Journey Update #2

Today is December 13, 2025. Which marks one year and one month since I had surgery. Let’s talk…

I have no regrets. Although, I have seen many people talk about how they regret it. How it was the worse decision of their lives. How, if they could rewind time, they’d never do it again. I don’t feel like that.

To date, give or take, I have lost 140 pounds. I say “give or take” because I do wobble between 187 and 191 pounds – which for anyone that didn’t know, I have no memory of ever weighing less than 205 pounds. ((Miracles happen))

I have days where I can eat more than others. I also have days where I can’t eat anything. Some days I feel great! Some days I feel like utter trash. Some days my stomach feels fine. Some days my stomach hurts.

Sugar makes me hurt. && when I say hurt, I’m talking hurting. Small amounts are fine, but if I “indulge”, for whatever reason, I hurt. (Just an FYI, I don’t eat sugar as often as most people think I do/did. But you can believe whatever you want. Sugar didn’t make me overweight. Carbs did. I went downhill when I figured out how to make ramen in the microwave.)
I can still eat carbs. Pasta. Rice. Bread. I can eat it. Not as much as I used to be able to. Three bites of pasta. Three bites of rice. I’m done. However, I always eat protein before I even attempt rice or pasta – && I’ve never been a huge fan of breads – so I can go without it.
I miss gulping water. But if I gulp water, it makes my stomach hurt for a few minutes.
I still make my plate like the old Barb. I do love leftovers, though.
Grape propel has become my best friend. I actually thought it would be Gatorlyte, the red one, but I have come to buy Propel more often when I’m out and about && want something other than water. (I’m a bottled water snob.)
I’ll never get used to being cold. Being overweight my entire life, I got used to being hot – all the time. Snow on the ground wandering around in shorts, short sleeve shirt, and flip flops. Sleeping with a fan on full blast. It hits 50 degrees and I’m putting on a sweater. Sitting under a heated blanket. Buying a heated mattress cover for my bed. I usually just joke with people that my padding disappeared.
I feel like I look old now. I understand that skin is only so elastic, after a while, your skin cannot bounce back. I am 38 years old, and I feel that I look in my 50’s. Logically, I know that’s probably not true. People tell me it’s not true. But it’s also the people who always told me I’m not “fat”. It’s also the same people who told me “You have a great personality” – which for future reference, that’s you telling them they are ugly.

I would do the surgery again. Sometimes I wish I had done it 15 years ago – when I thought about it the first time. But I honestly believed I could get the weight off myself. It wasn’t until I start dating TheBoyfriend that I realized I was doing the correct things – my body wasn’t. It also helped talking to co-workers (which is another conversation that people have I don’t understand) after they started watching what I consumed on a daily basis. I never lied to them. Didn’t fake what I was eating at home. But when you drink water or eat a cucumber and your blood sugar hits 500 – something isn’t working correctly. Did I ever have a doctor tell me this? No. Because they always said the same thing, “you need exercise and drink more water”. Remember that time I was drinking so much water on a daily basis that I ended up getting hospitalized because my body couldn’t get the amount I drank out? Then was followed up with having kidney disease and heart disease? I’m sure I’ve mentioned that. If not, I was drinking SEVEN GALLONS of water a day && still had doctors tell me I needed to drink more. That was their way through everything. Exercise && water. That will fix everything.

I started noticing things. All the small things I was ignoring. When I was hospitalized in 2021 is when it hit me – hard – like a cement brick to the face – I have to do something. I started listening to my body. It’s cues. The small things it would do or wouldn’t do. In 2021 is when I decided that I don’t have much of a choice – I have to do this surgery or I’m going to be the second girlfriend he buries before he is 40. && let’s be honest, I wasn’t/am not ready to die. I still have things to do/accomplish.

But it’s been a year. One year.

Journey Update #1

I can’t sleep.

Which wouldn’t really surprise anyone that knows me. Sometimes I can lay down && just fall asleep, other times, not so much. Tonight is “other nights”.

Wandering around the house I remembered I haven’t updated y’all on my journey so far. So, let’s do that.

