What many of us can relate to when weighing in.  

Before I start this weeks blog post I thought I’d post a link to a cute and short video clip that no doubt what those of us who are facing the scales regularly feel inclined to do. Just click on where it says ‘What many of us can relate to when weighing in’.  I thought it was worth a chuckle.

So this week was a pretty good week again, although I think that taking some Anticol throat lozenges for a stuffy nose and ticklish cough may perhaps have hindered me somewhat as they do contain some sugar. I tried taking some decongestant pills, using Vicks vaporub, dry cough suppressant syrup but they just didn’t help me. It’s only in the evenings around bedtime that this issue is a problem. Doctor can’t find any problems either. The Anticols clear my nose and reduce the coughing so that I can get off to sleep at night. I’ve probably had about 4 each evening which doesn’t seem a lot but maybe has some effect on the scales, I don’t know.  I was taking them last week as well and lost 2kg then. Big mystery. I’ve tried the sugar free eucalyptus drops you can buy but they aren’t much chop.

Otherwise I did well all week.  Watching my hubby enjoying his cup of tea and biscuits for morning tea is hard, as is smelling his toasted sandwiches at lunchtime, or his home made burgers at dinner.  I’m sure I must salivate as much as our Golden Retriever Ollie does when he’s watching us eat.  Poor hubby.  He sits with his food and has an audience. Sad eyes gazing beseechingly at him. Bubbles forming around the lips.  Drool dripping down the the chin, dropping onto a hairy chest. Sneaking up closer to be near the food in case it’s shared or a morsel dropped on the floor, the begging whimpers. A deep sigh to indicate extreme hunger.  And the dog is worse!!!  

For some reason I always view weighing in day with trepidation, and I don’t know why.  No matter that I’ve followed the program closely (albeit with the occasional throat lozenge) and drunk enough water to make my eyeballs protrude as well as make a well worn pathway to the toilet. I just worry about gaining weight even though I’m aware that from time to time it happens. I worry about not losing ‘enough’ weight, although I am better now than what I used to be. Prior to Optifast I used to view any weight loss under 1kg as being a failure for that week and seek solace in a naughty snack. Woe betide me if I actually gained weight. Even 100grams gained would see me throwing my hands up in the air in despair, sobbing, kicking the scales, abusing all and sundry and especially myself for being a failure before heading out to the shops and buying chocolate bars and potato chips. ‘Stuff the diet!’ I’d be thinking. ‘I’m screwed anyway, so I may as well enjoy myself!’

Now though I’m accepting of the fact that sometimes there is a small gain, and that even a small loss on the scales is still a loss and to be celebrated. Of course I’d love to lose 2 or more kilograms per week but unless I start jogging or at the very least go for long walks each day  that’s not going to happen. Besides that my dietician has assured me that a slow weight loss is actually better and more sustainable in the long run.  On that note after waking up and doing my usual sprint to the toilet I dragged out the scales, stripped off and stepped on them.

It was a loss! Not a lot but a loss of 0.6kg bringing my total weight loss now to 16.6 kg over a period of almost 9 weeks. Looking at it another way this picture shows what I lost this week. Imagine, all that fatty, calorie laden stuff now gone!

I now weigh less than what I did in January 2015, when I had the surgery for a incarcerated hernia, so I have achieved a mini milestone. While I have a long, long way to go it’s a start. My next mini goal is to get under 200kg. I guess to some of you that’s a unbelievable number, and not in a good way. You might wonder how I could have let myself get to this weight. Let me tell you it wasn’t easy. Actually no, I take that back. It was easy, too easy. Just a matter of eating the wrong foods and too much of them over a period of many years. Not to mention lack of exercise.  If you read my older posts I’ve discussed my weight issues, when it all started and what I’ve tried over the years.

I’ve noticed that on the FB group I belong to there are a lot of people who are starting Optifast and have very little idea of what is ahead of them, and what they can and can’t eat.  For them and for anyone who starts on a weight loss program I urge you to do the research and preparation. My blog is titled My Personal Mt Everest – a weight loss journey.  I called it that because I view my weight as a Mt Everest. High and dangerous.

When mountaineers decide to climb Mt Everest they do the preparation, they just don’t decide on a whim “Oh I’ll climb Mt Everest next week.” and set off without the preparation. No. What they do is  make sure they are prepared. They choose a reputable company to guide them. A company that has had numerous successful summits. That’s been around for many years with the research and information backing them up, obtained by years of  experience. That company uses Sherpas to help the climbers, to be there to support them when things get tough while climbing, to help carry the load. The climber has to decide what route to take, be it climbing from the south side, Nepal, or from the north, Tibet. They make sure they are physically prepared for it.  They ensure they have the correct equipment.  They don’t include items that would weigh down their packs unnecessarily and that were not needed for the climb. They are prepared to follow the safety guidelines set to them by the company they sign up to climb with. They know that to do their own thing and ignore the advice and guidelines given to them could result in failure. (at worst death.)  They do the research first.

In a way choosing to go on Optifast is sort of like that. In my case I selected Optifast because it had a good reputation and was recommended by my doctor and dietician. I knew that for the best results I had to follow the program set, that there was much research into the manufacture of the product and that like with mountaineering companies, there were cheaper versions around, cheapest doesn’t always mean the best.  Yes there were other shakes out there but they were not as good a product when you got down to the nitty gritty of nutritional content and success stories, not to mention recommendation by health care professionals. Plus Optifast has it’s own ‘Sherpas’. Dieticians on staff able to be contacted via the website, not to mention surgeons/dieticians in the community that many Optifast users see during their weight loss journey.   Then there’s those people who have been successful in the program and are there to give a ‘helping hand’ and advice from their own experience, being there for support.

I checked out the Australian Optifast website, looking at the videos on there, reading through all the information about the product and what it all entailed.  I checked out the allowed vegetables and noted what wasn’t allowed. I read through the forum to see what questions were commonly asked and what the Optifast admin team recommended.   I decided the best program would be Intensive because the lower calorie intake is designed for more rapid weight loss as opposed to the other levels which included slightly more calories. Physically I made sure I was prepared by having a check up by my doctor and blood tests done.  That done I bought my ‘equipment’. Kitchen scales, a shaker, scales to weigh myself and my Optifast products. I stocked up on the food products that were allowed, and ditched the items that weren’t needed such as my stash of junk food and frozen food items that were definitely not good for my weight.  I knew that once I started on Optifast to get the best results I had to follow the ‘instructions’ given to me. That ignoring one or more of the ‘rules’ would impact on the scales and perhaps hinder my weight loss.

So by the time I started on Optifast on Monday the 12th of November I had a pretty good idea of what I had to do. There were some things I wasn’t sure of that weren’t mentioned on the information leaflet included with the products or on the website, and like a climber asking advice of his experienced guide, I would seek advice from my dietician about any products I was unsure of. Reading through the posts on the group page, especially those posts from those who had successfully lost a lot of weight on Optifast, also helped me learn. I picked up tips such as using a blitzer and less water/more ice to thicken up the shakes so they were like a thickshake. I learned of a Intensive friendly recipe site with different ideas to add variety to the program.

