Bad Orange Juice!

So orange juice is not something I'm really supposed to have - my dr. doesn't like me drinking anything with calories and it has a good amount of sugar, although it's natural sugars which are a little different.  But my nut has said that I can have a little every now and then - in fact it's one of the things she suggested I have after a run.  She did suggest that I dilute it and I do sometimes.

But this morning - I woke up (still in Charleston!) and I was thirsty and I just did NOT want Kool Aid.  So I had a little bit of OJ.  Oh. My.  Goodness.  I haven't "dumped" in a long time, but I sure did this morning. Let me tell you - it's no fun.  Sweating, chills....I've been trying to think of a way to describe how my stomach feels.  Angry beavers clawing and chewing at it? Elephants stomping on it? A bulldozer tearing it up and leveling it back down? *ugh*  I actually don't "dump" that much.  I think my stomach is just really sensitive first thing in the morning.  I need to remember that.

I broke in my new bathing suit by taking Abby to the beach this weekend.  Interestingly, I didn't feel any better or more confident than I did when I was fat.  I mean - it was fine.  Just not different.  I will not be showing you a picture of me in the suit ;) - but here is the suit:

(It has a blue skirt that matches it, but I couldn't get that picture to work.  Just picture a blue skirt)

Ok, off to play with sweet Abby!

Where have I been?

Ok, I know. It's been a long time. There's been a lot going on. I haven't really talked about it very much, but I think it's time for me to go ahead and at least write about it. I feel a little weird - ok, more than a little weird, I'm petrified - about putting all of this out there, but I'm doing it for two reasons - one is for me, to help me process and to help me have a record of my journey. The second is for anyone else out there who is considering or has had the surgery - I want to be honest with you about my experiences. Not to say that everyone's experience is the same. But if you're interested in my story, I want you to hear it all - the good and the bad. So here comes a big 'ole batch of honesty. Probably more than you ever wanted.

I know - have always known - that this surgery is not a magic cure for anything. It's not a quick fix, and it doesn't make you into a different person. But knowing that in my head and really believing it are two different things. I've struggled with depression for a long time - I've been on and off medication; in and out of counseling. I've never really wanted to deal with it, so I've dealt with it as little as possible. Truly I thought that it was just because I was fat. (When the really fat guy in Austin Powers says "I eat because I'm unhappy. And I'm unhappy because I eat." I always tear up even though it's Austin Powers. Because that's how I felt.)

So when it came back about two months ago, it knocked me flat on my back.

And come back it did. It felt like an actual, literal, weight pressing down on me at all times. It makes normal life extremely difficult. Without really being able to explain it, I just have a hard time making it through each day. It's hard for me to work up the motivation or the energy to get things done and bouts of sadness will hit me out of nowhere so I just want to find a corner to curl up and cry. (Interestingly enough - and I use the word "interesting" very loosely here - I rarely actually do cry. Or if I do, for more than a minute. I used to cry a lot. I think I used up all of my tears) But because I am my mother's daughter through and through, I fake a smile and force myself to interact with people and be social.

Some other thoughts that are frequently in my head right now:

- I feel nothing but fat. Fat, fat, fat. In my head, I know that's ridiculous. That after losing 140 pounds, I should be absolutely thrilled to be able to go shopping and pick up a pair of size 12 pants. 6 months ago I would have told you that I would be. A year ago, when I was barely squeezing into my size 24s, I would not have even imagined that it was possible. But now - all I see is the smaller sizes on the racks. I still have a lot of fat and loose skin all over me and I hate it. Even in pictures, I still look like the fat girl. I have rolls of belly fat, enormous calves, and saggy arms. It's not a pretty picture.

- Still no one wants to date me. No one has so much as asked me out to dinner. Which is forcing me to confront the idea that it wasn't the fat that made me undate-able - it was just me.

- My eating habits are seriously slipping. I find myself eating more and more throughout the day and I hate myself for it. It's the same pattern I was in before surgery - I'm not hungry, I don't want it, I know I'll be upset if I eat it, but I can't seem to stop myself.

Now here's the thing. This feels like one big pity party for Sarah and, in many ways, it is. But it also feels like I'm just digging for compliments and I truly am not. (They don't really make me feel better anyway because it feels like people are saying it b/c they have to in response to my whining) It also feels like I have no right to say/feel this way because of how blessed I have been to have gone through this surgery.

