Bariatric Betty's body and mind - new pics

I'm coming up on my 6 month post-op point and so much has changed.  Many things, but not everything.

I am no longer diabetic!!!  That will always deserve first billing and multiple exclamation points.  I know that not everybody who has WLS has their diabetes go into remission, and that it can return, but so far I am among the lucky ones and hope to stay that way.  I was just talking to my 9 year old about it yesterday.  That I can assume I will live to see my kids grow up and maybe see grandkids or even great-grandkids some day is something I could not presume before. 

My body continues to morph into a previously unknown thing.  I wrote months ago about the bizarre feeling of realizing that my hips were holding up my pants (instead of my belly).  The first step in that particular revelation was understanding that those two bumps on my front that were feeling pressure from jeans, were in fact, bones.  Bones that I had never before noticed, but had always been there.  These bones weren't visible, but were noticeable for the first time because of the decrease in the fat pad that laid over them.

Recently I have experienced the surfacing of other underlying structures - bones, tendons, etc.  These are not always fun - they are sometimes startling.  I am reminded of an article I read several years ago where a formerly obese woman suddenly notice the prominence of her shoulder blades and thought she might be deformed. 

Lying on my side, the excess skin and fat redistributing down with gravity leaves my hip and pelvis remarkably exposed.  I find myself squeezing them, poking them, and outlining them as I get to know this new "normal" for me.  A few times I have asked my husband to feel them as well, and let me feel his bones to compare and reassure myself that these are indeed, normal.  You mean average people feel these things every time they lay down?  Weird. 

The Anterior Superior Iliac Spine.  Yeah, I looked it up.  Those bumps that help hold my pants up are now painful at times.  Not when active, nothing like arthritis.  They hurt when I lay down on my stomach - my preferred sleeping position.  I think it is more accurate to say that my skin hurts. Having less padding between the bones and skin has apparently made me very sensitive to the pressure.  I frequently find myself putting a pillow under my pelvis (in addition to the thick mattress pad we also have) to give a little extra cushioning. 

I also have lower back pain - a common complaint in WLS patients.  Our center of gravity has changed, and our core muscles are having trouble adjusting to the redistribution.  In my case, my large chest has always caused some back pain, and now that weight is leaving other parts of my body much more than my chest, that increased ratio has resulted in increased pain.  Just leaning forward when brushing my teeth can be fine 20 times, but the 21st and I look like the stereotypical old man, hunched over with a hand on their back.  Most frequently the pain comes when I'm getting up from a lying down position.

I enjoy seeing muscle definition in my legs and shoulders.  I think seeing definition in my clavicles and shoulder blades is attractive!  I never carried much of my weight in my legs, but the jogging has reshaped them anyway.  Feeling the steely tendons around my knees is fun.  Which brings me to a LACK of pain in my knees.  Many morbidly obese people have significant orthopedic issues, hip pain and knee pain being very common.  I was lucky not to have those.  However, I have always had "bad" knees, and even when just "overweight" would have problems where my knees occasionally "popped" out of alignment when I was running or climbing.  That would result in my being on crutches for a week or two at a time.  It didn't happen when I was a morbidly obese adult because I wasn't doing high impact exercise. 

When I started Couch-to-5k training I was very nervous about how my knees would react.  I found that if I opened up my stride and ran it hurt my knees almost immediately, but if I ran short strides low to the ground I stayed pain free.  Having my muscles and tendons tighter than they've probably ever been has given me more support, and I haven't had one incidence of "popping".  Yesterday I actually jogged 25 minutes and felt fine (although really tired) when I was done.  This is a picture of me from last Friday when I finished my first 22 minute jog.

A little hot, a little sweaty, tired and thirsty - but happy.  I can't say I ENJOY jogging, but I find it very rewarding when I'm done.  In two weeks I should be jogging 30 minutes at a time - that is supposed to be the equivalent of a 5k!  When I have completed that challenge, my goal is to 1) choose a 5k to actually run in and 2) Start training my dog in the Pooch-to-5k so that we can change our morning walk to a morning jog.  Next goal - Tackle the Tower  - a stair climbing challenge to climb the Terminal Tower in Cleveland. 

However, parts of my mind remain stubbornly unchanged.  I find myself choosing sedentary things - being online (like now), watching TV, reading - more often than active ones.  I can and do join my kids when they go swimming, play ball, etc for a while, but then often grab a book while they continue to play.  My fitbit calls me active, burning lots of calories and getting over 10,000 steps a day, but I have long periods between active times when I sit - and I don't have a desk job.  I hope those periods start to decrease.  I know once the school year starts I will be standing and walking 2 1/2 more hours a day M-F again.  The head-work continues to be the hardest part of this journey.

Looking forward to my 6 month post-op checkup on my 42nd birthday next week.  I'll be sure to post again then.

Bariatric Betty Apologizes and has big news!

