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OK since I have been having troubles with my abdominal area for almost a year now the doctors have decided to do a restrictive diet on me. This started last Sunday. Since then I am down 11 pounds. I know whomever may read this would like to know exactly what they are letting me eat. Well its crazy to me to basically go back to square one but that is what they wanted me to do for the first 3 days. 

OK let me break it down. I was prescribed a colon cleans for 3 days. Starting with 1 bottle Thursday night and then 2 bottles on Friday 1 at 4PM and the other no later then 9PM. Saturday I had to drink a bottle of water (16 OZ.) between each colon cleanse drink I drank 3 that day. Then Sunday the change in food came. I was for the next three days have nothing but broth, water and sugar free jello. By Wednesday I could have a water based protein drink (ISOPURE) and pureed tuna with light mayo salt & pepper to taste nothing extra. Starting on Thursday for the next 2 wks I could have all the seafood I wanted but it cannot be fried. OH yeah and nothing processed. I have to drink a minimum of 64 oz of water each day and I could only have 1 cup of coffee to no more than 6 oz.

So now that you know what I am eating my mind was caught off guard the other day because I did notice a change in the way my cloths felt and the way my face looked but if I looked too long I saw the 167 pound me, not the 156 pound me. What is going through my mind. I notice the little things like my thighs don't poke out as much as they did a week ago. I walk on my treadmill twice a day for 1 mile each time and 3.5 speed. it takes about 20 min. or so. that's about how much time I can do it before I get bored. 

But I really want to know how is it that we spend so much time looking at the fat self that we can't see ourselves getting smaller right before our own eyes. I know what the scale needs to read before I start to look like a crack-head. I will not go down that road again. I can't become that small anymore.

But it still makes me wonder what we see when we look in the mirror. I was a bulimic/anorexic in high school and part of my college times and I do remember a time when I would look in the mirror and not see me any smaller than I was the month before and then I would get odd starts when changing for gym or a teacher would ask was i feeling OK? I think I am going through this same phase again. I wonder if anyone else is going through this same phase.

I am as of November of 2012 7 years post-op. Since then I have been at the lowest weight of 125 pounds, which from a black girls point of view was not a good look on me. My date of surgery weight was 275 pounds and on a 5'7" frame that was not a good look either. About a week ago I hit an all time low in my book since my surgery. I hopped on that trusty scale and stared at the number that stared back at me and I think my mouth was open as I stood there looking at that damn number 167 pounds. 

OMG! I thought how could I let this happen? Why did I let this happen? When the doctor called and told me I had the stool build up in my colon and the dietary plan that I would have to follow for the next month I took the bull or the weight in my case by the fat pounds and went to work. I have been working out twice a day nothing crazy like insanity or anything on that level I have been getting on the treadmill and walking the 1 mile as it started out in the morning and then again in the evening. 

I take the stares at work all they way up to the 4th floor. I am mindful to chew 25 time with each bite which as I now remember requires larger bites to make it the full 25...LOL I am not drinking 30 minutes before or after I eat. I have not had the need to snack through out the day since I have a desk job and I need to ensure I get the minimum of 64 ounces of water so that is what,s at my desk the big cup of water with ice. 

I  did slip up last night and I ate a crescent roll and I thought my stomach was gonna fall over into my ass cause it came right out and it did not go gently  in the night it went it oh so nicely and came out fighting. So I will be sticking to plan that has been laid out for me. I also found that I had to get back to planning my meals. If they are not planned that is when I fall off the wagon and roll off in the ditch. 

I wonder when those tried and true things we were taught at the beginning can be tweeked or revised? I wonder what other tricks people have adopted over time. I have read most of the books and I find that they are mostly a re=printed word smithed version of the other book before it. 

Almost a year ago sometime in May I began to have this pain in the upper abdominal area. I t would come and it would go. then Memorial Day week it got worse, until the hubby demanded that I got to the ER. After 8 hours of Morphine and the moved up to Deloden, the admitted me. The pain lasted and then that Monday morning I went under they had to look around. They found scar tissue build up to the point of pain. Well just after Thanksgiving that same pain has returned. Same area and all.

Well after an abdominal ultrasound and a cat scan I was told all was clear, but there was an excessive amount of stool backed up in my colon. WOW! I finally got that full of shit diagnosis. Small joke. Well this occurred this past Wednesday I was given a prescription strength colon cleans that I started taking Thursday night which didn't really move anything until Sunday morning. So I was eating really light since Friday for fear of it coming out in the most liquefied form and by Sunday morning that began. So since Sunday I have been on water, broth and sugar free jello. I did this because on Saturday and throughout the day Sunday I would try and eat something and yes it came out with a vengeance so I drank water water and more water. Well I know that I cant spend all that time eating what I was eating and expect to roll right back into hard core food so now  starting off tomorrow with bland old tuna and sautee' string beans. But I did slip and eat some bread that I had made for the family or dinner and there it was that pain sitting right there like it was waiting for me to eat something so it could let me know that hey I am still here.

