Pre-op class #12, weekly weigh-in & seeing my therapist

Last night was class number 12 of my pre-op bariatric classes through Kaiser.  Hooray, we're halfway there!  I find myself looking forward to the classes every week, not only because of what we may be talking about but also because my fellow classmates are an amazing group of people.  We had a speaker who shared her experience of having the gastric sleeve done about a year and a half ago.  She even revealed her stomach with the excess skin.  For some people, that might have been discouraging since it seems most have a huge hope that they will be the person who does not end up with loose skin.  With the amount of weight I need to lose, I am realistic and know I will be sporting excess skin.  But I look at it this way:  would I rather have excess skin or a round body that fills up all my skin?  Besides, I lost 192 pounds before ... I know exactly what my body looked like at the time.  My tummy wasn't bad at all compared to my thighs.  I had major excess skin there.  Yet, I accept it for what it is and would gladly have that problem versus being overweight and unhealthy.  My whole thing with having the weight loss surgery has been about quality of life issues.

In terms of my weigh-in, I lost another two pounds.  Yay!  I'm happy to steadily be going down, down, down.  That's a 16 pound loss since I started the classes, which I will gladly take.  During my Spring Break this week, I have been trying to stay as active as possible.  This morning, for example, I decided that I was going to go to one of our local lakes that has a five mile course around it and get a good walk in.  It's been hot here, in the 90's, but I figured that since I was walking in the morning, it wouldn't be so bad.  I wasn't intending on walking all the way around the lake, but maybe doing about three miles or so.  How bad can exercise be when there's such a pretty view?  This is a picture of part of the lake on the right.  As I parked my car and prepared my gear for the walk, I thought to myself, "Hmm, feels a little warm."  Despite how pretty it was, I was sweating in a matter of a few minutes and decided to turn my shrinking butt around and head back to my car.  It was just way to hot for comfort (I found out later it was 95 degrees).  I did a mile there and then decided that the air conditioned comfort of my gym had my name all over it!  I ended up doing three more miles on the treadmill with the cool air surrounding me.  Ahhhh.

Prior to my class yesterday, I had a session with my therapist.  Man, that was incredibly emotional.  I'm one of those people who refuses to lie to her therapist because, really, what's the point of that?  When I get honest, especially about things that I carefully avoid talking about to other people, the emotions seem to smack me in the face and leave me feeling incredibly vulnerable.  One of the first things we talked about is something that has been bothering me for quite some time.  In the last year or two, my fear of heights has gotten to a debilitating level and it's really concerning me.  I've always had a fear of heights, ever since I was a small child.  Lately, though, it's crossed over into almost a terror feeling.  I will avoid heights, no matter if it's a few feet off the ground or several stories.  I think it's not even about the height necessarily but the fear of falling.  I was recently walking with a friend on a very small bridge and told her I had to turn around.  When you look at the bridge we were on, you would probably question my sanity because it was not that high at all.  It's just an awful feeling for me inside.  My heart starts racing, my legs become rubbery and I go into a panic attack.  It's a horrible feeling that I can't really describe well, but it is a true fear for me.  Suffice it to say that I avoid heights at all costs.  It's been bothering me a lot, though, because I feel absolutely disabled by it.  So we're going to start treatment in regards to that.  I know this means that, through the therapy, I will likely eventually have to get back on a bridge or some such thing.  I'm tired of avoiding it, though.  There are things I simply won't do because heights are involved.

The other half of the session focused in on the issue I described in my last post - feeling "less than" and body image.  Thank you to those who were so sweet to leave me a message.  We really delved into my history with men, from being raped, having a period of high promiscuity to even how things ended with my ex-boyfriend.  I was in absolute tears talking to her.  It's not as if I'm planning on looking to start a relationship right now.  With my preparation for surgery, I have a lot on my plate and getting involved with someone is not something I want to do.  Can you imagine dating and having to explain why you're only eating tiny bits of food or somehow experience "dumping" in front of them?  That would be incredibly embarrassing.  The feelings that I'm going through right now are more about loving and accepting myself now.  We definitely are our own worst critics, me included.  I don't want to look in the mirror and think of myself as an ugly, unworthy, hideous human being any longer.  That's not fair, to myself or anyone else that tells me I'm opposite of that.  I even had a man checking me out several times at the gym today.  If that's not a boost, then I don't know what is!  These are feelings I don't verbalize with other people, but I do want to be able to get to a point where I can appreciate myself in the same way others do.  I don't want to constantly stare in the mirror and tear myself down.  So I'm bringing these feelings out and talking about them with my therapist.  She told me she wants to see me more often, which I'm happy to do.  I want to move past the self-criticism into a healthier existence - body, mind and soul.

