Mindgames

The military likes to screw with you.  Know this.  So, this week has been more than slightly hectic and nothing but pure stress.  Despite this, I've managed not to binge eat or even over eat and I am truly proud of myself.  What is going on, however, is that on Tuesday night we received a phone call stating we will be getting orders to move.

What we don't know is to where or when yet.  Every day we're given just a little bit more information.  At this point, all I know is that by Friday we should have complete details.  I am surprised that I haven't cleared out my fridge of all the food and put it into my stomach.  This says something about how far I've come!

Some things I've noticed myself doing in place of eating is cleaning, focusing on spending time with my son and husband, working on my computer and talking to my mother and my friends.  These are all positive things and they all came to me without thinking about them or thinking about turning to food first before doing them.  I hope that I continue with these habits.

I saw my physician yesterday about my leg.  I was given a 7 day extension on Septra, a strong antibiotic and will be following up again in one week.  I also did some blood work, to make sure that I wasn't becoming diabetic, since this cellulitis has been a problem.  The frustrating part of all this is that I still can not exercise (by walking).  I have found it hard to raise my heart level through other types of movement that doesn't involve the use of my legs, but I am still trying.

I thought that it would be all right to walk my son to the bus the other day because my leg was feeling pretty good.  The walk really isn't that far, just right up the street no more than a three minute walk with a 6 year old who doesn't want to walk more than a snails pace in the morning.  I have to tell you, it felt good to be out and walking again.  When I got home, however, my entire foot and ankle that the cellulitis is on, had become swollen.  So when the doctor tells you to stay off your leg, stay off your leg.

Tomorrow is therapy, looking forward to it.  Hope it's not my last session.  I really don't want to leave this base yet.  Love it here.

Start Spreading the News

I was thinking today about how different it is being overweight in New York, where I grew up and lived most of my life as opposed to being overweight in North Carolina, where I live now and have lived for the past four years.

If you haven't spent any time in NY, but have at least watched TV or have heard rumors about NYers being a$$holes, let me tell you it's completely true.  I've been to many cities in various parts of the state, lived in both small and large communities where everyone knows who you are and no one knows who you are and it just doesn't matter, NYers are just generally bastards.  There are individuals who can be nice, but for some reason the general attitude is rude, bitchy and downright nasty. 

When you're constantly running into this kind of behavior on a day to day basis, it spreads fast and never goes away.  If you're nice to someone, people are rude to you because they assume you want something from them immediately or that you're mocking them. 

Anyway, facing those kind of people, it shouldn't be surprising to hear someone call you a fatass or a tub-o-lard if you're overweight and doing nothing more than just walking down the street, or eating at a restaurant.  Yes, you get assaulted with insults for simply existing.  I'm sure this happens everywhere, but I use to see it all the time in NY.  Anyone who is different, not just overweight people, but anyone who might be different is likely to get an insult hurled at them.  Those who weren't insulting you were sneering at you or rolling their eyes.

Coming to North Carolina, I honestly expected the same sort of behavior.  I just assumed it was that way all over the U.S.  However, as my husband and I started venturing off the base and checking out local establishments we found people were genuinely nicer down here.  You could run into a perfect stranger in a grocery story and have a chat with them in an aisle for ten minutes and that is perfectly normal.  Store clerks don't hide from customers around here and most fast food employees are polite.  Hey, fast food service jobs suck, you have no idea how hard it is to smile in that kind of job so if they're polite and smiling, that's a big deal!

Sure I still ran into people who stare every now and then, but there was no eye rolling or sneering.  In fact, people randomly greet you with hellos and smiles.  Not just here in the town we live in either, but the bigger cities a few hours away as well.  More often than not I find myself doing it back instead of keeping to myself and avoiding eye contact the way I use to as a NYer.  

Now as far as what NCers are thinking? Maybe the same things are going through their heads as the NYers, I don't know.  It doesn't matter, it's how they're treating people that I care about.  I prefer being treated as a human being so I think I'll be sticking around here while I'm going through my weight loss.  I feel comfortable in my own skin here.

