130 days until graduation!?!

Tuesday, January 08, 2013

Um... holy hell. I just made a countdown on my wall calendar. There's 130 days separating me from graduation. *gasp* *shock* *horror*!

I have written one review. Have only one chapter done out of the five or six that I am planning... don't have a job or a post-doc lined up... have to sell my house... and I'm still recovering from surgery.

I need to kick myself in the butt and get $hit done!

So instead of working out -- I'm going to focus on my diet. I've said this before but I really need to stick to this. Lately I've been mopey and whiney and in a horribly depressed state of mind. This whole healing process is exhausting. Lately its been a bit unbearable. I managed to change my 4 o'clock bandage myself. Yay me -- I used tape and got a rash from it but I did it myself. So my mom decided that she's good and can go home.

Cue 11 o'clock bandage change... different story. I tried doing it on my own. Basically without getting too gross the gauze felt superglued to my wound. We were using warm water to try and soak it off which usually works. This time it took like 10 minutes and we had to pull it off anyway. **Super ouch! I almost passed out. And there was blood EVERYWHERE. It looked like a horror movie.

So yea. My mom's still here. I had a similar situation happen in the shower this morning. I almost passed out again pulling it off... standing up in the shower is not a good place to almost pass out. Once I recovered took the quickest shower possible and just put my pajamas back on.

I ended up going into work to try and submit a paper that my chinese co-worker wrote but we're still waiting on my boss to tell us if we should submit it or if he wants to do it. Gotta love when you ask your boss two questions in an e-mail -- then he responds "No Thanks" and leaves you hanging while you A) try to track him down and B) figure out what the heck me meant!?

I have a meeting at 4 o'clock to discuss recruitment with my grad student organization... then some grocery shopping for a healthy dinner. I'm only at 750 calories for the day so I'm doing good. My mom is not helping me to eat healthy. I know its not her job, but seeing her eat crap -- example = a whole bag of Rolos or an entire bag of Skinny Pop popcorn while not paying attention and just slowly shoving food into her mouth while watching TV reminds me that I do not want to go back.

The irony of it was that we were watching The Biggest Loser. I love that show. I don't care if its unrealistic and unhealthy -- I used season 11 as my motivation to get off my butt and do something. Last night or the night before one of the contestants said how he kept auditioning and getting bigger while not doing anything about it. I had that same revelation -- except I did something about it! Don't wait to get on TV -- just do it!

My mom made some comments about dusting off her treadmill, but I don't thinks she's serious. It makes me sad to see her gain all of her weight back that she lost 2 years ago... and then keep growing. Both she and my oldest sister have gained a lot of weight while I've been losing. I don't feel guilty, but I feel sad for them that they are stuck in a rut and are using food to comfort themselves which just makes it worse.

I'm trying to remind myself of this. I may be injured. I may not be able to move without some pain for awhile... but I do not need to comfort myself with pizza and tacos and steak until I get better. I need to shut up... eat my fruit and vegetables and egg whites and remember the healthy feeling that goes along with eating right will always feel better than the giant bowl of ice cream does in the short term.

See look at how much I just wrote. If that was about prostate cancer, I'd actually be making progress on my thesis!

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Still sucking at life

Monday, January 07, 2013

Grr... still healing. Its still bad. Still painful and 3xs a day bandage changes are super fun -- let me tell ya!

I'm not going to whine or complain, but watching the Biggest Loser makes me want to get off the couch and do situps or weight lifting. Anything. I'm going slightly nuts.

I'm just looking forward to the day that this incision heals and I can get back to working out like I used to before the surgery. I sneezed like 15 minutes ago and holy crap -- that pulled on my bandage and I passed out for about half a second from pain. :-/

My mom's still here changing my bandages. She's going stir crazy with me here so I'm going to try to change my bandages and use a bunch of tape to make them stick so she can go home...

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My Doctor... "ooh... that's not better"

Friday, January 04, 2013

I sometimes want to facepalm in front of my plastic surgeon. For any of my new blog readers I had my excess arm skin removed four months ago and had a revision 3 weeks ago...

My armpit incision on the right side ripped open once the sutures were taken out, so I have to go back and see him once a week until the wound closes. Right now I'm just taking this all with a grain of salt and two Percocet. *literally, the Percocet is necessary.

