Catching up after a bit of an absence

I went a bit quiet there because at first I wasn't losing any weight and felt a bit despondant about it, then I started gaining and felt even worse. I'm seeing my NUT (nutritionist) on a regular basis and she has been very supportive and has been monitoring my food pretty closely. I'm not perfect at sticking to my eating plan, but then again I'm not out of control either. My portions are pretty small because I physically cannot eat more than a cup, and sometimes less if its dense protein. I am particular about my protein levels and eat fresh unprocessed food wherever possible and complex carbs as opposed to simple ones. Very aware of low GI versus high GI etc etc etc.

So utter was my misery at the gaining of the weight I did not want to talk to anyone, particularly as everyone has helpful suggestions on what I should be eating. I get the feeling they think I'm stuff my face with cake and biscuits and lying about it.

We (my NUT and I) paid particular attention to my blood sugar testing and I reported back to her 2 weeks ago that if anything my blood sugars were low - especially in the evenings after dinner. I discussed with her the things I had read on the obesity Help forum regarding high insulin levels (huge thanks to TeriJ for her persistance in posting about this fairly uncommon condition). My NUT wrote a list of tests that she wanted the doctor to organise and so off I went. I had fasting glucose, Hba1c, thyroid function, iron studies, liver function, B12 and folate, and fasted insulin. All of which were normal except the insulin!

The symptoms I have had for years and which have persisted even after the VSG and normal blood sugars are: dizziness, tiredness (all of a sudden extreme fatigue), carb cravings, and the ability to put weight on extremely fast (like 1/2 kilo overnight if I eat chips or biscuits). I can put on more weight than the actual food I eat which is not only bizarre but something no-one actually believes. I read that TeriJ has the same weight gaining effect too.

Anyway my insulin level was sufficiently high (20) for the doctor to put me on metformin again, and the effect has been instantaneous in that I have started losing weight again, even though its only been 4 days.

I only gained 2 kilos in my weight gain phase over the last 2 months, but it was like a nightmare starting up, and I was losing the will to even try. I slacked off with my walking and wasn't drinking the water, and depression was lurking, waiting to engulf me.

Now I feel a renewed hope and am ready to press forward, doing the walking, drinking the water, and keeping the right sorts of food available, not the bad sorts. I have signed up to do the Real Women's duathlon, well 2 of them, next year and... well that's it really. No new pics as I am the same as I was last time I posted. Next month I will be smaller.

I did it!

I completed the duathlon! I can hardly believe that I managed to do it! 6 months ago it was a struggle to the letterbox and back. My foot injuries have left me with pain in my left foot all the time, although its not as intense as it used to be. I don't think my foot will ever fully recover, it doesn't have the flexibility of the other less injured foot (fancy breaking both feet - I don't do things by halves!). So walking has not been easy for me. The bike riding, however, once I got used to it on my new bike, has been a lot easier to cope with. (I love my new bike BTW - I've called her Audrey).

I had a lot of people passing me in the event and I began to think I would be last, but I made up a bit of time in the cycling section. I don't have the official times yet, but my trusty pal and best buddy timed me and said it was about 45 mins for the 10km bike ride. The last stretch of walking (1 and a half km) was hard as my feet were protesting that they had done enough. But getting across that finish line with everyone cheering me on was just awesome. I felt like blubbering. The happiness was exhilarating. There were a lot of other biggish women and I didn't feel so self conscious. I also had 2 very lovely friends who were competing and that was great. They finished and then doubled back to keep me company on that last arduous stretch to the finish line.

It was a very supportive and 'feel good' event, not so much a competition but more the joy of completing the course being the main motivation. Big ups to the organisers and I'll put a link to the website in case anyone is interested in the events. Real Duathlon website. This was the last one for this season, and I want to do next year so I will work towards that over winter. (Yes winter is coming to the lower hemisphere all you northerners!)

Gotta go and rest now.

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.