First, as all of my readers have no doubt noticed, I have monetized my blog with AdSense.  This is an experiment that may not continue.  I was very upset to see ads for some oral substance that is being advertised as a substitute for gastric bypass on my page.  I have gone into my ad settings to block pharmaceuticals/ medicine ads (as well as some other objectionable things) and hope that I can get it blocked on my page.  I do not want my blog to serve to advertise any FDA approved medicines, let alone NON-FDA approved ones.  Meanwhile, if you see something objectionable popping up on my blog's ads, please let me know so I can continue to tweak the controls.  I was hoping for ads for things like workout equipment, clothing, etc.  I apologize for this sorting-things-out period.  If it proves too difficult to restrict the types of ads on here, I will drop the AdSense stuff altogether.

Now, on to other news.  DRUM ROLL PLEASE......

Bariatric Betty is no longer obese!  I have hit a new goal; having a BMI below 30 - and now fall into the "overweight" category instead of "obese" (or previously "morbidly obese").  I have lost 77 pounds total (47 since surgery) and I am hoping to lose another 20 - 30 pounds.  Right now I have lost what my surgeon determined to be 52% of my excess body weight since the day of surgery.  I will NOT be going down to 123 pounds (ideal weight based on those same calculations) - neither my surgeon or I think that would be reasonable to aim for.  My goal is to get to between 140 - 150 pounds and stay there.  That will put me into a BMI between 25 and 26, which is still officially overweight.  Given the muscle gain I anticipate, my extra skin, and my build, I think that is actually a healthy weight and is one that my doctors think would be great as well. 

This brings up another tool I have started to use.  A body fat loss monitor.  As I become more muscular I wanted to have additional things (other than a scale) to give me empirical measurements to measure my progress.  I have been using a tape measure to track changes in my size, but wanted something else.  So I got a monitor that had good reviews and have begun measuring myself.  Right now I am on the "normal setting" instead of "athlete" (although that will be changing) and my body fat percentage is 36.2%.  For my age and sex they suggest normal is 24-33.9.  So my next goal will be to reduce my body fat percentage to 33.9 or less!

One of the ways I am working to achieve this is by starting Couch to 5K training (see www.couch25k.com  ).  I was very nervous about this - never having been able to run before.  I have bad knees that have "popped out" several times in my teens resulting in knee braces and long periods on crutches.  However, my leg muscles are super strong after all the walking I've been doing, so when I heard about other non-runner WLS patients trying this program I thought I would give it a shot.  My job as a monitor at my son's elementary school was great exercise, adding 5000 steps a day to my totals on average.  Now I am unemployed over the summer and needed to find a replacement for all that 2 hours of walking M-F.  Also, I wanted my kids to be more active and thought "How cool would it be to be able to jog a 5K race as a family?"  So last Friday my boys and I started the 3 times a week training.  So far it has consisted of 5 minutes of brisk walking followed by alternating 60 seconds of jogging and 90 seconds of walking for the next 20 minutes.  I was pleasantly surprised to find that this was not hard for me.  I don't even start to sweat for the first 10 minutes of jog/ walk alternating.  Of course, I'm not jogging FAST - that hurts my knees.  My jog is probably about 4 mph (hmmm, I should check that on a treadmill) with my feet staying close to the ground to minimize impact. 

The first day was difficult emotionally because my 9 year old son was throwing a tantrum almost the entire time.  He doesn't enjoy most changes to his routine.  Add hot weather and flying bugs buzzing around his head (a major fear of his) and he was in tears for about half the training, but he also found out that I meant business - we ARE going to do this.  A little carrot-and-stick later, yesterday we did the 2nd training day (inside on a track at our rec center - a/c and no bugs!) and he came through like a champ.  My 11 year old son is totally on board and enjoying himself.  The program is 9 weeks long (although it will take us 10 weeks because of a upcoming vacation to Colonial Williamsburg) and then we should be able to jog a 5K!  I'm aiming for a Komen Race for the Cure in September in Cleveland, but might do something else if I can find one sooner. 

We've also been going to the pool and local waterpark a lot.  That brought up a need - a swimsuit that fit!  I tried ordering a size 16 petite that I hoped would work, but my bottom half is so much smaller that the suit was flopping around and providing WAY to much of a view of my nether-regions.  I ended up spending over an hour trying on various Land's End tankini combinations and found that my correct size was an 18 top with a size 10 bottom.  Yeah, it's kind of obnoxious.  I know most women are not perfectly proportional, but for the guys out there, imagine if one of your legs was only 1/2 - 2/3 the size of the other and then trying to find jeans that fit.  This was something I didn't deal with as much when I was larger - my waist was much bigger and I looked more proportional (although obese and unhealthy).  But this is how I was created, so as long as I don't get plastic surgery I have left the land of one piece swimsuits for good.  :( 

This is a good time to remind myself that losing weight doesn't bring the body you want - it brings the body you have been given.  It's up to you to make peace with that body and accept it.  I will embrace any body that allows me to live longer and be healthy & active with my family.