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About this blog

A daily record of the weird things that only your "inside voice" says...from newbie to new life.

Entries in this blog

 

I'm losing weight again?!?!? HOPE LIVES!!

Long story short: WLS, weird medical stuff, compromise on goal weight, and suddenly losing weight again....HOPE LIVES!!! Long-winded version: You know that feeling...the one that you get when you wake up and think, "I feel a couple pounds lighter today?" Then, as if    you had suddenly discovered a poisonous ant colony in your briefs, you begin sprinting while shedding every layer of clothing....all the way to the scale. And....you were right!!  FINALLY!!! I had to force myself to stop
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Alternate adolescent WLS personality disorder??

My friends, I'm writing this blog to document and  warn against a certain dangerous state of mind...It's too late for me. Save yourselves!!!!: There's a place where my mind goes, sometimes.....a place where my narcissistic-ometer is pegged out! I find that the pendulum has swung past the "normal" to an extreme point where I am literally obsessed with the numbers on the scale. Is it low enough? Why haven't I lost more? Why did it go up an ounce? (Or, God forbid, a pound)  My mind doesn'
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10 "weird" WLS behaviors you may find yourself doing...don't feel alone

Oh, we've all been to those wretched team building outings....playing "get to know you" bonding games with the mean girls in the next office or the jocks in the next cubicle. Undoubtedly, you were asked to complete ropes courses blindfolded or lift one of your coworkers using one finger each. (Complete nightmare scenarios!!) But, there's a part of those team-building sessions that simply intrigues me...the part where, by some sort of interactive questioning, you find out How much you have i
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Worry not, Newbies, Unicorns DO exist

I was on a ketogenic lifestyle website the other day and was AMAZED to see that one of their major threads basically pitted a keto lifestyle against WLS. The forum asked for WLS failure stories, and boy did people line up to give them!! In short, the tag line should've read: WLS Success Cases are Unicorns!! That got me thinking:  Where is my graduating TT class?? Where did all of the lovelies go?--those faces that kept me going, walking each step with me from Newbie to Century Club? It
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I'd swim with sharks to have this surgery!!

Lately, I've reverted to Lurker status and have begun flinging myself down the rabbit hole that is better known as The Gallery. It's a strange thing that happens inside the darkest parts of my brain when I begin looking at the Before & After gallery. So many emotions start flowing so quickly....I find myself talking to my tablet "ooooh, look at her! I wanna have arms like her! Look at how far below her goal weight she is! She says she didn't even have a panniculectomy to have those
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Dear Lurker, Everyone knows someone who weighs more now than when they had WLS....

Dear Lurker, I've been catching up on newbie posts and blogs and I think something needs to be said.... Sweet friends, there are nay-Sayers wherever you look. Any time you unveil your interest in WLS, your friends and family will begin to serve you the most appalling statistics and worse, the most ridiculous anecdotal "evidence" as to why this surgery won't work for you. Let me give you some of the reasons I was given... 1. "It won't be permanent if you take the easy way out." (Brought
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Facing the demons...and finding apologies aren't enough

First, let me say that there's no way to be successful at weightloss (surgery or not) without facing all of the skeletons that you have been trying to strangle with food. So far, I've been a good tap dancer and a GREAT ostrich with people that have hurt me. But, I've also learned how to stand up for myself and hand-pick wonderful people for my life. Now, I'm surrounded by lovely people who actually know and accept me, while supporting me in accomplishing my goals. But.....now it's time to f
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Shake your pannis at them???

Ever find yourself on the receiving end of an intervention with your best friend? The details may be different, but the gist is always: OH MY GOSH, GET YOUR HEAD OUT OF THE SAND...YOUR NAÏVETÉ iS TRANSLATING INTO HUSSY-DOM. Anyone?? What happened was.... I was at a girlfriend's house, spending the last few hours with her before she left for vacation. Her hubby offered a piece of advice...if you want a chassis tune up so badly, make a gofundme page. Whaaaa?? To desperate ears, this
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There is NO cheat code: TOUGH LOVE AT 5 YEARS POST-OP

About 6 years ago, I joined this community and became HOOKED on the fact that I could use the gastric bypass as a tool to help in the extreme battle of the bulge.  I had my surgery on 3-19-12, and it was a complete success.  I'll go ahead and answer the burning question:  At my heaviest documented weight, I was 397lbs.  When my surgery was scheduled, I was down to 268lbs.  My goal weight was 145.  The lowest I ever got was 147. Today, I'm weighing in at 161(and not too happy about it). Will
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An encounter with magic...

