There are only 2 things you can do....

Weight at last weigh in: 133.1kg
Current Weight: 135kg
Amount of saline in balloon : 1800ml
Amount added: 190ml
Amount lost since last entry: 0kg, gained 1.9kg
Total Weight Loss to date: 17.4kg

There are only 2 things you can do if you over eat with a balloon....

1) Make yourself throw up to alleviate the pain/discomfort

2) Wait it out

I've never done number 1. Hell, I tried to throw up in order to lose weight once. I didn't much care for it. Plus it seemed a waste of good food and I've always loved food too much to waste it.

Waiting it out SUCKS!

Now I hear you asking 'But why did you over eat? You should have stopped earlier'

Yes, this is true. There are many explanations as to why I didn't. Most times it comes down to eating too quickly. You see there is a delay in the message from our stomach to our brain telling us we are full. We are meant to eat slowly so that our brain has a chance to keep up with the delay and tell us when we are full.

Another factor, for me anyway, is bread-type foods. Bread absorbs liquid, if you've ever made French toast you will know this well. Now if I eat a moderate amount of something with bread in it eg hamburger, pizza, sandwich etc and then have a drink the bread absorbs the liquid, swells and becomes more dense. I can't judge how much the bread is going to swell, nor can I judge how much space for expansion I have in my stomach. It's kind of a hit or miss thing. Sometimes I'm ok, I just feel well satisfied and don't get hungry again for a few hours, if not longer. More often than not though, I end up experiencing a large amount of discomfort for at least an hour or two.

Tonight, however, I can't blame either of the above reasons. Tonight is one of those 'I was bored and felt like eating' nights.

I spent 2 hours this afternoon cooking dinner and dessert. Lasagne and Lemon Meringue Pie. The lasagne was actually on the healthy side, for once. I made the meat sauce with lean lamb mince and added carrot, spinach and fresh herbs. The cheese sauce was made with low fat tasty cheese. I also used a paper towel to mop up the oil from the melted cheese once it came out of the oven!

The lemon meringue pie has heaps of sugar in it and lets face it probably a ton of fat too! But it was yum, a little on the tart side (maybe I needed more sugar in the end!).

So I had my moderately sized piece of lasagne, about the same size as my 9yr old has, and ate that. 20mins passed and we had a piece of the pie each, mine was perhaps 5cm wide at the base (cut from a circular pie).

Quite content with that belly full of food, felt a little discomfort but not too much, I went to drop my son at his Dads. When I came home I watched a few TV shows......and got bored! I remembered how absolutely awesome the lasagne had been and wanted more, whether I could fit it in or not.

So now I am paying for my crime by feeling quite full and sore. I'm trying hard not to move too much and I'm sitting up super straight. If only my 3rd grade teacher could see me now, she was always ragging on me for my poor posture! Sitting up straight like this helps take the pressure off my stomach. I think it stops me from squashing the balloon into my stomach more.

I'll be sitting like this until the discomfort passes. I hope it won't take too long.

I've stolen an idea from B, another blogger that I follow, who also has the balloon implant. She's been posting photo's of herself from her past at the bottom of her posts. I loved that idea, and whilst I don't have many (I've always avoided photo's, no matter my actual weight coz Bertha always said I was fat so why get in a photo!)

So here is another of me, and I hope you don't mind me stealing your idea B?! xoxox

ex bf N and I. 14.5 yrs, 70kg.

If I move on, what will I have left?

Since my post yesterday, I've been thinking. If I somehow managed to move on from all the anger I have about my upbringing and life, what will I have left? If I magically work up tomorrow morning and all that crap was just neatly boxed up and put aside would I even have any emotions left?

I've come to realise that all the shit that happened, happened to make me who I am today.

I have an over active imagination, I'm always writing stories or playing out make-believe scenario's in my head. Sometimes I sit at my desk for a solid 10 minutes living out imaginary scenes/conversations in my mind, I'm not sure if this behaviour entitles me to a bed in the nearest Mental Ward or not, but some days I feel as though it should.

So one day I was sitting, somewhere, - I'm always sitting...it's never 'I was running and this idea came to me' lol. I don't run!....anyhoo. I was sitting and I thought to myself, 'Self, if you could go back in time, to any moment in your past and change one thing, what would it be?'

