Trying to not make this a long drawn out post today but I did want to let every one that is following my success know that I have left the 300's behind me and weighed in this morning at 299.2 pounds. For those keeping track that is 78lbs down from my initial surgery weigh in of 377lbs and 82lbs down from my heaviest weight of 381lbs. I am about 5 days behind on reaching that goal but am in no way disappointed. It took a lifetime after all to gain and the amount I've lost thus far is astounding to consider in such a short period of time.
Stress is still playing a major factor in the rate of my weight loss and I continue to struggle with wrangling that aspect of my life. Like most Americans, food is cheap and easy. No one openly berates you for overeating. Most people don't even know about it unless you tell them.
A friend and I recently disagreed on this issue. While I do know that I clearly have a "fat gene" passed down from both sides of my family and while I do have a slew of co-morbidity including hormone imbalances, diabetes, asthma that limits activity, sleep apnea, depression, and indicators of an addictive personality; I do not say that couldn't help being morbidly obese. In fact, I chose to be morbidly obese. I am solely responsible for how out of control it became. Accepting this responsibility I also acknowledge that I am in control of everything I do now to reverse the damage I have done both mentally and physically to myself. This is important to me because accepting the role of victim...or in a nicer way...accepting a half truth, that being over weight can't be helped, in so many ways, handicaps you to moving forward. It gives you a crutch to fall back on and someone or something to blame when you fail to achieve weight loss goals.
This does not mean I find that friend, myself, or anyone else suffering with obesity a monster of some sort. In fact, people that struggle with obesity are some of the strongest people. It isn't something you can hide and most people judge you long before your story is told. Unfortunately, it does mean that I may hurt your feelings with my honesty at times. I don't see a way to not hurt someone's feelings on this subject but I apologize to anyone that has had their feelings hurt. Being obese is very painful in both mind and body and no one likes to think that they hurt themselves more than any other person could or has. Knowledge is power though and acknowledging is stamina that buoys that power.
I continue to struggle with staggering my drinking with meals. It is a hard habit to break and continues to be a painful lesson learned. I also struggle to eat not beef but pork rather. I hate to accept this but I may have to say so long to the swine. Fish and chicken are my friend. Bread is not. For that matter, most processed foods are not my friend. At this stage, I can eat whatever I want to eat, including desserts but I try to avoid eating anything but a liquid soup while at work because my stomach needs about an hour to eat most meals which I don't and will never have. I eat lean meat and only meat sometimes at meals because I focus on piling on the protein. Green veggies are good too and I am incorporating more of them. I take daily multivitamins, a gummy vitamin sold at Sam's Club for adults. I am supposed to be taking a Vitamin B12, Folate, D3 compound supplement but the taste makes me want to hurl. Instead I get B12 shots when I go to my primary, I drink zipfizz with these minerals/vitamins in it, and I focus on fish in my diet, particularly salmon for the D3 and Omega 3. I try to avoid taking as much medicine as possible, always have, and opt instead to naturally incorporate those things into my diet. We will see how this is working in September when I get a new set of labs. Maybe sooner than that as I recently completed a Health Screening for work and will get the results next week. I strongly advise people to consult their physician and not my blog for health information. I list my own information to give people, particularly those that have had weight loss surgery, direction. Not to play doctor.
Another thing I am still not quite "back to normal" with is my menstrual cycle. At first I thought it was late but now realize that it just is completely out of whack. This month I had two abbreviated cycles while the month before I had none. It wreaks havoc on the scale obviously. I'm not even going to talk about the emotional upheaval it causes! I do believe this is why it is recommended that I wait 18 months to 2 years before I become pregnant. While before, I didn't want children and paid little attention to that information, it now matters greatly to me. Before, I think I squashed down that dream because I didn't have a husband or a boyfriend. I didn't even have a hopeful candidate (still don't). Also, I didn't think I would be able to carry a pregnancy to full term due to how significantly overweight I was and if I did, they were at greater risk for birth defects. Who would knowingly desire a child knowing how dangerous it could be to you or the baby?
The hope never was fully extinguished though because now, as the pounds are shed, the desire burns brighter than it ever has before. The realization that I will reach my weight loss goals opens up new doors of possibility in both my career and my personal life and I confess to have the goal of someday giving life to a mini me a high priority. Lord help the man foolish enough to fall victim to these wiles ;-) Boy is he getting a handful! More importantly, I ask Father, that you point him in the right direction on the map to finding me ;-)
One love,
Not So Fat Girl
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