The Mundane

What can I eat:

I can eat pretty much what I want, I try a little of everything and if something doesn't agree with me I usually don't eat it again. I cannot eat fast food, I have tried but it does not sit well with me. The only fast food I can eat (if I'm forced to eat fast food) is a Filet O Fish or shrimp from Long John Silver's. I still cannot drink plain water, at this point I may never be able to again. I am surviving on my beloved Teavana, my new obsession Tang, flavored water and whenever I can Starbucks.

Lately I have been having trouble eating, this could be due to the major changes in my life, or I could have another stricture, I see the doctor in a few weeks to follow up about this. I continue to take my vitamins and supplements that I will have to take for the rest of my life. I recently discovered Calcet Creamy Lemon Bites and I think I may be in love. I have to lock them away from myself or I would eat them like candy.

I continue to have issues with my hematocrit and hemaglobin and have been referred to a hematologist to see if they can figure out why my numbers are off, all of my other numbers seem to be good, but we'll see how my labs are after this latest round of eating issues.

I joined a gym and I can work out for an hour at a time and not leave feeling like I want to die, I have discovered the reason people rave about exercise endorphins, they really are an awesome thing.

So for all the loyal people that have been reading my blog for the past year, what do you want to know? Ask me and I'll post it up for everyone to read (anonymously of course).

Update on me

It has been one year and nineteen days since I had my surgery. My starting weight was 367 pounds I now weight 194 lbs. If you had told me this time last year, when I was in the midst of my post op liquid diet and regretting my decision, that I would head into 2010 171 pounds lighter and with a whole new outlook on life, I never would have believed it. This surgery has led to a lot of changes in my life, changes I never anticipated. When you meet with your surgeon before surgery they say, we operate on your stomach, not your head and it is up to you to make a change in your habits in order to keep up the weight loss. I thought the surgery would be as simple as cutting me up, sewing me back together and in the end I would be skinny. Well I'm almost skinny, I'm all sewn back up, but I'm a different me. I walk into a room with confidence, I'm not embarrassed to tell people I had the surgery it makes me proud, that I did something just for me and that I have followed through, followed my rules and shaped a totally new person.

Most people have reacted positively to my weight loss, but the dynamic in some of my relationships has changed. When you were always the overweight one, some friends don't know how to handle it when you aren't anymore. Some of those friendships will survive and some of those friendships will not.

I thought I would start the new year trying for a baby with my husband, that was the goal of the surgery. Instead I will spend the next few months learning to live on my own again, finding the single me that has been overshadowed for a long long time, and finding new goals for myself. I know that I will survive and time and dedication heal and conquer all wounds. So I find myself, sad, scared, angry and excited all at the same time. My possibilities at this point are limited only by my imagination.

As promised One year Photos

Has it really been a year????

I haven't posted in two months, in fact I skipped my eleventh month update. My last post was on August 29,2009 and on August 30, 2009 my husband and I separated. It was at the same time, expected and shocking. The specific details are private between me and my husband, but I think its fair to say that we both started going in different directions and weren't able to find our way back to each other. It has been a year of constant change, and this is the beginning of another chapter in my life. MY new, you didn't want it, but here it is single life. I'm coping using more change, I got a kitten, I'm painting several rooms in the house, I've moved the furniture in my house, I've joined a gym. I wish I had profound words to say here, but I don't. There are good days and there are bad days and I hope that soon the good will out number the bad. I am grateful for the support of my friends and family, not just for their support in the last two months, but for the last year.

The bad news is the stress and the change have led to difficulties eating. Most of us are familiar with the "break up" diet, this time it has sent me 25lbs down instead of up. I am tired and I lack energy, but I'm hoping as I adjust and my appetite comes back I will level off my weight and my energy will come back up. Even now I can run circles around the girl I used to be. I'm happy to leave her behind.

A year out I find myself a different me, different in ways I never thought were problem. I have more self confidence, I never thought I lacked that, but I feel comfortable walking into a room now, I don't feel uncomfortable being the center of attention, though there are those who know me that would argue I've always enjoyed being the center of attention, I would argue that I'm pretty good at faking it.

For the first time this decade I weigh less than two hundred pounds, I don't have my one year pictures with me yet, but I promise to get them up soon. In the meantime, here's huckabee for your viewing enjoyment.

