September 2024 Round Up!

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 172.8 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

The end of another month and I’m down another 1.5 kgs. I’m a little disappointed because I did see a lower weight earlier in the month, but overall I’m glad to see the month end in a deficit.

There’s a lot going on in my head at the moment. Predominantly, the PIP review and what it could mean for me and the family financially. Of course, there are so many other things going on as well. Stripes’ ED counselling is coming to an end and I know that represents a huge challenge for her and I am concerned. Especially as it comes at the end of a difficult year.

I did manage to do quite a few things this month. I finally sorted out the sofa for my bedroom and it’s a big hit with not only the cats, but the girls look more comfortable as of an evening too. I think I still need to do a little shifting round of my bedroom as I know if you sit one end of the sofa, it can be difficult to see the whole television screen.

I sorted through my wicker basket and got rid of some old pyjamas and made it easier to find my clothes for the odd occasions when I go out. It’s not as tidy now as it was when I first did it, but I want to try to keep on top of it so it doesn’t just because a slightly elevated version of a floor-drobe!

I’ve written the most words this month for the year – something like 36k – which I am pleased with. Finding a prompt table as well as some base art that sparked my imagination was really rewarding.

I’ve consistently been doing the resistance bands every other day since I received them. I am in SO MUCH pain with them. The top of my butt aches constantly and apparently I do have a core even though it’s weak af and struggling with the new demands on it. I want to continue to incorporate them into my routine but I also want to make sure that I don’t go overboard. No point going HAM one day and then being crippled for a week.

Still haven’t made a final decision regarding my hair. At the moment, I’ve cut it into a short bob which ends up in a messy bun on top of my head. It means it’s out of the way and neat and I don’t have to make decisions about shaving it. I have some curly hair that I should be able to do the same with so that gives me some breathing space.

I bought a poop step to see if it will help with the constipation. It’s weird to use – I end up having to strip off my pyjamas bottoms so that there’s nothing dragging on the floor or distracting me. I can’t say if it’s helped with the constipation as yet – it needs a bit more testing! It definitely puts the body into the correct position for easy evacuation (is there a nice way of putting that?) but it’s hard to see the results clearly.

So what do I want to achieve in October?

⟫ It might be a big ask but not only would I love to see the 160s but I would really love to not see the 170s again. Which is about 3 kgs which a big ask.

⟫ Less chocolate, more protein.

⟫ Consistent use of the resistance bands.

⟫ Sort out my bedroom floor on the right side of my bed.

⟫ Ask the council for a grab rail for in the toilet in the hallway. I used it over the weekend and struggled to get up safely. Actually, NSV that I’ve literally just realised – I was able to get in and out of the small bathroom toilet without mega manoeuvring required!

⟫ Sort out the small bundle of clothes sat in the cat room. I think they are mostly mine, probably folded once they came off of the washing machine but just not put away. So that should be an easy win. Should being the operative word!

I don’t think I need to titrate up for the moment, but I do need to analyse what’s going on with my eating. One meal a day has turned into one meal plus a whole heap of snacks which might be why the numbers went up at the end of the month.

Overall I would say September has been a good month, even if the numbers aren’t as low as I would like them to be.

Resistance Bands and Negative Self-Talk

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 172.9 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

A lot of weirdness – some emotional, some factual, all of it adding up to a bit of a mind fuck.

Firstly, I never realised how much my negative self-talk was impacting the girls. The three of us were talking the other night and things got a bit deep talking about weight and things. I think it started because I was talking about shaving my head again because I hate how my hair looks. But it then expanded to how I feel about myself in general, the struggle I have with seeing myself in videos and pictures.

Since we moved back up to Birmingham and the girls’ fathers are not around, obviously people have commented on how alike they and I look. Which, makes sense, I think most kids will look to people like the parent that they are seeing at that point in time. However, my self-hatred and negative talk was making the girls feel like maybe I viewed them the same way? And that never occurred to me. I was talking about myself – about how I viewed how I looked. But with people remarking on the resemblance, of course they were left wondering if I viewed them as ugly.

