5-month follow-up with nutritionist

....was yesterday. My regular nutritionist is back after having a baby four months ago. It was good to see her again. She is rail thin and shows no signs of having had a baby (she has two kids) and I look like I could have birthed four or five. I try mightily not to hold this against her.

It was an uneventful appointment. I had only lost a pound according to their scale (I've been as much as three pounds lighter on mine), but she didn't seem too concerned due to (a) the holidays and (b) the ankle. (I see Dr. Ankle next week, when he will probably clear me to work out. The ankle feels pretty good most of the time now. That whole the-scar-tissue-is-breaking-up painful interlude lasted 3 to 7 days just like he said it would, and I weathered it without Demerol.) She did tell me I should be doing upper-body workouts. You know what? I'm not in the mood. I'll start the whole thing when I start the whole thing.

I told her I wasn't working with the exercise physiologist because it goes against everything in my being. "I'm kind of a self-cleaning oven of a person," is how I put it. "I don't take orders well."

"How will you be accountable?" she asked. I have noticed this is a common theme that gets brought up a lot and that these nutritional coaching types are very concerned with: Being Accountable.

"I'm accountable to me," I said. She looked quizzical. I pressed, "I just AM."

Aren't we all? AAAGGGGGGHHHHH! This is something that really annoys me. The last time I checked I was the only one living in my body every day. Free will? Personal responsibility? They can happen (and should be exercised a lot more often). I wanted (and unfortunately, needed) the tool of bariatric surgery and had the good fortune to acquire it. Now that I have it, barring some unforeseen medical oddity (God forbid), my weight loss is my responsibility. If I gain the weight back or stop losing altogether, it's because I didn't do what I was supposed to do. I don't want star stickers on a !@#$%^&* calendar. I don't want to weigh in in front of people. I don't want to compete with anyone. Competing with other people, or some elusive nonexistent ideal, is what gets many of us in trouble in the first place. Groups work for some people, but generally, I am not one of them. I tend to loathe groupthink and buck against it, simply because it is groupthink.

"Were you guilted as a child?" she asked me.

Well, yeah. Yeah, I was. Constantly. I basically didn't feel I deserved the very oxygen I breathed. But what does THAT have to do with THIS?

"You don't want to disappoint people," she assumed aloud. "You want everyone to like you."

Ahem. No. I would definitely be far more successful in business if this were true. Most people are not worth the time or energy it would take to actively seek their approval. I don't want to disappoint the people I care about, but I do. People I care about disappoint me, too, on a fairly regular basis. It's called being human. If my upbringing taught me anything, it taught me it was well nigh impossible to make another human being happy. It was ultimately a good thing--though often a harsh thing--to learn that as early in life as I did. I also learned it was up to me to make myself happy and yes, be accountable to myself. When no safety net exists, you learn to stop expecting one to be there after the wind gets knocked out of you a time or two.

On a lighter note, I was getting ready to go out recently and found myself singing "Lumpy Lady" to the tune of "Foxey Lady" a la Jimi Hendrix. That struck me funny. (At least I can laugh about it now instead of insisting on wearing clothes four sizes too big, bingeing, and/or feeling like crap.)