The Fat Ghost

Hi everyone, hope you have all been happy, healthy...

I have continued trying to figure out the chronic abdominal ache, but it still aches, and still no answers.  Frustrating, but honestly I don't have time to figure out this crap anymore.

I figure I am not growing a tumor baby or have some horrible blood disease, as the bloodwork and ultrasound were 'normal', as I think I mentioned, so I need to move on.

Until my faith in modern medicine is restored somehow, I don't think I will pursue other specialists in this matter.

Onto another matter though...I have been debating about this for some time, and I am sure many of you have mentioned this yourselves, but have you received answers?  Come to some resolution yourself?

Upon my weigh in yesterday, the substitute counselor asked me how much thinner I want to get...  Right now I am 165 pounds...fitting into all my size 10's and size 8's, and a few 6's.

Honestly I would like to get down 20 more pounds.  I would like to fit into at least 50% of every size 6 I try on.

Greedy?  Yes, I am.  At this point, there is no concern for fat-related health issues, just mind-body issues.  "Just" is an odd term, because my mind-body issues have probably effected my many other issues for years.  I am sure I am not alone in this issue.

Fact is, that I still feel fat.  I still turn to see my incidental reflection in passing a store window and think either "wow who is that?" or "jeez am I that thin?"  I ask my husband (ad nauseum) if I am thinner than strangers, in order to try to get a handle on how I really look.

And most of the time he looks at me like I am crazy and says "yes, by alot".

I have even seen pictures of myself, then and now, and realize there is a huge difference, but somehow all of this is forgotten when I look in the mirror and still feel fat, consider myself a "fat girl", feel like I need to lose another 20 pounds to be thin.

I call it the "fat ghost" haunting me, but maybe this is the mindset of anorexics?  Maybe this is why my weight loss counselor thinks I should start my stabilization phase now rather than in four pounds like we originally intended?

I know in the end, I am the one who must be happy with my weight loss, I must be the one to deem it finished.  But if my perception is so warped that I keep thinking "just five more pounds and I'll feel thin", then how do I really break that cycle?

Has anyone who has lost most of their weight lost the fat ghost, or do you still feel like you have far to go-maybe unrealistically?  Is there anyway for us ourselves to exorcise the fat ghost, or is external help, possibly psychiatric in nature, required?

Question is, are we ever happy with ourselves, I mean genuinely 100% content?

Resolving Issues-Maybe??

Thanks to all of you for your well wishes and checking in on me...and to Jennifer for reminding me I hadn't followed up...

So they took blood last week, and I had a very scary ultrasound where she took it seemed at least 50 pics of my liver...

Blood work was normal apparently...

Then the nurse practitioner (since I went to student health services), said she would be out of town until Monday so I wouldn't know what the radiologist said about my US until then.

Umm, excuse me??  So I said to myself that if it turns out that I am dying I am going to sue their asses off for making me wait over the weekend to hear about it.

Good news and bad news, good news is that my US was normal, bad news is that they have no idea what is causing my chronic ache.

Lovely.  I know that no news is good news, but maybe a little news would have been nice??

I am happy that my liver is not growing a baby-sized tumor and that my pancreas hasn't withered away, or anything equally horrible, but now what?

So that is where I now stand...coupled with some AWESOME gas pains to challenge my mystery ache and cramping uterus for attention.

Hope you are all doing really well and enjoying the start of spring?!

Resolving Issues

Hi everyone, I'm back but not sure for how long...

I am going to the doctor tomorrow hoping to get my health issue resolved.  I can't even begin to explain what is wrong, but I'll try.

After I eat a larger meal, no matter what it is-high protein, high fiber, etc-I get a kind of dull ache mid-ish right-ish abdomen.

At first it felt like gas, and would pass overnight.  Recently, it has not gone away.  In fact it gets worse each day, and moreso after meals.  However, I must stress that it is not pain, but feels more like a pulled muscle type of feeling, and it does not bother me in all positions.

Since I don't have a gallbladder, you can imagine my googling results to self-diagnose myself has run the gamut from appendicitis, to pancreatitis, to ectopic pregnancy, to ovarian cysts, to kidney infection, to cirrhosis, to diverticulitis, to ulcers, to hernia.  ETCETERA.  Seriously, googling is not always a good thing.

So tomorrow I will find out more-I am hell bent and determined to do so...

Weight loss is still going well, for now, I hit the 160's this weekend.  BUT I can just see some horrible health issue surfacing tomorrow requiring surgery or treatment and not allowing me to continue weight loss.  

Yes, this is how my mind thinks...I may have cancer or a failing pancreas, but SHIT...I may have to stop losing weight!!!  Yes, this is VERY sick, I know.  One of my many issues...put it on my list.  

I'll jump off that bridge when I get to it I guess...cross your fingers for me, please.

Wishing you all well, hope to catch up with you all soon.  Please let me know if you have posted something you think I might be able to help you out with or really want me to read from the past week as it may take me forever to catch up...

Stay healthy folks!

Worn the F- Out

Quick note to say 'Hi' to everyone, and sorry I haven't visited any blogs lately.  No good excuse, just been a bad bloggy friend.

Tired, worn out, burnt out, etc...still on the wagon, but infinitely less enthused about everything.  Feeling very neutral about things that used to trip my trigger.  Feeling down about stuff I used to be able to tolerate.

Don't know what else to say about that.

Will be MIA for a few more days-hope you are all well-wish you the best!

When weight is all you can control

Death, taxes, drunk drivers, February snow in Texas, alien abductions...

