Tuesday was a great day

What, two posts from me in a week? Something must be in the water.  I had a really good day.  It was a busy one for me at work, but in the middle of it, I asked my friend to snap a full-length photo of me because I haven't taken one in a while.  Here's a comparison pic. The purple is me about a year ago and the black is me today.

I am working hard at staying in positive light and moving forward with taking good care of myself, not only physically but emotionally, too.  Sometimes that's not the easiest thing in the world, but seeing where I've come from, like in the pic, gives me great perspective.  I tend to focus on the work I have yet to do.  However, when I do that, I forget how absolutely far I have come.  And it has been really far.  Light years.  That doesn't mean I'm completely not the girl in the purple shirt, just a happier, more confident version.  When I was at the gym tonight, that place was absolutely hopping.  My shirt was completely drenched in sweat because I was working hard and instead of feeling like I didn't belong there, I knew in my soul there was a place for me there just like everyone else.  I was actually chuckling to myself because some guy was blatently checking me out while I was working on one of the bars in the stretching area.  I was doing this exercise where you hold onto the bar (looks like a silver ballet bar attached to the wall) with one hand, then kick as high as you can forward with the other leg and then land your foot behind you in a pivoting motion, only to repeat the process again.  I was doing a couple of sets of 15 on each leg and this guy was near me working on an arm machine.  Except he wasn't working, he was watching my long legs do their thing.  More like staring really.  I felt like saying something smart to him, but I refrained.  Oh, I just remembered something more than awesome that happened this morning that completely slipped my mind until just now.  This girl, who used to weigh 420 pounds, can now use a regular-sized towel to dry off when taking a shower.  I always had the bigger bath towels that were more like beach towels because regular ones wouldn't wrap around me.  I was still using them, assuming I was too big for the other ones, but they were in the dryer so I was forced to try to use a regular one and that bad boy wrapped around my smaller body with no problem.  How crazy is that?  Those out there reading this who have been forced to use bigger towels can especially appreciate how amazing this is.  I'm grateful for the good day I had.

Hallelujah, my word for today

I'm beyond thrilled to tell everyone that not only did I get in a full night of rest without waking up, but that I also had normal blood sugar all day long.  I know you all know how I've been absolutely struggling with keeping my low blood sugar readings normal, so this is huge for me.  Dare I have two nights in a row of this?  I would really love that. 

I worked from home today because I had to be here when the new furnace was installed.  What kills me with companies like this that give you a four-hour window of time is that they can come at any point during those hours and you have to be available.  So I had to be available between 8AM-12PM and then I knew it would take a few hours after they arrived.  And what time did they get here?  Almost noon.  I understand that it's difficult for them to predict exactly when they'll be here because each job takes whatever amount of time it takes, yet no one else makes appointments in that way.  If I had a student or parent come in for an appointment with me at work, I hardly think giving them a four-hour window of time in which they need to sit outside my office until I'm darn well ready for them is going to fly.  Just sayin! Anywhoo, I'm getting off my soapbox now.  My furnace is shiny and new and my home is now warm again.  Hooray.  The good thing, at least, was I was able to get a lot of work done without any interruptions.  One of the big parts of my job is to help students get college scholarships.  It often takes quite a while to get the updates and then post the changes for the students, especially when I have interruptions often throughout the day.  We have great success with our students obtaining a lot of money in scholarships, but it doesn't happen by change ... a LOT of work goes into it.  But today I was able to do a ton while the cats just watched me type.  Apparently that's a nice change of pace for them during the day instead of their usual of taking a nap on my bed until I get home.  Ah, the spoiled life of the two princesses!

