Some ramblings - about my dad and growing up as a big kid

So I watched a show tonight on the TLC channel called "The World's Heaviest Man" about a man who weighed over 1200 pounds and at the end of the show he'd gotten down to 840 pounds or so using "The Zone" diet. The creator of the diet visited him a few times and covered his expenses for it all. It was so sad to see what his eating habits has gotten him to. The worst part was these two huge growths of lymphoedema on his legs that kept him from walking once he got to 840. His skin was stretched and black (he was a latin man, so his skin wasn't supposed to be black) and it was seeping and infected and scaly and just nasty. It was basically enormous fat deposits and its a wonder he didn't develop a bigger infection than what he had from it!
My dad died of septic shock after a big growth he had under his stomach that hung between his legs (that was a lot like what the guy on the show had on each of his legs) burst... Infection set in and took over his body and killed him at the age of 64 in 1998, and he wasn't half the size of the man on that show (my dad was a little over 500 at his highest weight).
My dad died without seeing me get married, build our own home and become a mommy to my baby boy. If he'd taken better care of himself and lost enough weight to safely remove that growth (or better yet, never got that big for it to have developed at all), he'd be here with us now to enjoy his youngest child's (me) family and he could have walked me down the aisle when I got married instead of my brother.
I've learned a huge lesson from my dad's mistakes and I'm wanting to be alive for a very long time for my family.
Anyway....the show brought back a lot of memories of what my dad dealt with and showed me even more why I need to stay on track so I don't put my family through what he did his by neglecting himself so badly.
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The most cruel name I was called in high school was "moose". This chubby red-headed kid with a ton of freckles named Chuck Metcalf started that lovely nickname...sigh. He'd stand at one end of the hall and in between classes when the halls were full of students, he'd wait till I walked by and when I got to the other end of the hall he'd start yelling "mmmmmmmmMOOSE!!" and a lot of other teenagers would be standing around with him and laughing their heads off...
I told myself that if I ever saw him alone by himself once I already had my diploma that I was going to punch him in the face as hard as I could. Ironically...the day we graduated, I was in the hall going to my locker to get my stuff and the hallway was empty...all but Chuck. I was SO tempted. Then his dad (I assumed it was his dad anyway) came around the corner to get him and they were standing there together at his locker. I wanted so badly to at least go up to his dad and tell him something like "you should be so proud of your son, listen to the living hell he made my high school years" and explain what he'd done to me. But I just stood there for a minute and looked at him and he just looked back at me and didnt' say a word, but had this look of fear on his face like he was nervous that I was going to get him into trouble with his dad. At first I wanted to tell his dad all about it and then punch Chuck in the face as hard as I could and run away in glee, but something (perhaps some One) held me back and I suddenly just felt sorry for him. So I just looked him in the eye and turned and walked away and rejoined my family outside to go home to my little graduation party.
I think I realized that for someone to dedicate themselves so much to making my life a living hell for 3 years, someone who'd never done anything to him and never brought this on myself, he had to have been a very insecure and troubled kid who put me down to try to cover up his own inadeqacies. I think I grew up a lot that day :)
I often wonder if Chuck ever did and hope he stopped putting people through the hell he did me.

Still going strong!

Today I'm only a few pounds over my lowest I'd gotten to from my gastric bypass surgery. I have a huge goal I set for myself back in January that I hoped to reach by my birthday on July 9th. I'm about 7 pounds away from it and have come so far (56 pounds) this year and now I'm down to the wire and starting to sweat it :)
I've been working out like a crazy woman and cut my food back temporarily to try to hit my goal. Right now I have some water retention plaguing me so it's hard to tell what the fat loss is doing under the water weight.
Today when I was working out at Curves, I used the body fat meter to check my progress as far as body fat percentage goes, and it was down nicely, so there's defintely some water retention and possibly some muscle building going on. My fingers are a little puffy today. I tend to retain water a lot on hot days, so that doesn't help.
I've been riding my bike 8 miles a day for the past 4-5 days and my legs are feeling harder so I think there's some muscle building going on that's causing some weight fluctuation. I just hope it lets up and I see a nice drop soon :)
Wish me luck :) Pray that I'll drop 7 pounds by my birthday on July 9th if you will too! :)

Picking back up yet again

Whew...ok..well here it is June 18, 2007. A long time since my last post! A lot has happened since my last post. I was losing weight really well in 2005 and then autumn came and with it several family tragedies. I turned to my old buddy food for comfort and to help me cope with it (big big mistake!) But I'm back on track again now and have all that regain back off again and today I sit here at the very same weight as what I weighed when everything went to pot.
My little boy had a nasty fall in September that resulted in a very very scary ambulance trip to the hospital with a concussion and he'd gone into shock and we thought we lost him for a while there...I don't really like to think about it much even now..anyway..he's just fine now, thank God.
Then a few weeks later, in October, my husband had a heart attack and had to have a heart cath that lead to finding out that he had a 90% blockage and so they wound up putting three stents in. Then his kidney (which was already bad and the other one was destroyed during a fall from a ladder before we met) started to fail. He went into renal failure and is now on dialysis waiting for a donor so he can have a kidney transplant.
If all of that wasn't bad enough, I awoke about three weeks after he got out of the hospital to intense pain in my back and had to go to the ER. Turns out I had a monster kidney stone and since that day I've had 3 surgeries to blast it away and was admitted for a while with a bad UTI from that. My last surgery was in February and I finally passed 3 big chunks of the stone in July.
But in the midst of all the stress, as I said, I really fell off the wagon by turning to food for comfort.
But this year, I got my head together and am losing weight again. I've relost all the regain and today I sit here at the same weight I'd gotten down to in 2005 and I'm still fired up and working hard on getting more off.
I decided to start this blog back up again and try to keep it updated as I tackle my latest journey on the road to better health.
I have got to get healthier to be around for my little boy (who just turned 4 in March) in case (God forbid) anything happens to my husband... and to be here to help my husband as well! My family needs me and I intend to be there for them and not put my health off like my father did his.
Say a prayer for me, won't you? :)

I'll update more later.
God bless,
Helen