Pasta la vista, baby

Numbers have never been my friend.  If there’s a god of maths, he hates me.  I think I have dyscalculia as I find it hard to see groups of numbers more than four digits long, they sort of dance about and I’m likely to switch them around when writing them down, unless I’m very, very careful.

What’s that got to do with anything? I hear you cry, dear Reader.  Well, numbers controlled by Scales of Doom have had the power to ruin my weeks since time immemorial. 

Did I tell you I was diagnosed with diabetes about three years ago?  Well, my blood test result for my 2^nd year showed that, with medication, I no longer had it.  I’ve just had my results for this year.  To put it in context – with medication they hope to get your blood sugar after fasting to 43 (no idea 43 whats).  Last year I was 40.  This year I was 100.  Shocking, eh?  Well, I was shocked.  I sat down and thought about what it might be: firstly, my diabetes tracks my weight (which is why my specialist is keen for me to have surgery) and I think I’ve probably put on a stone or even a stone and a half since last year.  Secondly, I have allowed carbs to creep back in.  I think the one that’s probably the biggest problem is pasta.  I like pasta generally.  I like rice but I’m a bit more fussy.  I’m even more fussy about bread.  I eat potatoes infrequently.  But pasta is so easy.  And two of my comfort food dishes are pasta – both made by P, carbonara and spaghetti with meatballs and spicy tomatoes.  I also make a pretty good crab linguine.  

Last year I did monitor my blood sugar levels with a kit I’d bought myself and was ticked off quite unpleasantly by the GP: I had no business doing this, apparently.  But if I had been able to carry on, as I told the (different) GP today, I might have spotted the rise in my blood sugar before a full year passed.  They’re still not keen but I probably need to do it, even if I buy the expensive testing strips myself.  People in the know say you should test first thing in the morning and then before and after every meal (two hours after each meal – but some people also do three hours!).  I’d whip through those strips alright.  And that’s if I remember to do this.  The fasting one is easy to remember – less so, the others.

In other numeric news, I lost precisely 0lb last week.  The last week I lost 1.5lb.  So my usual breakneck whipping through the numbers on the way down.  The site I use says I lose 0.5-1lb a month on average.

My life is governed by numbers.

Read all about it

Today there is a story in the Times about gastric sleeve surgery.  A London hospital has developed a way to complete the operation in a day in some cases.  Meaning the patient would be in theatre at 8am and allowed to go home, barring some complication, at 4.30pm.  The surgeon pointed out how much more pleasant and less stressful it would be to recover at home.  They carried out the first such operation in January.

I know a bit about the media and my advice and my mantra is ‘do not read below the line’.  But I did.  You do not necessarily get a better class of commenter in a broadsheet than, say, the Mail.  Okay, that’s not true.  But you don’t get a more considered post, that’s for sure.

Everyone had an opinion and the general consensus was that fat people are lazy and greedy, why should they (the commenters) have to pay for their surgery (presumably not directly) when it’s easy when you restrict calories.  Or follow Atkins.  Or go to the gym every day.  Or stop stuffing your face with fast food. Or “Fat lumps could save up by not buying tons of pies, cakes, beer and chocolate” and pay for their own surgery.  One man commented that girls in the UK are too fat and men should demand more (not more girl, presumably).  He even commented that gastric bands should go around their necks.  Nice.  Better dead than fat, eh?

These are invariably accompanied by pictures of woman busting out of their jeans and/or eating a burger.  I have a horror that one day I will see myself there.  Because you can be sure that those women were not asked for their permission.

You can see why (if it goes ahead) I won’t be telling anyone except my husband and you, dear Reader, about my op.  My boss knows that I probably have to have an “embarrassing op” and we’ve agreed she doesn’t need to know.  I said I’d rather use leave to convalesce than have to discuss something so personal.  And my experience with Lighter Life has taught me how very unobservant people are.  No-one noticed anything until I’d lost a couple of stone.  And no-one noticed that I didn’t eat.  My boss now has more of a gimlet eye – she commented that I was eating my breakfast (Greek yoghurt, raspberries and carb free granola, fact fans) later than usual.  So maybe this will be trickier. But that’s the least of my worries – I have no idea what the waiting time is likely to be.  And I will have to make my case for a band, compared to the sleeve or bypass.  But before that I have an enormous form to fill out.  It must be 30+ pages.  No doubt I will put it off to the evening before.