2 Month Anniversary

Its a little over 2 months now since my surgery.  I can't update my weight statistics because I'm not at home near my scale, and I don't have a reliable scale nearby.  I will post an update when I get home in a few days.  I have noticed a few changes though, during this trip to Melbourne.  The plane ride was so much more comfortable, relaxed and not the embarrassment it usually is. The seat belt fitted easily and after tightening had several inches to spare. I did not get stuck in my seat when I got up.  I dropped the pillow on the floor and instead of being a major embarrassing drama as I couldn't retrieve a dropped item, I simply bent down and picked it up!  Also the food tray was nice and horizontal instead of the food leaning dangerously as the tray balanced on my stomach.  

My luggage at check in was almost equivalent to the weight I have lost so far.  That to me is mind boggling as I still have so much weight to lose.  And my suitcase feels so heavy to lift!  When I came to buckle my seat belt in the back of my parent's car - it did up instead of me pretending and holding it across myself.

Another major event occurred which I almost didn't notice.  I was sitting on the couch chatting and I suddenly realised something very odd. I said to my mother "Do you notice anything strange?"  I was sitting with my legs crossed! I have not been able to do that for years.  I had managed to cross my legs about a month ago, ie get them crossed, but not sit comfortably.

I have bought a pair of leather tramping boots and it is my intention to go on some walks, the first of which will be a trip next weekend to Mt Tongariro, to do part of the famous Tongariro Crossing.  I don't feel up to climbing the mountain, but feel very proud that I am making a start.

I had set a goal of doing the Duathlon in May, and then thought it may be a bit ambitious. However my exercise regime, walking and doing the exercycle, has brought my fitness level up very quickly and without the extra weight on my feet its a real pleasure to walk.  I am still aware of my foot injury, but the feeling is not pain any more.  

My weight loss is by no means rapid, but with my increased fitness has come a positive attitude and a feeling of strength returning.  I feel great.

Mind Games

I have come to the conclusion that I am not normal where food is concerned. Again. I am eating much much smaller portions of food than I ever have before, even the Health Dept Diet. And yet I get this strange guilty feeling that I am eating too much when I feel full! Its wierd. As I have shared previously the 'full' feeling is a pretty novel thing for me. I think after gorging myself at Christmas dinner time and being unable to move off the couch would have given me a similar "full" feeling and that under those circumstances (of complete overeating) the guilty feeling is pretty congruent. But that feeling of fullness today is reached after eating very little. And I feel guilty. For so long negative feelings around food and eating have been a part of my life it will be a challenge to move past that into freedom.

While I was pondering on this, I thought back to my childhood experiences around food. Dinner time was chaotic - with my dad, who often would come home from work and then do the cooking, barking commands at us in the strange pidgin English that he picked up during his life in the Merchant Navy. "Chop chop jildy!" he would shout - which meant hurry up. Dinner was mainly chips (jockeys whips as he called them), and fried meat. Sausages, hamburger meat, or steak. Peas were our staple vege and gravy. We didn't like gravy on our chips and he would roar "Gravy? Yes? No?" as he poured the gravy non stop across our plates. Our little hands would shoot out to try and protect the chips and keep them gravyless, and we would get the backs of our hands burnt in the process. The main objective would be to eat as quickly as possible and get the ordeal of dinner over and be away from the shouting. If we tarried we would be "wasting british thermal units!" - another crime. So we learned to gobble our meals. It also seemed that there was never enough and my brothers and I sometimes silently fought over food. A worse nightmare was having to eat the things we didn't like. I learned to swallow broadbeans whole rather than chew the horrible taste.

How can a person grow up sane around food with that kind of chaos? Funnily, and by funnily I mean tragically, I married a man who was a dinner table tyrant. Even though I worked until 5 pm every day I still had to have dinner on the table by 6pm. Thankfully he's very much an ex now.

So my task is it be able to leave all that behind, and start to build new a new relationship with food. One that doesn't involve fear, panic, and guilt. Most of all not guilt.

