Support is Not Just for Boobies!

It is breast cancer awareness month, so in honor of the wonderful woman in my life who are fighting and have kicked cancer's ass, I give you a boob joke.  ;)

Since my doctor put me on this ultra strict no fun diet last July, I have lost a total of 26 pounds.  If we want to go back the few years when I first started this blog, I am down a total of 45 pounds from when I was at my heaviest.

45 pounds!!!  That's a small child!!!

One of my biggest milestones happened at my last doctor's appointment where in the first time in five years I am under 200 pounds.  I'm hoping by the end of next week my BMI will be officially out of the morbid obese category, and I'm only 15- 20 pounds away from being considered healthy enough for fertility treatment.  To many woman, 15-20 pounds seems like a lot to lose.  From where I was to where I'm heading, it sounds like such a small amount in comparison.

My last few weeks I have not lost as much weight as I have in the past months.  When this happens, I begin to feel discouraged.  I'm more likely to have just one little cheat....  This time however, something amazing happened.

Everyone started coming up to me and asking what I was doing.

There is nothing that cheers a person up faster than hearing how amazing they look!

Ever since I lost a small child's worth of fat off my body, everyone wants to know how I am making it happen.  I am more than happy to share, and I always use the disclaimer, "this is what a DOCTOR told me to do."  The diet is strict, and it may not be right for everyone.  After I scare the person with the diet, I tell them the real reason why I have been successful:

My support staff.

There is no way in hell I could do this on my own.  Scroll back several years worth of blog entries and you can see my feeble attempts to get my life back!  If you really want to lose weight, and I mean REALLY want to lose weight.  You must give up on the notion that you can do it alone and accept the help and love from your own designated support staff.  Sure, maybe you can lose ten quick pounds, but unless you are willing to commit to a lifestyle change, it will not stay off.

When I say support staff, I do not mean going out and hiring some expensive Hollywood-kick-your-ass-and-only-eat-wheat-grass-trainer, I mean the people in your life that can boost you up when you are down.  The people that you can talk with, ask advice, share recipes, and give a hug when needed.  I want to share my support staff and explain why these people are the reason I am so successful!

1.)  My doctor.

When I showed up at Riverside Surgical last May, it was because I was feeling miserable and being bounced from doctor to doctor trying to figure out what the hell was wrong with me.  I was nauseous and in a lot of pain.  When the surgeon I saw said there was nothing he could do and that I would probably feel better if I quit being a fat ass (my words, not his ;) ) he referred me over to his partner saying that my health factors and BMI percentage qualified me for obesity surgery.  I was floored.  I went home frustrated, disgusted with myself, disgusted with him for not being able to help me, disgusted with the people who can eat whatever they want and not gain weight, disgusted with PCOS for making it nearly impossible to lose weight, and disgusted with every woman that does NOT have PCOS.  It was not fair.  Safe to say I was in a pretty dark place.  However, disgusted as I was, frustrated as I was, I went to what I called in my head, the "fat doctor."  As much as I dreaded this appointment and as much as I hated myself for even having to go to it, it was the best decision I could have made.

The doctor looked over my health records.  He listened to my infertile fears, he told me that I didn't need bariatric surgery because he believed I could lose the weight myself.  He became my educator and my cheerleader.  He set me up with a dietitian, talked with me about planning a diet to fight my diseases, and helped me set goals.  My appointments are short and I joke about them being my monthly "shamings", but in reality he has been supportive and understanding and human.  He understand that I am going to have a beer with friends every once in a while.  He understands that I am going to go crazy and scarf down some treats.  He understands how what we put in our body can affect our mental state and our physical overall well being.  He has taught me what I need to do to be healthy.

2.)  Myfitnesspal

Free and easy.  It keeps track of the food I eat and as a social networking site I am able to connect with friends who are in the same boat as me.  We can cheer each other on and be accountable for one another's actions.  One example was I didn't log my food intake for the day and got a text from a friend reminding me to do so.  I was in a frustrated spot, and the text reminded me that others are watching!  How can you let your friends down!!  I also love the community boards and discussions that take place by others trying to lose weight.  :)

3.)  My friends

Being told how great you look is an instant mood boaster!  Not only that, friends let you bitch and complain and know when to agree with you, when to make you laugh, and when to give out hugs when needed!  You need to tell your friends what you are doing so they can become your fan base for success.

