Weekly weigh-in

I had a pretty kick-ass week with a loss of 6.3 pounds.  Hooray!  I have to say that the weight loss is feeling great.  Just in case you may be under the assumption that the surgery did all the work, think again!  I have been exercising a lot and watching the food I eat like a hawk.  I weigh, measure and record every piece of food I have and I'm one hundred percent honest with myself.  The surgery is but a tool.

I had a post-op visit with my surgeon today.  It went really well.  He told me that I am doing a fantastic job on my weight loss.  In fact, he said I am on the high end of loss for those at the same stage as me.  That was a great boost.  I did talk to him about what should be the primary focus - how much protein I get in or the amount of calories.  He told me I should be focusing on both.  I shouldn't get in too much more than 600 calories a day on average, even when I exercise.  He explained that most of the significant weight loss will happen in the first six months.  After that, things drop off dramatically so I want to be sure I'm in the weight loss mode now more than ever.  He is strict on how fast I progress through the stages of adding food back in.  Some doctors move their patients pretty quickly to foods such as chicken or red meat, but that isn't what he does.  Something he explained to me that was surprising is that he said your tummy actually shrinks even more in the weeks following surgery before it gets to a point that the restriction isn't as significant as in the initial phases.  So basically he told me to keep doing what I'm doing.  We talked about other issues I'm having, such as the low blood sugar, light-headedness and more.  He was very patient with all of my questions, which I appreciated.  Sometimes I feel like I ask too many questions, but I'd rather be safe than sorry.

Change of gears.  A couple of days ago, I posted a picture of myself online in Facebook, MyFitnessPal and on Instagram that was an updated shot of what I'm looking like now after six weeks post-op.  Here it is if you didn't get the opportunity to see it.

I have been floored at the sheer volume of people that have told me I look beautiful and pretty. Sometimes I expect comments like that from friends because it's just something we do:  "Oh, you look so beautiful today" or "Oh my gosh, don't you look pretty!"  However, I posted this picture in a gastric bypass group and on my Instagram feed, so not everyone in those places knows me personally.  They have no vested interest in saying I look pretty except if it's coming from an honest place.  This has been so shocking to me, on one hand, and difficult to deal with on the other.  Of course a woman always loves to hear compliments, but one of my biggest self-esteem issues has always been that I think I look ugly.  I always had a different kind of look.  I wasn't a blonde Barbie but I also wasn't the typical Asian girl either.  My ethnic background is very unique with me being Filipino, German, Hungarian, Norwegian and Scandanavian.  I never really felt like I looked like anyone else and, therefore, on the outside looking.  But here are perfect strangers telling me quite the opposite.  It just helped me realized that I can stop hiding behind my body and come to accept myself just as I am right in this moment, a creation of God, and that's better than just okay.  I don't have to beat myself up by saying that I'm ugly.  Besides, a person is only truly ugly if they're ugly on the inside and I know I'm not.  These are exactly the sorts of things that keeping on weight does for me.  It convinces me that I'm some sort of monster dragging her hands on the ground when that's just not true at all.  When I embrace myself, I am happy with who I am.  Look at that smile in the picture ... that's not fake.

How my day went

I have to say I had a lovely day, which I guess surprised me on the first day of a new program.  My food went great.  I actually need to have one more snack before I go to bed to make sure I get everything in.  It does feel like a lot of food, but really it's not.  I think it feels that way because I'm eating a lot of fiber-rich things and that definitely is making me feel more full.  The food tastes really good and I'm feeling thrilled that things went so well.  Yes, I know I'm on my first day but it's a great start for me.  I told my mom that I'm doing JC and she was surprised, but happy.  She confessed that she was really worried when I was on Optifast because, as she told me, "You were sooo skinny."  Now, I've had a lot of people call me things but "skinny" has never been one of them!  I showed her all of my food and my planned menu.  I do have to say that I really appreciate that I don't have to make many decisions around what to eat outside of which fruits and veggies I will have.  That leaves me more open to focusing on other things besides the food.  I am an emotional eater, so I want to work on the reasons why I have gone to food as a coping mechanism.  I know I'm not alone in this; many people suffer the same malady.  I really want to be healthier and happier with my body.  It feels like an almost impossible task.  Who in the world is happy with their body?  Perhaps my thing is that I want to be happier and eventually I can get to a place of love and acceptance.  I am just so critical of myself and I want desperately to move away from that.  Anyway, on to day two.

