"Mirror, Mirror on the Wall" ....



That title should actually be, "Tummy, Tummy in my Shower!"

Chances are - most of you who will come across this post took a shower this morning - or yesterday morning or ... okay, if you haven't showered in the last 48 hours it's alright ... I'm not jo mama!  And anyway - that's not the "point" of my "post" today.

I noticed something interesting this morning while I was lathering up my head in that shower and I thought I'd share.  (Before today I really hadn't paid much attention to the talks I have with myself when nobody else is around and/or listening and/or contributing to the conversation.)

My self-talk is not very friendly.  WOW -- Seriously?  I wouldn't say the things I say to myself to anybody else!  Ever.

Hmmm?  "Once upon a time" a friend recommended a book entitled, "What To Say When You Talk To Yourself" -- (and I really ought to read it someday - ha).  But I did read the back cover and got the gist of the message:  We replay a lot of unnecessary old tapes when nobody else is recording on the cassettes of our lives anymore (okay, okay - the "cassette" comment dates me - I know).  Moving on ~

I am no longer the 3rd grader bullied by 3 chicks every Wednesday night after "Pioneer Girls" at church.  I never told anybody that I was considered a loser because in my eyes - my brothers, my parents, any other friends I had would be disappointed in my "loser-ship".  These chicks were mean and really put me down ... literally at times.  I had to pull myself up on more than one occasion after being pushed onto my butt by one of the three ~ apparently that fell to whoever was in the shoving mood on any given night after our little religious bible memorization time.  These three would taunt me about my appearance, my clumsiness, my haircut, my clothing, my lack of bible memorization skills (which, in hindsight was a total crock because I still have a bazillion verses committed to memory - so there!) - ha. 

But that's kind of the point.  Bullies don't often have a valid reason for their tactics of intimidation.  They choose an individual they think they can overpower emotionally and, if they succeed one time, they consider themselves the winner.  The bullying will continue.  And it did while they still attended Pioneer Girls.  [I was sooo glad when Manor Baptist discontinued that program and went with Awana's instead -- the three chicks didn't like the Awana group.  ha]

But you know - those girls went away and I have no clue what became of them.  I'd like to think they are completely successful, sweet, kind women who either don't remember being bullies because it's sooo far from their personality nowadays OR they do remember but feel remorse because it's nothing they'd ever do again.  I just find it interesting that - they don't "bully" me any longer ... I don't hear their mean comments and yet, this morning, in the shower --

I was 'bullying' myself.  Here's what I heard when I stopped "talking in my head" long enough to "listen with my heart":

• "I hate this stomach!" 
• "Ugh, look at all these wrinkles!" 
• "I have ruined my body."   
• "Wow - I wish I looked UNDER my jeans like the world thinks I look outside of them." 

(HA - trust me - that last one sounded like it made sense in the shower!)  ;-)

I finally realized what I was saying and told myself to BE QUIET!  THEN - I told myself to be nice ... just like I'd want to tell someone else if they were saying something that wasn't building another person up.

"If you can't say something nice - don't say nothing at all."  Thumper's mama had something there now, didn't she? 

I have lost a lot of weight.  I have worked hard on myself.  I am learning how to reach out and make friends ... take chances/risks (in a good way) ... test waters ... try new things.

I have changes that I need to make - and hopefully one day one of those changes might include a tummy tuck ... but my wrinkles and my stomach and my stretch marks are part of who I am ... this has been a journey.  It has been a GREAT journey over all and I want to focus on the positive and be nice.

It's a lot easier being kind to others but you know ... it's A-OK to be kind to ourselves, too!

Have a GREAT day ~

As always - I'll keep you 'posted'

Nightmare ...

So I had this dream last night ... it's time for my annual post gastric bypass follow-up appointment.  I stand up on the scale and it registers 267 pounds!! 

The nurse turns to me and says, "Rebecca, you might wanna' slip your shoes off ... your weight's up a bit!"