Last night I expressed my desire to drop my Tuesday night class at the university because my backside was incredibly uncomfortable in the seats.  I found a section of another class that was open today and after much deliberation, I decided to go ahead and enroll in that one instead.  The problem with this new class is that it meets on Thursday nights from 7-9:45PM.  Almost 10:00 seems a little late to be roaming around campus and then finally crawling into bed at, likely, 11:00 since a live about 20 minutes away and need time to get ready for bed.  However, the more I thought about it, the more I was certain that it just wasn't worth the back pain that the other class would put me in.  I have the same professor for another class on Wednesday nights and he told us that he will never keep us to the end of the class.  He said he's good for about 2 hours and then he starts to get tired, so I can all but guarantee that I will get out of my other class earlier as well.  That was great news.

I think I had a really good day, even though I had to write a $555 check for the furnace.  While I have insurance, it does not cover modifications that had to be done because the other unit was so old.  It still saved me almost $3,000 though.  And, really, I'm not worrying about it too much.  It had to be done, I do have the money and so I'm okay with it. In addition to that, I'm grateful that I had happy blood sugar today, I'm in a new class that will make my back feel so much better and that my food was really clean today.  I can go to bed feeling good about all of that.

Preparing to hit the road

As is my norm, I've procrastinated and now find myself scrambling a little preparing for my road trip tomorrow morning.  I'll be doing a turkey trot 5K in the morning, which I'm looking forward to doing with Sara.  But then right after that I'll be picking up my mom (thankfully she lives near the 5K) and then doing a 5 hour drive to Vegas to spend the holiday with my brother and his wife.  I'm definitely looking forward to it, but I wish I would have done some preparations sooner than now.  I'm washing laundry to throw in a suitcase and I still have to get things ready for my friend who is coming in to take care of my cats.  Breathe, Kathy, breathe!

I am grateful that at least I don't have to worry about food.  I will be on my full-fast Optifast 70 products during the holiday.  I know a lot of people who are going to go off of it for the day so that they can eat with their families.  I totally understand that and definitely don't sit in judgement of them at all but, for me, that month of being on the modified fast where I had one meal a day showed me I wasn't ready to be off the shakes.  I wish that wasn't the case because I was on the shakes for 8 months prior to doing the modified program.  Yet, there were times where that old familiar feeling of wanting to overeat for no good reason was with me.  Cravings came back and I did indulge a time or two.  It just showed me that I still have work to do.  The truth is that I have to let go of that life, as familiar and comfortable yet disasterous as it was and do things differently.  I can't go back there, I just can't.  Getting up to a top weight of 420 pounds is not something that is going to miraculously go away in a few months of being on Optifast and I totally get that.  It takes work and a lot of effort.  I have started journaling again, which has been great for me, and I will continue exploring not only the reasons why I may have/do want to overeat and also divorcing myself from that life so that I can have a better one.  I don't want to be fighting with the food for the rest of my life, that's for sure.  I have already done a lot towards being healthier, like exercising.  I do it practically every day and I have come to love it, honestly.  I wouldn't have always said that before.  I am also learning to appreciate the body I have now, knowing it's a work in progress, but that there definitely IS progress. 

So ... happy Thanksgiving to everyone.  May you appreciate the time you will be able to spend with your family, friends and yourself.  Take a moment to count your blessings.  We all definitely have a lot to be grateful for in our lives. 

Glad to have a non-eventful day

As I have been watching coverage of the devastation the east coast has endured because of the storm, I'm just reminded how precious everything is.  While I have been and continue to deal with painful medical issues, I'm grateful that it's nothing worse.  Don't get me wrong, the pain I live in every day is nothing I can ignore - my body makes sure I am well aware of pain - but big picture here ... I can deal with it.  I thank God that my family that lives in the middle of the storm is okay, that they didn't lose their home and that they're all safe.  It's just a huge reminder for me to count my blessings every single day.  I had an acupuncture appointment today and it was a painful one because my body is in pain, but the action I'm taking is all about healing.  As I laid there with a million needles sticking out of me, I was in a peaceful place.  I even fell asleep on the table ... twice ;-)  Eventually I will get to a place where I will feel better and so I always try to keep my eye on the prize.  I mean, I can consider myself a living, breathing miracle.  I was at 417 pounds when I started Optifast.  Today I can do things that I never even imagined I could do before, let alone hope for.  It will only continue getting better, even with the hills and valleys of life. 

