WOW!

I have so much I want to say, and I have pictures to post, but everything in my life is so hectic lately. One of the big side effects of losing stacks of weight is that you suddenly have more energy, confidence and enthusiasm for life, and as such you find that you lack the time to do the things you used to do in abundance - like sit around, eat, watch TV, and blog!

Really I couldn’t be happier with how the last year has gone. Sure, I’ve made a lot of mistakes, and the last few months have pretty much been a write-off with regard to eating habits. But I’ve lost 93 lbs in a year, and I’ve turned my entire life around.

A few comparisons:

A year ago…

I couldn’t hold down a job to save my life.

Now…

I am so motivated by my job that I can hardly believe it! Sure I’ve only been there 9 weeks or so, but in that time I’ve formed friendships and proven my worth as an employee!

A year ago…

I spent 14 hours a day doing nothing. The other ten I slept.

Now…

I sleep around 7 - 8 hours per night, work 8.5 hours a day, and commute for around 3 hours a day PLUS fill my spare time with going to the gym, rehearsing for the play I have been cast in for this summer (I KNOW! I’ll be on stage!! And not feel like the ugly fat chick!!), and occasionally following artistic pursuits.

A year ago…

I ate around 4000 calories per day, mostly made up of crisps, chocolate and ice cream, with a few cookies thrown in for good measure.

Now…

I eat around 1000 - 1200 calories per day made up of a lot of protein. Yes, I’m struggling currently with a minor junk food addiction, but it’s not nearly as bad as it used to be. And I believe in myself that I will get it under control NOW.

A year ago…

I couldn’t and wouldn’t walk to the town centre, instead taking a bus. And even then I begrudged the 2 minute walk to the bus stop at the end of the road.

Now…

Not only do I walk to town when I need to go, but I also walk several miles a day to and from work and the train station, most of it through rough forest. And I CHERISH these walks.

A year ago…

I was incredibly depressed and suicidal wishing that everything would change.

Now…

I am satisfied, if not ecstatic, and I AM the change I want to see.

There is so much more I want to say, and tomorrow I have a very long day travelling for work and doing training sessions and then play practice in the evening. But I wanted to say SOMETHING to document this amazing occasion.

If you are reading this, and you’re considering the gastric sleeve, or ANY bariatric surgery, all I can say is that I HIGHLY encourage it. I can’t recommend it enough for turning your life around.

Of course, it might have something to do with the ridiculous amount of calories I’m eating these days. From the time I started my new job back in March, it has been constant temptation. Colleagues bring in cookies, brownies, candies and soda. Our receptionist makes daily afternoon trips to the grocery store, taking orders and baiting people into letting her buy them chocolate and caffeine! And several co-workers will pop into Southampton or Winchester at lunch and bring back Subway or other such takeaway fare. It is EVERYWHERE.

But of course, at the end of the day, it is all down to the personal choices I make. I’m the one who eats the cookies, orders up a full size Yorkie bar and submits to the will of Dr Pepper. I could (and should!) just say no. Perhaps if I was still overweight, I even WOULD say no. But the truth is that getting so close to my goal weight has made me lazy and stupid. Sure I still have 20 pounds to lose before I even approach happiness. But the reality of the situation is that I actually am quite a normal weight these days. And I’m not even the biggest girl in the room anymore.

Knowing this has given me not only feelings of power and excitement… but it’s also given me an excuse to let loose on the junk food. *sigh*

I do have a solution, though. Having seen things like the 5 day Pouch Test online, I realised that I really do need to get my eating under control. And since the one and only time in my life I was able to do that was after my surgery, I have decided to take away the option of food for a while and once again go liquid only before slowly reintroducing “good” food.

For the next two weeks, I’ll be partaking of Slim Fast shakes as my sole sustenance. I will be adding a bit of protein powder into them to give me a bit of extra oomph, but mostly it is going to be me and four shakes a day. After a few days, I will be introducing some of the Slim Fast bars, just so I have something to chew! And I’ve got some frozen fruit that I am going to make into fruit smoothies after a while. Just to keep things interesting!

