F R O M L O R I . . .
Here it is. The last ‘official’ blog. Our mission statement (lord, how I choke on corporate lingo) was to lose 100 pounds each in a year. The year is over. So weird. I didn’t even remember it was my 1-year anniversary of surgery on October 21, aka Back to the Future Day (look it up – I can’t Google for you forever).
I did not lose 100 pounds in a year. I lost 82.5 and that’s just dandy with me. And likely to Brad’s annoyance, I have that ace up my sleeve that I lost 21 pounds in the 3 weeks prior to surgery on the liquid diet. Also, when people ask how much I’ve lost, it’s always more fun to say from my highest weight, and if that’s the case, I’ve lost 124 lbs.
Yes, I feel great. It is a wonderful feeling to wake up in the morning not hating myself. It is a wonderful feeling to like all the clothes hanging in my closet. It’s wonderful to know that I can make my way out into the world and blend in if I want to. It was exhausting ‘being ready’ for judgement. You might wonder why I was ready for that all the time. Because it’s there. And it’s true. And if I wasn’t ready for it, it hurt more than if I was. And if an overweight person tells you that, even if you’ve never experienced it, believe them. The stereotypical beliefs about fat people are out there and even as a somewhat regular-sized woman now, I still see it but from a different angle.
What can I tell you about losing weight that you’ve never heard before? Well, I used to focus on some little things that in retrospect, didn’t serve me well. For example, I use French vanilla creamer in my coffee. I love my morning coffee. I never get tired of how amazing it tastes and makes me feel. The ritual, the caffeine, the creamer… bring it on! On of my previous weight loss adventures, I tried everything to not use that creamer. I was getting recipes off the ‘net, I was buying sugar free vanilla flavouring from Starbucks and it was never the same. Not close enough by a long shot. So I changed the way I looked at it. That creamer brings me joy and satisfaction every morning. I decided that I’d work it into my ‘calorie budget’ daily and enjoy the hell out of it.
It’s the big things that make the differences. Getting your head straight. Knowing it’s a marathon. Being patient when your weight stalls for the 18th time. Committing to this for a lifetime.
I believe banning one or more kinds of foods isn’t helpful. It’s been proven time and time again that when we are deprived of something, we want it more. Having worked with a nutritionist for over 2 years now, it’s about balance and moderation. I bought the book ‘Wheat Belly’ like almost everyone else a while back and thought that would be the magic answer. It wasn’t. Not for me.
The Weight Management Program takes your health damn seriously. Along with the nutritionist comes a nurse, your family doctor, a psychologist and a surgeon, not to mention support meetings and online resources. You are required to have regular blood tests for at least a year after surgery. I need to always focus on protein first. I will take prenatal vitamins and calcium supplements for the rest of my life due to possible malabsorption issues associated with gastric bypass surgery. Oh, and Vitamin D. Every doctor I know says anyone living where we do should have take Vitamin D.
Doing all that means I love and respect myself. You know how I love to harp on self love. Call it self care if it makes you feel less oogie. I’m still regularly trying to drill it into Brad’s head and he’s still not paying me $180/hour for it. I don’t mean the old chestnuts like, “Go have a bubble bath and call a friend.” I mean real life shit. You’ve been out doing errands for hours. You get in the door and have 47 things to do, put away, deal with, etc. But you’re hungry and you have to pee. For the love of all things holy, GO PEE and HAVE A SNACK. It seems insignificant, but you do that over and over and you change your neuro pathways. You are saying, “I come first and that includes both my physical and mental needs.” Trust me, the frozen groceries won’t give a damn if you leave them in the car for half an hour. TAKE CARE OF YOU. It’s not selfish. Never forget that they always say to don your oxygen mask before helping others. TRUTH.
Brad & I are going to continue to chip away at our weight and will be blogging once a month after this… or I may change my mind and blog whenever the hell I feel like it. Ha!
Brad, let’s keep going. 58 pounds is fucking amazing and if you minimize it or feel disappointed in yourself, I will find you and I will kill you. With love. Killing you softly, if you will. Thank you for being my weight loss buddy and confidant.
And dear Reader, thank you for your kindness in visiting with us on Tuesday mornings. Knowing you’re there feels ever so fine.
Love,
Lori
Pounds lost this week: 1.3
Total year long weight loss: 82.5
F R O M B R A D . . .
Lori messaged me yesterday that she had a draft of this week’s blog on the site. She annoyingly does this every week to get me to start mine. I usually jump right in and read her draft, and sometimes that helps me with getting my brain going for my blog. Since this is the last official blog (does anybody believe Lori will stop blogging? Really? Seriously? ) of our journey I decided not to read her blog first, just do mine and then see how it compares to hers. I said journey in that last sentence because I know it puckers her pucker hole when I call it a journey. I mean, if you can’t pucker your friends pucker hole, what’s the point of being friends?
