Ending a Lousy Year in a Lousy Way

I am going to be SO glad to see 2017 end.  This was the year I've gotten fatter than I've ever been in my life, and that my body started seriously objecting to the blubber that I'm forcing it to pack around.  And I'm ending it back on the damn crutches, unable to walk without them.

Yesterday morning I felt amazing...absolutely no pain in my foot, no trouble walking...I had beaten back the inflammatory tendinitis again (this was the THIRD attack since October!) and I was going to start back on my treadmill again this morning.  Then in the afternoon, I stepped on Sophie's bed as I was going to the hallway...and as I bore down on the bum foot I felt what I can only call a snap, or a bubble bursting...then the most excruciating pain to-date.  I don't know if I ruptured a ligament or what, but I can not walk on it at all without the help of crutches.

So here I sit, in my bedroom, with my laptop, doped up with Aleve and oxy (which barely dents it,) wishing I were down in the kitchen doing food and meal prep for my fresh start for the new year tomorrow.  Grrrrrrr.  What a shitty way to end the year. And it's all self-inflicted, I'm positive of that.  A body is not designed to lug around 150 extra pounds 24/7.  Mine is objecting big time.

I joined a "30 Days Sugar Free" online challenge that I'm really excited about. It was $50 to join it (that's half-price) but I have access to the website and the secret Facebook group for life. The people in the Facebook group are AMAZING.  Some have been sugar free for years, and offer incredible support and compassion.

I also received a pdf of the book that inspired this: "I Love Me More Than Sugar".  The author Barry Friedman is an active member of the group as well!  This is going to give me a great jump start on the pre-surgery weight loss and post-surgery lifestyle.

I bought the Kindle edition of the book...I don't really want to download the pdf version to every device I might be using. I'll be sharing lots of snippets and quotes from the book...what tiny bit I've read so far is really making so much sense:

"Reptilian Brain" is the oldest part of the human brain that is associated with the following traits: protection, aggression, dominance, obsessiveness, compulsiveness, fear and greed. That part of the brain, in our modern society, considers sugar as a survival need.

"That part of your brain (Reptilian Brain) is fed by you giving in - sugar, TV, sex, drugs - or just about anything else that will deliver a temporary dopamine surge and make sure you stay right where you are."   (From "I Love Me More Than Sugar" by Barry Friedman)

Nancy came over yesterday so we could go out to lunch....that last burger / fries. I also had a beer. It was good...and surprisingly, I didn't feel as though I was having last rites. I know that eventually I'll be able to have a burger again...or at least a few bites of one, and it was just eh.  Though the fried pickles and twister fries were AH-MAZING.  LOL

We also took the opportunity to get Nancy's before pics, and also our "Sleeve Sisters" before pic.  I shudder when I see what I look like...but I know that a year from now it's going to be a very, very different story!

This is such an amazing thing, that Nancy and I are doing this together. We have the same bariatric team and will be going to our nutrition appts together, and we'll also (hopefully) get sleeved on the same day!

I am just so glad that when I asked her back in November if she wanted to attend a WLS seminar with me, that her response was a very emphatic "OH HELL YES!" Here's to a brand new US in 2018!

Loading the Tool Box

I had my first appoint with Nancy the Nutritionist at the Center yesterday. I like her a lot, and I think we'll be able to make some serious progress between now and May 8.  Yes, May 8 is my last appointment with her and that is when they'll submit to the insurance for approval for the sleeve surgery!   She gave me a diet plan - "Mediterranean/Whole Foods Minimal Processing & Highest Nutrient Content and told me how many exchanges (servings) of each group she wants me to have.  I am going to convert some of my favorite Whole 30 / Paleo type recipes to exchanges. Good project for me over this upcoming 3-day weekend.

Today I had my first appointment with Janys, my new therapist. I REALLY like her.  I think we really connected and that I'm going to be able to work really well with her, getting to the root of my issues with food and being able to learn to eat to nurture myself, not to indulge my addictions. We covered a lot in that first hour...and she called me "resilient".  I'm going to really try to recognize what I'm actually doing when I eat in a disordered way...am I soothing myself? Am I rebelling? Am I punishing myself?  I want to understand what it is that gives me that unquenchable craving for the highly-processed, high-fat, full-of-sugar crap food, and why do I give in to it so completely.

