Body Image and a Sense of Identity

I'm sorry that it's been awhile, gang, but things have been crazzzzzy busy on my end! For one thing, work on Sacrament, the horror film I'm involved with, has been snowballing as we get closer to production time. We will be working a table at Texas Frightmare Weekend in Irving, Texas in May alongside horror legends like Bill Moseley, Tom Savini, and Jeffrey Combs, and to top it off the wonderful Marilyn Burns (of original 'Texas Chainsaw Massacre' fame) will be occupying our table with us to help promote the film. So we've been busting our butts with script revisions, production meetings, budget decisions, fundraising, sponsorship queries and more! Not to mention I'm also in the very early stages of seeing someone new in a romantic sense; he's really terrific and we've been seeing each other as much as possible, which means I'm not spending my 'down time' sitting in front of the computer screen! All good things but they've led to the neglect of this blog for nearly two weeks!

So where to begin?

I went in on Monday, Feb 10 for my one-month checkup from surgery; my weight rang in at 309.6, which means I'd lost roughly 40 pounds since January 16. There was a bigger milestone though; every time I've ever done my blood pressure at a doctor's office, for as long as I can remember, the nurse has clucked a little and said "BP's a little high." I was never officially 'hypertension'-laden, but it always seemed to be looming just around the corner. However, this time my blood pressure was significantly lower and the nurse said in a surprised voice "Your BP's great." That alone made me feel awesome!

The day before, my friends and I went to the Dallas Sci-Fi Expo, a small convention which featured celebrities, vendors and more. I wasn't feeling 100% but we headed out to walk around for awhile so I could get some exercise. In the process I got to meet the incredibly dreamy Sam Witwer from "Being Human" (as well as "Dexter", "Smallville", and a myriad of other genre shows, but who's counting?). Afterward, I did take the free shuttle back to the parking garage because I wasn't sure I felt up to a mile-long walk back, but when I arrived I climbed four flights of stairs in the garage up to the car's parking spot. I wasn't winded or near-death when I finished, which is a first; usually even one flight of stairs makes me hyperventilate when I reach the landing, so this felt GREAT.

At my one-month meeting, a protein/nutritional representative came to visit us and brought tasty snacks. Now that I'm off my liquid/pureed food restriction, I've been experimenting with various ways to get my protein in. I still can't stomach the protein shakes, all of them taste sickly-sweet or incredibly bitter to me. But the very nice man gave me two other options to try--- one are protein-packed little Jello shots. They're the size of regular Jello shots but they have great flavors and each one punches 15g of protein into it. The other treats are Ostrim, which is a beef-and-ostrich jerky snack that tastes exactly like a Slim Jim. They're not amazingly healthy for you, but they are much leaner than a Slim Jim, less greasy, and they have about 20g of animal protein in each stick. These are both super-easy to pack for travel or throw in my purse when I'm headed out shopping, and the convenience and non-mediciney taste definitely appeal to me in a big way.

The main problem I've been having is literally forgetting to eat, and I'm working harder at it but it's still evasive because I'm simply not hungry. Most mornings I wake up and have a glass of Mootopia fat-free milk, which is delicious, has tons of protein, hydrates me, and sits really easy on my stomach. Sometimes I will substitute this for 2% cottage cheese but not often. Twice now I've tried eggs--- once scrambled, once scrambled lightly with a bit of cheese for extra protein--- and both times they've given me heartburn, so I think eggs may be one to avoid for awhile and try again later on down the line. But mornings are a great time to get in your protein, so I'm doing my best to get the day off right. Then I take some of my vitamins and head to class, where I sip water or Powerade Zero through the lesson. I try to drink all day long so that I stay hydrated and focused. Around lunch my classes let out, so I head to my grandma's house more often than not since she lives near the campus. Lately she's been sick so she hasn't been cooking much, but we've experimented with a few things; I can have a few bites of a grilled cheese sandwich on whole-grain bread, or a little bit of soup, something mild like that. For dinner I tend to either have another glass of Mootopia or I'll have a few bites of something from the fridge. I've made up things like tuna salad with good results, but the problem is I most often just don't want anything at all.

