Ramblings about emotional stuff... (cc from threads)

**warning** this post will be long winded and ramble I have not posted one of my ramblings in a long while, bout’ time I did! I am a few days shy of 7 months post op… I have lost 105 lbs since a year ago January. It’s been an amazing, truly amazing 7 months. Those of you who’ve been a part of the DS family for a while, probably know my ups and downs well. I would do this again in a heartbeat. Heck, in half a heartbeat! I also struggle… Every. Single. Day. And it is WORK… Every. Single. Day. As it should be, each of us has our own journey and our own experiences. What works for me, might not work for you. What is hard for me might not be hard for you… So nothing I say here is anything but from my own experience… however, I bet I will say things that touch a cord in some of you. If not today, one day… The emotional head work we must do… has truly been (just as I was warned) the hardest part. It’s been hard in every stage of my journey and I imagine that will continue for the rest of my life… I am 53 years old and have used food to cope for the majority of these years. Heck, when I was in 1st grade… I’d get home from school and my mother (with all the love in the world), helped me celebrate my day with cookies and milk… and when my day was lousy, cookies and milk… My father was Mexican, so we always always had refried beans and homemade flour tortillas on the stove… ALWAYS! I was taught young they were like band-aids for my hurts. Even more so than cookies and milk! So, as you can imagine (or have experienced in some form yourself)… as the years came and went, food was where I turned… Re-learning how to do this deal and find healthy coping tools has been hard… Let’s face it, often old habits die hard. For some, everything changes when they decide to have surgery, and they never look back to their old ways… I think these people are few and far between… but maybe I am wrong, just speculation on my part. I find I have days when I am an emotional train wreck. I think the further into this I get, the more this happens… Maybe because I am now feeling stuff! And I don’t know how to feel the things I feel, and often don’t know what I am feeling… Sometimes it takes me several days to figure it out. Sometimes I am all over the place with labeling my feelings. But I keep working at it. In the past, I use to get stressed, as we all do… but within a very short time I thought I ‘got a handle on it’… what I was doing was eating it away and stuffing my stress deep inside. I’ve tried to eat away the stress since surgery when old habits kicked in and just ended up sick and miserable. Not proud of this, but it is true… and it’s not like I decided to let my old ways take over, it’s like they just did. Sometimes I don’t even realize I am doing it till it’s done… But I am a work in progress… and am learning to find new ways to cope. One of those ways is to try and name what I am feeling. If you google “pdf emotions list” you find some pretty cool lists out there of different types of emotions. We are used to the normal, angry, sad, happy types, but there are tons more that are helpful to name what’s going on inside our heads… (here is a list of emotions I posted in my Journal: http://www.dailystrength.org/people... Some of the weird stuff I’ve been dealing with lately is my emotions over my hair… yeah, it’s pretty bad. Most days I can cope just fine… but on occasion, not so much… I know (I KNOW) my hair does not define me… and that in the big scheme of things… yada yada… but it still sucks to have so little and sometimes I see myself in the mirror and I cry. I’ll get over it… It (hopefully) will come back… or it won’t… but I will not let the lack of hair take me down … I have been told so many times now “Just get a wig” that I swear if I hear that one more time I will choke someone! LOL! ***SIGH*** It is what it is… but that does not mean I don’t FEEL stuff because of it… and I have to FEEL it, not EAT it… So, here I am ‘feeling’ it. Another one… is that I physically feel awesome!! Great, right? Sure it is! Don’t think for a moment I am saying feeling awesome in not worth every single hurdle… But sometimes… I look in the mirror and see an old woman! And I think, dang… I feel like I should look better than that!? Yeah, this is weird… and I am oh so happy I don’t feel as old as I look! Ha ha ha! But… there is some weird emotions going on around this… I’ve not quite figured it out yet. I am thinking it’s a catch up sorta thing! Sometimes it’s like I think I should look thinner because I feel thinner, other times it’s like I still feel fatter and am surprised I am not… Sure, I know some of you will look over at my picture and say “But Becca, you look great!” Let’s be real here… that is a picture of me on a good day! That picture was taken after I have spruced up to go out. Most days, I am run ragged from work, working out, classes, volunteering, and have been walking in the rain… I am NOT posing for a picture to impress myself or all of you with… I am just me. And some days, I am not impressed with how I look. This is so hard to explain… I guess, just maybe, I was hoping I’d end up 34 again… Yeah, of course I know/knew better… but I am also human, and have crazy dreams that are not reality… I’ll leave this one be because I do not know how to explain it better, so I’ll just quit trying! My current diet… Hummmmm…. My thoughts here are do not let anyone tell you there is only one way to do this deal. Some of us can eat bread, some will and shouldn’t, and some never will again. Some will struggle forever more to get in their protein and vitamins, some won’t… Some will only eat 600 calories a day; some will eat 1200 who should only eat 1000, or who should eat 1500. On and on it goes… We are not cookie cutter WLS people… It is awesome we learn from others what works for them, and often this information is helpful. But it’s like any other advice, we take what we can use, and leave the rest. I was stalled for 6 weeks. No biggie… I was doing ok with it… I had lost 100 lbs and I knew the drill, “stalls happen”. Then I went for my 6 month checkup and was told to eat more. Eat more calories, eat more carbs. I now eat 1200 calories a day and 100 to 120 carbs per day… And you know what? In less than 3 weeks I lost 5 more pounds! It is working for me… Does that mean you should do this? I don’t have the answer to that. All I know is it works for me. And as long as it does, it is what I will do. I have had people (not from here) tell me right out that I was nuts and by eating that much calories and carbs, it will NEVER EVER work! Maybe it does not work for them, but it works for me… at least today. Tomorrow? Who knows, but today it works. And if tomorrow it quits working, then I adjust my sails… You know that saying “Eat to live, don’t live to eat!” I love this saying… and I believe in it. I also enjoy food still, and at first I was bummed out by that. I wanted to be one of those who no longer found joy or pleasure in eating. And if you are like that, and its working for you, then wonderful! Your way is your way… as I said, what works for one, might not be the way for another. Now for me though, I think that finding pleasure in food is a wonderful thing. As long as it’s for the right reasons, if a bite into a juicy, well-cooked steak makes me go “ummmmmmmm” and roll my eyes back, why should I feel bad for this pleasure? I don’t feel bad when I smell a rose, or hug a baby, or any of those other wonderful pleasures of life, why this? What I am learning to change… is to stuff food into my face as a way to numb the emotions raging thru my body… In fact, I enjoy food so much that if it means I keep a few extra pounds on my body, I am ok with that! I like curves, and so does my man… I plan on enjoying this life I have re-discovered, no hair, extra wrinkles, and nice, healthy curves… What keeps me going is remembering this is about progress, not perfection! :) Thank you for listening to my forever crazy ramblings! I wish for each of you a crazy, wonderful, exciting, and educational as well as turbulent journey! For without turbulence we won’t grow or appreciate the calm