So today I go in, thinking that it has been feeling better, maybe it doesn't hurt so bad, and the first words out of my doctors mouth are: "hmm.... oh, that's not better." So apparently I have to change up the way we've been treating the wound.

I was changing it twice a day --then he looked at it and said I could go down to once a day. A week later -- I don't know what's changed, but I now need to go up to FOUR bandage changes a day with wet to dry bandages to get rid of the gunk and abrade the wound to increase blood flow and hopefully wound healing.

This basically means I get to do something exceedingly painful four times a day for a week... *yay* (grumpy cat)

Now I don't want to freak anyone out who's thinking about surgery -- my first surgery went off without a hitch. My left arm revision looks fantastic. This is just a fluke. This is one of the random, rare things that can happen anytime you have surgery. I just got lucky.

Today he even mentioned that when this heals we'll see how it looks and we might have to do a scar revision if its too big. For the last two weeks he's been telling me not to worry, it will close, the scar won't be that bad...

Now all of a sudden its that bad. I feel frustrated with all of this. I don't regret the surgery but right now its hard to stay focused on being healthy and making smart food choices when I'm on narcotic pain killers and have an exercise restriction due to the fact that anytime I move or stretch my arm in anyway it hurts. Oh god... even sneezing hurts like a b:tch.

I'm trying to stay positive. I was under 1500 calories yesterday and look to be on goal today if I make smart choices. I think that taking control of my diet will be the best thing I can do. My mom's coming down today to be my bandage nurse since its kinda hard to change an armpit bandage one handed. I was going to manage with it once a day -- but 4 times a day is a lot to ask. Now I just need to make sure that I do not falter with my diet when she's around. She's certainly a bad influence and I let myself make too many exceptions when she's around. She even complained that I didn't have any tasty food in my house -- no duh -- there's no chocolate here unless you want diet cocoa. No cookies to munch on -- no chips. Its aaaaaalllll healthy.

So that's that. My arm is gross. It hurts. I'm grumpy. But I'm watching my diet like a hawk, and hopefully the scale will improve and go down.

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2012 Year In Review

Thursday, January 03, 2013

Well I had nine pages of blogs in 2012. That’s a crazy insane amount – but its therapeutic. I just read my 2011 recap and it was so positive. I lost most of my weight in 2011… not nearly as much as I would have liked in 2012, but I did gain something else. Acceptance.

2011 may have been my battle against my bulge, but 2012 was the battle against my fat brain. I had a major case of fat brain in 2012. The inner fat voice that told me I was still huge, still a fat girl, still full of problems… one donut away from gaining all the weight back.

I started 2011 at 265 and ended it at 199.

I started 2012 at 199 and ended it at 189. I just weighed myself this morning. So all in all I got down to a low of 179 (for about a day) and spent most of 2012 in the 180s. Just reading that kind of makes me a little insane. The weird part is – I’m okay with it. I got nine pounds away from my realistic goal weight (I’m shooting for 170 as a weight I can maintain for life) and really only got sidetracked because I slipped up. Fitness was a priority for me in 2011. I worked hard. I put in the effort.

I did that in 2012 as well, but not to the same extent. After losing that much weight I would plateau for weeks. I would tweak things and work on what I could, but even my body was going “what the heck is wrong with you?!?” from the massive weight loss.

I also had to really stop exercising in the last four months of 2012 because I put myself first and finally got the brachioplasty I’ve always wanted. Basically, I’ve always had fat arms. Not like normal people – but ungodly fat arms. I get this from my mom’s side of the family. I’m not being dramatic here when I say that after I lost weight, I also lost my elbows. All of my upper arm skin sagged down over my elbows so badly it was uncomfortable.

So on August 28th, I went in – paid the plastic surgeon and had my arms reduced. It was painful, but in a good way. Even battered and bruised and swollen I saw how skinny my arms were. A few months after surgery I still don’t have Michelle Obama arms (*swoon) but I have normal arms. On December 11th I went back for a minor revision surgery. There was still a small fat pad on my left elbow I wanted removed. It’s gone – my elbow looks way better and the scar even straightened out after the surgery which helps my OCD ;-)

Unfortunately my small revision on the right side didn’t go as planned. My armpit incision completely opened up. Like ripped open slowly and painfully after they took the stitches out. I saw the doc last week, and he basically said there’s nothing we can do but wait. So its apparently getting better… its still painful… and I can’t really do anything fitness wise. We’re apparently treating this open skin wound like you would a burn. I have petroleum jelly and clean bandages on it. Plus with my tape allergy and adhesive allergy, I have some interesting bandages jerry rigged to stay up. The problem is this is in my armpit – a very flexibly, highly mobile part of your body. Read – annoying.