By being prepared it helps you in being successful. Understanding why you have to drink so much water, or why you need that teaspoon of oil is just a small part of getting the results you desire.  If unsure there are those who can help, there is always the team at Optifast, contactable by email or phone if you your questions on their forum page don’t get a reply fast enough. Or if you are under the care of a doctor or dietician ask them. My dietician doesn’t mind me shooting off the occasional email to her if I am questioning a certain product that’s not mentioned as being approved, but appears to be good as far as nutritional values go.

So another week done and dusted. Not so much hilarity here I guess, but weight loss is a serious issue for so many people.

  

 

 

 

 

Happy 2019 to those who are reading my blog! I hope you all had a lovely Christmas and enjoyable New Year. Our New Year celebrations involved a DVD while stretched out in bed, followed by a good book followed by sleep. All before midnight. Real party animals we are, NOT.

Well it’s been 7 and a  half weeks now since I started on Optifast. And apart from a few indulgences on Christmas day I have managed to stay right on track the whole time which is a record for me. Usually before the end of week 1 I am having a biscuit here or there, and still enjoying my cup of tea with ‘real’ milk and sugars. Because everybody knows that the sugar in tea dissolves so you really don’t count those calories do you? And the milk…..well it’s really only a splash so that doesn’t count either.  And of course there’d be a weekly treat, usually on weigh in day. Take away food, a chocolate bar, cappuccino and cake at a cafe. ‘Why not?’ I used to think. ‘I’ve been so good all week, surely I deserve a little reward?’ Trouble is that reward often meant that I’d continue eating the wrong foods for the rest of that day thinking that I had 6 more days before weighing in again and I’d have plenty of time to focus on the diet………….starting again tomorrow.  That mindset would work for a while but before I’d know it I would be back to eating more and more of the wrong foods. Weigh in days would be dreaded, and when I weighed in at the weight loss club I was going to I’d react with horror if the scales didn’t show a loss, or worse still, showed a gain. “I don’t know why that happened!” I’d exclaim. “I’ve been so good.” (Liar!!!) Followed by the usual excuses:

“Must be water retention.” (Yeah sure, enough water to fill a bathtub.)

“Must be that time of the month.” (Be honest woman, ‘that time of the month’ hasn’t happened for years now, that excuse is old hat.)

“Must be the salt I’ve added to my foods this week.” (As in salted potato chips by the bagful.)

“I only had a few treats, surely not enough to gain this much!” (By a few treats I’d mean chocolate bars in the evening, sweet biscuits with my sugared cups of tea with whole milk, take away lunches from Maccas.)

“Maybe I had too much dairy products?” (Yeah that bowlful of Streets Blue Ribbon vanilla ice cream might have not helped, especially when it was an evening treat 3 or 4 times that week.

“Surely it wasn’t the fish I ate last night?” (Battered fish from the fish and chip shop plus a serve of chips and potato scallop or two. But hey, the scallops were made from potato and potato is a vegetable, right?)

You get the idea.  One of my favourite authors is the late Erma Bombeck. She wrote some hilarious books on motherhood and life in general.  Her experiences with dieting and diet clubs always made me laugh, and still do. Below is what she had to say about weigh in days.

“I have dieted continuously for the last two decades and lost a total of 758 pounds. By all calculations, I should be hanging from a charm bracelet.

I have done a lot of kidding around with Weight Watchers, but it is the only organization in which I ever lost a great deal of weight. But I fought them. Every Tuesday morning, a group of us had to “weigh in” before the lecture. Our ritual was enough to boggle the imagination. We got together a check list of precautions before we actually stepped on the scale.

Bathroom? Check. Water pill? Check. Have you removed underwear, wedding rings, nail polish? Check. Set aside shoes and earrings? Check. Are you wearing a summer dress beneath your winter coat? Check.

The first week I stepped on the scale and my instructor said, “You have gained.” (Next week, I cut my hair.)

The next week, she said, “You have lost eight ounces, but that is not enough.” (I had the fillings in my teeth removed.)

The third week, I had dropped a pound, but my instructor was still not pleased. (I had my tonsils taken out.)

Finally, she really chewed me out. She accused me of not sticking to the diet and not taking it seriously. That hurt.

“I didn’t want to tell you,” I said, “but I think I am pregnant.”

“How far?” she said coldly, clicking her ballpoint pen to make a notation on my card.

“Possibly three days,” I said.

She glowered. “Any other excuses?”

“Would you believe I have a cold and my head is swollen?”

“No.”

“How about I was celebrating the Buzzard’s Return to Hinkley, Ohio, and had butter on my popcorn?”

She tapped her pen impatiently on the card and stared at me silently.

“Lint in the navel?” I offered feebly.

“How about first one at the trough?” she asked dryly.

I learned quickly never to argue with a woman who had the scales on her side.

I saw my old instructor the other day and she eyed me carefully and said, “When are you returning to class?”

“As soon as I have my appendix removed,” I said returning her gaze.

I’m not sure, but I think I heard her moan.”

~ by Erma Bombeck

So like I said it’s been 7 and a half weeks of being on the Optifast Intensive program and I’ve surprised myself at how long I have stuck it out for. Well lets face it, when you are looking at being placed in a wooden box if you don’t do something about your weight it’s extra motivation to be strong. Admittedly as I said to a friend of mine, I have it easy because being housebound means I’m not out there in the big wide world surrounded by temptation at every corner. Maccas for a quick bite to eat along with a Coffee Kick Frappe with whipped cream on top, Muffin Break for one of their delicious muffins, the fish and chip shop overlooking the beach that makes the best battered fish ever. Not being able to do my grocery shopping means I don’t walk past the displays of chocolate bars, potato chips, the freshly baked cakes and cookies, the freezers with their range of yummy ice cream treats, all beckoning me and insisting on being picked up and placed in the shopping trolley. Nope, I have a wonderful man who does that shopping for me and sticks to a list. That makes it easier for me. For now. But sooner or later I’m going to be mobile again, be able to drive the car and be able to go grocery shopping. That will be the real test.

I did have a scare this week though. Being on Optifast means drinking at least 2 litres of fluid per day, and most of my fluid intake (other than the shakes) is water. However I also have a couple of bottles of sugar free soft drink in the fridge as a change, and the carbonated drinks help with any hunger pangs too. So on this day I took a bottle of drink out of the fridge, and poured some into a cup and skulled about 100 ml of it in one hit as I was thirsty. Ahhh, that felt good. Picked up the bottle to pour out some more and…….OH NO!!  This was what I was supposed to drink:

Instead, what my dear man had picked up while shopping because he was distracted at the time, and what I noticed when I picked up the bottle again was that it was in fact:

It was not diet/sugar free Sunkist! I  had just skulled 100 odd mls of sugar laden drink. Loads of carbs/sugars in one mouthful.  I freaked out. Probably too much, but I had visions of the scales screaming abuse at me because of that mistake. I felt for sure I would have been knocked out of the mild ketosis state that being on Optifast Intensive does to you. And so it was with this memory in mind that I dreaded weighing in this morning.

With trepidation I stepped on the scales, and waited for what seemed an eternity for them to reveal all. When I heard what the weight was (I have talking scales.) I nearly jumped in the air with excitement! However that would have been dangerous. I don’t think either the scales or floor tiles would take too kindly to my definite no lightweight body landing on them with force, not to mention the result such an impact would have on my ankle bones. That’s assuming I could even jump just half an inch up in the air…. which I can’t. The results showed a 2kg loss!!!! I was so happy. It may not have been a huge amount but it was still a good loss for the week and has brought my total weight loss now to 16kg.  That’s just over 35 pounds.  Or 2 and a half stone to the really old people who might read this blog. (I include myself here.)

