T as in Tummy Tuck.
Yes, I've been absent from writing on here for a while. I need to go back and finish the posts where this idea was brewing many, many months ago. But for now the best I can manage is just to start fresh in the present moment and tell it as it's happening.
So here I am in my "five star hotel" also known as Dad's house and in about 31 hours I will be getting sedated and rolled into what I hope to be the last surgery I need or want for a very long time.
I have come a really long way in the past couple of years but what hasn't come very far is my self image, and not for lack of trying, but due to my cursed midsection that won't go away or shrink any further regardless of what I do. Sorry belly but you've got to go. I never thought I'd want plastic surgery and definitely never thought I'd be able to afford it. But an ironic turn of events over the summer left me with a pile of money I wasn't expecting (in the form of severance pay from a job that eliminated my position - don't worry, I found a new on immediately) so all of a sudden, the idea of getting rid of this last troublesome spot that irks me endlessly became a reality.
Of course, that's only half the story. To actually be able to afford it I soon found out I'd either have to do some medical tourism to Mexico or use my mom's first cousin in Alabama who is a very well regarded plastic surgeon...it just so happens Alabama pricing is a lot less than the Mid-atlantic region. Problem solved! Some people might think it's weird to have a cousin operating on them but not me. He's a great surgeon and I get the perk of being home in Alabama, seeing family I never get to see, and I think recuperating away from home is kind of cool even if it's not Mexico.
I'll be down here for 3 weeks or if everything goes extremely well and they can take out my drains a little earlier, just over 2. Tomorrow is my pre-op testing and consultation and then Tuesday 5am I check into the hospital. I assume my surgery is around 7am.
There is so much I could write about having this procedure, what it means to me, how far I feel I've come and how this is the final step in the process I started years ago. But I'm kind of tired and I know I'll have lots of time sitting in bed in the next few weeks. So for now I'm going to savor my 2nd to last night of not being in pain. Hopefully it'll be just like last time and get easier every day post op.
I'll keep writing when there's anything to tell, assuming I have time and energy.
Sunday, October 30, 2011
Tuesday, August 23, 2011
Finally back in the green zone
Sometimes I truly am my own worst enemy.
Despite telling myself I would never do this and jeopardize my health (and luck with the band) I found out recently that I have been living in a too-tight place known to my doctor as "the red zone" where the amount I can eat it so little that it leads me to maladaptive eating behavior. I had started thinking this might be the case months ago but always had a reason why it wasn't true. You know, I take too big of bites, I eat too quickly, I eat past the point of satisfaction. Those things may have been true once in a while but the more common truth of the matter was that I could physically manage to eat so little in the mornings, and even till about 3pm, that 1) I found myself extremely hungry most of the day even with the physical inability to consume anything else; 2) I found it impossible to resist foods I knew would go down more easily in favor of the better/healthier foods; and 3) by the time my band loosened up in the late afternoon, I had thrown all caution to the wind and would eat whatever I could manage. Yes, my 2 week experiment on medifast helped keep this under control a bit but I did have a very hard time keeping to that plan even for a day.
The number of times I would get stuck and end up regurgitating had been steadily once or twice a week for about 4 weeks when I decided I'd had enough. Sure the fear of being able to eat more and gain more weight was in my mind but rationally I knew that I couldn't keep living like that. So I had an appointment scheduled with Dr. A on 8/19 and I had made up my mind that I would ask for a small unfill.
When he asked me if I was having problems I replied, honestly, that I haven't been able to eat a wide variety of foods. That fruits and vegetables give me a hard time and that I want to be looser so I can make better food choices. He was fine with this and took out .5 CC, I believe. So now I'm back to 4.75 instead of 5.25 and it's been a world of difference!
A few days after my unfill, I wrote this post to my lapband forum friends on oh.com.
---
Have any of you ever been so tight that you can simultaneously feel very physically hungry and physically unable to eat another bite? What did you do? Did you resort to foods you knew would go down easier?
