Meet Eddie: My Best Friend

***A real raw picture of my eating disordered panic attacks***

It’s time to talk about my best friend. Meet Eddie. Eddie is 24 years old and the most intrusive entity in my entire life. Right now, in this picture, we are having a conversation I wish no one to ever have to have. It is painful, down to the core of my soul. It is a deceitful, venomous conversation. Conversations that are essentially killing myself slowly. He makes me believe I would be better off dead. These type of conversations haunt me every single day. It’s time I let you all know why I’ve been the way I’ve been. I’m sick. I’m mentally sick. I’m a work in progress, with a specialized professional team which will probably be the case for the rest of my life. All the times I’ve pushed, been uncommunicative, silent, unapproachable, outright anti-social, confrontational, invisible to the point of dropping off the face of the earth, it is because of Eddie. He is also my borderline personality disorder, my PtSD, my OCD, my introverted behaviors, my anxiety, my panic attacks, my  deep depression.

Eddie is one of my multiple and very serious eating disorders. I’ve had Eddie since I was 6 years old, the first time I remember that I had ever binge ate. Binge eating disorder is one of the most common eating disorders and it is one of the most under diagnosed eating disorder there is. Every eating disorder is serious and it can happen to young children, as it did with me, unknowingly to myself and my family. My disordered behaviors had escalated as I grew older, turning into having nearly every disorder known (bulimia, anorexia, binge eating and orthorexia-EDNOS). I say that with no bragging right or merit. This is one accomplishment I want absolutely no recognition for. Eddie had morphed or shape-shifted into every single one of them but yet he worsened into the venomous abuser he was as time passed. Eddie controls a lot in my life, much like the abuser in an abusive relationship. He controls emotions: ” You are never good enough in any avenue of your life”, he tells me. “You are not worth it, to anyone including yourself”, he adds. His abusive words cut deep but his words turn into abusive actions that speak louder. He is my internal abusive best friend, for now. The control goes as far as to what I drink, how much I drink, when I’m able to or if I even should. He controls all my food intake or if I eat at all or if it’s healthy, if it isn’t, how much I’m eating or if any food should be expelled from my body. He controls if or when I’m eating if I should have a panic attack or start crying. This can happen in public, private or just with Brian.

 Eddie, or my eating disorders and behaviors have many shapes and forms, smiles, frowns, bad hair, good hair, awful skin, beautiful skin. I can appear healthy, I can appear happy, I can appear strong, I can appear successful-when in reality it’s a living hell that I have to try and crawl out of, everyday. Having an eating disorder is deceitful. It is destructive. It is evil. It is nothing I wish on the worst person in the world.

When I speak of this entity, Eddie, he is not another personality of mine. It is the entity in my disorder that literally has control over my entire life. Wrapped around my finger. A foot to my neck. Handcuffed. It has effected my life to the fullest of negative ways. It affects my friendships: I lost my best friend of 17 years mostly because of Eddie: at the beginning stages of my recovery, in which she was involved for a brief moment, I was kicked out of her wedding being her Matron of Honor and then, eventually, uninvited to any and all her wedding festivities together. She divorced me. She didn’t understand my illnesses nor did she want to at that point in her life. She didn’t want to support me. Eddie told me I deserved all the hurtful things said and the abandonment included. We will never be friends again when our promise always was, “forever best friends until the end”. This was a monumental issue in my recovery causing a lot of PtSD and triggers for worsening eating disordered behaviors. It incredibly hurts my marriage, everyday, to the point of not dressing in front of my husband, covering myself as much as possible and worst yet, not having intimacy. The worst part? We want kids more than we could ever express and Eddie gets into the way so much so, it effects us being able to. I have to be as fully clothed as possible, lights completely off and he has to have a pillow over his face to make sure he doesn’t see me in my most vulnerable state because who would want to see a disgusting creature that way? I can’t eat with him 90% of the time we are together, out of shame or judgment. I hate eating in front of anyone actually. Eating in secret is what Eddie tells me is best. He effects my work: justifying it being OK that I skip lunch, watching what I eat, how much I eat, eating “too healthy”, if I deserve to keep my nutrition inside my body. The addiction is real-to feel empty and love the feeling of self conflicting pain. The pain of hunger, emptiness. He effects my bowling, something I’ve done since I was 4 years old, not fueling my body properly both with food and hydration. I do this when I compete in local events, small tournaments, national tournaments and professional events. I treat myself poorly no matter the level of competition. He effects if I go to the gym or what I do there: not knowing when to stop working out because three or four hours isn’t enough for body progress pictures or that I didn’t “earn” my dinner. He effects my shopping: be it groceries or clothing, I have panic attacks, anxiety, depression, self-inflicted body shaming. I must have a support system to go clothing shopping with me to help me chose, not panic and shut Eddie up. It doesn’t always work but there is a chance it helps. I have to make a list of “safe” foods before grocery shopping. I purposely avoid any seemingly “unsafe” or “unhealthy” isles. He effects my feelings on food. If I could never eat, even my favorite meal, for the rest of my life-I would still choose never eating again. He has made it a point to make me numb to any food-new or exciting, old or familiar favorites. He makes me hate cooking, something I had so much passion for. He effects my self-image: the nude blurred picture you see, is exactly how I see it-distorted, sad, depressing, painful, shame. Body dysmorphia is a true living hell in itself. I have to cover mirrors in the house of when I’m home. The only mirrors used are compact just so I can put make up on. Even then, I give myself 8-10 minutes max to do this due to the pure torture of his comments. It is physically exhausting to get ready. After I am done, I want to go back to bed due to the abusive nature of him Pure exhaustion. People can call me every name in the book: healthy, skinny, thin, curvy, normal, good, beautiful, sexy, brave, cute, adorable, admirable, compare me to celebrities and all I see is this ginormous, hideous, distrusting, rotting, ugly human being staring back at me. He is always there with me when I get compliments. He reminds me of what I should be feeling: to the point of wishing I wasn’t born. Regretfully living. Shameful living. I’ve had this for years too. He also has full control on how I feel about my weight or “numbers”: all scales have been thrown out of the house because the number was too important, weighing in up to four times a day. Much like a drug addicts attitude of “one last time” I get the itch to find a scale, buy another scale-just to see the number, to hear how bad he would treat me. The scale determined if it was a good day or bad day. I’m not even sure I had a good day when weighing in. The scale determined if I was going to be any happier with a lower number. The number was never low enough. My obsession with numbers have shifted from the scale to the size of my pants and shirts. If my jeans that I just washed, fit even a little snug, my day is completely trashed and he wants to spend the entire day with me, in bed usually crying. He controls the type of clothes I wear and when I should wear them. On average, he has me changing clothes at least two and a half times a day just to find the “right” outfit-the one that doesn’t make me look so obviously fat or that I’ve gained weight: “You look hideous in that. People may point at you in disgust. They will more than likely laugh at you, perhaps even take a ‘hidden selfie’ to document your ugliness, maybe they will post it somewhere and everyone will see it. People know you are ‘recovering’ but really they just see you gaining fat. You are fat. You are on the road to being 300lbs again, fatty”.  He can even control if I leave the house for any reason. Most days, I don’t deserve to be seen, he says. He controls all of my social situations: person-to-person, social gatherings, text messages, work appointments, phone calls, Facebook and the like. He tells me all nice things said to me are complete lies, they are undeserving, people trying to be nice and he tells me people talk shit about me-my appearance, my personality, my behaviors, my everything behind my back. He says this rule applies to any and all friends and family including my own husband, my best friend. He says, “No one truly wants to be with you. Why would they? You have zero offerings to them. You aren’t a good person. You can hardly get out of bed. A true sense of the word ‘worthless’. A waste of space in the world”. He essentially controls how I talk to people and what I say, if anything at all. He has an extremely unhealthy obsession of how I talk to my self, about myself. He makes me hate myself more than anything in the world. He wishes I would die at times: “You being born into this world, are nothing but a complete mistake. The worst mistake to your family and you are a mistake to all the people you’ve come into contact with. Worthless. You do nothing. You provide nothing. Zero value. They all can do better and are better off without knowing you, meeting you or even listening to anything you say. They wouldn’t miss you if you were gone. Worthless. Just don’t bother them.” He essentially controls all my behaviors at home, my hobbies, work, parties, concerts, family gatherings, sporting events, vacations.

This will be an endless journey, like most of us that struggle with an ED (eating disorder) or any addictive behaviors, you have to work forward toward recovery because in the very end of the road, I am, we are, all worth it. Some days are harder to believe that but I’ve been told enough from fully recovered individuals, it has to be true. The seriousness of recovery is a constant and a very real thing that most people have a hard time understanding. It isn’t “just that easy” to be a happy, healthy person with an ED or multiple ED’s. People need to realize the seriousness of the illness, it even took me a long time to admit that ‘recovery’ is a serious word and I needed to make the steps to doing just that. People die from eating disorders. Anorexia is the highest mortality rate among any mental disorder. I openly admit, since my bariatric surgery, my disordered behaviors have worsened. Again, unknowingly to myself. However, with my team of support, I am determined not to let Eddie win in this battle.

I would love to apologize but I am not going to. This is the current me. All of this illness, it doesn’t define who I am, it is just part of the bumpy road I’m on. Be a passenger with me as I drive on my road to recovery or be ditched because I’m going to keep on this road with or without you. I now realize that recovery should always be the path to take. Days seemingly can be harder than others but that’s OK because it will happen. I, Kaleena, just have to be in the driver’s seat and lock the doors if Eddie needs a ride.

On a positive note outside of my recovery and treatment, I am a dangerous person when I make my mind up about something. That’s Kaleena’s mind with Eddie being an intrusive ass. A force to be reckoned with is what Kaleena can be. I have made a decision to write a book. I don’t know when it will be published or even how to start going about it but it is the newest goal and my way of giving back to people by giving them a resource of not feeling alone with any of their fucked-up-ness. We are all a little (or a lot) fucked up but it’s important to believe that it is okay to be fucked up and to know you aren’t alone. Hopeless and helpless are optional feelings. Not feeling there is only darkness is a huge part of the journey and it took going to my eating disorder group to realize that everyone has darkness to them and I am constantly reminded of their brightness, every week when I see them. My life is not abnormal or unique. My life is open and I’ve met enough people to show me that we all have something to work on and I’m excited to share those moments of the good, bad, ugly and better with all people of various stages of life.

An All Around Update

I’ve decided to dust off my computer keyboard and blog again. I haven’t forgotten, I didn’t lose motivation-I just took a bit of a sabbatical back in September/October when my grandpa Harvey got sick. It took a toll on me with the unknown of his health. I visited him in the hospital which was very hard for me. I hated seeing him hooked to machines, tubes and nurses checking on him all the time. When the decision was made to put him in hospice, it broke me. Life isn’t fair even though I know he had lived a full life, did everything he wanted, was a respectable and hugely successful businessman all around the world, not a single person had a bad thing to say about him. That is something I strive for but unfortunately, I am not successful at that because I am too…out there for some people.

I visited him in hospice. Again, it pained me. He was weak. He was tired. Caregivers gave the element of ‘the end’, no privacy it seemed-not even just for myself and people who visited but for grandma and grandpa, together. I know people wore him out visiting all the time. Literally, ALL…THE…TIME. He had people fly in from across the country to say their goodbyes. The nurses had to put a sign on their door, turning away visitors due to his exhaustion trying to entertain. I couldn’t believe how long it took the nurses to put that sign up-I noticed it instantly that is was wearing on him.

My final memories of seeing him consisted of helping him settling into his favorite recliner chair. He was so weak that he had a hard time cutting his food up so I helped him eat. The food looked…less than appetizing. He had grilled salmon, mashed potatoes, carrots and jello for dessert. Even though he had chosen to stop dialysis, he was eating so well and that is why he had lived weeks more than they said he would. They gave him 7-10 days to live after he left the hospital. He lived 4-5 more weeks. He joked with me about the food. That is my last memory of him, laughing at his humor. I cried as left. Didn’t say a word out loud on the way home.

The day he passed away, I had made a wonderfully loving post on Facebook. I had spoken to him on the phone shortly after I posted. It was harder than probably seeing him in pain and being cared for. You have to understand where I am coming from-I have not experienced death a lot. I took a Death and Dying class but I did not know how to cope even though I studied it, could list the different stages. I just shut down. It was hard to not feel bad, sad, mad, stressed. I wanted to eat horrible food, the way I used to be. I knew my grandpa wouldn’t want that for me. At this point I was only about a month and half out of surgery. It was only a few minutes after that Facebook post and the phone call, he passed away. Our phone call needed to happen. I’ve always wanted to tell my grandpa how proud I am of him for being successful in business and the family company. I never knew how. I am shy sometimes. I’ve been meaning to write him a letter, hand written nonetheless-just to tell him how happy and proud I am. On the phone, I got to tell him. My last words were how proud I am of him taking care of such a large family, grandma, and his future grandchildren. I admired him since I was little. I also promised him that I would never give up my brother as far as our poor relationship goes. He knew the situation. Felt bad for me and what everyone has gone through. That’s why I promised him that. I said, ‘I love you’ and that was the end. This was the reason for my sabbatical. I didn’t want to admit how sad I was. It was hard to be positive. That’s why I hadn’t updated.

During my sabbatical, I have gone though many mental mind fucks which is to be expected. Some resulted in good things, some lessons learned and some outright negative outcomes. One mind fuck I went through was the decision to cut the cord from people that are not ready for the ‘new me’ or people who have never really understood ‘me’ and won’t continue to understand my transition into who I’ve become. Cutting the fat off my favorite steak is the equivalent of what I did with certain people in my life. Doing this was easier than I thought. I was sad at first but really, I feel in order to really let my wings out and take that leap, to embrace ME fully, it needed to happen. I’ve been relieved since doing this. If you have negativity, people who don’t support you, don’t respect or allow you to be you in anyway-do me a favor…try to distance yourself. You don’t deserve that. It isn’t good for the spirit, mind or body. Surround yourself with people of like minds, good words and who are not judgmental!

This can be as simple as joining a Facebook support group to start this process-it doesn’t have to be weight loss surgery involved but I’ll give you an example of how it has helped me. I have actually gotten very close with some people who have had the surgery and that’s because we talk via Facebook a lot. I’ve created my own support group because I truly feel those people that I have gained a friendship with, the support is a mutual support that we need each other. It is so nice to have! It’s also very neat that I’ve had a lot of people contact me about the surgery seeking more information. I have three friends, Brian is included, that will be having the surgery within a month of each other. I love hearing about all the progress-the good, bad and ugly of it because it’s their journey.

In embracing the new me, I have stopped giving a fuck of what people think about my decisions, what they think of me. I would hope that if I am completely off my rocker or I am making a poor choice, someone would gently tell me maybe it isn’t a good idea but for the most part, embracing the new me in my new body was the best thing that could have ever happened. I think it started when I allowed my phenomenal hair stylist the freedom to do whatever she wants with my hair-cut and color. I KNEW deep down, no matter what happened, I would be happy with it 1). Because she is amazing and wouldn’t allow me to walk out of the salon looking stupid and 2). I love me for me and looks aren’t everything. Its my insides I am loving, the outside is just the thing I look at every day. I have gotten more compliments on my hair being a funky color than I ever have being a ‘pretty blonde’ or whatever I used to do. I’ve had people tell me to my face they are completely jealous because they couldn’t pull anything like that off. I will tell you a secret-it the attitude you carry with the look, not the look itself. I have embraced I am weird, strange, unique-I own the shit out of all those terms. I dare to be different. It is a good feeling.

In another form of expression of myself and embracing my new found self, I am able to wear high heels again…pain free. For many, many years, I have stored my high heels in totes and boxes because I was unable to wear them due to my planers fasciitis and an injury I had in college. Since working out, I have strengthened the injury and since losing weight, I can walk comfortably in heels. This makes me happier than you can even imagine. I can now buy AMAZINGLY cute clothes AND shoes…worry free! Before, shoes were my obsession because it was the one item of clothing I didn’t have to worry about being fat in.

Do I have bad days where I feel fat? Sure! I had a complete mental break down a couple weeks ago. My mom was in town and I told her Target had beautiful, sexy, unique bathing suits I wanted to try on. Not knowing my size still, I pick out various styles and sizes to try on. Not a goddamn single one I picked out looked even remotely publically acceptable. The only one that did was the one my mom picked out which it was black boy shorts (covering my hideous thighs) and a flowy top that was fairly covering my body. I had too much confidence in bathing suit shopping. I don’t have one that fits me right now but I also don’t want to try anymore on ever again because I hated how I felt. I cried in the aisle at Target. Yes, like my dog died-type cry. I posted a Facebook post on one of my Gastric Sleeve support groups and get suggestions but it was the first time I went shopping and it didn’t go my way. I was being a brat. I shall try them on later this summer when I need a bathing suit and when I hopefully tighten up my skin a little.

I had considered skin removal surgery, pretty seriously. I knew that I couldn’t have it until I have hit goal weight and maintained for a while. The average wait time for that surgery after sleeve is typically 12-18 months. I have an apron pouch in the front, its definitely not the worst one I’ve seen but I can grab it, and fold it like PlayDoh. It’s gross in a sense. I have no health problems from it, I don’t have rashes, I don’t have to move the skin out of the way to go to the bathroom. I don’t like my arm wings either. They look like a Wal-Mart bag filled an eighth of the way up with wet sand from a beach. After I watched a show that is dedicated to skin removal surgery, I will never have it. The recovery time is very long, the scars are worse than I pictured and the risk of going into old habits of being lazy/eating bad increase dramatically. I feel it would enable me at this point. I need to continue on my path and not look back. I need to embrace my skin. I am working on it. I would like to get a breast lift and implants. I am waiting on that though but it would be nice!

A huge step towards embracing my body happened when I had taken my family (Kylee, Josh, Brian and my parents) to see Lisa Lamponilli stand up in Lincoln. She was seriously the funniest person I’ve ever seen live. On top of that, I’ve been a fan of hers dating back to The Roasts. I learned she had Gastric Sleeve surgery as well. I followed her journey from Dr. Oz appearances to articles that she was interviewed. Thank you to Brian-I was brought up on stage so she could sign my stomach but she signed my arm yet I took my shirt off in front of 1,800 people without a fuck to give. I had it tattooed on my right arm. My right arm is turning into a random sleeve of my journey. I recently got cartoon stomachs tattooed with a barbell to represent Kendra and I, our journeys, how she inspired me and to never give up. I have a constant reminder now I am growing. I currently got more tattoos done, including my goal weight tattoo on my ribcage/sternum and I was so comfortable walking around topless at the tattoo shop. I have never done that but its empowering. There was nothing sexual about it, it was all professional but I felt so empowered because I was okay with it! Even at home, I walk around naked or topless more than I ever have before. I just don’t care. Before, I wouldn’t let Brian see me dress or shower. Now, towels are optional!

One way I am working on the skin thing is weight lifting at the gym. I truly feel if I did not do as much weight lifting as I had been doing, my skin would be worse by tenfold. However, I am getting very bored at the gym-not really having a plan. They don’t have classes. I hate cardio. I have bought three programs from a trainer named Ashley Horner. She is gorgeous, strong and motivating. Her programs have meal plans and everything included. I may not participate in that portion of it though. I have Sweet Cakes-which works on building a nice ass. My ass has become boney to the point that it hurts if I sit more than two hours at a time. I bought Crux-which is a core building program. I have abs under my loose skin, I want to push myself to see if I can get them to pop out though. The last program is extremely intimidating to me but its Magnify You which is an all-around, push yourself type program. I am not starting any of these programs for another month or so. I am excited but very nervous! Of course I will take progress pictures. I am looking forward to bulking up a bit because being as skinny as I am now (it’s weird to say that), I am cold all the time and can get cold very easily. I never knew how well insulated I was until the weight came off. I always have to bring a jacket to places. My nose runs if my body says ‘Heat me up, Johnny’. It’s crazy but it is a side effect of surgery. My nose also runs if I am full or hungry-strange but neat. It is how I listen to my body’s needs.

