New Weight Territory, Mini Goal and COVID

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 174.2 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

The last time I thought I was in control of my weight was quite a few years ago. I was due for an endocrinology appointment and was almost excited because I had been ‘dieting’ for quite some time and was positive I had lost some weight. I didn’t have scales of my own that went up high enough, but I was sticking to a diet plan and really feeling like I was succeeding.

I remember being utterly crushed when I got on their scales and they showed my weight as 183 kg – I cried on the way home, only possible because a friend at the time had driven us to the appointment. It was also when I decided it was time to seriously consider weight loss surgery as an option because I had simply couldn’t think of any other way to get the weight off.

COVID has had a rather devastating effect on my appetite. Food is just lumps in my mouth with barely any taste, nausea is almost constant, and the cough feels like it is raking my throat to shreds (there was blood in my tissues twice today – not enough to be overly concerned, but it does demonstrate just how bad things are). Today, Stripes and I had soup for dinner, along with a couple of slices of bread and butter, and I had a pineapple fritter for dessert. That was all I ate all day and I barely managed to finish the soup. All this to say, it is no surprise that the scales are moving downwards.

I had a mini goal of getting to 175 kg by the time my latest endocrinology appointment came around (19th August) and it would appear that I have more than made that goal. I wonder if it’s going to be a permanent kind of loss or whether, once COVID has done with me, the numbers will bounce back up. Even during the Weight Management course I had to attend in order to be put forward for weight loss surgery, I didn’t lose weight like this. By the time I spoke to the surgeon, life had kicked me in the teeth a few times and I was up to 190something kgs. To be heading towards 173 kg is making my mind spiral. It kinda helps that my brain is cottage cheese – who has the time to suffer through an existential crisis when you have a constant headache, feel like crap and can barely stand the thought of drinking water, let alone eating something? Maybe it’s good that I have COVID (seriously, I don’t mean that in a stupid way, more of a having COVID means that I don’t have the energy to be thinking of all the other stuff that normally fills my head). But yeah, it’s less about trying to eat less and more about trying to eat something each day.

Speaking to Violet should mean that I find out what my new A1C is as I never did find out from the surgery following my annual check up. I wonder what it is – I wonder if it’s good? I wonder if it’s showing how much difference Ozempic is making or whether it will show that losing the weight hasn’t made much difference to my diabetes? I’m only awake as my eyes are itching so badly that I needed to dose them up so that I can get some sleep. I’m not sure if I’ll use the CPAP tonight – seeing blood in my sputum scared me a little, even though it sounds like it’s a relatively normal side effect of the coughing.

I haven’t been vaping weed the last couple of nights – my order was meant to arrive from Mamedica today but it got waylaid by Royal Mail so should be in tomorrow. Maybe the new strain I am trying – Big Narstie Purple Milk I think it’s called – will help with the sleep issue. That would be so nice because at the moment it doesn’t seem to matter how much sleep I get, I am exhausted. Added to my normal fatigue levels, I am feeling like death warmed up – even walking to the bathroom and back is enough to have me sweating, shaking and feeling like I’m either going to throw up or pass out. High sleep is way better than no sleep.

non scale victory, Mantra and yo-yo scales

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 177.4 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

The scales continue to do their little yo-yo dance. I’ve seen 176 a few times but then towards the end of the week, 177 has been showing up more frequently. I thought it might be constipation but last night I had my ‘clearing out’ so I was really hoping that the scales would show a difference. Instead, I’m still in the 177s which is depressing. In fact, I’m the same weight as I was ten days ago.

Today I finally cracked open the latest Mantra worksheet that Stripes has lent to me. It’s about “Learning to Manage Extreme and Overwhelming Emotions” and every single one of those capitalisations is deserved. This was a bit of a nasty one, especially as we’re trying to negotiate the whole living together with the three of us and keeping things fair. Obviously with the whole JC situation, Gidget has let a few things slip but with them being banned from the club, things should settle down. Which means its’ time to address the stuff that hasn’t been being taken care of at home.

