Emotional Sabatoge

I am a confessed emotional eater. It gets extremely out of hand when I am feeling sad and depressed. I can shovel food in to my mouth without thought or feeling, all in an effort to numb the pain I am feeling on the inside. So looking back, I guess you can see(by my weight) that I have spent A LOT of time eating away my emotional pain. I have not figured out how to fix this problem, because even now with this surgery, I am still "eating" my problems away. It is all I know how to do. I have never been able to develop the tools to help me to deal with hurtful emotions in any other way. I am stuck! I feel like I cannot turn in any new direction. I try, but only to fail. Then comes the whole new round of painful feelings of how much of a failure I am at everything. See how I am stuck? I have always known that this was a problem, but now that I am surgically altered I am going to really have a hard time coping with my inability to cope. I can still try to EAT my problems away, but I will FAIL at this weight loss. See again, I am stuck! I try to fess up and really lay my thoughts and feelings on the line, only to be slapped in the face with how horrible I am to everyone. So I am not allowed to really speak about the issues, because I will be causing someone else pain. Again, stuck. I AM NOT PERFECT!!!! I DO have FEELINGS, and I MAKE MISTAKES.....ALL THE TIME! I do, however, try to work through them. Which I obviously suck at. I try to admit my faults and try to make amends. I can still use a lot of work here too. I wish someone could just once tell me that it was OK to just be me. Ultimately I am scared that I have spent all this time thinking I mattered to people, who if I stopped putting myself into their life, I would become non-existent to them. I guess it really boils down to....have I ever really mattered to them? Or am I really the boil on the butt of humanity? Are they counting down the seconds to my failure? Am I giving them the ammunition? How can I turn these horrible feelings into something positive? How can I continue to love people who have nothing but hate for me? Will it really matter next week? How long can I lie to myself, that what I do can make the changes needed to make things better? Food was my friend. Food was nice to me, never told me I was unwanted. Never told me I was around at the wrong time. Food knew my deepest darkest secrets, and still wanted to be around me. See my sick obsession? I can twist all this in my mind to make it all make sense in my own little world. See how easy it is for me to justify my behavior to suit my need. I hate myself for allowing things to get myself worked up to such a state, but I am an addict and a professional liar to myself. I can make a mountain out of a mole hill in seconds flat, as you can all see by this post. I guess I am a long way from being "fixed" and there are never any guarantees in life.

Diabetic or not?

I am getting all packed up to go to a mess of Doctor appointments....between me and Wes, we have funded a few Porches for the many doctors in our lives!!!! This appointment for me will be a big one. I will be talking to my endocrinologist about whether or not I can stop my medications for my diabetes. I have been knocked down to only one shot a day (which I manage to forget more often than not) and that is a huge step from two massive shots morning and night, two maxed out doses of metformin morning and night, and one more injection, also maxed out, in the morning. Not to mention corrections during the day, which is more injections for high blood sugars. This surgery made it possible for me to see a light at the end of my diabetic tunnel of despair. I am hoping that with my weight loss and my blood sugars hovering in the 150-160 range, that I will be allowed to officially quit taking the last injection. Oddly enough, speaking of injections, my life will not be completely free of needles!! :( I have not tolerated my b-12 sublingual vitamin (YUCK), so I am now giving myself monthly injections. My first one the nurse did....let me just say...THOSE ARE NOT DIABETIC NEEDLES they are using! I am SCARED! EEEKKKK! I have 27 days to freak myself out of actually being able to do it. I'll be letting you know how this appointment goes. As for Wes, I don't even want to think about what is going to happen with him, I think that he is out to make sure a few more doctors get their porches paid for! :( Poor kid, he is such a trooper to just smile and go with the flow of it all. No matter what they tell him, he just says OK, and does it. I am praying that we can start getting the answers we need for him.

Is there a 12-step Program for this??

OK...So many of my regular viewers already know I am a 12-stepper from Hell!! I have battled just about every addiction out there, and have been pretty successful once I put my mind to it. So I am completely on step one with this one....Admitting I have a problem and I need help. Who knew this would be my downfall?? I have denied that I have an addiction to food for so many years that I actually believe my own BS about it. I have used it as my friend and medicated all my negative emotions with it, so now that I physically cannot do that anymore I am struggling to figure out how to cope. I have been a wreck lately. I cry over the slightest thing, because I cannot just zone out and munch til the stress is gone. I know that there is always hope for an addict. I have watched working the steps literally transform people right before my eyes. I guess I forget that this same transformation can happen for me too....IF I WORK THE STEPS!! So I guess that is where I will be starting today. HI, I'm Ginger and I am a recovering addict. My addiction started when I was around 10. My parents both worked hard to provide a wonderful life for me and my brother. Unfortunately it left us home after school until they got home. I didn't always like that. I didn't have many friends, pretty much none at that point that I was allowed to do things with. So my friend who was always there was FOOD. I would come home and make a snack, yeah....a box of macaroni and cheese which I would eat all of it. Then probably chips, and soda, and whatever snack foods we had, until my mom would come home. I believe that is where is all started. Ouch. That was painful, but honest. That is what step one is all about....HONESTY. Today it has been one month since surgery, and I am struggling, but I know things always change, and I truly believe that in 6 months to a year I will be singing a completely different tune. I just have to get through this rough patch to see the beautiful horizon. :)

Plateau???? Frustrating!

