This week's Optifast class & my day

It's been a pretty long day for me and I still have some reading to do for my class tomorrow night, but first thing's first ... taking care of myself.  So here I am posting about how my day went because I need to keep journaling through this entire process.

Today I had a dentist appointment.  Here is another truth I'd never thought I'd tell anyone, but it's the secrets that cause me shame and embarrassment, ultimately leading me back to picking up food and I just don't want to do that.  I have an awesome, fabulous, terrific dentist.  But, I haven't been to see her in seven years.  Is it because I don't have insurance to cover the cost?  No, I have great insurance through the school district.  Is it because I thought she was going to cause me pain?  No again, she's very kind and gentle in her approach.  Then why wait so long?  At first, it was because I had moved and didn't get the reminder card they send.  Of course, at any point along the way, I could have picked up the phone and called to make another appointment.  Then, as time went on, I was embarrassed to be seen.  It's sort of the same reason I avoided the mirror.  I rationalized that if I didn't see the dentist, she couldn't tell me how I was damaging the enamel on my teeth or gums by the bad food choices I was making.  It was something I had built up in my mind that I dared not face the truth because it had to be just like I was envisioning it.  Thankfully, today's visit was good.  I did have some tartar build up from not brushing after every single Optifast shake I was taking (bad Kathy), but not a single cavity.  I did have a filling that somehow came loose.  I'm having that worked on next week but I practically floated out of there knowing I haven't personally done any damage that is irreplaceable.

Then later at my Optifast group, it was such a great time of good talking.  I opened up to the group about the struggles I have been having with the emotional part of this process.  I described feeling like a foreigner in a strange land where I don't speak the language.  Our counselor asked me a lot of great questions to get to the heart of what was going on.  When I talked to him about my desire to start dating again, but feeling unworthy, unattractive and all of those feelings that I have bottled up inside of me about myself, I almost started crying as he shared his response with me.  It was gentle and he was listening, not just giving me a pat on the back and saying "Oh, it will be fine" that I tend to hear from some other people sometimes.  One of the things he said would be good for me to do, a little assignment for me, is he gave me the task of writing a short story, maybe even a novel.  My charge is to write a story about a girl or woman going to a strange land where they do things like put salad dressing on the side (weird) or measure their food (double-weird).  I then tell the story of this woman getting stronger and stronger as the tale develops, finally having her conquer her worries or feeling like a stranger in Skinnyville or whatever the name of the town is that she visits.  I thought that was an inventive and fun way for me to realize I am much stronger than I realize and then, in the end, things really will be okay.

I am grateful for the weight loss of three pounds I had this week, making my total now 182 pounds lost.  I am getting so close to my next mini-goal, which is to get to 209 pounds.  I'm currently at 235 pounds.  When I reach that number, I will literally be half the woman I was.  That's pretty surreal.  Then again, so is this place. 

Following myself around Wal-Mart

I was at Wal-Mart earlier to pick up a few things I need since I generally don't have the extra time during the week.  My cart looks very different these days when I stroll through there.  I had a case of water, highlighters, some cleaning supplies and vitamins.  When I go there now, I get flashbacks on the way things used to be.  They have cheap food there, mostly the processed variety that made it really easy for me to make bad decisions.  Things like Pringles, frozen pizzas, sausages, potato salad, ice cream, donuts and a myriad of other foods found their way home with me after an excursion to Wally-Mart.  I'm not blaming them, it was me that bought those foods.  It's just that it was a very dangerous place for me to be, yet I was there a lot.

