3 Months NO Booze Pact With the Fiance. Back in the Weight Loss Game

My self help books so far are really good and interesting, but I haven’t invested as much time as I should into them. I’m glued to an ‘actual reading’ book that Jayme passed on to me called “A Piece of Cake” by Cupcake Brown. It’s a memoir and it’s good, so I get lost in there for a few hours a night instead. So sue me! Pleasure is important too in the whole mental healing process.

The weekend was hard and I can’t say I succeeded at it. Stressful! But yes, I drank on Saturday night. Not balls to the walls, but I was pent up. But it’s a journey and I’m learning so much about why I do things.

1. I feel like I’m a burden on everyone in my life. I feel like “because I can’t drink, Ezra can’t drink”. And it makes me feel like I’m ruining the ‘fun’. I feel like I emotionally drain Jayme with all my bickering about how I suck at life. She’s my bestie and puts me in my place though. She’s an awesome advice giver.

2. I feel fat and disgusting. My love life is in the pits. But I’m focusing on another type of journey. I need to find happiness (not in the form of food) but I DO want to bring my hobby “baking” back into the picture.

3. I get stressed and want an “out”. This weekend it was with my little sister. I did SO well on Friday night but on Saturday my little sister stressed me out, and then had an “accident” in my car which I had to clean up. She didn’t tell me about this accident. It was a self discovered puddle on my seat. Poor thing. It’s not her fault she has spina bifida and her parts don’t function all too great. But I had to clean it up, and it’s condensed urine. I gagged

4. I don’t have enough “happy” things in my life to keep me occupied. I’m thinking about taking up pottery? I’m artsy but I suck at art. Writing makes me depressed, poetry makes me depressed, cooking makes me fat, cake decorating makes me fat and i’m not that great at it. I miss working at my old job where I’d bake for all the guys in the office. Working with 12 girls, you don’t bring in baked goods on a weekly basis (even though I did yesterday, it made me happy Monday to bake instead of drink when I was bored).

5. I have a burning desire to be BAD on the weekends. It’s been such habit, that even if I don’t want to drink or eat, I NEED to do something to cut loose. Not sure how to handle that one… brownies?

Anywho…

I made a pact with Ezra that we’re not drinking for 3 months. I’m pretty much not planning on drinking ever again. It’s not good for my mental health, but I need at least a 3 month jump start where I don’t feel guilty that he can’t drink. Because he’s in it WITH me.

So these months are dedicated to finding ‘happy’ things in my life. Maybe jewelry making is where it’s at. That’s a fun hobby (??) I used to love beading as a kid with my mom. Ah why are all the good hobbies so expensive?!

Oh PS: I want to start planning my wedding

Cheers.

Is that mirror image of me really me? Finding truth under the skin.

Normally I eat like crap on the weekends causing my pants to feel a bit on the tight side come Monday morning. Last night I pushed myself down to the gym, did some crunches, and got on that elliptical. I found that the best way to pass the time on the elliptical is to read a book. Right now I’m reading Mercy by Jodi Picult. I just love her writing, because it captures me and the time flys by. “Just let me get to the end of this chapter! I must know what happens!” helps me stay on for an extra few minutes without feeling exhausted. But this week I have done 3 days of cardio, and 2 days of abs/weights. My stomach feels tighter (disregard the lose skin! I can still feel strength under it all), and my pants feel nice and where they should be.

When it comes Friday, it looks like I need a belt. I can pull my pants a good 4 inches from my body and slide my hands down them to touch my legs. My boyfriend tells me that it’s time I put my “weekend belt” on, because by sunday night my pants are snug again. It’s so strange how our bodies can bloat up so easily. Especially when we have loose bellies that have nothing left to do but hang or expand. This skin is HEAVY.

I’m hoping to get this website up and running soon here. Actually moving away from the simple blog, and learning how to make it a “real” blog/site. I want to add my recipes, my body lift surgery journey, my before and after photos, others success stories. I’ve been thinking about how to approach it. I don’t want people finding me by name or anything, but I want to be able to share  with you all.

I’m so tired of trying to hide who I am, but I can’t share it with many. Some of my best friends don’t even know that I was heavy in the first place, and I’m not happy about that. I’m afraid of their reactions. I’m afraid they’ll look at me like I’m broken, or in pain. Not many have gone through this. For example, yesterday I heard ladies at my work talking about calories and dieting and I wanted to jump right in and tell them good things to eat that are filling but darn tasty, and I wanted to talk about their favorite lean cuisine or 100 calorie snack. But instead I just smile and keep quiet… keep my secrets hidden.