I'm going to OFFICIALLY start this journey on January 1st...go through the sugar/processed food detox, and get serious. Between now and then, I'm being more mindful of what I'm eating, but I'm still eating some crap. Cookies. Chips. It's like I'm saying farewell to some of my favorites that I won't be having for quite some time.  I've been wanting fish and chips so I had halibut fish and chips from Tug's tonight. And it was SO freaking good!  Saturday Nancy and I are going out for our last hamburger and fries for a lonnnnnng time.  I definitely want to do that at Oly Underground.

I am NOT going to fail at this. There is NO way I'm going to have 80% of my stomach removed, only to fail at losing the excess weight. I am officially the fattest I have EVER been in my life, and I'm tired of dealing with the immobility, the pain, the self-consciousness and humiliation, along with everything else that comes with being 301 lbs.  That's right...I'm actually putting it out there and owning it.  I weigh 301 lbs.  And THIS is what 301 lbs looks like on me.

Psych Eval - Check! Ending year on HIGH note!

I had my bariatric surgery psych eval on Monday and I actually enjoyed it.  I did a lot of talking, and 2 hours simply flew by.  I told her a lot about my earliest memories of food-shaming by my mother, grandmother, etc. as well as the issues my own mother had...my very skinny cousin who my mother put me in "competition" with all my life, the obesity in my own family, on maternal and paternal side, my marriages, including the horrible first marriage that I stayed in for about 12 1/2 years too long. It started out that she would ask me questions and I'd respond, but I did so much talking that I covered just about every question she had planned on asking before I even stopped for breath. LOL  I also had a 344 question assessment that I completed online.  The therapist said results would probably be in a week or two, but that she is sure I'm a good candidate for WLS as I am aware of my disordered eating, and have a plan (therapy) to deal with it while I'm preparing for the surgery. 

And I DO have a plan!  I found a therapist here in town who  specializes in eating disorders and is in my insurance network.  Her website stated that she wasn't accepting new patients and to check in again after the first of the year, but I sent her an email, telling her what I'm doing (preparing for surgery) and to please let me know if she will be accepting new patients so I can make an appointment.  She emailed me back, and I am seeing her for the first time on the 27th!  I'm really looking forward to it. I hope that we connect and that she is the person I can work through my myriad issues with.

So I'm getting my pre-surgery physical on the 21st, my first appointment with the bariatric center nutritionist on the 26th, and my first appointment with who I HOPE will my my therapist throughout this journey on the 27th.  What a great way to end out the year!

Time For the Psych Eval

So tomorrow after work I'll be going to get my psychological evaluation. Pretty much anyone who is having bariatric surgery and is going through their health insurance is required to get this. Very few people fail, so I'm not worried about it. 

Though some of the people I've seen in the online communities I've been lurking at SHOULD have failed...I mean, we're talking quack-a-doodle-do!

I am wondering if one psych eval is enough...and thinking that I probably need to consider getting some serious therapy to help deal with the issues that brought me to this point where I'm willing to let them cut out 85% of my stomach to help me finally lose this weight and be a normal-sized person.

Why is food my comfort? Why is food my one main pleasure in life? Why do I have such a twisted relationship with it? Since my earliest memories I've had this real obsession with food. Why have I, more than a few times, eaten to the point of pain, and then while waiting for the pain to subside, plan on what I'm going to eat next?  When I can physically only eat a few bites, will that help me overcome my volume eating tendencies? The first bite is always the best...so can I learn to only desire that first bite, then be satisfied?

This surgery isn't going to sleeve my brain. It's not going to solve the issues that I have, the reasons that I have such a disordered way of relating to food, so I really need to try to figure it out. The surgery will help me to finally become a normal-sized person, but it's going to be all on me to stay that way and develop a normal-sized person's attitude towards food.

And So It Begins....

Beginning the final journey:  

I'm really going to do this...I have thought about if for so long, then deluded myself into thinking I can do it myself, lost 30, gained 40...about four times...and I'm currently the fattest I have ever been. I'll share the actual numbers when I'm further on in the journey...right now it's just so humiliating that I've gotten to this point.

I just turned 59, and the weight is really affecting my quality of life. I hurt. My knees, ankles, feet, back...I just hurt all over. Chronically. My blood pressure is horrible. My cholesterol is high and my triglycerides are high. I've got metabolic syndrome and I'm insulin resistant, and just a few creme puffs away from full-blown diabetes. Physically, I'm just so damn uncomfortable. 

I have issues with food...serious issues. My mother put my sister and I on diets pre-puberty (neither one of us were overweight) and all of my memories of food as a child are of being shamed for eating. Mostly by my mother, who had issues of her own, but by my grandmother and extended family members to some extent as well. Later as a pre-adolescent and into my teens, my mother basically just checked out as a parent and I fended for myself mostly.

