Skin - Part 2 - There will be extra!

Skin.... did I mention the extra skin!  Oh yeah!  I did!  It was a really long post about the cons of weight loss....

Well, I'm going to write about it again because I think it's a evil trick.  I mean, who lets someone lose 130 lbs (116 currently) and then says oh yeah and as a reminder for all the overeating you did in the past, you will now live forever with the weight and undesirable characteristics of excess skin!  Congratulations!  Oh, and don't forget how it will pull and tug at you causing your skin to tear and become sore -- ya know, just as a reminder of your gluttonous habits.  

It's no surprise that when you lose weight there will be extra skin.... you can read about it anywhere.  Of course, the less weight you have to lose, the less excess skin you'll have to carry.  Still, nothing can quite prepare you for the mental battle that this extra skin can cause - I'm going to post pictures so be prepared.... 

It seems as though every time I look in the mirror (without clothes), I'm pinching, pushing, pulling, or tucking at my extra skin.  "If I could just have this removed" or "When I get this removed."  I probably say those two statements at least 5 times a week to my hubby (okay, it's probably more).  

I say to myself, "If I could just have this apron removed from my waist," then I

pull the skin down and to the sides to smooth out my stretch marks.  It looks pretty good.  I can even see my hip bones (yep, I actually have those).  But then, something happens.  While my mid-line is looking a little more human like, I notice the skin on my thighs is sagging something awful.  My saddlebags are nearly folded over and the skin between my thighs appears to have creases as well - fold lines if you will.

Apron.... Zoomed

Then, I am saddened by the realization that no matter how much I think one surgery will help, there will always be something wrong with me.  There will always be that one spot that needs attention.  "Just a little off the sides, a lift here, plump these up...."  

It's gross, it's nasty, it messes with my self image and my confidence.  It keeps me from wearing the dresses I really like or short sleeve shirts.  And you can forget about shorts.  

And while all this extra skin is nasty, my attitude about myself as a human is nastier.  Why is it okay to demean myself so much because of the excess skin that hangs from my body?  I wonder just how shallow of a person I really am? 

I know that if given the ability to have skin removal surgery when I reach my goal weight, I'd do it.  And I also know with everything I have "fixed" I will simply find something else to find fault in.  It's how I work.  I don't think I'll ever just be content in my own skin --- pun intended.  ;)

Anemia - Killer of Energy and All Things Requiring Brain Power

I'm tired.  Very tired, all the time.  I feel like I should be sleeping for the rest of time.  I really can't think of anything that sounds better.  My eye lids feel heavy, my brain feels weak, and my body feels lifeless....  

I've had anemia for as long as I can remember.  My doctor has been telling me my iron is low for as long as I can remember and yet, they never do anything about it.  For two years, I listened to my doctor saying, "You might need an infusion," then the next time I see her saying, "We need to do something about your iron.  We should look into other forms of iron pills."  Last November, I finally called my insurance to see if infusions were covered and they were.  So, the next time I went in I told her it was covered and immediately, she ordered the infusion.  

In December, I had my one and only infusion.  It was wonderful!  For the first week afterwards, I felt a little tired, but then I felt great for about a month.  It was so crazy to feel like I could think and be human again.  It also helped with my ADHD..... which makes me wonder, how many people with ADHD are also iron deficient?  

When I had my blood checked two months later (for some reason she never checked it right afterwards), it was still okay.  While my one result was low, my other one was in the "normal" range, but low normal.  Of course, after all these years, I still don't know what's low and what that means.  All I know is my body has a hard time absorbing iron.  

I'm supposed to have it tested again in May, but I think I'm going to test it next week.  I'm secretly hoping it's low enough for another infusion because I feel so awful right now.  

My friend says I need to have a hysterectomy.... that seemed to help her friend who also had the same symptoms and issues I've had.  I'm scared to do that, but she talks about how much energy her friend has now and how she didn't realize how much better she could feel.   So, that might be something I have to look into more seriously.  

I have read though that anemia can cause weight gain because when you're tired, you try to compensate by eating....  Hmmmm.  

Will I always have to do this?