It made me think that I need to separate or at least differentiate between how I look and the fat that I carry. I’m not sure if that makes sense. I hate the way my face looks so round and fat, with extra chins. However, I can see pleasant features in my face – my eyes, my lips, my smile. And I see those positive, pleasant things when I look at my girls. And I tried their whole lives to tell them how beautiful I found them. But I didn’t realise that saying how ugly I felt was affecting them.

So there’s something I need to work on. I did apologise to both of them for the misunderstanding and how I have made them feel. And I have been doing some self-reflection on the whole situation.

My PIP review has been moved forward from May 2025 to now and I was struggling to get an appointment with Welfare Rights for assistance in completing the form. The nearest appointment they could give me was in late October and the form was due back on 2nd October. However, they now have an appointment for me on Saturday so Stripes and I got out all of my PIP paperwork and medical files and tried to compile the answers that are needed during the phone call.

This made me double check when I began Trulicity and started this journey. I started weighing in again in September, but I didn’t actually start Trulicity until 13th November. Which means my one year anniversary of using semaglutides is actually over a month away! That doesn’t mean that I think I’m going to lose 100 lbs in that year – I would still need to lose another 20 lbs and I think that is way too ambitious with how slowly the weight is coming off.

I feel like I’m excused from making the one year progress post for another couple of months, which is good because I’m not sure where my head is at. We had take out last night – chinese – but I also had a few snacks: mini pack of maryland cookies, strawberries, a pastry and a bag of crisps. And I think that quite possibly, my snacking needs to be pulled back a little. I didn’t need to eat all of those things but because they were in front of me, I did. I don’t know if it means that I need to titrate up, or whether I just need to be more aware of things.

On the exercise front, I have been using the resistance bands. I bought these ones from Amazon for less than £6. After the three of us did them on Thursday, I was in PAIN on Friday. But today, we all got together again and did the exercises on the pamphlet as well as a few others like rowing machine. I also used the ‘Heavy’ band instead of just sticking with the light one and boy, did it make a difference! We chose some banging tunes to workout to, and I had an absolute blast but I can feel the aching in my shoulders and arms and know I am going to be feeling this tomorrow. It makes it so much more fun doing it together – kinda the most light-hearted the three of us are together. I want to keep doing these every other day (with or without the girls) but also want to be aware of the need not to over-do it or exhaust myself. I’m not going to start looking like Arnold Schwartzenegger in just a couple of weeks, but hopefully they will go some way to help tighten up and tone the skin on my arms and legs.

I’m going to put some more thought into what I want to write for my Semaglutide Anniversary, but first things first, I need to get through this PIP phone call tomorrow!

80 lbs Lost AND a NSV!

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 171.5 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

Time for a scale victory – I have officially lost 80 lbs! I can categorically say that this is the first time that I have lost this amount of weight whilst eating ‘normal’ food which is kind of mind blowing. And, okay, the scales booped up a little again this morning, but I saw the numbers so I’m claiming it!

In other news, my stomach is still ‘bubbly’ and my butt is creating gas that is toxic to say the least! I’m glad I don’t have anywhere to go because I need to stay close to the bathroom, but I’m still celebrating!

I actually remembered to call the dr’s surgery this morning to find out my A1C and it’s 43. Normal range is up to 41 so I’m on the verge of being pre-diabetic (I think – I need to check my records but I’m pretty sure that’s what it means). So that’s a NSV right there – talk about a good start to a Tuesday!

Do I wish I had lost more in a year? Obviously! I think everyone on a weight loss journey wants to be able to say they’ve lost 100 lbs in a year because it sounds so freaking impressive, but that doesn’t take away from what I’ve done. My next mini goal is to lose 5 stone, which is 84 lbs. And I would like to have lost another 20 lbs by the end of 2024.

