I was 110kg at the first check up on the 6th of April, today the 8th of May l am 102, averaging 1.6kg loss a week. It is slowing down somewhat (beforehand the average was 2kg per week), but it is still very, very good going! I’m only 3kg away from the first milestone of 99, breaking the 100kg, I cannot even think about it - it seems so unreal.
I'm happy!
Honest to God, it is the best period of my life. If you want a flavour of my mood, stick on full blast these ones (currently on repeat here) while you are reading … I have them on while I’m writing: Bob Seger, The Blues Brothers, The Rolling Stones, Muse.
Seeing the numbers on the scale is definitely the smallest thing. I’m experiencing such a multitude of Non Scale Victories (NSVs in the bariatric world) that is incredible: I have soooo much energy, I do everything in the house now, my kitchen is clean through the week (and not only when the cleaner comes!) I even put out the rubbish sometimes and don’t ask my boyfriend all the time, make the bed (I can bend now!). I can stand almost 2 hours at a time, so long showers are now possible, as is cooking standing up rather than wheeling the chair at the cooker as I used to do. This happiness reflects also in my skin care routine I mentioned already, to which I’ve now added putting on makeup every day, regardless of the fact that I basically don’t go anywhere. I just like doing it - like I used to do 35 years ago. Imagine…. How much the weight was disabling me it’s now so apparent and it’s scary.
My rose
Some dear friends of mine brought me a nice rose plant when I came back from the clinic, but alas… I got a real black thumb, most definitely not green. If it wasn’t for my wonderful all-arounder cleaner, that rose would have died long ago. Now instead it even flowered! There you go, I cannot be happier, even for this small thing :-)
The psychologist
I mentioned him before, my psychologist. Now, in my life I went to various psychologists as I’m a firm believer you need to keep your mind in shape as well as your body, so I went around a bit. Finian is by far the best. It does help that he’s roughly my age, probably a tad younger, with a nice round face - I felt at home as soon as I met him first. But most importantly we definitely clicked.
Among other things we were talking about, the one thing I want to share was that we addressed my lack of will to exercise (which I mentioned before big time). My key takeaways from that chat:
Everybody runs the risk of developing some sort of agoraphobia if they don’t go out - ever - like I do; the more one doesn’t go out, the less they’re prone to do so.
I feel ashamed at the idea of walking around in my sports clothes, with people thinking of me as the fatty one who wobbles about with her blabber all over: most people really don’t give a shit about the others they meet in passing while walking. This runs a little deep here: I remember when I was just 13 and my mother trained me to look at other people’s wobbly bits and concentrate on the fact I was one of them, instead of looking like my beautiful sister (11 years old!) that men “turned their head for”. Enough said.
Conquer your slice of space in the world! Basically, why should I give up the right to walk the earth? I can conquer the space around me, physical space, just go and grab it. I do this at work all the time, where people never give up an inch to you and you do have to battle for absolutely everything. Walking the earth, in reality, is a lot easier than that. I was there once, it’s now the time to revendicate my space.
Walking and breathing fresh air is rejuvenating, it’s refreshing - it is not a chore. Clinical studies prove the mood gets lifted after just 30 minutes (ah, dear friends endorphins!)
What's the plan then?
Well, not surprisingly to some, I do in fact have one. I went today to buy trainers and sandals. Given I have awkward feet and I’m still so heavy I went to FootSolutions and I didn’t regret it one bit. They found for me the most comfortable trainers I’ve ever worn. The price wasn’t exorbitant, comparable to high end Adidas or Puma, so I bought them gladly.
I then got a pair of Birkenstock sandals, I’m set for a summer of walking!
And by the way, I could actually walk around the shopping centre for a full 3 hours! I could not believe it, so this is the first AND the second Non Scale Goals I wrote about back in September achieved! I mean, really???!!! Oh the feeling!
I am then going to keep my physiotherapy appointment next week with my amazing friend Tara - who helped me through my back pain for years and whose help for that I don’t need any longer (woot woot! No more back pain! Did I mention it? Ah yeah, I did. Ah well.)
Next week Tara will give me a thorough physical assessment, then she’ll talk about it with a friend of hers who is a Personal Trainer.
Yes! I’m going to hire a PT and then start to move! Apparently this PT is a nice woman in her fifties, well used to working with people who are starting from zero and who don’t want to go to the gym (Covid still terrifies me). I’ll post what happened with this Cathy in the next couple of weeks.
Food
I still cannot eat much, basically I cannot eat apart from incredibly tiny portions: 1 small avocado or 1 soft boiled egg (no bread) and I’m done for lunch. At dinner I can manage less than a third of the content of a side plate. Getting my protein in is a struggle.
I can manage turkey sausages, packed with protein. That's definitely my Sunday brunch, it’s a given.
Another difficult thing again is the rule of not drinking when eating (not for 30 mins before, nor after).
What about my cooking hobby? Surprisingly it’s still there! The fact I cannot eat does not mean I cannot enjoy making all sorts of fancy food from scratch as I’ve always done. If I can then eat only 2 spoonful of it, at least they are delicious. Finally mastered the concept of Quality vs. Quantity in the food realm. That in itself is a NSV!
My boyfriend cannot believe I still love cooking, and he’s of course delighted to eat it all! Plus, of course, I’m talking about healthy cooking that respects both the “not greasy, not sugary”, basically healthy food, and the renal diet for dialysis patients, so we’re cool.
However… l can also eat “slider food” - the food that’s not good for me given the diet but that goes down so well - I think I mentioned before l can eat a little bit of chocolate with no problem (hence l don’t buy it!), or half a packet of crisps (same thing, don’t buy them after the one packet). I eat something nice once a week, but last week I tried a full croissant and boy the nausea! A full one was clearly too much. Ok then, the quest for a little bit of something nice each week continues, but not the same thing every week!
This week I graduated to alcohol for the first time and I made for myself two Cosmopolitans. How nice! And not a bother, they didn't go to my head at all, but they were very, very nice. Let's see which treat I can devise for next week :-)
My wallet
That is getting thinner by the day! Wow, really. Do I care? Not much tbh. I am not saving anymore these days (eventually I will stop and start saving again, I promise!). For my cooking hobby I buy really high quality ingredients, and for my self-care hobby … well, I’ve basically emptied out the Clarins shop of every product that is suitable for me and I’m using absolutely every single bottle. Plus I’m a total sucker to marketing gimmicks: they send you an inordinate amount of samples with every order (and you can choose which ones to get!) so I try them out a little, store a lot of them (have a huge beauty case just full of samples) and then…. End up buying most of the samples in full size ;-)
I want to have plastic surgery when it’s all over, so I better put a time limit to this shopping spree and then revert to saving, but at the moment I’m just enjoying life and that’s it. Who cares?
Well then, that's it. It was indeed a novel and not my usual 3 mins read post - but there was a lot to share after at least 3 weeks of not posting.
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