Maintenance :-) on December 11, 2008 2:15 pm
I have hit the maintenance phase and have been here for the past month. I bounce from 110-115 depending on the day. I weigh myself instead of every day now to every other day...just to see where I am and to make sure I am maintaining. I am at 114 today and feel fantastic.
I am introducing more complex carbs into my diet like breads, potatoes and more fat then before. Actually this last month the hair loss has been NONE at all. I think the fat in our diets helps with this??? Not sure really on this one but I take all my supplements like I should and really the only thing missing from my diet during weight loss was carbohydrates and fat.
I still drink a protein shake once in a while...maybe every other day or every other other...I love the flavor that I have and want to use it up...otherwise I think I could do this without the shakes really. I am getting around 60 gms per day by myself without the shakes.
This time of year always is depressing to me. Lots of memories good and bad. I try not to think about them but sometimes I just can't help it. I can't get into the Christmas spirit for anything. UGH...I usually have been one to love Christmas but it is so expensive...I wish I could mold Christmas into being more about being with the ones we care about and not so much about "what are you going to get me" crap.
I am donating to someone at work who is hard on their luck...she is a hard worker and cannot afford Christmas for her two young kids. Mary (a nurse I work with) is taking the son and I am taking the daughter :-) That makes me kinda get into the season a little bit better. I know I was really hard on my luck years back and I pretty much had to make due with what we had. The kids were really little and did get some presents to open so it was all good. Family did help so I can't say I didn't get any help. But it was a sad time for me. I just wish I could quit making myself think I have to buy the world for Christmas for everyone...so it is more my problem then anything else I think. Christmas should be about being together with our families...baking cookies..preparing meals..helping out others in need..etc etc. I am trying to re-mold myself but it is hard..maybe tonite I will get the tree up. :-)
In the last month...my body has lost inches....I am now wearing a 1/2 (which are a little loose) and people are telling me to stop with the weight loss already..lol..and I keep telling them I am not losing any more. So this is kind of hard for me...I am really trying to not lose it and am staying the same...but I think our body keeps on re-shaping itself after the weight loss. Odd but true. Hoping my skin will tighten up over the next year as well :-)
Not much else going on....trying to get myself in a better mood here with the Holidays....:-)
Hope everyone is having a great month and you are all in a good place.
Sherri
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Bouncing between 110-115lbs on December 1, 2008 8:48 pm
I am bouncing in weight right now between 110 and 115 which is ok.....Thanksgiving did just come and go and I did indulge in some forbidden fruits of the day...well actuall it lasted about three days here...lol. I didn't do terrible and did enjoy the holiday..Thanksgiving I think is my favorite of all of the Holidays.
I am bummed over my skin issues today...I have a lot of skin on my tummy, and my inner thighs are hideous..and of course my boobs are totally deflated and hang low. I look awful without clothes on. I see myself in the bathtub and I just feel like I am so ugly...I hate feeling like that. I am soo proud of what I have accomplished and I feel so good health wise...I just need to snap out of this phase...and start saving money back for my plastic surgery.
My next paycheck I am going to start a savings account for myself otherwise it will be impossible for me to start saving. John handles all the money here so I need to save this back in my own account. My goal is to be there by three years...hopefully by then I can get what I need done. I can do this...I can save this money by golly..and I am going to do it.
I am wearing size 1-3 jeans still....have a size 0 hanging in the closet just for kicks to see if it would ever happen but ya know what...there comes a point in time when I think a person can get too small...lol. I am sure without all this extra skin anyway I would be in a size 0...without a problem. Anyhoo I am wanting to maintain my weight at around 110 so I need to drop back down these 5lbs that snuck back up on me...I knew that would happen...it happened when I made it to 115...I would bounce back and forth between that and 120 so I just need to buckle down for another couple of weeks to get back where I want to be and then just chilllllll out! :-)
The less we weigh...the less calories our body uses each day and the less calories we need to maintain that weight...so I figure to maintain I need to eat about 1400-1500 cal/day...to lose I need to go below so will try to aim for 1200/day for couple weeks to a month and then slowly go back up to 1400-1500. Easier said then done but that is my plan.
When I work of course I need to eat a little more because I am burning more calories so will add a couple hundred extra on the days I work. Sounds all great in theory...now to see if I can do it. I need to start tracking again I think so I can get the hang of what 1500 calories even looks like. I have gotten out of the habit but need to go back again. I was doing it all in my head but I tend to forget about my little nibbles here and there and those need to go into account.