Having Cake (And Eating It Too)

Something that comes up in therapy every now and then, even after all these months, is if I ever throw up what I eat.  I do not purge.  I have never purged.  Not only can I not imagine myself doing anything to make myself purge, but I don't, in any way, enjoy the thought of making the contents of my stomach come back up.

Before being told about the binge eating disorder, I really just thought I loved eating, so to make anything I just ate come back up would be unthinkable.  I just went through the effort to enjoy eating whatever it was I had.  I want to digest that really delicious food and it seems like a huge waste of money and time to not allow that to happen.

Now that I'm dealing with the eating disorder and being more picky about what goes into my mouth and thinking about foods that I'm eating (including planning meals), I'm finding there are foods that I don't like.  Not just that, but I don't love eating.  I have a love affair with a few particular foods, but for the most part, I really don't love food like I thought I did.

This has only been a recent discovery, and one that I like.  It makes dealing with food more pleasant of an experience though lately it hasn't been too bad of one.  The longer I stick with this eating healthy plan, the easier it becomes.

Just as an example, I use to love fried food.  It's rare that I even touch it now.  The thought of it kind of actually turns my stomach and if it doesn't, the taste of it does.  Can't do french fries, chicken fingers, fried fish or most take out, really.  This is good, since not only is it full of calories, it's loaded with sodium and other bad things like saturated fat and cholesterol.

I'm also learning that I enjoy foods like green and red peppers, tomatoes and carrots.  Though I don't enjoy dark green vegetables very much, I do get in quite a bit of them because I know it's healthy for me.  I've cut out the white processed breads and switched to whole grain and wheat breads and they're not bad at all.  My favorite fruits are oranges and kiwis but I also love gala or fuji apples if I can't have one of the first two choices.

So, it's not second nature yet, but I'm looking forward to when I don't have to think about it anymore and I'm just reaching for this stuff naturally.  I'm not sure how long it will take.  I've spent years eating poorly.  I wouldn't say my whole life, because my mom didn't raise me to make poor food choices, but at least since I've lived on my own.  But, I have a good support system in place and I'm sticking with it and that's what matters.

P.S. No post yesterday, I slept through most of the day.  Hopefully due to healing and not just random laziness.

At A Snail's Pace

Recently I have been trying to figure out what my emotional triggers for binge eating are and I can say with some certainty that I still have little idea.  Admittedly, I've been thinking about it less frequently than I had been when I first started my blog and I should get back to working on that.

However, I have identified some physical triggers and one of them had been eating too quickly.  I use to scarf my food down like it was some sort of race as to how quickly I could eat everything on my plate.  When it was gone, I would go back for more, because in the five minutes it took me to eat my brain would still think it was hungry because it still hadn't registered that the stomach was full.  So I could get seconds and eat a whole additional second plateful of food and by the time it starts registering that I've had enough, my stomach actually hurts because I've eaten far more than I need to.

This is the cycle that always happening, but I never caught on to what was occurring.  It was only after starting my therapy and my visits to the dietitian that I started hearing about the importance of eating slowly and chewing thoroughly.  I felt embarrassed, and I told my dietitian this, because it sounded like something that I probably should have known but she said that it's something that people don't automatically realize when they're relearning how to eat properly.

I did feel a bit better hearing that it was more common than I thought and started putting it into practice immediately.  It actually was harder than it sounds when you've spent your entire life eating really fast, but it's been about a month now that I've been doing it successfully.  Now I don't even have to think about it.  It takes me about a half an hour to eat dinner, I'm full before I finish eating, I eat less and I never go back for seconds.  All of these things I'm happy about.

Some practices that helped me during that month were setting my fork down between bites, and I still do that actually because it's become a habit.  I chew much more slowly and thoroughly.  I did use to have to think about it before, because it had always been food was swallowed barely after being chewed as if I were some sort of wild animal.  One more thing I found helpful was to stop trying to put as much food on the fork as possible.  For some reason I would always try to stuff as much into my mouth as it could hold.  I am not a chipmunk.

