4-30-2015 The Uggghs

Don't let the photo fool you, I'm not in a hospital or anything like that. It's just one of those photo's I found that seemed to fit how I feel right now. Today is a day which I have for a while now (about 5 minutes) have affectionately dubbed the Uggghs. This is by no means a medical term or anything overtly specific, but more of just the way I am feeling right now. Part sick, part anxious, part exhausted and just feeling down in the dumps. I feel like that hospital bed, functional, but unkempt and uncomfortable.

Yesterday I met with the nutritionist and we discussed my diet. Apparently my endocrinologist is estimating I need 4000-4600 calories right now and a metric ton of protein. The protein I was aware of, but that calorie level had never entered into any of our discussions. This is a temporary estimate until we can get the REE (resting energy expenditure) done next week, but it is still quite a big change from the 2200-2500 I have been getting right now. They are worried that I am going to start having muscle wasting if I don't eat enough calories and that my body will go into starvation mood.

The nutritionist wants me to get in another 1000 calories a day in the form of 500 calorie meals at breakfast and lunch in addition to my usual shakes. On the one hand, this seems reasonable. I want to lose my weight healthily, I don't want to go about it in such a way that I am hurting myself. On the other hand, 1000 calories a day is a lot more than I have been doing on most days and i'm really worried about this negatively impacting my weight loss in general. They say that if my metabolism goes into starvation mode and slows down, that I will lose weight less efficiently, but I can't help but be frightened about this screwing up my timeline for surgery.

I've just been so focused on this really strict diet and really strict activity regimen for the last two months and I have to admit, I am starting to get utterly exhausted. I don't know how much of it is psychological because of what they are telling me (both with me letting my brain feel exhausted because they say it might be weakening me as well as my just anxiety about what this will do to me if I increase my calories making me feel sick).I don't know how much of it is just the truth of what they are saying setting in or something else all together.

I just know that I am in the home stretch right now, less than 100 pounds to go towards surgery and I want to be there this summer getting it. I want to get out of this house. I want to wave my nerd flag and be there opening night of Star Wars. I want to be able to do so much, but am terrified of any change that might end up causing me to throw that off.

Today hasn't been a big help. I feel sick, I've been feeling nauseous off and on all day today. It seems to happen the most when I think about my diet and everything related to it, so it probably -is- psychological. Then again, our neighbors are getting sick and they come over quite often to visit my mother and sister. My sister isn't feeling well either. I could just be having a bug that is exacerbating all of this.

However which way you wish to cut it though, my physical therapist put me on a reduced schedule for today and tomorrow to try and give me a chance to recover. She is also trying to get the mental health nurse out here, because they didn't see me this week and apparently they are swamped right now. I need that mental health care to help try and keep on track.

This is a time, and it is a big part of the uggghs, where I tend to second guess myself all the time. I feel like I've been downhill all week since my birthday and I don't know if that is just circumstances or if I have messed myself up in some way down the line. It feels like my anxiety is out of control. I've been trying what I can to distract myself, to meditate as best I can. I have never been all that good at it. And mainly, I just try and remind myself that next Thursday I have my weigh in and my REE. I can do this modified diet until then and we can refine it and then I will see where I am in my weight loss goal. As much as I want to get there ahead of schedule, I have two more months to get where I want to go and that could be simply 30 pounds per month which at this point isn't too hard to accomplish. I just have to stay focused.

One thing I am going to do my damnedest not to do is to turn to food during this time of the uggghs, that is the worst thing possible. that I could do. I will have something nice that fits within my calorie restrictions, but it will be within the restrictions. Maybe I will buy myself a new game to distract myself with in my free time. I've been looking at GTA V for a while for the PC and it is the start of a new month here so my very very limited entertainment budget should be able to just accomodate it.

photo credit: three day's in hospital with the not so little one... via photopin (license)

4-25-15 Status Report

I made myself a promise that I would do my best to update twice a week and here I am. That's a plus right there in my book, I managed to remember it. I've been finding of late that my mind is scatter brained. I think it's because I'm getting old. (birthday was last Friday, more on that later). This is a valuable tool for me to be able to express what is going on with my program and be able to vent issues that I might not necessarily be able to.

