The urge was overwhelming

I took the day off of work.  We were having a professional growth day at the high school where I work and so I decided to take the opportunity for a four day weekend.  I have a research paper due by next weekend as well as another to finish up.  My quarter for grad school ends this coming week so I need to go out with a bang and remain focused.

On my agenda today was to get my car smogged for registration renewal, return some clothes I recently bought that were too big and to do some research for my paper.  I have been working out a lot so what was NOT on my to-do list was working out at the gym.  I needed to give my body a day of rest.  And all I could think about today was the fact that I was not working out and how much I really wanted to go to the gym.  Who knows when the shift occurred, but it has. Taking care of my body now is of paramount importance to me.  I did refrain from going because I realized that there has to be some balance in this weight-loss process and building muscles. That's not the easiest thing in the world for me to reconcile because I seem to be 0 to 60 in so many facets of my life, including exercise.  I still managed to somehow get in over 6,000 steps, but nothing near my normal amount.  

Speaking of building muscle, I have had a weird thing going on where something in my head is making me very afraid to get on the machines at the gym. I have no problem working on the cardio machines like the treadmill, recumbent bike and the elliptical machine, but when it comes to getting on the machines for building muscle I just have a really hard time.  I think a big part of it is emotional. The cardio machines are easy. You get on them and you sweat and then you get off them ... you're done.  However, the muscle-building machines seem like an entirely different beast. You spend time working on certain portions of your body in areas where there are very fit people building their muscles as well.  Sometimes when I am around people with these awesome bodies, especially the men, I just get very self-conscious. I really can't explain what it is exactly, I just know that I am much more aware of my body in those moments. There is also this fear that I will start working on a machine and do it wrong.  Sounds like I'm sitting in a lot of fear, doesn't it?  I know this is just a hurdle that I will move through. I just need to put one foot in front of the other and not worry so much about being imperfect. Easier said than done!

Remember me?

Hi everyone.  For the person that sent me a message basically asking me if I was alright because they haven't seen me posting in a while, I want to say thank!  I have been a horrible blogger.  I know I come on every couple of weeks and say that, then don't post for a while, but I mean it.  Life has been crazy for me ... working full-time, grad school, dating, working out every day.  Yet, I still need to stay focused and centered.  To be fair, I spent about a week away from Facebook and Instagram, too, so it's not just here. 

Weight-wise, I have been in a stall for a couple of weeks.  I know I'm building muscle so there are going to be times when I lose less.  I just figured it out last night and I'm seven sizes down from when I started this whole surgery journey.  My clothes, in many situations, are just hanging off of my body.  It's really pretty crazy.  It's literally a day to day to process because I'll have times when something fits me and then, boom, the next day I have to put it in the donate pile.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  It's just a different reality for me these days.

One of the things I'm noticing now is that the honeymoon period is over from the surgery.  Those that have had the gastric bypass or vertical sleeve know exactly what I'm talking about ... everything is great right after the surgery, there is no desire to overeat and certain foods that you always binged with you could care less about.  Now, though, those old feelings have resurfaced.  The doctor has taken me off all food restrictions so I can pretty much eat anything I want now.  Of course, that's not true - I can't eat anything I want because then all I would be eating ice cream, cake and pie.  After the gastric bypass was done, my tummy became very little and it is still very little.  Time has not changed that.  I can eat a tiny bit more than I originally could, but we're talking maybe an ounce more of food.  I still get very full easily. So, if I overeat anything, then I really feel sick to my stomach, literally and figuratively.  For example, if I have one slice of toast, I'm fine.  If I dare have two slices, I'm left hiccupping, burping and throwing up.  Obviously having that safety net is a good thing, but it's also not great because if I overdo it, I'm in some serious trouble. 

