Surgery Fears and Scattered Mind

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 170.4 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

Okay, I hadn’t realised that it had been so long since I posted. There’s been a lot going on and my mind is a bit scrambled.

I have a weight loss goal of 8.5kg by my surgery date. I don’t do well with deadlines – I always find a way to fuck things up and either have to scramble to make it or turn myself into a complete lunatic trying to do everything possible and maybe still screw things up in the process.

Point in fact: Stripes, Gidget and I sat down and counted the Exante shakes I had on hand for starting the liquid diet next week. We worked out that at three a day, I had 14 days worth, so I went onto the New You website and the Kee Diet to price things out. The issue seemed to be that both of those plans state you should be using four packs a day, which for some reason messed with my head. Like, I had a spreadsheet open and could do the calculation on there and yet I still ended up fucking up the amount I ordered. I did find the water flavourings I used to love so added those to it. Spent just under £170 ordering that and then realised I hadn’t ordered enough.

So off to Superdrug website to see if they had any ready to drink ones I could use. They have Slimfast in packs of 6, so I was going to order three of those so that I had extras and then I got stuck on the vitamins I need to order for after the surgery. Closed that tab.

Had a phone call on Wednesday with a lovely lady called Elaine where we went through a host of questions. She asked if I had previously been given a surgery date and then had it cancelled and I said no, but that I had started to wonder if they’d forgotten about me. Which makes me think that I should have been having all of this closer to March when I met the anaesthetist.

I asked her if I was allowed to continue the Ozempic after the operation and she said she had no idea. She said she’d asked the nurse who was used to handling the bariatric cases and get back to me. I am booked in for repeat bloods this Saturday morning because unfortunately all of the ones I had taken before are now too far out of date. All good – at least we can remind ourselves of where the hospital is and everything.

We’ve set up a spreadsheet with the things we need to do between now and surgery date so that things (hopefully) don’t get forgotten.

Requested liquid/crushable meds from my Doctor who contacted pharmacist. All good – even let me have some Betnovate for my eczema. All good, right? Well, nope because the pharmacist administered all of this stuff now which left us wondering, was I meant to be on liquid stuff from now until the Op? Finally called them and they said put my normal prescription through and use the tablets, etc. until the op then switch to the liquid ones. (High point: the liquid paracetamol is strawberry flavoured and Stripes said it looked like I was going to be taking adult calpol – little things please little minds, so sue me!)

Like I said, my mind is kinda scattered so my posts may be a little – random. I’m worried about the girls. I want/wish that they relied on each other and talked about the stuff that’s worrying them. I know they don’t want to add to my personal worries, but now I’m concerned that they’re bottling things up. Gidget had an appointment today with her Dr re her ADHD meds and he asked her if anything was stressing her out. She said no, at which point Stripes reminded her about the whole ex-stalker drama and me being given a date for surgery, at which point she burst into tears.

So, yeah, there’s definitely stuff going on that’s not being talked about. But what can I say? I’m just as cracked in the head about it all as they are. I’m scared of dying, about how things will be afterwards, about all of it. And that’s on top of the whole waiting to hear back about my PIP.

And on top of all of that, I find the scales are being bastards. There’s no other explanation for it – I’ve got as low as 170.1 (I think) but they just won’t tip over into the 160s. I wonder if I’m sabotaging myself somehow but I don’t see how. I haven’t actively changed how I’m eating – we’ve had ready meals, take out but nothing excessive, I’m drinking my Rio – the numbers just refuse to go down. So, yeah, I’m panicking. About whether I can cope on the liquid diet, on if I lose enough weight before the surgery, about all of it.

My new jimjams turned up and they look too small. I haven’t tried them on simply because I think that if they don’t fit and prove unsuitable, I may just break down and bawl and not stop. And the oven is causing issues – every time its’ turned on, it flips the breaker and we lose power in my end of the flat. The council have said the sockets are all fine so it has to be the cooker. We’re gonna get an electrician in to have a look at the oven but it’s expenditure I could well do without.

Positives? Well, I had to shave Lady Munchington’s private area because she’s been having pooping issues and not been keeping up with her personal hygiene. Get cats they said, they’re sweet, fun and low maintenance they said. Yeah, right! But I did an okay job and she doesn’t hate me any longer – after I did it, she hid in the cat tree in the living room and refused to acknowledge mat all. She seems to have forgiven me now (enough to take some fish from my hands) but that was not something I expected to have to do.

First Week of August

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 176.7 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

LORD, August has been a full on month already and it’s only the 7th!

Okay, let’s see. My laptop was getting very slow so I looked into more RAM. Buying the right thing wasn’t the problem – I just don’t have the confidence to unscrew my laptop and tinker with it’s insides. Just the thought of it makes me feel nauseous. So I looked up local computer guys and found someone. The price was within my budget (kinda) and he came and picked it up on Friday.

Which sounds absolutely fine until I slowly but surely realise just how much my laptop is part of my personality and coping mechanisms. I’m currently using the ‘download’ laptop and the frustration of trying to learn a new keyboard layout, remember passwords for logging into the things, as well as not having all of my normal programmes has utterly fritzed my brain.