It's a funny thing weighing your food and counting calories.  I mean it's inconceivable for me to think that there are other people out there that weigh their food and record it for every meal.  I guess it's that kind of cockiness that has gotten me to where I am today.  It's almost like if I don't believe anyone else could be recording their food then it must not be happening and if skinny people everywhere aren't weighing and recording their food then why should I have to?  

A month or so ago, I reread one of my journal entries from 2005; I wrote, "Will I always have to write down everything I eat.  Will this be something I have to do for the rest of my life?"  Every time I started a new diet, I started a new journal.... I have all these journal entries that start with me being excited and ready to lose weight and then after just a few entries, they stop.  No real signs of success and definitely no sign of persistence. 

I laughed when I read that entry.  I stumbled upon it at the perfect moment.  A moment when I was down, hadn't been recording my food, and was wondering why I had to record my food when other people didn't... of course, I have no idea if other people have to record their food.  Yet, at that moment in time, I felt like the stress from life was too much to handle adding the commitment of weighing and recording food.  Stress is something that often stops me from doing the things that are best for me.  It's another element of my anxiety.   

My hubby did start making us portioned lunches, healthy and weighed for the entire week.  I loved having these meals pre-made and they tasted great.  Like all things hard, we weren't great about keeping that going consistently and besides eating just my pre-made lunch, I was supplementing heavily with candy.  Something I LOVE.... I think I've mentioned that before.  

It's easy to think you're eating healthy because you do one or two things correctly and it's also easy to eat poorly because you think you're eating healthy.  I guess for people who eat healthy all the time or 90% of the time, they may not need to record their food.  I am not one of those people who eats healthy all the time.  I like to eat healthy, but I also love hamburgers and pizza and Chinese food and candy.... ya know all the really bad stuff.  So for me, I probably will have to record my food for the rest of my life and I'm going to have to learn to stop worrying if it's something that everyone else has to do or not.  It's clearly something I need to do.  I know it works for me and that should be reason enough.  

So for now, I need to get back on the wagon.  Those 18 pounds I've gained since December aren't going to lose themselves. 

Crippled by Anxiety

Wow!  As always, I'm amazed when I look back and see how long it has been since I last blogged.  Three months is way too long.  I know this because I've been telling myself to blog for weeks... maybe even months. 

This has been a rough three months.  I have gained 18 pounds since Christmas and with every single pound I gain, my anxiety is magnified.  It's amazing what stress does to your mind and your body.  I wish that I could say that it will all be okay, but I don't feel like that's true.  Every pound gets me one step closer to that 200 lb mark and if I cross that, I think I will feel like a complete failure all over again.  

It's interesting how you can trick yourself into believing that you are confident....  I do it all the time.  Mostly, I'm trying to convince everyone around me that I'm all good.  In reality, I'm a mess.... I've always been a mess.  I know I've mentioned before that I can't handle making simple phone calls to take care of things, such as paying bills.  It's not just making phone calls to people I don't know.  I can't make phone calls to people I do know either.  

Most of my days are a war against me and my brain.  One second I've convinced myself I'm confident, I look amazing, and I can do anything.  The next, I'm breaking inside because I'm bad at everything.... I'm a terrible mom, an awful wife, an inconsiderate sister, a lousy daughter, a cruddy granddaughter, an undeserving friend.... 

More seconds are spent in the demeaning section of my brain than in the confident part of my brain.  I wish this wasn't the case.  I do notice that the level of stress with which I am faced with drastically effects my ability to think positively.  I wonder how other people live life with stress.  I know everyone has it, but why is it so crippling for me?  Why do I try to self-destruct when faced with stress?  How do I change it?  And WHY on earth does food have to be my go to?  For goodness sake, why couldn't it have been running? 

#NoMore

Honestly, I had forgotten about this blog.  It was in the back of my mind, but it wasn't something I was thinking I'd come back to.  I didn't think it mattered to anyone and it sure didn't seem to matter to me anymore.  Then, out of the blue, my sister sends me a picture of my blog with a comment asking if I was going to be adding to it again.  Sadly, the comment was from almost a year ago.  It made me realize that maybe the blog wasn't all about me.