4.)  This Blog

It's lame, I know.  :-p  I'm a horrible blogger, but having a space to type out my achievements and bitch about my setbacks is awesome.  In a few months I want to be able to cross out overweight chocoholic and write about what it is like to live a healthy life as a former fat girl!

5.)  My husband (gross mushy moment warning)

I saved my husband for last because he has been my rock throughout this whole process.  He was there when I was sick, and he told me that it would be okay when we weren't sure what was going on.  He understands my worries about never getting pregnant and lets me know that no matter what happens, we will be together.

Dave is forced to eat my experimental cooking and always claims he likes it.  He tells me I look great no matter what, he humors me when I break out one of my crazy impromptu ideas, and he loved me before I lost weight, he loved when I was going through sugar withdraw, and he loves me now.


If you wish to change your lifestyle;  not lose just weight but change your lifestyle, learn to ask for help.  Support Staffs are the key to being successful.  You just have to let them into your life!

That One Pair of Jeans...

So I have a pair of jeans.

When I bought these jeans a few years ago, they fit well.

Then they fit not so well.

Eventually, they didn't fit at all.


Our first jean day after our summer vacation was the day I learned I couldn't even pull these jeans up over my butt.  I sighed, folded the jeans back up, and put something else on.  There those jeans sat for the last two years.  Every once in a while I would forget that those jeans didn't fit, take them out of my dresser and try to put them on again.

Every time I just folded them back up and put them away.


Today was our dress down / jeans day.  Of course, this morning I woke up late and had to rush around trying to not be late for work.  I opened up my dresser searching for a pair of jeans to wear.  Folded up in my drawer were those jeans.  Same place I have left them for the last two years.  I didn't even realize it.  I threw the jeans on, threw on a shirt, grabbed my keys and quickly headed to work.  It wasn't  until a red light 15 minutes away from my house that I looked down and realized what I was wearing.

It was the jeans.  The jeans that went from being regular everyday jeans to my skinny jeans.  I was in them.

And the status of the jeans had changed again. They were no longer my "skinny" jeans.

They were too big.

On Wednesday I head back to my doctor and right now I am on track to have lost at least 25 pounds since June 24.  There is a second milestone that I should hit, but I am going to save that entry for when it happens. I could run upstairs and weigh myself right now and probably already be there, but I am only counting official weigh-in days at my doctor's office.

I found myself becoming obsessed with the number on the scale.  Everyday I would weigh myself.  Sometimes multiple times a day.  Now I just trust.  I trust myself that what I am doing is working. Let the scale talk next week.

For now I am going to wear those jeans.  Soon they will be so big I will not be able to wear them.

I'm going to enjoy this moment.

The Good Outweighs the Bad

I have had some phenomenal weeks this summer.


My first involved the week where I lost seven pounds.  I still have no clue how the hell I did that.  The doctor looked at my food intake and said, THAT'S WHY!

It doesn't hurt that I have had to eliminate most things free my diet.  That includes wheat, gluten, flour, sugar... pretty much anything with high carbs, lol.  Apparently Atkins on Steriods is a great diet!

Then came the need to buy new pants.  THAT was awesome.  In fact, if you sneak up on me while I am wearing shorts, it only takes a quick tug for me to be pantless.  :-p


My first week going back to school.  The one week a year where we have hour long lunches and get to leave the campus like a grown up and have lunches with our coworkers at restaurants.  Knowing how I have no willpower, I chose not to go.  No temptation is the best way for me to stay focused!

Then there was my last appointment.

Still on my high, I figured I must have lost at least another seven pounds!!  Maybe more!!

Nope.

Measly two pounds.

Now this is with a diet where I do not go over 1000 calories.  I rarely go over 800 calories, actually.  The high protein intake makes me not hungry.  Before everyone jumps on saying that is too few calories, please remember that I am working with a doctor.  I am taking many vitamin supplement and other medications.

So when I am almost perfect, it drives me insane to see so low of an impact.  It makes me focus on the two small cheats I had.  Could a freaking tootsie roll stop success?  Did the cookie I grab cause me to gain weight back that I might have lost?

It drives me crazy.

