Slow Going...

It's been a little frustrating lately, this weight loss journey.  I'm not experiencing the "fat melting off me like butter" feeling any more.  The past month has been a slow weight loss month with only a couple of pounds of net loss.  In nurse logic, I know that slower weight loss is better and healthier.  Further nurse logic also reminds me that less physical activity equates to less excess weight loss.  I know, I know....

I just have to remind myself of where I have come and what I have accomplished thus far.  I have to remind myself of the changes I have experienced and the improvements to my health, all ready.

Greg and Adrienne's wedding.  I felt so bad about myself here.  I hated how I looked and how I felt.  I hated this dress and I felt so huge.  A beautiful day for the newly weds, not so beautiful for me. :(

Who knows when, who cares. Obviously very over weight here.  Wow.  Probably close to my highest weight. 

January 2012, before my weight loss journey gained momentum.

Again, in January as I begin my journey. 

But, the bigger reminder of all is that I am on a life long journey and I can't stop doing the work.  VSG is not, was not a cure for my obesity.  It is not the easy way out and it won't fix things especially if I am not willing to do the work.  I can't hole up on my couch and expect that Dr. Malley's staple line of my now 4-6 ounce stomach is enough to become the super model I long to be.  Okay, I don't want to be a super model.  I just want to be healthy and live a long life.  The super model bod will be the added benefit.

Just before my very first 5 k with my girlie, 11/17/12.  I feel good about myself here.  

Night out on the town with the hubs. New jeans!  I felt beautiful this night, felt success.

Today.  A work in progress, a journey every day.

I will keep up the work.  I will reinvest the energy and time to make the accomplishments that I am looking for.  I will review these pictures (and others I refuse to show) to remind myself of where I never want to be again and of where I am headed today....a journey every day.

I Made It Through Turkey Day!!

Well, I am here, alive.  I made it through Turkey Day intact.  I had my doubts; it WAS my first Eating Holiday since surgery.  I did pretty well for myself, as far as eating and not over eating goes.  But as usual, I experienced some big epiphanies along the way.

Epiphany #1:  Thanksgiving, in theory, is a beautiful day of reflection upon our blessings, a time to give thanks for all of the things we have or successes we have achieved.  I have my own blessings and successes to be thankful for.  I don't need a special day every year to be thankful, but as custom and legal holiday's would have it, I have a day, Thanksgiving Day, to practice my gratitude. That's not the epiphany part, if you were wondering....

The epiphany came in realizing that while this day of thanksgiving as been set aside for the above named  purpose, our consumer driven capitalistic society has cultivated this holiday into the purchasing power of a day that it is.  And I'm not just referring to Black Friday (Thursday night).  I'm also referring to the millions of dollars that people spend on food during this holiday.  I mean, millions of dollars.  Not only do Walmart and Target and every other department store benefit from the heaviest shopping day of the year one day after Thanksgiving, but Price Chopper and HyVee benefit from one of the heaviest grocery shopping days of the year, the day before Thanksgiving!  Boy, that became evident when I practiced my favorite personality trait of procrastination and found myself at the grocery store at 5 pm Wednesday evening.  Can you say MAD HOUSE!  I have never seen Price Chopper parking lot so full nor have I seen waiting lines that long....at a grocery store!  It reminded me of Christmas Eve at Walmart one year.  (Yes, that personality trait hit again.)

So, I'll break this epiphany down for you.  I realized just how much money people spend on food for Thanksgiving.  I mean, I really don't have a dollar figure and I bet I couldn't begin to guess, but I imagine that there was millions of dollars spent by people all over the US buying food for Thanksgiving day.  

