castiel

It's nice to know people understand what you're going through. I'm finally seeing myself as a size 18 now. At leas this slow weight loss is letting me catch up with how my body really looks

I haven't posted on this site in so long, nor have I been active on the boards, and it's not only because of finals, papers, projects, and my thesis, but because I feel guilty. I haven't worked out in over a month. My diet? Completely out the window. I've eaten pasta a few times and potatoes. I got stuck with a giant box of left over candy from a school project and ate a lot of it. The scale went up to 231, but now it's back down to 224. I'm not taking my supplements like I should and I still haven't gotten my blood work done because I haven't been home. My hair loss is still going on but it's not that bad. No one can even notice and some days I can't either. Recently, I went out drinking, and let's say getting used to the lower body weight and the fact that liquid goes right through your stomach is a nightmare for consuming way too much alcohol and having nothing to throw up. So I learned my lesson the hard way. I shouldn't even be drinking anyway, but I'm young and graduation is around the corner. I just need to limit myself to one or two drinks. I've been so blessed to be able to have this surgery and I feel like I'm wasting it. I'm so busy with school work, but once it's all over, next week my butt is getting back to the gym and this time it will be for good because my home gym is so much better than my school's gym. I'm more comfortable there! I really wanted to hit that 50 pound loss for graduation on the 20th this month, but it might be possible the week before graduation to lose a few pounds to get close. I also have my 55 mile bike ride with my dad, and I think it's going to really test me because I'm out of shape again. (Heh, maybe I've never been in shape) but we're taking our time and spreading it out over two days. So that's what's been going on in my life. I hope everyone is doing well.

I feel like I’m going through a tiny bit of body crisis over something so small. I’m getting rid of all my size 22 pants. EVERYTHING. I’m bringing them down to SC to give to my grandmother to sell at a consignment shop. And I found a pair of 24 magenta jeans from Torrid, that still had their price tag on them. I remember when I bought them freshman year of college, thinking eventually I was going to be a 24 and they kind of fit at a 22. They were way too big on me when I tried them on, yet I still wanted to keep them. It was such a strange thought thinking that becoming a 24 was inevitable, even tho pre-op I was a 22 ever since I came to college. I never got to a 24. I slipped on a few pairs of size 20 capris/dress pants with my shorts on bunched up and a tshirt tucked into them. They fit. I just can’t fathom losing almost 2 pants sizes. (I say almost 2 because most 18s don’t fit right) It doesn’t seem like a big accomplishment. I want to hold onto my 22s. I don’t want to let them go. I said to myself “Gabby they’ll fit you this summer. They might fall down but you can still wear them anyway and hike them up.” But in actuality they won’t fit me. They don’t fit me now. And I just can’t get over that I’m going down in pants sizes. It’s been so long since I started dieting in middle school that I’ve seen actual progress. Even at a 20/18 I feel like I have more fashion options open to me. I forgot what that felt like. And it makes me both delighted and sad. Sad because I know how hard this world can be when you don’t have all the nice clothes available to you as a fat person above a 14. My size has been a huge part of my identity, all my life. And I’m wondering what will be left at the end of this long journey?? Will I still be the same or will I be an even bigger mess with an even bigger identity crisis than I started out with?

That's great to hear you're in great health! Fat doesn't always equal unhealthy! There are plenty of healthy fat people out there. Are you familiar with the Health at Every Size movement? It's something to look into as well as the Body Positivity movement. Focuses more on healthy eating and exercise rather than just the numbers on the scale. There are plenty of unhealthy thin people out there too! I look at this surgery as a tool to force me to eat better because without it, I probably wouldn't have, and when I got older my health would've been in bad shape. Congrats to you!

I know I've been working out, and lifting a little bit of weights. So I was thinking I was putting on muscle mass, but I'm not losing inches. I have been meeting my protein requirements, but I'm thinking may I need to get in more. It's frustrating that the scale has gone up progressively as the days have passed. I just recently had my period, so I know it's not water weight. I don't really know what else to do I don't regret this surgery one bit, and even hitting a 40 pound weight loss, despite not being able to notice it too much. I guess I'm just impatient and dissatisfied that my body isn't losing the weight the way I want it to.

