LipstickLady

http://myfriendteresablog.com/so-youre-feeling-too-fat-to-be-photographed/ So you’re feeling too fat to be photographed . . . Listen. I hear you. You’re a few pounds heavier than you like (or a 100lbs heavier than you like). I completely understand how you feel. I get that same blah feeling about myself when I think about booking new head shots or long overdue pictures of me and Justin. Precious, I even picked a career that has me permanently behind the camera rather than in front of it. Seeing myself in pictures actually produces the faintest sick feeling in my stomach. Isn’t it amazing we can see the beauty in our best friends, sisters, mothers, and aunts without the slightest thought to their flaws . . . but can obsess for hours on our own imperfections? We fixate on our flaws to the point we shirk at any documentation that our round faces and curvy bodies ever walked the earth. No pictures to show how we LOVE, how we laugh, how we are treasured by our families. How is it possible that a double chin can overpower the beauty of a mother cuddling her child? How does arm fat distract from the perfect shot of a spontaneous hug? I swear y’all . . . how is it that we can put more value on a TUMMY ROLL than the captivating way you throw yourself into a roar of laughter during a shoot? In our warped minds pictures become frozen mirrors that we can stare at as we pick apart our features over and over again. I know girl. I know. My personal duck-and-cover (or signature “make a funny face”) approach to having pictures of myself changed completely when I had a serious car accident last year (and started over). In the flash of a second (or a flash of the text message the young woman was reading) my entire life changed. I nearly left this earth with no physical evidence of the goofy, wide open and loud love I have for my life, my husband, my family and friends. I haven’t had professional pictures done since our wedding in 2006 . . . always waiting for this elusive moment where I would be thin enough (pretty enough) to have such a permanent record of me. Because, you know, HEAVEN FORBID there be any proof that I look the way I actually look. So here is the harsh truth y’all. Listen good. Our vanity is no longer enough of a reason to avoid the camera. Life doesn’t wait until you “get thin” enough to capture it. Life is happening . . . it is happening right now and the only moment we are guaranteed is the one we are living. I shudder at the thought of leaving behind no pictures of my life with ME in it. My mom says of the accident she is “just glad that we’re still a whole family.” My gift to her this Christmas was a family portrait showing just that, 9 months post-accident . . . a whole family. Do you know what my mom sees when she looks at this picture? Her beautiful family all together. Do you know what my husband sees? The family he gained the moment he met me (and how much he looks like my dad…) Do you know what my dad sees? The happy family he has worked for every day of his life. Do you know what my brother sees? That he got away with wearing shorts… Shocker: No one is looking at how fat I look. Can we agree to put the value of family over the value of fat? Can we just accept that the weight you’ve been trying to lose for 5 years might actually just be a part of what you look like . . . and that if this magical day does come when you’re acceptably thin you’ll STILL regret not having any pictures of you with your kids from ages 5 – 10? Can we acknowledge that the insecurities we have in our heads will never be a part of how our children, husbands, and friends see us? Can we just please let our loved ones remember the YOU they love? Your children want pictures with their mom. Your husband wants pictures with his beautiful wife. Your mom and dad want pictures of the happy, successful, amazing woman they raised (ok, and more pictures of the grandkids while you’re at it) And if you’re thinking that high school friend on Facebook will say to herself (“wow she has gained weight”) then . . . newsflash you DID. You gained weight. Shed a tear. Read a book. Drink a Sweet Tea. Watch Oprah. Whatever it takes. Accept this reality . . . YOU GAINED WEIGHT. The truth is you’ve gained a lot of other things too (a career, a family, some kids, a house, a love for travel, the ability to coordinate your separetes . . . ) and that girl from high school is going to spend a lot more time hating on those things then she ever will on your double chin. So you’re feeling too fat to be photographed? . . . Ok. But you’re the only one who notices. The rest of us are too caught up in loving you.

