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.