Some of the Bats are out of the Belfry....

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 178.8 | MGW ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic: ⟫ 0.5 mg

I read THIS post on Reddit today and it really and truly helped me. Not only was this person starting from a higher weight than most (including me), but they shared pictures so that you could see their transformation. I knew I was feeling isolated and lonely, but seeing this post really brought it home to me how alone I have been feeling doing Ozempic. And to begin from over 400 lbs made me feel like this journey was going to be never-ending and I was never going to reach the goal, or even the mini goal that I have set for myself.

Yesterday evening, I had BM for what feels like the first time in forever. And yes, I was hoping for a huge drop on the scales. I didn’t get the drop on the scales but I did feel a change in my mood and demeanour. To be clear, I haven’t got rid of everything – I certainly expected more after all of the prunes, etc – but I feel a little less bloated and full which is amazing after the last week. I literally feel like I have been dragging around absolutely everything I’ve eaten over the last week and it was weighing me down. I am looking into Movicol or something similar, although I do have Dulcolax left. The main issue is that I don’t want to have to rely on laxatives in order to have a BM – hence the prunes. I have had the suggestion given to me of chia seeds or maybe a handful of nuts, so that’s also something to look into.

So, yeah, I’m not quite so full of shit!

I am also thinking about migrating this blog to Dreamwidth. I spend far more time on there and Livejournal and perhaps I can find some people following the same thing as me? I think I need to find my people. The issue that I have with it is that it is far too easy for me to drown myself in weight loss forums and stop concentrating on myself. I’ve done it twice in the past – once when I did the Cambridge Diet, and again when a larger weight loss forum was created. I was spending days just reading and writing posts which was detrimental in the end. I need to keep the focus on myself whilst still finding people in a similar situation to mine. It doesn’t need to be mega specific – just using semaglutides and coming from a place of being super morbidly obese. I know the people wanting to lose 20 – 50 lbs have just as much of a valid journey, but it can feel difficult to relate to that when losing 50 lbs barely cracks a dent in the journey I’m facing.

(I hope that doesn’t seem dismissive of people trying to lose less weight than me. I think all of these journeys are valid. It’s not meant to be but hopefully I’m not being tone deaf. )

It’s coming up to the time for a May round up and I’m a little bit bothered that I haven’t achieved a lot in May. I’ve been playing around with spreadsheets and charts and decided to see what my monthly weight loss looks like in a broader sense. Yes, weighing every day keeps it on my mind but it can be easy to get stuck on the minutiae when it should also be about the broader picture. Hopefully, the image shows up!

What it shows indisputably is that the scales – the numbers – are going down pretty consistently. Now I just need to remember to look at those figures when I’m feeling down on myself!

Scales Creeping Upwards...

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 179 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

The scales continue to creep upwards, my mood slides downwards and the fear begins to permeate my dreams more and more. I am getting more sleep than I have for a long time, but it is not restful and is getting weirder and weirder in terms of dreams. I can’t even call them nightmares, just weird-ass periods where I can’t figure out if I’m awake or asleep.

Yesterday I had four prunes as well as porridge, and in a self-destructive fit of madness, a slice of cake with frosting and custard – a lactose nightmare that in the past has had me living in the bathroom. And so far, absolutely nothing.

I keep telling myself that I’m not overeating, that the scales moving upwards has GOT to be because of the constipation, but inside it feels like all of my wrong choices are catching up with me and as a result, Ozempic is no longer working. I feel so utterly alone and lost – how do I make the choice about moving up to a higher level if I don’t know if what I’m doing is wrong? How can I tell if the appetite suppression has faded or I have become accustomed to it when I can’t even remember what real appetite suppression feels like any more? I’ve stopped snacking – yesterday I had porridge, prunes, three slices of toasted cheese and the cake. By no stretch of the imagination is that overeating but I can’t help but feel like I’m doing something wrong.

