Day 84- Twelve weeks ago today

It’s hard to actually believe that 12 weeks ago I was banded. I find it rather astonishing when I dissect what has happened to me and how much of a transformation my life has taken. It’s been such a positive ride.

I can’t express or rather I find it very hard to describe what I am going through. I guess only people whom have had the surgery could probably best relate to what I am feeling and to what I am experiencing. But it’s this exhilaration that almost bubbles under my skin. I feel alive for the first time in a long time; you know there are times when I feel like I have awoken from a coma. I am really seeing things and experiencing things almost like it’s for the first time in my life. I also feel liberated.

I see that a lot of my friends and family can’t understand this jubilation that I am experiencing and that’s cool, as I don’t expect people to understand. I don’t always understand what they are feeling. I am constantly having people say to me "Are you always so up and lively?" How hilarious is that?

I have also encountered a lot of hatred and negativity with this surgery but when I try and speak to people to try and get an understanding of what they are trying to say to me or try to understand their concept or perception of this surgery it basically boils down to ignorance. That sounds very mean but I am not out to attack anyone, as today’s entry is mainly a selfish exercise for me as I am writing down what I am feeling within. Unleashing what is within let’s say.

When I look up in the dictionary the definition of ignorance, it states this:
Ig-no-rance n.
1. lack of knowledge or education
2. unawareness of something, often of something important

Sadly people are very ignorant to what this whole Lap band thing is about.

Having said that I am a smartarse and I think I know everything and I have an opinion on MOST things. But I won’t open my mouth and say something if I can’t back up my words, my thoughts, my beliefs. So the people that I have encountered when I question them as to why they think what they think? Or where they got their information from? It stumps me, as they really know jack shit. I never get any hard facts just a pile of inaccuracies, myths and basically a ton of bullshit.

I have had many encounters with acquaintances who are clueless to what I have had done. They think that I have had Gastric Bypass Surgery and when I explain that I have had LapBand and go into details its almost like they don’t want to believe me. There was a situation when I pulled my jumper up and showed this person my scars and said see this huge scar that’s my port. Here, feel it, touch it. I then went into the different types of incisions are done for these two different operations and I just get blank stares back at me. I feel like I can’t win sometimes.

I’ve heard all the freaky uneducated stories that people with lap band "supposedly" suffer but the classic was that we suffer from intense from vomiting and diarrhea constantly. I’ve told this person that I have indeed vomited when I have eaten too fast or if food has gotten stuck and I have never had the "runs" from this surgery in fact I actually gave birth to the rock of Gibraltar after I was violated by a doctor up the butt hole. But still ignorance prevails. Its sometimes frustrating trying to explain what I have had done and that the surgeries are two VERY different things.


Also I find it rather alarming to say the least that my happiness makes people want to tear me down, just like the tall poppy syndrome that we Australians (and yes I am generalizing) tend to do. When I see people around me looking good I tell them and I am genuinely really happy for them. Why can’t people be happy for me? It is perplexing that when I was down and dark and over life people wanted me around but now that I am slowly losing weight it’s almost like they feel threatened around me. I don’t understand what on earth they would feel threatened about but whatever...
I know that I am not alone in feeling like this, as heaps of people have emailed me expressing the exact same thing. How do we deal with the "high" we are feeling but the "low" that people try and drag us into? Now before you ask I don’t think my personality has changed, in fact I believe that I have calmed down rather considerably. My brother thinks otherwise, but that’s a whole other can of worms I will open up about some other time.

How has my life transformed? Well in heaps of ways. I now have become self-obsessed with ME and that sounds so awful but I am not intending for it to. For once in my life I am putting my needs and my wants first. I am my own number 1. This took me a while to get my head around it and found it extremely narcissistic and not what I am really about. I fought myself on this but then just gave in to it. I MUST put myself first otherwise I am going to go back to what I was. Dark Reney was okay as she is still a part of me but I was her for 20 years I don’t want to be her anymore. She was always sad, depressed, melancholy, oh did I mention sad?

How else has my life transformed? Well, I eat such healthy foods, I eat organic whole foods and that trips me out. I was always such a drive thru Macca's kind of girl. I used to consider eating Sushi as my vegetable intake. The best thing though is that I am slowly training myself not to be in such an angry hurry all the time. My attitude is that if I am late to work, then oh well, I’m late to work. Instead of punching myself out emotionally for being late I have taken a calmer approach. Yeah, yeah I’m late. Does it really matter? Nope not really. I will make up the time like I always have someday, sometime, somewhere along the way.

I am finding this very calm person within and even though I love being the angry spitball that I usually am I am realizing that I am not getting as angry as I used to.

So as I mentioned in the beginning of this entry it was 3 months ago today. I have lost 15 kilos in 3 months or 12 weeks and I haven’t weighed myself for over 2 weeks. I have no desire whatsoever for the scales to dictate my mood and importantly distress my feelings. I am a woman who has her skinny days and who has her bloating retaining water days, who has her fat days and also the pooh wont come out days. A lot of friends always ask me "So how much have you lost now?” it’s almost a competitive thing with some of them. I know why they are asking me, as they want to be "better" than me or have lost "more" than me. It doesn’t bother me one iota, but if they feel that competing with me helps them or encourages them to out win the race that’s playing in their heads then my dear ones knock yourselves out!!! I can then only say if that motivates you to be active and eat healthy then keep doing it.

I don’t even compete with myself as I find that mentally draining and it damages my head. I live each and every day as if all that matters is today. It amuses me when the questions on how much have you lost now question is asked. Or “hmm your face is so much thinner have you weighed yourself lately?” I also think that when they ask me outright how much I have lost they think that by being so upfront with me will shock me into submission. It doesn’t work people so don’t bother asking me, it makes me change my opinions of you from: so and so is such a lovely person to what a motherfucking tosser that person is.

You know what else is blatantly funny? Well when people first see me they do that quick eye thing where they look me up and down very fast and say hi at the same time but their eyes go up and down my body and up and down again. It happened to me 3 times this week and I had to bite my tongue as I was ready to seriously just burst out laughing.

I guess that there has also been a little bit of negativity with putting MY story "out there" to the masses. I have not held back at all and have said things the way they are actually happening to me at this exact point in time. But like I said at the beginning of creating this blog was that if my story helps just one person then my job has been done. (Shut up with the martyr comments!!!! I can almost hear you right now Leah & T.) I didn’t expect this black hatred that has been spewed my way. That was awfully hard to deal with at first but now it’s amusing and something I miss when I get no hate mail.

Lastly a few nights ago I mentioned that I now refer to my body as a temple. I really do believe this, this is just not some reference I make for the sake of saying it. I control absolutely everything that I put into my body. I have NEVER done this. I read labels on food; I try and educate myself on as much as I possibly can that has to do with my health and my body (hence the “over the top” as one reader called it with my vitamin supplements) Yeah I guess it is over the top for some but it works extremely well for me.

I hope I lose another 15 kilos in the next up and coming 3 months.

Reney

P.S – Mel, good luck with your surgery hope it all went well.