random thoughts..............

• i am so over the cold.  today it will at least stay in the 60s.   but i really need the 70s to exist comfortably.  i am a florida girl living in a florida home.

• i am already packed for the Florida BOOBS get together in Orlando this weekend.   you *think* i am excited?  but honestly, i am not sure if it is for the BOOBS or a trip to disney sans a child.

• i hate the blogger "bullet point" formatting.

• i have two dogs up for adoption. lol.   one chihuahua and one cocker spaniel.   they are both free to go and find a new family to abuse unless one of them fesses up and admits to PEEING IN MY BED this morning.  

• which brings me to this.... i am now washing my thick, comfy feather bed mattress cover in a bathtub because it is so thick and comfy it does not fit into my washer.  not happy.  but at least i do not need to weight train today.

• when i saw this picture AND headline on my homepage this morning....my first thought was "mmmmmmmmmm.  must have guacamole today". 

Happy UnBandiversary to Me!

that's right....i am un-celebrating my "band"iversary....because, really, it fucked me up royally.   i have been feeling *stuck* the last couple months.   stuck on the scale, stuck emotionally, stuck on this so-called journey.    the only thing that has not been stuck is what i am figuring out to slide down my band, lol. 

so today at therapy i was processing this feeling of being stuck in life and having the obligatory "what if i never lose anymore weight" coupled with a few "i don't even know who i am anymore" meltdown when we finally figured out that this angst is all stemming from some strange association i have in my mind with november 9th being my "one year bandiversary" and somehow that signifies that i should be at goal.   which, i know, is totally impossible since i needed to lose at least 150 pounds on surgery day.  but this irrational association has caused me to subconsciously call up some old thoughts and behaviors.   and these thoughts and behaviors have resulted in nothing less than self-sabotage.   see...heidi, you failed.  you fucking failed and now i am going to make sure of it.

the fact is:  i need to undo november 9, 2010 and assign new meaning to it.   i am going to work this week on a list of all that i *did* accomplish in a year....and recognize that my goal weight was never a realistic accomplishment.  

i also need to continue to treat my weight loss and this journey as a path of recovery from addiction....which i have not since november 9th.   i have been emotionally flailing around and unsteady.  and really, what addict to drugs makes it to one year of sobriety and stops talking to their sponsor, going to meetings, etc????   who wakes up on their one year anniversary from any recovery and says "i've been healed!"....duh, heidi.  (ps.  i think one sign of not achieving recovery is that you can not spell sobriety without spellcheck...)

my accountability to my "sobriety" has been my monthly surgeon appointments, support group and therapy.   at my november 9th appointment my surgeon gave *me* the option to keep coming back monthly, go to every 3 months or just come in when i want.   i thought i was in a good place and thought i would come back every 3 months.   but today i realized that i need that monthly accountability.  i am not healed from a lifetime of emotional eating and obesity.   and that monthly appointment keeps this in the forefront. i am not done.  i am nowhere near "done" and this obesity and all the underlying issues associated with it will not just go away because the night turned into day.  

my attendance at support group has sucked and that really has been out of my control.    well...mostly out of my control.  next week i will assert some control and *choose* not to go to my straight book club and instead to support group.   even though next week's leader bugs me.  lol.    after that, until the end of march, i will be taking a class on support group night.  i need to take this class and i am choosing to do it now.   i am hoping the gods will look upon me favorably and open up a seat in the thursday night class between now and january 10th.   but if not, i am hoping the new social network will serve some support purpose for me.  also, today i got a text from a woman at group.  that made me think....i need to be better at making personal connections with people at group and accepting their personal connections. 

so...happy unBandiversary to me........

9 months in the making....

so...back in march when i started therapy one of the biggest issues identified was my enmeshment with my parents.   it was a scary realization at the time....not just because it was maddening to find out what my underlying "issue" was -- but also because i did not want to hurt my parents.   fortunately, through my wise therapist, i was able to spend the last 9 months addressing and identifying the issue in an appropriate place (her office) without having to have some kind of knock down, drag out confrontation with my parents.    because, now they don't just have a relationship with me...there is also my daughter.  their only granddaughter.   and i value the importance of that relationship and would not want to hurt that.

so very quietly the last 9 months i have worked on distancing myself both physically and internally from my parents in my quest to not only lose weight, but also get mentally healthy.   i went from someone who socialized all the time with my parents to someone who only saw them for special occasions or to bring the princess to them for a visit.  very different for me.   these new behaviors were something i needed to force out of myself initially, but now are almost second nature.    i can now leave the house in the morning without calling my mom, etc.

this distance has become so second nature to me, that a couple weeks ago i was un-nerving myself because i found that instead of going to a party and getting drunk i *wanted* to meet my parents for dinner first and just swing by the party.    of course, i made sure to bring this up in therapy because i thought i had some major processing to do..... much to my surprise my therapist lit up and said "wonderful!  that is what you are supposed to do".  huh?  i thought i had enmeshment issues???   "you do.   but you have gone from being with your parents all the time because you did not know any other different behavior to appropriately seeking out time to be with your parents".  ooooooooohhhhhhh.

