Feeling proud of myself

I just have to say that I rock.  That sounds pretty egotistic, doesn't it?  There's an actual reason.  Here it is.

This is a report from MyFitnessPal on the exercise I did this week.  These were my lunchtime walks with my co-worker/friend.  We take lunch for an hour, so part of that hour is exercise and the other is eating our lunch.  I didn't get a walk in on Monday, but walked every day except that this week.  Today's walk just about killed me.  We decided to take a different route, one that we haven't taken in a while.  It's got hills in it, which I knew were going to be hard for me since the extra weight makes every hill feel like I'm getting my butt whipped.  This one was no exception.  By the time we got back up the hill and returned to our school, I was huffing and puffing and feeling sweaty.  I don't like that.  I sat in front of my fan in my office and just relaxed while I ate my lunch.  It wasn't until later this evening when I saw this chart summarizing how I've done and I felt a little bit like a bad ass!  I have passed up cupcakes, pie and cookies that were at work this week.  I drank lots of water.  And I laced up my sneakers that I keep in my filing cabinet and went to burn calories off.  It is so fantastic to know I'm doing something great for my health while also alleviating stress at the same time with my friend.

I do have to say that I am feeling good to be ending this week on such a positive note.  I do have plans to exercise both days this weekend, probably a local walk near my house tomorrow and I think a beach walk on Sunday.  It's supposed to be really hot here on then, so go to the beach I say!

Water Challenge Day 54:  Drank  132 of 182 ounces

Pre-op class #6 and weekly weigh-in

I connected with my primary care doctor today to discuss the low blood sugar reading I had yesterday.  In fact, looking over the last two weeks of numbers, yesterday was not the only time I was way too low ... it was the fourth.  She is making an adjustment on my medication, so hopefully things will improve.  I'm glad I consulted with her because I actually had another low reading today when I came home after my pre-op class.  I hate even typing that to be honest because I know people are concerned.  Trust me, so am I.  This keeps me accountable.  Somehow posting what's going on for whoever happens to read my blog keeps me really honest.

Speaking of the class, I lost another two pounds for the week.  Yay me!  It's been a slow but steady decline, so I'm happy with that.  When I look at the alternatives of either gaining weight or staying the same, I'll take it any day of the week.  Tonight our topic was about assertiveness.  I can really see how assertiveness, or lack of it, can cause me to go to food instead of dealing with something.  When I think of situations, I completely see how that works.  I have a simple but good example of this.  When I have to order more contact lenses, I do it at Costco.  When I did that last month, there was only one person working at the counter with a long line of people patiently waiting.  A person came up and actually cut in line, even though a bunch of us had been waiting for a while.  Instead of saying something, I let it go.  Something about not wanting to cause a fuss because I think I would have been rude if I would have said anything.  Of course, no one else said anything either.  Then later on, when I got home from shopping, I found myself munching on food even though I wasn't particularly hungry.  At the time, I knew it was because of Mr. Line Jumper and the fact that I didn't say anything.  Sometimes I have no problem being assertive, yet at other times it's a struggle.

Our facilitator discussed the fact that, in her opinion, overeating is a misguided attempt to fulfill unmet needs.  She's right.  Did I really have to pick up food to deal with the fact that I was mad at Mr. Line Jumper and even madder with myself that I didn't say anything?  What purpose was the munching going to fulfill for me?  Honestly, all it did was make me feel bad for having snacked unnecessarily, making me then want to keep on doing it.  It's such a negative cycle that feels like a vortex I can never get out of once I start picking up the food in the first place.  It reminds me of that movie "Groundhog Day" with Bill Murray.  Have you seen it before?  It's such a perfect example of this cycle.  They guy is living the same day over and over again.  No matter how hard he tries to get it to change, somehow he can't get out of the trap he's in of playing the events over and over again.  That's what a food addiction is like to me.  I say to myself that it'll be different this time.  Yet, when I go to the food for reasons other than nutrition to fuel my body, the guilt of that then convinces me to carry on until I've eaten the whole thing.

