Dietician appointment postponed and where I'm at

SW⟫ 207.7 | CW⟫ 156.3|

Transition to Normal Food⟫ Day 9

How to explain where I am at the moment?

Well, my dietician appointment was postponed as the dietician couldn’t get into the hospital due to snow. I can’t even pretend that I wasn’t pleased about it – I cheered once I’d got off the phone – because I simply wasn’t ready. I’m all in my head about the rate of weight loss, what I’m eating, comparing myself to other people. I know that I have lost nearly 20 lbs since the surgery, but all that I see posted on Reddit and other places is people losing upwards of 35 lbs in the first month after surgery and it makes me feel like a failure.

I’m still constantly sipping protein water (apart for the 30 minutes after each meal) and have found that mixing it with diet lemonade makes it go down a lot faster, as well as drinking more. I’ve done an Asda shop and ordered masses of sparkling water in the hope that it will encourage me to drink more and ordered myself a faux Stanley cup so that I can keep going with that.

I had a small amount of Stripe’s char sui (oh man, I have missed eating that) and it was absolutely gorgeous to eat. I wondered if I would struggle eating pork but it was fine. I’ve also had a protein rice pudding but I’m not sure I want to repeat that. I don’t know if it’s because it was rice but it felt like it got ‘stuck’ in my windpipe and was an uncomfortable experience. I still need to learn the cues that my body gives me that I am full because sometimes I wonder if I am pushing through when I should just stop?

I tried Skyr yoghurt as it is meant to be high in protein but I didn’t get on with it. I felt nauseous and got sweaty (ugh) so I think I’m going to stick with Onken and Fage. I’ve been doing okay in the poop department – no constipation and no diarrhoea either, which makes a nice change from how things were for most of 2024.

I was talking to Stripes about how sometimes I wish I hadn’t had the surgery because I felt like I had more control when I was doing Ozempic. I struggle to remind myself that it has only just been five weeks since I had the surgery so things are still all over the place. You constantly read about the weight falling off of people once they’ve had the surgery but I certainly don’t feel like that’s the case. Again, it makes me feel like a bit of a failure, like I’m over-eating. I would imagine most people would think that I must be doing something wrong otherwise I would be losing weight. I log all of my food in MyFitnessPal and there hasn’t been a day when I’ve gone over 800 calories, so I don’t understand why the scales feel like they are creeping upwards instead of going down.

I was hoping to talk to the dietician about that in the meeting on Monday 6th, but it being postponed until 20th means that I still feel like I’m flying blind. I might email them and ask if I’m okay to start exercising – I want to begin using my resistance bands. I was going to wait until six weeks had passed but maybe they’ll say that I can start using them now if I feel up to it? I know a lot of people go back to work following the surgery in less than a fortnight, so surely the resistance bands is the equivalent of that? I don’t know how those people do it though – there is no way in hell I would have been able to work so quickly after having the op.

I was chatting to Jay and she asked me if I had been out since the surgery and I had to admit that, no, I hadn’t. She asked me how often I used to go out before the surgery and I said that I went to medical appointments or to get tattoos but otherwise I hated going out. I hate being the wheelchair and feeling like people are either staring at me or find me invisible. I also hated how it felt having Stripes pushing me around – the optics of this slender young woman having to push around her super morbidly obese mother just makes me feel sick.

Jay told me that I need to ignore other people and need to start living again. I know she’s right, that I was in essence hibernating at home and avoiding life. But it’s difficult, not least because of the expense of Ubers and going out. She’s challenged me to go to a cafe and I asked if the one at the hospital counted! She said yes but of course that was before the appointment was postponed.

I think the idea of getting a motability car is solidifying in my mind. Book_grim’s Uber dropped her off at the top of the road the other night when she came back from work because of the concerns about ice at the bottom of our hill. I know if it’s been snowing I probably wouldn’t want to go out and risk driving in those conditions, but it would be nice to have the option to jump in our own car to go places. I can’t do it until April because my PIP needs to be for at least a year before I can get a motability car and I need time to save for the potential advance payment. We’ve looked at both Jeep Avengers and MG HS electric cars because the advance payment is between £499 and £999 and they seem to be the best match for what we want to use it for. Apparently you can have a charger installed at your house as part of the arrangement, and if that isn’t possible then you get contributions or a card that will pay for you to charge at various places, so that could work out well.

I’ve gone down with yet another cold, although I’m a little concerned that this one might be flu. I feel weak, shaky and have a constant headache, and whatever this is seems to be hitting me harder than it has Book_grim. I do wonder if I’m catching all of these germs when she comes home from work, which she can’t help since she works in a customer-facing role, but it can be frustrating to constantly be going down with things.

I want to go out – I think. I want a chance to wear the hoodie the girls bought me for Christmas. I asked for a Calvin and Hobbes hoodie in a size 4x and when I tried it on at Christmas it was almost dress length. I want to be able to wear it out of the house, along with the giant chocolate puffer coat that I bought. I guess I want to show my gifts off but at the same time, I want to stay safe and warm in my little hidie hole. I don’t know – my head is a messed up place.

I have been watching 1000 lb Sisters and struggling with feeling like I’m acting like Tammy. It’s the earlier seasons so she is constantly saying that she will lose the weight she needs to in order to get the weight loss surgery, all the time fighting against the things she needs to do to get to that stage. I’ve made it past the surgery bit but worry that I am messing up in order ways. Stripes thinks that that is the voice of my mother in my head, telling me that I’m going to fail. Perhaps I need to do a bit more of the Mantra work to see if I can learn to be more compassionate with myself? I definitely need to get back into the therapy habit and will speak to my therapist as soon as possible.

I crashed out around 10.30 pm last night and woke up at around 4.30 am which is why I’m awake so early. I think I’m going to take my gabapentin and paracetamol and see if I can get back to work. There doesn’t seem to be more snow which is good as Book_grim has work this evening. Hopefully that means I can not worry about her (the other night I ended up staying awake until after 5 am as I wanted to make sure she got home safely) and actually get as much sleep as my body seems to need.

Pre Op Diet Day 7

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 166 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg | Pre-op Diet:⟫ Day 7

I am over 50% of the way to the medical goal set for me. In the last week following the pre-op diet, I have lost 4.6 kgs. I’m trying to let that sink in.

The US Election results are disappointing and I feel for the friends I have that live over there. I cannot imagine what is going through their minds, how they are going to move forward – it’s all just a bit terrifying.

