Tales of the Morbidly Obese

New Recipe

I made up this new recipe out the other night and it was tasty. It is sort of a non-fried chicken cordon bleu. Here it is:

Chicken breasts (put them in a bag and flatten them out a bit)
Sliced provolone cheese
Thick Sliced pancetta (or regular ham)
small mushroom slices
Balsamic vinegar dressing

Heat oven to 350 degrees. Take a flattened chicken breast and lay 1 slice each of the cheese and ham on it. Put some mushrooms on too. Roll it up with chicken on the outside and the ham/cheese on the inside. Secure the roll with a toothpick or small skewer. Lay each rolled breast in a Pam-sprayed oven safe dish. Throw extra mushroom slices in amongst the chicken. Pour a good balsamic vinegar dressing over all of this. You can also season with salt, pepper and garlic powder if you choose. I put a sheet of foil over the top and baked covered for about 30 minutes and then uncovered for about 15 minutes more. Do not over bake as the chicken can get dry. This is tasty with lots of protein and flavor.

I am encouraged by some return of my desire to cook.  Most of the time, I just put some protein in and go on.  However, my family occasionally all the time wants to eat actual food.   I always enjoyed good food before.  I want to still use my creativity in the kitchen. 

Made pumpkin shaped sugar cookies for my son's class to decorate on Thursday.  I had to sample the dough.  Surprisingly, I wanted to sample it several times!??!?!  I did pay for that indiscretion.  I stank.  Lots of gas that smelled ghastly!

New pics are coming soon!

Compliments

When you start losing weight people are not sure why you look different.  When you are morbidly obese, it takes ALOT of weight before people even notice.  Also as an MO, people are bit loathe to mention your weight.  I started getting noticed at about 50 pounds down.  This seems to be the magic number.  I had not even left my "fat" clothes yet, but I was fitting into things that had not fit well for a very long time.  So the usual comment from women is, "You look great!"  I have even had men call me skinny.  Believe me, I am a long way from there.  It is much tougher when the comments get more specific.  When a woman you know talks to you for awhile and then as she is leaving says, "You have lost alot of weight." (emphasis hers)  I have also gotten from a thin woman.  "Wow, you have lost alot of weight.  I bet your heart appreciates that."  I was prepared to be mad at people who think I am hotshit because I have lost weight, but I have decided it is not worth my trouble.  However, why do these people insist on saying inappropriate things?

My common response to any inquiries is, "Yes, I have."  Sometimes even "Thank You."  I try to change the subject at that point.  Many folks prefer to press me for my secret.  I tell them I have been playing tennis for 3-5 days per week (true).  Some push even more.  I will tell them I am eating less and mostly protein. (also true).  I do not tell people I have had surgery.  Why not?

1.  Most people do not want to hear that. 

2.  I don't want people watching me eat, exercise, walk what have you.

3.  No need to debate my choice or the merits of surgery. 

4.  Alot of people think it is the easy way out that they would never, never choose for themselves. 

5.  Who has got that kind of time?

Will I tell at some later date?  Maybe.  Once at goal and people realize I did not get there just by playing tennis and eating less.  I may take the time to explain that I had an efficient metabolism that kept weight on me.  I may even tell them that years of crazy diets had created that metabolism.  I may futher go on to let them know that I had my metabolism repaired with surgery to make mine run like theirs.  I feel like I have had some defect fixed and have more of a normal functioning body now.  Why?  Because for the first time in a long time, my thoughts and feelings are not driven by my relationship with food.  I read several weightloss blogs.  There are several out there who are having success, but are ultimately are still choked by their relationship with food.  Am I cured?  No, but my prognosis for recovery is very good. 

So, what do you think?  Just like people make dumbass comments to infertiles.  How about us fatties?  We get some great ones.  We are ridiculed publicly in the media.  We are stereotyped and discriminated against.  What do you say to someone when you notice they have lost a bunch of weight?  How do you tell them that without lowering the person they were before? 

You know the only place where I revel in the comments about my appearance/weight?  It is at my surgeon's support group.  Those people have seen me for 6 months now from pre-op to post-op.  It is a warm, welcoming environment where we are all in this together.  Everyone there knows the struggles we have faced and continue to face.  We are all anxious to share how everyone is doing.  I love it there because it is safe and inviting.  The OH DS group and some of my fellow bloggers are like that too.

Today, I was at 217.  It is lowest I remember being in 12 years. 