I get asked this question a lot: Since losing all the weight, how has bowling changed for you? Well, it definitely has for sure. In my left leg, which is the leg that I plant/slide with, I had tendonitis which required me to take arthritis medication for. I can recall more times than not, having to alter my physical game because of the pain I used to experience. My feet problems would hurt as well with my plantar fasciitis. I had to wear special gel supports in my shoes (bowling and non-bowling), sleep with these ugly ass boots every night when I had pain. I have always had abnormal flexibility in my joints/tendons and sometimes it would hurt my wrist/arm/Achilles tendon. Since working out, dropping the weight-I have none of these issues. I can actually bend my knee down more so because I don’t have an extra 100lbs to support. My backswing is straighter because I don’t have to compensate for my huge ass. This actually excites because I am going to start training for my huge tournaments I am bowling this summer.

On January 23^rd, 2015 I hit my goal weight of 155lbs. I don’t know where I came up with number, it just sounded realistic and it would mean I lost 110lbs which is almost a person-like Snooki or something. The surgeon didn’t give me a goal weight. My team (nutritionist and coach) said that I would expect to lose 100lbs after surgery. This was on March 12^th, 2015. Never in a million years would I see the number 145lbs on the scale again. I am not trying to lose more weight, it is happening on its own. I got all my mantra bands even though I will purchase them if I hit a 10lbs mark loss but I will not purposely strive to lose 10lbs. I am going to purchase one but it is currently out of stock. I was so excited that day I hit goal because I hit goal weight in under a year. That sounds so impressive to me. I have lost 124lbs total, 88lbs since surgery. I am so excited for my 1 year anniversary of my surgery. I have taken monthly progress pictures, taken measurements and daily selfies. I have a huge project that I want to complete for it! It is hard not to share those projects now! With weight loss though, I will keep losing until my next stall. Until then, let the pounds fall! Hard work does pay off and I think going to the gym, drinking only water and my diet is my success secret. I am now a size 6-8! I was at my highest, a size 26! When I go shopping, there is a rule that I have to take friends with me because I still don’t recognize my current size. It’s therapeutic for me to walk by Lane Bryant or even unsubscribing from their email list. Never thought I would do that. On the opposite side, I have a huge, huge lot of clothes that do not fit me. I cleaned my closet out and it was pretty sad for me to do. I got rid of pants, that I just purchased not long ago, size 12’s, I have to put them in the ‘for sale’ pile. Clothes that I have attachments to like ‘I wore that to X event’ or ‘I love those colors’-it was hard for me to let them go.

My diet is very much a clean diet. Sort of like Atkins meets Paleo meets 21 day fix. I eat no sugary products and I really hate processed foods (something from a box/frozen etc.). In fact, I’ve had chocolate only twice since surgery. The first was at a vision board party: I made sliced frozen bananas with cookie butter filling dipped in chocolate. I had three of them that night. I also had two Hershey kisses last night. I have chocolate protein shakes but not straight up candy/sugar. I’ve only had cheesecake once, a few days before my birthday. Those are about all the sweets, minus fresh fruit, that I’ve had since August. One really awesome side effect I’ve noticed, my skin is so clear. I have less pimples/break outs. It isn’t the birth control, I swear it’s the diet. I also drink 64+ ounces a day of water. I LOVE Smart Water. The taste is awesome. Meats are good-I go through phases where chewing meat sounds gross and makes me want to gag but for the most part I consume at least 80 grams of protein a day. I find all these facts impressive because of the industry I am in: food service/convenience stores/retail. I recently had meetings in which power brand vendors (e.g. Mars, Hershey, and Hostess) gave samples. I had about 8 large bags full of snacks. It goes to waste at my house so instead, Brian and I have been donating the snacks to a group home Brian used to work for. I am not super happy it is junk food I am donating but the home has appreciated it very much and have sent us hand written thank you notes. I feel in order for Brian and I to be successful in this surgery, we have to be prepared. I was snowed in Kearney a couple weeks ago with the whole town shut down. I knew the weather was going to be as bad as they predicted so I went to Target and got plenty of protein shakes to last me days. I’m happy I did this because there was nowhere for me to eat. You have to be prepared for success or poor decisions will linger.

My 6 month check-up is in two weeks. I am pretty excited for that so they can see me and see the progress I have. I also have some stuff I want to talk to them about. I have black out episodes now. It’s been happening for about three weeks. If I am laying down or sitting, I get up, I black out. I don’t know if I am standing up or if I fainted. The longest episode lasted about 45 seconds to 1 minute in South Dakota when dad and I worked up there. He saw me lose focus and kept talking to me. I could hear him but not see him even though I was looking straight at him. Another episode happened when I was out of town with Brian. I got up from laying down to take my daily selfie. I had my phone in hand getting the camera ready, turned the bathroom light on in the hotel, and I blacked out. I grabbed the wall so I knew I was at least standing. When I saw my physician, she said this happens because of low blood pressure. I need to flex my legs before getting up. This is due to my extreme weight loss.

Another thing I experienced was the night I shot 300. Since I cannot drink hard alcohol, Brian had bought the team a celebratory shot and got me pineapple juice shot. I had chest pains in my sternum the 3^rd game. It got tremendously worse. I started sweating. My finger in my left hand went numb. I was driving and I had to pull over and have my parents help drive home even though I was only maybe 6 minutes from the house. I thought I was maybe having a stroke or heart attack. I’ve had pains twice since that time but none nearly as bad. It could be severe heart burn/acid reflux but I am unsure. It also sounds like a hernia issue. I also need to talk to surgeon about my medication changes. I was allergic to the birth control that my physician prescribed me. I had a literal reaction to it in a way that made my pubic area scale like a snake, yes-like shedding skin like a snake. It lowered my estrogen so much, that’s why that happened. I had to put estrogen cream on twice a day and also another steroid cream on once a day. They switched my birth control and things got much, much better. I have to use birth control because of the increased fertility after weight loss. My surgeon requires two forms of contraceptive-condom of some kind and birth control. The reason being is that sometimes pills do not absorb properly in the stomach (birth control) and therefore pregnancy chances increase greatly. I have seen people on my Facebook gastric sleeve page get pregnant within a month or two of surgery. This is not good. With that being said, my depression pills stopped absorbing. I have been going through terrible anxiety and depression the past month. I have been sleeping poor for the past three months (probably even more than that). She switched my depression medication from Pristiq to Fetzima and also put me on ambien. I have been on ambien before, in college when I couldn’t deal with the stress and therefore, not sleep. I am happy to report that within a week of taking the meds, things are amazing. I am also going to ask for a recommendation for a therapist in Omaha. I am admitting that I am a carb-a-phobe. I am deathly scared of carbohydrates. I don’t know how to eat it without freaking out in my own head. I was on the Atkin’s growing up, lost the most weight I had at that point, had to get off it and I gained it all back plus some. That is my fear. I am psychologically fearful of food. I am not saying I have a disorder but I am going to be proactive and start talking about it now so it does not become something I am not.

Keeping track of my goals is super important to me right now. I am a very big fan of vision boards. I had one in college and it is unbelievable how many of them came true. Some took a long time to achieve but looking at it every single day helps keep the focus on positive and accountability-how do you make sure you do something every day to get closer to one of your visions? I have a lot to tackle on mine. I decided not to put 2016 on it because I don’t want to feel I am biting off more than I can chew. I have accomplished a fair amount of them for the time I’ve had since making it. I have a huge one being accomplished next month and I can’t wait to share it with you all! I’ve said this before, some people just don’t care for me/like me because I’m out there. I get it. I don’t care. I don’t take offense. You have to at least respect that I get shit done and I put my mind to things, accomplish them and not think twice about it. I am so excited to accomplish my vision board! One. Step. At. A. Time.

 

A True Debbie Downer of a Blog

This may be a Debbie Downer of a blog and for that, I apologize in advance. It isn’t a maybe, it is completely, 100% a sad blog. The topic I would like to discuss with you: depression. It’s a serious topic for a lot of people (me being one) do not take it lightly, although I used to have elements of denial with it. I’ve been seeing a lot of support on Facebook with the (September) Suicide Prevention/Awareness Month and I’ve seen donations made to various organizations and that is wonderful! The depression/suicide awareness should not just be one of those fad once a month, “Hey-Look at me-I changed my profile picture-I support this month’s awareness”. It goes way deeper than that, especially for this topic. It is a serious thing and it should be more than just a month of random posts on Facebook. I would say that about any disease/organization/awareness topic-make it your passion if its something you truly care about in a subject matter. Do something about it-don’t just copy/paste shit. I am passionate about this one though. I am going to speak of my experience of it as my form of supporting the month of awareness. I am by no means a doctor nor am I an expert on the topic but I have firsthand knowledge of feelings and effects of depression as I have struggled with depression since I was an adolescent.

What brought this topic up: I attended a party where I met an older lady that approached me and was discussing the food that was served and I admitted I couldn’t try any of the food due to my surgery. She was very interested to hear my story because she has a daughter, younger than myself, in college hoping to make something of herself and is quite a bit overweight, depressed and struggling. Her daughter struggles with mental health to the point of not functioning and she said her daughter would love to have some sort of surgery for her weight loss but she has to get her life together first. I know how that goes-it is a real struggle to put your life on hold until your brain/mind decide to function as normally as possible. It isn’t even a matter of your brain/mind ‘deciding’ to function. It goes beyond that. It was, in all, a great conversation-I feel as if I provided information and resource because I also told her about my medication I am on, what doctors I see and the name of my surgery and so on. I could feel this lady’s pain through her daughter. I have seen it before. I have lived it before.

It’s hard to pinpoint where depression comes from or how it happens to some people and not others. It seems as if the ones that have never experienced depression or anxiety, don’t understand why it happens and sometimes they don’t even try to empathize and expect people to wake up one day and be OKAY. I can’t tell you how many times I’ve been told to, “Shake it off-it isn’t so bad”, “Don’t be in such a mood”, “Maybe you just need a nap” or anything else along those lines. It just isn’t that simple. I’m not even sure why depression happens the way it does but I suppose there is an element of genetics, an element of environmental factors, and an element of self-worth. There are probably more factors I am missing but I know the elements I described are the ones that probably impacted my depression the most and probably in that specific order. I’ll explain in more detail.

Mental health issues run in my family. I shall not get into the specifics of who and what run in my family. I’m not ashamed of it, I am just being respectful of everyone’s privacy. Not everyone I’m related to are quiet as frank as I am about things, particularly life events, and I understand that completely. We aren’t unusual for having it run in our family. Hell, mental health related issues are probably just as common as inheriting skin tags, certain hair colors, blood pressure or something of that nature. Again, I am not a doctor so stop being a Judge Judy about my comparisons.

Depression is a disease that, much like eye color and hair styles, sometimes you don’t have a choice but to be born with it-it just depends when it develops. The choice, once depression is discovered and once one finally admits that they have an issue with their upstairs, they need to decide how to handle it. There are various ways to cope with it and trust me from my experience, sometimes that isn’t always easy to take that plunge. Here is what I did and it took years for me to discover: 1). Admit you have a problem and 2). Admit you need help 3). Actually seeking help. In fact, it is very dangerous mixture- to have depression and also the unwillingness to admit any of those things. That’s why I believe it is hard enough to get help. Trust me, I know.

I have been off and on depression pills since I was 16 years old. My depression dates back well before that. I have journals that I wrote very sad and depressing things when I was so much younger.  Things that I don’t even know how a child that young can even comprehend what those feelings are like, what they mean and not even knowing I could have sought help. Here are some excerpts from my journal:

…”Life sucks so bad. I feel so ugly and stupid and fat. I hate it”

“Today, at first, was real bad. I kind of had a disagreement with my mom about how bad our/my life really is and how stupid I am, how I am going to fail in life..”

“…Life is sucking, sucking really bad and has for a while now. I don’t know what to do. I can’t put on a happy face forever. I believe my depression is getting worse. My life is going nowhere and it’s because of my negative thinking.”

“I hate my body and so I rather not show it. Why couldn’t God make me skinny? Why do I have to be fat? I gained weight. Like 4 pounds. That’s depressing”.

“Today wasn’t a good one. I’m finding more and more reasons why my life sucks. To me, lately, my life seems like a big mistake, like I’m a no body. If I die tomorrow-who would miss me? Sometimes I just can’t take life”.

“This has been happening for a long time now but I can just barely look at myself in the mirror. When I come out of the shower, I can’t look at myself for very long-without make up I feel so ugly. No! I am ugly. I’m going to try to make myself into what I call ‘beautiful’…I hate my life. Sometimes I wish I wouldn’t have been born. God, just take my life. I also hate my body so much. Why didn’t God make me pretty?”

Growing up isn’t ever easy. I’ve had certain situations in my life that chose to stick with me like glue which highly influenced my depression. I tend to remember more negatives than positives in my life-I hate that and I’ve been working on that for years now. I suppose that’s why now as an adult, I like to take pictures to 1) To remember what happened 2) To know that life wasn’t always so bad and there are always something to be happy about. I’ve always known I am a little different from everyone else-my family, my friends, social acquaintances. I don’t mean that in a negative way, I mean that as positively as you can imagine. Perhaps that had something to do with how I was raised-to be my own individual. I love my parents allowed me to do this and to experience things on my own, learn the good and the bad, owning who I am. There were some negative to this though.

I was home-schooled until college. Even though my brother did go to public school for a while and I saw what that was like, I still learned at home. One of my first memories of people teasing me was when I was six years old and it involved my brothers public school. I had dressed myself one day-I decided to wear the most vivid rain boots and a ridiculous long jacket that went to my knees. The day wasn’t gloomy, there was no forecast of rain. I would like to think that I was channeling Lady GaGa even when I was a young tot. We had to go to my brother’s public school to pick him up and my mom had to speak with a teacher. I had to go to the bathroom and I was trusted to go by myself, so I did. The girls in the bathroom, they knew who I was, in fact my brother had a crush on one of the girls. They teased me for wearing my outfit on a beautiful day. I don’t remember exactly what was said but I know it was cruel, loud laughter occurred, pointing and teasing. I cried. I ran to my mom. It was unnecessary. It was memorable for the worst.

Eventually my brother was taught at home too. Home-schooling had some extremely terrible stereotypes which affected me until college, to the point I started lying to people about my “high school”. People assumed I was stupid or something, some sort of learning disability that required me to be taught special at home by my mother. All my life I was assumed to be that type of person. I remember when I was about nine years old, playing basketball on a very successful team as a club, the girls would make fun of me behind my parents back (who were the coaches). They would tease me with questions because I refused to answer and when I went silent-they would say stuff like-“I told you guys she wouldn’t know. That’s why she is home-schooled because she doesn’t know anything!” I would cry at home, alone because I didn’t like feeling I was less than a normal person or that I was stupid. Some of our close acquaintances did not understand why my parents chose to home-school us, but it wasn’t any of their business. If I was paid $5.00 for every time I heard this statement, “…but since you are home-school, think of everything you will miss out on-you can’t go to school dances or prom, you can’t participate in sports, you won’t be social”. First of all, I attended more school dances than I can count on both my hands and I still own those dresses to this day! I did go to prom, homecoming, winter balls, you name it-I went to all of them. I was so good at bowling that I was bowling on a JV High School team when I was in middle school, on a boy’s team nonetheless. Due to my bowling career and support of my parents that allowed me to travel so much and see so much of the United States, I was very social! I hated that stereotype the worst-“You don’t act home-schooled-you know, all weird and anti-social”. I do own up to the weird part but anti-social, only selective with people I do not like. I knew other home-schoolers and yes, some are strange sometimes but not all of us are like that.

The teasing continued in my life with my brother. Older brothers can be…hard on siblings-or older siblings can be hard on younger ones. I shouldn’t put a gender on that because I know of some older sisters that are dicks (twats?) to their younger siblings. I always envied the sibling relationships that you see on things like Little House on the Prairie. Even now, being an adult with people on Facebook posting their sibling love-I envy that. I don’t have anything remotely to it with mine. Being told I am stupid, can’t learn, can’t do anything right, ‘why don’t you just give up!’ negatives all the time coming from multiple directions. I decided I hated learning. I felt as if I shouldn’t even try. Most times, I didn’t try-I didn’t want to. It isn’t like I couldn’t try, I chose not to because I didn’t want to fuel the negative comments and prove them right. I struggled with this up until I had to graduate. I had the worst anxiety taking my GED test. I didn’t want to even do it. In fact, I didn’t even take the test until I was already in classes at the community college I attended because I was so afraid of proving those people right with their negative comments-the ones where I was stupid, I couldn’t learn and I wouldn’t be anything in life. I think this was just the beginning of my understanding of what depression was, starting early on and moving forward.

The teasing went beyond how intelligent I was. The teasing started to also include my body. Since I had already felt/looked bigger boned than my young-skinny-bitch friends, the comments started to flow which confirmed my feelings. It was a mix of boys (sometimes men) teasing me, my brother and even other girls.

Some of those comments still hurt if I think about them hard enough. One of my guy friends growing up (whom I had a falling out with) said out loud at the bowling alley for all to hear-“Look how fat Kaleena’s ass is. It jiggles with her just standing there. It is so fat that she probably should start worrying about chairs!” Another really hurtful comment came from a very, very well-respected bowler in the bowling community. I was 15 years old at the Hoinke Tournament (Ohio) watching my brother bowl this huge competition. This (now well-respected) guy was trashed knew my brother somehow. I was walking around watching different people bowl. He goes up to my brother and points at me and says, “Hey…you see that young girl that is walking around? She is seriously the fattest, sluttiest, gross piece of shit white-trash I have ever seen!” Of course my brother didn’t stand up for me but that is beside the point. I have since taken the higher road and have been nothing but polite to him- I’ve never even brought it up. I was made fun of for my stretch marks, “You have a map of the world on your stomach” or this one, “You have a worm farm on your stomach”. Comments about the size of my thighs, “You have thunder thighs. They are the size of manatees”. Even my teeth, “I’ll call you Bucky because you sure have buck teeth-like a rabbit”. Seriously, kids can be true assholes sometimes, even if they’re your family. So help me, if any future asshole kids who choose to tease my future children. They will learn a hard lesson.

At the ripe age of 14 years old, I was allowed to start dating boys-with restrictions. I was involved in a serious relationship at the age of 15 (and a half-because at that age, halves are super fucking important) with my long-distance boyfriend. He was older but also advanced in school. He lived 5 hours away but I was still able to visit, bowl league with him and do what couples do-almost every week for a year and a half. We had our amazing moments, he traveled with us to bowl when he could and I spent several holidays with him and his family. However, as we got older, I started to get paranoid. It was my fault and I admit it 100%. He never gave me a reason to believe that he was going to be interested in other girls while thinking about college but in my mind, I had nothing to offer him. Wait a minute, I take that whole statement back. He did give me a reason to doubt this. He would specifically tell me which actresses he would love to bang and which ones he found most attractive. He had posters in his room of skinny girls, big boobs, ass hanging out-the typical. He would admit that he would masturbate to certain girls-fictional, famous or someone we knew. Guys-if you are reading this…please, never do this to your girl/wife/spouse/partner. It does no good for anyone to admit who you find attractive. These actions silently pained me from the inside out. He would even point girls out at the mall he found attractive. Do you honestly think this helped my-self imagine that has already been shifted in such a way of hating myself? It did nothing for me but hate myself harder. In a way, it was my fault for being OK with it and not saying anything, or at least pretending to be OK with it. My non-response was that I was trying to change my looks to be like some of those girls-or a mix of all the girls. I admit, I lost weight and was my skinniest to help “fill his desire” since my natural self wasn’t enough-so I felt. I dyed my hair, I bought clothes and shoes. I wore make up more often. I was so stupid back then-I should have just left at that point.