Honestly, I think that is one of the biggest problems I've had to deal with, properly venting and expressing my emotions and dealing with them. I grew up attending the school of suppression and trying to keep everything locked away and ignore it. Invariably it would get out eventually in some way. Sometimes it would be in passive aggressive behavior (something I think happens a lot in my family in general) and other times I've turned to food. Food is a great sedative, soothing the nerves and as a reward to make ones self feel better. The problem is, that isn't healthy. One can very easily become dependent on that food high and that is what leads to addiction. That is one thing where I have to be very very careful with it. I don't want to cut out special foods entirely, I think that will make me get -way- too antsy, but I need to have them as a nice, once in a while treat, not to eat away my pain. I think I am doing better on that point, but there are always going to be times when it crops up.I hope though, that as time goes on, that urge can be lessened and lessened until it is easier to say no.

Fridays, as usual, are my cheat days and we did something a little more special this Friday. We ordered pizza from Pizza Schmizza, a local place that I love and we bought some appetizers from the store. It was weird, because I think my mother ate more than I did. We both commented that I ate less in two sittings that day (we started off around noon and let it go into evening so had the same food for dinner) than I used to eat in one sitting. It's a great step and shows that I am slowly reducing the amount I eat even on these days when I allow myself to eat more. I am making progress there.

The next day, because I had taken a break from most of my exercises the previous day, I felt great, rejuvenated and hit my exercises in stride. things seemed to be going pretty well.I was doing well, my mood was great. I was pumped and ready to keep on everything. Then there was a bit of miscommunication at home.  My walking path that evening was very very crowded with animals and things and I asked if we could move my  mother's walker when it was blocking my wheelchair (my home base where I sit between sets of laps) and she got upset and made a comment about not being allowed to have anything anywhere. Which just isn't the case. She's upset because our house is crowded and she is sharing a room with my sister and they don't have a lot of space in there and it wasn't directed at me and was momentary. But the part of my that struggles with not feeling like I am a burden really took a hit that night and even though we talked it out I was rattled for most of the day. I ended up taking the wrong meds that night and doubling down on all of my daytime medicines and missing my night ones.

It threw me off for all of the rest of that night and Sunday. I was in pain, I wasn't able to do as much, I was feeling ill because of the meds. It all started with something so simple as that. It also scared me a little. I have forgotten meds before, but I've never accidentally taken the same meds again before and I don't want to make that mistake ever again. it also just reminds me how fragile what we've strung together for me here is. We're doing great, but this is by no means a solid platform and can't go on forever, which is part of why I really need that surgery.

Eventually with that, I can take my walking outside, not having to worry about taking up the living room. With the surgery, I'll be able to go out and od things for fun. Instead of rewarding myself with food, I could reward myself with a movie or going to an arcade or even just going window shopping. And when I get stressed and upset and cooped up, I could try and leave the house. At this point my desire to get away from the stress at times outweigh's my agoraphobia. I need to work hard and get there.

And I am working hard. I did my first quad lap of my living room today. That's a total of 200 feet without sitting down. That's the furthest I have been able to walk in -forever-. I paired that with increasing my laps to 20 total laps of the living room in each session. That is a total of 2000 feet a day just during my walking sessions. Which isn't a lot for normal people, but for me is a big deal.

I go to get weighed on May 7th, so we will get to see how all of this work has played out. Though, I am also a bit worried about how it is going to go. I have had some rough points, but I know this is probably just my same usual worry coming into play and not anything truly real.  On that day, they are going to be performing an REE (Resting Energy Expendiature) during which I will have to lay down for about an hour with a big bubble over my head and just breath, not moving, not sleeping, just lay there and breath and it will tell them how many calories I burn before taking into account calories burned to eat (which is a thing) or moving or anything else.

