My Comparison Problem

So I have this problem. I like to compare things, especially myself to other people! Since having this surgery, instagram, twitter, facebook, and youtube has helped met connect with several people post op and pre op who are on a similar journey as me. Its funny, Im friends with people in Newfoundland, The united States, Austrailia, and England, friends that I have never met, our one thing we have in common is that we all have had or are having weight loss surgery. Its so cool, and I feel like we are one big family. This is so great and I love it. Its support, friendship, I have mentors, and am a mentor, but also in my mind it is the opportunity to compare. Some people have done some amazing things with their body since having this surgery. I have seen mind blowing transformations. I see men and women reaching ideal body weights, looking fabulous and seriously blowing my mind! One thing i have to realize is that all of us, this huge family of wls peeps, start from a different place. I started on my journey at 398 pounds. This weight was my starting point. This is probably not the same place that a lot of my friends started from. There were people who were heavier and lighter and I cant at 400 pounds compare myself to someone who started at 300 or 250 pounds. And someone who started at 600 pounds cant compare themselves to someone who started at 398. This process is so individual. My story and everyone elses stories are unique. As far as stories go, mine is no where near being finished. Im still working on that last sixty pounds so I can have my slack skin removed and finally lift what has fallen! I cant wait for that day because believe me, that issue brings being uncomfortable to a whole other level. (but im beyond terrified about the surgery and recovery time... but another blog!) Maybe someday I will do a blog about that issue and discuss how it affects me, how yucky it is, how far it hangs (ewwwwwww!!) Feel free not to read this one if you are squeamish, I totally understand. (I may not even read it myself) and I promise, no pictures!! ... yet I still have to be thankful for this surgery, my confidence level has skyrocketed and I can actually move now without getting winded... and BIG ANNOUNCEMENT flew to st johns and had to tighten the seat belt!!!!!!! The days of being terrified if the seat belt would fit are behind me. Yayyy Im thankful, I feel good, but I still have miles to go.

Hello all my lovely followers. Im here writing again, thinking about my progress and the path that I am on, and have been on for the past few years. The other day me and my Billy were talking (we do that a lot) and he mentioned how many times I would be crying and saying that my surgery was never going to come. I had forgotten about that, but he was right, I spent an unbelievable ammount of time whining (no actually sobbing) about the fact that I was waiting and waiting, and it was never going to get here. Well folks it looks like im waiting again! I asked the bariatric team to refer me for the slack skin surgery. It looks like i may have an eight month wait to be able to see them, but this is perfect because I still have weight to lose before they will consider me and they prefer that you be two years post op before they will do the procedure. I will be two years post op in august... eeekkk... exciting... terrifying! The thought of another surgery scares me. I said when i was in my recovery from the last one that I would never consider having surgery again even if my slack skin was dragging behind me as i walked (your welcome... I know you are thanking me for that image!) I have been struggling with the slack skin issue lately. Not medically, no infections or anything like that, but its getting on my last nerve! I can wear cute little tops and I feel really confidant when I look in the mirror, But then I look down below my waist and its like BAM there it is!! Don't get me wrong, im not fixating on this like I used to fixate on my weight, its far from that. When I looked in the mirror at four hundred pounds I felt despair and self loathe, now when I notice that things are kinda not in the right proportion im just really annoyed. I haven't felt that desperate feeling about my looks in a long time, now im just sort of going with it, what ever it is it is... bald spots and all!! I have been re reading a book that was suggested to me throughout my counselling, "life without ed". It has taken me quite a long time to read and work my way through it. At different points in my journey I feel I need to read and learn, and then there are times that I just want to live and not think about the process, so it has taken me a while. One of the suggestions for today was to develop a model of a healthy relationship with food.. so that's what I did. I developed a model of what i wanted food to look like for me. On the other side they wanted you to develop also a list of problems you had with food, so I did that as well. It kind of looks like this, I noticed that my problems with food list isnt really that long or intimidating. Things dont seem quite as daunting as they did before. I have to lose sixty more pounds before I can be considered for surgery again, but sixty compared to the one hundred sixty dosn't seem that big of a deal. I have met with a personal trainer who is helping me develop a plan of action, (she is amazing and Im excited to start!). I am enjoying this book and have been adapting it to fit my life, its written from the viewpoint of someone who has anorexia, but I have been learning that disordered eating is disordered eating. It follows a similar pattern. If you would like to find the book for yourself Jenni Schafer has a website that you can order from, as well as lots of other interesting things www.jennischaefer.com. She is also a singer who has released an album. She has a song titled "its ok to be happy" sounded very familiar to my life and my story. I know its late for a transformation tuesday pic but I found this the other day and it always shocks me when I see an old pic that I haven't seen in a while... so here it is another transformation pic I will keep you posted in my process and continue to be honest along the way.