This leads me to Epiphany #2 (and 3.)  We are creatures of excess on this day of giving thanks.  I mean EXCESS!  To be honest, on Thanksgiving, I was really focused on my plate and the mess I was creating there, so I really didn't take in the whole spread right away.  I skipped over lots of dishes so that I wouldn't over do it and wouldn't miss out on my favorites.  But, in hind sight, as I was thinking about this entry, I recalled the huge, HUGE amounts of food on the counter on Thanksgiving Day (and the following Saturday as we celebrated my family Thanksgiving.)  I distinctly recall a huge 10 inch deep, 10 inch in diameter pot of mashed potatoes alone (at my mother's house).  Holy Crap!  I moved that pot from the stove to the counter and it had to have weighed 10 lbs.  And we ended up feeding about 11 people.  At my husband's family dinner, there was a huge heated cooker crock pot thing full of turkey with another platter to it's side, full of turkey.  Seriously, enough for way more people than were in attendance.  Let me just take a second to recall the dishes available for the choosing (because I didn't take a picture of it.)  There was a pot of baked beans (?? not sure why), green bean casserole, a platter of ham, a skillet of yams, a pot of mashed potatoes and gravy too, dinner rolls, deviled eggs, and dressing, not to forget the two pots/platters of turkey. This is what I recall from memory.  That doesn't include the 2 vegetable platters and crackers and dip for before the meal and the two pumpkin pies, one apple pie, one pecan pie, brownies, and almond turtles for dessert.  This was for 14 people, not including the 2 little tykes.  A lot of food.  Now, granted there was a lot of leftovers, but a lot of food, none the less.

I don't want to sound ungrateful.  That's not the point of my rambling.  I'm just pointing out that on this day of Thanks, not just in our family, but I suspect in yours too, was peppered with excess food.  I wonder how much of that food actually gets eaten and how much ends up in the trash because we are mash potatoed out or because it sits too long in the refrigerator.  Like I said, it was an epiphany.  And this year isn't new or different than any other year in the amount of food present at my family dinners.  I just think that my view on eating and food is so different this year, that I was more surprised and astounded at the reality of it all.

So, lastly, Epiphany #3 naturally enters my mind.  In truth, this epiphany was probably my first realization but it seems to fit better as #3 for this process.  I became painfully aware that where there's excess in food, there is likely to be excess in consumption.  Tell the truth.  Did you have to undo your belt or unbutton your pants to accommodate your intake?  Did you take shifts through the meal time process?  "Okay, I'll have this and this and this....I'm full... but if I wait a little bit before I go back, I can get seconds on this and this and that.  Now, I'll have some dessert after I let this settle.  But this tasted so good, another bite or two won't hurt."

People and families are different in how they consume their holiday meals.  My family tends to do a major sweep of the dinner spread, taking in full plates, chowing down and talking all the while.  Most go back for seconds on their favorites and then call it quits for a bit.  We sit around and gab, maybe play a game or watch football on the tube.  The food stays out on the counter for easy access.  After about an hour or less, people start to filter back through getting another serving of their favorites and/or picking up a dessert.  The food remains out....(no one has suffered from food poisoning from this practice, yet)  people graze on the main dishes, appetizers and desserts.  Finally, after a few hours of respectable grazing is completed, the food is packed up into to go containers for families to take home, if there are left overs.  (This year, there seemed to be a lot of left overs to pass out.)  My husband's family did things a little different.  There was the main holiday meal with a major sweep of the meal.  Many folks went back for seconds and some went back for dessert.  After the hostess was done eating her meal, the women folk put most of the meal away leaving out the desserts and appetizers for grazing material.  Generally, the post meal grazing was limited to desserts while my family chooses to graze aimlessly through the entire meal over and over again throughout the day.

Neither one is worse than the other (except in the risk of food poisoning is concerned...but that's a whole other topic of discussion).  The general issue is that of excessive intake.  Most people don't eat with those kinds of habits on a daily basis.  Or maybe they do, thus the expanding waistline of America.   ObesityinAmerica.org  reports that more than 1/3 of Americans are obese.  Obese is defined as a BMI of 30 or greater.  Now I'm not trying to act like I'm all high and mighty.  I am still obese at a BMI of 36.1.  But that is much improved from my highest BMI of 47.2 at my heaviest and a BMI of 43.1 at the time of my surgery. 

The biggest epiphany that I have had since having the vertical sleeve gastrectomy surgery on July 24, 2012 is that of excess.  Boy does this surgery remind me about excess, AT EVERY MEAL!  I don't eat in excess any more.  I can't eat in excess, at least at this point.  I hope to never eat in excess again.  But the truth of it all is that eating in excess got me to the point that I needed and wanted surgery.  It got me to the point that I had to have surgery, had to lose the excess weight for my health and well being.  So, the question is, why do we continue to indulge in excess every Thanksgiving, every Christmas, every Easter and most other "Eating Holidays"?  It's our custom, our habit, our social norm.  Eating is pleasurable and enjoyable especially when we do it with the ones we love. We eat because it's there, we eat because it tastes good.  We eat because it's a holiday or a celebration.  We love to eat.  In the end, though, we don't love what it does to our bodies and we certainly don't love the excess issues that eating too much brings.  