Real Food At Last!

Well, within reason... Gradually moving from pureed foods to more solid stuff. Chewing really comes into play here as I now can feel the limitations of my new stomach. I have to make sure things are well masticated before they get down there. With protein consumption as my main goal, my first 'proper' meal in nearly 2 months was mince (ground beef) on toast. It was like a 5 star gourmet meal to me! The toast was Molenburg bread which is low GI and is full of wholegrains. It was toasted to within an inch of its life - so it was really crumbly - because bread can turn into a gooey paste which is not good in the new tummy. All went well, and even though the portion was pretty small it took a while to eat and I felt satisfied.

The feeling of satisfaction after food is very new. I can't actually recall a time when I did feel that. Maybe I've had this gnawing hunger all my life. As I've mentioned before, I do feel hunger now, but it seems to be appropriate hunger. It stops when I start eating and doesn't pop up again until the next mealtime. How novel! I have to make an effort to get my liquid requirements in for the day, as I just 'forget'.

Another thing I have noticed, nearly 6 weeks post op, is that I feel well. For the past few years I have felt pretty horrible every day. Not only lethargic and exhausted, but at times on waking I have felt like I've been clawing my way back from death. Not a pleasant feelingto start the day with. This has been how diabetes has affected me. I have continued to stay off the meds since the op and my Blood Glucose readings have been very stable and very normal. That doesn't mean I can go out eat tons of sugar (well this is how I see it anyway). In order for the Sleeve to work I need to eat a sensible diet and get regular exercise. I'm very happy to do that! Its a do-able thing for me now. Before, I just could not stick to it, with the gnawing hunger and the seeming bottomless pit that my stomach was.

I see my surgeon and Monday and if all goes well I will be cleared to exercise! Yeehaw! The spirit is willing but the flesh is weak where exercise is concerned. We shall see. Body - prepare yourself for th shock of your life!!

4 Weeks On...

Tracking my weight loss to date, for those who, like me, love the facts and figures:

My heaviest weight: 115 kilos (253.5lbs) for about 2 years to around Jun/Jul 08
Pre Optifast diet 111.1 kilos (244.9lbs)
Day of Operation 105.2 kilos (231.9lbs)
4 weeks post op 100 kilos (220.5lbs)

So on my own I struggled to lose 4 kilos (nearly 9lbs) in 6 months, which isn't too bad and deserves a pat on the back. In this time I did go up and down however, losing and gaining the same 2 kilos several times over. But when I hit my surgeons office it gave me renewed hope and helped the process keep to a downwards direction. Then the Optifast diet gave me a huge kickstart in the 2 weeks prior to surgery. The weight loss has slowed down considerably, probably due to my body trying to adjust to the new food regime! I have put the scales away, so I'm not obsessively weighing everyday. I know the weight will come off.

My main focus at this point is to make sure I get all the liquids/water I need on a daily basis and get my protein requirements in. I have progressed onto 'mushy' food, and although that sounds disgusting it tastes like heaven after consuming only liquids for so long. I've gotten into cooking again, which is a novelty! I'm not working at present (damn this recession!), so my domestic skills are coming out of mothballs.

I am really enjoying flavours and my whole relationship with food has done a 180 degree turn. I am not consumed with the hunger I was before the op, although I do feel hunger. Its a different feeling. Pre op my hunger was like this: most of the day, unless I was distracted with work, a low level nagging feeling in my stomach and mouth. The mouth part was a craving for something nice to taste, the stomach bit was an empty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Then at around 11.30 (pre lunch) and 4.30 (pre dinner) I would get this intense craving coupled with a feeling of faintness, headache, dizziness and nausea. So by the time I ate I would INHALE the food, it never even touched the sides and I never felt full or satisfied. I did test my blood sugars from time to time to see if this was a symptom - but it wasn't. Now, post op, I have a feeling that perhaps I should eat something, bit of an empty feeling in the tummy - check the clock and lo and behold! its actually a mealtime! When I heard of this lack of hunger phenomenon to do with WLS I knew that if I had this one small thing, loss of the over the top appetite, that I could do it.

