Sunday 11 October 2009

Might as well be the moon

See the picture of Aconcagua on the right? It's no longer a mountain in Argentina, it's the moon.
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I was encouraged by having left the foothills behind and starting to climb the mountain proper, but somehow I keep missing my step and sliding back, with the scree clattering down around me, my hands scratched and my mouth full of dust.
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I'm busily leaving comments on other blogs as if to say "I'm still here even if I haven't written a post", but the truth is I'm finding it such an uphill struggle at the moment that I'm only posting now because I recognise that if I embarked on blogging as a therapy to help myself, then I have to at least turn up for the sessions.
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I know that the feeling of hanging on by my fingernails will pass, that it's just a question of patience in getting to the right adjustment of the band and listening to my body, of helping it along with 'wise choices'. Perhaps I've seen too many films, and come to believe that transformations happen in about an hour and half, or an hour and fifty minutes maximum.
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What I needed was a lobotomy, not a gastric band. Tight restriction achieves NOTHING, because while your body is prepared to cooperate with "don't eat or you'll throw it back up", it's merely a declaration of war to your brain, which joins the battle against you. "Go on" it whispers in your ear - "there's still plenty you can eat...think how lovely it would be to actually feel full".
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Tight restriction leaves you feeling too hungry, and your willpower - which always was a cowardly cur and got you into this mess in the first place - flees the scene and leaves you unprotected. Diabetics are trained to fight hard against confectionery temptations, but too much crunchy cereal (forget the milk, treat them as as if they were sweetish crisps...) has the same effect, not to mention having sweet biscuits around in the office.
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Most fruit and vegetables, which you enjoy and are low calorie, are now a problem because you're too restricted, so to add insult to injury, you now have constipation to deal with in addition to the rest of the undignified process...
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So out you come with your hidden weapon: exercise, lots of hateful, time-consuming activity of the I-could-be-doing-something-much-more-interesting-that-doesn't-hurt variety. Body then hits back with cramps, hypos, plus terrible stiffness in the back and hips every morning, and WEIGHT GAIN.
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So I plod on, just putting one foot in front of the other and not looking up further than my shoes, knowing that somewhere ahead in the distant future, is the top of the mountain.
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-oOo-

11 comments:

Tina said...

I know your pain-been there done that a few times now. Keep plugging along and doing the best you can. This band thing is physically a help but sometimes our brains are a bit behind. Eventually you get into a rhythm for a while.

After that good run you then lose restriction because you have lost fat around the band and then have to go through the whole band retightening and then brain re-aligning thing all over again. It is a process that you can win at...just keep plotting and plodding.

Your verification word is: foree nice one!

Tina

THE DASH! said...

I hate it when our brains refuse to catch up to what our stomachs should be doing.. it makes it doubly hard to stay focused and on course.

It's really hard to say anything now without sounds like they are just empty words.. but I really do admire you for what you have achieved so far and you are doing better than you probably think.

Sending positive weight loss vibes to you :)
Hugs
Cara

Shaggs said...

We're all holding hands getting up that mountain girl! And we're all still waiting for that mind band that will change the way we think forever. Love the idea of the great weight loss goddess in the sky - who doesnt feel hard done by in this never ending struggle??? How great is your weight loss chart? Thats brilliant! You've knocked six years off your age and it looks like you stepped up and stopped things before it got really ugly -please thank yourself for that! Keep blogging (for us if not for you)

Zanna said...

Hang in there - just look at your sidebar - 20 kgs gone - that's fantastic. And yes so much of this whole weightloss - eating healthy business is about what's happening in our heads and what we eat almost becomes secondary. The tricky bit is getting your head in the right place - but one piece of advice I read a long time which seems to help me not to stray too far from the sensible pathway is 'fake it till you make it' - just pretend your head is in the right place. Take care Z xx

Tina said...

