Saturday, April 12, 2008
Hope-topia
Current mood: peaceful
Category: Life
It's early morning on a saturday- a time I am usually not up and about but as I went to bed last night I was just thinking about my life and some of the experiences I have had being (:::sigh::) overweight (there I said it). I have always hated that expresion btw, not that there is a good expression that you can ever call the thing you have always hated the most about yourself but I guess it is better than some other less kind experesions I have been referred to as...anyways.
When you start a new diet or program as a big person I think everyone goes through the same process, you start up the fashion show in your mind where even Tyra and Heidi are in awe of your perfect, smokin hot body as your strut past them at Fashion Week....orrrrr that may just be me watching too many seasons of Top Model and Project Runway....details. You jump to the end result where you have the body you want, are dating the men you want, wearing hot, trendy clothes. You get the idea...you start to HOPE. Hope is not where you live when you are inactive about weigh issues. When you are just living your day to day, buying that Iced Vanilla coffee and sausage mcmuffin with cheese everyday for breakfast trust me you are under no illusions about what you are doing. I believe even the happiest and jolliest of us fat folk know that we are living in a little funkytown called DENIAL. I have been a looooong time resisdent but always clinged to a little wisp of a belief that one day I'd find my ticket out of Denialsville into HOPE-TOPIA.
I knows its going to be alot of work and I am in a weird way looking forward to the struggle. I have had to fight tooth and nail for everything I have ever got and I know that has made me appreciate what I have and where I am at. Good or bad I own it cuz I know it was all me that got me here. No favors, no good luck ever found its way to my doorstep. Not that I am complaining mind you. My own baby brother has the fitting nickname "Golden Boy" because being the child of a second marriage and have his next closet sibling (me) being 10 years older than him...well, the little shit has been spoiled all his life. Mainly by me. He has always had it so good that until recently I used to tell him that the worst thing about him was nothing really bad ever happened to him. Because of his easy, comfy life he never developed any survival skills and when life finally caught up to him it was very very hard for him. Same with my friend Chris, he was just telling me that up until he turned 30 he was teflon, nothing ever hit him. He was Midas and everything he touched turned to gold. But now he is struggling to find a decent job, just a got convicted of a DUI and finds himself baffled by things not just clicking into place for him. When you are used to champagne and caviar, ramen noodles are hard to take. So always having to take the rocky road of life at least has that as an upside. I have always been in a fight for something so I know this animal and I brought my chair and whip to tame this beast. In fact this is the reason I chose this instead of the (gasp) surgical route.
Worldwide reveal: NO ONE knows I ever went to a surgical weight loss clinic. I have never spoke about it to anyone.I first started thinking about it seriously when I was still living in Chicago. There is a place called the Wish Clinic and its the place where Carnie Wilson went. I remember that because she was the star of their commerical. It showed her in a typical fat person shot, her struggling to get out of the car then waddling to the front door and them :::poof :: POW! she is slim and gorgeous after major survery. Taa-Daaa! I started thinking about it and went to the little seminar with a herd of other big folk and thought, this ain't so scary. Then I moved to AZ but lucky me, they have a clinic here too. I called and set up an appt for an evaluation and after my insurance company deemed that I was (the clinical term) MORBIDLY OBESE (nothing like that for the old self esteem eh?) I was approved for the surgery. I went in and had a bunch of tests done and saw a bunch of specialists who talked me through the surgery and procedures. They talked about the side effects like diarrhea and frequent vomiting (especially if you cheated) and they told me to buy a blender cuz for months all you can eat is blended foods (I bought it, never been out of the box). They give you a sample diet of 6 small meals you are supposed to eat to get your body and in the habit for your new life and new body post-surgery. Then they scoot you out the door. I gathered all my paperwork went home all determined and started to follow the plan. I even got up at 5am to start walking as part of my new exercise rountine (anyone who knows me well is at this time still shocked that I got up at 5am...it's true). A few days into this routine the little ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomache started to grow. I began to remember a family friend who had gastric bypass surgery and while it was very effective I just remember her on a down day saying "if I knew my body was going to change this much, I would have never done it" then hurling.
Now I know many, many people have had successful and life saving gastric bypass surgeries and I applaud them all. I just got all freaked out at the thought of my body being surgically altered for something that I chose to do it. I guess I kinda feel like telling my body "look, I got us into this mess, I'll get us out" I can only hope that my body trusts me enough to give us both a chance. I also always kinda felt like the bypass surgery was cheating in a way. Not that it's not very difficult as well but, in my opinion, you don't really treat the core issue. You are forced into a new lifestyle or else suffer the god awful and icky consequences but I think because people are handed the solution instead of working through it that is why so many people gain it all back. Not all but some...again, just my opinion and that, along with sheer terror is why I stopped the pre-surgery program and never went back there, instead I rushed back to my place in Denialsville which was still safe and cozy waiting for me. I avoided it so much that the bill for the evaluation ended upgoing to collections cuz I just did not want to admit that I'd even been there.
This time I am not scared and while I am thinking about the end result I am also welcoming the journey that is going to get me there. Tyra, you better watch for me (heh).
That's just another glimpse under the hood that is my life...more to come.
