Bariatric Journey and anxiety

I haven't posted in a while but I wanted to update everyone on where I am in my bariatric surgery journey. I have decided to have the bilio-pancreatic diversion with duodenal switch or BPD for short. I am hoping to have the surgery in December but I am still waiting for approval and then I have to wait a month because I have to be on a 800 calorie liver shrinking diet for 4 weeks. My surgeon is to be Dr. Stephen Boyce. He has a clinic in Knoxville and I will be going to Parkwest Hospital for my surgery. My insurance should cover all but a $1500 program fee and the food and vitamins I need for the before surgery diet. I was blessed to get money back from school this semester so the $1500 is in the bank and I am looking forward to getting started. You all know how I have struggled with losing weight. I lost 80 lbs and I have kept off 75 lbs but it has been a struggle to maintain that loss.

I had surgery a few weeks ago that had me worried and I ate too much and gained 9 lbs back. I have since lost it but I am struggling daily because they put me on megace for the suspected cancer and even after they found out I didn't have cancer they have insisted I take it for 3 months to reset my body. I am so thankful to God that I don't have cancer. I had all the symptoms for several years now of endometrial cancer but I had ignored them thinking it could be my Polycystic Ovarian disease. It wasn't and I feel God healed me. The doctor said that he had never see someone so bad not have cancer. God really does still work miracles.

Due to the surgery and some major changes in my life (3 caregivers in a 2 week period, Devin got married, Gary didn't work out and JoAnn agreed to help me again) I have been having major anxiety attacks again. I have had a horrible couple of weeks. I think being put to sleep and the after effects coupled with the medicine side effects (migraines and upset stomach) along with the changes have caused the anxiety level to increase. I wish everyone who reads this would pray for me that I will get control of the anxiety again and be able to leave my home without shaking really bad. I started to church a week ago and we got about a mile from my house and I had to come back home. I just couldn't handle leaving my house. I need to go to church and I have to go take a test this week so I really need your prayers.

I will try to post more on the bariatric surgery as it progresses because it may help someone. I haven't had the time to post because of school but I have missed it and I hope I can find the time again.

Weight loss journey

I have been on a plateau with my weight loss for a while now.  The nutritionist that was helping me decided that she couldn't continue to help me and I was down and depressed.  I have now gotten the opportunity to work with a new dietician and she is so encouraging.  She told me that anyone who successfully loses weight at my size has those plateaus.  She said my body felt like I was starving it and was holding onto everything and it sometimes takes 6 months or more for it to adjust.  I have maintained the 80 lbs lost and that we are going to get motivated and started going forward again.  I am documenting my progress with myfitnesspal.com and I am putting the physical therapy that I have just finished into play.  So with the thought of going forward I am going to post some goals so I can stay accountable:

1.  I plan to track my blood sugars 2 or more times a day.
2.  I plan to keep track of my food and exercise everyday on myfitnesspal.com
3.  I plan to keep a more positive attitude about the future and that God is helping me through this journey.

I think I have fell in love with making lists lately(lol).  Anyway, this is just a little bit of what is going on and I am holding myself accountable with this blog.

Nutritionist Today

I have decided to shake my routine up and really get serious. I have been struggling along with my eating. It is so hard to start eating 4-5 times a day when you are used to eating one large meal and I couldn't face having to decided what to eat and how much to eat that many times a day. It was getting on my nerves. So I talked to my nutrionist today and we are doing psuedo meal replacement. I will be having breakfast(with actual breakfast food which I hardly ever eat) 1 slimfast shake, then 2 later on, and finally a lean cuisine for supper. This way all portion sizes are already there and all I have to do is do the plan. I feel I have to make a drastic change because I have so much weight to lose. I started at (gasp) 652 lbs. I have decided I have to be honest with me and everyone and I have to make changes immediately. Of course I lost 13lbs and I will weigh next Friday for the third time and hopefully will have lost more. This seems to be a daunting task because my metabolism is so slow due to infrequent eating and a thyroid problem. I used to go between 18-24 hours between meals and I have not eaten for 36 hours and I wasn't fasting then. It always seems harder to do without food when you are fasting. As long as I didn't eat I wasn't hungry. I would get fainty because I am a diabetic but not really hungry. Sis. Ruby fusses at me all the time to eat. She would call and wake me up some mornings before and demand I get up and eat. She is so funny. She bosses me as much as my mom does. I need to listen to these godly women who are counseling me and telling me things for my benefit. I'll let everyone know how I fare on the new diet.