I have to give a shout out to Jean for encouraging me to get a small unfill, which I finally did last Friday. I had been on the fence about it for months, to be honest. I have maintained my weight between 180-183 (a 90-93lb loss) since January of 2011 but the struggle has been one with myself to keep eating nutritiously even when the stuff I should be eating is the most difficult.
I've managed through sheer determination not to gain any weight but when I am honest with myself I have to admit I've been avoiding healthier foods in favor of ones easier to get down.
It really hit me when I regurgitated nearly every time I tried salad or fresh fruit but could eat an unlimited quantity of cupcakes...I really need to get this thing loosened.
It hasn't even been a week yet but I'm so happy I did! For the past few days I've been eating a wide variety of foods including fruits, and haven't had any PB/regurgitating/puking or even close. (This had become about a once a week occurance for me in the recent past.) All the slow and careful eating skills I've learned over the past 18 months are actually working and I'm not eating more than I should but I'm eating ENOUGH so I don't feel like I'm on the verge of passing out and go running for the first easy to eat food I can. It's an amazing feeling.
After living off 1200 calories a day, mostly because I couldn't eat much of anything till 3pm anyway, I am working on having a well rounded diet of 1600 a day with protein at every meal and snack. I hope not to gain weight (I really shouldn't since I burn about 2400 a day to the best I can calculate) but it'll be nice to just maintain in a healthy manner if that's all this allows.
One of the best things so far is being able to have eggs for breakfast and not be hungry 2 hours later!
Anyway, I wanted to share all of this because who knows if there are others out there going through the same thing. I thought for the last few months that the frustrations I was having were all my fault for not chewing well enough or eating slowly enough and I was afraid of going back to being pre-band hungry. But I still have 4.75ccs in my band (down from 5.25) and I'm remembering how easy it was to eat right and lose weight back when I was at this level previously.
Lesson learned! Don't be afraid to go to your doctor and get an unfill. If it doesn't make things better you can always go back. But being that tight is not what this is supposed to be like.
Despite telling myself I would never do this and jeopardize my health (and luck with the band) I found out recently that I have been living in a too-tight place known to my doctor as "the red zone" where the amount I can eat it so little that it leads me to maladaptive eating behavior. I had started thinking this might be the case months ago but always had a reason why it wasn't true. You know, I take too big of bites, I eat too quickly, I eat past the point of satisfaction. Those things may have been true once in a while but the more common truth of the matter was that I could physically manage to eat so little in the mornings, and even till about 3pm, that 1) I found myself extremely hungry most of the day even with the physical inability to consume anything else; 2) I found it impossible to resist foods I knew would go down more easily in favor of the better/healthier foods; and 3) by the time my band loosened up in the late afternoon, I had thrown all caution to the wind and would eat whatever I could manage. Yes, my 2 week experiment on medifast helped keep this under control a bit but I did have a very hard time keeping to that plan even for a day.
The number of times I would get stuck and end up regurgitating had been steadily once or twice a week for about 4 weeks when I decided I'd had enough. Sure the fear of being able to eat more and gain more weight was in my mind but rationally I knew that I couldn't keep living like that. So I had an appointment scheduled with Dr. A on 8/19 and I had made up my mind that I would ask for a small unfill.
When he asked me if I was having problems I replied, honestly, that I haven't been able to eat a wide variety of foods. That fruits and vegetables give me a hard time and that I want to be looser so I can make better food choices. He was fine with this and took out .5 CC, I believe. So now I'm back to 4.75 instead of 5.25 and it's been a world of difference!
A few days after my unfill, I wrote this post to my lapband forum friends on oh.com.
---
Have any of you ever been so tight that you can simultaneously feel very physically hungry and physically unable to eat another bite? What did you do? Did you resort to foods you knew would go down easier?
I have to give a shout out to Jean for encouraging me to get a small unfill, which I finally did last Friday. I had been on the fence about it for months, to be honest. I have maintained my weight between 180-183 (a 90-93lb loss) since January of 2011 but the struggle has been one with myself to keep eating nutritiously even when the stuff I should be eating is the most difficult.
I've managed through sheer determination not to gain any weight but when I am honest with myself I have to admit I've been avoiding healthier foods in favor of ones easier to get down.