Now, I don't even think about it when it comes to meals and today I realized that I don't even stress out anymore when I'm eating.  That made me really happy and I hope that it continues to stay that way.

Viva La Revolución!

My body has decided to rebel against me for some reason.  I went to the walk-in base clinic today for another flare up of the cellulitis in my leg, same place as before.  While I had taken all my antibiotic last month, it hadn't cleared up fully but when I saw my RN and asked her for another round of antibiotics, she said she felt it wasn't necessary.  That didn't sit well with me, but I'm suppose to be able to trust my health care provider so I believed her when she said that the rest should clear up on its own since I had already finished a 10 day prescription.

So anyway, I have another prescription here for the second flare up and once again, I am to remain off of my leg and not aggravate it while it heals.  Now aside from this adding to my already immense dislike for doctors in general, it adds to my frustration for my weight loss.

Last month when I couldn't do anything during the cellulitis problem, I gained four pounds even though I was eating less and was upset about it because I couldn't be active even though I wanted to be.  Now I have to go through all that again.  I don't want to be laying down and elevating my leg.  I want to be out walking my son to the bus stop, taking him to the park, cleaning my house, moving around.  I do not want to be laying down, sitting on my arse with my leg up and I do not want to be resting.

In a week I go to see my dietitian for a follow up appointment and I'll have no weight loss to show for it because I'll be too busy laying on the couch and not losing weight because I have to rest.  Being sick/injured makes me angry almost to an unreasonable level.  I think the only positive thing I can say about it right now is at least I don't want to shove food in my mouth over it.  Although I do need to get off the computer and go elevate my leg now that I'm home from the hospital.

Two Days A Week

Normally, I do my daily posts the night before, which is why it always looks like I'm posting at three in the morning.  Rather sneaky of me, isn't it?  I completely forgot last night.  But I did not forget my homework assignment this weekend, which was to add something to my daily routine this week to boost my daily activity.

I am by no means lounging around like I once did, I've noticed.  My house is gorgeous, I'm mostly caught up on laundry and this Friday my brand new book shelf arrived.  This weekend my husband and I put it together and even unpacked our closet that had things inside it for so many years that I had moments that I went, "Wow, I haven't seen that since I was XX years old!"  Embarrassing for me, let me tell you, though not quite as embarrassing as finding pay stubs from my very first job when I was 15.  I believe that minimum wage then was $4.35 an hour.  We promptly went out, bought a paper shredder and I spent five hours shredding paper.

Ok, trip down memory lane aside, I decided that I would start taking my son to the park on Tuesdays and Thursdays.  Now my husband usually does bonding time with our son after dinner on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays after dinner when the temperature drops so no one is dying of the heat.  I figured that I could do the other two days of the week and the weekends could continue to be the family days.  That will give dad some much needed time to himself at night, too.

I'm not sure I'll be starting this tomorrow, however, as my son is going to get some dental work done and I'm not sure how he'll be feeling.  Since he has to be put under for it, he might not be feeling his best.  I'll go if he indicates he wants to, though.

I think this will be good for me, since I have such an issue with going out in public and dealing with people staring at me because of my weight.  It's going to take a long time for me to get the weight off, and I'm getting really sick and tired of being indoors.  I can't put off going outside until I lose another 200+ pounds.  The thin people on this base will just have to just get use to seeing a fat person outside and for me, I'll have to get use to people looking at me while losing weight.  I am losing the weight, and I just need to keep reminding myself that.

Staying On Track

Thursday was great.  I did what I said I would do and walked Bradley to the bus stop and back home again.  Felt a little easier and I will continue to do this daily as long as it doesn't rain.  Unfortunately the bus stop doesn't have any kind of protective cover, so I wouldn't want him standing out in the rain, even with an umbrella.  Though I don't think there is any chance of rain any time soon, so no worries there.

I came home and cleaned up, keeping on top of my chores.  It's nice to be able to have the energy to do these kinds of things now which I can attribute to both a combination of new medication, strength from moving around more, an easier time moving around from weight loss and increased energy. 

