Health – Page 7 – p i x e l s c r i b b l e s

Getting things in order

It’s been quite some time since I have edited and uploaded photos. Today I moved over four months of photos off my phone. These joined a mass of other photos dating all the way back to November 2014, plus a few from August and March 2014…all waiting to be processed. (I don’t even want to know how many photos this is total.)

To make the task seem less overwhelming, I created some main category folders for each month—1403, 1408, 1411, 1412, etc.—and put all the daily folders inside them. This makes my My Pictures folder a lot more manageable, and it also gives me a way to organize the task of going through these. I can pick a month folder to do one day, or a day folder to do another day, depending on how much time I have.

I’ve felt a little disjointed lately. I spend a lot of time doing “fandom stuff”—looking at, sharing, and creating fan content. And this is fun, and I’ve enjoyed it, but I sort of feel like I haven’t been doing anything else, besides work and chores. So I think I will make an effort to diversify. Get back to photography a little. Read stuff that isn’t fan fiction. Get out of the apartment more.

I’ve also been thinking about getting back into running. I need to do some sort of exercise; just taking the stairs in the parking garage at work is not enough to keep my cardiovascular health where it needs to be. I haven’t really tried running since I lost all the weight. It might be fun. I’m thinking about checking out Zombies, Run, which apparently has a plot and stuff! That sounds neat; maybe it will encourage me to keep running. We’ll see.

Time to reboot

I’m home in Kentucky at my parents’ house for a long weekend. I wanted to get away. Do something different. See something different. At first I thought about going away somewhere. I considered Savannah, or New Orleans, or Charleston, or Orlando. But I’d be making such a trip alone, and I’m starting to think alone isn’t really what I need.

On the drive up here, I listened to two-thirds of a book called The Depression Cure by Stephan Ilardi. It discusses lifestyle changes you can make to combat depression. I think the recommendations make sense and might be able to help me with the mood swings I’ve been having. The book cites six key strategies: “dietary omega-3 fatty acids, engaging activity, physical exercise, sunlight exposure, social support, and sleep.”

Of those six items, I think I’m okay on at least one: sleep. Other than a couple times that I’ve let writing interfere with going to bed on time (like right now), I usually sleep well. I suppose you could also argue that I’ve done engaging activities (writing).

But my diet has been pretty terrible in recent months—takeout and fast food—so I’m sure my balance of omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids (ideally 1:2) is completely out of whack. While I do take the stairs, in the parking garage at work and to get from our garden level apartment to street level, I don’t get any other exercise. I haven’t been outdoors much this winter, so I haven’t had the benefit of sun exposure. And lastly, perhaps due to the writing, I’ve been spending a lot of time alone, even on my lunch breaks at work. (A week or so ago I actually had lunch with three other coworkers, and I felt amazing afterwards.)

I’ll finish the book on my drive back home—I’m just about to get into the part with actionable steps. When I get home, I’ll try to start making some healthy changes.

But here, now, at my parents’ house surrounded by family, I’m going to relax and listen and talk and hug. I’m going to let this little break rejuvenate me.

My weight loss surgery experience

On September 26, 2011, I had weight loss surgery.

Here I am right before the procedure. That day I weighed in at 257 pounds. I wore a size 26W (4X).

And here I am being released from the hospital a few days later, at 253 pounds.

After three months, I was already below 200 pounds. Here I am in November:

Over the next 15 months, my weight dropped precipitously, bottoming out at 127 in December of 2012. I was able to fit a size 6 at that time.

Around two years out from surgery, my weight stabilized in the 140 to 145 range. It’s stayed there ever since, and I now wear around a size 10.

I had struggled with obesity since I was a teenager. The most I’d ever been able to lose on my own was 50 pounds. I started investigating weight loss surgery in 2009 after recovering from congestive heart failure, but it took another health crisis to convince me to finally do it. In August of 2011 I was told, point-blank, that if I didn’t lose weight, I would go blind in my left eye. A buildup of fluid was pressing on my optic nerve and would soon block out my sight. I posted on Facebook:

Even though I knew it already, the doctor felt the need to repeat “IF YOU DON’T LOSE WEIGHT, YOU’LL GO BLIND” until I started crying.

Things were bad at that time. We had moved to Atlanta for Sean’s new job just months before, but he’d been shifted into contractor status, so he wasn’t guaranteed regular pay or health insurance. Meanwhile, I hadn’t yet found employment. I posted in a comment on the above status,

I am looking for a job and trying to eat healthier and work out more, but if being terrified into losing weight worked permanently, it would have happened back when I had congestive heart failure.

The health insurance we’d had through Sean’s job would expire in a month, and that insurance flatly refused to cover any form of bariatric surgery for any reason. I could prove it was a medical necessity, but they didn’t care. I felt so, so stupid for letting pride keep me from pursuing weight loss surgery back when I had insurance that would have covered it.

In this time of despair and desperation, extraordinarily generous family members came to my rescue. I’m not sure I can ever repay them.

I had the duodenal switch procedure done at Pacific Laparoscopy (PacLap) in San Francisco. Due to my circumstances, I was able to go through the approval process fairly quickly. I had to fill out a lengthy health and weight history questionnaire; undergo new tests (blood tests, chest X-ray, EKG, echocardiogram); have my GP, my neurologist, and my cardiologist sign off on the surgery; and have a psychological evaluation. We started the process on August 31 and managed to get everything done by September 14. Mom and I flew in on September 21, the pre-op appointment was September 23, and the surgery happened on September 26.

My relationship with food

Immediately post-op, I could only take in three sips or bites of clear liquid at a time. That first day I had broth, jello, a popsicle, decaffeinated tea, and juice. The next day, soft foods like cream of wheat, applesauce, mashed potatoes and yogurt were added to my tiny meals. After that, I was able to eat more solid food. But it was very difficult for me to eat. I could barely take in two or three bites, and I didn’t enjoy eating. I had to force myself to eat, and I had to be careful not to have even one bite too many, as that would have caused me to throw up.

Those first few months, eating right wasn’t very difficult for me. I couldn’t eat much at a time, and I hated eating and never felt particularly hungry, so it didn’t really matter to me what I ate. I’d grill a chicken breast and just eat that. A few hours later I’d eat a bowl of plain Greek yogurt. Later, I’d have a bowl of peas. Small frozen dinners were a mainstay. I have many pictures from restaurants demonstrating how very little I was able to eat. In this picture from September 2011 I’m taking home a piece of quiche and three links of sausage from J. Christopher’s; I had managed a couple bites of quiche and one bite of sausage:

The next time I went to J. Christopher’s, in October, I simply ordered the three sausage links and nothing else. I made other allowances when eating out as well, such as eating the fish and leaving most of the rice when I ordered nigiri, turning down side salads, and skipping dinner bread. Food choices were relatively easy; I had to focus on getting protein. My next priority, if I had any room left, was vegetables, then whole grains. Simple carbs were something to be avoided, and in the beginning, it was fairly easy to do so.