And the answer, Alex, is "What are things we cannot control"?

I realized today that losing weight is the only thing I can really effect.  Destiny?  Not so much.

I'm starting to understand more and more why those with undereating disorders starve themselves.  If their lives are anything like mine, they take that little nugget of control and run with it.

I realized today that it doesn't matter how much I prepare, read articles, take classes, offer solid experimental suggestions-my opinion will never be taken seriously by my boss.

Many of you are probably saying, "Yeah join the club."  But in my education, the whole purpose of getting a science PhD is to LEARN how to THINK analytically and use known info to answer new questions-in other words-Independent Thinking.

I have told you that my boss is a micromanager, but today takes the fucking cake.  See I have my own project, one that granted HE chose for me based on what he wanted to pursue, but I have tried to make it my own and take ownership since.  Because at some point I need to be able to pose the future questions and solutions based on the results I see day to day-by myself.

But he has a plan...many in my lab think it doesn't matter what the results say because the boss sees everything through rose colored glasses and will keep repeating an experiment until he sees the results he desires.

Until today I wasn't sure if that was true.  Today I offered a really good suggestion, to replace our current mouse model with a MUCH better, cleaner model that I found in the literature.  And he shot it down.

The fact that my work really doesn't matter, that my name will be put on a paper with less than clean results, and that I will never be allowed to develop as an independent scientific thinker makes me want to fucking drop out.  And it makes me sick to my stomach.

No joke.

And it makes me want to exercise until I drop dead-because I can CONTROL that.  That is the only area where my hard work and initiative pays off it seems.

Sorry for the negative post, but I'm just so frigging pissed right now I can think straight.

Ulterior Motive

I admit, when I see celebrities proclaim in a verbose and dramatic manner that they are just so sad because it is so HARD for them to tell who likes them for themselves and not their looks or money, I want to freaking puke...

Then when I see gorgeous, perfectly shaped women prancing around in 6 inch heels claiming that no one takes them (and their unnatural cleavage) seriously and takes the time to get to know the real them inside,  I want to puke on THEM.

But before I feel the bile rise in my throat, maybe I should think about this idea more...


See lately it seems that people talk to me more.  Not men or women specifically, all types of people.  To be objective, this could be occurring because of the way I carry myself, which is different if merely for the fact that I take more care in how I dress.  
This could also be happening because I am more chatty, and maybe less bitchy and reclusive looking-which my lovely mother never failed to tell me.


However, part of me has to think about what my friend Ann stated in her answers in a few posts back, when I made her answer questions pertaining to 'normal' thoughts about how she thinks of obese people.  While she said she wonders why obese people eat fast food crap, she said she doesn't think badly of obese people.  


HOWEVER, we all know that some people out there have a variety of opinions about fat people-that we are lazy, unhygienic, etc-and we all heard about that lovely writer who said she is grossed out just seeing fat people walk across a room.


Frankly, the fact upsets me that people could now like me while they didn't before because maybe my rolls made them feel like they were going to puke.  Or that maybe now that my face is my own again, and I have one chin, that people really are nicer to people they find more attractive.

While I am happy, for whatever reason, that it seems I have more friends and people want to be around me now, the former bitchy, protective me really doesn't want their respect and niceties if thinness is the determining factor in them offering their friendship...does that make sense?


Anyone else question newfound, unlikely friendships?  Could Paris really know what she is talking about?!?!? ;-)

High Heels and Low Weigh Ins

It is no mystery to those who have been reading for a while-but I love shopping.  Prior to getting less fat (as opposed to 'thin' yet), I started buying shoes-lots of shoes.

I admittedly exchanged one addiction (stuffing thy face), with another (stuffing my feet into new shoes).

Ok, so maybe I have always liked shoes.  Living in a high heel culture, I yearn for high heels, and on special occasions, I have even tried them-at weddings, parties, etc.  But the heels rarely last an hour...

Truth is-beauty hurts like hell, and those high heels are just one ring of said hell...

But I still buy heels, because they are so pretty and I always thought maybe I could wear them some day...a couple weeks ago I found these lovely boots on eBay, and just had to have them...

 

They have almost 3 inch heels, but I decided to wear them last week-to work!  Where I walk all day!!!  On my way in I thought I must be freaking crazy from carb withdrawl to wear these shoes to work.

But at the end of the day, I was still wearing them AND my feet felt fine.

Then I realized that it wasn't my feet that couldn't wear heels, it was my fat ass.  In other words, being obese kept me from one more 'normal' activity.

Sure, I know many bigger girls have no problem with heels, but I always had.  And when I was thin and younger, I didn't wear heels-boy I wish I had!

So I guess I had a mini NSV on Friday, which turns out to be major for me since I have so many pairs of unloved high heels that I can now wear!!!  I still have to work on my high heeled swagger though. ;-)

On another note, I weighed in yesterday.  I had wanted to lose at least 5 pounds since I hadn't weighed in the week before (Medifast was closed due to our horrible weather).  However, I lost four, down to 173.

First, I was really wanting at least 5 pounds gone, but I guess all that random snacking while being holed up at home in the bad weather crushed my 3 pound loss per week average that I have had lately.  Not that I expect 3 pounds per week at this late stage in my weight loss, BUT when I get on a roll I really try to ride the momentum, while I still have it that is...

However, and second, I am so happy that I am actually in the 170's.  The previous weigh in felt like a fluke somehow, not that I didn't work hard for the 177, but I honestly thought I would never be able to break 180, since I was never able to before.

So I realize this was not an exciting post, but that's all I got for now.  Hope your weekend is going well!