This morning, my 7 year old daughter woke up, ran to a little pink jewelry box, flew open the lid, and gasped. Instead of the tiny, little baby tooth that she hid there the night before, she found a silver dollar. Magic. She instantaneously donned the cap of the town crier and floated about the house, excitedly explaining to my 3 year old daughter the steps with which to attain this magical tooth-alchemy. The look on her face was contagious. My three year old was wearing it moments after h
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CENTURY CLUB! FINALLY!

In honor of losing 101 lbs as of this morning, after being stalled for 2 weeks at the -98 lb mark, I have to do it... Prepare yourself for the mandatory (though perhaps trite) listing of random things that weigh 100 lbs. 15 Random Things that weigh 100 lbs: 1. 1 baby hippo 2. The average 13 year old child 3. 50 large tubs Country Crock 4. A 2-month old foal 5. A hellfire missle (HAL-3) 6. 10 bags of flour 7. 10 medium sized bowling balls 8. 12 gallons of drinking w
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Non-white christmas in the forecast....LA, here we come.

With the drastic changes that have kept my life in quicksand since the surgery.....Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you change number 4,589,222 and a half. We will be heading to Louisiana mid-December, instead of February. This means, mind you, that the Army has siphoned another couple of months away from me....thanks, Uncle Sam. And, the clincher.....my finals will be the Wednesday before our weekend move. YIKES! CALGON!!!!!!!! "They" warn that life goes on after WLS.....and "they" ar
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Her eyes look like mine....

This week, I was assigned a self-portrait as my end of year project. It's a daunting proposition for anyone, I suppose. BUT, for me and those like me, it's a bit terrifying for a couple of reasons: First, the assignment is to draw myself "with the aid of a mirror, not a picture." Don't get me wrong.....I often look at my body in the mirror....but this assignment is a head shot. It's odd, but the idea of making eye contact with myself in the mirror makes me a little nervous....it makes me
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Does one more bite=stretched stoma?

Okay, I've done it....I've begun getting that hyper paranoia that goes hand in hand with the unflinching NEED to succeed at this surgery. Now, I'm wondering (after my itty bitty weight gain this week) whether my stoma is stretched. I haven't felt as much "restriction" lately when I eat. So, the natural question: Is this because I've learned to eat the appropriate amount of food for my pouch or is a stretched out stoma the culprit?? I read a post from a WLS patient who happened to be a
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Weighing in on weighing in

Wednesday mornings, I can hardly finish peeing before I begin stripping out of my bedclothes to step onto the scale in my bathroom. On most Wednesdays, I do a victory dance while still on the scale, then make like the Town Crier and skip down the hall, announcing my new weight. Today was not one of those days. There was no groggy-eyed half smile when I peeked down at a new, lower number. There was no naked victory dance on top of my scale. There was no town crier imitation. There was
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Bats in the belfry are getting lonely without my opinons to keep them company....

Oh, where, oh, where have my soapboxes gone?? Oh, where, oh, where could they be??? For those of you that have happened across one or two of my blogs, you know me to be a rather mouthy gal with a crude sense of humor and an ever-ready opinion already aimed carefully at moving targets, ready to let fly at any moment someone may even hint that they wonder what I'm thinking. Who am I kidding...I don't wait until someone asks....I let the opinions fly and land where they may. Who was it that said
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The wardrobe identity crisis continues....and continues....

