babblingbandit.me does Droptober!

2012: a year of failed attempts to lose weight

As anyone who reads this blog regularly would know I've made a number of attempts this year to get back on the weight loss bandwagon with very little success. It is amazing how easy it has been to fall into old habits, even after successfully losing 20kg since having my lapband installed. To be fair, I have had a lot of issues this year: my mood slid downwards, my lapband had to be loosened and I endured a bad case of anaemia and Restless Leg Syndrome. It was enough to put me right back where I was before weight loss surgery: pigging out on chocolate and lollies and all things bad for me!

I have to get back to crossing off these goals!

Comfort eating: Just don't do it 

Despite weighing 80kg, I started 2012 feeling pretty terrible, going by my blog posts in January. Check this one out. I sound miserable. Life was getting me down. Then a couple of days later my mood has improved somewhat but I'm spewing up food stuck in my lapband.

By February I'm attempting to exercise more but I'm chronically backed up, and telling anyone who'll listen about it. My Restless Leg Syndrome got worse, bringing with it terrible anxiety and exhaustion. What do I do when I'm anxious and tired? Eat all the stuff that is bad for me.

I didn't blog about it at the time but I remember it all too well: It was sometime in late February that I got gastro and spent a lovely evening from 5pm to 2am chucking my guts up. With a lapband, food can go in your mouth, down your throat and slowly through the band and into the stomach. Once it is through to the other side, it ain't coming back UP again. When lapbandits talk about PBing (productive burping) the food that comes up hasn't made it past the band. It has just been sitting in the pouch on top of the band so it doesn't hurt to bring it up.

With every convulsion my body shook and I retched in pain as I felt the foreign body within my abdomen move up and down my oesophagus. After what seems like forever, I finally got my dad to get me to the emergency room. There I was given morphine for the pain and all but 2mls of the fluid in my lap-band was removed to release the pressure around the top of my stomach. A few days later I weighed in at 79kg, the lowest I'd been since I first got my band installed.

I went back to my surgeon later that week and he was very impressed with my weight. He said that 79kg was a very healthy weight for me and suggested I now try to manage my diet without such tight restriction in my band. I agreed.

Attempting to go it alone: Fail

Since then I have attempted to live with low restriction in my lapband so I can eat bread and other carbs, as well as lean protein without having to worry about getting stuck all the time. I was amazed that, even though I could eat without getting stuck, I was still feeling full much quicker than I did pre-lapband. I figured I could eat small portions of good food like normal person.

It didn't take long before my weight slowly started to creep back up so I made several appointments to go back to my surgeon in order to get a fill to increase the restriction in my band, therefore decreasing the amount, and type, of food I could consume. Each time I cancelled. I was so sick of having to be cautious about every little morsel I put in my mouth. The whole cutting up into tiny pieces and chewing carefully and waiting 30 seconds between each mouthful. Eating shouldn't be such a chore! Plus I loved having bread, pasta and rice back in my diet.

But my attempt to eat like a normal person failed. And put on 7 kg.

I thought if only I could give up the bad stuff I'd lose it again. But my addiction to sugar is so strong:  I made a really lame attempt to give up chocolate for a month in a bet with my mum and sister. I failed. And then I tried to quit sugar because that is what everyone else is doing and the kegs are dropping off these people. Not me. Another fail.

It's all about ME

I finally did go back to my surgeon a couple of weeks ago and he put a bit of fill in. Not really enough because I can still eat bread, pasta, rice. I will definitely be going back for more soon but I know I have to do this, lapband or not. Only I can make that mindset change and just fucking do it.

I have learnt so much over the last few months about what's good and what's not. In particular, I've learnt an enormous amount about sugar. Basically, it has got to go.

And this has to be a lifestyle change. It needs to be a package deal: Eat less and better and exercise more.

So...

With just three months left of the year, I am making a pledge to myself and to anyone who would like to sponsor me: I've signed up for Droptober. Not only will your sponsorship give me an enormous about of motivation to stick to my guns, you will also be helping the Children's Charity, Variety.

I've started early because I'm hoping to drop those pesky 7 kg I've put on since March.

This is it. I'm psyched. I'm currently up to day six without chocolate and I've had very little sugar.

I'll be blogging about Droptober through the month.

And if you'd like to help motivate me and at the same time help raise some money for Variety go to my spaceship page here.

Thanks heaps for reading.

V.