So that’s another week done and dusted. Tomorrow I go visit my GP to let her know how I’m going and to get another referral to have 5 free visits for a dietician.

In closing I just wanted to mention something that was discussed on the Facebook group I belong to, the group for those using Optifast. It was “What keeps you motivated?”  (to stick to the program.)  My reply was this, “ The fact that at my current weight I am a ticking time bomb for a heart attack and an early grave. I could literally kick myself for not doing this sooner. I kept putting it off and became less and less mobile to the point of being housebound and struggling to do basic self care. Seeing other members amazing results from the Optifast program is also inspiring and helps with my motivation. I’m doing this so I can live longer and enjoy life again. I just wish I had started this years ago.“ However I did forget something very important to me which is probably so simple that everyone else does it without thinking but to me it’s something I’ve not been able to do since I gained so much weight. That’s the ability to fit behind the steering wheel of our car and be able to drive again. To get out of the house and walk around the shops. To get out of the house and back to the local heated pool to do walking in the water and later aqua aerobics when I was fitter.

That day will come for me, as long as I continue doing what I’m doing.

Thank you for reading.

         

 

 

 

 

 

 

A belated Merry Christmas to you all, hope you had a wonderful day.  For us Christmas included a much anticipated visit from my soldier son who was on leave.  On previous Christmas visits he has encountered close encounters with kangaroos on the road, one lived and hopped away, the other was already deceased and laying on the road in front of his vehicle. Unfortunately he had the choice to either run off the road into a deep ditch on one side, or have a head on with a semi trailer coming on the other side, or hit the deceased roo with his vehicle. [this was night time and he was traveling at about 90kms/hour at the time.]. Thankfully he chose the latter option.   On both occasions his vehicle needed repairs done afterwards, so as you can imagine I was hoping that this visit would involve no wildlife, or any other lives for that matter. His trip was uneventful this time, and he arrived here safe and sound, along with his father [my ex] who was also spending Christmas here so that he could catch up with our daughter.

I’d forgotten what life was like with having my son around. He loves to pick on me, usually about my advancing years, if I ask him to repeat something he speaks extra loud and v e r y  s l o w l y  so I can hear and understand him, lol, little sod!!   If I’ve forgotten something he says I have early onset dementia.  I love him though, despite the teasing. I wonder what they feed them in the Army though, because he seems to get taller every time I see him. Either that or I am shrinking as I age. I think it’s the latter. What a shame I’m not shrinking in width rather than height though.

I chose to indulge just a little bit on Christmas day. I’d been planning and anticipating what I’d be eating for weeks in advance. My mouth would water at the thought of tea and toast for breakfast. The images of Christmas cake and custard tormented me.  I longed for potatoes and gravy. Come Christmas morning I enjoyed a cup of tea with ‘real’ milk and sugar added to it for breakfast along with some toast with butter and jam. It was so delicious. I enjoyed every bit. I made every mouthful count, savouring the taste and sweetness of butter and jam. Morning tea was another cuppa with one mince tart. Lunch was BBQ chicken, a few roast potatoes, veges and gravy. However I just couldn’t finish what was on my plate which wasn’t a lot.   Afternoon tea I had a cup of coffee with a couple of plain biscuits. At dinner I had a sandwich and for dessert a small slice of Christmas cake with custard.  We had not bought potato chips, chocolates or other ‘naughty’ foods on purpose. My son is also trying to keep fit as his role in the Army is very physical, and this has helped me too.

Come Boxing day I was back on track, although with my ex around I wouldn’t have been surprised to find myself devouring every sugar laden food product within 10 kilometers of home in the hope of ending up in some kind of sugar coma.  We are still friends despite our divorce years ago, but I just find him incredibly difficult to live with. Still he’s the father of my children and I welcome him here whenever he wants to visit. He was facing a very lonely Christmas by himself in Sydney otherwise. I couldn’t do that to him. My daughter and her husband also came to visit on Boxing day and while they all enjoyed party pies, sausage rolls and mini pasties for lunch I munched away on my salad veges and allowed protein, salivating at the delicious aromas wafting my way.  I sipped my shake and tried to not look at other peoples plates.  Dinner time the entire household, except for me, ordered schnitzels and loaded fries from the Schnitz restaurant nearby. OMG,  that was a killer. Even my son indulged. To be honest by this stage I was almost in tears. I felt so left out.  However I was determined not to waver and so sighed as I prepared my  boring [in comparison] dinner and shake while they enjoyed their delicious schnitzels and hot chips. Was I tempted, yes. Would I weaken?  Nope.  I’d said that I would only enjoy a treat on Christmas day and I was determined to honour that promise to myself, for my own benefit in the long run.  So I stuck to the Optifast program, even though I knew I would endure that ‘Three day challenge’ again. Still it wasn’t too bad for me the first time around so I didn’t worry too much about it.

Still, it was with trepidation that I dug out the scales this morning. I’d been sprinting to the loo through the night, hoping some excess speed might burn off a few more calories before I had to weigh in.  I gave the scales a hug, asked them to be nice to me after my minor transgressions on Christmas day. I told them I’d be happy to have stayed the same weight rather than put on.  The moment of truth had arrived………………………..

“Bloody hell woman!!! What did you eat???” the scales yelled out! “Overload! Overload!! Step off the scales NOW!!” they gasped.

Nahh! Only joking!! Had you there eh?

The scales showed a loss of .8 of a kilo bringing my weight to 215.3kg. A total loss of 14 kilos since I started Optifast.  I was pleased with a loss, even a small one.

I don’t regret my Christmas day food choices.  While staying on track would have probably been the very best thing to do, for me it was also about feeling less left out with my shakes and salad veges. And let’s face it, I could have eaten far worse. I could have asked my partner to stock up on dips, chips, corn chips and salsa and dipped and crunched my way into oblivion.  I could have asked for a box of chocolates from my son or daughter and scoffed the lot while watching a DVD in bed that night. I could have had a bowl of vanilla ice cream along with my cake and custard. But I didn’t. So I’m pretty damn proud of myself.

I guess my normal humour and jokes are lacking in this latest blog, and for that I apologise.  Next week will be my first weigh in for 2019. A new year, and hopefully by the end of 2019 I will be considerably lighter and mobilising more, and enjoying life again.  Happy New Year everyone!

 

 

Boy do I hate summer. If there was ever a reason for losing weight it would be so that summer wouldn’t be so unpleasant. It’s not just the heat, it’s the sweat rashes under the boobs, and the even more swollen legs and feet as well. I look down at my legs, well what I can see of them with my stomach getting in the way, and they look like a couple of tree trunks. Not slender supple trees either, more like those giant redwoods found in places like Muir Woods in the USA.  The ones that are so big in diameter that you’d need to pack a snack just to walk around them. There’s no denying that my body is very firmly planted on this earth. Going to a planet that doesn’t have gravity to hold me down wouldn’t be an issue, I wouldn’t need gravity. My own body weight firmly keeps me grounded.

So this morning I was a little apprehensive about getting on the scales, not because I’d eaten the wrong foods, but because of my swollen legs and feet. I was convinced that I had some fluid retention. I made sure I squeezed every drop of wee out of my bladder before getting on the scales. I was parched when I woke up this morning, as dry as a dead dingoes donger as the saying goes, but not a drop of water would pass my lips until I had weighed myself.  Moment of truth again.

