Category Archives: the little things

Post-Op Week 94: Going to the Prom

I won’t lie, I didn’t take a picture this week in my usual outfit.  I am also up this week.  Way up.  I know what I did–grazed, and ate way more than I should have.  I’ll pick up again next week and take care of business.

Next week will be better.  It has to be.  I did decide this week to continue on with more vegetables and fruits since I like the way I feel when I eat them.  So today I had calabacitas (zucchini, corn and garlic cooked in a chicken broth with a little cheese), grapes, a mandarin orange, a green salad with strawberries and almonds, and some hummus on red leaf lettuce.  Tomorrow I’m having almost the same stuff, just adding carrot chips to the mix.

So anyway…

Saturday night, my school had its senior prom.  I’d chaperoned it before, and decided that I would do it again.  The group of seniors that I teach this year  and I are pretty close.  I adore all of them, even the difficult ones, and so I wanted to share this milestone with them.

Not gonna lie, I was stylin’.

Continue reading

Post-Op Week 92: Craving Veggies

image

Plodding along this week.  I ate more veggies this week, and liked how I felt afterward so I decided to go veggie heavy this week.  I think the extra fiber will also be good for me–hell, I know it will be.  I’m learning to listen more to what my body feels like having, and this week it really wanted more veggies.

Continue reading

My Body, My House

I did some maintenance on my house tonight.  Went back to the gym and rode the bike on a hills program for 45 minutes and then (likely to the chagrin of my ortho guy) did light leg weights and some upper body.  It felt good.

I think from now on, I will try to remember that my body is the house I grew up in.  I need to take better care of it since it’s the house I’m going to live in the rest of my life.

Post-Op Week 66 Progress Report: Achievement Unlocked–Misses Size Pants

image This week saw me lose most of the gain I had last week.  How, I don’t know.   This was a good week for the most part, though.
Continue reading

Anniversary

image

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.

Continue reading

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

image

  • 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.

Post-Op Week 40 Progress Report: New Goals and A Tiny Pony

image

This week’s progress was unexpectedly great.  I dropped a huge amount of weight, which I was not expecting to do given that I was retaining water all week long.  I skipped the gym this week, which happened because I wasn’t feelin’ it, and had a lot going on at work.  Instead, I did a lot of sitting on the balance ball while watching tv/working at my desk here at home.  Basically, if I was going to sit for more than 30 minutes, I made myself sit on the ball and try to stay on in an upright position.  It must have worked!  I am now only 13 pounds from my surgeon’s goal, which I am positive I can hit before school is out in June.  I am amazed that I am within striking distance of Dr. Nicholson’s expectation.  By the time my one-year follow-up appointment in July happens, I fully expect to have exceeded his expectation for my weight loss.

It should also be noted that in this picture, I am wearing smaller shorts and a smaller shirt.

Continue reading

What Shedding Clothes Looks Like, WLS Edition

Seventeen shopping bags packed full of clothes I can no longer wear left my home today for Goodwill.  I haven’t outgrown them; they outgrew me.  Or is it more apropos to say I shrank out of them?  Either way, there was no need to keep them around.
image

I hope another plus-sized woman or girl comes across them while she’s poppin’ tags and can use them.

I didn’t think they’d all fit in my Beetle.  I made them fit.  I was determined.  Because dammit, I wanted those clothes out of my house.  

image

This is what the feeling of freedom looks like to me today:  shedding all these clothes as my body has shed 154 pounds and tries to settle into the body I’ve always been meant to have.

This feels AWESOME.

“Fat” Clothes

Today was a snow day for us, as sleet fell nearly all day yesterday and temps didn’t get out of the 20’s all day.  This made for nearly an inch of ice on the ground and roads, making it dangerous for anyone to drive, much less kids and school buses.  So no school today.

I slept in a little, had a leisurely breakfast, and then puttered around a bit.  I made a jambalaya for the crockpot (which turned out awesome–I will share the recipe later in the week), and did a little grading (not as much as I’d liked, but some is better than none).  I did a little reading on the OH VSG boards, and saw that someone who was pre-op had asked a question about how folks have dealt with their clothing sizes changing constantly post-op.  Several people had offered her suggestions about how to handle the rapidly changing sizes she’ll be dealing with, many of which were good.

Then midway through the thread she asked the question,

What do you do with your fat clothes?

I know she was referring to plus-sized clothing.  Certainly she meant “one’s larger clothes.”  Certainly.  She had to be.

But I am pretty sure she didn’t mean it that way.

Continue reading

7 Months Post-Op, By The Numbers

image

Today marks 7 months post-op.

In that time, I’ve gone down 6 shirt sizes.

Next month, I’ll be participating in my first 5K race.

During 2014, I’m planning on participating in at least 4 such races.

I used to take 3 different medications each day to manage different health conditions.

I have gotten rid of 2 comorbidities (type 2 diabetes and high blood pressure).

And I am 1 thankful and grateful girl.