I really need to spend some time in reflection of how my overeating has been a cover to fulfill unmet needs and really identifying exactly what those unmet needs are for me.  Awareness of that will go a long way to continued good health.  At the same time, I need to keep moving my feet and my seat.  Using the MapMyWalk app on my phone every time I exercised, it showed me that I walked 10 miles last week and burned 3419 calories.  That seems pretty awesome to me.  One step at a time.

Water Challenge Day 40:  Drank 183 out of 183 ounces

Pre-op class #2 and weekly weigh-in

Week two of the pre-op classes is done!  This session was pretty fantastic.  The topic was about establishing a new relationship with food.  One of the things I love about these classes is that we're not just focusing on the logistics of the surgery.  That is great information to have, but I think focusing on the reasons why we eat to excess and the emotional component is just as important.  It is highly possible for people to have the gastric bypass surgery, lose weight and then put it back on.  If the problems are not addressed, there will not be a long-term solution.  I don't want to go through the experience of having the surgery and all the holes I've had to jump through to get there only to gain the weight back again.

One of the things I shared with the group was the fact that I was struggling with feeling extreme hunger this week.  I was told originally to follow a 1200 calorie plan for weight loss.  Suggestions were given in terms of what sorts of foods to eat with the ultimate goal of losing the recommended ten percent prior to the surgery.  I kept thinking to myself, "1200 calories doesn't seem like a lot."  In fact, I started worrying about it.  If you give a blanket calorie amount to everyone in the room, not accounting for their height or activity level, is that really going to be successful for everyone?  My food is great at breakfast and lunch but I am absolutely ravenous by the time I'm ready to head home from work each day.  I'm talking I felt so hungry you would probably be able to hear my tummy grumble from across the room.  As we working on an activity in the class, I had a pretty significant aha moment.

We were asked to write down what times we eat at each meal:

Breakfast:  6:00 a.m.

Lunch:  12:30 p.m.

Dinner:  6:00 p.m.

Morning snack:  Hmm ... 

Afternoon snack:  Hmm again ...

Then I realized, what I minute, I'm going way too long between meals.  From breakfast to lunch it's six and a half hours, lunch to dinner is five and a half hours.  That's assuming I'm eating on time.  I will bring snacks but get so busy at work that I forget about them and don't eat them that often.  Add to that the fact that I am diabetic and, well, it's just a hot mess.  Well, duh Kathy, this is why you're so flippin' hungry at the end of the day.  The leader of our group suggested that I have a protein shake when I'm leaving work.  I can even use my old Optifast packets that are collecting dust in my pantry.  Geez, why didn't I think of that?  I know it sounds simple, but I just never realized how long I was waiting to eat.  The other thing that struck me between the eyes is that, on one of our handouts, it says that 1200 calories is recommended for women.  It didn't say, "Hey Kathy, you suck if you go over 1200 calories."  This is another example of the perfectionist thinking that goes on in my head.  If you need more than 1200 calories to the point that you feel weak, your blood sugar has dropped and you have pounding headaches, for the love of everything that is holy, GO EAT!!

The rest of chapter for this week went over some suggestions on how to moderate eating now to be as healthy as possible and help us transition to the time when we will be having surgery.  Some of them included:

• Good nutrition is a critically important step toward my overall health.  I can start with a personal commitment to myself.
• The goal of good nutrition is to maximize my potential for good health every day.  I cannot achieve and maintain good health by occasionally eating well and eating poorly the rest of the time.
• Remove toxin-laden foods from my environment and stop buying those foods.
• Keep a food journal and honestly document my food consumption and use the journal to determine if any foods cause allergic symptoms.

Obviously many of these are common sense things hopefully every healthy adult would incorporate into their lives.  However, if you're like me and have had problems with compulsively overeating, bingeing or have had some sort of addiction to food, you know that common sense can often times be thrown out the window.  In many ways, I'm like a child that has to learn how to walk again.  Sometimes that means baby steps and sometimes that means running.  

