New Milestone And The BMI Is No B.S.!!

Wow, I just realized that it's been a long time since I've posted! Life is still good and after a long stall, I'm happy to report that my scale has inched down a little and I've finally hit my milestone of having lost just over 50 lbs. from my highest weight. I've kicked up my exercise some incorporating some resistance training and an old favorite, spinning classes. Look out Lance Armstrong, cuz you ain't got nothin' on me! ha ha

It feels great to look in the mirror and see a difference and to have more energy. I haven't felt this good in a really long time and it's so awesome to know that it only gets better from here because I still have a long way to go. I've been taking my walking up to a run and playing around with a faster pace in preparation for my next half marathon coming up the first weekend in March. I've aggravated an old knee injury in doing so which is very frustrating because I am one of those crazy people that loves running and knows the feeling of being "in the zone" and it's difficult to want to be there but have pain holding you back. I know of a few things that I can do to help and I'm going to do everything that I can because now that I'm racing again, I realize that my motivation for exercise is very much goal-driven and that when I have a race on my calendar, I'm much more inspired to get out on the trails or to the gym everyday.

One thing that I know about myself is that once I begin learning something new or taking my life in a new direction, I become somewhat consumed with it and often share with family and friends whatever my new endeavor happens to be. Of course right now, that endeavor is my weight loss and learning to be healthier long term. Prior to my surgery, I shared my plans with family and a few friends and for the most part the reaction was positive and I received a great deal of encouragement. I didn't receive much opposition but I did receive comments from some people that "...you're not that big so why do you need surgery?....or why can't you just keep dieting and exercising?"

I came to understand that in general, most people only think of weight loss surgery as something for the super morbidly obese that they see on tv. They don't realize that a great number of patients that undergo surgery are people like me that are morbidly obese, even though we're not 500 lbs.

Within the black community, obesity is rampant and our culture is one that typically values a "thick" woman over one without curves. I've found myself becoming frustrated in some conversations with friends because I've had to explain to them that yes, I was morbidly obese at 233 lbs. for my height of only 5'3". I've had to explain that if I didn't do something to change, I was setting myself up for long term illnesses like diabetes and high blood pressure that has hit nearly everyone in my family over the age of 45. Where I get downright angry though is when we start to discuss the BMI scale and I've faced the opinion that the BMI scale doesn't include us and is only made for white people, or people without "natural curves".

The BMI scale is not bullshit, and it generally includes everyone unless you are an ELITE athlete like a bodybuilder or Olympian that works out to the point that your weight is not necessarily proportional to your height. In general those not represented on the BMI scale have such a low percentage of body fat that their BMI is really unimportant, but for those of us who are average people, a normal range in BMI is actually pretty wide. For me at 5'3", I can weigh anywhere from 109-140 lbs. and have a normal, healthy BMI. That range encompasses many body types and frame sizes, and definitely includes black women and our natural curves. Yes, the BMI scale was made for us too!!

I guess I get angry because I see the obesity epidemic, the diabetes and hypertension epidemics, and yet the attitude that somehow the color of our skin and the curve of our hips makes us immune to needing to get fit. It's not an excuse! I watch friends and yes, even family members who eat unhealthy foods, and some who won't even walk to the end of the driveway for exercise, try to justify a weight of over 200 lbs. as being normal and it's not okay!! Yes, I'm sounding off and it doesn't really matter what I think because everyone is in control of their own bodies and yes, I know that just because I had surgery doesn't mean that everyone else should, but the truth must be told.

Watching Oprah's show on diabetes the other day, I saw a shocking reality that many of my people need to see...the long term devastating effects that diabetes can have. Consider this video:

 Why This Diabetic Had Her Leg Amputated

If you knew that this could happen to you, would you still keep the same habits that you have today? One of the reasons that I had surgery was to try to prevent diabetes.  I'm frustrated because I can't get my family members to embrace the fact that with the proper diet and exercise, they could live free of their medications.  I have to accept that I can't change their minds or make their choices for them just because I love them.  I can only change me....but, even though I can't change them, I will not accept their excuses.  I WILL tell the truth, and that truth is that no matter what excuses you make, no matter how you justify your behaviors or unwillingness to change, it doesn't change the facts of obesity.  The fact is that obesity is unhealthy, no matter what color you are.  The fact is that obesity can and will shorten your life and alter your quality of life.

You don't have to have weight loss surgery it that's not the road for you, but you do have to face your own reality and the reality of your health.  You have to live with your own choices and the effect those choices have on your future.  I choose to live and to live healthy.  I choose to live long and to live strong.  I once met an 82 year old man walking a half marathon.  He said that he'd been running only since his 50's but that he'd done over 25 marathons over the years.  He was lean, healthy, and strong and someday....that will be me.

Hitting My First Milestone

Just a quick post to document hitting my first weight loss milestone...  Each morning I step onto the scale for my daily weigh-in.  Over this last week, I've been consistently working out and still on my pureed diet but was being teased by my scale as each day it read 201.8...201.6....201.4....201.4 lbs.  I knew that hitting "ONEderland" was only a matter of a couple of days away yet it was kind of funny watching the scale play games with me.  It's as if it has a mind of its own. 