Clothes

I have written before about this but it’s a consistent problem for me – in many ways.

1. Special events: we went to a black tie party at the weekend, to celebrate friends’ recent wedding abroad.  I found this so traumatic that I was actually shaking.  I had a dress that was about as good as it was going to get for me – but a) it was gold and full length and b) well, it was on me.  I prefer to be better camouflaged but just generally, having to dress up is really stressful.  I wish I could enjoy it but I don’t.  I look forward to things – right up until the moment I’m seized with panic about meeting new people and having to dress up.

2. Lack of clothes: I have many clothes in different sizes (almost all smaller sizes than I am).  And I continue to be an idiot optimist: every time I pack away seasonal clothes, I tell myself that maybe next year they’ll be too big for me.  They never are, they are only too small for me.  I have things with the tag still on that I intend to downsize into (is this only a housing term?  Well, I’m the size of a house so…).  I never seem to learn from my own history

3. Dressing differently: as above with the gold dress, I caught sight of myself togged up for the “snowmageddon” . Skinny jeans so I could wear my leather wellies and my parka (and obviously a thermal top, jumper and two pairs of socks).  I looked unbelievably dumpy and distinctly bag-ladyish.  

4. Being a wuss:  I order things and then I don’t try them on.  Which, of course, means I don’t send them back.  I’m just too afraid they’re not going to fit and will look awful so I put it off and put it off.

I think it’s partly that I have learnt to get dressed and even put on make-up without looking at myself in the mirror.  Something that breaks that trend, forces me into looking and really seeing - and it’s upsetting.  I feel like I should carry a card to give to people – or a banner – to apologise for polluting their vision.  That’s how bad it’s got.

Also, I am beginning to find more and more that being in public is stressful.  I can deal with being at work (just), but even going out for supper with my team I find really difficult and upsetting.  And I go home feeling awful about myself.  P asked me if I thought I was becoming reclusive and more and more introverted.  I can see his point.  I am okay with maybe one other couple (and even then it depends where, eg I went to a club (not the dancing kind) in trendy Shoreditch a couple of years ago and found it so upsetting I cried silently in a taxi all the way home.  

Clothes are my enemy – but obviously the other option is even worse.  I want to buy something that makes me happy – but I’m a few stone off that.  I need this op and quickly.

Mind the Gap

July 2017 – February 2018: that’s quite a gap.  Apart from trying and failing to lose weight, in this time I have had a holiday to North Cyprus (not at ALL what I expected – lots of men settling to escape extradition.  Chunky gold jewellery and moaning about the bacon/useless locals not being able to make Yorkshire pudding properly).  

Also: Qatar – just back from there.  We went for some winter sun.  Which we got, but there isn’t an awful lot to see and it is VERY expensive. 

I am a stone heavier now than I was in Cyprus in September.  My weight goes up when I stop being vigilant – and then I STS when I am being vigilant.  You’ll note that what is missing from this is the (cue angel choirs and streamers) losing weight option.  Oh, how I want the losses.  I think I’m losing on average 0.5 – 1lb a month.  I know this because I weigh most days and record it. I am a stone heavier than when I started LighterLife.  My confidence, self-esteem and zest for life is rock bottom. 

As Seren wisely commented, the numbers on the Scales of Doom have the power to ruin or make your week.  I would love to make peace with SoD and to have consistent losses.  This is what I’d hope to achieve by the band.  I put the work in, the band helps me and I get a reward from SoD.

You won’t be surprised to learn that there was no use of the expensive tankini I bought for Jordan in either Cyprus or Qatar.  I am not sure it would have fit but I certainly wasn’t going to find that out.  I feel sad for myself that I cannot, dare not, get in the pool or the sea.  I know physically I could – but I would be so distressed that, in reality, I couldn’t.  Sometimes I feel like the opportunities are slipping through my hands and I am wasting my life.  Sometimes I don’t care and just want to hide away and let the world pass me by.

Finally, Lana Bump – I have tried eleventy thousand times to respond to your comment but, for a baffling reason, it won’t let me.  This is what I typed:

“Thank you for your support – it means a lot.  And you’re quite right about that vicious circle, it’s, well…vicious”