Plateau

I am almost afraid to say it...but I think I'm off it! I saw 202 the other day, which is the lowest weight I've seen yet. I'm waiting, with bated breath, to see a number that starts with 1.

I've been trying to remember when I last saw a number that started with 1. I thought my age also started with 1 the last time I saw a number on the scale that started with 1, but I was wrong. I remember weighing 186 when I was 23 and was maid of honor in my friend's wedding. I remember this (for some stupid reason) because we were the same weight at the time. 23 years old--that's almost TWENTY years ago.

I read somewhere that people who lose a lot of weight tend to experience some of the same emotional stuff they experienced when they were that weight previously. It makes me wonder. I have been in such a funk. Unemployment doesn't help. I've sent out at least fifty resumes. In response, I've had one rejection letter. Yesterday I got excited because I got a callback, but it was just a screening call--they'll call me back if they want an interview. And this is for a temporary receptionist job. Sigh. The holidays were a total loss because I had an epic migraine and was sick for a week and then Mr. Salted was sick and he's still trying to shake whatever it was, and I'm just getting over another migraine.

My first winter quarter class starts tonight--last week's was pushed back a week due to snow. Hopefully being back in class will make me feel less like a waste of space.

Once upon a time...

...I used to write in this blog. I knew it had been a while, but somehow three months went by.

I'm still going to school, and I was let go from my job at Voldemort.com. They imposed a production quota, I couldn't make it. Neither could a whole bunch of other people. Whatever. The whole experience was a big letdown, even for a job I knew was temporary.

I didn't disappear from Blog World because I've been slacking off--quite the opposite. I'm plugging away at the swimming and the protein and the rest of it, all the bloodwork numbers are improving, I'm becoming more toned, my sizes are getting smaller (albeit at a glacial pace), and...I'm not losing any weight. This plateau has lasted many, many months. The nurse-practitioner who I see for the Berkeley Heart Labs has me on phentermine (they took phen-fen off the market, removed the bad fen, kept the good fen, what does it spell? PHENtermine!) temporarily to get me off the plateau. I've been on it a month. Not losing. Grrrrrr.

I went to a neurologist about my migraines and he has me off caffeine and aspartame and on magnesium and Topamax, which has improved them quite a bit.

I am seeing a plastic surgeon for a free consultation in a couple of weeks. Though my two-year surgiversary isn't until August of 2011, I know I will have to fight insurance for months and why not lay the groundwork now while I have all this free time? (I would get a tummy tuck tomorrow if I could get it paid for.)

I'm trying to decide whether to delete this blog or not. I still might. I don't feel like I have much to say anymore.

Frustration

At this precise moment, I long to smash my shiny glass scale with a hammer.

I'm eating well. I make myself go out and walk regularly. My weight? It stays the same--or goes up a couple of pounds.

The curve on which I grade my own obsessive tendencies is definitely skewed, as I spent a sizable chunk of my life with an eating disorder. The number on the scale is annoying me, but not consuming me. Today, however, it's annoying me a lot more than usual.

That's probably because I'm annoyed about other things, like that my job is being eliminated. I know for a fact that my work is not only important, but an asset to their business. The people behind the elimination of this job ultimately have little to no idea what I do or what the impact of laying me off will be. (That's usually the way it works, isn't it?) I've always worked really hard for this agency; in 2008, I left a full-time job there after two years because I had so many stress-related medical problems (stomach issues, migraines, panic attacks). It had to almost kill me for me to quit, and even then, I quit reluctantly.

I came back part-time last summer because they would work around my schedule and because I really needed the money--I had one job as a blogger that only lasted a couple of months, so I went about ten months without any income. There was just nothing out there--I sent out hundreds of resumes and had a bunch of interviews. One of the reasons I actually went forward with weight-loss surgery was because of these circumstances--because I had time to fight the insurance company. Even though I went without working or drawing unemployment all that time, it was really like earning $25K because the weight-loss surgery was covered and only cost us about $5K out of pocket.

There doesn't seem to be much out there now in the way of jobs. At ALL. I don't know if I can get unemployment this time--I really hope I can, assume I can because my job is being eliminated, despite veiled hints that they "might" want me to come in and do a little work for them here and there as they figure out their whole restructuring scenario over the next few months. This is the ultimate frustration: this is all I'm worth?

I'm trying to figure out what to do next--what's actually feasible for me to do next. If I had my druthers, I would pursue a technical writing certificate/degree, and I'm looking into that--but funding is an obstacle.

I also wonder if I'm more likely to get hired now because I weigh less. It's a shallow world.

6-month follow-up with bariatric surgeon

It was today, and it was uneventful. Their scale is five pounds heavier than the one at home, and their new nurse said, "You've lost 45 pounds?" and I refrained from saying, "Re-do the math, Zippy". I've lost about 70, about 90 since my highest weight.

The doc wasn't concerned about my plateau and said I was about where he would want me to be. He also amended his previous statement that I could start planning plastic surgery a year out from the gastric bypass procedure and that he expected it would take me 18 months to two years to lose the optimum amount of weight. That wasn't entirely unexpected, but it made me think I might have to start fixing my career problems or lack thereof sooner rather than later. Sigh.

I had a nice afternoon visiting with an old friend of mine, and we had lunch at a restaurant called California Pizza Kitchen. I must put in a plug for them, as they have a menu of small entrees that are the perfect size for post-WLS folks!! They're very reasonable as well. I had "the Wedge Salad", which was a simple one--lettuce, blue cheese dressing, bacon and tomatoes, and it was only $4.95. The rest of their menu looked great as well. Check them out!

Plateau--it's not just a song Nirvana once sang!

