I've been gone for almost 3 months! Things around here are CRAZY. As of today I've officially hit the 30 lbs. lost mark. I'm 207.
At the end of October I started noticing bruising ALLLLL over my body without remembering what I'd bumped into. My knees were hurting me so bad and my stomach was still acting wonky even after 4 months without a gallbladder. I started looking up my symptoms online and I kept getting Celiac disease. Thinking about all of my issues and remembering how my mom ALWAYS has stomach issues I went to the doctor. They drew SEVEN vials of blood and told me that they'd have to test for all this other stuff before they'd even test me for celiac. Since there's no actual medicine to take for gluten intolerance I just decided to eliminate it from my diet completely after my testing was done.
I have not felt better in probably my whole life. My stomach doesn't have the heavy laden feeling in it. My stomach actually GROWLS when I'm hungry. The knee pains went away and so did the bruising. I sleep better and I'm not exhausted all the time. All my tests came back negative except my B-12 being low which is a sign of celiac. But instead of getting another test done and the possibilty of having to have a biopsy done I've just decided to stop eating gluten. I've been dropping weight like crazy the last few weeks. I was back up to about 212 but without even really exercising I've been losing weight. E's going back on the Eat to Live plan after the new year and hopefully if she gets this job she's got an interview for we'll be getting a gym membership. I've got 17 lbs. to lose before I'm back to 190. After that it's all up to what time of the year it is. At the end of March I need to go into a maitenance phase because starting in June we're going to be trying for a baby. :D If I'm under 190 by April I'll be happy but even if I'm not I'll still be happy.
Everything is great and I feel like 2010 is gonna be an awesome year. :D

Cancer is a fucked up beast. It will completely wreck a person. I remember my uncle from when I was little. He was a huge tall man. He would pick us up and sling us around only the way a giant can and a child can enjoy. My brother wanted to be Uncle W when he grew up. Cancer reduced him to a frail old man before he passed on yesterday. You know what else is fucked up? People driven by money and greed. Just yesterday I was looking at a billboard and saw the Powerball was at almost 200 million. I knew I wasn’t going to buy a ticket but I thought about what I’d do with the money. 2 million to each member of mine and E’s immediate family. I’d fix up my grandma’s house and my Aunt S’s house. I also thought about getting a nurse to help my Aunt D with my grandma and a nurse to care for my Uncle W. since his wife does nothing but spend his money and make him lose his house where my cousins grew up and the business he’s owned since before I was born.

I thought these thoughts probably at the same time my Uncle was dying in his wife’s car because she’d waited too long and never called the hospital, instead deciding to take him herself at the very last moments of his life.

My mom called and told me he’d passed while I was here at work. He’s been sick for so long, more than 4 years but it was still a shock. My brain immediately started telling me that it was ok to go get some bad food for lunch today, COME ON you’re uncle just died it’s ok. Instead I went walking. It’s nice outside now and I’ve been doing so good all week. As I was walking over the bridge I saw a Crystal Water *The company my uncle recently lost* cup and smiled thinking of Uncle W knowing I’d done the right thing.

We’re going to D.C. next month for the National Equality March and we’re gonna talk to our potential donor. I’m excited and a bit freaked out that I’ve got to ask this man for help for a baby. 

At the end of last week I started weaning myself of soda. It’s been an overall easy experience except for the painful headaches that wake me up in the middle of the night and the horrible insomnia I had at the beginning of week. You’d think getting rid of caffeine would help me sleep but for the first few nights I was wide awake until all hours of the night. The last few days have been awesome though. I start getting sleepy and by 11 at the latest I’m falling into bed and right to sleep. I’ve gone from drinking atleast a 2 liter of diet soda a day to one 12 oz. in the middle of the day. I don’t have one on my way to work anymore. I deal with being fuzzy and wake up normally instead of the artificial alertness. A few weeks ago for E’s birthday we went out with friends to this great restaurant called the Casbah and over the course of our 2 hr. dinner I had 6 sodas. SIX. WTF!?

There’s no soda in the house anymore. It’s either Crystal Light or water. 

E and I both have issues with food but they’re very different. I do better when I’m losing weight myself not part of a gym or a program and E needs the structure. She also realized she needed more help. We decided to attend an OA meeting to see if this was the thing that would help her. 

