eclipse

Since I can remember, ie like age 8, I've gotten unwanted and sometimes inappropriate attention from men - yes men. I'm now 40, been through therapy, highly educated and maybe even more in touch with myself than some others. It doesn't matter, the attention is uncomfortable and I honestly don't like it. If you are not a woman, I'm not sure you can ever understand it. That doesn't mean I can't take a compliment and I understand that more often than not people are currently genuinely interested and maybe even happy for me, but none of that knowledge takes away the discomfort.

I'm a sugar addict too. The thing that I've been doing lately is forcing myself to "sit in my feelings." By that I mean I feel the craving, call it what it is, and try to let it pass. I just had a conversation with my daughter about it being ok to have what ever feeling you have, but being responsible with your actions. Just bc you feel it doesn't mean you have to do it. For me this isn't about willpower it is about responsibility. I choose what goes in my mouth and I'm not a victim. I'm don't always win (I had Walkers shortbread Cookies two days last week - then I crumpled what was left into the trash), but I am accountable to ME and I'm honest to myself. The constant self berating for not being strong enough and then the self punishment of eating a pie to compensate for the fact that my willpower waned is what led me to morbid obesity. I now have the chance to resolve my sickness and I'm going all in bc if I don't heal the emotional part of this (or at least be honest w myself about it) I'm going to continue to be obese - eventually. I'm trying to learn to love myself and respect myself and I can only do both if I'm honest and act with integrity towards myself. Eating a bag of M&M's like I wanted to yesterday while telling myself that I must eat them or pretending that I don't know how that bag ended up in my cart, in my house, in my hand, in my mouth is not living with integrity where myself is concerned. We can do this. My two cents.

I haven't told anyone at work and don't plan to. I won't lie if asked, but I'm not talking about it. I'm not ashamed, I'm private. I wouldn't tell them if I had cancer either. I simply don't want to talk about my health. I've told many of my friends though. Hadn't, and don't plan to tell casual acquaintances or neighbors that I see twice a year. If they knew me well they would know already.

I realize this is a good problem to have, but NOTHING FITS right now. I had to change clothes three times this morning just to be able to go to work. Pants that are 20s are falling off of me and 18s are too snug. Or, maybe I've been swimming in my 20s for so long now that that I'm just not comfortable making the switch to pants that are 18. I've always been a pear even when I wasn't fat so shirts haven't really been an issue. I wish winter would hurry up and pass so that I can start wearing dresses to work again. They are so much more forgiving and less obvious when they are a bit too big. I can't even use a belt w/ many of my slacks b/c they don't have belt buckles. I'm sitting here now praying that the two safety pins I used to keep my pants up do not snap and poke me.

At my three week check up my surgeon cleared me to swallow Citracal petites, which are rather large compared to my vitamins & Pepcid. I took the bottle and showed him one of the pills so that he'd know their exact size.

Cardio is good for your heart & lungs, but building your muscles is good for your metabolism and staves off the sagging extra skin bc it fills it with muscle. It's also good for your bones. My surgeon said something interesting to me last month when I told him that I was having a hard time getting in my calcium. He said right now it isn't a big deal bc I have my excess weight stressing my bones and keeping them strong, but as the weight comes off the calcium is especially important unless I stress my bones through resistance training. Despite being morbidly obese, I was very active, just not consistently.

Sleeved 11/5. Weighed in at 280 and am 241 as of this morning. I'm having one or two protein drinks per day bc I just can't eat enough to get my protein in. I have 1 egg w sautéed veggies an 2 turkey bacon slices for breakfast and a little over 2 oz of meat with about 2 tbsp of veggies for lunch and the same for dinner. Sometimes I'll have a couple of whole grain crackers if I eat tuna or chicken salad. I'm not tracking, but pay attention to carb counts and try to weigh or measure my food a few times a week. Generally I eyeball it though and eat until I'm no longer hungry. I had a weak moment and ate some if my daughter's movie popcorn but it made me so sick that won't happen again! So not worth it! No sweets except sugar free hot chocolate. Sweets were my weakness before an probably account for 80 lbs of my excess weight!

