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Tag: Nutrisystem

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Something Had to Be Done – Starting from Scratch

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Seriously?  Isn’t this where it all began??

I have battled weight my entire life.  I was a chubby baby – some babies look like the Gerber baby.  In pictures I’ve seen, I look like the Michelin tire man.  I was fat through elementary school.  By 8th grade, I was tired of kids making fun of me (Oh yes, dear children, we had bullies back in the day before bullying was big business), and crash dieted myself thinner.  I ate nothing.  No, that’s not a typo.  I skipped breakfast and lunch every day, in favor of sweetened iced tea.  For dinner, I ate as little as possible, and some more iced tea.  Some nights, I ate saltine crackers in place of dinner.  I got thin.  But, of course, that whole eating thing crept back into vogue, and I got heavy again.

My first “get real” diet was with Jim.  Planning to get married, I hoped to be a size 12 instead of a size 18, and he and I both joined NutriSystem.  We lost weight, we felt healthy, and while I was a size 12 in real people clothes, I still had a size 18 wedding gown 🙁  It was discouraging, but we were both in peak shape.

Well, until I got pregnant.

I battled again – after Brighid; after Eilis; and even after Granuaile.  I never got back to the size 12 I wanted to be, but instead got up to a size 26.  Well, I think 26, because I bought only stretchy things – mostly size 3X.  I was bigger than Jim.  With so many people promoting weight loss surgery, I jumped right on the bandwagon.

I have touted weight loss surgery as a great thing for me.  It was.  I’ve had complications, to be sure, but I am so grateful to have lost 150 pounds.  I do not think I will ever see a size 26 again, but I have fallen off the wagon.  I have gone from a low of a size 10 back up to a size 14/16, and it’s scary.

We have gotten into bad habits.  With school work, night classes, and overall busy, pizza seems like a good idea at least a couple of nights a week.  And come on, who eats one slice of pizza?  Even gastrically altered, I can eat at least two.  And if it doesn’t get put away right away, I can go back for a third later on.

I have to get back to the gym, when life settles down in two weeks.  And I am going to.  But my diet needs to improve.  Portion control needs to be a priority again.  Eating to live, not living to eat needs to be the focus.

So here we are, back at the beginning.  I am trying 30 days of NutriSystem to see if it can help get me back to where I belong.

Pray with me.  It’s going to be a bumpy ride.

 

This is me today; me at my lowest; and two pictures of me at my highest.

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To My New Good Friend and Gentle Reader, Carrie!

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My new friend Carrie took the time to post a comment on one of my Blog Posts (find the original post https://www.beautygirlsmom.com/2010/06/14/i-took-the-easy-way-out-gastric-bypass-surgery-bitching/ ).  I’m taking the time to answer her!

Dear Carrie:

Unless you’ve had the opportunity to know me and my reasons for having Gastric Bypass Surgery, I wish to politely invite you to shut the hell up (whew, I avoided the “f” word this time – quite a feat considering I have absolutely NO self control, as evidenced by my need for gastric bypass surgery).  I don’t believe I was bitching about my surgery at all – I was bitching about the ignorant woman at the airport who sat in a seat eating doughnuts and drinking soda, all the while talking about her phenomenal weight loss through diet and exercise.  Because I recognize that gastric bypass surgery was my choice, I don’t bitch about the procedure.  I may have complained now and again about the things I experience as a result of this choice, but I never bitch about the choice itself.

And Dear Carrie, if you bothered to get to know me, you’ll know that I have had gym memberships.  I’ve been at least partially responsible for our local gym owner having the ability to send his daughter to private preparatory schools.  While that may make me a martyr of some kind, I don’t proclaim to be a martyr, neither for being such a generous contributor to a child’s education, nor for my gastric bypass surgery.

I’ve had the common sense to put my fork down; and I’ve had the common sense not to put my fork through ignorant people who think that we all have the ability to make a few lifestyle changes and be on the road to skinny.  Jaysus, I’m showing an awful lot of self control for someone who couldn’t stop eating!

You suggest a lifestyle change for people who have weight loss difficulty.  I made one.  It certainly wasn’t a lazy route.  Jenny and I are on a first name basis.  The Fresh Diet failed me until I was fresh out of money to pay for the pricey service.  Weight Watchers watched my ass get bigger every time I went to the meetings, after a week of eating their recommended amount of food.  So you see, Dear Carrie, I’ve exhausted every carefully constructed weight loss method before making the lifestyle change that led to my surgery.  Please note the use of the word “exhausted” – because that’s not something lazy people get very often.

We don’t all have the ability to follow the food pyramid, the USDA recommended dietary intake, and expect to be average sized people.  If you had bothered to get to know me before accusing me of being lazy, you’d know that I suffer from PCOS, a disorder of the endocrine system, making it difficult for me to lose weight.  Not that I’m using that as a crutch to stuff my face full of Twinkies, but it is a fact of my biology that weight loss is not as easy as giving up cookies and cake.  And I would guess that there are other people out there who have turned to Gastric Bypass Surgery who have similar metabolic disorders or thyroid conditions that make losing weight The Dear Carrie Way less than ideal.

And let’s give credit where credit is due.  Lots of us got fat because we ate too damn much.  But whether it’s stress; depression; a coping mechanism – for some of us, food means comfort.  It’s an addiction, like alcohol, tobacco, cocaine.  There is a euphoric high after you eat a slice of cheesecake, and a terrible guilt as a fat person when you do.  To regain the feeling, you eat another; and another; and another, until, ultimately, you’ve eaten the whole damn cake, you feel badly about yourself, and you fear judgement from people like Dear Carrie.  That sets up the whole cycle all over again – you eat to feel good, you feel badly when you do, so you eat more to feel good.

So tell me, Dear Carrie, if my therapist and yours went head to head in a psychological Top Chef of sorts, which one of us ends up with the more normal patient?  Mine at least knows my issues.  Does yours know how angry you are at fat people?  You might want to bring it up at your next session.