Last night I tried a SlimFast shake as my final ‘meal’. It was Raspberry and White Chocolate tasted very creamy, smelled a little like a MacDonald’s strawberry shake and seemed okay. However, from the time I drank it, my body and butt has been ‘bubbling’ – it’s the only way to describe it. I feel constantly on edge wondering if I’m about to have an incident which isn’t relaxing in the slightest.

In other news, my new blender and jimjams arrived. I’m a little wary of the pyjamas because they are a size 5xl. The shorts I am currently wearing are a 6xl and are sliding off me but they are old so are worn, the elastic is looser, etc so the new ones might not fit me at all. I’m panicking slightly as the replacement jimjams for hospital are also in a 5xl and I am worried they will be too tight. Stripes said if that turns out to be the case, I can just use the stuff that does fit me in hospital and shrink down into the new stuff, which makes sense and is something I should have thought of but I was too busy running around like a chicken with its’ head cut off.

The blender I went for in the end is the Nutribullet Portable which can be charged using a USB-C charger. It means that I can make shakes in my room which gives me choices when I wake up early, etc and I got it from Very so that I could do buy now, pay it back over 6 months. I wish I knew what the decision was about my PIP because it’s practically impossible to budget for anything at the moment. Surely they would have told me by now if they were turning it down? My next payment is due on Tuesday so less than a week to inform me, yet somehow it wouldn’t surprise me if it was cancelled and I have to scramble for money.

I’m really concerned about both girls at the moment. I know Gidget is struggling with the whole issue of surgery. She wants the best for me, but is also scared and angry that I am going through with it. I understand the anger – it must feel like I am choosing to do something potentially fatal when there are other ways for me to lose the weight. She understands that although the Ozempic has been working for me so far this year, there is no guarantee about access to the drug with shortages arising with little to no warning, and the weight loss was definitely slowing down. As for following a VLCD, I find them really difficult in the long term, so even though there is a part of me that has thought if I’d been doing meal replacements from the time I began Ozempic, I might have lost a heck of a lot more weight, the reality is that I might have given up a lot sooner as well.

Stripes just holds it all inside – she’s an absolute rock for everyone else, but I know she’s not sleeping well and it’s all in there. I wish there was someone she could trust to talk to, just to get it all out – not even to get any answers. We all know that until I actually have the operation, there’s no way of knowing how things are going to turn out, but it would do her so much good if she could just relieve some of the pressure.

I have no idea how Oldest is doing with things. We don’t talk that often – we communicate via WhatsApp and Instagram messages but rarely chat on the phone. I feel to blame for that a lot because I pushed too hard about Ozempic earlier in the year. To be fair, once we moved back to my home city and Oldest decided to remain with her Dad, there’s been a separation/divide. The issues we had with Gidget needing help from CAMHS, etc all added to Oldest’s decision to stay behind and you don’t go through the trenches with people without building a camaraderie that can’t be understood unless you’ve been in the middle of it all. I don’t even know how to begin bridging it and I guess part of me is worried that I’ve left it too late.

So that’s me – sat with a bubbly butt, down to my lowest weight in well over a decade and well on my way to reaching the medical goal set for surgery date. It’s just me and Stripes tonight, so I think a chilled evening of reading, watching London Kills and drinking the next three shakes before bedtime!

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!

UnFuck My Habitat and into September!

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 174.3 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

Officially end of the month and it looks like an overall loss of 2.10 kgs, which brings me to 33.3 kgs lost since I started. I know I should be pleased with that – the chart below (as long as it works) shows that I am consistently losing. I guess I just want to lose faster maybe?

Friday and Stripes asked me what I wanted to eat. I think I am either self-sabotaging or trying to punish myself/kick off my IBS because not only did I decide to have a MacDonalds meal, I had a strawberry milkshake and a Mcflurry. The stupidity of it blows my mind even now, but I just wanted them. And I know I’m going to suffer – me and lactose are not friends at the best of times, but a milkshake on top of a Mcflurry is just insanity – but I ate it all. Maybe I was hoping for a clear out? I find my brain so confusing – I kinda enjoyed the food and definitely noticed I was eating slower. It was the only food I ate that day (apart from the weed-required Doritos) so I don’t think I went over any calorific goals I might have had. But the damage of having to hit the bathroom – which I know is coming because I took my jab this morning – makes me wonder if I’m just a masochistic twat.

I want to try to unfuck my habitat. I found a subreddit where people encourage you to clean up your living area, post pictures and ideas. I’ve already ordered the sofa but have also ordered a shoe rack to go into the cat-room. The idea is that myself and Stripes can put our shoes away in there, clearing some way in our own rooms and making good use of the space. Gidget has her own shoe rack – we were going to repurpose hers because she said she wasn’t using most of it but then we had a look and she was way more shoes than she realised and is pretty much using the whole thing!

Over the weekend, I want to go through my wicker basket of underwear and pyjamas, get rid of anything ratty and/or old, and Marie Kondo what’s left so it’s easy to see what I have. It should also make it easier for putting away clothes when the washing is done. It shouldn’t be a huge task, and I’ve already decided I can put one of my fleece blankets on top of it to keep it clean/finish off the look.

I need to ask Stripes to take face photos tomorrow, marking the first of the month. I asked Lophy when she came to visit if she could see any difference in me. I guess I was hoping for an over-enthused hell yeah, but she was honest and said she could see it in my face. That’s good – it means it’s working. But I was disappointed. I was hoping someone who doesn’t see me that often would say they could see something more than just a change in my face. I guess that’s difficult because I wear the same clothes, am sitting in bed – how do you see a difference in someone if you can’t see most of them? I need to learn to manage my expectations and also look for what difference I can see – after all, I’m the only person with me 24/7 so I need to become comfortable within myself instead of looking for external validation. Hark at me sounding so mature and balanced!

September then.

⟫ Clean my bedroom, including the floor and under the bed;

⟫ new face photos;

⟫ Mantra work;

⟫ look into seated workouts on YouTube;

⟫ get this report to the police with Gidget;

⟫ start saving for Christmas;

⟫ declutter my clothes rail.

And work on my gratitude – there are so many people who don’t have Ozempic to help them, so many people struggling the way I was struggling and I feel like I’m being ungrateful for what I have achieved and the fact that I can keep going. I have the side effects mainly under control – very little in the way of constipation throughout August – I just need to keep seeing the bigger picture and remind myself once again that’s it a marathon not a sprint.

There’s a reason why I keep writing ‘1 kilo at a time’.

End of the month, heading towards one year...