It really hit me when I regurgitated nearly every time I tried salad or fresh fruit but could eat an unlimited quantity of cupcakes...I really need to get this thing loosened.
It hasn't even been a week yet but I'm so happy I did! For the past few days I've been eating a wide variety of foods including fruits, and haven't had any PB/regurgitating/puking or even close. (This had become about a once a week occurance for me in the recent past.) All the slow and careful eating skills I've learned over the past 18 months are actually working and I'm not eating more than I should but I'm eating ENOUGH so I don't feel like I'm on the verge of passing out and go running for the first easy to eat food I can. It's an amazing feeling.
After living off 1200 calories a day, mostly because I couldn't eat much of anything till 3pm anyway, I am working on having a well rounded diet of 1600 a day with protein at every meal and snack. I hope not to gain weight (I really shouldn't since I burn about 2400 a day to the best I can calculate) but it'll be nice to just maintain in a healthy manner if that's all this allows.
One of the best things so far is being able to have eggs for breakfast and not be hungry 2 hours later!
Anyway, I wanted to share all of this because who knows if there are others out there going through the same thing. I thought for the last few months that the frustrations I was having were all my fault for not chewing well enough or eating slowly enough and I was afraid of going back to being pre-band hungry. But I still have 4.75ccs in my band (down from 5.25) and I'm remembering how easy it was to eat right and lose weight back when I was at this level previously.
Lesson learned! Don't be afraid to go to your doctor and get an unfill. If it doesn't make things better you can always go back. But being that tight is not what this is supposed to be like.
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Shifting priorities and new decisions
It probably would do me good to re-read everything I've written here from the beginning. I know it would help me gain perspective and see how truly far I've come. At the moment, I feel pretty much like "I've lost 93 lbs and I've got nothing to show for it" which isn't TRUE but because the one aspect of my body that I most wanted to change through this whole process has changed the least, it feels true.
I've been talking to my therapist for months now about the idea of plastic surgery to fix my midsection. At first I thought I was really messed up about my body image and needed to learn to accept everything as it is. And I tried that. And I guess if I didn't have the capability to change things to make myself happier then I'd have to settle for that. But he asked me one night why I didn't just have the plastic surgery if the only thing I want to change about my body is so easily changeable. A routine tummy tuck. Hollywood housewives and everyone else for that matter do them all the time. I keep holding onto this belief that I can't have plastic surgery till I'm down at my lowest possible weight and also that I should be able to or even "can" lose more. Well, I'm starting to think that neither of those things may be true.
So, I haven't decided for sure yet but I'm starting to seriously consider it. It's really weird to imagine what my life, my body, and my perception of myself would be like minus the belly I've carried around my whole life. Weird, but a nice thing to imagine.
I've been talking to my therapist for months now about the idea of plastic surgery to fix my midsection. At first I thought I was really messed up about my body image and needed to learn to accept everything as it is. And I tried that. And I guess if I didn't have the capability to change things to make myself happier then I'd have to settle for that. But he asked me one night why I didn't just have the plastic surgery if the only thing I want to change about my body is so easily changeable. A routine tummy tuck. Hollywood housewives and everyone else for that matter do them all the time. I keep holding onto this belief that I can't have plastic surgery till I'm down at my lowest possible weight and also that I should be able to or even "can" lose more. Well, I'm starting to think that neither of those things may be true.
So, I haven't decided for sure yet but I'm starting to seriously consider it. It's really weird to imagine what my life, my body, and my perception of myself would be like minus the belly I've carried around my whole life. Weird, but a nice thing to imagine.
Wednesday, July 13, 2011
2 week experiment: results
This was written on July 12 but oops... I kind of forgot to post it.
So the results are in and they are mixed. In numbers, not such a great ending as I remain steadily at 180.6 lbs. On the other hand, when I got back from my vacation on 6/28 I was back at 184 so being down is good. I would like to have lost any weight at all in the past week but I also didn't stick to the plan very well at all, so what do I expect?
