When I started this journey on January 16, I was 348.1 pounds, which, on my 5'7" frame, meant I wore a size 22/24 in jeans, a 2XL in men's shirts, and an 11 shoe.
I felt like crap all the time. My ankles and shins ached horribly if I had to walk around for more than a brief period of time, especially if it was uphill; a trainer told me that my ankle rolled to the side to compensate for the width of my body, resulting in joint pain. I had no energy and poor circulation; if I sat Indian-style for more than a few minutes, my legs would go to sleep.
Weight loss surgery is not an ice cream sundae with cherries on top. I'm a member of a support forum and everyone there is constantly congratulating themselves on "rocking their sleeves" and "loving their sleeves". I am not among these people. Having a gastric sleeve procedure has definitely changed my outlook on food and the way I think about my body, but it hasn't made me wake up in the morning singing and dancing around, grateful that it took cutting a body part in half to get me to control myself. I wish that I'd had the self-control and the willpower to simply walk away from the junk food and avoid the fast food.
Do I miss food? Like a phantom limb of an amputee. I went to a fancy restaurant with my best friends for a birthday celebration and could sample a bit of everything, but I couldn't really relish the smoked mac 'n cheese or the cream cheese and raspberry cake we got for dessert. I can't go to Freebird's and enjoy a big salad with chopped steak on top. I can't eat a breakfast burrito, or drink one of the new peanut-butter-and-jelly milkshakes from Sonic.
The problem is that everything we love is bad for us, and it's that lack of moderation that got me into trouble in the first place. I want to eat the way I used to; I want every bite to be delicious and rich and disgustingly bad for me. But there isn't a place for that in my life anymore. This morning I had a bite of my grandma's hashbrowns at breakfast and my stomach lurched at how greasy they were. The smell of bacon made my belly growl, but the bacon tasted flat and dead in my mouth. My very desire to love food has been stripped away from me, and for so long that was something I used to identify myself. I considered myself an amateur foodie; I loved going with my best friend Shawn to exotic ethnic restaurants and trying weird things. We went to New Orleans and ate our way through the whole vacation with rich, delicious food, some of the best I've ever eaten. Under his tutelage I've tried so many things I would've probably never eaten on my own. And now I don't have that luxury; I have to think "protein first, then veggies, and if there's any room left, carbs" and of course there's never room left for carbs. My tasting of exotic meals has turned into 'sampling', bite-sized portions stolen from my friends' plates, meals shared because I couldn't hope to make a dent in my own.
But you get over it. It's only been five months for me, and that isn't very long when you consider that I've been obese since I was a pre-teen. I have to get used to the idea that this is permanent, that that part of my stomach is never coming back, that I'll never be eating a Big Mac or a whole steak or a fully loaded baked potato again. I made four pans of brownies for an event, and everyone raved about them, but I felt nauseous just from licking the fork and tasting how much sugar was in them.
But I can walk around without pain. In fact, I have a lot of stamina now, and my leg pain is almost nonexistent. I do still have shitty circulation, but when I lose a little more weight I'm thinking about taking up yoga or Pilates or some other kind of stretching exercises to help with that.
Last weekend I had a major health setback, and it was entirely my fault. After surgery, my doctors told me what kinds of vitamins I should take and how many of each to take every day. The problem is, I've never liked vitamins (except Flinstones chewables when I was little, and that's because I'm pretty sure they're actually Sweet Tarts), and so when I felt pretty good without taking them I decided "Meh, I don't need vitamins, I'm fine!" I thought I was getting enough nutrients from eating food, which is ridiculous because I'm consuming maybe 500 calories a day and even that is a big stretch. Still, I wasn't taking vitamins, and then something weird happened. I woke up with absolutely no appetite. I was tired, I was stressing about my upcoming finals at school (I'm taking 22 hours this semester, which for non-students--- 12 hours makes you a 'full time' student. I was taking 3 classes more than that), and I was constantly on the go. I wasn't taking care of myself. But it slipped my mind to eat--- God, when could Fattie!Me ever claim that? I used to watch the clock waiting for the next chance to eat something. But I suddenly looked up and realized that I hadn't eaten in three days. Not a bite. So I poured myself some of my Mootopia, the protein-enhanced milk I drink, but one swallow made me gag and I dumped it down the sink. I tried a protein shake but it made my stomach churn. The nausea was overwhelming and I had nothing to throw up, so I would just dry-heave until the feeling passed.
Unfortunately, that weekend was also Texas Frightmare Weekend, a huge convention in Dallas where the film I'm working on was running a table. I was so nauseous and dizzy and I was unable to keep anything down; my boys kept bringing me bits of sandwiches or what have you, but I couldn't eat more than a mouthful before I started gagging and had to run for the bathroom to throw up. This continued for the entire three-day weekend, with me getting progressively sicker, weaker and more tired. The fact that I literally couldn't ingest protein meant that my body was kind of shutting down; it had no idea what to do with itself. My gums were bleeding when I brushed my teeth, even though I've never had gingivitis or a cavity in my life; I was experiencing neuropathy and numbness of my feet and legs. I got dizzy spells when I stood up too fast, and after a jammed elevator forced the boys and I to climb one flight of stairs, my heart was beating so fast that I had to go to the bathroom and throw up again. I thought that maybe I needed to go to the hospital to get on an IV to rehydrate; I was sipping apple juice for the sugar just to keep my body running on something.
Shawn to the rescue--- he bought me a bag of oranges and practically stood over me while I ate several of them. I couldn't eat the pulp but I sucked the juices out, and the next day I managed to drive myself back to Waco. There I forced myself to eat and called my doctor, who informed me what I already knew; the vitamins and the protein were not something I could skip out on, especially for over a week. I had sent my body into shock.
I got myself back on track thanks to finishing the oranges, eating some steak from a hibachi grill near my house, and making some tuna salad, and everything feels better now. There's some lingering neuropathy in my feet but it's minimal compared to how it was, and I am feeling light years ahead of where I was four days ago.
When I weighed in today, I realized that I was at 256--- that's 92 pounds down in five months. My brain can barely wrap around something like that, but there you have it. I have lost 26% of my body weight, if my calculation is correct. My original 'goal weight' was 250 because I wanted to pick something reasonable and attainable--- little did I know I'd be attaining it before my birthday.
I looked it up--- a newborn calf weighs 90 pounds. I've lost a calf.
There are so many things that I am looking forward to doing, and one of them begins tomorrow. I'm going to Los Angeles with my grandma and my uncle, flying out for a few days to see West Coast friends, go to Universal Studios and Warner Bros Studios, and then drive to Vegas for a few more days. I am really looking forward to it; it's partially a birthday present for me, partially a congratulations for finishing such a backbreaking semester with a 3.7 GPA, and partially because fuck it, I love Los Angeles and Vegas and I wanted to go. After that trip, I come back, see Priscilla, Queen of the Desert onstage in Dallas, and then fly to Boston because one of my favorite horror icons, Adam Green, is putting on charity events to benefit the people impacted by the Boston Marathon bombings. June 9 is my birthday party, and one of my dearest friends Sarah is driving from out of state to attend! All this while shooting a movie in Dallas!
It's a crazy life, but I love it.
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