So, last night, I sat down and wrote my welcome back blog.  As I was writing, I realized that my blog was therapeutic for me.  And, although I thought I didn't need it anymore, it felt good to write; very good!

And the ironic part is that I needed it yesterday!  I read back through my previous blogs and I can't find where I shared about some of the reasons I believe I hid behind my fat.  Mostly men and the guilt that I had when they approached me.  So, I'm going to write about it again.... sorry if you already heard these stories, but it's a big deal to me.

Men....  I don't understand how they can be so crude and yet not even realize there is a problem with what they are doing!  My father and grandpa's could never have prepared me for what men would say or do.  Nor can I ever imagine them saying those things to a woman.  Then, I married an amazing man and I can't imagine him saying anything like what I've heard men say about/to other women.  I will KILL my boys (okay, probably just disown them) if they ever talk like that.

Imagine a gangly 9 or 10 year old girl who was raised like a boy.  My father's friends (husband and wife) used to take us to church once in awhile; very nice people.  Then, one day, the man starts talking about how he wants me to pose in a swimming suit on his sports car.  I laughed it off.... I mean I was in the 4th or 5th grade.  It seemed weird at the time and I'm not sure why, but it was creepy and yet flattering at the same time.... all the while I thought the whole thing was a joke.  It happened on multiple occasions though.  Joke or not, it's f****** creepy!  Who says that about a little girl!  To this day, I cringe when I see a woman on a car!  I don't think my father or mother ever knew about it or maybe they did and that's why they stopped hanging out with them.  I don't really
know and I never really asked.  I just wanted to forget about it; I still do.

8th grade graduation

Fast-forward to my 8th grade year.  I was 13.  I often hung out with my older sister and her friends.  She was great about including me, especially since I was kind of a pain in her butt.  Most of her friends were like big brothers and would have never let anything bad happened to me, but there is always that one creep I suppose.  Football "star," attractive, and interested.  It seemed nice to get the attention at the time.

Our high school and junior high were in the same building.  The upper floor was for the high school and then the lower floor was split, 1/2 for 7th and 8th and 1/2 for 5th and 6th.  So, every day for lunch and PE, we would walk past the high schoolers sitting on the hallway floor.  This one boy would always grab me as I walked by and tell me how beautiful I was.  I think he was a junior at the time.  It was uncomfortable for me to get that much attention, but it also made me feel a little bit better about myself.

This behavior continued and when I started high school, it was even worse.  I owned this one black dress and it had a little spring to it.  Whenever I wore it and would walk by, he would pull it so it would fling up.  I'm sure everyone thought that's what I wanted, but I didn't.  I tried not to wear that dress except for on volleyball or basketball game days (I didn't own a lot of dresses).  He would corner me often too and tell me how beautiful or sexy I was.  It happened a lot of game days.... even in the gym.  Always with the touching.  He had a girlfriend at the time.  She just didn't go to our school.  Who know's if he did it to others.  I still feel creeped out when I think about him.

The following year, that boy had graduated and I was starting to gain a little confidence.  Then, one day while riding the bus home from some sporting event, another boy began to take over where the other boy left off.  This time, I was armed with more confidence and tried to shut him down quickly.  However, these boys are persistent and they think it's okay to touch you to get your attention.  This awkward relationship (him trying, me freaking out) continued until he graduated.  Over the summer, I saw him alone in the bar.  I confronted him about everything and asked why he was out without his wife.  He wasn't really in any condition to talk, but I am still mad at him for thinking it is okay to touch women without their permission.

Throughout high school I struggled because I never believed anyone could really find me attractive.  I was average at best.  I didn't really fit in with the popular crowd and I didn't really fit in with the nerdy group.  I was just in the middle and I tried to make everyone happy and be friends with everyone.  I didn't want to be a mean girl.  Many times, boys would ask me out and I would think they were joking.  I always turned them down because I thought it was all just a big joke to them.  I never saw the worth of myself.  I really only dated one boy and that was though peer pressure I thought.  I truly believed that I pressured him into dating me and then I won him over with my personality (that boy is my husband of almost 19 years).

