Well.......

I just weighed myself on my sister's scale.  I'm 261.  I've gained 6 pounds.  Clothes still fit the same, I can get into them, they're a little loose, and they look like shit on me.
All the hope I had with the BodyBugg is officially gone.  I just started a higher dose of estrogen, but I'm pretty much dead set on a lap band procedure.  I can't stand being in this body.  Until I can afford the lap band, I'll keep walking and counting calories, but.....  fuck this. 

WTF

What the hell is wrong with me???
I've been really diligent with my calorie counting.  If something is super high in calories, I avoid it or just eat half of it, but lately I've been horrible.  I just want to eat junk food, and only junk food.  If someone put a salad in front of me right now, I'd pee on it.
On Friday, I burned 3200 calories, but ate 4100.  FOUR THOUSAND CALORIES!!!!!!!!  Jesus H Christ!!  I tried to make up for it on Saturday.  I ate 2000 calories and burned 3900, so I made up for all the excess calories I ate.  But still, what the hell has gotten into me?  Maybe it's stress or depression from not having a job.  I don't know.  I don't want to make excuses.  Today, so far, I've eaten a piece of cake and a big cookie.  I had a sandwich at 2am, so the total so far is 1600-1700.  So what the hell am i gonna do the rest of the day for food?  Answer?  Tuna.  And I'm going to need to burn more calories.  Boxing, walking, resistance bands, some of them, all of them.  I feel like a failure.  I may not be losing weight right now, but I sure as hell don't want to gain anymore.

Slow And Steady.......

So, I haven't lost any weight, but as Dee suggested, I haven't GAINED any.  I've been at 255 for a few months now, and things seem to be steady.  I haven't had to buy bigger pants or anything.

I just charged up the BodyBugg and did a memory dump, and it always starts off by telling me how long I've been wearing it.  It informed me it's been 9 weeks, which means, in a normal body, I should have only lost 9 pounds by now.  That's not much, which once again, signals I'm expecting too much, too fast.

I wish I were more patient.

I Don't Know

Not really much to report.  Still shooting for decent calorie deficit, but not losing any weight.  I've got other low estrogen symptoms, like dry skin.  It's worse than it's ever been in the winter, nasty and flaky.  Bleh.  I've got some gross dry skin bumps on my face that are driving me crazy.

I wonder if there's an estrogen shot I could take.  The troche seem worthless, and I've tried the cream.  I just don't seem to be absorbing anything.  Duh.

Ruby

Lately I've been slack on my calorie counting and wearing the body bug.  I had the body bug on too tight one night and it left this weird rash on the floppy fat under my arm, so wearing it was uncomfortable.  I took 2 days off from wearing it, but have it back on again.
I've been writing down my calories pretty religiously, but lately I either don't write it down, or I just estimate.  Estimating always gets me in trouble.  I always underestimate how much I'm eating.  So I need to get my ass back into gear, watching portions and doing legitimate counting.
I've not been slacking on exercise though, as you might have seen in the last post.  I've been taking Nathan with me for walks around Gray's lake.  He bought some new winter gear and a kick ass MP3 player, so we can bundle up and jive around the lake together.
I didn't go around the lake today, but I did plenty of walking around the neighborhood, enough for me to burn 3100 calories and have a grand total of 1 hour 30 minutes of activity.
I need to do the resistance band workout and try to step up the resistance.

Per Dee's suggestion, I've been watching Ruby on Netflix.  It's a show about a 477 pound woman who's struggling to get her weight down before she dies from obesity. She works out with a trainer and has a nutritionist that has her on these prepackaged meals called Hourglass.  She is only allowed 1700 calories a day, (eventually they increased it to 2100), with 3 meals and 2 snacks.  She's having a hell of a time sticking to the prepackaged stuff, but she's doing it, and she's lost 120 pounds so far.  Even when she goes out to restaurants, she has to have those meals with her, so she doesn't order what's on the menu.
Watching her dedication made me realize I'm being too wishy washy with my counting.  "Oh, I'll try to stay at 1800, but I guess it's fine if I do 2200," or, "I've counted everything so far today, I don't need to count this restaurant food."
No.  No sir.  That is a slippery slope.  Time to be much more stringent.

Also, I thought I'd lost 5 pounds a couple weeks ago.  Turns out it was just water weight or something, because I'm back up to 255.  I find this discouraging.  But I suppose it's just part of my estrogen being ridiculously low.

I'm starting to think more seriously about lap band surgery.  I'm not going to jump on it right away, but if I cash in my old 401k, I can pay off my car and my hospital bill and a credit card.  This would lessen my debt substantially and a lap bad procedure would be more feasible.
Whether this was fate or not, I got a newsletter from Mercy Medical that featured a bunch of women that had great success with their lap band procedure.  I really do see this in my future.

Shit Balls

Goddamnit.  I was bound and determined to go for a walk today since I hadn't gotten to walk over the weekend.  Nathan and I went to Kohl's and got him some warmer winter gear since he's been walking with me.  We trekked over to Gray's lake afterward and did a lap, which takes approximately an hour.  I was so bundled up.  I was sweating everywhere except my legs.  I just had jeans on.  Nathan had jeans and long underwear.  About halfway around my legs started to get so cold they hurt, and then they went completely numb.  I had this horrible thought I'd have to have them amputated.  That's how goddamn cold it was.
As a result, I wanted to get back to my car faster, so I was really booking it.  I was out of breath, my side hurt, and I'm sure I was burning shit tons of calories.  I felt good about the quick pace, even with the frigid weather, (10 below wind chill), until I fell.  I hit a patch of ice just after the bridge.  My bad ankle slipped underneath of me and I landed on my right knee.  Nathan was concerned and helped me up, and wanted me to take a minute, but my legs were so cold I was just like "go, go, go!" So I kept trucking it around the lake.
I'm sitting at home now, and my bad ankle has swelled back up, and my knee is about the size of a baseball.  I thought it was just fat for a minute, but it is a lot bigger than the other knee and I can see a bruise starting.  