Over time, though, I gradually became able to eat more and more. Most of my stomach is gone, so I will never be able to eat as much as I used to, but I can eat a decent meal in one sitting these days–the size meal health and diet experts usually say you should be eating. I have also regained my enjoyment of food. I remember in the beginning wondering why other weight loss surgery patients were eating food that was bad for them, when it was so easy not to. Around the two-year mark, I understood. Food was delicious again. It was no longer a simple matter to avoid bad foods. This is something I’m still struggling with. While it is likely impossible for me to ever be obese again, I can still make unhealthy food choices that have an impact on my health.

Along with only accepting decreased portion sizes, my body reacts a little differently to food now. I can’t usually handle having sugar in the morning. If I have it, I end up feeling awful for about two hours. If I have a dessert in the evening, I generally choose something far less rich than what the old me would have gone for, for similar reasons. Eating really rich desserts doesn’t give me the pleasure it used to. Sometimes even a simple ice cream cone is too much.

I also don’t enjoy eggs the way I used to. There was a time when I absolutely loved eggs over-easy. They are still delicious, but I feel strange while and after eating them. The effect is short-lived, but it’s odd enough to make me seriously consider whether or not I want eggs. This is kind of a shame, since eggs are such a good source of protein.

Of course, the most notorious food effect of the duodenal switch is gas due to malabsorption. This has been a struggle for me. According to PacLap, foods that cause gas include white flour, white rice, sugar, beans, vegetables, some fruits, milk and milk products, and processed foods. I can avoid white flour with minimal effort. White rice is more difficult for me, but I haven’t found it to be particularly gas-inducing. Sugar, of course, is a challenge. I should be avoiding it anyway, as my surgery doesn’t affect the absorption of sugar. It’s hard to know what vegetables and fruits to avoid; I haven’t really figured that out. As for milk, I love having a bowl of cereal every now and again, but it may not be so great to do so. The big one, processed foods, is difficult to avoid in our packaged-food culture. Now that I’m working full time, I rarely feel like cooking, so I’m sure I’m eating a lot of things I shouldn’t be.

Thanks to the surgery, I am realizing more clearly that I have a strange relationship with food. When I am at a restaurant I love, I feel bad that I can’t eat everything. I want to enjoy the different dishes all at once. It’s as though I believe each particular visit is my last chance. I’ve found it frustrating to have to choose, and also to have to eschew foods I used to really enjoy because they will have ill effects on my stomach.

At the other end of the spectrum, there was a time when I would eat and eat and eat out of boredom. I can now pretty easily tell when I’m doing this, because I’ll be full and still trying to eat. During these times, it used to not matter to me so much what I was eating. Now, if the food doesn’t have enough protein, or if it’s too carby, I’ll get irritated by it, which I consider a good thing–it’s like a knock upside the head telling me to make better choices.

Exercise

Immediately following the surgery, I was encouraged to walk as much as I could without over-fatiguing myself. I was also encouraged to walk up and down stairs. I did pretty well in both regards. While I do spend a lot of time at a desk or on a couch, I tend to get antsy if I’m in one place too long. I like to be up and moving.

At first it was very frustrating how quickly I would get tired. I also wasn’t allowed to reach over my head or lift heavy objects, which was quite annoying for someone as independent as me. Sean was a huge help during this time.

Recovery took about three months. At that point I was able to pretty much go back to normal. I remember the first time I did an exercise video after having surgery; I was shocked at how easy it was without all the extra pounds weighing me down.

During the rapid weight loss period, I kept walking, did workout videos at home, and joined a gym. Unfortunately, after awhile these efforts dropped off, especially after I started working full time again. Now, at nearly three years out from surgery, I’m not particularly active. I do try to take the stairs at work, at least in the parking garage, and I go on photo hikes on the weekends…but I really need to do more, for the sake of my cardiovascular system. I’m considering taking up running again, or trying to ride my bicycle to work.

I can say that thanks to the surgery, I have plenty of energy, and if I feel like spending an entire day walking around, I can do it with no problem. This is not something I could say before this dramatic weight loss.

Next steps

Weight loss surgery helped me with the hardest part: losing over 100 pounds. It’s up to me to take advantage of this opportunity, to make good choices for my health. It’s something I have to work on every day. My fight to eat better and be physically active will never end.

There is one other thing I might do to make my transformation complete, and that’s reconstructive surgery. After losing this much weight, there’s a lot of skin left over. While I’m not unhappy with the way I look, the skin can be irritating to deal with. I don’t feel comfortable wearing sleeveless shirts, for example, and certain articles of clothing don’t seem to fit right. Health insurance generally only covers this in cases of medical necessity, so I would have to pay for it out of pocket, which I’m not sure is going to happen. Still, it’s something I keep in the back of my mind.

Final thoughts

Simple pride kept me from seriously pursuing weight loss surgery until it was almost too late. I felt that I should be able to lose weight on my own, and that if I couldn’t, it just meant I was weak. In other words, I was too proud to accept help. Eventually it got to the point that I had to choose between being proud and blind, or humbling myself and keeping my sight. It seems like such an obvious choice in hindsight, but when I was going through it, it was a struggle.

The lesson I’ve learned from this is that accepting help does not make you less of a person. It doesn’t mean there’s something wrong with you. It just means you’re making smart choices.

Every day I look in the mirror and like what I see. Every day I pull on clothes I never thought I’d fit into. Every day I feel healthy and strong.

I am so happy that I had weight loss surgery.

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It’s just us

Last night, Sean and I decided not to try to have a kid.

The decision has taken nearly 15 years. It all started in 1999 when, after cancer treatments, I was told that the likelihood of becoming naturally pregnant was extraordinarily low.

I spent five or maybe even ten years trying to recover from that news. During that time, Sean and I met, fell in love, and got married. In the beginning, my lack of fertility wasn’t an issue; Sean didn’t want children at all, though he said it would be okay if it happened.

Obviously in my case it wasn’t going to just “happen”. I approached an endocrinologist fairly early in our marriage (we were still living in our first apartment, which was destroyed by fire in 2005) and started on hormone treatments, but all this did was allow me to have normal periods. We were in our mid-20s then. As time passed, more health issues cropped up for me, and I also started finding my career path. The fertility problem was put on the back burner.

Sean’s mind started to change around the year we turned 30. He started looking at kids with the sort of indulgent expression you see on daddies, and we’d talk about names we liked and how we’d raise a child. Eventually we decided that once my health issues were taken care of, we’d see if anything could be done fertility-wise.

That time is now. I’ve had surgery to help me lose weight, taking me out of obesity and ending my sleep apnea and pseudotumor cerebri. At this point I’m the healthiest I’ve been in years. I was all set to talk to my weight loss doctor on Friday about what I needed to know about trying to conceive.

Then, yesterday, I read a CNN article that reminded me of exactly what position I’m in. The article, entitled The ‘Big Lie’ in putting off pregnancy, discusses how fertility decreases as we age:

Forty may be the new 30, but our ovaries have not gotten the same makeover. Even with all the advances in reproductive technology, our eggs have a finite shelf life and the odds of having a child over 40 years old are shockingly slim.