As I was in the water aisle, I spotted a woman who looked very similar to the way I looked before.  Or, at least, the way I envision how I looked before.  I smiled as she walked past me, but I couldn't stop looking at her as she continued to walk away.  She was significantly obese and looked to be in considerable pain as she went down the aisle.  I noticed she wore flip-flops and had swollen ankles, just like I used to.  I sort of snapped myself out of the trance and went about picking up what I needed, only to spot her again.  I walked towards her and, pretty soon, I found myself following her to the next aisle.  Why?  Lord only knows.  I promise you, I am not a stalker!  The resemblance to me was striking, although she probably didn't look that much like I used to but there was something drawing me to her.  Then a few minutes later, when I went to check out, there she was again!  Okay, God, you've got my attention, but why?  As her things were being rung up, I noticed her items were very similar to what I used to buy.  She was breathing heavy and looked to be very uncomfortable.  I felt tremendous empathy for her because I remember that place all too well.  All you want to do is get the hell out of there with your stuff, go to the privacy of your own home, only to be stopped by a very slow cashier.  Here are some pictures of me that I have never posted on here, looking my absolute heaviest.  I'll post them on my "Pics of Progress" page, too.  Forgive the big hair (it was the 90's ... what can I say??).


Me in my high school graduation pic at 17, told you the hair was big! 

19 years old



Compare me to the person standing next to me, 19 years old here, too

Wearing a sweater during the summer to cover myself, 20 years old



Feeling miserable, a very unhappy girl at 24 years old

At a friend's wedding, 32 years old

I am flooded lately with the way things used to be and I share these pics with all of you because this helps me to be honest.  I don't want to go back to that world, I can't go back there.  God bless her, but I am not that lady at Wal-Mart.  To be honest, I don't think I ever was.  Perhaps in the bodily sense, but I was never satisfied with that life.  Although I am not at goal weight yet, or even transitioning into maintenance, I am already taking action towards making healthy changes in my life in hopes of making them habitual.  One of the biggest things is that I have truly incorporated living a more physical life.  Yesterday I went hiking up and down a none-too-easy cliff.  Today I did about three and a half miles around a lake.  When I went shopping, I parked my car far from the entrance so that I could be in the habit of doing that over the long haul.  The magazines I subscribe to now are all about living a healthy lifestyle - Fitness, Shape, Women's Health. 

 

In fact, there's a book I'm reading now by Bob Harper (one of the trainers on the Biggest Loser) called The Skinny Rules:  The Simple, Nonnegotiable Principles for Getting to Thin.  It's not because I want to read it to learn how to take the weight off.  I think I'm doing that pretty well with Optifast and believe very strongly in the program.  This book is read for me now because I want to incorporate things into my lifestyle to keep the weight off.  I just love, love, love Bob and his very direct style.  There are some very striking things said in that book, like:

 

"You've got to divorce yourself from the past and

find a different way of living.  And you can never go back."

 

I can never go back.  That Wal-Mart lady today is a symbol to me of going back.  I pray for her and, at the same time, I pray for myself.  I pray I never forget what it felt like to live in that world and that I can literally be one bite away from that.  It all begins with that one decision to say, "Oh, screw it, I'm going to have that piece of _____.  After all, I've worked hard and I deserve it!"  It's true that I do work hard, but what I deserve it this.  Right here.  This is what I deserve.  That's not to say I am perfect, nor will I be with the food, but I also can't let that sort of thinking creep into my head.  Even though I am often times very scared of this place because it is so foreign to me, I am willing to learn the language and do the best I can to say I don't know all the answers but I'm willing to fall flat on my face to figure out what they are.  And someday, very soon, I'll stop falling.  Someday, very soon, I'll feel comfortable in this world I now find myself in, as well as the one in the future.

Just a little hike

This morning, Sara and I went on a hike sponsored by Kaiser here in San Diego County.  I saw it advertised in one of the newsletters from my Optifast clinic while I was waiting to start class one day and I posted about it on my blog just in case anyone was thinking of going.  It had been years since I've been to Torrey Pines and have never done the hike they have.  Let me just say that this could not have been at a more perfect location.  The cliffs were surrounded by lots of vegetation and the ocean down below.  Here are a few pics I snapped.