Now I need to start focusing on things I want to work on next.  I need some new goals.  It's great that I've started walking Bradley down to the bus stop and have been able to start keeping up on my house and getting things in order, but now I need to start adding more things to the list of responsibilities that I'd like to be able to do again.  I'm not sure what those are.  I think my task for this weekend for myself will be to think about it.  I don't want to overwhelm myself, so maybe for now it will just be one or two small things.

Whatever it is, I just want to make sure that I don't allow myself to get comfortable and become stagnant water.  I must continue to improve by pushing my limits and I am ready to do that now.  We'll see what I come up with over the weekend.  Enjoy yours and see you next week!

Things Didn't Go Quite As Planned

Tuesday night I got a little excited and tried to do too many things.  Now, I have been sleeping on my couch for about two years or possibly longer.  The bed causes me severe pain in my knees, hips, along my spine, shoulders and neck.  This only became a problem as I started reaching around 400lbs or so.  I found relief with the couch, which is how I ended up there.

Since I'm nearly down to 400lbs again, I thought I would give the bed a try.  I miss my husband at night!  I brought everything upstairs and went to sleep.  Every two hours I was waking up, trying to find a new position that would allow me to be in less pain and fall asleep again.  I popped some ibuprofen to get some relief from the constant pain that I was experiencing by 2 a.m.  By 4 a.m. I am awake once again and I sat up, the pain was unbearable.  That was it, I was near tears and I just couldn't sleep anymore.

My husband helped me get back downstairs which was a real challenge, my hip felt like it kept locking and my knees did not want to bend right.  Back on the couch offered little relief and I was not able to fall back to sleep until around 7 a.m.  Needless to say, I did not get to walk Bradley down to the bus stop Wednesday morning.

I was a little mad about that whole thing, because I was actually looking forward to making that part of my morning routine.  The good news is, that by the early afternoon and another dose of ibuprofen, I was finally rid of the pain and back to moving around normally.  I feel good again!  Thursday morning I will be getting my child to the bus stop by walking him down there.  While I'm excited about it, I'm sure my little one will be pointing to the garage, reminding me about the car and whining about it being hot.

It's just one a day, Little Man, if I can do it, you can do it!

You Want Me To Do What With My Feet?

So Tuesday morning my husband had to leave at 5 a.m. for P.T.  He usually goes, does his morning workout then comes home in time to get my son to the bus stop which is down the street from the house.  It's within walking distance but North Carolina heat is unforgiving, even at 6:30 a.m. So, he drives the kiddo down there and they wait in the air conditioned car until the bus arrives anywhere between 6:38 - 7:00.  Thanks for keeping a reliable schedule city school district!

Well, as usual, I had gotten my little monster up and dressed and we were waiting for my husband to get home and I casually looked at the clock only to notice it was 6:29.  Panic mode!  I had to now walk my child down to the bus stop which I had never done and did not know if I was physically capable of doing. 

After convincing my child that dad was not there nor was the car, we started walking down the street to the bus stop.  I honestly can't tell you how far it is. I pass four housing units at least, which tells you absolutely nothing.  I was fine until about the last 50 feet or so from the bus stop, then my lower back and back of my legs were on fire.  Thankfully, I made it and sat my butt on the curb and read Bradley a book until the bus arrived. 

When it left, I walked home and was doing great until right about when I reached my driveway and experienced that same pain as before.  Not a big deal since I was right there and could go inside and rest before starting my house cleaning.  I spent most of the day contemplating doing it again tomorrow. 

Now, it wasn't pleasant discovering that I could walk that far at the last moment so I could get the kiddo on the bus, but it was exciting to be able to do it.  I am going to go ahead and make it a daily routine now.  Every morning I will walk my child down to the bus stop.  The only thing stopping me from picking him up is the temperature in the afternoon.  During the summer months we frequently have daily heat warnings to stay indoors which is just crazy so I'll wait until the weather cools to add afternoon walks.

Hopefully, after a couple weeks of doing this, it will build up the muscles in my legs and lower back so that short distance wont hurt as much and it'll help burn some more calories than just house cleaning alone will do.  Then maybe a walk around the block will be in my future?  I'm feeling optimistic about that!