Going out with friends has proven a challenge; you never realize how many restaurants don't cater to people who want to eat healthy until you're one of them. Even if the choices are 'healthy' the portion sizes are ENORMOUS. I've been to a pizza-and-beer joint, where I had to order a kid's hamburger with no bun/fries (I basically paid $5 to eat half a hamburger patty); Johnny Carino's, where I ate half of one meatball with no sauce on it; three different Tex-Mex restaurants, where I had a side of refried beans with a small spoonful of guacamole and sour cream stirred in (my friends were sweet enough to order 'platter meals' and then give me their sides rather than making me buy my own), and Jason's Deli, where I had a spoonful of tuna pasta salad and a few pieces of cut-up cantaloupe. My date has cooked for me twice, once a tuna salad that was delicious and went down easily, the second time an herb-filled poached chicken breast and steamed veggies, which sat fine but I wasn't able to eat very much before I was full.

It's all trial and error and I'm trying to reintroduce food into my diet slowly but surely so that I can be 'normal'. That month of liquids meant that I really missed out on the social engagement of dining out with friends. It's crazy to think about though; at Carino's I had a revelation. I used to walk in there and order a Coke right off the bat, then start browsing the appetizers for something to split with friends or my family. I would usually eat the Italian nachos or fried cheese sticks, then order a full-sized plate of pasta, usually chicken alfredo or lasagna (I remember a few times when I went to Olive Garden for the 'all you can eat' pasta bowl and could down 2-3 servings of various pastas), along with garlic bread, a salad drenched in Italian dressing, and probably a few refills of Coke along the way. Occasionally I would also get a dessert, sometimes sharing it with someone but more often just getting it because I wanted it. Sitting there eating my one-half of a meatball the other day I was honestly having a bit of 'culture shock' in regards to that, watching my friends attack their pastas and huge salads. It's amazing how the restaurant industry trains us what a serving size is and tries to guilt us into eating more than our bodies could possibly need. A twenty-piece box of McNuggets, really? A Big Mac, large fries and a large Coke is over half the calories you should eat in a day (not even counting sodium, sugar, and other preservatives). I'm not just picking on McDonald's either, it's everywhere. Places that offer 'all you can eat' soup/salad buffets are just as bad; people who think they're getting a 'light' lunch are being soaked in calories, salt, sugar and carbs.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not all 'high and mighty' about fast food or anything. My best friend brought home Popeye's chicken the other day and I wanted to ask him if I could just lick his fingers when he was done. I didn't want it even a little, my stomach didn't growl or anything, but the smell of crispy animal flesh will always make something psychologically inside of me perk up.

But man, forty pounds down. The problem is, I was 348 when I started, which means that I'm still pretty damned fat. And it's hard for me to see the change. My jeans are sagging off my hips, which is nice, especially in the butt and thigh area, and the most depressing thing is that my bras are all too big now. Not necessarily in the band size, oh, no, but in the cups. It looks like I'm a little girl playing dress-up in Dolly Parton's lingerie. My boobs began as a 42D and I would feel comfortable wearing a B-cup now probably. I know that tits are just a fat reserve and that's one of the first things to go but COME ON. I want my ta-tas to stay right where they are, thank you!

But other than that, I can't see changes yet. My friends insist that they're there, that they can tell especially in my face and jawline/neck area, but I don't see it when I look in the mirror. I still see 'fat me', which sucks because I want to revel in a 40-pound victory but all I see is more fat when I examine myself. It's nice to be able to wiggle into my size-20 jeans without having to lie down to zip them or suck in and pray the button holds, but still, I don't feel it yet. I went into a store to try and find something to wear for my guy on Valentine's Day and I honestly didn't even know where to begin; I had no idea what size to try on anymore, if I was my usual size or one smaller, or how something would fit given my new boob size versus my new hip size. I didn't want to try things on because I didn't want to buy something that might not fit in a month. I left feeling even more helpless and frustrated than I did when I was 348 pounds and nothing came in my size in the first place.