Back to us worrying about college- or I guess I should say, back to me worrying about it. He wanted to go to a big school-I didn’t even want to go to college. I hated the idea of going to college. I did want to go to college at one point and even discussed it with him; go to school together, live with each other, save money for our wedding but he immediately shut that goal down. I therefore got discouraged. It escalated into a huge argument. The night before we were supposed to attend his senior prom we reached a breaking point. I had worked really hard to fit into this skin tight dress. It was black, sparkling everywhere, it had a low bust line, and there wasn’t even a need for jewelry because the dress and what I had planned would speak for itself. When it came to dances and proms, I feel as if I was ahead of the fashion trends-again, channeling my Lady GaGa. I always went for the strange dresses, the odd colors, the risqué looking styles. I was very excited for that night because it was the first time I ever felt decent, good enough, to wear anything of this sort. Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to fulfill my excitement with my wonderful dress with my decent-ish body.

The night before his senior prom, we fought really badly, like super bad. We were at his parents’ house, alone and we started discussing college and the future. I told him all my worries, again, looking for reassurance. He and I said very hurtful things to each other-some of the worst things. He ended up breaking up with me after a couple hours of arguing. He told me, “I don’t want you baggage while starting college. Plus you will end up working for daddy your entire like and probably not go to college”. I was in a bad, dark place. I was there for a while, we both knew it and it just kept getting darker. He wasn’t supportive. He left me alone in the basement after our final words of pain to one another, this is where my ‘room’ was when I visited him, he went upstairs to his room and turned the music on as loud as he could to mask my hysterical crying. I still remember the band and songs playing. Being alone was a huge mistake for me. My mind went to the darkest place: I wanted to die. I saw no use to living. At that time, I thought that everything everyone had said negatively about me was right-I had nothing going for me. I was being selfish but yet harmful to myself in the worst of ways. I attempted suicide. First, I had found a large piece of glass and tried to slit my wrist. I didn’t even know how to do it right and honestly, the thought of seeing my blood freaked me out so I tried three times and gave up. I grabbed a bottle of 120 count Tylenol and thought it would be the less gory route. I stopped myself at 10 pills. I packed my bags, left his house and walked half a mile to the nearest gas station. I called my mom to pick me up. It was late already-somewhere around 8PM. I waited at the gas station, outside, alone and completely drained of emotion and feelings. I just gave up on life. I wanted nothing. I didn’t care. I am not saying that I was in the right in the entire situation or relationship. In fact, I was probably really bad the entire time. I needed help and got nothing that would help me. I didn’t know what would. I felt hopeless. Nothing would take that edge off.

I got back home and my mom made an appointment to see my family physician. He prescribed me my first dose of depression pills, Lexapro. I had to have a coming to Jesus conversation with myself about why I was on it. I hated taking pills. I hated the responsibility. I hated that it meant something was wrong. I found no reason to want to take this, I was still in my funk. I did end up taking them. I was on them for three years before I weened myself off of them since I was more stable.

Then, I attended the University of Nebraska Lincoln after spending 2 years at a community college. I had full anxiety about going to a big school but it was also a mixture of excitement. I got to be a student-athlete, not many get the honor of saying that. Not many people got to finish school, while a student-athlete. College was some of the best and worst times I’ve had to deal with. That can be a later blog but in all, I miss college. I did go through some rough times-I was prescribed Lexapro (a higher dosage), Wellbutrin (to help with my energy level), Ambien (to help me sleep) and Zanax (to help with anxiety). I felt like a walking pharmacy. It wasn’t a good feeling. It also wasn’t a good feeling to be labeled ‘anxious’. I do believe in self-fulfilling prophecies. Luckily, my mental health did not get in the way of my success. I was not the ‘star’ on the team that I had hoped for but my grades were amazing, I had honors, I won an award for a paper I wrote in which my name will be forever engraved in the Sociology department, I won a national championship in 2009, I graduated with a 3.65 GPA.  When I ordered my graduation ring and my national championship ring, I actually got it sized for each of my middle fingers. I did that because it’s a homage to those haters of mine in my life be it all the teasing, the ones that filled my head with doubt and negative thoughts, the ones that thought I wouldn’t be anything, the ones that thought I wouldn’t or couldn’t go to college, the ones that thought my bowling would be worthless, to my ex, to my brother, and it is homage to myself-I won’t take anyone’s shit anymore.

Fast forward to now, my life is great! I have had a stable job for 5 years and yes I am ‘working for daddy’ but I am not complaining about that because I love working with my dad. People who think I have it easy and handed shit on a silver platter can just go fuck themselves. I also have three of the most loving, compassionate dogs that I have had crazy-dog-lady-dreams about. Truly, they are my children. Anything I want, I buy it myself because I am financially stable. Anywhere I want to go, I can go. I’ve taken trips that people fantasize about. I married my biggest fan, my best friend, my soulmate. I do have some really amazing people in my life. I’ve grown to learn who is there for me and those who are not. I wouldn’t change my friends for anything. They mean the world to me. My parents visit often and I love that. I’ve grown so close to them-not that I wasn’t before but they truly are such huge pieces of my life puzzle. I would be a complete mess without them. Another thing, my mind has never been so clear. Since I described all my bad times, I am sure it makes me sound like a complete psycho and that’s OK-I’m fine with that! I truly believe everyone has their moments in life where they aren’t necessarily proud of but my honest hope is that explaining my journey will give someone reading this, hope within themselves that it is going to be OKAY! I am not saying I had the worst life ever or to feel sympathy for me and I am sure someone out there has had it much, much worse than myself but I ended up fine, great. I also hope you understand my story a little more and where I’ve come from with my journey.

The journey to conquering depression or the thoughts of suicide never stop or start at the month of September. There is another side of depression and suicide that a lot of people do not get to see. The side that doesn’t have to be dark. There is light at the end of the tunnel that doesn’t have to end in death, I promise you but it is up to you to make the changes because unfortunately being as stubborn as I am, I have had to admit to myself that I am not going to be healthy my whole life unless I ask for help and take medication, do things that make me happy and surround myself with people who won’t harm me emotionally, physically or any other way possible. This includes being kind to myself and preventing that type harm from me. Please, do not hesitate to ask for help-whether it’s a friend, a stranger, a doctor, a family member, online chat rooms, a phone call to a help line-there is another way to feeling better and it starts with answering honestly-how you are truly doing. Let down your happy face and tell someone your feelings. I am very fortunate enough to have a best friend within my mother because honestly, without me thinking about what my decision would have done to her-how much of a wreck she would have been, I am so happy I called her and was honest with her. She has helped me through those dark, dark times. Even now, not everything is kittens and rainbows and clouds raining Skittles. I have bad days still and I am okay with that. It isn’t an everyday struggle like it used to once be and I find the good, the happy and the joy of life 90% of the time! I would say that is a tremendous stride in the right direction.

Be kind to people and raise your children to do the same. You never know what your comments or actions may make other people feel. Don’t be part of a reason to cause someone to be in the pain, the pain like I once was in. This disease, depression, it can be invisible and very silent. Most times, you won’t know the harm you do until it’s too late. I actually found my suicide note. I thought about posting it but honestly-it is too much for me to share. It pained me instantly. I cried instantly. It would pain my parents and everyone I mentioned in it. It would pain me to know and think about if my child ever felt the way I described in my note and said the things I did say. It would pain me if my child actually did commit suicide. Remember that thought in your head. Be kind to others. Be kind to your parents. Be kind to you.

My Progress: After Surgery

My Progress: After Surgery

The first week of my surgery, it wasn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be. The worst part for me was sleeping at night. I was experiencing, what I think is indigestion/heart burn, I don’t know because I’ve never had that feeling before. I also HATE sleeping on my back. I never have liked it and probably never will. I was still feeling discomfort though. I mean, I did literally just have almost an entire organ ripped out. I was sore. Sleeping on my side wasn’t even an option. One item I bought several, several months ago was a pregnancy pillow. No, I have never been pregnant. I bought the damn thing because it simply it looked comfortable and it just so happened ‘pregnancy’ was in the description. That thing was a life saver. I still had heart burn or whatever the hell that shit was/is. I didn’t know if I could take anti-acids so I just waited until my follow-up with my surgeon. My ‘foods’, aka liquid diet, consisted of the following for the week after my surgery:

Meal: 2 ounces of chicken broth

Meal: 2 ounces of diluted unsweetened applesauce

Meal: 2 ounces of diluted Greek yogurt

This is basically what I lived off of for a week-gradually moving to 3 ounces and then I tried 4 ounces. It wasn’t that bad to do. I was actually impressed how satisfied and full I felt after consuming so little. I loved it. I’ve never experienced it before. To eat to the point of being satisfied-how lovely of a concept. I knew I made the right decision.

Everything sounds like puppies and rainbows right now but trust me, I had two moments of remorse. I first had ‘buyer’s remorse’. Thinking of the ways I could have spent that money. That fire was quickly put out when I talked to myself about my ultimate goals, adding years to my life and it was all fine. The other feeling I had been, “What the fuck did I do to my body?” This lasted for about 10 minutes and came with a good cry. It happened because I felt my house was falling apart and was a complete disaster and I felt so helpless. I don’t know if it was my period, feeling alone, jealous or what but I got over that too with the help of Brian explaining why I did it.

The day of my surgery, August 25^th, I was 233lbs. I wasn’t sure when a good time to weigh myself after surgery but I decided before stepping in the shower that I would see what the Fucker (aka scale) said. On August 28^th, which is three days post-surgery, I was 223.2lbs. I couldn’t believe it. I will go back to my original feelings on the Fucker-it isn’t as important to me as getting fit. My goal weight is 155 (whether that’s realistic or not, I don’t know but I will try my damnedest and in a healthy way). My tool is working! I am officially eight pounds away from weighing what I did when Brian and I got married.

This past Monday, I received a lovely phone call from the bariatric coordinator at CHI. I love her, she is a very blunt yet caring individual. We had a discussion about my recovery and when she asked how I was, I automatically replied without any hesitation-“To be honest, I feel freakishly amazing. Just awesome and I don’t know if that is normal”. I really don’t know if that normal. Everything I’ve read online, you know-since everything posted online is the absolute truth and reality of everything that ever happens, people struggle with their recovery particularly with drinking water and getting enough protein. I hadn’t really ‘eaten’ much in my week of recovery but focused on getting water in as you read above. They told me to focus on staying hydrated-which I did. That is a huge danger to bariatric patients is the dehydration especially for those who are only able to consume so little after surgery. The fact is, you’ll die of dehydration before starvation so I was not worried about my food/calorie intake. I did not have the issues that I had read about-so many horror stories that I won’t share because I honestly don’t want to scare others in what I read. Everyone’s experience is different with the surgery and that includes pre-op, during surgery and post-op. I am getting on average 40-68 ounces of water in a day. It is a bit of a chore, almost a full-time job, but it is not awful. I was consuming approximately 100 ounces or more a day before surgery. I had enough practice. I prepared the best I could before my surgery. The coordinators immediate response to my answer, “That is fantastic! You are doing so well. We are going to talk about progressing your diet”. I wasn’t sure what that meant-I thought maybe she wanted me to focus on protein since I focused on staying hydrated.

On Tuesday, I had my follow-up with my surgeon-Dr. Hovey. Luckily I called about getting my invoice for my surgery because they didn’t have me down for my appointment that they had given me during my release from the hospital. They fit me in later in the day which was fine. My mom was an absolute Saint, yet again, taking care of me. I was not released to drive so she came all the way from North Platte to take me to my doctor’s appointment. My appointment went very, very well. I weighed in at 221 even. The coordinator came to talk to me. She told me that my maximum protein is 100 grams-didn’t even mention that my minimum was 60 grams just because she knows I’m an over achiever. She mentioned my indigestion could be lessened by taking a couple of tums. The next thing we talked about was my progression of my diet. It wasn’t just protein intake, it was moving on to semi-solid foods which means cottage cheese, soft/thin sliced deli meats, shell-fish, string cheese. I was so excited! That was very, very unexpected! Next was the surgeon-he saw my incisions, they looked good! Told me I could peel the tape from my wounds. I was immediately frightened by this thought. I had an image in my head that once I started peeling them off, what was left of my guts would just pill out. I know, it is illogical but to me, it was a legit concern. The surgeon meeting was short and sweet. He was happy to see my progress. I got the OK to go to the gym and do treadmill, weights will be another 2-3 weeks and bowling will have to wait another 2 weeks and a lift restriction of 20 lbs. That made me sad but I do not, I repeat, DO NOT want a hernia. He would have to do surgery all over again to get it fixed. My next follow-up is the end of the month for my one month progress.

Right after my surgeon, I told my mom that I wanted shrimp. I have been craving shrimp and I wanted it like a pregnant lady wants pickles and peanut butter. We went to Hy-Vee in Lincoln and I went a little crazy on food. Once I got the OK to eat normal-ish things, I wanted everything I could have. I got shrimp, scallops, deli meat thinly sliced, cheese, cottage cheese-everything I was allowed to eat. I still had my stock pile of liquid diet stuff I had just purchased-the $46 of groceries that was to last me for a month! Oh well, I felt as if I deserved all this.

My first meal was cocktail shrimp with spicy Louisiana cocktail sauce. I had two shrimp to start but after waiting a bit, I decided I was hungry for more. I finished four more and was d-o-n-e eating. I had taken the bites a little too literal but I am still learning my tolerance with my bite sizes. I had cut the pieces into 1/5 of my pinky nail. I had chewed about 20-25 times each bite. It took me approximately an hour and fifteen minutes to eat. This was entirely too long to eat but I was so worried I would do something wrong and be in pain. I did, however, learn what the feeling is like if I don’t chew well enough-it feels like a whole piece of food is slowly going down your throat, into your stomach in which it feels like throw up/overly full/indigestion. Lesson learned. I figured I would give myself a break being it was my first ‘meal’ since April 15^th. Approximately 14 shrimp equaled 3 ounces of protein so I finished a little less than half. I had some indigestion but again, I was so amazed that I ate so little and was satisfied. I felt like I had eaten my ‘normal’ amount which is about a pound or so of shrimp. I love that it my tool is working!

In the morning, I had one large egg-sunny side up. If my mom was awake at 4:30am, she would have told me not to do this because I wasn’t thinking. The egg was a little rough-it needs to be soft foods like scrambled eggs. I had some spicy guacamole and spicy salsa as well. It took me less time to finish this which was good. One egg did it though-I was satisfied. Unbelievable!

Another meal I made was my bariatric take on surf and turf. I had pan seared scallops in some garlic/I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter and I put them on a bed of medium rare thinly sliced roast beef. Again, probably shouldn’t have done the beef. It wasn’t the softest deli meat I could have chosen and I could tell. Even with my chew-chew-chew philosophy, I could tell it was digesting differently. The scallops on the other hand were perfect! I do need practice on cooking them but really, it was soft and flavorful. I also made garlic cauliflower mashed potatoes. If you haven’t tried that, do it! It is a wonderful substitute to the starchy real stuff! If you want the recipe, I will gladly share it with you. Or I guess there is Pinterest.

I tried cottage cheese for the first time. My mom filled up 4 ounces of it to see how much I could do before I got full. I maybe had eaten 2.5 ounces-we aren’t sure because we have a shithead of a dog who also loves people food for some reason even though we do not share food in our household. I loved it. It went down so smooth. It is hard to chew cottage cheese 20+ times. I dare you to try it next time you eat it. I have been adding medical grade plain protein powder to my cottage cheese. It does alter the flavor a little, I also added some skim FairLife Milk (which if you haven’t tried that stuff-DO IT! It has more protein and lasts way longer than normal milk). I was also told to put some scrambled egg whites in cottage cheese to add more protein. I am excited to try that.

Protein shakes haven’t changed for me-the taste is just the same but I have to drink less of it. I was very worried about this. I had bought two cases off of Amazon and I had heard, read and warned by my team of support at CHI that my taste buds may change after surgery. Luckily, I have not experienced any difference with that sense. However, since surgery I am very sensitive to smells. It is ridiculous! I could literally be a drug sniffing dog.

Another good little snack are the new P3’s. There are P3’s now, located in the grocery section that has Lunchables, with grilled chicken and different sauces (see picture below). They have 4 small grilled chicken fingers, un-breaded. They are the perfect portion for me. I actually cannot finish it-I can eat maybe 3 to 3.5 chicken fingers. I do use very little sauce, almost as a lube to help go down in case it seems dry for me. It isn’t enough for me to freak out about calories since I am only consuming 300-500 calories a day. I think I can allow myself a sliver of sauce per bite.

Saturday I went to the gym for the first time since surgery. It was game day. It was 5:15am on a holiday weekend. I walked for 65 minutes on the treadmill which burned 265 calories and was 2.89 miles. My goal was an hour. I felt great, I loved my sweat. I wasn’t able to drink because I had half a protein shake while driving there. I was thirsty. As soon as I got home, I realized I may have over-did the exercise. I passed out in bed for 2.5 hours which felt amazing but I had yet another lesson learned. We went to the football game at the Pinnacle Bank Area around 11:15am. It was a fairly active day for me. I was hungry more often throughout the day. I had eaten a P3 before the game, the BBQ sauce P3 to be specific. I had also eaten maybe an ounce of chicken from Kendra’s salad with about an ounce of avocado about an hour and fifteen minutes later. While watching the game, maybe two and half hours into it, I also got hungry. I ate just the tiny hot dog with ketchup and mustard-no bread. I can tell my metabolism is changing yet again. This was my most active day since surgery. I had almost 13,000 steps on my FitBit, I was in the heat a fair amount in which I had approximately 86 ounces of water. I was wore out needless to say once the day came to an end.

Surprisingly, I am doing fantastic at not drinking 30 minutes before, during or 30 minutes after eating. It is easier than I thought it would be. I suppose it all goes back to my preparation which I think strongly helped me. The things I did to prepare and would highly recommend to anyone considering the surgery: 1). Working out-this is a tool as I have preached before and weight does not simply fall off on its own. It takes work, dedication and will power 2). Eating slowly-this will help with the process of chewing, thinking about the flavor of the food, appreciating it. 3). No soda/carbonated beverages-this is a forever thing, no cheating. This can harm your tummy after surgery. 4). Protein first, veggies second, starches third. This is priority of the nutrition pyramid. Even this small change can help tremendously. 5). Be organized-I have folders and paperwork galore! Without this, I would be lost. I always carry the folders with me-just in case I need it. That’s all I can think of right now-maybe I will make another blog more in-depth once I get more accommodated to my new lifestyle. I am sure the list will more detailed.

While eating, I have to focus. I am not really supposed to socialize, be on my phone or watch TV. Why is this? I need to think about each bite. I need to talk to my stomach and my mind. This sounds super strange but it is necessary. I am learning all over again how to eat. I am learning my limits. I am learning how I feel both with my stomach and my mind. This is something that I was told to do by several people including my bariatric team at CHI.