I think so too. There has to be a difference in the my feeling of satiety and someone else who can leave 2 pieces of bacon on their plate. I can always find room for 2 pieces of bacon. Those people who can leave the 2 pieces of bacon on their plate see food as a nourishment for their body..They do not view it in any other way...it is fuel and that is it..We all have our own screwed up ways at looking at food...those people have their own screwed up ways of looking at other things in life..... I am sure of it... Food carries a completely different meaning for us.... since i started this journey I leave bacon on my plate all the time....lol..Today if there were an entire package of bacon on my plate I would find a way to eat it..This thread has really tested me today..i have not been the best in class as far as sticking to the rules of the program today... But I can't help thinking that this is very therapeutic for all of us involved to say it all out loud! I am sure that's true, but I also think there is a chemical thing going on. My husband is 5'10" and about 180 pounds. He is slender with a bit of belly on and off. He eats like a pig at times, but when he is full, he is full. He enjoys food, he loves my cooking, he loves going to certain restaurants but again, when he is full, he is full. He won't touch food for the next meal at times, he will finish what is on his plate but he never grazes on leftovers and while he eats far too much on Thanksgiving or other special meals, he doesn't think about food again for the night. If he eats a huge dinner, he is not even remotely hungry the next day, while I would be ravenous any night I had a big meal late. It's weird. Food is more than nourishment to him, but when he is FULL, he knows it and respects it. I couldn't do that.

I truly believe this is a chemical imbalance and there are studies out there looking at this. Pre-op, I was obsessed with food. Nothing ever told me I was full even when I was so physically full, I hurt. My brain kept telling me I wanted more more more. The only thing that kept me from hitting the 300s and the only time I felt completely NORMAL about food was when I took Phentermine. This drug blocked all appetite (I know, not normal) and the only time I ate was when I was physically starving and even then, nothing appealed to me. I dropped 80 pounds in three months the first time I went on Phentermine, then I got preggo. The second time I went on it, I lost 75 pounds in 5 months and my doctor made me quit taking it. I The third time I took it, I lost 25 pounds but my neurologist said I couldn't take it more than a month, so that was the end of that. I did WWs each time so that I would actually eat enough. Why can I be so successful on an appetite suppressant when no other diet has worked? It can't be all emotional, there has to be a physical difference between me and someone who is naturally thin, too.