Going back to when I was 13, and deciding not to move in with my Dad. That's what I thought I'd change. Then I realised, that would mean I'd have been stuck with my Mum for longer and been even MORE miserable and probably never would have met my now ex, Shannon, and not have had my beautiful son. Kaleb is my reason for living, literally. If I didn't have him I know I would have killed myself by now. I'd have had nothing to live for, Bertha would have succeeded long ago at breaking me completely. Lord knows she's almost won before. I have the scars, both mental and physical, to prove it.

Ok, so maybe I do move in with my Dad but maybe I don't listen to him when he calls me fat. Maybe I ignore him and believe I'm hot and skinny. If only that were what I did at the time.
The possibilities are endless, but at the end of the day, the fact is that if I changed just one thing in my past, I wouldn't be where I am today. Things could have been a lot worse. So I try to appreciate that my past has made me who I am today.

I used to go to bed at night and pray with all my might, whilst crying hysterically, that I'd wake up and be skinny. God never answered my prayers, I've since realised this is because God doesn't exist. But that's for another entry, on a different blog.

I have done all manner of things to myself, looking back on which make me realise I really was hanging onto my sanity by a thread. I have written all over my face, in black eyeliner, disparaging words like 'Fat', 'ugly', 'worthless' etc (Re: Realisation).

I have burnt myself, cut myself, attempted to kill myself by suffocation, over dose, (considered) driving off a cliff and once I nearly stepped out in front of a truck. The only thing that stopped me from mangling myself on the front of that truck, was thinking about how the truck driver would feel knowing he was the death of me, even though I wanted to die.

I have scars up both of my forearms, inner and outer, from cutting myself. I have burn scars from matches and lighters, all self inflicted. I have a scar, just under my hairline on my forehead from where I bashed my head, repeatedly, into a glass sliding door until it broke my skin open.

I have hated myself for so long I'm not sure I know how not to hate myself.

Now that's not entirely true, I love myself as a person.

When my son was 16 months old I left QLD and moved back to WA, lured by my Mother's promises of more support and help with Kaleb than I was currently getting from Shannon. So off I went, and stayed just over 2 years. In the end it wasn't all my mother had promised. I was surrounded by my family, yet I'd go weeks, sometimes months, without seeing any of them or even getting a phone call from them. So in the end I was sick and tired of being alone and moved back to QLD, also so Kaleb could have a relationship with his Dad. Which is as important, if not more-so.

The point is, that being in WA did teach me something. It taught me that I only have myself to rely on. It also helped me to get in touch with the real me. For years I wasn't true to myself. I had what I call 'masks' that I put on for the different people in my life, different masks for what I perceived they expected from me. The real me would hide behind these masks, hoping and praying that the people in my life wouldn't see me for who I really was because I just knew they wouldn't accept me. They'd shun me and disown me. I have a very judgemental family. (Re: Realisation again, poem called 'Mask')

So I would pretend to be virtuous and Righteous (in the biblical sense) for my Dad. Manipulative and sneaky for my Mum. Demur, timid and obedient for Shannon and a myriad of other things for other people, but never my true self.

During my 2 years in WA I 'found' myself. The real me. I learned to love who I was and accept myself. I stopped caring if other accepted me or not. I learnt that I am funny, loyal, passionate, creative, caring, kind, bi-curious, open-mined and understanding. I have slight OCD and I'm controlling. I like to have things my own way. I'm impatient and restless. I like to watch weird porn. I have fantasies that aren't socially acceptable. I don't suffer fools well. I will be the best friend you could hope for, as long as it's an equal friendship. If you take advantage of me or piss me off one time too many I will cut you from my life without a backwards glance. I can put up with a lot of shit, but I will not be your door-mat.

I no longer care what people think of me.  I discovered my new life motto which is;

"I am who I am, take me or leave me, don't try to change me coz you won't succeed. I have to live with myself everyday, not you, so I'm going be true to myself. If you can't appreciate me for who and what I am, then you don't deserve me."

Whilst I love myself as a person, and know I am awesome, I hate my body and my general lack of motivation to do anything about my weight. Bertha is constantly telling me I'm lazy and useless. She also loves to make excuses for me not to exercise. They vary from minor body aches and pains to the weather and which socks are clean at the moment. Oh and of course if my iPod is charged or not. There is no exercise without music.