Bouncing

So, do you think I have abandoned the blog?  Without much angst in your life, I feel like there are only boring stories to tell.

Friday night we had a block party that was brought indoors by rain.  Once the storm passed we did s'mores around a firepit for the kids.  I was up until 3am with some neighbors.  I was stone cold sober- the others not.  We had a freewheeling political discussion until the wee hours.  It was 5 against 1 (me).  My sobriety was key.  The others had some issues getting an articulate point across.  When I went home, the guy most drunk was about to shotgun a beer.  I heard he did not get out much the next day.

Saturday was fun.  Soccer for the little one and scrapbooking for me that night.  I have not been scraping in months.  The surgery and ensuing aftermath has kept me away from it.  I mostly made some overdue cards for people.

Sunday- kids are both sick.  I hit a new low weight of 219.2.  It bounced up again today to 221. 

Here is the big news though.  My partner and I had a tennis match last night.  We WON! 6-2, 7-6.  It was thrilling.  We finally played people as bad as we are!!  It was nice to play people that you had a chance of winning with. 

So, what's on the thrilling agenda for today?  Taking kids to the peds because of cough and fever.  We may try some thrift store shopping this week.  Supposed to do Cub Scouts and Baseball tonight.  The Doc may put a stop to that.

I still need to measure and do 3 months pics.  I also want to do a post about the attention I am currently receiving for the weightloss.

I SUCK

This has been a bad week in terms of tennis.  We had a match rained out last week, so we played 2 this week.  We happened to be playing the 2 best teams in our (too high) division.  I can announce with out qualification that I suck at my new sport.  Of course, I never claimed to be a star athlete before surgery either. 

We have been practicing, playing and taking lessons since August.  We thought we were getting better.  Those delusions were quickly trounced by the double drubbings we took Tuesday and Thursday.  6-1, 6-1and 6-0, 6-0 respectively.  I dare say our opponents had to partake of salsa after the matches to work up a sweat that was absent after our "round" of tennis.  Frustration is not even the word for how my tennis partner and I feel after one of these particularly brutal beatings.  We had not lost that badly before.  We thought we were better. 

Here is how the league works.  Teams across the city form and rate themselves based on ability.  3/4 of our team had never played any kind of tennis before August.  About 4-5 people on our team had played.  We wanted the lowest rating C-7.  Alas, it was not to be.  We are a C-6 team because of the higher players on our team supposedly.  You have a total of 5 points for each match you play because five lines of doubles play each match day.  We have had 6 matches so far for a possible 30 points.  Our team has 1 point.  "They" say it takes 3 seasons to be a competative team.  I do know if I can be soundly trounced for 14 more matches or so. 

Are we going to continue?  Will we give up and try another sport?  NO, I say NO!  It has been a tough week.  There is only some much ass-kicking you can take while the ladies on the other side say sweetly, "Oh, ya'll are good don't you worry.  Everybody has a bad day."  She was in real danger of having her insides on her outside. 

What a Week!

This has been a real corker.  6 days ago I made a short post about being past the 50 pound mark. I went for a 3 month check-up this week ( a few days early) with my surgeon's office.  On the office scale, I was down to 227.  Whoo HOOO even 50 pounds with clothes on.  The staff is also thrilled with my progress.  I have had no complications and my BMI is down 10 points since surgery.  My bp was almost low- 92/60 and 78 heartrate. I never did have high BP before. 

I did not expect much this morning because I had already broken my usual pattern by losing 2 days in a row prior.  Also, last night we had wings, celery, blue cheese and these great homemade potato chips.  It was good, but also lots of protein.  I got on the scale this morning...............................

224.2  3 pounds down in one day!!!  It was astounding to me.  My only change lately is that everynight I have a craving for the same snack.  I have a 12 oz can of V8 juice with lemon juice, crushed ice, lemon pepper, and garlic in it.  Crazy right?  I have always loved V8. 

I truly feel unchained from food.  I choose whatever I want to eat, but I choose wisely things that are going to benefit me and taste super good.  I do not waste any precious stomach space on bad tasting food anymore just because it is there.  This is quite the revelation for me.  Do I still overeat if it tastes good?  Yes, but to an exponentially smaller degree.  An example, I might have had 6-7 wings total last night. 

As of today, October 8th,  55.8 pounds are gone.  I will do some pictures on my actual date 10/12. 

229.2

50.8 pounds down today.  A big milestone for me.