Monkey’s Uncle

Mmmmm, looks like a good breakfast, right? Except 10 grapes are 8 grams of sugar! I’m not supposed to have more than 10 grams of sugar at one time.

So I’m just not going to eat the grapes at all.

Maybe it’s stupid, but where I’ve only been gaining weight…

The bagel, on the other hand, which is made by a brand called Sola, is 128 calories for the entire bagel, 15 grams of protein, and 1, yes 1 gram of sugar.

The nutritionist was worried that my amazing find might be high in sugar because it was so low in everything else, and that I needed more practice reading nutrition labels. Nope.

The spread on top is Brummel & Brown, 45 calories a tbsp vs 100 calorie tbsp of butter.

The problem with eating your meals for a half hour is they are cold after 10 minutes or so.

At least I’ve gotten myself into a routine of sorts.

• I’m supposed to eat every 3-4 hours. I’ve been doing that. Except for dinner, I eat pretty much the same foods everyday, and I’m totally fine with that.

• Eat the protein part of your meal first. I do that.

• Wait 30 minutes after eating before drinking. Check.

• Drinking at least 64 ounces of water everyday but usually more.

• I’m down to the last soda in my house today, and after that one, I’m done.

• I’m not dependent on caffeine anymore.

• Taking my time as much as possible to eat.

• Taking annoyingly small princess bites of food.

• Chewing to applesauce consistency.

• Avoiding hard to chew foods.

• Checking labels for protein, fat, and sugar content as opposed to just calories.

If I’m not cleared next time I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.

Too Many Fasts

My health risk assessment is today. I had one six months ago. They’re going to be disappointed.

All that’s happened is I’ve gained weight since I started the program. I don’t blame them. It’s a fine program.

But even though I’ve gone to the gym and don’t think I’ve gone wildly overboard snacking, I’ve still managed to pack on 5-10 more pounds. I’m feeling hopeless.

Even as I’m tracking, I’m not really getting anywhere.

I wonder, what do they do when a person isn’t making progress? They may have told me and I just don’t remember.

I hope they don’t discharge me. I really need the gym membership, if only to try desperately to keep my weight from continuing to go up.

It’s funny how I go into these blog posts thinking they’re going to be about one thing, and they end up being something altogether different. I figured this would just be about how I hate when I can’t drink my drinks.

I guess that would’ve been a much shorter post.

Old Habits

It’s not that hard to wait 30 minutes after eating to drink anything. I thought it would be, that’s why I avoided it so long. I just set a timer and go do something else for a half hour. Before I know it, it’s time for a drink.

I do notice that when I wait too long to eat, I’m more likely to overeat later.

I have a hard time taking 30 minutes to eat every meal. It seems like forever.

Also, small bites are annoying. But it is what it is. I’ll get used to it.

Tonight is a fast. I have a health risk assessment tomorrow morning. Not looking forward to the weigh-in. No matter how I’ve tried, I’ve just gained and gained.

That’s all I have for today. I hope tomorrow is better. Goodnight.

Rabbit Hole

This is the letter I wrote to my nutritionist over the weekend. It probably won’t change her mind, but at least I can say I tried.

I’m not ashamed to tell you I’m never likely to have $3,000 on hand…okay I am, a little bit.

Money: I don’t have it.

You know how you spend so many years in crisis that crisis becomes the norm? Maybe you don’t know. If you don’t, God bless you. You’re better at this game than I am.

Anyway, I’m trying to do better. I got my credit score, I got the Quicken app, I got a secured credit card to rebuild my credit. I made a list of all the Christmas gifts I’ve bought thus far and their recipients so I don’t lose track and go overboard this year. I’m doing my best to make payments on time.

The thing is, I don’t think I overspend. Quicken says I don’t. I think there are just a lot of expenses.

I think a lot of people struggle. Maybe most. But I don’t really know that for a fact.

This country would benefit from more financial literacy training at a young age. That’s what I think. Reconciling a checkbook. Compound interest. Savings. APR. Personal loans. Retirement. The consequences of buying excessively on credit, spending money you don’t have.

Some schools teach it, but many don’t. You can’t rely on parents for this subject. Because many, if not most parents have also not been educated in financial literacy. We are a nation of the blind leading the blind when it comes to money.