I woke up on Saturday and my whole body felt so weird. I was horribly bloated and my ring hurt my finger so bad that I almost had to take it off. I had a teeth hurting migraine and didn’t want to go to the meeting but E needed to go so I got up. Before we went we stopped at Publix so I could jump on the scale. I got on and almost cried. It said 215. In the space of a week I’d gained 5 lbs. Though I ate alot of food at the baby shower we had at work on Friday and tore up some Dim Sum on Thursday I had walked atleast 3 miles everyday of the week and kept my eating in good shape up until Thursday. 

Usually I would have grabbed whatever food was closest to me at the register and shoved it in my mouth. I didn’t this time. I got a diet caffeine free coke and a 170 cal. rice krispie treat so I could take my meds. 

When we got to the meeting I felt really good that I’d kept it under control. 

Sunday I went back to Publix and the scale said 213.5 which makes ALOT more sense especially because that’s where I was before I got sick. Plus I realized that the whole week I had been eating frozen dinners chock full of sodium which I hadn’t been doing for awhile after E got home.

I haven’t really checked my weight this week and I promised E I wouldn’t until Saturday. I’ve been walking and eating between 1200-1400 a day so I should be good. We’re going to the Running of the Brides in either Atlanta or South Florida in March so I want to lose 6 lbs. a month to put me at 180 or so when we go. That’s a good weight I’d feel comfortable at. I’d like to lose 20 more after that but if I can lose 10 to be at 170 I’d be happy.

It's been a month of craziness. Things at home have been good. It's so nice to have E back after a summer without her. Wedding plans are starting to seriously roll and I'm freaking out because this is the time of year that FLIES by because almost every weekend from now until the end of the year we will be running around doing something with someone. 

HOW am I supposed to plan a wedding and lose weight in all of that!?

Catch a horrible sickness helps. :D

I got horribly, horribly sick last week. I mean losing 3 lbs. in 2 days because I didn't eat for almost the whole week. By Friday I had to go to the doctor who almost put me in the hospital but gave me a shot and meds instead and sent me home.

I'm feeling SO much better but MY GOD it was worse than my gallbladder surgery.

I'm down to 210. We're going to D.C. Oct 10-12 for the National Equality March and to visit friends. I want to lose ATLEAST 8 lbs. before then. That'll put me at 36 lbs. since I was there last year. 

It's starting to cool down here so I'm finding it easier to ramp up the walking. Plus I had two different people come up to me yesterday and say something about how they see me walking all the time and how much weight have a lost? They can really tell. I was really proud of myself because after one woman said something about my weight loss there was part of me that wanted to bust out the old, "Oh thanks but I have SO much further to go!" I bit that back and instead told her thank you so much and told her how she'd made my day. I was on a freaking HIGH after that. I was so happy.

It's been a hard week for me. I'm missing E like CRAZY and even though she'll be back on Wed. it still feels like forever. She'll be gone next year for 6 weeks again to help her folks out. :( It'll be even worse than because we'll be in the middle of the final wedding countdown.
And speaking of wedding. I found THE dress that I wanted from Nordstrom. They kept running out of a 16 and would only have 10P, which no matter HOW much weight I'll lose in 9 months I'd never fit into a petite. Well last week they had a 16 so I went ahead and bought it. It got here on Thursday and they're full of crap if that dress is a 16. It's more like a 14. I've got some MAJOR work to do in the next 9 months. We already have someone in Mass. that can alter the dress if I get low enough that it needs to be taken in. AND Nordstrom is AMAZING. I called about their return time limit and the woman told me they didn't actually have a time limit. So in 6 months after busting my ass I'll evaluate if I need to get another dress BUT I know I won't have too.
I have to lose 56 lbs. to be at 160. That's 6 lbs. a month for the next 9 months. 1.5 lbs. a week. If I can't do that then there's no hope for me at all.
And speaking of my hard week and wedding stuff. I have a friend, L that I've been friends with for over 6 years. We went to college together and when I wanted to leave my newspaper job she got me a job at the place I'm at now. Last year around this time she started acting weird towards me and I didn't understand what I'd done. I had a fleeting thought that it was because I was gay but she still hung out with the gay boy at work just not me. Well then I thought I must have done something TERRIBLE that I didn't remember to make someone that upset with me.
I asked her CONTINUOUSLY over the last year what I'd done and she'd tell me everything was fine but she barely talked to me anymore.
Thursday it was pouring rain and my dress was supposed to come from UPS. She deals with UPS through our company so I asked her if they'd leave the box at my door even if I wasn't home. She gave me a snappy answer that had NOTHING really to do with UPS. It was then that I realized that it WAS because I was gay and want to get married. I finally called her on it and she answered me back with yes that's why. She felt I was forcing her to "march for my beliefs" to be friends with me. All I've ever done it talk about my hopes of getting married and having kids the same as any other person. I NEVER asked her to "march for my beliefs". I was so taken aback I didn't know what to say. The worst part is She'll think we're no longer friends because I think she's a bigot, which she is. But she went a WHOLE YEAR lying to my face telling me nothing was wrong then treating me like crap. THAT is the true reason we're not friends anymore. It's ok for her to hang out with S at work because he's a "safe gay" that doesn't vocalize the fact that he wants to be treated just like everyone else. I guarantee you if I told him WHY she's been treating me like shit he'd be just as offended as me.
I ate so horribly that night because I was so hurt and angry. I woke up on Friday though and said how DARE I let her get me off track. I'm getting married next year AND I'm gonna start trying for a baby and just like before it doesn't have a DAMNED thing to do with her. I'm doing this for me and MY happiness. The happiness I deserve just like every other person on this entire planet.

