My Journey Through Fitness – LaShonda Hill

So I was asked to share my story and journey with the good folks at SociallyFitBlog.com.  Check it out here:

My Journey Through Fitness – LaShonda Hill.

I hope you enjoy the story.  Also, while you are there check out the Socially Fit site for tips on healthy living, diet and fitness.

Is this thing on?

So I maybe a bit of a slacker. I am still here, but life has been a lot more busy now that I have lost a small person.  So quickly, updates.  I am now down about 105 lbs, have gone from a size 22/24 dress size to a size 10 as of today, and for the first time in my adult life my BMI is not in the obese or morbidly obese categories, I am just overweight like the rest of the US.  So here’s an updated before and after for you…

Before

After

So the reason for my post is because I was encouraged to post a tip that I have stuck to through out this journey.  I call it my 10 lbs. rule.  It’s pretty simple, as I have tried not to beat myself up too much if my weight fluctuates.  Going up and down in weight is normal, for a variety of different reasons, so it does no one any good at all to get made because on Friday you weighed one thing and on Tuesday you weigh 8 oz. more.  First, why are you weighing yourself every two seconds?  Stop that!  I have stuck to a rule, as suggested by my doctor, of not weighing myself more than once per week.  More than that really just isn’t beneficial.  Anyhow, back to the 10 lbs. rule…the trick is allow yourself the room to fluctuate, but if you notice that your weight goes up my more than 10 lbs, you need to reevaluate your routine and habits.  My rule of thumb for this has been, once I drop below another 10 lbs. mark, I cannot go back above that.  For instance, once I hit the 190s in my weight, I couldn’t go back up above 200.  Now that I have hit the 160s, I can’t go back above 170.  It’s a pretty nice rule of thumb to stick too and it keeps me from completely freaking out over a little fluctuation in weight.  If I notice a jump back up, then I need to go back to making sure I really keep track of my diet and exercise to see where I might be pulling in too many calories or something.

I will try to do a better job of keeping up with my blog, I get scolded enough by a few friends when it’s been a while since I last posted, so I am sure someone will hold me true to staying up with it.

My body’s a ONEderland!

So I admittedly have been a slacker and haven’t kept up here as planned, but that’s not because I haven’t still been progressing. Quite the contrary, things have been going awesome! Not that you would know that since I haven’t shared lately. I reached my first big goal of just getting under 200lbs. a few weeks back. I am starting to buy my first size 10s in decades!

I am finding that with my new ONEderland body, I can do all kinds of things I couldn’t do before. I have started the Couch to 5k program, training to run…without being chased. I can get out of the bed without being almost in tears each day from pain. Honestly, I am amazed at what doors this weight loss has opened for my health in general. I am planning to sign up for at least 2 – 5k runs this summer and my friends and I have put together a team for the Dirty Girl Mud Run this coming August, our team name: You say Tatas, we say Tetas! With this new active lifestyle it’s no wonder I can’t keep up with updating my blog, right? Hey, it was worth a try!

To check on my progress, check my progress page, I have a few more posts planned, so hopefully I can stay on top of keeping things up to date here more. Until nest time…later days!

Fat Girl Brain

Left - March 9th, Right - November 12th

For the first time in a while I went out and was around people I haven’t seen since before surgery and one of my friends actually said, “WOAH! Dude you shrunk!” It was kind of a funny, as I have said many times before us recovering fat girls have something messed up in our brains that does not allow us to honestly view what the world views when they see us. So I took a pic of myself 2-days pre-op and put it up next to a pic of myself from 2 days ago. I GET IT PEOPLE! I SEE IT! (That doesn’t mean that I won’t have a slip up again and go back to my fat brain, it just means I am recovering and like a true addict, I just need to work in a few reinforcements for myself to get it right.

If you are interested in my progress, I did another weigh-in this week, you can check it out here.

I have, also, started on a few pretty cool journeys with some friends who have similar goals, healthier, new selves.  We have decided that we are going to attempt out first mud run this year, so we are taking part in the Dirty Girl Mud Run, here in Southeaster WI this summer.  We may die, but we will die together!  In an effort to get on the path to new us’s…pretty sure that isn’t a word, but you know what I mean, we are tracking our food and progress on a pretty neat little site.  If you are looking for something to keep you on track, you should check it out, it is called – MyFitnessPal.com. It even has a pretty dope mobile app that allows you to scan the barcode of your food to add it to you food diary.

Later Days peeps!

 

 

Just Keep Swimming

So here we are, 3 months out from my surgery and how are things going? The weight loss has slowed down, which for me isn’t a bad thing, it is still very consistent though…a few pounds a week. I did hit a patch a few weeks back where I was sitting at the same weight for like 2 weeks and I freaked. I had that moment where I thought, I know I didn’t let this man cut me open and move my insides around just to lost 30-35 lbs. But then I hit my 6 week mark (which meant I was free to get back to my normal work outs at the gym) and the first week I headed back to the gym I was down 8 lbs. I notice changes, which is great, clothes are still getting bigger and bigger on me, I have even managed to purchase some belts. I am down about 3 dress sizes, I think? I say I think, because, well, I was up to about a size 24, but I stopped buying clothes with numbers once I felt like the numbers started looking at me funny and were judging me. Judgemental bastards! I felt a lot more comfortable with my friends XL and XXL and even the occasional 2X and 3X. I really appreciated when stores messed up completely and made a huge me-sized shirt and accidentally put a Medium tag on it. I would pretend that they did it just for me. Anywho, I digress, I am now down to fitting into my old 18s, however those are starting to get baggy, too. I cannot yet fit into size 16s and I don’t have any old 16s around the house, so I just work with what I have got. At some point I have to buy some, but I am currently holding a silent protest against myself for shopping for anything that is not a necessity these days.

