Manic Monday does not begin to describe it

Today was insane!

Let me set the scene...I am currently working two jobs.  My old job of Admin Assistant kept me busy nearly every single day the past year for eight hours a day.  Plus, our Events Coordinator, who was almost my work husband before I decided it just would not work out, uses me all the time to do his work.  So when I was just an Admin Assist, it was fine because I would have just enough spare time to help him design posters or whatever else he needed done.  Now, I am the Volunteer Coordinator, a position that has been empty for a few months so I have 165 applicants that need to be interviewed, they need to have an orientation and they need three training classes....all of which are my responsibility and I have never done any of it before.  Oh and I am self training really as my boss has never run the volunteer program.   They have not yet posted my old position (and I will need to train that person) so I have two full time jobs right now and one paycheck.  Though the paycheck is not the problem; the problem is being insanely busy, trying to keep up with my old job and trying in the midst of that to learn my new job.  

So this morning, the Events guy, my ex almost work husband, starts slamming me with things he needs...stupid things which are not my job.  Then he needed help with the stamp machine, then he wanted me to work one of his events which is not my job and I ignored that email.

Then the high school called with my son in the office.  See, he (The Genius) has broken up with his girlfriend because he decided he might be bi-sexual.   Then Friday night, she called him despite the fact that a week ago her parents told The Genius that they would call the police if HE called HER again.  So she cries to him that she still loves him and misses him and then he puts her on Mute to talk to me and she hangs up on him.  He calls her back and she has her father answer the phone to tell The Genius that she is "Done" and he is not to call her again.  WTF?

So today, he was in his class with one of her friends, who passed him a note asking what had happened between them and The Genius proceeds to write the girl a two page note talking about how crazy his ex was and how she had been committed to an institution for help a few years ago, etc.  Though he was in no trouble, I was furious with him beings he and I had sat up Friday night and I had told him he needed to leave her alone completely.  Basically the principal told them both to stay away from each other, but I am still waiting for the police to show up at the door.  I am so done with teenage romance.

Now in good news...I RAN yesterday!  First time in a year and it was not as bad as I thought it would be.  On top of a run, I also had a walk with MyTod so it was a double day.   Every day is a struggle for me still with weight.  I don't think that is ever going to go away.  It's so hard.  But I am doing the best I can, some days better than others, but always trying to be conscious about it.  

Here's to winning the battle one day and to tomorrow being a better day!

Weight Struggles

Time for my quarterly post!

No, seriously, I really want to try to get back here more often.  I am starting to miss it and I think after the blog blowup at the old church, the idea of blogging left a bad taste in my mouth for a long time.  We always remember the bad stuff, don't we?  

So I am still struggling.  Have not been on the scales due to fear.  Still wearing a now snug size 18 pants and so do not want to switch sizes.  I still have a plastic bin full of size 14s that I had goals of wearing one day and I still cannot bring myself to get rid of them.  I am able to hit the gym about twice a week and I manage to walk twice a week in the evenings or weekend afternoons.  And I still snack all the freaking time.  Pretzels, animal crackers, sometimes those chewy sugary goodness called orange slices or swedish fish.  Chocolate?  Not so much.  On rare occasion if I really want to feel lousy afterward.  

Every single day I think about getting the extra pounds off.  Mostly it is a carb downfall.  Bread, how I love you!  Pasta is an easy pack and go lunch.  I have almost forgotten how I used to eat but I think part of the problem is that is that since my surgery I have never learned how to eat on a full time work basis.  When I was part time at the church from hell, I had a plan.  I had a snack after two hours and two hours later, was off work and hitting the gym.  Came home, had something light and was good until dinner.  Now, I have five hours from the time I start work until I take lunch and  will nibble things in that time.  Then there is lunch where I try to take some leftovers from home with the exception of Fridays when Teressa and I always split a small pizza.  Breakfast on a good day is either some Kashi cereal with soy milk or oatmeal.  On a bad day, it is bagel and low fat cream cheese from Panera, which of course, is all carb and doesn't stick with me long.  

Do I still get full?  Yes, uncomfortably so.  But I am often convinced that the food tastes too good to stop eating.  Gotta finish the whole thing.  

I need to get a plan back in action.  My muffin top is becoming a cake top and it has to go.  My energy is not where it used to be, I don't feel as good as I used to and I have been battling a cold for three weeks, where when I weighed less, it was rare for me to get sick.  