I need to update my pictures again...I know this..and will this week sometime...need to coral my kid down so he can take my picture for me...hes the only one that can do it right...LOL
That is about it for now...bored bored bored right now...going to go read the boards some more and maybe play a game...jump on my tramp and then go to bed after a while
Peace out
Sherri
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110lbs TODAY! :-) on November 21, 2008 10:42 am
I started my journey at 300lbs...I now weigh 110lbs!!! Woot Woot...I have made it 10lbs below my original goal weight....but what is so totally insane is that I still have a very fat gut...I am trying for 5 more lbs and then I am done....The weight loss is way slower now and I am eating better so I am not worried about getting too thin...I am very very short..not even 5ft so 110lbs is still just a bit much. I am a perfectionist I guess with this weight loss.....but I figure I might as well do it completely right and I can always have room to bounce back up.
My jean size is anywhere between a 1-3...and one pair I have is size 00!! ...my gosh I never ever thought I would see this. My results have soo totally exceeded what I expected from this.
I have a lot of skin too....not an enormous amt but enough...I really need a tummy tuck and a breast lift and inner thigh lift. My arms are ok...not too bad at all..but the rest looks like wrinkled saggy skin. I am soo putting out positive thoughts that I can find a way to finance the plastic surgery that I need. I can fold my boobs in three parts they are so deflated. I am now probably in a B cup but because of all the extra skin...I am wearing c cups. My tummy has two folds on each side that hang down...it drives me crazy...and my mons pubis for some reason is not losing its chubbiness....it is very thick??? wth is with that.
I am still getting in lots of protein..in fact that is what accelerates the weight loss for me...everytime I go back to my 80gms of protein/day...I start losing again.
I do eat well...so not too worried about anorexia...although my self image is not good right now...I still see a fat girl. People tell me I am tiny...I just don't see it. I see the clothes that I wear....but for some reason I think it is all an illusion....still have a lot of work to do on my self image. I am still getting up in the night and eating...but I am trying the EFT system for this too...actually last night I did the exercise and I did not get up as many times to eat....and I remember feeling more conscious about my decision to eat...so crossing my fingers that EFT also helps me with my sleep eating disorder. Then I think I could eat better through the day then I am now...and have a more balanced diet. Cross ur fingers for me..:-)
EFT....this is the self help technique that has helped me with my panic/anxiety disorder...I do it at least twice a day every day and since doing it..I have only had one panic attack..my last anxiety attack was over a week ago...I am very pleased that I could find something other then meds to help me with this...that is possible the worst thing I have ever experienced in my life...it is like a nightmare only u are awake going thru it. So very hard to explain but hopefully they are under control :-)
I need to update my pictures and will do so here soon.
Things that are different for me now as to compared to when I was 300lbs:
I can move now without hurting...I can walk..I can run..I can jump..I can climb...and I can crawl around on the floor if I want.
Much more energy.
I have a positive outlook now and enjoy waking up in the mornings.
I no longer hurt when I wake up
I no longer have the horrific back pain that would cripple me for half the day after waking up.
I cry much less often now
My mood is much much better...happier...I smile more
People treat me differently such as..strangers open doors for me...I get "the look" from men..ya know that look? LOL a very strange thing to me..and it embarasses me to no end...People want to talk to me and get to know me now...they didn't when I was 300lbs.
I feel more confident
I no longer have the terrible pitting edema in my legs..I do still have some but nothing like I used to...now I have to take a lasix maybe once a week as before I was taking it daily or twice a day
Again no pain..my legs don't hurt me...I can't stress enough just the fact that I no longer have pain how this has affected my mood and disposition. The chronic pain is gone.
My feet also shrunk...I used to wear a size 8 wide in shoes..I am now in a 6.5 shoe regular width
Again size 0-3 pant size or x small
shirt size is small
I feel 15 years younger!!
DOWNSIDES TO THE WEIGHT LOSS:
I cannot find underwear to fit me...I am old fashioned and I like the granny panties...I can't find them in my size....I need a size 3 or 4....so I go without unless I am at work
I still fight GERD from the surgery..I will forever have to take protonix to help me with this.
I also still fight constipation issues from the surgery...I take senna every other day or every third day so I can go
Although I get more attention from people now..which is basically all good...it makes me upset that just because I was fat..didn't mean that I didn't deserve the same attention....our society is a very superficial society in general....I can't change this though...but as much as it makes me feel good..it also makes me sad for the girl I used to be.
Even though I have lost the weight....it did not solve all of my problems...those same problems are there...and now I have to face them...I think I was fat for a reason...my fat protected me in some odd way from dealing with life and people. Truth is I am scared and always have been...I love people but I am afraid of being hurt by people.
I have a sex drive now but my husband does not...LOL..(not funny really)
I still have a bad self body image. I still see and feel like the fat girl...I do not see this tiny person other people see...I don't know why...I want to be able to enjoy my new me-ness...so I would love to see what everyone else sees. Hopefully in time my mind will catch up to my body
I have a lot of skin issues from losing the weight...my inner thighs look like a 110 yr old lady...and my tummy has fold downs on each side...my mons pubis decided to stay fat for some freaked up reason...and my boobs I can fold three times...LOL no kidding.
