Post-Op Week 11 Progress Report and Perspective, Part 2

I knew I would have a loss this week since last week I had a slight gain due to water retention.  I didn’t realize that the loss would be this huge, though!   I knew my fluid retention was flushed out, partially because my hormone levels calmed down near the end of the week and I felt less inclined to eat everything I saw in sight, I drank water like it was my job (well, it kind of is, I guess…) and I peed some pretty epic pees.

Hey, I keep it real around here.

Anyway, I now weigh about what I weighed my junior year of college, which was 20 years ago.  It is trippy to think about.  Also trippy is an NSV that I wasn’t expecting so soon.

The shirt I am wearing in the picture this week is a size smaller than the shirt I wore for last week’s photo.  Same shirt made by the same manufacturer purchased from the same store (Talbots Woman), just a smaller size.  I was getting dressed yesterday morning for a workshop I had to go to, and decided to wear a long-sleeved shirt since Fall weather finally arrived (hooray!  chilly mornings FTW!).  I’d ordered some long-sleeved t-shirts a size smaller than what I’d been wearing for weekends and just knocking around because I figured that by the time the weather cooled off enough for them, I’d be in that size.

I just wasn’t expecting the weather to cool down at an appropriate time.  If you have lived in Texas, then you know the weather here is incredibly unpredictable and ridiculous at times.  I mean, last year when my husband and I went to the State Fair in mid-October, it was just shy of 50 degrees that morning, but by afternoon it was well over 90 degrees.  So I wasn’t expecting actual Fall weather on the first day of you know, FALL.

But it happened.  So I pulled one of the shirts from its package and tried it on.  It fit like a glove.  I gasped and said, “Oh my goodness.”  My husband, who was still in bed, said, “What’s wrong?”

I said, “This shirt is a 2x.”  In Talbots Womanland, that’s an 18-20.

Y’all, I haven’t worn a 2x since before I graduated college.  And that was a long, long time ago (nearly 18 years).  CRAZY.  For real, y’all…it is just crazy to me.

And if you want crazy, check this out.  Here’s some real perspective for you:

On the left you see me in August 2010, 10 pounds shy of my highest adult weight. On the right is me today.  Quite a difference, no?

It is hard to believe that the women in the picture are the same exact person.  I have a tough time looking at this composite simply because I can’t believe that I let myself get to be so big, unhealthy and miserable.   I am also having a hard time believing that I am getting smaller (and hopefully healthier) and that this tool my surgeon fashioned for me is actually working for me despite my body’s best efforts to do the exact opposite thing at times.

I’m also having a hard time understanding how the new behaviors I have been taught and have been implementing have actually been effective, despite Fat Girl’s mostly futile attempts to undermine my authority as Thinner Girl working on getting healthy.  I will say this:  I do feel like each day is less of a fight, and more of an endurance race, one in which I am competing with myself.  I am a very competitive person (ask anyone who knows me) and there are times when I see this as a series of smaller races to be won, each one with a prize at the end.  Thankfully, none of those prizes are food-related, which is what Fat Girl would want.  But I think that as time goes on and the numbers on the scale continue to decrease, as the waistband of my pants gets looser and my desire to continue this path increases, Fat Girl is finally seeing that it’s my way or the highway and that she has to get on board with the changes that are coming.  It is tough acclimating her, but I’m trying.  And I’m trying to teach her, not fight her, but it’s hard.  Especially when she resists so strenuously to the changes I have made and the new behaviors I’ve been implementing.  I will admit, I have learned to compromise with her.  Here’s an example.

Today I had to go to a neighboring town to tutor a client.  Yesterday I had mentioned to my husband that I was going to stop by Rudy’s, a barbecue place in town, so that I could pick up some smoked ham.  A ham is not one of those foods that I will likely ever buy again because there is simply too much for hubby and I to eat, so it is cheaper for us to buy it already cooked from a barbecue place.   The nice thing about this is that I can buy as much or as little as I need.  Rudy’s happens to have fantastic smoked ham, and I wanted to have some for my breakfast this week with my scrambled egg that I eat nearly every school day.   Fat Girl used to eat breakfast tacos every weekday morning from Rudy’s, and misses Rudy’s quite a lot.  So I compromise with her–if I go to Rudy’s, I get one of 4 things there:  smoked ham, smoked turkey, smoked beef tenderloin or the pinto beans.  I don’t pick up the new potatoes drowned in butter or the hyperaddictive creamed corn (which I am pretty sure should just be called “diabeetus corn” because it is just THAT GOOD), or the moist brisket, which while delicious, is super fatty.  I compromise with her, because if I’m going to go there, I’m going to get things I know are conducive to my new lifestyle.  So I went, bought my 3/4 pound of ham, a 1/2 pound of tenderloin and a small order of pinto beans and went on my way.  And when I got home, I measured everything into containers to be eaten during the week.  Easy peasy.

Does this mean I’ll never eat moist brisket again (which would be a travesty)?  No.  It just means I won’t it during this stage of my weight loss.  There are a lot of things I would love to be able to eat, because Fat Girl wants them–chips, popcorn, moist brisket, pork ribs, ribeye steaks, creamed spinach, tortillas–but that just don’t fit into my plan right now.  Someday when I am in maintenance and have honed my behavioral tools so well that they are second nature, perhaps.  But right now, no.  I’m still learning my sleeve and training my brain (and by default, Fat Girl) that those things will have to wait.

I hope I can teach her patience and persistence while I’m teaching her new behaviors.  Those two things are a little tougher to teach someone.  I just hope she is a fast learner.