I wish there was someone or somewhere I could go to talk about shared experiences, but everywhere I look online it’s people with like 20 lbs to lose or something. I can’t relate to that and I’m pretty sure they can’t relate to me. On YouTube, I haven’t been able to find anyone I can watch that has started at the high weight that I am at. There just feels like there’s nothing there in terms of support and I am feeling lost, alone and if perhaps a little dramatic, quietly despairing.

I know that it’s dangerous to suffer from constipation for too long – the dangers of impaction, etc – hence taking the risk of having cake with custard. Sounds ridiculous but in the past, that as always caused an explosion. I’m trying not to panic (although this whole post reeks of panic) and really want to give the prunes a chance to work. But then I find myself thinking I could begin to take Dulcolax to help things along. But then I’m scared that I might do too much and – and what? What’s the worst that happens? I don’t have anywhere to go this week so if need be, I could live in the bathroom until this is over with. But that doesn’t help me now. Or in the future to be fair. How do I make sure this doesn’t just happen again?

Am I sabotaging myself? If I look at what I’ve eaten over the past few days, it doesn’t seem like too much. My water intake is pretty good as well as tea and iced Pepsi max. Not a lot of sugar unless I want to blame the runny honey I’ve been having in my porridge? I don’t want to act without thinking and because of that, I feel like I have frozen myself into inactivity. I feel like I need to do something but am not sure what.

My brain is just going round and round in circles and it’s making me miserable. God, anyone who thinks this is taking the easy way out has never been in this position. Maybe I should see if I can find a forum or something for people who are morbidly obese and taking semaglutides and see if anyone else is going through something like this. I know that something can’t be classed as a stall if it hasn’t been going on for longer than a month (I think) so maybe I’m just being over-dramatic and I just need to ride this out.

I wish I was still doing the mantra thing, but that was absolutely crystal clear in saying that it didn’t work alongside trying to lose weight and I can’t commit to not wanting/trying to lose weight. Maybe I should look at the other resources that were in the link Stripes gave me – the ones about depression and anxiety, body image – see if any of that will help me.

In the meantime, today I want to up my water intake, maybe try to walk around the flat a bit more to get myself ‘active’, and do I dare risk more prunes? I wish someone had the answers and would just give them to me. I think it might be time to make an appointment with a doctor and see if they have any advice for me. But are they going to understand it any better? None of them seem to have any real understanding about Ozempic etc, so I would imagine their advice is just going to be to up the dose. Which I’m still not sure is the right move to make. All of the things I have read say that the longer you can stay on the lowest dose, the better.

I wonder if it would be possible to go back to Trulicity? I wonder if that would make any difference at all? God-damn, I wish I could shut my brain off.

Prunes and Yoyo Scales

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 178.5 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

Huge sigh. The scales went up again and this week registers as no loss at all. Of course, I am not only beating myself for it in terms of wondering why I am such a failure, but I am looking at everything I’ve eaten and questioning myself.

To be fair, I am having some toilet issues – so much so that I have finally bitten the bullet and bought some prunes. I only had one – I want movement but not an explosion – and it didn’t taste completely and utterly gross. I’m now sat feeling like I am ‘listening’ to my insides and wondering just when something is going to happen. I have also had porridge for breakfast instead of a banana to see if the oats will help to get this bowling ball moving.

Logically speaking, I know that being constipated is going to mean that I am not going to lose weight but it’s really disheartening. I was talking to Stripes about it, about how lonely I sometimes feel following this whole Ozempic thing because there’s no concrete ‘diet’ plan to follow. I wonder if I should go back to the doctor and ask to titrate up or whether I should try to stick it out on 0.5 for a bit longer. I don’t want to have to go through more side effects and what if this hiccup is just because of the toilet thing?

Today I need to be reading, but I also have my prompt for the intoabar challenge – of all fucking people, I have to write Connor. I don’t think I’ve ever written him as a character before and am kicking myself for not considering that he might be chosen. So, yeah – not feeling today at all.

Scale Victory : 30 kgs down

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 177.7 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

Today we have a scale victory. I have officially lost 30 kgs. I am pleased but struggling with the after-effects of the eye drops they use at my diabetic eye screening so am feeling rather subdued and headachey, but I didn’t want to miss this mini goal.