Today is April 17, 2025 – it has been five months and four days since having the surgery – 155 days. I have lost 81 pounds. The first three months I lost 60 pounds – knowing I have only lost 20 pounds in two months makes me sad. I don’t know if this is normal.

I’m on a DS Support Group on Facebook – my surgeons office told me to join one. Everyone will post that in six months they pulled off 120 or more pounds. It makes me wonder if I’m doing something incorrectly.

But let’s talk about the positive:
1. I’m off all diabetes medications. My A1C went from 8.7 to 5.3 by month three.
2. When I had the surgery, I was on seven different blood pressure meds. Today, I’m on one.
3. I can walk without getting winded.
4. I fit in my car. (Technically, I fit in my car before, but there was no gap between me && the steering wheel.) I was driving today && for a moment though I feel small in my car.
5. I have been able to buy clothes from Wal-Mart. Last time I remember doing that I was about 19. After that, my weight went up causing me to only buy from Woman Within (plus size clothing store online for anyone wondering). After I started the job, I have now, I gained more weight. What else are you supposed to do when having a sit-down job? The answer to that – eat. After I started dating boyfriend I gained more weight. I don’t think I meant to, but it happened. So, the idea of buying clothes in a store just left. I have bought shorts && shirts from Wal-Mart && that made me happy.
6. People are always telling me I can see the difference. So, there must be a difference, right?
7. I haven’t weighed under 250 pounds in… goodness, I can’t remember when I weighed it. Maybe when Boyfriend && I first started dating back in 2014? Possibly.

I don’t see the difference. All I see is the fat around my waist. (No, I’m not making it up, there is still fat there.) I can feel the thinning of my hair && see it when I brush my hair. I caught a glimpse of my reflection today… my face looks the same. But I wonder… will my face change? I know when people lose weight their face slims, but even when I was younger && weighed 205 pounds, my face was fat. Possibly kid fat face? But it was fat. Maybe I’ll just be one of those chunky faced people.

The DS Support group has stated many times that once you hit six months, that’s your biggest weight loss. After that, you’ll lose slower and not very much more. I really wanted to be 120 pounds down at six months. Where did I get these numbers? Out of a hat, possibly, but I’m not going to hit it. One of the ladies in the group said that I’m probably going to hit 150 pounds – when? && do I want to weigh 150 pounds? According to my height, on the BMI chart, I’ll still be considered overweight. Everything says I need to weigh 110 to 125 pounds.

Even when I was a kid, I never wanted to weigh 110 to 125 pounds. I still don’t.

I think I have mentioned my goal before. My first goal was to reach when my driver’s license said – because you know, I have never told the truth. It was 276 pounds. Then I just wanted to get under 250 pounds. I have technically done that, but I keep bouncing between 248 && 253 pounds. One day I’ll be on the lower side, then two days later I’ll be over 250.

I would also like to mention in that DS Support group they said when they do the surgery, they remove the part of your system that tells you that you’re hungry. That you’ll never “feel hungry”, but you need to eat anyways. Okay… hear me out… I think he left mine in. Because I do feel hunger. My stomach will growl. && I know that because right now my stomach is growling, but it’s 11:09 PM && I don’t think I should be eating again. I wake up every morning… EVERY. MORNING. I wake up hungry. Stomach growling. Tumble rumbles. I first thought it was gas, because that comes with it. But I realized a few days in… that’s hungry.

I’m 37 years old. && until I had this surgery, I didn’t know what “feeling hungry” felt like. I never gave my system enough time to feel hungry. My inability to stay away from food, or my need to eat when I felt weird… kept me from feeling it.

Carbs don’t bother me. Pasta. Rice. Breaded foods. (Don’t think I’m eating that day in && day out, I don’t. I haven’t had pasta since November – I had rice the other night at a Mexican restaurant.) Know what bothers me? SUGAR.

I made a cake the other night for my work peeps. I tasted the icing to make sure it was decent tasting. Oh. My. Goodness. My stomach hurt all night. Mind you, before you get all judge mental, even before the surgery, I rarely ate sugar. Stop giving me that look. You know the look. The look people give fat people when they say I don’t eat/drink sugar. because it’s automatically a lie, right? How else would I have gotten fat?