Own worst critic

I've been MIA for longer than I wanted.  I think I just needed some time to process the last few days and sort of regroup. When last I posted, I was going to head out to Vegas for a final mini vacay before heading back to work from the summer break.  It was both a great time and not at all a great time.  I always drive to Vegas since it's just five hours away.  This time I went alone and was going to meet some friends there.  The plan was to stay at the Venetian for two nights and then head back home.  My mom was really anxious about me driving out by myself and kept asking me if I was going to be okay.  She's a worrier, so I did my best to assure her I would be fine.  Besides, I have my cell phone so I was confident I would be okay.  Just as I was beginning to head up the Cajon pass, I saw flames shooting out of a mountainside on the right.  I knew it was going to be bad.  In a matter of minutes, this is what was in front of me on the freeway:

What this picture doesn't show is the helicopter that was literally right above us dropping fire retardant on the mountain to the right.  There were about 20 fire trucks that came in front of us, forcing us to a dead stop on the freeway.  We were stuck there for at least an hour and it got to the point where I knew the names of the people who were driving next to me because we were all out of our cars.  It felt pretty surreal.  After we got on our way, I encountered three accidents on the road.  So a five hour ride turned into a nine hour nightmare.  By the time I checked in at the hotel, I was done.  Stick a fork in me, I'm done!!  When I called my mom to let her know I arrived safely, she burst into tears.  It turns out my grandmother, her mother, died.  My mother was so upset I told her I would check out of the hotel and come back home so that I could be with her.  She refused to let me do that, telling me instead to have a good time.  How am I supposed to do that exactly when that happened? 

Worse still are the circumstances behind my grandmother's death.  The short story is that they were having a huge amount of rain in the Philippines where she was.  She walked everywhere she went, that's just the sort of place it is.  She went to my uncle's house and he and his wife refused to let her in because they called her a "witch" for getting their children sick.  The last couple of times she came to visit, the kids ended up sick so they think the reason is because my grandmother was visiting and she had some sort of evil spirits with her.  I know, it doesn't make sense but that is what happened.  She was visiting on foot, having walked from her home to theirs, and so she turned around and tried to walk back but by this time the rain became dangerous and flooding occurred.  Since they refused to let her into the house for shelter, she had no choice.  She had to find some sort of shelter from the downpour.  She was 83 years old and her little 90-pound body could not take the weather conditions.  She fell in the water, couldn't fight the currents, and died.  They found her the next day.  It's one thing to die of natural causes but the callousness of the family members is incomprehensible to me and it just hurts my soul every time I think about it.  Someone please tell me how I'm supposed to have a good time in Vegas with this sort of news.

I did stay and tried to make the best of it, checking on my mom several times to make sure she was okay.  I stayed in the most gorgeous room.  It was pure luxury, that's for sure.  It had a full living room, dining room, remote-controlled drapes, three TV's including one in the bathroom - it just was heavenly.  Here's a couple of pics I took the first day (I didn't take more because I was beginning to feel very touristy):

While my surroundings were to die for, I became very lonely.  I was in a relationship that ended two years ago, one that ended very badly.  For the most part, I'm doing so much better than I was at the time but I have my moments were the deep hurt I felt at the time surfaces.  He absolutely broke my heart and it has taken a long time to pick up the pieces.  Of the times I think of him, which is much fewer and far between than before, is when I am in a hotel room.  Over the years, we traveled a lot or would meet in a city between the both of us when we were apart (we dated long distance for quite some time).  No matter what the situation is, if I'm in a hotel room, I think of him.  It always felt like we were on a honeymoon in those rooms.  Don't worry, I'm not going to get graphic here but there was just a very strong connection between us.  Being in that sublime king-sized bed made me feel very small and it hurt from a deep part of my soul.  It didn't help that I got hit on while I was in the casino level of the hotel because I didn't want to do something stupid that I would regret later.  Besides, I know it would make me feel lonelier so I didn't need that.  While there, I was definitely doing a lot of comparing of my body to these girls with fake hair, fake boobs and fake everything.  I just felt so inadequate - I guess that's the right word.  I know I have no business comparing myself with other people, especially the fake kind, but it's what I did.  Even when I saw overweight people I wondered if I looked as big as they did. 

