End of October and Pre-op Diet day 1

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 170.2 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg | Pre-op Diet:⟫ Day 1

So October is showing an overall loss of 2.6 kg which is pretty good. And today is day one of my pre-op diet. So far, I’ve had two shakes – sitting okay and not making me puke, although the burping has been a little out of control. I’ve had a lemon cheesecake and a coconut shake so far, and need to get another two in before midnight. We’re working on having one every four hours and we can adjust it depending on what time I get up, etc.

I went to the Dr’s surgery and met with three new medical students who were studying diabetes and actually had fun. They were really nice, a little shy, and I don’t think they were expecting some of the things I was saying, but overall it went well. Didn’t get my COVID jab as the surgery doesn’t do them any more, but I did get the flu jab so it was worth it.

I am a little disappointed in my last meal choices because I ended up having crackers and cheese, a chocolate crepe, some cashew nuts and gingerbread oreos – hardly a feast. I guess I made up for all of that with the fast food I’ve had recently so I can’t gripe too much! I haven’t done a great job when it comes to my water intake, although I have drunk just under a litre of Rio. And the smell of the girls’ dinner did make me feel just a little sorry for myself! But day one of pre-op diet is three quarters of the way through and we have survived!

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.

New Weight Territory, Mini Goal and COVID

SW ⟫ 207.7 | CW ⟫ 174.2 |

Ozempic: ⟫ 1 mg

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

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

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

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

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

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