So let's talk!  What works?  What snacks are satisfying and still healthy?  Anyone else doing battle?  I am resolving to buy no animal crackers or pretzels tomorrow at the store.  But I will need to substitute it with something.  I know I can get this weight back off if I can come up with a plan.  I had a great taste of what health was like and I crave getting back there!

In other news, I have gotten a promotion at work to Volunteer Coordinator, but am currently trying to learn that job while still doing my old job until I am replaced.   My oldest son has decided he is bisexual.  My youngest is in middle school, which is a whole 'nother ball game.  My dog is still awesome, I love my job and am anxious for winter to be over.  

Seems that what is standing between me and happiness is a bag of pretzels, some animal crackers and a handful of orange slices.

 

Confessional

I have needed to come clean for quite some time now. Like many people, I often hope that not talking about something will either make it go away or an even better scenario is that I can not talk about, fix it without even mentioning it and then it is like it never happened. But what I am quickly learning is that neither of these options are recipes for success.  

So here it is; raw and real.

I have gained 30 pounds.

You have no idea how horrible and ashamed I feel to write those words.  With people I see day to day I can't hide it.  Weight is always there for all the world to see.  Some of you may have sensed my struggles on Facebook as I hinted at it; at not having time to get to the gym or at eating things I should not be eating.

I can trace it back a year when the problems started for me.  Food has always been a coping mechanism for me as it is for most people who battle it.  When my church life turned upside down, I found myself slowly starting to return to food as a means of dealing with the pain and betrayal.  Then there was the new job and not just the stress that comes with a new job, but going from twenty hours a week to forty.  Suddenly, I was no longer getting off work at 12:30 and heading to the gym before any of the men in my family were even home to know I was missing.  Now it is get off work at 5:00, go home and cook and can we talk about being tired after being at work for nine hours?  I often find that once I am home, it is so hard to find the will to go back out and hit the gym.  Honestly, it barely happens and most evenings, I simply opt for a walk instead.

Now, a walk would probably be fine were I being super careful of my food intake but most days, I am not.  Sitting at a desk all day, I find myself nibbling.  I am trying to do better but it is a daily battle.

After my surgery, I documented everything here, got support and advice and I know it helped me.  I shared what I learned and read about what others were doing.  Now, here I am, barely blogging so probably not many readers still remaining.  The fresh new post-op me, was replaced by just "me" and I have gotten lost somewhere along the way.  Somewhere along the way, I have put aside the things I know are the right things to do.  I have gone back to making excuses and if I don't get my act together, I am going to reach the point of no return where I will be so far off track that getting back on track will be overwhelming.

So, here I am.  Honest.  Scared.  Worried.  Unhappy. Feeling alone in this and trying to turn this ship around.  I don't want to wind up back where I was.  That would make everything I went through; surgery, preparing for it, recovering from it, working so hard to lose 109 pounds, in vain.  I cannot bear the thought of it.  

I hope some of you are still here to share this with me. 

A Year Later

So a year ago, a huge part of my life changed.  A year ago, after not getting any results from the church council, I blogged about my discontent and was attacked by people I had known and trusted my entire life.  I have learned a lot in a year, some good, some not as good.

• I have learned that no matter how much you think you know someone you really don't. 
• I have learned that people who are supposed to be among the most trustworthy will lie to save their own ass or to make themselves look better.
• I have learned that not even church is safe, even though it should be.
• I have learned that people will go to great lengths to be "right".
• I have learned that sometimes good people who should fight for you won't because they are afraid and that this does not make them bad people.  It only makes them fearful people.
• I have learned that there is no replacement for people who know you well and you can be yourself with.  I miss being with these people.
• I have learned that at times God wants me to act, even if I don't want to.
• I have learned that maybe you cannot be spiritually fulfilled and still be surrounded with people you want to spend a lot of time with.  So far in my life, it has been one or the other.

So there you have it.  It has been a hard year.  I am spiritually happy and miss my friends.  I still see them but not as often as I would like and certainly not every Sunday.  I spent some time with them Saturday and there is just no replacement for those relationships.  They are what I lost.  I gained being spiritually fulfilled.

One day maybe there will be both.

In Search of Self Control and a Good Night's Sleep

Ah, the wayward blogger returns.  Seems there is so much I want to do and not enough hours in the day to accomplish much of any of it.  But I really need to start prioritizing a few things or I am going to be totally screwed in the long run and will have no one to blame but myself.

I keep talking about doing things but cannot seem to fit them into my schedule to actually accomplish much of anything but the fact is that if I do not start making myself a priority I am going to put on more weight and the pounds I have gained since last March already need to go.  My head keeps wanting to go back to running as I am thinking it will help keep things under control along with controlling my carb addiction, but my knees and the clock have been disagreeing with me.  But I need to give it another go.  I was never much good at it really but on some sadistic level I apparently enjoyed it as my head keeps returning to the thought. 