Amazing reaction

My weekly weigh-in was pretty good.  I lost three pounds, which I am perfectly okay with, especially given that it was that time of the month during the week.  Truly, I have finally, finally gotten to that point where I totally get that it is okay not to lose a gargantuan amount of weight each week.  I am doing everything I am supposed to be doing, not cheating on my program and exercising, so I feel good.

During my last post, I wrote about shopping for the dreaded bathing suit.  I had two suits at home, but they were way too big on me when I tried them on.  I was practically swimming in them, so that was a no-go.  I said to myself, okay, I will go out to one more store.  If they don't have something that will work for me, then I will let it be okay.  I really was at peace in the moment about it, realizing it's certainly not the worst thing in the world if I don't go swimming and having gone through my process of feeling negative, then turning it around and ending on a positive note.  It is what it is.

When I got to the store, I pulled about eight bathing suits into the dressing room in different sizes, just in case.  The first one was not looking good on me, so on to the second.  It was a tankini with underwire bra with a cute little skirt for the bottom.  I tried it on and, in that moment, I understood what Cinderella felt like when the glass slipper fit like a glove.  It was perfect on me.  In fact, I looked in the mirror and actually thought I looked cute.  Do you know how huge that is??  Cute in a bathing suit?  Crazy but true.  The little skirt covered the parts of my upper legs that I wanted covered without being long and the rest of the suit accentuated the right parts.  I thought of my ex-boyfriend again, knowing he would have loved the bathing suit on me, and thought to myself, "Ha, you're the big loser, not me, you ass!!"  Okay, I know that was immature, but it's what I felt.  After what he did to me, it was a big deal for me to recognize and really feel in my heart with complete sincerity that he is the one missing out on being in my life, most definitely not the other way around.  When our relationship ended, I was utterly devastated and while he did me no favors, it actually ended up working out for the best because I don't need someone in my life treating me less than I should be treated. 

So anyway, I was proud of myself for being so positive with the experience today and thrilled that it turned out so well.  I'm headed off tomorrow morning with my friend and we are both sooo looking forward to this.  We're excited to become Thelma (me) and Louise (her) for the week, minus the mayhem those two got into!  I am bringing my laptop with me, so I will still be blogging, even from the road.  This is an important process in my program leading towards a successful weight loss.  I am bound and determined that this is my time to finally heal and be in a healthy body.

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!

Weekly weigh-in

I had my Optifast class tonight and found out I lost 7.5 pounds for the week.  That brings my total to 143 pounds shed in just under five months.  I sat in our class and just felt shell-shocked, but in a positive way.  How is it that I have lost that weight?  Me?? I could have never dreamed I would have this sort of positive result when I decided to do Optifast in the first place.  Yes, I prayed that I would lose weight, as I have wanted for all of my life, but I couldn't have ever imagined that I would lose this much, let alone so fast.  As I was driving home tonight, I was listening to music and just got so overcome with emotion.  Tears started to fall from my eyes.  I have so much gratitude for God laying His hands on me and blessing me.  I can't even begin to put into words the depth of what I'm feeling inside, but I'm sure you can well imagine if you've been following my blog for a while or know me personally.

Practice staying in the moment

I'm feeling sort of restless today.  I sometimes get like that when something is either bothering me or I just can't put my finger on it.  As I was thinking about it, I realized that I have not been in the moment, appreciating today for where I am.  Instead, my head is either in the past or in the future.  Especially right now, it's in the future. 