Let's Share!

Recently, I've wanted to get together and talk to other people about weight loss and the struggles that come with it because I just need to talk about it with someone other than my therapist.  After doing a search online, I found that there was a local chapter for Overeaters Anonymous in my town and I was pretty excited about it at first.

I checked out the location on Google maps and tried to psych myself up into going.  They meet once a week on Tuesdays at 6pm and I figured that I could handle this.  Not only would this be great for support, but it might help me meet new people since I really struggle with creating and maintaining new friendships.

The only problem is, I really hate people.  That makes no sense, right?  I know, it's confusing to me, too.  Try being in a position where you can't stand to be around people 95% of your waking day (not including husband and child) and then actually crave to be around others.  How do you get around that?  I have no idea.

I think I might just be having a little anxiety about being out in public while being obese, though.  I've talked about it in the past, not wanting people to stare at me because of my size.  I can't just assume because I'm going to an Overeaters Anonymous meeting that everyone there is going to be obese, too.  Some people can overeat and not gain weight, but still need help.  Not all binge eaters are obese.  This is the dilemma for me, having to worry about being around skinny people who overeat.  It makes me even more embarrassed about my size.

Anyway, what I think I need to do here is just force myself to go to one of these meetings eventually.  It's going to take a bit more psyching up, however.  Another week or two, perhaps?  I wish I had someone to go with.  Also, I wish I wasn't so big that I was worried about breaking a chair if I showed up or worried that I might not fit in the chair.  It's times like this that I tend to fall back on the excuse, "Well, I'll just wait until I lose a few more pounds then do it."  I need to break that habit.

Putting Myself First

I wanted to take a moment to talk about something that I actually told myself I wouldn't talk about on this blog; my mood disorder.  I had been avoiding it, because I wanted this journal to be about my binge eating disorder, my weight loss and how I was dealing with all of it. 

I have, in past posts, briefly mentioned my mood disorder without going into any detail, but as time went on it's been increasingly more difficult not to mention it when talking about my binging episodes and how my mood disorder might be affected by it.  What I didn't really consider is that my mood disorder really does play a big part in all of this.

Having spent some time thinking about it over the weekend, I decided it probably wasn't a rare thing that people with eating disorders have some other underlying emotional issues to deal with.  It could be just something from the past that they might have to work out or, in my case, an actual chemical imbalance.  Whatever the case might be for them, or myself, it's there and it needs to be dealt with and addressed as part of the process to fix the overall problem.

So, while I'm maintaining my journal for my binge eating, I might occasionally mention something about my mood disorder.  I'm not going to go on and on about it, or make a big deal out of it because that's still not the point me maintaining this site, but it is a part of who I am so I'm not going to ignore it and pretend like it's not there and it's not a part of the problem.  Plus, I sometimes forget that I'm suppose to be doing this for myself above anyone else and I shouldn't leave anything out.

What I do want to say is that I don't whine about having a chemical imbalance any more than I do about having a binging problem or being obese.  I actively do something about my issues and take care of myself, even if sometimes it takes me a while to get my act together to do it.  I save all my whining for my therapist, because sometimes I need her to help me figure out which direction I'm suppose to be going in.  Though, damnit, she still makes me figure it out on my own most of the time. 

Anyway, my point is, I'm not going to neglect that part of me anymore, so feel free to skip those parts of my posts or just stop reading.  I'm not going to forget that this is for me and my benefit most of all.  I honestly don't even know what possessed me to exclude it in the beginning anyway or why I thought that it might be unrelated to what I was going through.

But Do You Loooooove Yourself?

Not long ago, a friend of mine started her process for the gastric bypass surgery and created a journal to document her progress.  During her various appointments, she also encountered the dreaded "love yourself" talk which left her about as frustrated with people as it left me.  However, something she was required to attend was a meeting for those who have had the surgery.  While there, she spoke with someone who happened to share something extremely insightful.

You do love yourself, because here you are at this meeting and going through the process for the surgery so you can become healthy and improve the quality of your life.  You might not like your body, but you love yourself.