I’m waiting for a phone call from the Council regarding getting some assistance filling in my PIP review form; I want to do some work on my story for Spook Me 2024, and I have an ARC that I’m about a third of the way through.

Next week, I want to do comparison photos – and I’m actually considering doing full body ones. Not sure if I’ll post them, but I want to look at the monthly pictures Stripes has been taking of me. God, that’s actually vaguely terrifying to consider. I imagine I’ll be crushed if I can’t see a difference. Either way, I will try to get the courage up to actually post them – maybe as an animated gif so the changes can be seen happening? That could make it fun I guess!

Go me!

a mini soap-box moment on a tired Sunday...

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 171.9 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

Well, good news, apparently I can have chicken again! Such a small thing to bring such joy! We had KFC for dinner yesterday – I had three pieces of chicken, some fries and two cookies. I didn’t really want anything else all day, so that was pretty much it so I don’t think it could be considered too bad.

I read an interesting post on Reddit where someone was trying to express how they have lost nearly 90 lbs (or thereabouts) without changing up their diet. They don’t calorie count, do macros or anything like that and they are losing weight. The point they were trying to make (I think) was that using Ozempic has fixed something in their body – for years, they have dieted the traditional way with limited success. They know all of the usual dieting tricks, what you’re meant to eat, etc. They made the point that they are eating processed food, not exercising more than they were before, and the weight is coming off for the first time in forever. A few people piled on, saying that if they didn’t take this opportunity to change their eating habits, the weight would just come back once they stopped using the medication.

But I think those people missed the point. This person wasn’t advocating sitting on your butt, eating take out every day and wishing the weight away – they were trying to explain how they have done everything their doctors have asked of them in the past, and the weight still hasn’t shifted. Using semaglutides has made them realise that there is something fundamentally wrong with their body’s chemistry which made weight loss by ‘traditional’ methods nearly impossible. And that for some people, using these drugs is going to be a life-time thing and that there’s no shame in that. We take aspirin for our heart, blood pressure medication – all kinds of things we use each and every day and we’re not vilified for it, but because it’s weight loss medication, some people seem to think you should want to come off of it as soon as possible and make masses of changes whilst you’re taking the medication so that the weight doesn’t come back afterwards because you haven’t learned anything.

The point was also made that there are slender people out there who eat like this every day – they eat take out every now and then, some of them are couch potatoes, some of them eat well and exercise – but those that don’t follow these ‘fat people’ rules are not vilified or shamed for it. Nobody looks at them and says their weight is their fault. Because quite often, it isn’t. It’s genetics, body chemistry, luck. I’m not saying that there aren’t people out there who work hard for their health and fitness, but not all slender people do. And if we recognise that, if we accept that part of it really is luck of the draw, then can we just stop trying to make fat people feel like lazy, useless, worthless human beings because of how their body works?

I’m not talking about the stereotypical view of the fat person who eats nothing but garbage – I’m talking about the people who’ve tried every diet out there, attended every slimming club, cried themselves to sleep because they feel like such a failure, when a lot of the time it really just isn’t their fault.

I thought it was a powerful message. I understand that some people won’t get it – will think that it’s another excuse being made, but the reality of it is that if that were the case, semaglutides wouldn’t be working for people the way that they are. And maybe we could get rid of one of the last acceptable phobias/isms – fat-phobia, fatism. We can stop looking down on fat people, thinking of them as lacking in willpower. Most of the fat people I know and knew in the past were far from lacking in willpower. I know people who gave up solid food for over a year to lose weight; I know at least three people who have had weight loss surgery – all of that, everything involved in that took willpower. And yet, so many of them failed, regained the weight, are struggling.