Non Scale Victory and Busy-work!

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 178.8 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

The scales are still refusing to shift – pretty much like the bowling ball of poop in my lower stomach – so I was feeling kinda down. But then, this morning, things starting ‘moving’ and I started to feel like I might just be emptying out. I decided to have random shower (as in, I was in the bathroom and spent forever on the loo so decided I wanted to feel clean and have a shower). Good idea as I felt very refreshed – not so good idea as I didn’t have my dressing gown with me and had to do a naked slow ‘streak’ back to my bedroom and man, it was cold!

However, during my shower I had a NSV (Non Scale Victory) which made me think that I needed to start celebrating them. I have a bariatric sized shower chair that I used and up until now it’s been a decent fit. Not roomy, but I don’t have to try to squeeze myself into it. This morning, I realised that I had room on both sides of my thighs in the chair. I have no idea how long this has been happening but I finally noticed it today and had to admit to myself that it represented a loss in inches, even if the scales aren’t moving.

So I’m going to grab that as my first official NSV and try to take notice of any that happen in the future. I managed to stop myself re-weighing to see if my time on the toilet had manifested some solid results (pun definitely intended) but decided that I needed to show some restraint and just accept the number that was on the scales initially on Monday and just see how things go.

I was also contemplating migrating this blog – and my book review blog – over to Dreamwidth or Livejournal. It might make it more efficient in terms of editing and formatting and mean that I only have to be on one site to do all of those things. I set up the weight loss blog on Livejournal but I’m not happy with the design for the moment. For some reason on Dreamwidth, every time I tried to set up the blog it kept changing my main blog and that is definitely not what I wanted to happen. Maybe after my diabetes eye check tomorrow, I will have another go.

What’s going through my head is just why this has suddenly come into my head? I feel a little more vulnerable on Livejournal as it’s been running since 2010 or something like that, so there might be stuff on there that I don’t want to link to the weight loss or book review site. And I have actually had some views on the book review blog so maybe now isn’t the time to move it? I don’t know – maybe I was making busywork for myself or something.

Bridgerton Season 3 and The Seven Dwarves of Illness

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 178.4 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

Well I’m feeling pretty pathetic. Grim came to spend some time at home getting their hair done and a good time was had. She’s not as happy with the outcome as I was hoping – a bit of miscommunication between us and the hairdresser – but it looks absolutely gorgeous and really suits her.

And then the come-down – once Grim had gone home, the next morning I went down with what can only be called the Grim-flu. i.e., every single time she comes to spend time with us, I catch any and all germs that might decide to cling to her. I have no idea why it keeps happening – no one else goes down with shit like this so constantly and I’m not gonna lie, it’s making me feel some kinda way. So in order to spend time with my daughter, I have to allocate at least two days for the leurgy that’s going to attack me once she’s gone. It fucking sucks.

I’ve been enjoying dairy free greek yoghurt with fruit (strawberries, grapes, pineapple) and I admit that part of me thought that incorporating more fruit into my diet might help with the constant constipation. But nope. I feel like I have a bowling ball stuck in my lower abdomen and nothing is making it move. So much so, the scales are not moving either. Which probably explains part of why I’m feeling so low. I’m tired, achey, sneezy, full of cough and yuck – I feel like all of the bad seven dwarves have taken up residence in my body and brought their weight with them.

I’ve forced myself to sit up and write some reviews and download a few more ARCs so that I don’t just wallow in sweat, and I feel a bit better for it. And I want to look into getting a colonic. I spoke to our hairdresser who’s had at least one before and the way she described it: afterwards she felt really free and light and I could seriously do with feeling like that.

