Am I having a gall bladder attack or being a bit of a hypochondriac?

I was being lazy when I had my meal this morning and didn't measure out what I was supposed to.  I don't know if that was the cause, but I felt absolutely sick to my stomach after coming home in the afternoon and was convinced that I was having a gall bladder attack.

I know, you're completely laughing at me right now, right?  Admit it, you are!  Panic much, Kathy??

One of the biggest fears that someone who goes on Optifast has is that they are going to develop gall stones and will be required to have surgery to remove their gall bladder.  While you do have to have a medical pre-disposition for it, it does not happen to every person on the program.  One of my friends that had this happen to her years ago described the symptoms to me.  I was in such excruciating pain today that, as I was laying in my bed in a practical fetal position, I had my cell phone in my hand and typed in "gall bladder symptoms" in the browser.  It was a pathetic site - me in mind-numbing pain while surfing the net on my smartphone.  While I didn't have every symptom on the list, I had a good chunk of them.  Yet, we all know how unreliable sources could be on in the Internet.  For all you know, I could be a 12-year old boy pretending to be a grown woman with some weight to lose!  That would be a little demented, but, hey, it does happen from time to time.

I did end up skipping my class tonight because of the pain and falling asleep for a few hours.  I'm still in a lot of pain now, but it's nowhere near where it was.  I'm continuing to monitor it and see how I feel.  I really don't know what the cause of it was, but oh my gosh was it beyond.

On the other pain front, the doctor's office called me today about my legs and they want to do a series of more blood panels to rule out some other conditions before sending me to a specialist.  Essentially what's going on is that I have had very painful legs since starting the program in February.  I have radiating pain from my toes all the way up to my hips, although mostly concentrated in my upper legs.  It leaves me with the inability to do most exerting activities, let alone the simple ones, with my legs.  Climbing stairs is a real challenge ... each thigh feels like it weighs 200 pounds each.  Sitting in a chair or getting in a squatting position is very hard without me grimacing.  When I sit in a chair, I sort of have to plop down because of the pain.  The thing is that when I exercise, I just power through the pain.  When it first started, I really thought it was just my body adjusting, going from being sedentary and then adding in all the physical activity.  What it feels like is the day-after pain and soreness (amplified times ten) when a person starts exercising after a long period of not doing anything.  Lately the pain seems to be getting worse and, as I do more physical strength training with my body, the more I have realized something is very seriously wrong, more than just typical aches and pains.  The nurse practitioner at the clinic is stumped and has consulted with the head doctor on staff.  In addition, my hands have these bulging veins coming out of them.  I don't know if that's a normal thing with weight loss or is somehow associated as well.  Take a look at them (yes, I was lame and snapped a couple of pics).

I don't know if the camera really captured the bulkiness of the veins, but I never had them like that before I started the program and it has me in a little bit of freak-out mode, wondering what's going on.  Just as a side note, look how skinny my wrists look!  Who knew I'd lose weight there ;-)  Ongoing battles in my world that I need to remember to take a day at a time.

Weekly weigh-in

Okay, so I got reminded today about why we're always told to weigh in on one scale.  There is about a three pound difference between the scale I have at home and the one at the Optifast clinic.  In fact, I weighed myself when I got home from my class tonight just to make sure.  I wish I could take the lower number, but I'm ultimately happy with the two pounds I lost this week.  I promise I am!  This is important because I had a meal added to my days and really it's about acceptance that I'm exactly where I'm supposed to be in this moment.  People, I have 70 pounds left to lose.  Do you have any idea how huge that is to me?  It feels so surreal, get completely thrilling at the same time.  Having started this adventure needing to lose 256 pounds to get to goal, that feels absolutely insane to me. 

I was the only one to hit the pavement in our lunctime walking group today.  Most people forgot their shoes and I think others just don't want to do it.  That's seriously okay, really.  I know I am committed to getting the exercise in and one of my other friends, who wasn't at work today, wants to destress, so we're really doing it for ourselves.  If others come along for the ride, that's fantastic.  I did have a killer hill that I had to manuever on the walk, but it was good.

Speaking of hills, I spoke to the clinic about the pain I've been experiencing in my legs.  Something is seriously wrong, so they're sending me to a specialist.  Meanwhile, I'm pushing through the pain as much as I can stand it.  I'll let you all know more when I know more.

Dancing with the scale and tonight's dinner

A couple of months ago, I ceremoniously got rid of my scale that I had in the house and posted about it here.  Ever since I got rid of it, I think about weighing on it far more than I actually did get on it.  At our clinic, they caution us to only weigh ourselves there and only once a week.  I get the reasoning behind it but I guess the practice of weighing myself for me (and this is just me) is that it is a sort of gauge to tell me I'm on the right path.  Obviously this is not all about the numbers on the scale since they don't report inches to me.  Yet, it does give me a good reality check just to see if I'm heading in the right direction.  I get that there are fluctuations from time to time, but it has been very hard not to hop on scale at home to see how I'm doing. 

