Summer Pics

Two-Legged Life Again

I am out of my boot, my xrays show good healing bone, and the sprain is mostly healed. My ankle still gets a bit sore, but I went back to work this week and it went fine. It's kind of good, actually, after almost 8 weeks at home, to be back at work, although I've enjoyed the summer spent with Lucy and the past few weeks with hubby as well. I was afraid of losing my skills at work, so it's good to get back to it.

Being laid up for a couple months, or at least having less than usual activity, isn't great for weight loss. But I think I am getting to understand my emotional triggers for eating a lot better now. There is a lot of talk in the WLS community about "emotional eating" and that basically seems to refer to eating for any reason other than actual physical hunger. This, I have found, is a vast generalization, to the point of becoming meaningless. Emotional eating? Most eating is associated with emotions. The advice given is that one should start therapy and get a handle on their "emotional eating" before going through with WLS.

This is well-intended advice, but again, I think it is a bit meaningless. What I am learning about myself is that I have a lot of underlying anxiety. My daily life, in fact, is filled with a lot more anxiety than I have ever been conscious of before. I don't notice my anxiety because, A, I am so used to it and have lived with it for so very long, and B, I self-medicate before I notice that I was anxious. Frequently the self-medication is food, but not always. I also read, shop, or sew or do other crafts. None of those things is bad in itself, but they do help me continue to ignore the anxiety that led me to those activities in the first place.

I'm hoping that as I start to notice myself suddenly get "hungry" (which is actually "appetite", an emotional trigger, rather than "hunger" which is physical, and comes on gradually) and realize that it is often because I am experiencing some anxiety over something, that this triggered eating will diminish. My weight loss has halted again, and I suppose I should also determine if I need another fill. I don't think I really do, I think that I do more eating when I'm not hungry than I realize. So, I am more focused right now on improving this area of life.

I'm pretty frustrated by this weight loss thing, to be honest. I am still 20 pounds above pre-pregnancy weight. I would like to have another baby, and I don't have much time to do it, but I can't fathom getting pregnant at this weight for a starting point. It's depressing. Getting back to the gym should help a little, though. And we are doing pretty well about following the goals I listed in my last post--preparing meals at home, eating at the table, eating lots of fruits and veggies. Lucy is doing much better with her solids and pretty much eats what we do.

I'm not saying much about hubby's progress because it's not my place to do so here, except to comment that he is doing much, much better and we are feeling much more hopeful for our future. I'm very happy to have him home and on a better path.