They are doing this, because they are wanting to fine tune my diet. I don't know if they are just worried I lost too much too quickly, or if it is something else, but now I have started hearing from the dietitian that is coming out tomorrow and from the nurse that the weight loss clinic might be wanting me to take in -more- calories than I currently am, to make sure that I remain healthy. Which I know I want to be healthy, but there is a part of me that is terrified of them wanting me to eat more. I don't want to rock the boat if this is working. Then again, if I need it, I could feel better and more energized to do my work. I guess we just have to wait and see.

photo credit: karate image via photopin (license)

4-22-2015 It's ALIVE!!!

And finally my computer is back alive. I can finally start devoting more time to writing once again. I am going to try and not let it slide. My goal is to try and post twice a week at least, more if I can do so. But finally the frankencomputer is working. Thank the lord!

I am starting to feel a bit Frankenstein like myself in some ways. Not from the composed of other bits of other peoples, but more in that I feel like so much of what we are doing with my diet and exercise program is just cobbled together. My size and weight aren't all that common. So uncommon that people my size might often end up being the subjects of the rare television special or series of news articles.

The methods for dealing with our sets of circumstances are often guess work because when you get to such extremes, it can be really hard to get a definitive plan together with so few chances to refine it. For me, while most people my size would be facing tons of heart issues, I've been very lucky in having virtually no heart issues. I've suffered from high blood pressure, but it is very controlled. My Diabetes is also very controlled. I am also very lucky in that I can still walk. That is perhaps the biggest thing. But still I cannot walk far enough to get into a car or a wheelchair van or anything to get to appointments, so we have to make do, using ambulances. My walking regimen involves lots of resting. My physical therapist and I are literally adjusting things every time they come over which has been three times a week just because there is no handbook for this.

My diet. I had thought that was fairly set, but now I'm hearing from my nurses that they are rethinking it at the weight loss clinic, worrying I may not be getting -enough- protein and nutrition to help maintain muscle mass as I lose weight; which baffles me. It's this delicate balance that is trying to be achieved and I just pray that we can maintain it until we can get through to the other side.

I am heartened though. I read this great article about a british man who was 950 pounds. He had gastric bypass surgery and now he's a lot smaller, but he is dealing with his skin folds. he has made it, he has changed his life around and he was even bigger than me. That's not something that I can really say that often about people.  It also reminds me of what I am going to have to face eventually, with my excess skin. I was staggered to learn he had over a hundred pounds of extra skin on his body and it makes me realize that all of my excess weight, it isn't just the weight, it's the weight of how my body has adapted to support its self. I am likely going to have a similar, though slightly less amount of skin to be removed, but in a way that will be the easiest almost a hundred pounds I'll ever lose. If you haven't read the article, please do. That man is an inspiration, quite literally to me.

I am glad that I am making this journey. My only regret is that it has taken me so long to get to this point in my life. So very very long. But better late than never. I will get down in size and soon I'll be able to go out and do things again, spend time with people. I'm already walking better and better. I've doubled my laps in the last month and some change. I'm exercising more, doing more and feeling better. My physical therapist has even cobbled together a way to help the lymph edema in my abdomen. So things are improving. I get weighed again in two weeks. Really focused on that. though this friday I am taking a bit of a break from all of the work the last few months to celebrate my birthday. Not going to go -too- over board, just treating it like a cheat day, just one that we are celebrating my birthday on. It's perfect timing.

photo credit: Frankenstein via photopin (license)

4-12-2015 Food Addiction

First I wanted to say that I am sorry for the lack of posts this last week. My computer started having some pretty serious issues and I had to end up packing it off and sending it to get repaired. The computer I am on is my older one and I've had to spend some time getting it up and running and updated and all of that. Plus in general it has just been a crazy week. Should get my main computer back in a week or two. We'll see. estimated time once they get it is 5-10 days.