Just some thoughts...

Hello all you beautiful people who read my blog. Im so thankful for each and every one of you, for my last post there were eight hundred views, thats amazing!! It hasn't been such a long time since I have written but I thought now was as good a time as any to update you some things. I have encountered one of the dreaded side effects of this surgery, but as with most things in my life and timeline I am encountering it quite late in the process... HAIRLOSS!!! Along the way I have had some thinning going on here and there and my amazing hair dresser has suggested a wonderful product. Redken Intrafoce (for any of you dealing with the same dilema) but like with everything else in my life I slacked off using it, mainly becuase of cost, and havent used it in a few months. My hair was doing well and I was getting my protien and fluids all in so all was ok. Well this morning I got up and this had happened A BALD SPOT!! I have been out of surgery for over a year and now is the time my hair decides to turn against me and fall out... all in one spot! I really think its still able to be camouflaged yet. I never really noticed it until i straightened it. I have been wearing it curly for a while because it gives the illusion of fullness, and also I can get away with out washing it if I curl it in the morning! So if you see me with curly hair chances are it could very well be dirty too... just kidding, I was washing it way too much which was not helping with the thinning process. So here I am with a bald spot, but guess what I am not doing, I am not stressing about it. Its only hair. Im feeling amazing and energetic and on top of the world and im not letting a little bald spot get to me (i said little though... if it gets any bigger me and my hair are going to have a problem!). I had a moment id like to share with you all, for a moment I thought I would keep it to myself but I think it puts some things into perspective so I will share it with you. I was at work one afternoon and pulled up my laptop screen while it was turned off, and the screen was black, because of this I could clearly see my reflection. For a second I thought "I look pretty today" that was a monumental moment, I have never uttered those words to myself in my life time, and certainly never when I was having a bald spot day. Things have changed for the better. I still get frustrated with some things (slack skin) but thats for a whole other blog, but on the whole my life looks so much better than it did before. I did make another huge discovery recently when I started feeling a feeling of anxiety that I had never felt before, I have lost my life long coping mechanism now so my ability to handle stress has changed I I felt a physical reaction to stress the other day and I think its because I had always numbed my stress before, eating copious amounts of food was my coping mechanism but that is gone now. I recognized that and I can deal with it now that I know its there. I would like to wish you all a very merry chirstmas. Everyone who reads my story is going through this process with me in some form, and I thank you all. If you are reading because you know me, love me, found me on twitter or instagram, or out of pure curiosity, you are all going through it with me. So merry christmas to you all!! Ill leave you with a the Christmas pics of our little men who are having are the sweetest things ever. I know their faces would make my Christmas so ill share them with you!! I hope you have a wonderful Christmas season. From my family to yours!! oh and we cant forget these two

