“Something's Happening and it's Happening Right Now..” – The Stranglers

When I started this blog, my plan was to have photographs accompany the written word….of me, starring my body.  But I knew I did not want the typical “Before and After” photos…I wanted to have some sense of dignity, creativity and beauty even with my “Before” photos. 

Every weight loss surgery patient takes “Before” pictures, apparently.  Even the hospital staff asked me after my surgery if I had taken my “Before” pictures and told me I have to…I’ll regret it if I don’t.  When I told them I hadn’t, they asked me several times if I wanted them to take some for me.  I refused each and every time and they were completely dumbfounded as to why.

My thinking was I really don’t need more tragic images of what I looked like at my heaviest weight etched into my brain or anyone else’s brain…there are already plenty of “Before” photos all over my Facebook page and my memories of being 374 pounds are pretty much branded into my psyche.  I doubt I could ever forget what I looked like or how it felt to weigh that much.  The idea of standing there in my hospital gown, with no makeup and bad hair, posing for pictures just so I could look back someday and see how far I’d come just seemed too humiliating to me.  I suppose I should also have a frown on my face in the pictures so I can look really, really bad?  No one needs to see that. 

I didn’t want my “Before” pictures to be this stark contrast where everyone is shocked at just how bad I looked “Before” and how amazing I look “After”.  That good vs. bad doesn’t interest me and that type of “Before” picture would have been a lie.  At 374 pounds, I still had good days.  I was still vain.  I did my hair and makeup and wore nice clothes…I cared about what I looked like.  And even that kind of picture of a dramatic physical transformation of the person wearing regular clothes doesn’t interest me.  What interests me is the person…what they went through, how they grew, how they changed, who they are, how they got through the physical transformation…..and I don’t think a regular old “Before” and “After” picture does that most of the time.

I also thought it would be much more interesting if the photos were cool….meaningful and artistic.  I imagined the photos to be a creative project, designed to be a complete visual story of me revealing myself as I lost weight.  The weight is a barrier between the world and the real me and as that barrier was torn down, I would be revealed for who I really am.  I wanted the pictures to be beautiful and erotic and interesting.  I wanted them to show me something about myself that I wasn’t seeing from just looking in the mirror.  So I asked my photojournalist friend Kris to take on the project.  She really wanted to do it but the timing didn’t work out with her planned trip around the world.  And honestly, I wasn’t as comfortable as I wanted to be with having half naked pictures of myself at 374 pounds published on my blog.

So I let the idea of photos fade.  But lately, I’ve been re-thinking it.  I don’t think it matters that I didn’t start taking the pictures at 374….I still have a long way to go and I’m not sure a picture of me at 374 and a picture of me now is really all that different.  I have entertained the idea of boudoir photo shoots…but who can afford that every month or two?  In my head, I’m re-styling the photos from the original plan – something less elaborate, less staged, more stripped down and raw – but I still want the end result I originally envisioned.  I think about just taking them myself as self-portraits but I think there is a lot of value in someone else taking them.  We only see what we want to see about ourselves.  I think I can reveal more, be more authentic, see more about myself with someone else taking the photos.  It might even be interesting to have someone different take the photo each time so I get many perspectives.  Or maybe I’m just putting way too much thought into this because I am completely self-absorbed.   I dunno….I’m still thinking about it.  But I know I need to stop thinking about it and do it before there’s no “Before” left to capture.  The fact that I’m so scared to do it makes me want to do it more.

After the high of my trip to NYC and the Corporate Challenge, I think I crashed a bit emotionally.  I’ve been feeling kind of low for the last week or so.  I found myself a bit short of cash and couldn’t afford to pay my trainer or to pay my monthly gym membership, so I didn’t go for 10 days.  I was already feeling kind of crappy about my hair falling out and the lack of exercise didn’t help my mental state, but something weird did happen.  I lost at least a pound, sometimes more, every single day during those 10 days.  I kept thinking it was a fluke…there was no way it could be happening.  But it did.  Every single day I stepped on the scale at the same time, wearing the same thing, expecting this to be the day the scale went back up again, but it never did.

It was the first time the scale had moved in a long time, which got me thinking about what a head trip this whole “journey” is.  You think you’re doing everything right and feel great, but the scale doesn’t reflect it.  When you weigh 374 pounds, you have to lose a lot of weight before anyone even notices.  People notice you look different but can’t quite put their finger on how.  I feel that way when I look in the mirror too.  I also can’t trust my clothes to show me how I’m doing.  When you’re a “normal” weight, 10 pounds is a whole size.  When you’re my size, 10 pounds is nothing.  I’ve lost 90 pounds since 374 and I still wear the same clothes.  Even looking at old pictures doesn’t do it for me….I think I still look the same.   It can be discouraging.  It can be difficult to keep a positive attitude about the whole thing.    