One word. Ramen.

When I learned to cook ramen noodles in the microwave, it was downhill from there.

Oh, I lied up there. I have eaten pasta since November. That’s how I know it doesn’t bother me. I will make ramen broth – most of the time I’ll take the packets out && toss the noodles (boyfriend don’t eat them so I have no need to keep them), but every now && again, I’ll crumble the noodles and add about a handful of them. It’s rare, though.

I just want to keep it real. No lies. Just honesty.

Do I think that’s what my issue is when it comes to losing slow? I don’t know. Is it something medical? I don’t know. I know at my third month appointment the dietician mentioned weight loss shots. Here’s the thing – I had this surgery so I wouldn’t be on shots for the rest of my life. I still don’t want to me. My issue right now?

I don’t want to be fat when I get married in July.

But honestly, I feel like I will be. && that makes me sad.

Frozen Can-Can

I haven’t always known how to cook – some might even say I still don’t know how to cook, which is fine. I like my cooking – so does Boyfriend, so that’s all that matters. I learned how to cook by watching food television shows, which also include food competitions. Normally when they cook on them, they explain what they are doing, what they are expecting, what it should look like – you end up learning a lot.

For example, I have been watching “Guys Grocery Games” on Max a lot lately. I learned that the reason mushrooms get slimy is because you don’t remove the ribs in the back of the mushroom. That has stuck with me since Guy mentioned it. I didn’t realize that – don’t get me wrong, I’ve always removed the ribs, so my mushrooms aren’t slimy, but it was something I learned on a cooking competition show.

So, basically, I have taught myself to cook. Normally people say my mother or grandmother, or aunt taught me how to cook. I didn’t get that luxury. I taught myself. Honestly, it’s fine, just means it took me a little longer to learn things, so I used cookbooks (yes, I honestly have read cookbooks), and television shows. Rachael Ray was a huge one I would use, through the years, though, it has changed. I don’t miss any show of Gordon Ramsay.

Back to Guy’s Grocery Games: for anyone who doesn’t watch it – he picks three to four people and put them in his grocery store, give them games, and they cook – the winner will win 10,000 dollars if they can get all the ingredients at the end. If you don’t watch it, but like fun and goofy game shows, you would enjoy it.

He has one game, my favorite to watch, called “Frozen Can-Can”. The rules are simple, you can only shop in the frozen section and anything in a can. && every time they end up playing this game everyone starts freaking out. I’m not talking like a little freak out then calm down, through the whole episode they do nothing but complain about not having fresh foods, how canned foods are gross, how frozen foods are nasty.

Here’s my thing.

All kinds of different people watch these shows. People who can afford to go out and buy fresh foods, people who have to use frozen foods, people who have to buy canned foods. Some people don’t have the luxury of being able to purchase fresh foods all the time. Then there are people who don’t know how to cook with fresh foods – which seems strange to anyone who knows how to cook fresh foods, but I didn’t at the beginning of my journey. I have had to google, read cookbooks, watch television programs, ask a lot of questions. I still have a few fresh items I have never cooked with && wouldn’t know where to begin.

I think what bothers me the most watching them freak out is the people that are watching the show that have no choice but to stop in canned or frozen food. Families on food stamps, for example, have to buy canned or frozen so it lasts longer. My household is just Boyfriend and me and I tend to stay away fresh (I’m not talking about meat just fruits and vegetables) because fresh food goes bad very quickly. I can buy $100 worth of cans and fresh food that last me months. Fresh vegetables would last me about three days, just long enough for them to go bad.

Basically, stop food shaming people. You’re making the people who have no choice but to purchase cans and frozen items feel bad when they shouldn’t be. Because frozen items are just as good as fresh items if prepared correctly.

Stop. Food. Shaming. People.

That includes talking about what people eat. Just because you don’t like canned tuna, doesn’t mean the woman next to you needs to hear about your hatred. && I’ll never understand people who don’t like vegetables.