We almost instantly reverted to our normal: Gidget apologising and saying she would do better without being able to give anything concrete, whilst also appearing to not understand why it was an issue that she was letting Stripes carry the bulk of things. There was an outburst where she basically accused Stripes and I of holding a silent WhatsApp conversation slagging her off and how we hate her and think she’s lazy. It’s not things we haven’t heard before but it’s disappointing that we’re back to that, even though she knows that we’re not having secret conversations about her, don’t hate her, don’t wish she wasn’t here, etc.

Which brings me back to the Mantra stuff because it suggests writing letters from different perspectives so that you can put yourself in someone else’s shoes. But isn’t part of the problem that we keep putting ourselves in her shoes, often to our detriment because we try to be understanding and supportive. There’s only so much empathy you can have for someone before you have to set a boundary to protect yourself isn’t there? But how do you do that when you know someone you care about is struggling? I keep saying to Stripes that we need to make sure we’re not setting ourselves on fire in order to keep someone else warm, but it’s so difficult finding the right cut-off point. And often, we are not in the same place at the same time so, for example, me setting a boundary to protect myself might mean that Stripes is then in a position of more harm because she is having to handle the ‘slack’ left by my withdrawal and vice versa.

Eating-wise, this last week I have been struggling with eating even when I’m not hungry. I can’t figure out what I want to eat so am just having hot-dogs with onions each day, followed by Jaffa cakes, a bag of crisps, a couple of cherry bakewells and strawberries. That doesn’t sound so bad, but I also sometimes have chocolate buttons and it feels like I’m having a lot of chocolate, and I’m eating just because it’s in front of me. The issue is I hate continuously asking Stripes to interrupt her evening to get me things so its’ easier if I get it all at once, but then I end up eating it.

My sleep patterns are shit – last night I didn’t go to bed at all, and finally crashed around 11.30 am this morning. I set an alarm for 2 pm so that hopefully I’ll get tired at a normal time and actually get a night’s sleep. And I know that not sleeping doesn’t help with the weight loss aspect of things, so its’ all a bit circular. Even vaping isn’t helping with the sleeping although that might be the strain that I’m vaping at that time of night that I need to look into.

I have a telephone appointment scheduled with Violet for 19th August and I would really love to finally shift into new numbers before that appointment happens. Which is a mini goal of losing about 2 kgs in the next four weeks. That should be more than doable but I must admit, I feel doubtful that I can reach that target. Which means that the ever-present sword of weight loss surgery rears its’ head again. Violet is very good at chasing them up which means I might well hear back from them by the end of August and a decision needs to be made.

And I’m not ready to make the decision. I still want to see if I can do this using Ozempic or other semaglutides and avoid surgery altogether. But I need to be realistic. I don’t know if I need to titrate up again to a higher dose but just the idea makes me feel scared. Not necessarily about the weight loss but about the potential side effects.

I did have a NSV. I bought a new dressing gown in a size 28/30. Normally, I pick the biggest size a store does. In men’s dressing gowns I’ve been wearing an 8XL and its’ roomy (but also old and a little smelly) so I looked for a new one. I opted for the 28/30 as the 32/34 was out of stock. It fits but its’ not roomy and feels constrictive. I don’t know if the restriction is because its too small for me or I’m just not used to wearing things that fit. I also bought some ‘satin-like’ pyjamas and ended up changing out of them because I just couldn’t relax. They fit – I got them on, could sit down and everything, but I was just so aware of them and worried that I would rip them or something that I ended up changing into something cotton, stretchy and a size larger.

I might try to do some of the Mantra exercises – writing letters detailing an emotionally traumatic event and how me and the girls handled it from each of their perspectives. I just feel like that’s going to be incredible emotional in and of itself and am too fragile emotionally to do that today. My brain just won’t let me – I need a reset. Mantra talked about methods of self-soothing so I think I’m going to try to figure out what soothes me when I’m feeling overwhelmed (soothing in a healthy way, like reading, writing, playing games).

Heading into the last week and a half of July and feeling more than a little defeated. I really need to sharpen my focus on myself and what I want and need because otherwise why am I on this medication? It won’t work unless I work with it and I don’t feel that I have been able to do that over the last few weeks. I need to recommit to myself, maybe re-read some of my previous posts and get the fire back. Because at the moment I have the inclination, motivation and enthusiasm as a wet firework. And heading into the second half of the year, I want to be firing on as many cylinders as possible and giving myself the best chance of success.