HA

GO FOR IT!! :-)

A short while back

I stood on my scale

And oh my word

Did I start to wail!

The number displayed? 

It was QUITE astronomical

(And my response?

Well, it was not comical!)

I wondered aloud,

“What am I gonna’ do?

When I look to the ground

I cannot see my shoe!”

The joints in my knees

They weren’t feeling too great.

So I made a decision then and there

To lose weight!

I decided to check into

Weight Loss Surg'ry

Roux en Y (gastric bypass)

Was the choice for me!

A year has now passed

Since I made my decision

And the life I live now

Is the one I’ve envisioned!

I can wear nicer clothes

I can go on a walk

Or a bike ride with family

And actually still TALK!

Now I am not trying

To be boastin’ or braggin’

I just got sooo tired

Of seeing my skin saggin’!

Maybe you are where I was

And you want something new

To feel pride once again

In the one you call YOU!

Well, the future is yours

And I wish you success

Claim the life of your dreams!

You deserve nothing less!

rebecca dahlen

My name is Rebecca and I’m addicted to … CHOCOLATE

The above title really isn't “revelation” to anyone who knows me [heck, I’m not even sure the post title is original – I think  I plagiarized from another of my own previous blogs].  Whatever the case may be –

This morning I was “irritated” and the FIRST thing I wanted was:  CHOCOLATE. 


Of course, I had no available chocolate [which, in turn, only irritated me more]. 

And then … WAIT!  What?  Hold on – let me check … AHHH yes, I have ONE Viactiv chocolate flavored calcium chew in my bag.  Will miracles never cease?!

How revealing stressful moments can be ... it really doesn't even have to be anything huge ~ just a minor irritation, a set-back, an unexpected 'something' and *boom* ... you have an opportunity (if you're paying attention) to get a glimpse of something a little deeper inside yourself -- a chance to find out what you're made of.

If, like me, that's 99% Peanut M&M's, perhaps it's time to reconsider what you've got stashed around your desk ... and stashed a bit deeper inside yourself.  :-)

Seriously - it is NUTS (pardon that pun) to say I would've sworn I didn't have a chocolate addiction.  I mean, it is rather obvious if you look closely at my thighs -- there are all these little white "m's" printed under the top layer! (lol)  Let's just say this morning was an eye-opener and I'm glad I was paying attention.  [And hey, while I was at it ... I gotta little extra calcium in to boot!] 

That's it for now but as always, I'll keep you ~

POSTED ...

Getting to Where I Got - Part IV

Here are some pics of me "back in the day " ...

8th Grade Cheerleading (that's me in front)

10th Grade ... after one too many packages of Peanut Butter M&M's (yes, I loved them then too!)

Senior Prom

And WHY is it the boobs are the first to go?? ...



Anyway - I insert those pics to show that I wasn't always heavy (prior and up to 8th grade) ... but then I went through a difficult break-up between my 8th - 9th grade.  I started gaining weight then.  By the 10th grade pic above I had put on weight and it gradually climbed until I was 140'ish.  I lost the weight ... and that was a "good" thing ... but I did it in a "not so good" way.  Mostly - out of ignorance.  I didn't realize I was messing with my metabolism, starving my body, screwing up my cycle. 

Dr. Spindler put me on the pill and eventually cycles returned.  After my senior year of high school I started dating a guy and we went out and eventually my eating returned.  (That all started with a date to Great America and one "Frying Saucer" for dessert - haha).

I always figured - if/when I put on a few pounds I could just stop eating for a few days and exercise like crazy and the weight would quickly come off.  It always did. 

But years of yo-yo dieting wreaked havoc on my system.  

Over the years when "losing" became more difficult (and I began to loathe the ritualistic exercise regimine) I paid others to HELP me with my "problem" -- Weight Watcher's, Nutri-System, Jenny Craig ... you name it, I tried it.  ESPECIALLY after I had children.  I really put the pounds on when the children came along ... (take a look at just one for yourself ...)