I've been back at work for a couple of days now.  Today we had summer registration for our seniors, so I saw a lot of parents that I haven't seen in a while.  And, unfortunately, I saw the looks they exchanged when they saw me.  Last year at this time, I was at almost my lowest weight and it was very evident that I have gained a lot of the weight back.  Not all of it, thank you Lord, but a significant amount.  I held my head high as I walked in front of hundreds of people today but it was extremely difficult for me to do.  Honestly, there was a huge part of me that wanted to just hide away.  It shouldn't matter what other people think but the truth of the matter is that the very things they think are the things I that I think about myself only ten times as worse.  I'm very well aware of the fact that I have gained weight.  I feel like a failure in that respect because there's a big part of me inside that feels like I just couldn't cut it.  Seriously, how hard is it, right?  You just eat less and move more, right??  Perhaps for some people it's as easy as that.  For those of us with an addiction to food or emotional issues that we deal with through food, it's not a simple proposition in the slightest.  I mean, good Lord above, I spent 10 months I think it was purely on Optifast products to lose weight.  I had absolutely no food to speak of for all that time, being 100% compliant on the program.  I was taking in about 500-600 calories a day through the shakes, something like that.  It was crazy, especially with all of the medical issues I was having as a result, but you do desperate things when you are in a desperate situation.  At 420 pounds, I was absolutely desperate.  Other people might not have the drastic consequences that I did on the program, and good for them if that's the case, but it was not good for me in the end.  However, the positive thing that came out of it besides the great friendships I developed with other people going through the same thing was that I recognized I am capable of having a smaller body size.  So I'm working on getting there again through healthy eating and exercise.  The difficult part is that I am in a lot of pain, especially in my legs, so the more I exercise the more pain I'm in.  I'm trying the best I can to push through it because I know things will be better all around when there's less weight on my body.

Ugh.  I wish I could just click my heels together three times like Dorothy and - poof - be in another time and space where I am in a different body.  Yet, I am a faithful person and I am trusting that God is having me go through this time and this difficulty for a reason.  He's loving and a I absolutely know that, so I'm just trying to put one foot in front of the other and do the absolute best I can in this very moment right here.  In the process, I'm trying the best I can to be as loving as possible towards myself.  I need to be able to look in the mirror and honor the person staring back at me.  A lot of people love her, so the least I can do is try to do the same.  I need to be less critical and know that things will come together in due time.  There's a reason I'm not with my ex right now.  Frankly, that &*%! jerk did not deserve me, and so I need to work through those lonely moments and know that this, too, shall pass.  And the times when I'm being critical of my body have to be times where I don't shy away from the mirror but love and accept myself where I stand right now, in this very moment.  It won't be this way forever and if I do the work, it will get better and better each day.  Perhaps there will be physical and emotional pain that comes along with that, but this, too, shall pass.

The true definition of love

You may have noticed that I have a LOT of links to other bloggers on my blog.  Some are doing Optifast like I am for their weight loss, while some are doing it through other methods.  Regardless, I get so much from the journey of everyone who walks along the path to good health like I am.  I can't read all the blogs every single day, but I do try to keep up, comment when I can and reflect on the writings and experiences of others.

Yesterday I read a completely fabulous, beautiful and inspiring post from Jennifer over at It Sux to be Fat.  She talked about the love between she and her husband, referencing 1 Corinthians 13:4.  Even if you're not a Christian, you've probably heard the verse a million times at weddings.  "Love is patient, love is kind ..."  But one thing that she said that hit me square between the eyes was to have us think about whether or not we show ourselves this kind of love.  I have not been able to stop thinking about it since reading the post last night (if you haven't read it yet, seriously, click on the link above and read it - it'll hit home). 

As I lose more and more weight, as I become more present in this world, I am faced with the task of accepting myself as I am - right here and right now.  That means accepting my excess skin that is showing because of the weight loss, my imperfections as being wholly perfect in God's eyes and, essentially, loving myself unconditionally where I stand right in the moment.  As I was reflecting on the verse and my response to it, I realized I am way too hard on myself.  Way. Too. Hard.  I'm going to repost that verse and those associated with it below and then break it down in a way to help me see where I can continue growing.

1 Corinthians 13:4-8:  "Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly; it does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.  Love never fails."

So the questions I am asking myself are these as I look at how I show myself this kind of love ...

Am I patient with myself?
Am I kind towards myself?
Am I jealous of others?
Do I brag about myself?
Am I arrogant?
Do I act unbecomingly?
Am I self-seeking?
Am I easily provoked?
Do I not take into account wrongs I have suffered?
Do I celebrate the truth?
Do I believe positive things about myself?
Do I have hope in myself?
Do I have hope in others?
Do I endure?
Do I see myself as a failure?