So I felt it was a good time to stop and reflect on many of the positive changes since last year…..things that are worth celebrating that have nothing to do with the number on the scale.  In the weight loss surgery community, these are called Non-Scale Victories (NSVs) and they are acknowledged to be as important, if not more, than the number on the scale.  Just a few of the NSVs I’ve noticed recently are:

·         My BMI has dropped 15 points.
·         My left foot and leg were ALWAYS swollen and numb a year ago.  Now they never are.
·         I’ve walked my first 5K and am signed up to walk another in Fall.
·         I can roller skate again.  A year ago, I couldn’t even stand on skates.
·         I can wear heels again.  A year ago I couldn’t.
·         Rings that did not fit me a year ago now fit on my middle finger.
·         I bought a pair of motorcycle boots a year ago online and when I got them they were uncomfortably tight.  Now they fit. 
·         The seatbelt in my car fits me very comfortably now whereas it did not fit me at all a year ago.
·         I could not tilt down my steering wheel in my car at all last year because my belly was completely in the way.  Now I can tilt it all the way down.
·         I can stand for several hours now.  A year ago I couldn’t stand for 20 minutes without needing to sit down.

I notice NSVs on a daily basis now.  For example, just going into Macy's to pick up something from the cosmetics counter.  Last year that was a major big deal.  I couldn't walk from the parking lot to MAC without stopping several times.  And even when I did stop, my back was aching by the time I got to the counter.  If I had to stand around and wait for help, I got so angry 'cos every second of standing was pure torture by that point.  Today, I can easily walk to the MAC counter from the parking lot, stand around and wait for help, shoot the breeze with the cosmetician, walk back to my car and I'm fine.  There's nothing remarkable about it....which just makes me want to cry 'cos it's so freaking amazing.

I get a ton of NSVs at work on a daily basis.  This is really on mind right now because next week I’m spending the week in Canandaigua for work.  It’s my company’s National Sales Meeting.  It happens every year in the Rochester area somewhere, and this year it’s happening at a hotel on the lake.  All the Sales guys from across the country fly into town for the week and we’re on the go pretty hard from 7am ‘til well into the night with meetings, training and social events.  Canandaigua is maybe 30 minutes from where I live, but because of the crazy schedule, everyone stays at the hotel, even people from the area.

I’ve been with my company for just over 2 years but I started in Operations, not Sales…..during my first year, I wasn’t involved in the NSM.  Last May I moved to the Sales team just as the NSM was happening and my new boss wanted me to be a part of it even though I wasn’t officially in Sales yet.  So the NSM is a marker for me of sorts.  It would be very easy for me to consciously forget a lot of the last year, to just stay focused on now and enjoy all my NSVs.  The last year has been a bit of a blur dotted by some pretty unpleasant moments due in large part to my weight and my marriage not working.  So I’d love to forget about the last year, but my job won’t let me.

My company outgrew its office space well before I started working there.  To accommodate the growing business, the company took over the office space next to it, and then the space next to that…..until it ended up as it is now, which is a very long stretch of many office spaces that have been opened up, with Operations on one end and Sales on the other, with Engineering, Processing, Marketing, Finance, Contracts, Legal and a huge lobby, in between the two, and a long open corridor connecting everything.  It’s a trek from one end of the building to the other and generally, people don’t cross over into other departments unless they have to for some reason. 

When I applied for the Sales position last year, I weighed 374 pounds.  I had a very difficult time walking the distance from Operations to Sales.  I had two interviews for the position and then also needed to walk down to sign my offer letter.  I had to stop twice on the way to catch my breath and get myself together so I didn’t feel embarrassed by how sweaty or tired I was when I got to my new boss' office.  I certainly did not want anyone to start walking beside me or talk to me because not only could I not keep up with them but I also couldn’t talk while walking.  I didn’t really know anyone from Sales and I was desperate to hide how hard it was for me to walk that distance.  I mean, yeah it’s a hike….but it’s still the same building.  Most people can walk it without any trouble.  Last year I couldn't.  Now I can.  In fact, I walk that every day a couple times for no work related reason.  I do it because I can.  Because I like to get up from my desk and go visit people.  Every time I do, I think about how I felt last year making that long walk...the walk that felt like I would die before I got there. 

Anyway, we actually had two NSM’s last year…one in June at the Radisson in downtown Rochester while Spiderman was being filmed, and the other in October in Grand Rapids, MI at the same hotel and at the same time as the IAAO conference.    Both were huge eye openers for me.