27 Bizarre Things That All Women Have Done At Least Once OCT. 2, 2013 By sleep and if it’s even worth showering or go back to bed and put your hair in a bun for work. 3. bekahramaWhen hairs fall out in the shower I don’t want to clog the drain so I put them on the shower wall and do a little swirl so they are neat and ready to be put in the garbage when I’m done. 4. cupcakegiraffeLaughed or coughed so hard when you’re on your period and more blood or a blood clot comes out. Then you have to do a quick waddle walk to the bathroom cause you feel like you just turned on the faucet. When you think nobody is looking, you readjust your bra, stick your hand in, pull ‘em up one at a time, straighten the band and straps, and add an extra squeeze to make sure everything is in its place. 5. circus_snatch 6. MoreNutella Sit in a strange position when farting, so the fart bubble does not go up the cooter. 7. flying_pekineseTried on a shirt that was too small, then started to panic in the dressing room after realizing how restrictive it is when you can’t get it back off over the boobs. Start thinking that you either have to 1. buy the shirt and live in it now, or 2. they’re going to have to use the jaws of life to remove it. 8. femmenonAfter shaving, wear silky or satin-y PJs. I roll around in my bed going, “SMOOOOOOTH!” 9. JMango 10. wadyflamersOpen my mouth really wide while putting mascara on. Also, redoing updos 30 times even though I’m pretty sure it looks the same every time. 11. DrenkenKegels. Kegels in meetings at work. Kegels in the movie theatre. Kegels at dinner with friends. Kegels everywhere. If you’re talking to me, and I’m sitting, I am definitely kegeling. 12. amandalaurenInstantly every girl who reads this does a Kegel. Got on all fours in front of a mirror to see what doggystyle looks like from the dude’s perspective. Not bad. Water in my boobies then unleash the water torrent on my walls/toes. Spending 30 mins in front of the mirror trying to get the “cat eye” liquid eyeliner just right. So far I’ve never succeeded. 17. Waitwhatnow 18. thenewchornogrophers Place hands in crotch for warmth. 19. reighbookerThat amazing back/stomach scratch when you take your bra off after a long day. Best feels ever. 20. rcmeadowsI stick my hand down my pants all the time- watching tv, playing on the computer. It’s not sexual, I just hold my lady while I watch Netflix. Measure to see if our hair can cover our boobs/nipples in a playboy manner when just down. We all do it, I am sure of it. 21. sociallyawkwardjess 22. KMKSouthie2001 We masturbate to fall asleep quicker. But once you have one orgasm you’re like, oh wait, I can have another. So begins a vicious cycle. 23. RosieJoEnjoy the rush of freedom and lack of constriction that comes from taking one’s bra off at the end of the day. Be free, my titties! 24. scooplSometimes I look down at my nipples and think they’re too soft and big so I flick them to make them small and pointy. Double checked to make sure I didn’t accidentally put in two tampons. Let me die of embarrassment now. 25. _dreamline 26. goatcheese When trying to poop in public we try to pretend we’re not in the stall and act dead silent if someone comes in. We won’t poop until they’ve left the bathroom. If they came to poop there is usually a poop stalemate. Nobody wins in a poop stalemate. In other situations in a public wash room: keeping the flusher held down while taking a tremendous dump to avoid smell and noise. Don’t deny you haven’t done this! 27. iamseriouslyPurposely don’t shave vag when going out to avoid a hook-up. The period check. When you’re sitting down, you “accidentally” drop something and while you’re bending over to pick it up, you sneak a peek between your legs to make sure you’re not leaking. Also, indiscriminately doing the “check” for ANY fellow female who asks, regardless of who they are — even your worst enemy or someone you’ve never met before.

I'm allowed to use straws, but I would recommend following your doctor's advice.

I'm so happy for you!! What a fabulous journey... We are going to have to call you Bean Sprout soon enough!

Great! Now put that money that you are saving into a special treat account for the both of you. Sounds like a great way to fund a fabulously romantic vacation.

I think once eating got easy, that's when it got harder. I remember I just flipped my 1 year surgiversary....and I was training for a half marathon and really stressing about it. I was worried about my fitness level and not sure what my nutrition strategies ought to be. I was semi convinced I needed to eat more to help my running, and that I needed more carbs because conventional wisdom always says endurance athletes need carbs (which I now think is bunk but that's another thread). So I changed the way I was eating to increase my calories, including the carbs. And the more I did, the worse I ran and the more I stressed. Which led to snacking and having regular chocolate treats. I'm talking daily candy bars. The final 3 weeks before my half marathon I gained about 15 pounds. With all that running, you'd think that wouldn't be possible. Which of course stressed me even more. Since then, I've figured out my nutrition strategies and I know what I need to do. But stress will still set me off. Sad part is, the "cheating" stresses me even more and leads to further "cheating"....it's a vicious cycle for me. And it doesn't help that I can eat 2000 calories a day easily...even while eating clean. I've had a couple of 3000 calorie days. Those carbs offer no satiety at all to me. Well, duhhhhh then!! Easy solution. No marathons!! Running and training is the culprit!! No, really. Thank you for your insight. I need to learn from all of you that are so far ahead of me. I am still having difficulty with dense Protein, especially bird, ground beef and pork. Some days I can eat, some days I cannot. The restriction is fierce, sometimes too much so, but I like it. I worry about what will happen when it lets up, but at the same time, I am hoping I will never figure out that it did because I am trying to reign in the experimentation. Keep sharing! I need it.