Bertha does have a slightly nice side though. I know her 'nice' comments are aimed to hurt me elsewhere though, like she tells me I deserve to rest and relax because I expend so much energy dealing with Kaleb on a daily basis. But this is in lieu of exercise. I think to myself that I want to (or rather should) go for a walk and Bertha whispers 'but Kaleb was such a handful this morning, it took you 30 minutes just to get him settled enough to get dressed for school. You deserve to sit down for the rest of the day and just veg'. It's hard not to listen to her, especially when I really don't want to exercise. It's not my favourite activity, whereas sitting on my ass at the computer is! More and more I am realising I want a lap-band. So I can sit and bludge and still lose weight. Or rather, do a minimal amount of exercise and still lose weight.

Here's something that terrifies me. I have 54kg left to lose to get to my goal weight. And that's my goal, not the 'ideal' weight for my height. I challenge you to stand in front of the mirror and tell yourself you have 54kg to lose and not break down. This time last year I had 74kg to lose, now I acknowledge 54kg is a lot less scary than 74kg, but it's still daunting as hell.

I have to apologise, this post is jumping all over the place with my random thoughts. I'm in the mood to share today and it doesn't always come out in a smooth chronological order.

My eating habits have gone way off the charts of late. I'm quite disappointed with myself in that regard. For about the first 12 months after my surgery I wasn't at all interested in sweet foods. Whereas before I could consume a massive bowl of icecream with all the trimmings (mini m&m's, mini marshmallows and a thick coating of Ice Magic) I could no longer stand more than 1 scoop of plain vanilla icecream, and forget about chocolate. Pre-surgery a full 200g block of Cadbury's would reside in my stomach within 20 minutes of breaking the foil. Post-surgery I was content with 1 line of it and I'd put it away. PUT IT AWAY PEOPLE!!! That was seriously unheard of for me. Also Icecream would sit in the freezer for weeks, if not months. Pre-surgery Icecream was replenished weekly, if not bi-weekly.

Instead of sweets I craved spicy foods. Curry's were a fave and everything had to have sweet chilli sauce with it, or at the very least cayenne pepper. I was seriously using cayenne pepper in lieu of regular black pepper and eating jalapeno's by the jar. Nowadays my sweet tooth is back with a passion. I spent $40 at the confectionery warehouse in Brisbane just over a week ago and we literally have none of those lollies left. I bought a 1.3kg bag of Allen's Strawberries & Cream, among other things, and as of this morning, thanks in most part to Kaleb, they are gone. I originally went there to buy 2 things only, for a cooking project, which would have come to a total of $10.

I can't seem to stop myself eating sweets. I really, really crave them. I know it's only head hunger, and I've gotten better at ignoring it, but I am always searching for something sweet to nibble on.

I've also fallen off the wagon with buying low fat foods. Last week when I went grocery shopping I bought regular tasty cheese, instead of low fat, and full cream milk instead of lite. I switched to lite milk over 18 months ago, so I suppose it's not such a huge deal that I bought full cream this one time, but I plan to do it again. That's what scares me. I don't intend on going back to lite milk or lite cheese. I'm sick of crappy tasting food.

In my video blogs I'm always talking about changing my lifestyle, and I have/did. I changed everything I could over to the 'lite' version. I got in to the habit of exercising regularly, even if I hate it. I make better food choices when out. I always remember to ask for a skinny cappuccino/latte when having a coffee with friends. I'm just over it at the moment. I want to have a break. I want to eat normal food like it won't make me fat again. I'm avoiding the scales again too. I'm drinking at least 9L of coke a week, on my own. My skin is itching again as well, like it does when it's stretching and I'm going to get more stretch marks.

I know I need to get back to the low fat foods, and I will. Just not now.

My goal this week is to find and attend a Zumba class. I promised Warren I'd try. I promised myself I'd try. I think I've made Warren my surrogate. I use him to reflect myself. I don't see him as this guy who's pushing me to do things I don't want to, and have no desire to do. I see him as myself, telling me what I need to do to be happier, healthier and skinnier. So when I make a promise to Warren, I'm making a promise to myself and to not follow through on that promise would be to cheat myself. What person would knowingly cheat themselves?

Me, Far right 2000. 18 years, 112kg

The past is the past....yeah right!

It doesn't matter how many times my psychologist tells me that what's happened in the past should stay in the past, it's just not going to happen. Don't get me wrong, she makes a good point, and in a perfect world everything that has happened in the past will have a neat little bridge for me to cross over to the other side, the side of acceptance and moving on. I don't have such a bridge, not with most things. Emma tells me that I shouldn't let past issues effect me now. I have no control over them, they are gone and nothing can be done to change them, only my attitude towards how I feel about them can be changed. That's all I have control over, my own reactions.