According to the Southern California Center for Reproductive Medicine, a woman in her 20s has a 20-25% chance of conceiving naturally per menstrual cycle. In her early 30s, the chance of pregnancy is 15% per cycle. After 35, the odds of pregnancy without medical intervention are at 10%. After 40, that number falls to 5%, and women over 45 have a 1% chance of conception.

[…]

A 2009 report on Assisted Reproductive Technologies, or ARTs, by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that the single most important factor affecting the chances of a successful pregnancy through ARTs is a woman’s age. Selvaratnam reports that at age 40, the chance is 18.7%; at 42, it’s 10%; at 44, it’s only 2.9%.

Sean and I have been married since January of 2003, and from then until September 2011, when I had weight loss surgery, we never used any form of birth control whatsoever. Obviously conceiving naturally was never going to happen.

I’m now 35 years old, the age at which the chances of conceiving naturally have dropped by 10 to 15% in a normal person, someone who hasn’t had their ovaries damaged by chemotherapy.

We always knew that given my situation, there was a chance I had no viable eggs left. There’s a test that gives you an idea of that situation. When I was taking hormone replacement therapy in 2005 and 2006, my doctor said the hormones were meant to essentially jump-start my ovaries, but my ovaries never started working properly on their own. Without hormone therapy or birth control, I only have a random period every several months to a year. This doesn’t bode well for my eggs.

I honestly don’t know what other options there are beyond hormone therapy. I’ve heard of people getting shots, and of course there’s IVF. What I do know is that hardcore fertility treatments are expensive. The first time I approached an actual fertility doctor, maybe 2008 or 2009, I was told to prepare at least $10,000. (At the time I didn’t have that, so the issue was back-burnered again.)

While we are in the best possible place right now, both health-wise and financially, the other factors are huge: my age and dwindling fertility (if there was ever even any left), the cost, and the potential danger to the child. At this point, we would be putting ourselves through years of distress and heartbreak, and realistically we would probably just be throwing money away.

And so last night I told Sean that I didn’t think it made sense to even try.

As he always does when I discuss my body or health with him, Sean said, “Okay,” agreeing to my decision. But I pressed him on it. I said that the decision whether or not to have children wasn’t just mine. I asked him how he felt about it, if he would be unhappy or disappointed.

He responded that he would love to see me able to have a baby like I’ve always wanted. Hearing that meant a lot to me. He’s watched me struggle with this for the length of our marriage. It makes me so happy (and a little sorry) to have him empathize.

He also said that he likes the idea of having and raising a child, and that we are in a good position to offer a child a stable life. But he also concurred that chances are low and there are a lot of risks to the child’s health.

“It’s not something I’m set on having,” he concluded. And then he said, “It’ll just be us.”

I almost started crying at that point. It wasn’t sorrow, though. There was an aspect of mourning to it, but the flood of emotion was also an acknowledgement of everything we’ve gone through, everything we’ve thought about, and the fact that now we don’t have to worry about it anymore.

It’s decided. There’s no “maybe,” there’s no “you never know.” We know now. We’re not having kids.

There’s something amazingly freeing in finally being sure.

Please help fund this Kickstarter for diabetics

I am so inspired by Nial Giacomelli’s The Diabetic Journal. This is a personal project, an application to help manage all the overwhelming variables in a diabetic’s life, that has grown beyond personal use and into something that Mr. Giacomelli wants to distribute absolutely free as a smartphone app. He’s made no profit on it and will make none. He’s looking to Kickstarter simply to allow him to focus on the app, to get it out the door with more features and a more streamlined UI.

I have no horse in this race; I’m not diabetic. But I’ve been through a lot of health-related crap. I can only imagine what it must be like for diabetics to have to manage their illness every single day for the rest of their lives.

This app would help them. And it would be free.

But things are looking bad. The word’s not getting out, or people don’t understand, or some other problem is keeping the project far from its goal.

I’m a backer and I want The Diabetic Journal to get my money.

If you’ve got anything you can send, anything at all, please. For once, here’s a Kickstarter that isn’t about personal profit or entertainment or special perks. It’s about helping people.

Isn’t that something that’s really worth Kickstarting?

Back The Diabetic Journal

Knee pain

I’ve had on-and-off knee pain throughout my adult life. Historically it has only been one knee at a time, and it usually passes in a few days. During these times, moving and especially bending the knee is painful. I have difficulty getting into and out of a seated position or going up and down stairs.

Last night both of my knees started hurting while I was curled up on the couch watching TV. My legs also hurt at the place where the femur attaches to the pelvis. Getting up from the couch I found myself stiff and wracked with pain. I took some Tylenol and went to bed–painfully, pulling my legs up onto the mattress with my hands.

I slept for only a few hours before awakening with even worse pain. I tried to lie perfectly still and go back to sleep because I did not want to have to get up, which would require me to move my knees. Ultimately, though, I was in too much pain to sleep, so finally I forced myself out of bed by maneuvering my straight legs over the side and propping myself up into a standing position. Limping to the bathroom, I bent at the waist to search beneath the sink for unused medicine, and thankfully I came across a pain pill from when I had my weight loss surgery. I took one, then sat on the loveseat with my legs propped up and surfed on my phone until the pain subsided enough for me to go back to sleep.

When I woke up a scant few more hours later, the pain was back again, so I called my doctor’s office and made an appointment. My doctor, Dr. M, wasn’t supposed to be in today, but apparently they called him and he came in especially for me, which was really nice of him. We talked about the pain symptoms, then he had me lie back while he moved my legs around to see what hurt and what didn’t. The hip pain, he said, is probably bursitis; he doesn’t think it’s related to the knees, which makes sense because I’ve never had the two symptoms simultaneously that I can remember.

However, if the pain in my knees is rheumatoid arthritis, it may be related to the hip pain after all. At this point we don’t know what’s causing the knee pain. From the exam we know that it is the tendons on the top of the knee that are the problem; twisting my legs doesn’t hurt while bending them straight up and down is incredibly painful. And we know that Grandma had arthritis. So Dr. M drew some blood to check for general inflammation and for arthritis in particular. He also gave me a prescription for more pain medicine, for which I’ve been extremely thankful today. While the hip pain is relatively dull and seems to be fading away, the knee pain just won’t quit. Moving around seems to help, but without the pain medicine, moving around hurts a lot.

Here’s hoping the bloodwork reveals something that can help me long-term. And short-term, here’s hoping the pain takes a hike soon.

More and more

To start my new tradition of working out when I get up, I just did the TurboJam 20-Minute Workout. I chose that video because I wasn’t sure I could make it all the way through Cardio Party, which is about twice as long. But I found myself doing the entire video “high impact”, jumping around, punching and kicking full force, positively overflowing with energy. I sweated and got a little out of breath, but I never felt like it was too difficult or that I couldn’t finish. If anything, I felt like I could do more.

This stands in stark contrast to my previous experiences starting up this video series. I always found it challenging and had to build up to where I could finish a workout at low impact. I never did an entire video high impact, not even the 20-Minute Workout.