I don't know for sure if these are typical post-WLS feelings or not, but I feel like they probably are. I did start seeing a counselor, but I haven't been back in a while. I'm working up the courage to go back. I'm spending a lot of time praying, which to be honest, involves a lot of me yelling at God. But he's big enough to handle it. I've considered going back on medication, and that may end up being a good choice for me. It's very hard for me to want to even deal with this, but I'm fighting.

So, there it is - honest, sappy confessions by Sarah. Now that I've put that out there, I hope to get back to more regular blogging. There's a lot going on out there in the world just waiting for me to comment on it. :)

Overestimating my running abilities

So this morning was a 3 mile group run with the training program. Let me first mention that two days ago I ran five miles - FIVE MILES - around my apt. complex. I was so excited and proud :)

This morning's 3 mile run nearly killed me. I mean, it was bad. I was slow, I felt yucky, I didn't think I was going to make it. I don't know if it's because it was so cold or I was running in the morning instead of afternoon like I usually do, or if I just felt worse about it b/c I could see how many people were running faster than me. But it made me, truly for the first time, doubt my ability to do this race. I know that I have 2 months to go. And, truly, I should be absolutely thrilled to be able to do anything close to what I'm doing considering where I was a year ago. But you know my family motto - "Good enough is never good enough".

*Ugh* LIFE. Why does it have to be so complicated?!?!

Is this day over yet?

So yesterday I ran 4.5 miles around my complex. No problem. Kept at about a 12:00 mile, which is my estimated pace for the race. I ran on the treadmill tonight - just for 30 minutes, but I increased my speed slowly to faster than I've done before. (That's what was on the training schedule for today) No problem. (And when I say no problem, please translate that as "I didn't die") Then I got off the treadmill and started walking across the gym - I was headed upstairs to do some weights. Suddenly EXCRUCIATING pain hits my knee. Out of the blue. I didn't cry (inside the gym), but it was tough. I couldn't bend my knee and I could barely, barely walk. I slowly, slowly, slowly hobbled out through the sleet to my car. By the time I got home, the pain had lessened, but not gone away. Although my knee has been giving me some problems, this kind of pain has only happened once before. I've bought a brace and I'm wearing it now. I think I'm going to have to go see someone about this knee issue, but I have no idea who to go see about it. I think I'll ask a trainer either at the gym or at my training run on Sat.

Being 31 - ahhhh!

I am not and will not do a sappy reflection on how different my 31st birthday was from my 30th. Because that's just not how I roll. But I will say this - I know I'm different than I was last year, and I got more love and attention for my birthday yesterday than I would have thought possible. I'm clearly in a different place with the people around me, especially at work. To be completely honest with you, it was a bit overwhelming. I'm not terribly shy but I think I'm glad birthdays only come once a year :)

I also decided that since it was my birthday I could eat whatever I wanted all day long. And I did. MISTAKE, Sarah. I'm not going to go into what I ate - because I'm embarassed, and because that's not what I do, and a lot because I don't want to be reprimanded - but I ate basically throughout the day. I didn't get sick or dump or anything, but I did feel generally yucky. And it didn't really help me enjoy my birthday. NOTE TO SELF: Find other ways to celebrate your birthday. :)

So this morning was my first run in the YMCA 10k training program. (They ran last week, but I was in Charleston. Luckily for me, too, because apparently it was 7 degrees last week. SEVEN. This week it was 52. Much more acceptable) We did 2.5 miles today and I did fine, although my knee was bothering me some at the end. I stayed somewhere in the middle of the huge group (there were like 200 people there!). I definitely got passed a lot, but I passed some people, too - mostly walkers. :) They put us into groups based on our projected finish time. I signed up for a wave that finishes in about 70-75 minutes - about a 12:00 mile. That was the fastest group at the training this morning, which is scary. (I'm signed up for the novice runner group - there are some run/walkers - there's also a walkers group and an intermediate group) I hope I'm not in over my head here. I definitely felt like the fat girl that everyone was looking at going, "Seriously? What is she thinking?" It may not be true, but that doesn't stop me from feeling that way!

