As of this morning, I am down exactly 70 pounds, which is pretty great since I'm four months out. My size 22 jeans from Lane Bryant were falling off me, so I moved down to a 20, and now I have to put those in the dryer on high before I wear them or they, too, are saggy and baggy. This weekend I borrowed a pair of sleep shorts from my best friend, who is about sixty pounds lighter than me, and they fit (I was pretty positive they wouldn't, remembering an embarrassing episode when I tried to borrow an ex-boyfriend's sweatpants in college in an attempt to be cute but they wouldn't go up higher than my thighs). But when I went to buy a new outfit for a friend's birthday party, I was still trying on the same sizes I always have and clothes were still fitting me strangely. I don't notice a difference in my body but my friends say that they do. My two biggest 'non-scale victories' have been being able to wrap one hand completely around the opposite wrist, and being able to feel/see my collarbones when I turn my head. I haven't seen my actual collarbones probably since middle school.
However, I am still having major self esteem problems. I still don't like myself very much and I don't think that I'm beautiful by any means. I am currently working on a feature film that's shooting this summer and I am really insecure about it; I don't want to see myself on camera because the whole time I will be thinking about how fat I still am as well as comparing my acting skills to those of everyone else in the film. They are all immensely talented and good-looking and at this point I have days where I wonder what the hell I was even thinking when I auditioned. I have very little faith in my own abilities and I hate that I'm like this. I wish I could celebrate 70 pounds down instead of thinking about the other 70 I want to lose.
One of the strange things is that food is usually one of the last things on my mind now, which is weird because you really don't know what to do with yourself. It's a social gathering; my friends get together for bonding, for celebration, for commiseration. We use food to communicate. Without that method of communication available to me I feel adrift. Even when I was dating, a 'dinner date' was both pointless and irritating on my end; it usually consisted of me picking at a kid's menu item, eating less than half of it and feeling unsatisfied by the heavy, greasy food while my date relished theirs. The things I always loved don't taste good to me anymore; things that were sweet are now cloying, things that were greasy and savory now make me sick or taste horrendous. I've been craving different things every day but they so rarely live up to the expectations of what I want them to taste like. I made spaghetti today, which was really delicious but I could only have a few forkfuls. I have been eating Doritos one at a time because I'm craving salty food. I found a protein shake that doesn't make me want to kick kittens (Chike, and it's pretty yummy if you ignore the blatant 'this is good for you' aftertaste/smell). I just don't want food. It's a means to an end with me, something to keep me from getting dizzy or feeling shitty. I eat just enough to make the hollow feeling go away. There've been a few weekends where I only ate maybe 200 calories total over the course of a few days. Man cannot live on skim string cheese alone but I am trying some days.
Still, the surgery really hasn't complicated my life. It's just changed the way I think about food, and I am trying so hard not to be judgmental about anyone but damn it's hard to look at food at a restaurant/fast food place when you can't have it anymore. You eat three bites of food and are full and then you see the giant platter-sized serving of enchiladas someone is eating, or the huge slab of cake that they got for dessert that you can't have, and you just get kind of 'meh' about the whole thing. I'm not bitter or jealous--- at best I'm sort of wistful. My friends got Griff's the other day, this amazing local burger joint that makes super-delicious greasy diner fare, and I didn't really want it, but I did think about offering to lick their hands clean after they handled the fries. If we could just install a salt lick for me that'd be terrific.
For reference, here are my status photos.
This was me in October 2012, with my gorgeous friend Stephanie.
And here I am in March 2013, with my amazing friend Eva.
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