My Official One Year

So I met with my team yesterday for my one year follow up appointment, actually its four months late because I have had to keep rescheduling it. It went really well. Im pleased at how pleased they were. I do feel somewhat disappointed in a few things though. let me explain, I have lost one hundred and thirty two pounds since the day of my surgery. I have lost one hundred and forty six since two weeks before my surgery. I have lost one hundred and sixty six pounds since before my referral. Its amazing and when I write it I cant hardly believe it, but yet I am disappointed. I look down and still see a stomach that annoys me. I could be referred to plastic surgery but my BMI is still too high so I told the team not to bother yet. I have sixty pounds to lose to reach my goal. That sixty pounds is so small compared to the one hundred and sixty I have already lost, but its still between me and my goal. I checked my BMI the other day.. a number that is very important to weight loss surgery patients before surgery because if its too high you cant have the surgery until it is lowered (and i started out at a bmi of 67, seven points too high for the surgery) and the bmi calculator told me that to get to my optimum weight I still need to lose between 23 and 60 Kgs. KILOGRAMS!!! that's well over a hundred pounds. Its disheartening. I lost sight of the point that I have lowered my BMI by by twenty six points. I mentioned this to the team and they told me these calculations do not take into account where I came from. I know that from here on out things will be harder. It will be hard to lose weight again. So Im kind of disappointed and kind of not disappointed if that makes any sense. proud of where ive come from but not quite happy with where I am. Maybe I may have to let go of the idea of perfection in my head. There is a weight and a look that I want to be... and realistically I may not ever achieve it... but I have achieved a one hundred and sixty pound weight loss. I realized today what my body has been through... its been through a war. I have abused it for thirty six years, then I cut out over half of its stomach, made it survive on less eight hundred calories a day, filled it full of scars, shocked it completely by working out after spending years not walking further than my house to the car, Its been trough a lot, and who am I to abuse it further by not embracing where it is now. Sure Im not finished, but I have come a long way. So if you are like me and are in the midst of a life change and your body hasn't caught up to where your mind sees it, don't be too hard on it, love what you have!

So... how come people have changed?

Hello all. Its been one year and two months since the sleeve surgery that changed my life. I'm going to write about something that I have noticed along the way that is puzzling me. I know that since my surgery I have changed drastically. There are people that know me really well that don't even recognize me sometimes! That's a bit of a thrill each time it happens. Its my new super power... I'm INCOGNITO GIRL!! Ok I really need to rein myself in, i"m just rambling now. When I weighed almost four hundred pounds I rarely made eye contact with people, and people did not make eye contact with me. They did however, look me up and down a lot. This has become one of my biggest pet peeves. People who really don't care that you know they are sizing you up, judgmentally. I take issue with this. My sister in law told me to take it as a compliment, so that's what i'm trying to. I have lived many years with people not looking me in the eye. Recently I have noticed that lots of people are making eye contact with me, and smiling at me, and holding doors open for me, oh yeah and people who work in stores are being super helpful. You would think this should make me feel better. Well let me tell you something... it doesn't. It makes me angry. When I was in counselling after my surgery I was told that I may grieve my past self. Well lately when people are nice to me and do things they didn't do for that other girl, I do have a very strong feeling for her. I hurt for her. I feel bad for her. I feel kind of broken hearted for her. Why didnt she deserve the same respect that this amanda did. When people that dont know me go out of their way to be nice to me I feel sad for the girl who was embarrassed by her appearance and didn't like to go in public because of how she was sometimes treated, or how she thought she would be treated. Im still that same girl. Bill and myself have had lots of discussions about it. The other day we were talking about it again and I told him how bothered I was by the niceness. (i am beginning to sound very ungrateful) He thought about it for a minute and said, "But you aren't the same person, you put yourself out there more, you are more confidant, you throw yourself into everything and people are reacting to a different personality than before. (he has his insightful moments.) And hes right. I do things that I would never have done and would never have had the confidence to do. Im pushing myself in ways that i couldnt before. Im still so thankful for this gift and miracle that is my life, a life that I now love and am trying to grab every second out of. Im not sure if any of you rememebr my blog about living in some tomorrow land when i am skinny, and dreaming about that time. I dont do that any more. I live for today now. (and believe me I am in no way skinny, but I am happy) I have joined two fitness classes and a yoga class. Ill be totally honest my weight loss has slowed drastically. I haven't lost in ages so i'm trying to kick start some more loss. Only sixty pounds to go to reach my ultimate goal!! Sixty pounds seems like nothing in comparison to the one hundred and sixty that I have lost already. In conclusion I guess you could say I still have lots of issues. My head still likes to take over in the night time and FORCE me to eat bad foods. I still struggle emotionally about eating. I guess i'm going through a little of that grief process I was warned would come. Im not greiving food, im grieving for that girl. I was talking to someone the other day that hadnt seen me in a few years. She made a comment that surprised me. She said, no offence about the surgery or anything but i thought you looked really nice before. This statement really touched me, I actually choked up a little bit and had to swallow a lump in my throat, and i felt glad for that other girl that someone thought about her and still appreciated her, but a part of me was sad, that girl is gone. I was just re reading this, and it sounds something like an obituary! oh my, I want to end this blog on a more positive note and with a statement. I am grateful!!! (oh yeah, and please please please don't stop being nice to me hee hee!) Thanks for reading, Ill keep you posted. Here are some of our pictures that our girl Melissa and her boy Ben took for us. Please go check them out at Ben J. King Photography on facebook. They are amazing!!

