I’m smaller!

I have given up weighing myself. It’s too distracting and frustrating. One month, I’ll lose 13 or so pounds, and the next, I’ll lose nothing, and so it goes. So, I’m measuring my shrinking by how my clothes fit and nothing else.

I am very happy to say that I went shopping out of town last weekend and came home with a sexy new grey coat that is a size 14. That’s incredible for me. I was a size 14 six years ago. My waist and hips are not a typical size 14, but they’re getting there. I’m in size 18 pants (I have the booty, which I really don’t mind). If I would just dedicate myself to working out, I know I’d slim down much more quickly. That’s something I’ve been strongly considering, but winter in Minnesota makes me want to crawl into sleeping bags in my free time, not sweat.

So, the coat fits like a dream. Eventually I’ll be wearing small pants, too.

Yay!

Milestone

I weighed myself on Saturday. I am thrilled to say that I have lost 100 pounds. To celebrate, I cleaned out my closet and got rid of everything that was even a little bit too big for me. This was an amazing feat. I want to lose about 40 more pounds which would put me back to my pre-pregnancy weight. Then I’ll stop obsessing about it.

In the meantime, cheers!

Much Less Ass

This month I lost another 10 pounds. I also gained four pairs of thong underwear for my newly hotter ass. The recent weight loss reminds me of a conversation I had with my bff a few months ago at the MOA:

Justin: “I see you lost your boobs.”

Me: “Yeah, they were the first thing to go. I’ve waited my whole life for decent boobs and now I got nothin.”

Justin: “It’s ok. You lost your ass, too.”

Whee!

The Importance of Correct Punctuation

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is all about. You are generous, kind, thoughtful. People who are not like you admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me for other men. I yearn for you. I have no feelings whatsoever when we’re apart. I can be forever happy — will you let me be yours?

Gloria

___

Dear John:

I want a man who knows what love is. All about you are generous, kind, thoughtful people, who are not like you. Admit to being useless and inferior. You have ruined me. For other men, I yearn. For you, I have no feelings whatsoever. When we’re apart, I can be forever happy. Will you let me be?

Yours,

Gloria

un hommage à Bridget Jones

24 July 2008

??? lbs., alcohol units, 10 (n.g.), cigarettes 8 (n.g.), bottles of water 3 (v.g.),

I woke up drunk this morning. Granted, I drank my weight in martinis last night all about downtown Minneapolis so I had it coming, but I’m here with my colleagues this morning discussing rhetoric and I am drunk. Go me.

In my pre-bariatric surgery youth, I could outdrink anyone except my Hi-my-name-is-Jason-and-I’m-an-alcoholic-who-failed-rehab-thrice ex-boyfriend. I drank everything: tequila, gin, vodka, whiskey, beer beer beer, shots, wine, beer bongs, you name it, I got drunk on it, and once I even drank Dickens.

Post-surgery, my life tends to mirror this cutesie poem by my current-obsession writer Dorothy Parker:

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I’m under the table,
after four I’m under my host.

Tolerance? I have none.

Some days, I get drunk by merely smelling liquor. The inebriation also lasts much longer since my system tends to hang onto whatever I put into it about twice as long as it did before surgery. So, given my tendency to binge drink and slam all the alcohol in sight, I stay drunk for weeks at a time.

This post is a testament to the fact that I’m still drunk. Cheers!

Away From Home and Hungry

This week I am attending a conference on a college campus about four hours from my safe kitchen. I say safe because my kitchen has been filled with foods that I am capable of eating. Stuff like low- or no-fat yogurt, chicken, hummus, wasa crackers, beans, and sometimes rice. That’s a hell of a diet for someone who loves food as much as I do or did. While away at the conference, I have been eating campus dining service food. This means carb overload x10,000.

Meals on the campus are served buffet-style and typically consist of three or more starches (potatoes, bread, corn, noodles), two or more mysterious proteins (bratwursts, sausage pucks, and, today, brown stroganoff), and a lazy salad bar including lettuce, beets, sometimes beans, sometimes olives, and dressings runnier than water.

