It’s been over 2 months now and you’d think i’d be used to it now but I wonder if it’s getting worse. The plate drives me mad and of course sometimes I don’t think about it but a lot of the time i’m overwhelmed by huge bouts of claustrophobia and just want to scrabble at my face and get it all off me. I can see things are starting to move on my face and I wonder if the new positions of things are making it so that my body never really gets used to it. I have noticed that my upper part of my teeth/jaw is moving and starting to come forward which is the idea but it’s also made it look  like my lower jaw is now further behind my top one and gives me a bigger overbite and a weaker profile. My cheeks have sunken in at the bottom a little and it looks like i’m sucking my teeth/cheeks all the time. So right now i actually look worse than I did before!

I realise this is part of a long term plan so i’m not really bothered but a few people have already commented that my face is changing so it’s not just me imagining things.

Eating is stil my main chore. If you want a guaranteed weight loss plan then go ahead and get one of these things! People pay huge sums for diet programs or surgical intervention so why not pay the money to get your teeth fixed up AND loose weight. I have made no changes to my activity at all, and with summer being hot i’ve probably spent more time indoors recently but I’m still losing weight and I really don’t need to and am  not trying at all. It does show me ( and troll me all you like) that weight gain and loss is really about what you put in, and not so much about trying to run it off. I admit I have never had a weight problem but having these braces has made me super aware of everything I eat and in all honesty how much that compares to others. I have breakfast and then lunch and then dinner. I don’t snack at all, and that’s not because i’m not hungry or have some super powers of discipline but purely because it is too painful and so much work to eat that it puts me off the idea. It’s actually exhausting to eat!! It takes me ages, I have to chew on teeth that don’t meet and I can’t bite down on anything at all with the front part of my mouth. And of course anything I do eat gets wadded up in the brackets and I can’t get it out so anything like crackers, biscuits, cakes, breads, burgers, crisps, sweets, lollies and pretty much all junk food is a total no go. I can eat rice and pasta and make a lot of curries and stews and fish but can’t chew on meat chunks well and since i don’t like sweet things then yogurt and ice cream and dairy products are pretty much out anyway and anything with lots of gluten just turns to Liquid Nails on my braces!

So it kinda does prove to me that what you put in is the problem, and what we think is trying is really not trying at all. Not to say i’m not hungry a lot of time and would kill for cheese and crackers most evenings but I have no empty calories in my food and my portions are only big enough to stop me feeling hungry and not to feel full. There’s a big difference.

 

 

I have no desire to lose any more weight but I have rediscovered a lot of good trousers in my wardrobe that were heading for the charity shop as I had grown out of them!!

So right now I hate these things- more than i did at the beginning but I go back to the ortho in 3 weeks and get another racking so it’s going to get worse before it gets better!