So now I am learning how to eat properly (I say learning because I still would love to be able to eat and just starve a few days after) ... but to this day I really hate organized exercise.  I've tried and the same old obsessions kick back in ... starting back at the beginning of the count, riding just a little farther on the bike.  My back hurts?  Who cares ... I need to stay in shape.  My Rad tells me last week I have two annular tears in my lower lumbar spine ... thus, the radiating pain down my left leg?  Oh well ... deal with it - the show must go on.

I still have lots to learn and miles to go before ... well, you get the point.

I think I skipped around a lot and I'm not sure I ever really accomplished what I set out to write in this particular post but ... there's time. 

So there you have it:  A starting point in 4 parts that might help explain "How I Got to Where I Got"  (sorry to my English Teacher ... I know the grammar sucks ... just my attempt at being "cutesy" with my writing.  ;-) 

If you'd like to follow me on this journey post gastric bypass I sincerely invite you to come along for the ride ...

As Always ... The Joy Is In The Journey ...

(and having travel companions only adds to the fun!)  :-)

Until next time, I'll keep you ...

POSTED!

Getting to Where I Got ~ Part III

So where were we?  Ahhh yes -- EXERCISE.

Seeee -- it's not so much that I didn't like various exercises/activity.  On the contrary, as a small child I loved to run, play hide and seek, tag, dodgeball, four square, capture the flag.  In jr. high I liked PE, enjoyed running track, played basketball, softball, volleyball.  I didn't do too much "activity wise" in high school.  I was mostly a loner on campus.  Every lunch hour I'd grab a package of M&M's (peanut, of course) and a package of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups and eat this up on the grass while I read a book by myself.  I hoped that, by bringing a book, other kids would think I wanted to eat by myself and it would hide the fact that I was hating being the unpopular girl at the new school.  (By the way - did you catch that I bought two packages of candy E-V-E-R-Y D-A-Y during lunch?  Small wonder why I gained so much weight!)

Anyway - as an adult there was one period of time after my third child was born that I joined a local ladies only nautilus gym.  I thoroughly enjoyed the aerobics class and the time out with "big people"!  :-)  I actually lost a lot of pregnancy weight for a while there and I was eating healthier and exercising a "normal" amount.

Unfortunately - somewhere along the line "exercising" became something I 'had' to do again - then that gym closed, I had to return to work full-time and ... well on the story goes.

Anyway - back to my original story:  What I have since come to know about myself is that I have a hard time stopping when I get to any "finish" line -- irregardless of the initial goal.  If I set out to do 100 sit-ups then I would count them – out loud – one by one.  That’s no big deal.  However, if I got to – mmm, let’s say 52 – and was distracted by some external source (be it a phone call or an interruption of some other type), then when I resumed those sit-ups I "had" to start back with the count of 1.   I couldn't start up from 52 and just move to 53 -- I had to start over. 

I don’t know why.  If interrupted -- I always had to start back at the beginning of my routine.  At 16 years of age, my ‘exercise routine’ took me no less than 2 hours.  This "routine" consisted of sit-ups, deep knee bends, toe touches, jumping jacks, etc.  I would do 100 to 200 of each exercise.  I don't even remember the exact number I expected myself to do ... I just remember that routine.  It should've been easy -- but it always took me hours to complete.  Even if everybody else was in bed I would be doing jumping jacks, toe touches, deep knee bends, etc., etc.  And even if I wasn’t distracted by some external source -- if I just “thought” that maybe I miscounted ... it was back to the starting gate.  My ritual was so rigid it became obsessive.  I couldn’t go to bed until I had completed my routine.  If I had been out and didn't get home until late ... it didn't matter.  If I couldn't start until 3 am., so be it.  I 'had' to finish my routine! 