My weight loss surgery has given me an amazing gift. Losing those 120 pounds has made me able to accomplish things I never could before. It’s given me a huge leg up in physical fitness. I feel like I can do anything now!

Not everything is going to come this easily, and I will have to keep planning and working toward my goals step by step. But today’s workout showed me just how far I’ve come, and how much I have to be thankful for.

Traditions and willpower

In the course of rearranging and organizing everything in my life, I’ve dusted off some goals and study materials that have been foundering or never even used and started making clear plan lists for using them. My Japanese language plan is the most robust so far; it includes steps for my WaniKani reviews, TextFugu, the collection of study materials I purchased from TheJapanShop, and reading and translating various Japanese-language manga and short stories I own. When I logged back into TextFugu for the first time in months, it reminded me that I had purchased the 30 Day ebook, a system for making oneself a better Japanese learner. So I added that to the list too and read Day 1.

The first day’s assignment is to make a task I dislike into a tradition rather than a chore. The idea is that if you have to force yourself to do something, you’re using mental energy that could be used elsewhere, and the more you can turn tasks into traditions, the more you’ll be able to achieve. I find this extremely interesting.

Since willpower is a finite resource (meaning the batteries only have so much juice before needing a recharge), being able to not use willpower becomes very important especially over time. If there’s a task you do every day with your Japanese, creating a tradition for it will essentially allow you to use your finite willpower to do something else, increasing the amount you can do and get done. Over time this adds up, so there’s no better time to start than now.

The mission is to pick any distasteful task, Japanese-related or not, set a time for it, and make it happen. I’ll probably go with “When I get up, I work out.” I don’t have a problem with doing laundry or the dishes these days…I just sort of do those things. (They’re already traditions!) But working out has always been a struggle. If I can turn that into something I just do, I bet I’ll feel a lot better about doing it, and I’ll have mental energy left over for other tasks.

I hope I haven’t chosen too difficult a task to turn into a tradition.

My new old relationship with eating

As time has passed since my duodenal switch surgery (it’s nearly been a year!), the rapid weight loss I was experiencing has declined to possibly nothing. This was anticipated, and as I’ve reached an excellent weight of 136, not unwelcome. However, there is still the possibility of losing a bit more weight before the slight rebound I’ve been told to expect. If I can manage to lose a bit more such that I rebound to about where I am now, that would be great.

Things have become more challenging, though. In the beginning, I hated eating and had to force myself to do it. When I did, I could only stand certain foods. Over the weeks and months since, though, my tastes have started to go back to where they were before the surgery. My perspective has flipped right back to loving food and wanting to eat all the time. And I’ve become accustomed to the amount my small stomach can take in, such that I am able to pace myself and potentially overeat if I don’t pay attention.

Due to malabsorption, I should not be capable of becoming morbidly obese again so long as I don’t go crazy with my food choices, but there’s nothing keeping me from being overweight but my own willpower. This surgery, after all, is not a magic bullet. It didn’t do all the work of weight loss–I had to eat right and exercise–and it will not do all the work of keeping me at a healthy weight. My need to get enough protein has made me a label-reader; I must keep up that habit. Further, I am working to limit processed foods as much as possible, as this is the best way to keep my sugar intake down. This is very difficult now that I have a taste for sugar again. My ideal is to get my sugar fix through fruit, but when I want an actual dessert, I try to at least go for items sweetened with Splenda, honey, or real sugar rather than high fructose corn syrup. And of course, I don’t drink sugary filler.

Beyond eating right for health, I will also have to manage the side effects of this surgery for the rest of my life. One very unromantic side effect is that white bread, white rice, and normal pasta make me gassy. In the beginning I just didn’t eat those things at all, but now that my tastes are pretty much back to normal, I’ve been craving them. So I buy 100% whole wheat/grain bread products (not “multigrain”), and I try to only eat brown rice.

Pasta has been a different animal, though. Sean and I make a lot of use of those Knorr noodle packets, because they’re simple and fast. But they don’t come in whole wheat varieties. There was a whole wheat version of the Alfredo noodles at one time, and we tried it and didn’t care for it…and that must have been the general consensus, because I don’t see it anywhere these days.

I recently bought a bunch of plain whole wheat pasta in various varieties, but I haven’t made much use of them. That will require finding good sauce recipes and keeping those supplies on hand, and I haven’t figured all that out yet. I do still plan to try, but some days I consider it a victory just to leave the kitchen clean!

Luckily for me, the last time I went to the store, I found a 50% whole grain version of Kraft Dinner. Obviously this isn’t a perfect solution–at 50% that means there’s still gas-inducing content–but it tastes great and so far doesn’t seem to affect me nearly as badly as the regular dinner. Sean and I love macaroni and cheese, so this is an excellent solution until I get to the point where I can make my own pasta sauces.

I started some work as a temporary on-site contractor a couple weeks ago. I’d forgotten how the office environment encourages my boredom-eating. Having nothing to do but the work I’m there to do is good, obviously, but my creative, multitasking mind tends to get antsy. I like flipping back and forth between tasks; it lets my brain refresh itself and promotes my creativity. I’ve realized since going back to an office environment that I’ve used eating as a “task” to reboot my brain. I’d take a break to grab a snack and then munch on it thoughtlessly while working. This is obviously not a habit I want to get back into, so I’m working on replacing it with something else, like going to refill my water bottle or standing up at my computer.

Happily, I’ve taken advantage of working in a skyscraper to use the stairs. Four flights up and down! Unhappily, working full time outside the apartment has made it impossible for me to meet my personal trainer during the week. I’m trying to figure out what to do about that.

My first attempt at Mexican food

In an attempt to save money and eat more healthily, I have started cooking more at home. Up until now this has mostly consisted of making a handful of stock dishes: grilled chicken, burgers, hot dogs, sausage, or fish, with a Knorr packaged noodle side and some sort of steamed vegetable. While this routine isn’t bad in terms of variation, after awhile it can get boring to cook the same way over and over. I’ve also been craving various types of food that I usually go out for, like Chinese or Mexican. Today I decided to plan ahead and make a Mexican-style meal.

I chose the following recipes from AllRecipes.com:

I also decided that instead of purchasing the salsa to be used for baking the chicken, I would make some from scratch. I chose this recipe:

Salsa

Prep

The first thing I did was get two frozen chicken breasts out and put them into a dish in the refrigerator to thaw. I went ahead and put the spices from the Quick and Easy Mexican Chicken recipe into the dish and on top of the chicken.

My next step was to go to the store and grab some supplies–I needed the cilantro, jalapeno pepper, and lime juice for the salsa, the shredded cheese for the chicken (I chose a 4-cheese Mexican blend instead of cheddar), and the chicken broth for the rice. I already had tomatoes, onions, and cloves of garlic from the Marietta Square Farmers Market, and I keep frozen chicken breasts, brown rice, and various spices on hand.

