Major NSV!

NSV = Non Scale Victory or Non Surgical Victory.

I am still stunned at my achievement. I have never walked 10k before in my life, but here I am at the goal of the Soda Springs, which is the first leg of the Tongariro Crossing. The Crossing is a famous hike in New Zealand which stretches between two mountains, Mt Ngaurahoe and Mt Tongariro in the Tongariro National Park. (Look it up on Google!)

I knew I wouldn't be fit enough to get up the Devils Staircase - a nearly vertical climb - but wanted to reach the goal I'd set myself of getting to Soda Springs, almost 5 K into the trek. I did expect to be able to rest up before the return trip, but the weather was pretty dismal and if we had sat around in the wet we would have become very chilled, so we made the return trip straight away.

I couldn't keep up the pace of the rest of our party, but took my time and completed it with aching legs and a soaring spirit at my achievement. I must say that without the encouragement of my Best Buddy in the World I don't think I could have made it.

NSV's - what are they?

Non Surgical Victories are those little moments when you experience a gift from losing that weight. For example, yesterday, in the blistering heat of one of Auckland's hottest summers for years, we lay on rugs in the garden under the shade of our golden elm. I fell asleep with the sound of the cicadas. It was lovely. 12 kilos (25 lbs approx) ago I could not lie on the ground. It was excrutiating and getting up again was a real problem. Yes I still am a bit ungainly getting to my feet, but it is so much better than it was. I felt encouraged at the greater mobility and had a bath. Not too bad but I'm looking forward to lying in a bath where the water actually covers me!

Another NSV was being at the Big Gay Out - which I go to every year (part of the Hero Festival in Auckland) and not dodging having my photo taken. I know I'm not skinny yet, but I feel so much more confident of my appearance at present.

I'm working my way back through clothes I haven't been able to wear, some of them have hardly had any use at all. And a lovely fresh water pearl necklace that was just too tight looks great. Its fun and I don't have to spend any money yet!

Why Weight Loss Surgery

Yes indeed, why weight loss surgery? Doesn't that seem a little drastic? Surely if you just ate less and exercised a bit your weight would be under control. Have you tried this cool diet that my friend did and lost 10 kilos! Hey you look great the way you are, don't get hung up on your looks. Etc etc etc.

2008 was one of the more miserable years of my life - not the most by any means - but miserable in that I have so much to be grateful for now, but am not. A nice house a nice job, car, loved one, in fact everything I ever wanted, except to be a manageable weight. Misery that was deepening into solid depression as I knew in my heart of hearts that nothing had ever worked and probably nothig ever would. Every attempt to lose weight had failed, after briefly succeeding, and every failure brought more weight with it. My health has never been so bad and mornings waking up were like coming back from the dead. The diabetes made me feel like crap and all motivation to get up and move around was being sapped by the discomfort of my body. And I knew it was all downhill from here.

Obesity is a very misunderstood condition, and as a fat person I know that it is a two edged sword. One one hand you become invisible almost, as fat is not what people in general want to see so they look away. That in some ways is a good thing, as I don't like some types of attention. Fat protected me in my early years, a security blanket, and I didn't have to deal with the wolf whistles or bottom pinching brigade that a girl with a figure like mine put up with as a matter of course. I had an hourglass body, with large breasts and wide hips and a little waist and it drove the boys crazy. I still have an hourglass shape, but now it is 52",47",52" not 36",26",38". Anyway that was a long time ago. I still like to be invisible most of the time and observe people from a quiet corner. The other side of the sword is that fat kills you. Slowly and surely your life expectancy shrinks and you begin to realise that insurance companies would not insure a risk that most likely will be dead by next week - according to their charts and risk profiles.

I went to a psychic last year, more for a giggle really and to keep my sister company as she wanted to go. Some of the things he said were extremely uncanny in their accuracy but he said two things that I thought were frankly irresponsible. One was that my diabetes wasn't going to be a problem for me in the future (I didn't tell him I was diabetic but he could have guessed from my size) and secondly that I would live to 110. Well in my condition I would be very lucky to make another 15 years, but it did give me a sense of hope in a funny way, even though i didn't believe it.

So what happened? Around July or August i think it was I had watched a few programmes on obesity that had weight loss surgery as a theme, and found myself crying over one poor chaps experience. He was hugely overweight and had managed to lose the required weight to be eligible for the surgery, only to be told by the hospital that he'd done so well that they felt he could do it on his own without the surgery. I just wept for him as I knew that he, or we, cannot do this weight loss thing long term on our own. And even though I wasn't his size, I knew I could be. Then in October there was another programme, a New Zealand one, with a group of women being interviewed who had had WLS and a surgeon, I can't recall the details, but I gleaned this information. a) Obesity is a medical condition and that once your BMI (body mass index) is over 35 you are just not able to lose weight as the body has a self balancing function with regards to weight - in other words its not your fault, and b)WLS has a remarkable side effect in that type 2 diabetes often goes away completely as soon as the surgery is done. And c) that after surgery patients did not experience the same hunger pangs that had previously led them to overeat! There is a lot more information out there available and I won't go into that, as this is just a person journal of my impressions and not a comprehensive study on WLS.

When my dearly beloved came home I talked about it with him, what I thought, what I wanted and mostly, what it would cost. He was so supportive that I was deeply touched. I had expected some resistance, or skepticism, but no. He said - what's another 30 years life expectancy worth?

I made an appointment with my GP the next day and went and put my case to him. To tell him how I felt about my weight and how helpless I was in the face of my repeated failures to lose weight made me feel extremely vulnerable and I confess I sniffled a bit which made me feel even more embarrassed. But lo and behold! He was supportive too! He didn't say - You're not nearly fat enough - or anything like that. I am in fact morbidly obese, a whisker under a BMI of 40 but with diabetes type 2 it puts me in the morbid class. He simply gave me the number of a bariatric surgeon and said he'd write the referral!

I felt like I had been given hope again, without realising just how hopeless I had started feeling. I had been given another chance, yet again, to turn my life around in one more area. Another part of the healing jigsaw puzzle that has been my life for the past 20 years. (Maybe more on that later.)

Next question is Why Blog? Why put out what is so personal and private in such a public forum? I don't know the answer to that, maybe that will come later.

Tomorrow the journey starts.