Stepped on the scales while holding my breath. Hey, you never know how heavy lungs full of air could be.  The scales seemed to take forever to come up with a final reading. Maybe that was their way of protesting. Perhaps they were not game to speak to me after last week when I had punished them for saying I’d only lost .3 of a kilo in 6 days.  I stood there for what seemed like an eternity, buck naked, hoping madly that hubby wouldn’t walk by and see me standing there like an elephant perched on a lily pad, going blue from lack of oxygen as I waited for the scales to speak. Finally they gasped out, “Two hundred and sixteen point one kilos. Now get off!”  Yayy, another loss. 1.2 kilograms gone. A grand total of 13.2 kilos off since I started back on 13th November.  Or to put it in terms of 500 gram tubs of butter…..

I’ve had a good week of sticking to the program. Thank goodness I’m not mobile enough to go shopping because with Christmas coming up there are so many yummy [and by that I mean unhealthy] foods out there in the supermarkets. I can write out my shopping list for my hubby and focus on the healthier food options without the temptation of pushing a trolley around and going past junk food galore, all of them saying, “Buy me, eat me, come on you know you want to. What’s a little taste going to do to your diet?”  Not one Christmas cake or pudding bought, no nuts or nibbles of any kind. No mince tarts or shortbread biscuits.  Sticking to the program has been hard at times. Hubby makes himself some hot buttered toast every morning, and I look at it and drool. I miss my toast with butter and jam lavishly spread. Or he enjoys some biscuits with his cup of tea. I try to not look at them as I crunch on my snack of cherry tomatoes and sliced cucumber.  Lets face it, sliced cucumber dunked in a cup of tea just doesn’t cut it.  Still, I knew it was not going to be easy at times, and even though I salivate at the thought of those naughty foods I used to eat, I know that living a few more years is more important. That and getting more mobile so I can do things that I used to do. Like sleep laying down instead of having to sit up.

I found an old magazine advertisement last week, it was for a wonderful weight loss product that was guaranteed to make you lose heaps of weight, without having to diet. It came in the form of some kind of mystery bath salts. Yep, run a nice warm bath and add this product and have a good long soak and you’ll find you will step out of that bath minus a few pounds. Surely it was some kind of magic. I could have 3 or 4 baths a day and I’d be slim in no time! I remember as a overweight teenager seeing this ad and asking mum and dad if they would let me buy some.  Unfortunately they were convinced the only weight being lost would be from their bank account so the answer was a firm no.  In desperation I even wrote a letter to the company asking them for a free sample. I’m still waiting to hear back from them.  Here’s a copy of the ad as it appeared in a magazine from around 1973.

Let’s face it, the only way you would lose weight by soaking in water is if you were in the ocean and a great white shark bit off a leg or two.  Another weight loss fad around in the late 70’s was the infamous Israeli Army diet, which had nothing to do with the Israeli Army by the way.  The diet lasts 8 days, divided in four periods of 2 days each, in which you are allowed a single type of food per day, as well as unlimited tea and coffee. Days 1-2 you can only eat apples. Days 3-4, cheese. Days 5-6, chicken. Days 7-8, salad. There are no other guidelines provided and no other foods are allowed.  Can you imagine it? Of course it was only meant to be followed for that 8 days, but I would think that a lot of people probably attempted to stay on it for even longer in the hope of dropping more than just a few pounds.

I think I will stick to Optifast thanks.

So that’s another week down and I am slowly on my way to shedding this excess weight.  I just have Christmas to get through but I’m determined to not go off the rails like I have in previous years.

Merry Christmas everyone, and may 2019 be full of good things for my readers.

 

 

                             

 

Just over a month since I started Optifast and today is Face the Scales day for me.
Don’t you hate it? You build yourself up and hope and pray for a good result when you get on the scales. The more kilos lost the better. Oh yes, we all know that it all adds up, even a hundred grams or so, but lets face it, we all like to see a decent loss, 2kg or more at least. Especially in the first few weeks, and more so when you are very heavy, with over 100kg to lose.

So after my morning dash to the toilet it was time to dig out the scales and find out the results of a weeks worth of sticking to the program, drinking 2 litres plus of water per day and numerous trips to the loo as a result. Surely just the effort of racing up the hallway, negotiating cats and a Golden Retriever just to get to the toilet before my bladder exploded would burn up fat from my body?
Not to mention getting up through the night at least twice and having to pee, then waddle back to bed, puffing and panting from the effort involved.
Eating the 2 to 4 cups of veges, and recommended extra protein each day.
Not cheating, even a tiny bit. Surely it would have all paid off?

An innocent post by someone asking about a specific brand of no fat salad dressing lead to me being attacked online by someone with whom I’d had no issues with prior to that.

I had recently consulted with my dietician about a specific brand and type of salad dressing as I had a bottle in the pantry.  I was told that it had sugar in the ingredients and that the sugar content and carbs [plus the calories per serve] were too high for those of us on Intensive. When somebody asked on the Facebook group I belong to about this particular item I commented that it wasn’t allowed and mentioned the nutritional info I’d been given by the dietician. Prior to this another person, Miss X, had commented and said that the product in question was fine to use, that she had been using it regularly on her salads.

So Miss X started abusing me saying that I was only new to the program and I knew nothing because it was on the allowed list of items on the Optifast Australia website. That my comment had upset her and the other person because they thought they had stuffed up their whole diet. She accused me of being out to sabotage them. So I checked on the website and yes, low/no fat salad dressings were allowed. I immediately deleted my comment about it not being allowed, and apologised to Miss X for any mistake I had made and stating that I was only going by what my dietician had told me only a  few days prior. However Miss X did not let it go, she kept on and on, calling me a know it all among other things. Again I apologised to her, to no avail.

For my own clarification about this I decided to ask on the official Optifast website, so I could find out for sure as I was confused. I knew that pickled onions which had sugar listed as an ingredient was definitely not permitted on the intensive program so surely a salad dressing containing sugar would be the same. As we all know, many low/no fat foods often contain more sugar content than the regular type. So I posted my question on the Optifast forum and included the list of ingredients and nutritional panel

Next thing Miss X was on there and attacking me there. Saying I was a miss know it all who had no idea of the program, that I was being sneaky by asking on that forum, and that my purpose for asking the question was so I could rub it in her face afterwards and poke fun of her on the Facebook group page.  Indeed I had no intention of doing this, it was purely for my own knowledge. I had just paid almost $20 [product plus postage] for a no fat, no carb, no sugar salad dressing not available at supermarkets here, only available on line, so if I could have a $3 bottle of no fat salad dressing instead of the more expensive one, then that was a win for me budget wise. I even told her this, that I was only asking for myself and that at age 60, I was not out to ‘rub it in anyone’s face’ if I was in fact correct, and that I was way past schoolyard behaviour such as that.

She kept on attacking me, even on the support group Facebook page,  starting her own post saying how bad the group was getting, that people were sabotaging other people by giving the wrong advice and going on and on about how toxic I was, that I was a know it all who was following her around and commenting and putting her down on all her posts. She threatened to go onto another weight loss product because of ‘know it alls’ like me.  She only had a couple of posts on the group page we were members of, and my only comment to her had been congratulating her on her recent weight loss and welcoming her to the group.   She had also commented on one of my posts wishing me luck and I had thanked her for that, and that was the full extent of my interaction with her until the Great Salad Dressing War.  There was so much hostility from her on her post that the group administrator came on line and asked what was going on, asking Miss X to send her a message explaining the issue. So I also sent a message with screenshots showing what had been said on the page, as well as what was said to me on the Optifast forum. I named the product and provided all the nutritional information for her as she is a dietician who has clients who are on Optifast, as well as having used Optifast herself.