I have ankles again! Ankles I tell you! Haven't seen them in about 8 years! Sleeved 11/5 and down 34.2 lbs (46.2 for the year).

This doesn't help you now, but it gets better. I'm 7 weeks out today and for the first 5 I was ravenous. I still get hungry, but it isn't intense and it's only been the last week that it hasn't literally driven me crazy.

I simply said that I was having surgery that would require me to be out for 3 weeks. Nothing more. I'm private at work though so everyone respected my decision not to say more. I told my "work wife" and that was all.

I guess this isn't quite post op yet, but I just watched my hubby walk off to the OR. I had my surgery on Nov. 5th and he's having his right now. Needless to say our holidays were/are going to be a little different this year. That said, I'm looking forward to the new year and our new bodies and hopefully our new relationship. With both of us becoming so overweight over time the quality of our lives and relationship has paid a steep price.

We're home!!! The gas moved and he's comfortable at home. Well as comfortable as possible

I was at the 3 week puréed stage the week of Thanksgiving and I tosses my real food in the cuisinart and ate with everyone else. I even had curried goat and it was sooooo good. I only wanted two bites though bc even after having it puréed it still took too long to chew. However it was nice to taste it and decide for myself that I didn't want anymore as opposed to telling myself I couldn't have any. I treated my purée stage like I did my baby's purée stage. She ate what we are, only blended. No baby food for her or me.

Thanks everyone. He's walking - in fact much more than I was at this point! He went into the surgery with several co-morbitities (is that what they are called) including MS so I don't know if that's working against him? It's frustrating bc he isn't really getting much info from his constantly changing care staff at the hospital.

Hubby hasn't been released from the hospital yet. He hasn't been able to pass gas yet and he has an elevated WBC count and temperature, but not high enough to call a fever. He had an X-ray yesterday and they said that they can see that the contrast from his swallow test is moving through the colon. He's just not passing the gas. Hopefully today, but I'm concerned about the WBC being elevated with no determined reason why.

Doing well. Still only eating meats bc I don't have much room for much else, but I feel like each day I'm taking in a little more. That's good bc it means the swelling is going down . Down 28 lbs at 6 weeks post op. I'm tired of the shakes, but I make sure to have at least one per day to hit my Protein targets. How are you & the other MD folks doing?

Me too!! I even had to order a cushion for my chair at work!

Thanks! All is well. Everything went well and I was able to visit him in recovery for a few minutes. Now we're waiting for a hospital bed.

I'm in Baltimore too. Sleeved on Nov. 5th.

I echo the suggestion that you exercise in the morning. I'm not a morning person either, but that's exactly what I do. I already know that at the end of a long work day (and especially if I go home) I'm just not going to exercise. By doing it in the morning, its out of the way and I walk around w/ a silly grin on my face b/c I'm proud of myself. Plus it helps me to stay focused on my food. I treat it like I do sweets. I just have to get up and exercise even though I'd rather have those extra 2 hours of sleep. Likewise w/ sweets I have to keep them out of my house even though I really want to have them. My life has to be different now where those two things are concerned. And I'm not happy about it, but that's my life now. I've accepted it.

I bought some Fiber gummies at Target and I try to take 4 of them over the course of the day. I'm just over 5 weeks post op and I've been taking them for the last 10-14 days. After a couple of bouts of extremely painful constipation, I had to do something. I think they are working b/c no more constipation and I've been to the bathroom 3 times this morning and it isn't even 10 am. Everything is fine w/ it, but this is highly unusual for me so I'm guessing that the cumulative effect of several days worth of fiber gummies is cleaning me out. I will also occasionally take Senokot before bed, but I've only done that twice and once was to deal w/ the constipation issue.

My husband has ms and is scheduled for surgery on the 19th. He takes daily copaxone injections.