I have been thinking a lot about the transition phase of getting off Optifast product and onto food again.  I'm months away from doing that, probably not until October or November, but it's been in my head a lot.  Last night I pulled open my Optifast binder and went to the section that describes how we phase food back in.  It's a very sensible plan that I found fascinating.  Part of that process scares me because I've been without real food for so long, but the other part of me is excited to be able to sort of start back with a clean slate having not had any bad food in my body for months.  I was reflecting back on my week between my first Optifast group meeting and the second week, where we didn't start on product yet but we knew it was coming up.  Many people have referred to it as their Last Supper.  I tried to have a big, gigantic last supper, thinking this was my last chance at "good" food for a very long time.  What was my poison?  Kentucky Fried Chicken, with all the fixings.  I bought a family meal with a bucket, side dishes and the chocolate cake (even though I'm not really a fan of chocolate).  I intended to work on that thing until it was all gone before going on the product.  I gave myself several days to do it.  Instead, I got sick to my stomach with all that grease getting caught in my throat in the middle of the night and just regretted that stupid decision.  I ended up throwing it out and lost 6 pounds during that week, probably out of pure disgust!  When I go on my walks, I pass by the KFC near my house and instead of being turned on by the smell of that fried chicken, it makes me turn up my nose.  Yuck.

In trying to think healthier, I've been collecting recipes for low-fat or low-calorie cooking.  I enjoyed cooking and want to do things from a cleaner place.  That's all well and good, but why am I going around collecting recipes now?  It seems like that's a torture device.  Even worse, I've been watching a lot of the Food Network and the Cooking Channel.  Any time they are preparing food, I'm fascinated.  I'm not wanting the food, but I'm watching the preparation.  Today I was watching a Foodography segment on how cakes and cookies are related.  I don't want cakes or cookies, but there I was watching it, commenting to myself on how interesting this or that was.  Or on the Food Network, they have been showing a lot of Diners, Drive-ins and Dives with Guy Fieri.  That totally is an indulgent show.  You got oil or butter?  Then it's highlighted there!  Again, I honestly can say I am not craving the food, but I am cracking up on how much crap people put into food when there are other ways of cooking and just the looks of pure pleasure they get when they take a big bite.  Yet, I'm not sitting in judgement because I was one of those people that put bad stuff into my food all the freaking time ... the more the merrier. 

I've also been thinking about my upcoming trips.  I'm excited about going on them, very excited, but they're not here yet.  I leave for one a week from this coming Tuesday and then for the other not until July 20th.  I need to refocus and be here in the moment.  One of the things I am working on this summer at home is boxing up my old clothes that don't fit any longer because they're too big and donating them to charity.  As fun as that idea sounds, there's actually an emotional component I didn't even consider when I started doing it.  You would think I would be absolutely thrilled to let go of them.  Don't get me wrong ... I am very happy they no longer fit me.  Talk about swimming in clothes, they are totally ridiculous on me.  The only things I plan on keeping are my original outfit from the body assessment because I need to remind myself in a very visual way where I've come from.  Perhaps someday soon I'll take a picture of me in that outfit and post it just so other people can see what I'm talking about.  I feel like a little girl in a big girl's pants when I try them on. 

Emotionally, though, letting go of those clothes is like letting go of a piece of me.  Being a larger person is safe in so many ways.  You protect yourself from others possibly hurting you and paying attention to you.  If you've been hurt a lot in your life, it's a protective layer you put around yourself that somehow makes you feel safer.  The negative side to that, beyond the physical difficulties that arise, is that you also layer yourself off from other people and their love for you, whether that is in a romantic relationship, friendships or with your family.  So if I'm focusing on other things instead of putting those clothes in boxes, sealing them and calling the Salvation Army to pick them up, then I can stay in a space that is comfy with very minimal risk.  Ugh, I just heard myself ... time to do it.    It will make me feel fantastic to see the clothes that are way too big on me that used to be way too small on me and to let them go.  It symbolizes so much to me, about letting go of the past and past hurts.  I am so much happier these days than I was when I first started Optifast and I know taking this most loving action will even bring me more joy.  Okay people, this is exactly why I blog!  I have my AHA moments when I start typing all the time.

