Category Archives: NSV’s

Post-Op Week 108: Surgery Again…

If ever there was a week for my insurance company to make money off of me, last week was it.  Of course this week is looking pretty good too since my gallbladder surgery is tomorrow.  Thankfully, it’s only a day surgery so I should be home tomorrow afternoon if all goes well.  My surgeon (another doctor in my bariatric surgeon’s office) seems to think it will be fine.

I had all manner of doctors’ appointments last week, some of which were routine maintenance, and some of which were prep for surgery.

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Post-Op Week 67 Progress Report: Injuries and the Thigh Gap

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Slowly headed back down toward my lowest adult weight again this week.  I’m not stressing about the scale this week because I took measurements today and I’m down another 6 3/8 inches all around for a total of nearly 125 inches lost.  So I guess when people say ‘you are really tiny,’ I really AM tiny.  I have a tough time conceptualizing this about myself because I’ve never been small.  And now I am.  It’s trippy.

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Post-Op Week 64 Progress Report: New Workouts

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Not surprised by the slight gain this week–it is nearly that time of the month again, and this is par for the course for me and my body.

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So Much More Than a Winter Coat

This happened today:

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Last week, I’d put out a call to my peeps online asking where to buy a winter coat.  I knew that I would need one, as the two winter coats I currently have in my possession are 4 and 6 sizes too big for me, respectively.  My requirements for a winter coat were that it had to have a hood, a zip out liner, be long enough to cover my butt, and be water repellent if possible (this was not an absolute necessity).

So today we had gone to the mall so that I could drop off my recyclables at Kiehl’s (and pick up some more body butter; theirs is awesome).  At this particular mall, it is easiest to go through Nordstrom to get to the Kiehl’s, so we did.  I stopped to browse in the women’s section because I just wanted to look around.  I picked out a couple of long-sleeved blouses to try on, which fit and looked great so I decided to get them since it was triple points day (!!!!).  Then I saw The Coat.

I was not expecting to buy a coat today.  I wasn’t expecting this one to fit.  It was a misses size large, and I’ve been wearing extra large in my shirts and sweaters because that is what fits.  I looked through all the coats on the rack and no extra large was to be found, so I was a bit disappointed.  I kept looking at the coat thinking the shoulders would not be wide enough for me.

My husband, ever helpful and optimistic, said, “Try it on.”

I said, “I don’t think the shoulders will fit.”

He nudged gently and said, “Just try it.”

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Achievement Unlocked: Sitting in an Airplane Seat

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Achievement unlocked:  fitting into an airplane seat and not needing a seatbelt extender. 

This is a big deal.

The last time I flew on a plane (American Airlines from SEA to DFW, BTW), I had to buy an extra seat, use a seatbelt extender, AND the seatbelt extender was just barely long enough to buckle me in.  It made for a very, very uncomfortable flight in more ways than one.  It was pretty much the worst travel experience of my whole life, which I’ll write about another time.

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What Liberation Looks Like To Me Today

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I’d made a to-do list for today, and at the top of it was giving my new running shoes a go at the gym.  That was moderately successful.  I tweaked my left knee and aggravated a decades-old knee injury, so there won’t be any running for me in the foreseeable future.

Second on that list was to call each of the credit card companies that I had accounts with for stores that sold plus-sized clothing so that I could close the accounts.  I sat and called each one, methodically, systematically, and with great cheer closed each account.

As I closed each one, I felt a weight being lifted from my shoulders.  It also felt a bit like slash-and-burn clear-cutting of a field.  And I suppose it sort of is, in a way:  I made way both literally and metaphorically for new clothing choices by shedding the keys to the stores that for so long were my only choice for clothing.

And now that I can wear an XL in misses clothing, the possibilities for me to look pretty freakin’ awesome are wide open.

Anniversary

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My husband and I went to the hospital where I had my surgery last year and tried to recreate the photograph we took before I went in for my surgery. I didn’t keep the outfit I wore to the hospital, so I chose something that was pretty darn close.

Today is a pretty important day in my life.  A year ago at this time, I was recovering from my sleeve surgery.

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Oh, You Know, It’s The “Two Legs in One Leg of the Pants” Photo. NBD.

So this happened.

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Ignore my Mexi-fro. It was really humid here today as it rained all morning, and my hair needs to be cut.

These are the shorts I wore at my heaviest weight.  And they were tight then.

I’d purposely kept them when I started this path because I wanted a stark reminder of where I started.  I never wanted to forget where I came from.

Tonight I got to thinking, I wonder if I can do that thing where you put both legs inside the one leg of a pair of pants?  So I dug up the shorts, and gave it a try.

I felt the catch in my throat when I was able to pull the single leg up over both my thighs.  I thought, no way…holy shit, I was this big?  What in the hell?  How?

I didn’t think I’d ever be able to do this.

Yet here I am:  two legs in one pants leg.  With room.

54 pounds from my goal and chugging toward maintenance.

I got this.

 

Post-Op Week 48 Progress Report: In Which I am Too Small For Lane Bryant

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Not surprised by this week’s progress, as it follows the pattern I have come to know over the last few months.  I have made a few tweaks to my program in the past two weeks and I think they are paying off.  Continue reading

You Know You’ve Lost a Lot of Weight When…

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  • People continually tell you that you are “wasting away to nothing.”
  • You are told pretty much every day that you look great.  Especially by people who didn’t pay you much attention before.
  • Your husband has a tough time picking you out of a crowd because now you look like everyone else.
  • You have to work even harder at the gym to achieve the same burn that you got when you were 50 pounds heavier.
  • Men who are not your husband check you out.
  • Men who are not your husband open doors for you.
  • You now wear a smaller bra than you wore when you first started wearing them as a kid.
  • You complain about your clothes not fitting properly now, not because they’re too small, but because they’re too big.
  • You find that getting dressed every day is a challenge only because you now own so many cute clothes that it’s hard to pick which outfit to wear.

And finally…you know you’ve lost a lot of weight when:

  • Your own doctors don’t recognize you.  Today on the way to my support group meeting, I ran into the doctor who did my last two followup appointments, and he flat out did not recognize me.  He gushed about how great I looked and couldn’t stop saying WOW.  Before we parted ways, he asked me how much I’d lost to date, and I told him and he pumped his fist in the air.  I told him I’d see him in July at my 1-year follow up.

Hopefully by then I’ll have at least another 10 pounds off and be inching my way down to my goal.  I’m already at 70% EWL and aiming for 90%.  To get to 90%, I need to lose 50 more pounds, which puts me squarely in my desired weight range.

Summer is coming, and this will be the summer of kicking ass.