Given the fact that I cannot simply fill up a plate and eat, I am exhausted and starving. I brought liquid protein supplement-type meals, but it’s not enough to replace actual food nutrition with 17g of chocolate fluid protein per meal. I’m trying to stay hydrated as well and have a bottle of water with me at all times.

Add this to my long list of grievances:

I am staying in a dorm room. I am excited to note that I never lived in a dorm in college. And while I may have missed some social things by not having done so, I never had to sleep on a rubber mat on a cardboard type frame. Adding the fact that I can’t sleep to the fact that I can’t eat you can imagine my bleak outlook on life mid-week.

I’m pretty miserable. I need a huge martini and vanilla ice cream to cheer me up.

Progress.

I lost another 10.75 pounds this month.

I’ve also lost a few handfuls of hair.

If you are considering surgery, consider the fact that if you drastically change your diet, like weight lost surgery patients have to do, your body will change drastically as well.

I have lost a lot of hair and my skin has undergone some weird discolorations around my eyes. They assure me that my hair will grow back, and I now have to stock up on really good concealer.

Is losing hair a small price to pay for losing a literal assload of weight? I think so.

Weight Loss Surgery Hopefuls: Beware!

Here I thought I’d devote all this time to the general upkeep of this blog experiment, but alas, like most other things in my life, it’s fallen by the wayside.

I did, however, want to at least record some things to be wary of should you decide to have a procedure such as the lap band.

I got banded in August of 2007. I am down about seventy-five pounds since the diet I went on before my procedure, but that weight hasn’t just fallen off.

It’s a common misconception that if someone opts to have weight loss surgery, their excess weight will just melt away. That’s not the case. This is especially true of lap band patients since they have to be, well, patient!

My weight loss has been slow compared to a roux-en-y or gastric bypass case. I’ve lost ten pounds this month, but last month stayed the same, and the month preceeding that was down thirteen. The weight loss definitely has its ebb and flow. But, it isn’t magic either. I have to be consciously aware of every little thing I put in my mouth be it solid or liquid.

Cases in point:

Alcohol:
I can’t drink anything carbonated except Guinness and light beer with tomato juice added. That’s pushing it, too. Typically the bubbles make drinking anything carbonated painful and not worth it. So, for alcohol, I’ve stuck to wine and straight whiskey.

Smoothies:
Anything blended needs to be thick, but not too thick. Smoothies that are too thin are too bubbly, and smoothies that are too thick are hard to swallow. I typically like to start with a banana, ice cubes, a cup of soy milk, a scoop of protein powder, and a spoonful of peanut butter. I adjust the thickness with either more banana or more milk depending upon if the concoction needs more filler or more liquid.

Solids:
Salad works great. Most everything else does not and requires work and patience to ingest. Meat calls for the smallest cutting of pieces (think pinky-nail sized) and the most chewing. Chips are semi easy, but sometimes too gummy. Yogurt might hurt going down if it’s too thick. Ice cream is delicious but don’t put anything thick on it like hot fudge. Pasta is great, but mind your bite sizes. Cut up everything as small as you would for a toddler, and even that’s not small enough some times.

And now for the health/nutrition issues:

My hair is falling out like Julia’s on Nip/Tuck after she contracted Mercury poisoning. I’m not kidding. I’ve researched this and apparently it should stop within six months. I don’t think I’ll have any hair left after six months, but I’m hopeful.

I’m also tired because I can’t eat enough. And sometimes I’m nutritionally starved to the point that I can hardly move.

My point in this?

The weight loss is fabulous. But the expense is something that I wish I would have thought through much more seriously before I underwent the procedure.

My advice to people considering weight loss surgery?

Get all the information you possibly can. Attend meetings and support groups. Talk with as many people as you can who have done the procedure. Take your time. This is a life long change that requires the most careful consideration. I doubt I’d do it if I could go back in time and decide again.

Shrink. Shrank. Shrunk.

(Originally posted in early fall 2007)

After 29-plus years of being obese, I decided to do something about it. For real.

I had lap band surgery on August 15th 2007. I have already lost 21 pounds. My long-term goal is somewhere in the 125-pound department.

I’ll use this blog to post my progress, obstacles, and pretty much anything else food related or not.

I suppose all love affairs, even those with food, are bound to come to an end.