I’ve exhausted this topic, which I didn’t even intend to be central to the post, but now I have to go. I hope you have enjoyed my ADHD-tangent.

Disclaimer: I am not making fun of ADHD. I actually have ADHD, and frequently go off on tangents. Further, I would not poke fun at ADHD or any other disability. This is an affectionate acknowledgement of my tendency to disappear down rabbit holes 🕳️

Plentiful Chocolate

A friend of mine suggested I tell my dietician my situation with the high deductible and ask her to reconsider. So I did. I don’t know what if anything will come of it, but at least I tried.

I didn’t rage eat anything yesterday, though I very well could have. Work was rough, chocolate was plentiful.

I did go to the Veterans Day ceremony in the auditorium. I had a lot of work to do, but I’m glad I went. It’s important to remember there are larger-scale struggles going on all around me, all around the world, everyday.

It’s important to remember the people brave enough to stand up for the rest of us. You’d never see me on the front line.

At one point during the ceremony, I got a little emotional, thinking about all of this and…everything. No one noticed.

In my defense, it was a lovely, moving ceremony. They invited all the local vets and their families to sit together as guests of honor. The speech path’s husband was in uniform.

In my youth I was very anti-war. But was I?

I say that without really thinking about it, but I was the quiet little nerd in eighth grade who opened my mouth one day and stood up to the school bully. So I’ve always known that sometimes you have to fight back.

So, while I’m not exactly gung-ho about war, I do accept that sometimes it happens, and I certainly support the people who put their lives on the line to protect me.

I happened to work with a lot of veterans a couple of years ago in manufacturing. They were good men.

I didn’t actually mean to make this post about Veterans Day, but I guess it’s á propos.

So, to all you veterans out there—you know who you are—I say, from the bottom of my heart: thank you. I appreciate you. ❤️🐇

Frustrated

I feel like I’ve worked hard and made a lot of changes for the better. And this is what I get.

I rage ate a peanut butter cookie last night. It was just one cookie. If she knew, would that set me back six more weeks?

Everyone else is sensitive to the fact that I don’t have $3,000 and has approved me. This woman couldn’t care less. If the procedure is scheduled in January, which now it very likely will be, I will have to pay my high deductible for it.

You thought this was going to be a seamless journey through the breathtakingly beautiful process of my transformation, didn’t you? Nope, not me. My journeys are fraught with arbitrary roadblocks and unnecessary screwups.

I understand, by the way, that rage eating anything is problematic. It was kind of a joke. I wanted the cookie, though admittedly, I was (am) still mad.

I am hooking up with Better Health to try to find someone who specializes in body image/ weight management. But I am not putting off surgery a second longer than I have to.

Big Fat NO

It did not go well.

I was not cleared for surgery by the nutritionist. I have to have yet another three-week follow up with this woman.

I hope she knows that if this whole ordeal is pushed into next year and I’m forced to pay out of pocket, it is her fault.

The worst part is how I’ve jumped through hoops to make these stupid improvements that apparently mean NOTHING!

I want to cry.

I want to scream.

I want my goddamned Pepsi back.

Day of Reckoning

I didn’t lose any weight over the last few days. I mean, not even water weight. So my chart is going to show a 3 lb. gain and I don’t know if it could delay my surgery.

Really, I’ve gone from a very active job to a mostly sedentary job. When you look at it that way, I’ve done alright. Also, I’ve made a lot of positive changes, as noted in my previous post.

I hope they give me some grace, that’s all.

As always, I’ll keep you posted.

Up Again

Here I am at 1:00 in the morning, wide awake. At least I slept a few hours.

I don’t know why I can’t sleep. It’s definitely not caffeine. Anxiety?

Mind Prep is really getting interesting. She’s listing all the different ways children experience trauma through abuse or neglect, which can lead to obesity.

All these bells are going off in my head as she describes behaviors, symptoms, and characteristics. Yup, that’s me, I think to myself as I underline, circle, and star all kinds of information.

My mother suffered throughout her life with mental illness, and my brother and I were unwitting victims. I endured verbal abuse and neglect from my mother, who was emotionally unavailable due to her sickness.