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 174.8 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

Coming up the end of the month and once again I am feeling a little lost. I don’t know if it’s because I’m coming up to a year being on this ‘plan’. It’s all a bit hazy when I truly started because I was on Trulicity, then off of it just trying to lose weight, then getting serious on it. 25th September is the first weight logged on my spreadsheet, so I guess that’s my anniversary? Either way, I have less than a month left before my year has come up and I feel like I should be achieving big things but that I’m not.

I started at 207.7 kgs and the scales this morning said 174.8 kgs so I should be pleased, right? But instead, I’m just feeling stalled. It’s not a proper stall because I think that has to be ongoing for a month with no movement, but I want to see new numbers. I need to see new numbers because otherwise why am I jabbing myself every flipping week?

I actually had a good week. It was Stripes’ birthday and the three of us went to get tattoos at Painted Fern. As her present, I paid for Stripes to have a tattoo of a amigurumi she made of an armadillo and it looks freaking gorgeous on her upper thigh. Or it will do once the ink sack has been cleaned off and the swelling goes down!

I got a geometric fox from Laura and Gidget got a kuromi keyring from Tanya. We had a blast, but it was the first time I’ve been out in over a month and since COVID so it’s hitting me kinda hard. I’m also a little bit concerned about the tattoo – me and white ink don’t have the best relationship in the world and some of the white in the fox looks a bit ‘off’. I just don’t think my skin likes white ink and is protesting. It’s an absolutely gorgeous fox and I can’t wait for it to be healed, but at the moment it’s painful, swollen and itchy af!

Then we watched TV, had take-out and watched Stripes open her gifts. Since then, I’ve literally done nothing but sleep and read. It’s my writing day and I haven’t done anything but blog posts and a review. I need to read three books at the moment and the deadlines are in September which sounds great but that’s next week!

Finally ordered a sofa and it’s due by Monday. It’s green in fake velvet and is kinda basic but we don’t need anything special. Especially since it’s going to be covered by the blankets and spreads I have, cat fur and probably scratched to shit! I really want to do some proper work on my bedroom, get rid of the clutter, find a home for things and throw out the things that I don’t use. So maybe that’s something to aim for next week.

Gidget is going to put together a time-line of her relationship with JC and we’re going to contact the police. At the moment, he is banned from where she works but that hasn’t been tested yet and we don’t know if/how he’s going to react to that. Just in case he escalates, we want to know what we can do about the situation and also ensure that there is a document trail if we need to go to the police for more assistance. I’m bricking it – I’m never done anything like this. I want to be there to support Gidget but I don’t want to steer her wrong, or make her life harder.

In the meantime, I just need to trust the process. Or processes. I weigh less now than I did at the beginning of August so that has to count as a win. And the fact that I can’t see it is most likely my own head-fucked attitude. Yes, I have Mantra stuff I could work on when I have the energy but isn’t that the bitch? I don’t have any energy at the moment. No energy, no sense of achievement, no creativity – yeah, time to log off and read. I’m not achieving anything sitting here moaning and complaining!

Endo Appt and Head Thoughts

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 173.3 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

Today was my endocrinology appointment (telephone call) and it was short and sweet. Violet doesn’t have my latest A1C results and was less than impressed that I don’t have a date for surgery. As expected, she’s going to do some chasing with the coordinators to find out why I haven’t heard anything, was very pleased with my weight loss and admitted that there was very little she could actually do for me that I wasn’t already achieving alone.

It was kinda bittersweet to be honest. As I’ve said before, this is quite a lonely journey and having someone call on me regularly to check in means a lot – more than I perhaps realised. Again, I’m in a bit of a limbo land with regards to the surgery but to be fair, I don’t think I’m in the right position to know what I want to do about it. The current lot of weight loss is most likely to do with COVID – I haven’t been interested in eating or drinking anything which is obviously going to have an effect on the scales. I’m more than a little afraid of what happens when my ‘normal’ Ozempic appetite returns – will I see the scales bounce back up?

I don’t think that I truly appreciate the weight loss that I have achieved – 75 lbs is pretty darn impressive. I sometimes feel like I don’t celebrate enough when I reach these milestones? Like, my first thought upon realising that I had lost 75 lbs was that 100 lbs still feels a long way away. I didn’t even give myself a second to be like, yeah whoo, it was almost immediately how far away the next mini goal was and how long it had taken me to get to where I am. In some ways, that’s good – to be conscious that I still have a ways to go, that I need to keep doing what I’m doing. But on the other hand, am I going to get burnt out if I don’t at least acknowledge when I’ve done something good? It’s a marathon not a sprint – the scales are going to go up sometimes instead of going down, life is going to throw things in my way. Perhaps I should try to celebrate a little more instead of just head down, on to the next. What do other people do? Do they lose focus if they celebrate? Maybe that’s my internal fear – that if I ever stop to actually consider what’s happening, I’ll lose focus, chicken out, lose the plot! I don’t know!

I was having a WhatsApp conversation with Sandy and admitted something that has been preying on my mind. I wanted to visit when she came down (COVID made that impossible) but I also have to admit that there was a part of me that didn’t want to see her. I can’t remember how much I weighed the last time we saw each other, but there was a part of me that felt Marmee had built up my weight loss so much that – what if when Sandy saw me, she couldn’t see any difference because of how big when I saw her last time? But what happens if she did notice and celebrated my achievements? Would that set me off-kilter? I know in the past that when people have complimented me on my loss, I have lost focus – became almost complacent because people said I looked better that I forgot about the destination I ultimately have in mind. I don’t want that to happen. I want to be seen but I want to be invisible; I want people to notice but I don’t want them to realise that I have lost weight; I want to be celebrated but I don’t want people to celebrate there being less of me. I don’t know – I’ve read a few things on Reddit and the like where people are struggling with similar things. Like, what did people think they looked like before if they are so impressed with the loss? Why does losing weight mean that people treat you better? Why does it feel like you’re carrying the weight of all of these expectations when you tell people you’re trying to lose weight?

I know sometimes Marmee has said stuff – like being a little disappointed when I say how much I have lost in a period of time. She doesn’t mean to be negative but there is an expectation that if you’re using things like Ozempic the weight is going to fly off, which means hearing that someone has lost a couple of pounds doesn’t seem good enough? Not that I’m not good enough (that’s a whole different post), but that somehow my results that week aren’t good enough, that they should be better because otherwise why am I using Ozempic? It makes it harder because I have to manage my own expectations. I think my loss averages out at around 8 – 9 lbs per month which is GOOD. Would I like it to be more? Well of course I would. But I also know that that’s not sustainable – it took years to put this weight on so it’s not just gonna fall off, no matter how much I would want it to.