Water Challenge Day 75:  Drank 180 of 178 ounces 

Facing my stuff head-on

I'm on vacation this coming week for Spring Break since I work at a school.  So it's nice to be able to post this at whatever time I want because I know I don't have to get up at 5:30 a.m. in the morning.  Ah!  I had a really nice day here in Sunny California.  I started it out walking at the beach with one of my friends.  I knew that it was going to be hot one when I started feeling sweat on my neck within about 15 minutes.  My friend, who does photography, asked me if I would be willing to do a photo shoot with her.  She's building her portfolio and asked if I would like to do some pre-surgery pics, during the weight loss phase pics and then some after pics.  What a really cool idea!  Of course I said yes.  I saw some of the portraits she's already done and it's amazing work.  I can't wait to post them here on my blog in the future.

After running around when I finished that exercise, I met another friend for dinner.  I had my eating plan in mind when I suggested where we could meet so that I could keep things within a reasonable calorie count.  We went to a Mexican place that has a lot of grilled items, so I felt great about going there.  I didn't partake in the tortilla chips or order a margarita.  Trust me, I wanted a margarita, but I didn't go there.  When she got hers, I wasn't even salivating over it.  That's a lot of progress for me because I love me a yummy, slushy margarita.  For dinner, I ordered a jalapeno barbecue salmon with black beans and roasted veggies.  I know, sounds amazing, right?  Yes, I took a picture!

I ended up scraping about half of the barbecue sauce off the salmon because it was just too much for me.  It was also too much food in general, so I took half of it home.

My friend and I had such a great time together.  I had suggested we sit at a table because the whole booth thing makes me nervous ... I'm always afraid that I'm not going to fit.  I haven't had the experience yet of that, but I never want to have to deal with this time being the time where it happens.  She told the host that we wanted a booth in the back and I decided to just let it go.  Thankfully I was able to get in there, although it was a pretty tight fit.

As we were talking about everything under the sun, as girls tend to do, she asked me if I was currently dating anyone.  All of a sudden, every insecurity I have about myself came to the surface.  I told her no and she asked me why not.  I felt like saying, "What do you mean why not ... can't you see what I look like?"  She asked me if I was ready to date (after my breakup with my ex-boyfriend) and I told her that I think I am, but many times I just don't feel very attractive at all to men.  She looked at me with confusion.  I confessed to her that any time one of my friends has called me beautiful or pretty, I silently wonder inside why they would say something like that because I just don't feel like it's true.  She sat across from me and told me that I am pretty and I am beautiful.  I did thank her for saying that.

So often I just feel almost inhuman.  Part of me wonders if things will be better when I'm down to a more normal size and then other part of me says that I have to live the life I have now, not wait for some magical day in the future.  So we talked about that for a while.  I completely own the fact that I have low self-esteem when it comes to my body image.  She suggested that I think about putting myself out there.  In our conversation, she mentioned a dating app for my phone that has worked for others she knows and explained the concept a little.  I have dated before online, when I was younger and much more reckless.  In some ways, dating that way has changed and, in other ways, it's still the same.  But you just don't know until you try.  I did download the app, although I haven't opened it up yet.  It may take me a little while to get the courage up to move forward on it, but at least I'm willing to try.  It is a nice way to put myself out there and just see what happens.  I am seeing my therapist tomorrow and I think I need to talk about the whole body image thing.  It's really time to deal with it so that I feel better about myself as a worthwhile, deserving human being.  In many ways, I know that I am a precious child of God.  In other ways, I feel like such an unlovable "thing" that children point at in a crowd.