I went ahead and did my shopping in the morning so I could prepare the salsa in advance, giving it time to sit in the fridge. It took me about half an hour to chop and mix everything. As I also spent time this morning on some freelance work, a personal training appointment, the grocery shopping, and of course my random desire to scrub my bathtub, it wasn’t until after noon that I started making the salsa.

The tomato, onion, garlic, and jalapeno were easy to chop, of course. The cilantro was technically easy too, I suppose, but I’ve always disliked chopping cilantro…it takes forever. Once I had everything mixed, I had to agree with one recipe reviewer that the end result seemed more like pico de gallo than salsa. Still, I figured it would be nice and fresh and good for the cooking. Though I scaled down the salsa recipe to one serving, it resulted in more than the half-cup needed for the chicken recipe. I put the rest of it out as a garnish alongside the sour cream, but neither of us ended up using it.

Cooking

I started to actually make dinner at around 7 o’clock. I began with the rice, since it had the longest cooking time. After the rice had been cooking for about 15 minutes, I got the chicken out of the fridge to brown it in the skillet as per the recipe. Unfortunately, the breasts weren’t quite thawed, so I didn’t follow the recipe exactly. Instead of cooking in the skillet until there was no pink left, I simply browned as much as I could of the chicken, removing it from the heat before the outside could get chewy. I transferred the chicken to the baking dish, topped it off with the homemade salsa and shredded cheese, then put it all in the oven. I ended up having to cook both the chicken and the rice longer than expected, finally getting them both done around 8:30.

Meanwhile, I warmed the refried black beans in a pan on the stove and three wheat tortillas in an aluminum foil pouch in the oven.

Time Analysis

With the shopping, morning prep, and evening cooking time, this meal took about two and a half hours from my day.

Cost Analysis

Here’s what I spent on necessities for the recipes ($6.68 total):

Cilantro: $0.50
Jalapeno pepper: $0.05
Kroger brand canned tomatoes: $0.67
Kroger brand chicken broth: $1.99
Kroger brand lime juice (bottle): $1.79
Kroger brand shredded Mexican-style cheese: $1.68

Here’s what I spent on extras to go with the meal ($4.28 total):

Bush’s refried black beans: $1.29
Daisy sour cream: $1.00
Wheat tortillas (8): $1.99

Together, that’s $10.96, or $5.48 per person.

It’s a little harder to add in the cost of the ingredients I already had. Unfortunately I don’t have the receipt for the frozen chicken breasts, which came from a 5-pound bag of frozen, boneless, skinless breasts from Walmart. I want to say that bag costs around $10, but I’m not sure. I’m also not sure how many breasts were originally in the bag, but I think it was at least 10. If so, that would add just $1 per person. As for the vegetables from the farmers market, I know I got four tomatoes for $3, so the one I used in this recipe adds $0.75 total, or $0.38 per person. I don’t remember how much the onions cost or how many I got. I have a feeling I had a basket of five or six originally, and that wouldn’t have cost more than a few dollars. If we pretend each onion cost as much as a tomato, that would put the total cost per person up to $0.75. The head of garlic is negligible; it contained many cloves.

A rough total including the frozen chicken and farmers market vegetables would therefore be $7.23 per person. This is an overestimate, as the chicken broth, lime, cheese, and tortillas were not all used today.

The Yum Factor

I was fairly happy with this meal. The main weakness, I’d say, was the pico de gallo “salsa”. It was all right, but not really my cup of tea. The rice was delicious, though, and so were the refried beans. The beans were actually Sean’s favorite part of the meal, which is kind of sad considering I had nothing to do with their flavor. Indeed, the part of the meal I spent the most time on was the least memorable, while the part I spent the least time on was the most.

Despite the weakness of the “salsa”, the chicken came out moist and tender, and I wish there had been a bit more of it–the breasts were rather small. I ate a tortilla with my meal, but Sean didn’t have any tortillas at all, so I may as well not have bought them. We did, however, both use sour cream.

Conclusions

Ultimately, I’m not sure I’d say this meal was worth the effort. If I try it again, I’ll probably buy the salsa instead of making it myself. I do think the price was good, though.

I may eschew the oven baking entirely and grill the chicken next time, then add a sauce when it’s done. Grilling is very easy with the George Foreman electric grill my parents got me for my birthday this year, and there’s no thawing required. :)

久しぶりのRAMBLE

I’m in a share-y mood, so I’m going to go all stream-of-consciousness like I used to back in the halcyon days of this blog. No real topic, no defined start and end, no “point”. Just what I’m thinking.

The post title, if you’re interested, just means something like “A ramble, for the first time in awhile.”

I wrote this morning on Facebook that I wished I was better at humor. I’m extremely serious, and I tend to react badly when someone throws a discussion off-topic in a humorous way. Basically, I don’t understand and can’t really put up with trolls. This is why I never read forums. I also hate practical jokes. I love laughing, and I enjoy funny things very much, but I hate it when serious discussions are derailed for a laugh (or even to make a point, because I often have trouble figuring out what point is being made). I’d like people to just respond respectfully and openly rather than being what I interpret as summarily dismissive.

Other people don’t seem to have this problem, though, so I can’t help but feel deficient.

Abrupt topic shift! I started using the WaniKani beta yesterday. WaniKani is a kanji learning system that incorporates SRS and fun. I’ve really enjoyed it so far, and I hope I can stick it out. Other than watching lots of anime, I haven’t really been doing much with my Japanese study lately, so I’m really wanting to get back on track (or on a track in general).

Speaking of anime, I’m finding myself infinitely perplexed by anime genres. Polar Bear’s Cafe, which I adore, is apparently shoujo. I’m not sure what genre I would put it in if I had to choose, but when I think shoujo I think Sailor Moon, so obviously there’s a disconnect somewhere. I’m also confounded by the shounen genre, as evidenced by this post and comments. Either Japan is cool with young kids watching really violent and sexual stuff, or there are subgenres I’m unaware of…or something. I guess knowing what genre something is doesn’t really matter in terms of enjoying it, but I would like to find a good way to identify anime that I have a high chance of enjoying, and to know what to expect from it. The best I’ve come up with so far is that I generally like “sports” anime, where characters work towards a goal and compete with each other, and “slice of life” anime, especially high school. I generally dislike “harem” anime, where one male character is surrounded by a bunch of girls drawn in an oversexed way. But anime isn’t always labeled this way, especially on Crunchyroll; their “slice of life” genre includes surreal comedies, for example. I usually have to read a show’s description and watch the first episode before I know if I’ll enjoy it. Unfortunately for me, I watched School Days all the way through without knowing what I was in for, and that was just traumatic.