Her conclusion, after doing her own research, was that the product could not be used by those of us on the program due to the sugar content and amount of carbs and also because sugar was an ingredient in addition to the calories per serve, and she mentioned this on Miss X’s post. That further angered Miss X who became more hostile and abusive to me with her comments until such time as the group administrator removed and blocked her from the group.  Apparently she was not happy about this and started abusing the admin via PMs as well.

However it didn’t stop there. Blocking her on Facebook didn’t stop her because she had full access to the Optifast forums. She started haranguing me again on the Optifast website where I’d posted.  She mocked me about my weight, said that I should have been ‘pissed on’ when I had my fall the other day instead of being helped up by my partner.  She disclosed my weight [actually she made me lighter than what I am, thanks for that!], and said that I was probably squashing my cats and dog to death when in bed. She even mentioned my actual name on her posts and my location because we both live in the same city [although she is on the other side of town to me, but she didn’t know that], even threatening me saying that we might meet in a chemist one day and I’d regret having crossed her. It just went on and on, and another person even intervened and told her that she was breaking the forum rules by her behaviour. She was also told where to go by Miss X.  She must have posted about a dozen times on my post there, name calling, insulting, and being a real troll. I ignored her for the most part but her mentioning my actual  name and location was the final straw.

Reporting her comments via the Report button got me nowhere, my emails to the admins sent via the ‘Contact Us’ section of the website went unanswered, so this morning I telephoned the company and explained what was going on in their Members Forum. The person who took the call was shocked and agreed that her comments and hostility were definitely in breach of the rules of the site and promised to look into it asap.  Thankfully within an hour all of Miss X’s posts were removed.

I guess this post is not the normal one for me, but there’s very little humour to be found in cyber bullying. Too many people have taken their lives because they have been bullied on line. Luckily for me it only happened over a period of a couple of days, but it was enough to upset me a great deal. Mocking someone because of their weight is schoolyard bully behaviour and Miss X was definitely not of school age, probably in her 20’s I guessed at. And she herself was obese, certainly not in the same league as me, but obese nevertheless.  I thought it was ironic that she belonged to a Facebook group which was all about about encouraging and supporting those who were battling a weight problem and not putting them down, and yet here she was doing the exact opposite of that to me. All over salad dressing!

As the admin of the page said to me, she probably did not appreciate that she, the Admin, had informed her that the product she was so emphatically stating was allowed was not allowed. That the admin had actually posted this information on Miss X’s post was probably the final insult. And being removed and blocked from the page sent her rage into overdrive, so she attacked me because of it.

Anyways, I have put it behind me now. At my age I don’t want to waste time worrying about being bullied on line. This is the first time in all my years of using social media that I have experienced it, and I hope it’s the last. I’m here to lose weight and learn about what products are good and bad for me, and if I can pass on any information about what I’ve learned then all good.

Addit: I received a phone call from a representative of Nestle`, the manufacturers of Optifast, with regards to my ‘troll’ issue on their forum. As well as having removed Miss X’s posts they are in the process of blocking her IP address from their site as her comments were in breach of the rules and code of conduct of the forum. The rep had read her comments and was both shocked and disgusted by them, and extremely apologetic that I had been the victim of this person. She also confirmed that I was correct about that particular salad dressing, with the amount of carbs and sugar in it, it was definitely not permitted on intensive. Plus, in effort to ‘restore my faith in Nestle` products’ [which was never in doubt at all], they are also sending me out a $50 EFTPOS gift card for me to use at a pharmacy the next time I need to buy my Optifast products! I was both surprised and touched by this kind gesture and very appreciative. Just having those comments removed was enough for me, but this was an added and unexpected bonus. Thank you Nestle`!!!!

               

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The day started on a high when I did what I said I wouldn’t do and that’s weigh myself only a day after my last weigh in. I know one can gain weight from day to day but I still wanted to just see what the scales might say.  The talking scales gasped out “217.6kg.” That was a loss of 1.2kg from yesterday morning. I was pretty pleased about that. I’d now lost 11.6kg in three and a half weeks.

It wasn’t until after lunch that my mood went down and so did I! Literally!

As my hair was beginning to look like a unshorn sheep after not being cut for over 6 months, I had organised a hairdresser to come to my home to cut my hair. Last time I went to my hairdressers the arms on the chairs cut into me and trying to get onto the couch thing they had by the basins was near impossible. So a home visiting hairdresser is much easier for me.

She was a lovely lady and it took just under an hour to cut my hair for me as we chatted away. Even though I was sitting on a padded chair in the garage [best place to have it done away from curious cats and dog plus easier to sweep up afterwards] I could feel my right leg going numb from sitting upright with my feet hanging down and the chair seat pressing against the back of my thighs. I kept wiggling my toes and moving my feet around but it just got worse. I wasn’t game to try to stand while she was there as I had a feeling things would go pear shaped.

When she left I called to my partner to fetch my walking stick as I had a feeling that I’d have problems standing up with my right leg completely numb by this stage and the only way to get rid of that feeling would be to get up and moving it.
He brings me my stick and I slowly ease myself up, very slowly. However I just couldn’t feel my leg at all and I felt myself giving way…I tried to sit onto the chair again but in the process knocked it backwards and both me and the chair ended up on the floor. My poor partner managed to grab me and lessen the impact of me hitting the concrete but I still ended up flat on the floor. After a couple of minutes I was able to get onto my side a bit and half sitting up. I was scared witless thinking that I’d never be able to get up completely without calling the fire brigade. My poor partner wanted to try to help me up but with his bad back I wouldn’t let him do that, there’s no way he’d be able to lift me as heavy as I am.

I kept moving my right leg around, wriggling my toes until such time as the feeling started coming back. My partner grabbed a metal stepladder and placed that in front of me. By grabbing that I managed to get myself onto my knees, and then very slowly ease myself up to a standing position. By this stage I was in tears. If Paul had not been there I’d still be laying there like a fish out of water. This is exactly why I need to get rid of this excess weight.

Anyway, I thought I would bite the bullet and post my photos on here. Even though I’ve lost weight in the 3 and a half weeks that I’ve been on Optifast you can’t see it from these pics compared to the last ones I had taken back in March 2016.
Not a happy looking me as you can tell. I was still upset from my fall but thought that it was an opportune time for some photos, showing me as I am now, at my worst. Rest assured they don’t show me in my undies, that would just be wayy too much for your poor eyes. I’m not a sadistic person.

So here I am. Warts and all. Not that I have warts. When I look at my jowls I feel like I look like a bloodhound. Not to mention all those chins. And don’t mention the arms, I hate them!
Also in the picture is a memorial to my deceased heart dog, Jessie the Golden Retriever who died 3 years ago yesterday.
And Max the Ragdoll kitty at my feet.

The cartoon pretty much sums up how I felt while laying on the garage floor.