Upcoming road trips

During July, I will be going on two fabulous road trips.  The first one is with one of my very good friends.  We'll be traveling from San Diego, where we live, up the California coast.  We'll be heading to Santa Barbara, San Simeon and Monterey.  Along the way, we will be staying in lovely hotels that we have decided to splurge at.  I would normally never spend the sort of money on a hotel room that we are during our trip, but, hey, I'm on vacay!  They offer killer views of the ocean, luxurious pools and even massages if we so desire.  When we booked them, we made sure they had fridges and gyms so that we can still take care of our needs.  For me, I will, of course, be on Optifast product and she is doing a special program as well.  So the fridges are for keeping our supplies on hand.  The gyms are to ensure we're keeping healthy.  I'm sure we'll be doing lots of walking on our excursions, but we want to not leave anything to chance.  The difficulty I am encountering is my feelings about being on the product while staying in places that offer great dining and wine tasting.  While I didn't get sad about it, I did tell her I will miss not eating while on our trip.  Don't worry ... I'm not thinking of going off product.  I am committed to my success in this program, as well as afterward.  I know that food will be in my future again and that I can keep the focus on great experiences and the company of my friend.  I was just being honest about how I was feeling.  She told me she understood.  While she is not on Optifast, she will have restrictions as well, so at least we can be there to look out for each other.

Towards the end of July, I will be traveling with my mother from San Diego to Vegas to visit my brother and sister-in-law.  My mother is Filipino and I learned how to make delicous Filipino food from her, like chicken adobo, lumpia, pancet, etc.  Whenever we visit my brother, he always begs my mom to make classic Filipino fare because his wife doesn't like making that kind of food and doesn't make it near as well as my family does (I think you might have to have Filipino DNA coursing in your body to make excellent lumpia).  Normally it is like a feeding frenzy at his house when my mom makes the food, with a bunch of his friends there and everyone absolutely gorging on the food.  My mom does not know moderation so she makes enough food to feed an army, or two.  To take care of myself, I think I am not going to join them the afternoon she makes all that food.  Instead, I'll go to the pool at our hotel, pictured to the left.  Looks scrumptious, doesn't it?  It's not as though I am trying to separate myself from all of them and not having time with my family, but I have got to protect my program as much as possible.  I am sure they will understand because they are super supportive of what I am doing.  The truth is that life still happens, whether or not we are on our fasts.  I am fully aware of that.  While I am feeling strong that I won't "cheat" on my program since I haven't done so already, I also don't need to test myself either.

Round two

Monday night was the end of my 20th week of weigh-ins and a new crop of people came into our group at the Kaiser clinic.  For those that will be continuing in the fasting phase, we stay in the class and new people join us who are just starting their journeys.  About 11 of us are continuing on from the first class, but it was so great to see the eagerness and excitement of the new people.  Our group now has 25 people in it, pretty big for us since the 11 of us were the ones who made it through to the end of the first group.  It was hard to see people dropping out since our group originally started with about 20, but it is what it is.  We are a tight 11, so supportive of each other, and I know we will also be that way with the new people.

Our counselor welcomed them and gave them some highlights of successful stories.  One of our 11, for example, has lost 172 pounds.  Pretty impressive, but she was quick to point out that she has done it over the course of several years with some weight gain in the middle.  Then, he turns to me and says, "Kathy, if you don't mind sharing, can you tell the group how much weight you've lost in the last 20 weeks?"  I just knew he was going to call me out!  He is always so thrilled to see me each week because my rate of loss is pretty astonishing (by his admission, not mine).  He's told me that in the 30 years that he has been a counselor at the clinic, no woman, and very few men, have lost as much weight faster than I have.  So, I addressed the group and told them that as of that night, I had lost 135.5 pounds in the last 20 weeks.  That was followed by a round of applause, coupled with oooh's and aaaah's.  People were asking me if it was all just Optifast or if I was doing something different, almost as if I had the secret to eternal life.  If only!  I described that, no, I just do the Optifast 70 program, but I do exercise a lot now, although that isn't a requirement of the program, just something I enjoy doing now.  When I think about it, it took me about 5 or 6 weeks before I started doing any exercise at all and now I'm up to at least 3 miles each and every day.

