subscribe to the “What you say/think about me is none of my business” theory, I just haven’t mastered that yet). I really mean ASK ME.. I don’t mean send me a facebook or livejournal note…. I really mean if you are that concerned that you need to talk about me, call me and we will make a date to talk face to face about me. I totally get that the “too skinny” comments come from a place of concern. Yes, I have a standard answer that gets repeated every time someone does take the time to ask. Just because I have a standard answer doesn’t mean that it’s not thorough or accurate. It goes something like this: 

a)       Nobody is more concerned about my health than I am. I can make this statement without a shadow of doubt. That’s why I had this beautiful blessing of a surgery to begin with. If you think you are more concerned than I am, I challenge you to prove that statement. Good luck. So, if you think I am running willy nilly without thought to the opposite side of the body mass spectrum, think again. I am closely watching my weight, how I feel, and how my body reacts to gauge if I need to be changing anything.

b)       I have a team of specialists, doctors, surgeons, lab techs, caseworkers and nutritionists available to me AND I UTILIZE THEM as necessary. Your thoughts, while they are valid, are not more precise or accurate as my team. There is no helpful advise you can give me, unless you are on my team. Nobody has anything up on my team.

c)       The healthy weight range for my height according to the BMI (which is what the medical professionals look at) is  95 lbs to 127 lbs. http://www.nhlbisupport.com/bmi/ No, I don’t want to be 95 lbs, but I am still a bit away from that. If it looked like I was going to drop to an “underweight” level, I would be on the phone to my team in a heartbeat. Check out your BMI, you might be surprised what turns up. Ok, that’s a little snarky and I don’t usually say that, but I’m feeling a little feisty this morning. My body is going to know when to stop and if it doesn’t, I will know how to catch that because I weight myself every freaking morning. My team says (and others who I know personally who have had wls) that there is about a 10 lb bounce back of weight once your body decides that its hit that point where it wants to stop. So, if my body stops at 108 – it would likely bounce back up to 118 within a reasonable amount of time. I’m good with that. If I had tried to stop losing weight when people started commenting about me being too skinny, that bounce back would have put me right back into the overweight range. I didn’t have my guts rearranged to still be overweight – you get me?

d)       I am a private person. Meaning, unless you and I have had a previous connection on this topic, I am probably not going to spew my wls experience/happenings onto you during our conversations. This doesn’t mean that I am not open to discussion; it just means you have to ASK QUESTIONS. If you get an answer that doesn’t feel like it completely answers your concern, ask more questions. I may be private, but I am not inconsiderate, insensitive to your feelings, or uncaring. It just means that you have to ask. If you are so concerned (enough to talk about me) I would think that you would be concerned enough to call me and make a date to sit down and discuss your concerns. Now, if you and I have wls in common, I probably run off at the mouth about all kinds of shit that you don’t care about. I am not so private with you. That’s because I am in my own little world over here without much face to face contact with others who have had this same (or very similar) experience. So, to you, I say thank you for letting me ramble on. Thank you for being patient as I talk about my food stuff and my exercise and basically all that shit that you obsess about because you are going through this very unique experience. Thank you for listening to me.

So, that was a long rant about the state of me. I am not angry (although I can see after re-reading that it could be taken that way)… this line of dribble started because I obviously care too much what others think. I’m working on it. Anyway, on with other stuff.

Sunday we went thrift store shopping. I felt solid going in, but by the time I had tried on about 12 pairs of pants, I was overwhelmed. I am wearing somewhere between a size 0 and a 3 (depending on the maker). This alone is overwhelming. Going from a size 24 to a size 12 was crazy. The journey down to this size has been very quick and just as overwhelming. Knowing that my very small frame carried around 244 lbs is almost scary. I always told myself that I was big boned or that I had a sturdy frame…. That I’ve never been a small person. Well, there is no big boned anything in here. I am petite. Tiny. I am short AND small boned. During my little stint in the dressing rooms I realized that shopping when I was a larger size brought me to tears. Shopping at a smaller size can still bring me to tears. So, just like me… if you more curvy girls think that you have all the trouble… fear not – you are not alone. Yes, I am definitely less frustrated, but I still have shopping trauma.  I realized that as a curvy girl, when something didn’t fit I was HORRIBLE to myself. Not on purpose… it just happened and I didn’t know how to not make it happen… I was horrible to myself – if clothing didn’t fit, it was my fault it didn’t fit. As a smaller girl, if a piece of clothing doesn’t fit it just doesn’t fit because it wasn’t made for my body. This was a great thing to realize. I wish that I would have found a way to realize this at 244 lbs. It’s a simple statement: If the clothing doesn’t fit, it wasn’t made for your body. WOW. Why the hell do we go through beating ourselves up because we can cram our body into something that wasn’t meant for us? Hrm. Just something to think about at ANY size.

I am a work in progress.

 

Im obsessed with baking, cooking, and creating in the kitchen. With the exception of this weekend, its been a good thing. This weekend it hit an alltime crazy consumption high.

tomorrow I will be back at work and at the gym and just that change will help me get back on target (although I am not putting the restraint off until tomorrow.... Its just that I know I am struggling today and I know it will be easier tomorrow.

So,.. the baking. I keep wanting to create baked items or recipes that are WLS friendly. This isnt necessarily a bad thing, I just need to focus on making smaller portions and freezing leftovers. I still have old programming and have been binged a few times. Now, I know that a binge now is MUCH smaller than a binge prior to surgery,... but its not something that I want to do so I will be focusing on my plan. Planning my food for the week like usual and sticking to the plan.

The gym and I have a great relationship. I still go to the gym on my lunch hour every day. Ive cut back my cardio to 15 minutes and the rest of the time I am doing strength training, core training, and weight lifting. I dont want to lose any more weight. I am five lbs below what I set in my head as my goal. I dont necessarily want to gain any weight back, but I dont want to lose any. If I were adding weight due to muscle, that would be ok. I almost feel too thin, so some muscle would be good.

I am getting tired of hearing "your so little"... " you are going to disappear".... "dont lose any more weight". Duh. Im not trying to lose more weight,... Im not in control of that. My body knows where it should stop. I am not yet classified as "underweight" so I am not worried. Ive got 12 lbs before that happens. Im hoping the muscle weight will help even things out. My size 4 pants are baggy on my hips and butt.... but I am not buying any more clothes because I am hoping that my weight will stabilize. - Besides that, Ive already spent too much money on clothing... even if I am shopping at thrift stores.

Im thinking about going to a support group tonight.  I dont tend to talk or open up or anything... I have a tendency to only focus on the positive aspects of what is going on and not talk about the negative aspects.... I have a problem will people seeing me with my flaws and problems but I know that a support group is the best place to talk about it. Its the best place to express my concerns... not only does it help me but it helps others hearing what I am going through, because they have probably gone through it or are going through it... or might go through it.. and will know that they (just like me) are not alone.

So,... ya... I need to get my ass off the couch and get cleaned up. Seven o'clock..... kaiser,... elk grove. I am there.

Oh. I posted some recent pictures for 8 1/2 mo. out.... 110 lbs. thats where I am at today.

holy crap that went by fast!