I have gone back to kickboxing and have been trying to hit the gym but it is hard.  Yet I know that cannot be an excuse.  I have some tight clothing and I refuse to start buying larger sizes.  Hell to the no.  I grocery shopped healthy today.  I even waffled over some protein powder but let's be realistic...I hated that shit. But I need to go back to eating like a healthy person.  I used to do it easily and am not sure when it got complicated.  I think I got comfortable and complacent and figured my problems days were over and that I could eat like other people and just not think about/care about what I was putting in my mouth. 

The fact is that it will never work that way for me.  I am not one of those people.  They exist; the ones who can eat anything and never gain an ounce but it will never be me.  I need to accept that and move on.  Working on it.

I have still struggled with sleep issues and have just switched over to the Ambien Extended Release.  Last night was the first night on it and it went well.  Here's hoping.

The Angel

So not too long after The Brit and I got married, my mother went shopping in Lancaster, PA and she brought me home this beautiful ceramic angel.  I am very angel particular.  They have to have pretty faces as no one likes a pissed off angel; they just have to look "angelic".  This one did and she was pretty big; about 8 or 9 inches high, kneeling, hands raised, dark hair, long blue skirt and white blouse.  She is one of the prettiest angels I have ever seen.

She came to my house in a box and when we opened her, we sadly discovered a broken wing.  It had broken clean off, but The Brit was certain he could fix it and he did.  As the wing attached in the back, looking at her one could not see any evidence of the breakage.  

I kept her safely on a shelf at the desk, up high where the cats could not knock her down and she resided there for several years until one night, someone knocked the desk and caused her to fall from the shelf and break into several pieces.  Worried at first that she was not fixable, I was thrilled when The Brit once again pieced her together, minus a spot here and there where holes remained, those remnants broken into pieces too tiny to repair.  

These days, at quick glance, the angel appears perfect; a striking image of the perfection God would have made her were she real.  She is kept in a lower but still safe place and it is only at closer inspection you can see her battle scars; a missing piece here, a rather large hole in the back.  Still beautiful but far from perfect.

How like us she is!  For some reason the saga of my angel was on my heart the other day even though it has been probably three years since her last accident.  But she is like us.  From the outside we can appear to have it all together, to even be somewhat perfect, but only once you really start to see inside of someone can you see their "holes"; their scars that life has dealt them.  Sometimes you have to look very closely because many of us keep our imperfections, our hurts,  our betrayals well hidden.  But often it is worth the time to look and to try to understand.

What is wonderful is that like the angel, who was created by a master craftsman somewhere, we have also been created by a Master Craftsman who sees all our holes and loves us not just despite them but because of them.  In His eyes, we are perfect and precious and loved, despite our faults.

Just sayin'.

 

Keeping It Real

So they say the first step to recovery is admitting you have a problem so I am going to put a little faith into that and hope to an extent it holds true.

I have been struggling with some weight regain.

There.  I said it.  Since my lowest and relatively comfortable weight for me, of 209, I have gained about 28 pounds...most of it since starting back to work full time.  I know that carbs are my problem and I am still wrestling with what to do about it, but I know I have to do something.


There is something called "The 5 Day Pouch Test" that has existed in the WLS surgery community for some time as carbs tend to be a post op problem after a few years.  Here is what I read about it last night:


Slurry food, more commonly described as slider food ,is a watery liquid food solution of simple processed carbohydrates containing scant nutritional value. The substance usually comes from crackers, pretzels, cracker snacks, popcorn, cheese snacks, potato chips or tortilla chips, or sugar-free cookies, cakes, and candy. The foods are chewed and washed down with liquids into the surgical stomach pouch where the gastric muscles churn them into slurry which slips directly into the intestine to be quickly processed and stored as body fat. Patients of all bariatric weight loss procedures including gastric bypass, adjustable gastric banding (lap-band), and gastric sleeve, are prone to weight gain if copious amounts of slurry food are consumed.

After surgery many bariatric patients find the restrictive feeling following eating to be uncomfortable, yet it is the very nature of the surgical gastric pouch to cause a tight restricted feeling after a small amount of solid food has been consumed. This signals the patient to stop eating. Uncomfortable with this restricted feeling, many patients turn to softer processed simple carbohydrates or junk food that can be washed down with liquids creating slurry. The uncomfortable restricted feeling never occurs and patients can eat unmeasured portions without feeling discomfort. Soon the weight loss they were enjoying has stopped and weight regain begins.