I seem to be on an endless plateau. Wow. My weight has been the same for over a month. I started walking last week and yet, here we still are.

One of my friends--who happens to be a nurse--informed me recently that a weight plateau can last for a year. (A YEAR??? Someone, please tell me this is not so.) She said some reasonable stuff that made sense, like that your body hits plateaus (plateaux?) so it can get used to the weight it is now before it can go on and lose some more weight. I can buy that, I suppose. But a YEAR??? If I just stall here for another eleven months, I am going to be sore discouraged.

My fear is, of course, that this is about what I weighed in my early 20s and that I'm not going to get any smaller. As much as I'm glad I had the surgery and say "even if I don't lose any more weight, it was worth it," I really want to lose the rest of the damn weight. As far as I'm concerned, I'm only halfway there.

Progress?

Yesterday I went to the ankle doctor and was freed from The Dreaded Boot. He gave me a great brace that is made of some kind of stiffish meshy material and Velcro that wraps around the ankle a couple of times. You wear it over a sock, and it's very shoe-friendly. Today was my first day wearing it, and it felt good. My ankle is always a little sore by the end of the day, but I haven't taken any painkillers for a week or two. I'm still supposed to ice it and rub lotion into the scars. The latter grosses me out, but I'm getting used to it. When I broke it originally, anyone touching that scar sent me into orbit--I'm much more comfortable with it now. Dr. Ankle was amused by my black knee socks with purple skulls; he was pretty sure his 12-year-old daughter had the same pair. I was also sporting my leopard-print Chuck Taylors. (Why dress like a grown-up unless you have to? Socks and shoes are the easiest flamboyant apparel items one can get away with.) I asked him about physical therapy and beginning workouts, and he said we would talk physical therapy at my next appointment in a month and that I needed to let this ankle heal. He studied me for a minute and said, "Why, you're wasting away, young lady!" with a big grin.

I spent three hours today going through clothes. It looked like a consignment shop tornado blew through chez Salted--I have had clothes coming in and going out constantly the last few months. No fewer than eight women I know have given me clothes; there are three or four others that I have been passing things along to as well, and I'm extremely grateful for all of them. On a friend's advice, I finally chose to organize what I had left by size into large Rubbermaid containers. The smallest clothes I have are 14s, and I have to say--size 14s look tiny to me. I can't imagine being that small ever again; I can't believe how many, and how often, people told me I was fat when I actually was that size; it makes me sick (and sad, disgusted, angry, pick the negative emotion of your choice)--that, at that weight, I saw a monster when I looked in the mirror. For better or worse, I've made 14 my absolute goal size. It's the size of the average American woman, and in this case, average is more than good enough for me! Frankly, I'm not sure I can even reach it without plastic surgery in addition to diet and exercise, and I'm only 5'3".

I am currently in a frustrating place in my weight-loss journey. I am not losing much weight the past week or two, if any--fractions of pounds here and there, perhaps. (On the positive side, I'm not gaining it, either.) I'm also not losing weight in any kind of logical fashion--it comes from where it wants to on the body, when it wants to. It's not happening anywhere near fast enough for yours truly, and not having clearance to exercise yet, I can't employ that method to speed things along. Depending on what I wear, I either look like a short, healthy, round woman or like Lumpen Middle-Aged Poster Girl, and never the twain shall meet. I really despise the lumps--I've been shaped that way ever since the Puberty Fairy went on a bender at my house when I was nine or so. The demon stomach has always asserted itself in a big way, and it is doing so as we speak. I am five to ten pounds too heavy for a bunch of the pants I have waiting and, to my dismay, that five to ten pounds isn't going anywhere. I need to go out and buy some cheap stretch pants to tide me over. Sigh. Don't look at me like that--I'm eating what I'm supposed to!

Plateau? ALREADY???

I'm afraid I may have hit a weight plateau--ALREADY. Isn't it a little early? Jeebus. My weight hasn't changed in a couple of days--but I don't have a great scale. It cost $9.99 and we only bought it to weigh our luggage for international travel--until that trip, I banished scales from my house for the majority of my adult life. The needle on my current scale is dodgy enough to have to be adjusted almost every time it is used. I try not to obsess about what it says. My nutritionist advised to get a scale that measured body fat as well as weight to prevent me from being discouraged when the inevitable plateau interludes occur. It looks like that type of scale costs about $80.

I'm doing better with separating eating and drinking by half an hour--not as well with getting in the protein every day. My daily intake has been more in the 40-50g range rather than the 60-80g. Sometimes I want something to actually CHEW--so sue me. So far, I like to crunch on Life cereal, oyster crackers, and that BearNaked granola stuff. I am still super paranoid about my hair falling out--every time I touch my head I'm checking my hand for excess hair loss. So far, so good.

I still haven't really been tempted by food I absolutely used to live for. Doughnuts at the office? I just think about how sick I would get. It's very simple inside my brain: doughnut = vomit. When I have gone out to a restaurant, I either have cup of soup or a dinner salad, either of which I can only finish maybe 1/3 of. My husband was sitting next to me eating a burger and fries last night. I looked at his fries and all I could think about was how sick I could get. I still haven't whipped out the gastric bypass card they gave me. I tried to drink a diet Coke and after two sips I could tell my stomach didn't like it. Water remains my nearest and dearest liquid friend.

Today, I did Sit and Be Fit for the first time. It was nice and easy. I don't have a good straightbacked chair, just an office chair with a pillow behind me for back support. I didn't work up much of a sweat, but it has to help with range of motion and circulation. It will be so great when the ankle gets repaired and I can move around again. I'm feeling fantastic physically and actually looking forward to moving more.