There were other isolated incidents in high school where I felt uncomfortable or like I could be taken advantage of at any moment, but they were single events.  Never as persistent as the three people I focused on.  Still, nothing I would wish upon my daughters or anyone for that matter.

Source

10 years past graduation, I was 28, and had four children (the oldest one was 9, youngest was 3).  I was a stay at home mom and probably going through the toughest 5 years of my life (my weight was somewhere around 220).  Through no fault of my husband, I felt alone, ugly, fat, overwhelmed, and unwanted.  One day, I posted a survey on MySpace and someone from high school responded to it.  It was weird.  Then, out of the blue, they asked me to send them pictures of myself and like an idiot, I did.  Immediately regretting my decision, I told my husband shortly after.  He was devastated, I felt awful, I was a terrible wife and I had made him feel like an inadequate husband.  When really, my issues of self-worthlessness stemmed from inside me.  There was nothing he could have done differently to fix that.  It took a long time to repair what I had screwed up in a matter of seconds and one email.

As you can imagine, that was probably the biggest turning point for me.  That is where I really began to put on the weight.  I loved my husband more than anything.  I found him to be the most attractive man in the world.  And in literally seconds, I broke his trust.  I'd like to say that in the years following, I was better, but I wasn't.  I still had many days where I doubted his love for me.  It's really only been in the past two years where I haven't had a major jealousy outburst.  I think it has a lot to do with getting older and even more to do with communication.  We have learned to communicate better and talk more about what we need.  Additionally, I have a job and that keeps my mind busy.  I don't have as much time to sit around and think about him leaving me.

Fast-forward to yesterday.  The same man that asked me for pictures 10 years ago, starts talking to me again.  At first, I thought he just sent a mass message to everyone he knew, but I quickly realized it was just for me.  Then he asks if he can ask me a question.....  UH!  I've put all of this behind me for the most part and now all these feelings of anti-trust and the disappointment I caused my family came rushing back to me.  And I remember why I hid myself among all these layers of fat to begin with.



***I don't know why men act like that.  We are both happily married with children.  And yet, this past year we've heard about case after case of sexual harassment (mostly celebrities).  Every time, I think about why the girls didn't come forward sooner.... then I think would I?  Would I have let them do that to me?  Would I have been able to say no?  I would love to think that I would be strong enough to tell them that they are an idiot, but I don't know that I am.  Is it something about my people-pleasing personality that doesn't want to hurt anyone's feelings?  Is that what would keep me from saying no?  And dear Lord, I hope to hell my daughters could tell these men to F*** off!  Why do we have to feel like it is our fault for being approached?  Why do I feel guilty and why do I let people make me feel this way?  Andy why do we feel like we are the only ones?

What it's like to lose 100 lbs

One of the biggest reason I wanted to lose weight was for my children.  I wanted to be sure that I was healthy enough to be around for a long time and that I'd have the opportunity to see my grandchildren grow.  I also didn't want to embarrass my children.  Although they would never admit it, I worry that my children will feel embarrassed when their mom doesn't fit the seatbelt on the plane or can't quite squeeze into that ride at Disney Land, but more importantly, I worry that they'll be embarrassed when they have to stop and wait for their mom to walk up the stairs to their school or barely fit on the seat at the school concert.  It's really the day to day struggles with being fat that makes it hard to be a good parent or at least one that doesn't embarrass her children.  

The timing of my healthy living movement was really based on my anxiety around my children's embarrassment.  My oldest daughter graduates in 7 months and I knew when I started this journey that I only had about two years to get down to a weight that wasn't embarrassing.  I wanted the spotlight to be on her, not on whether or not I could get up and down the stairs to watch her graduation or her friends finally seeing me and thinking about how big her mom is (WAS).  With 7 months to go, I have about 60 pounds to lose before I meet my overall goal, but honestly I'd be thrilled with another 40.  The problem is, as I have posted several times in my last few posts, I'm not currently losing weight.  