Small victories so far - have crossed my legs; had my photo taken without cringing; taken off the bra extender; can get out of bed without puffing and struggling; still of my diabetes meds as blood sugar levels are within normal range; skin looks great; and (according to reports) not snoring so much! I completely deny ever snoring in the first place, but I have been told it rattled the windows.

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!

Liquid liquid everywhere...

Its been 2 and a half weeks since the op and I'm still on the thin liquid diet, and getting pretty sick of it. My surgeon tells me it will be a few months before I'm on proper food again, I had kind of thought it would be a few weeks. I'm doing OK considering. Certainly the pre-op me would have not been able to stay on a liquid diet for very long, I would have been ravenous by this stage and all food withing a 3 km radius would have been in extreme danger of being consumed.

The feelings thing is quite intense too. Can't bury myself in a bag of chips when things go wrong, no stuffing down feelings with a huge plate of pasta. We've had a tragic loss in the family last week and my feelings have been right there - up front and personal. The movie "Happy Feet" had me weeping for most of the first half.

In terms of weight loss, since I started the pre op diet to today - which is a month ago - I have lost 11 kilos. Translated to American, this is 24.25lbs. Or for UK readers this is 1.732 Stone, or to be more precise 1 Stone 10 1/4 lbs. Anyone conversant with old Russian will recognize this as 2,579 Zolotniks and for the student of ancient French - .2247 of a Quintal. In any event its a sh**load of weight to lose in 1 month!

Well heres to it! (Raises glass of choc protein drink - nicknamed sawdust delight)... Cheers!

Tears for Fears - and Weight For It!

I have a motto - Be Prepared! This means that any and every disaster that could befall me has been well thought out in advance. Comet coming down on the motorway? Yep I've thought that one through. Earthquakes, tsunamis, fire, flood and famine - all grist to the mill of my active imagination. I don't think I'm morbid as some people suggest, I'm just being practical. When an emergency does occur (as it does fairly rarely) I am the one with the plan of action. Mostly. When something happens that I haven't thought of I have been known to freeze up completely. Like the time a naked madmen went berserk, rampaging through our house and out to the woodpile which he then proceeded to throw through our windows (which were closed at the time). I didn't have a plan for that.

So in preparing for this surgery I was well aware of the things that could go wrong. Its a very risky procedure and can result in some pretty serious hospital time and even death. Until my stomach is completely healed I still run the risk of leaks, which is the serious hospitalisation scenario. What I haven't been prepared for is how smoothly things have gone, and I now have that nagging feeling that something is bound to go wrong because its all gone so right. That is all horse-feathers of course. I have to pull myself up and have a damn good laugh at myself.

I have added a weight converting widget on the sidebar because, being a New Zealander we are all metric. I weigh myself in Kilos. Due to the fact that I am quite oldish, Kilos mean less to me in weight that Stones and Pounds do so I convert the Kilos to Stones and Pounds. On the American websites that I frequent, however, the weight standard is just Pounds, so I also convert to Pounds also in order to communicate in American. I found a nifty website which I will put in my links which gives you ALL the weights at once. I love it. The gadget is a very cut down version of what they do. I hope someone else enjoys playing with it as much as I do.

Compulsion and Obsession

Now I know its not a good idea to weigh oneself daily, I know that weight doesn't come off evenly, I know that I will drive myself crazy if I keep doing it...so why do I do it? I am an obsessive person - anything can be done to death if its done by me. I have even had a knitting compulsion that was both bizarre and dangerous at one time. Dangerous? Have you ever tried knitting and cooking at the same time? It gets ugly real quick.