So when I was at Walmart today, I was in the aisle where all the bath furnishings were and there were the scales.  After some vacillating back and forth, I decided to pick up another scale and bring it home.  A big reason for that is now that I'm eating a meal again, I want to see how that is impacting my weight, in either direction.  I haven't been living vicariously through the number as though it determines my worth as a human, but I guess it's important to me to know the number and that's just the plain truth of it.  I got on it and here's what it said.

Last week's weigh in had me at 232.5 pounds this past Monday, so that's a loss of almost five pounds.  I was pretty shocked, especially given that I haven't lost more than three pounds during any of the previous four weigh-ins.  Obviously that added meal is not only helping with the lightheadedness I have been experiencing, but also giving me extra calories throughout the day that my diabetic body has needed.  I am still feeling very weak in my legs, which I'm going to talk to the clinic about tomorrow when I go to my class, but I can tell adding the meal in has already helped.  I'm in no way discounting what I did by bringing a scale back into my house, but it did make me feel good about the fact that I'm heading in the right direction.  I think that's my whole point ... I need to know I'm doing things that are good for my health.  Sure, there are going to be fluctuations and the scale may very well say a higher number before I get on it at the clinic tomorrow, but for the moment it felt okay for me.  Who knows what that means for me keeping the scale around, but I just need to be honest about where I am with it.  I remember times when I would weigh on a scale at home and my weight started with a "4", as in 420 pounds.  While 417 was my starting weight when I began Optifast, 420 is, to my knowledge, the top of it for me.  What a joy to know I've worked my way down to 227.8 pounds. 

Okay, enough of that!  For today's meal, which I have in addition to my Optifast shakes, I had the most divine dish.  I had two and a half cups of salad with zero calories/sugar/fat salad dressing from Walden Farms, which I have every time I have the meal which, by the way, is awesome.  My opinions about Walden Farms are my own, but go to their website and read their customer reviews.  You'll see how much other people love them, too!  The star of the dinner was my version of spaghetti except I didn't use any pasta.  It included 3 ounces of lean ground beef (which can be substituted by ground turkey, ground chicken or even veggies for the vegetarians out there), 1/2 cup of cooked spaghetti squash that I nuked in the microwave and 1/4 cup of pasta sauce from Walden Farms, also zero calories/sugar/fat.  Oh my gosh, it was fab-u-lous and incredibly filling.  It made me not miss pasta at all.  Since I weigh and measure my food, I have enough leftovers for four more meals.  Yeah baby!!  Take a look at my finished product.  I really didn't capture it's true deliciousness in the photo ... you just have to give it a try yourself.

This was on a small salad plate, even though it looks like one of the dinner plates.  It's so amazing how much I appreciate great tasting, healthy food now.  I was enjoying slicing mushrooms, tomatoes and romaine lettuce as I was making my salad - just feeling the vegetables underneath my hands as I chopped them, seeing the vibrant colors and feeling the textures in my mouth.  For those on the full-fast Optifast plan, you'll know what I mean when you re-introduce food into your day.  Don't rush to get there, but do know there is so much variety and opportunity there for you.  Taking care of my body today feels really good.

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.

Eek, running on empty

This last week has been so stressful for me.  Actually, it's not just this last week but probably since this last month or so that I've returned back to work from summer break.  Ah ... those were the days!  I was able to get up at a leisurely hour (somehow I figured out how to get 8 hours of rest each night), go walking for a few miles and pretty much do what I wanted.  Getting back to the pace of working, going to school, doing my program, exercising and just life has left me exhausted.  I came home today from work, had my dinner and then found myself crawling into my bed for a little nappy-poo.  I don't even remember falling asleep. 

The truth is that not getting enough sleep is completely dangerous.  I was shaky at work today from it and that's just not good.  A couple of people have noticed it on my face, although I'm trying to do a good job at masking it.  Don't ask me why I feel the need to cover it up.  Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I just want to appear like I'm handling things or some such load.  The truth is no one can function well on three hours of sleep a night and that's what I've been sporting lately.

So, to that end, I'm doing what I can to clean things up a little bit.  A friend and I started a walking group at work, which will begin on Monday.  I sent an e-mail out to people in the office saying we're going to start walking and asking if they'd like to join us during lunch.  We'll still leave time to eat food, but this is really our way of getting out and exercising at least every day and destressing.  I'm totally all for having less stress in my life.