 

 

 

 

 

As we went down, we encountered a bunch of stairs among the sand we were walking in.  Some of the stairs were small, but others were very steep.  It was a gorgeous view heading down, but I couldn't help but think what it was going to be like heading back up.  Since I have been on Optifast, it is a little bit more difficult for me to climb stairs.  It's not that I'm winded or anything, but there's a weakness in my legs that is hard to describe.  It's like they are weighing me down or something and they just don't have the power they usually do.  That, coupled with the knee pain I have there, leaves me feeling not fantastic as I climb up stairs.  I can even handle the hills since I have them on my regular walks, but stairs are different.  But, I did it and felt good about making the decision to take good care of myself. 

 

As we were nearing the end of the hike and heading back to the car, I thought about how significantly my life has changed.  Going on a hike is something I didn't do a lot before.  It's something I didn't want to do a lot before.  Doing things like this makes me feel so grateful that I am present enough now to experience not only the awesome beauty of nature, but also a reminder that I actually like to feel healthy and taking care of my body in a way that now has become very important to me.  This group is going to do another hike in November at Mission Trails.  The leader told us there won't be a gazillion stairs and I know I will go to that.  If you live in San Diego County, consider going as well.  Here's the info:

 

Hike Mission Trails Regional Park, Saturday, November 3, 8:30 a.m."Join Health 101 for a free session hiking Mission Trails. Wear comfortable walking/jogging shoes and bring water. All fitness levels welcome. This activity will meet at Mission Trails in the parking lot across from the Kumeyaay campground on the corner of Father Junipero Serra Trail and Bushy Hill Drive, San Diego, CA 92119"

I believe you have to sign up through the clinic, but it's open to anyone that wants to go (not just people participating in the program).  I'll post more info as it gets closer.

Dealing with hair loss

I love Optifast and the wonderful results I'm getting in not only being healthier, but emotional healing as well.  However, there are a few side effects that I'd rather not deal with.  Most are pretty easy to handle, but some mess with my head a little bit (no pun intended).  The one that I am facing right now is hair loss.  The other day when I was brushing my hair after taking a shower, hair came out in two clumps.  It was so alarming that I wondered if I should try to go in and see a doctor.  Yeah, I'm a little melodramatic at times, but after having cancer last year, I'm hyper-aware of things more than I ever was before.  I went into the bathroom, pulled out a large hand-mirror and then faced the mirror backwards to see the back of my head.  When I moved my hair to the side, there was an alarming amount of hair missing.  I looked like a chemo patient, if that gives you enough of a visual reference.  Generally, I don't worry about this sort of thing because it is just hair and it does grow back, but I wondered if perhaps it could be more.  I have been losing a small amount of hair all along, but clumps of hair ... not good!

I talked with a couple of friends, some that have experienced this while on Optifast, and others who have not.  I got some recommendations for vitamins to take that help grow hair stronger and thicker, but was advised to call the clinic for some advice first, which I was definitely going to do.  I have been using Nioxin, a shampoo/conditioner line that also serves as a preventative measure specifically in dealing with hair loss.  When I talked with the staff at the clinic, the first thing they did was to assure me that this does happen to people sometimes.  They looked at my medical history and said that since I have been losing weight so fast, they're not too surprised.  When I do blood work on Monday, they are going to order more tests to ensure nothing is wrong with my thyroid and that I'm not anemic.  So we talked about the vitamin supplements that I wanted to take.  While they didn't think it would help, given past experiences with other patients, they also told me there was no harm at all as long as I am taking proper dosages.

It just reminds me how the body reacts to the foods we eat and don't eat.  It's amazing to me the amount of years I spent abusing my body with too much inappropriate food and how I was blind to it all along.  It's not as if I didn't see what all the eating was doing to my body, but it is so much easier to pretend it's not happening if you don't look in the mirror and put on a smile for the world to see.  I look at old pictures of me now and I really ache for that person.  I remember the pain I was in constantly just walking, sometimes even just tying my shoes.  I remember when I would sit on the edge of my bed and put on socks and sneakers, I would feel pain in my tummy and breathe heavy as I bent over to tie the laces.  I would get so winded with just simple acts like that.  I would never mention it to anyone else because then, again, I would have to acknowledge what was really going on in my life.  Ignorance is bliss ... or is it, really? 

