The one where I mistakenly let Instagram make me feel bad about my body…

As an Android user I was late to the Instagram party. Insta is fun, I enjoy it. I am not a designer, nor am I a photographer - but I have a blast with perspective, light and filters. Instagram has been the only social media I let my tween & young teen use because I believe it is relatively safe. I follow nearly all of the National Parks, my friends and colleagues, celebrities I like, tons of animals, poets that speak to me, and a hand full of makeup and fashion people/companies. 

I’m a pretty happy camper so long as I stay in my own feed. Images of things and people that interest me in an endless stream. 

I made an interesting observation recently. It was the 2^nd or 3^rd time in a week that I was exploring the “feed of everything” – looking for content for my other work, fun things to share with my friends when I noticed how poorly I was feeling about myself. Each time the feed was full of young women with very little clothing on. (Note: I have no problem with nudity and I love the human body.) Perfectly shot, perfectly lit, perfectly perfect abs and asses. Really, really beautiful people. Them= perfect, me= not even close. I was allowing my Compare Button to get pushed.

So I began thinking on this. Why was I allowing this content to make me feel so shabby? I have always been reasonably confident in my own skin. But I could not escape the imagery that ran like a loop through my head. Perfect, pert, perky, hard, and toned bodies. 

The hard truth is that even after losing nearly 120 pounds (in a little more than a year), even with very regular exercise my “in progress” body is a little messy. I have abs, but they lie beneath a fat pad and excess skin. I have seven, inch long scars where the laparoscopic instruments were inserted into my body.

The cool truth is that I’m totally devoted to my fitness. Most of the time I bring my A game because exercise makes my brain happy. I am only in competition with myself & I am constantly working to improve my strength and stamina. When Hermine (one of my amazing Barre instructors at Peace of Mind Pilates) places her hand on my back and tells me how lovely my form is, I do a little mental happy dance. When I’m making it rain with sweat I don’t give a shit about what my body looks like doing it. I’m a beast and I do amazing, ridiculously fucking insane things with my body. I am strong and determined.

I am ashamed when I allow my Compare Button to get pushed because I work diligently to escape that mental combat. Measuring myself against another is totally absurd and I feel like a fool every time I sink into the muck of not good enoughness. 

I was not born perfect, I have lived imperfectly, I have made errors and mistakes. I have unintentionally hurt people I love. I have been hurt. I have been an asshole. I will screw up again.

I also know this…

I am simply, a sum of my parts. My successes, my mistakes, my touchdowns and my fumbles. This body is almost 40. It has given birth TWICE to healthy babies. It has climbed to the top of the rope in the school gymnasium & thrown people up into the air (caught them too).

I have expression lines. I have white hair. I am curious and creative. I have incredible stamina. I practice loving myself because modeling love and tolerance is my legacy to my children.

I do ideas, I do kindness, I do empathy & compassion, I do humor, I do passion, I do hard work. 

Comparison is a waste of my time and drains my vitality.

I love myself. Truly.

I am enough.

The one where I buy a new washing machine and throw everything away...

Yesterday was my 5th monthly appointment with the Bariatric office.

Attended Life Skills Class? YES
Attended Nutrition Class? YES, passed quiz with a 100%
Lost required lbs? YES, have lost 22 to date (needed to lose 17)
Crafted practice menus? YES
Ate and logged only liquids for 3 days? YES
Exercising regularly? YES - I'm proud of my fitness ♥

Next month I will attend my last appointment where everything is tied up in a bow and my case will be sent off for insurance acceptance.

This is a metric fuckton of work.  No, I'm not being dramatic here. The reason it takes so.damn.long is because it should, much to my dismay at times. I am very tired of waiting. Yet a question floats around in my head.  Are you serious? Not in a snarky, bitchy way.  Just - are you serious? April, are you ready? Most days my subconscious responds with a determined YES.  Other days, when I am struggling (not to diet, just to be one with the fact I'm really going to do this) I fold inward and wish this wasn't something I had to deal with.  I mean for Pete's sake, aren't there enough irons in the fire right now? The fact remains I have not, in 25 years managed to lose and MAINTAIN a significant amount of weight so I keep going.

Also! Yesterday morning my washing machine took it's last breaths.  Um...no.  We are a family of 4 and create an obscene amount of dirty laundry.  So my husband and I ran out and bought a new machine.  We loaded it, unloaded it, hauled out the old machine from the basement and put the new one in place. Laundry had been at a standstill, only being done by my more patient half because every single load had to be hand wrung out.  Only the necessities were being washed and I had a mountain of less important items to get clean.

