Blog #51 – October 25, 2016

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

 

 

Blog#50 – October 18, 2016

Attention lovely readers! Next week is our last official blog. It’s been an entire year!!  If you have any questions for us, we will answer them to the best of our ability. Just leave a comment here or hit us up on Facebook! 😚

F R O M   B R A D . . .

What to talk about this week? It’s been really quite uneventful. I headlined two open mics for the youngster comics this week. That was fun. Material-wise it was a little old, a bunch of gold, and a dash of shitty new stuff that didn’t work. I’m often asked as a comedian, “Is it horrible when your jokes don’t work?”  I think folks who aren’t comedians mean, “Does it feel bad or embarrassing?” It doesn’t. It’s just CONFUSING, because I legitimately thought it was a funny thought.

More often than not it’s how it was said. I didn’t put in the work to word it better and just threw it out there half done.

LESS IS MORE in joke writing, and a new bit often has way too many unnecessary words.

I love to retell something Brent Butt said to me after I tried a long winded joke with a tiny punchline, at The Urban Well open mic years ago, when I was just starting in Vancouver.

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.

WTF does this have to do with your weight loss blog? Right. Well let’s go there. Aren’t you wondering why I bolded and capitalized some words? See below:

CONFUSING

Like new jokes bombing, weight loss can be confusing. All week you think you are having a great week, eating healthy, exercising, then Tuesday morning shows up and you bomb. Why? You likely, really didn’t do the work necessary for a great result.

LESS IS MORE

Eating less (volume or bad nutrition count) is the most effective way to lose weight. Yes exercise is important for all the benefits it brings, but it’s gotta be 80% what you eat and 20% exercise. I’ve consistently lost weight since starting the Saxenda and lying around on my ass. This is not a randomly controlled clinic trial. Just me babbling.

WHAT I NEEDED TO HEAR AT THAT TIME

Many times throughout the past year Lori’s blog, together with your many replies and comments of encouragement was exactly what I needed to hear to keep on, or get back on, track. You blog followers are not privy to Lori’s beating me up in Messenger. It’s like being assaulted by bunnies with angel wings that tickle. You can’t report that shit.

-Brad

Pounds lost this week: 1.5

Total pounds lost: 56.5

 

F R O M   L O R I . . .

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.

You know when you find a friend who likes the same what-society-would-deem-to-be-lame things and it’s just the best? For example, we donned our winter wear and headed out exploring on foot. We walked to Old Town and checked out the art galleries, looked for a cozy place to nosh and when I said, “You know what the best part of being out is?” Nikki replied, “That we get to go back to our room and have tea and wear pajama pants?”  YES! So much yes!

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.

What does this have to do with weight? Not a hell of a lot! And I’ve been struggling for the past few days trying to think of a weight-related blog topic. Then it dawned on me this morning. Maybe I’m having trouble because weight isn’t the primary focus of my life any more. Now that’s just weird, right? Could it be that I can maintain (and very slowly keep losing) my weight without thinking about it multiple times a day? Not sure. The truth is, one does have to think about it often in order to stay on track. A good friend of mine has recently lost well over 30 pounds and kinda sorta tried to minimize it. I throttle-hugged her over text and said that it has literally taken HUNDREDS (thousands more likely) of healthy decisions in order to lose those pounds. There are dozens of decisions solely around food in a day, not to mention decisions about activity, mental health and everything else we humans juggle in order to stay sane and healthy. It’s a marathon of hard work and I wanted her success to bowl her over like a tsunami of accomplishment.

So yeah, it’s still always in my mind that for the rest of my life, I have to be conscious of staying at a healthy weight. But maybe, just maybe, not thinking about it all the time is what the ‘normal’ people do. HA! Me. Normal. OKAY.

Love,

Lori

Pounds lost this week: .3

Total pounds lost: 81.2

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Blog #49 – October 11, 2016

F R O M   L O R I . . .

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.

This week I’m going to depend on the strong will of Nikki Payne to stay on track. We are in Yellowknife Thursday to Sunday staying in a 2-bedroom apartment kind of thingy. It has a kitchenette so we’ll likely get groceries and do our own cooking at least part of the time to be healthy. We’re planning to do some exploring on foot too. Knowing how we get together, when we’re not partying (which means drinking tea, coffee and checking Facebook beside each other in our jammies, muthafuckas), we might put on some tunes and have a dance party. I’ll see if I can get some video of that. It’s pretty hawt.

2012

I was switching purses today and found my BEFORE sign. I often used to start my set with a joke: “If I look familiar, it’s because I do a lot of modeling in my spare time [laugh]. I’ll just bust out my signature pose so you know where you know me from [hold up BEFORE sign][laugh].”

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?”

Therein lies opportunity for new jokes. Different directions. Things to add to the keynote speech I’m working on. It’s in November and I’m excited. And I don’t know what I’m doing. But I’ve been in that position many times and things have worked out.

