1 May, 2018

WHMP: 1 May 2018

Posted in : When Holly Met Percy on May 1, 2018 by : C4Kkitchen Tags: #c4kgoesbariatric, #whenhollymetpercy

I have been a little quite on the “When Holly Met Percy” blog front lately so thought that it timely that in check on my progress and where my head is at.

So let’s start with the numbers. There has been 4 weekly weigh in since my last post being losses of 0.3kg, 0.4kg, 0.6kg and a gain of 0.2kg respectively which has taken me to a total of 91.4kg lost since I first started my weight loss journey. My weekly average has dropped to 1.15kg per week which I am over the moon with since I am coming up to 16 months post op. The numbers have substantially slowed as the months have gone on and while it is frustrating because of my lack of patience – I am well aware this is normal and to be expected. I still have another 26.6kg to go to get to goal, this is going to take a bloody long time in these small increments BUT I am committed and determined to get to the finish line.

My BMI, well my BMI has dropped from 68 down to 38 meaning that I have dropped a ridiculous 30 BMI grades…..yet somehow I am still considered Obese Class 2.

Acknowledging BMI is only one measurement of my progress, it’s also important that I consider my body measurements that I do on the first of every month. In the month of March I lost another 8cm off my body measurements taking my grand progressive total to 197cm lost. I mean really universe, could have you NOT given my three more measly cm to take me to total of 2 metres, maybe next month.
My body measurements lost since I started this crazy journey is:
Arms – 9cm
Boobs – 35cm
Waist – 52cm
Ass – 63cm
Thigh – 28cm
Calf – 10cm

So now down to the business about why I have been so quiet on the blog-front. In all honesty, apart from being ridiculously busy with mum, work, family, gym and WLS event planning life, I am feeling a little bit lost and I am struggling.

I have been feeling a bit overwhelmed by everything that has been going on in my life. I am tired and feeling what I am calling process and number fatigue. I am feeling mentally and physically exhausted by the skin drag. Now upfront for the record I am NOT, I repeat NOT making this post for a cry for compliments of how great I am looking, how far I have come or how amazing I am. I am writing this post for me and me alone to reflect and be real about all of the emotions I am feeling and battling with at the moment. Mr McPherson my year 12 chemistry teachers always said to us that if we can’t explain it then we don’t understand it. So this post is purely me trying to explain and therefore understand what I am feeling and in by sharing it may help others to understand and process what they are going through themselves.

So the first thing I want to talk about it process and numbers fatigue….. So I am tired of tracking and counting numbers. Kilograms, cms, BMI grades, calories, protein, carbs, sugar, time spent at the gym, time I haven’t slept that I should of and clothes sizes. I have been counting these things as measures of my progress and using a measure to motivate me to keep working. However after 16 months of counting I need to put all numbers in a “time out” as the drain all of these numbers is overwhelming and I am tired of considering numbers. I am tired of the weight loss process and feeling like I am eternally stuck in the weight loss stage…..admittedly my starting weight was a lot higher than a lot of other people’s meaning my journey was always going to be longer than the average person but after 16 months and still being 25-30kg away from goal weight I am tired of this stage.

How am I combatting this? I will still keep doing my weekly weigh in and my monthly measurements as I know I need them for accountability. However I am consciously not going to even let the other numbers be a consideration in my daily life. I cannot deal with doing food diaries and tracking my macros as well as calories burnt and eaten. I need a break from the numbers, I need a break from the weight loss stage and I just need to live and trust that I have embed positive changes into my nutrition and physical activity to continue as normal without the heavy monitoring I imposed on myself. These number expectations that I am feeling fatigued by are not set by anyone, they are set by me and me alone so I am trying to consciously disconnect with them until I feel ready to actively engage in the weight loss stage…..I’m putting myself into a numbers timeout.

So the second thing I want to talk about is the skin drag…….ah the joys of dreaded excess skin. Now I was well aware that coming into this process that with extreme weight loss I was going to have excess skin and that nothing could be done to avoid or negate this happening. I told myself that I would wear the excess skin proudly as a badge of honour or as a trophy of my achievements of how far I have come and proudly show that this is a result of my hard work. BUT….reality is very very different to what I told myself I would do.

I have people telling me how fabulous I look and how far I have come and yes I do agree……with clothes on. I am looking so much happier and healthier. However without clothes on I look freaking revolting. I have lost 92 freaking kilograms!! I would expect that in my naked form that I would look better than before but in all honesty I think I look worse now than I did before. I sag, I hang, I wrinkle, I rumple and frankly it is not attractive at all. I have shown a few people who are the very closest to me the photos of my skin who assure me that it doesn’t look that bad and it could be so much worse and while I do listen to what they are saying I cannot hear the words because I feel so revolting within my own skin and I absolutely hate what I see and no amount of words of encouragement or positivity can overcome how I feel about the excess skin. The emotional and mental impact of how I look is severely impacting on my mental state and while I am so very much enjoying all the positive aspects that have popped up into my world the mental drag of the skin is real and it is painful.

The other aspect of the skin drag to consider is the physical drag of the skin. It hangs low, meaning it pulls causing body aches and pains. It moves A LOT during exercise, particularly during heavy duty exercise that I have been doing making the standard aches and pains even worse, to the point where I have had to stop doing any running or jumping as it just causes way too much discomfort. STOP READING MUM…..The excess skin during special time with hubby gets in the way and can result in old school Chinese burn action abruptly ending any relations. The skin folds cause extreme chaffing, sweating, rubbing that results in slimey films, ooziness, sometimes even bleeding and this lingering funky smell. I can always clear up these reactions pretty quickly but I can’t stop them from happening. I am following all clinical advice that I am given to manage the skin effects but the reality is that nothing can stop any of this from happening except surgery.

Again how am I combatting this?? Simply, I am not. I am not coping, I am not managing, I am simply surviving. I am on the countdown until my next appointment with my chosen plastic surgeon to hopefully get a date for an apronectomy procedure. I have checked that my PHI is sufficient and ready to go so I just need a date. If I have to even consider going to this appointment and not getting a date I can honestly say I have no idea at all how I will react to this, so I’m not even considering it. I would not cope.

So while this has been somewhat of a “Debbie Downer” post, it hasn’t been all doom and gloom over the last month. I have had some pretty amazing things and achievements happen.

The Adelaide WLS event I organised with a couple of other lovely ladies went off without a hitch and was a fabulous night had by all. I feel pretty, I felt confident and hell I even had a shit load of wine!!