So over the course of the day, he washed it all and brought up basket after basket after basket of clothing for me.  PS>  yes...I function on the back end of the laundry train because I'm just anal enough to reject what my family considers "folded".  I was folding and sighing deeply.  Each person's pile getting higher and higher.  Jeff snuck off with the kid's piles in an attempt to make the job seem less daunting.  Suddenly, I experienced this strange wave of certainty about a piece of clothing I moved in my closet.  I was never, ever going to put that back on my body.  Wearing it, even trying it on and rejecting it in the past made me feel like shit about myself.  Yet, here it hung.  Clothes have a voice and this was saying...."you're not good enough."

Bullshit.

I took that piece off it's hangar and started a new pile called .... Donate. Grabbed the next item in the closet and thought long and hard.  When had I last touched this? Did it make me feel spectacular to wear?  The answers was, a damn long time ago and no. The Donate pile began to grow as I made my way through the closet and sets of drawers.  See, I have two dressers and a full (small) closet. I know...that's nuts. I sent my children off for a pile of kitchen trash bags and began filling them.  I pulled out some special pieces for a friend I knew might want them, but otherwise - be gone. You do not make me feel pretty, or special and frankly at this point I don't even care how much I spent on you.  As I made my way through drawers I found set upon set of sexy lingerie. I felt stupid in every single one of them. They represented a time when I was trying to LOOK sexy instead of BE sexy.  So honestly....fuck all of that. Into the trash they went. I AM sexy. The end.

SEVEN full to nearly bursting kitchen trash bags of clothing, gowns, handbags, and shoes later and I feel light as a feather. I cannot believe how much my wardrobe was weighing me down.  As a fat person I equated tons of choices with normalcy. I hung on to clothing for numerous dysfunctional reasons.  "It was expensive", "It might fit again someday", "It looked good in the store"....yet all those things did was distract me.  They did not help me feel, look, or be better. Twenty two pounds down and 5 months of very regular exercise have me loving and respecting my body in a way I haven't in a long time. Much of the stuff I purged didn't fit well or at all anymore anyway.

What's left you ask? How could there possibly be anything left April? Hahaha....there ARE things in my closet, I won't be naked for the next 6 months. The only things left are the things I wear all the time, that I love and make me feel good to wear.  I might be down to the very bare minimum which includes some gorgeous gowns and lots of fitness wear and a few in betweens - but I feel utterly freed by knowing what is there and being able to put my hands on all of it.

What's weighing you down?

The warp and weft

This photo is from 2008.  Six years ago I had Weight Watcher'd myself to my lowest adult weight.

In this picture I weigh about 85-90 pounds less than I do presently.

I'm beginning to realize and accept that the real struggle with the process of WLS is the crisis between who you feel like and what you look like.

I'm impatient and nervous. I'm hopeful and a little scared.  I want them to set my date so I can stop feeling like I am out at sea.

Working on my head, working on my heart.  Digging in and loving the BEFORE me, because the AFTER me happens to be the same girl.

Proceed with caution...

Public Service Announcement : 

It is NEVER a compliment to someone when you say "That person would be so attractive IF...."

Think before you offer up a compliment to a fat person that has strings attached.  Society already tells us we're worthless pieces of shit.  If for some reason a person of size has healthy self esteem or self worth, please know that much of the time it is fragile.  Why is it fragile?  Because we airbrush size 8 models into oblivion.  Fuck all of it. 

To each his/her own in the aesthetics department - due respect given as we all have our preferences.  But know that it is perhaps one of the most hurtful, disrespectful, backhanded compliments a person like me can receive.  There are no "buts" in being beautiful unless you're talking about my fantastic XL ass.

I coined Miss Such a Pretty Face over 10 years ago, in my 20s when fat acceptance wasn't a thing.

Be kind, be genuine, be real - give feedback that matters.
Don't be an asshole.

Love - Miss Such a Pretty Face

Barium, tiny cameras, and calories

There are WLS programs that require MUCH less pre-surgical wait time than mine.  A colleague of mine (she is paying out of pocket and going outside the US for her surgery) groaned when I told her mine was SIX months of monitored wight loss (required 5% reduction in weight) before the insurance company would approve me for the procedure.