I recently watched the first season of Code Geass: Lelouch of the Rebellion on Crunchyroll. (Season 2 isn’t available.) The show isn’t what I would normally go for. It is intensely tragic. But somehow, it felt like it was what I needed to see at that moment. It was a reminder that we can become blinded by our own goals and ambitions, and of how much our pasts can define us if we let them. As you might imagine, I identified most strongly with Suzaku (voiced by my beloved Sakurai Takahiro). But there’s no way I could argue that Suzaku always did the right thing or made the right choices. You can’t say that for anyone in the show. That’s what makes it so compelling and real and, again, tragic. As the audience, you can see how everyone’s decisions come together to impact the entire country, and you wish so-and-so knew such-and-such or hadn’t made a certain decision. None of the decisions themselves feel fated, like there was nothing else the characters could have done. Instead, it’s kind of like in a video game where the choices you make build up to determine your character’s “alignment”. But as things progress, the options diminish, and the ones that could right a character’s path become more and more dangerous.

The story reminds me a bit of Song of Ice and Fire. No one has the full picture but the audience, who is left simply watching as horror after horror unfolds. Unlike Song of Ice and Fire, though, I feel like there is an actual purpose behind the story in Code Geass. Song of Ice and Fire just feels like a laundry list of bad things happening.

Health-wise, I’m doing okay. I feel like I spend most of my day either trying to figure out what to eat or actually eating something. It’s pretty annoying. I have found a new, delicious Atkins bar, the Peanut Butter Granola. It is awesome and I’m very happy to add it to my arsenal. In terms of real food, I’ve found my George Foreman electric grill to be invaluable in easily cooking chicken, burgers, and tilapia, and I’m still relying on yogurt, cottage cheese, and cheese snacks to supplement my protein. I also eat a lot of peas. I’ve added other vegetables and fruits to my diet, in moderation. My biggest problem is carbs; I eat too many potatoes and noodles and too much bread, and I haven’t been as careful about choosing wheat over white. Sweets aren’t really an issue for me anymore, as I rarely find them all that delicious, though I do wish I did, sometimes.

Personal training is also okay. The worst part about it is having to deal with another person, but that is kind of the point. They’re there to motivate me and to give me something new to do. So I endure.

Actually, I am feeling better about personal training right now than I was when I wrote the previous paragraph, because in the intervening time I went to a personal training session, and while I was utterly depressed going in, I actually feel fairly good after having worked out. So there’s that.

I’ve been depressed off and on for awhile now. I feel immense pressure, mostly from myself, to do something, but I can’t seem to figure out what, exactly. I’ve been trying various things without success. I’ve also been running away from various things. I want to feel in control, to have a plan. It’s killing me not to.

I’ve also had a lot of time to think these past few months…perhaps too much time. I spent a long while trapped in misery, thinking of all the pain in the world and in my own personal circles that I am powerless to do anything about. It took an incident of extreme thoughtlessness on my part–an event in which I tried to help, but had no resources to do so, and ended up adding to other people’s burdens–that helped me realize I could prioritize, and that sometimes I have to say no. I’m happy to say that I have at least pulled myself out of that murky hellhole of guilt. I seem to keep finding other things to worry about, but I don’t think I will fall into that same chasm again.

I have, however, been increasingly down on myself lately, and I’m even finding myself resentful of others where I don’t want to be resentful. I’m projecting my own confusion and helplessness on them, judging them for the things I self-judge, and it’s not fair to them or to myself. Intellectually I realize that I am partially crippled by circumstance, and while I can’t use that as an excuse per se, I can at least be more understanding of myself and allow myself to make mistakes and learn from them rather than simply hating myself and spinning my wheels in frustration. But it’s so very hard not to blame myself for everything.

I’ve even found myself thinking despairingly, “I’m so fat,” when that is hardly true. It was always my old internal mantra, and I guess it just naturally comes out when I despise myself. I’ve been trying to remind myself that no, actually, I’m not fat, but that’s hard, too. My inner voice argues back, What about all that flab?

Further, when I think about all the things I want and can’t have–children, frequent world travel, a piano, even just eating out–all I can think is that it’s my own fault, that I should have done something differently, or I should be doing something differently now. I don’t know what, though. It makes me miserable.

I’m tempted to round out this post with an uplifting “I’ll just have to do my best!” paragraph, like usual. But I promised not to have a point or a real ending. So I won’t. I’m not really feeling that emotion right now, anyway.

Instead, I’ll just mention that I’ve been watching Glass Mask again, and I am so jealous of the heroine, Maya. Her life is hell, but she knows what she wants to do and she’s willing to fight for it. I wish I had that kind of commitment to something. Something profitable, that is. Of course I have that commitment in spades when it comes to my husband and family.

Maya gives up her family to pursue her dream. I don’t think I could do that. I think that sort of sacrifice is easier when you’re young; you want to escape and find something new. I felt that way in my early 20s. I don’t feel like that now, or at least not in the same way. I still want adventure, I still want passion, I still want to learn and explore. But I can’t abandon my family.

It’s hard to explain what I mean by that. I don’t mean I wouldn’t move to another city or country, for example. I just mean that I could no longer make that decision on my own, without considering other people’s needs. My life isn’t just about me.

Oh hey, I have another topic. It’s kind of weird, and I’m actually kind of afraid to talk about it. It’s men.

For much of my life, the story heroes I identified with most were men. I wished I could be like Anne of Green Gables, but I knew I never could (she was slender with slim fingers; I was shaped more like her friend Diana, of whom Anne was jealous but I was not). I also liked Pippi Longstocking. But for the most part, I always felt like being a girl was too complicated, and it would just be easier if I was a boy. (I know; the grass is always greener.) I don’t believe I am gender-queer or anything, just that I didn’t know what to make of myself, and I was trying to figure out what role I played in life. As a child I pretended to be boys plenty of times: Simon of The Chipmunks, Donatello of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. I didn’t want to be one of the Chipettes; they weren’t in all the stories and when they were they were often annoying. I didn’t want to be April O’Neil, because while she was cool in some ways, she wasn’t one of the core group, really. She wasn’t a ninja. She wasn’t a turtle. I certainly didn’t want to be Venus de Milo, the token female turtle, named not after an artist but after a work of art. Even as a kid that offended me. (I did pretend to be Smurfette when I was very young, but I didn’t particularly like it, because she was everyone’s love interest, and that seemed weird.)

It always seemed like there was a group of cool, interesting guys, and then one girl who was put in to have a girl there. I wanted to be one of the interesting people. And, to be frank, I didn’t usually find the shows with lots of girls in them, or centered around girls, to be all that interesting. I didn’t care about hair and makeup and clothes. I wanted to see adventure stories.

One exception was Clarissa Explains It All; I adored that show and wanted to be Clarissa with all my might. She was very much like me; she programmed on her computer (though she did far more advanced things, like building video games in which she threw things at her little brother) and she wore the clothes she felt like wearing, which in retrospect were “cool”, but I felt like they expressed her personality rather than following trends. She also liked Star Wars, which to me was the epitome of awesome (in the hoary pre-prequel days).

As I got older I started wishing I was a boy not as much because there were few cool stories about girls, but because I started watching USA and Lifetime movies and seeing how often women were victimized by men. I thought if I was a man, I would have less to fear. It occurred to me only this morning that I spent a great deal of my life being afraid of men. To be honest, I’m still afraid of them. I spend a lot of time thinking about how to protect myself–maybe more than the average woman? I don’t know. It always felt like even saying the wrong thing could result in violence against me. There are things I still fear to do or say.