So, at what point after your surgery did you notice that it was harder and harder to resist? Right now, at almost 7 months, resisting is easy. Was it easy for you at first and then it changed? If so, when?

That's my biggest fear!

Of the symptoms, I can say yes to all but three. I'm blessed never to have had low self esteem or depression issues, and I ate like a "normal" person publicly before, but not MY normal. I absolutely have an addictive personality, too. This is a huge reason why I never experimented with any substances in college. I knew that would be a HUGE mistake. Thankfully, I was self aware enough to stay away from that.

OCD here, no doubt.

I will be unpopular when I say this but who cares? I was 360 pounds before my surgery. I required no pre-op diet except 2 days of liquids before the surgery day and Milk of Magnesia. I had no complications and in 10 weeks have lost 70+ pounds. Everyone cheats on their pre-op. And why not? You're never going to be able to eat like that again after the surgery. Live it up now. Just my 2 cents. Everyone? Really?

OH MY GAWD, YES!! ME TOO!! I even started mine two weeks early, I was so tired of eating like a pig.

WOW!! What an amazing victory for you. You look amazing and I know you feel amazing. I am thrilled for you.

This is my intention from my sleeve forward. It has to be. I just have to reprogram myself to get there.

Oh, the "I forget to eat" girl. I have a bestie that is like that. She doesn't say it to be coy, she doesn't say it to get attention, she says it because it's FUCKEDING true!!! What the fuckeding fucked? She literally lives off coffee, not because she is dieting, she is naturally skinny as are her parents, her siblings, even her freaking animals. The only time I have ever been one to skip a meal pre-sleeve was when I was all jacked up on Phentermine. Man, I loved that stuff. Loved it.

No problem is "better" than any other it's just different. Compare me to others who have parents with addictions or no parents or abusive parents and my life was phenomenal. I have a good relationship with my mom and a great one with my dad now and it's ME that I need to fix. I can't forever blame them for my decisions now, I just have to adjust what I learned growing up. I think we all have that in common. I also think we all have to remember that we will forever be a work in process, because as long as we are aging, we are evolving and we are growing. It's up to us to grow in a healthy manner and fix what we need to fix along the way.