I vaguely remember reading about a study where a doctor was saying that people using semaglutides shouldn’t be dieting in the traditional sense – they should be allowing the drugs to make the changes to their chemistry and working with it that way. That these drugs finally enable some people to hear that ‘I’m full’ signal in ways they never did before. Buzz words like ‘food noise’ are important because there is finally a recognition that not everyone suffers from that. Some people don’t have that constant need/desire to eat – that some people’s brains work better than others in this instance.

Okay, off my soapbox. I’m shattered. I’ve written a short story for my writing day and I have an ARC to read and review. I think all of us need a quiet day and I want to make the most of that. I didn’t get to sleep until around 6.30 am and woke up just after 10 am so am really, really tired. Tomorrow, I want to try to use my resistance bands again and build up to using them every other day. I don’t want to do anything excessive – the last thing I need to do is exhaust myself and/or push myself too hard. But it would be great to try and be more active, tone up my arms initially and then as I get stronger, begin working on my legs too.

So it’s time to shut down the laptop, chill out with a cat and do some reading!

You need hands...

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 172.3 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

Just call me Typhoid Mary – whether this is COVID or just a simple cough/cold, it is hanging around and feels like it’s getting worse. As are the burps. Read some advice on Reddit so Stripes bought me some shop-brand Gaviscon to see if it helps with the burps. I guess, normally I wouldn’t bother worrying about them but sometimes it feels like I’m going to throw up when I’m burping and it’s making me feel scared about using my CPAP. It’s also after every meal and when I sit up, like the wind is trapped whilst I’m lying down and then when I sit up, it punches out of me with little warning.

I was dozing off last night and thinking about how well my nails are growing. I spent a chunk of time earlier in the year trying to grow them – painting them with strengthener every day, filing them and using cuticle oil religiously. I fell out of that habit and yesterday I realised how long my nails were looking. Anyway, that led my brain to meander to a time when I was looking into doing Intuitive Eating and followed Paul McKenna.

He was everywhere and I even attended one of his seminars in London with a couple of friends. His ideas were sound but they ultimately didn’t work because I was fighting against my body’s chemistry and couldn’t figure out intuitively what I wanted to eat. I wonder how it would have worked if I had had Ozempic at the time? At the seminar, you could talk to a consultant and they did a sort of mini hypnosis thing on you. I asked for help to accept my hands – I felt they were abnormally large and that my fingers looked like sausages. I even remember where that came from – it was teasing from one of my siblings when I was much younger. I know that they didn’t mean anything nasty or malicious by it, but those words stuck with me.

The thing is, that session did help me. I began take better care of my hands and nails and felt less self-conscious of the size of my hands. The absolutely ridiculous thing about it is that Stripes and I have similarly sized hands and I think she has always had very elegant hands and fingers. From the time she was born, my Marmee would say Stripes had the hands of a pianist – dextrous, strong, capable, beautiful. And I can well see and apply that to her – I think overall Stripes is very ‘elegant’ in the way she moves. Possibly because of the yoga she’s done on and off all of her life, but still – when she’s not falling over one of the cats, she’s a very graceful and elegant person. But I could never apply that to myself.

It wasn’t helped by the fact that I occasionally got exzema on my hands – at one stage, it looked like someone had pressed a hot iron to the back of my hand, it was so bad. As I’ve lost weight, I’ve been looking for signs on my body that show what’s happening and haven’t been able to see it. Sometimes though, I will look at my hands and think they look slimmer, more elegant. Maybe I’ll get there in the end – it would be nice.

I had a bit of a mini breakdown on Sunday. I didn’t sleep Saturday night and when Stripes came in on Sunday, I broke down in tears when she asked me what was going on. I feel bad because I unleashed a torrent of self-hatred and just really dark thoughts about myself, my weight loss journey, who I was and am. And then, Rowan sent me an email (we were exchanging questions) and she asked me what I thought about where I was in life. My answer is giving me food for thought – the actual question was what are my thoughts about where I am now:

self-pity most of the time lately. There are nights when I have so many stories running through my mind but I don't even have the energy to get up and use my laptop. When I'm feeling okay, I love the fact that I read/review books and write on the side, as well as the art stuff. I wish I had the strength/confidence to write original fiction but am proud of the fact that two of my original stories were published. I am so lucky because I don't have to find the money for basic healthcare, although my PIP (funding from the government to make it easier being disabled) is under review so I might be suffering from financial constraints if I don't get it renewed. 