Maybe it’s time to see if I have any photos of me from a year ago and do a comparison. Wow, just the thought of that sent a cold shiver down my spine – maybe I’m not mentally ready to try that just yet!

75lbs Lost!

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 173.5 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

I don’t have a goal weight in mind – mainly because it’s been a very long time since I thought I could lose such a substantial amount of weight. One of the things they taught us in the weight management group that I was in was that we might never get to a ‘normal’ BMI and that the aim was to get to a weight that was healthy and we could maintain, stop all of the yo-yoing which is hard on the system.

Whenever I’ve plugged my height and weight into a tracker, generally speaking the ‘goal’ weight it suggests is around 75kgs. I don’t think that would be a good weight for me – I think that would be too low, that I would look gaunt maybe? But obviously, there’s a certain amount of fear seeing a number like that – part of which is how long it would take me to get there, how difficult it would be, etc.

Taking Ozempic has made me realise that I might need to decide on a weight that I want to stay at. And yesterday was the first time it actually occurred to me that I had less than 100 kgs to lose to get there. I know to most people, that would still be a horrendous number – to be honest, to me it feels like a horrendous number. But that shouldn’t take away from the achievement. I’ve lost over 75 lbs. This isn’t the first time I’ve managed that, but it definitely is the first time I’ve done it whilst eating normal food. Before this, it’s always been doing a VLCD and hasn’t been sustainable. Falling off the shakes wagon meant starting from scratch and dreading getting into ketosis, handling the headaches, the cravings for food. This is the first time I’ve lost that amount of weight whilst still being able to eat most foods. That’s momentous – that’s something that I would never have achieved without Ozempic.

I have also been thinking about my internal dialogue and I realised that I had assigned the current weight loss to me having COVID – not being able to taste food or enjoy eating at all. However, the last time I had COVID last year, I didn’t lose any weight at all. That should mean that my brain allows me to accept this as a bit of a win, right? Nope – once again, the internal voice is saying that not eating because of Ozempic/COVID is not a win, is not me working with what’s going on, is nothing to do with me – circumstances are making the weight loss possible, not my choices. I’m not sure why I can see that this voice is chatting shit and makes no sense, and yet allow it to affect how I feel about myself.

Maybe when I have some free brain cells and some energy, I can grab those Mantra worksheets and see if something in them will help me figure this all out.

punishing myself with cheesecake

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 176.7 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

I’m not doing so great. The entire situation with JC has made me feel so incredibly useless and I can’t seem to shake it. Everything crossed, they have moved on – they have blocked Gidget on all social media and hopefully that brings an end to the whole thing.

But I can’t seem to let go of the fact that I felt so utterly useless. Even if I had tried to ride to the rescue in an uber, what was I going to do? Pass out in front of them? It’s not like I could actually defend Gidget if it was necessary. And I feel like I have failed her – like I should have seen the red flags, cautioned her, done something other than invite them into my home and make them welcome.

Logically speaking, I know it doesn’t work like that. People who turn abusive don’t wear a badge saying that’s what they’re like. But it’s very much like when I fell over and realised that if I hadn’t lost the weight that I have, I don’t think we would have been able to pick me up off the floor. Once again, I am feeling the walls closing in on me whilst at the same time offering me the safety of the familiar. Familiar and yet still potentially dangerous – hence the falling over. Maybe that’s what it’s all about – that I don’t feel safe.

A fall could happen at any time; I have twisted ankles and knees simply getting off of the bed. I could very easily spiral down a deep, dark road thinking about how small my life is, how little that I do. It’s affecting my daily mood and making me feel so down and miserable. Which is where the food comes in.

I know that I have a tendency to eat my feelings but Ozempic is making that very difficult. I asked for cheesecake when the girls went out earlier, and they got a gorgeous lemon curd type cheesecake. And it was lovely – really fresh tasting and satisfying. But it didn’t do a damned thing to fill this ruddy great hole that I feel inside that is just so full of self-disgust, disappointment and sadness.

I’ve been up all night creating banners and icons for the various blogs simply because I didn’t want to face sleep because I am afraid of nightmares. Nightmares of what could have happened if JC hadn’t moved on; if the argument between JC and Gidget hadn’t happened and she fell further under their control/web; nightmares about all of the awful things that could happen whilst Gidget is out of the house, working or making her way home.

I know its’ illogical – I know I can’t wrap the girls in cotton wool or bubble wrap to keep them safe, but sometimes I really want to. I don’t know if this is a symptom of losing weight – I know that I used my fat to hide behind, to become invisible. And losing weight means that potentially I become seen by people, possibly in ways that I’m just not ready for. Some of this is because I did my hair on Sunday (I think it was Sunday) – shortish braids that curl around my head and make me look like a cross between medusa and a Justin Bieber comb-over. It doesn’t sound that attractive, but I sent Marmee a photo and she loved it – was so pleased that I was growing my hair. It takes me back a few years to when me and the girls were getting into make up and I would dye my hair funky colours like lilac and blue. I think I went out more then – Stripes and I would go to the shops, or the cinema. I wasn’t as house-bound then.

I sometimes felt so guilty for Stripes having to push my wheelchair around – I weighed nearly four times as much as she does and she would push me around shopping precincts, etc without a word of complaint. But I grew self-conscious of the stares we got; felt very aware of when people offered her assistance because it was obvious that it was a struggle to push me around. And I hated it – I hated how invisible I felt, how people talked over my head, how they looked to Stripes instead of me when asking questions. And yeah, looking back, that’s a large part of why I stopped going out. I hated the feeling that people were looking at me and judging just how fat I was and how awful it was that a slender young woman like Stripes was stuck pushing my wheelchair around. Conversely, as I say, I also felt invisible and I didn’t like how that felt either. It just confirmed all of those horrid inner thoughts that said I was a waste of oxygen and that I should just stay away from normal, active members of society like a disease or something.

Obviously, Ozempic and Trulicity have shown me that a large part of the problem I have had losing weight is because of something within my body chemistry. It’s shown me that it isn’t as simple as eat less and move more. But it’s so hard to let go of that thinking, regardless of how negative it is and the detrimental effect it has on my mental state.

The first thing that I need to do is get some sleep – that will have a positive effect on my mental state pretty much straight away. Then I need to dig in to the latest Mantra chapter that Stripes let me have. And I need to look forward to the things I have set up that should bring me some joy:

⟫ finishing off my koi tattoo at the end of the month;

⟫ getting my geometric fox tattoo at the end of August for Stripes’ birthday;

⟫ the whole day to myself because all three girls are meeting up in Camden for the day.