Intellectually (I like to evaluate things intellectually, apparently!) I realize that this is sexism on my part. The actual percentage of men who would respond to an offense violently is small, at least here in the US. I do all my male friends a disservice by thinking this way, though I can at least say I don’t think any of them would be violent. I just have this creeping fear inside. Seeing some of the online comments against women, all the legislation aimed at women recently, and all the violence against women around the world only makes me more paranoid. I don’t like living with this fear, but it’s been a part of me for so long I’m not sure how to get rid of it.

I hate when the strong hurt the weak. I have always hated it. As a kid I couldn’t stand seeing it on TV, even in cartoons. I still don’t like it; I won’t watch shows like Law & Order: Special Victims Unit. And I hate how casually people threaten violence against one another, especially online. I hate…hate.

Non-sequiturs to escape the previous topic:

Nichijou‘s first opening theme song, “Hyadain no Kakakata Kataomoi-C”, is awesome.

What is up with SKET Dance adding five million female characters with ever-increasing busts?

Natsuyuki Rendezvous is a weird-ass show.

I need to find a new place to explore.

Chobani’s plain Greek yogurt is the best.

Weight goal: achieved! Sort of.

As of today I am at the weight at which I said I’d be content, 138 pounds. I look good. I feel great. At this point I could just say “mission accomplished” and go on with my life.

But there’s more to these life changes than meeting an arbitrary weight goal. The post-surgery weight loss period lasts up to two years, and I’m just now ten months in. There’s a whole year left in which I can work to sculpt away my remaining flab. And after that, it’s not like I’m going to go back to eating and living the way I did before. My food tastes have changed, and I am loving how energetic working out is making me. I’m looking forward to maintaining a healthy lifestyle forever.

I mentioned before that I wasn’t going to be paying as much attention to weight. And I haven’t been; I rarely weigh in. But I’ve decided that when I do, I want the various trackers I use to reflect my current reality. I’ve reached one goal. Now it’s time for a new one.

Today is my new “start date”. Based on my weight loss slowdown, I decided a pound a week was a reasonable rate. I put in 125 as my goal weight; two programs tell me I can reach that weight by the end of October.

I don’t know if I’ll actually get there–muscle weighs more than fat, and I expect to gain more muscle as I continue working out–but it’s nice to have a modified plan with a fresh goal line to start with.

Here’s how my SparkPeople goal line looked originally. As you can see, the deceleration of my weight loss caused my tracking line to approach the goal line (click to embiggen):

Here are my weights from April until now, showing the approach more dramatically:

And here is the beginning of my new goal line!

I’m pretty excited to start with a new plan and goal, and I’m looking forward to seeing how things play out in the next three months.

One-month personal training fitness evaluation

As I mentioned previously, my weight loss post-surgery has decelerated. This is to be expected. As planned, I looked into gyms and picked one and started working with a trainer. I see him once a week and supplement that activity with other workouts the rest of the week (though I need to be better about that). One nice thing about the gym is that it has a three-lane indoor pool. Another nice thing is that the gym is not prohibitively expensive, like the “athletic clubs” in this area.

On July 5, I weighed in at home at 140.2, a weight that put me in the “normal” BMI range for my height. At that point my total weight loss since surgery was 116.8 pounds.

As I wrote on Facebook,

Now my goal is to turn more of my body weight from fat into muscle. I’ll stop worrying about weight and BMI and start looking at body fat index. On June 8 my body fat was measured at 31.8%, and my goal is 17.4%. I started working with a personal trainer on June 19. I’m looking forward to building up more strength and endurance :)

Today I had my one-month fitness evaluation. The baseline was taken June 18; I didn’t start personal training until over a week after I signed up due to a trip out of town. (Not sure why June 18’s body fat percentage is 0.8% less than the percentage taken on June 8.)

	Baseline 6/18/12	1 Month 7/13/12
Body fat %	31.0%	29.9%
Weight	144	144
3 Min Step Test	138bpm	138bpm
Upper Body Strength Test	25 lbs, 15 reps	25 lbs, 26 reps
Lower Body Strength Test	50 lbs, 8 reps	50 lbs, 11 reps
Flexibility	10 in	6 in
Muscular Endurance (Wall Squat)	50 sec	40 sec

I’m very happy with already coming down a whole percentage point on body fat! The weight measurement isn’t accurate, because the first weight was taken at home, in the morning, before I ate anything and without any clothes on, and the second weight was taken at the gym (and was actually 146, but he took two pounds off). I don’t really care about the weight measurement, anyway.

I’m not sure what the 3-minute step test heart rate measurement is supposed to be looking for. It consists of doing the stair climber for three minutes. Today I felt like I was strong throughout, whereas for the baseline I was barely able to finish.

I was unhappy with the lower body strength test, because I had just done ten minutes on the Precor (sort of a cross between an elliptical and a stair climber) and then three minutes on the stair climber, and my legs were tired. We did the lower body test before the upper body test, and I don’t think my legs had enough time to recover. Also, the trainer who does the fitness evaluations has a bad habit of “helping” you lift the weights, and I think he might have been doing that the first time, and not this time.

I’m extremely happy with the upper body strength test. I know my arms are stronger, and they certainly look it. My flexibility seems to have improved as well–for that I just try to touch my toes and the trainer eyeballs how far my fingers are from the floor :>

The wall squat started hurting my knees, and my legs were pretty exhausted. I’m unhappy that my time was lower than it was before, but it is what it is. The gym usually also does a situp test, but since I can’t do ball situps the way they want (I have to support my head or my neck has severe pain), we skip those.

Now for the most interesting data: the measurements! These were, of course, taken before I started all those strength tests above.

	Baseline 6/18/12	1 Month 7/13/12
Neck	13	12.5
Chest	38	37
Shoulders	40	39
Waist	31	31.5
Hips	40	39
Bicep (R)	12	11
Bicep (L)	12	11
Thigh (R)	21	20.5
Thigh (L)	21	20.5
Calf (R)	15	15
Calf (L)	15	15

So, nice losses everywhere except the calves (which is unsurprising) and the waist (what is up with that?). On the whole, I’m pleased, especially with the arms, and I’m looking forward to seeing more improvement.

We finished out the evaluation with cardio. The trainer told me to do the Precor machine for as long as it took to burn 250 calories. When we did this for the baseline, he said 200 to 250 calories. It took me 31 minutes to get to 200 calories and I was bored out of my mind, so I quit there. Today I was still bored, but determined to do better, and so I ramped up the resistance and my speed when I could and just forced myself all the way to 250. And what do you know? I managed it in 29 minutes.

It looks like personal training was the right choice for me. It gives me direction and motivation that I couldn’t provide for myself. I still need to work on getting to the gym more and/or doing other exercise, but even with my uneven workouts outside of training, I’m getting results. That’s really inspiring :)

Weight loss surgery challenges

I am currently over eight months out from duodenal switch weight loss surgery. In that time I have lost 109 pounds and gone from size XL blouses to size M and size 26W pants to size 10. My shoe size has also gone from around 8W to 7, and I’ve had to have my wedding rings resized.