Mercifully my obsessions come and go, I'm completely over online poker now that I play Second Life. I always seem to have one or two on the trot at one time and never have I been without something. Maybe they are just hobbies? Normal people have hobbies right? Stamp collecting? Ugh! I contemplated stamp collecting once and worked out that there are so many stamps in the world over a long period of time I didn't stand a chance of getting all of them - so why bother. And when does a normal activity become an obsessive compulsion? I don't know the answer to this question as this is how I have always been.

My compulsive eating is what got me into this shape in the first place, and to me it was normal. I have always been a little crazy around food, and a little nudge of emotional upset could lead to complete eating meltdown. When I was medicating myself with alcohol and other substances, food wasn't too much of an issue, my crazy eating was sporadic as alcohol mainly did the trick. But I do remember many years ago getting up in the middle of the night and grabbing the jar with the icing sugar in it and putting a whole tablespoon in my mouth as I heard someone coming. I jammed like the whole tablespoon in! And discovered it wasn't the icing sugar jar at all. It was the cornflour jar. Oh, btw, cornflour is not nice when you have a whole tablespoon in your mouth!

When I stopped drinking is when I started eating in earnest. Its not just about stuffing the pain down either. I wanted my body to be fat and hideous, to match the way I felt about myself on the inside, and also because I could not deal with being attractive to men. I had huge issues around that. I was deeply conflicted about men. I loved them and detested them. I wanted power over them and fell victim to them over and over again. I limped from one short term encounter to the next. My one long term relationship in my twenties was completely dysfunctional. My body in those days, when I was drinking, was the wide hipped big breasted variety that was lusted after by seemingly every man that came along. I always got sucked into thinking that someone might just care for me and want to be with me. Very sad really. And so my body image became distorted and I piled on the fat as a protection from the pain I felt inside. The longing and loneliness got buried. What I wanted and what I felt was of no value at all and I denied myself - everything. Everything but food it seems.

Can I leave the protection of the fat behind? Have I grown enough to not be pushed around by the actions of others? Its a scary thought.

A Video for the grandkids

My Youtube vlog where I explain to my grandchildren what is happening to their nanny.

Home again

The operation went like a dream. Nothing to report - totally uneventful. It was surprisingly quick, about 2 hours, and I was waking up to a slightly sore throat and a kind of dullish pain (not much of one) at the top of my tummy. The painkillers used post op were good old paracetamol, intravenously in my drip, to avoid any nausea or vomiting. I have 5 small dressings over the 5 small holes and very little else to show for it! Laparascopic surgery is amazing. The small surgical hospital was clean - really clean, and the staff were very kind and very professional. I have only the highest praise for my surgeon Robert Fris, he is a very skilled and knowledgeable man, but also comes across in a warm and caring way. Big ups to the anaesthestist Ian Harrison too, who took lots of time to explain things, even the icky question that my son was curious about - "How do they get the bit of the stomach out that they have removed?". Answer - "You don't want to know..."

The healing is going very well. I'm on liquids all this week, thin liquids. Next week will be thicker liquids. I'm not having any difficulty getting my meals in and sipping water between the meals. I did at first, it was late Thursday (op was on Tuesday) before my tiny new stomach seemed to 'open up' and let things through. I feel full after my glass of Up and Go - or whatever I'm drinking. I am thinking about food, and that will no doubt pass in time. I dreamed of big fat greasy chips last night. There is definately a part of me that will miss eating junk food. The price for eating that rubbish is too high though and I'm not going to torture myself by hanging onto it.

There are a whole lot of foods that are really tasty and healthy at the same time, and I look forward to meal planning with a different viewpoint. The old me with the seemingly endless stomach capacity would think how I could make things filling...like pasta and potatoes etc, pure starch. I went for the filling things because I never did feel full. I was hungry all the time, even after eating 2 plates of curry and rice I would be thinking of what to have for desert. I still don't fully understand how I got to be like that. Even when I made healthy food choices the constant hunger would be there.

I feel as if its the start of a whole new life.

Diet Drinks Make You Fat?