If we manage to sort out the new sofa for my room, then I shall look into getting one. It sounds – interesting and potentially intense, but the thought of feeling free of all of the (literal) crap that’s inside me is enticing. I’ve continued watching the Journey with Wendi vlogs on YouTube and it’s made me wonder if it’s something I would be good at. The main downfall is having to be on camera – can’t really just do a voice-over for a weight loss journey vlog! Marsha Marsha Marsha -- hairdresser said if I don’t feel confident doing it as myself, I could create a character and Marsha was the first thing that came to mind! Stripes reminded me that’s it from the movie In Her Shoes which is an old favourite.

I’m going to settle down with some water, some books and a cat and see if I can try to enjoy my Saturday.

The Mind is a Scary Place

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 178.7 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

I did a chunk of work using some worksheets that Stripes gave me from here and I’m not sure how I feel about the work that I’ve done.

Quite a bit of it seems more skewed towards different eating disordered behaviour than I would recognise in myself, but at least some of it felt applicable to me. It made me do some thinking about how it has all affected my relationships with people and quality of life. I’m not sure if the monitoring things that they suggest will work for me, although Stripes did help me put a lot of that into perspective. The Ozempic is doing the heavy lifting in regard to losing the weight – removing much of the food noise, limiting my ability to overeat, etc – but I am still the one making the choices. I’m choosing the continue using the injections; I’m “listening” to my body with regard to not eating when I’m not hungry; trying to respect the things that I know I can’t eat unless I’m willing to experience adverse side effects. One of the things it says is that I shouldn’t weigh myself more than once a week so that I don’t allow the numbers on the scales to decide my mood, etc. It also states quite clearly that it’s not compatible with trying to lose weight, which I don’t think I can make the commitment at this point in time to say that I’m not going to have that as a goal. That’s the whole point of the Ozempic – I want and need to lose weight, so attempting to follow a programme like this seems counterproductive. I think it might be a good idea to look at the resources on the website that focus more on body image, depression and anxiety rather than focussing on the disordered eating aspect of things.

I was going to spend some time today working on spreadsheets and monitoring forms as per the advice given, but I’m not sure that’s the right way for me to go. I think I might give it a day to percolate and then consider.

I’ve been watching a semaglutide diary on YouTube here called Journey with Wendi and she was doing a weekly check in where she answered questions, explained side effects she was going through and her progress. Very straight-forward, sometimes amusing, but one of the biggest things is seeing the difference in her each and every week. She is on a higher dosage than me – at the point in the diaries that I am in, she is using 1mg of Ozempic per week – and there is the fact that her start weight is somewhere I can only dream of. I decided to do something ‘brave’ and sent her an email just expressing my thanks for the content she is providing, especially since the videos I am watching are from 2 years ago. It’s weird to think that she could be in a completely different place now – that she might be at goal and maintaining, whilst I feel that sometimes I am at the very beginning of my journey.

This week is quiet – for me anyway. Stripes has a session with Jaime; Grim is getting her hair done here on Thursday – but apart from that, it should be quite peaceful.

I had a very upset stomach last night which to be honest is not a surprise. I had a weird eating day yesterday – I didn’t sleep at all Saturday night, then had leftover Chinese food early on Sunday. Later in the day, I had a major craving for tuna pasta with sweetcorn and mayonnaise. It tasted absolutely lovely but it was strange to have a second ‘large’ meal when I’ve pretty much been having one meal a day. Then I had a yoghurt and a kiwi fruit. I think I’m off kiwi fruit – whether it’s where we are getting them, if they’re in season or what, but they have either been all bruised and ‘off’, or the one last night had a really weird semi-solid white bit going all the way through it and I couldn’t bring myself to eat it.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that I ended the evening in the bathroom with an ‘explosive’ episode. It wasn’t as bad as some of them have been, but it was pretty bad. The good part was that it left me so exhausted that I went to be just after midnight and slept through to just after 8 am – silver lining!

I’m going to do some reading, maybe play some Disney Dreamlight Valley and have a quiet day I think. And no doubt begin to panic about what I’m going to wear on Thursday when Tanya is here to do Grim’s hair – it sounds ridiculous but I’m wondering if it’s too weird to be in my pyjamas while she is here. I don’t even think she would judge me, or even notice. It’s all in my head which as we know, is a weird and scary place! Oh, and I need to do a food-shop because I want to try some non-dairy Greek-style yoghurt because I am enjoying having them but wonder if having the dairy-free version might sit better with my stomach!