When you're starting new in program, they give you a binder full of information, assignments and other things you'll need along the way in the journey, as well as a book called Maximize Your Body Potential.  You are told you will need to bring these two items to class, so I saw all the new people had these things in their hands or under their seats.  I leaned over to one of the 11 and asked her if she had been reading the book or if she was doing the assignments.  She confessed that she hadn't even opened the book.  After a couple of weeks of the classes, we weren't bringing those items in any longer because our support group was not about the topics discussed in the pages but things the counselor would do with us.  I did start reading the book but I had put it down since we weren't going through it.  It sort of felt like homework to me and I figured that when the time came where we were supposed to start reading it, our counselor would let us know.  We both committed to each other that we would, at the very least, start reading the book.  The more I thought about it, the more I realized that they gave me the book and the notebook with assignments or other reading for a reason.  Now that I am in the second round of this phase, I feel I am prepared to really start digging in.

Now that I'm in the book, I can't put it down!  There are sections in there about weight loss, but it is more about being successful in your weight management journey for life.  There is going to come a time when I will be re-introduced to food again and I have to make appropriate choices if I hope to be successful.  It also talks about a very important component that perhaps gets glossed over far too easily ... the emotional and psychological component of weight loss.  How do we deal with thinner bodies?  How do our families and friends deal with us in thinner bodies?  Losing weight is all about us, but it does not just affect us.  I took out a highlighter and really started marking some important components for me, such as:

• A major part of successful weight management is learning to identify and change underlying beliefs that don't serve you, to find new ways of understanding events, to replace negative self-talk with more adaptive thinking, and to cope more effectively with negative emotions.
• Weight reduction is a self-centered activity.  To be successful you must give it top priority.
• You  need to constantly bring your focus back to what you expect to get by losing weight and the costs you will pay for not losing weight.
• Involving others in your weight management efforts in a way that is nonthreatening to them is important if you are going to achieve and stay at your best weight.
• In order to speak up for your needs, you may need to challenge and change old ideas.

There were so many more fantastic gems, but really it is all about being successful in managing weight for the rest of my life.  My character trait/defect of being stubborn is going to come in handy here.  I refuse to become a statistic, one of those poor souls who loses a huge amount of weight only to gain it back.  I have already done that with 100 pounds before and I'm not willing to go through that again.  I am already in a place where I'm in a foreign land ... a smaller body, able to do things I couldn't do before, off of all of my diabetes medication and insulin, with so much more energy.  There is no way on God's green earth I am going to give that up, no freakin way!!  I have too many people who love and support me to let that happen.  And, really, I refuse to let that happen to myself.  Unless you've been where I have been - morbidly obese - you can't understand how painful a place that is.  There is obvious physical pain, yes, but I mean more the emotional hurt deep down inside.  It's a place so painful that I hardly could ever talk about it out loud to other people because then I would have to sit in those feelings and I know I would constantly have tears in my eyes.  Instead, I'd just put on a great smile and perhaps joke things away.  I have used humor far too many times to mask pain.  Dammit, I am worthy of so much more than being less than my authentic self.

I have also opened that notebook and taken a look at some of the writing assignments.  I will start working on those, too.  As much as opening the door to the past is very difficult to do, I must walk through that door to get to the other side.  Avoiding doing so got me to 417 pounds.  No more.  I am taking my life back and telling that horrid voice in my head that screams I'm not good enough to take a flying leap off the cliff.  So there!

Letting go

Even though I still have quite a journey ahead of me as I continue on Optifast, a lot of feelings and emotions have been coming up for me lately.  I'm doing my absolute best to not push them away, but to honor them as where I am in the present moment.  First of all, I am the smallest I have ever been in my life probably since the age of 13.  Actually, probably younger than that.  Who knows when you purposely stop looking in the mirror and try to ignore the increasing number on the tags of your clothes.  That's not to say I'm quite in the category of "small" but for me, yes, I am there.  And yet, I'm not stopping.  My body continues to get smaller as I continue on Optifast and exercising.  So, naturally, now feelings of why the weight came on in the first place are really flooding my consciousness and I am having to deal with feelings of myself and my self-worth.