I weighed myself and I was at 219lbs. I hit my 50lbs mark with weight loss! That is half way to my doctors goal for me. Courtesy of Kendra, I am doing a motivational weight loss goal thing by treating myself to purchasing a mantra band every 10lbs I loose. Since there are so many I want on the website, I will also extend my goal/mantra band purchasing to also include any goals I achieve on my vision board-whenever I make it.    I am having a hard time seeing the difference, sometimes I see it-sometimes I don’t. I worry I will struggle with my image. This is where I am hoping that therapy will help me. I also am justifying wearing clothes that probably are too big for me since I do not see the difference. It is frustrating. Only a couple of people, Brian is one of them, tell me they see a difference. I cannot get discouraged with that. I am happy with my slow progress. I would rather do this journey healthy and slow than harm myself.

I am doing fantastically to answer all the questions. I can eat little bits and I am so satisfied with that. I am getting my water in plus some, my protein is going great. The only thing I wish I could get to be better is my ‘narcolepsy’ which I get randomly tired and feel like sleeping at strange moments. It also happens after eating, my guess is I get tired of chewing. I am now able to sleep on my side now! Being directly on my stomach still bothers me but that is to be expected. I’m excited what the next few weeks bring! I’ll keep you posted!

My Inner Arrogance…I Mean, Confidence

A lot of people don’t understand the reasoning why I had a permanent surgery when it was solely my choice. It was 100% an elective surgery. Some people don’t understand why Brian and I are having it together which is solely our choice. Solely elective. There is no need for people to try and understand if they don’t get it. They also don’t need to assume or criticize either one of us. Why? Because it is our decision, our lives and I made the ‘courageous’ decision to put myself out there.  I am doing it because 1). I want to remember a year, five years or even when my kids are grown exactly what I went through. I want to know and want my kids to know that I was in a terrible place and I want to compare to my future life that will be happier, healthier and amazing.  2). I am also doing it because I want to truly educate those who really do care, those who truly want to learn about our lives and that support us. I want to potentially inspire people and help others that may be feeling the way I do/did because if it’s one thing I learned in this journey so far, I am not alone. I say things in a blunt-matter-of-fact-no-bullshit-added manner because I want everyone to know what I am going through in full detail, I also need it as my reminder for the now and the future. I want my kids to know this was a lot to do with them-our journey to get healthy, to be healthy, loving, amazing parents. I am proud of what I’ve said and I would say anything I’ve blogged about to a complete stranger, to my kids, to Brian, my parents, to myself.

The people I am not giving time of day are those who do not try to put themselves in my shoes or our shoes for that matter. The people that have never struggled with their weight and think this surgery was the ‘easy way out’. Or even if those that do struggle with their weight and they do not admit it- but yet they must have some right to judge what I have done or what we are going to do as a married couple. The questions of, “Well have you tried X, Y and Z diet before making the decision to have surgery?” By far the question I have gotten most frequently. Of course I did and I failed, just like 95% of society does with any diet. I am truly amazed at those who diet for life. They are freaks of nature.  In doing our research, we have found that SO many people cannot commit to diet changes, and we contribute to the failed statistic.

Most bariatric patients have done all they can to drop weight, as I did. It isn’t just a matter of diet and exercise like most people assume. Yes, that is an element of it. It’s those type people that assume it takes just those two elements and I chose not to communicate with them because they simply do not understand. I cannot tolerate those that don’t listen to my journey and yet they try to fix my issue without even considering my entire life has been nothing less than a struggle, with no understanding or insight into the research and preparation we have done. It’s a matter of forever life style changes. This surgery gives me 100% excuse not to over eat, eat sugary things, and drink alcohol excessively. My bad habits that haunted me my entire life (minus the alcohol-I discovered that at 20 years old) are literally now cut out of my life. Get it?  Cut out?  Like my stomach.

I have no apologies for anything I have said to anyone, blogged about or anything I have physically done. I will not tolerate this shit from anyone, any longer. This goes for both Brian and myself. I have become highly allergic to judgment, shitty comments, excuses and people who think they know my entire life and what I need to fix it. It must be a side effect of my surgery =). Oh what a tragedy, I gained arrogance in my surgery. I better go have a doctor look at me and get that taken care of-God forbid.

This blog is basically about my strength. Not weight lifting strength but the strength that I have gained inside myself, emotionally and mentally. I have found that I’ve gained this sort of arrogance, confidence I should say, about this whole journey to health.  Going back to my celebrity inspiration once again, Ronda Rousey, she has a fantastic quote about this topic of arrogance vs. confidence. She stated after one of her biggest wins in UFC, “Some people like to call me arrogant or cocky, but I just think, ‘how dare you assume I should think less of myself’.” She couldn’t be more right. How dare people assume or judge me for thinking highly of myself for the first time in my life. All of this effort I am putting into myself, all for the sake of becoming HEALTHY. Why be so harsh in judgement? I added years to my life with this surgery-why is that such a bad thing? It is not cosmetic to become the new skinny bitch like Miley Cyrus, it wasn’t out of boredom as if I had nothing else better to do. What it’s truly about is my health and goals in life. I guess it’s a bad thing that I am trying to be the best me. Why do people have a problem with that? I will happily talk with people who want to truly learn what my life is like now, or how it even was before. I will not talk to people-I absolutely refuse to talk to people who want to be nosy for reasons that aren’t coming from a supportive place. I will happily talk with people who want to support me- but to judge what I did in the name of my health and to make the best me I can be, is nothing short of nonsensical and will not be tolerated any longer. I am not stupid, I know when I am judged. My parents raised me the right way and because of them, I know have a good sense of character. I know who is on my side. I know who is judgmental. I know a lot about people’s character. There isn’t much that I cannot see within a person.

Since I started to put myself out there with this whole journey, I have had some unexpected support from people I haven’t heard from in years. I love this. I soak it in every time I get a text, phone call, private message. It has made me genuinely happy, a happiness I haven’t really felt before. I have had people whom I haven’t talked to or seen in years (20 years to be exact) contact me, asking if they can share my blog with a person they know will relate to me, to help their friend in desperate need, maybe  to educate them on the surgery or to feel less alone. It is people like this that keep me going, every single day. I am making a difference even though it is really, really hard for me to admit that I am doing so much good by putting my whole story out there. Even though some people may not agree with my wording or how blunt I am being, it is helping people. It is helping people who have had the surgery (some are in the closet still, some are not) think to themselves-‘Oh I had that happen to me. I feel less ashamed.’ What is so wrong with me being the way I am with this journey and how it is helping people? It isn’t wrong one God damn bit! I think the people that this is bothered by, the judgmental people, the people who think they know ‘best’ for me, it says more than words can even describe but in sum-that the issue is within them, not me. Projecting is the worst!

I made a huge promise to myself last week, before my surgery that I will no longer dwell on people who have sucked the happiness from me in this journey. I will no longer let them bother me or consume my mind one bit. I will not give them a second of my time. I will, however, surround myself with people who are excited, happy and ask me how I am doing-even if it’s once a week, once a year or once in 20 years. I will surround myself with people who have my like mindedness. The terrible saying I hated in college but I do appreciate now, haunts me still: “Misery is Miseries Company.” I think the same is true on just the opposite-I feel I can do great things when I have people who have my like mindedness. My goal is to spread that feeling to others. I know I’m good at it; filling people’s buckets with positivity. I will absolutely start speaking my mind to those people who disagree with my choices because I can. I am making the best choices for me and my very small family. I know this. I am confident. I am pretty sure I am an adult last time I checked and I make fairly adult decisions that I feel are the best for me/us at the time, whether I want to make those choices or not. Newsflash: I am not an adolescent. I make decisions that are pretty profound and everyone should be scared of that. That was another one of my goals last week before surgery: I want people to fear me with my words. Not truly fear me but my point, if I say I am going to do something, I absolutely will do that something. I will do it to my best ability and I will prove people wrong. This is my competitive edge and it is coming back to me every day. Whatever I say, I will do!

There were questions as to why Brian was not there for me at the hospital after surgery. He was there for the day/night of surgery. I feel as if I need to clear the air with something else that has been on both Brian’s and my mind involving that whole situation. We both felt pretty terrible about the questions we were getting about the trip he took. Brian had flown to Oregon last Wednesday morning, bright and early to finish his amazing tattoo that I had actually started for him as a surprise for his birthday in January. We had booked an appointment with the tattoo artist who is kind of a big deal/celebrity (Heather) to be finished back in January while we were still there. In April, we were supposed to go to Wyoming, where she lived at the time, but she had to move to Oregon and therefore, had to cancel the appointment in April. The next available time she could get Brian in was in late August. We booked our tickets to Oregon back in May. I marked it on my calendar but marked it incorrectly-I had put that the Oregon trip was August 17^th-19th. With scheduling my surgery, I planned it so that I could still go to Oregon the week before. I scheduled my surgery for August 25^th. They would not allow me to fly after surgery so this is why I chose the date I did. I did not realize that I had the dates mixed up until a couple months ago. We carefully debated on what to do with the mix up but essentially Brian told me it was my decision. He said he will do whatever I need him to do and be where ever I want him to be. I told Brian I want nothing more than for him to still go to Oregon without me. I needed him with me the day/night before my surgery, the day of my surgery and stay with me for a bit at night after my surgery. I knew I would be tired so I didn’t need company around me 24/7. I couldn’t imagine having a lot of company. I’ve seen the exhaustion that causes, which is more harm than good. My parents were taking care of me (and did a fantastic job) after surgery. This also influenced my decision of him going to Oregon. We both knew I would be in good hands. He was going to cancel his appointment with Heather in Oregon. I wouldn’t let him. I knew I would be OKAY. There wasn’t a moment Brian didn’t check in with me while he was traveling. We text messaged, SnapChat pictures, called one another. Brian is the best husband I could have ever been honored to marry. If there was any concern that he is a douche, that would have been well handled before we got serious. He is not a douche for ‘leaving’ me. I asked him to go, have fun and get something finished that I started for him. We have been happily together for nine years, yes that is 9 years next month. For people to judge the both of us for this decision even though I was in the hospital for something comparable to having my gallbladder out, ridiculous. Oh, and he had a fantastic time which made me happy and his tattoo is nothing short of completely bad ass which was my whole goal for his present. We will plan a trip to Oregon when I want to get my sleeve done and he is absolutely going with and I will be a better planner/more organized. There. Problem solved.

What I absolutely love about our marriage is that we are two completely separate people who make decisions together and the other person, be it me or Brian, always allows the other to do what they want. Communication is the key. There is no stereotype with us involving the, ‘I have to ask the boss’ type shit. We even have separate finances. Again, we don’t want the excuse of, ‘Well I want to buy a pair of shoes but I have to ask hubby first’. Absolutely, no. Never. If I want a pair of fucking shoes, I will buy it with my money, no questions asked, no judgment from Brian. If Brian wants to buy a video game, he does so with his money, no questions asked other than if I want to play the game with him. The only rule we have are that the bills are paid since that is priority, then we can splurge how we want. Brian wouldn’t ever judge me for what I do and vis-à-vis. We feel this eliminates so much complication that does occur in marriages. It is very simple actually: We do what we want-we communicate this, we buy whatever we want-we communicate this, and we travel wherever we want to go-together or separate-we communicate this. We love each other, we respect each other and that is fact. It is hard to find that in a significant other. We are not the normal couple. We definitely aren’t a cookie cutter relationship. We have our own non-traditional family traditions. We love that. We are so comfortable within our relationship. We love that too. I also believe those that know us on a more personal level, would agree with everything I said.

From this point on, we promised each other that we no longer have to answer to anyone why we do the things we do-as a married couple. It goes back to my statement-we are not adolescents, we make adult decisions whether we want to or not and we are adults in the matter. It is no one else’s business other than maybe both of our parents what we do. Our new philosophy is just as simple as that; no explanations needed. I may even make matching t-shirts that say that and we may just wear them together, with pointing arrows at each other. We are not the normal relationship or cookie-cutter type family. We never have been and never will be. It sounds like such a boring life and we see it in people and still agree. It will no longer be an issue from this point on.

This blog may shift relationships or friendships, hell I may even loose a friend or two. Unfortunately with my new found arrogance/cockiness/confidence, I do not care. The people that do care and truly want both Brian and I to do well and achieve our goals, will be there, at the never-ending-finish-line of this journey and root at loud as they can with bells and whistles. There is a difference in people and I am seeing it more clearly than ever. It makes me sad and extremely happy at the same time. It makes me sad that some people that should probably be asking how I am doing, haven’t said a thing about any of this to me. It makes me sad that there is judgement by people. I also am extremely happy that my journey is bringing people back to my life that in one way or the other, had lost the friendship connection. It feels as if our friendship wires were fused back together, all because they read, enjoy and try to understand my blog. They talk to me about it. Yet, I feel bad that sometimes I don’t feel like a big deal to certain people that I feel I should be a big deal to, but more importantly I am realizing that I need to feel like a big deal about me, inside. I do not need their reassurance that I am a big deal to feel like one. Screw that. I may wait forever if I waited for other people to confirm my feelings. Those people that do not agree with me or my lifestyle, the judgment and how they feel they have a right to disagree with my lifestyle changes, that’s fine. You keep on keepin’ on. That small 2% of those type people do not make a difference to me. The rest of the 98% of people I am making a difference to, inspiring, helping for the better, they matter and they know they do. I tell them constantly. I have a large cheering squad that I will continue to perform for because that’s what I like doing! Confidence, arrogance or cockiness-I love it. I finally got my mojo back!

So…What Was Bariatric Gastric Sleeve Surgery Like?

***Warning: If you are considering a weight loss surgery (WLS), please take my experience with a grain of salt. Everyone’s experience is different and everyone’s pain level is different. This blog is not meant to scare the fear into anyone. It is a realistic experience that I did not fib about. It is honest. I hope you take it for what it is worth but do not judge my experience with what you may experience***

Monday night, it was almost out of body the feelings I was experiencing. My anxiety was probably the highest it has ever been, something that I’ve had all my life. It was more than just a brick on the chest. I couldn’t focus on anything. I was un-rationally freaking out that my liver was going to be too big and they would have to do the huge incision on me. There were plenty of small freak out moments for me. I feel bad now about that night after it is all said and done-I took it out on Brian when he was trying to be playful with me to get me to relax. I just couldn’t stand the thought of happy anything-I hated my feelings and couldn’t control my anxiety.

My last ‘meal’ before surgery was at 8pm. Dad and Brian got sub sandwiches to go from some place in Omaha and they got me two soups-chicken noodle and some sort of minestrone. The restaurant strained one of the soups-chicken noodle which was delicious. I loved the broth. I ate every drop. I just wanted something different than my favorite ready to drink protein shakes. I tried to eat the minestrone but they forgot to strain it and it was too difficult to eat for me. I had no patience to strain it myself, with my own mouth.

I had to shower the night before, with a surgical soap called Hibiclense. I used it when I got all my piercings back in the day-I actually like the smell of it. I bought all new loofahs; I bought a brush for my back, I bought a loofah for my back and I bought a regular loofah for everyday use. I was freaking out in the shower about infections-what if I get an infection? What if I die of an infection? It was literally going from one freak out to the other. I had to just stop myself. There was no sense in worrying about that. Although, I did use half a bottle of it and washed my entire body three times.

Sleeping was next to impossible. I cuddled with Roto for the last time since he does tend to jump on me. I didn’t want to miss that moment with him. I couldn’t get comfortable. My mind wouldn’t shut up. It was as if we went to the Kansas City Speedway to watch the racing-it was the loudest event I’ve ever been to, until the night of my surgery. I couldn’t eat or drink anything after 12am. This was another worry for me because I drink at least a 100 ounces a day of water now. I also had a required pregnancy test in the morning-what if I couldn’t pee? Could I not have surgery?

I woke up, exhausted. I woke up having to pee at 4am. This was two and a half hours before I needed to be at the hospital. We were only 10 minutes away. I just stayed up, thinking about waterfalls of all things. I’m a moron sometimes. I completely wore myself down with exhaustion and worry. Of course, my first worry was-what if I wore myself down so much that I get sick? Oh, what will it feel like to sneeze? I may rip open my incisions. Okay-back on track, I had to shower a second time with Hibiclense. I took a long shower. This would also be the last time water could hit my chest/stomach area from the front for a while too-I soaked in that feeling. No pun intended.

We got to the hospital. I had a change of face. My best coping mechanism with any situation is humor. I am very, very funny. Going back to the bias/closet narcissist-I think I am fucking hilarious. I have a different humor hat for everyone I’m around. I like to think of myself of a perfect mixture of Amy Schumer, Tina Fey, Adam Sandler and maybe some George Carlton. I check in and I immediately tell the receptionist, “I have to pee…like really bad and I just need this negative pregnancy pee juice out of me”. She smiled and sent the nurse right up. I peed! It was negative-weird!

They set me up in the pre-op room where I had to get completely naked and wipe myself with 3 packets of these super strong baby wipe looking things. It took me a while and I could tell the nurse was getting impatient because I again, was freaking out about infections. I changed into my gown, got my expensive surgery socks on and crawled into bed. She came and discussed history with me like my last period, when to expect my period (which was that day), any allergies…basically the same information I’ve been telling everyone from the get go. I interrupted her and told her I was exhausted and felt the worst case of anxiety, she said I needed to tell anesthesia which was coming very shortly. She started putting my IV in. Come to find out she lived in North Platte so we talked about that for a bit. Anesthesia came in and waited for her to finish up before they gave me their stories. She let me know that my pregnancy results came back negative-and my attempt to be funny, I said-“I knew that. Hubby and I haven’t banged in so long!” and I laughed, she chuckled but the anesthesia team did not find it funny. They ordered me a bunch of shots, including some anti-anxiety medication which worked WONDERS! The second shot I got was one in the stomach. It hurt like a bitch and it was one that she warned me it may burn as she is injecting it in my stomach. My response, “This doesn’t burn at all…(wait for it….) And there it is!” It felt like gasoline. It was some kind of blood thinner to make sure I don’t bleed out on the table. The third shot I got was an interesting one. At this point the nurse and I bonded a lot, we swore in front of each other, giggled and laughed at inappropriate things-I liked her. She made me feel better, or maybe that was the meds she injected me with-either way, I don’t care. She said, “Now this needle has a steroid in it that I’ve heard stories about. It will be going in your IV. The people I have injected admitted that there is a burning sensation. It is a sensation burning on your private area”. She injected it and within seconds, my vagina was on fire. Literally, it felt like fire ants were eating my vagina. I described it all to her. She laughed. She also said, “The last time I injected this was on an elderly lady. She said she hadn’t felt that type of sensation in YEARS!” I had to laugh and quickly forgot about the discomfort. I asked if it’s only females that feel that and she said, “Come to think about it-the males complain their head hurts/itches…like their head with a brain not the other one”. The nurse also warned me I would have a catheter inserted after I was asleep. I have no idea why but I was freaking out about this. I couldn’t stop worrying about remembering the pain of it while it is pulled out. She was a blessing in a uniform. The Physician’s Assistant came in to check on me-I also love her. She asked me questions, made me feel at ease. I was as ready as I was going to be.  At 8:15am, the final thing they did for me-they injected me with the night-night medicine and I remember being wheeled back, looking at the two flat screens that the doctor will look at while performing. Sleep hit me like a train.