Now I know that doing this may make me a bit of a saddo, and I may even be judged by my WLS peers. I don’t want to fall into gimmicky diets again, yo-yoing around like so many times before. That said, I need to do SOMETHING. I had this life-changing surgery nearly a year ago, and I feel right now as though I’m wasting it.

Luckily for me, I haven’t put on more weight. I’ve been fairly stable at 165 lbs for several weeks. But I want MORE for myself.

To that end, I’ve rejoined the gym. The first week I went whole-hog, and I was quite pleased. Then I decided to start using their tanning beds, and I wound up with a terrible sunburn which put me out of commission. Once that went away, I took my very first Body Balance class (yoga, pilates and tai chi, all mixed together for one amazing workout!) which DECIMATED me. I was sore for a week! And then I got lazy. Got stressed. Got bored.

But today, after deciding NOT to go to the gym, but instead to enjoy the rest of my weekend in peace, I suddenly realised that I WANTED to go. So I grabbed my sick husband (poor darling has a terrible cold) and forced him to drive me to the gym, where both of us did a nice workout.  And you know what?

I FEEL GREAT!

I did the Power Plates! I used SEVERAL resistance machines. I went on the cross trainer. And the most amazing thing of all…. I RAN! I ran for 5 minutes on the treadmill. Sure it’s not much, but it’s the first time EVER that I’ve tried running at the gym. In the past, I would be far too scared. Granted, at one point I nearly fell over, which my husband thought was hilarious from his vantage point on an exercise bike in front of me. But still… I ran. Proper running. 8 miles per hour! And when I thought I couldn’t take any more, I slowed down. But once my heart rate returned to normal, I once again ran!

I can’t tell you how exciting it is when you realise for the first time what it is to truly PUSH yourself. It is an amazing feeling that I can’t describe.

After my workout, I was in the hallway awaiting my husband to finish. I was in my skimpy little workout outfit, covered in sweat and beet red, huffing and puffing. I was staring through a window into the swimming pool, when I noticed a reflection behind me. One of the fitness instructors was walking behind me, and he totally checked me out!!! *swoon*

This has been happening a lot lately. I’ve noticed men looking at me and smiling or even coming over to talk. I was told on Friday that two of my colleagues have crushes on me! I actually feel attractive. It’s something I never thought to feel again.

I’m growing in confidence, but unless I want to start growing wide again, I need to get my life under control. No more giving in to cravings. No more slacking on exercise. No more making excuses.

My life is my own, and I have to own my actions.

I’ll let you all know how it goes!

But for some odd reason, I’ve been blinkered when it comes to this site. Part of it is that my job is 45 minutes away, and so with being away hours a day, plus travel each way, plus going to the gym after work, plus cooking dinner and spending time with my husband… I just have no desire to be online, even if it would do me a world of good!

The other part is sillier but nevertheless a problem. Recently my sister-in-law’s boyfriend gave me a free Blackberry. This is GREAT news, as it is so convenient. I can check my mail, update facebook and twitter, and use it as a PDA. But while this has made my life much easier, it’s also meant that there’s very little need to go and get on my laptop. And without the laptop, I don’t update this site!

So I’ve realised I’m simply going to have to make more time for updating. There’s a lot going on that needs blogged about, and all of the work I’ve been putting in to my health and wellness is going to go unnoticed if I don’t.

So to make a long story short - I’ve fallen off the wagon BIG time where food is concerned. Cookies, chocolates, candy, Dr Pepper, milky teas and coffees full of sugar…. I don’t know where it all came from, but I’ve certainly been indulging myself, and I regret it pretty immediately.

But as previously mentioned, I’ve ALSO joined a gym. And while it’s taking time to build up a routine, I was very excited on Tuesday when I took my first class!

It is called Body Balance, and it’s a mixture of yoga, pilates and Tai Chi. No equipment is used other than our bodies, and the instructor was a real hippy lady. I was the only newbie there, but I didn’t mind. I did every single pose put to us, including the “advanced” ones. I may not have done them perfectly, but I gave them a try at the least. Since then, I’ve been sore in places I didn’t even know existed! My stomach and core are in agony, and it feels great! Knowing that I’ve got a genuinely GOOD workout was just amazing. I can’t wait to take another class, which will be tomorrow morning. :) It’s a different instructor, but I am still thinking it’ll be great.

