Thankful!

I'm a day late doing my weekly post.  There's no particular reason only that I just wasn't in the mood yesterday.  I decided to take a ME and KIDS day yesterday, watching movies, and just hanging out.

Well, it has finally come - the inevitable stall.  This past week I didn't lose any weight but on Saturday and Sunday I was going up and down a pound.  So depending on what time of the day I weigh myself, I might be down a pound or the same.  Stalls usually happen for the first time between 3-7 weeks after surgery.  I am now 13 weeks post-op and I've just hit my first stall, which is pretty good.  I just hope it doesn't last too long!  Dawn Stefani, the moderator/admin for the Facebook Weightloss Surgery Support group that I'm a part of added this file to our page to educate us about stalls, and I'll post it here so that you have some insight as to what my body is doing:

When I was going through surgery, I was ready for and expecting the inevitable 3rd to 7th week stall. I often forget that some newbies don't know to expect it. They should. You should be expecting it when it happens so you know that it is coming and you are mentally prepared for that period when the scale doesn't budge early out.  (And don't forget to take your measurements every week early out too so that you have something else to measure yourself by other than the scale).

When your body first goes into surgery, it knows shortly afterward that it is starving. It needs food but you are taking in such little nutrition after surgery that it tries to sneak your glycogen stores. Glycogen stores are the "quick energy" stores that allow you for instance to run out quickly if a mouse is on the floor. It's your "instant energy" in your body.

So your body thinks "hmmm...it's just a little hurdle, I'll get my energy from the glycogen stores".

Well after a few weeks of this, your body realizes that this is not a short term thing anymore. It realizes that using energy from your glycogen stores isn't very efficient and very long term. So it has to THINK a bit. 

(This is where the stall comes in)

Then it says "A-hah!!!!". It realizes that it has a lot of fuel on your body - your fat stores, so it's going to start burning some energy from there and shrink those fat cells. 

Then the body will resume into full burning mode and guess what? The scale will start moving again.

This is a GREAT things when it happens. Although it sucks that the scale doesn't move, it means that is going to start burning the stored fat you have (especially the stuff in your butt! LOL!).

So be happy about that inevitable stall - it's fat burnin' season!

I'm glad the stall is finally here so that I can get it over with and start losing again.  Even though the scale might not be moving, I know I'm still losing weight because the jeans I bought 3 weeks ago are falling off me.  As much as I love the feelings of my clothes getting too big, it really is expensive keeping a decent wardrobe!

I would like to send a shout out to my friend, Geraldine.  She and I were really good friends in university and have remained friends ever since, even though we are separated by the miles (thanks to Facebook!)  Geraldine has struggled with her weight in the past too (although she was never even close to being as big as I was).  Well Geraldine made some positive changes in her life and has lost a lot of weight by changing eating habits and exercising.  I have to admit, while I was at my biggest, I hated hearing about all the work-outs she was doing and how much weight she was losing (sorry Geraldine - just speaking my mind! :) )  I now realize that I didn't want to read about it because it made me feel so guilty and ashamed that I wasn't doing what I could do to lose the weight.  I remember thinking after having surgery that if ANYONE had a right to say anything "negative" about me having surgery, or say that I should really rethink it, it would have been Geraldine - not that anyone should put down anyone else's decisions about health, but because she was a good friend and because she made the changes on her own, I would have respected her giving me her opinion about not having the surgery.  BUT Geraldine has been NOTHING but supportive in this whole process and I believe God totally used her to be my angel this past week.  After going through a couple of days of really feeling down after hearing a negative comment about my surgery (which let me clarify, wasn't meant to hurt me and wasn't made in hate), Geraldine, who I hadn't even heard from in about a month, sent me a message of encouragement, not even knowing that I had been feeling really down.  She said:

"I know it's been a while since we've really touched base, but I just wanted to tell you that I am very happy for you and proud of you for making these changes in your life! I know that it isn't about the outside, but about having the most fulfilling life possible where you can be a healthy and active Mom  I know it is hard work, I still have time where I struggle, but it is worth all of the sacrifice and hard work to be healthy and to honor God in caring for what He gave us  I wish you all the best and hope to catch up again soon!"  

This message was straight from God, because just 20 minutes before this, I was venting with a Support Group friend of mine at Walmart and broke down crying.  And then I check my messages and here is my angel, Geraldine!  I'm so thankful that God knows what we need, right when we need it!  I decided then and there that I'm taking charge of my own journey and no one is going to bring me down!!!  Thanks Geraldine for listening to God's prompting in writing me!

Something else that we were told to expect is that at 3 months out, we will start losing our hair.  I was told his also after having my babies.  My doctor explained that what happens is when there is a major trauma to the body, such as giving birth or major surgery, all your hair folicles "reset" in their timing.  It is normal to lose hair everyday, but when this reset happens, we notice more hair falling out at once.  And this happens about 3 months after the trauma.  So in preparation for this, I decided to listen to some advice of people in my support group who take a vitamin called Biotin.  It is supposed to prevent hairloss and encourage growth, which I could use because my hair was so thin to begin with!  I'll keep you posted on how well it works!

Well I usually take my monthly picture on the 9th of the month because I had surgery on July 9th.  But I decided to do it a day early, just so that I could post it in today's blog.  I was going to wear the same clothes all the time, but the shirt I was wearing the first 3 weeks is too big for me now so I switched it for this picture - close enough!  Again, I still have a long way to go, but on this day, Thanksgiving 2012, I want to thank my Heavenly Father for granting me health and joy through this journey.  And I pray I can honor Him by making His temple (my body) a healthy place to dwell!

So for my weightloss this week, I'm going to go with a loss of 1 lb.  I know it was up and down but as of the last time I checked, it was down, so we'll go with that!

Total Loss: 82lbs