   

 

 

 

 

 

12th of November 2018.
The start of my Optifast journey.
Funny how it’s always about ‘the journey’ when it comes to weight loss. Like you’re packing your bags and heading off on a trip to some exotic location.
Every reality TV show I’ve seen over the past few years speaks of a ‘journey’.
Whether it’s about finding a husband or wife, surviving in a jungle, getting a singing contract, appearing on MKR or a weight loss show, it’s a journey.

For weight loss it’s not about actually packing a real life suitcase, jumping on a plane and flying off into the wild, blue yonder only to return minus those extra kgs. It would be great if it was that easy. Hey I’d even fly Tiger Air to outer Mongolia if I returned home minus 100 plus kilos. Somehow though I’d have more chance of losing my luggage than coming back 100kg lighter.

It is a journey though. It’s a journey to find a healthier, happier, slimmer version of ourselves. We pack up our bags. In them go the junk food we enjoyed. The high fat, high kilojoule foods we’d scoff down. The bad choices we used to make. The low self esteem we had because of our weight. The “I’ll start my diet next week” promises we’d make to ourselves. Boy, do I ever know that one! At the start of this year I wrote a note to myself on a magnetic whiteboard on our fridge. It said “Start diet next week. Get healthy. Get to drive car again.” 11 months later that note is still there, very faded. ‘Next week’ didn’t come, not to me. Not till November 12th.
We pack our bags with the different things that made us overweight and set off on our own journey. Hopefully that suitcase, filled with all those ‘bad’ things will get lost, just like on a real Tiger Air flight. Never to return.

So here we all are. Each of us on our own journey. Some don’t have so far to go, others, specifically myself, have a journey as long as the distance to the moon and back. Hey, now the moon would be great! Everything is so much lighter up there. No gravity to keep me grounded. I could jump, leap, cavort and dance around there like a sugar plum fairy!
However I don’t live on the moon. I’m here on earth with the rest of you guys, very much stuck on terra firma due to gravity and my body weight. No way can I leap, dance, jump or cavort here. I’m flat out getting up out of my chair. If I was to attempt jumping and leaping 3 things would happen.
● The floor would give way. Or I’d fall flat on my back and break my hip and the fire brigade would have to come out with the ambos to break the front doorway down to get me out. I’d have to wait for a bariatric ambulance to transfer me to hospital. Meanwhile the neighbours and local press would be there recording my humiliation.
● I’d cause an earthquake. At least a 8 pointer on the Richter scale. Brisbane would never know what hit it. I’d probably create an Aussie version of the San Andreas fault line right here in Queensland.
● As a result of that earthquake there’d be a tsunami. Bigger than one I’d cause trying to have a bath here at home. (Not that I’d dare attempt that! See 1st point.) A massive wall of water probably heading straight for New Zealand. Sorry Kiwi group members. 🙁🙁
Okay, scratch living on the moon.

Now where was I? Oh yes, our Optifast journey to get rid of that unwanted baggage aka weight. Our journey to change our way of eating and how we look at food. We want to be able to throw all our ‘fat clothes’ in that suitcase and rejoice when they are lost. Me? I plan to donate mine to the local parachute factory. I can just picture the SAS forces jumping out of a plane above enemy territory, ready for a surprise attack to destroy the enemies weapons factory. Come time to deploy their chutes, they pull the ripcord! Whoosh! The shutes open and the sky is filled with my 7XL floral underpants gently floating in the air as the SAS troops fall towards earth. Imagine that! No need for guns or chemical weapons, the enemy would die laughing. 😂😂

So here we are. Sharing our successes and our not so good results. Each of us on our own journey. Some of us will arrive sooner, for others like myself it’s going to take much longer. Perseverance and determination will get us there.

🍱Now the point of my post was to report my weight loss for this week. I guess like always I got carried away with my words again. Whoops!
Drum roll please.
🥁🥁🥁
Not a big loss this week. A loss of 1.5kg. That’s a total of 10.5kg since I started back on 12th November. Still, that’s a lot of tubs of butter so I am pleased. And the numbers are dropping even without exercise.

 

 

My blog post yesterday was a tad depressing I guess, which is not me at all.  In fact there are lots of things in my life that I am grateful for, and so I thought I would share them here.

First off are my children. My daughter is almost 30 now and happily married to a lovely guy. No grandchildren on the horizon, but I do have ‘grand cats’. My daughter and her husband adopted 2 cats from the RSPCA and they are very much loved by them both. I don’t see her as often as I’d like to because of my mobility issues, and also because her house is high set and has lots of steps which I just can’t manage.  She’s a great girl and a hard worker in her job. We  may not have that gushy mother/daughter bond like some but she’s there for me.

My son is 28 years old and a private in the Australian Army. He’s infantry based which is very hard on the body, but so far so good, no injuries. He is currently stationed in Adelaide, has had a deployment to Iraq [and returned safe and sound], did some training in the jungles of Malaysia and hopefully will get a chance to go onboard a Navy ship next year for exercises around Townsville.  He is very much into fitness, as he should be with his job, and prior to joining the Army was always going to the boot camp at the local PCYC. I’m very proud of him and what he’s become. We had some rocky times when he was 16/17, and he ended up going to live with his dad for a couple of years, but all is good now.

I’m grateful for my partner Paul, he is so kind, loving and unselfish, always putting me and the kids first. He’s taken on the role of step dad without being pushy, just being there for them if they needed anything. I think the day my daughter asked him to walk with her and her father down the aisle on her wedding day was one of the best days for him. He was so touched by her gesture, it truly meant a lot.  He helps out so much around the house, despite his own medical issues. He has a back injury from heavy lifting in a previous job and is in a world of pain some days. Yet he still goes out to work 4 days a week doing his courier job, does all the budgeting to ensure we have a roof over our heads and food in our bellies. He is fully supportive of me with everything that I do, and goes without to ensure that I have my Optifast products stocked up and my healthy veges etc. He loves the furbabies very much and even when he’s in pain he’s taking Ollie the Golden Retriever out for walks twice a day.

I’m grateful for the furbabies who share our home. 3 and a half year old Golden Retriever Ollie who makes us laugh so much with his antics. He was a boisterous 6 month old when we took him in shortly after the death of my ‘heart dog’, another Golden called Jessie.  Her death was sudden, she was almost 13 and it broke my heart when she left us. So a few weeks later we found Ollie needed a home after being shut outside in a backyard because he was ‘excitable’. Um, hello……….6 month old dogs are like that. Anyways, he settled in very quickly, did have a couple of issues at first, but he’s growing up into such a good dog and is very affectionate, and also very tolerant of our 2 cats.  Itty Bitty Kitty is the moggy of the house. We adopted him from a rescue group and he likes to think he rules the roost. He’s about 8 years old now, and still acts like a kitten sometimes. Max is the newest furbaby to join us. He’s a chocolate point Ragdoll that my partner found being given away on line. I’ve always loved Ragdoll cats and wanted one, and for Mothers Day Paul surprised me by coming home with Max! He’s just gorgeous and so very ‘floofy’.  He’s a bit of a character though, nibbles your nose gently and parades up and down the hallway yowling loudly…………especially around 4am. If he’s really hungry he’ll jump on the bed and land on us while miaowing. Just what you need before you really need to get up. I call him Maximus Naughtiness or Maximus Stinkus. [The latter is when he’s used his litterbox].  I reckon the Army could do with him as a weapon to stink out the enemy.  The furbabies never fail to make us laugh.