I haven’t really been able to write – I did manage five drabbles for the 1 million words challenge but nothing since – which means that I haven’t done book reviews, weight loss blog, medicinal marijuana blog – nothing. And I feel like all of those words are jammed into my brain, fighting to get out with no way to release them.

I finally caved in and downloaded a few of my normal programmes – paint.net and libreoffice – and have tried to do things as normal, but in the back of my head there is just so much history on my laptop that it feels incomplete. And I’m really struggling. Talk about first world problems – woe is me, my laptop has gone away to be cleaned and upgraded and I can’t cope with its’ absence!

I have been playing with various AI image generators and have practically been changing my headers/banners every day for something to do. Each time I think that they’re finished and I’m happy with the result, I become dissatisfied and have to start again. Which again, is ridiculous because there was nothing wrong with the headers and banners I already had.

Food-wise, I don’t know where I am. I have been on the scales but can’t see any progress. I am once again bouncing back and forth between 177 and 178 which actually makes me want to cry. Do I need to titrate up again so quickly? Am I eating something that’s making me retain water? Why aren’t the numbers changing? Maybe it’s because I have my phone call with Violet on the 19th that I’m panicking a bit. In my head, talking to Violet means bringing up the weight loss surgery thing again and I was previously a little confident that I might be able to put a dent into my weight before that became a reality. Now I just don’t know.

I remember talking to Nelly and she said that even though she was having success with Slimming World, she decided to go ahead with the surgery because she wanted to know that she couldn’t turn back – that this time was the last time. And that makes sense to me – using the tools you have at your disposal. But I can’t help but want to do this without the surgery – why would I go through all of that pain and risk if I can lose the weight with Ozempic? Or something similar – I know that Zepbound and Rybelsus are already out there, as well as Mounjaro and there are new semaglutide drugs coming onto the market every day. Many of them are said to have less side effects than Ozempic.

Maybe it’s time I spoke to my Doctor in person rather than a quick phone call. The issue with that is that a lot of the doctors out there don’t have a lot of experience with semaglutides. The people currently using them are basically guinea pigs – doctors are still saying eat less and move more, here take this and it will help you achieve that. Which doesn’t take into account just how different everyone’s body is. The fact that I’ve lost over 70lbs in seven/eight months when I’ve never achieved that before whilst eating says that my body is not normal.

I don’t have my weight loss spreadsheets on this laptop so I can’t look at the charts and numbers, but I know that things have majorly slowed down. And yes, ten pounds a month is fantastic but if things continue the way that they have been, I will be nowhere near losing ten pounds this month. And I don’t want to waste any time – I want to do this now, quickly (and safely) which may indeed mean that I need to up my dosage. I guess I feel like a bit of a failure that even with this ‘wonder drug’ on my side, I’m still failing.

I know it’s not failing to lose this much weight but I have so much more to go – I don’t want to stall out. In the interests of honesty, I am also struggling with weighing. Lately, I have found myself trying to ‘cheat’ the scales – shifting my weight whilst the numbers are flickering, not weighing in until later in the day when I know the numbers will have gone down. I know the only person I’m cheating when I do that is me, but I am finding it hard not to do it. I know this isn’t all about the numbers – it should also be about my A1C number and my general health – but it’s so difficult when everything revolves around the numbers. You tell people your blood pressure is healthy and it’s like, yeah, right, but you’re still morbidly obese according to the numbers and the BMI chart (God, don’t get me started on the BMI chart).

So in the first week of August, I have lost a grand total of 0.2 kg and am still up from my lowest weight which was 175.3 kg near the end of July. I don’t think my eating is that much different and I know it’s not my ‘exercise’ levels (sedentary doesn’t cover it!) but obviously something isn’t working so I need to do some tweaking. I think it’s possibly the weed munchies at the end of the night where if I haven’t gone to sleep, I want crisps and Jaffa cakes. I did think of leaving my crisps until that time but somehow I haven’t managed to follow through.

Stripes has given me the next part of the Mantra exercises and I will have a look at those. Well, as soon as I can stay awake long enough. That’s the other thing – because I’m not sleeping at night, I doze off during the day which means I’m not doing anything constructive. I’m not moving – even in my limited fashion – and I feel lousy. I haven’t kept up with my water intake – basically I’ve just been shit at this whole thing. I could say that it’s because of handling things with Gidget and JC (still ongoing) but that’s an excuse. That stuff isn’t going on 24/7 so it shouldn’t mean I can’t progress. And I promised myself that no matter what else goes on this summer, I was going to focus on myself and keep this train moving.

This weekend, my sister Sandy and her husband and daughter are meant to be coming up to visit Marmee. I haven’t seen them in years – literally years – but I am kinda dreading it because I said we would go round. And they haven’t seen me, so I can’t remember if I was at my highest weight the last time I saw them. If I wasn’t they won’t see any difference in me at all, which I think would crush me just a little. I can feel myself thinking up excuses as to why we can’t go round which is insane because I would really like to see them. If I could just get out of my own way, maybe Sandy would be another form of support rather than someone I’m afraid of letting down. She’s always been as supportive as she can be from a distance, but COVID and life have truly got in the way, as well as my hermit tendencies, which means that no one from my family has really seen me in quite some time. And I’m not sure if they would notice a difference in my weight if they did see me.