As far as my weigh-in, I did lose a pound this week.  I was going to write that I "just" lost a pound, as if I need to apologize for not doing as well as I think I should have.  The truth is, though, that I need to not be so self-critical and that includes putting some expectation on myself that I think I have to live up to.  I lost a pound and that's great.  If I lose more next week, that's great, but I can be supremely grateful that I'm taking action toward getting healthier.  That's what matters the most to me right now.

I'm going to try to go to bed earlier tonight and give my CPAP machine another go, so my water consumption is going to be lower.  I don't care because I realized today, while talking to a friend at work who has adopted the water challenge for herself, that I drink about a gallon and a half each day.  I'm sorry, but that's pretty dang awesome!!  Yay me ;-)  Seriously, that is a crazy amount of fluids, especially for someone who had a tough time getting in more than 1-2 bottles a day.  Rockin' this!

Water Challenge Day 14:  Drank 104 of 186 ounces

Needing more structure

Incredibly happy it's the weekend, beyond happy  I still am not getting great sleep, so I'm looking forward to getting rest tonight and this weekend.  Tomorrow I'm taking my car back to the shop.  I had a bunch of things done on it earlier in the month, including having the front and rear brakes replaced.  However, when I'm stopping from faster speeds, the brakes are making loud sounds.  I'm trying not to do a freak out about it because it should be something they would take care of, I'll just have to see when I get there in the morning.

After taking care of my car, I have an appointment to have a consultation at Jenny Craig.  I actually wasn't going to talk about that here for quite some time for several reasons, but I decided that it's a forum that is mine and is the whole point of blogging.  I hope someone can gain from my experience, but it's ultimately for me to write about what's going on with me.  I have been following the Weight Watchers plan for about six months after ending my Optifast adventure.  With WW, there just isn't enough structure for me.  It's very easy to hide in the background or behind a computer screen.  For me, and this is just for me, I need more structure and accountability.  When I was on Optifast, I was one hundred percent compliant and was accountable to the counselor of our group.  It was different than the groups in WW.

So I've been looking at other programs, doing a lot of research, reading blogs of other people's experiences and just gleaning as much information as I can about what the right move is for me.  I can't stay in this place any longer.  I need the help to get healthier and just to feel better overall.  Sure, I dream of getting back into my size 16 jeans (or even going lower in size).  The pain I have in my legs I know will be better with less weight on my body.  I actually have this blog to thank for helping me come to a decision.  Writing out how I've been feeling on a pretty normal schedule has really helped me own where I am and what I'm feeling.  I know there may be some people reading this that are convinced that Jenny Craig is "just another diet".  Who knows, it might just be, but it is offering me something of what I need.  I need to be accountable to another human being and tell them what's going on when it comes to my weight and my eating.  Through the program, I can meet with a counselor on a one-on-one basis 1-3 times each week with no added costs.  That is really appealing to me.

After I made the final decision that I was going to move forward on this, I have to admit that a huge weight was lifted off of my shoulders and I felt ... happy.  I just so desperately want to feel better.  The funny thing is that I'm not even balking at the cost.  It's actually about the same cost of what I spent each week on Optifast.  When I add together all the money I have spent on going out to eat, Starbuck's drinks and my food at the grocery store, it pretty quickly starts really getting in the ballpark of the cost of doing a program with so much support and help.  It's what I need and, frankly, what I want.  I deserve to spend this money on myself, my happiness and my health.  So I meet with one of the counselors tomorrow morning at 11:00 a.m.  I have done the program before and lost a lot of weight and I know it is possible for me to lose weight because I lost 190 pounds on Optifast.  I feel strongly that this is a good move for me and I also know that if it's not right, the door swings both ways.  Now I pray for strength and courage as I walk forward.

Discovering the box under the bed

I was going through my closet today on the constant quest to purge the clothes that are way too big on me to wear outside my house.  It's hard to understand for someone that hasn't had the same experience, but it can be very exhausting to not fit in anything in your closet because everything is too big after so much weight loss, forced to get more clothes from somewhere.  I know ... a nice problem to have, right??  While I am so grateful to have this sort of problem, it actually is much harder to deal with than it appears on the surface.  I've been very fortunate that people have passed on clothes to me (thanks so much people!), but there are times when I have to supplement them with purchases, too.  No matter what, though, I have to get rid of my bigger clothes.  I can't hang onto them as if they're some sort of safety net just in case I might fit into them again in the future.  I don't want them to fit me again in the future.

