Running the Race....Memories From a Year of Rapid Weight Loss

Dec 12, 2011

My Preamble:  With all of the responsibilities that come with post-op life, and a fuller and richer life to live, it is no surprise that an entire year flew by right under my nose- a fact I almost missed if not for good friends to remind me.  I wanted to think about all of the things that happened in the past year and journal about my experiences.  During the process, I found myself thinking more about all of the circumstances that lead me to have RNY in the first place.  I thought giving you a picture of what pre-op life was like for me, might be a good place to start.  It is a long story, with a lot of embarrassing admissions, but it is all true, and I suspect, representative of where a lot of people might currently be while waiting for surgery, and where a lot of you have been in your past.


Part 1: My Ugly Truth...

Truth be told, I cannot remember a single time in my past when I felt thin...not ever.  I was chubby as a child, fat as a teenager, and super morbidly obese for a large part of my adulthood.   I experienced all of the things that went along with that: ridicule, shame, and more.  I was always (and still am to a large extent), a self-conscious person.  I am a person who most always says "yes" to anyone and anything, and it was never a secret that I always gave an emphatic "Yes please!!" to food.  I dieted over the years, trying Jenny Craig, Doctor Bernstein, Weight Watchers, The Mayo Clinic Diet, the South Beach Diet, the Glycemic Index Diet, and even the Cabbage Soup Diet.  Most of the programs listed above I tried several times over.  I always had some amount of success, but inevitably I gained it all back and more.  Up and down the scales I went.  Finally, in 2004, at 250 pounds, I became pregnant with my first daughter.  I think that I had been dieting for so long, that I looked at pregnancy as a hall pass- a license to eat anything and everything I wanted.  Not only did I eat for 2, but most days I probably ate for 22!  I gained 55 pounds with my first pregnancy, and lost not one single dime afterwards.  Exactly 2 years and 1 month later, I had my second daughter, and with that pregnancy, came another 30 pounds that I was unable, (or unwilling) to loose.  At this point, I experienced some pretty wicked postpartum depression, and as a result I gained even more excess, until finally settling at my highest weight of 329 pounds. 

At 329 pounds, I was "super morbidly obese", and terrified.  Physically, I felt miserable.  I felt as though my fat was suffocating me.  At night, I slept with pillows behind me so that I was as upright as possible, and even then I could feel the weight of my fat pushing my throat closed.  Shortly thereafter I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea.  Later, I found myself dizzy and tired all the time, with horribly swollen ankles.  It was determined that I had high blood pressure and had to take medication to regulate it.  Everything seemed like a chore, because the weight of my body made even basic, everyday tasks uncomfortable. I couldn't keep up with my 3 year old in a foot race (not even close), and I avoided any family activity that didn't involve me watching from the couch. On a family trip to Wonderland I was asked to leave the ride platform as it turned out that I was too much of a behemoth to ride the Behemoth. I was always sweaty, even in the dead of winter.  I had a hard time reaching around my hips to wipe my bottom while in the bathroom. This was particularly hard in public restrooms where there was no counter to brace myself against.  I was quickly outgrowing the largest size (28), that they carried at Pennington's, and wondered where in the world I would turn next  for clothing.  On more than one occasion, I had to have the waitress at the restaurant redirect us to a table since I could not fit in the booth.  I began to have numbness in my arms and fingers, heart palpitations, jaw pain, and dizziness.  I was convinced I was on the doorstep of a heart attack, andI was afraid to go to bed at night, because I was sure that I'd not wake up to see the next day.  I was destroying myself inside and out, and t was a pretty desperate place to be.

                                                         
                                                          Not my highest weight, but certainly on my way. 



Part 2:  An Unlikely Gift...

It came in the form of a major panic attack.  I found myself in my classroom, (the week after school ended), heart racing, extreme sweating, jaw pain, numbness in my arms, a burning in the center of my chest, the inability to swallow or take a deep breath, and a feeling like the room was beginning to black out.  In a daze, I wandered into a co-worker's room, who took one look at me and called 911.  News travels particularly fast in the workplace as many of you well know, and before long, the entire staff was in the hallway watching as I was wheeled off, big and fat, on a stretcher.  It was, and will forever be, the single most mortifying experience of my life.  I had become "the 33 year old morbidly obese girl dying of a heart attack", and I was completely shamed.  

Despite the fact that I really thought my life was coming to an abrupt halt, the doctors pronounced that I had had an extreme panic attack.  I had literally made myself sick from worrying about my weight, and the consequences it was having on my health.  Heart attack, or panic attack, it didn't matter.  I was determined NEVER to feel that way again, and that is what brought me to my doctor's office the next week to ask for his support in having gastric bypass surgery.  I was prepared for a battle, but to my complete shock, he agreed immediately.  His exact words were.  "I agree.  It's your time".  I cried right there in his office, all the way home, and pretty much for the rest of the day just from the sense of relief that someone had finally acknowledged that I needed help byond the kind an ordinary diet plan could give me.

                                                         
                                                      
Me with my girls at 329 pounds.  Smiling on the outside, but dying on the inside.


