Arabesque

Lots of empty shelves in Aust too. They established limits on how many packs of toilet paper, rice, pasta, meat, etc. last week because of people’s greed. Does cause probs though for those with legitimate need for additional packs. My brother has 5 children. His wife tried to buy 2kg of mince to make spag bolognaise. Could only get 1x1kg pack & 2x500g. She was stopped at the checkout & they were going to take the 1kg pack away. She had to fight to keep 1.5kg explaining she was feeding 7 people. Worse was she ran into a friend who bragged she’d bought 2x1kg packs & it’s just 2 of them. I feel for the staff at the grocery stores. They’re being abused & are so rushed off their feet they can’t even get the shelves restocked.

No, not intending to lose more weight @Sophie7713 just trying to stabilise & work out that fine line between weight gain & weight loss. For me it’s very narrow. Going back to work as been a bit of a challenge. In retail, you can’t say to a customer sorry have to have my snack & walk away. Bones everywhere. The house we rented had rustic timber bench seats at the dining table. I had to sit on a cushion & have one at my back to protect my bony butt & spine. One of my 6yr old nieces asked why I was so skinny. I said so she could give me really good hugs ... so she did. I’d be ok if I put on a kg or 2 to get me back to a BMI of 20. Love the glorious pxts of flowering plants. Spring is such a wonderful time. BTW you’re looking fabulous, Sophie. Your achievement is so inspiring. Chores done, now relaxing. Think I’ll watch the last episode of Hunters.

A friend said ‘The hysteria about corona virus is spreading faster than the virus.’ The food hoarding, the greed & selfish, inconsiderate behaviours is shocking but all arising from the hysteria. Sadly this creates & adds to people’s anxiety. I have meat & frozen vegetables in my freezer, yoghurt, eggs, milk & cheese in my fridge, always have tinned salmon, tuna, chick peas & tomatoes in my pantry & protein bars. Everything I usually have in stock so no change to my diet. My weight loss journey has been at home as I wasn’t working. I set routines about when I ate & exercised & stuck to them. I established new behaviours - I’m the one in control! I made sure I had a specific task to do every day. I heartily agree with suggestions like going for a walk, pottering in the garden & cleaning out your closets. (I’ve gone through my clothing a few times throughout this journey so this is the perfect time to sort your clothes.) Sew on those missing buttons, restitch that hem, darn that hole. Cook - test new recipes or modify old favourites. Clean out your pantry - get rid of any trigger foods & the expired items we all have at the back of the shelves. Go through your paperwork, sort all your receipts. Phone your friends & family. Read a book. (I read a book every 1or 2 days.) Give yourself a manicure, a pedicure, a hair treatment - men & women. Sort through all the photos you have on your phone. Keep up with this blog. Stay strong & healthy.

Some random pxts of my weekend away at the Bunya Mtns. Survived 7 children aged 2-10. Beautiful and green. Wallabies by the squillions - roo poo everywhere. Birds sit on verandas to be hand fed. Short bush walk, but several walks up & down the hill to the cafe - still 1km there & another back uphill. Surprised to notice I wasn’t huffing & puffing - huge win. No OOTD shots though - two mirrors in the whole house placed above the vanities & I’m too short. If only I had long legs like my shadow. New work dress - protruding hip bones - who’d ever have thunk it. Stay healthy everyone. PS @BayougirlMrsS - French tucking is my go to at the moment. Shirt out but tuck one side only hip to fly.

I dropped from an Aust size 18 to size 6. The smallest size I’d ever been in the past was a size 10 so I’ve well passed the point I can wear the smaller clothes I’d kept from that time too. I have noticed my body shape is different from when I’d lost weight previously. Always was very hour glass shaped but am now more up & down now. Could be because of my age & the impact of menopause but also because the last kgs I’ve lost have totally come off my hips, butt & breasts. I donated bags & bags of clothing to St Vincent de Paul (keep finding more pieces to donate as I work through closets & cupboards) but did keep my high end clothes. Sold a few high end pieces to off set the cost of my new wardrobe. Also donated some of the high end to a fundraiser for fire relief here in Aust. Fortunately I only went down a half size in shoes. I offered the few that are too big for me to some girl friends but they wear larger sizes so they’ll be going to some cousins.

Nexium. At least 1 x 20mg but don’t be afraid to take 2 tablets. I always suffered terribly from hiccups. Would have sore stomach & chest muscles for days after an attack. Even would vomit sometimes. Tried everything, all the old wive’s tales & Nexium was the only thing that would help. Takes a little while to work but the relief was bliss. As a preventative, eat slowly. I find that helps too.

