Let's Talk Turkey

Well, I am not keeping up on my blog as I intended. I was on vacation for a week and a half and I was sick in that time too. It seems like when I take a vacation I really take a vacation from everything. So, this is a picture of me at my December 29th meeting. Don't I look jolly? Well, I won the turkey contest. WooHoo! With the Christmas season just passing and let me tell you, I got extremely sick on Christmas day and it has wreaked havoc on my life.
December 29th my last week to get at least three feathers, you remember, the water, the journaling, the call of encouragement plus any pounds lost would earn me more feathers. I didn't get one single feather on this last day. I didn't do anything this past week except gain weight and boy was it a big one! 5 whopping pounds. The two goals I set for myself, to lose my 10% body weight and since I knew that was not going to happen changing my goal to have lost 25 pounds by the year's end. I failed there too. I only lost 24 pounds. (Sniff, Sniff)
However, if we are talking turkey, I won! I will be getting a fabulous gift basket and it will be presented to me at next week's meeting, but wait, I still need to hang on to it for another week, we have an open house scheduled for January 11. Any perspective new comer needs to see what kind of fabulous prizes you can win during our hopefully many contests for the year 2009.
There will be a new contest starting next week and details with be forthcoming but it has something to do with the tax season and claiming deductions, but more on that later.
So until next time, I hope to lose nothing but weight, and gain nothing but knowledge.

Twas the week before Christmas

Here it is Christmas quickly approaching. What am I to say, what am I to do?
Lucky for me, I have taken a week's vacation so I can properly get ready for Christmas, but really is it luck? While I am enjoying the time off from work, I am not enjoying the unstructured life I am living.
When it comes to dieting, I need structure, I do exceptionally well while I am work. I know when to have breakfast, when to have lunch, when to work out, etc, etc. Being on vacation means I don't have the structure that I am so used too. I sleep in, I am not eating the way I should be eating.
However, all is not lost here. I am exercising faithfully, I am journaling faithfully, and I am getting all my water in. I am also not going over my daily food allotment.
With all the hustle and bustle of Christmas, the majority of the diet group wanted to cancel the meeting for our group, but did say we could come in for weigh in, which let's face it, isn't that the most important part of the meetings?
We met later than usual so I could go to the gym and workout before getting weighed.
Well, Merry Christmas to me!!! I lost 5 1/2 pounds this week.
My goal was to lose 25 pounds by the end of the year. That is 25 pounds in thirteen weeks!
I made it!!!!!! I have lost 28 1/2 pounds total and I still have one more week to go.
So, I am going to end it for now, Merry Christmas to all!
Until next week I hope to gain nothing but knowledge and lose nothing but weight.

Types of friends

This past week has been a very disappointing week for me. I followed my diet fairly well, and went back to exercising this weekend. When I say that I followed my diet fairly well, I didn't go over my points allotted to me. My weigh in last night was just plain horrible for me. I jumped on the scales and I had to be weighed using the special clamp again. I was devastated, I had thought I was finally past all of that. The weird thing is that there is a problem with the scales because with the clamp it was weighing me as if I didn't need the clamp but I got weighed two different times and the weight was the same each time. With that in mind, I had only gained 1 3/4 pounds. But before I weighed in I was ready to quit, I was not going to follow program and I was going to totally give up.
This is when it is hard to follow, I had done what I was supposed to do and gained. This is by far the hardest thing I have ever done. I want so much to be able to master this and get the weight off. For crying out loud as heavy as I am I should be losing lots of weight, but after 10 weeks, I have only lost 23 pounds.
I am back to exercising again. Which brings me to my topic title, the types of friends(or acquaintances) that I have. I have three types of friends, the well wishers (they also fall under the category of the saboteur's); the over achievers; and the support group.
Haven't we all met people that fall under the well wisher category, they say the right things but I feel they really are just standing back waiting to see me fail again. They are also the people who tell me what works for them and this is what I should try. I know they don't believe that I am going to succeed, because I never have before so why should I be able to now?
The next group are the over achievers. These people (and there are only two of them) truly care for me and want to see me succeed but they go one step farther than being compassionate and listening; to going after me to exercise or they tell me things I don't want to hear but I need to hear. I love the fact that they want to see me succeed and try and help me along the path but when they are there pushing me, I am not happy about it and have even told one person so, but that doesn't stop her. She knows that in the end I will be better off for it, and in the end these are the two the I will remember the most as helping me.
The other group are my friends and supporters, they are the ones who read my blog and send me the encouragement I need to go on. I could not get through this with out this group. My family and best friends are in this group and I love them dearly. They are helping me in many ways and they are here for me in a different way than the over achievers.
I have to say that I am truly blessed to have such a wonderful support network, not many people can say that.
So beginning this 11th week, I will lean on my support group to help me through this.
Until next time, I hope to gain nothing but knowledge and lose nothing but weight.