I’ve just signed up for some weekend challenges on 1 Million Words on Livejournal and the artist sign up for WIPBigBang are the 17th July. I have two writing projects on the go – one with Rowan, the Regency/Bridgerton spin off and the follow up to Bloody Bonds. And I have two ARCs to read that should be fun – I have already started one and its’ an author that I haven’t read before but I have enjoyed the bit I have read. It’s called The Accidental Necromancer by Liz Rancourt and I would like to have the review up by the weekend.

Maybe if I try to focus on the positives, I can stop punishing myself with food that’s going to cause me distress – like lemon curd cheesecake! God, I am such an idiot – such a self-sabotaging idiot. I wish I could turn my head off and just let things work for me! I just need to get out of my own way.

Just. Such a small word for something that too often feels impossible.

non scale victory and another fall

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 176.5 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

The weigh in is from yesterday but I’m not risking getting onto the scales as I fell over again this evening. I don’t even know how – I was leaning over the side of the bed, foot planted firmly on the floor and the next thing I’m on the ground. Not gonna lie, I’m a little concerned. And how daft is it that my first thought was that I didn’t want to talk to the Doctor about it in case they wanted to take me off of Ozempic for some reason. I guess that’s me admitting that I couldn’t keep doing this without Ozempic, but is that a dangerous attitude to have? I mean, I still have about 100 kgs to lose so it’s not like I don’t have time to learn better habits, etc. But at the moment, without Ozempic I wouldn’t be losing the weight.

Anyhow, I have another Non Scale Victory, although I didn’t feel like it was a victory at the time. Because of how big I am, all of my clothes are literally just bought in the biggest size available. I changed into some shorts and they fit weird. Like, the elastic didn’t have to stretch for me to put them on, they feel really baggy, and they are kinda hanging onto the shelf of my butt to stay on. Initially I thought I was imagining things, but I got out of bed to go to the bathroom and they almost slid off of me, so I guess I can’t hide from myself that they are getting ‘big’ on me. I need to not think about it too much in case I freak myself out.

One of the most sobering things about falling over is how it has made me realise just how far I still have to go. I hate to think if I would have been able to get up off the floor if I hadn’t lost this weight – as it was, just getting onto my knees was excruciating, and I feel like I’ve gone 10 rounds with a heavyweight boxer. 70 lbs has made a huge difference – I know it has, even if I can only rarely see it. But just picturing falling over at my biggest makes me shiver in fear – we would have probably had to call an ambulance or something and that is a sobering thought.

Things seem to be going okay for Gidget at work (apart from some nail casualties and the joy of working in customer service), with the JC thing seeming to have calmed down. She has found out more about how people found out what was going on and it seems like JC went full on nuclear, deliberately screen-shotting the parts of their chat that made her look the guiltiest and then posting it on their stories and sending it to particular people. It just seems so needlessly mean and unnecessary. It made me feel angry all over again, but hopefully things will calm down now. All that remains is to get her stuff from them and it looks like she might have to chase that up. Argh, it all just seems like game-playing and messing with her.

Stripes has had a couple of appointments this week that are stressful, but hopefully after today, she can relax a bit. I know I freaked her out/scared her falling off the bed, and I hate the stress it puts on her. If it carries on, I will go to the doctor just to rule out anything awful.

And I still haven’t looked at the Mantra stuff. To be fair, I have been covered in tubigrips and arnica spray, so hardly in the right frame of mind to be doing the head stuff. I will get to it. I have an ARC that I need to read and review by next week, but apart from that I don’t have much of an excuse. I haven’t been to bed yet but my muse is kinda teasing me with a story so I might try to get that out and then hit the hay.

the self-sabotage is strong in this one

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 178.9 | MGW ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

The self sabotage is strong in this one.

Last night instead of going to sleep, I decided to listen to the inner voice that told me I could just grab a packet of crisps from the pantry. I even knew I was bullshitting myself because I didn’t take my phone with me, which was absolutely stupid because if I’d fallen or something no-one would have heard me or been able to help.

Once I was in the pantry, I grabbed: a packet of crisps, some mini biscuits and the half empty packet of nuts. Nuts and I have a chequered past. I love them – like obsessively – but they rip up my insides, and on their way out, tend to do a lot of damage. So this complete and utter idiot proceeds to eat all of the leftover nuts. Like, my mouth was feeling arid because of the salt, I was feeling sick whilst doing it, my teeth were hurting with little bits of nut getting stuck, yet I kept going until I’d eaten them all.

Why? I had a good day eating-wise. To be fair, even after all of those snacks I didn’t have a bad eating day. But what I chose to eat, when I chose to eat it and why are the ‘bad’ things. I don’t know if I was trying to precipitate a crisis, make myself sick, bring on the side effects, I just don’t know.

I’ve woken up on Sunday, the last day in June, knowing that I ended the month on a gain (about 0.3 kgs) – who the hell knows what I could have seen if it wasn’t for my middle of the night mini-binge. It literally feels like I needed to drag myself into July feeling crap about myself.

After unloading on Stripes (I don’t know how she puts up with me sometimes), I asked for the last set of Mantra paperwork she had so that I can try to unravel why I did what I did. I’m going to update all of my writing numbers at 1 million words, then settle down and try to do a little bit of the Mantra work. I also want to get some reading done. I believe the Jaycey is coming back from work with Gidget later (she has a long shift at the club/pub where she works but should be home around 11 pm unless they stay for drinks. Stripes has stuff she wants to get done.

I did a good thing – Munch had a huge clump of matted fur around her neck and I managed to work through it so we didn’t have to cut it out. It has left a bit of a bald patch and we need to keep an eye on it, but I feel good that we caught it and were able to get rid of it for her without too much suffering/anguish. She didn’t exactly thank us for it – I have some micro scratches over my arms and hands – but we did get a tail floof of thanks before she ran away to hide from the evil humans that massacred her beautiful fur.

So, yeah, not the best start to the day and time for some self-reflection.

tattoo cover up and writing day

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 178.2 | MGW ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic: ⟫ 0.5 mg

I got my first tattoo when I was 42 and was completely and utterly unaware of how it worked. I drew a rough version of what I wanted but what I didn’t realise was that the artist was going to tattoo exactly what I had drawn. It looked amateurish (because it was) and if it wasn’t for the sentimental significance of it, I would have bawled. Over the years, I have spoken to various tattoo artists about having a cover-up – I’m more confident now about what I do and don’t want, what to expect, etc – but most of them said that it was too dark and they wouldn’t be able to do anything.