That is brilliant advice, really it is. It makes total sense to me. Again, easier said than done. I am mad over so many things that happened to me in my past, most of which weren't of my own doing and I deserved better.

My parent's separating, for one, was not my fault (and really was for the best in the end) but it upended my life as I'd known it and divided my parents. From the moment Dad left, I never heard them speak another civil word to each other, or stand in the same vicinity without there being a glacier between them. Not to mention I became their gofer, the go between for messages, taunts and snide remarks. Great job guys! Put a young adolescent in the middle of your messy divorce and NOT expect her to be screwed up! Really, my parents were geniuses weren't they! *insert sarcasm, in case you missed it*

Now that was bad enough, what was worse was that I couldn't stand my mother. Never have been able to. At 21 I was more mature than she was at 45. She's had a lot of trauma in her own upbringing (if you can believe what she says, which one can't always...habitual liar that she is) but there are ways to get over that. She's never done any work towards it though, as far as I can tell. I, at least, am trying!
So that is why I see Emma, my psychologist, once a month or so.

I've always found my mother to be extremely judgemental and smothering which is stifling to a fiercely independent person such as myself. Growing up, there weren't a lot of 'I love you's' going around either or even talking about your problems. In my family, if you had a problem you NEVER talked about it. You 'got over it' and moved on. In other words you buried it deep down inside, never dealt with anything and just waited for all those feelings to fester, and in my case, burst out at the most inopportune times. Another reason I've done so much work with psychologists, to learn to talk about my problems. I believe this has also helped me become a person who is more accepting of others also.

As soon as I found out my parents were divorcing I said 'I want to live with Dad'. There wasn't even the hint of wanting to stay with my mother. So when the opportunity presented itself, I did just that. I was about 4 months shy of my 13th birthday when I finally escaped my Mother and went to live with my Dad.

For about 6 months it was great. I had him pretty much all to myself. He was a lot more lenient than my mother, allowing me to do things she wouldn't such as dye my hair, shave my legs and even ride my bike to school. Typical things a 13 year old should be doing!

It was also around this time that I started hitting puberty. I got taller, my C cup boobs flourished within 3 months (to my shock and horror!) and my hips widened giving me a more chunky, womanly look. This is when my Dad started telling me I was fat.

He'd take me clothes shopping and buy me the clothes I really wanted, but in a size smaller than I needed them to 'encourage me' to lose weight. He'd limit my food intake at meals, giving me half of what he'd give my sisters or himself and tell me I couldn't have any more than that.

I rebelled by midnight snacking. I'd also steal money from his wallet and go buy snacks at the shops to hide in my room. I'd binge whenever I could, yet despite this I didn't actually put on much weight. My body was still changing, as it needed to, but I put on very little fat. I was a size 14-16 in clothes at age 14. I had wide 'child baring hips' and was tall, 5'11" to be precise. Yet the fat remarks continued. My dad would even take me 'walking' with him and his girlfriend. I have, and probably always will, hate exercising because of these enforced exercise times. His idea of exercise wasn't a leisurely stroll around the park, it was a 4km power-walk along the foreshore. I was forced to do this 3 times a week.

In the end I just decided I was fat. I'd been told enough times so it must have been true right??

By the time I was 16 I weighted 90kg. I'd given up caring by this stage. I never noticed if/when I put on weight because I already thought I was fat. You aren't going to notice something if you already believe it to be so.

Me, far right, age 16

Now call me crazy, and many have, but I despise my father for this. I am screwed up in the head because of his treatment of me. I now have a serious health issue, morbid obesity, because of his actions and emotional torment.

You can sit there all you like and say 'you could have done something about it at any time, you LET yourself get this big'. And you would be right. But the fact of the matter is I didn't notice. I really, honestly didn't. Humans have the ability to lie, we are the only creature on the face of the earth that can do so, and we do it very convincingly, especially when we lie to ourselves!

I avoided scales like the plague. When I was forced to buy larger clothes, bras, underwear etc I TOLD myself that it was the clothing manufactures that were changing the sizes. 'They' always do that, who ever 'They' are (and I've actually since learned that there are no standardised sizing regulations in Australia!).
No-one I knew told me I was getting bigger. Whether they just didn't care or didn't want to hurt my feelings I don't know. I doubt I would have listened to them anyway. I'd have resented them and eaten more to comfort myself.