There are some things that are too big that I have chosen to hang onto because they're not falling off of me quite yet or can be manipulated with belts and safety pins.  But, after I looked at what I was left with, I had a light bulb moment.  It was one of those aha moments Oprah would always talk about.  What a minute ... don't I have a box under my bed of clothes I had been hanging onto?  I dropped to my hands and knees, crawled under my bed and pulled out this plastic carton that had been sealed up so long that it took a little bit of brute force to get it open.  And, like a rainbow shining over a pot of gold, there it was.  Oh my gosh, there it was!  In this carton I put some clothes that were dream clothes I was hoping I would fit into again one day, items I was never willing to give up hope on.  Granted, they were in there for a very long time.  I think most of them went in the carton right before I moved over from the district office at my school district at work to my current high school site.  That was when I had lost about a hundred pounds, was looking awful cute in some short skirts and other things, then started gaining weight back until I managed to put back all the weight and then some.  I wasn't at my smallest by a long shot when I fit into them, but I thought I looked pretty good in them at the time.  Vanity run amok!!  So, it's been at least seven years since they've seen the light of day, if not longer.

As I opened the box and started pulling the pieces out, I looked at them and thought to myself, There's no way on God's green earth these are going to fit me.  Remember, I was not at my lowest weight when I fit into them but I had myself completely convinced that they were much smaller than my body is today as I held them up.  But, I decided to try them on anyway, just for shits and grins, as my dear dad always says.  I wanted to see how far off the mark I was.  At the time when I was wearing them, they actually were tight on me, probably a couple of sizes too small.  So imagine my utter shock when they all fit either perfectly or were too big on me now.  What a cool feeling that was.

Is this really just about a box of clothes?  No.  It's about a dream realized.  A dream I dared not think about for a long time.  I tried for years and years to lose the weight.  Like I've said before, my entire life has been spent on this roller coaster of weight loss, gain, loss, gain ... well, you get the picture.  I completely commend people who were able to put their minds to it and lose the weight through diet and exercise, all the while doing it on their own. 

Trust me, I gave it my absolute best effort and tried for a very long time.  It was failed attempt after failed attempt.  Instead of losing weight, I just grew larger and larger.  With the weight gain came a killing of my spirit.  I eventually grew to 417 pounds before I finally was willing to take life-saving measures.  Think about it -- how many times have you ever heard of a woman weighing 417 pounds?  I mean, you hardly hear of men weighing that much, never mind a woman.  Yet, that's where I was, so please don't judge my choice of seeking the help to lose the weight through a medically supervised program such as Optifast.  Until you have walked in the shoes of someone that was 256 pounds overweight or more, you can never understand the desperation, the utter despair, the hopelessness that comes with living in that body.  Even being 100 pounds overweight is not in the ballpark that I found myself in.  It's not my intention to disrespect anyone's weight struggles, but I just want others to understand where I was coming from when I decided to go on a liquid fast.  There's a lot of work that comes with this, though.  I work out often, I am committed to being 100% compliant in the program and I am walking through all the emotions that come along with releasing the weight.  Trust me when I say it's not an easy or easier road to travel by any means.  If anything, I'm constantly getting slammed in the face with overwhelming emotions because it's happening so fast.  Dropping 183 pounds in about seven and a half months is fast.

Okay, off my soapbox I go ;-)  Now that I've gone back in the carton and tried everything on, I have decided that these skirts, tops and other things deserve to be a part of my wardrobe again.  Some of the skirts are short, perhaps a little bit shorter than I'm comfy with because I haven't been showing a lot of leg in the last few years.  It's been out of humiliation and shame, thinking that I had no business exposing so much skin.  But, on my constant quest to better myself and be brave, I will wear them.  These things used to make me feel cute and pretty before, so why not now?