This has been an especially rough week for me. I am not quite sure of what specifically is the cause of it. It didn't start immediately, but right around Easter is when it started for me and it's really progressed since then. It is likely a combination of things that has helped contribute to it. Though the most visible effect has been for me trying to deal with the food addiction.

This week has been very rough for me for wanting to cheat on the diet and have other foods.People always say it's just a choice, it just takes willpower. And yes it does take willpower, but it isn't so -easy- as that. Food addiction is a very real thing. When I get to wanting something I don't just have an urge and have to tell myself no. I feel my palms get sweaty and I actually start to get shaky as I tell myself no. I've had to clasp my hands really tightly together and tuck them under myself because I've been wanting these extra special foods that aren't good for me.

The closest I have come to going off is that I did allow myself a beef jerky bit on a day when I had missed a shake due to a nap I took and I needed just an added punch of protein. That helped curb the desire a little, but I am reminded this week that deal with my food addiction is going to be a long term thing and even though I can be good for long periods, I will still get that desire and I will have to fight it. It is a matter of life and death.

I think that the important thing though is not to take the Alcoholics Anonymous approach to addiction. For one thing, I just physically can't. I need to eat and I can't avoid it completely. But also the AA approach seems geared around this idea of if you can't follow the program perfectly it is your own fault. It's very black and white in a world that isn't black and white. And they do nothing to teach healthy relationships and moderation. it breeds an idea that 'oh I fucked up so I might as well just give over big since I've made a mistake' rather than a healthy approach that 'okay you made a mistake, it was a small one, it wasn't a big deal, the issue is when it is -too- much so go back and get back on track.' And that is the approach I am trying to do with food.

That is why I have a Friday cheat day. I've been allowing myself treats on those days to help with teaching me a healthy relationship with food. I have a small dessert on those days, but it's small and it's not big. My cheat days started off with these huge extravagant meals and I've been slowly paring them down. And it has been helping with my diet and my cravings a lot, though this week has been a struggle. I think it is other things contributing tot he issue this week though.

As I said, Easter is when it started and I think that may well be because of how the schedule for the day got messed up for me and how it through me off. I usually have a dinner at 6 o'clock. That is my 'real food' meal of the day when I usually have a lean cuisine or some other small meal. On Easter my family had company over so the plan was to eat at 2 o'clock. As such I skipped my 2pm shake in order to eat. However, dinner kept getting pushed back until it was 4: 30. As such my entire schedule, even with modified got thrown off. I missed shakes and probably ate more as a result of that. And then when 6 o'clock came around, because my body was trained to eat then it quickly became dissatisfied with the shake I drank then. I ended up having 5 crackers that evening at 9 o'clock to quiet my stomach. It wasn't bad for my diet doing that, but it felt like weakness, felt like a failure and the next few days I felt off and was having cravings just from that one day being off.

It hasn't helped that I haven't spoken with a therapist in almost three weeks now. If I don't see one this week it will be the third week in a row come Tuesday where I haven't seen one. We switched to providence home health mental health because the county felt I wasn't being seen enough by my old Psychologist, but this isn't helping either. And I think that not having someone to talk to has been impacting my mental health. Despite my progress with the weight loss, I've been having a lot more mood issues. I've been off and depressed more and pessimistic and that is either coming from my struggles this week with the food desires or is exacerbating those issues.

It also hasn't helped that I have been feeling sick. Maybe it has been brought on by all of this stress, but I've got this throbbing stabbing pain in the right side of my head, I've been running a low grade fever and at times been feeling nauseous. So that has fed the depression and that just makes me feel worse. In the past food has always been something used as a technique to try and help me feel better, food for medicine, just one more aspect of that addiction, so I've been having to push those usual steps to the side and just tough it out.