I’m grateful for a wonderful landlord who is the husband of a old friend of mine. We suffered the heat of summer in a previous rental for many years, no air conditioning except for a portable unit which really only helped in the bedroom. Many hot summers days would find Paul and I, two Golden retrievers and the cat, all vying for space on the bed in front of the air con unit. My friend and her husband wanted to buy an investment property here in Brisbane and asked us to go house hunting on their behalf, giving us a budget and basic requirements that they wanted. So off we went, viewing various homes that fitted their criteria until we found one that suited. Sight unseen, aside from photos on line, they purchased this house we are now living in, and even though there was air conditioning already in the lounge room they paid to have reverse cycle air con units installed in all 4 bedrooms and solar panels on the roof.  We have been here 18 months now, my friend and her husband still haven’t seen the house, but are always there if we feel we need anything done.  Plus our rental payment per week is less than what other homes in this area are currently fetching, so we are doubly blessed.

I’m grateful that despite being morbidly obese I have not developed diabetes or any cardiac issues and other than high blood pressure I’m not doing too badly. My hips and knees are also okay, no issues with joint degeneration, thank heavens.  Of course my health is by no means good, what body wouldn’t protest at carrying so much weight around for so long? That’s a work in progress though, it’s very early days yet, but I will get there.

I’m grateful for my friends, most of whom I have never met, but met via Facebook or various forums I’ve belonged to over the years. There’s a few in the USA that I met back in 2007 when I attended a 3 day camp for Golden Retriever lovers, the event called Goldstock. I knew them from a forum I belonged to back then and it was wonderful meeting up with them in reality.  Most of my other Facebook friends are people I’ve worked with, fellow Golden Retriever owners and people who used to post on ebays community pages. There’s even a few friends from back in the late 90’s/early 2000’s who were a part of Big Pond chat rooms where I used to hang out.  I have some very special friends who can be very supportive and caring despite us having never met.

I’m also especially grateful for the people on the Optifast Facebook support group that I belong to. Since I started on the Optifast program they have encouraged me and supported me, given me advice and posted the nicest things. So many people from that group suggested that I write a blog and maybe a book one day and so here I am now, with a newly created blog, posting things that I have never said to anybody before. Opening up to what life has been like and what it is like now.  It’s thanks to them that I’m here.

I think that just about covers it.  I do have a lot to be grateful for, despite my weight.

Thank you for reading. I haven’t posted a photo of Paul or my daughter, just for their privacy reasons. The photo of my son……well you don’t see his face so you don’t know who it is behind all that army gear.

 

              

 

 

 

 

 

 

I know I tend to make light in what I can and cannot do, but life for someone morbidly obese and over 200kg is not easy.

Let’s start with the difficulty in finding clothes, even basic stuff like underwear. Instead of being able to buy from Big W, K Mart or Target for example I have to buy on line. With a single pair of underpants in my size selling for $25 plus postage that makes it bloody expensive. I guess cutting up a circus tent and sewing it into a pair of bloomers takes up a lot of time and is labour intensive hence the cost.  I tried buying on ebay but the sizing there is crazy. Undies made in China are NOT designed for hefty Aussie women, and their size 30’s barely fit around one upper thigh on me.  Then there’s bras. OMG. My big bazookas need their own postcode and years of strain from their sheer weight means I just about have to pick them up from around my knees to fit them into a bra. When I can find a bra that fits of course. And again you are looking at paying a fortune.  Try $99 for ONE bra from Dale and Waters here in Australia who are a clothing company catering for larger ladies. No wonder my bras are so worn out they have lost their elasticity because I can’t afford replacements.  I haven’t mentioned another issue with being so overweight…………not being able to reach around to my back to fasten or undo the bra in the first place. I either have to put them on back to front,  do the fastening up first and then slip the bra over my head and shoulders and work my way into it, or buy bras that do up at the front.  I must look like a contortionist as I try to put on something that invariably cuts into my skin and crushes my ginormous boobs together.  Is it a wonder that I often go braless when at home? Don’t try to picture this, it ain’t pretty.

Another horrible thing about having big boobs is the sweat rash, especially in summer. No matter how much cornstarch talc I apply.

Then there’s dresses or other items of clothing. All of mine are the same general style……….circus tent size. Very loose fitting in fabric designs that look as though they’d be more suited to hanging up over the windows. Honestly, whoever designs clothing for the larger woman must think that garish patterns and colours are perfect for us.  Yeah, perfect if you want to stand out even more in a crowd. No matter how often the ad for women’s dresses in sizes 24 plus say that the design is ‘flattering to larger figures’ or ‘the colours disguise the bulges’ etc  the simple fact is that nothing can make a person who is morbidly obese look slimmer. Case in point my mother of the bride outfit. I wish I could find a picture of how it appeared on the website, worn by a woman who couldn’t have been bigger than a size 18 by the looks of it, advertised as being flattering to the larger figure. Bullshit! I ordered it thinking it would look so good on me on my daughters big day.

Check my photos below showing me at my daughters wedding a couple of years ago now.  Now the style of dress in no way, shape or form can hide my huge arms. That floral chiffon looking material was supposed to ‘skim the hips and help disguise the upper arms. Ha!! My bulges are still very evident, the fabric seemed to cling to them despite the size being a size bigger than I normally wore. The fabric stuck to me on that day because of the heat and humidity. And lets face it, no dress could ever hide my double/triple/quadruple chins. Far more chins than any Chinese phonebook. Yeah, I know…………bad, and very old, joke. My poor swollen ‘cankles’ and feet wouldn’t even fit into the shoes I bought especially for that day, even though they were a ‘wider fitting’. So I had to wear my old slip on shoes.  No wonder I avoided photos on that day.  I’d always imagined that when my daughter married I would be looking somewhat elegant, even if overweight, mingling with guests, drinking too much wine and dancing with my daughters gay guy friend who cut a mean streak on the dance floor with his moves. He was  hilarious and the life of the party.   And of course doing the Nutbush City Limits dance with all the other guests. Instead I was sitting at the table, my legs feeling as though circulation was cut off from the seat cutting into my legs, my feet slowly blowing up like balloons, my toes looking like fat sausages from the butcher. No mingling, just sitting and smiling at people and chatting to those who came to say hello. I felt embarrassed for my daughter too, not just for me.

The other issue is simple things like not being able to go in a car unless I bring my seatbelt extender. Either that or the seatbelt is so tight it just about cuts me in half.  As I posted previously I’ve not even been able to drive for the past 2 and a half years because even if I can fit behind the steering wheel, I have the seat pushed so far back that my feet don’t reach the pedals. A Fred Flintstone type car would be ideal. I could just stick my feet through the floor and get some exercise by pushing the car along that way.

Bedtime. A time to relax. A nice comfy bed to chill out on in the evenings while watching trashy TV shows. I broke our last bed. Yep. The side just collapsed one day when I was sitting in it. I was mortified. That wasn’t the worst. The springs on the mattress on my side were also breaking apart.  My partner bought us a new bed and base, this one from heavy timber with more support. Even then though he had to add extra strong brackets to the top end where I sit/sleep. But that’s not all. Bricks. Yep, 2 lots of bricks propped underneath the frame at the top and at the side towards the top, just to help those brackets along. But wait there’s more…………and no it’s  not free steak knives. A square of perspex that goes under the mattress and on top of the slats, just for extra support again. Our bed is  fortified to be more secure  than the main safe at the treasury in Canberra. Even then it creaks and groans when I climb in.