I’ve been in therapy for my traumatic childhood for many years, but I haven’t ever really looked at the trauma through an obesity lens. Doing so might help prevent regain after surgery.

I believe in digging down to the root of a problem to eradicate it. Anything else is just a Band-Aid. Do I have unresolved issues in my past? Absolutely. Am I still angry with my mother for her unreasonable expectations? You bet.

I don’t want to delay my surgery. But I also don’t want to go through something so significant in so many ways, only to have it fail down the road because I wasn’t adequately prepared.

It might be worth the extra time, if that’s what they recommend, to deep dive into my past and come up with ways to correct my thinking about myself so I can be more successful in the long run.

Thursday’s Followup

I have another appointment with the nutritionist in a couple of days, but I’m double booked with a meeting. I’m hoping it will be okay to have a colleague sit in for me at the meeting so I don’t have to reschedule the appointment and interfere with my timeline, pushing back my surgery date. My fate hangs in the balance as I await a response from my superior.

I haven’t done well in the weight management department, we know that. But there are other ways I have demonstrated improvement:

• Decreased from 3 doses of Miralax to 1/2 dose a day.

• Eliminated caffeine dependency.

• Decreased soda consumption from about 10 cans to 2 cans a day.

• Increased water consumption from 48 to about 64 oz a day.

• Better tracking of food and activity.

So I’m hoping that this 2-3-pound gain isn’t going to set me back. It could be water weight, they don’t know.

But I have to say, it is increasingly hard for me to move. To walk upstairs, get up off the couch, get out of bed. Even sitting up straight is uncomfortable because my stomach is in the way. And of course, my clothes are tight.

I bought some melatonin this morning, I’m hoping it will help me sleep. Then I won’t be up, eating. Then maybe I won’t gain anymore weight.

Anyway, it will be nothing if not…educational.

Scale Betrayal

They say the scale doesn’t lie. Maybe they’re right, but even so…

The scale is not my friend, right now.

Every time I get on it, the number creeps up.

Of course I know it’s the night time eating. If I could just part ways with the idea that any reasonable amount of food is going to make me feel sleepy, maybe I would be okay.

I panic when I can’t sleep. That’s the worst thing you can do, but I do it nonetheless. I always have. Even as a kid. When you can’t sleep, stressing out about it tends to exacerbate the problem. That’s what I tell Desmond when he can’t sleep.

Yet I know that when push comes to shove, I’m the same as him. I’m going to put undue pressure on myself to doze.

This is the opposite of what you want. When you can’t sleep, you’re supposed to try to relax, not force it. Let it come to you. It’s counterintuitive, yes, and that’s why it’s so hard.

Alas, I digress. I was talking about the scale.

The scale for me is more than a measure of my weight, but an indicator of how I’m doing in other areas. If I’m steadily gaining weight, you can bet I’m not getting enough water, I’m consuming too much sodium, and I’m not sleeping well—best case scenario.

So I guess I should look at the scale as a necessary evil rather than a mortal enemy. It’s showing me what I’d rather not see, sure, but would I prefer sugar coating? Blindsiding?

At the end of the day, a scale is only a measuring tool. I’m responsible for my choices, well-informed and otherwise. If I’m continually gaining, I have only myself to hold accountable.

Insomnia

Once again, I cannot sleep. And when I can’t sleep, I eat. You might think, how foolish. I do. Sometimes it helps. Other times, though, it doesn’t.

I don’t know why I can’t fall asleep at bedtime. It wasn’t always this way. This is relatively new. I can’t relax. Despite Mirapex, I suffer nightly from Restless Legs Syndrome, or what I think is RLS. It is a very unpleasant ticklish sensation in my legs that makes me feel I must move them. I get it with or without caffeine.

I’m not even hungry. I eat to pass the time. I eat to feel sleepy. I eat to numb the tickle. I’ve got to do something else while I’m up.

Maybe I should see my PCP about this. The Mirapex isn’t really working.

So today didn’t go well. Let me clarify: it did until it didn’t. I went way over budget after bedtime. Those Goya cookies, granola bars.

It won’t do any good to shame myself. The best I can do is start over tomorrow, maybe pre-track everything.

Maybe I should try some melatonin. It works for Desmond.

