Hi all! Wow I've not been here in a while, and have spent a lovely hour catching up on threads and seeing how much progress everyone has made - it's brilliant to see! Have been meaning to come by and say hello - to fill you in, I did tons of research into wlsurgery and eventually booked a private gastric band with THG to take place last Jan 7th 2012, and after much soul searching and a LOT of nervous panicking, decided I couldn't go through with it - I ended up cancelling my op & went back to the drawing board at 17st 10lb. :sigh:
I'd reached a bit of a low and although I'd lost a bit of weight from the pre-op diet, it was only until I went for a routine check up at my docs who mentioned my abnormally high blood pressure that things started to change. I found myself crying at the docs, gutted at the thought of being only 31 & having to take 'life long' (generally the case) BP medication - I know a lot of people do this, but for someone that only takes normal medication as a last resort (I'll sit out a headache for hours rather than take paracetamol!), I wanted to know what I could do to help the situation... mission no. 1, finally lose some weight - without the use of any crazy lotions, potions or shakes.
Well reader... I did it. And my god, does it feel good to be able to write that!
I started to make small changes in my life, one step at a time. In terms of eating, I made more of an effort to eat protein & fewer carbohydrates (although I've by no means cut them out! Just worked on that balance a bit more). I was a devout carnivore and decided to go vegetarian (fake vegetarian, as i call it! I still ate fish) for a month, mainly just to see if I could do it... and to my surprise, found that I didn't miss meat anywhere near as much as I thought, so have stuck with it. I ate tons of fish and a LOT more veg as a result, hence I started to see the lbs come off, slowly but surely, hurrah!
In terms of exercise, I started to go to the gym on Sunday mornings. Now don't judge me for that! I would normally laugh in the face of people who do such weird things (WHY would anyone gym it on a Sunday morning when they could be in bed?!), but I came to realise it was the best time for me - I can't be the only person who decides to go to the gym after work, then spends the whole day convincing myself of all the reasons why I can't go?! Usually along the lines of 'Oh I'm tired / had a crap day / ate a bad lunch / can't be bothered' etc etc then before I know it, I'm taking the unused gym kit home... well that's the me of old. I had to try something, so basically went early one weekend morning - got up & out of the house before I could talk myself out of it. And strangely, this has worked really well for me - I've also 'rebranded' gym time in my head as 'MY TIME' and this definitely helps me not resent time spent sweating over a treadmill! I occasionally go to group exercise classes but find the way I approach exercise best is to make very small goals for myself, e.g. to aim for only 3 mins on a treadmill. Achieve it, then look for another goal straight away, e.g. to get to 50 cals. Achieve it then another goal such as run until the end of the song I'm listening to, or to get to a certain distance - you get the picture.
I think the biggest change I've seen has been my mental approach to these changes. I've always been interested in the mind & believe very strongly that it has a huge impact on our behaviour (guess who did a degree in psychology?! lol). But as I've seen physical changes in my body over the past 17 months, I've also seen changes in the way I approach things, e.g. the rebranding of gym time! Another example - someone recently said to me that when a missile is released, it is aiming for its goal, but what happens if the target moves? Well, the missile doesn't just turn around and go back to base, it adjusts its course accordingly. This is now me! I went to the gym recently & realised on my way there that I'd forgotten my sports bra. The old me would have immediately latched onto this as an excuse to go home.. I'm proud to say that the new me didn't see this as a big deal, just kept going but decided which exercises I couldn't do without a sports bra, so basically just avoided the treadmill on that particular occasion.
So this brings me to today. I'm not off the blood pressure medication yet (aarrggh!), but my overall numbers are definitely a lot better than they were. I'm having to accept that this may well be something completely out of my control, but you know what, I've given it a bloody good try. Minimising salt and sugar in my diet can only be a good thing! The best part is, I am currently the lightest I have ever been as an adult & now weigh 11st 10lb. I won't lie, I did shed a small tear when realising I had lost a total of 6st - almost a whole person!! Sometimes this doesn't feel real but the number of friends who've come up and mentioned how 'well' I look (the universal polite expression for when you've both lost or gained weight!) reminds me of my achievements.