10 Months Out

It snuck up quickly on me this time and I cannot believe I am ten months out from surgery. I still wish I was smaller around the middle and I will continue to work on it, but over all every day is better than it was nine months ago.

Mini-Vacation

I went to the Biltmore Estate with my husband this weekend. It was somewhere I had been dying to go for quite a while and we finally planned a trip. This weekend they had a flower carpet display. I know my backyard will never look like that, but I do with we could have some green grass.

We did some wine tasting and after about seven tiny sips I was feeling giddy. I wasn't drunk but my days of drinking are over. Though I sober up quickly the smallest amount of alcohol makes me very tipsy, very quickly.

We then took a trip to Chimney Rock Mountain. They have an elevator that will take you most of the way up and then it is a few short flights of stairs to the top. It was peaceful and relaxing and I could have stayed up there all day. The pictures are tremendous, as soon as we agree on which ones we will probably frame some and hang them up in our house.

It was quite a climb up the five stories in the Biltmore and then all the way to the basement. I managed it without losing my breath and can honestly say it was totally warm.

I'm going to post a few pictures here on my blog and then a link to the entire album for anyone who would like to see.

The Little Things

Before surgery I rarely wore jewelry, getting through the day was enough of a struggle that I didn't bother with extra's. I'm sure I portrayed an image to other people that I didn't care about myself, but I did it was just a tremendous effort to do what I was already doing; I wore makeup once a month or so, I always wore my hair up, my neck was too thick for necklaces and even the ones that did fit ended up bothering me. I also did not wear earrings, they bothered my ears, my holes had closed long ago and anything that dangled drove me nuts.

Well today I did a few things that the old me never did, put on makeup, did my hair, wore a necklace and pierced my ears.

Here are a few pictures of the results:

Things I've discovered since surgery

Its been nine months, it seems like I just wrote my 8 month update. My nieces were here this past month and the time just flew by. I have a lap, an actual lap perfect for snuggling nieces, resting papers, squeezing a coffee between my knees to put splenda in it (I admit the last thing is an act of stupidity, but we are all entitled). This was possibly the best summer I've ever had with my nieces, we left no activity undone. I am exhausted, but it is a good exhaustion, the kind that comes from having done so much you used up all your energy and not the kind of exhaustion that comes from being so overweight that every day is a struggle. Total weight loss 170 pounds.

My Inspiration

I posted recently about missing my grandfather and how he was a big motivator for this surgery. My grandfather was a healthy and active man most of his life. When he was 80 years old he was winning chin-up contests at the gym. He was also a healthy and active smoker, it eventually caught up with him and he was diagnosed with lung cancer. The cancer changed him from a strong and vibrant man to a man who was physically very weak. We thought he was getting better and then he has a stroke, testing after the stroke revealed cancer in his brain, the lung cancer we thought was under control has metastasized around his body. It was three short and shocking weeks and then he was gone. My grandfather chose not to have drastic measures to save his life and when he was unable to feed or care for himself he went into hospice care. We spent seven days watching him breathe. The doctors told us they couldn't tell us when the end would come, but as his breathing slowed the end was getting nearer. We took turns sitting there for a week, counting his breaths, hoping for one more and wishing that he could be in peace. What I wanted more than one more breath was one more moment with him as the man I remembered. The day he died was really the day my weight loss journey began, I was angry with him for being a smoker, I saw every cigarette as a moment that was taken away. Slowly I began to see these extra pounds as moments, moments I was taking away from myself and from my family and I decided I wanted them back. With every pound lost I feel more vibrant and more alive and more at peace with the loss of a man who meant so much to me.

Idle Hands

Make for lots of recent pictures of me.

My WOW Moment

Flying has been difficult the last couple of years. I recently went to a children's museum with my nieces and they had a fake cockpit complete with airline seats. Not only did I fit in the seat, I buckled it with room to spare!

Walk down Memory Lane

My three nieces are visiting me right now. We have been having a blast and tonight we decided to have a slumber party. The girls wanted to look through my wedding album and watch my wedding video. I was a little hesitant to watch it because it is hard to see myself when I was heavy, but all I could see was how happy I was that day. My niece looked at me and said you look different now than you did that day. It was the first time she's mentioned it. There is no question that I am happy with the weight I have lost, but I was happy with my life before too. I don't want this blog to create the impression that my life as a heavy person was not filled with happiness, it was, but now I am more of a participant than an observer.