DEXA Scan: Surprise emotional results!

Thanks for the insight about changing thinking habits!  

Also, the reminder to return to weight training.  You know, before I had my surgery, I really worked at being fit.  I am kind of a poster child for how lots of exercise can only do so much to help you lose weight.  I was such an exercise hound!  Running, walking, biking, kayaking, weight training.  I had quite a regular and challenging regimen. I really did feel the best I ever had felt when I was strength training regularly.  And I need to remember how good that felt.

Unfortunately, the aggressive exercise led to some chronic injuries that have limited my exercise.  Over the past 7-8 years I have tried to heal the injuries and return to the exercise and have gotten discouraged by things going awry again and again. I have had a hard time re motivating myself.  I am not really trying to whine here, nor excuse myself.  I have wondered what happened to the me that was so exercise-driven!  So many people after WLS seem to find exercise for the first time.  I think for me, trying to return to it after all the injuries, I became like the rat in the cage that is just electric shocked wherever it goes in ththe cage until finally it just gives up and lays down and stops trying to get away from the shock.  A little bit of giving up.  However, I have started working with a neighbor who does kettle bell training.  I hope this will help me in ways that accommodate my injuries. 

That was a long response.  Let's call it therapy.  ;-)

thanks for your kind words to me.

As you, before RNY I used to be a fit fat person. Hiking, yoga, weight training, etc...

But as I get older - any injury takes like forever to heal. And some old injury caused scar tissue that starts "screaming" when I try to push myself too much. Running? No thank you - way too hard on my knees...

I am trying to find balance.  Walking, with weights to add some upper body strength really helps me feel better. 

I do plan on taking yoga again. Love it - but as I discovered- doing it on my own - I could really hurt myslf. Finding a good, "mature" teacher that can help me adjust poses that otherwise could hurt my back is important to me.   The "mature" teacher is important because as we get older - our spine, joints gets less flexible and unless someone is doing yoga or exercise like that all the time - the flexibility is not there.  What was once ok when I was 30 or 40 ..at my current 50+ some poses can really hurt me and take out of commission for long time (overstretched joint - or even tear in tissues) 

I am at goal weight - at least I hope I am (DEXA in one week) but I got here by adjusting what I eat and when. I stay active in just normal way... But while I was losing - I had maybe 6000 (if not less)steps per day on average.  Exercise makes me hungry.  Vigorous exercise - can cause my BS to drop and hypoglycemia... Specially on a low carb diet.  

Hala, I really appreciate this advice.  When I started getting injuries, I was 42--still youngish.  I am now 52.  One of the injuries (Achilles tendon 7 years ago) has become chronic, in spite of much physical therapy and medical intervention.  I have been mourning the loss of what was another time, and I know I need to focus on what I can do now--I am in a different decade of life, and even if I had not sustained all those injuries, I would need to reassess what I do now.  Thanks.

Perhaps physical therapy would be a good re-entry to exercise?  

A kind and generous thought Gwen.  I have done so much physical therapy!  I know that sounds mopey because you can't read my tone.  But I don't mean it mopey.  I have done so much therapy that I have actually considered going back to school to become a PT! 

I've considered PT school too :)

Thanks Hala!  This was really helpful, and I did read up on body fat percentages, broken down by age.  I had been assuming that a BMI of 25 was the same thing as a body fat percentage of 25, and that I really had to get below 25% body fat.  Reading up on body fat recommendations helped me.  I am very close to the normal range for my age and height.  

Also, thanks for the reminder that the people offering the scan have their own motivations.  

I cannot answer if you should get to 145 or not.  That's personal and up to you.  

I can relate to the way that you were talking to yourself, however.  

I have that voice inside my head, too.  I call her The Mean Girl Inside.  She reminds me of those really nasty girls that Hollywood makes an incessant trope of -- you know -- they are usually in about 7th or 8th grade, say cruel and hurtful things to the main character who is usually adorable, kind and just fine the way she is.  They usually bully her and do mean things, so that the audience cheers when something bad happens to them later in the film.

I think most women have a Mean Girl Inside -- and we simply need to learn to turn to her, and tell her to STFU.  Really.  Because you know what?  NO ONE LIKES THE MEAN GIRL, because well, she's just a jerk.

Whenever I start talking that way to myself, I think, "If someone were saying these things to my daughter/best friend/mother -- would I be okay with it?"  -- and if the answer is NO -- then I tell her to SHUT UP.  I don't deserve anyone talking to me that way: that includes myself.

I am just throwing that out there.  I think as women, we have been conditioned to think we are never enough, and that is intensified when we've experienced obesity.  There's such judgement and bias against the disease of obesity, that we can become conditioned to systemic criticism -- and thus internalize it about ourselves.  But no one is a number on a scale. 

Don't be bullied by your "mean girl inside."

Work on losing more if you want to -- but don't let yourself be bullied into it.  There's nothing you cannot accomplish if you so desire.

Thank you for sharing that Kat... Mean girl has been noisy lately...

Thanks, Kat.  Mean girl does come out aplenty, especially during times of self doubt.  I call that voice "the accuser," because I picture a hairy skinny little beast with its gnarled finger pointing at me.  (Kind of like a horror film version of Grover the monster.) At a really guttural level, it really does make me kind of want to curl up in a little protective ball and it makes the self doubt worse.  I like to think of myself as self confident and smart and successful.  But not regarding weight.  It is definitely a shaming voice.  Thanks for pointing that out.