This is my stuff I don't like facing head-on because I have to be honest around those feelings and it's uncomfortable for me.  Part of keeping weight on, for many people, is a sense of a protective barrier.  If I don't let you in, you can't hurt me.  That all goes back to being abused and raped when I was a child.  Tack on what my ex-boyfriend did to me, and it's no wonder I'm a little afraid to move towards another relationship.  The other side of that, though, is that I want to be in a relationship again.  I don't like being alone and I never have.  So we shall see what direction I move in.  Ugh.

Water Challenge Day 74:  Drank 194 of 179 ounces

(I felt like I was going to float away!)

Breaking habits

I had an appointment with my therapist this past week.  It had been some time since I saw her last because I had to cancel with her twice and it takes a very long time to get another appointment.  So we had a lot of catching up to do.  We talked about me being on the Jenny Craig program now, the fact that I am sleeping very well these days and the impact on my overall health (in a positive direction).  She was very happy with how things are going and then said, "Kathy, how can I help you to continue moving forward?"  In that moment, it felt like she was about to do what other therapists have done in the past - end our sessions.  That's not all what she said, but that's what I was interpreting.  Whenever I have sought therapy in the past, things would definitely get better but then it felt like the therapist would want to fade out of the picture since it appeared like I no longer needed them.  Yet, that's completely opposite of what I need if I'm being completely honest.

When I think about sharing my life with someone, whether that is a therapist, friend or man, it takes me time to get everything out.  There are huge trust issues for me, so I begin slowly and, the more I'm comfortable, the more that comes out.  During the session, we talked about how I was severely abused as a child, sexually abused as a teen and the impact those things have had on my relationships with people and with food.  Food was the avenue that I used to help me cope with intense feelings and took me away to another place where I didn't have to feel or hope or dream.  It had the ability to numb me out.  In the same way alcohol is the alcoholic, food is a drug to me.  Obviously I can't just stop eating because I need food to sustain my life, but now it's about being healthier and changing bad habits into good ones.  So when the therapist asked me how she can help me, I thought about it for a minute and told her I need continued help with changing negative behavior.

How exactly can negative behaviors be turned into positive ones?  That seems like the question of the ages

for me.  My therapist told me it takes practice, practice, practice.  She was encouraging, though, because she said it is possible to do.  It won't be easy, especially with behaviors that have been a part of me for my entire life, but with honesty and patience, it is within reach for me.  I have always gone to food to cope and one of the biggest reasons is my lack of love and respect for myself.  For other people, I can give of myself one hundred percent, without question.  My friends and family know I am always there for them, for whatever they need, and that I will love and support them unfailingly.  Yet, when it comes to myself, it seems as though I live by different rules.  When I look in the mirror, I convince myself that I'm ugly, that I'm not smart enough, that I'm really an unlovable creature.  Do I want to admit that?  No, but it's my truth if I'm being as honest as I know how to be.  I convince myself of that when I think about how my ex-boyfriend treated me and how other men seem to not be interested in me.  My ex used to always tell me how beautiful I was to him and I never believed him.  Perhaps I didn't want to believe him.  I convince myself that I'm alone a lot of the time because friends don't want to hang out with me, not because they're busy with their families or that I had been busy with school.  There's just such a huge part of me that believes things have to be perfect, even though intellectually I really do know that things can't be perfect.

As I move forward with my therapy sessions, I need to continue to speak my truth, no matter how painful that might be.  It means I need to say out loud the things I have thought about myself in private.  The things that I don't want to talk about are the very things I must talk about.  Otherwise, I will continue doing the weight loss dance for the rest of my life.  It's like a literal cha-cha-cha with the scale ... up, down, up, down, cha-cha-cha.  I know there are so many people out there in the world, even those reading my words right in this very moment, who understand precisely what I'm talking about.  It's a dance to a song that never seems to end, one that makes you exhausted and you wrinkle your nose every time the tune is played on the radio.  As the title to my blog always reminds me, now is finally the time.  I will only be victorious if I take the skeleton out of the closet and own where I'm at, even when it's unpleasant.  I have come leaps and bounds in so many ways, so I know that if I continue to stay the course and not back down out of fear, I will continue jumping over the hurdles that I encounter.  It's so crazy to me that I'm just spilling my guts all over this blog, but I have to say that this is incredibly healing for me and, I hope, for you, too.