Every morning I check my blood sugar. Depending on the level, I take a Metformin pill. Almost every day since surgery I’ve had to take one. However, this week there have been three days when I didn’t have to because my blood sugar level was low enough. Another NSV!
Goals and milestones
I’ve been asked many times if I have a goal weight. I’m in a Facebook group for women who are on the bariatric journey, and it seems most of them have a goal weight. As I’ve said many times, the most important thing for me is being mobile, not having back pain. But since I look at the scale, of course I’ve thought of milestones. I’m not setting a weight as a “goal” because I am goal-oriented, and don’t want to feel like I will fail at my goal if I don’t get there. But here are some interesting weights in my history:
- 278: Weight at which I got pregnant the first time
- 265: Not sure what was going on, but I distinctly remember being this weight, maybe in my 30’s
- 225: Weight I was when I graduated college
- 199: Just a big transition. On my FB group we call this “getting to onederland”.
- 185: Weight in my freshman year of college. (Very sad because at this weight I thought I was the fattest, most disgusting thing on the planet. Felt that way all through high school too, when I likely weighed less.)
I don’t know what my actual goal weight is. I think I would be thrilled to be below 200. I might end up at a higher weight, but will be satisfied with that if my mobility is significantly improved. So this is an interesting journey, without a specific endpoint. An adventure!
This is getting redundant: stall.
And here I am, in another stall. Have been at the same weight for over a week. Sigh. I wonder if this is my normal, that the weight will just dribble off in tiny increments.
Before and After: 2013 to 2021
This is a before-and-after picture of me in the same dress, 8 years apart. Wow.
And the goal of this whole thing…
Remember why I signed up for this journey? My back pain?
Pain is a funny thing. When it’s there, you know it, and it can consume you. But when it’s not there, sometimes it doesn’t strike you right away. That’s what’s happened with me over the last few weeks.
A few days ago I walked outside and over to the side of my property with the kids, to reposition some security camera stuff. I stood there for a few minutes working with them, and walked back. I needed to sit down after a bit of standing, but for the most part I didn’t have much pain. A bit, but nothing that made me stress too much.
Over the last couple of weeks I’ve found myself getting off my stool in the kitchen, walking to another part of the kitchen, and standing there to do something. May sound mundane, but in the past I would have rolled the stool along with me and sat down. But instead I stood with relatively little pain.
I’ve been moving around more, and have less pain in general.*
Wow, this thing might actually be working!
* Caveat: A few days ago I did something nasty to my neck, and have been having pain associated with that. It’s slowly getting better. While it’s annoying, it’s not like my back pain, which lingers, but is a “one-off”, and will get better.
More creeping along, two new NSVs
Weight is slowly coming off. Down 38 lbs since surgery, 72 overall. Amazing.
NSV (non-scale victory) #1. I’ve been in size 13 underwear forever. I moved to size 12 after some initial pre-op weight loss. I’ve continued to wear those, although they’ve been getting looser and looser. I pre-bought some smaller sized underwear months ago. Yesterday I wore a size 9. Pretty cool.
NSV (non-scale victory) #2. This is me, with a towel wrapped around me enough to stay on by itself. I actually can’t remember the last time I could do this. Maybe college?
I guess I should have been taking body measurements all this time, because I am definitely significantly smaller.
Steady, plus an NSV
Haven’t posted in a while because I’m kind of holding steady. I had weighed in at 248 and then spent three weeks going between 248 and 251: now I weigh in at 246, and I’m going back-and-forth between 246 and 249. The trend is right, but it’s so slow!
An NSV (non-scale victory): went to a baseball game for the first time in two years, and sitting in a regular seat was not horribly uncomfortable for the first time in my memory. I actually fit! Didn’t feel all smushed in! And Rio and I could sit next to each other without feeling like we had to lean away from each other because we were so smashed. Small victories.
Holding Pattern
I feel like I’m in a holding pattern, not really going anywhere. I certainly feel better, but the pace is worse than a snail’s pace, nothing even close to steady, much less dramatic. It’s hard to stay motivated to really watch what I eat. I can easily see me starting to “slide”, to start eating higher calorie foods. I am able to eat those foods, haven’t really found much that I can’t tolerate, just in small quantities. Big confession: I had two bites of a donut the other day. I’m not beating myself up over it or anything, but it scared me that I had no ill effects from it, other than feeling full. Good thing I’m not much of a sweet eater or this could be a big problem.