For the first few months of this process, my biggest challenges were emotional. As my body changed rapidly, I started to lose my sense of identity. I never realized just how much I identified as “the fat one” until I wasn’t anymore.

Now, though, the weight loss has decelerated, and I’m quite pleased with who I see in the mirror despite some lingering trouble spots. My biggest challenges have shifted to complacency and boredom.

You see, while I was focused on the rapid weight loss, while I could tell I still had plenty of weight to lose, I was very motivated to eat right and exercise. I thought at the time that the surgery was some sort of miracle cure for food addiction; I didn’t really crave anything, and though I got tired of eating the same high protein foods over and over, it didn’t really bother me because I had a goal, and because food wasn’t nearly as important to me as it once was. And I also knew that I had to make sure to work out during the rapid weight loss, so I would lose fat rather than muscle mass. While I wasn’t quite as dedicated to exercising–I never have been–I still did a lot of walking and spent more time at my apartment complex workout room than I normally would have.

But here I am, basically happy with my weight, not losing quickly anymore…and suddenly really wanting to enjoy eating again. I’ve slipped. I’ve had cookies. I’ve had sugar-laden sauces. I’ve eaten too much bread. I’ve gone for fried food–and fries. Thanks to my smaller stomach and rerouted intestines, I can’t eat or absorb as much food, but eating too much of the wrong kinds of food is still bad. It’s just so much harder to keep that in perspective when I feel good and look good and just want a snack. When I see TV characters eating these huge, delicious-looking meals, and I wish I could eat them too, and I know I could never finish those portion sizes. When I start to mourn the me who could enjoy a big slice of cake.

I’m in danger of slipping back into my old patterns of emotional eating, eating when I’m not hungry, eating just to eat.

The thing is, eating these bad-for-me foods doesn’t really give me any joy. They taste better now than they did a few months ago, possibly because I’ve been eating them more and my taste buds have readjusted, but they’re not really satisfying. And then there’s what happens later. Too much sugar gives me severe abdominal pain. Too much fried food gives me diarrhea. Too much white bread or white rice gives me gas. There are compelling physiological reasons not to eat foods that are bad for me. But the delay between the eating and the punishment is just long enough that I can trick myself into thinking it’ll be okay, that the food will be worth it. It usually isn’t, but my emotions don’t remember that. I just want the food because I want it.

I must reiterate that until recently, maybe three or four weeks ago, I didn’t even have this problem. It’s like all of a sudden my food cravings woke up, raring to go…and now every meal choice is a struggle.

Then there’s the exercise. For awhile there I was taking pretty regular walks. Now, they’re intermittent. I spend most of my time sitting or standing at my computer, or lounging on the couch. Errands do take me up a flight of stairs, which is great but not enough. And I’m not doing any strength training. No toning at all.

My forearms look pretty good after all this weight loss. My upper arms do too, if you look at them from the correct angle. But then I raise my arm and you see the huge dangling flap of fat and wrinkly skin. Might this have been avoided if I’d actually committed to working out properly?

I look pretty good in a pair of jeans these days. But take them off and what do you get? Folds of butt skin. Disgusting.

And I still have fat to lose, on my stomach and thighs. Now that my body is smaller, it seems more striking, though I’m able to conceal it pretty well with clothing.

I said before that I’m pretty happy with how I look, and despite what I just described, I am. If this is where my weight loss is going to stop, then that’s probably okay (though I might have cosmetic surgery on my arms and butt).

But as I mentioned in my post about the weight loss deceleration, I still have over a year left to lose weight. It’s possible I could get rid of more fat, and maybe even tone up.

Being complacent about what I’ve already achieved isn’t going to get me there.

So, frankly, I’m a little scared. I’m scared that my boredom over food will continue to impact my meal choices. And I’m scared my complacent opinion that my body looks okay as it is will mean I’ll pass on exercise that not only might help me look better, but would keep me in better health.

I don’t want to give up so soon. I don’t want to say “That’s good enough.” I didn’t expect this hurdle, here in the end game where I really only have about 25 pounds to lose, if that.

So I’m making a different commitment. Before, when the surgery’s effects were new, it was relatively easy to change my lifestyle to adjust to them. Now I’m used to my new gastrointestinal system and will need to put more effort into staying on top of things. This means I will keep my apartment free of things I shouldn’t be eating, and make Sean’s treats off-limits to myself. I will think of the protein first every time, as I should have been doing all along. And I will try to come up with some method of meal planning that isn’t actually meal planning, because I hate meal planning. (I may just go to the store every day for awhile rather than trying to work out a week’s worth of dinners.) As for exercise, I am going to start looking into joining a gym and/or hiring a personal trainer. But while I explore my options in those areas, I’ll get back to doing workout videos that exercise all the muscles, and resume going on regular walks.

These steps should result in a healthier me, and if they also result in further weight loss and toning over the next year, then that’s great too.

When I chose to have weight loss surgery, it was out of medical necessity, but I was also committing to a lifestyle change. I’m not giving up on that change.

Deceleration

This morning I weighed in at 149.8 pounds. Into the 140s at last! This puts my total weight loss since surgery at 107.2 pounds. In just a couple more pounds I will hit 147 and a BMI of 26, which I was told is the average BMI at which patients of the duodenal switch end up.

I have noticed that my weight loss seems to be decelerating, as evidenced by this graph from my SparkPeople account:

Weights from September 26, 2011 through May 20, 2012 (click for larger size)

My weight goal in SparkPeople is set at 125, to be reached on August 28, 2012. The yellow line shows what it would have looked like if I’d had consistent weight loss since my surgery to get to that goal. As you can see on the blue line of actual weigh-ins, right after surgery there was a huge weight drop, and then for awhile my weights went along roughly parallel to the yellow goal line. Now, though, they seem to be drawing steadily closer to it, indicating a slower rate of weight loss.

I don’t know if I’ll actually reach 125; this was an arbitrary goal I put in based on the mid-range of what is considered a healthy BMI for my height. And I don’t know if I’ll end up at 147, which is where I would stay if I was exactly average. I’d love to get below 141, which would push me out of “overweight” and into “normal weight” territory, but I just don’t know what’s going to happen.

I already look and feel so good that it seems like I should be almost done with my weight loss. But this process can take up to two years, and I’m only just shy of eight months out from surgery. I’m not even halfway there yet, so it won’t do to get impatient. I may yet have more weight to lose; it just might take longer than it has up until now. Based on the rate of deceleration, I should be prepared for the possibility that my actual weight loss line will cross my goal line–that I won’t reach 125 by August 28, if I reach it at all. This should not be discouraging, because the goal was arbitrary; I put it in purely for the sake of analysis, not as something I was actually striving for.

And so I am leaving my final weight in the hands of fate. I’ll do what I can do be healthy by eating right and exercising, and then I’ll see where I’ve ended up on September 25, 2013.