Coming up with a game plan for the next three days is probably my best bet if I want to get back down enough to keep this process moving.

What is Bariatric Surgery?

Obesity is a medical condition that cannot necessarily be “cured” with diet and exercise alone.

Bariatric surgery is a means for weight loss when other methods of weight management have failed. There are two major types of bariatric surgery: the Roux-en-y gastric bypass, and the gastric sleeve. The patient and the surgeon determine together which procedure is right for the patient.

According to Ali Aminian, MD, the sleeve is slightly safer, though both are quite safe, while the gastric bypass is more effective. Also, those who suffer from heartburn may be advised to avoid the sleeve.

With sleeve surgery, the surgeon removes 80-85% of your stomach, making it approximately the shape of a banana.

With gastric bypass, the top portion of the stomach is disconnected and a pouch is formed. They move up the small intestine and connect it to the pouch, thereby rerouting the GI tract so that the food you eat goes straight to your intestine, bypassing 90-95% of your stomach. Gastric bypass is considered by many the “gold standard” of bariatric surgery.

Both procedures help the patient lose weight rapidly because they effectively reduce hunger—temporarily. The post-op patient, though, also must commit to an entirely new lifestyle of regular exercise and adherence to a nutritional regimen of high protein and low sugar.

Other lifestyle changes include learning to chew your food more slowly and thoroughly, abstaining from fluids until at least 30 minutes after a meal, eating mindfully, taking smaller bites, and taking your time.

Obesity is now medically recognized as a disease with a strong genetic component, and old stereotypes and myths can hopefully begin to fall by the wayside as understanding of the condition increases. People with the disease do not lack self control or will power; they simply have a condition that is difficult if not impossible to overcome without help. Bariatric surgery is a tool to help people effectively manage their weight when other methods have not worked for them over the long term.

Backstory

I wasn’t a heavy kid. I was an average-sized child, active enough. I was on the soccer team, played outside everyday, spent my summers on the beach.

It wasn’t until I was nine years old that I became aware of my body in a whole new and unsettling way. My mother, who struggled most of her short life with mental health challenges, declared me overweight and put me on a diet.

Whether I had truly become overweight at nine, how my mother arrived at this conclusion, and if my pediatrician was involved is anyone’s guess.

But I’ve been “on a diet” ever since.

As I got older, I had the conviction in my head and my heart that I was not right and I needed to work on myself until I was. “You know, Leah, you do have a tendency to gain weight,” said my mother’s brother when I was 13. Getting and staying skinny was the key.

So I fought against my hunger, my fatigue, my natural instincts, and eventually, I achieved this end. Finally, my mother would be happy with me. Or so I thought.

As it turns out, any time life happened—a bad breakup, holiday season, couldn’t get to the gym—and I gained a few pounds, my mother was always sure to tell me immediately. As if I didn’t already know.

I’d get angry with her for being callous, we would argue, but ultimately I would lose the weight and inadvertently reinforce her behavior.

Sadly, my mother died at 45. I was only 23.

Unfortunately, the harsh critic she helped to cultivate still lives in me. Decades after the damage was done.

Unfortunately, I am no longer thin. I am no longer average, or merely overweight or even just chubby. I am clinically obese.

Unfortunately, I still have relatives on her side who say things like, “You’re beautiful, but you’d be even prettier if you lost weight.”

And unfortunately, I’ve tried several different weight management programs with varying and only temporary success.

So finally, I have decided to pursue bariatric surgery.

This is where my story begins.

Bad Week for Eating

This week has been horrible for tracking, and even worse for eating. I started out strong, I was tracking my food pretty accurately everyday. But then, as usual, I got lazy, and let it slide, and then came Halloween, and my eating habits went to hell.

Or, more accurately, all of my old eating habits resurfaced.

It’s just that, whether I’m mindful or not, whether I track or not, I’m only gaining stupid weight right now. It makes it harder to want to try.

But the surgery will only work for me if I do the work that’s required. Besides, I have a nutritionist appointment in four days. If I’ve gained a lot of weight, it might delay my surgery. I don’t want that.

I need to do better these next few days. Maybe I can lose some water weight, at least, and the scale won’t look as terrible.

I should make this my little project for the week: to commit to making better choices and hopefully tip the scale in my favor.