Working it

Things have been going well.  Both my father and brother are out of the hospital, thank you, God.  My father now has about two months of recovery at home before they re-do the hip replacement.  He is in very good spirits and has such a positive attitude.  I respect him so much for having the strength to get through everything he has been dealing with without breaking down.  He had a hip replacement that got infected, had the hip replacement removed, a spacer inserted, has been in the hospital six separate times, rehab for the last six weeks or so and then has to have the hip replacement redone.  My brother has been put on new medication and they are hoping this will work instead of having a new heart transplant done.  If not, he will go back on the list in a few months.  I continue to pray daily for my family.

I started working with my personal trainer.  She is just so awesome and it was such a great decision on my part.  I'll be working with her for three months.  We will be checking my weight and measurements every three weeks.  I shared with her my experience of having weight loss surgery and my attempts of weight loss.  She was in awe of me and actually told me that I was an inspiration to her.  Wow, I had to pick my jaw off the floor.  I started a separate page on here for all of my strength training workouts if you'd like to follow along or at least get the benefit of a personal trainer without having to pay for it.  There's a link for it at the top of the page.  I'm doing things with her that has taken every ounce of courage to do in the middle of the gym.  When people work with personal trainers, others in the gym watch.  It's a very big gym so this isn't easy.  One time I was doing cardio while she was training someone else and I swear every pair of eyes was looking in the corner where she was doing the training and watching.  Yet, I don't let that stop me.  I've even done weight lifting in the section where all the men with muscles do the majority of their work.  What's been interesting for me is that they are not looking at me and mocking me for being the fat lady trying to work out (which is what I had envisioned in my mind).  Instead, they are looking at me and smiling, even checking out my legs when I stand in front of the mirror focusing on my form.  It's been so weird!  I almost feel, dare I say, normal.

I also have seen the dietician at Kaiser's Positive Choice center, which is part of a service I can employ after surgery for help with my nutritional needs.  I just have been feeling weak and lightheaded.  I wanted to make sure that I was doing the right things for my body with the increased exercise.  When I work out, I'm burning about 900-1100 calories a day with just exercise.  Given I was eating 800 calories a day, it makes so much sense that I was feeling the way I was.  The dietician told me that 800 calories a day is just not enough for a person that exercises as vigorously as I am.  He did a mathematical calculation based on how many calories are in protein and what I was taking in each day.  He told me to increase my calories to 1200 per day instead of the 800 my bariatric surgeon recommended.  He understands where the doctor was coming from, but we do need to take into account how much I'm burning during workouts.  When I asked him how I should increase the calories, he said it is as simple as making sure I'm getting enough healthy fats in my diet such as coconut oil or almond butter.  He also told me I need to take in 100 grams of protein per day now with the increased calories and to ensure I am hydrating enough.  He stated that I should try to get in as many fluids as possible earlier in the day but to shoot for at least eight cups.  He also agreed that the strength training I'm getting with my trainer is especially valuable in dealing with excess skin and having a toned body because we can lose a lot of muscle mass with significant weight loss if we are not also incorporating strength training.

So, my friends, I'm working it and taking good care of myself.  It's a long time coming, that's for sure.

A little too much going on

This last week has been a terribly difficult one, I have to be honest.  Eleven years ago, my brother had a heart transplant. When he was born, there was a leak in his heart and the left and right parts were doing the opposite of what they were designed to do.  We always knew that one day he would need a heart transplant. In fact, the doctors told our family he would not live past the age of five without the transplant. When he did eventually have the transplant, he was 33 years old.  Fast forward to this past Thanksgiving when my mother and I went out to Las Vegas to visit my brother and sister-in-law. When we were there, my mother noticed my brother had gained a lot of weight in his tummy, as if he was about 13 months pregnant.  That's not my brother. He is a very active and fit guy so it did not make sense. After a slew of tests at the Stanford, the hospital where he originally got the transplant, the cardiologist told him that his heart was being rejected by his body and he would need a new heart.  When I got the news, I was just shellshocked. I sat on my bed in stunned silence, not sure what to do with this information.  My poor mother, who was the one that told me the news, was taking it incredibly badly, of course.  No matter how old her children are, that's her baby.  He was admitted into the hospital and will be staying there until at least Wednesday.

I decided to call my dad and tell him what is going on with my brother.  My dad has been in and out of the hospital for the last three months.  He had a hip replacement surgery that caused a horrible infection.  They had to rush him in for emergency surgery after five hospital stays.  They removed the new hip, put in a spacer and were giving him antibiotics around the clock.  When I called to tell him about my brother, he told me he would have to stay in the hospital a couple more weeks himself.  Then he can go home and prepare for the redoing of the hip replacement surgery.  