Stop the world, I want to get off

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 179.5 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

Oh my poor brain! Seriously, like can I get a break!

Okay, so good note: no sitting down bawling for apparently no reason. So, a step up from last weekend.

Bad note: my head is still all over the place and the fucking scales are just not moving. I know that I’ve gone down into the 170s, which is a cause for celebration, but overall last week I barely lost a kilo. Like – I had some really bad upset stomachs in there, didn’t eat masses (including no take out all week) and I’ve tried to up my water. So what gives? Why haven’t the scales gone plummeting down? I feel like crap for not loving more than that – like, most of the reason this feels worthwhile with all of the side effects is because of the weight loss. So – no weight loss, do I want to carry on?

Actually, thinking about it, it seems like every entry to this is going on about whether or not I want to carry on taking Ozempic. What’s the reality? Well, I can’t see me going off of it any time soon – unless my surgery date comes through. Because this is the first time I have lost this amount of weight in so long and it seems to be staying off (generally) and who am I to turn my nose up at that kind of success? I’m nowhere near maintenance but I can see how staying on a low dosage of Ozempic would ensure the ability to keep the weight off and keep numbers balanced. So, no I’m not really planning on turning my back on the whole semaglutide thing.

I should be getting bloods done soon which will be interesting. My A1C numbers were around 53 – 56 last time I had them checked, so borderline rather than in the ‘red’, and Violet was happy with the numbers so that’s a good thing. It would be amazing if the numbers went down this year even if it’s just in reaction to me losing some weight.

New mini goal: 30 kilos off. No idea when I want that to be, although obviously next week would be absolutely amazing! But yeah – that seems like a sensible mini goal – I can’t quite remember what I said I wanted as my newest mini goal last time so this will supersede that I guess!

I have two ARCs that I have to read today as the reviews are due tomorrow and I’m just not feeling it. It’s not even as if I’m not looking forward to reading them – well, one of them at least – I just feel wrung out and fed up and just fucking tired of all of it. My head is jammed full of stuff, I feel over-sensitive and almost angsty, and I just want to say stop the world and let me get off. Let me have a night off from food worries, stomach upsets and concerns about weight, life, the girls – all of it. I just want to STOP. But the world doesn’t work like that, so instead I shall settle down with the two books I need to read and get them done and write the reviews, try to choose well when it comes to food, and remember that this too shall pass – I can cope with this, I will survive. And if I kill someone, all of this stuff I’ve written here might be used as mitigating circumstances!

When is a stall not a stall?

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 180.4 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

Sunday morning and I find myself wondering if it’s time to titrate up to the next level of Ozempic. I think the rate of loss has slowed down. Looking through the weigh ins for the end of April, I’ve been teetering around 180.4 for at least a couple of weeks now. I don’t think it would actually be called a stall or plateau – I think for that label, it needs to be going on for a few weeks at least. But there is something inside me that thinks for all of the side effects I am dealing with, I should be seeing regular loss and a couple of weeks at the same place doesn’t seem fair? I’m not sure that’s the right word. I know that 0.5 mg is not the highest level and based on my reading, most people actually start seeing the real loss once they get up to 1 mg.

There are a couple of problems with the idea of moving up to a higher level.

1) Getting a doctor’s appointment is difficult. It’s not impossible but it can mean a fair few frustrating mornings on the telephone.

2) I don’t know how difficult it is to get hold of the 1mg level of Ozempic. We’ve had issues enough getting hold of the 0.5 mg on a regular basis and I don’t want to make things worse. Supply issues are a huge concern.

3) Most people seem to say if you are losing weight on the lowest level, then stay there. There’s little to no point in moving to a higher dosage if you are getting results from where you are. It just gives you less wiggle room in terms of managing the medication.