Now I have to call my doctor and let him know that UM! Yea Pain still here. But I am also afraid to tell him anything for fear of going under yet again. I am not a hospital doctors office type person. I will wait until the last appointment and the last minute to go. I have been eating better and planing out what I will eat for the next few days. We shall see what is about to come of this. I have read here about the gallbladder issues a lot of people have had and I did ask but the test that he order was not gallbladder specific so now I have to play the wait and see game. 

I just want some point of normal back in my crazy world. 

OK! As i found out what my new obsession is ( Weighing myself) I figured out in one of my meditation sessions that I still have and more than likely will have on forever are those damn fat glasses. For those of you that may not know what in the world I am talking about it kind of goes like this. You have spent 80% of your like in various stages of fatness and/or thickness depending on where and how you grew up. (come on fat is fat). Well you have seen yourself as big in every mirror to the point that you stopped looking in the mirror. Until weeks months and in my case years after your surgery you look in the mirror and what do you see. THOSE DAMN FLAWS!! not the thinner you. Don't get me wrong you have the thin person moments. You know what I am talking about. You go to the store and you pick up the size 16 or 18 jeans or the xx-l or 1x or 2x top because you have yet to realize that you have slimmed down just that much. those are fat people glasses. 

This is how I realized I have been wearing them since before the surgery and still after. My husband purchased me a new laptop for Christmas. and I was transferring all my pictures from and external hard-drive and my old laptop to the new one(Yes I have major space now) well I had old pictures and new pictures of me. That is not a normal thing for me. I say this because pre-surgery I was always behind the camera. I hated being in pictures but loved to take them. Until post-surgery I realized I had a lot more pictures of me. the funny thing that caught my eye was not the fact that I had lost half a person or a small child, but the fact that I was smiling way more and way larger than normal. I could still see the flaws, you know what I am talking about. the last few pounds or oh I was only a few month post surgery or that was a year out. as I went through the pics I could see that I had become smaller and then I tried to remember my frame of mind at that time. Then I realized I had on those damn fat glasses. 

I say this because about 2 year post-op I got down from 270 lbs to 125 lbs. that was not a good look for me. Sure I was within the BMI and weight range that was considered the standard. but 90% of the time I had on sweat pants and a t-shirt unless I was at work and then I was in business attire. To me everyone looks good in business attire. well now that I had to go back to square one starting over as I have gained 30 lbs that should not be there I look at myself in the mirror and I see the old me. I get on the scale and I feel like the old me. when I say the old me I mean the pre-surgery me. I find myself in sweat pants yet again 75% of the time. I still have my thin people cloths hanging in the closet as motivation but I am still seeing the fat me. 

I wonder at what point post-op do you take off and put up or better yet throw away those fat people glasses. for right now they hang around my neck as a reminder of were I don't want to return. they hand around my neck as a reminder of were my heart cannot stnad to remain. they hand around my neck as a reminder of the 8-10 hours I spend on an OR table and the months I spent learning what would make my dump to the point that I ran in the other direction when offered. This is why I still have and want to have my Damn Fat glasses! Why do you still have yours. 

OK So starting tomorrow after 2 1/2 weeks of head colds, asthma attacks I am back to 98% I think. So I am starting all over again. No Carbs, Smoothie mornings and salad or soup for lunch and a light carb free dinner then another workout at night, then shower meditate and then bed. So we will see how this works for me. I have my appointment with the Gastro-doc on Wednesday to see what's the what with my gallbladder. This should be interesting not too sure what to expect. 

Not too sure what is going on with me. I am not sleeping, I don't have the motivation to workout and now I don't want to go to work. I spent a little time over the weekend combing through some of the forums and I see a very high number of horror stories. So many I can consider myself lucky. Lucky that I am going on 8 years post op and the only additional surgery I had was they found a buildup of scar tissue that created a blockage. I was iron deficient at one point and they have added a D vitamin to my list. 

So back to where I was going with this I noticed that a lot of people have very hard bouts with depression and I am not too sure where it comes in to play but I really believe that is what may be going on here. But I am no expert. Anywho like right now as I am typing this my mind is telling me you just want to ball up and go back to sleep. WOW!!!