Rather annoyingly, I’m feeling slightly ugly at the moment due to my own stupidity. I decided that I was tired of being pasty white and looking like a ghost, so I thought I’d use the tanning facilities at the gym. I know it’s not the most healthy option, but fake tan doesn’t work on me since I have severely dry skin, and even the lotions with touch of fake tan looks hideous and streaky on me.

So I was told to start with 3 minutes for a while and then build up to more. After my first session, I didn’t notice any chance, so I went for 6 minutes the next time. HOLY SUNBURN, BATMAN!

My skin was lobster red, and I couldn’t sleep on it for three days! Over the next week, it became incredibly itchy and uncomfortable. And in the last three days, it’s begun to flake off in terrible ways. Obviously I’ve stopped tanning for now so as not to make it worse, and I’ve been using exfoliators and tons of aloe vera gel in the hope of making it better.

While this hasn’t put me off tanning (maybe I’m a glutton for punishment?), it has DEFINITELY made me take heed of the build up slowly mantra. ;)

Other than that, I’m very pleased with my body at the moment. Certainly there have been some changes lately - some for the better and some for the worse. Weight loss has stabilised in the mid-160s, but I’ve got a lot more saggy skin on my stomach and inner thighs than I have had. I’m not sure if this is because my body is losing fat or because my terrible diet of late is actually putting fat on! It’s a hard one! BUT - my legs are becoming more shapely. I’m seeing defined muscle tone in my calves, thighs and knees, as well as in my biceps and triceps. It’s nice to feel like exercise is giving me some positive changes.

The biggest thing right now is my mentality. My husband has gone on a weekend stag party for his best friend, and both of us have agreed that on Monday we are going to get our acts together and REALLY go for clean living. This means NO junk food, NO fizzy liquids and LOTS of exercise. And both of us are really looking forward to it.

However, I have three days between now and then, and the urge is to indulge in that fabled last supper syndrome. Oh noes! I’ve bought cookies, crisps, soda, chocolate eclairs and a pizza in anticipation of having one wild weekend before giving it all up again. But I KNOW this is a bad idea. I KNOW I shouldn’t do this, as I’ve done it a MILLION times before… when I was FAT.

But I tell myself that if I can just get all the junk out of my system once and for all, I’ll be happy. Even though I know this isn’t true.

*sigh*

See - I knew I should be updating more often. If I did then maybe someone would help me save me from myself!

For now, I have some thinking to do.

I am sitting at my desk at work right now, in severe discomfort and feeling like a prize turkey. After dealing with being diagnosed as diabetic, only to have that reversed recently and told that I have reactive hypoglycaemia, one would think that I would be smarter about the levels of sugar and carbs I put in my body.

But the half eaten packet of Gum Drops and the taffy wrappers that litter my work space are clear proof that I do not take proper care of myself. Sure there’s the small lunch I had of three cheddar crackers with mushy egg yolk piled on. A lunch to be proud of, I’d think, as it’s chock full of protein but balanced as far as nutrients.  But this does not eradicate the excessive sugar consumption of my morning.

Because I am on a high dose of Metformin (1500 mg per day), I often use this as an excuse for an ability to digest higher quantities of sugar than I might otherwise be allowed.

In truth, it is all bollocks.

I am a disgrace to myself, and it kills me to know how low I constantly let myself fall.

Right now I am experiencing that particular brand of punishment that comes to the WLS survivor that has overindulged. I’ve suddenly been overcome by a wave of nausea, dizziness, EXTREME fatigue, and a running (in truth, SPRINTING) nose!  As a VSG patient, I’m assured that dumping syndrome is not probable. But this is as close as I get.

I’ve only experienced this horrific feeling twice before, both times from overindulging in the same sort of behaviour. You’d think I’d learn. Sadly I have not begun to get it under control, and I fear for what may happen down the road if I do not. My weight is stable at 168 lbs, down 90 pounds from my highest weight.