I have to admit, when I read this in her journal I felt several things at once.  First, I felt cheated.  There should have been a spoiler warning so I could have chosen not to read that part.  Unfortunately, life doesn't come with spoiler alerts so that just wasn't an option and really if this is accurate, it's just something I would have liked to figure out on my own.

Second, I was angry, because why couldn't my therapist just come out an tell me if that was really the case?  This completely contradicts what I just said in my first reason, doesn't matter, thought processes are not always entirely rational!  Sometimes I feel like she gets some sick joy out of watching me struggle in my therapy sessions (even though I know this isn't true).

Third, I became more than a little bit excited, hopeful and optimistic.  Could it really be that simple?  Because if it is, there are many things about me that I love.  I absolutely do not like my body and some of the behaviors that got me this way, but I don't hate the parts of me that make up who I am.  All those things I don't like?  I'm working hard on changing those!

So, is it possible that I really do love myself?  I feel both skeptical and positive that I do.  I need to consider this more, which I will while I'm being motivated and cleaning the bathrooms today.

"Clean ALL the things!"

First, I have to point out that my title is blatantly stolen from a blogger that I enjoy reading, Hyperbole and a Half.  The particular strip I borrowed it from makes me laugh and I use it as a pick-me-up when I'm feeling overwhelmed from the stuff.  You know what the stuff is.

Life is the stuff.  Recently though, the stuff hasn't been getting me down quiet as badly as it has been.  Maybe it's because I'm almost at the 50lbs mark for weight loss and it's easier to move around.  It could be that I feel good about myself for sticking to this or for learning about what triggers things like binge eating and for getting off my butt and doing something about my issues that led to being this big.  Maybe it's a combination of all of the above.

The motivation doesn't just end at working on myself though.  You should see my house!  Every day since Sunday I have been working on a small area of the house, completely cleaning it from top to bottom.  It's like I just moved in.  It's been neglected for so long because I just 1) couldn't get motivated to move and 2) even if I had any energy to move, my weight was stopping me. 

In the beginning, I would constantly question myself, when would I noticed a change in how I feel?  It wasn't until I started exercising that I noticed any real change.  Exercising improved my mood, gave me more energy, made my legs stronger and in return I was able to do more, such as stand for longer periods of time and walk further.  Those things made me feel good, especially the standing and the walking, since I couldn't do those for more than a few steps or a few moments in the beginning.

Ok, now I'm not suddenly some fitness buff.  I'm not working out for hours a day.  Right now I'm replacing my exercising with some severe house cleaning and my dietitian said when I saw her on Wednesday, that was good because I was still moving around and I'm actually cleaning house a lot longer than I would be just exercising.  Don't think house cleaning doesn't raise my heart rate or break a sweat.  I am scrubbing floors and walls and running the vacuum and breaking a sweat.  Ew.

Anyway, I feel like I might have gotten a bit off track here.  I'm losing weight, I'm more motivated because I've lost weight, losing weight and weigh less.  Speaking of being motivated, I'm getting antsy here and I really need to go get some vacuuming done.  The house doesn't clean itself and the dog hair on the stairs is waiting.  In fact, I'm pretty sure those clumps of hair have been there long enough that they may have formed into sentient life forms.  I believe they're voting on a President this week.  Better go nip that in the bud.

The Stakes are High

I don't usually gamble, because I know that I tend to have an addictive personality and get hooked on things easily.  Even something as simple as Farmville.  It was hard to give that game up.  I needed a 12-step program for both it and for deleting my Facebook account.

All kidding aside, the one thing I wont risk taking chances on now, is my life.  I mean, I've done that already with allowing myself to get the size that I currently am by having unresolved psych issues with the eating disorder that I didn't know existed.  But I'm not going to continue to gamble with my life by jumping into something as risky as surgery.

Now, I'm actually not anti-surgery or anti-gastric bypass.  I think that this is a remarkable way for someone to get healthy if they've been struggling with weight issues their whole life - if it is right for them.  However, I just want to say do the research to make sure you know what you're getting into, which I've done for over two years.