Hope you had a warm, cozy Thanksgiving.

Love, Lori

Pounds GAINED this week: 2 (I deserved that)

Total pounds lost: 80.9

 

F R O M   B R A D . . .

It was an unusual Thanksgiving this year. One of the few family traditions we have is hosting a huge Thanksgiving Monday dinner with friends from all walks of life. This usually entails around 20 guests, tons of food, lots of wine and the accompanying politically incorrect conversation and laughter.

 

However, this year with Becca away and the house having to be constantly at show-home readiness for last minute showings it didn’t happen. What kind of weirdos book showings on Thanksgiving Monday?  So, I’m a little bummed about that. Basically I spent the weekend doing practically nothing. Spent a lot of time horizontal to help with the disc issue and really didn’t do much of anything.

We decided to not even visit the Thanksgiving dinner tradition and instead ordered sushi. How’s that for thinking outside the bento box? Groan. And to be honest I’m not the best company these days. I’ll blame it on the constant back pain and accompanying grumpiness. I’ve seen many Facebook posts this weekend suggesting taking time out to count your blessings and be thankful for what you have in your life. Being grumpy my first thought is reflected best in this picture of a dandelion.

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!

-Brad

Pounds lost this week: .75

Total pounds lost: 55.0 (I blame sushi sodium retention)

Blog #48 – October 4, 2016

F R O M   L O R I . . .

October? REALLY? One year ago today, I was on Day 4 of my 3-week pre-surgery liquid diet. I was allowed 5 Ensure drinks per day and clear no-calorie liquids. Yes, that meant a sumptuous ‘treat’ of OXO chicken broth as a late night snack. And that delicious diet came after about a year and a half in the Weight Management Program through Alberta Health Care.

A year ago, I wore a size 4X and size 26 jeans. Summer made me nervous. Flying made me very anxious. I was very often sweaty. Shopping wasn’t fun. A good shopping trip meant finding one shirt that fit and hid my body. Then I’d buy it in several colours. I could shop at 2 stores. I woke up every morning loathing myself for being fat, frustrated that I could reach so many goals, but not permanent weight loss.

I’m so glad I asked for help. Years ago, during the black pit of post-partum depression, I learned that it’s the brave people who ask for help. They’re the ones who have the courage to take a step then do the work to move through the blackness, which is terrifying because you don’t know how long the blackness will last. Sometimes it feels like forever.

Depression has taken me down hard 3 times in my life. I lost who I was. I had no joy. No enthusiasm for the things I loved to do. Staying under a blanket on the couch was all I had the energy to do. I asked for help. I got a psychologist and I got meds. I still use both and have no qualms about telling people that. Life is short, I’ve made a choice to be happy and if that means daily drugs and the occasional appointment with my psychologist (whom I absolutely adore), I am absolutely on board. No question.

October 2016

Losing weight and keeping it off seemed insurmountable after 30+ years of trying. I asked for help. I have a nurse, another psychologist, nutritionist, doctor and surgeon on my team. I have dozens of friends from the Weight Management Program who share this experience with me and comfort me when I sometimes feel alone. I have an incredible family and ridiculously perfect friends who care about me. I have Brad! Sweet Brad, who is in such pain with his back that I want to carry him everywhere. And I have you, Dear Reader, who pops in weekly to see how things are going. That means more than you know.

Love,

Lori

Pounds lost this week: .8

Total pounds lost: 82.9

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

F R O M   B R A D . . .

This week’s blog has more questions than answers, more facts than funny. I think I like the Saxenda plan. Still not up to full dose but there is a definite change in my eating, and weirdly my view of eating. Food has sort of lost its appeal to me. I get hungry, not ravenous.

I eat a small amount of food and if I stop and wait 5 or 10 minutes, I feel very full and have no desire to eat any more for a long time. There seems to be no “carb” spikes or lows either, likely due to the fact it was developed as a diabetic medication in the first place. I picked up on the stopping and waiting accidentally while doing emails and such while eating. The short pause was enough to get my brain to receive the “you’re full” message. This is nothing new except for the Saxenda. I’ve done the mindful, slow eating thing with other diets but it never really had an effect.

Is it the drug or is it my mind finally looking at food differently? Subconsciously, is it happening because I know if I eat large amounts without the ability to move much I’ll start gaining again?  It’s just a way to make my hunger go away and to fuel myself from passing out. I know Cyndi gets frustrated with my answer “I don’t care” when asked about what should we eat, or where should we go, or where should we order from? But truly, I just don’t care. Give me a small amount of whatever and I’m good to go. Looking forward, this is exciting in that if I don’t care what I eat, I might as well eat healthy food.

Truly another FFF adventure as we creep towards the year end. I’d be fibbing if I said Saxenda has the same effect on my view of Chardonnay but why start fibbing now?

 

 

Pounds lost this week: 2.25 (ran out of T3s)

Total pounds lost:  54.25