But to be happy, I still have another 30 lbs to go, which is not likely to happen if I don’t curb my appetite for the poisons of candy and ice cream!

For now I can merely hope that this is another lesson learned. I’ve already given my gum drops to the pregnant girl across from me, and the painful stomach cramps are subsiding to be replaced with a genuine thirst the likes of which I’ve not experienced in years.

I know that the rest of my afternoon will be difficult with trying to stay awake and not to vomit in my bin. I am certain to run to the toilet several times in the next two hours, and I can only hope I don’t get a reputation as the lazy girl who is always in the loo.

Wake up, Katie. You will no longer be The Incredible Shrinking Me if this behaviour does not STOP. You had surgery for a reason. You are easily tempted and the only way to stop is to STOP. For good this time.

Do not disappoint me.

There’s something that I notice everywhere I go – other women.

No, I’m not changing my sexual orientation. I simply have become hyper-aware of the bodies of the women around me. When I was fat, I noticed all of the thin women that surrounded me. I was always convinced that I was the biggest gal in any room. I was the fattest chick walking into the bakery. I was the heaviest heifer in the fashion shop.

To some extent, I still feel this way. Whereas my formerly size 22/24 self could never find my size in a clothing store, I now have the same problem finding sizes 12/14. It seems to be always sold out. The reason? It’s an AVERAGE size.

I’m average.

Of course, that’s a GREAT thing to be when it comes to weight. I never wanted to be the skinniest girl. I never wanted to be recognised for my body, even if the recognition was good. I have spent a lot of my adult life afraid of getting attention based on my body. Of course, I have deep personal experiences that led to this fear, but at the heart of all things has been a lack of celebration of my BODY.

So now that I am prouder of how I look, I find myself looking at other women to try and find similar body types to myself. I try and look for women who dress well and accentuate their positives in the hope that I could find my own positives to accentuate. My husband is indispensible in this regard. He’s only too happy to ogle pretty women in the name of making me feel better.

What I’ve found is that there are SO many differences in us ladies that it is impossible to find your body twin.

A recent realisation struck me while having a discussion with a colleague. I found out that we wear the same size! But the difference is this: she’s just gone up a size, whilst I’ve just gone down a size.

How does this affect us? Her weight gain makes for a much firmer body than my weight loss. Whereas I’ve lost fat (hurrah!) and therefore become somewhat more jiggly, she’s gained fat (boo!) and yet only the size changed – not the skin.

It’s a strange realisation when you think that surely it should be the other way around. If I’m getting skinnier, how come I look like a fatter and flabbier size 12 than my colleague who has put on 7 lbs in the last two months? It seems unfair. Especially when we show up to work in the same dress, and her body looks amazing, and I feel lumpy and unpleasant.

I wouldn’t trade my new body for anything. Unless of course it’s a tighter and smaller new body. J But it does make you think about how hard it is to compare yourself to others.

Even my mother, who had gastric bypass and had almost identical body type to mine and lost pretty much the same amount of weight looks completely different to me.

So how do I figure out how to dress for MY body type?

The truth is that there’s no such thing as a body type. My body is mine and there isn’t another like it. What works for me isn’t going to work for the next girl. And the styles I choose for myself may not belong in the pages of Vogue. But I will wear what makes me feel good. What allows me to look in the mirror without wincing.

Men may objectify me. Women may judge me. But I CAN feel good about how I look without being stuck up, vain and arrogant.

Life is too short to worry about everyone else. Today I will worry about me.

Sorry for the hiatus lately. Last Thursday my husband and I took a trip to the south coast for a long weekend of seaside adventuring, and my internet access was non-existent for four days! Then, on Monday I began a brand new job, which I have to travel nearly an hour each way for.

So time has not been kind to me lately. Compounding this is my chronic insomnia and the return of my cough that I had a few weeks ago.

To make a long story short, I am still here, kicking around, and have stories to tell - but they’re going to have to wait until the weekend, as I’m completely spent from all the new stimuli in my life!