I was always a very healthy and athletic child. I definitely took after my Italian side, short, "solid" and muscular. I was never the skinny teen, with more curves and boobs, but I never got larger than a size 1/2 up until college. My mom was a terrible cook. We lived on hot dogs, pot pies (Swanson!), Gordon's fish sticks, and spaghetti. Every once in awhile, my mom would make some effort and we would have hamburger helper or tacos but she never enjoyed cooking so it was rare. Add to the fact that she was cheap as the day is long, so if a meal cost more than $0.03 per serving, we weren't eating it. I'm not fat because my mom fed me with love, I'm fat because my (size 2/4) mom was ALWAYS on diet. She drank TAB by the caseload. She tried smoking for about a week because she heard it would make her skinny. She was always on the cabbage diet, or a cleanse diet, or any other 70s/80s fad diet you can imagine. She never tried to put me on these diets, but she was the queen of denying me food because she was denying herself unless she was on a between diet binge. As far as goodies were concerned, it was feast or famine at my house and believe me, feasts were few and far between. We didn't have good nutritious food and we didn't have snack food. We ate high carb, processed, full of fat food three times a day (Spam anyone?). Period. That's it. Everything else was forbidden so it made it all the more delightful when I was out at a friend's house or somewhere else I could get by greedy little paws on food. ANY food. And when I could, I ate. And ate. AND ATE. (One day I will tell you about the time I found the Bacos stash in home ec.) Fortunately, I was a very active teen. I played travel soccer, I was a cheerleader, I swam and was a year round lifeguard and it was only these activities that saved me from blooming like a pig once I could get around by myself. We lived in the middle of no where so there wasn't much for fast food except a McD's, a Taco Johns a a few pizza places in town. When my parents divorced, I had a bedroom at both houses, but my mom moved to town. I stayed with her most nights but at that point, she stopped cooking and any food she bought, she kept in her room or on "her shelf" in the fridge, and I was not allowed to touch it. By this point I could finally drive, and I ate out all the time. My portions were always big because I knew I wouldn't be eating at home but because we never had food at home, I never really plumped. While my mom never pointedly fat shamed ME, she did constantly make fat comments about herself and others I knew were directed at me in some bizarre passive aggressive way. I matched her diet for diet as far as she knew while eating crap anytime I could to spite her. Enter college and say hello to fatness! I went to college on a very urban campus. I had a meal ticket and lived within walking distance to several restaurants and even better, A GROCERY STORE!! I never went home for holidays or weekends unless the college was closing, preferring to stay at my dorm/apartment/with a friend. I made it a point to eat every bit of forbidden food that I could afford. I ate it by the bagful, binge after binge. Never did it occur to me to eat anything healthy because we didn't do that at home. I never developed too much of a sweet tooth because when my mom would binge, it was Cookies and ice cream so those foods didn't hold the forbidden appeal that everything else did. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. I ate because I finally could. I ate processed shitted because that's all I knew. I ate in HUGE portions because that was my habit. I ate in secret because I knew what I was doing was "against the rules" and wrong. My sleeve keeps me from doing that for now. FOR NOW. (And yes, that scares me.) I am working really hard to relearn portion size and healthy balance. I cannot deny myself anymore because since college, I've been on deprivation diet after deprivation diet, only driving myself to binge more once I couldn't take it any more. I have got to convince myself that nothing is forbidden anymore and that I am not on a "diet". I have to teach myself that I can have whatever I want, whenever I want, as long as I make good healthy choices first. I have to teach myself that there will always be more food later and that there is no need to binge now. And I have to teach myself that no one is judging me so there is no need to eat in secret. This is why I can not and will not say NO NEVER to any food because I know exactly where that will drive me. I've had enough shame instilled in me and I refuse to do it to myself. I purposefully keep candy and Snacks and chips and crap in my house for my kids and they could care less about it. I'm trying hard to break the cycle I learned growing up and my sleeve is helping me maintain control while I heal my mind... PHEW. I hope all that made sense. I think I just verbally vomited all over myself but I am too tired to go back and read all that shitted to see if I was at all easy to understand.

Just some food for thought... Have you thought about getting him some counseling or doing some group work? Is there a spousal support group for obesity and WLS in your area? Does he have someone he can talk to other than you and look to for support? Something someone said to me that I NEVER thought of on my own when I had my brain surgery... A good friend who had also had a brain tumor removed called me about a week before my surgery and asked if I wanted her husband to call mine. When I asked why, she asked me why in the world would I think that my husband didn't need the same support and hand holding that I did? She was absolutely right. I always thought of him as the "strong one", the one who "had it all together" when in actuality, he probably needed an outlet to talk himself. Instead, he always had to put on a brave face for me while I literally fell apart day after day. Sounds like your husband needs someone he can talk to so that he can be strong for you. There's no shame in that. He loves you and he needs you.

Another reason I only told a select few.

WOOOHOOOOOO!! Can't wait to hear how it went! :wub:

Yes ma'am and hallelujah! THIS!!!

Butter's itty bitty jiggly bits. More than a mouthful is a waste?

Love him and be there for him. Let him know that he is not alone no matter his weight. Make sure he knows that you are not judging him (and don't!) and that if he has any questions about what you did, you are ready to answer them. That said, you cannot allow him to abuse you or make you feel badly about yourself with his comments. It's a fine line between loving someone and being there for them and allowing them to take out their emotions on you. Don't allow him to cross that line. Other than that, there isn't much you can do. You can't make an overweight person lose weight until they are ready to do so. You know that from your own struggles, I'm sure.