We were also talking about tiny living, something she is very interested in and perhaps pursuing, and that too made me think.

I love the idea of tiny homes but I am too big for one (at the moment). If I was a smaller size, I think I would like the idea of one. My bedroom is basically my version of a tiny home. I have a fridge, a kettle, games consoles, a bed and cat beds - I don't need more than that to be honest! Oh, room for the girls to be comfortable when they spend time with me. I'm not really safe to go to any other rooms because of my lack of balance, so I don't really feel like the rest of the flat is mine if that makes sense? The bathroom was converted to a wet-room when we moved in so that I can shower safely (I fell in the bath and couldn't get out - humiliating and painful in equal measure)

And that seems to sum up my life in a nutshell – apart from the daily battle to lose weight, it consists of living in my version of a tiny house, with the cats and girls visiting, writing, making art, reading books and writing reviews. Throw in some medicinal marijuana and that is the extent of my world. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a bad thing, but I do wonder what it’s doing to my mental health – our mental health because Stripes is my companion and I worry that her world is too small as well. Stripes and I talked about me paying for some therapy but the one first thought of – BetterHelp – has such a bad reputation that it puts me off trying to get something online. I could go to the GP but then the worry is that it will go onto my medical files and they will decide that I am not mentally prepared for surgery. Which is always looming in the back of my mind.

I have done some work on tidying up my environment. The addition of the sofa has made a huge difference and that side of the room does look much better. I went through my wicker basket and threw out clothing/pyjamas that were too big/tatty, as well as putting my underwear into a drawer so when I go out it’s easier to find my bras and stuff. It felt strange throwing away underwear knowing it’s too big for me – only by about a size, but still. And because I did everything on my list, I allowed myself to open the new cat chaise lounge and set it up. All of the cats love it, but I was seriously chuffed to find that Munch adores it and can be found just lounging like the queen that she is throughout the day. Stripes has told me before that Munch actually spends quite a bit of time in my room with me, but I don’t realise because of where she chooses to hide herself, but she does like me and does spend time with me.

Silly that a cat’s opinion of me means so much.

This morning I decided to do some work on my art for the spook me community running this year. And I am seriously pleased with what I’ve achieved. I don’t think I’ve ever made anything quite so atmospheric and can tell I’ve made progress in using paint.net. Obviously there are still areas where I struggle, and sometimes ideas don’t translate from my brain onto the page but that’s similar to writing. If I have nerve, I’ll add one of the images here – probably the one that I’m not going to use because it’s the wrong ‘couple’ for the story I have in mind.

It’s a mixture of digital and AI digital art, with a sprinkling of human error! I haven’t written Sterek in a hot minute so I think I’ll stick with writing Steter and using the other banner. I have the story idea in my head – I just need to find a way to get it down on the screen.

I have a book I have to read and review before the 12th so I’m going to log off now. It’s got to the stage where I’m tinkering with this art and potentially ruining it so I need to leave it alone! And it’s time to figure out what to eat – ugh!

surviving september...

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 172.2 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

How come I never write on here when I hit my lowest low? I saw 171 the other day, but it’s bounced back up to 172.2. So how am I doing? Well, I tried fried eggs on bagels and then had tuna pasta salad that evening, and spent an eventful hour or so on the toilet. We don’t know if it was the eggs or the tuna (I haven’t had either of them in a while) but suffice it to say, I won’t be eating either of them in a hurry.

It’s so strange what causes a reaction – I remember when I first started using Ozempic, chicken was almost guaranteed to make me throw up. Chicken – like, that’s meant to be one of the universal safe foods! Very strange.