It's just food for thought.  (Pardon the pun.)  It's certainly a new place for my brain and stomach to be and it is clearly going to be a journey every single day.

Eating...Uggh!

These last two weeks have been interesting for the weight loss/surgery journey.  I've been experiencing some new and exciting (not) eating challenges.  Now, I've learned something over the last few days.  I think you all may sympathize.  I've learned that we often aren't even scratching the surface when we plan or think about or imagine how something will actually be.  Imagined versus reality.  Head check.

So, in preparation for surgery, I did lots of reading.  I looked over those blogs and imagined how life would be with my new 4-6 oz stomach.  I even..(don't laugh) tried to pretend that I had a little bitty stomach and played like I could only eat little bits.  That was fun because when your stomach isn't truly full but you're trying to pretend that it is, the not full stomach tends to win over the mind thing.  Some people are great at personal control and sacrifice and can really make this mind bend work for them, even for a little bit.  Not me.  That's why I was in the place of being over weight in the first place.  I'm not the epitome of self control.  

I digress. 

I knew going in that this would be a challenge.  I knew that I would be able to eat less and that I may develop some food intolerance.  I knew that my tummy might hurt a little if I ate too much or too fast.  Shoot, I can handle all of that!  This is going to be a tool to make my life better!!  This is what I imagined.

What I failed to really work through in my head before surgery (because I had no clue what it would be like after surgery) was how the social aspect and enjoyment of eating food will change.  Enjoyment of eating food.  I think we all know what that is like.  Think about your favorite food or meal, how that first bite tastes sooooo good.  How the next bite tastes even better and you want another bite.  How it tastes every bit as good as you remembered....yum.  And how much fun it is to eat a great meal with the people that you enjoy and love, chatting it up, reminiscing old times!  And how about that delicious meal that your hubby cooked, you know the one that is your favorite (roast, potatoes and carrots in the crock pot at this house).  You can devour a plate full and go back for seconds not because your so much as still hungry as you just ENJOY the taste.

New reality.  Eating isn't as enjoyable as it used to be.  It's not so much that food tastes different although it kind of does a bit.  It never tastes as good as I remember it did.  Case in point, I was craving a lemon filled donut not too long ago.  I went to Lamar's and got one (it was huge!)  I got home and cut it into quarters because I knew that it would only be about 1/4 that I could eat.  But I was excited.  I LOVE lemon filled donuts.  I ate the quarter and I was disappointed.  It just didn't meet that need like it once had.  It didn't taste  as good.  I thought maybe it was my choice of donut shops.   Another day, I went by Crispy Creme and did the same thing, got a lemon filled donut.  Ate 1/2 of it (it was a much smaller donut than from Lamars) and it just didn't ring my bell like I remembered lemon filled donuts doing.  Talk about disappointed.  Not only was I full for several hours, even close to too full, but I didn't have any room for protein intake and I felt terribly guilty that I was missing out on the opportunity to take in protein because I would have to wait awhile before I could eat again.  

But this happens even with healthy meals.  I can take a few bites and begin to feel full right away.  Not such a bad thing when you're trying to lose weight, for sure.  But it's not great when those bites kind of hurt.  My stomach is small but not so small that I can't eat.  However, certain foods just don't sit in my little stomach like they used to or like other foods do. So, it can be a delicious meal (like the roast) but after 4 or 5 bites of roast and a bite of potatoes, my stomach is already feeling pressure and aching.  I think it's the discomfort that really saps the taste and enjoyment from the food.  

And I am totally screwed if I am talking or reading while I eat!  I practically need total isolation to eat a meal.    Otherwise, I lose track of what I'm doing and all of a sudden, I am feeling like my stomach is going to burst.  WHAT?  How did that happen?  Well it happens.  An aching, stressed tummy is not conducive to enjoying a meal.  

This has been the biggest challenge for me since starting this weight loss journey.  The enjoyment and social aspect of eating just isn't the same.  I have felt depressed at the limitations of what I can eat and what my family wants to eat.  I have felt depressed that I can't eat a meal and top it off with a nice dessert, like most folks.  And worst of all, after eating what seems like a reasonable amount, I have been so uncomfortable that I can hardly interact with others or even relax to watch a show because I am so uncomfortable.  