But today I am proud of myself for not just doing cardio at the gym, but my abs too. I just love feeling my abs tug back when I sit up. That nice sore pain. And my legs burn just from going up the stairs because of the nice leg workout from the night before. I have structure inside me. I’m proud that when I look in the mirror and flex my arms, there’s only a little skin hanging because I’m becoming stronger. More tone and defined. The skin won’t completely go away, but at least I can work with what I have and be proud of myself more often. We all have to take time to love our bodies. It’s all we got, right?

It’s confirmed! I grew up in a dysfunctional family and now I must pay.

I never knew one session of therapy would open such a can of worms! Diet in general was hardly touched in our session, but a lot of things I needed to let out where spread on the table. My fears, my anxiety, my thoughts. I was asked to pick up a book from the library called “Adult Children: The Secrets of Dysfunctional Families”. Oh fun! I know I grew up in a lot of term-oil, and that I have seen and experienced a ton of things that normal family life would have never had.

My sense of control: I have been trying to control my emotions by eating. I thought for a minute there I had control over my portion’s with counting calories, but have learned I actually gave up control to counting. I don’t ask my body what it needs, and it stopped talking to me a long time ago. Sure, it will tell me when it’s hungry, but that takes forever to happen. So I feed it on the hour, every few hours.

What IS control? How do I give up control to gain control? I feel so out of control right now, but mildly in control. Gosh I am just rambling on at this point.

I like my life to be cookie cutter.  I want the job, the house, the husband (all which I don’t really have). I want to be able to sit down and look at a menu and naturally feel inticed to make the right choices. I want to be able to put the fork down when I am done. I don’t want to feel anxiety looking at half a plate of pasta even when I am stuffed. I HATE that. I don’t want to feel pulled towards the cabinets. I don’t want to have to reach a specific number of calories. I want to have a healthy weight, but I don’t want to cry and ruin my day over a couple pounds.

So here I go on another journey of my life. How to exist in a world I’ve never seen normal.

It’s not a diet, it’s a lifestyle change.

When I was 295 pounds, I just wanted to be thin, and thin NOW. I wanted the scale to move, and I wanted the days done. I wanted to live life already.

After this last week, I have learned that I was fat to begin with due to instant gratification. Food was my joy, food was comfort. Food tasted good and could make me full fast. Food never denied me when I wanted it, it was always there. Food.

I am finding that I rush all the time. I rush into relationships, I rush into making fast decisions with my life. Instant. Life isn’t always instant.

I want my tummy tuck, but I must take the slow approach. I’ll have 4K saved up once I get my tax return back! Been trying to do every little thing I can to cut back on my spending. Slowing down is hard. Anxiety is my number one concern with my health at this point.

I have an appointment set to talk to a therapist about what drives me. I binge. Or LORD did I binge this weekend. I have been restricting my diet to the point that I will drink booze just to give myself the freedom feeling to eat whatever the heck I want. I’ve been sneaking food from the pantry while pretending to do laundry. I have been cooking dinner but instead while nobody is looking I am snacking on anything handy in the cabinets. The squeak of the cabinet door is a dead give away. Hands down. But if nobody looks, my fingers crawl into boxes, and my fist back to my mouth.

Awful! I feel guilty. Even if my body nutritiously needs it. I can’t be doing this to myself.

So off to therapy I go.

I’ll let you know how this goes. I need to heal my brain before I can fix my body image and get my plastic surgery. I think I’m going about this the right way.

Swallowed by skin

Standing in front of the mirror on a Saturday morning. Stark naked in my new apartment. I have never had a mirror I could fully observe myself before. Now I have access to a full length mirror in my bedroom, and this large “view me from all angles” mirror in the bathroom.

My eyes first observe my face. I am a normal looking human being. I mean, not a 10 by any standards, but I’m okay. Nothing strikingly wrong.

As I touch my stomach, my skin feels soft. It is easy to grab with my slender fingers. I stretch it across flat, just to see the way my belly button should lay. The stretch marks flatten against my abs. That’s where my body should exist. I grab my sides where my skin has fallen so gracefully against my bones. Like a sheet, covering ME. Almost feels like I am tugging at a parasite that shouldn’t exist.

