Food Funerals and Lessons to be Learned

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ ?? |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

Ever heard the expression grasping defeat from the jaws of victory? It actually goes grabbing success from the jaws of defeat or something like that, but the other way is more appropriate for me. I was reading on Reddit about people going for surgery, and someone asked the question about food funerals – a farewell to food before beginning the pre-op diet, having your favourites one last time.

I thought I’d learned my lesson about ‘last chance’ meals over the years. It pretty much always leads to binging behaviour, where I feel the need to have everything that I love to eat because I’m never going to have it again. Invariably, I put on a few kilos with these food funerals. And I’ve basically spent the last week doing exactly the same thing. McDonald’s, popcorn, shortbread, cheese and crackers – so much stuff that I simply haven’t been fussed about for ages suddenly became all that I could think of.

I even went to great lengths to practically guarantee myself an upset stomach by having a McDonald’s milkshake plus a McFluffy plus a McRib - I’m wincing just writing that down. Not because these foods are bad per se, but because for so long (most of this year in fact) I’ve incorporated ‘treats’ without making a big deal of them. Some of them have led to stomach upset, some of them have lost their ‘taste’ to me. But the self-sabotage button is being smashed with a vengeance and suddenly I have what seems to be zero self-control, eating beyond comfort level, eating without conscious thought – just reverting to all of the bad behaviour from before ozempic and trulicity.

Why? I don’t know – because I’m repressing my fears about the surgery? Because I want to pretend to be ‘normal’ for just a bit longer before I have to live on shakes for four weeks? The scales are still moving downwards – I have seen the 160s several times over the last week. I know once I do the pre-op diet that I should manage to lose the 8.5 kgs that they have asked of me. My head is just such a messed up place and sometimes I worry that even if I survive the surgery, I’ll still manage to fuck myself over.

The girls have been really good about not offering me things since I asked them not to around Easter time, but they also accept that I make the decisions about what I eat, bear the consequences and as such they don’t ‘police’ my food. I feel like shit because that means I’m putting both of them into the position of watching me sabotage myself, like I’m not worth the effort to keep up the good work that I’ve done to lose nearly 85 lbs in just under a year. I want to say that I’ll do better, that I won’t put them in this position again, and to a certain extent I won’t have the opportunity to – I begin the pre-op diet of shakes on Thursday morning so there should be no more asking for take-out or sweets. But what about after the surgery?

We have a booklet provided by the Bariatric service that lists what you can and can’t eat, and refer to it as the bible because we keep checking things when questions arise. Based on what I’ve read, I do the four week pre-op diet, then again liquids for two to three weeks afterwards. Then I move to pureed and soft foods for a few weeks before slowly reintroducing solid food after that. That doesn’t leave a lot of wriggle room for me to panic about the future I’m facing.

It’s scary to think that I could lose 15 kgs in a couple of months when it’s taken me nearly a year to lose three times that amount, but judging by the posts I’ve read on Reddit, that may well happen. Mentally, that’s a lot. I know I’m a hermit, but I do go out occasionally and once I’ve started losing the weight I know I have to go to appointments for vitamin injections, weigh-ins, etc. So I’m going to have to go out in public more often when I’m probably feeling more vulnerable than I have in a very long time.

I want to look forward to this stuff with enthusiasm and anticipation, but instead they just create feelings of anxiety inside me that I am struggling with. I don’t want to mess this up – I want to lose this weight and see what my life looks like when I can get in and out of cars easily; use a scooter without nasty looks from people because they think the only reason I use it is because I’m too fat to walk; to wear clothes that are pretty and not just because they fit; to not be afraid of going to doctor because I’m anticipating them making everything about my weight.

The other thing on my mind is the girls. I know this is all heavy stuff and it’s weighing on them too, but they don’t seem to be talking about it. I’m worried that I’m just being egotistical and expecting them to be talking about me and what might happen, etc but I don’t think it’s that – I think I’m just really concerned that they’re bottling things up because they don’t want to worry me or each other. It just feels so wrong – like I’ve made an appointment that could literally kill me and we’re all just acting completely and utterly normal about it. Going about our days, writing, shopping, visiting family, working with this timebomb in the backs of our minds.