I have to find my motivation because my health is on the line. I guess we say that should be enough but is it. I got down to 125lbs and didn't't even know it because I still had on my big girl glasses. and I still have those glasses on. I wonder at what point do you truly take those glasses of in your lifetime and except that you have the tools to become and remain a healthy person inside and out?

OK When the year started I was off and running. I had removed the carbs from my life I was having a protein packed smoothie every morning and as hard as it was to do I was on my treadmill every morning at 5AM without fail. Well about 2 weeks into the journey my son came home with the flu on a Friday afternoon. I alerted the family that his room was now ground zero and he was patient X. I nursed him round the clock and he was up and back to his video games in 3 days. Well needles to say I did not work out that whole weekend and then two days after he recovered I began to sneeze, then cough and by day 2 I was in sinus hell. 

The one thing I can say is whenever it is flu season or cold season I never get the actual cold, but it does an ugly number on my sinuses which turns into a nasty head cold and then I loose my voice. I was down for 3 days so my workout went out the window for the last week and a half. So here I am trying to start back at square one starting tomorrow. I have to do a bit more research because when I started the journey the first go round I was not loosing the weight at a steady pace, but I did notice a change in other things. Like a decrease in back fat, thighs not rubbing together. so I have to keep in mind and remember that even though the scale does not reflect it just yet the body is letting me know that what ever I am doing is working I just need to keep it up. 

Well this weekend was one for the books. My good friend left for school and will then be stationed in MN for three years so we girls all got together at her house on Friday night to help kill her 2 boxes of wine. We succeed and I had the wine hangover to prove it. That was stumble # 1. So all day Saturday I roamed around the house trying to consume water and tylenol....LOL then Saturday morning our son woke up with a fever that I didn't even notice he had the day before. so I had to baby the 12 yr old. 

Found myself eating about 5 French fries of the homemade fries the hubby asked for before we goes out to sea. Then I woke up this morning I was not even motivated enough to get my big hips on the treadmill. I have not been on the treadmill since Thursday. and the scale told me so this morning. I gained back 2 lbs. that may not seem like a lot but when you are pushing towards a set goal that 2 lbs is like a punch to the stomach. 

So with that being said I am back at in the morning and this is the week that I ramp things up. 1 mile light jogs in the morning on the treadmill and then in the evening a 2 mile walk at a brisk pace. Let's see if that can get the pounds to running off these hips, thighs and boo-tay!!!!

Now that I have 10 days under my belt I see why they say if you can manage to do something for 21 days you can keep going. OMG!!!! So True! But I will let you know when I hit that 21st day. OK the last few days have been hard. I guess it started with my Wednesday morning workout. I got up as normal put on my gear and hopped on the treadmill. I am not to sure what my mind was doing but I was not feeling it. I did a whole half mile not my normal mile I felt guilty all day and ramped it up on Thursday. I am only down 10 lbs but my water intake is up. I found that cooking for the family that still eats carbs a bit harder than I remember after the surgery. I find myself popping a fry in my mouth or tasting that mashed potatoes to see if they have enough butter or salt. 

I can say now that I am back to regular way of eating the dumping is back with a vengeance. I say this because I popped an oreo in my mouth this morning and not 10 minutes later I was in the bathroom for 15 minutes of pure evil. Now I stare at the cookie jar full of those evil oreos and say OMG!!!! that hurt and your not worth that evil episode. I go to the doctors on July 6th to have my gallbladder looked at I have been having those pains that is so indescribable. But since I have cut out the fatty things and carbs I am in the no pain zone. 

OK! so week 1 has come to a close ad I promised that I will not step on the scale until this coming Sunday. I am back to watching the biggest looser and as always I am inspired. to watch people expose themselves down to the bone is amazing and shows such character for them. 

OK! so I started off the first week with a 1 mile treadmill workout every morning at 5 AM. when i started it was at a 7% incline and the max speed of 3.5. well over this week I have adjusted that to no incline and I start out at 3.0 for the first 1/4 mile then 4.0 for another 1/4 mile then I finish off that last 1/2 mile at 4.5 and my goal is to get the mile to under 10 minutes. right now its at 15 min. so I have some progress. 

Its kinda hard because I don't think I have ever gotten rid of my big girl eyes. I was looking through some of my old pictures since I got a new laptop for Christmas, and I came across a picture of me one week before my surgery. I sat there and stared at myself as I had no clue then and no clue then just how big I was. I clicked off the picture as the tears started to form. So as i climbed on that treadmill this morning and I wanted to stop running I kept telling myself you did not come this far to gain it all back again.