The good thing is that with the place that I am in now, I can recognize that not everything is easy to deal with, but that I can walk through the feelings that are coming from every direction instead of running away from them.  I can slow down, be in the moment and know that it will be okay.  It reminds me of how I felt crossing that catwalk the other day at school ... the intense feelings I had in the pit of my stomach were overwhelming to me and all I wanted to do was run, but I didn't.  I didn't turn around from where I started to get off the catwalk, nor did I run to get to the other side as fast as I could.  Believe me, I wanted to, BADLY, but I regrouped enough to remind myself that I am not doing this alone, that God is with me in every step and moment of my life, and it will be okay.  I may not always know the outcome, but it will be okay. 

So, here I sit, dealing with a hair loss that is by no means the worst thing in the world.  I'm taking vitamins, so we'll see if they help.  If anything, I can at least look forward to being even more healthy that I already am, with awesome skin and strong nails!  I am also reminded, ever so gently by the medical staff at the clinic, that the hair does grow back ("We have never had a patient go bald", they've said to me).  And, really, that's not so bad.  Just please don't stare at my head if you see me in person.  A lot of people stare at me these days because of all the weight loss, so I'm sort of over all the gawking.  Just sayin ;-)

Here I am seven months later

All of a sudden I find myself having been in the Optifast world for seven months.  It was February 6th when I sat in my first meeting.  To know that I haven't had one drop of food in that time is pretty surreal when you think about it.  When I first started, I remember having conversations with people telling them that I would likely be on the full-fast for a year or more.  Never in my wildest imagination would I guess that I would have lost this much weight by now.  To be honest, I don't know if I even had hoped it would be this much.  179 pounds ... that floors me.  I had clothes in my closet that never had any hope of fitting.  There were some things that I couldn't get much further than my head, like one of the free t-shirts given to me at work that I couldn't even stick an arm through before let alone stretch it across my chest.  Now check it out!

 

 

In case you don't recognize it on me, that's pure joy right there!  That's an XL shirt, not 4X like before.  Not every moment of this journey has been that sort of elation.  There are days when it's really hard to walk through those emotions and having a smaller body that I don't know what to do with.  Lately it's been really hard and yet I also know that it is worth every tear shed and every moment of uncertainty.  I am working on rebuilding what was broken and finding myself again.  Not even "again" ... I would say finding myself for the first time in my life.  Look at that girl.  That's a living, breathing miracle right before you.  God is shining so brightly through me.

Facing my fears and respecting the scale

I am exhausted, beyond.  I haven't been sleeping well with pain in my back and my hands.  These things are not related to weight, but are injuries that are, at times, very difficult to deal with.  Yet, I'm doing the best I can.  Often times when I write my posts, I actually do so with a speech recognition program that's available on my laptop to give my poor hands a rest.  I'm grateful for the lovely technology at my disposal. 

Tonight I had my class at school that is next to the parking garage with a very high catwalk to get across.  This girl is afraid of heights, so I was parking far away and walking a long distance over to the building.  But last week, while climbing the four flights of stairs, my legs felt weak.  I don't know if that was from needing another shake or what, so I thought it was just best not to chance it this week.

The only problem is that I have the dilemma of parking on the first floor of the parking garage and walking up a very long, winding hill to get to the building.  Or, parking on the sixth floor of the parking garage and getting on the catwalk to make my way to the building.  When I was at work today, I went into the office of a friend and wanted to get her advice as to what I should do.  I knew she'd shoot it to me straight ... that's how she is (and I love that!).  In my heart, I knew she'd tell me that I needed to face the fear and go across the catwalk.  Now, I'm a rational person, not fearful of much in this world, but that catwalk seemed like I was just inviting my tummy to separate from the rest of my body.

