It’s been a weird time lately. Just a couple of weeks ago I celebrated one year of surgery. Since that date I feel like I’ve had nothing but struggle. I’ve been a lot more hungry lately and feel like I can hold more than I previously could. Not only that (or maybe from that?) for the first time since surgery…since I started losing even a couple of months before surgery, I have been struggling to lose weight and have actually gained a little bit.
I’ve had stalls before where the scale wouldn’t move for days or even a few weeks. I’ve even had times when the scale went up a little bit, only to drop back down a few days later. During those times, I still knew I was hitting all of my daily goals and “doing the right things” I knew those stalls could be from any number of factors outside of my control.
With the increased appetite and seemingly able to hold more lately I feel like I’m slipping somehow. I am within 40 pounds of my goal weight and hit a wall, gone backwards slightly even, and it is frustrating.
What is even more frustrating, and scary, is that I can’t seem to get refocused. I’m not eating “terrible” by old standards, but truth be told I am eating outside of my where I should be and I know it. I know I’m getting more carbs and calories than I should be. I know I’m snacking on some things I shouldn’t be, and doing it more often. It’s not HUGE amounts of food like once would have been, but it is too much for where I am, and where I want to get to.
Early on I struggled with the big “C” (constipation) and I’ve dealt with that a little more recently too. In addition, a couple of days ago I had a really weird day I’ve never experienced before where I couldn’t stop peeing. Every 15-30 minutes I had to go! My best guess is my body was letting go of some water weight from extra carbs and/orsalt, but it was weird. I went like 15 times that day!
This morning I was back to just a few ounces above where I was about 2 weeks ago. So hopefully, HOPEFULLY, I’m on the right track.
I probably need to start tracking my food intake again, something I honestly shouldn’t have stopped. I know it’s a thing that gets lots of people. In the groups I’m in online people post about gaining or stalling and the first question asked is “are you tracking your intake?” and the answer is almost always no. It got a lot harder the more real food I started eating. I can easily look up food I purchase at a chain restaurant or prepackaged or a canned food, but it get much harder when you are eating home made or local restaurant food that you didn’t prepare, and you have to guess at things. But that is really no excuse. I need to try to get back to that.
I struggled with Halloween candy more this year. We had a bunch here and I found myself with a mini candy bar here and there that I should not have had. Hopefully that will drop off now that the candy is gone.
So there have been some definite struggles lately. And those struggles give way to my biggest fear: I’m going to gain it back. I’ve worried about that since this process started. I need to get my brain refocused and double down on my resolve. I don’t want to move backward!
Yesterday though, something happened that I think will help my resolve. Something that was a bit surreal.
I purchased my mom a digital picture frame for Christmas and it has an online feature where you can pre-load images on it. So I was going through older photos of our family to load on the frame.
I ran across some photos from about 4 years ago at a family gathering and the craziest thing happened.
I didn’t recognize my old self. I saw a picture of me with other family members and for 2 or 3 seconds genuinely didn’t know who it was. I thought it might be one of my other relatives who is a bigger guy. Then it dawned on me that it was me. The old me. This happened with 2 or 3 different pictures where I had to really look at them.
I couldn’t believe it. I had seen those pictures before and I knew that it was me. I had been that big, or close to it, for a number of years. But there was such a difference between then and what I see now that I was taken aback. It really was surreal…but in a good way.
Not only that but as I looked through pictures from 5 years ago…10 years ago…20 years ago…even 25+ years ago, I could see that I am now smaller than I was then. I’ve gone my whole adult life (even my teen years) as a bigger guy. And one that just kept getting bigger and bigger. I am fairly sure that I’m at my lowest weight right now since my early 20s…more than 30 years ago!
Seeing those pictures help put this into perspective. It gave me some motivation to try to course correct. At least I think it did.
I hope to report back in a few weeks that I’m losing again. I’m less than 5 pounds from losing literally 1/2 of my body weight. Then just a few pounds after that I’m close to my “it’s all gravy” number (more on that later). Then the next stop is my initial target goal. All of those are on the horizon and I’ve gotta get there. I’ve gotta get it in gear and get there!