Happy Surgiversary To Me!!

It's my one year surgiversary today!! Its been quite a year, A 150 pounds less, healthier, more active, living life to the fullest kinda year!! I don't have much to write about because I already wrote an update blog recently but I thought id share some pictures with you. First Ill share a before surgery collage and then I have a couple collages of this year. Its kind of all crammed together, and there are tonnes of friends, family, and pets included. (and about one hundred selfies!!) Hope you enjoy my surgiversary pictures... I know I had fun putting them together. Here are the before pics... and here is my year in a nutshell. Happy Surgiversary! And thanks for joining me on the journey, there will be more to come!

Setting Me Free

Well its time to write about another mile stone. Its funny sometimes when I sit and think about all of the things I held my self back from when I weighed a hundred and fifty pounds more than I do now. I was saying to Bill last night that last year I felt like a muted version of who I am now. I felt like the real Amanda was in there but she was being slowly buried by weight, and My true self was suffocated by my own insecurities. Yes, I have lost one hundred and fifty pounds, but am I at my goal, not by at least fifty or sixty more pounds. Am I happy with how I look, some times. Am I where I want to be, no. I say all this to bring up the actual purpose of this blog. I did something last night that I haven't done in at least twenty years. I rode the rides at the fair. I have been too scared to get on them before now thinking that the seat belts or bars wouldn't close on me. And I would be way too mortified to put myself through that embarrassment. But guess what, Thomas Amusements was at the Pepsi Center last night and my bff and her family were staying with us, so we decided to take a trip to the fair. You know how you have that one friend that you don't live close to any more but you are closer to than any one else, that friend that you laugh with no matter what, and the one that always has something encouraging to say even you are venting and crying, the only friend who knew you weighed almost four hundred pounds because you told her even though you didn't tell anyone... well that's my Carla. We were having our annual visit and the fair was here so we had to go. Last year I was also at the fair. I would shuffle from those metal benches and sit down and watch my boys having fun. Watching bill get on rides with them, trying to find a bench close to where they were so I wouldn't have to stand long. I had to sit because my legs and my back hurt so bad. I remember being so uncomfortable and sweating so bad that there was nothing enjoyable about the experience at all. The only good thing about it was seeing my boys happy and laughing. Did I want to be up and walking playing games and riding the rides... of course, but I physically couldn't. Back to this trip though... Well when we found our place to park at the Pepsi Center me and Micah ran... yes I said RAN to Carla's truck and then it all started. We went and bought our tickets (expensive!!) and got in line. I wasn't tired in line, I wasn't sweating, but I was nervous though that old thought kept creeping in,, what if the belt is too tight what if im too heavy. Guess what... I wasn't! The bars and belts fit just fine and I have to say I laughed harder and louder than I have in years. When me and Carla got on the scrambler the seats were really really high. So I had to pull myself in with one foot on the ride, I could never have done it last year, it was too much weight to pull. But I did it. And I have to say again, I laughed so hard my stomach is still hurting today. That sad Amanda that felt buried by weight, and felt that she was being buried alive is finally getting to breathe and be who she is. Im not saying that being overweight means you cant be who you are, Im still overweight (for now) but Im saying how I was feeling for the past years. Well I don't feel that way any more. So that's where I am right now. Ill leave you with a picture of the cutest little people. They had fun at the fair too!