As I've mentioned in the past, I've been looking into gastric bypass surgery for a long time and this is actually my second time going through the process to have the surgery done.  The first time I passed the psych evaluation to have the procedure done but the second time I did not.  This was a blessing in disguise, truly.  I can't even imagine what would have happened to me if I had gone through with the surgery the first time after being approved and then had a binging episode.  I likely could or would have died.

Not even considering that I may struggle with binging my whole life for a moment,  let me just got over some of the other aspects of post-surgery that I have to worry about.  There was the constant vitamin and mineral deficiency because of the amount of food I'd be restricted to which could possibly also lead to hair loss, anemia and bone loss.  Other long term side effects could include ulcers, gallstones and bowel obstructions.

The short term side effects from the surgery are even more terrifying and include hernia, leaking, bleeding, abdominal pain, respiratory failure and my favorite: DEATH.  Ok, to be fair, the death rate these days is down to %.01 or something very low and to continue to stay at my weight probably means I have a greater chance of dying from being obese by a certain age. 

However, I have a child to think of and a husband I love, and this is why I am choosing the weight loss route and the therapy for my binge eating disorder to take care of my problem.  Also, for those considering surgery if you happen to read this, don't let my decision not to have the surgery change your mind to not have it.  These are my reasons and they're good for me.  There are so many positive benefits from the surgery, too, and it gets you healthy and that's what's important.  Remember, it's about making sure you're in a good place before you take that step.

So, with that said, I guess I have to say that I am choosing to bet on myself this time.  Not the doctors.  I've got everything riding on myself and the work I've done so far and the progress I've made.  I don't think it's too early to be excited because I'm making good progress compared to attempts to lose weight in the past and recently I've been feeling proud of myself.  I've never really felt proud of myself for this, but I'm giving it my all.  I deserve to.

Hot damn, I'm on a roll here!

P.S. - It's good to see you again, Motivation.  Perhaps a post about you tomorrow?  I'm thinking maybe it's time.

Going Down?

So I've been trying to stay off the scale, because sometimes it triggers binge eating and that's never good.  But Monday morning I decided to pull it out and weigh myself because with the loss of some of my pants I needed to know where I was hovering.  The magic number was 417lbs.

Let me explain why this was exciting for me.  In 2008, I tried to go through the process for gastric bypass surgery and was actually approved (and thank goodness I didn't have the surgery, knowing what I do now about myself).  At the start of that attempt I was 416lbs so I'm really excited about getting down to the weight I was two years ago in such a short amount of time.

One of the things I feared about weight loss is how long it would take for the weight to come off.  It took a long time for me to get heavy, but the weight actually comes off much more quickly than it does to put on I'm finding.  I like this.  As long as I continue my healthy eating, my exercise (slacking recently, post for another day) and going to my therapy sessions for my binge eating I know that I can be successful.  The longer I do this, the easier it is to be positive about it.

Looking forward to my next therapy session, I have so many positive things to share with my therapist.

Dear Pants, It's Not You, It's Me

It is with great joy that I can say that my current pants are becoming a real pain in the ass to have to wear.  I keep having to pull them up to keep them on.  One pair, I completely can't even wear anymore because after a few steps they fall down to my knees.  Terribly embarrassing if I were to wear them outside of the house.

So I'm really looking forward to picking up some new pants one size smaller.  I'm not ready to go a size smaller in shirts yet, weird how that works, but that's alright because I know I'm going to get there.  How exciting it is for me to me going down a size though!  This is a first for me in about 15 or more years. 

On a side note, I just want to say that I'm healing really well.  I've stuck to my antibiotics (like I should be doing) and those should be finished up on Monday or Tuesday I think.  Leg is feeling better but at my follow up on Friday the doctor told me to continue to take it easy over the weekend.  I'm getting antsy, but I am going to play it safe and just wait until the antibiotics are finished up before I start using my electric peddler again and start stressing those leg muscles.

Feeling really good emotionally and physically right now and looking forward to therapy soon.