But if I had to do it over again, I would hands down do the surgeries… I might not take the stitches out so soon though ;-)

But back to my 2012 recap. I started the year a size 10 Gap jean… I’m ending the year a size 8 Gap jean. Barely. My food baby and post-surgery pain debacle led to a 6 pound gain. I was just pleased to still be in the 180s (189—is STILL in the 180s) – I was afraid it was going to be worse.

So a net loss of 10# for a year of work a dedication may sound like a disappointment, but to me, I still see that as an accomplishment. I didn’t GAIN weight. I either maintained or lost weight for the most part. I certainly know more about plateaus though, and coming to terms with my weight. I don’t know if I’m ever going to feel 100% amazing about the number on the scale, but I can tell you that it means a heck of a lot less to me now.

The feeling of health and the post-workout endorphins is what I miss right now. I just need to heal up and get back on track. Also the holidays are over, so now that the cookie plague that descends upon the world in December is gone – I can focus on my food again. I think this is going to be my key for 2013.

2012 was also the year that I finally came into my own in the dating world. I have horror stories… oh the bad dates! They were plentiful in 2012. The short relationships that would only last a few weeks… there were a handful… but luckily in October I hit on this cute tall guy… you read that right I HIT ON HIM! Oh the confidence! And guess what – it worked. I’m still dating him. He’s my main motivation for 2013 because apparently he wants to put a ring on it ;-)

I’m trying to not rush into anything, or plan a ridiculous wedding on Pinterest, but… yea… my mom even started to question our relationship, but considering she married my dad 78 days after meeting him at a New Year’s Eve party 31 years ago – she can’t say much.

So even though I had my rough patches in 2012 and ONLY lost 10 pounds, I’d consider 2012 a year of success for myself. Now that I’ve got my brain in the game and almost conquered my inner fat girl voice (I mean I wear mediums now… I’m not fat – I’m tall and curvy and happy with myself) – 2013 will be the year I keep on keeping on. I’m not setting any crazy goals for 2013 other than A) write my thesis and graduate and B) find a job. That’s enough pressure there. I’m going to keep my food goals in mind and workout when I get the green light. I’m not going to go any low-carb/keto/paleo nonsense. I’m going to do what works, eating clean and fresh… and praying for summer to come early so that the farmers market will open again! I have my best weight loss in the spring and summer when the fruit is fresh and the air is warm.

Here’s to 2013 being another good year.

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Can we stop it with the fat bashing this time of the year?

Thursday, January 03, 2013

One thing I hate about New Years is New Years Resolutions. I hate them. I don't do them. I think they are a horrible idea. Just like dieting, spur of the moment decisions with little to no planning lead to failure... which makes people feel like failures.

Right now there's a lot of people committing to lose weight. That's great. We should support them. What do I hear non-stop though? People who regularly go to the gym complaining about "all the fat people" showing up to use "their" equipment. I can't understand why people feel its okay to bash fat people -- especially at this time of year.

I even had to yell at my boyfriend as we were walking in the mall. My mall just got a new Torrid, directly across from Lane Bryant. He made a stupid comment about making it easy for the fatties to shop. He knows I used to be fat. Hell HE used to be fat. I called him on it, reminded him I used to shop there and his "but now you don't and you're sexy" reply just made me even madder. I basically told him those kind of comments weren't allowed. You know what -- it made me feel better too.

So from now on, if anyone starts complaining about fat people taking over their gym or their space or anything, I'm calling them on it. I hear a lot more fat bashing now that I've lost weight. I hate it. It almost confirms what I used to think people were saying about me. I think we should all stand up and put those irritating people in their place. I haven't lost weight to join some special skinny club. I lost weight to be healthy, and anyone who had a little extra weight (read--basically everyone) shouldn't go around trying to make people feel bad just to feel better about themselves.

I know this is basically all bullying, but I can't stand the fact that January has basically become a fat bashing month for all comics/people who think they are funny/jacka$$es in the world.

*end rant.

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