For me, losing weight isn't only a physical battle. It's an emotional and mental one too. I have to unlearn all that negative behaviour. I have to force myself to get on the scales. I have to force myself to notice my weight loss, and to be honest I still don't. It is a REAL struggle to do so. I have people say to me all the time 'Wow you look like you've lost more weight' and the first thing my brain tells me is 'They're lying'. I still haven't worked out how to make exercise an enjoyable experience. It still has a lot of negative emotion surrounding it for me. I'm working on it though.

The lightest I've been in my adult life is 76kg. I lost 40kg during my pregnancy with my son due to gall stones and was quite sick with them for about 6 months after having him also. Although I lost all that weight I still felt fat. I never noticed I was skinnier. Nor did I have anyone telling me I looked great. Not that it should be necessary, but someone saying something might have helped.

Age 19, 79kg. 2 weeks after my son's birth.

I really believe I have an eating disorder. Something like reverse anorexia. There is all this hype about bulimia and anorexia because they are so noticeable. People starving themselves to death will always get more recognition compared to people eating themselves to death.

I've read up on Anorexia and bulimia, and it is widely known that people suffering these disorders hear a disparaging voice in their heads, telling them they are fat, no matter what they look like. Telling them that if they eat that food they'll get fatter and fatter etc.

My 'voice' started out as a real life one that I could hear every day, in the form of my Father. Eventually, over time, it became internal also. But instead of avoiding foods, I turned to them to comfort me. My internal voice doesn't tell me I'll get fat if I eat that food. It tells me I'm already fat, so why not eat that food and enjoy myself. After all food makes me feel happier, even if it's only temporary.

My 'voice', aka Bertha, convinces me that I'm not putting on weight, but that the clothing companies are shrinking the clothes sizes. She tells me that the little child at Coles said to his mother 'wow Mummy look at that really fat lady' not because I'm overly huge, but because his mother is so tiny and skinny he's just never seen someone larger. She tells me that sure, I'm fat, but I'm not obese. And if I'm already fat, who cares if I become obese. No one is going to like me anyway coz I'm fat. No one is going to be attracted to me, because I'm fat. She tells me I'm not worth anything to the world, because I'm fat.

Ordinarily, you would think, Why listen to her? And I wish it were as easy as that, I wish I could just ignore all those nasty words. The fact is I have my life confirming every single little thing that Bertha whispers in my head.

I haven't been in a relationship in almost 10 years. Bertha tells me this is because I'm fat and fat=ugly.  She tells me no one is openly attracted to a fatty, unless there is something wrong with them or they can't do any better.

I haven't had a job that lasted more than 3 days in almost 10 years. Bertha tells me this is because I'm fat and no one wants to employ a fatty, especially in the fast-food/hospitality industry, which are the easiest jobs to obtain. Who wants to be served their junk food at McDonalds by someone morbidly obese? It doesn't make good business sense, she tells me.

Bertha tells me the only thing I'm good for is raising my son, and even then I'm only just scraping through. She also tells me that those few men that have been interested were only so, because I'm their dirty little secret. It's not socially acceptable for men to be attracted to fatties, Bertha tells me, so they must have a secret fantasy they want to live out. That's all I'm good for, being the dirty secret fantasy that no one should ever know they harbour. That's why they don't want to date me, introduce me to their parent and friends or go out with me in public to the movies or dinner or even to have a coffee. Who would want to have to introduce YOU to anyone? You are an embarrassment, their friends would be asking them, behind your back, 'Why are you with that tub of lard?!'.

Bertha is loud. She is convincing and hurtful. She has evidence to back up her taunts. She is relentless and energy draining. On the days I fight her I feel happy but also exhausted, not only physically but emotionally. On the days I listen to Bertha I feel miserable and just cry. It's difficult to fight when you are crying and feeling down. At the moment I have more 'listening to Bertha' days compared to fighting days. It is evening out though. She has been having her wicked way with me for years, and years. It's going to take a lot more effort and time to stamp down her negative effect on my life and learn to fight her, and eventually ignore her. I hope one day that Bertha will be no more. I hope for the day that I no longer have to fight to ignore her, the day that ignoring her is no longer second nature. The day where she just doesn't exist any more. I don't know when that day will come, or even if it will, but I have hope.

Hope is all I have now.