I am also going through this "ugly me" period.  Everywhere I go lately, I have people telling me they've never seen me look more beautiful and, because I've been dating, I have men saying it all the time, too.  Yet, when I look in the mirror, the truth is that I've been focusing on the parts of me I don't like.  It's the saggy skin I'm getting with all of the weight loss or feeling like I look so much older than I do.  I know the latter is really ridiculous because I don't.  I don't even have wrinkles on my face and I'm 43.  My skin has never looked better.  I guess it's just how I'm feeling inside.  As much weight as I have lost, I am focusing on what I have left to lose.  If I'm having an intimate moment with someone, I wonder what he thinks when he sees my thighs that have loose skin around them or a mid-section that I can't hide. Obviously it's all my issue and no one else's but it's what I'm feeling.

I know this is all a process in the bigger scheme of things.  I'm at 270 pounds right now so obviously I do have further to go.  Yet, I also must remember that I'm no longer 420 pounds.  That's such a world of difference so I really need to cut myself a break and stop being so freaking self-critical.  I know people reading this right now are saying, "Yes, Kathy, you DO need to stop being so self-critical!". I know, I "heard" it as I was typing the words.  This is a work in progress.

Seriously, if I'm gone for more than a few days away from my blog and you notice it, please call me out on it.  PLEASE!  Writing what I'm feeling is so healing for me and I'm sure I'm not alone in the things I'm going through.  Don't get me wrong, life is pretty great right now.  It's just that I have a lot I'm going through in such a short period of time and I need to be accountable and walk through this process in the healthiest way possible.

Taking care of myself

Yesterday I had posted about, among other things, seeing a wonderful new man in my life.  I deleted the post in a moment of extreme emotion.  This person, a scientist here where I live, was amazing.  Intelligent, attractive, easy to talk to and we were both having very strong feelings for one another.  I talked to one of my friends about the intensity and she advised me to pull back a little.  She was right, really right as it turns out.  I decided it was time to research him.  I started by searching his name.  Everything seemed in line there with what he told me.  Then I decided to do a picture search.  I learned this from watching that "Catfish" show.  I took the images I had of him and searched through Google.  The second picture rocked my world.  It linked me to a dating profile.  Not too shocking because we met online.  Except for his pictures and the fact that he is a scientist living in my city, everything else was different.  In the profile, he was looking for kink.  He wanted a woman with a certain look to come into a room, dress in a sexy bikini and humiliate him.  There would be no sex but he wanted to be talked down to for an hour each time.  He would pay for this "service".  I sat there with my jaw open initially.  Then, the more I read, tears started to fall down my face.  Who was this man?  We were talking about our hopes and dreams, possibly having children in the future, amazed at our similarities.  All the while, there was this other side to him.   The work he had done with me was absolutely elaborate, if, in fact, it was all a lie.  So I confronted him and ripped him a new one.  I wouldn't let him explain because, really, there was no explanation.  The profile was accessed the same day so I knew it wasn't old. I told him to never, ever contact me again.  And I told him that just because a person is intelligent doesn't prevent him from being a prick. 

I thank God showed me his true colors before it was too late.  The only problem is that I already was having feelings for him.  What he did was cruel and I know it was a sickness on his part.  I took a sleeping pill so I could get some sleep.  When I took up, I made the conscious effort to not eat over this and go work out.  I did an angry work out.  My body took s pounding for the next hour and a half.  I needed it, though.  I can't eat over this.  That gives him too much power over me.

I know that I will move on and he was a toad on my way to finding a prince.  That doesn't make it hurt any less.  However, I will not eat over this.  My body won't let me after the weight loss surgery and my heart won't give him the satisfaction.  The sting of this will get better, I know.

Updates in my world

Oh my goodness, I had absolutely no clue that I have not been blogging as infrequently as I have.  All I can say is that I am incredibly sorry.  Sincerely.  Things have just been so busy with work, dating and graduate school.  No, these are not excuses but I have to own what has been going on. So let's see if I can update a few things.