I hurt this knee in middle school playing softball, so it's extra sensitive to injury.  My cleat caught in the dirt when I was sliding and I kind of launched into the air and came down on it hard.  It was so fucking swollen and I hit it so hard half of my leg turned black from bruising.  There's still a spot on the top of it that has no feeling.  I've been told there's water between the tendons or something, so they can't drain it.
So that's what I landed on.  It hurts and I'm pissed off because I'm going to be limping around for the next couple of days.  I am such a goddamn klutz.  I suppose it's fine since the weather is going to be even colder and I've got no business walking out in that.

I don't know what my deal is lately.  I've been hurting myself on everything.  I got a pretty bad second degree burn on my arm from making lamb chops, and burned my finger a couple days later.  The finger isn't as bad.  The burn on my arm blistered and is now all cracked open and nasty.  I'm sure my back will go next.

My body is a piece of shit.

A Comparison

I'm putting up some pictures showing the difference in my 2 big weight gains.
The first picture is from college, when my thyroid decided to take a dump and I was on Lithium.  I look fat all over.   I weighed 238
The second is recent, from my cousin's wedding.  All the weight seems to be in my gut, and you can't particularly see it in my face.   I weigh 255.

Low, Lower, Lowest

The results of my estrogen test came back.  It's lower than low.  So my strange pangs must be all in my head.  I guess it's hard to get used to not having ice picks in my pelvis.

My estrogen level is currently at 61.  It should be between 150 and 360.  This would explain why I'm not seeing much progress with my weight loss and why I'm still so goddamn hot all the time.  I'm still in full blown menopause.
Good to know I guess.  I'm still at hormonal rock bottom.  The only place to go is up, at which point, it should be easier to get this fucking weight off.

For those that are curious, I've done a lot of research on this, and it seems to be the problem I'm having.
When your body goes through the trauma of a hysterectomy, the hypothalamus freaks out and can't regulate temperature, resulting in hot flashes.  If the ovaries are removed, the body can't produce estrogen anymore, but it still needs it.  Fat cells produce estrogen, so if the body isn't getting anything supplemental, or not supplemental enough, the body puts a choke hold on the fat cells and gathers more as fast as it can.
So....  Losing weight becomes a near impossibility.  It all gathers around the gut, hips, and ass, which is where I've been seeing all of my fat.  The last time my weight got cozy in the 200 range, you could see it in my face, big time.  I don't think that's as evident this time.  My cheekbones are still vaguely recognizable.   I still want my collar bones back.

I'm still counting calories and wearing the BodyBugg religiously.  I'm walking an hour a day as much as I can, which is easy right now since I've got so much free time on my hands.  I'm not sure how the Sonoma diet is going to work out.  The meals taste good, I've done a couple of them, but it's pretty expensive.  A lot of the ingredients you can only find in the health food isle at Hy-Vee or at Gateway, which means cash, and lots of it.  The last meal Nathan and I made cost us 40 bucks in ingredients.  I'm not sure if we can use some of them again, like ground fennel.  You can use olive oil, salt, and pepper in everything.  I'm gonna try and dumb it down a little.  I like fish, and I can get it for pretty cheap at
Hy-Vee.  I put olive oil on everything and I can squeeze in some more veggies and whole grain.  Basically this is what I buy anyway, aside from a few junk items......  delicious, delicious junk items.

Anywho......  just stickin' to the plan I 'spose.

New Year

I don't really have any updates.
I've done well on calorie deficit the past few days.
Yesterday I had a 1200 deficit.  I managed to burn 3400 calories without working out.  How did I achieve this magnificent number?  Hot flashes.  On average, I burn 2 calories a minute.  When I'm having a hot flash it triples, and I had hot flashes all goddamn day.

Oh, I thought of something.
I'm on quite a bit of estrogen right now, to try and get my hormone levels regulated so I can lose weight like a normal person.  I've noticed some twinges of pain in my abdomen, like, endometriosis pain.  Nothing severe, just.....  I don't know, that same old pain I lived with for 14 years.  I'll have to call my hormone guy to let him know.  Estrogen is what will help me lose weight, and keep my hot flashes down, but estrogen is also what makes the adhesions in my pelvic area grow.  It was impossible for the surgeons to get them all, since a lot of them were tiny, so there's always the danger they could come back.  I've not had any problems until now.
It's frustrating.  I can't get my hormones up to snuff for weight loss without my pain coming back.
Don't get me wrong here people.  I wouldn't take that surgery back for anything.  I hated my goddamn uterus and if I had the chance to take it back, I wouldn't.
The weight gain would have happened anyway.  The pills they had me on didn't get rid of the pain completely and knocked out my estrogen, so I had started to gain weight even before the surgery.  About 25 pounds to be exact.
It's all just a big, sharp, double edged sword.

Hopefully someday I can be healthy.