I also met a really nice lady named Ava that I scheduled an appointment with for an exercise evaluation. She is going to go over what kind of exercises I should be doing and how often to help me maintain my loss AND to help me tighten my skin. I honestly already have loose skin so this is really needed. I have been doing squats on my own on the good advice of my very close friend who informed me that it will help me avoid the dreaded flat, flabby white girl ass.
My weigh in results were great! As you may have noticed I am down another 20+ pounds since my last check in. 448! I mean, that’s closer to the 300’s than the 500’s. I am a little disappointed in myself, not because I didn’t lose more but because I have found that I am relentless in my negativity about this. If I lose 20 pounds I feel like I should have lost 30 pounds. It is hard to accept that this is going to take time.
I got a little extra information than usual during my weigh-in. The office scale is one of those that gives BMI and calculates how many calories per day I would need to eat to maintain my weight – plus it gives fat mass, or the percentage of fat versus bones, skin, water, et al. At my weight right now I would need to eat 2769 calories a day to maintain it. Crazy. It makes me wonder how many calories a day I was eating before all of this. Too many. At this point I still shoot for 700 calories a day, but I often get around 800 and sometimes all the way up to 900. I think that as long as I stay in the triple digits I will be okay for now. Also, according to the scale, I am approximately 260 pounds of fat. I mean jesus. My fat weighs more than my goal weight. Like way more (100 pounds more). So yeah, I guess this is one reason why it is difficult for me to celebrate my small victories and easy for me to be pessimistic.
Other issues to update on – my skin is a wreck. I can see lines in my face that were definitely not visible before. I am guessing this is just an aging thing that is more visible now that there is not as much fat on my face. Also I have dry skin issues on my face now and I never have before. I find that I have to use a good scrub (I am currently using St. Ives oatmeal scrub) on my face prior to putting on makeup or I have this weird flakiness around my nose and lower cheek areas.
My hair is also making me quite sad, though I am told that this is a phase that many women who have weight loss surgery go through. It is dry and falling out. It was always frizzy, but it is even more so than usual. I need some good product, but I am at a loss as to what to try. I may try some coconut oil, or maybe some Jamaican black castor oil. I will update when I find something that works (or doesn’t work!). It may simply be a matter of waiting it out, however. From what I understand this phase should ease up at the six month mark (September for me).
I am still trying really hard to get in my water. Some days I nearly hit my goal, others I don’t come close at all. I actually feel much better on days that I drink more, so you would think that would be motivation enough. However, I have to have my water really cold. I will pull a bottle out of the freezer and drink about a quarter of it only to let it sit out and get warm. Once it’s warm I don’t want it. I am still working on a solution for all of this (I have no ability to make and store ice like a normal person).
Hopefully I will be updating again soon with more good news! Woot! And thanks, as always, for reading!