It’s nearly 8 am and I think really need to see if I can get some sleep. Thursday the pre-op diet starts whether I feel ready for it or not and I want to face it on a good night’s sleep. All I can do is what the ‘bible’ tells me to do – four shakes per day plus 2 litres of water. That’s it – no other thought required – what could be simpler than that? Excuse me while I die of hysterical laughter!

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!

Sabotage of the Self Variety

SW ⟫ CW ⟫ GW

207.7 ⟫ 187.9 ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic ⟫ 0.5 mg

And into territory that I am well acquainted by – the land of self sabotage. I don’t know if it’s because of the way I took less for two weeks or what, but I haven’t been feeling the effects of the Ozempic anywhere near as strongly. Maybe it needs to build up in my system again or something? Whatever, but simply because I don’t have the galloping trots, the desire to throw up almost constantly or the feeling like there is a boulder sitting on my chest whenever I try to eat something, I haven’t been finding it as difficult to eat/overeat. The food noise is back and apparently, I have fallen right back into the hell that is constantly being hungry and thinking about food.

Not helped by me falling for the ridiculous marketing technique of “buy four for £10” that is Easter eggs from Asda. I don’t even have the excuse of people to buy eggs for – everyone is old enough to buy their own, so why the heck I threw four giant Easter eggs into the shopping basket, I really don’t know. Worse, I’ve already eaten one of them.

Stripes said something to me the other day that has been ricocheting around my empty head – about how I use food to punish myself. Whether it’s eating things that I know are going to make me feel sick, or upset my stomach – when I’m feeling down on myself or a little lost, I tend to eat my emotions and not always in a ‘chow down on everything’ mode. Rather, deciding to have chicken wings even though ever since I started Trulicity, chicken has made me throw up quite violently. Or chocolate, which even before the semaglutide was something that would make going to the bathroom a pretty awful experience.

I visited my Marmee on Sunday for perhaps the first time in six months. She’s been away on holiday and I wanted to take round her Mother’s Day present personally. I wore the bright pink dress I ordered from Simply Be, as well as the shining new white trainers; Stripes did my eyebrows and I felt GOOD - well, as long as I didn’t look at any pictures or mirrors. My Marmee is blunt – if she tells you that you look good, then she’s not bullshitting. Obviously that has another side to it – if she thinks you need to hear the ugly truth about something, she’ll tell you.

She was so happy to see both me and Stripes (and Grim turned up once she’d awoken), so she was pretty much dancing in her seat at having all of us visit her. And she called me to tell me to keep up the good work and that I looked good. I was practically wagging my tail in joy. It is one of the weirdness things of weight loss whereby you want people to notice that you’ve lost weight, compliment you on it, and yet you don’t want people to say anything because – well, it’s about your weight and that is a lava-hot topic for most people.

But then my head got involved and I found myself thinking. What if my Marmee is only saying I look good/like I’ve lost weight because I’ve told her that I’ve been losing weight? And what did she think of how I looked before? And – well, generally imagine a gigantic pot-hole in the middle of the street you’re walking down with neon lights telling you that it’s there and you need to avoid it and thinking, hmm, I wonder what’s down there before jumping in with both feet and then bemoaning the fact that you appear to have fallen? So yeah, my head is still not a healthy place and I find myself doubting everything. Add to which, the scales are not moving (not up or down) and you can imagine what’s been going on in my head. What if it’s stopped working? What if I need the side effects – the explosive bathroom visits, the vomiting, etc in order to lose weight?

Fortunately for me, the wool I ordered has arrived and instead of keeping my hands busy with food, I can crochet the blanket for the great-nibling that is due in October. And I think I need to do a bit more work on that Mantra stuff because my goodness, my head is just such a fucked up place.