TV Mirroring My Life

Last night at midnight I was about to pack it in and call it a night.  I am generally a night owl anyway and I noticed a program was coming on called My 600-Lb Life on TLC.  Previously, I had avoided these shows because I felt that if I watched it, they would strike too close to home and be extremely uncomfortable for me to bear.  Last night was different, however.  Given my newly found food sobriety, I decided to stay up for the hour and see how closely it mirrored my own life.  The smart thing would have been to TIVO the thing and get a decent night's sleep.  I never professed to being smart.   Okay, that one time in the blog two weeks ago, but I digress.

The show chronicles the life of a person of over 600 lbs. during his, or in this case her experiences through weight-loss surgery and beyond.  This poor 24 year old,girl, named Ashley, started out the show at 617lbs.  Watching what she went through and how she discussed her struggles with being obese touched me greatly.  From how she hardly fit behind her steering wheel to her joy in buying clothes from a brick and mortar store rather than online, it mimicked my own tribulations.  Seeing her come to after her gastric bypass surgery, in absolute agony, made me flashback to the worst pain in my life; awaking after my own such procedure.  The expression 'feeling like you were hit by a bus' seems like an understatement.  It was excruciating.

Her eating habits after the surgery and an initial one year loss of over 200lbs. started to return to her old poor choices. Sound familiar?  The addiction crept back in.  She put on a fair amount of weight once she got used to eating 'normal' again.  But happily, even though there were struggles throughout, she managed to take off over 360lbs and have multiple surgeries to remove skin, ultimately becoming a girls softball coach.

So now it's 1 o'clock in the AM and I am off to bed, right?  Hell no!  The frigs at TLC decided to ask, "What goes better with 600-pounders shedding their fat?"  Former gastric bypass patients living in their now deflated bodies and in need of skin removal, that's what!  Ugh.  I guess I wasn't getting to bed until 2 now.  Devious programming bastards!

The Real Skinny journals two such people, one man and one woman, who's skin is sagging so much that they "have the bodies of eighty year olds" under their clothes.  All of their hard work and dedication to making their lives better with a new body hits a brick wall when they have done all they can and will go no further without the help of a cosmetic surgeon.  Their sagging flesh was a constant reminder and source of shame as to what they had done to their bodies.  If you have read this blog before, you know I am dreading this part.  To watch the surgeries didn't help much.  The doctor literally makes a 360 degree incision around the waist, TWICE, to remove a strip of skin and fat weighing over twenty pounds.  He then sticks his hand up under your skin and separates it from the muscle as if he were putting butter and herbs under the skin of your Thanksgiving gobbler.  Subsequently, he hikes the now distant pieces of remaining flesh up like a pair of jeans and staples you back together.  While the woman on the show had little or no complications, the man struggles with infections, his wounds re-opening, and depression.  No sh*t!  I'd be depressed too if I could see inside my own wounds, like Jesus on the cross. 

I am glad I stayed up for these two hours of reality, so closely resembling mine.  It reminded me of much of what I have been through and made me face what's to come.  If you haven't seen either of these documentaries, I would imagine by virtue of the fact that you have read this far and frequent The Drive to 195, you'd find them worth while.  You will certainly gain some insight into my own issues.

Cya tomorrow for WIMHW,
M

What I ate today and how I exercised:

Breakfast ~ Pumpkin Flax Raisin Crunch cereal w/ 1/2 a banana and Vanilla Almond Silk

Lunch ~ Out to lunch for Chinese to my colleagues.  Various dishes from octopus with sour vegetables to turnips cakes. I tried to pick from the healthiest choices on the table.  With several sets of eyes on me familiar with this blog, I kept myself in check fairly well.

Mid-afternoon snack ~ 1/2 a banana

Dinner ~ TBD as I am writing this before dinner.  Likely, vegetarian sushi though.

Exercise ~ Taking the day off from walking and I napped instead, given my late evening prior.  Beautiful day for walking.  Pity I wasted it.