Well, yesterday morning, my waiting game came to an end.  I stepped onto the scale to find a very pleasing 198.8 lbs.  I jumped up and down with excitement and called my mom.  Here's a little of how the conversation went...(ring, ring) "Hello?"

"198.8!"

"What, huh?"

"198.8!  Girl, are you playing a game or something?"

"No!!  198.8 POUNDS!!!"

"Ohhh, now I get it (laughing).  That's great! I knew you would get there."

As you can tell, when I get excited I don't necessarily speak in full sentences.  I feel great and I can see some changes as I look in the mirror.  As with most people, the biggest change I see is in my clothes.  I have all of my summer clothes and jeans ready to go over to Goodwill.  I recently bought a few pairs of sweatpants, all with drawstring waists, but even some of those I'm having to pull and tie really tight.  My mom teases me that my butt is no longer a shelf that I can balance things on, but just a ramp now.

Now of course that's not quite the end of the story.....when I got up and got on the scale this morning, in its joking fashion it read 200.0 lbs.  I chuckled at it because I was already mentally prepared for the fact that small fluctuations on the scale are common so I'm not worried.  I had a long workout planned ahead for me today anyway. So, off to the treadmill I went for two full hours! 

I'm training for the 2010 Walt Disney World Half Marathon in Florida on January 9th so I want to make sure that I get some longer walks in to make sure that I'm ready for the distance.  There is a time limit and I have to finish in 3 1/2 hours which is definitely possible because that's a pace of about 16 1/2 minutes per mile.  I know that if not today, and even if not tomorrow, the scale will read in the 100's again and once it does, I will keep working to make sure that it never makes it into the 200's again!

Foolish Games

Not that I don't already have enough weight issues to tackle, I'm dangerously flirting with becoming a slave to the scale. I have a cheap bathroom scale that I know is typically about 3 lbs. lower than the scale at the doctor's offices that I go to, so I weigh myself everyday just to get an idea of if my weight is changing or not. I'm ashamed to admit that there are days when I weigh myself 3 times a day just to see how much the time of day affects my numbers. Of course there's also the weighing myself before and after exercise too to see if I really have burned off the calories that the treadmill says that I have. If that's the case though I would probably need a scale that rounded off with about 10 decimal places!

My insurance company required a 6 month medically supervised diet so I've been making changes in my diet over these last months which is great, but there's something about seeing the numbers on the scale go down that is just fantastic!

Last month, I hit some peak moments of stress at work and was mortified with myself that I reverted back to my old fashioned binging behavior to deal with my emotions. Then, I stepped on the scale and saw a 3 lb. gain from where I had been a week earlier and was emotionally destroyed. Will I ever get a handle on this whole emotional eating thing? How will I ever maintain my weight if it's just that easy and that fast to gain 3 lbs.!! I weighed myself a few days later at the doctor's office though and found that not only were those 3 lbs. gone but they took an additional pound and a half with them. All was well with the world.

This last week, I saw my weight go up again about 3 lbs. again in just a week. I admit that I'd eaten some things that I shouldn't have and hadn't been doing very well at fighting my cravings for french fries and hot fudge sundaes. My initial thought was here we go again....I'm a failure. I'll never get a handle on this. Then, like a bolt of lightening, I had an Oprah Ah-ha moment and realized that duhhh....I'm simply pms-ing!! I forget that I have a very unusual cycle and it's often difficult to tell if I'm even having a period or not! Before starting this newest attempt to lose weight, I always craved sugar, salt, and chocolate during the appointed time and always from separate sources. Have you ever garnished a hot fudge sundae with potato chips? Mmmm, it will take you from bitch to gentle lamb in 60 seconds.

I realized that the 3 lb. change that I was seeing on the scale has always been there but I just hadn't been weighing myself over the years to see the difference. When I stepped onto the scale this morning, poof, my 3 lbs. had disappeared once again and again life remains worth living.

I've been learning things about my body and how my weight works over the last several months, but I do have to be careful of the lure of the scale and the foolish games that it plays. The scary part is that I can indulge in my pms cravings and see the scale go up, but just as easily see it go back down in just a few days. It's as if the calories I took in didn't even have an effect on my weight. I initially thought that those indulgences were causing the 3 lb. gain but knowing that they don't account for the difference is a dangerous game because the mind wants to say, sure, you can get away with eating this junk because it really doesn't make a difference. Unfortunately it's that type of thinking that has brought me to the point in my overall weight gain of where I am now. I'll have to focus on fooling myself into realizing that those calories do count even if I don't see a real change on the scale immediately.

I know that the pms cravings will most likely NOT go away after surgery, but I hope that I can find some simple alternatives to meet them and beat them. In the meantime, the cravings are gone and my stomach felt so awful after eating the junk food that I wanted to shoot myself for even going there! I can't say that I will lose my obsession with the scale anytime soon because I know that after I'm rearranged from the rooter to the tooter I'll be fascinated with watching the numbers fall, but....keeping in mind that plateaus do happen, it might be a good thing to surrender to the scale on some sort of a regular basis just to keep myself on track. Three times a day is way too much, but once or twice a week may not be too bad. From now on, I will know that "fat week" exists, but I'll use it as a reminder of what I know to be true.....if I continue to eat garbage, I will see garbage on the scale. That once a month reminder will hopefully be a reminder enough of where I've come from and I can hopefully focus on where I'm going to.