A couple of years ago, we went to a tattoo studio called Inky Needles to get matching ghosts for me, Stripes and Gidget and met Alex. I showed Alex my tattoo because I fell in love with a koi drawing that she had. We stopped going to Inky Needles (distance, lack of comfort, etc) but continued to follow Alex on instagram. She moved to Painted Fern which was nearer and more accessible and we booked in for tattoos. I didn’t make it to that appointment due to IBS/leurgies but Alex remembered about the cover up and talked to Stripes about it.

So I booked in and paid for the full two sessions she thought it would take and yesterday I went in for the first session. I cannot believe what she managed to do in three hours. I know what’s under the koi but I still struggle to see it! We didn’t get to the colour – I had to tap out – but I am booked in for a fortnight to get the colour added. So, here’s a picture of my cover up which I am utterly in love with!

Stripes is off to the cinema later so it’s just me, the cats and writing/reading. Not sure what’s going on with the eating thing. I didn’t eat while we were at the tattoo studio because I never know if there’s going to be an immediate reaction to food, but once we got home, Stripes made me hot dogs with masses of onions, followed by cheesecake and strawberries. I also had a couple of slices of bread with butter and some crisps. It’s got to the stage where I can’t tell if that’s good or not in terms of eating. I have been feeling a lot of nausea lately – possibly from eating in one concentrated sitting instead of spreading it throughout the day – but the scales are inching downwards so I think I’m going to take this as a win.

Today is all about relaxing because from tomorrow, Gidget is back and everything changes! *gulp*

It's Too Soon to Catastrophise....

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 179.2 | MGW ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic: ⟫ 0.5 mg

As you may have already realised, my brain is not a good place to be generally speaking. I can catastrophize even the best situation and a lot of the time, I can’t see the wood for the trees. Well now I have something new to catastrophize and berate myself about.

Yesterday, Stripes passed out whilst at Asda and spent a few hours up at A&E. The good part? A full check up which shows nothing to be concerned about, which should be reassuring. Should be reassuring because my head went to so many places whilst she was out. Brain damage, the intermittent fainting thing that I do, what would happen if --- who the hell knows what if my brain is grasping at; the fact that I couldn’t be up there with her, regardless of the fact that the A&E didn’t allow relatives/family to be there because of space issues; feeling helpless; feeling like it’s my fault that she’s not well/struggling because she prioritises me over herself. All of that lovely stuff.

Yesterday was not a good eating day. I had granola for breakfast – huge amounts of granola with oat milk. The plan for dinner was something small but obviously things went tits up. I had a packet of Jaffa cakes, crisps, followed by takeaway cheeseburger, fries and a ferrerro rocher cheesecake. Just seeing all of that written out makes me flush with shame. It doesn’t matter that I have excuses – being stressed shouldn’t mean that I simply abandon all of my attempts to get my weight loss journey back on track. I’m ashamed of myself for so many reasons that it’s nearly impossible to de-tangle.

I spoke to my Marmee this morning, just to vent and it helped. But then I feel bad because she’s getting up there in age and me adding the stress that is my problems to her is not good. I feel like I’m backed into a corner and the space is getting smaller and smaller.

In good news, Gidget got her assignments handed in. I know that they were past the deadline which caps it at 40% but that is still a pass. In the meantime, she has said she wants to think about whether university is the place for her. Biggest issue is that she doesn’t know what else she might want to do that, hence floating along with the course. Which I can completely understand but the stress of her getting her work in on time is kinda huge. We talked about her not being in Halls of residence next year to avoid the end of year rush – appropriate supervision/overseeing to make sure she has all of her appointments, medication, etc. But that only works whilst she’s prepared to work with us and I’m not sure she’s there just yet.

It’s the first time I’ve been in the kitchen in quite some time and I think the summer declutter should start in there. Just grab bin bags and start getting rid of shit. If it hasn’t been used in the past year, out it goes. Not cooking stuff, obviously, but everything else. We could grab the chair from the cat room and I could sit and help, maybe washing dishes etc, but use this as a chance for the three of us to work on something together. I was also looking into getting a professional company in to do a deep clean for us so that we’re starting from a good place for the summer, but I’m not even sure how to go about getting someone in for that. I need to talk to Stripes.

I’m feeling bloated, tired, grateful that Stripes is alright but with lingering terror – not the best way to go into the weekend! And it’s jab night – brilliant! Let’s just not mention that the scales have gone up again – I think one more thing and I might just implode.

i wish my brain would be quiet.....

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 178.5 | MGW ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic: ⟫ 0.5 mg

I am slowly losing my sanity. Gidget has been radio silence since Sunday, so I have no idea whether or not they handed in all of their assignments on time. I’ve tried calling a few times but had no answer – I know they’re still alive as they were active on both Instagram and WhatsApp at different times – I guess they’re just avoiding me. I’m not sure if it’s because we’ve scheduled a family chat for Wednesday regarding the summer, if it’s because the assignments weren’t handed in and she doesn’t want to tell me, or because she’s all ‘peopled’ out after putting in the work.

It’s frustrating on many levels, not least because the last full conversation we had in person, both Stripes and I both made sure to let her know that what she does affects ALL of us, and that communication goes a long way to alleviating stress on both sides. But yet, once again, she’s chosen not to be in touch. The last time it happened, I was knackered as fuck after another sleepless night and she apologised, but then she went straight back to doing it again. I want to ignore the whole situation – put it to the back of my mind – but I am struggling so much.

Stripes offered to call – just in case Gidget would pick up a call from her – but I said no. One, because it’s not fair to put Stripes in the middle, and two because it fucking hurts when Gidget will answer a call from Stripes but not me. It feels so fucking targeted, like yeah, it’s not that I don’t want to talk, it’s that I don’t want to talk to you. At my age, shouldn’t I be past that kind of petty hurt? Shouldn’t I be able to shrug it off and just see it as a symptom of how Gidget and I clash in communication styles? I want to be able to do all of that – just put it away until the next time she’s due around here – which is tomorrow now – but, it’s like a rat nibbling constantly at the back of my brain.

This isn't about me - or it shouldn't be - but it affects me, Stripes and Gidget, and reverting to ignoring my calls makes me fear for the summer even more.

I guess there is also a part of me that feels like she couldn’t give two shits about how stressful this is for us. For me. I had a fucking panic attack only last week, but she can’t pick up the phone so I have one last thing to worry about? I don’t want to go on a rant, but maybe that’s the best thing to do – let it all out here so that tomorrow can be as calm as possible.