It feels like it's been ages since I last updated. Some of this stuff is boring, aka talking about clothes shopping/dropping pant sizes, and also there is some talk about depression. ________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ These past two weeks have been rough. Not because of my sleeve, just life in general. When I visited my surgeon's partner last month, I mentioned feeling depressed. He just said it was because I relied on food as an emotional crutch, but pre-op I would never eat when I was depressed. I haven't been depressed since my junior year of high school. I was a stress eater, and I ate when I was really happy/excited or as rewards. It's just gotten worse since I've seen him . I'm terribly depressed. I'm really burnt out of school. I'm having A LOT of sleeping issues. I'm talking like, not being able to sleep until 6am, having to wake up for class at 8:30am and go all day until 4pm. There have been days where I'm so tired from lack of sleep, I just don't go to class for an entire day and it's affecting my grades. There are days where I wake up and think "I can't do this today" so I don't. I lack motivation for anything except going to the gym when I have enough sleep. I cry sometimes, in the wee hours of the morning. It's usually because I'm sad, or I'm so upset that I can't sleep and I know how awful my day is going to be because I can't get to bed on time. I feel trapped at school, despite being so happy with my major. I feel a little lonely even, which rarely happens because I enjoy being alone to wind down, and I have plenty of friends. It's just this cycle I'm trapped in that makes me so unhappy. I'm unhappy. This feeling of unhappiness led me to sort of running away from college for 4 days. I talked to my instructor on Wednesday for my Thursday class and let her know I was having sleep issues. She said she completely understood, and let me miss class. Cue me leaving Wednesday afternoon, not even saying a word to my roommates, and spending Wed night, Thurs, Fri, Sat and today at home. I needed to escape, to get out of my toxic and entrapping environment. I had an appointment Thursday afternoon with my GP. He gave me ambien. It didn't do diddly squat for me falling asleep. I've had sleeping problems ever since I got to college. Last semester they were manageable. I've tried Lunesta my sophomore year of college and trazodone my junior year as well. I have symptoms that mimic DSPD. For all I know, it could be DSPD. But it only seems to act up when I'm at school and in a perpetual state of stress. During the summer, when I work, I find that I'm pretty stress free and I can sleep normal hours. I actually like working more than school haha. I'm thinking about making an appointment with psychological services at my school to help me. I've been taking St. John's wort for almost 4 weeks, 3x a day, and it hasn't really helped with these feelings or improvement of my mood. I'm also looking into switching to 5-HTP to see if that can help with my mood and sleep. I need to do something, because I can't keep living like this. _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ On a more positive note, I've had a wonderful time being home. It's nice seeing my puppy and playing with her, talking to my parents, even my annoying little bro. After my doctor's appointment, I went to my local Y where I took my first spin class!!!!! Talk about difficult! I didn't have muscle fatigue in my legs, but geez my heart is in poor shape. I had to sit down during climbs and jumping because my heart was pounding so hard, I thought it was going to burst out of my chest. MY CHEST HURT! I needed time to catch my breath and slow my heart rate down. It made me frustrated I couldn't keep going because of cardio difficulties. I wanted to really up that resistance to get some real muscle fatigue, but the higher the resistance, the harder my heart pumped Can I just say, those little seats hurt the nether regions!!! I even had padded biking shorts on. I would rather spend the entire class climbing and jumping than sit on that seat for an hour. I could feel immense pressure and pain on my urethra and other parts. It burned to use the toilet for hours afterwards, and it hurt to sit in a chair lol. But besides the chest pains and private area pain ( AND WRIST PAIN), that was the challenge I needed! I can't wait to register for spin classes on campus. They start at the end of march, so I know what I need to work on before then for cardio conditioning. I'm excited for spin class! Friday evening, I decided to go to the mall. I needed some retail therapy. I went to JC Penney, but didn't find much in the plus size department. I went over to Deb, where I found out I'm down almost 2 pant sizes!!!! THAT WAS AN AMAZING FEELING! Instead of buying their stuff in 3x, which is supposed to fit a 24 (I actually think they're stuff is a little snug seeing as how I couldn't wear some of their 3x at a 22). I bought a dress in a 2x and a pair of blue jeans in a 20! I also picked up some belts in a 1x as well as a top in a 3x because it was really short. I walked over to Forever 21, and I nearly screamed in the dressing room jumping up and down. I picked up jeans in a 18 just to see if they would fit, and HOLY COW, THEY FIT!!!!!!!! Ever since F21 introduced their plus size line, I've always worn a 3x, and even then a lot of their shirts didn't fit right. But I bought ALL of my stuff in a 2x! I bought 2 dresses, 3 pairs of denim jeans, one pair of black jeans (size 20 because they didn't have any other size besides 14/16, so I'll just use a belt as needed), 3 tops, and a pair of tights. I WENT A LITTLE CRAZY WITH SHOPPING. All these pieces however, will look fine as I lose weight, so I expect them to help me get through spring. I don't feel that bad about spending all that money because I haven't bought myself new clothes in, I don't know 8 months or more? I'm pretty much broke now, and patiently waiting for a tax return haha. Shopping was a great feeling. It did make me feel better about my weight loss because I wasn't ecstatic about the numbers on the scale. It showed I was actually making progress. Being home, I'm in such a great mood. I'm happy and content. I'm calling it "The Eye of the Storm" for when I have to go back to class Monday, and I bet those sad feelings will creep back into my life. I also bought a new pair of leather boots that will go with my dresses nicely Also, I'm down 3 pounds this week! That's the most I've lost since my first 2 weeks post-op. Maybe the stall is broken?? I can't believe I'll be 9-weeks post op on Monday. I'm almost down 40 pounds! That's very exciting. Recently, I've had a little bit of pain while eating any solid foods. Sometimes even drinking muscle milk will cause me pain, but I hope it goes away soon. I've been doing well with getting all my stuff in, except for my vitamins. I skip days, but when I remember I take them. It sucks that it's Sunday, because that means I have to drive back to school. I hope this week goes better than the last 2! I guess this sums up my long winded blog post. xx