I'm a little worried as Thanksgiving approaches.  My eyes are still a bit bigger than my stomach - and I will have to be very diligent about not scooping out too much food.  But even more seriously, I have to be diligent about paying attention to what my tummy is saying.  I have to eat slowly and deliberately and try not to get caught up in the conversation and lose track of what my stomach is saying.  

In the end, this challenge is a good thing.  I have to remind myself of that.  I am losing weight, I am changing my body from a house of potential disease and early death to a healthier place to enjoy a long life.  I have so much to look forward to, but that doesn't change the reality that I have chosen this permanent life long challenge that used to be so rote and mindless that I over ate daily and ballooned up to 250 lbs.  I have to respect the tool, respect the tummy!  It is worth it. It's just part of my journey every single day.

The weight loss journey...

Lemme tell ya a little about my weight loss journey.  In all fairness, I think I need to go back a few years.  Let's say...39.75 years.

When someone asks how much I weighed when I was born, most people have the same reaction.  Most women look at me with huge eyes and mouths gaping, waxing on about the suffering that my mother endured.  I was born into this world at 9lbs and 4ozs.  Now, in my defense, I was three weeks overdue.  I would have been a normal sized infant but I didn't want to come out, apparently.  That begins my journey with weight.

Later in my first year of life, I diverged from pudgy baby to a malnurished, skinnier frame due to constant spitting up and vomiting.  My mom tells a story of my dad during this time.  Apparently, they were feeding me rice water and yogurt (an interesting diet probably not recommended in this day and age).  My dad was buying the yogurt and found that the yogurt in the dairy case was expired.  Per my mom's story, my dad became very upset with the market and gave them a good tongue lashing because his baby girl would not be getting the nutrients she needed due to their oversight in dairy dates.

I outgrew the issue that required yogurt and rice water and lived a healthy childhood.  In retrospect and through pictures, I was not an obese child like obese children are today.  I was a little pudgy, mostly vertically challenged.  But I remember a fellow school age girl making a comment to me, one day in the bathroom.  It went something like, "you'll grow out of your baby fat, someday."  Thanks, little girl.  I appreciate the vote of confidence.

Through my early teen years, I felt like I was fat but in truth, I was a little over weight.  Looking back, I would KILL for the weight and body that I had in my teens.  I do remember specifically being 125 lbs when I turned 16.  The unfortunate part was that I experienced a prolonged intestinal illness the summer before I turned 16 and I think that is why I was able to claim 125 lbs on my driver's license.  The closer to graduation I came, the farther from 125 I became.

I do recall my weight at various times in my life, key points.  But I also know that between those key points there may have been higher highs and lower lows than that point.  I remember barely nipping 150 lbs in July 1996, after graduating nursing school and starting my first nursing job (and ending my first marriage).  Of course, that was with the aid of a stressful and  anorexic kind of summer in 1995 and additional pharmacological help in July 1996 from Phen-Fen.  I was looking at relief from an all time high of 211 the few years before.  I know for sure that I was around 170 lbs when I got pregnant, just after my second marriage.  I know that I gained 17 lbs with my pregnancy and did well at keeping the weight off after my baby was born while she nursed.  After she abandoned nursing, of course, the weight came back.  I know that when my second marriage ended, I was pretty heavy, but I can't quantify it specifically. I think I was over my "all time high" by that point.  I'm not real sure, but I think I was around 220 when my third (and final) husband and I met.  After that, the scale was not my friend.  I believe I topped out at near 250 lbs.  WOW!  That is a lot of weight for a 5 foot 1 inch gal.

I started this year, 2012 at around 240.  At that time, I began my plan to have surgery, in earnest.  I started following Weight Watchers as my "physician monitored" diet required by my insurance to be considered for surgery.  I lost nearly 20 lbs over 4-5 months.  It was tough but not impossible.  What I really needed, at that point in my journey, was to see that I could make a change and see results.  Up to that point, I didn't diet much because I always felt so low about myself and I feared the failure.  My significant weight losses had been the result of illness, medication and lies and deceit.  And my weight gains were a result of happiness, unhappiness, divorce, marriage, baby, job changes, life changes and windy days.  I just didn't feel like I could do it.  I was resigned to be fat, forever.

