Wednesday, March 31, 2010


Today I came upon several revelations that I would like to share with you.

1) What a difference a day – and a haircut and color, plus a manicure – makes. Yesterday I was flustered and pissed off and ready to take on the world, one cupcake at a time. I was determined to drive my non-weight-loss-having ass to Rochester to have a tete-a-tete with my surgeon as I was convinced he missed the mark and shrunk my bladder and not my stomach. The first week I lost almost 17 pounds, then I had my one week checkup and apparently caught some bad juju and for the next 6 days continued to lose nothing. Nada. Zilch. While this may be normal in anyone else’s world, it was just unacceptable in mine. I have no patience for this kind of thing, and I have too much weight to lose and too much pre-surgical smack talk to live up to. It was at that moment I realized why none of the thousand other diets I’ve tried have worked. Not because they set me up to fail or because the world was out to get me, but because I got frustrated while my body took a few days to adjust to the massive change it was undergoing and said screw it. Now that I had no choice but to stick it out, I realized that I was the one self-sabotaging all those years, not the Chips Ahoy or the buttered bananas. Foiled again! I stepped on the scale this morning and my faith was renewed when I saw the number was 3 pounds lighter. And to think I was ready to behead the man who made that happen. Sacrilage!

2) I do not like ankle weights. Period. I bought them with the best of intentions, put them on today, hit the program button on my treadmill and proceeded to walk straight to the gates of Hell where I burned for a full 30 minutes. At the end of my session I was dragging my left leg, hanging half off of the treadmill, drooling like I had a case of Bells Palsy and calling the treadmill names that I am sure are extremely offensive in Gaelic. It was not pretty. And it will never happen again. I will save the ankle weights for walks outside, if for no other reason then I can take them off if I choose and throw them into someone’s shrubbery and tell Tim they fell off and I was too tired to carry them home.

3) Despite my all out hatred for the ankle weights, I did have a revelation. In two weeks I have shed 19 pounds. 19 friggin pounds! That is a one year old. I. shed. a. one. Year. Old. Putting on those 10 pounds worth of ankle weights was eye opening. It finally clicked what it does to your joints when you carry around even that small amount of weight. It didn’t feel good, and it hurt, and I hope to never see the real 10 pounds ever again.

4) Lastly, and most importantly, I have found that when you are, shall we say, less than slender, you tend to rash in places that are not pleasant. I am pretty sure even thin women experience this. I am talking about the rash that occurs on the crease between your upper thigh and your lady space. I realize this is not a pleasant picture but let me paint it anyway. The fiery madness that occurs in this area after hours of walking and sweating is like a vaginal caning that never ends. I swear when I touched it, smoke came off of my flesh. Fear not, my loyal constituents, for after some hydrocortisone cream and a little loss of dignity, I was right as rain and ready to attack the dreaded treadmill once more.

I am proud of myself for making it out of the funk I was in for a few days. A year ago, I would have wallowed in it – and in a pint of Ben & Jerry’s Chunky Monkey – which I still totally crave – but can live without. But today, I got up off of my funked out ass, took a shower, got my hair did, had a mani where they didn’t burn my cuticles off, and got back to walking off the pounds. If that isn’t a monumental moment than I don’t know what is.

2 comments:

  1. Lisa,

    I keep coming back here because to be honest you're making your pain sound like a hell of a lot of fun.

    I thought about referencing all the funny bits of this post and realised I would have to cut and paste about 90% of it.

    Keep kicking arse girl! You're going to get there and it's probably going to hurt like a bitch a few more times yet. And if all else fails -you can move to Australia where we dont have Ben and Jerry and we aint never heard of buttered bananas.

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  2. Dearest QIMP-

    A) The pain has to be funny or it will drive you insane. If nothing else, it makes for good writing and I honestly have fun re-telling the stories. I want people to know it isn't all Skittles and rainbows, but it's worth the journey just the same.

    2) No Ben & Jerry's and buttered bananas?? That just seems sacriligious on so many levels. Thank goodness Australia is a beautiful place and you guys have kick ass accents. I would visit there (and possibly live there) anyday!

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