Yep....That is what it is! I have been stuck at 275-280 for about a week now. I am not happy about it at all! I am still mega frustrated by my diet or lack of diet, I should say. I HATE cooking for my family, because it is generally a favorite meal of mine. I have been pouring over blogs and websites for ways to make family favorites more healthy, and they seem more complex, with ingredients that I don't have on hand or have never heard of before. I don't know if I am now vegan, vegetarian, gluten free, sugar free, or all of the above! I thought diabetes was tricky. I want to SCREAM!!!! I still have to take shots, and check my Blood Sugars, but now I can't eat anything....nor do I really want to, but my brain still loves all my favorites. :( If only the weight would still be dropping off like water....I might be handling this a bit better, but I am completely frustrated. I still don't necessarily feel the best...I have some pains still and I am still on oxygen. Plus I have a regular cold, which is making me even crankier than normal...my poor family. I might just go nuts before this is all over with. I have to find some way to get through all of this because in reality it will never be over, unless I want to gain it all back and be diabetic again. I have a friend considering this surgery, and I was telling her it was a lot harder than I thought it would be. Truth is....it is a LOT harder than I thought it would be. So far today I ate three spoonfuls of yogurt, and a slice of cheese....doesn't that just sound wonderful?? Not really when there is a pan of homemade enchiladas in the fridge. I just can't seem to switch off my mind from food to something else. I hope that this plateau moves on soon, because I need a break to see that this really was worth all that I gave up.

Post surgery update...

Well Monday I had surgery to rearrange my guts. It went well and I can say that I didn't feel a thing until I was suppose to. Way to go Mr. Anesthesiology! I stayed pretty calm going into surgery which for me was a real feat in itself. Everything else afterward went pretty much like it should. Water diet it the first hours after surgery, clear liquid diet the next few days. So far so good. The first bump in the road has been trying to tolerate the liquid diet. I haven't been able to move onto this phase very well yet, so I am kinda at 1/2 clear liquid 1/2 liquid. Which means I have 1 oz. of jello or broth and try 1oz. of something from the liquid diet. yogurt didn't make the list, but string cheese did OK and cottage cheese was tolerable. It feels so weird looking at my minuscule meals and think that I am full and not starving afterwards. I actually feel sickly looking at my family while they shovel much larger quantities of food in their mouths. I know that this is a temporary phase that I am going through...it is just so weird to describe. I really have had to catch myself from alienating my family by saying things like..."You're going to EAT ALL of that???" and "You haven't had enough ALREADY??" I know my life is changing drastically, but I really hope that my family survives the huge transformation in me and my eating habits. I am not stepping on a scale until my official two week check-up so you all will have to wait until then to hear the big number. :) The one down side to the surgery is my new friend....the oxygen tank, which is huffing and puffing away in the laundry room. I didn't have the best o2 saturation numbers when I left, so they sent me home with oxygen to use at night and when I lay down. But I don't think I will need it much longer. Took my first walk outside yesterday afternoon and it felt GREAT!!!!! I just walked up to my neighbors house and back, but oh it felt sooooo nice to walk outside and breathe fresh air. I am thankful for all the people who have really been helping me out during this past week. My parents helped me with the kids while Lewis was with me during the surgery. My ward family has been helping by bringing in some meals for my family to eat, I haven't even begun to deal with cooking yet. I have such sweet visiting teaching ladies who have made sure that I have been taken care of. All my friends who have called and checked up on me through FB and sent out the prayers, I really appreciate all the thoughts! So now I just keep swimming and it will all work out! :)

On the downhill slope and going 60

So tonight is the last "uncrazy" night in the house for me....I am off to have 3 days of hospital visits. Not all mine THANK GOD! Wes has two days and I have one...what a wuss I sound like...huh? My little guy is such a trooper and I don't know how he keeps a good attitude about all he goes through. So my diet has been a fail today with two major low blood sugar crashes and one more seeming awfully eminent. Calorie count is about 1500-1600 at the moment. Hopefully it won't be too damaging to the overall surgery. As for me...I am doing good so far. Not too freaked out about all this surgery stuff, but I haven't been to the surgery class. I have a feeling that they will give me all the scary details there which will be good. I will only have two days to panic. :) Good luck to my hubby who will be left in charge of my 3 year old. :) Don't worry...Day Care will have her most of the day, and they keep telling me that she is nothing short of an ANGEL when she is there. Thank You to my mom who is going to hold my hand and tell me everything will be OK....isn't it amazing that at the age of 35 I still need that from her. She is always good at these medical things(I am not so good at them). Alright...off to bed to try and sleep.