Loneliness and Hope

I have made some interesting revelations about myself in the past week or so. I have made myself alone. I know that whole sentence sounds funny but I have. I have felt rejected so many times and instead of enduring that kind of hurt again I have withdrawn and not let anyone in. The weight has also been a way to withdraw or isolate. I have felt like ok if people are going to reject me I will give them a reason. I will be fat and then they will not like me because of that and not because I am bossy or not funny or too serious. I have used the pounds to put a wall up around my heart physically, mentally, and emotionally. All of this comes at an emotional time for me. November 16th was the two year anniversary of my best friend, Doug's death and December 11th was the 25th anniversary of my dad's death. I have to move past these things. Neither of these special men would want me to stay mired in the grief I feel for them this time of year. I have decided to celebrate their lives this year and to also enjoy this season of hope and love now more than ever before. I have to open up to people and writing this blog, though sometimes it makes me uncomfortable, has been a way to do that. I have known Krista for years now but we have never really talked or anything and Valerie I have known of for years also and I have never really talked to her either but somehow I have been able to open up to the two of you. I know other people will eventually read this and that's ok but I have allowed someone in and that feels like a major accomplishment right now. This past week has been horrible on my weight loss journey. I have let down in taking my blood sugar and I have not written any food in my food journal but I feel like I have grown a little because I have been dealing with the past and dealing with the reasons I have reached the weight I have.
I received a wonderful blessing in my nutritionist appointment yesterday. My nutritionist was joined by a personal trainer that works with her in helping people manage their weight and reach their goals. The personal trainer saw right through all the carefully developed facade of my outward appearance and saw how I was just covering up my hurt and pain and not letting myself be vulnerable and trusting. I almost started crying which I hate to do in public. My sister Chrissy did start crying and that made it worse for me. I have got to learn to feel my feelings. Sounds really odd doesn't it. To feel your feelings, what else can you do with them. I have become a master at covering them up and hiding what I really felt. I have dealt with anger and depression in the last couple of weeks and as the weight is coming off I have to deal with what got me to that place in the first place and that has been a difficult thing to do. Not dealing with my feelings has only gotten me to the place of having anxiety attacks and anxiety related seizures. As I deal with the feelings the anxiety has come over me but I know now that I will get through the anxiety attack and I will make it out the other side.

Food and My relationship to it

I have always had a love/hate relationship with food. I love how it tastes and makes me feel but I hate that it controls so much of my life. In talking with my nutrionist today I have to come up with ways to distract myself from food and to focus my energy on something else. I have had a difficult week with feeling bad and worrying about my sister. I know I shouldn't worry but that is on thing God has not removed from me so I just have to keep fighting on. I turn to food for comfort and for security. I need to turn more to God and I also need to find an outlet for those feelings and another way to sooth my nerves and ease my troubled mind. Blogging has become therapy for me. I know there are only a few people who read this blog but I think mostly this is for me and the help it s giving to me. If someone else gets something from this then I am happy but I know it has helped me to make progress and I hope I continue to.

Control

I sort of flipped out over the weekend. My whole time was spent obsessing about food. My nutritionist had given me guidelines to go by in choosing my daily food intake. She had also put down that she wanted me to eat up to 6 times a day. Most people would probably think who hoo I can eat six times a day. Not me, I was like I have to face eating and choosing what to eat and when to stop six times a day. I sort of freaked and ate way too much and then today when I talked to her we changed plans. I am going to work on being mindful about what I eat, I am going to try to change some of my bad habits and I am going to keep writing in my food diary and taking my blood sugars and working a little at a time. I felt it was a control issue. Having a meal plan meant someone was controlling what I was eating and I wasn't in control anymore. I know what I have been doing in the past hasn't worked but I am not ready to be on a diet anymore I want to change habits and make wise choices myself not do what someone else tells me to do. That to me is not changing me it's controlling me and I have to be in charge of what I eat. I figured out since I am in the wheelchair I have lost control of all other aspects of my life but the food part. I know in the past I have been too controlling in my life and I have had to learn to give control over to my family and to God but the one little area of my life I was still controlling was what I eat. My nutritionist was so understanding and she is letting me tell her how I need her support now. I know that control is a habit I have to break but I am not ready to do that yet. Maybe someday I will be able to let go completely and stop being a control freak. I know that the part of me that is compulsive and a perfectionist has to be addressed and dealt with. I know I have to deal with guilt and other things. I know with the support of my family, friends, and nutritionist but most of all God I can conquer the problems and learn how to control my being controlling. Funny huh!

Tommorrow is W day

Tommorrow I weigh in. After keeping a food journal for 8 weeks and with the help of a nutritionist I am finally weighing to see if I have lost any weight. I feel confident that I have but I am also nervous. I have lost and gained hundreds of pounds in the past. Usually I will lose 70-80 pounds and then get stuck and give up and gain it all back and more. I know alot of people are saying that's alot of weight but when you have hundreds to lose you get frustrated. With the help of God I know this time is different. My goal for tommorrow is 32 pounds and I know I am supposed to lose weight slowly but I hope initially I can lose an average of 4 pounds a week. Next month when I weigh I will have a goal of 3 pounds per week. I am a binge eater and a compulsive over eater. I have tried all the groups and diets that are commercially available, I have been to 6-8 therapists to try to figure out why I am overweight but I have recently been having consultations with a nutritionist once a week and she has directed me in figuring out my different types of hunger and she directed me to a site www.tcme.org . This site is The Center for Mindful Eating. I have learned alot of, for lack of a better word, rituals to help me in my battle against overeating.

Mindful eating checklist
Created Nov. 11, 2008

1. Evaluate my feelings, am I stressed, tired, sad, happy, bored, etc.
2. Evaluate my hunger on a scale of 0-10, 0 being not hungry, 10 being famished, try to eat before I get so hungry I overeat
3. Ask myself, what do I want, what do I need, what do I have?
4. Take steps to maintain portion control. Check packaging for portion size, cook only enough for one meal or immediately put up any remaining food after one portion size.
5. Enjoy the act of making my meal
6. When I eat concentrate only on the meal before me, don’t talk on the phone, watch t.v., or have any distractions, if distractions happen stop eating and remove myself from the food.
7. Enjoy the eating process, how each bite tastes, the contrasts of flavors and try to pick out each thing your tasting, sour, sweet, salty, savory, etc.
8. When I finish one portion re-evaluate feelings, hunger level, and if I only want more or am I actually still hungry
9. Remove myself from the food and redirect my focus if I am just emotional eating. Don’t ignore my cravings.

These are some things I learned that have helped me so far. I hope someone else can use this information to help them also.