Looking at this list of questions, I am attempting to be as honest with myself as I can possibly be.  I have a long way to go.  This in no way minimizes the road I've already traveled, but it also helps me see that I need to keep staying the course on this road.  There are reasons people overeat or partake in some other sort of addiction.  It is my charge to do things differently in my life.  Do I need to seek comfort and solace in a bag of chips or scoop of ice cream?  Of course not.  Yet, those things are an easier method of escape than dealing with why I am sometimes not kind towards myself, why I am jealous of things other people have, of why I tell myself lies about the sort of person I believe myself to be and so much more.  I am absolutely my own worst critic, convincing myself of things far worse than anything else someone might lay on me.  I am certainly not patient and I am not kind towards myself.  However, I also am starting to see the things other people see in me.  I do have a good heart, I am a loving person and I have a lot I contribute to this world.  I just get to keep working on finding a meeting point between the worst ideas I have about myself and the reality of who I am.  It seems so much easier to believe the worst about ourselves than the best.

In what ways do you show yourself love?

Weight loss leads to a changed life

I didn't get great sleep last night.  I tried, but it seems the more I tried, the more it alluded me.  Why is that?  Frustrating!  I tried to shake it off because I knew I wanted to go for a long walk today to get some exercise in.  I crave it so much during the week and it's hard to get it in everyday because of my crazy schedule.  I decided that I would go walking around Miramar Lake.  Since I am now having that one meal a day in addition to my shakes, I decided that I would have it in the morning.  Walking five miles, especially when you're on Optifast, is difficult when you're trying to keep the energy going.  As peculiar as this was, I did have fish, green beans and a salad for breakfast along with a typical shake.  Yeah, I know, weird!  But I knew it would give me the extra fuel I would need.

As I walked around the lake, I was very well aware of my competitiveness and purposely tried to slow down.  Other times when I've walked there, I would try to go around the five miles as fast as possible, hurting myself in the process the entire time.  This is not a race to the finish line, Kathy!  I felt good today, at peace with myself.  I had motivational music coming out of my iPod to keep me going.  MC Hammer kept telling me I was too legit to quit and even Katie Perry was reminding me that I was a firework!  Music makes such a difference to me when I'm exercising.  I did the course in just over an hour and a half and burned 866 calories. 

I thought about how drastically my life has changed since starting this journey of weight loss.  There are things I'm doing now that I never thought I'd do before, or want to do before.  Case in point:  walking around a lake for five miles.  I was thriving out there, though.  I have much more stamina than ever.  My body is a miracle when I think about it, especially after what a lifetime of obesity has put it through.  When I started the program, I was suffering with out of control diabetes, high blood pressure, high cholesterol and it just seemed to be breaking down.  My skin had so many stretch marks from being taxed to the brim.  Now I have normal levels of blood sugar, blood pressure and cholesterol.  I don't need to take medication any longer to keep them under control.  I can fit into chairs, booths, behind steering wheels and have no problem crossing my legs. 

That being said, there are physical problems I have as a result of all the extra weight over years that I hope gets better, but only time will tell.  I have diabetic neuropathy in my feet, which leaves them tingling and in pain (although manageable).  I have a bad knee, which my doctor is not sure is a result of the extra weight or a car accident I had years ago.  I have other areas that concern me, but the one that I am working hard at dealing with right now is the excess skin.

Having now lost 185 pounds, I have a vast amount of loose skin and I know more will be added.  I know a lot of people talk about theirs, but I've never seen anyone have it as bad as I seem to.  My thighs, for example, look twice as big as they actually are because I have so much excess there.  Gravity completely breaks my heart when I stand up because all I can see when I look in the mirror is that skin.  Perhaps I'll be brave enough one day in the future to post pics of my loose skin, but I'm not there yet.  I have shared pics with one friend because she's been there and has been so encouraging during this entire weight loss process [thank you for your unending support, my friend]. 