I also picked up my schedule for the next 9 weeks and surprisingly enough, the most it ever has us running in training is 6 miles, which it only has us do once two weeks before the race. Then it backs the mileage down until the day of the race, which is 6.2 miles. Does this strike anyone else as odd?

Some thoughts from the head of me!

I met with my nut, Pam, again today. She was pleased with how I've been doing and even said that she thought she was too hard on me last time. (She wasn't, by the way - I needed to hear it. I honestly had thought I was doing ok but I wasn't) She gave me a lot of new helpful suggestions. *note here - none of these suggestions were for foods that I hate followed by "just try it". This was my old nut's way. This is why I no longer see her* She's very sweet and non-judgemental, which makes it easier for me to be as honest with her as I can, which makes it easier for her to help me. So it's good all around. I told her today that I worried that I never hear from anyone else who is not completely in love with their WLS. I tend to be pretty honest about admitting my doubts and frustrations about my surgery. And she told me that there are other people who feel that way, they just don't go to support groups and follow up appointments like I do. So that made me feel good. I'm going to keep fighting for this!

I'm still so tired it's almost dangerous for me to drive, but I went to bed earlier last night and I'm headed that way tonight as well. I need to give this "getting enough sleep" thing a legitimate shot. ;)

A Busy Weekend

I've been doing much better these past 2 weeks with my food choices and I hope when I go back to see Pam (my nutritionist) tomorrow that she'll be pleased. I know the weight has been coming off faster, although the last few days it's slowed down again some. I'm working on being ok with that :)

My big complaint at the moment is that I'm SOOOO tired. All the time. I just can't seem to shake it. I feel asleep at my desk on Wednesday and I feel like I crash every chance I get. I don't know if I'm a little sick, if I'm not getting enough sleep, or if I'm missing some vitamin or something that I need. I don't want to jump to conclusions or be paranoid about it, but I'm tempted to call Dr. Elliot and ask him to go ahead and do my bloodwork just to check. He said he would do it at 6 months, which would be January. Maybe this week I'll just focus on getting to bed early and see if that helps.

Great Beach Retreat

(This was part of a longer post about my weekend at a beach retreat with my Sunday School class)

I haven't posted about my meeting with Pam, the nutritionist, last Tuesday. But we're talking about changing a lot of things about the way I eat and I've been working pretty hard at it. I did pretty well this weekend. I took some things to eat/drink, but tried not to make a big deal out of it. I told some people about the surgery when it came up, but not everyone. I really don't mind talking about it, but I don't want people to feel like they have to listen to me go on about it, know what I mean? Sat. afternoon I did get sick and that was pretty miserable - especially since all of the bathrooms were occupied by people showering after an afternoon at the beach.

Tired and Whiny

A kid at school asked me if I was pregnant today. Awesome.

I'm having a really hard time getting my head around this whole new-way-of-eating thing. Which is frustrating to me b/c I spent a lot of time getting ready for it and knew what I was getting into. Fully. But I get so irritated that I have to think so much about what I have to eat, and I never feel like eating when I should, or then I get really hungry but I don't feel like fixing anything so I just mope around and get grumpier. Then I get frustrated and start chastising myself, which makes me defensive (with myself, naturally, because this is a normal thing) and even more irritable and want to do/eat something I'm not supposed to just to prove that "I can". To myself. (picture Napoleon Dynamite saying "idiot!" here)

To top it off, I'm just not feeling good. Not sick - nothing that I should actually complain about. Just tired, with frequent feelings of nausea and light-headedness. Plus the whole grumpier-than-Oscar-the-Grouch thing. Maybe I'm PMSing. That would actually be great, because then I would have a reason and know it will be over soon.

To be fair, I had a lot of these same feelings about eating before surgery. But then I would just order a pizza or go to McDonalds to resolve it, and those are not viable options now. Which is good, because that's why I ended up in this position in the first place. But I need to find another way to resolve it. And it has to be one that makes me happy when I'm this irritable, and that's no easy task. As anyone who knows me well knows, once I get into a grumpy-funk pretty much everything just makes it worse. A lot of times, honestly, I just have to take a nap and sleep it off.