I need to try and get some sleep – I don’t think straight without it, and I know that resting the body properly will help me to get my system working properly again, e.g. losing weight. I haven’t counted calories but I seriously don’t think I’m consuming enough calories to not lose weight. I don’t know if I can handle the thought of calorie counting, and I seriously don’t think it would be a good idea for Stripes to have to take part in that for me since she prepares my meals. That would be horrendous for her recovery and she has been doing so well.

There has to be a way for two people struggling with opposing eating disorders to be there for each other and help, not hinder. I’m hoping getting this out means that I can sleep and get back on track. That and I think I’m gonna chase the IT man today and find out when I’m getting my proper laptop back.

Four weeks on 1 mg

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 175.4 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

Coming to the end of another week and I’m not quite sure how I feel. Obviously Sunday was absolutely awful but it certainly made the numbers on the scales go down. They also appear to be staying at the new low – or in the vicinity – so part of me feels like I should be pleased? The other part of me is standing back in horror thinking that if the best way to get the scales to go down is to be sick, actually throwing up, isn’t this just another form of eating disorder?

By no stretch of the imagination am I thinking about making myself sick on the regular. But I don’t really seem to have constipation or diarrhoea lately (please don’t take this as a taunt or jab – I don’t need either of them to return to remember just how awful they are); I’m not sure how much food restriction I’m feeling; hunger pangs are rare but I can definitely eat even if I’m not hungry. It kinda feels like what was working in the beginning isn’t working now.

I know I have a tendency to panic and I don’t want to do something stupid or drastic – we’ve had a pretty steady week food-wise. The biggest change was having take out today because I went for a couple of tattoos. I had my koi filled with colour (ouch), and also covered up a small tattoo on my forearm that I didn’t like. I’ll lob a picture of the forearm one below.

We had fish and chips. Normally, I either have kebab meat with salad in a pita, or occasionally a small fish and small chips. For some reason this evening – whether it was because it was the first time eating all day or because I was tired after the tattoos, I ordered a large fish and small chips. I barely finished a third of the fish (the cats ate well tonight) and left about a third of the chips. Admittedly, I had a McDonald’s McFlurry and a chocolate and raspberry pie (they’re celebrating their 55th Birthday or something), but apart from three boiled sweets during my tattoo session, I didn’t eat anything else today.

I guess we’ll see what the scales show. It has been a tough week – living together as three adults is not easy, and it requires real effort and thought to not fall back into ‘Mommy mode’ which messes up the dynamic. Knowing that Gidget isn’t going back to university this year means all three of us know that, for the moment, we’re stuck together and we need to figure this shit out.

I don’t even want to think what might happen if we don’t find a way to make this work.

It’s something like 6 am and I need to sleep. I guess I’m hoping writing this shit down will help me in some way – whether it’s just getting it out of my head or being able to return to it and see how I was feeling. I guess I can say this is four weeks on 1mg successfully completed, but I can’t help but wonder whether a shift to something like Zepbound or Rybelsus might help me? Or am I just looking for something external to do the work? Gah, I need sleep!

Spreadsheets to the rescue....

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 179.5 | MGW ⟫ 168.2

Ozempic: ⟫ 0.5 mg

The scales creeping up is causing me stress. No point pretending that I’m not seeing it and internally screaming. Has Ozempic stopped working for me, or have I stopped working with it? The granola train keeps on going – so much so that Stripes has had to take it out of my bedroom because I will munch on it dry if I’m not thinking. I hate that I lack that control. I hate that I need to have things hidden from me so that I don’t stuff them in my mouth. I hate that I’ve achieved so much and feel like now I’m throwing it all away.

Yesterday I ate granola with oat milk, grapes, strawberries, a yoghurt and three Jaffa cakes. Looking at it, maybe it’s not so bad. Better than things have been in a while. But still – hardly a diet to be happy about. Intuitive eating doesn’t seem to be my bag – not like I’m showing much in the way of intuition at the moment. I don’t know – we’ve literally just done a food shop and I feel so confused about everything and have zero idea of what I actually want to eat.

Maybe it’s just a post-Bridgerton slump. Or knowing that this week is going to be pretty intense: tattoo, Stripes going to the theatre, Gidget beginning to move back in. Maybe I just need to keep on trying to get decent amounts of sleep, drink lots of water, eat til satiety and trust the process. Or maybe I just need to get through this week and try harder next week.

Spreadsheets to the rescue once again. I calculated my weekly rate of loss – taking into account the times that the scales have gone up instead of down. I’m really surprised to see that my average rate of loss is just over 1.5 lbs per week, which is what is suggested is a good rate of loss. It doesn’t feel like a good rate of loss but I shouldn’t complain. It took this long to put the weight on – it’s going to take some time to get it off. I don’t want to get into projections or anything like that in case I ‘miss’ artificial deadlines, but maybe I can keep the fact that the scales are saying I’m doing okay in the front of my mind.

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.

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.