I also have become somewhat addicted to blog reading.  It's not a bad addiction in the grand scheme of things, but between the blogs I was following through Google Reader and messages coming into my e-mail, it was too much for me to handle.  So if you have a blog and I've stopped "following" you recently, I definitely am still reading but I need one list to work off of, which are all the blog links posted on my site.  That way I can see when people have posted something new, I'm not trying to maintain too much and it's just more manageable to me.  I get so much from what other people write about.  Often times, the things they go through are the very things I go through as well. As I continue to lose weight and change so much in my life, it's vital that I stay grounded and follow the example of what is working for others as well.  I need to make the time for that, just like I need to make the time for exercise and sleep.  We're in this together ... and I wouldn't have it any other way.

Not just a restaurant spectator any more

Today was the first time in almost eight months that I have gone to a restaurant and actually ate a meal.  For the entire time I have been on Optifast products, I have gone to restaurants with friends to be sociable and not isolate myself just because I happened to not be eating food at the time.  I couldn't do it in the very beginning, given it was all new to not be eating anything.  But after a month or so, I was able to sit with other people who were eating and be satisfied with my unsweetened iced tea or diet soda.  Today, since I now have one meal per day in addition to my six shakes, I chose to have it in a restaurant with a friend after work.

We ended up going to a popular restaurant that I have overeaten at many times before.  I couldn't believe how much room was between my seat and the edge of the table when, literally, I was squeezing into the booth before.  It was just another visual reminder of how far I've come.  Now, I just can't decide to go to a restaurant and leave it to chance that I will be able to select something from the menu.  I went online and looked ahead at their menu to figure out not only calories and carb servings but also sodium content since I'm trying to watch other areas as well.  The restaurant we settled on had a good variety of foods and it seemed like I had a couple of choices in selecting something.  Still, that was no easy task.  I toiled over my decision but finally decided to go with a fish dish.  The frustrating part was that everything came smothered in one sauce or another.  When the waitress came to take our order, I told her I wanted the fish but I wanted it plain with no special sauce or oil on top.  She told me it also came with steamed broccoli (good) and rice or a potato (not good).  So I asked if I could substitute a small salad for the starch and requested that the salad come with no croutons or cheese and to have the fat-free dressing on the side.  The look she gave me was along the lines of yes, we'll accommodate you but I'm not happy about it.  Well, regardles of that, I have to take care of myself and if not now, then when?

So out came my slimmer version of a pretty terrific tasting fish.  It felt great to be able to be in a restaurant and ask for what I wanted.  It felt like healthy living to me.  And I was able to take home my leftover fish and broccoli to make two more meals.  More importantly, I wasn't at all obsessed about what I was ordering.  I made the decision and then just moved on from there.  I was able to enjoy the company of my friend and be present enough to experience every part of the situation.  As each day passes on the partial fast, the more comfy I'm starting to feel.

God, please don't let me EVER forget

Quite an emotional day for me.  I was checking in with a friend at work today, letting her know how it's been going adding a meal back into my plan.  Eerily, there is a peace about me when it comes to the food.  I had such great fear swell up inside when I was abruptly told to add a meal of actual food and not just the Optifast 70 shakes.  Yet, I've been walking through the fear.  As I was telling her about this, she pulled out her cell phone and told me she wanted to show me something as she was sitting at her desk and I was standing on the other side of it.

She handed me the phone and there I was in a pic taken on my birthday last year, December 4th.  I'm posting it below, along with a pic taken just last week of what I look like now for comparison sake.  Take a look.

 

I saw the pic on her cell phone and immediately my eyes welled with tears, and then her eyes welled with tears and, before you knew it, we were both gone.  She showed it to me so that I could be reminded where I came from.  Sadly, my weight would get higher than what you see in the top picture.  Lord help me, but I never, ever want to forget the pain of living in that body.  Not only physically, but emotionally as well.  Look at that picture, beyond the smile on my face ... I mean really look at me.  There was such misery and despair there. 

 

Eating regular food again has brought up so many emotions, but the most important one is that I'm really getting to see how strong a person I am.  I am handling the food just fine.  More than fine actually.  I'm weighing and measuring my amounts and feeling awesome about the choices I'm making.  I made the most delish salmon, steamed broccoli and salad for dinner tonight.  It was beautiful and tasted amazing.  Oh how I've missed the fish, especially salmon.  I put Mrs. Dash and salt substitute on it and it was probably the best tasting salmon I think I've ever had. 

 

I'm sitting here typing on my laptop in just utter amazement at the work God has done in me.  Some would say I did all the work, and they're perfectly entitled to their opinion on that.  My opinion is that God has carried me through this, given me amazing power every single step of the way, and I know He will continue to do so.  I have been given strength to move mountains and each day I come back asking for more.  There is so much hope and opportunity sitting in front of me.  That feels completely awesome.