4) The side effects. I have got a hold on the side effects or at least I know what to expect. I can’t imagine moving to a higher dosage and finding that the vomiting, diarrhoea, constipation ramp up. This last week, I haven’t really suffered from them too much and can’t see myself wanting to go through all of that again.

5) Finally, the effect on my mental health. This is a struggle – this is hard. Anyone thinking using semaglutide is taking the easy way out needs to go through just a fortnight of the side effects to realise that obese people are paying the price for having to use these products – it’s not an easy road to travel, is hard physically and mentally. It could just be that my body is holding on to water; it could be too many sweets – Maom are the devil; it could just be the swings and roundabouts of losing weight – it’s very rarely a straight line from start to finish.

I guess a big part of the issue is that I feel like I am very much doing this alone. I haven’t spoken to a doctor in months (apart from when the switch to Ozempic and the issue getting hold of it) so I don’t have anyone to talk about this too. I can’t put this onto Stripes because she is dealing with her own things and she has no experience of this. She can sympathise and listen, which she always does, but she can’t make the decision for me.

Stripes took my face photos and I asked her if there was a difference. She said that it can be seen around my jawline, which is cool. But I still couldn’t bring myself to ask to see the photos because I don’t think I would see a difference and that would mess with my head.

I was meant to go for my diabetic eye screening on Friday, had my outfit all planned out and everything. I didn’t go – my stomach was feeling ‘rumbly’ and I didn’t want to be out of the house if things were about to go nuclear. But now I find myself wondering if I was just looking for an excuse not to go out. Getting dressed – bra, dress, clothes in general and being seen outside all makes how far I have to go very real. That sounds daft but – I live in jimjams. Elastic waisted, comfortable, things fit where they touch and that’s about it. I’m not dressed for company and because I don’t go out, I don’t have to think about how people might see me. Going out – even just to the opticians – means being seen by various people. An uber, the high street getting out of the car, manoeuvring around the opticians – it’s all a bit much when I am feeling so big. Added to which, I might have lost 60 lbs but the people on the street don’t know that – they just see me the way I am now. Which is super morbidly obese – taking up huge amounts of space; on crutches and feeling like I’ve just let myself go. They don’t know about the time spent in the bathroom, the saying no to things, the head stuff. They just see the hugely fat black woman staggering around on crutches.

Or maybe they don’t even see that. Maybe I’m invisible as a woman, as a real person, because I don’t fit any image of attractiveness. Although why I want people to find me attractive is beyond me – I am not on the lookout for a relationship of any kind. I think I really need to get back to doing the head-work. Not having the next mantra section has given me a ‘get out of jail card free’ kinda thing – I have access to the workbooks online, but it’s easier not to do the work when it’s not a piece of paper in front of me.

Just re-reading all of that makes me think that moving up a dosage isn’t where I’m at. I think I just need to eat as cleanly as I can, drink water and try to move around and trust the process. If the scales are still refusing to move by the end of the month, then I’ll make a doctor’s appointment and talk to them about moving up a dosage. In the meantime, I shall work on the idea of if it isn’t broken, don’t try to fix it. And get my butt in gear and do some of the mental work. Maybe today – I have two ARCs left to read, but I’ve written a chapter of Pink Moon and the review for the last ARC I finished this morning. That’s enough to be going on with.

Into May at 60 lbs down!

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 180.2 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

Today is my oldest baby’s birthday – she’s 29 years old, so shout out to you, baby!

And onward to the update I guess. Well, the last week/ten days in April was challenging. I struggled a lot with emotions – last weekend, I basically spent two days just crying. I couldn’t even fully explain what I was crying about – I simply couldn’t stop crying. I wish I could say that it was cathartic, but it was just exhausting. I think the situation was exacerbated by a general lack of sleep, but the side effects of the Ozempic played a role.

