Sucky Scales

I don't know how many times I've been told to NOT weigh myself more than once a week. But it's hard to resist. I wish I hadn't weighed myself yesterday afternoon as the scales said not only had I not lost more weight, but I had gained! So I had a bit of a hissy fit. "Let's make pancakes" I say to Neil (boyfriend). "No, babe," he replies. I sulked a while and eventually went to bed, hoping that when I do weigh in (have decided Saturday will be the day) I will get good news.

I started stressing out about the scales, which are Neil's. How old are they? Do they work? I've never used them before now. Maybe they're not accurate, and if that's true how on earth will I cope?? It's all about the numbers. It takes such a long time to lose enough weight to notice in clothes, so there's no point in trying to fit into my jeans. I need to buy a tape measure and start measuring my vitals. I have a doctor's appointment tomorrow so I will ask him to weigh me (if his scales will fit me, the last doctor I went to only weighed up to 130kg!)

One of my plans for the weekend is to start writing down some goals and rewards. I figure saving $15 a day at the work canteen can be put towards some 5kg rewards (-: Not to mention all the money I'll save not getting McDonalds on the way home...

I was thinking about my sleeve this morning (the vertical sleeve gastrectomy is the weight loss surgery I had in October 2007). If I look at how I sabotaged it, mostly its in terms of McDonalds. Started out with a tiny cheeseburger, and I could barely finish it. But then, next time added a small fries and if I ate slowly, wow I could fit it all in. Then on to a double cheeseburger. Then add a medium fries. Even though I was told by my surgeon to not drink while I was eating, I added a small coke. Low and behold, the sleeve is sabotaged. I stretched it slowly, surely, over time until I could eat what I wanted. Add to that my terrible food choices for snacks and meals, and no wonder I've regained 25 kilos (50 plus pounds).

I'm so damn ANGRY at myself, even though I know there's no point. Even when I read my blog when I was still losing a little bit of weight, I was snacking on chips and chocolate - just cause I could. I didn't address any of the emotional issues I had around eating, so as soon as things got hard I turned to food for comfort.

I have to keep telling myself that it took many, many years to put on 100kg (200 plus pounds) of extra fat. So if it takes me ten years to lose it, then that's okay. That's fine. Especially because the weight loss is going to come with permanent mental and emotional changes. It has to, because otherwise the fat is just going to come back every time. I know that.

PLANS
To see Gorgeous Jon, my weight loss surgeon, and lay it all on the line for him. See if he thinks I need a bypass, or a sleeve revision.

To make an appointment with a psychologist who specialises in eating disorders and binge eating.

To make an appointment with Beverley, a hypnotherapist who also does neurolinguistic programming and has proven success with binge eating.

To keep on with the Optifast and walking half an hour a day and hopefully start to lose weight!

Once I Was Overweight

Once I was Overweight. It was 1992.
I'm almost five foot ten and I weighed about 80kg (175 pounds).

After that, about 4 years later, I moved into the Obese category, weighing about 95kg (209).

Eventually, after the Heartbreak of 1997 and the Doomed Marriage of 2000, I qualified for the Super Morbid Obese category, and let me tell you not just any old fat chick gets that label. My BMI was 54, and I weighed around 170kg (374).

A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, I was the second heaviest person in my class. It was 1986 and I was 16 years old, almost at the height I am now (five nine and a half). I weighed 64kg. Smack bang in the middle of the Healthy Weight category. I'll say it again - I was the second heaviest person in my class, including boys. Every day I was told I was fat, ugly, slow and was always the last person chosen for sports.

No wonder I have such a screwed-up body image. No wonder I constantly question whether it's even worth all this money (cost of my weight loss surgery =$18,000) and effort to get to my new goal weight of 80kg, which will see me still Overweight. I need to find a way to disconnect from the numbers, but how do I measure my "success" if not through BMI points, clothing sizes, centimetres and kilos? Sure, there are a number of things I can do comfortably now that I couldn't 50kg ago. I'm not disputing the fact that I've lost weight and gained health and fitness. But basically, I've hated my body since I was 10 years old, no matter what number was attached to it. And lots of other people have hated it too, and have told me so.

Sadly, I find myself still hating my body, still lamenting its ugly lumpen-ness and scarring. Even worse, now I've lost a lot more weight from my top half than my bottom bits - where I was once an "even" size 26, I'm now 20-22 in pants and 16-18 in tops. Nothing fits me properly. I would never want to go back. But sometimes I wonder WHEN or IF I will be able to learn how to value my body instead of viewing it as my enemy.