I went to see my surgeon this past Monday for a check-up appointment.  He is absolutely thrilled with my progress.  Here I was thinking I wasn't doing great because I'm in a stall right now but he actually told me that I'm doing amazing.  Amazing?  Yes!  At three months, their hope is to have Bariatric patients at a 60 pound loss.  As of that morning, I think I was at a 73 pound loss.  He said all of my numbers looked fantastic and that, basically, I'm a very healthy girl.  Let me tell you, that was absolutely wonderful news.  I always worry that I'm not getting in enough protein.  I know I certainly don't get in enough water and I have to do a better job of drinking it.  It has always been my challenge to get in enough water, but it is even more of a challenge now that I can only take sips.  However, the sips are bigger now so I need to remember that the drinking is for continued good health.

On the dating front, I can't even begin to tell you how crazy that has been. I was seeing someone exclusively but there were issues there and so I decided to stop that relationship. So I have been dating other people and getting to know them. Online dating is not an easy adventure at all but it has been fun and certainly entertaining. I keep telling friends that I need to keep records of the various people who contact me - their pictures,  their comments, their messages - because it will make a fantastic book one day, certainly entertaining.  The one thing I can say is that of the various men who have contacted me, I certainly have felt incredibly beautiful and pretty. When I started this online dating adventure, I was hoping that perhaps I would be contacted by one or two people but it has been amazing to me that it's been quite the opposite experience. On a daily basis, I have no less than about 10 men contact me who are interested in getting to know me better.  Obviously there are some that are just out for sex but that's not surprising when it comes to online dating.  You take the good with the bad.  They have been distracting, however, so I have to be aware that the time I spend talking to various people takes me away from other activities so I need to be careful about that.

Grad school has been going great. It certainly is a lot of work, don't get me wrong. However, I am really enjoying the program and the fellow students in my cohort that I work with.  I love my program and I'm so glad that I decided to pursue this masters program.  Right now, the work I need to do in the program has to take priority over dating certainly and any other activities that I choose to participate in that distract me from spending the time on my graduate work.

Today I have myself s very special treat, one that has been in the works for quite some time.  I have always wanted a tattoo and I decided to go for it and get myself one for my birthday that's was last week.  I had something very specific in mind.  I wanted to commemorate the fantastic journey I have been on since getting the weight loss surgery.  I'm about halfway to goal and so I wanted something special that symbolizes the things I have been through.  So my idea was to inscribe the date of my surgery and a beautiful, colorful butterfly flying away from it.  It would symbolize freedom, hope and a new beginning.  Through a friend, I found an artist who was able to bring my vision to life.  Now, I have never had a tattoo before so I was imagining a world of pain.  People telling me that it would be crazy painful didn't help things at all.  But I figured that if I was brave enough to have gastric bypass surgery, I was brave enough for this.  It took three hours of me laying in my tummy, but I did it!  Thanks to my good friend who stayed with me the entire time and took pics.  That meant so much to me.  In terms of the pain, it wasn't bad at all for the most part.  Most of the time, it felt like just a deep scratching.  There were times, though, where it hurt because it was near bone.  That tends to hurt more.  Anyway, I put together a little pic slideshow.  Click on the following link to view it: 

http://flipagram.com/f/NVYGOz4lII

Here is the finished product.

This was an amazingly emotional experience but one that I would do in a heartbeat.  The tattoo artist accidentally left out a line in the date, so it should say 8-22-2014 in Roman numerals.  That's an easy fix so he will work on that this week.

Okay, I think I have you all caught up for now.  I do have to work on blogging here more though.  Thanks for continuing to follow along!

Spending time with family

Hi my lovelies,

Happy belated Thanksgiving.  I hope everyone had an awesome holiday full of thanks with family and friends.  My mother and I went to visit my brother and sister-in-law out in Las Vegas.  Overall I would say it was a good visit. I discovered bow bad my mother's foot and mouth disease really is though. She was going on and on about how bad she felt I looked after I gained weight at the conclusion of the Optifast program I was on.  And I quote...

