Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Happy "Surgiversary" To Me: 9 Months In

This time nine months ago, I was on the operating table having RNY gastric bypass.

This morning, I weighed 191.9 pounds. This means that I've lost 146.1 pounds from my highest recorded weight of 338 in May 2002, and 112.1 pounds since my last pre-op appointment. I'm only about 4 pounds from reaching my next goal of 188, which will officially move me from an "obese" body mass index ("BMI") to an "overweight" BMI.

I need to lose 38 more pounds to reach my goal of 154, which would bring me to a "normal" BMI of 24.9. In reality, I want to lose more than that in case of a bounce back - but we'll see what my body chooses to do over the next several months.

The weight loss has definitely slowed, but that's normal. I'm fine with a slowdown as long as it keeps coming off. On December 1, 2009, I posted that I was "on the cusp of greatness" because I weighed 200.1 pounds. I broke through to "Onederland" (below 200 pounds) shortly thereafter, but then I fluctuated for a while and even weighed over 200 pounds again on a few mornings. Thus, over the past six weeks or so, I've lost fewer than ten pounds.

With RNY, the speediest weight loss tends to occur in the first six months. The rate of loss slows at that point, but it shouldn't completely stop until 12-18 months out. I hope this is not the case, but in reality, it could take me another nine months to lose the last 40 pounds.

I'm mentally prepared for that. My life has changed so positively as a result of this surgery. I'm more active than I used to be. I travel more. I was visiting friends in DC last weekend who live in a top floor walk-up, and I climbed those stairs, carrying luggage, with ease. More fundamentally, I don't feel abnormal anymore. I actually feel like I'm in my twenties instead of my fifties. Now that I no longer imagine myself encased in a fatsuit, I can be patient about this last little bit of excess weight. I am definitely going to remain diligent about my diet and exercise, but I recognize that the results aren't going to be as immediate as they were a few months ago.

Not just my weight, but also my attitude has changed over the past nine months. I've become an optimist. A lovely woman at last night's support group drove this home for me. She approached me after the meeting and told me how much she loved my positive attitude. I thought, "Whaaa . . . you're talking to me???" She said that I radiated confidence and positive energy.

My closer friends (and some that aren't so close, in truth) would think "positive" a strange adjective for me. No, I'm not the most negative person and I'm not the least confident, but I've never been Mary Sunshine. In eighth grade, I actually wrote an essay about the virtues of pessimism. The last couple years of college and every single moment of law school were an endless stream of second-guessing and self-doubt. I can always find the good in others, but I'm a terrible self-critic. (This is an INFP trait, by the way.)

But the nice woman at support group was right - my perspective on life is fairly positive right now. My life isn't close to being perfect. I live far away from all of my closest friends, and I realized fairly recently that I hate the legal profession altogether and need to drum up a new career from scratch. I don't have a job lined up for next year, and I have no idea what I want to do. But even with such a high level of uncertainty, I'm confident that everything's going to work out. I don't know how, and I don't know when, but I have faith. I don't think I could have said that nine months ago.

Of course, weight loss isn't solely responsible for this change in outlook. Over the past few months, I escaped the New Haven insanity vortex (Yale Law), passed the bar, started a new job with a very pleasant work environment, and moved into a lovely apartment that I have all to myself. I live in a warmer climate, which is important to me. I get to see my grandmother, mom, sister, and nephew on a regular basis because I'm only a couple of hours away from them. These factors are all conducive to happiness. But I still believe that the biggest contributor to my newfound optimism is the weight loss. I don't feel trapped by excess fat or by any other circumstance or condition. Minor setbacks aren't affecting my outlook the way they used to.

I sound like Mary Poppins right now, but I'm not delusional. I know I'll be battling the disease of obesity for the rest of my life. But now I'm fighting with an AK-47 instead of a slingshot.

I'm nine months in, and the view from here is grand. I'm thankful for all of the people who made this possible, including my mom, administrators and professors at the Yale Law School and the Yale Health Plan (long story), and Dr. Robert Bell of Yale-New Haven Hospital's bariatric program.

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