Fat Frog Diary

Okay, I have to say Angela Knight was right. (See her post, Half of Me.) Since my pal Karen and I started exercising on a regular basis, both of us are doing much better health-wise. Karen is ready for her surgery to reverse her temporary colostomy while she recovered from diverticulitis. For me, it's even better. I'm not dropping a lot of weight, but that's all to the good. A pound or two at a time is just fine by me. The big change is my endurance walking and the way my clothes fit. Sure, I'm sore as heck the next day, but I'm better about the *way* I walk. Before, I had started to develop that rolling walk badly overweight get, and I felt like I should be on the heaving deck of a pirate ship or something. Now I'm walking with my back straight and more confidently. I almost feel normal! This weekend, I went through Jo-Ann Fabrics like a woman on a mission without having to stop and rest. I got everything I needed and came home without needing a nap afterward....

Happy Day! After a week of exercising with my friend Karen, I've lost 5 pounds. That's not bad for one lousy week. Because both of us are poor as churchmice, we've chosen walking as our preferred method of exercise. Later, we might add bowling, since we might be able to persuade our husbands to join us for that. I also got a bit of bad news from the doc. Not terribly bad, since it might help me get on the operating table sooner. My cholesterol is even more elevated than last time. Well, duh! My pulmonary doc, the one that manages my DVT/Coumadin, ordered me not to eat one scrap of green vegetables without permission. No salad, no spinach, broccoli, brussels sprouts, or any veggie I really love. Not even asparagus. How am I supposed to eat low-fat, low-carb without veggies?

I promised my friend Angela Knight that I'd start exercising now, even before my surgery was approved. So, I called upon my friend Karen and asked if she'd join me. She too is due for a different form of surgery this fall, so I figured we could both use the benefits of exercise. Karen is a very interesting person. She served in the military and married a man who'd eventually become that dreaded creature, a Navy Chief. Like me, she has a thousand crafts she can do, but her main focus is something I've never attempted until recently --quilting. She's a member of a Quilting Guild, and has been for 20 years. What she can do with fabric is amazing. Anyway, Karen and I decided that walking was our choice of exercise. It's cheap, can be done on our schedule, and it's private. The idea of hauling our fat butts into a gym and being told to "feel the burn" by a skinny teenybopper in spandex gave us the willies. So, we're starting slowly and just walking ...

Okay, this is just a rant. We have a family friend. A very dear family friend we owe a lot, including he’s the guy that introduced DH and I so long ago. That gets him lots of brownie points and privileges. But when do points and privileges exceed the bounds of friendship and even good taste? This friend would be horrified and deny it to the rooftops, but he’s a nag about my weight. Seriously, he can’t have one hour’s conversation with us without mentioning how much better I’d feel if I “just” lost about one hundred pounds or more. For example, yesterday he stopped by to borrow my husband for an hour for some heavy lifting. Before that hour was out, he said this: “When you were young and skinny, you were a hottie. Now I can say this because Randy knows I don’t mean anything by it, but you’d be a hottie again still if you’d just lose that extra hundred pounds or so.” Implication: I’m not young. (No shit, I’m approaching fifty.) but now I’m not a hottie because I’m over 100 pounds over we...

My DH, Randy, has done something wonderful. He's taking the day off from work to be with me the day of my blood test. Doesn't seem like much, does it? Depends on your point of view. First, Randy has to be there just to propel my unwilling lard-butt through the door tomorrow at the ungodly hour of 6:45 AM. I'll say it again. I'm needle phobic. Not just scared of needles. Phobic, as in you have to practically put a gun to my head to make me put up with it. Randy hates seeing me white-faced and terrified. He knows he's going to get pleading looks begging him to rescue me, and he's going to have to be unyielding. This has to be done, and he'll see to it the job gets done, no matter what. Then, because he knows after a fasting CBC, I'll be as miserable as it's possible to be, he'll take me to breakfast somewhere to recover. He'll spend the day being loving and distracting me with all the chatter his taciturn brain can come up with, and when that f...

When is the right time to tell folks what you're planning, and who do you tell? I don't want to shout to the rooftops my plans to have bariatric surgery. I know what some folks will say. "She's taking the easy way out." No, this is the last act of a desperate woman whose health is in severe danger because of the obesity she's suffered with since adolesence. I've warned my editor that I'm trying, but don't have a date yet. I've told my daughters and my mother. One or two don't understand how important this is to me. I'm so tired tonight. We worked in the garden until both my DH and I were sweating, sodden heaps. Maybe that's why I'm depressed and restless.