I hope everyone is doing well.  Remind me to share my new recipe for the proteinous White Chicken Chilli I made this week! Mm Mm Good! ;)

The last few days have been somewhat tricky. I’ve had a job interview to prepare for (stage one went very well, and stage two is Monday afternoon!) and new medication to get used to. The medication has had some unfortunate side effects, including some muscle spasms and severe tremors, as well as making me incredibly lethargic.  None of these things SHOULD be viable excuses for skipping my exercise program, but I have unfortunately let them become impediments.

Don’t be like me, kids! :)

In fantastic news, though, today I broke the barrier and have made it into the 160s! I weighed in this morning at 169.6, a personal low. I was so excited that I went through the house singing Queen’s “We Are the Champions” for 10 minutes! It’s nice when you have a breakthrough like that. I can only hope that it stabilises in the 160s, as often these things have a habit of lasting only a day before going back up a pound or two. I really should only weigh in once a week, but I usually weigh every day. It keeps me honest!

I’ve also been experimenting with food lately, and I have a couple more recipes to post soon. Stay tuned!

Anyway, the results came back and *drumroll please*

…………………….

NO DIABETES!!!

YAY!

This is such awesomely amazing news, that I nearly didn’t hear the rest of it…

As it turns out, I have reactive hypoglycemia, low white blood cells, and HYPOTHYROIDISM!

o_O

I guess this means that my previous high weight actually had an excuse!  I have to go back to have further blood work in a couple of weeks just to verify things, but as soon as they verify it, I’ll have to take a pill for the rest of my life.

The white blood cell thing also explains why I’ve been sick so often.

It’s good to finally have some answers. And now I can go back to having the occasional piece of dark chocolate! Huzzah!

I look through a lot of recipe books as a post-WLSer, and I find myself constantly on the look-out for easily adaptable recipes. So I found a version of this in a recipe book my husband purchased for me for Christmas. I changed it up a little, and we had it twice in one day!

Ingredients:

8 chicken thighs or drumsticks, skinned
45ml / 3Tbsp brandy
300ml / 1/2 pint / 1.25 C fresh orange juice
3 spring onions, chopped
10ml / 2t cornflour
90ml / 6T fromage frais
salt and pepper

Cook the chicken pieces in a non-stick or heavy frying pan over medium-low heat for 8 – 10 minutes, turning frequently until evenly browned all over. No need for oil or butter. Just cook them directly in the pan.

Stir in the brandy, orange juice and spring onions and bring to a boil. Lower the heat, cover and simmer gently for about 15 minutes, or until the chicken is tender and the juices run clear when the thickest part is pierced.

Blend the cornflour with a little water in a small bowl, then mix into the fromage frais. Stir this into a small pan and cook over medium heat until boiling. Season the sauce to taste with salt and pepper.

Spoon the chicken and cooking juices on to plates and pour sauce over it. Serve with rice or pasta.

I made this first for lunch yesterday, cooking all 8 pieces of chicken. I served it then with pasta and a little cheese. My husband and I both liked it, however I spooned far too much of the orange sauce and far too little of the white sauce onto it, which made it slightly less than amazing.

For dinner, I served it with rice and remade the white sauce (there was some left from earlier, but I didn’t like the idea of reheating it) and used quite a lot of it for the meal. We both agreed it was much better. And this despite the fact that I had to microwave the chicken from lunch!!

As a tip, I actually stored the leftover chicken in a bowl with the orange sauce covering it. I microwaved it that way, as well, which I think kept the chicken moist and not rubbery in the least.

Also, I wanted to make a note about how I found this recipe.  As I am currently out of work, the economy is hitting us hard. A two pack of chicken breasts is somewhere in the region of 4 quid at the moment, which is a terrible economy. But I noticed that chicken thighs and drumsticks were INCREDIBLY cheap! I got a pack of 6 thighs AND 6 legs for THREE QUID!  Since a serving size is 2 portions (though I eat one and my husband eats three), that’s 3 meals for 3 pounds. Can’t beat it!  So I looked specifically for recipes that used thighs/legs, and I’m so glad I did. It’s high in protein, low in fat and calories, and cheap and easy to make!