I’ve had a couple of responses to my post on for your health over on dreamwidth and one of the members is considering making the change from Ozempic to Trulicity, so it’s no longer crickets when I look for people going through the same thing as me. Sometimes I feel like the appetite suppression is still strong but I just don’t notice it. Stripes had a counselling session today and I didn’t eat until she came back, so around 3pm? And I only really started getting hungry towards 3ish. That might also have something to do with the other half of the THC cookie I had last night. Same sky high effects and a chunk of sleep, so physically I am feeling better.

Okay, gratitude, silver lining, whatever. I’ve booked in with Alex for the beginning of the my cover-up on the 19th June. So not only do I have something to look forward to, but it’s in the middle of the Ozempic cycle so the toilet issues shouldn’t be as bad and I should be able to attend. There – positivity!

First Week of June

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 178.3 | MGW ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic: ⟫ 0.5 mg

This week continues to grind me down. I had what I thought was a ‘breakthrough’ in the BM department, but since then my stomach has been grumbling and rumbling threateningly and I have been suffering with cramps. Like I need to go but I can’t, or there’s nothing there.

I’m not stupid – I know that what I am going through is more mental than physical – I am stressed to the eyeballs with the whole Gidget situation, not helped by the fact that she is doing what she normally does in situations like this: shoving her head firmly into the sand and going low contact. As in, no texts of WhatsApp unless prompted, and even then sporadic, and absolutely no mention of the impending deadlines.

Today I was meant to be getting a couple of new tattoos at a studio I have been wanting to visit for quite some time. Unfortunately, all of last night, I was up and down to the bathroom, with no real results apart from what felt like my stomach literally twisting itself into knots and a lack of sleep that had me almost hallucinating. Which meant that I knew there was no chance in hell that I would cope with going to a new studio, or sit still for tattoos. Gidget hadn’t let us know whether or not they would be attending their appointment which added to the whole stress, and in the end I guess my brain/body just said nope.

Stripes went to get her tattoo which is an absolutely gorgeously cute lil frog, and Gidget turned up with their partner, JC (which was a surprise because a) Stripes hasn’t met them before and b) we weren’t expecting them to be there!) She got her raccoon which looks beautiful on her upper arm. However, no real discussion was held about the uni assignments situation (no shocker there though). I heard all about it when Stripes got home and I finally woke up. I don’t recall seeing or speaking to Stripes at all during the course of the day, but apparently I saw them a couple of times and communicated with them!

The time is rapidly approaching when having a choice about having the conversation will be gone – the deadline is Saturday/Sunday and if the assignments are not handed in, then Gidget won’t pass the year. Which opens the great yawning maw of fear of what the heck happens next! Which I can’t do anything about now and so I need to put it aside. I need to concentrate fully on losing the weight while I have the ability to do so; I need to figure out my boundaries and how I communicate them; I have to figure out what having the three of us living here together looks like for me and how we can all make that happen. A new family manifesto as Stripes puts it.

I haven’t managed to write anything for my writing day which is a damned shame, but I am feeling a little more human even if my stomach/butt are still grumbling away. Who knows, maybe dinner will help my body decide to empty itself out so that I can be ready for my jab again tomorrow! It would be nice to have lost something this week, but I guess I should be happy with a maintain.

Panic Attacks and Summer Worries

Today I had a panic attack. Well, this evening. Gidget has the deadline for her university work coming up on Saturday and has what seems like a lot of work left to do. Last year, we went through something similar but we thought things were okay. Turns out, she didn’t hand in any of her assignments and had to redo the year. Of course, since then, she has had a diagnosis of ADHD (which we have been fighting for for years) and was also put on medication. However, apart from getting an extension on her assignments, it doesn’t change the fact that she still has to put in the work.

Over the last few weeks, we have tried discussing it with her, but unfortunately all of these conversations went the same way as they always used to in the past – she shuts down, refuses to discuss things, makes vague promises and basically checks out. In the past, this has led to huge arguments, especially as she essentially shuts down any conversation that isn’t about a pleasant topic, not something that is sustainable. And the stress of these arguments, the consequences of her actions have hit all three of us extremely hard. It is no exaggeration to say that just over three years ago, we asked her father if he would be prepared to have her live with him because things here were just so awful.

And we’re right back there again. Things between Gidget and I have been better since she has been living in Halls – the separation has enabled her to live the way that she wants to, without me on her back about keeping her room tidy, etc. Getting a part time job also helped. But it doesn’t – and hasn’t – addressed the fact that I simply cannot discuss anything serious or potentially contentious with her without it turning into a huge screaming match, with Stripes trying to mediate in the middle. No matter what I say, or how I say it, Gidget hears me having a go at her, blaming her for things, or simply not hearing the difficulties that she experiences. I on the other hand feel that although I can sympathise with a lot of the difficulties that she experiences, that doesn’t take away from the fact that she still has to handle her shit – take the meds, talk to the tutors, do the work. Which she has once again failed to do.

Added to which, the stress of worrying about what happens if she fails again affects my ability to sleep. I know that is a ME issue, but it’s there. Whenever we talk about serious things, she becomes rude, obstructive and sometimes abusive, and when she’s pulled up on it, claims that she can’t stop herself. But my thing is, she stops herself with everyone else: at uni, at work, in the street – if she loses her temper or gets wound up, she doesn’t lash out at people the way that she does at me and Stripes. Which makes me think/feel that this isn’t a ‘blind rage’ situation – this is one of those times when (on some occasions literally) the only damage done is to me and Stripes. Nothing of Gidget’s ever gets damaged. She controls herself everywhere else but here and it has a detrimental effect on everyone.

Whatever. That isn’t something that’s going to be solved by writing here.

After the discussion, where I finally said that I wasn’t prepared to sit and talk in circles any longer as it had been going on for over two hours by this point, she left the room to go and get her stuff together to go back to Halls. Stripes and I were kinda just sitting in silence, vaguely talking about watching a movie. That is the last coherent thing I remember before everything just went wrong.

I couldn’t breathe, felt like there was a belt wrapped around my chest that was getting tighter and tighter, that I was shaking and couldn’t hold myself together. I was scared that I was having another heart attack and pretty much convinced that I was going to die. Stripes did her best to keep me calm and gave me the spray that I was prescribed when I had my heart attack last year (year before that?), checked my oxygen levels and took my blood pressure. By the time I had calmed down, Gidget had got her stuff together and left to go back to Halls. Stripes said she did ask if I was alright but I didn’t hear her ask that; she didn’t share her uber journey back to Halls and Stripes had to contact her to ensure that she made it home safely.