Between both events, I just felt like I couldn't breathe. It took me a couple of days but the tears eventually came.  My heart was broken for them.  At the same time, I knew going to food for comfort and solice just was not the answer.  It doesn't make anything better.  If anything, food makes it worse.  

You guys would be very proud of me, though.  I've made some progress on the weight machine issue at the gym.  I decided enough was enough and the next time I was going to go to the gym, I would request to sign up for personal training sessions. With lots of resolve in my head, I walked up to the gym and got intercepted at the door by this really cute, hot guy who held it open for me and said in a bright voice, "After you!" Haha, that totally threw me off so I did not ask about the personal trainer at the desk. He made me lose focus.  I just logged in and went about my workout. I told myself that I would not be leaving the gym without talking to someone at the front desk about getting a personal trainer.  So, after I finished my workout, I went to the locker room to grab my jacket and then bee-lined it for the front desk.  Behind the counter where these two cute, hot guys as well.  Frig, what is it about these men that make me lose my focus so much?  To be fair, they were beautiful with lovely muscles peeking through their shirts.  But, with a purpose-driven heart, I walked straight up to the counter and said, "I would like to sign up for a personal trainer please."  The two guys greeted me with the most dazzling white smiles and beamed at me with pride.  I made an appointment to see a trainer the next night.

I met with her and she was so sweet. It was absolutely no pressure at all but she really commended me for how far I've come and how motivated I am.  So, I will be working out with her each week and then she'll give me assignments in between. She does want me to cut back on the amount of cardio I'm doing.  If I'm  still walking at work, that's fine but then she doesn't want me doing more than 30-45 minutes of cardio at the gym in the evenings.  At a certain point, the body just can't use everything that I put into cardio.  However, she said the focus will now need to shift to strength training,not only for fat loss but also to tone up loose skin.  So I will be limited to 4-5 days of cardio per week at the gym and we will do strength training twice a week to start, eventually moving up to three times a week.  I start training on Wednesday.  I'm so excited that she will be there to guide me and tell me what to do.  That's what I need.  I then went for a workout and, when I left, one of the hotties was behind the desk and said, "Have a good night, Kathy :)" He learned my name and said it again when he saw me today.  Uh oh, I'm in trouble with that one!

Finally, I'm nearing the end of my updates. In terms of school, I found out that I got A's in both my classes for my first quarter. Yay me!  I start my next quarter tomorrow.  My classes will be out of the area, so I'll have to drive a pretty far distance but it's only two days so it's manageable.  It does require I go into work earlier those two days, so I need to somehow manage the change.  With everything going on, I'm absolutely reminded to take everything one day at a time.  That's all I can do.

First quarter done, making tough decisions

I've been sick the last several days.  It came on like a ton of bricks on Wednesday night.  I don't know what happened, but I found myself as sick as a dog and ended up staying home from work on Thursday and Friday. My first quarter of graduate school ended this past week, but I pretty much killed myself trying to finish writing two research papers while being sick.  I have a week and then I will be starting the new quarter of classes.

I find myself having to make a very difficult decision about my internship for the grad program.  If I choose to do my internship in my district, I will either have to go from working 40 hours a week to 16 and lose my benefits at the same time or take a leave of absence from work. If I go outside the district, I'm facing similar circumstances.  Either way, it is going to be a huge financial sacrifice for me.  Not only that, I will lose my medical benefits during the time when I am working part-time or on the leave of absence.  I was talking to a few people at work today about this and we started looking at whether taking a leave of absence is the best choice for me given that if I work 16 hours a week, I will lose so much and it will take longer to finish my internship hours. With the leave of absence I can get it done over the course of the semester. If I choose to work part time, it would take one semester and an additional quarter.  Now, if I can go on Cobra for the four months, I can keep my medical benefits but it does require that I pay roughly $500 per month for the privilege.  So, crunching numbers based on not working and taking a leave of absence, it will cost me approximately $10,000 for a semester factoring in all of my expenses and the additional Cobra costs to pay for my medical benefits.  If I work those 16 hours a week, it will actually be more expensive because I'd still lose my benefits, I'd be living on a reduced paycheck and then paying an additional $2,000 to extend my school year.  Crunching preliminary numbers, it looks like $10,000 is what I'm dealing with.  That causes me to feel stressed. I do have the money in the form of student loans, but it's still not an easy decision at all.

I find myself still dealing with being in a stall weight-wise. I'm exercising a lot.  For those that are curious, I still haven't gotten on the weight machines.  But I did see a sign at the gym that I am entitled to four personal training sessions for free as part of my membership dues. So, I am really thinking about pursuing that so that I can get a personal trainer and have him show me how to use the machines and what specifically I should focus on when exercising.

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!