I definitely am not a child any longer and have really lived a life with lots of experiences, so my image of myself today is nowhere as low as it used to be.  I wouldn't even say I think "low" of myself, but I also have challenges that I have to be honest about and work through if I ever hope of keeping the weight off in the future.  As I have shared on this blog before, I was abused and raped when I was a kid.  Those are not easy things to survive, but you live through them and just try to forget somehow.  I tried my best, but I always felt tainted somehow and even, I have to admit, like I deserved it.  I know, I know ... you're shaking your head at how ridiculous a statement that is.  No one deserves any of that, but I was convinced I did.

I would always look in the mirror and just hate myself.  I always thought of myself as ugly, from my earliest memories.  I was always tall and I never felt like I fit in, having had a Filipino mother and Caucasian father.  I mean, what group could I really identify with?  My look, while some people classified it as "exotic," to me was just plain ugly.  My last boyfriend always told me how beautiful he thought I was and I just never believed him, couldn't believe him, didn't want to believe him.  He had to work overtime to convince me that I was wonderful, worthy and lovely... things I would never believe.  I wanted to, but I just couldn't.  As I was judging myself, I ate to cover up the feelings and always put on a jovial smile for the world to see, not only when I was in the relationship with him but, really, for my entire life.  So when I was teased for being fat, I wasn't surprised and fed into that, resigned to the fact that I would feel that way forever.  I felt people were embarrassed to be seen with me and, hey, I didn't blame them one iota.  The sadness that I felt about myself inside was also showing on the outside.  If you look at some of my "before" pictures on my Pics of Progress page, you can see that sadness on my face, even when I was smiling and trying to cover it up.

So, now that the food has been put down and I'm losing a truckload of weight, here I am, back with those dreaded feelings.  But they're different now.  I have people calling me beautiful all the time, which is a different dynamic for me. I'm not saying that because of vanity, but really it is because I am not fighting with them, trying to convince them that they're wrong about me, that they must have me mixed up with some other person.  As I look in the mirror now, I don't look away or even avoid looking in the mirror in the first place.  I don't regard my reflection with hidden shame.  I am facing the image that stares back at me, realizing that I am exuding something altogether different these days.  I am not punishing myself for being abused and raped.  Those are horrible things to live through, but I did live through them.  I am here, alive, thank you God for getting me through.  Time to let go of the past.  I don't need to repeat patterns that were self-destructive for me and my well-being.

There is so much wonderful healing that has happened.  Maybe that beauty is shining through because I finally get the fact that love includes loving ourselves just as much as loving other people.  I can think of hardly any other more loving act towards myself than that of taking care of my health ... physically as well as emotionally and spiritually.  There is power that comes from self-care.  I am not abusing my body in self-destructive ways any longer.  In the process, I am finding joy and happiness.  Those are things I do not need to fear, as if they are going to be taken away from me at any moment.  If I am smiling, maybe, just maybe it is because that is what I am feeling inside.  I do not need to revert to old defense mechanisms, which were standard things I did when I was treated less than I should be.

Those that claim losing weight through Optifast is taking the easy way out frankly just don't have a clue.  When you don't have the food to give you a sense of ease and comfort, it's as if you are left out in the cold, feeling naked and incredibly vulnerable.  I would submit that, actually, a weight loss program involving food is actually the easier route.  This is damn hard!  Yet, I know in my situation, I had gotten to a place that nothing other than some sort of drastic program was going to help me get healthier.  As I continue in my work of letting go, I also get to embrace the beauty of life and all the possibilities that are laid out before me.  Gone are the days where I convince myself I am unworthy of anything good.  I deserve so much better than that, we all do. 

