While I intend to primarily use this blog as a place to track my eating and exercise habits, and commiserate with other ladies (and perhaps a gent or two, one day?), it would be a fallacy to think that I could conquer this beast without addressing this issue of why I eat and live like I do. It's 'bout to get heavy for a sec, no pun intended.
My bad habits date back to my earliest memories. When I was a young, young child, I was sexually abused. I was so young that I have no real clear memories of the event; shadowy memories of a dark staircase and a peg board where paddles for beatings were hung and sharp fingernails are all I really have. It was my babysitter's father, I'm fairly sure. Frankly, I'm thankful I don't remember more. I just know something Bad happened in that house, and I started eating in secret after that. It wasn't until last year that I googled 'secret eating' and found out, quickly, it is one of the largest indicators of childhood sexual abuse...controlling food when there is no other control. I also think that somewhere in my subconscious, I knew that if I ate and got fat, no one would want to do those things to me anymore. Apparently, it worked. Those awful incidents were isolated to times before age four; unfortunate because those are possibly the most formative times, fortunate because I've had a lot of good life since then. But I've held onto the protective mechanisms I developed back then, when I didn't like myself and thought I was ugly.
Fast forward 24 years. I went to the student health center because the problem with my ankle was rendering me damn near crippled. I stepped on the scale, because that's the first stop no matter what the ailment, and the number I saw shocked me. 355 pounds, friends and neighbors. I'd like to think I wore it well, because it genuinely startled both me and the nurse practicioner...she had to check it twice because it seemed wrong, somehow. I mean, I knew I was squeeeeeezing into the biggest size Lane Bryant AKA Phat Farm offered, but I didn't have any idea that I had gotten That Fat. It was a horrifying moment I will never forget.
I decided that night to get the Lap-band surgery, and set about making that happen. $12,000, two years, and two trips to Detroit later, I couldn't be happier about the decision I've made, but it's getting hard now. The weight loss has tapered down to nothing, because I have backslid on the good habits I was forced into, at the beginning. Things inside aren't as tight as they were a year ago, and I still owe the treating hospital in Winston Salem $350, so I can't go get more saline injected into me ala Uma Thurman in Pulp Fiction. Seriously, it's an apt comparison. That part SUCKS, but at least it's over quick.
For the first nine months post-op, I lost five to seven pounds a week, mainly because I was eating no sugar and drinking no alcohol. I think the stress of my senior year of college aided in the weight loss, too. But now, I have a stress-free job (talk about dreaming the impossible dream), and I've settled into a comfortable routine that doesn't involve nearly enough exercise, and entirely too much sugar. Sugar is the fucking devil. I love it, and it. is. the. problem. I'm hooked, and I know it, but that doesn't make it any easier for me to avoid that hateful trick, Little Debbie. I do have some modicum of discipline, where I used to have none, but I find myself rationalizing foods that are purely irrational.
I want this surgery to work for me more than anything. I want to be able to fit into all the roller coasters, and go on hikes, difficulty medium, without feeling like I'm going to vomit up my lungs and shit out my kidneys. I want to walk without a limp, and I want it to feel good when I exercise. I want to make all the necessary lifestyle changes and I want them to hold. I want to weigh 165 lbs. and I want that to happen before I turn 35. I'm halfway there.
I need to get back to swimming--I was swimming roughly seven miles a week, and it was friggin awesome, but after six months, my formerly perfect skin went all rough and flaky, and my hair rebelled. So my vanity won out, and I got out of the pool. I walk now, but it's not enough, and I know it. Anybody out there have any good suggestions for skin care to counteract chlorine? Regular moisturizer isn't enough...believe me, I tried.
Phew. It felt goooooooood to say all of that. I've never publicly admitted that hefty load before.
Breakfast:
6 tbsp. homemade pimento cheese
1 serving Reduced Fat Wheat Thins
1 banana
Lunch:
1 cup Chex cinnamon cereal, dry
1 serving Oikos fat-free greek yogurt, vanilla
Snack:
1 pkg. Lance Reduced Fat PB crackers, 1 homemade lime meltaway (tiny cookie, for real)
Dinner:
(sigh) Taco Bell fiesta taco salad, sans the shell
soft taco
Water:
3 liters and counting
Exercise:
(sigh) none
So there's that. I'm taking control, I'm not going to let someone else's actions a long time ago dictate the long and happy future I have in front of me. I'm going to take responsibility for my health (and one day, kick smoking, too) Frankly, I'm way too hot and fabulous to lug all this fat around with me. It's slowing me down, and I'm not having it anymore.
xoxo