I am petrified of gaining the weight back
I would take all of this bad stuff anyday over being 300lbs again!! I just have to learn now how to deal with it and turn the bad stuff into good stuff. I am confident I can do this!!!
YAY
I hope everyone else finds the same success that I have had with their WLS....also this is not a race...for one may lose quickly and another may lose slowly....this is an individual journey for each of us....never lose hope and keep on believing in yourself!
Sherri
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Birthday Today! on October 30, 2008 9:08 am
44 years old today and I feel like 30. What a ride this has been. I feel alive for the first time in my life and honestly I don't know what to do with myself sometimes. Everything has changed about me...more about me in a minute.
John made it thru his surgery just fine. Without the second melanoma surgery he had an 80% survival rate. They had to go back in and get more (the size of a fist or softball) from his right flank and this second surgery put him in the 99% survival rate. If they had only told him this in the beginning. Ugh...I am a part of the healthcare profession and sometimes we forget to educate out patients about what is going on with them. They forgot or this got missed with John until we finally demanded some answers. That is all we wanted to hear...We both stressed over this for a few weeks not knowing wth was going on. Simply put it was all a game of numbers and percentages. Thank god!! All is well...he is recovering now here at home and goes back to work next week. He is a very hard working man...couldn't have made it where I am today without my best friend.
He has been through so much with me it is unbelievable that one human being could tolerate what I threw out there and still be by my side...that boggles my mind sometimes. I have not been the best wife.
When we got married...I had just lost both my parents...my life was in a whirlwind..I was handing out thankyou notes from the funeral of my mom and wedding invitations out the same week. Losing my mom and getting married at the same time was quite stressful. Plus Johns family...they are all nice but I always got the impression that I wasn't good enough....nothing that they did...but they had the normal Park Ridge lifestyle going on...something I was never accustomed to. I am the kid of two alcholic fuk'd up parents...also I am just a laid back...take whatever comes my way type person...my life has never been structured..kind of a free spirit type person...anyway back to the subject...All of these things going on..plus at that time I weighed about 220....and I had hurt my back also. For some reason...only god knows...I became addicted to Vicodins...not only did it help my back...but it would drown out a lot of feelings I couldn't or didn't know how to deal with....it covered it all up....made me able to function without thinking...I realized without taking the pills...that the back pain intensified about 10 times more then what I had originally and I would go into a deep depression and just cry or go into anxiety related fits I guess....or huge pouting attacks ....I was better off at that time taking the pills...and in a funny way maybe those pills saved my life at the time. Those pills kept me even tempered...I could not cry anymore...but then again I lost the ability to laugh...I didn't care...I was crying at that time more then I had ever in my entire life so these wonder pills helped me to stay centered.
Those pills had side effects....they made me gain even more weight...By this time John and I had gotten married. We went to Canada and got married there. Honestly at the time I am not sure of what I was doing. I cared deeply for him...but sooo much had been going on..I really didn't have time to register and compute everything. I didn't even know at the time that I was one of those people...I am an addict...one of the few or should I say several addicts of the world...I didn't know that...had I known this...I would have warned him but I didn't know at the time.
My addiction became stronger....it lasted a good 3 solid years of taking vicodins..I would get them from my doctor at first...then I was going through so many I had nowhere to turn but to the internet. I was soon spending so much money on prescriptions for Norcos on the internet it was unbelievable..but I never missed a day of work...the more I took..the harder I worked....I lost the ability to feel anything...I could work thru sickness...I felt like wonder woman on these things. But the minute I started going into a withdrawal..things would come crashing down and FAST....I knew had to keep my habit going because the pain of withdrawal was just too much...I could in no way face that. Being on these pills...also kept me from thinking about the inevitable....addiction...was I addicted?? Could I be addicted?? No not me...that could never happen to me. So I found myself ordering more and more and more.
I even had every single one of my teeth pulled so I could get a script for Vicodins from my dentist. Pretty fucked up..although my teeth were pretty bad to begin with from years prior due to bulimia with constant toothaches...another story someday for ya'll. But I will tell you my toothaches were not normal...because I was at a huge risk for a very LOW pain tolerance due to taking the vicodins...my toothaches were murderous...so instead of forking over 10k to fix my teeth...I forked over 1k to have them pulled.
Having my teeth pulled freaked me out....I never knew I would miss my own smile in the mirror. I guess I am kind of a vain person and the ONLY thing I ever had going for me in my entire life was my face. That was the ONLY halfway normal thing about me...and now it was gone. Wow...did that really mess up my ego. I couldn't look myself in the mirror anymore..I would cry looking at myself. I was horrid and ugly...who would ever want to have me be around them looking the way I did. I felt old, ugly, unattractive and worthless as a human being.