Pair this with my desire to keep “tabs” (pun intended) on my one apple and Tab per day.  It all became an annoying way to deal with things.  Yes, I was thinner.  I didn't look anorexic to others for the most part (an occasional comment was made about my face looking too thin but not often) and when bones started becoming a bit too noticeable ... I saw it.  I think a true anorexic can't see when they're getting too thin -- they look in the mirror and still see fat.  I didn't.  I saw I was thinner and I liked it.  I didn't really want to lose more - I just wanted to maintain the loss.  But - without starving and over exercising ... I had no clue how to do that.  I was 5'2" and somewhere between 100-105 pounds.  It was probably an acceptable weight for a 16-17 year old girl. 


The "problem" was how I arrived at that weight.  According to dear ol' Dr. Spindler, when I stopped having periods that was a sign I was not getting adequate nutrition and I was over exercising. 

To be continued ...

Getting to Where I Got ... Part II

As I've been trying to remember back to what caused me to lose so much weight in such a short period of time I've pondered a couple questions:  Why did I start a diet in the first place?  Why did I eventually stop eating practically everything (I only consumed one apple and one can of Tab diet soda daily), and why I couldn't go to sleep at night unless I completed a very regimined exercise routine and ... how did I keep this from people?

The last question is easy:  My parents enjoyed eating out during my last couple of years in high school and I didn't enjoy that at all.  I would just say I was going to eat something at work or eat something later or ... I don't know.  I pulled it off. 

As to how the "diet plan" came to be ... this is how things went down (literally): 

At the very end of my junior year - like the first day of "summer vacation" ... I got a minor flu bug.  Actually - let's go back a month or so.  About one month prior I happened to step on the scale after a "shopping spree" with my friend.  The only reason I was "wondering" about my weight at that point was because we went to the mall to buy some pants and ... I could no longer fit into a size 9 ... or a size 11 ... or a WHAT?  Not even a size 13 fit?  YIKES!  The only pair of pants that fit me [and THEY were tight] were a size 15-16 pants. 

The last time I remember shopping for pants I was a size 9.  When I stood on the scale for the first time in years I now saw that I weighed a little over 140 pounds!  And ... THAT, my friends, was the first time I can remember actually paying "attention" to a scale.  Sixteen years of age. 

I've paid attention to it absolutely EVERY day since.  *sigh*


Sorry - tangent again.  Soooo ... I got that flu as summer began and -- I can't keep food down (sorry, TMI).  Once I started feeling better I decide to check out that @#$%^ scale again ... just because I "felt" a little lighter. 


Hey!  What do you know?!!  I was down to about 135 pounds - maybe even a bit less.  Not sure the number but the scale was going down.  WOW!  More than 5 pounds simply because I didn't eat anything for 24 hours or so.  That was easy enough!


I decided I wouldn't eat anything the next day ... or at least not too much of anything.  I lost more weight.  By the end of the week I was down a few more pounds.  But -- I was hungry.  So -- I went and had an apple.  There was some Tab in the fridge so I had that too.  Then - one day I went for a bike ride.  The next morning the scale was down even farther. 


"IF I ADD EXERCISE I CAN SPEED THIS WEIGHT LOSS THING UP!"


My senior portrait "session time" schedule arrived in the mail and now -- oooh ... now I had real motivation!  It was actually a possibility I wouldn't look totally frumpy in my senior picture.  If only I keep exercising and not eating.


And there you have it.  By the end of the summer I weighed a little over 100 pounds, was in a size 5-7, felt crappy but looked fine.  I remember the look on a classmate named Sue's face at our portrait session, "Becky - what happened to you?  You look FANTASTIC!" 


You have to know that this about Sue.  Sue was one of the most popular girls in my class ... (she ended up being the Senior Homecoming Queen that next year) ... and this was the person who, that summer on that senior picture  taking day -- looked at me and exclaimed (yes, exclaimed - ha), "You look fantastic!" 


I haven't shared how unpopular I was when I transferred to that new school in 10th grade but trust me - I was unpopular.  I went from being student body president (our school only went up to the 9th grade) ... AND head cheerleader at the previous school.  When I had to transfer as a newbie in the 10th grade ... I was a complete "no name" - and it was a major blow to the ego.  They didn't know me - I had braces, I was awkward, shy, uncomfortable in this new setting.  I resented that I was treated like a nobody when I had been a "somebody" at my previous school.  They had no idea who I was and I hated that feeling.  Perhaps some of my previous ego was still rearing it's little head in a fight to regain popularity in my new surroundings.  But I wasn't finding that to be the case.