I have stopped weighing myself weekly because I found myself obsessing with the scale.  Sometimes I still can't help myself.  However, it doesn't count until I get to the doctor's office.

That is what I try to focus on.

Since June 27, 2013 I have lost a total of 16 pounds.  It has been slow with sudden drops to back to slow.  I have never been as aware of what I put in my mouth as I am now.  Do I occasionally break and have a small cheat?  Of course.  I'm human.  I  wouldn't lose anything if I could never give myself a break!

I know it is working, but I prefer instant gratification.  If I am sticking to the strictness of my diet, I want every week to be a big weight loss week.  Not 2 pounds in three weeks!

A drop is a drop.  At least I am still losing weight.

I just want the award to be worth the deprivation.

High on Protein

This past week I have been following the rules and restrictions of the diet placed on me by a weight loss surgeon and dietician.  I am not interested in weight loss surgery, he just happens to focus on both surgical and nonsurgical weight loss.  I was very skeptical when I received the diet I was supposed to follow for my first week.

Me:  “Wait, no fruits and vegetables?”

Dietician:  “Right!  I bet you never expected a nutrition expert to tell you that.”

Me:  “So… basically I am nawing at the legs of various animals for a week?”

Dietician:  “No, you have several options for lean protein blah-blah, blah-blah.”

Me: “Our relationship isn’t going to work if you do not understand my sarcasm.”

So I left the doctor’s office and spent the next week eating foods high in protein, low in carbs, and very low in calories.  Ridiculously low.  So low that if I told one of the many weight loss forums that I am only eating between 500 -750 calories, everyone would yell at me.

Thus began my week.

Still skeptical about not starving with such few calories, I began living the high protein life.  Here is an example of my daily food intake:

Breakfast: ¼ Cup egg whites and 2 slices of turkey bacon

Snack: Disgusting vanilla protein shake

Lunch:  3 pieces of lean roast beef and 1 low fat string cheese

Snack:  Babybell Mini Light Cheese

Dinner:  4 oz of ground turkey meat flavored with taco seasonings

Snack:  Chobani nonfat no flavor plain Greek yogurt.

64oz of water

Because I am eliminating all produce, I am also taking daily vitamin supplements to help with the vitamins I am now lacking.

So, how did it go?

The diet was actually surprisingly easy to follow.  I’ve been keeping a daily food journal and this first week was easy thanks to grocery shopping and preparing all meals myself.  I am currently on summer vacation so it is much easier to remain disciplined when it is the only thing I need to focus on. I was also surprised that I wasn’t hungry.  On most days I had to force myself to eat the final snack of the day because I felt full!

Today I went back to the dietician for a weekly check in and I was down 3 pounds.  I know that losing three pounds in a week is great, but I couldn’t help but feel a little frustrated that it wasn’t more.  I mean, I’ve been following this diet and I had hoped that with as low as a calorie intake in addition to working out all week it would have been more.  A loss is a loss, and that is great but it was a little anticlimactic.  I keep trying to pep talk myself that my body is still adjusting and hopefully this next week with yield better results!

The high on protein life continues again this week, so hopefully my check in next week will yield better results.  

Me.

This is me:

This picture was taken on June 26, 2013.  No sucking in.  No trying to hide jiggly fat with angles or poses.  In fact, I’m trying to put it out there.  A raw picture showing who I am: roles, scars, wobbles, and all.

Why would I do this?  I try to be honest on here.  This is the reason why I am a horrible blogger.  The truth scares me.  I feel like a disappointment.  I’m tired of feeling like a disappointment.  So here I am again:

Me. 

I can make up excuses for why my successful start of the year went downhill the last few months.  I can talk about the crazy making drugs I use to fight my PCOS and infertility.  I can talk about the pain in my abdomen that cost me several days of pay, many medical bills, and a liver biopsy.  I can talk about how I refused pain management because if I do get pregnant, I don’t want to hurt the baby.

The bigger reality? I can talk about how I quit and how it ashamed me.

Tuesday I went to a doctor who specializes in weight loss.  I was dreading this appointment because I was worried that I would be told that I was a failure.  I am very anti doctors right now, so another appointment was the last thing on my mind.  I was worried that since this office also specialized in weight loss surgery, I would be pushed down a path I wasn’t ready for.