Hope-topia
Current mood: peaceful
Category: Life
It's early morning on a saturday- a time I am usually not up and about but as I went to bed last night I was just thinking about my life and some of the experiences I have had being (:::sigh::) overweight (there I said it). I have always hated that expresion btw, not that there is a good expression that you can ever call the thing you have always hated the most about yourself but I guess it is better than some other less kind experesions I have been referred to as...anyways.
When you start a new diet or program as a big person I think everyone goes through the same process, you start up the fashion show in your mind where even Tyra and Heidi are in awe of your perfect, smokin hot body as your strut past them at Fashion Week....orrrrr that may just be me watching too many seasons of Top Model and Project Runway....details. You jump to the end result where you have the body you want, are dating the men you want, wearing hot, trendy clothes. You get the idea...you start to HOPE. Hope is not where you live when you are inactive about weigh issues. When you are just living your day to day, buying that Iced Vanilla coffee and sausage mcmuffin with cheese everyday for breakfast trust me you are under no illusions about what you are doing. I believe even the happiest and jolliest of us fat folk know that we are living in a little funkytown called DENIAL. I have been a looooong time resisdent but always clinged to a little wisp of a belief that one day I'd find my ticket out of Denialsville into HOPE-TOPIA.
I knows its going to be alot of work and I am in a weird way looking forward to the struggle. I have had to fight tooth and nail for everything I have ever got and I know that has made me appreciate what I have and where I am at. Good or bad I own it cuz I know it was all me that got me here. No favors, no good luck ever found its way to my doorstep. Not that I am complaining mind you. My own baby brother has the fitting nickname "Golden Boy" because being the child of a second marriage and have his next closet sibling (me) being 10 years older than him...well, the little shit has been spoiled all his life. Mainly by me. He has always had it so good that until recently I used to tell him that the worst thing about him was nothing really bad ever happened to him. Because of his easy, comfy life he never developed any survival skills and when life finally caught up to him it was very very hard for him. Same with my friend Chris, he was just telling me that up until he turned 30 he was teflon, nothing ever hit him. He was Midas and everything he touched turned to gold. But now he is struggling to find a decent job, just a got convicted of a DUI and finds himself baffled by things not just clicking into place for him. When you are used to champagne and caviar, ramen noodles are hard to take. So always having to take the rocky road of life at least has that as an upside. I have always been in a fight for something so I know this animal and I brought my chair and whip to tame this beast. In fact this is the reason I chose this instead of the (gasp) surgical route.
Worldwide reveal: NO ONE knows I ever went to a surgical weight loss clinic. I have never spoke about it to anyone.I first started thinking about it seriously when I was still living in Chicago. There is a place called the Wish Clinic and its the place where Carnie Wilson went. I remember that because she was the star of their commerical. It showed her in a typical fat person shot, her struggling to get out of the car then waddling to the front door and them :::poof :: POW! she is slim and gorgeous after major survery. Taa-Daaa! I started thinking about it and went to the little seminar with a herd of other big folk and thought, this ain't so scary. Then I moved to AZ but lucky me, they have a clinic here too. I called and set up an appt for an evaluation and after my insurance company deemed that I was (the clinical term) MORBIDLY OBESE (nothing like that for the old self esteem eh?) I was approved for the surgery. I went in and had a bunch of tests done and saw a bunch of specialists who talked me through the surgery and procedures. They talked about the side effects like diarrhea and frequent vomiting (especially if you cheated) and they told me to buy a blender cuz for months all you can eat is blended foods (I bought it, never been out of the box). They give you a sample diet of 6 small meals you are supposed to eat to get your body and in the habit for your new life and new body post-surgery. Then they scoot you out the door. I gathered all my paperwork went home all determined and started to follow the plan. I even got up at 5am to start walking as part of my new exercise rountine (anyone who knows me well is at this time still shocked that I got up at 5am...it's true). A few days into this routine the little ball of anxiety in the pit of my stomache started to grow. I began to remember a family friend who had gastric bypass surgery and while it was very effective I just remember her on a down day saying "if I knew my body was going to change this much, I would have never done it" then hurling.
Now I know many, many people have had successful and life saving gastric bypass surgeries and I applaud them all. I just got all freaked out at the thought of my body being surgically altered for something that I chose to do it. I guess I kinda feel like telling my body "look, I got us into this mess, I'll get us out" I can only hope that my body trusts me enough to give us both a chance. I also always kinda felt like the bypass surgery was cheating in a way. Not that it's not very difficult as well but, in my opinion, you don't really treat the core issue. You are forced into a new lifestyle or else suffer the god awful and icky consequences but I think because people are handed the solution instead of working through it that is why so many people gain it all back. Not all but some...again, just my opinion and that, along with sheer terror is why I stopped the pre-surgery program and never went back there, instead I rushed back to my place in Denialsville which was still safe and cozy waiting for me. I avoided it so much that the bill for the evaluation ended upgoing to collections cuz I just did not want to admit that I'd even been there.
This time I am not scared and while I am thinking about the end result I am also welcoming the journey that is going to get me there. Tyra, you better watch for me (heh).
That's just another glimpse under the hood that is my life...more to come.
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