And yet this one popular girl's simple comment of affirmation made all those late night exercise sessions worth it!  Who cared about the awful fatigue and chronic constipation?  And we all know I never missed the periods!! 


Yet what was happening was that I was beginning to fear food -- I didn't want to eat and risk weight gain ... I didn't want to put any calories in my body - I wanted to stay littler.  And maybe, just maybe, if I up my exercise routine I can stay thin forever!


Not only was I worried about eating/consuming calories ... I was also starting to despise exercise!  It worked so well though ... I forced myself to continue doing it ... even when I was exhausted, even when I felt faint, even when ...

I kept exercising. 


To be continued ...

Getting to Where I Got - Part I

The following may (or may not) come as a surprise to those of you who know me in the "now" as a post gastric bypass patient (heck, it may come as somewhat of a surprise to those of you who know me from “back in the day” as well) but when I was 16 years of age, our then family doctor, good ol’ Dr. Spindler, diagnosed me as being anorexic. 


Huh?  Come again??

In all fairness ... the term "anorexia" as we have come to know it today ... really wasn’t too well known back in 1980 (at least I'd never heard of it).  Nevertheless, Dr. Spindler threw it out there as his clinical diagnosis for me.  You see, I found myself sitting in his office that fall day of my senior year in high school because I hadn’t had a period in months [and I couldn’t possibly have been pregnant at that time in my life].  I was run down, not to mention lab results showed me to be extremely anemic.  I could only go to the bathroom if I took a laxative and that was rarely working for me anymore.  Weight wise, I had dropped over 30 pounds in about 8 weeks. 

Had I lost weight intentionally that past summer?  Well ... yah!  It didn't start out being something "intentional" ... I was 16 yrs. old and my senior portrait session was coming up in August -- this was June.  I started my 'diet' in June the Monday following the last day of my Junior year - "unintentionally" because I developed a slight case of the 24 hour flu.  

By the time that senior portrait appointment rolled around 8 weeks later ... boom *30 pounds* -- gone!


However -- I'm getting a bit ahead of myself.  Let's go back a bit so I can try to tell you how I ended up in that doctor's room with a diagnosis of "anorexia" in the first place.


Perhaps "my story" is fairly typical for a person who's weight has fluctuated up and down over the years.  But "my story" really isn't that of a person who would say, "I've been overweight since as far back as I can remember." 


Nope.  As a child I was normal in size.  So much so that really – I cannot even remember thinking about my weight when I was a little girl. 


In fact, I felt so good about my appearance in the 7^th grade that I remember specifically praying and asking God to make me more humble – to take away my conceit and make me less "stuck up!" 

Just an aside - I really believe God did hear that prayer & answered it because something in me changed and I stopped feeling so conceited.  Unfortunately - and I don't think it's God's fault - but somewhere along the line I went from feeling super confident to completely lacking confidence by the time I entered the 10th grade.  Had to do with a break up ... lost love, yada yada yada.  That's a Part II in the making!  ;-)


Back to my original story.  When I was seated in Dr. Spindler's office and he was discussing his "findings" as he held my lab results in front of him ... I was thinking ... "What is anorexia and did I 'have' it??"  In hindsight, I really don't think so – at least not in the “emotional” sense of the word.  Was I “anorexic” in the clinical sense of the word?  Technically yes since a symptom of anorexia includes the cessation of menstruation, etc.

So – how did this “condition” come to be? 

I don't know the answer to that anymore than I know the answer to HOW can I could be diagnosed with anorexia in high school and then, some 30 years later, be diagnosed with morbidly obesity?  Somehow – I think the same mindset that caused me not to eat 30 years earlier eventually led me to overeat 30 years later.

To be continued ...