In a malabsorptive procedure the pouch is made and the stoma or outlet is attached to the lower part of the middle intestine called the jejunum. The majority of caloric absorption takes place in the jejunum, so depending upon where your surgeon created the outlet the level of absorption can vary. Skilled surgeons will adjust the length of intestine bypassed according to their patient's projected needs based on dieting history and pre-op psychological screening.
Slider foods slide right through the stoma into the jejunum. My first test of the slider foods was graham crackers and coffee for my after work snack. Now imagine, I could eat a stack of graham crackers and wash it right through the pouch with the coffee and never feel any satiation. What resulted was an easily absorbed slurry that my jejunum sucked up like a sponge - it didn't have to do any work to absorb this simple carbohydrate slurry. Of course, weight gain resulted and I had to give up this little indulgence. Another popular slider food is pretzels. I speak with post-ops all the time who are addicted to pretzels - again, this is a simple carb that your jejunum is very happy to receive and convert to fat. Traditionally dieters are encouraged to eat pretzels or popcorn - fat free and fiber, right? But that doesn't work so well for us. Giving our re-routed bodies these simple carbs is dangerous because our bodies have spent years perfect the art of fat storage - slider foods are to the body a great big lottery win.
 


Many patients will mistakenly blame their surgical stomach pouch thinking it has stretched out or is no longer working correctly. However, patients who return to a diet of lean protein and avoid drinking liquids with meals will quickly discover the uncomfortable pouch restriction still occurs bringing feelings of fullness with small servings of food. Continued compliance with the high protein diet eventually leads to weight loss once again. 

For weight loss surgery patients protein is not always the most comfortable food choice because of the tightness that results following eating. However, for bariatric surgery to work correctly and sustain long-term weight loss and weight maintenance, a high protein diet void of simple processed carbohydrates must be followed consistently.

I am apparently a queen of slurry foods.  I read that and though I knew carbs were my issue the ones described; the crackers, pretzels, popcorn , are my crack.  Well and Twizzlers which I have not had in over a week thankfully.

The 5 Day Pouch test takes you through the food stages we went through following our RNY in five quick days.  In short, it is this:

 
Days One & Two: Liquid Protein
low-carb protein shakes, broth, clear or cream soups, sugar-free gelatin and pudding.
Day 3: Soft Protein
canned fish (tuna or salmon) eggs, fresh soft fish (tilapia, sole, orange roughy. 
Day 4: Firm Protein
ground meat (turkey, beef, chicken, lamb), shellfish, scallops, lobster, fresh salmon or halibut.
Day 5: Solid Protein
white meat poultry, beef steak, pork, lamb, wild game
My biggest concern with this is the first two days and my mood that might accompany that.  Can I work productively while probably feeling irritable?  My other huge problem is my hatred of protein shakes.  I have NEVER found a protein powder that did not make me want to gag.  But I need to.  A majority of WLS patients years out of surgery still have 1-2 protein shakes a day.

I have two other major rules I have broken.  I am again drinking soda, albeit diet soda and I am not obeying the rules of drinking before and after meals.  Essentially, WLS patients should stop drinking 30 minutes before a meal and not drink again until 30 minutes after a meal.  My goal for this week is to resolve the liquids problem.  The pouch test I plan to start a week from tomorrow as The Brit will be away so I don't have to deal with meals other then the simple crap the kids will eat and what I will need  to do.

So what happens after Day 5, you may ask?  It says this:

After the 5 Day Pouch Test is when things get exciting. Having successfully broken a carb-cycle, regained a feeling of control over the surgical gastric pouch and possibly losing a few pounds one is ready for re-entry into a compliant way of eating. This means focusing on protein rich meals, observing the liquid restrictions and avoiding starches, particularly processed carbohydrates and slider foods. Three meals a day should be two-thirds protein, one third healthy carbohydrate in the form of low-glycemic vegetables and fruits. Consumption of whole grains is not forbidden, but should be limited to one serving a day.


If necessary between meal snacks should be protein dense. Natural food protein is great including hard-cooked eggs, lean low-sodium deli meats, and limited servings of nuts or low-fat cheese. In addition, protein bars or beverages may be used for between meal supplementation.

I read about one women who lost 100 pounds by doing the Pouch Test and then staying on Day 6 for the next five months, so getting back on track is far from impossible.  I need to remember why I have done this.  I worked too hard to get the surgery and has a post op to screw it all up now.

So there you go for keeping it real.