Cheating while on the program

Whenever someone leaves a comment for me on a post from my blog, it comes to my e-mail address.  Someone did that today and I have not been able to find their original post to reply to, so I'm just going to address the question in a new post completely.  The question was whether or not I have cheated while on the program and what are the risks if I do.

Personally, I have not cheated with food while I have been on Optifast.  Except for one time, I have not been even tempted to do so.  When I decided to do the program in the first place, I had hit a bottom and a low in my weight and health I couldn't ever imagine I would experience.  I was willing to do absolutely everything I was told to do.  If the clinic told me that I can only have shakes and no food, then by God that was what I was going to do.  I didn't want to die and that's really the direction I found myself facing.

Sometimes people do cheat while on Optifast.  We are human beings, not perfect by any means.  For me, one of the biggest deterrents from doing this was because then my body would have been knocked out of ketosis and I, for one, did not want to go through those two rough weeks again until I was back in ketosis.  I was so incredibly hungry, lightheaded and irritable during that time.  Some people can go into ketosis in just a few days, but it took me a full two weeks.  No thank you!

Something has definitely come over me in this program.  The things I am doing and have been willing to do were things I tried and failed at many, many times when trying other methods to lose weight.  Something different has happened to me here.  It's actually rather puzzling, but I certainly am not going to question it in the slightest.  I put one foot in front of the other and walk forward ... that's the absolute best I can do.

The coolest thing!

When I was at Kaiser last night for my Optifast class, I did routine blood tests, which is required of my program every other week.  Since I am diabetic, one of the things they test is my hemoglobin A1C level.  This is the daily average of a person's blood sugar level over 2-3 months.  It is a more accurate analysis of how someone is maintaining control of their blood sugar than the daily meter because it takes all numbers into account since we can go high or low.  Kaiser wants diabetics to aim for a number of less than 7%.  I received results of the test this morning.  As you can see from my graph below, I am now under that number, 6.7 to be exact.  Looking at my history over the last three years, that's almost half of where I have been.  I could never begin to express how much this means to me.  This is something so tangible more than just the numbers on the scale.  It's an incredible gift that I have never experienced since I was first diagnosed with diabetes.  Thank you, God, for this.

Feeling it today

This morning when I got up, the sun was already shining through the windows, beckoning me to throw on my workout clothes, lace up my shoes and get out there for a glorious walk.  I love beautiful, gorgeous days like these and couldn't wait to feel the sunshine on my face.  As I headed out, I felt invigorated.  Yesterday was a pretty emotional day for me.  I spent the afternoon with friends from work at a going-away party for someone that got a promotion.  We all were sad to see him go, but happy for him and his new opportunity.  As I was looking around at the other people there, I was just so grateful that I work at the high school where I work.  I am surrounded by so many wonderful people on a daily basis who are so supportive of me, and I feel the same way for them.  Then, later in the day, I received a letter in the mail from my determatologist saying that the biopsy he just performed turned out to be benign.  I wasn't sitting in fear everyday about that like I would have been previously because I was living in faith about the results, whatever they would be.  As I was walking down the street, I just felt so good inside.

Then, as I turned the corner to head up a hill, I started crying as I listened to music in my headset.  Not sobs, but just the release of these emotions that have been building for a while.  I felt overwhelmed, like I needed to drop down to my knees right then and there in thankfulness to God.  Last year was a horrible year for me - I had cancer that required two surgeries to get rid of, I had an additional surgery due to a work injury on my hand, the man I was dating ripped my heart to shreds and I weighed 417 pounds with compounding medical issues such as diabetes, hypertension, high cholesterol, foot problems and so much more.  Contrast that to me on a 3 mile walk that I do everyday in a body that is 121 pounds lighter after just four months on Optifast, I am cancer-free, I am practically off all my medications and I was feeling, wait for it ... joy.  God has supremely blessed me and does so repeatedly.  I am just so grateful and incredibly humbled.  Who knows what He has designed for my future, but I'm excited to not only be in the moment but greet that unknown with a trusting heart for the first time in a very long time.