Check my weigh-in page for an update on my loss. Below is my updated before and after pic as well. In the wise words of Nemo’s dad’s friend Dori…just keep swimming…and swim I shall do.

Someone told me to add my face, because apparently my face looks skinnier...so here's a pic with my mug. lol

A picture speaks a thousand words…

With weightloss surgery your personal body image doesn’t miraculously change overnight. If you saw yourself as the fat girl in your group of friends for 20 years, that isn’t going to change one day out of no where. Well looking at your body every day, despite knowing that the pounds are coming off, knowing that your pants don’t seem to stay up with out assistance any longer, doesn’t seem to change what you see in the mirror. Due to this “illness” my doctors and nurses warned me that taking pics may help me to see my body change better.

On the morning of my surgery, I snapped a photo of the body I wanted to never see again. (Please pardon the quality of the photos, I wasn’t necessarily intending on sharing them with anyone when I took them.)

265 lbs - Nov 14th

229 lbs - Dec 26th

So despite my warped sense of body image and need for more faster, I am making progress and things are going in the right direction, so for now I will just shut it and be content. Thankfully, I am clear to head back to the actual gym now, so hopefully with a week off of work, I can get back into my routine. Wish me luck.

Houston we have lift off…

…mostly I mean lift off from my backside, like literally.

My jeans are going to fall off, I wonder if I should start to claim my swag?

Through the ups and downs of the past few weeks and the overload of emotions, I have done my weigh in, which I have updated on my Progress Page.  I am already noticing a difference.  The jeans I wore to check in at the hospital which were snug are baggy.  My fave jeans which are fitted and have stretch, no longer need to stretch.  It’s one of those things where you really don’t notice it on yourself, but seeing a few friends and family over the past few days I have heard comments that it is noticeable.  That is definitely exciting and while I refuse to invest in any new clothes so early in this journey, I have learned one thing…I need to buy some freaking belts!

I return back to work in one week, which while I am excited to get back to a normal schedule, I will miss some of this freedom of being able to focus on my recovery and my diet.  I will survive, I suppose.  I guess before next Monday I should see if I risk losing my pants literally when I switch back to my work wardrobe next week.  That might be a little embarrassing going down the halls.  I will just add that to my list of assignments I suppose.

2 weeks, 14 days, 336 hours, 20,160 minutes or 1,206,600 seconds…

Yes, so maybe I have a little too much time on my hands.  But if you know me, you know being in the house for 3 weeks is enough to drive me batty, almost make me clean my house, bake a cake and slap my mama.  That’s pretty batty.  Just saying!  Anywho, as of Monday I am 2 weeks post surgery.

So far things are going well, after getting out of the hospital, I was doped up pretty good on the nice meds my doctor gave me to assist in my ability to almost forget my own name.  After one too many days in the land of haze, I kicked my dependency habit on my meds by about Tuesday or Wednesday of this week and I have just managed with the little bit of soreness which really isn’t too bad.

I have managed to take a walk, just about every other day so far this week.  I have been working up my tolerance a bit, starting with just under a half a mile, than up to just over a mile, next week I would like to get to at least half of my normal 4 miles.

All in all, so far so good.  I managed to survive Thanksgiving with a hearty dose of garlic mashed potatoes with cheese and greek yogurt.  Then for a little treat I had the most pulverized little mashed up piece of skinless ham that I could ever imagine.  As tiny as it was, it was yummy and before I could finish my potatoes, I was full.  (Which these days doesn’t take much, something like 4-5 tablespoons of food. )

I am slowly adjusting, for the most part I have found my biggest challenges to be trying to make sure I am getting enough protein and trying to get enough water.  The latter is way strange to me, since I have always been a big water drinker.  The fact that it is a struggle for me now, just seems mind-boggling, however I have taken to pretty much keeping water with me wherever I go unless I am actually eating and I am getting better with it daily.

Seeing as how my kids have started watching “Fred 2,” the movie, I am pretty sure I am losing brain cells by the minute and should probably stop typing out of fear of what I might do or say.  I will try to check in on Monday, at 2 weeks post op with a weigh in.

 

Worth sharing…

I hope I can reach the same level of contentedness and confidence in the next 9 mos, she is beautiful and the song is so fitting.

Congrats to her on this journey!

Why?

So I was on a site that I was referred to by the nurse at my doctors office, it is a great resource with info on surgery and forums with other WLS patients who serve an online support group for one another. Anywho…a user on the site who is a pre-op was asking for input as she is at 248 and was told by her doctor that she could expect to lose about 50% of her total needed weight loss. This was making her question whether or not the surgery was even worth it for that small amount. This is what I told her:

I am very close to your size.  Monday when I arrived at the hospital for my surgery I was 259, I am already down 6-7 lbs in under a week.  My surgeon told me as I was “weighing the options” (no pun intended) between gastric and lap-band, that lapband patients can expect about 50% weight loss gastric 70%, and like you I did the math and was trying to determine if it was truly worth it.  I, however, thought of it like this, would I love a tool that could promise me 100% success, SURE!  But how realistic is it and do I truly trust a surgeon that would make that promise.  Also, the way my doctor put it was 70% weight loss just letting the tool do the work without the added efforts I plan to put in going to the gym and staying active, which would easily put 100% within reach.  Finally, what would make this time any different.  I have been trying to take the weight off for years and sure while 70% maybe not be “worth it” when you look at the numbers alone, I haven’t been able to take even that much off on my own so I NEED this tool to get me there, even if that is as far as it takes me.  70% still makes you healthier than where you started.  At the end of the day, I think it all depends on the work you want to put in to it.  Good luck whichever direction your path inevitably takes you.

Just thought that explanation was worth sharing, not that I think I owe anyone an explanation, but in case anyone wants to know where my head is at this is where it is…