Apart from throwing up and stomach issues, I have also been struggling with an ear infection and quite possibly the after-effects of COVID. I am utterly exhausted – the other night I went to bed around 11 pm and didn’t wake up until after 12 the next day That’s pretty much unheard of.

I’ve been so exhausted that I’ve been struggling to even read – I wake up, do my wordle, sqwardle then just sort of loll around until I doze off again. We have actually had a busy time though. I finally managed to sort out a new sofa and we spent just over an hour putting it together. It’s green velvet(looking) three seater love seat and fits almost perfectly where I wanted to place it. That side of the room is looking so much better – cleaner, clearer and just, yeah, happy with.

The other side of the room, not so much. I have my disability chair that Stripes covered in old denim jeans when it started looking ropey, as well as one of the blankets I crocheted on the right side of the bed and it looks really comfortable. Comfy enough for Stripes to curl up with Dmi and look incredibly sweet and happy together! Unfortunately, beneath that chair is varying amounts of detritus – things that have fallen off my bed, wrappers from cough sweets, bandages, plasters – all sorts of crap. And it’s going to take more energy and balance for me to get that sorted.

I did manage to go through my wicker basket and pull out all of my bras and panties, which are now neatly tucked away in a drawer. Which just leaves going through the basket and folding my pyjamas neatly as well as getting rid of things that are too ratty or too big. Yeah, no energy for that either at the moment.

Which brings me to my state of mind. We took a few pictures of the three of us on the sofa. Gidget has a nifty Polaroid camera and took an absolutely darling picture of me cuddling Castiel which I love. However, we took a few photos using my phone and I absolutely HATE the way I look with a passion. My pyjamas are loose on me and I know that I’m losing weight but for some reason, that picture just made me want to cry. I look like someone in those 1,000 lb people weight shows – just hanging fat, rolls and just kinda lumbering. Now I know it’s weird to describe myself as lumbering when I was sitting down in the photo but it’s the only word that comes to mind.

It made me feel quite blue – I still feel quite blue, although I know that some of that is just the after-effects of being ill and the ear infection. It’s sobering to think that I’m about 1lb away from having lost 80 lbs and looking at myself in pictures just makes me want to cry. This is just going to get worse in terms of hanging skin because exercise is still out of my range of possibilities and I think I might need to see if I can find someone to talk to about all of this. Mantra is all very good but there’s only so much I can do on my own.

In good news, we met Gidget’s new beau – Stripes originally called him ‘the ginge from hinge’ which cracks me up every time, but we’ll call him A here. He’s a nice boy – he came around and we spent a very wholesome afternoon playing cards, video games and talking. Gidget seems happy and that’s all I can hope for. The situation with JC seems to have calmed down, especially now that Gidget’s workplace have barred him from entry. Of course, the last time I let my guard down, he escalated so I’m still concerned but we’ll see. Gidget says she does want to fill out a police report but hasn’t got around to it yet – I can’t blame her, no one wants to have to talk about a situation like that and the self-blame is hitting hard for both of us.

I don’t even know what to aim for weight-wise for the anniversary of beginning of this, which I believe is the 23rd September. I’m still slightly stunned that I’m still doing this. Oh crap, I’ve just remembered that I wanted to ring the Dr's surgery and ask what my latest AC1 numbers were – you can only get results in the morning so I guess I’ve missed it today.

Blimey, I’ve written a tome! I think that’s enough laptop time for today. I’ve begun porting ‘High Thoughts’ over onto Dreamwidth – I don’t know why I’ve got it into my head that something might happen to Blogger, but I guess better safe than sorry. I have another ARC that I need to read and review for a deadline, then just some kindle unlimited books that I can take my time on. I’ve signed up for a few comms, including Spook Me, and a new bingo card, and I have the drabble/icon challenge to catch up on but all of that will have to wait. I think it’s time for a long drink of water and a nap!