It was 9:15am, I woke up in recovery crying instantly. I was in the operating room for an hour. I could hardly breathe. I couldn’t control myself. I was in a lot of pain. I hunched over, yelling as best as I could with my hoarse voice asking for help. They kept telling me to calm down and I said I would if I had some relief. I don’t know what being stabbed is like but I imagine it is pretty fucking close to what I felt, with lots of twisting. Within seconds I was back a sleep. I remember waking up off and on starring at the people next to me in recovery. It was a whole room full of people. I imagined that’s what it would look like during an apocalypse, ‘the bitten’. Don’t judge me, I was drugged up. I hadn’t been thinking clearly for 24 hours or more. I looked at the clock when I was more coherent and it was 12:30pm, I was worried they weren’t telling my family I was okay. I overheard the nurses complaining that they had so many surgeries that day, they had no room to put the new patients. I was next to get a room. When I was coherent and walking around, a miracle had happened-I peed! I had no discomfort when I peed-I thought to myself, “This catheter thing was easy! What the fuck was I so worried about?” Well I asked the nurse because I when I peed, I had started my period and asked if it was from the catheter or my period. I said, “Nevermind-screw it just get me a damn tampon from my mom-this is a massacre”. I was due to start anyways. I prepared. The nurse informed me that they performed my surgery without a catheter with no explanation why. The second miracle had happened!

Finally I was upstairs on the 7^th floor. I was still. I was home for the next 36 hours. I had the best nurses. I respect them very much so. I feel as if I could be a good nurse but I couldn’t stand the site of that much blood or trauma. My grandma even told me while caring for my sick grandpa, “You are so nice. You should be a nurse”-well I probably shouldn’t be but I do care a lot, about people. My favorite nurse was Patrina. She was amazing! I feel I could have been her best friend. I am actually going to write her a recommendation to receive an award. My parents brought me a care package full of goodies like slippers, coloring books, flowers, and a game to play. I had a full set of stuffed animals to keep me company-my best friend Kylee got me a stuffed animal that looked like Roto in which I named Cooper (after her celebrity boyfriend Bradly Cooper), Kendra gave me sleeve-buddy in which I named Raven (because when I had surgery-its name was Ravenous but we removed the OUS-okay use a dictionary, you’ll know the joke about it) and Brian gave me his childhood ALF stuffed toy and sprayed the shit out of it with his cologne (all the female nurses kept saying how good I smell and trust me-it wasn’t me).  I also had a visitor from my best friend Jasmine. Unfortunately, I don’t remember her being there much because I had just gotten morphine but I love that she was there. I could hear her voice but not understand her. It was soothing to hear someone visit.

Brian said his goodbyes at 10:30pm that night. I had royally fucked up months ago in planning our trip to Oregon to get his surprise birthday present tattoo finished that we had started back in January. I marked Oregon down on the wrong week (the week of Aug. 17^th-19^th) and my surgery on the right week (scheduled this week-25^th). I found out after I scheduled my surgery that I put the wrong date down for Oregon-it was all my fault. I didn’t want to switch my date because if I did it once, I would find an excuse to do it again. It needed to be concrete. I told Brian I want nothing more than to fulfill what he wants to do and since I started the project by surprising him, he needs to go get it finished. We booked Heather in Oregon back in April to finish his tattoo in Wyoming but she moved and wasn’t able to do it until August. It was important to me that he go. I will blog later on this topic in depth as I need to get some words off my chest about it. It wasn’t until shortly after Brian and my parents left, I had a reaction to morphine. My IV became irritated and rash like. The nurse was pretty worried. My dad had shot a picture of me in the afternoon when I first arrived with a similar reaction but it was on my face. It ended up going away after 10 minutes but I will have to make note of it for the future. Brian would have stayed if needed. I needed him the night before, the day of and night of-then he was free to go! I knew I would be OK after that.

I slept pretty horrible that night after all my visitors left. I was up every 2 hours, asking for more medicine for my discomfort and sleep to be honest. My stomach was hurting a little, I wasn’t sure if my period had anything to do with it-I had actually stopped my period from several hours before when I first peed (see ‘massacre’ above) when I apparently started. I’m sure my period saw my insides and thought, “Oh shit-you’ve got a lot going on inside here. Maybe I’ll hold off a couple days”. Luckily it did!

I had gone through so many nurses during my stay. In following morning, I was finally able to pee and get some fluids out of me. I wasn’t able to drink a drop for over 24 hours. All I could do is wet my mouth with a sponge. I was sucking in the IV fluids like it was going out of style. The next morning-Wednesday, my goal was to drink 4 oz of water within an hour and then move to the bariatric fluids (which is this stuff called Juven-it’s basically like Crystal Light but meant to help recover the incisions on the inside of your body-tissue building nutrition). I couldn’t start that process until I saw a PA or a doctor-I didn’t get cleared to start this until 9:15am. I love my PA-I told her my concern with my liver and I told her my goal was to have the smallest liver the doctor had ever seen. She said, “That’s funny you mention that. As soon as he opened you up and we saw your liver, my first thought was-‘My goodness that’s a good size liver’. You would be stunned at how many people cheat during their 10 day liquid diet and what we have to do to compensate for a larger liver. It was great! Also you did not have a catheter because Dr. Hovey is experimenting with not using them during the gastric sleeve surgeries. This will help with decreasing infection and also cost effectiveness. You are only the second person to not have one during one of his gastric sleeve surgeries.”

Anyways, back to the water. I finished the 4 oz of water within an hour, felt sick full but not bad. I started the bariatric stuff and felt God awful. I had taken a two hour nap because I was so exhausted and Thanksgiving full. I could have thrown up but I was so scared what that would feel like. Come to find out after a nurse switch after my nap, I needed to drink 3 or 4 cups of 4 oz each of the bariatric fluid before I could get let go. I had to almost start back over. I was walking the floor like no one’s business. The other nurses on the floor would say, “Why are you the only patient doing what they are supposed to do?” or another one I got, “You are making grooves in the floor!” I was trying to stay on top of the gas they pumped me with. Before surgery actually happens, the techs pump some sort of gas in the body-the gas has nowhere to go other than travel. I still have gas between my shoulder blades and the tops of my shoulders. Walking helps this process very much! Kendra told me, “The only piece of advice right after surgery-you have to walk. Even if you don’t want to, don’t feel like it, you are tired-you walk!” I listen to her like she is preaching to a full house of church going people that need some help. Or an even better comparison-she is my Mr. Miyagi and I am the Danielson. Boy, was she right! Finally after I had almost thrown up due to being so full, I was released. I wanted to go back to the hotel. It was 8:30pm and we still had to make it to Wal-Greens to get my prescription liquid pain killer.

Roto was driving himself nuts because he couldn’t be on the same bed as me. I finally let it happen. I put a pillow on my stomach and let him sleep with me. He actually kept my mom and myself up because he was frustrated that he couldn’t be near me. My mom’s laptop was blocking his ‘bridge’ (the night stand) to get to me. He cared very much for me and was careful. I loved it. I needed it.

As a fun fact, my dad and I were curious how the surgery looked from the doctors perspective. We YouTubed a medical video of it. It was gross but honestly, surgery and medicine are truly amazing to me. It is amazing the things they come up with the better the human race. I have nothing but the most outright respect for nurses and doctors. If you are considering this surgery, I would not recommend watching this video. It is also something you shouldn’t watch if you have an uneasy stomach. My dad is notorious for being uneasy around blood or anything of the sort-he passes out getting his blood drawn. We both were fascinated by what my body just went through and the technology they used to do it.

I was pleasantly surprised to see how many people commented on my Facebook wall, private messaged me and also text messaged me with their love and concern. I appreciate that more than words. There is a saying that, “Blood is thicker than water”-I don’t always agree with that statement as nice as it may sound. Actually, I don’t agree with it at all-for several reasons I would rather not blog about. I have such a huge support system that have shown me they want me to succeed and do well in life. They have no relation to me, whatsoever. True colors really show in people and for those people that provide that support and love for me, I love you and it helps me more than words can explain.

Also, thank you to my unconditionally loving parents! I know this was a scary process for all of us but I am so happy that you’ve been there learning, experiencing everything with me and share my humor about my journey. You are truly troopers as I know I am goofy to deal with. Brian-you have been extremely supportive and pushing me when I’m scared the most. I know I will break down and thank you more later when I admit this was a fantastic idea. You all are the best!

This is all for a now! I will blog more on my journey soon! I have to update on my food progress!!!!!!

My Ten Day Liquid Diet-The Final Blog as a Normal Stomached Person

Day One of Liquid Diet (8/15/15)

It was a strange feeling waking up today knowing I was done with food for a long while. I had done the liquid diet while I had required work meetings in Kearney. I did it Monday and Tuesday night I caved in and ate some dinner. It was a food funeral night-I had bar food; a hangover burger (8oz patty with a fried egg on it, waffle fries, ranch dressing, “Bleu Balls” and boneless wings). It seemed easy to do the liquid diet. I did it-was satisfied. However, today I had learned that it was probably 95% psychological that it was that easy because I, at that time, didn’t have to be on a liquid diet.

Today, I watched my best friend Jasmine compete in the top 16 at the Professional Women’s Bowlers Tour (aka PWBA). I am so fucking proud of her. It was exhausting to watch, I cannot imagine how she is feeling now that it is all done with. It was hard for me to watch on Friday but honestly, I had a fantastic day. It was going through memory lane-so many people I haven’t seen in years, most I talked to, most I didn’t care to talk to. I received amazing feedback from people with my blog, I talked about myself a LOT. Felt bad at first but I had a lovely conversation with someone and she had said, “You don’t need to call it selfish-you need to start calling it ‘taking care of yourself’ because there is nothing selfish about that”. It was truly a feeling that I’ve never felt before talking in person with the people who have followed my blogs. I also found out that I have a surprising number of people who have read them but never acknowledged they are following. I smile at this.

The hard part was the desire I felt to compete. I was sad at times but honestly, the promise I made myself to be fit, prepared and determined for the following year to compete at most of the stops-that in itself helped me cope. I’ll start on those goals later. I am going to take Kendra’s advice and start some kind of goal/vision board to look at every day. For now, I am soaking in the feeling of being proud of my best friend achieving one of her own goals. I cannot wait to travel with her and help each other next year.

Around 8am had my first protein drink-my favorite one actually. It is called Med-Ex 51 in the flavor of cookies and cream. It has 51 grams of protein and is actually pretty filling. I ordered two more cases off of Amazon to get me through the work week. Yes, I Amazon Primed that shit.  We watched Jasmine bowl from 9:00am till about 12:00pm. I was starving. I tried water but it was a true hunger. I needed food. Excuse me, I needed liquid. I took my parents to the Pho Factory. They had never had it so I was excited to see them try it. I ordered spicy beef pho in a huge ass bowl. I wasn’t able to finish it but I also ordered another huge ass container full of spicy beef pho. This seemed easy for me to not really want to eat anything else. The hardest part of eating pho, they did not strain the onions or green onions out of the broth. I was literally fishing for a plain sip of soup without that added stuff. In a way, I made a game of it and it was kind of fun. I love the flavor-I can absolutely do this if I need some flavor in my life. Kendra had given me a care package earlier in the week in which it consisted of Ziplock bags that are for homemade popsicles. I am going to freeze my pho soup and call them Pho-Sicles.

After that, we watched more competition. A few hours later, I was starving again. A true hunger. I had a personal conversation with my stomach and it was hungry-water wasn’t doing it. The bowling alley was smelling very good- I had Brian stop at a gas station to get muscle milk-I drank two of them. I was satisfied.

We had dinner reservations at Blue Sushi for 7pm. I was starving again. I forgot to drink a protein shake before we left but I knew I was okay with soups. I ordered two miso soups and one creamy crab soup. My parents and Brian had ordered a fair amount of sushi-some that I know I love. I had eaten my soups first but I wasn’t satisfied so I ordered one more creamy crab soup. I had eaten that while everyone had their sushi. I was desperate for some flavor so after everyone was done eating their sushi, I was wanting to lick everything. I had licked a fire roasted baby corn just to get the flavor. It took all my might not to inhale it. I also took out a piece of asparagus that was in one of the rolls and just licked the eel sauce off of it. I never knew how vegetable-y asparagus tasted until I licked, sucked and savored it.

Later that night, I did my measurements and weigh in. I should not have done one of those things and you guessed it-weighing myself on the Fucker. It said I had gained ten pounds but I am justifying that with A). Water/Liquid weight B). All my food funerals C). I hadn’t been to the gym in three days. I am over it-it is just a number and it will soon be different. My measurements, on the other hand, I was pretty happy! It was satisfying to see the inches on a piece of paper.

With my liquid diet, I am asking people to give up something for 10 days. I have a fair amount of people doing it with me-including my parents and Brian. Dad is giving up alcohol, Brian isn’t going to swear and gave up Instagram and mom, I am so proud of her-she is giving up her new favorite candy-M&M’s.

Day Two of Liquid Diet (8/16/15)

I woke up to a hyper puppy at 6:15am. I slept pretty terrible because of her and let me tell you, I was exhausted-I wanted nothing more but sleep. My stomach was grumbling, hunger woke up with me. I had a protein shake, of course my favorite. I had an 8am coffee date with some girlfriends to do some blog writing. It is super fun! There was three of us-we each have a blog. Blog dates. They are my new favorite thing, well second favorite next to gym time!

Had a decent day with the liquid diet. It was my first time experiencing eating at home with everyone. It was slightly humorous to watch Brian cook. He screwed up his goal of not swearing while cooking. I couldn’t help but smile watching. The food he made smelled delicious. I ate broth while Kylee, dad and Brian ate a Sriracha smoked chicken. My mouth waters just typing those words. My left over pho was spicy and satisfying surprisingly.

I did have to take a break from being in the house-the food smell was very good and it bothered me to the point of breaking. I went on the porch and relaxed. I made a list of things I needed to accomplish this week. I needed a break from the smell in the house. It smelled so wonderful. Brian is doing such a good job of eating healthy. I crave healthy. I am starting to crave texture. I will make some sort of popsicles, courtesy of Kendra supplying me with the bags to do so.

Day Three of Liquid Diet (8.17.15)

Today, I felt hungry all the time. I woke up at 4:10am to make sure I had my protein shake before work out. I drank half of it and drank the other half when I was done. I felt thirsty while working out. It also doesn’t help that the iron taste in my mouth is getting worse. I had this when I was on the Atkin’s diet 14ish years ago. I guess too much protein does that to me. I had a bunch of running around to do with work so I made sure I packed enough ready to drink protein shakes to cover me.

I went to lunch with dad once our meetings were done. While there, I ordered 1 bowl of the egg drop soup and 1 bowl of the hot and sour soup (not my favorite but I wanted to switch it up). It was good-after I filtered it out. I still need to purchase a tea-bag strainer to put in my purse so it makes my life a little easier.

I also had my required 1 week before surgery doctor’s appointment. It went well and everything so far as checked out good. I won’t hear some of the results in time of surgery but my doctor said she will have them before and if there is an issue, she will personally call me. I didn’t realize how the communication works in doctor’s offices but I left there and felt good about what we talked about. I was also sad, disappointed and emotional for just a moment when I had to bring up getting on birth control. Since I can’t do the shot due to the increases of depression/suicide if you have a history of it (I have a history of both), I have to do pill but can’t start them until after surgery. My short emotional fit lasted maybe 5 minutes and I shook it off. Anyways- if you live in Lincoln and don’t have a trusted doctor, I cannot speak more positively about Dr. Blake. If you want more information about her, message me. She is the perfect doctor, for me.

I did have to stay in the bedroom while food was being made and consumed. I just feel like I needed a break after experiencing being around it for several days in a row. I had a moment of weakness and felt bad for Brian because he is seeking approval that he is still eating very healthy, I am craving healthy foods. He tried to describe what he made and I cut him off and told him I wasn’t ready to hear it but tried to assure him that he is doing well with eating.

I took a walk in the back yard to get my steps in because I am in FitBit challenges but also to clear my head. I relaxed and did some Pinterest pinning. There was food involved but I had a personal conversation with myself and kept repeating, “This is temporary. This is temporary.”

Day Four of Liquid Diet (8/18/15)

Today was a pretty awful day. I got maybe 3 or 4 hours of sleep. There was a terrible storm in Lincoln that was at its strongest by our house. Between the hard rain, thunder and the flashes of continuous lightening, it was pretty difficult for a light sleeper like me to get any rest. I didn’t go to the gym in the morning. I tried-I woke up at 4:10am like the usual but I just couldn’t. I had to drive quite a bit for work and I don’t do well when it comes to being sleepy and driving. I don’t do caffeine so it’s especially harder for me on those type days to just wake up. I was just in a poor, negative mood and I had moments of feeling better-but I pulled myself back into a hole of feeling bad about myself.

I did the usual and packed my cooler full of protein shakes. I am not experiencing hunger every 3 hours. Let’s just say that I am almost tripling-almost quadrupling my protein intake. To switch it up from the shakes, dad and I drove around Omaha trying to find a place with soup. Finally, a Panera Bread popped up. While there, I was trying to figure out what soups I wanted-chicken noodle is too much work, cream of broccoli is too chunky/creamy, vegetable beef sounded boring as shit-I settled on the cream of tomato soup. I was REALLY hungry so I ordered a 12 ounce and an 8 ounce soup.

The lady came to the table and dropped off my two soups and my dad sandwich. I told her the two soups were for me in which her (extremely judgmental) response, “Oh wow-someone must be really hungry today eating two soups!” Being that my mood wasn’t the best, I quickly snapped at her telling her pretty quickly in a tone I don’t use often, “Well I am on a restricted diet because I am having bariatric surgery and yes, I am hungry-starving in fact. I am on day four.” She looked at me with a look as if she had seen Jesus Christ himself, “Oh my! I am so sorry dear. This isn’t much of a meal at all. You must be starving all the time” in which my response, “You have no idea”. The way I look at it the situation-if I had ordered the worst sandwich on the menu, a baguette, soup which also comes with shit tons of croutons and another baguette-would she have said anything? Because I ordered two of one of the healthier things on the menu-I was judged. Let’s just sum my temperament up with being short fused and no time for excuses from other nor judgement.

My dad had purchased the new flavor of Frito Lay chips: Reuben. I licked it in desperation for flavor and quickly threw it out the van window. I did this as if it were going to bite me like a snake.

First night of league happened. It actually made my day in addition to joking with Kendra via text message all day. She knows how to brighten my day-the Tigger to my Pooh-attitude. I didn’t bowl the greatest but you know, I will take it after I have had a short sabbatical with bowling. Hali and I are making goals to give us something to work towards. I haven’t made mine yet but she has. I am excited to help her achieve them! A couple challenges did happen at the bowling alley; they made food and it smelled really good. I could tell it was pepperoni pizza. This is something I have noticed that has changed about me; my sniffer is super sensitive-I could probably be a drug sniffing human. Anyways, the team we bowled against also had someone who was vapor smoking. They had cotton candy and it smelled delicious. I hadn’t even thought about cotton candy probably in years until that point. I got over it. I am stronger than cotton candy or pepperoni pizza.

Day Five of Liquid Diet (8/19/15)

I woke up in middle of the night. This is probably due to the fact that I drank 90 ounces of water just at bowling. On a good note, I slept hard and loved it. It was really, really, really hard to get out of bed but it helps knowing that Hali depends on me picking her up at 4:45am to go to the gym. I had a case of the giggles even. What a difference a day makes! I did have a bad dream. I had a dream that I cheated on my liquid diet, not on purpose. I didn’t follow it to a complete science and they had to do a HUGE incision on me. I woke up after that-concerned of course, doubting myself.

I had to travel out of town for work again but since I wasn’t as tired, I felt good about the day. While I was in Seward, I stopped at a gas station to get some water. The cashier-maybe in her early 40’s noticed my new tattoo. She had mentioned that she loves the color. Being friendly like I am, I said “Thank you-I got it done almost two weeks ago.  DNB stands for ‘Do Nothing Bitch’ after Ronda Rousey. She is a famous UFC fighter. Her response was more judgmental and the lady the day before, “Oh…well…alrighty then” in this tone I couldn’t stand. I gave her a look that probably meant a million words-but she could probably guess the two I meant (starting with an F and ending with a U) and walked off with a smile thereafter.

