Tag: personal ramblings

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.

Gods Library

Walking through Wal-Mart parking lot. I see a bumper sticker that said, “Don’t worry about tomorrow, God’s already there”.

Which got me to thinking.

I tell people a lot that He already has a book written of your life – so He knows what’s happening tomorrow. Then started thinking about what His library would look like. 📖

Photo Credit goes to Nemanja Sekulic.

He said he used photoshop to do this with a picture of his dad in the middle.

Journey Restarted: Part Five

I haven’t talked about the journey much lately. Mostly because for a bit I was irritated. Every, all at once, seemed to want to stop me.

I have yet to have the surgery. Yes, I’m aware I said June. But they needed a cardiologist to sign off. I was able to go to the new one in June – then had to wait for tests he wanted me to do. Now that they are all finished – they are willing to sign off. I called the weight loss people && explained that to them. Told them to fax the paperwork over to the cardiologist’s office && that they’d sign off.

That was a week ago.

As I Get Older.

I lost my grandmother when I was in the 7th grade. So, the little things she done I found a little weird. For example, as long as I can remember she called me “Robert”. I don’t know why. By the time I started to get curious, she had already passed away. I never got to ask.

But as I get older I realize a lot of what I thought was weird, prolly isn’t as weird as I thought.

  1. During the summer, she took cold showers. I found that that strange – even in the summer. Why would someone do that? Lately, I have been taking showers and not turning on the hot. Mind you, I live in Southern Oklahoma, so our “cold water” isn’t cold. It’s… luke-cold. You know when you turn your water hose on for the first time in the summer. The first bit of water that comes out – that’s what the water feels like.
  2. My grandmother would run around her house with a pair of shorts && a bra – that’s it. I laugh about it now but as a kid – that’s weird. But I understand it now. My grandmother lived in a two bedroom trailer house from 1991 until her death in 2001. Her trailer had no AC except for window units. I understand the pain and exhaustion that comes from sitting in your house burning up because you don’t have an AC. I have one – in my bedroom (which is where I am lying while I type this on my phone) – so it is the only cool room. We tried to purchase window units for our living area in hopes that it would cool off in there – but there is too much open space, so it never actually helped. I would need an industrial sized AC && I just cannot afford that.

I’m tired of the summer now. I know there are a few who are enjoying the heat && they want it forever. But today, when I got off work, it was 102°F (38.8°C). It was 3:30 PM when I got home. I tried sleeping last night && it was hard since it was 90°F && even with my AC in my small bedroom – it was hot.

I’m ready for cold weather. Or at least the cooler weather we get during fall && winter. Usually late October it starts getting into degrees that I enjoy. Boyfriend keeps saying September should be better. But lately it’s hot then too.

You want to know what time it gets cool in my room? Between 2:00 am && 4:00 am. Want to know what time I was up for work? 3:00 am.

Just for one day.

What’s a job you would like to do for just one day?

This is silly. But I would like to work in a Chinese restaurant for just one day.

My reasoning? I really, really, really want to know how Chinese restaurants make their egg drop soup.

I have found a few recipes I like. One more than the others. But it still doesn’t taste or feel like theirs. Theirs is creamy, thick && oh so delicious. Mine comes out good, but doesn’t have that creamy factor that the restaurants have.

Or… a bakery.

I try to do a side hustle of making desserts – who doesn’t love or buy desserts. (Besides me). But I can’t make icing and would love to work in a bakery just to learn how to make it properly.

Parents.

What were your parents doing at your age?

I am 36 years old right now.

My parents – at 36:

My mom was 36 in 1998 – a mother of two and married to my father. Four years before she passed away. My brother was 12 && I was 11. She worked at… I want to say a restaurant called “Baldwins” – she was a cook.

My dad was 36 in 1983 – a father of four (three boys && one girl) and married to his second wife – who he was in the process of divorcing. He was a drunk – this was a year before he met my mother – three years before they’d be married. If memories are correct, he’d go to jail at night && sleep there, during the day they’d let him out to go to work. He worked at a… junk yard? named Dulaney’s in Amarillo, Texas.

I never really notice an age difference until I start doing things like this. My mom was 36 in 1998 when my dad was 51 – my dad was 36 in 1983 when my mom was 21. In 1983, my dad had four children, ages 16, 14, 7, & 4. They both lived in Amarillo, Texas though.

They eventually met in 1984. Got married in 1986 on their lunch break at work and went bowling that night.

They are both gone now. Mom died in 2003 at 40. Dad died in 2011 at 63.

&& Here We Go.

I’m struggling tonight on what to write about. Been sitting in bed thinking – I just cannot seem to think of anything.

I finally finished reading “The New House” by Tessa Stimson. It basically finished the way I figured it would, but I was hoping it wouldn’t. I wanted more for that character. It was a tough read. I got to 35% read before it began getting good. Once I hit the ‘good spot’ I was able to read through the rest. So if you read it, don’t give up. (I had to read six novellas to actually finish it).

Today I started reading “It Ends With Us” by Colleen Hoover. I’m half way through it right now. I should finish it tomorrow if not Saturday then I will start the second one.

I guess since my brain is bad I tonight I’m just going to curl up in bed while I Love Lucy plays in the background to get some sleep. I have work tomorrow.

Break Me Off A Piece.

Do you need a break? From what?

Honestly, sometimes I feel like I just need a break from life. Not death. I don’t want to die. 💀 Just a break. A vacation from life, if you will.

Most like to say a break from work. Work is fine. It’s life. Or they’ll say family. I like my family. But sometimes a small break from life would be grand.

Not a forever break, of course. Just a few hours. Like sleep in the other room break. Go stay at my brother’s house sort of break. Go to the grocery store alone break. Read a long book in a room alone break. Play a video game without kids screaming your name break. (I have no kids, but you get it). Take a long rod trip with no destination break. Go to the movie theater and sit in the back break. Eat a whole box of popcorn break.

Just a break.