So to get over these feelings I just took more pills. More and more and more. At the end of my addiction..I counted at least 35 Norco's per day...35!!!! Not only could I not feel anything about the world going on around me...but I didn't even have to face myself....they made me content in some fuk'd up way. I could just function.....but it took more and more pills to get the same effect over time. I would run out before my scripts came up due and would have to withdraw which was horrible. I soon found myself setting myself up so I wouldn't run out ever. I kept 20 pills in my pocket at all times and my bottle always in my purse...I would pop so many pills every hour or two I am surprised I didn't die from the tylenol overdose alone.
In May of 2005 my addiction was to the point that I was doing more and more to get the same feeling. I can't go into exacts here because of legal issues but I was found out...and I turned myself into my boss at work. That was a horrible day. They fired me of course...and then the next thing I knew I was in some kind of detox facility. I was so sad and scared. I woke up five days later and my husband took me home. They gave me methadone for 5 days to get the Vicodins out of my system. We thought at the time it was the right thing to do. But I don't remember hardly any of those 5 days except I was roomed in with another addict also detoxing who kept trying to get me to give her my meds.
I went home....and because they gave me methadone which is wayyyyy stronger then vicodins...I found myself going thru the most horrible withdrawal ever in my life. I was shaking everywhere...I felt like I was being electrocuted at all times...that feeling wouldn't stop...my mind was sad...I couldn't stop crying..my world was ending and all I wanted to do was die. I found a stash of vicodins that I had hid and of course within two days home I relapsed to get the withdrawl sx to go away. What the hell have I done...what the hell did I do...how did I ever ever ever get in that place...that is the saddest place I had ever been in my whole life. I wanted it to end. I just wanted out. At this point in time my weight increased to about 260. Every bone and muscle and molecule in my body hurt and my mind hurt.
So while I got myself back temporarily on the vicodins...I used that time of solice to find real help....on the internet since the internet helped me into this..then by god the internet is going to help me out of this. That is when I found my Dr. Hill. Suboxone was a new drug that was out...I read up on this drug for about three days before locating this doctor. It keeps people like me from going into withdrawl. I knew I wanted off...I knew I couldn't keep doing what I was doing..I had to get off this ride. I had to find a way back up the ladder I fell off of. I made my appt and that is when I met my first counselor Nancy...who is an angel my my mind now. She came from heaven as far as I am concerned and saved my life. She told me that I wasn't a bad person...that none of this was my fault...I sat there and cried...it was good to hear those words but I knew I had a long way to go. In a few days I met my doctor..(I was told to stay on the vicodins until suboxone induction) I took that time to read more about addiction and and rehab and the 12 steps.
On May 28th 2005 was the last day that I took Vicodins. From then on...I found the miracle of suboxone and how it helped me to crawl back to reality. I began an intensive outpatient treatment program..I had to go everyday for six weeks to learn everything there was to learn about addiction. I met some fantastic people just like me. But none of them were nurses like me...so I eventually got into a group of other healthcare professionals just like me who did just like me. My weight did increase though even more...my new love was sugar...so I gained clear up to 300lbs on a five foot frame. Wow!
I have been clean now for almost three years. I had surgery last year in August of 07 to help me lose this weight once and for all. And I have done well...so talk about changes in my life...whew...it has been a rollercoaster ride for quite a while.
I kicked the drug habit...and am now working on my food addiction with the help of the VSG but I do still have a problem of eating when I am sleeping...I have no answers for that one...so I just try not to eat much during the day time hours now unless it is protein only.
How has all of this affected my marriage? Well my husband has stood by me this whole time...I can't think of one person that would have ever done that for me. I have put my family thru hell and back in more ways then one. I have been a very destructive person...and all I want now is to put everything back where I found it...:-) I want to fix everything I screwed up. Which is impossible..but I am also dealing with lots of new things now...learning who I really am....who I really have ALWAYS been...which is an addict....which means I am wired differently then most people...I could become addicted to silverware if I could find the fun in it. I can become addicted to anything and everything and I just have to always play the tape forward in every area of my life.
I feel like a newborn learning to re-live life again...I look different to people..people treat me differently...I find that people are very attracted to me now and want to be near me or talk to me...people that would have never looked at me or given me the time of day before. A lot to deal with and handle...so I am trying to learn how to handle things right...which I wont always be right. I will stumble and make mistakes but now I do have the tools to help me stay on track where I should be. I try to follow the 12 step program as much as I can or am able...some I agree with some parts I don't.
So here I am 44 years old...I really do feel like I've been thru hell and back and come out the other side...because I have. Its a brand new life now....and I have to admit that I am a little confused about some things....some things are much to personal to write here although I wish I could but I can't....but if you took the time to read this...I thank you...this was just a little window into my part of my life and where I am today....115-120lbs, narcotic free and loving life!!! Happy Birthday Sherri!
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