Last week was good and bad. I DID stay off the scale at Publix *that temptress* BUT I only exercised twice and on Saturday ate so much pizza that even thinking about it now I'm queasy. I weighed myself this afternoon and I was still at 214 which is good. My new goal is to lose 5 lbs. in the next 2-1/2 weeks. I want to be 209 by the time E gets home. It will be the first time I've been that close to 200 in 2 years. Plus we're going to Universal when she gets back and as cheesy as it sounds it's OUR place. It's where we took our first vacation together, it's where we bought our rings from Tiffany's and we're fully planning next year to go there for our honeymoon. HOPEFULLY Harry Potter land will be open by then. :D That would make Universal an even better place.

I have some other huge goals I need to start cracking down on and getting MAJOR serious about. We're talking about trying to have a baby next year. :D YAY! I need to lose ATLEAST 50 lbs. before that happens. I want to be 160 before we start trying in August which means I need to be 160 and mantaining by March. Some of my friends don't seem to understand why I want to lose weight BEFORE having the baby. My friend S was telling me last night I need to just lose the weight after the baby. I told him no way. I would rather be 160, gain 20 lbs. with the baby and after the baby is born go back to 160 instead of being 214 gaining 20 lbs. and going back down to 214.
Yeah I said 20 lbs. Because I'd still be overweight I need to gain between 15-25 lbs. and no more during pregnancy. There's still fat reserves there for the baby. S was telling me I would gain 40 lbs. but I won't let that happen. I'm not going to start out my child's life with weight issues. I want my kid to not have the same struggles I have had since I was 16. Coincidently, being at 160 will be the weight I was WHEN I was 16 and I haven't seen it since.
Speaking of S we went out to dinner a few week ago with me him, his partner and my sister. My sister didn't finish all the food on her plate because she was full and he started harping on her to eat all the food because she KNEW she still wanted it. What did my sister do? Take more bites of the food she didn't want. I looked at her and told her to put it down if she wasn't really hungry. S looked at me and was like, "Well you ate all your food." Yes, because I was actually hungry, having thrown out what was the WORST lunch ever. Had I not been I'm sure I wouldn't have eaten it all. Last night I was over at their house for birthday cake. I got a small piece and when I was done put my plate in the sink. Again he kept harping on me to eat more cake. WTF? Why do people do that? Especially when he KNOWS that I'm trying to lose weight. After that is when we had the pregnancy weight discussion.
DAMMIT! It's sunshining outside but has started to pour rain. It better stop so I can get out there and walk before dinner.

I have a HUGE goal this week. Not huge and is momentous or anything but it's hard. I have to stay off the damned scale at Publix. We got rid of our scales at the house because I was weighing everyday. Well I started dropping by the grocery store after work everyday and doing the same thing. I will STAY OFF OF IT this week. I will weigh myself ONCE this week at the gym on Saturday and that's IT. It's going to be hard for such a small thing but I can do it.