Showering is akin to running a marathon for me, I get exhausted. Especially if I’ve had to wash my hair, the effort of having my arms up to wash my hair makes me out of breath. I puff and pant when I finish my shower, needing to lean over the vanity basin to catch my breath again. While I dry off I am sitting down. There’s no way I can possibly stand up to dry myself. I just can’t do it.  I even had a metal framed chair actually break underneath me one day, the part where it was welded together actually gave way. Just as well I felt it happening and was able to stand up before landing flat on the floor, naked as a jaybird…….well, as naked as a baby elephant is a more apt description.

Medical: I’ve added this part to my original post as I neglected to mention what I’ve endured as a morbidly obese patient. A few years ago I had what they call an incarcerated hernia. It’s something that needs to be operated on as what was happening in my case was that part of my bowel was getting caught up in the ‘hernia’ part from where I’d had previous surgery years ago. An ambulance was called to our home and when it arrived, the ambos looked at  me and said that they’d have to call for a bariatric ambulance. To those who don’t know of the word bariatric it means something that is built especially for the very obese. The bariatric ambulance came with a stretcher designed for my weight [which back then was 215kg] and a platform at the back which lifted the stretcher up and into the ambulance.  Once at the hospital it was a ‘send the search party’ job to try to find a vein in my arms to insert a drip.  The surgical registrar came to see me after I’d had some xrays and scans to confirm I had to have surgery. He looked very concerned as he explained that my weight was a major risk as far as an anaesthetic and surgery went. As an ex anaesthetic and recovery room RN I knew full well what he meant.  I was sent to the ward to find myself on what they call a bariatric bed. They are much bigger and heavier than normal hospital beds and higher too thanks to the special mattress that was specifically used to help prevent bedsores.  I had to ask for a footstool just to get into it.

A few hours later the surgeon and anaesthetist came to see me and said that I was too much of a risk for them to perform the operation there, that I’d have to be transferred to a large hospital in the city where they were able to take better care of me.  So now I had to wait for another bariatric ambulance to arrive. It was a long 3 hour wait. When I finally arrived at the other hospital I was again seen by the surgical registrar who told me pretty bluntly that there was a large risk with me going under anaesthetic and getting through the surgery okay. I would also have to go to Intensive Care post operatively. That’s when I got scared, really, really scared. I was crying. Surgery was set to start at midnight.  The anaesthetist came to assess me and he thankfully was much kinder towards me, and  I explained that I had been an anaesthetic nurse before and knew the risks involved.  Death being the worst outcome of course among other things. When I was taken into the operating theatre I was scared stiff. I remember the anaesthetic registrar putting in an arterial line to monitor my blood pressure more accurately than a normal blood pressure cuff on the arm.  As I drifted off to sleep I remember the anaesthetist holding onto my hand and my last thoughts were a constant refrain in my head, “Please God, let me get through this, I don’t want to die.”   Two and a half hours later I heard the anaesthetist calling my name and I remember him removing the endotracheal tube from my throat.  I had no pain, only a feeling of overwhelming relief that I was still alive. I spent the night in Intensive Care and was transferred to the ward the following afternoon.  Luckily my recovery was uneventful. No wound breakdown, no blood clots. It was a terrifying 24 hours for me. All due to my excessive weight.

I look forward to losing weight so that if I am ill again I can get to hospital in an ordinary ambulance. If I need to have surgery that is not complicated then I can have it done at our district hospital instead of having to  be transferred all the way to Brisbane. I can have an anaesthetic without the fear of dying due to the strain on my heart and lungs. And I can actually fit in a regular hospital bed that isn’t so high off the ground! Not to mention fit into a hospital gown without it straining at the seams.

I look forward to losing weight so I can not only wear clothes from a regular store, but be able to drive again, have a shower and be able to dry off without needing resuscitation, to be able to do housework again instead of my patient, caring partner doing it for me. To be able to cook for him, decent meals, not microwavable stuff because I need to sit down in the kitchen to do anything because I can’t stand for more than a few minutes. To be able to sleep in a bed that’s not reinforced with enough steel brackets to sink a ship, and to be able to sleep on just 2 pillows again instead of being propped up on 3 and sleeping semi sitting up because I can’t catch my breath. To be able to sit on wooden dining chairs without the fear that they are going to collapse under me.

I look forward to losing weight so that I don’t need a ‘wheely walker’ to get around the house, or a walking stick when I go to the doctors or dietician. Having to lean on the walker for support is depressing when you are only 60 years of age, same with using the walking stick.  At least I’m still able to mobilise in a fashion though, it could be worse. I could be like one of those poor souls who are so trapped in their obese bodies that they are bed bound, having to be sponge bathed by their family members. I’m not there……..yet…..but I’m determined I won’t end up like that. That would really be rock bottom.

I look forward to losing weight so I can not feel as though everyone is looking at me when I do leave the house, that I can actually fit onto the chairs in my doctors surgery, you know, the kind that have arms that you have to approach sort of side on, first one buttock cheek, then the other, while the armrests are squashed against you, digging in. And having lost enough weight so that my doctor can actually check my blood pressure the normal way, instead of having to wrap the cuff around my lower arm and doing it like that, probably not the most accurate way to get a reading.

I look forward to losing weight just so we can go out again as a couple instead of spending every single weekend at home, never going anywhere. Like I said before, the only time I leave the house is to go to the doctors, or more recently, the dieticians. Previously the occasional trip to a nearby beach suburb to eat fish and chips in the car while looking out over the water was the biggest trip I’d take, and even that was short and sweet, my legs couldn’t hack sitting in a car for too long and we’d have to come  home so I could elevate them. Imagine that………..sitting in the lounge room every single day for almost 3 years. Unable to go and enjoy a nice drive with my partner and our golden retriever.

Most of all I look forward to losing weight so I am a healthier and happier person than I am now. I don’t want to continue holding the cardiologists record for being a patient with the highest BMI he’s ever had.  I want my son and daughter to be proud of me. Secretly I fear for my daughter as she too has a weight problem, and I dread to think of her ending up like me. I’ve never said anything to her as I don’t want to hurt her feelings but I have told her how much life sucks for me right now, not being able to go out etc. While she’s young she’s fine [almost 30 years old], but once she gets older she’ll really notice how those extra kgs hinder you from being able to live normally.

I don’t want to be in a pine box before my time. Which of course brings me to another point, a more morbid one, sorry. I always had an idea I’d want a cheap funeral, so the cheapest of coffins, a cardboard one would suit me nicely. But hey, how would that work with me being as big as I am. I can just picture my funeral and the coffin up on the stand and all of a sudden as people are sitting quietly listening to the priest or whoever it is  there is an almighty crash as the stand gives way and the bottom falls out of the coffin and there I am!  What a undignified way to be farewelled.  Not to mention the cost of a extra large, super strong coffin. Such a waste.

I guess this latest blog entry isn’t the upbeat, full of jokes kind that I usually write. There’s  not a lot to laugh about really. There is no jolly, fat lady. Or if there is, she’s hiding her true feelings behind a fake smile and “Yeah, I’m fine, all’s good, thanks for asking.”

▲▲The photo of someone sitting in a chair is not me, but it’s how I picture myself when I’m sitting in a waiting room.