In the course of my research this week, as I try and ignore the food cravings that the VLCD has brought on, I found this little gem on the Science Daily website. Someone had posted the link the the ObesityHelp forum. Now I know that diet drinks weren't good for you (I didn't really care about that - I get 'bad for you' overload), but the research suggests that artificial sweeteners actually make you fat! Well it proved to be the case in rats anyway. And many people, like myself, who feel that drinking diet *brand name censored* is a safe option for the craving for sweet things are cruelly misled. What an irony. We do face an obesity epidemic today and there has to be links with food and drinks that are current in these decades as opposed to 50 or so years ago. Boy it made me feel mad, ripped off, and mad.

I am very emotional though, everything is 'right there' - but I feel good. This is the 2nd to last day of my VLCD and I'll certainly be glad when its over. On the positive side, never have I enjoyed steamed veges so much. I have had a wide variety and have learned to cook them to perfection. I put the carrots into the steamer first and a few minutes later a couple of pieces of cauliflower and 2 minutes before its ready I put in a few mung beans. Oh very exciting!

I've lost about 6 kilos (13lbs) so far, although the weight loss has stopped over the last couple of days. The body has some wierd and wonderful tricks to hang onto that precious fat. At the moment its trying to slow down my metabolism to conserve the depleting stores of fat. But if I go for a short sharp walk it can overcome this. Walking is hard when this happens because the tiredness messages come in thick and fast. Oh ho ho we are on to you now - fat cells in your millions! Prepare for war!

eViL CruD

Well its the close of day 4 on the VLCD (eViLCruD) diet which I am on for 14 long days before surgery. I was thinking today, I should be grateful that the days are stretching on forever, it will make my life seem longer...

Its not really that bad. If you can imagine drinking 3 glasses a day of flavoured wallpaper paste, supplemented with 1 cup (thats ONE cup) of steamed vegetables and having your mouth taste all crappy and not being able to even think about the pizza ads as they flash incessently on the TV, and being completely exhausted from such a low calorie intake, then you can see its not that bad. Thats what VLCD stands for by the way, Very Low Calorie Diet, and it is loooowwww. 512 calories by my rough count. Oh I forgot, the 8 glasses of water are a bonus.

All this process is necessary to shrink the liver which is probably (almost certainly) full of fat. As the surgery is laparoscopic the surgeon needs to get past the liver to find the stomach, so if its bloated and oozing with fat it will make the whole thing that much more tricky. For tricky read very dangerous.

The way I feel about it is that this is the beginning of the journey, not the op itself. I am taking part in preparing my body for what could be a risky procedure. I am losing weight rapidly at this point at around a kilo a day (2.2lbs) which will slow down over the next few days. Funny how I feel so positive. I had expected me to be curled up in a sobbing heap by now, chewing at my knuckles and whimpering over steaks past and/or future. I am mentally preparing myself for the journey ahead which will involve very close attention to getting the correct amount of proteins and fluids..basically for the rest of my life.

There is a misapprehension among some people that WLS is "an easy option" or "cheating". Hmm, I don't think so. Its not a magic wand, and if the correct diet and exercise regime is not followed then results can be very disappointing - so I have been reading. But that does bring my thoughts around to how other people react to this. its not just WLS, its how other people are when you are obese. Its such a visible condition. In fact its almost as if thats all that people see, theres no hiding it if you are fat. And it is a fact that a fat person is much less likely to land a job if competing with a similarly qualified thin person. And lots of other stuff about fatism that I can't be bothered writing. Everyone has a helpful diet they want to share, and it seem that everyone watches to see what you are eating all the time too. What a paradox! Visible and yet invisible as a person. I saw a very cool picture on a fellow travellers blog.

Bariatricgirl. It was a photo of her face, slim, with the words "When I was obese, when I WAS obese, when I was OBESE, I was a photographer, musician and artist. No one saw the photographer, musician or artist. They saw obesity.
-Yvonne McCarthy

Very awesome statement.

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.