The good news is my body fat % is still pretty low in terms of where it's been lately. 35.1 now and my eventual goal is to get it below 30 even if I don't lose any further weight.
After the results of the first week I'm kind of discouraged but still have enough medifast food to keep going. It's not an utter failure after all. Not been that hungry, been eating better and more nutritiously than in my pre-experiment life. Was able to get back down to 180 without the use of that godawful medication that blocks the opening of my stomach.
So the results are in and they are mixed. In numbers, not such a great ending as I remain steadily at 180.6 lbs. On the other hand, when I got back from my vacation on 6/28 I was back at 184 so being down is good. I would like to have lost any weight at all in the past week but I also didn't stick to the plan very well at all, so what do I expect?
The good news is my body fat % is still pretty low in terms of where it's been lately. 35.1 now and my eventual goal is to get it below 30 even if I don't lose any further weight.
After the results of the first week I'm kind of discouraged but still have enough medifast food to keep going. It's not an utter failure after all. Not been that hungry, been eating better and more nutritiously than in my pre-experiment life. Was able to get back down to 180 without the use of that godawful medication that blocks the opening of my stomach.
Monday, July 11, 2011
2 week experiment, days 12, 13, 14
Where did the weekend go? I guess I was having too much fun to write!
Well, Monday is over and tomorrow morning's weigh in will yield the results of my 2 week experiment. I don't have high hopes. Today I was 179.6 so I will be happy if I'm back down to last week's low of 179.4, even better if I'm a fraction of a pound below that but I'm not expecting it.
Here are the daily results from Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today.
Friday:
1205 cal
113 carb
46 fat
103 protein
Exercise 100 calories
Saturday:
1333 cal
86 carb
72 fat
108 protein
Exercise: 873 calories
Sunday:
1240 calories
76 carbs
66 fat
100 protein
Exercise: 436
Monday:
1385 calories
111 carb
62 fat
117 carb
Exercise 52 calories
I keep telling myself that even losing 1lb, even 1/2 lb in a week is a good thing. It's just taking a bit of effort to not get discouraged over that slow of a loss when I am making such a point to eat well and exercise. But I have enough medifast food to last me 3 more weeks and maybe I'll be able to start sticking to it better than I have been. I certainly "should" only be getting about 800 calories a day on this plan but that just feels depressing to me.
Well, Monday is over and tomorrow morning's weigh in will yield the results of my 2 week experiment. I don't have high hopes. Today I was 179.6 so I will be happy if I'm back down to last week's low of 179.4, even better if I'm a fraction of a pound below that but I'm not expecting it.
Here are the daily results from Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and today.
Friday:
1205 cal
113 carb
46 fat
103 protein
Exercise 100 calories
Saturday:
1333 cal
86 carb
72 fat
108 protein
Exercise: 873 calories
Sunday:
1240 calories
76 carbs
66 fat
100 protein
Exercise: 436
Monday:
1385 calories
111 carb
62 fat
117 carb
Exercise 52 calories
I keep telling myself that even losing 1lb, even 1/2 lb in a week is a good thing. It's just taking a bit of effort to not get discouraged over that slow of a loss when I am making such a point to eat well and exercise. But I have enough medifast food to last me 3 more weeks and maybe I'll be able to start sticking to it better than I have been. I certainly "should" only be getting about 800 calories a day on this plan but that just feels depressing to me.
Friday, July 8, 2011
2 week experiment, day 11
The good news: I woke up still at 181 this morning.
The bad news, I managed to find my hunger around 8:00 last night and it didn't stop till midnight. I think I'm onto something here. Not being able to eat earlier in the day always ends badly. I need to do something different (i.e. eat more earlier in the day.)
So I tracked as much as I could but once I got home I was really hungry and just started going for everything in sight. This was after I'd eaten a decent sized dinner and gotten myself a treat for dessert. So I am probably at about 2000 calories yesterday based on this.
