One step forward, Two steps back...

Once again, I apologize for being derelict in posting, but as usual, this has been a crazy week for us. I’ve been working quite a bit more than usual and training for a third job (can you tell I’m WAY over being poor?) so any time I’ve had away from work, training, or sleeping I’ve been spending with Tanner.

I’ve had a few slip ups on my diet and I only made it to the pool once, but I’ve tried to get on the treadmill at least once a day all week. I saw my cardiologist today for my follow up appointment and he approved me for surgery so Yay! for that! I don’t think I got around to posting about how my initial consult with him went, but he actually mentioned that the last echo he did when I was first considering bariatric surgery showed that my heart had some areas of thickening and didn’t appear to be pumping as efficiently as it should be. He said that he saw the same thickening on this most recent echo cardiogram, but didn’t see the pumping problem. He did note that it was hard to really get a good image of my heart (due to the plethora of fatty tissue in the way…he was nice enough to phrase this tactfully bless him), but what he saw didn’t concern him enough to put a roadblock in the way of surgery.

I believe my bariatric doctor is still waiting on the results of my psych eval, but considering I didn’t show up in my birthday suit or try to introduce the psychologist to my posse of invisible friends, I’m pretty sure I’ll pass that.

The last time I weighed, I had lost about 7 lbs, but I had a MAJOR cheat the other night (boo me!) so I’ve been afraid to see what the scale said. I was SO exhausted and we literally had nothing to eat at the house. I have been trying to do that stupid fasting diet and by the time I got around to dinner, I hadn’t had more to eat that day than two 70 calorie “puddings.” I was RAVENOUS and ordered pizza for Tanner and I. Let’s just say I didn’t stop at 2 pieces of pizza and I even ordered cheesecake…I know!

The whole fasting thing just isn’t working out for me people. I have my pudding or shake in the morning, then later in the afternoon. Initially, even that was difficult as I would get quite hungry around lunch time and the supplement would only curb that hunger for about an hour. I’m now at a point where I seem to do alright, but when dinner rolls around and I get to eat real food, I just start hoovering any food in sight. Most times, I’m eating healthy foods and I still manage to stay under 1000 calories for the day, but binge behavior is binge behavior.

What I think I’ve decided to do is eat sensibly. Keep it to three meals (no snacks) per day and try to keep my calories under 1500. When I get to within two weeks of my surgery, I’ll go on the fasting diet the doctor has prescribed. Otherwise, I feel like I’m just setting myself up for failure. Due to some other news I’ll get into in a minute, I could be 6 – 8 weeks from surgery at this point and I don’t think I can do this pre surgery diet for that long.

So, what happened that changed my desire to have surgery ASAP? Our crappy luck! I got a call from the management company that handles our rental home. Apparently the owner of our duplex is in bankruptcy and the bank is going to assume our duplex the first of March which means we have to be out very soon. I was initially very concerned because financially we are still pretty strapped and our credit is just…beyond repair really so qualifying for a new place was going to be problematic if not impossible. Luckily, there is another rental right next door to us that was back on the market and it happens that the management company is the same one we originally signed our first lease with (it changed companies about a year ago). I called the woman we worked with previously and learned that it hadn’t been rented yet so we’ve been trying to scrape the money together to pay all the security deposits, moving expenses, etc. I’m trying to be positive about this…we are fortunate that Erik has this second job and that I just got hired on for my third job or we would be in so much trouble trying to make all this happen. It is just frustrating because, once again, we will have to use money we were saving for another car to move. One step forward, two steps back should be our theme song!

I also have some other bad news…the wound from hell is back. You remember the one on my stomach that started back in November? I thought it had healed, the skin healed over, but I always felt kind of a little thickening there, but thought that it was scar tissue since it took so long to heal. It had broken through once before since the initial rupturing, but I thought it was finally behind me; apparently not. Today it is back to being tender to the touch and feverish so I’m guessing it is probably going to rupture again. I’ve put in a call to a wound care specialist at Erik’s urging and am hoping to get an appointment for some time next week. Again, I can only think that there must be some pocket of infection that isn’t able to heal before the outer skin starts to grow back (I know, this is disgusting…sorry another hazard to being a fatty and not something I am going to miss once I start to lose weight!). I think when I start increasing my activity (walking on the treadmill) the friction just irritates it enough that it causes the wound to re-open. I’ll let you guys know how the appt goes when I get it sorted out.

Right now I’m off to spend some time with Tanner and Erik before getting back to work this evening! Blog more soon !

FINALLY!

I've been trying all week to post, but I had so much to update, I was only getting it done in fits and spurts. In a nutshell, I've seen the cardiologist, had an echocardiogram, and had my psych appointment. I also had a horrible cold for over a week that kept me from blogging as I still had to work and was just wiped out from not sleeping. I will update more on some of the above stuff when I can this week, but I wanted to get something done this morning.

I have been eating ok. A few slips here and there, but overall, doing ok. I've been walking on the treadmill sporadically, but in the last few days more routinely. I'm up to about 6 minutes at a time and have managed to get two walks in a day. I'd like to get up to 3 and then start to increase my minutes.

I also got up at 5AM this morning to go to the pool. Here was my workout there. Keep in mind this was all done in the pool:

50 jumping jacks
15 minutes running
100 stairs on each leg (by the time I stand on the stair in the pool, half my body is out of the pool. I felt it in my legs, but honestly, I really felt it in my back. My core strength is just as bad as my strength in my arms and legs)
50 leg raises to the side on each leg
100 tip toe raises

I want to try to do some upper body later today. I'm probably going to do the push up workout I used to do only against the wall. I just don't have the strength to haul myself up off the floor yet. I made the mistake of getting on the floor over the weekend to work on my computer (I put in new memory..am I a bad ass or what?). I spent about 20 minutes on the floor trying to make a mess of the spaghetti of wires under my desk and when it was time to get off the floor, I realized I was in a pickle. It wasn't so much my strength, but my knees. I either had to kneel on one knee and use my hands on the other to get up (you try putting 440 lbs of pressure on one on one of your knees and see how it feels) OR grab my desk and use some upper body strength to pull myself up. The problem with the ladder was that for the time it took me to pull myself off the floor, my knees were going to have to still support most of my weight as I hauled myself up. I literally sat there for about 10 minutes brainstorming how I was going to get off the floor without calling Erik in to help. I honestly don't know how I managed to get up without causing my knees to blow out, but it was difficult enough that I am not going to risk getting stuck again anytime soon!

Does anyone have any ideas for how I can start strengthening my lower back and abdominal muscles? They can be pool exercises (keeping your balance in the pool works your core strength as well) or out of the water exercises, but nothing where I have to get down on the ground obviously. I've wondered if I could try to do crunches in bed lol, but I dont think it is firm enough.

Ok, have to get the tanman off to school. I may update more later. If you want to track my food and exercise, visit me here.

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