Archive for September, 2008

22
Sep
08

Swallowed by skin

By lessthanhalf Leave a Comment
Categories: body image
Tags: , , , , ,

Standing in front of the mirror on a Saturday morning. Stark naked in my new apartment. I have never had a mirror I could fully observe myself before. Now I have access to a full length mirror in my bedroom, and this large “view me from all angles” mirror in the bathroom.

My eyes first observe my face. I am a normal looking human being. I mean, not a 10 by any standards, but I’m okay. Nothing strikingly wrong.

As I touch my stomach, my skin feels soft. It is easy to grab with my slender fingers. I stretch it across flat, just to see the way my belly button should lay. The stretch marks flatten against my abs. That’s where my body should exist. I grab my sides where my skin has fallen so gracefully against my bones. Like a sheet, covering ME. Almost feels like I am tugging at a parasite that shouldn’t exist.

I lift my flap of skin and my hip bones are prominent. Beautiful. A line that exists from many years of a creased stomach marks the spot a surgeon will cut away at me. My hands move from my stomach to around my back. I pinch and lift. An ass that I should have is apparent. So small, enough for a hand to grab. That’s when I realize the second surgeon was right. I am going to need a lower body lift. All the way around. Cutting me in half yet again. A thought strikes me: I have lost half of my weight, half of myself, and now I am going to be cut literally in HALF to be made whole again.

Somehow I am calm studying myself. Normally I would get angry in disgust, but now I’m just trying to find an understanding of how I am going to be pieced together. Complete. Together :)

I let my body lay free, and raise my arms beside me. Wings. Somehow I have these large arm bat wings but they prevent me from flying. So many oxy-morons.

This month I will have saved 1K to my fund for my surgery. A small portion, but it’s a start. I’ve been wandering around makemeheal.com more and more just to look at the before and after pictures. Am I going to just need the lower body lift, and a breast lift? Or am I going to need the one they cut up my stomach? Either way, I don’t care. I don’t know if people going into this are as afraid as I am. It’s so far away, and I’m completely not ready to just DO it. Healing takes time. I need to heal before I can think about all that.

I feel swallowed in my skin.

22
Sep
08

Maintaining with Rewards

By lessthanhalf Leave a Comment
Categories: Maintaining Weight loss

I’ve thought long and hard about how I am going to keep track and reward myself for maintenance. A star sticker on the calendar just wasn’t cutting it for me. I know I’m going to get my full body lift sometime early next year, but I did not know how on a monthly basis to reward my maintenance.

Now you all may be thinking “But you lost 175 pounds! That should be reward enough!” But in reality it’s not. I’m done losing my pounds, and it’s a daily struggle to keep them gone. I go through mini phases of dieting to get back where I need to be (ya know, we all have to live a little sometimes) and then times where it almost seems to good to be true because it’s that darn easy. Maintaining isn’t easy. The statistics are alarming. Something like 95% of those that lose weight gain it back within the year. It still takes counting every calorie, weighing food, and learning that you have a disease, you are just keeping it under control.

Losing weight is not a solve all. It does not mean you have learned to eat just enough to be full. We never got fat because we we’re hungry. We got fat because we we’re never satisfied with the amount of crap. We got fat because we binged, we got fat because we didn’t give a damn after a while. We were careless, and now we care.

Care comes only with time and effort. Effort and motivation. And to keep us motivated, we always must have our eye on the prize. My full body lift will be my ‘prize prize’ but right now I need to think small and smile at the success.

Some tell me to make a fitness goal. Well I’ll be honest, I’m one of the most lazy people I know. So I went on a hunt for a way to show my success and accomplishments for weight loss every day.

I came across a post of another girl, and she was talking about a ‘pandora charm bracelet’. I had been looking into charm bracelets in the past, but was not diggin the idea of having hangy things falling from my wrist. The pandora bracelet with beads was a much cuter, younger style that I could have fun building upon.

So I went on the hunt and found one at a price that wouldn’t break my bank.  But it’s been a week! And I haven’t received it. Maybe I should write the ebay lady and ask her what’s up.

But all in all, my biggest reward will be the most maginificant present I can give to myself: A body I can be proud of.

17
Sep
08

Developing Confidence Before a Full Body Lift: A Critical Key to Success and Self Love

By lessthanhalf 1 Comment
Categories: body image
Tags: , , ,

Someone I was talking to yesterday couldn’t wrap her mind around how people can balloon up to 300-400-500 pounds and then FIND themselves there. I was 300 pounds nearly, and I DID just find myself there. How can you not recognize and be embarrassed at your size? Simple. I grew up in an environment who didn’t take a second look at the way I was treating myself. That third bowl of ice cream was accepted. Second servings of food were OFFERED. It was one of the only ways I could comfort myself and distract myself. I can’t say I grew up with a shitty life, and I can’t blame all of this on me.

I think I need counseling. Actually, I KNOW I need counseling. If someone offered me 35K and said “hey, you go get your full body lift. Don’t worry about your job, don’t worry about anything, just go get your surgery” I’d be way excited and scared shitless. Ezra even turned to me and told me I wasn’t ready to actually get it, but that WE were ready to start preparing for that.

It’s all true. Your mind goes through a crazy process. I’ve been maintaining and looking at this body for 10 months, with Ezra by my side telling me I’m beautiful and sexy (which I’m sure helps) and I can actually look at myself in a full length mirror without wincing. You know what I see when I look in a mirror? I imagine my true body under this. I want to scream “I’m not 120 pounds! I’m smaller than this!” which sounds insane, and it IS insane. I don’t know why I try to maintain THIS weight when I know I have pounds to come off of me in skin.

17
Sep
08

Peeking out of the cocoon

By lessthanhalf Leave a Comment
Categories: body image
Tags: , ,

Sometimes I wish I had someone in my life who understood what I was going through. Like completely UNDERSTOOD. There are a lot of people who have lost weight (yes I get that) and go through the food struggle. Not many grew up with what I had to, nor do they have to face a deflated body every morning. It’s a healthy body, but deflated none the less.

Last weekend Ezra and I were talking: He asked me if I would find it weird if he wanted to start putting away money to help me get my body lift. As creepy as that would sound to some people (yes, my boyfriend want’s to BUY my body) it’s not creepy to me. He wants to help. He want’s to see me happy. I’ve had him sit down and watch shows, even look at pictures, and he winces at the sight of all the pieces that are stitched and taken away. But when he asked that question, it nearly made me cry.

He said that he just doesn’t want to see me wait around forever and dream about it every day and then never get it done. He knows I WANT it. And I want it bad.

I laid there feeling my skin. So soft, so free and wiggly moving. So… so much apart of me. Not cut, not infected, not sore. That will change and that piece of ME that I always look at as “extra” will be gone.

Kinda like when you have a piece of popcorn in your teeth, and you work and work to get it out but then all you have left is sore gums and then you start to miss it.

*sigh*

I can’t wait until my life gets to start. I’m hoping that before the end of the month I can have saved up 1K. Throw that over into savings, and let my new life begin. All I gotta do is accumulate 18 vacation days + 5K for a down and I can DO this for me. So scary, yet exciting.

I wonder if a butterfly is afraid before cracking the cocoon?