Chronicles of a Late Bloomer

I’m ready to admit just how low my morale has gotten this week.

Start with my ongoing medical problems (more on that after two ultrasounds and a doctor follow-up visit tomorrow), the fact that I probably have PMS, and large-scale fallout from the financial crisis of a few of weeks ago. I feel wiped out.

And, perhaps that same PMS is contributing a pound or two of bloat, but this morning I weighed in dangerously close to that 300-pound mark that I was so proud of crossing.

I won’t cross it again if I can help it, but I’m still doing some soul-searching about the moment on Saturday morning when, standing in our local 99-cent store, I decided that purchasing two packages of wafer cookies was the thing to do. “They’re not chocolate,” I rationalized, successfully avoiding a cocoa-triggered migraine but not the sugar and trans fat debacle that followed. “They’re in individually-wrapped packages,” I declared to myself, mistakenly believing that it would “slow me down.” And, “They’re so cheap,” felt important when I thought about all of the rice and bean meals I’ve had in the past 3 weeks. When I started to come to my senses, two days later, I did not toss the offending cookies, reasoning, “but it’s been so long since I had any treats, and I feel so very badly…”

The combination of money woes, health anxiety, and pain episodes crashed on Monday morning when I took a tumble in the subway parking lot before work. Beyond the scrapes and bruises, I seem to have heartily injured my lower back and, two nights ago, could not even walk from the stove to the refrigerator in making dinner.

All of this sounds like bitching and complaining, but the fact is that I have been dancing on tight ropes for the past two months and something had to give. I’m only sorry that it was my food resolve, to the tune of splitting an extra large pizza (with double cheese), wolfing down crappy 99-cent store cookies, and consuming very few vegetables to speak of this week. With the pain and injuries, I have not exercised (or even been able to take the stairs at work) and now I feel exhausted. And undernourished. And stuck. And anxious that every single funny little twinge in my torso is going to lead to a pain episode that will land me in the hospital again.

So. Allow me to hereby plant my flag, press my fists indignantly against my hips, and declare, “This is as low as I go.” My project for the next week and a half is to rebuild my morale and keep my darn chin up.

(But not so far up that I trip and fall in public, again.)

Celebrating: Crossing into the 200’s! Defeating the troll under the 300-pound bridge! Achieving my end-of-the-year goal! Call it what you will, I’m under 300 pounds!

Grateful for: I had really wanted to take a picture of my purple toesies framing the 299.8 point. However, I must have hit that point somewhere around Wednesday night after spending all afternoon and evening in the emergency room. Wednesday, I had another pain crisis which resulted in a 7-pound drop only 30 hours later. My doctors seem to think I have stomach acid problems, which leads to such debilitating abdominal pain that I am rendered immobile, speechless, breathless, and lying in a pool of my own sweat on the carpeted floor of my office. I just don’t understand how severe indigestion could be making me lose this weight. I’m sticking with my ovarian cyst theory until proven otherwise. (Note: I don’t “bounce back” from these dramatic weight losses, as though they were pure water weight or some other scale game. No, I lose the outrageous amount of weight in the 2 days following the pain crisis and it never comes back. All I can figure is that a combination of eating right, exercising, and battling the huge, fluid-filled aliens living deep in my torso has spurred me to these current numbers.)

Starting weight: 354.6 pounds
Last week: 300.4
This week: 296.8
Change this week: -3.6
Total change: -57.8
Next milestone: 60 pounds gone

This week’s mantra: Be grateful. Be grateful. Be grateful.