Because Spiderman was being filmed right around the hotel, it was quite frustrating to even get to the hotel.  Finding parking was even worse.  I ended up parking on the roof of the hotel parking garage, which meant I needed to carry my luggage down several flights of stairs.  Then go in a service door and then up again a few more flights of stairs to get to the main lobby.  By the time I got to the front desk, I was a mess.  Sweaty, back aching, swollen feet, legs giving out.  I was certainly not the picture of cool, calm and in control like the guys I work with who are all very tall, very handsome, fit and confident.  I needed to lie down in my room for a while before I was ready to face them. 

I had the same issues throughout both NSMs.  I did not want to face the possible humiliation of flying so I insisted on driving to Grand Rapids while everyone else flew.  I couldn’t stand for longer than 20 minutes so I skipped parties with customers.  I had a hard time walking from meeting room to meeting room.  I couldn’t walk to restaurants outside the hotel (I could barely walk to anywhere inside the hotel) so I didn’t join while everyone else went to dinner, which meant I had to confess to my boss and my boss’ boss.  It was total humiliation to talk about this with them but they were sympathetic and accommodating.     The CEO made a completely inappropriate fat joke in front of the entire Sales group and other executives and that turned into a huge, public deal centered around me.  I spent both NSMs feeling completely humiliated.

The great news is I know none of that is going to happen this time.  Not only because physically I am in a much stronger place.  But also because mentally I am too. 

It occurred to me a couple of days ago that in terms of weight, I am almost down to where I was at my lowest point with the lap band.  I’m feeling healthier and more confident than I have in years, I have my mobility back, my back never hurts anymore, and I am more and more ok with how I look and feel every day.  On a very basic level, I’m pretty much living a life of quality again.  I thought about this for a few minutes while I unloaded the dishwasher…..then a bit of panic set in.  It’s difficult to let the past go.  I remember feeling this way when I had the lap band and it all came crashing down.

I have heard a lot of weight loss surgery patients talk about their fear of gaining back all the weight they lost….everyone has that fear, and for good reason.  I am especially paranoid of that since I allowed it to happen to me.  Yes…I allowed it.  It didn’t just happen by accident.

The realization that I am in a good place right now made me really happy…..but not nearly as happy as truly appreciating that I have the control in this situation.  It’s all on me.  My success, my failure, whether I continue to lose, or start to gain, how I react to the things that happen in my world.  I have to own every pound I lose, every pound I gain, every fat joke I hear and react to, every bit of humiliation, every bit of confidence and doubt.  It all comes from me.  I can really take a lesson from all the Sales guys I work with (and yes they are all guys, except one.  Out of 60 people in Sales, 5 of us are women.).  What makes them feel they are entitled to so much?  I’m going to spend the week letting all that confidence rub off on me.  I’m entitled to it too.

In other news, the Felix saga continues.  Apparently a bunch of kids who live on the street by my gym have made it their personal mission to try and catch the cat so they can collect the reward I have promised to anyone who returns Felix to me unharmed.  I have explained to several mothers that if this cat is indeed Felix, it would not be wise of them to try and physically handle him.  He’s a spirited guy who does not like to be picked up…he’s gotten me good more than once.  So they are coming up with all sorts of ridiculous plans to catch him without actually touching him….which makes me a little bit concerned for this poor cat. 

A woman the street over my gym also called me and said she has out a humane trap with food for the cat because he sometimes goes up on her front porch.  And the guy who works night shift at the gas station beside my gym says he always sees that cat hanging around the dumpster.  So this cat is definitely staying in the immediate area of my gym.  After I get back from National Sales, I’ll step up my late night/early morning search. 

Random Stuff:

·         I love being woken up by a bird symphony.  Even if it's 5am.  Even if it's the weekend.  Even if I just went to bed 2 hours earlier.  Even if the windows are open and the there are hundreds of birds and the sound is so loud it’s overwhelming.  All the better.  It’s such a happy sound it makes me smile no matter what.

·         I am obsessed with Restoration Hardware.  I want to decorate my entire house with their gorgeous furniture.

·         I love soggy French fries.  No joke…..I seriously love soft, limp French fries.

·         I make killer scrambled eggs.   And then I put ketchup on them.

·         I won’t order scrambled eggs in a restaurant ‘cos I know they’ll just screw them up.  That also goes for any kind of pasta dish and crab cakes

·         I have a weird thing about trucks.  I spend more time than a person who does not have a truck should spend thinking about all the things I could do with a truck.  For instance, I dream about sleeping in the bed of a truck looking up at the stars, listening to all the creatures around me, or turning the bed of my truck into a makeshift hot tub.

·         Other people’s hot tubs creep me out.  I just can’t soak in a hot tub with a bunch of other people.  If I had my own hot tub, I certainly wouldn’t let anyone else use it. 

·         I love Green eyes. 

·         I hate green peppers.  Or Red.  Or Yellow.  Or Orange. I don’t like peppers.