Post-Op Week 63 Progress Report: Legs

This week’s progress is surprising.  I didn’t expect to lose this much!  Guess I am finally off the plateau I was on for so long.  Perhaps it is all the stairs I now take, or the fact that I’ve changed my supplementation a bit (I now take a potassium tablet and have increased my magnesium intake), or the fact that I walk so much more each day, and that when I walk, I walk very fast.

Having a teaching partner in a completely different part of the building helps since his classroom is so far away from mine, and I go there every day.  We work in a building of nearly 1 million square feet, and his classroom is not anywhere close to mine–it is quite a hike to get there.  It also helps that if we are walking together in the building, he walks fast so I have to keep up with him–and thankfully, I can!  A year ago, I would not have been able to.  I have also been good to take the stairs every day, multiple times a day so that has been good for me as well.  Bonus:  I’m not winded at the top of the stairs!  I can actually bound up the stairs now!

The swimming has been good so far, and this week I am going to make sure I get to the pool Thursday night since my WL support group no longer meets then and I’m substituting the exercise for the group.  I miss my group, though…this negotiation of post-op life without the things I learned each week from them has been tough. 

I am starting to rethink my end weight loss goal, and I think part of it is because I don’t know if I can reasonably get there or not.  Part of it is the fatigue associated with having walked this path for so long that I’m ready for an end in sight.  I’m still learning how to handle life in this new body–physically, emotionally, and mentally.  The physical adjustments have become easier, but the mental and emotional adjustments have not been easy and continue to be difficult.  This is where my group would be most helpful, but I don’t have that as a choice for support any more and it is frustrating. 

I also have not seen my therapist in two weeks, and won’t see her for another two as I have other commitments at the time I would normally go that conflict with my usual appointment.  Maybe I will try to sneak in a session on another night or a virtual Facetime session–we have done that before.  Either way, I have some psychic stuff that needs cleared from my head because I feel very stifled and stuck right now and I don’t like it.

I’m hopeful I will make my year-end goal (to be under 200 pounds) as it is only 12 pounds away.  I think the swimming will help for sure.  Plus swimming will reduce my stress levels because I feel totally chill and at ease in the water.  And no stress = happy me.  Perhaps swimming will be a new therapy supplement for me–it’s cheap ($130 a year for the rec center membership), good exercise, and it calms me down.  I think it’s a win all the way around.

I was out yesterday in a fitting room and decided to snap these photos of my legs.  These are my “I was morbidly obese for the better part of 40 years and worked jobs for 20 years that required me to stand all day” legs.  Twisted, knotted varicose veins popping out from between the sheets of muscle forming from all the walking and stair climbing.  Discolored from having had diabetes for a decade, and scarred from the multiple bug bites gotten as a child that I scratched until they bled.

These are the legs of a woman who’s lost nearly 230 pounds.

This is what they look like afterward.  They’re not pretty and they’re not perfect, but they’re mine.  They get me where I want to go each day, and they help prop me up on the regular.

I fear no pair of shorts or knee high skirt.  These are my legs, and I’ll bare them if I want to.  They may not be gorgeous and smooth, but they are utilitarian and do the job they were meant for.  That’s all I can ask for, and it is what I’m grateful for.