My dad had wanted some food-it was a late lunch. My hunger is growing every day. I guess that’s okay since the physician’s assistant said I can hand unlimited liquid diet. Took my dad to McDonald’s so he could get a grilled chicken wrap. He got the combo meal. It was hard-the smell, which I haven’t been attracted to for YEARS-in fact I hate McDonalds and haven’t eaten there in nearly 6 years (don’t get me wrong, I chose to be a fat ass somewhere else and order my double or triple burger and a diet soda with fries). I did myself a favor and got a smaller protein shake from my pre-packed cooler and drank that. Although I will admit, I thought of greasy food with every gulp I took. I consumed a lot of water today as well. I peed more today than I have in weeks, maybe even in my life. I must be metabolizing water better. I’ve always had a thing about not peeing much no matter who much I drink or what I drink. I guess I trained my bladder to have a strong piggy bank since we traveled so much as kids/teenagers-I would have to hold it until the next gas station but my dad would forget so 50-80 miles later, he remembered.

Got home in time for dinner (I had left over Pho) and was considering going to the gym for a second time while everyone ate their normal food but I thought about all the shit I need to do like laundry, folding laundry and fixing our closet (my dad did that-it was a pain in the ass). I’m glad I didn’t go to the gym. I need to go into surgery feeling I did everything I wanted to do which includes housework. I doubt everything I want to get done will actually get done but I still have several days to work on it.

I also got several words of encouragement today via text and also through Facebook. I am seeing who my real friends are and being surprised of the support from people I haven’t heard from in years. It’s very refreshing to see this and a little disappointed in the others. I will not let that effect any part of my journey. Speaking of friends, stool softener has become my best friend. I had a fantastic date in the bathroom with it and it also was refreshing.

Day Six of Liquid Diet (8/20/15)

It was another day, another shake. It is getting a little redundant but still I have not had any temptation worth messing up my surgery. Went to the gym as first thing. I didn’t put a full effort in but I never do. In my opinion, I give it 95% so I can leave a little to be desired later. I’ve been taking some walks in the evening to get some steps in since I am doing more of the weight training than cardio. I’m still doing cardio-don’t get me wrong. I also treated myself to soup today! Tomato basil at Hy-Vee for lunch. Too many carbs but at least I am switching it up.

I seemed not as hungry the entire day. I think it was maybe my nerves. After work, I took my parents to Omaha to do the pre-operation class that is required. This is yet one more step that is making it more real. I was nervous I would learn something I didn’t know or start scaring myself out of doing it. It was almost just the opposite. My support team is really awesome, except maybe the pharmacist-I didn’t care for her but I can live without her. Any of her concerns, I have already talked my family physician and also the surgeon and she seemed to flip out about nothing. Anyways, one hugely positive thing that I learned-I am more prepared than 85% of the people that were in attendance. It shocked me how some people have gotten that far in this program with stupid questions like-“Soda and quitting…is this a permanent thing or when can I have it after surgery?”—are you kidding me? The same lady also asked about ‘juices’. On the OK list of things to consume during liquid diet-tomato juice and fruit juice (certain kinds-low calorie, low carb etc.). She asked, “So juices…tomato juice I don’t really like. Can I drink V8 Splash?” this was after the lecture about what is a good juice vs. a bad juice. She was mumbling “Oh Lord” under her breath with the answers that were thrown back at her. She should just save the insurance the headache of paperwork because she has already set herself up for failure. If she is paying out of pocket, she should save it for something that would be truly useful for her. I asked questions, I felt confident, until I realized I royally fucked up.

I realized that when I paid for my surgery on Tuesday in full, that I used the wrong credit card. Who does that? I have a new one that Brian and I share-it’s the first time I have shared financial stuff like that. Anyways, it had a limit that absolutely would not meet the amount I had to pay. I was freaking out during the pre-operation class. It had been two and half days since the lady called with my information. I had Brian try to get a hold of her in billing but no answer, left a message. I got another phone call that I missed from an Omaha number thinking it was the lady in billing-it wasn’t. I almost broke down and cried during the pre-operation class-I was a hot mess. I was not there mentally. I should have just walked out. Luckily my parents were listening intently and there were handouts. My mind was fucked. How was I going to sleep? I calmed down thanks to my parents-the plan was to call on Friday.

Another cool thing, there were 3 of us already on liquid diets. I told her about my blood test results that I just got back that day. Everything looked pretty good, healthy but one thing that was in the red (meaning I was over the ‘healthy range’) but they weren’t super worried about it. It was abbreviated “B/C-Ratio”. Of course, my parents and I were Googling it and it could have meant 1) Heart failure 2) Kidney failure 3) Liver issues 4) Diabetic possibilities. I told the coordinator about it and she said she wasn’t familiar and she asked what I’ve been consuming for liquid. I told her, “A SHIT ton of protein-like 180-200 grams a day. I am hungry all the time.” The annoying lady that was pretty much asking stupid questions, overheard us and said, “My sister has that. It means you have a lot of protein in your system and the numbers are skewed.” The coordinator told me to back off the protein so sadly I will. I showed her a picture of the protein shake that I love (Med-EX 51G Cookies and Cream-off of Amazon, its cheaper than the Vitamin Shoppe). She was super interested in it because it only has 8grams of carbs and 51grams of protein. That is HUGE for bariatric patients. At the end, I ran to the car and got my extra can and gave it to her-she wants to try it for herself and then maybe recommend it to future patients. It was my good deed for the day.

My best friend got a puppy as a side note-an English Mastiff named Brewser. I love him.

Day Seven of Liquid Diet (8/21/15)

Went to the gym in the morning, weird-right? I am addicted to it. Again, I didn’t push myself the full 100% but I also had a lot of steps/walking to do in the day. It was arm day-I can’t wait to start seeing a difference in my arms. It’s the thing I’m almost excited about the most. I really felt it today. I can’t wait to have a trainer to help me push myself more efficiently-or show me what I need to do for the results I want.

After work out, the morning was too beautiful to pass up. I walked for 45 minutes in our yard-around the pool. It was stunning out. I was sweaty, it was cool. I loved it. After that, I had work to do. It was a good day-productive. I got a lot of steps in-that was my goal. I was distracted by everything-I kept thinking about the fuck I did-wrong credit card mistake. I felt so guilty. I was freaking out my surgery wouldn’t happen because I knew they would process my card.

The clock was pretty slow. I needed to call by 9am to figure out payment. I couldn’t figure out where Kim worked, the lady in billing. I called several numbers and no one had a Kim that worked. After calling two wrong facilities, I found where Kim works. The lady wasn’t very nice but I was also frantic on the phone, slightly. Kim took the past two days off, hence why I hadn’t gotten a call back. Even worse news-no one else does billing for that facility. I was fucked. I had a meltdown. I cried, cried, cried. I had called my coach and she said she would message the physician’s assistant to call me to find out my options. An hour later, a miracle happened. Apparently, the card I used saw the transactions and upped the limit by a LOT and they processed it for us. I had no idea that credit card companies could do that. It was amazing. I had a moment of 100000% complete weakness. I thought I was so fucked. I wanted to eat. I almost did but I didn’t. I thought to myself, “I can’t have surgery now anyways, I just as well eat now!”

After my pitty party, I went to Complete Nutrition to get my measurements done. They do the same measurements that my support team’s office did on March 12^th. I am excited to keep the progression of what I am doing internally. I think that will help me feel satisfied being that I don’t always see the results from the outside.

I didn’t eat or drink well today. I am not going to list my excuse. I just wasn’t prepared. It was the first day in a long time that I wasn’t. It bothered me. I hardly drank water, I hardly ate. I did have me some Pho tonight for dinner and it was DELICIOUS. I think that is helping me by switching up flavors every now and again. I still feel this is too easy-I say this now but I know it will get tremendously harder. We went to a craft store and it hit me-liquid in-liquid out. It was not a pleasant experience. It was almost a problem.

My mom got her therapy dog! This is a side note but I am so, so, happy for her.

Day Eight of Liquid Diet (8/22/15)

Another day, another shake, and another. I was not feeling great today. I didn’t drink much water in the morning and worked in the afternoon. It was hot and humid, the first time it’s been that way in a while. I pretty much got heat exhaustion. I had to load/unload my vehicle and load it in my storage shed. I basically have my own small warehouse of supplies for work.

I rested. I felt guilty that I rested for several hours. I think that is also the first time I wasn’t on the go-go-go in several weeks. I had also developed a rash on both sides of my thighs, I guess that’s yet another side effect of being a ‘bigger girl’-I hate when they rub together. I don’t ever see myself having “the gap” but God, I wish I had it.

I stressed a lot yesterday about the surgery. I have been making a gradual list of things to pack for the hospital. I hate feeling like I’ll forget something or I won’t be prepared. I also hate not knowing how it will go-so this whole thing is feeling a little much for me. The anxiety medication IS happening right when I get to hospital. I’ve been hyping it up enough.

My husband was very kind yesterday to help me “switch up” my soups/shakes. He brought home some cucumber gazpacho from Zoup. It was pretty good. My taste buds were a bit shocked that it was something else other than cookies and cream, orange dreamsicle or chocolate.

Day Nine of Liquid Diet (8/23/15)

It was an interesting day to say the least. I slept in a little bit today. I feel the weather has been shifting to Fall and it makes me want to cuddle in bed. Not a good thing when gym is calling. I had rest days this weekend but I was still active around the house. I got my steps in with my FitBit.

I ate lunch with one of my biggest fans in my journey-Vicki. I just love her. I feel we are very similar with everything. I’ve known her since I went to college. She is one of my best friend’s mother. We played catch up a little over a week ago and I promised her a Pho date. She had never tried it before so I was excited to see what her thoughts were. It was a success! I even said during the meal, “I hope this isn’t like the other day with ‘liquid in-liquid out’. Well….

On our way home, I had trusted a fart. I really shouldn’t have done that. I haven’t had much gas at all since doing liquid diet and with my last experience with Pho, I don’t know what I was thinking. You guessed it… I, as a grown adult, shit my pants. It was all liquid. I know it is too much information but it is the life of a future bariatric patient. I didn’t know it was there, it was an accident. Luckily, it was in thick blue jeans and we were almost home. Brian didn’t even notice. I quickly showered and carried on with the day. I had another spell on our way to Target-we went shopping for last minute things to bring to the hospital. I made sure I got it all out of my system.

I went to bed hungry. It’s a hunger I’ve never experienced before. It’s getting worse and worse. It isn’t the worst feeling I’ve ever had but it isn’t pleasant. I am proud of myself not getting tired of the protein shakes I’ve been drinking.

Day Ten of Liquid Diet (8/24/15)

I didn’t sleep well at all. I was having dreams that involved my surgery, I don’t remember them. I probably woke up about 6 times throughout the night. I went back to sleep but I am one that if I don’t sleep straight through, I feel exhausted.

Even though I was tired, I still got up and went to the gym with Brian. I worked off my stress-or so I thought. It was arm day. I did some treadmill but I focused more on my arms. It was the first time at the gym that I wore a shirt that exposed my arms. I think I will do that more often being that I can see myself-which will motivate me.

I had to drop the big dogs off at the vet which made me sad because it was the last time I was going to spend with them without freaking out that they would accidently hurt me somehow. I didn’t realize how bad I was going to miss being around my fur kids until today. It made me tear up a little.

We had to work in Wayne, Nebraska and went to Norfolk, Nebraska. It seemed like a long day but it was productive at least. I wasn’t super focused on work. I could have cared less about it. I was anxious, the worst anxiety I have felt in years. The brick on the chest was back. I had flashes of feeling things would be okay with text messages, private Facebook messages I was getting with well wishes and support. For the first time, I understand I am being brave. It hit me today. It also made me feel real good that so many people care and have been thinking of me. I love it. I never have asked for it but it is nice when I need it the most. I have some of the best people in my life.

I was stressing myself out so bad in the car on the way to Omaha that I got a horrible headache. I never get them. I decided to sleep a little bit-maybe 30 minutes and I felt better. I am getting into a horrible habit of flexing my jaw when I am stressed or even grinding my teeth a little. I think that has something to do with my headaches too. I don’t realize I do it until it’s too late.

At the hotel, I had to re-read the instructions, the entire packet plus the booklet I got on Thursday. I guess I am as prepped as best I can be. I just hate not knowing. I hate the unexpected. People can tell me what it may feel like but it’s hard because I haven’t been through anything to compare. When I got my first tattoo, the comparison was-“It feels like a lot of little bee stings”. Okay, I can tolerate that-I’ve had bee strings, I’ve had a couple at the same time so I get the comparison. I just have to keep reminding myself that the things I will experience, will be temporary and it can only improve from there.

Dinner tonight will consist of soup. Brian and dad went and got sandwiches, I wanted to be with Roto.  I had my first silent cry because the food smelled so good and I am so close to surgery. The bread. The meat. I cried my pitty party away. I’ll eat my soup in a bit. I can’t eat or drink past 12am. I have to get some in though because they require a pee test in the morning to double check for pregnancy-trust me, no worries there.

I am going to take a walk before I sleep. Maybe even with Roto. Yes, Roto came because he is on seizure medicine and it stresses him out being away from us. He won’t be sleeping with me for a long time. Again, I cried a little. He is my little pebble, Khali and Husker are my bigger pebbles and Brian is my rock. It sucks not going to be able to be around that for a while. It is temporary. It is temporary.

I guess I am signing off officially. My last blog post as a normal stomached person. It’s a weird feeling knowing that everything will change within two hours tomorrow morning. I hope you all have enjoyed the blog thus far. It will only get more interesting from here.

A special thank you goes out to those that have been messaging me. When I reply with what it means, I mean it wholeheartedly. I love you all very much and appreciate the thoughts! Brian will be posting updates I’m sure. If he isn’t be sure to message him or my father, Greg.

My Week of Funeral’s

The title…it sounds pretty serious or maybe even morbid, doesn’t it? I promise you, no physical, living thing died-well maybe a cow or two. Maybe it was a harsh title but really, I am selfish and perhaps a closet narcissist but I just want more followers. In fact, the more fitting title should have been, “My Consumption Funeral; Food and Drink Erotica-PG 13”. It is getting crunch time with my surgery. The reality is hitting me more and more each day, a new life is waiting for me. In fact, the day I scheduled my surgery, Brian stole my personal planner after I had marked August 25^th “Surgery Day” and he had put “New Life” on August 26^th. Everything is going to change. I am preparing as best I can which includes a fair amount of funerals I had in order to cope with my new life style. I need to have them before I start my real journey. I am sure this will be fairly anticlimactic for my readers, but I am doing this for me and you’ll see why I am doing it after you’ve read through my food porn/funerals.

What type of funeral am I talking about? I am talking about what I call a “consumption funeral”. Typically bariatric patient’s call it a “food funeral” but I am branching out and including some things that I don’t necessarily eat but consume (e.g. wine, Fireball). What this really means, before the liquid diet starts (which I started that on Aug. 15^th, 10 days before my surgery), I consumed food almost as if it is a Last Supper or the death of my old food chain. Give that some thought-let’s say you have an entire week to eat the foods you want, what would you chose? Keep in mind that maybe you are going to the gym 6 days a week, sometimes twice in one day, eating healthy already. Would you take up that offer of “food/consumption funerals”? Let me explain my reasoning why I’m not really choosing to do that. I did to an extent but I didn’t do what the old Kaleena was doing-eating all of the bad food I would order, I would go to the gym either in the morning of the consumption funeral or afterwards.

Let me back up for just a moment. I already started my liquid diet on August 15^th. Basically I am consuming (I refuse to call it eating because the act of eating, in my opinion, you must chew food and swallow) protein shakes and broths. The goal is to have at least 60 grams of protein (before surgery, I am consuming a shit ton of protein-one day this week, I had 204 grams) and to consume 64 ounces of water (one day this week, I had 104 ounces). The reason I have to do this is to shrink my liver so that the surgeon can do the surgery laproscopically (5-7 small incisions) and if I cheat at all during the 10 day liquid diet, my liver will be large and he will have to perform it with a much larger incision. Therefore, he will have to make one large, I mean LARGE, incision. So, that is my motivation. I would rather have 5 tiny little scars than one huge one.

Once I am done with the surgery, I will only be able to consume liquids for a while-I believe around two weeks if I recall. Then I can move into stage two which is semi soft food for another two weeks. Stage 3 is soft foods and finally by stage 4, I can move into somewhat normal foods for another month and gradually get back to ‘normal’ healthy foods. I’ll only be able to consume small amounts at a time-at first, a meal for me will be around ½ a yogurt. I won’t be allowed to drink water 30 minutes before, during or after because the water will wash out the nutrition I need to absorb. There are foods I will have to stay away from for a long time, 6 months or more. Those will include things like: bread, corn, steak, popcorn just to name a few. When I eat meat, particularly steak when I get there-I will have to cut the meat a fifth of my finger nail, chew it at least twenty five times and then swallow. I am pretty excited because I have timed my surgery in just the right amount of time to enjoy our vacation in Puerto Rico in December for my brother’s wedding. I will be able to try new, solid foods then. However, when Brian has his surgery-I am going to support him as best I can and may follow his stage, whatever that may be.

Before I started my food/consumption funerals, Brian and I had a lengthy discussion about where I want to have them at. We went through our ‘This is Why I’m Fat’ list and honestly, those foods sounded disgusting. Not one thing about it sounded appealing. I can live without those things, as I am proving already. The thought of greasy, deep fat fried foods makes me want to vomit. Other than that, I can eat the other stuff I may miss but in definite moderation. It blew my mind thinking of what I wanted to have and literally, drew a blank. Just back in January if Brian asked me that question of the foods I wanted to have before I made a life change like this, I would have went balls to the wall and eaten everything and anything I could-starting with the list we made last blog. I did chose to eat unhealthy at some meals.

My first food/consumption funeral: I have been craving something since the surgery date has been creeping up on me. I want steak all the time. In fact, on Saturday night, Brian and I had a phenomenal experience near Omaha at a steakhouse called The Drover. My amazing father in law had gotten us a gift card there in which we decided, let’s satisfy my craving and go try it out. The restaurant was weird looking; it was a cabin setting, lots of wood that looked as if it were hand carved, the lighting was strange with an ugly dim yellow lights everywhere. One thing I did enjoy was a real candle lit on our table-that was a very nice touch. The waiter brought us water and homemade wheat bread with real slivers of butter. You bet your damn britches I had some fucking bread. It was warm and oddly healthy tasting. The menu seemed a little limited but I looked at nothing but the steaks. I had my heart set on a New York Strip. Luckily, one of the specials was indeed a NY Strip-18 ounces marinated in a whiskey. The vegetable of the day was asparagus and it came with salad or soup. I chose the salad because I’m sure I will be pretty tired of soup here in the next few weeks. I will miss crunchy. The salad was actually a salad bar-it was small but had all my favorite things: buttermilk ranch, croutons, cherry tomatoes, cucumbers, romaine lettuce, banana peppers. I loaded my plate. It was delicious. I fantasized about bathing in the ranch dressing while lettuce fell from the ceiling-much like a romantic movie with rose petals in a porcelain bath with gold claw feet. We had ordered an appetizer which was bacon wrapped shrimp. They had 4 on a small plate with some sautéed mushrooms and a citrus horseradish sauce. It couldn’t have been any more of a perfect introduction to what I was going to experience next.