Our goal was to each lose 100 pounds in a year. I did not. Since October 31, 2015 I have lost 58 pounds. In report card terms that is a D. I just squeaked by. Part of me is disappointed but most of me is happy. First, I’m 58 pounds lighter than I was. Second, for the final two and a half months I was unable to exercise at all, but I managed to lose all my vacation weight, plus a couple more pounds. There is a very high chance that not doing the FFF blog, I would have started gaining weight like a pony, when I became immobilized and a little depressed. I didn’t. Being accountable and having the support of the blog, I believe, has had a lifelong effect on me and my perception of me, my life, and the way I deal with both stress and success.
I’m really no longer that fussed about food. I order dressing on the side, like a girl. I eat half the entrée and get a take home container, like a girl. Now ladies let’s not get in a huff here. I realize that there are about 6 guys and 700 women that follow the blog. Let me be clear here. When I say “like a girl” I mean a girl on a first date or at a brunch with her skinny bitch friends. Not that sexy, ponytail, scrunchy-twisting, sweatpants wearing, Rom-Com watching, Haagen-Dazs pile driver we all know and love. I’m her as well, just only now and then. I have a funny feeling Lori didn’t go in this direction.
Speaking of girlie stuff, I can only assume Lori’s last blog, at some point, dealt with loving yourself. She and I have not seen eye-to-eye on this one. I haven’t gotten there yet. My therapist is good, but for God’s sake she’s got a Mercedes payment every month. No need to rush. Always check what the therapist is driving. I’ll be continuing my therapy sessions. I gain perspective most days.
I believe Lori’s 80+ pound weight loss managed a solid B+. If I was the teacher I’d give her an A for helping other classmates with their work. Over the last year she has definitely pulled me out of an F on occasion. If you know Lori and have the opportunity to spend time with her you will see that she truly is a changed person. Not just her size but her whole being. She has a joyful, sweat-free aura about her now. We’re talking about doing a once a month blog just to keep on track. I will blog once a month until I lose the other 42 pounds. Just to keep you motivated to follow along, when I reach my 100 pound goal there may be some tasteful boudoir pics posted. I’m hoping it doesn’t take another year, but it might. Over the last few days my leg and back pain has decreased in a noticeable way. I suspect it’s my new transverse abdominis muscles. Ha! More likely the painkillers. I’ll try not to overdue anything, and hopefully be exercising regularly in a month or two. Just in time for the attack of the Christmas feasts.
Thanks for following along folks. It’s been frustrating sometimes but mostly a fun and interesting JOURNEY.
-Brad
Pounds lost this week: 1.5
Total year long weight loss: 58
As I came off stage he said, “Brad, there’s too much porch on that house.” I have no idea if that was his saying or not. It didn’t matter. It was exactly WHAT I NEEDED TO HEAR AT THAT TIME. Back then I was embarrassed when a new bit bombed. It made me laugh and taught me a valuable joke writing lesson. No wasted words.
Hi pals! Had a pretty cool week as my dear friend Nikki came to town and then off we flew to Yellowknife to have a girls weekend. Er… uh, I mean, we flew to Yellowknife to do WORK. Sometimes in comedy, people take good care of you and that’s how we ended up going to such a fascinating place together. We sometimes joke that we only stay in comedy so somebody else will pay for our flights to see each other.
Another day we went to Glassworks and made soap dispensers. I know you thought I couldn’t get any wilder and I just blew your mind. If you like that, you’ll love that our teacher’s name was Hakpik (pronounced Hawk-Pick). I immediately felt cooler simply knowing a dude named Hakpik. Best part of making a glass soap dispenser? They let you use a sandblaster. I shit you not. The fact that I can say this sentence, “I went to Yellowknife with my friend Nikki and Hakpik taught us to sandblast glass,” makes me think I could die happy right now.
Oh hey, and happy day after Thanksgiving! I spent the last week eating treats and I can’t even blame Thanksgiving. There were cookies. Almost daily. There was pumpkin pie and guess what? I don’t even like pumpkin pie. There were Halloween sized chocolate bars. Today I grabbed the wheel of this careening vehicle, steered into the curve and might have myself back on the road… I hope. But I may have to pay the piper when I gingerly creep onto the scale in the morning. Gingerly creeping is the best way to get the lowest number. You’re welcome.
Tonight I threw away my before sign, just like I’ve thrown away fat jokes. I also used to good-naturedly rib (pun intended) thin women in the audience. Even told them to go home and eat sandwiches. It would get a laugh but there are better ways to get a laugh. Part of me says, “You’re a comedian. You can say whatever the hell you want. Stop being so sensitive to what other people might think or feel.” But the other, louder part of me says, “If you’re all about self love and care, Gibbs, why are you perpetuating body shaming of any kind on or off stage?”
That made me laugh, which in turn cheered me up, and I started to reflect on the positive. Thanks Facebook for pissing me off and cheering me up. Once I got past the obvious thankfulness for my family and friends, usual good health and overall good life, I guess I’m grateful for humor. I’ve never really thought about that before. But my dandelion made me instantly feel better than all the T3s I’ve taken and Chardonnay I’ve enjoyed over the last couple of months. I’m grateful that I have comedy in my life, that I’m able to make myself, and hopefully, other people feel instantly better even for a short time. Happy Day after Thanksgiving everybody!