It’s interesting as I was reading on Reddit and there were other people there struggling with similar feelings. The best way I can describe it is that it felt like a never-ending drudge. Friday – injection night, followed by feeling exhausted and the beginnings of constipation. Then, several days of worsening constipation, heavy feeling in my chest/upper stomach, nasty taste in my mouth/nauseous. By Tuesday/Wednesday, a feeling of being poisoned from the inside/out – no doubt due to the constipation. Wednesday/Thursday, the world falling out of my butt in two excruciating days of diarrhoea and we’re right back to Friday.

Just reading that makes me think it’s a bloody awful way to live.

But then the results are nothing to be sneezed at. I (finally) hit 60 lbs off which is a decent milestone. The stats do not lie in that respect – since the end of November, I have lost 60 lbs, which is roughly 10 lbs a month, which is a nice, slow steady weight loss and not something I can recall having achieved before whilst still eating. But is it worth all of the side effects? Is it worth the recurring feeling that I am trudging through a heavy fog, with nothing to look forward to and seeing no results – not on the scales, but visibly? I need to ask Stripes to take my new monthly face photos but I also think I need to remain in a state of ignorance of how they look. If I were to see them and not see that there’s any difference, I think that would be so detrimental to my mental health.

I saw a video on YouTube where a gentleman (I don’t remember his name) talked about how for a lot of people, life on Ozempic isn’t worth it because they no longer get a dopamine fix from eating – they simply don’t enjoy it any more and it’s making them miserable. And I can relate to that – I might look forward to something, but more often than not by the time I eat it, there is no satisfaction. Even from something small – like a Greek yoghurt or a kiwi fruit (two things that I seem to be craving lately) – there is no real satisfaction. I can recognise that it tastes nice at the time, but generally speaking by the time I’ve finished eating it, I don’t feel good.

Maybe that’s a good thing – in the past, the dopamine fix is part of why I’ve over-eaten. I’ve been enjoying the food so much that I’ve wanted more and more, and lack the self-regulation/will power to be satisfied with a small amount. Perhaps that’s the whole point of drugs like Ozempic – removing that thrill, that delicious taste and making it easier to put the food down. But if we don’t have the joy in the simple things like eating, then where do we get that joy from? What’s life without the simple pleasures? Or is this basically the price I pay in order to lose the weight?

I still haven’t heard anything about the weight loss surgery but I will probably be getting a new telephone appointment with Violet, probably for June so I’m going to let that one fade into the background for now. In good news, and something I feel I should slap myself upside the head for, I finally checked my PIP paperwork and it expires in May 2025. I stressed myself out because I didn’t check something so simple. Even worse, Stripes was worried about finances, etc the same way (her Carer’s Allowance is linked to my PIP) and she didn’t think to check either. So both of us have been stressing about money and the renewal when we have another year. So I can let that go – for now. Who the hell knows where we’ll be in a year’s time and that is 2025 Book’s worry.

The nightmares have been very strong and consistent. Yesterday morning, I woke myself up screaming (or rather, I think Stripes had to wake me up) and it was truly horrific. I dreamed that I killed my dad, and experienced it in epic technicolour. I think it would take a psychologist a little while to unpack all of that but 1) I don’t have a psychologist and 2) it’s extremely unlikely I would be able to get one on the NHS for long enough to work through it all. So, yeah, need to try another strategy. Last night, Stripes suggested putting on a series/film that I know well as something to go to sleep to – similar to the idea that we rewatch films, etc because we know there are going to be no surprises so we can relax. I put on Twilight and apart from getting dragged into it initially and revisiting the fanfiction I wrote based on it, I turned off the lights and went to sleep. I woke up around 6.30 which is pretty darn good and no nightmares. Obviously one night isn’t enough to say it work definitively, but I am going to try again tonight because it was so lovely not to wake up sweating and crying!

Today is a writing day so I’m going to have a look at the bunnies Rowan has posted in our chat. And I have four that I have to get read because the first review is due on 9th of the month. Tomorrow is my diabetes eye test but apart from that, I have nothing planned. Well, I want to start working on the head stuff again but I’ve been saying that for weeks! My new mini goal is to hit 70 lbs off and am hoping that happens by June – let’s go!