My love came to the table; it was as if it were smiling at me like it knew this was going to magical for me. Perfectly attached to the bone, grill marks still simmering as if it were chanting ‘eat me already’. I couldn’t keep my hands off of him, the NY big boy. My first cut into my fantasy, my breath was taken away. It was cooked perfect medium rare. My mouth instantly watered with excitement. The flavor was ‘OMG’ worthy, I could have reenacted the scene from When Harry Met Sally (I’ve never seen the movie but I know that reference). I wanted to just keep it in my mouth forever. I was happy, to the point of experience euphoria. It was by far, the best steak I have ever eaten. I asked myself, “is this because psychologically-I KNOW this is the last time?” as if I were having sex with a dude I had been banging for 20 years-one last time we bang- before we go our separate ways-better make it count. The answer, no. It was legitimate. I ate it all. It took all I had not to gnaw on the bone at the table. I considered asking the waiter for a take home box so I could do so in the car on the way home but I wasn’t that desperate. The asparagus was just as good. I was full of everything; food, happiness, satisfaction, love. I craved steak for the second time the next day but I didn’t want to ruin my last one-night-stand, at least for 6 more months.

I had a quiet, private, personal eulogy in my head of that steak. This was my go-to meal. I am such a steak and potatoes girl. I knew, it was the last steak I were to eat. Not because I didn’t have time or anything of that, it was the. Best. Steak. I. Ever. Had. I wish I knew that cow before I ate him, or her. I would have said the nicest things I’ve ever said to anything, I would have massaged it, maybe gave it milk-is that cannibalism? Anyways, if you have the chance to eat at The Drover in Omaha, please do. For me.

My second craving I satisfied was homemade tacos and roasted corn. I decided to make them healthy because it sounded so good. I made 93/10 ground beef with seasoning and I also bought a rotisserie chicken to mix in with it. I used romaine lettuce leaves to act as the taco shell. I got some corn on the cob with seasoning and butter already to go, just warm and serve. We also got some brats just because I haven’t had it in a long time. It was such a wonderful meal. I didn’t feel as guilty as I should have. I was even under my calories for the day. I am bias, I just love my cooking. For those who said they love my cooking and pictures I post, I am considering making an eBook of some kind with recipes. I figured this is a good way to expose my children to and “hand” them down.

My third food funeral happened while I was away in Kearney, Nebraska this past week for required c-store meetings. I very well could have eaten SO much junk food. We had a lot of vendors there, power house vendors that came with samples galore. I am talking bags full of chocolate, sweets, carbs. I must say, I came prepared and I am very proud of myself. I packed a cooler full of my favorite protein shakes and protein waters. Anyways, I was on liquid diet for two days while there. It seemed too easy. However, it seemed easy because I KNEW that I could cheat. This is the bad habit Kaleena. I am going to call my ‘bad habit’ alter ego, Sabrina. I did it for two days and was satisfied, happy and proved to myself I could do it. Finally, I ate food. I had bar food-this was on my list. I wanted to eat like I was hung over-something I knew would cure it even though I hadn’t had alcohol. I had a Hangover Burger (this was unintentional) which consisted of an 8oz beef patty, a fried egg, dense hamburger bun and cheese of course. I had to order the waffle fries as my side, with ranch dressing. There was appetizers ordered for the table of 11 people. An order of Bleu Balls happened which is deep fat fried chicken balls stuffed with ham and cheese-basically a cordon bleu type thing. I had two of those small balls. I also have 5 boneless wings with a sweet BBQ sauce on top, dipped in ranch. I could only eat half my burger and I admit, I devoured my waffle fries. The ranch was to die for! I am glad I ended on that note with bad bar food.

My fourth food funeral is one of my all-time favorites-I love me some Greek food. My favorite restaurant in Lincoln for Greek food is The Parthenon. Brian and I went on a lovely date, just like old times-Sabrina was in attendance. I wanted a glass of merlot, we ordered a bottle. And, I can’t go there without ordering tzatziki and pita bread, bring 4 extra pitas, please. For an entrée, I got the gyro supreme with double meat. I am not sure if the waitress sensed that it was my last meal there for a long time but I swear the chef that made the food also knew. Maybe she told them in the back. It was the best tasting gyro meat I’ve ever had. It was as if they had switched meat or something. The wine that the waitress brought was a house wine, it also tasted like Heaven in a glass. Next thing you know, I am almost sick full. No, I was. It was like Thanksgiving full, as my nutritionist at the University of Nebraska would say. It wasn’t enjoyable but I really needed to do that for ME.

My fifth food funeral was a favorite memory of mine that I will keep for a long time. I went to sushi with one of my girlfriends from college, Blue Sushi in Lincoln to be exact. We don’t see each other very often but she appreciates different delicacies like we do. I consumed so much sashimi, sushi, wine, coconut sake, it was the best sushi ever. In fact, we raw white tuna soaked in squid ink and I LOVED IT. I never would have thought I would eat that-let alone love it. Fun fact, they can only allow 3 pieces per table because squid ink is notorious for making people shit their brains out. We had a fantastic waitress and she helped us with everything. Again, I don’t know if I put off this scent or something but they must have known it was my last meal there. We had drinks afterwards, probably too many for me. I had Blue Moon and Fireball. It was my last hoorah. I will admit, I woke up hung over the next day. I hadn’t had one in so long and I hated every second of it. I am not going to miss that part of Sabrina. I am done with her.

My sixth food funeral is something I swear I could have lived on when I wasn’t ‘under construction/work in progress’. My favorite go-to fast food isn’t McDonalds, Burger Kind or Wendy’s-but this shady looking restaurant that is basically open 24 hours a day called DeLeon’s Mexican Food. There are several shacks across town with authentic Mexican food. I ordered a steak ranchero platter (diced steak mixed with pico, homemade red sauce and two over easy eggs lay on top as if it were a blanket. The sides were Mexican rice and homemade beans). Brian ordered my other favorite thing there so I could have a couple bites off of it-chorizo special burrito (chorizo mixed with diced potatoes and cheese). For an appetizer we ordered a carne asada quesadilla (a very large quesadilla with diced steak pieces, seasoning, grease). My odor must have been high that day because they made my food the best it’s ever been. This is not a joke, almost every place made my favorites the best I ever had there. We ate in the car which I don’t even care about-it was the experience in my mouth that mattered.

My final funeral was my favorite type sandwich, Philly cheesesteak-beef and poutine fries. The restaurant I love to get them at, Big Red Keno in Lincoln. We had waffle fries drenched in brown gravy with balls of melted mozzarella and beef on top. I had admitted to the waitress I was having a surgery and it was my last meal for a long time and to tell the chefs to make it with some lovin’. She was impressed and the chefs didn’t disappoint. Extra cheese, the hoagie bun was extra buttered and toasted, I ordered for my side-hash browns that were crispy crunchy with shredded cheese on top and a side of brown gravy to put in it. I was so excited to eat my Last Supper that I forgot to take a picture of the ‘before I eat it’ picture. I did take an after picture so you get the drift. They also serve the best Blue Moon beers. They serve it in large 34 ounce (560 calories FYI) frosty mugs. John Taffer would be disappointed in me because I admit I am a sucker, was a sucker, for frosty mug Blue Moon beer-he says it dilutes the beer. I say I don’t care. I couldn’t finish it though and I was super sick full. Miserable. Even worse than the Thanksgiving full day I had.

I was happy. It is over. No more temptation. I have my game face on and I am ready more than ever. I got everything out of my system that I wanted. I am sure this blog won’t seem interesting to most of you but honestly I posted this for me. I want to post this with pictures so a year or two down the road I can look at them and say, “Jesus… This was happening too often and I over ate so much”. It will be epic for me. No one who helped make my food funerals spectacular (waitresses/hosts/chefs) know about my blog but I do want to thank them publically for making my experiences the best they could be. It has been laid to rest and I will never look back. Sabrina, my alter ego of bad habits, is dead. May she rest in peace.

My Hopes, Dreams and Goals: Being Fearful, Scared Shitless

It’s been exhausting putting on a brave face for this whole journey. The saying I am all to familiar with, “Fake it until you make it” is easier said than done in this situation. I’ve had moments of weakness this week with the thought of surgery around the corner. I cannot believe just next week I start my all-liquid-diet for 10 straight days until surgery and will continue to do that for a month thereafter. Needless to say, I am getting scared shitless-at times. Maybe the more accurate description would be anxious. I’ve struggled with anxiety/anxiousness my entire life, along with depression. If I had a choice, I’m not sure which one I would rather have; depression or anxiety. Both are pretty awful.

It also doesn’t help that I’m a creature of habit, partially due to my anxiety. Change is not something I crave or desire. Poor Brian has to put up with me when I go against trying new things or places. I will say, more times than not, I have enjoyed when he pushes me to do/try new things. For me, it’s just a matter of mentally preparing; I have to talk myself into it-that it will be okay and that most times, it’s temporary.

Nothing was different with the thought of this surgery. I was scared. I was anxious. Not because of anything like the possibility I could die or have complications afterwards (although anything can happen and I am creating a living will, just in case). I was scared because I have to give up a life that I was used to living. The life style I had been living for as long as I could remember. I was scared and anxious of the change. This change is different from anything I’ve ever experienced and not even ‘normal’ people know how hard this is going to be. This is not like going to my favorite restaurant and deciding to not order my favorite thing on the menu and therefore I try something new and if I don’t like it, I can send I back and get my favorite thing. There would be no turning back. This change is forever. I will forever have to watch what I eat. I will forever have to take vitamins and supplements. I will forever have to drink water or something healthy-no more soda/carbonated beverages. I will forever have to be careful of alcohol. I will forever have to exercise. This change is something I have to be accountable for until I die.  But, the real question is: are all those permanent things I listed, unreasonable? No! Absolutely not. They are changes I would have to make if I want to become the mother I want to be in my head. That brings me to my next point.

I’ve debated with myself for a couple weeks on whether or not I was going to publicly post what I hope to accomplish with the surgery, getting healthy and fit. Again, this is my fear of change taking over; questions linger in my head of the possibility of disappointment, proving to my haters I can’t do it, letting people down (Brian), letting myself down are just to name a few of my fears and what I’m scared of what might happen. I’m making the decision to talk about the goals I wish to accomplish in the next few years. Why did I decide this? Because I want my journey to be honest, sincere and I don’t want to hold anything back from myself or you. I want to look back at this blog entry and say to myself, “Oh wow! I did it! I accomplished that!” or say, “That’s right-I forgot about that goal-I’ll work on it” and I am asking you, my friend, to hold me accountable on the things I say I want to accomplish. I WANT you to ask me how a certain goal is coming along. I WANT you to know if I am failing or falling short of success. I shall learn to shed the embarrassment because, after all, you have been a part of my journey thus far, somehow, and I hope you want me to succeed. And maybe, just maybe, you may ask me how you can help me get there. I see no better way of doing that and I have to be honest with you in order to do it. If you are one not to care about my goals or my journey, don’t bother reading any further or any of my masterpieces again. In fact, never speak to me again. I don’t need that in my life. Period.

Here  I go with the confessions again… Something I should  be embarrassed about but I’m not anymore. We are going to talk about the number on the Fucker. As much as I said that the number on the scale (aka Fucker) is not important, it sort of is. I have a goal the doctor set for me-I shall loose 100lbs. I have no secrets so I will talk about the Fucker number just for a moment. I have to shred the embarrassment… My highest weight was recorded when I had done my consultation on March 12^th, 2015. The Fucker dreadfully told me my weight was 269.8lbs and my total BMI (body mass index) 44.9 and my PBF (percentage of body fat) is 53.4. Yup, those are huge numbers-I am well aware. It is alarming, its gross and embarrassing. It is a huge number for a girl, height at 5’6”, not even in her 30’s. I am morbidly obese. Glass half full, I am young enough to some and have time to fix it. I’m already down 30 some pounds-currently at 238.8 as of yesterday. Although they approximated the 100lbs to be gone, I want to be at 155lbs at my goal weight. I want to lose a number that is basically a person. It just sounds so fucking impressive! This will be a lot of work and I am not sure if it’s realistic but I am definitely going to try and do so in a healthy manor. An exciting thing I am doing is tracking measurements before everything happens so a comparison can be made. I’ve already taken my one month before pictures and measurements. I’ll be taking right before surgery pictures soon. I am also taking daily selfie pictures as well for another type of project that Brian wants me to do.

Speaking of BMI’s, since this is probably more important than the Fucker’s number, my other goal will be related to BMI’s. I have a spreadsheet from a very high tech scale of what everything weighs on my body. I want to be in the ‘Normal’ BMI range for the first time in my life since I was eight. I’ve always been above average in everything-I just didn’t want to be that way with my weight, BMI or PBF. To be considered normal is super exciting to me even thinking about!

With the hard work of weight loss and lowering my BMI/PBF significantly, I want to be fit. As much as I want to have Ronda Rousey’s body, I, again, think there are some things that are realistic and some things that are not. With that said, I want to be fit, I want to be toned and I want to be slightly ripped in certain areas. This one may be a little difficult for me to obtain by myself. I am going to seek a personal trainer once I get going on the journey.

I want to be able to shop at Victoria’s Secret again. Unfortunately I am experiencing weight loss in my boobs already, so this is probably a very obtainable goal. Whose idea was it that weight has to come off your boobs first? It isn’t really fair. Although I have enjoyed Lane Bryant’s selection of plus sized lingerie, I do miss Victoria’s Secret tremendously. There is just something about their bras that are sexier-more color options maybe. Also, I am looking forward to their underwear-particularly their thongs. I want them to fit comfortably and not fit like I put a cloth ring around a Summer sausage or like I am trying to amputate half my body off with an XXL rubber band, when I wear them. That is also super exciting to think about!

Once I am at my goal weight or close to, I would love to renew Brian and my vows somewhere. It won’t be anything big, we will invite close friends and selective family but I want to wear a dress that I knew I couldn’t have worn on my wedding day due to my weight. I’m picturing a beach or somewhere exotic like Bora Bora. I want to re-live the wedding since I had slivers of doubt on my day, that stupid fucking negative devil that lingers. Insurance does not cover this surgery that I am doing and I have put it on one of my travel credit cards. With the points I earn, I would love to take a trip somewhere for my 30^th birthday-my ‘Dirty Thirty Party’. We are working out those details. This would give a taste of what is to come. I’m excited for it. I want to be the most beautiful bride and I want to know it, I want him to know it. I want to be his hot wife. I want him to be proud of me standing with him and I want to be proud of myself. I want to dress in front of him again, shamelessly. I want him to not be able to keep his hands off me. I want to feel and know I’m desired.

After our renewing of vows, I would love to feel great in a two piece. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a skimpy, slutty looking swim suit even though I would probably love that because I sort of like that type of style. Again, let’s be realistic here-I know some parts of my body will be screwed forever unless I get some sort of surgery for it. That isn’t out of the question but lets take one step at a time. I want a flattering two piece that fits whatever body shape I will have when I am close to my goal. That is realistic. That is obtainable.

Once I am more practiced at it, I would like to run a 5K straight. Yes, I said R-U-N. I’ve never been much of a runner, even when I was young and in basketball-running was not my thang. Finishing up my second week of going to the gym almost every day, I am learning to appreciate running. My belief, I was never taught how to breath/practice it. I’m now doing that and I am starting to really enjoy it. Another fitness goal: I’ve always enjoyed boxing. I used to have a punching bag in my room growing up. I would love to learn to be good at it. I could never see myself fight someone because I don’t really want to fuck my face up. You know? Because my face could be my money maker some day. Maybe. Just maybe.

One of my other addictions between shoes and food, I had a nasty habit of buying clothes I loved that I knew that at the time that they didn’t fit me or they weren’t flattering on me at all. I have literally bags and bags full of clothes that still have new tags on them. I always called the clothes “My Motivation” but really, all they did was multiply into more clothes without motivation at all. As if buying them was a sign that it would cure me of being fat. I wish. I even hung my favorite clothes up on hangers and put them on my walls of my bedroom so I could see them every single day in hopes one day I would wake up and do something about it. Still nothing. I am excited to pull those clothes out because it will be like shopping in your own custom designed closet. It will be absolutely bad ass! On to the future, I’m also looking forward to shopping at normal people stores in which they should have my size! Oh the excitement is nearly bursting from my waist already.

With my fitness, I want to focus on getting buff. One place in particular I want to focus on, my arms. I’ve hated my arms for as long as I can remember. They always seem to soak up fat more than any other place on my body. I call my arms The Sponge area. I have so many shirts that I’ve had to physically rip the width of arms so my fat can fit. Isn’t that horrible? This is why you hardly ever see me without a shirt that covers them, a shawl or coat. Once my arms are buff, I would really like to get some tattoos-perhaps a full sleeve even. I’m talking to my mom about ideas already. I would love her input on design. This should be a year or two in the making anyways. Here is a fun fact-Lady GaGa promised her father that she would only get tattoos on her left side. The reason is, she wanted to keep her right side pure-bare skin as a reminder that she can be naturally beautiful-for her father. I’ve been following that same philosophy for years now. We will see how long I keep that going. She did end up getting a tattoo on her right side. They are addicting so I understand why she did it. And yes, I understand this is a permanent thing-tattoos-I have several already. Please keep the comments to yourself.

Our goal is to figure out a compromise on where to live. We have been discussing this and looking into it for a couple years now. It could be a year or ten years from now, we don’t know. We are growing out of the house we live in now with three dogs (XL, L and S), a cat, an accumulation of both our stuff and I don’t foresee downsizing anytime soon. In fact, I rented a storage shed not long ago because I am overwhelmed with stuff. This decision relies on a lot of factors but it definitely is a goal of ours for the future. I want a more private location-maybe three to six acres with lots of room inside the house and outside for the dogs and children to play. Brian wants to live in a city, close to people. The thought of that makes me ill but again, we will see. Marriage is all about compromise. I also want a large enough house to take care of both our parents when they get to that point. I would love that very much.

I would love to start a cookbook. Not an official, publishable one-I feel that is super difficult. Although, it has made me feel pretty good with comments made on my Facebook about people hiring me to be a personal chef with all the healthy food porn pictures I’ve been posting. I love the comments and it does make me feel wonderful. I honestly think I was probably a chef in my past life or something. I want to make a cookbook to pass down to our children. I want to teach them, show them and let them know that healthy eating isn’t always boring, stupid salads. I want them to know it can be flavorful, easy and cheaper than eating out. That is a huge misconception of dining out-it’s cheaper, quicker and sometimes healthier. This is not always the case. I would also love to get a cooking group together. Once a month a group of people, or girls, we find a recipe we love and we cook it together, have a glass of wine. That sounds nice!

One of my biggest disappointments in becoming selfish this year, I am missing every Professional Women’s Bowlers tour stop. I do admit, it is a little hard for me to watch the live stream every week. I know I have disappointed my biggest fan, Brian, by deciding not to this year, but after discussing my health, it makes nothing but complete sense to both of us. My goal for next year is to practice to the max and participate. I would enjoy to place in the top 4 once, or twice but I will not be disappointed if that doesn’t happen because I shall compare that year to the year before. I am healthy enough to participate. I shall be proud of that. I just want to be the best bowler I can be and this is a wonderful start to that.

As shitty as this is going to sound but one of my goals is to have a feeling of pride once I am fit. I want the feeling of being around people knowing that I verbally said ‘I want to do something about my weight’ and actually know I have done something about it. I cannot wait on others to decide they are going to change. I am here to help anyone get to that goal of their own. I’m already doing something similar with several people. Please, do not be shy!