Fortunately, surgery wasn’t even mentioned.  I met with a doctor who seemed generally excited to meet me.  He was encouraging, he was complimentary, he was optimistic.  He made me smile when all I wanted to do was cry.  He looked at my medical history and said, “I can help this.”

So I am set up on a plan that I will gladly share.  However, please remember that I am not a doctor and I am not a dietician.  What has been planned for me is not necessarily right for everyone else.  I have weekly appointments where I talk with weight loss professionals to see if it is working.

The first step I had to realize?  This is me:

And she is pretty awesome.  Flaws and all.

Demotivational

Isn't that a lovely title?

Not exactly the up-and-hugs-sunshine-out-of-my-ass post I've been writing.

Why?

Because this is real.


I had a horrendous week diet and exercise wise.  I worked out Monday.  Tuesday - today nothing.  Diet wise?  Three horrific days of caving into to my weakness:  Sweets.

It started out innocent enough.   A piece of cake to celebrate a friends birthday.  Missing a water zumba class to help out a friend.  Then another birthday.  Then I missed my run.

Then it spiraled.  Bad choices that left me hungry, which caused me to make more bad choices.  A general yicky, tiredness that caused me to stay on the couch.  I realize now how easy it is to slip back into old habits.

I can only hope that I stay where I am now, and not gain anything.

Granted this was technically part of last week and part of this week, but I don't think on Wednesday it will matter what part of the week it was.

Tomorrow I start fresh and get back on track.  I've already made my lunch for work.  Picked out my breakfast.  Packed my bag for water zumba tonight.

I'm ready to not let this week defeat me.

I'm doomed to have a bad passport picture..aka Wednesday Weigh In

It is hard for me to believe that it has been just about 10 years since I was getting reading to move back to Germany and study in Berlin.  The time has come for me to do something I've been waiting 10 years for:

Get a new passport.


I have bad luck with passport pictures.  My first passport I was only 15 years old, but I looked like I smoked a ton of doobie prior to going in to the post office..  Luckily I only had to carry that passport around for five years.   My second passport picture came after a stupid idea of perming my hair, realizing that wasn't a good idea, so I cut my hair extremely short.  Horrific hair,  AND I was going through a glasses wearing phase.

I went, paid for the picture, took it and then... I looked like this:

-*

Rabid Badger picture courtesy of: http://crossfitsparta.com/2012/11/01/badger-4/

Okay, maybe it wasn't THAT bad.  It was pretty damn close though.  I remember getting the picture and staring at it in horror.  As a college student about to study abroad in Europe, I was trying to save my money for fun things.  Like spontaneous trips to Oktoberfest and things like that.

Not wanting to waste the money on a new set of photos,  I tried to convince myself that the photo really wasn't that bad and mailed in my passport renewal form.  Two months later I got it back and it really was that bad.  *Sigh*  I vowed never to willing show the passport to anyone.

I know you think I am being ridiculous.  It really cannot have been that bad of a picture.

It was.

You know how most border guards have absolutely no sense of humor (yes, even you my dear bro-in-law ;-))?

Well, Eastern European border guards are even less amusing.  On my way through the Czech Republic (prior to their joining of the EU), not one but TWO border guards laughed at my picture.  Going through customs?  Smirks and snide comments about how that picture MUST be me, because who would want to fake that!

So today I went and got a new picture for my 10 year renewal passport.  

I was very excited.  I thought about how different my life is from the way it was 10 years ago.  I've been all over Europe, I graduated college, I began teaching.  I've taken kids overseas several times!  I've lived in 4 states and two countries.  I got married.  What an amazing ten years!

Then I got my picture.  *sigh*  Not as bad as a rabid badger, but nothing to get excited about.

Then a new thought came to me.  See, today was my weekly weigh in.  My last one for the month.  My first month completed.

An I lost 3 more pounds, bring my total weight loss for the month of January to 10 pounds.

10 freaking pounds gone.  My pants are falling off. Literally.

I realized, this picture represents what will soon be the old me.  The girl who couldn't lose weight.  The 31-year-old woman with the same health issues as a 62 year old.  The picture people will look at and say NO WAY!

A reminder to the healthy, happy, fit woman of how hard she worked to get there.

Bring on the next 10 years!