So I had a rough three weeks. Three weeks that involved eating lots of sugar, skipping out on kickboxing and generally indulging myself to the point where I felt icky. Icky because I felt like I got way too comfortable. But I’ve managed to get back on the wagon. The Fitbit is back on, every exercise and morsel of food is being logged in my fitness pal, and I’m back to working out regularly.
I also came to a very surprise realization. I don’t hate running or the treadmill. Continue reading
I had planed to write a big long schpeel about being one year post op. And then I was clicking through the VSG vlogs that I enjoy watching and I saw LessOfSarah’s latest video. Dr. Aceves, who performed countless bariatric surgeries including my own passed away. I would be lying if I said I didn’t feel absolutely gutted. I’ve heard before that people can have a certain “messiah complex” when it comes to their surgeons. I wouldn’t go as far as to say that I saw Dr. Aceves as my savior, but I did and still do credit him as the man who gave me the tools to take back control over my life. Continue reading
The Fort St. John that is, although I’m starting to realize that it has a lot in common with it’s slang counterpart.
I had four days off to go back home to Vancouver, and it was a whirlwind weekend. I spent time with family, old friends, and made a new one. I shopped, ate, and chopped my hair. It was a productive extended weekend, even though it seemed like it ended way too soon.
The haircut was the most stressful part of my trip home. I always end up with hair anxiety, this time was no exception. Continue reading
I’ve been here in the bumfuck nowhere town of Fort St. John for 3 weeks now. In these three weeks I have lost weight, made new friends, eaten horribly, stalled out, and gotten back on track. Continue reading
As I’ve mentioned, for the next two months I’m traveling for work and living out of a suitcase in Fort St. John. Initially I was discouraged during my first trip here right before Christmas, but after some time off and making some real headway at work I’m super pumped about being here. I’ve decided to take these two months and use them to my full advantage, making my primary focus (aside from work) exercise and fitness. Continue reading
Christmas came and went. New Year’s Eve is fast approaching. I flew home to Winnipeg for Christmas, and I knew I would want to indulge in all of the fine Filipino cuisine my Dad would be cooking up, and wanting to gorge myself on my Auntie Jocie’s shortbread cookies. So I told myself in advance that I wasn’t going to use myfitnesspal and I was going to give myself free reign over the holidays. The week before, when I was up in Fort St. John was a big loss week, I lost 6 lbs without even working out very hard.
I came home a few days ago, and after 5 days of eating garbage, going out for drinks and generally misbehaving I haven’t lost a pound (I haven’t gained either). This is one of the first weeks that I’ve completely stalled out, and I felt like garbage as well. After being home for a few days and eating clean and high protein I already feel sooooooo much better.
It’s that time of year when everyone spews out their bullshit resolutions that are so specific and unattainable. I typically don’t put much thought into them because I’d spent so many years saying “this year I’m going to get healthy” and then never following through. This year I didn’t make a resolution, but I made the biggest change in my life, I decided to own my obesity and change the path that I was on. Continue reading
Well, on my first official work related trip recruiting and hiring staff for a new location of our store that’s slated to open very soon. I flew up here a few days ago, on one of those smallish Bombardier planes. The kind where they don’t connect directly to the terminal and you have to traipse across the tarmac. When we landed I saw nothing but white blowing snow, and suddenly I had Winnipeg flashbacks. But I was prepared bundled in layer upon layer and donning my ugly trusty UGG boots I deplaned only to be bitch slapped with the intense feeling of snow and a -39 windchill.
God it felt like Winnipeg. Continue reading
Nothing like a reference to a terrible early 2000’s Keane song.
But everything is changing. I’m trying to roll with it but to be perfectly honest, I’m not very good at just “rolling” with things. Work is sending me to Fort St. John to hire staff for a new location they’re building and to head up the store set up there. I left one small city for a big city only to be transplanted to the middle of butt-fuck-nowhere. Every time I tell someone where I’m going they groan, and knowing the kind of high maintenance problem child I am, the tell me how I’m going to hate it there. I’m sure I am, but I’ll tough it out I suppose. I’ll be there from the end of this month to the end of February. So I’m sure my next few blog updates will be full of self pity.