Even though she isn’t engaged, I want to be a beautiful bridesmaid for the future (bride) Kylee, my best friend. Being in two weddings this year and feeling the worst I ever have about myself, I felt embarrassed. I don’t want to have to wear Spanx. I don’t want to have to worry about unflattering dresses or having to choose a dress because I am a ‘big girl’. I don’t want to have to worry about starring at myself in professional photos because I’m ‘the big girl’. I have been looking forward to her wedding all our lives, well since we met 16 years ago (or so-we can’t ever remember) and I am most excited about it! I want to stand proud next to my best friend. She is literally going to be the most stunning person I’ve ever seen. It is HER day but I also want to feel that we are pretty bitchin’ looking besties.

First and foremost, I want to become healthy. The second most desired goal, I want to be a mother. All my life, as strange as it sounds, I feel I’ve been practicing to be a wonderful mother. It started when I played with dolls, taking care of them, loving them. When my parents started letting me have pets, my love grew and grew to love a living being. I think that’s partially why I am such an animal lover. Once I started getting real friends in my life-you know since I was ‘homeschooled’ and all-those people are ‘weirdos/antisocial’ (this will be a later blog), I started caring for them-not as children but knowing what needed to be done, knowing how to make people better, knowing how to make people happy and laugh. Playing house, I was always the mom or the dad. It was just meant to be. I know it. I love our three dogs and our one cat. I would save their life if need be, no matter what it took. Making the decision to have dogs was basically mine. I wanted to try and fill the void of not having children at the time in my life. Please do not get me wrong or judge- they are the best decisions I’ve ever made. I have never loved anything more than them. It is a different love, an unconditional kind. I found out that I just love to love something, to love people, to love living things.

With children, I know the love will be different. Brian doesn’t know but I have already been planning for about a year or so how I am going to tell him, when the time comes, that we are expecting. I’ve been doing the same for our parents and close friends. I cannot wait to record it and share it with people and even our children when they are older. There are so many things I am looking forward to with this goal of being the best mother I can be. I am looking forward to singing lullabies, changing diapers, feeding. I am looking forward to documenting their ‘firsts’. I am looking forward to memorizing all the Disney movies and songs. I look forward to the little kisses, the little giggles, the outbursts of crying fits. I cannot wait to share my love of animals with them. I can’t wait to show them how to bowl. I cannot wait to see both of our parents smile ear to ear with their grandchildren. I can’t wait until we play catch in the back yard. I can’t wait to give them their first lemon or lime and record it for all to see. I can’t wait to do family pictures with our furkids and children together. I can’t wait for the house projects to be done that I’ve been pinning on Pinterest for a long time. The list is honestly endless. These are the things I’ve been fantasizing about for as long as I can remember.

Those are my goals right now. One of the better decisions I’ve made with the journey is joining Bariatric support pages. I’ve been creeping on people’s success stories, fears, where they’ve been, seeing their goals made. It’s reassuring that I’m not alone with everything I’m feeling-the excitement, the fear, the shame, anxiety, being scared. It also inspires me to continue on my journey-everyone seems to be doing so well with their surgery. They say that the surgery is the best decision they’ve ever made-I’ve made a great deal of wonderful decisions already, not to be cocky but it is the truth. I can’t wait to have this done so I can start my goals now! It is all normal and part of the process what I am feeling. I’m putting my brave face back on, my moments of weakness are over. This will be the hardest thing I ever do, thus far. I am strong and yes, I am scared. I’m actually slightly fearful that I am going to complete all those goals, eventually. I have that feeling that with my mind being set-like I used to before I would complete a goal. Purely fearful it can become a reality. Scared shitless. Since I like to end with quotes recently, I will add another very fitting one from my girl crush-Ronda Rousey:

“People say to me all the time, ‘You have no fear’. I tell them, “No. That is not true. I’m scared all the time. You have to have fear in order to have courage. I’m a courageous person because I am a scared person.”  

This is Why I’m Fat…

I have a huge challenge for you. It can take you anywhere from 30 minutes to 5 hours depending on the effort you put forth but one thing I will guarantee you, it will open your eyes. The challenge: Take some time to inventory what you eat in a week.  This helped Brian and I realize a few things about our lives. It helped to realize A) why I am fat (for the most part) continuing with my blog of addiction and B) this helped me realize what I can still improve on and where I came from starting this journey. You can learn from our mistakes and maybe help you realize some of your own as well.

Over the weekend, Brian and I traveled out of town to spend a fantastic time helping my best friend get married. The (beautiful-couldn’t-have-been-more-perfect) wedding was in Colorado, so we had several hours to kill in the car with one another. Once on the road, our conversation suddenly shifted to food. Yes, food-remember? The thing I finally admitted out loud that I was addicted to just last week. We decided my next blog (this one, duh!) will be sort of a continuation of a confessional involving that same topic of food. I was slightly embarrassed even talking to Brian about all this because it is outright shameful the way we used to eat. It was nothing short of mindless. Food is sort of an embarrassing topic for people in general I think, especially when they know deep down the choices they make are poorly made. I always chuckle at myself, guilty as ever, I order a double cheeseburger, large fry and a DIET COKE-you know to save on the calories! Or every Summer, I have to eat better-you know, salads and shit so that I don’t feel or look as fat. As if 3 months will get me in the shape I want to be. Mindless.

Mindless is the best thing I can call it. My definition of mindless eating-when you let yourself (over) indulge all the things you absolutely want to consume to the point of not knowing what you are doing on the inside of your body, the long term. I didn’t know that eating as much as I was, bad food nonetheless would have such consequences. One aftershock effect I experienced-feeling so miserable about myself-I wouldn’t let Brian, my own husband, see me naked or in my underwear. I wouldn’t even let him see me dress in the bedroom, going to the bathroom-door shut and locked. This went on for three and half years. I felt terrible about me. Me. Mindless. Me. Much like a drug addict unknowingly killing themselves slowly or harming their body/hygiene, food is actually not much different. I do take part of this statement back; there is an element of denial. Brian and I even spoke about that denial. I would ask him after eating, “Dinner wasn’t that bad for us, right?” and his response, “No-it wasn’t that bad” in which we would justify it being OK what we ate and how much of it we did. I have always been a huge fan of learning, reading, exploring the ‘Seven Deadly Sins’- I am almost obsessed with it-perhaps because I am aware that I have almost all seven of them, my most practiced one is gluttony and sloth. Who doesn’t have at least most of those sins-right?

Brian asked me to pull a pen and paper out. We actually made a menu of what we used to eat last year/early this year. This was actually very hard because we couldn’t remember what we used to do for food. I would say that is a phenomenal stride considering we’ve made pretty drastic changes in our life since March. You will understand why I said we have been bad teammates; the question we both would ask fairly frequently, “What should we do for food?” The embarrassment of this blog gradually went away because we wanted to prove a point. In calculating the calories-so, so high in calories, I could feel the fat piling on just thinking about it, in my mouth with every word rolling off my tongue-disgust, my stomach in knots with guilty feelings of neglect. I then wondered; why was I so shameful by calculating a 6,000 calorie day-admitting it out loud and yet I was eating this shitty, greasy food more than likely in front of you at one point anyways? The difference is accountability within myself-knowing what I was doing, awareness. Needless to say, my whole philosophy now is being pre-meditative. I have to research what I will order before eating out or else temptation will get the best of me. A couple tools that have helped me, the app on my phone MyFitnessPal and my FitBit app, have truly been a huge eye opener on how mindless, careless, and neglecting I was being to myself and in turn, being a shitty teammate to Brian and not supporting his choices either. This list literally was making us ill to our stomachs.

This is what an average week would look like eating poorly (for me/us)-This is Why I’m Fat:

(Parentheses indicates approximate calories)

• Monday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Gas Station
• 2 Pepper jack Tornados (440), 1 Large 44oz Coke Zero, Sunflower Seeds (240)
• Dinner= Big Red Keno Restaurant/Bar
• Appetizer: Poutine-waffle fries, cheese curds, brown gravy, ground beef (650)
• Beef Philly cheese Steak Sandwich (600), Large Hash brown (side) with cheese (430)
• Three- 32 oz frosty Blue Moon beers (1798)
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 4,158
• Tuesday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Wendy’s
• Baconator with Pretzel bun (1,050), large fries (500), large Diet Coke
• Dinner= Homemade-Beef Burgers (because Brian got jealous I had Wendy’s without him)
• 80/20 Beef approximately 8-10oz (570), Rotella burger bun (150), 1 or 2 brats (240), brat bun (210),1 fried egg (90), ½ box Kraft Mac & Cheese (600), 2 or 3 Coke Zero’s
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 3,410
• Wednesday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Hu Hot (all you can eat Mongolian buffet)
• 2 full plates mixed with-Chinese noodles, beef, water chestnuts, green/red peppers, pineapple, jalapenos, chow mien noodles, shaved coconut, egg drop soup, white rice, 8-10 ladles of assorted sauces, 4 Coke Zero w/ Lime
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 3,000
• Dinner= Deleon’s Mexican Fast Food
• Chorizo Special Burrito (eggs, chorizo, dice potato, cheese), ½ XL cheese quesadilla, 32oz Diet Coke
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 4,638

• Thursday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Gas Station-Country Fried Steak
• 10oz CFS, extra gravy (570), scrambled eggs (180), extra gravy (350), mashed potatoes (200), two 16 oz Diet Cokes
• Dinner= Homemade-Sirloin Steak
• 12oz sirloin steak (1,000), 1/2lbs cocktail shrimp and sauce (243), garlic Texas toast (200), Pistachio Gelato Ice Cream (350)
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 3,093
• Friday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Nothing
• Snack= Nutri-Grain Bar (120)
• Dinner= Old Chicago
• 1/3 portion of Italian Nacho’s (530), 1/3 large Chicago style Meat Me pizza (1536), 4 tall microbrew beers (1260-for the World Beer Tour/Mini Tours)
• Movie theatre-32 oz Diet Coke
• Home-1/2 bottle of Southern Comfort Lime (900)
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 4,346
• Saturday
• Breakfast=Homemade-Belgium Waffle
• 1 Belgium waffle (200), butter (110), syrup (200), sausage patties (560)
• Lunch= Chinese/Sushi Buffet
• 2 plates full of-steamed white rice (260), sweet/sour chicken (460), beef/broccoli (360), 6 crab Rangoon’s (390), fruit (140), 5 pieces of sushi (350), ice cream (200) and 4 Diet Soda’s
• Dinner= Homemade-Beef Stroganoff
• Beef, egg noodles (600), gravy (600), garlic bread (200), 3 Coke Zero’s
• Movie night at home: 3 bottles of wine (1,530)
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 6,160
• Sunday
• Breakfast= Nothing
• Lunch= Sushi
• Appetizer: Miso Soup (80), Spicy edamame (330)
• Splitting a Sushi Boat-9 rolls which is 25 pieces per person (1400)
• Dinner= Topper’s Pizza
• Medium Boneless Parmesan Chicken Wings (confession-Brian and I would eat this on the way home so we wouldn’t have to share with others) (720)
• Large Tator Tot Loaded Pizza (260), Large Mac & Cheese Pizza (420), Bacon/Chocolate Cheese Bread Sticks (700), Ranch sauce (160), Garlic butter sauce (145)
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 3,955

Total Calories for the Week: 29,760 calories which is 4,251 calories a day

Here is what a current, healthy, week looks like (for me/us):

• Monday
• Breakfast= Protein shake (160)
• Snack= String Cheese Stick (80)
• Lunch= Breakfast Restaurant
• Veggie/Ham/Egg beater omelet (300), wheat toast (125)
• Dinner= Homemade pasta rigatoni pie
• Cheese, ricotta cheese, mozzarella cheese, meat sauce, 90/10 ground beef (1,100)
• Snack= 1 glass Chocolate FairLife Milk (160)
• 50 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,925
• Tuesday
• Breakfast= Protein shake (160)
• Lunch= Cocktail shrimp (225), left over pasta pie (900)
• Dinner=Homemade cauliflower meat me pizza (640)
• Cauliflower, Greek yogurt/protein milk cheese sauce, turkey meat
• 50ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,925
• Wednesday
• Breakfast= Protein Enriched Water (70)
• Lunch= Homemade Carb-less Chicken enchilada’s (350)
• Dinner= Homemade/Left overs
• Sirloin steak (5oz), pasta pie, ham/cheese quesadilla, 2 ½ glasses of wine (1,100)
• 42 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,520
• Thursday
• Breakfast= Envy Apple (52), protein shake (160)
• Snack=Protein Water (70)
• Lunch= Hy-Vee
• All-you-can-eat soup/salad-2 oz chicken gumbo (120), 1 large salad with garbanzo beans, roasted chicken, peas, cheese shredded, ranch dressing (550)
• Dinner= Homemade smoked pulled chicken with sriracha sauce (140)
• Snack= 1 cup FairLife Chocolate Milk (160)
• 64 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,080
• Friday
• Breakfast= Protein shake (180)
• Lunch=Homemade-Enchilada mixture (220) chicken, egg white, cheese, beans
• Dinner= Homemade-bunless turkey burger (portabella mushroom, Can’t Believe it’s Not Butter, oil, seasoning, cheese, lettuce (375)
• Snack: Protein Enriched water= (70)
• 55 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,025
• Saturday
• Breakfast= Homemade-2 XL eggs over easy, salsa, Sriracha, protein shake (340)
• Lunch= Imitation crab sushi (120), garlic roasted chicken breast deli meat (140), roast beef deli meat (160), jalapeno sliced deli cheese (120)
• Dinner= protein shake (240)
• 70 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,140
• Sunday
• Breakfast= Homemade chicken, veggie quiche (300)
• Lunch= Protein Shake (160), Envy Apple (52), hard boil egg (80)
• Dinner= Roast beef/turkey/cheese protein wrap (300), homemade white chicken chili soup (140)
• 64 ounces of water
• Total Approx. Calories for me: 1,032

Total Calories for the Week: 9,647 calories which is 1,378 calories a day

My diet consists of high protein, low carb, low-calorie food and drink. Logging my food and water intake is very, very important to me and the future of my success. Starting this week, I am planning on logging my work outs for when I hit ‘the Great Wall’ of plateau, so I can analyze it later, perhaps with my team (nutritionist, personal trainer, my support team). Success does not have to be measured in weight loss or muscle gained or even the difference in clothing sizes. Bariatric patients call this “NSV” which stands for “Non-Scale-Victory”. I, among a large percentage of people, focus too much “on the number” of weight- we either go up, down, or maintain. I’ve called the scale a fucker out loud more times than my highest weight and in fact I have nicknamed my scale Fucker. As if it’s the scales fault for the three pound gain here and there. As if the scale twisted my arm to eat a 6,000 calorie day. Not even a joke.

My biggest NSV happened in mid-April; I was able to put my third wedding band on. I haven’t been able to do that for a couple years. I am determined to not let the scale measure my health (to a certain extent), happiness or success. Disappointment has hit me too many times with the Fucker. This is a completely different journey than I am used to with my “yo-yo” dieting, something I have done since I was ten or eleven years old. I’m so happy Brian and I are doing this together because we are learning, being wonderful team mates and loving one another more than ever. We discovered with our menu confessions that 1). We never drank water unless we were hung over and drank gallons of pop a week 2). We never considered calories in vs. calories out 3). We were in denial that we weren’t eating out that much. 4). We justified our bad choices.

The sum of the “healthy” week’s calories (9,647) actually was almost the total of the “poor choices” worst day (Saturday) at 6,160 calories. Brian did the math and to burn off all the excess calories we took in during an average week, we would have to jog almost 9 miles a day to BREAK EVEN, insane! Just last week I was so proud of myself for running a minute a thirty seconds straight. I haven’t been able to do that since I was probably eight. That is another NSV for me!

Once we were done with making our menu, we decided to have a little bit more fatty fun and make a list of some of the worst foods/habits we’ve ever done in our life and some of our favorite horrible foods. This is our couple’s confession on how we got fat (we lost track of calories towards the end of the list because it was getting a little sickening):

• Grilled cheese with 10oz of cheese 1800
• Potatoes chip sandwich 500
• 2 big rock stars 520 62 grams of sugar
• 3 NOS, 2 dews  and a 5 hour energy 790 mg of caffeine
• 2 liter of diet dew for 324 mg of caffeine
• Hash house pork loin 2300
• Hash house quesadilla estimated at 2000
• Gluttony burger at Sinful burger 2300 with philly egg rolls for 779
• A whole birthday cake 400 calorie per 10 pieces
• Bacon baby 3360
• Chips and Sriracha dip 2600
• Chipotle burrito extra meat extra rice, chips and guac 2200
• Sugar donut eating contest 2260 plus
• Val’s pizza eating contest 4636
• Oreo eating contest 1040
• Pancake eating contest 2260
• Golden Corral Mac and cheese/broccoli 2540
• Large thin crust dominos meat 2360
• Pan of Fruckies 5110
• Peanut butter marshmallow cereal rice krispie treats 1800
• Buzzard Billy’s monsterella sticks, armadillo eggs, fried gator, philly po boy and 2 hurricanes 3200
• Maraschino cherry eating contest 2800
• Wendy’s triple with chicken nuggets and large fry 2700
• Arby’s Big Montana, mozzarella sticks, large curly fry, large diet pop
• McDonalds 16 double cheese burgers (no buns), with cheese
• 6 lbs of bacon
• 4lbs of prime rib
• McDonalds double quarter pounder with cheese, large fry, large coke
• Burger King double croissantwich, large tator tot, large orange juice
• Red Lobster Ultimate Fest-6 biscuits, fries, shrimp pasta, clam chowder
• Runza-2 cheese runza’s mushroom burger, large fries, pop
• KFC double down sandwich, large fries, extra chicken thigh
• Entire box of oatmeal pies
• Entire box of zebra cakes
• Culvers-double butter burger, large cheese curds, cement ice cream mixer (oreo, reese’s peanut butter cup, butterfinger mix)
• Jimmy John’s-the gargantuan, chips, large soda, cookie
• Texas Roadhouse-3 or 4 cinnamon buttered rolls, huge ribeye steak, shrimp, Caesar salad, double order of fries with bacon/cheese, 2 cocktails
• Red Robin-double bacon cheeseburger, large beers, fries, appetizer with jalapeno coins, mozzarella sticks and onion rings
• Five Guys-Double bacon cheese burger, loaded with everything on it, 1.5 large fries, soda

Do what Brian and I did this past weekend with our menus. Accept my challenge and see what you are doing with your life and health. Whether you are losing weight, trying to lose weight, a skinny person, a body builder, a struggler (me!), maintaining weight- as I promised, you will see something, open your eyes like us. I hope what you see is our struggle; it is a true, real struggle. We ask for no sympathy, advice or encouragement (although that is nice). We will not, I repeat, we will NOT be freaks after surgery. We will still have cheat days, splurging-just not like we used to. Just you wait and see! We are doing what WE need to do to change OUR lives. What we may ask of you, our friend, support our good decisions because we as human beings do indeed know what a good decision is. As I said, I was embarrassed posting this because the calories were so disgustingly high, I wasn’t active at all with exercise and therefore putting on the pounds was easy. I joke of “stress eating” and “stress drinking”-but was that really a joke? Someone should have shook the living hell out of me and said, “Stop”-joking or not because I knew I had to but didn’t want to, the gluttony was too satisfying and the sloth was comforting.

I hope what you see in your own confessions: that you can be proud of eating well even if you have eaten poorly or occasionally eat poorly. It could always be worse (6,000+ calories) and it could always be better. The temptation is there, all around us, every single day. I hope that you see: you are not alone. I hope that you see; there is always room for improvement even if you are eating well. It is up to you to make the changes need-just like we are doing. I’m seeing the world more in the words of my new idol Ronda Rousey,

“…I’m not a do nothin’ bitch”.