One-year follow-up — and the rising of "stuff"

Do you remember in my last post I said that I've been living my life as a normal person, not like a weight-loss-surgery patient, and that has negative and positive consequences? One of the negative consequences is that I've gained about 10 pounds.

I got complacent. I stopped walking, biking and going to the gym. My carb portion often is equal to my veggie portion, rather than half. I have a cocktail every day. Yikes, huh?

Maybe not yikes for everyone — but yikes for someone who has been morbidly obese. Yikes for me.

Against that backdrop, I had my one-year follow-up with my surgeon Thursday of this week. I didn't talk about it with anyone until Wednesday. "I'm up about 10 pounds," I said to Paul that evening, "and I'm worried they're going to yell at me." I knew, as I said it, it was a needless worry, but it was real.

Paul shook his head gently. "They're not going to yell at you. They want you to succeed."

Does that mean that I don't want myself to succeed? Because I've sure been yelling at myself.

Thursday morning, before my appointment, I felt ashamed and was a nervous wreck about my appointment. I meditated with some crystals and my camera to soothe myself, and it helped bring me back a little. After my shower, I looked at myself in the mirror and found compassion. "Did you really think it would be a perfectly smooth process?" I asked myself.

"Of course!" was the answer.

I found my first smile of the day — a smile of warmth, compassion, humor and love.

~~
A few hours later, in the weight-loss clinic at Beth Israel, as I stepped on the scale, I said to Erin, the wonderful bariatric nurse, "I'm up."

She opened her hands. "Hey. No judgement here," she said, and sounded like she meant it.

When the surgeon's assistant came in the room and asked how I was doing, I said, "Mostly I'm doing really well, but I'm up a little."

"Okay," she replied, and scrolled through my records. "Let's look at the numbers. From when you first came here, you're down 75 pounds. You've lost 55% of your excess body weight," she reported. "That's amazing."

She calculated that I've gained 8 pounds and asked if I knew why I was up. Absolutely, I said, and went through the reasons. I also told her that before surgery, gaining 10 pounds would have seemed like another nail in my coffin — something irreversible. Now I feel like I can shift my behavior, and my body will respond.

When I told my surgeon that I'd been complacent, he shook his head. "You can't get complacent," he said, both gently and matter-of-factly. I agreed. My sleeve limits what I can eat — but of course not as much as it did right after surgery. My sleeve contributes to my health and success — but my actions also contribute.

Looking back over the many years since I first gained weight, I think I doubted myself. I doubted my strength and my ability. In the past year and a half, since I started the surgery process, I've proven to myself that I'm strong enough. If I could start where I did and get to here, I can refocus and move forward.

I'll finish today with two non-scale victories (NSVs).
1. Although I'm not working with a trainer right now, I have a personal goal to improve my ability to do my old trainer Sal's 5-minute warm-up: one minute each of jumping jacks, butt kicks, high knees, squats and burpees. I never did burpees with Sal, but a few weeks ago, I timed myself from start (jumping jacks) to finish (burpees — very awkward burpees, but burpees): 13 minutes. I hope to be a little faster, at least, in April. (That will take practicing. I've got to get on that.)

2. Paul and I signed up to do another 5K, this one on Valentine's Day. Given that wanting to spend many happy and healthy years with my husband is one of my main motivations on this journey, I think celebrating Valentine's Day by celebrating our improved health is perfect. (And if we split a dessert that night, I'll feel like I earned it.)