Calories: 1567
Carbs: 135
Fat: 63
Protein: 116
exercise: 122 calories
Today hasn't been much better. Ok, so I've not been really hungry and have stuck to the meal plan for the most part but I just tried eating my first real food of the day (some chopped up chicken) and I PB'd it all over the place after a few bites. Motherfucker. I'm frustrated. Maybe I need to get fluid taken out of this damn band. I keep having these experiences and it doesn't help cause now all I want to do is go eat some chips that I know will go easily down. I have an appointment on 8/5 so I think if it hasn't resolved by then I will ask for an unfill...just a slight one. This would allow me to eat more earlier in the day and get more water in more easily. Right now I feel like I need to go back to all liquids cause my stomach feels so swollen. Crap.
The bad news, I managed to find my hunger around 8:00 last night and it didn't stop till midnight. I think I'm onto something here. Not being able to eat earlier in the day always ends badly. I need to do something different (i.e. eat more earlier in the day.)
So I tracked as much as I could but once I got home I was really hungry and just started going for everything in sight. This was after I'd eaten a decent sized dinner and gotten myself a treat for dessert. So I am probably at about 2000 calories yesterday based on this.
Calories: 1567
Carbs: 135
Fat: 63
Protein: 116
exercise: 122 calories
Today hasn't been much better. Ok, so I've not been really hungry and have stuck to the meal plan for the most part but I just tried eating my first real food of the day (some chopped up chicken) and I PB'd it all over the place after a few bites. Motherfucker. I'm frustrated. Maybe I need to get fluid taken out of this damn band. I keep having these experiences and it doesn't help cause now all I want to do is go eat some chips that I know will go easily down. I have an appointment on 8/5 so I think if it hasn't resolved by then I will ask for an unfill...just a slight one. This would allow me to eat more earlier in the day and get more water in more easily. Right now I feel like I need to go back to all liquids cause my stomach feels so swollen. Crap.
Thursday, July 7, 2011
2 week experiment, days 9 and 10
Well, Tuesday morning the weigh in was great but I bounced right back to 181 and have stayed there for 2 days. Yesterday I worked out hard and I expected myself to be hungry today but I haven't been that much.
I missed posting yesterday so here are Tuesday's stats:
Calories: 1493
Carbs: 137 g
fat: 54 g
Protein: 137 g
Exercise: 418 calories
Then Wednesday:
Cal: 1410
Carbs: 92g
Fat:68g
Protein: 132g
Exercise: 496 calories
And so far so good today with feeling not hungry (except for a few times, which I've then become satisfied very quickly.)
Going out to dinner tonight with a friend and not sure where we're going or what it'll be like so it's a good thing I haven't been hungry. On the other hand, I should probably eat a MF bar before getting there.
I am keeping up the faith that there's NO WAY my body can actually hold onto fat when I'm eating so little and exercising so much. AND I'm giving it a crap load of protein so what's the deal? Not getting discouraged. It's an experiment after all so if it doesn't work then I know and don't continue but it defies all logic how if my body needs 1500 calories just to exist (!!! about 2300 to maintain my current body composition) and I'm netting around 1000 a day, how come I'm not losing 1/2 pound a day here. Oy, if someone could just figure all this out they'd be a millionaire.
I missed posting yesterday so here are Tuesday's stats:
Calories: 1493
Carbs: 137 g
fat: 54 g
Protein: 137 g
Exercise: 418 calories
Then Wednesday:
Cal: 1410
Carbs: 92g
Fat:68g
Protein: 132g
Exercise: 496 calories
And so far so good today with feeling not hungry (except for a few times, which I've then become satisfied very quickly.)
Going out to dinner tonight with a friend and not sure where we're going or what it'll be like so it's a good thing I haven't been hungry. On the other hand, I should probably eat a MF bar before getting there.
I am keeping up the faith that there's NO WAY my body can actually hold onto fat when I'm eating so little and exercising so much. AND I'm giving it a crap load of protein so what's the deal? Not getting discouraged. It's an experiment after all so if it doesn't work then I know and don't continue but it defies all logic how if my body needs 1500 calories just to exist (!!! about 2300 to maintain my current body composition) and I'm netting around 1000 a day, how come I'm not losing 1/2 pound a day here. Oy, if someone could just figure all this out they'd be a millionaire.
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