Don't get me wrong ... I'm not necessarily complaining about the loose skin.  I would rather have it than have my body full of fat again.  It's just hard to look in the mirror and love myself past it.  Will I have skin removal surgery in the future?  Probably, but I haven't made any decisions on it yet.  Then, yesterday, I ran across a post from Tara over at A Life Changing Journey where she talked about this very issue.  Not only that, she posted pics of her skin.  Reading about her journey and all the comments from others is so helpful to me.  I need to be able to look at my body and love it, right here and right now.  I'd be less than honest if I said that was easy to do because it's not.  I think about a future relationship I might have with someone and I wonder if he will love me with my excess skin.  I know intellectually that love is about more than just what is on the outside, but emotionally it's still difficult for me to accept.  When I was with my ex-boyfriend, he always told me how beautiful I was to him and he was with me at almost my heaviest weight.  He was able to see past what I couldn't.  Will that be the same situation for whomever is next in my life?  Things look fine with clothes on, but you just don't know what's going on behind closed doors. 

This is a great source of pain for me and I just need to own that. The pain really isn't about the fact that I don't like how it looks but really it's about years of abusing my body with weight gain and the damage I was doing.  It's not until I was out of it that I realized the full extent.  Even when I was at the lake today and runners would pass me in their skimpy outfits, I'd look a their bodies for signs of loose skin.  Of course I couldn't see what I was looking for and I remember thinking how lucky they are.  Obviously everyone has issues in their life, so who knows what goes on with them in private, but in the moment it was just about the emotional pain of dealing with the excess weight.  Yet, I know I have to continue dealing with these feelings as they are coming up and continue working at acceptance that I am exactly where I am supposed to be right now. 

At the end of the day, the changes that have happened during this weight loss have been wonderful, miraculous and joyful.  I know they will continue to be.  Things will also get better in accepting my imperfect body.  When I think about it, I've come a long way from when I first started, so the sky really is the limit in terms of where I end up.  Maybe it's something I will be dealing with for a long time, but I also am grateful at how far I've come already.

Bathing suit shopping

A few weeks ago, I wrote about some difficulty I was having in trying to buy a new bathing suit for this summer.  Since I will be leaving on Tuesday for my first of two trips, I'm starting to run out of time to get one since I do plan on swimming during my vacation.  So I decided that I would get this done today.  The last time I tried on bathing suits, I was really hating how I was looking because of all the excess skin on my upper legs since losing the weight I have lost so far.  I do have two bathing suits at home.  One is a few years older and I never liked the way it fit on me.  The other one is a tankini top with a skirt for the bottom.  I wore it last year.  I wasn't digging the skirt because it didn't really suit my tastes, but it also reminded me of my ex because I spent a lot of time wearing it when we were together.  So I wanted something new.

I went to a store that I knew had lots of bathing suits that would fit me.  I grabbed about ten different ones and went into the dressing room.  I decided to take pictures of myself with each one on with my cell phone so that I could objectively select the best one for me.  I hated the fit of each and every one.  I even grabbed bathing suits that were a few sizes too big to see if that would help, which, of course, it didn't.  They were either body-hugging and made me uncomfortable or the excess skin was prominently displayed and it made me incredibly uncomfortable.

In all this time that I have been losing weight, I have not been as negative about my body as I was when I was in the dressing room trying on those bathing suits today.  I finally had to get out of there.  As I was leaving the store, a woman crossed my path, but not before she looked at my body up and down.  I swear, I could have decked her for taking a look at my body and blatantly staring at me.  But whatever, I wasn't caring about her in that moment. 

I got in my car and caught what I was doing.  I was completely feeding into the negativity.  I sat there for a minute and said to myself, Whoa, stop it right now!  Okay, so things aren't where I want them to be today, but like hell was I going to let myself play into the stupid mind-game that I was entering.  There is an amazing work that is being done within me right now and I am not going to discount that by horrid self-talk.  So, I began to refocus.  I quickly did a little gratitude list in my head of where I am right now from a physical standpoint, since that was what I was focusing on.  It included things such as:

• I have lost 143 pounds in five months, which is no small feat.
• When I first started Optifast, I was wearing clothes that were size 34 or 4x.  Today I wear an 18/20 or 1x.
• I am no longer a diabetic who has to inject insulin or take oral medication.
• I can fit behind the wheel of my car without a seat belt extension when before my tummy always touched the steering wheel and I had to have that extension.
• I no longer sweat, except when I'm exercising.  In fact, most of the time I am cold.
• My skin glows because of all the water I'm drinking.
• I have an incredible amount of energy.