Alright!!!! THAT'S IT! After several weekends in a row shopping in person (vs. online, my usual), I've come to the conclusion that there is a serious problem, here. I ventured forth in the Reno-area shopping malls after a couple of snide remarks from my hubby's GI buddies, like "hey, honey, you know they actually make jeans that don't look like hammer pants." Thank you for your subtle alert that it is, indeed, time to purchase new clothing, sir. And, after the past couple of internet or
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SAY CHEESE!

I have a mother-in-law that does the unthinkable.....she frames AND hangs AND gives as gifts the world's worst pictures of me. They're all over her house, on her calendars, and because she gives them as gifts....they're now all over MY house. Yeah....unthinkable. Dusting my house yesterday, my horror was renewed as I realized that in each of the photos....I was (brace yourself).....doing what can only be described as "The Asian Freak." Let me explain.... Close your eyes and pretend that
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8
 

Where'd all my time go? UPDATE

Confession: I've been neglecting my blog. Not such a big shocker, is it? UPDATE: Weight loss continues, miraculously, in spite of all of the stress that currently lives in the house. Slow and steady. But, the doughy bleh skin on my lower tummy seems to be growing disproportionately large compared to the few pounds here and there that I'm losing. The house hunt in Louisiana continues....you wouldn't believe how few homes there are for rent in the area where we're looking. I'm f
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Alma Mater matters and the weight wait?

It just dawned on me, as I was prowling Facebook and looking at the random pics that some of my high school chums posted of us..... SHUT THE FRONT DOOR! I'm THAT size NOW! I'm my high school weight?! It's a little startling for someone who judged how old I was in a picture by how fat I'd become in the picture. So, this marvelous realization comes a little more than 3 months from the big move back to my home town....small town Louisiana. For those of you that aren't from a small town, l
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MAJOR NSV....The BEST one so far!

I can't exactly put my finger on the moment or even the year that it began, but as I piled the pounds onto my frame, a fear of falling appeared. Maybe not so much the fear of falling but the fear of seriously injuring myself or someone else if I did fall at that weight, from any height. If you'd known me for years, you'd be shocked. As a kid I loved hiking, climbing, anything associated with heights....loved gymnastics. For the past decade, though, I've been afraid to stand on a step stool.
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Oh, the catty nature of Diet Hotline callers! HISS!

Let me first say that my no stress day yesterday was FANTASTIC! I painted my toenails, shaved my legs (I know you guys are proud of that one), drank my protein shakes leisurely in front of the computer, and most importantly didn't touch my school books or cook dinner. I even made a bargain with myself to leave the daily kid mess until 4pm, when I would clean for one hour only and make no excuses for what was left. Guess what? IT WORKED! It felt like a day off, and my hour of cleaning actual
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Stealing a page from a master....

Since my lurker days, when I stumbled on CassMoxie's recipe to get my surgery approved by Triwest, I've been reading the blogs and the advice of the WLS vets on TTF. Weight stalls and protein and how-to's...OH MY! I never thought, though, that I'd soon be needing and seeking the advice of the vets on regular, non-surgery-related topics that have arisen since the slice....The last two chapters of my post-op life...."Oh my God, I can't stop crying like a wee baby" and "I'm freaking out, do I need
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FRIED BRAIN.....valium or sex?

After doping up on Immodium for the weekend's stomach flu curve ball....oy!....I showed up to take my Calc II test this morning. Let's just say that I've never failed a test....but there's a first time for everything. OUCH! I've already sent the professor an email request to pick my exam up tomorrow instead of waiting until Wednesday. The last thing I want to do is to burst out in tears in front of all of the 12 year old boys in my class. (And we're all now keenly aware of how out-of-the-blu
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Too much cushion for the pushin'? (Yes, I said it.)

Major Disclaimer: This post will have WAY, WAY, WAY too much info for many of you. This blog may not be suitable for people on the delicate side of the spectrum. Read at your own risk. But there will be no apologies. Those of you who read my random blogs know that I like to take note of the shifting body shapes that greet me in the mirror post-op. I've said often that we're a bit like balloon animals....when you squeeze on one side to make the rump look smaller, somehow the nose gets
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