I'm rather glad.  I'm working through the steps of eating 1500 calories a day and adding back in physical activity on a very regular basis.  It's not for nothing.  I was bitter at first.  Excited and impatient.  I wanted it NOW.  As I make my way down this winding path I see the value in the wait.  I'm working on my stamina and cleaning up my organs to be as healthy as possible for this big thing to happen.

At Fletcher Allen you meet your surgeon and take your baseline weight then they calculate the official 5% you are to lose.  You are told very plainly that you will be asked for your food journals when you come in  for your monthly appointment.  You're then scheduled for tests according to your co-morbidities.

Everyone must do a swallow study to get ready to have a endoscopy. They need to be sure they can fit the tiny camera down your esophagus and take the necessary biopsies of your gut.  There are certain factors they are looking for...ulcerative qualities, hernias, gastritis, presence of h-pilori. 

I had both the swallow study (you drink barium, gross - and get ready to have a really hard time on the other end of the swallow) and the EGD.  I have a small hiatal hernia and gastritis (which is capable of healing itself).  Dr. Forgione is not worried about any of it and has said I'm good to go as far as my anatomy goes.

Keep exercising and writing shit down that I put in my mouth and around January I should be having it.  I just signed up for a couple of college classes and that should keep me sufficiently busy until the end of this process. 

I never saw myself at this point in the process.  I don't really know why.  But I'm here and I guess I'm a great patient...funny.  I dreamed the other night that I was trim.  I felt lots of conflicting feelings.  I woke up in this version of myself and I wasn't disappointed.  I have a ton of respect for this body and what it does for me.

I only have energy to absorb positivity at this point so I am still not announcing publicly that I am doing this.  If you are reading this please understand that I need YOU to support me because I desire to live a nice long life with my loved ones.  Please only comment if you can oblige.  Peace.

So it begins

Today I had a awesome...like really and truly fantastic massage.  I had knots in places I didn't know could be tight - under my shoulder blades, in my lower legs...so strange.  There I was,  face down on this table wondering how many massages I'll have before my surgery.  How many more therapists will touch my body in it's current state?  I don't care tremendously, but it's something you think about when you weigh as much as I do.

Jeff and I attended the 2 hour long informational meeting at the Bariatric Clinc this afternoon.  We walked in almost late, certainly the last people to arrive.  I try not to size up the rest of the room because really, who cares.  But sizing up a room is not a habit you lose when you walk through the front doors of the clinic. 

My husband sat and listened to all the scary shit they threw at us.  Concentrated on the risk factors and didn't bat an eyelash when the insurance expert spoke.  As soon as we were there he started functioning in the "she's doing this" mode.  A mode he hasn't ever fully embraced.  He whispered "we can set money aside in our HSA for next year just like we did for Riley's braces"......absolutely music to my ears!  I have his support, we agree on the type of surgery is best (Sleeve Gastrectomy) and I can start the process NOW.

I'm making an appointment with their Psychiatrist and then I can schedule an appointment with the surgeon to meet and get this ball rolling.

I'm a bit of an oversharer...so keeping this sort of quiet on Social Media will be difficult.  I am not hiding it however.  That's why I'm blogging this shit.  Am I scared?  Yes.  Am I excited?  Yes. 

I want to live MY life by my rules.  I love this package even if it does hold me back.  This is not an "I hate myself, I'm so fat" thing.  I'm a sexy bitch and I want to hike mountains!

Um...this Blog is *STILL* here?

More than three years after it's inception? 

Crazy.

Crazier is all the shit that's happened in those 3 years.  I'll catch you up.  I quit my job, did NOT go back to school (b/c I didn't really want to), worked my business for a while, worked really hard at not fucking up my marriage, lost some weight, PARENTING, kicked ass, gained back the weight, worked full time - a job which I also quit, put my head back in my biz and started a cool new remote job, people I love moved away, Linda died.

I still see my therapist regularly, because I *need* to have an accountability buddy.

I'm also still fat.  The body acceptance movement is here to stay.  I dig.  I'm there. But I'm also ready to change because I don't want to die.

Tomorrow I attend a long meeting about Weight Loss Surgery (WLS).  My husband is coming with me.  His willingness to come along speaks volumes about how far we have come as partners.

Today we met with the attorney to finish up our 9 year old, unsigned will.  Ducks...rows...it's happening.

I read what I wrote in 2011.  It doesn't even sound like me, yet it somehow does because it resonates.

So 2014...let's see what you've got.