Ok I have to leave you a comment because you actually have a real live word for your word verifications. If that is not comment Karma I don't know what is. How are you doing? I am at a standstill ..still. How is the exercise? how is life? I miss your comments and blog posts.

Tina
(the verfication word is parking)

Lonicera said...

Thanks Tina, you're a pal. It's partly feeling downhearted because the exercise isn't working the way I hoped, plus (to match one of your comments about yourself) I got a pair of jeans from a catalogue this week, and although they should fit me in a couple of pounds' time, I look terrible in them, which I should have foreseen. I can't wear jeans until I've lost another 30lbs at least.
With 13 days to go before I leave for Argentina, I'm also frantically trying to prepare my presentation, trying to get my text down from 25 minutes to 15, and to get the slides to fit into the PPS visual side of the presentation.
'Parking' is so appropriate as a verification word - I work in a hospital where parking spaces almost need guarding with barbed wire, so if I have a medical appointment before coming into work, and arrive after 9.15, I don't get a space, and my partner John has to drive me in. Absurd...
Thanks for the good vibes Cara! Er- please could you keep on sending them?
Thanks Shaggs, I'll certainly keep blogging - when I'm too downcast to talk about this whole palaver, I can at least write about it. The jeans thing this week left me feeling like shite.
Zanna - you wouldn't believe how often I look at that monthly weigh-in chart on the right of my blog, watching the days drawing closer...
It took me many years of abusing my system to get to where I was at lapbanding, so I can't expect to sort it out in just a year - it may well take 2 or 3, so as I said, I'm just plodding on.
Thanks to all of you for your friendship. Virtual though it is, it's just as valuable.
Caroline

Tina said...

I never order through the mail. I have tried a time or two but never ever has the item I ordered fit. Send them back pronto and go into stores and start the try on process as painful and long as that will be.

I tried on every pair of levis in my store (except for the ones I got in the end). that means that pair number 16 was the magic number. You might be able to wear jeans now you just need to find the right ones. Beware I have heard that Levis are numbers differently in the UK.

As far as you trip goes---wooohooo I hope you have a really good time and take lots of pictures for us. Will you be able to get online while there?

hey how appropriate-you verification word today is whingism...take off and fly Caroline!

Lonicera said...

Yup, I shall be doing my best to fly... can't wait.
I'm hoping to blog while I'm away but it does depend on finding an internet café and having the time to do it - I'd really like to though. I'm not sure how one uploads pictures from camera to café computers - I'm taking an adapter, so provided there's a USB drive I should be OK. I notice on other blogs when you take a photo of a scene and talk about it, it makes for an interesting post.
I've updated my weight chart - sob - I was so hoping to get well under 90... but I just can't seem to do it the way I used to 15 years ago. I'm going to just have to settle for slow and steady.
I'm glad I'm losing though.
Caroline

Reddirt Woman said...

When I quit smoking it was my brain that gave me trouble, as in one little puff or two won't hurt you... You know the consequences but I tend to fight with myself like it's my choice, I know it could kill me but I'm a grown woman and somethings going to kill me someday anyway. The thing that was the hardest for me was the in-fighting with myself. Finding a coping method you can use when your mind is telling you eat more, eat more is one of the most difficult hurdles to get over. And it is doubly hard for you because of your tendency to analyze everything, not withstanding your A type personality. You want it done and done right... right now.

Hang in Caroline... who knows? Exercise may become your friend.

Hugs, Darlin'. You are doing well despite yourself.

Helen

Reddirt Woman said...

Caroline would you e-mail me your snail mail address? I've a little something that I'd like to send to you. My e-mail address is llachi@aol.com. or if you misplace this you can get it from my blog page. Thanks.

Helen

Lonicera said...

True Helen, I'd even try to analyse myself out of a brown paper bag...
Sorry if I miss posting for a short while, I've no idea if I'll be near a computer to try. But I might have to, I can't manage without my daily blogger fix...
Caroline

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