I could go on and on with the list, but you get the idea.  Beyond the physical changes are so many wonderful things as well.  Ultimately, I need to face the fears I was feeling inside, whatever they may be.  Maybe I'm not perfect, but I'm exactly who I'm supposed to be right where I sit today.  I am a loved person, even I know that deep down inside.  I was not going to let that negativity that was doing it's best to creep in stay with me.  I refuse to do that to myself.  I deserve so much better than that crap!  Actually, we all deserve so much better than that.  That's not to say that it doesn't take a lot of work to combat the negative talk.  It does, but I really don't want to repeat patterns of the past.  I want to walk forward in the healthiest way possible.  I am thrilled I was able to catch myself in the moment.

Journey of a thousand miles

As I was doing some reading this morning, I was reminded of the saying, "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step".  When I started Optifast, I knew it would be a journey for me because I didn't have just 40 pounds to lose.  I knew it was going to be significant.  As the weight started dropping off, though, I got in this mindset that I should be losing a minimum of double digits every week.  A little insane?  Definitely!  As my friend Melissa blogged about, it is a process.  I have been fortunate to have lost more than the average person almost every week.  I mean, when I think about it, I lost 45 pounds in the first month alone.  Now that is crazy.  Granted, I started off needing to lose a lot but I never expected to shed so much in 30 days.

As time marches on, it's now been five months that I have been on product.  And it will likely be almost as long until I reach goal weight.  That little girl inside of me, who is super impatient, is loudly stomping her feet in the corner screaming about how unfair that is.  Ten months of no food, not even healthy food, let alone the stuff that got me here.  That's a long time.  Women conceive children, deliver them and take them home in a shorter amount of time.  While I don't have desire for food, I do think about how I have been able to do it so long already and how I will be in the second half of this.

The truth is that I don't have some magic source of willpower.  I don't have this resolve inside that says I am just going to do this!  If I did, trust me, I would not be doing a medically supervised liquid program.  I have people that contact me and flat out ask me how I am doing this, especially when it seems to come so easily to me.  I don't know.  When I came to the Optifast doors, I knew I had to follow directions and not try to say "Yeah, but" at every opportunity.  I needed to give up the fight and let go of all the notions I had about how to lose weight.  I was desperate enough to shut up about it and put that one foot in front of the other.  No one can appreciate the true challenges that come along with this type of program, not only the physical ones but moreso the emotional ones, until they have done it themselves.  This program is unique in that it does take off the weight, but it does not end there.  In fact, for most people who've already been through the program, they say this phase was the easier part.  The hard part is maintaining it and living regular life.  I can well imagine that's true. 

My daily journey right now as I face more weight to lose is to focus not on how long it is going to take me to get to a satisfying place, but to focus on where I am right here and now.  That road of a thousand miles is one foot in front of the other that, for me, must be done with peace.  I can't spend the time doing mathematical formulas as to how many calories I'm burning every day, looking at my carbohydrate ratios, trying to get away with eating foods that are "free", obsessing about how long it takes me to walk while I'm exercising or any of the other things that sometimes plagues people when they are losing weight.  Instead, I need to celebrate my daily successes.  I can honor the journey I have already been on and feel the power of that.  And each day that I arise, I can remember that all I have is that one day to be present in, not the past and certainly not the future.  There is beautiful peace in that, a peace I would rather live in humbly and by the grace of God.  So if you see me exercising, I am not timing how long it takes me to walk a mile.  And if I cry on the way home from one of my weekly Optifast meetings, it is not because I did something wrong ... it is because I am in a place where it feels like the weight is just being taken from me, but with love and encouragement.  I feel this miracle in my life so deeply and if there is ever a time where I take it for granted and think I should have lost ten pounds during the week, God reminds me where I have been by a person I meet, an old picture of me at my heaviest, the look of shock on someone's face when they haven't seen me in a long time, the happy smile on my face when I look in my own mirror or even just the gentle breeze I feel when I am outside putting that one foot in front of the other.  I get to celebrate all of that every day.

Power of positive thinking

Today is a holiday in the U.S. and a time when family and friends get together, typically around food and alcohol.  I wasn't with my family today and people I would have hung out with were with their own families, so I was alone. It made me think about my ex, Mr. What's His Name.  I miss being in a relationship, but not one in which I am with someone that treats me less than I deserve.  On days like this, though, I miss it more than normal.  In my days before going on the program, I would have used food to avoid uncomfy feelings, like feeling lonely.  Not today.  In fact, I didn't even have a desire for food, even though the fourth of July is about hamburgers, ribs and hot dogs by a barbecue.  Instead, as feelings come up, I need to deal with them.