I lift my flap of skin and my hip bones are prominent. Beautiful. A line that exists from many years of a creased stomach marks the spot a surgeon will cut away at me. My hands move from my stomach to around my back. I pinch and lift. An ass that I should have is apparent. So small, enough for a hand to grab. That’s when I realize the second surgeon was right. I am going to need a lower body lift. All the way around. Cutting me in half yet again. A thought strikes me: I have lost half of my weight, half of myself, and now I am going to be cut literally in HALF to be made whole again.

Somehow I am calm studying myself. Normally I would get angry in disgust, but now I’m just trying to find an understanding of how I am going to be pieced together. Complete. Together

I let my body lay free, and raise my arms beside me. Wings. Somehow I have these large arm bat wings but they prevent me from flying. So many oxy-morons.

This month I will have saved 1K to my fund for my surgery. A small portion, but it’s a start. I’ve been wandering around makemeheal.com more and more just to look at the before and after pictures. Am I going to just need the lower body lift, and a breast lift? Or am I going to need the one they cut up my stomach? Either way, I don’t care. I don’t know if people going into this are as afraid as I am. It’s so far away, and I’m completely not ready to just DO it. Healing takes time. I need to heal before I can think about all that.

I feel swallowed in my skin.

Developing Confidence Before a Full Body Lift: A Critical Key to Success and Self Love

Someone I was talking to yesterday couldn’t wrap her mind around how people can balloon up to 300-400-500 pounds and then FIND themselves there. I was 300 pounds nearly, and I DID just find myself there. How can you not recognize and be embarrassed at your size? Simple. I grew up in an environment who didn’t take a second look at the way I was treating myself. That third bowl of ice cream was accepted. Second servings of food were OFFERED. It was one of the only ways I could comfort myself and distract myself. I can’t say I grew up with a shitty life, and I can’t blame all of this on me.

I think I need counseling. Actually, I KNOW I need counseling. If someone offered me 35K and said “hey, you go get your full body lift. Don’t worry about your job, don’t worry about anything, just go get your surgery” I’d be way excited and scared shitless. Ezra even turned to me and told me I wasn’t ready to actually get it, but that WE were ready to start preparing for that.

It’s all true. Your mind goes through a crazy process. I’ve been maintaining and looking at this body for 10 months, with Ezra by my side telling me I’m beautiful and sexy (which I’m sure helps) and I can actually look at myself in a full length mirror without wincing. You know what I see when I look in a mirror? I imagine my true body under this. I want to scream “I’m not 120 pounds! I’m smaller than this!” which sounds insane, and it IS insane. I don’t know why I try to maintain THIS weight when I know I have pounds to come off of me in skin.

Peeking out of the cocoon

Sometimes I wish I had someone in my life who understood what I was going through. Like completely UNDERSTOOD. There are a lot of people who have lost weight (yes I get that) and go through the food struggle. Not many grew up with what I had to, nor do they have to face a deflated body every morning. It’s a healthy body, but deflated none the less.

Last weekend Ezra and I were talking: He asked me if I would find it weird if he wanted to start putting away money to help me get my body lift. As creepy as that would sound to some people (yes, my boyfriend want’s to BUY my body) it’s not creepy to me. He wants to help. He want’s to see me happy. I’ve had him sit down and watch shows, even look at pictures, and he winces at the sight of all the pieces that are stitched and taken away. But when he asked that question, it nearly made me cry.

He said that he just doesn’t want to see me wait around forever and dream about it every day and then never get it done. He knows I WANT it. And I want it bad.

I laid there feeling my skin. So soft, so free and wiggly moving. So… so much apart of me. Not cut, not infected, not sore. That will change and that piece of ME that I always look at as “extra” will be gone.

Kinda like when you have a piece of popcorn in your teeth, and you work and work to get it out but then all you have left is sore gums and then you start to miss it.

*sigh*

I can’t wait until my life gets to start. I’m hoping that before the end of the month I can have saved up 1K. Throw that over into savings, and let my new life begin. All I gotta do is accumulate 18 vacation days + 5K for a down and I can DO this for me. So scary, yet exciting.

I wonder if a butterfly is afraid before cracking the cocoon?

Prior to a full body lift, we must accept ourselves as we are

I think there’s a whole group of us girls (and guys) out there that have a NEED to know there are more of us out there. People who wake up daily and get angry at our bodies for have stretching to the max and not bouncing back when we wish and pray it would. A group of people that wish they could diet the rest of this hanging body away.