"After you got off Optifast, you got really fat really fast.". 

I responded with, "Gee, thanks mom.". I was fuming. She said this in front of everyone.  I told her that was incredibly rude to say and she responded by telling me that she was just "keeping it real.". I told her that just because someone says they're keeping it real does not mean you can say whatever.  People have feelings and emotions.  Later I told her I was still mad but she just didn't get it. I raised my voice at her and told her she was rude.  How would she feel if someone said she was "incredibly fat", especially in front of other people?  Getting off the safety and security and Optifast was hard, made even harder by gaining weight back.  I stood my ground though.  If she wasn't talking about my body post-Optifast then she was talking about how much I'm dropping now.  I totally get why people say they don't want to tell any family.  Other than all of that, the rest of the visit was perfectly normal. Well, as normal as can be expected. 

Over the holiday week, I upgraded my iPhone to the 6+ and I'm typing this post on my new Microsoft Surface Pro.  New gadgets are fun, aren't they?  I bought the tablet for my master's work but the phone was an upgrade for me.  Now I can be all over my house doing my work.  Heck, I can even be outside in my back patio while using the Surface.  That's what I'm talking about!  Grad school is completely challenging so anything that makes my life easier is a good thing.

I have been really lax on posting to this blog.  I swear I'm not doing it on purpose, but its still happening.  So I'm committing here and now that I will post something everyday for the next week.  I want to get back in the groove of doing what I know works.

I'll have you know that I'm perfectly normal

I have had a very long relationship with my primary care doctor.  She has been overseeing my healthcare for about 20 years.  As such, she's seen me go through so much with declining health as well as all the improvements I've made.   Since I had the gastric bypass done, she continues to monitor me.  Recently, I had some lab work done to check on my A1C level for diabetes.  This is a certain test to determine your average blood sugar readings over the past 2-3 months.  The ultimate goal is to have a diabetic at a level 7.1 or lower.  I've had times when my level was at a 12!  My diabetes was absolutely out of control and no amount of medication, diet or exercise was keeping my levels healthy.  Well, I'm pleased to report that I'm now normal.  The A1C I just had done says my level is 6.9.  Happy dance time! 

I don't know how it works in the body that after you have this sort of surgery, your diabetes goes into remission.  All I know is that it has.  For all intents and purposes, I'm no longer a diabetic.  Yes, I continue to monitor, but I no longer present as someone with diabetes.  I can't even tell you how thrilled my doctor is.  She has told me she is absolutely proud of me for taking control of my health and being so brave.  Having the surgery is incredibly scary.  Putting your trust in the care of a surgeon who will ultimately change your life is mind-blowing.  Yet, it was the best decision I ever made.  Period.  Sometimes I look in the mirror and don't recognize my own face.  Who is that staring back at me?  This is really about meeting myself all over again.

Weekly weigh-in

Hi gang.  I weighed in this morning and I lost 4.4 pounds this week, bringing me down to 284 pounds from my top weight of 420 pounds.  It's been so fantastic seeing the weight dropping off my body.  I am also working really hard, so it's not falling off by itself.  For example, I knew that I would have class tonight, so I got up early this morning to exercise.  I also went on a couple of walks during the day.  At this point I'm already over 15,000 steps and it's not even 5pm.  Feeling pretty damn proud of myself.

Speaking of school, I did start my master's program last week.  It has been thrilling and absolutely exhausting at the same time.  When I was working on some reading for class, it hit me that I'm really doing this.  Me, little Kathy, who always doubted herself, is in a freaking master's program.  That is so rad.

On the dating front, things hVe been going well overall.  I did decide to stop seeing the hot 23-year old.  He was certainly a LOT of fun, but we're just in different places.  Not to worry though, I somehow have my pick of guys interested in me.  I just have so many contacting me.  And here I was thinking no one would be interested.  So right now I'm just having fun, dating around.  Don't worry, I'm being safe and careful.

Got to head in to class.  Until next time!!