Love,
I generally peek at the scale on Monday mornings so I get a bit of foreshadowing about Tuesday’s weigh in. Yesterday I was down a big chunk. This, after a week of being sick and rivaling the movement of a tree sloth. It makes no sense. And that is how weight works. The sooner we know and accept this, the sooner we’ll feel sanity and peace with the scale.
But for the most part, you do pretty well. You learn and try to be better all the time. Years later, you look at the boy, who is now a kind, gentle, sensitive, funny soul – and you burst with pride. It was a long haul but it all paid off. The biting incident didn’t define him, nor you, and you laugh about it as you live in your remote cave in an undisclosed remote location, still fearing for your life that the mother of aforementioned biting victim will have you served with legal papers.
Since I try to keep my closet semi-purged now, I was in there last week when I saw the jersey. And there, with glee, I pulled it on and it fit. And Spencer’s number is my age! Mental note: must remind Spencer to change number to 51 in October. Later, I realized I’d be on CTV the day before a Stamps game and wearing the jersey would be supportive, not to mention heroic. They don’t need to know that my knowledge of football can be boiled down to Lucy snatching it at the last second so Charlie Brown falls on his back.
Here’s us on Saturday at the River Cree Casino in Edmonton. First off, this was my Mom’s top and she gave it to me because she is the coolest 80-year old ever created. When I showed up at Iliza’s room to pick her up, she said, “Oh nice! You look like Peg Bundy… in a fun way!” Trust me, it was a compliment and there was a kind follow up remark about my breastages.
So, treatment is anti-inflammatories, pain killers (poop-stoppers), and core strengthening that keeps my spine in a straight line. I now have to start doing “planks”, which I assume do not have maple encrusted salmon on them.
Planks are all the rage these days. So, I’m guessing a year from now they will have been found to have caused damage and be of little benefit to anyone. Think crunches, or political correctness. This core strengthening will help it not get worse. No fix in sight. My incentive to work at this treatment was hearing the words surgery and rods.
In totally unrelated news – Brad just breathed a huge sigh of relief – UTERUS UTERUS UTERUS! Haha. Just kidding. Hey, remember how I was talking about being some sort of comedic inspirational-type speaker? I got a gig. WHAT? I know. How I got the gig is pretty great too. On Friday, I was on Global doing golf crafts at the Shaw Open Classic – more specifically, trying to get Scott Fee to have a Jello shot – and it turns out the clip has over 10,000 views. Who knew, right? Anyway, one lady who saw it emailed me and asked if I’d be the keynote speaker at a women’s conference. Universe, I like what you’ve done here. Or as the old saying goes, “Marshmallow vodka inevitably leads to speaking engagements,” or something along those lines.
F R O M L O R I . . .
Michelle & I complement each other well. She is fit as f*ck, you guys. She eats all the healthiest food. She teaches exercise classes. She knows about new exercises before Twitter has even heard of them. Tabata is one (though I’m convinced it’s actually a kind of streudel). I let her believe it’s a high-intensity workout of sorts. She is a great coach even though she didn’t give herself the title. I gave it to her. She asked me questions about how she could help me get into movement. She asked if I liked a drill-sergeant-boot-camp approach. I calmly told her that we might never have a 2nd date if that approach was used. She completely respected that. Now the cool thing for me is learning that there are people who do like that approach! Like Michelle herself. It may have been the vodka, but I’m fairly sure I heard her say, “I love when people yell at me!” at some point over the weekend. Hey, if that’s what motivates you, I’m delighted you’re aware of it. Go rule the world! I mean, GO RULE THE WORLD, MAGGOT!!!
I adore Michelle’s ability to help me reframe and enjoy movement rather than thinking of it as a chore I have to do to lose weight. And on the other hand, I assume she adores me for my ability to help her reframe and enjoy relaxation rather than thinking of it as an unproductive thing she does that makes her lazy. She taught me that when I am gasping for breath on an inclined trail, it’s better to ‘sip’ breaths than to gulp them. I taught her it’s the opposite with whipped cream vodka. Always gulp never sip. We balance each other. Yin and yang.
The point is, assuming I even have one, is that my weight loss to date has even changed the blood donation experience. When they took my blood pressure, they didn’t have to use the plus-sized blood pressure cuff! Oh, you might not even know about those. Yeah, they make XL cuffs for big arms. If the regular one doesn’t fit, it would be nice if they couldn’t discreetly take it off and try the XL one, but there is nothing discreet about the BLOOD-CURDLING GUTTERAL ROAR of Velcro tearing. Happy to report my arm, along with its fetching loose skin, fit into the regular cuff. Eek! Yay! Oh, and my BP was fab, thankyouverymuch.
Fall is coming and I am wondering what I’m doing with my life. I do several things for work and I enjoy them all but I have a desire to be a speaker of sorts. Like a sub woofer, you know? Or a tweeter. BAH HA! Speaker humour! I love doing comedy. You know I do. Can I be an inspirational comedic speaker? Is that a thing? If not, can I invent it? I want to inspire. I want to make people think differently. I’m not quite sure what the focus of this show/speech/performance would be. So, if you could just go ahead and give me all the answers, that’d be great. Thanks.
FUNNY FAT FRIENDS 