Pain is definitely normal. I was blessed that I didn't have much pain a few days post op. Getting out of bed sucked, but after the first 2 weeks, I was fine. When I went to the gym last night, used the bike for 45 mins and I used a different elliptical machine, and it made my side near an incision hurt so bad, I had to stop after 15 mins and call it a day. Eating slowly is a problem of mine too, but I just get hiccups. I am taking two 30mg of prevacid a day because I wake up with a sour stomach sometimes. But one in the morning and one at night has helped it go away. I stalled 10 days post op for 2 weeks, and then the next week the scale went down 2 pounds, and then nothing, and then 2 last week, and nothing this week as i'm approaching another weigh in for a valentines day challenge. I can't even get to my goal of 15 pounds :[ So I know the frustration. Things take time, at least that's what I need to keep reminding myself!

this will go away once you move to solid foods. I felt it as soon as I moved to the soft food stage, however after about 2 weeks, that feeling went away and I find I can eat a lot more which is discouraging. I kind of miss the tight feeling, if that makes sense! I have no doubt this surgery will work for you. best of luck

I'm definitely struggling with getting in all my fluids, and I am getting in the bare minimum of 60gms of protein a day. I guess I have a mentality that I'll get my fluids in while working out because I can drink about 50oz in a 2 hour session. I definitely agree I should be keeping better track of everything. I also plan on buying 4oz containers to put my food in because I have to take it with me every single day. Thank you so much for your encouraging response! I wish you the best of luck. We just have to hang in there. I hope the number on the scale goes way down.

I haven't updated in a while because there isn't much news to share. I've been hitting the gym about 4x a week. I do the bike for 45mins, 10 miles, 80+ rpm with resistance, 500+ calories. I hop on the elliptical for 20-30 mins and burn anywhere from 200-400 calories. I also walk on the treadmill for about 15 mins as a cool down. About 60-80 calories. I also use hand weights, 10 pounds and resistance bands every other day. I do squats and raise myself up on my toes to tone my calves. I'm freaking out because I find that I can eat a whole cup of food. I can eat a whole cup of chili with cheese melted on it. A whole cup of cottage cheese. I can chug my water now (several big gulps at a time). I can eat 5oz of chicken. I feel like I have no restriction or control. I can also eat pretty fast and no issues with that either. I'm still having issues not drinking 30 after eating, and I don't get discomfort if it's before then. I've only slimed once and that was because I knew I was splurging too much one night. I don't get discomfort with anything to be honest. No nausea, nothing. I feel like I've stretched my sleeve somehow, or my sleeve wasn't small enough. My weight loss has been so slow and I'm 7 weeks post-op. I read people can only eat a 1/4 of a cup, but I can eat so much more without feeling full. I wonder if part of it's in my head. Like I don't need to eat a cup of food, but I do it anyway because I don't feel satisfied with 1/4 cup of food. No way. I know I'm getting under my BMR, but I think the weight should be coming off. I see some people lose 5 pounds in a week, while I'm lucky if I can get one or two. I just feel so frustrated, which I assume is normal. I'm still feeling miserable at school and I'm more tired than I was right after surgery. I just feel so trapped at school, I wish it was May!

It's hard to believe I'm 6 weeks post-op. Surgery day feels ages ago. I'm down 31 pounds. I started to get my butt into gear and into the gym! Unfortunately, I got a little too excited tonight and ate some beef followed crackers with pb&j. I kept eating, not being conscious about how much I was actually consuming, and before you knew it I had immense fullness and my mouth started filling up with saliva. I tried to throw up, but nothing would come out, just saliva pooling into my mouth. At least now I know how much it would actually take to make me feel ill. I even had heart pains for a few mins. I feel horrible, yuck! NEVER AGAIN! I didn't need to sabotage my great 6-week progress by not paying attention and slowing down. But it was a tough lesson learned.

I put one up on the back of my door so I'll see it every time I step outside :] I hope it'll keep me motivated!

Awesome! Best of luck to you as well :]