The bigger problem is, I kinda secretly hate my new body.  So, I don't hate it when I have clothes on
and I don't hate the fact that I fit into my son's coat or my daughter's jeans.  I don't hate being able to buy clothes out of the women's section or that my shirt size is large.  I love all of those things.  It makes me feel like me again.  I do however, hate that my boobs are smaller...a lot smaller.... One day, my daughter said to me, "I thought you weren't wearing a bra because your boobs are so much different."  I might be able to handle smaller boobs if they were a little less flimsy.  I feel like I could fold them in half.  I've always been busty and I'm still not small chested by any means (not yet anyway), but I have no volume to them and that makes me sad.  I hate them!  I don't feel sexy or beautiful because I can literally see folds of skin when I look into my bra.  Lots of folds.  

While my breasts are kind of a big deal for me, they aren't the only body part I hate.  My stomach, although it used to be similar in look (mom apron), it is a lot softer.... I don't know how else to describe it, but it has no bounce back.  I push on it and it's just floppy.  It's gross.  Oh, then there is my hips....  The skin just folds over there too.  Oh, then there is my butt.  Ah, I'm happy to not have a butt growing on top of my butt (you know, the extra hump that seems to grow at the top as you get heavier and heavier), but I had that it has not rigidity.  Another body part that folds over.  My arms are flappy too, but I guess I'm okay with that because I don't remember ever being happy with my arms.  Although they are flappy, at least they are smaller.

I'd love to be happy with my body and love me for me, but I think I was better at that when I was heavier.  I was okay with my big butt because it was firm.  I was fine with big breasts because they were solid.  Now, everyday I face a body that grosses me out.  I don't feel sexy for myself or my hubby.  I know that when I lose my next 60 pounds that it will only get worse.  I wonder what body parts will I start to hate then.  It's hard for me to be content with my body and want to lose weight when I'm not happy with the way that I look at the end of the day.... or beginning.  I'm not trying to make any excuses, but I think I'm self-sabotaging because I can't seem to find peace with my current body.  

On a side note, but also important to me, I feel weaker.  I used to think I was strong.  I could lift things, move things, and generally do things on my own.  Now, I can't and it is frustrating.  

Time to start building muscle and toning up this flabby body.  I just worry about how I'll handle it emotionally if I don't get the results that I think I should have.  And the anxiety returns and my drive to improve dies.  

199 - Say What?!

Although, my last post was fairly negative, I didn't mean to give the impression that I had given up.  Yes, I have not been working very hard to reach my goals, but that doesn't mean that I have completely given up.

On the plus side, I have lost 13 lbs since this school year started.  Although, I'd be much happier with 13 lbs a month, I'm still happy that I have been able to find moments in time where I could be successful during this very stressful time.

An added bonus, on September 30th, I weighed in at exactly 200 pounds.  I honestly don't remember the last time I weighed that amount, but I know that it was probably when I was pregnant with my first daughter.  So, over 17 years ago.

An even bigger feat for me was a few days later when I weighed again and the scale read 199.  Interestingly, while overwhelmed with excitement to see a 1 as the first number on the scale, there was some disappointment to see that big 99 as the last two digits.  For years, I have been messing up and saying I weigh 1-something.  So, when the scale said 199, it was sort of hard for me to be happy about.  It just reminded me of how mentally challenging weight loss can me.  I should have been jumping up and down with joy, crying, screaming and celebrating.  Although I was happy, I wasn't as thrilled as I expected.  Seeing 99 sort of made me feel like I was at my biggest again.  Still, my family took me out to celebrate; after all, you only get to go under 200 lbs once - right?

Over a month later, the scale continues to go back and forth over the 200 mark.  I haven't been able to find steady success under 200 and I know what I need to do, but haven't found the strength to do it yet.  I hope November turns out to be the month I figure it all out and get back on track, but if it's December or January, I'll be happy.  The important thing is not to lose hope and to look back at how far I've come.

I'm having a hard time finding full body pictures of myself before the one I posted above.... I wonder why?  When I find one, I'll be happy to post a now and then comparison of me at my biggest and hopefully me at my smallest (since high school).  Whenever I scroll through Facebook and see old photos of myself, I am in shock.  I can now see why others may not recognize me.  Although, I finally feel "normal" again, they never saw me as the person I am today.  When I look in the mirror, I see the same thing I saw for years and I now understand why it was so easy to be secretly obese.