checking in....

so much to catch up about....

in no particular order:

blogging: 

yeah... i have been slacking.  i really really really have been busy.   i have wanted to.  i have also not really read any blogs in probably two weeks.   tomorrow i am going over to babbling amy's house so i plan to catch up on her blog tonight because i think it would be very shitty of me to eat her homemade food, swim in her heated pool and spend one on one time with her (yes, i am taunting all of you) without knowing what is going on in her life.   

i am at a point of either being overwhelmed with catching up and walking away or taking a week off work to catch up.   i am going to approach this in the middle and pledge to be better about following and being inspired by you all from this point going forward.  i can not commit to catching up.

love/lust/attraction/dating (whatever you want to call it):

the night before i left for Vegas i met an amazing woman.   we shall call her "M".   M and i spent a lot of time while i was in vegas communicating.   emails, texts, phone dates, pictures, etc.   by the time i got back we were already moving along....  remember my rants about my friends saying i deserve someone on my "level"?  i will admit i FINALLY get what they were saying.   she challenges me at my so-called level.   she is smart.  she is witty.  she is nice.  she is a good jewish girl with a private wild side.   and let me just put it out there....she is fucking hot.   hot.    like i said we met before i went to vegas.   day after i came home she came over to hang out.  and then we went our first real date saturday night.  it was an EIGHT hour date.    and it has only gotten better from there.  

of course, just because i am dating her does not mean all my body image issues have disappeared.   as you can imagine, they have only been magnified in my mind...fortunately, my therapist and i worked through some of this and helped me formulate a great sentence that allowed me to put my body issues (both reality and my perception issues) out there....i told M: "i feel like that the way i look to you in my clothes is very misleading to what i really look like under my clothes".   her response?  "that was very brave to say."  AND "nothing you have said so far scares me".    since this conversation...well, um...well...she got to see for herself what i was talking about.   but here is where my life takes a turn i was not expecting a month ago, a week ago, a day ago.   after we were, um, together she called me an hour after leaving my house to make sure i was ok with my body stuff in light of what happened.  now, this was after her totally seeing me.  talking in the nude for a couple hours, too.   and then told me that she was really enjoying "exploring" my body.  ARE YOU FREAKIN KIDDING ME?  *this* is now my life?

plastic surgery:

i was denied coverage by my insurance.  i actually got the call in vegas.  i pretty much kept it to myself except i told my friend K while we were there.  i plan to appeal it.   basically the plastic surgeon did a shitty submittal and did not respond to them when they requested specific information.  fortunately, i can appeal myself and i plan to.  obviously, i can not give up control to anyone....lol.

body image:

talked about it a little up there...but it is really an issue.   i have no idea what i look like.  apparently this is me at a bar....  HUH?   really?    also -- i am dating a hot chick who texts me while she is at "skinny" girl stores and tells me they have an article of clothing i mentioned the day before.   doesn't she know that when FAT people like me walk into those stores that cater to skinny teenage girls we get dirty looks?    yeah.  heidi.  wake the fuck up and stop looking in the mirror of distortion.... the mirror of reality is your friend.   i am doing major work in therapy with this....but i will not lie to you...i am struggling.   i KNOW i bought all size large (not XL) in vegas.    but i don't SEE an "average" size large when i look in the mirror.  i am not stupid...and that makes this situation more and more frustrating to me.    (ps.  the shirt is that pic is a large and i threw it out in vegas because it had a couple holes in it and i felt it was too loose on me....funny, i just thought of that....)

scale:

i am still self-imposed scale probation.   the "problem" is that in two weeks i will no longer be visiting my surgeon's office on a monthly basis.   so i talked it over with my therapist and i will now keep a scale at her office and weigh in there every two weeks.   i was doing the public free scale at the grocery store on the sly but she astutely pointed out to me that i need to stop using that because 1. 500 people a day hop on it thus affecting its accuracy and 2. grocery stores are not good places for people with eating disorders to weigh themselves....duh...lol.    

with all this being said...the scale is stuck at 212.   which leads me to...

exercise:

i am hoping to start semi-private personal training sessions twice a week with other lap-banders i know. hopefully this will help get the scale moving again.  the trainer is the woman who comes to our support group once a month.  she is willing to do more intense work with a small group for a nice small fee.   i showed her my fat where there should be abs and swears she can fix that.   i think if some of those areas tighten up i will feel better about the mirror.   the apron is definitely surgery territory...but i will concede to some toning.

ok.... that is enough for tonight.... i need my beauty sleep..... did i mention that i have a hot date with a hot bandster tomorrow?