But the ugly truth was that I was unhealthy, developing diabetes, requiring more and more medication to control my cholesterol and I just felt terrible about myself.  I wasn't a good example for my daughter, I wasn't a good example for myself.  I wanted more but I was so scared to fail.

After much consideration, research and soul searching, I decided that I needed another, more permanent tool.  I elected to have a vertical sleeve gastrectomy.  Now, I know this isn't a cure for obesity.  And, I always hear (only in my head) that life changes should be accomplishable without such a severe measure.  But I felt like my life depended on it, my health and well being depended on making a change that I couldn't back out of, couldn't cheat and couldn't ignore.

That's what the sleeve gastrectomy has done for me.  It has given me a tool for success.  A tool that I can't back out of and one that is ever present.  On Weight Watchers, I did well but I could sure cheat if I wanted. And more importantly, I could still over indulge.  The VSG doesn't really let me over indulge.  Let me rephrase that.  I dare not over indulge.  It is simply uncomfortable and painful.  It's a loud reminder of portion control every time I put something in my mouth.

Am I happy that I had the surgery?  I am happy that there was a tool that I found that could help me achieve weight loss.  I'm not so happy that it required surgery, scaring and pain.  Would I do it again?  In a New York minute!  Is it going to be a lasting cure?  That all depends on me.  It has been a tool that has lead me to some real success.  I feel so much better about myself, not just because of the number of pounds that I have lost so far but because of the fact that I am successfully losing weight, successfully making changes in my life, both in my eating and in my activity that has heightened my success.  Do I recommend the VSG to others?  Yes but with a huge caveat.  It is not "the magic bullet".  You aren't absolved of your emotional eating and self esteem baggage just because you have surgery.  You aren't free to eat whatever you want in whatever quantity.  To make this a success, to really glean from surgery what you need to glean, you have to do some work.  Some hard, emotional, soul searching work.  You have to recognize why you overeat, what makes you put the food in your mouth especially when you don't need it.  Most importantly, you have to recognize why you don't feel worthy enough to be healthy, to be a healthy weight.  For me, I am working on being worthy of that, being worth that effort.

It doesn't all get better because of VSG.  There are some tougher issues that come up after the surgery.  I certainly don't enjoy eating like I used to, and I haven't been through a holiday season yet.  I suffer reflux on more occasions than I used to.  My stomach hurts if I don't pay attention to how fast and how much I eat.  There are real differences.  But I guess if there weren't, I'd be in the same boat, huh?!

To date, I have lost about 39 lbs since the two weeks before surgery, a total of 46 lbs this year alone.  I'm not where I want to be, just yet but I am well on my way.  I am happy with the weight loss and I'm happy that I made the decision.  My next goal is to work on getting away from these diabetes and high cholesterol medications and continue to increase my physical activity.  It's a journey, every single day.

When did this journey begin?

Well, the obvious and smart ass answer to when my journey began would be with my birth, nearly 40 (**chokes and gags**) years ago.  The truth is, this concept of "a journey" kind of kicked me in the head around July 24th, 2012.  That would be the day that I underwent surgery to have a sleeve gastrectomy.  Before going under the knife, I was compelled to do a lot of research (as one should before going under the knife), and I found several blogs related to the weight loss journey that people had embarked on.  I liked the idea of blogs but I wasn't so keen on just writing about my weight loss journey.  What occurred to me, though, was that this decision was only one of many journeys that I have taken in my nearly 40 (**coughing and gagging**) years.  That losing weight is not the sum total of who I am.  My depression is not the sum total of who I am.  My child and my experience as a parent is not the sum total of who I am.  It is everything put together that makes this my journey.  EVERYTHING!

Sure, there are plenty of blogs about nurses being nurses and moms being moms.  There are craft blogs and diy blogs.  There are beauty blogs and blogs completely dedicated to a life altering disease process.  Frankly, I just don't have enough to say about one particular topic like that.  If anyone reading this knows me at all, you know that I have a whole lot of opinions about a whole lot of things.  And I've had a few experiences in this journey called life.

So, read on if you wish.  This is about life's journey every day.  It's about my life and the lives of people I care about.  It's about my journey through weight loss (which is going along smashingly, by the way) and my journey through parenting and depression and the world of crafting and foster parenting and nursing and well, a whole lotta shit.

Hope you enjoy, at least a little bit.