I’m terrified for what the summer brings. Gidget isn’t making enough money to move out – she works two nights a week and uses that money as ‘spending cash’. She still relies on monthly money from her father. I’ve talked to her about grabbing any extra shifts that are available but she keeps forgetting. She has very strong boundaries, some of which even she admits are unfair to me and Stripes. But that doesn’t mean that she’ll budge from them – she just acknowledges that they are unfair. She completely refuses to see that she is not suffering from blind rage – she feels that I push her buttons and wind her up, that I attack her verbally and she is just defending herself, that I don’t appreciate the struggles that she has.

And she might be right. I acknowledge that sometimes I fight dirty and can be immature in my responses. Sometimes I feel so angry with her attitude and how she behaves, her lack of regard or empathy, that I snap and say mean things too. But I really feel that I try to see her point of view. I try to offer assistance, encouragement, ideas she can try. But I am constantly rebuffed and rejected – if I step out of the box of ‘fun’ mother who plays video games with her, checks in on her and her friends, listens to her gossip and offers ‘vague’ advice, I get body-slammed because everything I say or do is wrong.

I cannot imagine another summer handling things like that. I can only imagine what it will do to Stripes, who has made such progress with her ED and counselling. I don’t want to watch one of my daughters fade away because one of my other daughter’s is too selfish to think about other people.

And then on to my selfish thoughts. The entire weekend when Gidget was looking after me, I made food choices that weren’t based on wanting to eat well, but on what was easiest. I made choices that at best could be described as emotional eating. I went extremely long hours without eating because I didn’t want to wake Gidget up. I don’t want this to be another time when my eating plan, my focus on myself and my success at losing weight gets lost under the weight of the three of us trying to live together.

I’m scared that this summer will be the final nail in the coffin of Ozempic and what it has been able to do for me. I know that I’m an emotional eater, and being around Gidget is one of the most high octane and emotional states that I can be in. How do we survive this intact? And what the hell do we do if Gidget once again fails university? She won’t be able to re-take the year again, and the only job she’s had has been the door work/running she does two nights a week. The thought of her being stuck indoors – the three of us stuck together with no escape for any of us just makes me feel so fucking depressed. I don’t even want to consider how dark my thoughts are at the moment. It’s 4 am and I’m writing this in the hope that by getting it out of my head, I will be able to sleep. The panic attack has left me with my nerves jangling, exhausted in body but my mind is racing. I even looked up the difference between panic attacks and anxiety attacks – like it makes any difference in the scheme of things.

I don’t want to lose the progress I have made. I don’t want Stripes to lose the progress she has made.. I don’t want Gidget to lose the progress she has made. I want us to be able to live together, safely, healthily. But I just don’t know what that looks like. God, this is such a long-ass rambling post that probably won’t make a blind bit of difference. But I guess I just needed to get the words out so that when I calm down, I can re-read them and see what I can change.

I can’t change what other people do – I can only change how I react to them. I need to remember that, internalise that, and think about the boundaries that I want and need to set for myself.

Mother Knows Best #1

Weekly phone call with my Marmee and she talked so much sense that it was kinda terrifying. I told her about considering making a doctor’s appointment and titrating up a level. She said that I should give it a solid month of doing things ‘right’ and then comparing my results for the month before I try to move up a level.

She reminded me that it took a long time to put this weight on so it’s going to take a long time to lose it. That I need to stop comparing myself to other people, stop denigrating my progress and accept the weight loss that I have. She said the time to worry is when I start putting the weight on consistently, which I have to be honest isn’t happening at the moment.

So there goes me going to try to get to the doctor’s – June is going to be a consolidation month! Sometimes Mother really does know best!

I sent her a photograph from when I attended my diabetic eye screening appointment and she loved it. She said she could definitely see the difference from when she saw me in May for Mother's Day. I absolute hate that photo - all I can see is the lump on the side of my stomach, how huge I look in the cardigan, etc. But I guess that's another reason why I don't want to see the monthly photos that Stripes because I just don't see it. I really can't. I wonder if everyone who loses a lot of weight suffers from body dysmorphia like this? I have just read a thread on Reddit where people are discussing this very thing.

May 2024 Round Up

02/06/24 SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 178.3 | MGW ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic: ⟫ 0.5 mg

Well, it feels like May was a bit of a roller-coaster. I find myself wondering once again whether it’s time to make a doctor’s appointment and ask to titrate up to the next level. I don’t feel the appetite suppression anywhere near as strongly as I had been previously and my concern is that the scales will continue to creep up if I don’t act proactively. The fear of the side effects of moving up does give me pause – that and how difficult it can be to get a doctor’s appointment.

This weekend was perhaps not the best test of how things are. Stripes went away with her father’s family so Gidget came home to look after me, make sure I was regularly fed and watered. I also got to meet their new partner, and we spent the day playing exploding kittens, cards against humanity and little big planet. I ate – not incredibly badly all things considered, but there was definitely an aspect of nervous eating. Also, Gidget is not used to cooking for me so we both were feeling our way through things.

I had cheesecake, McDonald’s fries, my current obsession which is scampi, but I didn’t really have any sweets and only a couple of packets of crisps. Last night I paid for the dairy and an expulsion of everything that had been hanging around and it was less than pleasant. I have also gone down with the Gidget flu (i.e. they brought all of their germs with them when they came to stay), so I’ve been sneezing, coughing and basically blowing my nose constantly since Friday.

My monthly weight loss for May was minus 2.2 kgs according to my tracker, which although not bad isn’t exactly stellar. I am also up from my lowest low which saw me reach 30 kgs off.

I have a tattoo appointment at the end of this week, but I think I will try to get in to see the doctor. I hate how ad-hoc this all is – there is no guidance, no supervision, just – here, take these jabs and off you go. So checking in can only be a good thing. I don’t think that I’m due new bloods for a little while so it’s hard to tell what effect Ozempic is having on my A1C but I hope it’s positive when it does happen.

Stripes is back later tonight and I will try to do a food shop to make sure there are the decent choices I had been making. I can’t remember if I mentioned the leak through the roof from the other night. Not our upstairs neighbours but the ones above them had a leak from their washing machine which made its’ way down to our flat. We had to take the curtains down in my room, put towels onto the cat tree and top of the sofa, as well as the cat tree in the cat-room. I need to take photos so that I can put a claim in for compensation. I’m just really glad that we hadn’t ordered/received the new sofa because I would have been pissed.

So as a round up, my head is still a messed up place, the scales are moving down slowly and I think I have finally made the decision that it is time to move up to the next level of Ozempic. I am still hopeful that I can keep doing this but slightly apprehensive about titrating up. I guess it depends on how long it takes to get a doctor’s appointment now.

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.

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!