Why Gastric Bypass?

With all the joys of being overweight, there are many issues a girl of my size has to deal with.

I have been on my diet for 57 days. That should be long enough to break my bad habits, and it is slowly working.

Issue Number 1- I was at the doctor's this past week, and I was thrilled to be able to show her that I had lost 24 1/2 pounds, but she wasn't as thrilled as I was.

I am still having some major complications in my life with this infection and it is starting to become a life or death situation. That is the joyous news my doctor passed on to me.

She didn't say, hey it is great that you've lost this much weight, keep it up...No, she said you know I think you need to consult a weight clinic about having gastric bypass surgery.

Wow! I used to dream about the day that I could have the surgery, thinking this is the easy way out, but no the doctors always told me just to follow a healthy diet. Now, she suggests that I may want to do this and all of a sudden I am confused.

What does a person do when faced with this situation? No, I didn't eat more, I started doing research. Here is what I have come up with.

Gastric bypass surgery alters your stomach permanently. Once you have this done, there is no reversing it. The complications one gets from this is so frequent that many people have to have recurring surgeries to fix problems from the surgery. My insurance company at this point will not pay for my surgery, but even if I could get it approved they will not pay for any complications arising from gastric bypass. 1 in 200 people die from complications and typically within the first 30 days. You lose up to 75% of your body weight within the first year, but put 50 % of it back on within 5 years.

The fact that I have a nearly untreatable infection doesn't make me want to jump on the band wagon any quicker to go through with this. Losing weight, while it may improve my overall health will not improve the infection situation, it may actually make it worse because of all the excess skin I would have hanging, which my insurance company will not pay for.

I think I have made my decision. I want to keep trying to get the weight off on my own. I am off to a good start and I am starting on my 10th week and I am still going strong!

Weigh in this week was a tad disappointing, I only lost 1/4 of a pound but I didn't gain so I have to look for the little victories.

I am headed back to the gym this week to resume my workouts, I am hoping for a better week this week.

So until next time, I hope to lose nothing but weight and gain nothing but knowledge!

Dieting with obstacles

This past week was Thanksgiving. From the look of this picture it is not far from what was being served at my Thanksgiving dinner. That was one obstacle, but wait let me back up to the many other obstacles that I had to face this past week.

For some strange reason, I am a very sickly person. Hmmm, I wonder if it has anything to do with being so overweight? Well, it probably does, but doggone it, I am trying to take the weight off and get healthier. Easier said than done.

I have been battling serious infections that usually require outpatient surgery for quite awhile now, probably close to two years. Well, this was another one of those times. I desperately needed to be seen by a doctor, but had waited so long that I ended up being admitted to the hospital because the pain was unbearable and the infection required IV antibiotics. Well, while this sounds like problem solved I got violently sick from the antibiotics that I could barely keep anything down on Wednesday.

Thursday was Thanksgiving and while I felt like eating, there was the obstacle of the meal. I did fine with that, I ate what I wanted but I had saved my weekly points for just that purpose.

Friday, Saturday and Sunday, well need I say more? It's the weekend and I always seem to overeat on the weekends and this one was no different.

Oh, one more obstacle to contend with this past week as well. I am not allowed to go to the gym. So, you may be asking yourself what is the big deal, just walk at the mall or ride a bike at the gym, or do exercise videos. Well my size does not allow me to do these things comfortably, nor does the infection. I am too sick right now to even want to exercise. The funny thing is that I miss it. I loved being able to go to my water classes and just being able to go to the pool and "play" around.

It seems that with so many obstacles against me, I would give up like I always seem to do. I have noticed that I can usually make it with my diets for about 25-30 pounds and then I give up.

So in a sense that is another obstacle.

Now that I have complained about all the reasons why I can't do it, I need to own up to it. I need to quit whining about it and do it.

It is still incredibly hard changing the way my mind works, learning new behaviors and attitudes but it will happen, I know that it will.

I am at the point where I am losing enough weight that people are starting to notice, I can't see it though. Losing this much weight seems like a huge accomplishment for someone who doesn't have much to lose but for people of my size, we all know that this is like a skinny person losing five pounds, it is just not a big deal yet. I am not knocking what I have done, it is not an easy task, but I just can't see it yet.

I got on the scales this week, feeling humiliated, but nonetheless needing to get weighed and I am happy to say that I lost 2 1/2 pounds this week.

This is good for getting me back on track, so until next time, I hope to lose nothing but weight and gain nothing but knowledge.