Toilet Troubles

For the first time in over a year, I traveled from my home in Maryland back to Kentucky to see my family for the 4th of July. I booked a cute cabin by the lake and we had big plans for cookouts, s'mores, and putting my deceased sister's ashes on some fireworks so she could light up the world in color and light because that's what she did every day of her life.

Unfortunately, the AirBnB listing I rented didn't show a photo of the toilet. It didn't cross my mind that they would need to since, while I'm obese, I don't need a handicapped toilet. This was a big mistake on my part. Check this out.

Even my adult nephew, who is tall but is at a normal weight, had trouble sitting on this thing. My sister said there was no way I could use the thing when she saw it. To try to prove her wrong, I spent one night there and could pee but honestly, I could barely wipe. And doing number two was straight up impossible.

I spent one night at the cabin and had to drive to the gas station up the road to use their facilities. The remaining nights I was there I had to rent a hotel room (my sister is a smoker or I would have stayed with her but I have a propensity for getting chest infections). So I was out hundreds of extra dollars that we could have spent on even more fireworks.

On a side note, I was unable to get any kind of compensation, or even an apology, out of anyone. AirBnB refused to get involved and the owner all but laughed at my request they reimburse me for a hotel stay on the same nights I was booked with them, regardless of my receipt. They wouldn't even put a new picture of the toilet on the listing. And since obesity is not listed as a disability, it's not covered under the ADA (American's w/ Disabilities Act) so there's not a damn thing I can do.

Earlier in the summer I'd explored the Optavia system (https://www.optavia.com/us/en/) because a friend had done it several years ago and it worked great for her. She'd gained a lot of weight back after having weight loss surgery - she was back up to a size 22 - and wanted to get back down to a 12 or 14, which she did.

I'd also had doctors tell me over the years that MediFast and Weight Watchers were the only options, aside from bariatric surgery, that really worked for large amounts of weight loss. Well, turns out that Optavia is the same company and product line as MediFast.

I was also sick to death of choosing what to eat, shopping for it, or even ordering it. My husband and I ordered dinner in every single night and I got what I wanted, including dessert, but I was so tired of it all. I'm not much of a cook so that wasn't the answer. Add that to how I felt about my very sick, very overweight body (5'6" / 360 pounds) and I was in the perfect place to start Optavia.

As fate would have it, the coach I was assigned to - while nice - wasn't very inspirational. A mutual friend of my current coach, Ellen, had told me she was doing a weight loss program, but I promptly blew that news off because I wasn't ready. I stalked her Facebook page to try to see if she'd done Optavia - and she had - so I requested to change coaches.

This all happened three weeks ago. I'd budgeted for the food order to make sure I could do it and stick to it. After taking off my expensive nightly dinners and desserts, that was easy peasy. Sticking to eating six times a day when all I have to do is pick what I want to eat out of the box is a cakewalk (lol, get it?). I still order salads with chicken or shrimp in at night a lot (I use Skinny Girl dressing for 5-10 cals per 2 tablespoons), but I also do frozen chicken breasts microwaved with a bag of steamed veggies. Either way, they're both lean and green

I'm not religious about weighing every little thing I eat (don't tell Ellen) and I still have coffee with CoffeeMate in the mornings. And I've still already lost 20 pounds. TWENTY POUNDS! I can get up and down easier from a seated position; I can see that my 'big fat belly' getting a little smaller; and I have more energy that the slug I used to be. I'd do anything to save steps and a trip up and down the stairs took all but an act of god to get me to do it beyond what I had to do.

So that's where I am. I have the lofty goal of getting down to 160 pounds, which was a size 16 for me back when I was 20 years old, though I was a very muscular 160 pounds. So at my current weight of 337 pounds, that means I need to lose an additional 177 pounds. At 10 pounds a month (though hopefully it'll be a little more), that means I should still be writing this blog for 18 months. So by mid January 2024, I'll be close to my goal weight with much less 'big fat belly' to lug around.