The rest of the details about my resulting surgery, were written about in my previous blogs.  I had my RNY on December 9th, 2010.  I've had no complications to speak of,and at a year out, I have lost 150+ pounds.  There have been many ups and downs along the way.  I have stalled more times than I can count, and made mistakes like eating the wrong thing, or eating too fast, then suffering the inevitable consequences.  The toilet bowl and I have developed quite the relationship this year.  Despite the lows, and basking in the light of the highs, I can honestly say that WLS has freed me from a bondage to food that consumed every waking minute of my life.  I will forever be grateful that I had the opportunity.  I was deathly afraid about having the surgery (let there be no mistake), and when they asked me to count backwards from ten, I cried like a baby.  But, in the end, I wouldn't change a single minute of anything that happened in the last 2 years, because it has brought me to where I am today, and where I am right now is good....really good.



Part 3: Running the Race...

                                  
                                            
          Philippians 3:13-14
                                   "
Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. 
                                    But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is 
                                    ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called 
                                    me heavenward in Christ Jesus. "


Aside from the religious meaning of this quote, which is intensely personal to me, I really felt that this scripture also had depth when applied to my journey after WLS, and pretty well sums up how I see life after RNY.  I did not wait until 100 pounds lost, or a year surgiversary, or even until goal to make this a permanent fixture on my body.  It struck me so deeply when I heard it that it never left my mind, and I knew it that I wanted it emblazoned on my skin forever.   

For me, life after RNY is like a race with several important markers along the way, and one significant goal at the finish line.  It is a race that I don't know I'll ever finish in my lifetime.  I don't know that I'll ever completely beat my food addiction, but I do know that along my journey, I WILL achieve good health, and I WILL achieve a number that I can be happy with.  My end goal though, is far greater than those two things.  My crown...my medal...my prize...is the ability to have 100% acceptance of myself in every way: physically, emotionally, and spiritually, the good, the bad, everything.   Like I said before, I don't know that I'll ever get there, but I will continue to strive in that direction.  

When a runner runs a race, they set their eyes on the mark, never letting go.  When they take a moment to look behind them, they loose their footing, stumble, and fall.  This is the race I run everyday.  When I turn back to my old habits, many of which are alive and well, I stumble.  The key is realizing that in that very instant that I fall, I need to pick myself back up and continue the race.  I have to allow myself to stumble without condemning myself to failure, otherwise I might not ever get back up again, and failure has always been a huge trigger point for overeating in my past.

If I am running a race, then I have to strain forward, stretching and flexing every muscle of my body.  In this case, my muscles are all of the things I have learned through my research, and through my time spent on OH.  If I don't flex these muscles everyday, I will loose speed, and eventually loose the race altogether.  


                                          
                                                     Me "running the race".    -Barrie Run for The Cure, 2011



Part 4:  Potpourri (A Small Collection of Random Thoughts About My Weight loss)

-I actually do love to run.  I joined the Running Room and to date have managed to work up to 10km.  I love the freedom of running and the thrill of setting a goal, watching as it grows closer and closer. It is tangible and fulfilling, and far beyond any expectation I had of myself a year ago.  Running is peaceful; it's me, my music, and my feet to carry me along at a steady, rhythmic pace.  

-I gain an immense sense of power when I am able to resist a temptation.  This gives me the motivation to resist the next thing along the way. When I loose this fight, I feel like giving up, but I don't.

-I will eternally be chased by the carb monster. Even more so than sugar (which I thought would be my biggest competitor), I think starchy carbs will be nipping at my heals for the rest of my life, always competing for first place.

-I am sick of protein, but I eat it anyways because it is good for me.

-I have developed quite the ego after all of the positive attention given to me with my transformation, but soon those people who have witnessed this change will stop noticing.  The new people I meet won't know how far I've come, and I sometimes worry that I will be disappointed when all the fanfare stops.  

-I used to shop to compensate for the fact I was fat- "If I decorate myself, nicely, maybe nobody will notice".  Now I desperately want to shop, but feel confused by it somehow.  There are so many stores, but I don't quite feel like I belong in any of them. I secretly long to go back to Pennington's where everything is familiar and I have limited choices. I have the opportunity to reinvent myself (style wise), and I feel like a deer in the headlights...plus I'm poor from having to update my wardrobe all the time, (a nice but pesky problem to have).
 


Part 5:  Who Doesn't Like Pictures? Here's a Collection From the Past Year

             
    
That's me on the far right (in case you couldn't tell), with my neighbors                          4 months out and going out for a night on the town.     
           and 2 daughters.                                                                



                             
           5 months out, at a friend's wedding.  I had never worn red                          9 months out
           before.  I am a chronic black-a-holic.

           
                          
      
1 Year out.  My first Lululemon.  It was a surgiversary treat!                 Sucking in all that loose skin...quick...take the pic!


                          
       Is it a Muumuu?  No.  It's my old top that was tight when I                           I need to take another pic. of me and hubby standing in 
         bought it.  Now it barely hangs on my shoulders.                                        these.  Forgot to suck in my skin for this one

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