One of the things I have been doing is really trying my best to incorporate positive things into my life as I continue on my weight loss journey.  There will come a day when regular food re-enters my life and I definitely do not want to fall back into old patterns that brought me to 417 pounds in the first place.  I strongly believe in the power of positive thinking.  I remember this old Saturday Night Live skit with Al Franken playing Stuart Smalley.  Do you remember that?  He would look in the mirror and say things like:

"I'm good enough.
I'm smart enough.
And doggone it ... people like me."

Each time I would see it on Saturday Night Live back in the day, I would crack up.  I would think to myself, "Do people actually do that in front of  a mirror with a straight face?"  I couldn't ever imagine that I would do that and be serious because it just seemed really ridiculous.  And while it does take the notion of positive thinking to an extreme, there is some validity there to a certain degree.  I know that when I come from a positive place, even in the face of extreme adversity, it is a much better way to approach life.  I don't need to sit in a mirror and tell myself that I'm good enough or smart enough, but I can combat any negative talk with positive energy.  People who do so have less stress, are healthier and just generally seem happier.  Part of the process of putting weight on over the years involved an extreme amount of negativity about myself and I frankly am unwilling to go down that road any longer.  I'd tell myself that I was ugly, unworthy and deserved it if I found myself alone.  Then, lo and behold, I'd find myself in the food, with no immediate escape possible.  Looking back over my day, I realized that there was none of that negativity with me.  I may have been by myself today, but that was perfectly okay.  I was able to work on boxing up some of my clothes that are too big, watched a movie and even gave myself a pedi.  Best of all, thoughts of food were not even with me.  These are things I need to really appreciate and celebrate more often, especially when I know people who are really struggling with their programs, whether Optifast or other methods of weight loss.  For me, the struggle and the clawing through white knuckle moments are just simply not there.  Instead, I have peace inside.  What a miracle that is for sure!

I'm not a turkey

My mom came over to my house today to spend some time with me and to do her laundry.  She hasn't seen me in two weeks I think it is.  She came into my house with a greeting of "Oh my God!!"  I get that reaction from people a lot these days if it's been a few weeks or more since they've seen me.  She asked me how much weight I've lost and was just astonished when I told her.  Not five minutes passed before she took the opportunity to tell me that she wished she could give me some of her boobs since apparently mine are now small.  She's gained a lot of weight over the years and now hers are pretty big.  I looked down at mine and wondered what she was talking about since my size hasn't changed at all there since dropping weight.  I decided to let it go.  Then she started talking about what she's doing to lose weight and how she's joined a gym, expressing that she thinks I should join one, too, to lose more weight.  I stepped in and said that what I am doing is perfectly fine.  I almost felt like saying to her, "I've lost 135.5 pounds without a gym ... how much have you lost?"  That felt sort of childish, immature and a little braggy so I just told her that I enjoy exercising so much more outdoors than paying money for a gym membership.  Then she started to say that I need to have skin removal surgery under my chin because I was looking saggy.  That just congured up an image of a turkey in my mind.  Do I have turkey neck now?

I told her that I am not worrying about that right now because I still have a lot of weight left to lose so we'll see what things look like around my face later on.  Besides, I said to her, I think I look fine.  She didn't need to know that I have already been having personal feelings about excess skin (although not around my chin, that was a new one to freak me out).  I didn't want her to feed into any insecurities I was having.  How about the fact that I've lost so much weight ... can we please celebrate that and not pick on any flaws you might see in me, Mother??  I was not about to pick a fight with her, but come on!

It reminded me of when I was a kid.  I was never good enough for her.  She was always picking on the clothes I was wearing, how pretty she thought I wasn't and certainly how I was too fat to be her daughter.  Things have most definitely improved in our relationship over the years and I can, in fact, have a relationship with her as an adult.  She is no longer abusive towards me and does try to love me in the best way she can.  I had to remind myself that she is limited in terms of knowing how to say something or how to be appropriate.  She just doesn't have a filter.  I am not going to rip at her because she is not tactful, but I did let her know she was starting to hurt my feelings.  Argh, how is it that family can still push your buttons?  The good thing for me, though, is I said what I needed to so she could understand that it's not okay to pick me apart, but just to love me anyway.  This is the most challenging thing I've ever been through in my life and I need her support, not criticism.  She got it.  Finally!!!