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!