I’ve been searching and searching for people like this. MakeMeHeal.com is about the closest I have come to people who have the same flaws as me (needing a full body lift) but maybe not for the same reasons. I’ve searched for books that make me feel not so alone and haven’t found any that hit the spot. Someone, anyone, just please come and relate to me.

24 years old, after losing 175 pounds, and plagued with this skin that I find disgusting on some days, and find inspirational other days. The same skin that motivates and unmotivates me to exercise because what’s the point? Skin.. it’s just skin. Some people wish they had a body as good off as me. Those who have been in fires, those who have lost more weight than me. It’s hard to look on the brighter side when you so badly want something gone. But what’s left when it’s gone? A smooth surface, scars that are prone to infection. Scars that can heal.

Before I get my full body lift I need to recognize that my body is going to change. When I am 60 years old, I don’t expect it to be the same. Already growing up to 24 I am seeing wrinkles. Should I embrase them or botox them? Should I accept myself as I am, or always fight to change it?

I want to hug anyone that has to go through what I do. When I hear people say “i want to lose 150 pounds” I sit back and hope their skin doesn’t hurt them like mine does me. I hope they dont try to cover themselves up and hide from the world. Why do we have to be so asshamed of our bodies?

This is just my reach out to others like me. I hope you will come up and send me an email or your story. I want a connection. People to mope with, and come to realization with. Are you out there?

Let’s embrase change. For better or for worse. Our bodies are ours.

I still love me, even with the body dysmorphia

Maintaining has it’s ups and downs, and these past few months have proved just that. I need to learn so many things about myself still. I still need to learn HOW to maintain this 121 pound body. It takes structure, it takes keeping a close eye on the scale, it takes relearning your entire way of thinking. You’ll all see, it’s just crazy.

A rollercoaster ride if you will. Some nights I continue to binge, and others I have complete control. Today is one of those days of complete control. I only gained it because I lost it this weekend. Gained an entire 7 pounds while in California. I went to go meet my nephew, and my mom makes the best potato salad. I can’t restrict forever. We all must learn times we should and shouldn’t restrict. Going home to see family is a time of ‘who the fuck cares if I gain 5 pounds, I can lose it later’. Very eliborating for a whole 30 minutes while you stuff your face, but backing away from the plate you realize your stomach doesn’t remember how to digest CRAP anymore. Mayo laden potatoes? It tasted good on my tongue, but it wanted to come back no doubt. Held it down, but it hurt to digest. And lets not forget beef. My body wants nothing to do with beef digestion. Aw my precious tummy wants it’s fruits and veggies. We are a team in that aspect. Everything else it knows better about.

My top weakness at this point is Trix cereal and alcohol. I allow myself a bit of alcohol weekly (not going overboard for my own health) and cups and cups of Trix on those nights if I desire. It’s normally a great desire. Then I work for 2 days trying to get it off. Okay.. well I can’t say I’m actually “working” to get it off, I’m just not making the problem worse. Life is funny.

So here I am, almost 7 months later, still maintaining my size 2 body. Slight body dysmorphia has set in, and some crazy thoughts of fasting and cleansing happen on occasion (I’ll juice fast one of these days). It’s like I don’t want to stop dieting. I don’t want to lose control. Daily scale weigh ins. Still can’t say I completely love who I’ve become, but there are so many positives I’ve found out of it I can’t fathom gaining all the weight back.

Ah life is grand. It’s just so crazy how much you change in this journey both mentally and physically.

Weight loss is not all balloons and streamers

A while back ago, I came across a journal on calorie count to where someone was showing her body in the rawest form after she had lost over 100 pounds. At that time, I bluntly asked her if she was considering getting surgery to fix it. This made her very angry at me, and I didn’t quite mean to upset her. I just saw it as something broken that needed to be fixed.

I get congratulated on my weight loss success all the time. I get told how great I look, but deep down inside I just want to scream at them and tell them they don’t understand. If you haven’t been through it, you don’t understand. I should be happy in my size 4 jeans and small tops. But let me give you a giant reality check: It’s not balloons and streamers.

I’ve been over weight since I was 10. A body stretched from years of internal hugs. Something that could never be filled with the way life was going. Sometimes I sit here and cry while thinking about my past, and then I smile at what is now. It’s a series of mixed emotions. Health, a body, my soul. Nothing should be able to break my soul, but the disappointment I have in myself sometimes masks the pride.

Some day they will cut me. Cut me to make me whole again. For I am a woman and deserve to feel as though.