The most exciting thing for me about going to a friend's home or to my grandparents:

THEY HAD FOOD IN THE HOUSE! 

The most memorable part of my pre-teen and teen years living at home with my mother was that there was very rarely food in the house. My sister and I would raid the trunk of her car when she was sleeping, because she would usually have a cooler with delicious food in it...grapes, deli meats and cheeses, crackers, etc. that she would buy to share with one of her boyfriends. But she wouldn't buy groceries for my sister and I. Or toilet paper. I worked, assisting elderly people with their housekeeping and bathing, etc. so I earned enough money that I kept myself fed and had toilet paper (most of the time)...but to this day I feel an anxiety attack coming on if there aren't at least 12 extra rolls on hand at all times, and my cupboards and pantry are overflowing with food that we'll probably never eat.  At least my own kids never knew what it was like to have no food in the house. Not at my house, that is.

Anyway, I got married (at barely 16) to escape the wretched home life. Talk about jumping from the frying pan into the fire...but that's a whole other story. The first time I went grocery shopping as a married girl I bought 2 big boxes of Captain Crunch cereal and ate it until the roof of my mouth was shredded. I wasn't the best cook at that age, but I made a mean hamburger helper. There are so many more stories I could tell, all which led me to where I am today. I really should write a book.  

I have and will continue to work through my myriad issues with a therapist, because I KNOW that bariatric surgery isn't the magical answer to my problems...but I also know that it's a VERY powerful tool that can help me finally reach my goals of being a normal weight and being able to wear EVERYTHING in my closet.

I've spent 5 decades of my life fighting this dragon. My physiology and metabolism is so messed up now that no matter what I do, my body fights to hold on to every ounce. I can lose some weight but I very quickly hit a standstill and no matter what I do, no more pounds will come off. I'm tired of living like this. So so tired. It's not living - it's just existing. I feel like I'm trapped inside this morbidly obese body and I want to be FREE of it and enjoy LIVING, before my life is over. 

So I'm pulling out the big guns...a tool that I've considered using before, but then told myself I could succeed without it. Obviously, I was wrong. I don't want to waste any more of my time fighting this on my own. I'm going to have a vertical sleeve gasterectomy. I haven't come to this decision lightly. Again, I know that it's NOT a magic, effortless solution to morbid obesity and that I will be eating mindfully and carefully for the rest of my life...but I will finally have the tool I need to be successful and wake up from this nightmare of being morbidly obese and not being able to fix it. The procedure has come a very long ways, and there are actual physiological changes the the surgery causes that will cause my body to quit fighting me and allow me to lose the excess weight and finally know what it is to be 'normal'.

I went to an introductory seminar at MultiCare Center for Weight Loss and Wellness on Nov 1, then had my first consultation with my surgeon, Dr. James Sebesta, on November 16. I simply ADORE him. A very dearest friend (we met years ago in Weight Watchers!) is doing this as well and we went together to both the seminar and the consultation...we're going to be sleeve twins, God and insurance willing. Nancy and I laugh a lot together, and we laughed a lot with Dr. Sebesta and his nurse. But we also had very serious discussions and questions about this journey we're embarking on together.

We go back on Nov 29 for an appointment with the nurse, then our first meeting with the nutritionist is right after Christmas. We have the same insurance, and we are required to do the 6 month medically supervised diet / nutritionist / psychologist / etc. in order to qualify and Dr. Sebesta told us our insurance is not fun to deal with...they will deny for the dumbest reasons. So there's something else to stress over. The earliest I'll be able to have the surgery is May 16, 2018.

One of the things Dr. Sebesta asked is "What do you most look forward to when you've lost the weight?  My list is so long, but here are just a few:

• No need for meds for high blood pressure (I currently take TWO)
• Being able to wear ALL the clothes I own
• Not being embarrassed to have a picture taken of myself
• I'll be able to wear that dress that has been in my closet for years 
• I'll be able to cross my legs 
• I won't always be the biggest person in the room
• I'll fit comfortably in any chair or seat 
• I'll be able to wrap a standard bath towel around my body 
• I won’t have to shop at plus size stores 
• I'll be able to easily sit in booths at restaurants 
• My joints won’t hurt at the end (or beginning!) of the day 
• I won't be the ‘fat’ member of my group of friends 
• Career opportunities may open up 

So here it is. I've put it out there now...I'm going to try to keep this blog up faithfully during this journey.