I had planned to go back to Winnipeg for the Christmas break but now it seems I’ll only be spending the 24th and 25th, and possibly the 26th there. That all depends on my productivity while I’m up in Fort St. John, it could be shorter or it could be longer. Either way I’m not a fan of flying by the seat of my pants. Nothing is worse than an ill planned trip home, especially with so many people who are important to me, who I absolutely need to see.
I feel like all of these changes have my emotions in overdrive. I had a total meltdown today after seeing someone very dear to me. I think the thought of the holidays being so close and being in a place where I may feel total isolated has me scared. It has me wanting to pull everything I care about close to me so I can savor it for a little bit longer before having to put my big girl pants on and deal with being alone for a bit.
All of the stress has the “slimies” out of control. I can’t keep anything solid down lately. So it’s back to a diet of protein shakes and smoothies jam packed with spinach and kale and beets. Tastes horrible, I don’t know how anyone can say with a straight face that “green” juice is tasty. Bold faced liars. It tastes like dirt with a base note of feet.
I don’t even know if they’ll have protein powder in this backwards place. Or a blender available for that matter. Ugh. No dirty feet smoothies for me. Woe is me.
One of the hardest parts of this whole lifestyle change has been changing my cooking and baking habits. I’m a girl that loves being in the kitchen. Especially when it comes to baking. Being limited in the amount of calories, and knowing that I need to have 70+ grams a protein a day makes me conscious of every little thing that goes in my mouth, and chances are if it’s not a high protein food I skip it. Which means that for the most part, eating the tasty cookies and cupcakes I’ve been baking has been out of the question.
So recently I’ve been playing around with baking with protein powders. Of course these are not “diet” foods. But when I feel like indulging in something sweet, I can feel a little less guilty knowing that they’re packed with protein.
Which brings me to these yummy cookies. They are soooooo good, they are soft, chewy, not too terrible in the carb aspect and have 8 grams of protein each.
I like to keep myself well-informed about the ideologies within the weight loss community and their different sects. I’ve liked to keep myself well-informed long before I made the choice to lose weight. Immersing myself in different articles, blogs and documentaries I’ve always found one recurring theme, people who have lost tremendous amounts of weight claim to have found their long-lost self-esteem. They rave about how they now carry themselves differently, that their perception of who they are has changed completely. I feel the exact opposite, and it makes me wonder, am I the exception to the rule or am I one of the few who is willing to admit that they are more unsure of who they are now than ever before?
Who wouldn’t feel different? 100 pounds is a hell of a lot of weight to lose in 5 months. That’s the size of a baby hippopotamus (seriously, I googled). For every change that I notice physically there are just as many that I’m oblivious too. When I do become aware of a change I become even more concerned with if the change is noticeable to other people, if they approve, and most importantly if I look strange. I know that my close friends must be so frustrated with my interrogations, “Do I look weird?”, “Does my face look like a muppet?”, “Do my legs look too scrawny?”. I was never this outwardly insecure until now. I feel like I need more reassurance. Skyping with my 7-year-old cousin and needing him to tell me I don’t look strange is a regular occurrence these days. My favorite part is that his response this last time was that I didn’t look weird but I looked like I needed a shower.
So when does this new-found self-esteem kick in? At what point to I stop feeling uncomfortable in my own skin? Will I ever feel comfortable in my own skin? These are the questions I’m struggling with these days. I’m sure that part of me thought that I would be like these weight lost poster children who lose a fuck-ton of weight and then are miraculously these happy, shiny people who like to run 5k’s. That’s not me. I still feel like I’m 300+ lbs. My mind hasn’t caught up with my body yet.
Your fat friend, her nickname is mini van.
Your fat friend, her nickname is mini van.
Single Mom Running Ragged
Your fat friend, her nickname is mini van.
I'm an author who enjoys science fiction and fantasy, technobabble and torturing fictional characters.
HangryHippo: Where hunger, anger, media consumption, and satire meet for a snack
Documenting a New Lifestyle Journey
Less of Me, More Myself
Rock, Paper, Thinner. 