Started work again a couple of weeks ago helping out a former employer who had lost some staff recently so I’m way behind in checking out how fabulous everyone is looking. I swear it’s taken more than an hour to try to catch up. Just a couple of pxts of work clothes - when I wasn’t rushing out. The short silk caftan top is from my archives - about 14yrs old. The dress was one I bought in Melbourne -1992 Comme de Garçon. It’s a little big on me cause I’ve lost those few extra kgs. The jeans I got today. Great dark navy & you know I love a wide leg pant. Plus the shoes I couldn’t leave behind - the heel changes colour (pink to gold) depending how light hits it. Designed to look like the aurora borealis. They won’t be very sensible when I go to the Bunya Mtns next weekend though. 😜

After about 12 weekly treatments & another couple of monthly Radio Frequency treatments, I think I can confidently say yes, I can see an improvement. 🎉🎉🎉 The marionette lines on my left side have reduced quite a bit. They’re a shadow of what they were. The right side has lessened but are still very visible. Though this side was far worse than the left. The finer lines under my chin have reduced dramatically too. The unexpected improvement has been the horizontal creases which ran around my neck. I can hardly see them now. (Though they are still noticeable on the side of my neck.) Mind you I also take silica & collagen several times a week as well. So I could be finally seeing the effects of the collagen in my skin being stimulated from a combination of RF & the silica & collagen.

It does end. I’m 9.5 months post surgery & I feel pretty confident is saying my hair loss has normalised (knock on wood). I lost more than 50% which was pretty scary too me. As were the handfuls that came out every day & don’t start me on the huge amounts that fell when I washed my hair. I took silica & collagen but nothing helped. Now my weight has stabilised, I’m better at ensuring I eat my protein every day & I’m eating a more balanced diet, the hair loss decreased. Give it time. Don’t stress. As my surgeon said: your body has better things to do with the nutrients your consuming than grow hair at the moment. Plus your body is going through lots of changes & learning to function with a reduced diet while your losing weight.

Was waiting for my micro blading follow-up appointment at the swanky local day spa this morning when in walked two young, thin ‘beautiful people’ (all spray tans, botox & body con clothes) and I suddenly felt uncomfortable & embarrassed. I thought oh I’m so fat & they’ll look at me & judge me. WTF!! Where did that thought come from?? I’ve always been pretty self confident & never really felt that way when I carried weight (probably because I saw myself as ‘only being overweight’ not the reality of being obese - body dysmorphia). And now this random thought of being less than & being judged by how I look comes into my head. Worse was the realisation that I still saw myself as being fat. It threw me. I had to give myself a mental slap & looked again at the women with clear eyes. The reality was I was actually smaller than they were. Looks like I still have head work to do. Maybe I’ll be working on it for a long time as there’s obviously some buried stuff that needs to be dug out.

Congrats on losing 50lb - amazing. I think some people have a mental image of us & it takes a long time for it to change to the new reality. A friend said she was surprised when I told her how much I weighed because she didn’t think I was anywhere near that big - I was. A niece asked me last month when I’d cut my hair. It had been >4months since I’d had 12inches cut off & I’d seen her several times (ahh self involved youth). Also we all carry & lose weight weight differently. Unfortunately it seems the higher our starting weight the longer it takes for any loss to become noticeable. You may find people will comment on a loss of a couple of pounds when you’re near or at your goal. I think we like to hear positive comments about our weight loss progress because it’s motivating. They reaffirm our achievements & hard work. We are human & we all like to be acknowledged & receive praise. 😁

I set myself a goal of 60kg as it was a weight I had been happy with in the past & my surgeon confirmed it was a sensible goal. Achieving mini goals (1/3 of the weight gone, 2/3 gone) was a great motivator too. Watching those numbers drop on the scales was amazing as was watching my BMI decrease.

One of my 6yr old nieces likes to play with mine. She says she likes them because they’re soft & squishy. Embarrassing ... but funny.

I gurgle a lot too. Most often if I eat a bit too much or a bit too quickly and sometimes for no reason at all.

Thank you soooo much everyone for sharing your eating struggles and how you approach your daily life post surgery & weight loss. So enlightening & reaffirming. I too eat the same basic menu every day so I don’t have to think about what I’m going to prep & eat - makes grocery shopping a breeze too cause I buy the same foods every week. If I’m going out to eat, I check the menu & choose what I’ll order before I go so being tempted by what’s on the menu (or agonising over what I can eat) is greatly reduced. Genetics and hormones make losing weight a fight you have with one hand tied behind your back. I grew up hearing about my overweight relatives & how I would have to always watch my diet or I’d end up like them. I first put on weight when I went through puberty & then the last large weight gain was during menopause. I grew up on a vegetable farm so eating ‘healthy’ was my norm - lots of meat & vegetables & being very active. I believe my weight problems were exacerbated because I didn’t eat until dinner throughout my high school years. And then regularly skipped lunch when I was working - too busy to stop & eat. So I killed my own metabolism. At the moment it seems to have been resurrected & hopefully it will have a long, long life. Thank you for sharing.