I've been wanting to come here and share this story for a while... I am not looking for congratulations, honestly. I genuinely just wanted to let all the lovely people on this forum know how I'm doing - I felt like such a failure for not going through with the surgery at the time (although I only ever had support from people here), and now realise that everything happens for a reason - I think that I had to reach that low of last year for my changes to fall into place. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I just want people reading this to know that you CAN succeed in your aims. Regardless whether or not the action you take involves WL surgery, the important thing is to take those first steps. Those little steps to making changes in our lives will add up to become bigger steps, but don't let the size of the overall goal be overwhelming! I don't know what the future will bring, but I do know that here, right now, as a result of the proactive changes I've made rather than just procrastinating over - I am happier, more energetic and more positive than I've ever been... and that'll do me just fine, thanks very much
If you've got this far then thanks for reading! Can't believe I've rambled on so much... my fingers have gone numb & I need a cup of tea! :talk017:
I'd reached a bit of a low and although I'd lost a bit of weight from the pre-op diet, it was only until I went for a routine check up at my docs who mentioned my abnormally high blood pressure that things started to change. I found myself crying at the docs, gutted at the thought of being only 31 & having to take 'life long' (generally the case) BP medication - I know a lot of people do this, but for someone that only takes normal medication as a last resort (I'll sit out a headache for hours rather than take paracetamol!), I wanted to know what I could do to help the situation... mission no. 1, finally lose some weight - without the use of any crazy lotions, potions or shakes.
Well reader... I did it. And my god, does it feel good to be able to write that!
I started to make small changes in my life, one step at a time. In terms of eating, I made more of an effort to eat protein & fewer carbohydrates (although I've by no means cut them out! Just worked on that balance a bit more). I was a devout carnivore and decided to go vegetarian (fake vegetarian, as i call it! I still ate fish) for a month, mainly just to see if I could do it... and to my surprise, found that I didn't miss meat anywhere near as much as I thought, so have stuck with it. I ate tons of fish and a LOT more veg as a result, hence I started to see the lbs come off, slowly but surely, hurrah! In terms of exercise, I started to go to the gym on Sunday mornings. Now don't judge me for that! I would normally laugh in the face of people who do such weird things (WHY would anyone gym it on a Sunday morning when they could be in bed?!), but I came to realise it was the best time for me - I can't be the only person who decides to go to the gym after work, then spends the whole day convincing myself of all the reasons why I can't go?! Usually along the lines of 'Oh I'm tired / had a crap day / ate a bad lunch / can't be bothered' etc etc then before I know it, I'm taking the unused gym kit home... well that's the me of old. I had to try something, so basically went early one weekend morning - got up & out of the house before I could talk myself out of it. And strangely, this has worked really well for me - I've also 'rebranded' gym time in my head as 'MY TIME' and this definitely helps me not resent time spent sweating over a treadmill! I occasionally go to group exercise classes but find the way I approach exercise best is to make very small goals for myself, e.g. to aim for only 3 mins on a treadmill. Achieve it, then look for another goal straight away, e.g. to get to 50 cals. Achieve it then another goal such as run until the end of the song I'm listening to, or to get to a certain distance - you get the picture.
I think the biggest change I've seen has been my mental approach to these changes. I've always been interested in the mind & believe very strongly that it has a huge impact on our behaviour (guess who did a degree in psychology?! lol). But as I've seen physical changes in my body over the past 17 months, I've also seen changes in the way I approach things, e.g. the rebranding of gym time! Another example - someone recently said to me that when a missile is released, it is aiming for its goal, but what happens if the target moves? Well, the missile doesn't just turn around and go back to base, it adjusts its course accordingly. This is now me! I went to the gym recently & realised on my way there that I'd forgotten my sports bra. The old me would have immediately latched onto this as an excuse to go home.. I'm proud to say that the new me didn't see this as a big deal, just kept going but decided which exercises I couldn't do without a sports bra, so basically just avoided the treadmill on that particular occasion.
So this brings me to today. I'm not off the blood pressure medication yet (aarrggh!), but my overall numbers are definitely a lot better than they were. I'm having to accept that this may well be something completely out of my control, but you know what, I've given it a bloody good try. Minimising salt and sugar in my diet can only be a good thing! The best part is, I am currently the lightest I have ever been as an adult & now weigh 11st 10lb. I won't lie, I did shed a small tear when realising I had lost a total of 6st - almost a whole person!! Sometimes this doesn't feel real but the number of friends who've come up and mentioned how 'well' I look (the universal polite expression for when you've both lost or gained weight!) reminds me of my achievements.
I've been wanting to come here and share this story for a while... I am not looking for congratulations, honestly. I genuinely just wanted to let all the lovely people on this forum know how I'm doing - I felt like such a failure for not going through with the surgery at the time (although I only ever had support from people here), and now realise that everything happens for a reason - I think that I had to reach that low of last year for my changes to fall into place. At the risk of sounding cheesy, I just want people reading this to know that you CAN succeed in your aims. Regardless whether or not the action you take involves WL surgery, the important thing is to take those first steps. Those little steps to making changes in our lives will add up to become bigger steps, but don't let the size of the overall goal be overwhelming! I don't know what the future will bring, but I do know that here, right now, as a result of the proactive changes I've made rather than just procrastinating over - I am happier, more energetic and more positive than I've ever been... and that'll do me just fine, thanks very much
If you've got this far then thanks for reading! Can't believe I've rambled on so much... my fingers have gone numb & I need a cup of tea! :talk017:
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