Our doctors tell us about NSV--- non-scale victories. These are the things you're supposed to celebrate even if the scale doesn't show that you've lost weight, like when you hit a plateau. So here are my five proudest moments of this month for now:

1. Climbed four flights of stairs in a parking garage, did not die or need an EMT to administer oxygen when I reached Shawn's truck.
2. Get into my 'skinny' size-20 jeans without needing to lie down, dance around, 'loosen them up' first, or tear up my fingers trying to get the zipper up. In fact, I put them in the dryer and can still put them on comfortably when they come out.
3. Walk around campus without trying to hail down the free shuttle to take me to class.
4. Bought a size XL shirt from Hot Topic on the clearance rack. It's stretchy and still pretty tight, I need another 15 pounds or so before it looks good on me, but it's NOT a man's t-shirt, it's a slinky girly-girl shirt and buying it was really empowering and exciting.
5. Doing a photo shoot and being able to crouch down, get on my knees, etc to get the angles I wanted without my knees/ankles hurting too bad or giving out on me, hiked all over the location without getting winded or needing a break, AND all three of my male friends present that day complimented my butt in those 'skinny' jeans.

Until next time! <3

Crash Into Me, or Getting the Hang of Blood Sugar

One of the problems I've found with WLS is that when they remove the gland in your belly that produces the 'hunger hormone', you genuinely forget to eat. And this can be a problem.

Since I'm now three weeks out from my surgery, I got the go-ahead from my clinic to move into the 'pureed/soft foods' stage of my diet. This means anything you can get to the consistency of baby food, so I've been experimenting. I found that the most satisfying thing so far has been fat-free refried beans with a spoonful of guacamole mixed in; full of protein and delicious, which is the main thing. I can only take a few bites but those few bites are freaking heaven on earth. I'm also doing a lot of cottage cheese, chicken salad, and soup. I had oatmeal this morning made with this awesome product they sell at HEB called Mootopia, which is lactose-free milk with 12g of protein per cup.

But I literally forget to eat, and twice now it's bitten me in the ass. Once it was because I had cottage cheese for breakfast and then went shopping with a friend, and I didn't even notice that it was about five hours after my meal until we were standing in Forever 21 and my vision started to swim. My chest felt fairly tight even though I was standing very still, and I said "Oh, dude, I think I need to go sit down and eat something." We went to Wendy's, the only option viable to me at the time, and I ordered a cup of chili; I was only able to eat about six spoonfuls, but I tried to get the meatiest/beaniest parts to give myself a little protein boost. The chili made me feel minimally better but I still wasn't 'cured' by any means; when we went to see a movie after, I caved and ordered a Hi-C fruit punch to drink. I could only finish half of a small drink despite sipping it constantly through the movie, but I felt much better with the sugar-spike from the punch. That night I went home and had a few bites of chicken salad, and coupled with some bottled water and Powerade that settled my stomach nicely.

The next time it happened was yesterday. I woke up at eight to finish doing laundry, and I ate a small cup of cottage cheese and sipped some water. My models showed up and my friends who were assisting on the shoot, and we got so swept up in makeup and hair and wardrobe and lighting that I didn't think to get more food in me. We shot for awhile at my house, then headed off to the location. I had a bottle of water in tow but no food, and after almost an hour in the warm sunshine, I started to feel woozy again. I realized it was after 4 PM and I hadn't eaten since the cottage cheese. So when we got home I drank a few swallows of a protein shake and a few bites of chicken salad, and that helped until the shoot was done.

I'm having trouble keeping my vitamins down, they upset my stomach and since there isn't enough food in there to counterbalance them it's rough. I'm going to try pacing them throughout the day instead of taking them in groups. I also need to monitor my water more strictly and force myself to drink more. It's hard when all you can do is 'sip sip sip', no big gulps allowed. You get so thirsty and you want to chug the bottle but that's a big no-no.

I'll get the hang of it, it's just taking awhile. Doing my best to keep my head on straight and do right so that this lifelong journey will be a little easier on me for the next few weeks. In two more weeks I can start integrating 'real' food, not just mushy stuff, and that will be pretty danged awesome. I just have to be patient.

Current weight: 309.5. Down almost 40 pounds.