I don’t worry about my arms too much either (we call them tuckshop lady arms here in Aust - the mums & grandmothers who volunteer to man the school canteens). I wear sleeveless & tank tops all the time. I just avoid shoe string straps & action back as the crepey wrinkle skin is more noticeable in these for me.

I love that you’re shopping for all of us @Sophie7713. Really like that dress on you. I’d go sheer black hose with the black shoes. (Love the touch of mesh.) if it was a day event the nude would work but the black for an elegant evening. Keeping the colour going all the way thru will make you look taller too - a bonus for all of us under 5’4. And aren’t the men bringing it. Hot! I just donated all my old XL hoodies, track pants, tops & running pants which led to an expedition to my local Bonds store for more appropriately sized options (XS). Strongly motivated by a trip to Bunya Mountains next month with my baby brother & his family. Lovely bush walks & native animals to enjoy (& a few drinks on the verandah). My new babies - and only 2inch heels. Not suitable for bush walking though. Lol.

This isn’t unusual. Just annoying. Even going every 15/30 mins. It will eventually settle as your body gets used to the increased fluid intake but you’ll still have times when you feel like you’re living in the bathroom. It usually happens to me at night unfortunately.

I ended up having to stay three nights in hospital because of back spasms. I was made to get up on day two to have a shower & to put on my pjs. So glad I threw in extra pjs & knickers because on day three I experienced some awful and very unexpected diarrhoea thanks to all the laxatives I had been given. Not pretty. 😱 I found putting on clean pjs each day just made me feel better. Understand not wanting to buy pjs when you don’t wear them, but maybe find some track pants (soft, loose, drawstring waist are most comfortable immediately after surgery) even from a local 2nd hand shop & wear with your T shirts. I lived in soft track pants after my surgery. And yes to non slip shoes for doing your laps around the ward. Good luck 😁

I can’t chug water like I used to either. I have bottles of water around the house so I can take a mouthful wherever I am. I can just manage a second mouthful but I often hold it in my mouth for a few seconds before swallowing. And hell yeah to the bony butt pain. Driving any distance is a struggle. I feel pain if my pjs or sheets bunch up under me during the night. When I get up after sitting for even 10mins, and I’m bent over like an old lady. Owwww.

Oh I do buy from high street stores in fact have a dress on now I picked up for $40. 😁 I often also mix high end with high street especially tops to go with pants, skirts & under jackets. Never been a big online shopper - like being able to feel the textures & see the true colour of fabrics. Plus being short & curvy means I’m not always easy to fit so I’d send a lot of stuff back. Plus I like the immediate gratification of buying in stores. (Oh yeah baby) And I do love a good sale and loyalty rewards. Just before Christmas I picked up a $50 linen blend T for free - paid for with loyalty dollars. Woo hoo.

Congrats. Doesn’t it feel fantastic when you get there. And you’re just off your goal weight too. Double celebrations.

I understood weight loss is required for everyone though not linked to insurance requirements in Aust as it is in the US. Basically, the weight loss is to reduce any fattiness around your liver which allows the surgeon greater visualisation & movement around your stomach when they operate. It also shows a commitment to the weightloss program. You will be sent to a dietician who will put you on a diet & will monitor your pre surgical weight loss. They will guide you through the post surgical weight loss journey as well. I was put on a keto diet for two weeks prior to surgery & lost 4.2kgs. My BMI was 35. Your surgeon will have his requirements as will your insurance company based on your individual case. You can’t really compare. Treat this pre surgery time as when you begin to re-educate yourself & start your new lifestyle - how you eat, what you eat & new exercise routine. This is a life long change.

Oh yeah a lot of us have heard this too. If not your partner, it’s from your family, a best friend, or in the case of my best friend, her doctor. So it’s what you haven’t tried to lose weight before & tried hard? Why do they think you will be successful now when you haven’t before? It is frustrating & devastating. The thing is, the surgery is only a tool. Yes it will physically help you to reduce your food intake BUT you still will have to work hard. It is not a miracle cure. Snap your fingers & your weight disappears - no. It will only work if you make changes to your lifestyle, exercise routine, what you eat & how you eat. If you’re not willing to work hard & make the changes to take advantage of the tool you will not be successful. Remember why you decided to have the surgery. Remember what you wanted to achieve with the weight loss (health, fitness, lifestyle,...). I’m so glad I did it.