Back to Real Life

I continue to be frustrated with my weight loss. I'm losing about 2 pounds a week, which is actually pretty good weight loss if I was doing Weight Watchers. However, one of the reasons that I chose this particular surgery is that I'm impatient. And it's a lot harder than WW. So it should be coming off faster. I'm trying not to get too frustrated and be patient, but it's hard. I'm eating real food now, which I love, but it comes with some challenges of its own. While in Charleston, I ate things that I'm allowed to eat, but I didn't make the best choices I could possibly make. Does that make sense? I didn't cheat, per se, but I could have done better. Another hard thing was eating slowly when I was with my family. I got food stuck after a lot of meals, which isn't fun. I actually threw up on the street in Charleston, which was totally embarassing. It just came out of nowhere.

That was yesterday, and food hasn't been sitting very well since. It's weird - I get hungry and then as soon as I get to the point where I'm going to eat, I don't want to eat it at all. Tonight I went over to a friend's house and I ate some chicken - just a little bit of chicken breast on the grill. I've been eating chicken for a long time now! But boy did I pay for it tonight. I was back and forth to the bathroom. I threw up 4 times, which is unheard of for me. I couldn't imagine that there was anything left in there to throw up! I had my papaya pills, and they helped some but it finally just took time. I have no idea why it happened - the only thing I can figure is that the chicken was too dry. (Not an insult to the cook, by the way!) They were cooking with barbeque sauce, and made mine without it b/c of the sugar in bbq. He seasoned it - it tasted good! - but maybe I need to make sure there's something giving it more moisture. Who knows.

Here's a little warning, which is going to contain TMI, so feel free to skip:
After surgery, pay attention to your poop. If you haven't gone for a few days, you're going to want to take some fiber or something. Don't just not pay attention and ignore it. Because eventually, it's going to want to come out. And it's going to hurt.

Hello from Lynchburg!`

So I've had a few intervals of feeling better this weekend, but for the most part the nausea/pain continues to stay with me. Sometimes it's bad, others not so much. Yesterday while my dad and I were at the mall, it hit me badly and suddenly so I made him leave. It had been about 4 hourse since lunch, so I can't imagine that it was something I ate.... I've been off the Actigall for almost a week now. I'll call my dr. either today or tomorrow and report back in on how that hasn't helped and see what they say. I'm also allowed to start eating real food today! Hooray!!!!!!!!

Emotionally, I'm a bit of a mess as well. Yesterday I went to church with my parents and they were having communion. At their church, the bread is actually homeade white bread cut up into small cubes (less than 1"). They use grape juice. Neither of these are things I'm supposed to have - however, I figured the grape juice in such a small quantity wouldn't have enough sugar to hurt me and that would be ok. The bread, however, I wasn't so sure about. Bread - especially soft, white bread - can get gummed up and stuck in the opening leading out of my pouch. So I figured I was going to have to pass on that, at least for now. My mom assured me that God would understand :) And I knew he would, but it sent me over the edge anyway. I had a moment of "As if I didn't feel different enough being fat and single at 30, and not being able to get the weight off without surgery, then I can't eat what everyone else can and now I can't I even do communion!" I left church, went to the bathroom and cried and cried and cried. Eventually my mom came to check on me, which made me cry some more. So I left and went home.

If you're not, or never have been fat, there's a lot of things about it that you've probably never thought of or wouldn't understand. One of the things that struck me this weekend is how I hate going places in Lynchburg, like their church - where I grew up- with my parents. Because they always introduce me to people and I feel like they must be embarassed to say "This is my daughter." I'm fat, single, and haven't done anything really exciting - I'm not a doctor or a missionary. I'm not really very interesting at all. (So why are you reading this? ;) ) Of course, my parents absolutely deny feeling this way - and they may not. But it's still how I feel every time I get introduced. It's the same way I feel running into people I knew from growing up. "Well, here I am. I haven't really done such a good job of growing up, huh?"

I know, it seems like I'm just having a pity party for myself and doing some whining here - and let's be honest, I am. But I'm just trying to "let people in" to the mind of an overweight person. It's amazing how it affects anything and everything that you do. I'll share some more fat secrets with you another day :) - like how I come up with excuses to avoid trips to amusement parks because I won't fit on any of the fun rides.

As usual, I've gone on too long here. Happy first full week of August everyone!