So, following my friend's advice, I got there early and drove my car to the rooftop of the parking garage.  Gulp.  I said to myself, "Kathy, you can do this.  God is on your side.  He is not going to let you fall off of the catwalk.  Trust, trust, trust!!"  So, as I entered the catwalk, I noticed something that I didn't notice before - while it is a very narrow space given the sort of foot traffic that goes across, there is no way I'm going to fall off of it because it's mostly enclosed.  But the other part of my brain says, "WTF ... It's six stories up.  Are you insane?"  (Well, I might just be but the jury's out on that one.)  I did get out of my car and I did start walking across the catwalk.  My friend told me to not look down, but it was sort of impossible to do given how the catwalk was designed.  As I started to walk across, I felt extremely queasy and wanted to turn back around and get off the ride.  I didn't.  I talked to God the whole way across and then texted my friend that I did it once I was on the other side!  It was a great moment for me of facing such a huge fear and feeling like I could tackle it after all.  I felt like I was wearing my big-girl pants today, with a huge S etched on my chest.

When class was over, I got back on the catwalk to head back to the car.  The feeling I had in the pit of my tummy was back, except magnified like ten times.  I wanted to sprint across the catwalk, and I've never wanted to sprint across anything in my entire life.  I did make it safely across, but I decided that while I'm super proud of myself for facing this fear, the feeling I have when I walk across the bridge is so hard for me that I would rather walk up a huge hill than do that again.  That isn't really the point, though ... I was trusting that God has got my hand the whole way through.  And, truly, that's the whole point.  While I may feel alone in the fear, God is telling me, "Don't worry, Kathy ... I got this!"  Maybe someday again I'll get on that catwalk, but it's okay if I don't do that.  No matter what I go through, I always know God has my back.

Meanwhile, earlier in the day, I went to the clinic and weighed in.  I lost four and a half pounds this week, making my almost seven month total 179 pounds lost.  Sooo exciting!  I am having to accept the idea that my weight loss is slowing down, much to my chagrin.  I'm not going to have weeks where I lose nine pounds any longer and I really have to be okay with that.  I guess, for me, I just wanted to keep racking up those numbers so that I could get to goal sooner.  Yet, I'm constantly reminded that this is not a sprint.  I just need to be slow and steady and, eventually, I'll get there.  I do have a fun little weight chart to share with my readers who are more visual learners like me.  This chart shows my weight loss progression and shows how close I am getting to the goal of 160 pounds.

It feels like I am actually going to get there and that's a real thrill for me.  That doesn't mean I have had the easiest time dealing with all of this change emotionally.  In fact, I have had a very difficult time.  I cried a lot today as I talked with friends at work about my struggles and the fact that I really need to look into working with a therapist to really tackle these issues individually.  I just don't want to cry, even though I know tears are incredibly healing.  I just see myself breaking down emotionally in each and every session with a therapist, but perhaps that's precisely what needs to occur.  I am already in a body size I never imagined for myself, let alone something smaller.  Being in my own skin these days is pretty difficult for me.  I'm not complaining, don't get me wrong, it's just a very strange, foreign land to me and I don't seem to speak the language that everyone else is fluent in.  I'm learning and growing though, so I know everything really is going to be okay.  Trust, trust, trust.

Quick check-in

Since today is Labor Day, our Optifast clinic is closed so I won't be posting any updated weight loss numbers.  However, I will go to the clinic during lunch tomorrow (since, hellooo, I don't need to sit down and have my "lunch"!) and weigh in on that scale.  I could use the one in the health office at work.  It is the sort of sliding scale used at most doctors' offices and it's pretty accurate, but I would like to be consistent and get on the same scale every single week.  Otherwise, you know how we are with obsessing about those stinkin' numbers.  Okay, I won't include you in that ... you know how I am!  So check in with me tomorrow and hopefully there's been movement in my weight loss ticker.  Now, off to studying.  I'm already in the procrastination mode and the semester just started.  Ho hum.