It's just  really rough. But I'm going to get through this. I have to. I keep trying to tell myself that I can do this. If I am on track for my weight loss goal, I should be around 733 or so. If I am at the same rate of weight loss as during that three week period before this, I am closer to 727. If I can get to 690, I will be able to schedule to see the surgeon and we'll be another step closer to surgery. Just have to tough this out.

4-2-15 The Scale: The Frenemy

Oh the scale. I both love and hate it at times. Really I cannot think of an object that incurs all on its own the same level of fear and dread that a scale does, while also providing this level of joy that is baffling given the terror that it invokes.

My love/hate relationship with the scale has gone on for such a long time. I think it is that way for many people who struggle with their weight. there is no more accurate tool for measuring weight loss than the scale, that we have. Yet even that measurement isn't the most accurate.

I've been told time and time again to be careful and modulate my expectations of my weight loss or lack there of because of muscle gain, because of water retention or a host of other factors. Your weight can fluctuate a couple of pounds every day, even more so when you are at higher weights like I am. So it can be really hard to accurately gauge your weight.

Clothing can be another indicator, but who is to say the clothing isn't stretched. I've had shirts from the same company in the same size fit me differently just because the stretched/shrunk in different fashions. So while clothing can tell over time, it isn't always the best indicator either.

Through my exercise and diet program I have thought I had seen improvements. I thought I was fitting into clothing better. I thought that I might be a bit more flexible. I was certainly doing a lot more exercises, that much was for sure, but I didn't know. Some days I felt less flexible, bloated terrible.

Anxiety and the mind were the biggest factors in this. I have felt like I was working my ass off. And I don't mean the pun, I mean literally I feel like I have been working it off. I have been tired and sweaty and eating barely anything all in the pursuit of my weight loss goal.

Yet I was worried. What if I wasn't meeting my goal weight? How much harder would I have to work if I wasn't, to catch up to what I was going to do. I was terrified of this. I wasn't going to be seen to be weighed until May 7th and I started to panic. I couldn't wait two months to be weighed, so I arranged so that I could be just weighed after 3 weeks from my last appointment.

That three week mark was today. I felt better, knowing I was going to have that buffer where if I wasn't doing things enough, I could somehow, someway work to find a way to do better. I spent today going back and forth between being excited to see how much I would lose, but then dreading the scale reading something low, that I hadn't done enough. I had had it happen before.

I must have nearly thrown up about three times, just from the anxiety today. I was fitful, distracted and so nervous. I got so nervous I started trying on clothes again and questioning, is this fitting better? Oh I haven't worn shoes in a long time, maybe I can wear them comfortably, I've been more stable lately. (it turns out I can now, so that is progress at the very least).

In the end I was nervous and scared and my home care worker Patti, she offered to go with me. But then my mother arrived and said she would go. She's never been able to go to a weigh in with me or any of my appointments and I have been wanting to for a long time, to have that family support. So she went.

And I've been keeping up the suspense long enough. My goal, to be on track for a July 4th weight of 650 pounds was 756.6 pounds. This is 1.18 pounds per day over the course of the last three weeks. I got there and I got on the scale and it was...

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....

...

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I'm a bastard...

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744.2

That's 37.1 pounds in 3 weeks. 1.766666~ pounds a day. This is the lowest my weight has been in 3 years. I need to lose 94.2 pounds to reach my goal weight in 3 months. If I get within 40 pounds of my goal weight, I can meet with the surgeon. That's about 54 days at the current rate of weight loss. My birthday is in that time so I might be fudging a day so 55 days. That's two months. I could potentially be meeting the surgeon to plan the surgery in June, not July.

I am so relieved and so happy. I have all of this pent up adrenaline from the nerves that have been wracking me since the day started. I am well on track. I am so much closer and for the first time since this journey began, I am within double digits of my goal weight.

photo credit: Bathroom Scale via photopin (license)