so then, i decided to stop squashing an urge i have had to ask my parents to go on an RV trip.  this is something we used to do *all* the time.  especially before the princess.  just jump in their RV and GO.   so, i asked.   they hemmed and hawed and agreed.   so now i am writing this from the co-captain seat in their RV as we drive north to St. Augustine.   I am soooooooooooooooooooo excited.  i have missed spending special moments with them.  but i feel so much better now sitting here.  i am here because i *want* to be here.  i am here with my boundaries set.  i am here to enjoy and not merely exist.

food, food, food.

yesterday i only ate the chilli, cheese and crackers for lunch and then the salmon salad and cheese crisps for dinner.  i snacked on the cheese cubes during the day.   ok...so two small italian pastries found their way to my mouth as well if you must know *everything*, lol.   i don't even LIKE sweets that much.  then i went to support group and it was a good demo.  they made crab stuffed mushrooms and zucchini crust pizza.    the mushroom filled me up so i did not try the pizza.   here is something new, for me at least....instead of bread crumbs ground up salted roasted pumpkin seeds and use them as bread crumbs!  who knew?

so....today i still have the egg salad and turkey/laughing cow roll ups.   because i obviously live in fear of not having enough food around me (hello, food issues), i also brought in some cottage cheese and lobster bisque and cheese crisps.   these are not the gluten free cheese crisps so i am taking a 14 gram carb hit with them. 

so far today, i am working on getting an EAS shake down.  less protein than my homemade shakes but it is going down slow.  so i know i have restriction.  self control?  that is another issue.  lol.

i am at work today....but obviously i am very unproductive.  it is too quiet around here this time of year.  i will be leaving early to go work on scouting out a location for the princess' 6th (!!!!!!) birthday party in february.  and then i am going to a winter solstice celebration.  should be interesting as this one is more ritual based than "let's get drunk and party" based.     i am bringing the rest of the tray of italian pastries that were delivered to my office yesterday.  yes, i am re-gifting a dessert platter.  what-evah.  lol. 

making it happen....

so.... i have been whining a lot lately.  more to myself than anyone else.  i want to meet more/new people.  not sure "who" these people are and what category of my life they would fit...gay/mom/weight loss/professional/whatever.  

but i did realize that after having dinner with Electric Band Stephanie the other night and meeting a woman through a dating site that just had surgery that i kind of like having WLS friends.   i am not sure why.  but i do.

so....outside of support group how does one go about making real life WLS friends?   well...i will tell you what i did... i started a group on meetup.com.  actually, i played around with the idea all day today and then i saw my bariatric coordinator/surgeon's wife and she was totally all over the idea.  then i talked to some women at support group tonight and they thought it was a great idea and they would join .... so lo and behold... the South Florida Weight Loss Surgery Social Network was born.... as i sit here in my dark home office in my fuzzy paul frank monkey pajamas (size L) i feel a little mark zuckerberg....lol...kidding.   but if you know of anyone in south florida who had surgery...please share with them this link: http://www.meetup.com/sflwls/

wish me luck....

random and scattered monday thoughts....

i can honestly say today that i have good alignment with my personal mirror of distortion vs. mirror of reality.   without looking at a picture i see a thinner me in the mirror and even when i look down at my body.   i think this is extremely important to me....because when i feel "fat" i act "fat".  i eat "fat".  i dress "fat".  i think "fat".   today, i hope to go into this new year acting, eating, dressing and thinking thin.  

speaking of dressing fat.... i fucking love jeggings.  OMG.   what a great fashion item for me to find at this point in my weight loss journey.  jeggings, of which i own 3 pairs, allow my to show off all my deliciousness appropriately.   it is the skinny jeans 2.0 for girls, like me, who have stomach apron disproportionately larger than the rest of your body.  i can have "skinny" legs.  even tuck my pants into boots without baggy knees poking out -- yet the waistband gives me the comfort and support at my waist.

i feel very prepared with my food today on one hand.   but feel a little binge-y on the other hand.  i have my lunch bag packed with good foods.   including:

• my salmon salad -- made with light mayo, goat cheese and a couple olive slices --about 1/2 cup -- 16 grams protein
• 2 cheese crisps to have with salmon salad-- wheat free crackers -- 4grams protein, 2 carbs.
• homemade brisket chilli (my protein calculation is 20gram protein) with 1/4 cup of cheese (2 carbs/7 protein -- and 9grams fat!!!!) and 5 saltine crackers (11 carbs/1gram protein)
• two turkey/laughing cow -- the chipolte flavor YUM -- roll ups (turkey: 1 carb/4 protein...cheese: 2 carbs / 6 protein)
• homemade egg salad (eggs: 2 carbs/12 priotein...mayo: 1 carb)
• 1oz cubed cheese (8 grams protein -- 9 grams fat!!!)

i started the day off with a bariatric advantage banana shake with a tbsp of peanut butter -- 30 grams of protein.  it is 11:30 and i have only the shake and 40oz of water (with crystal light tea).  i am not really hungry or anything yet.

i know this look likes a lot of food. and it is. but i am also staying down by my office to go straight to support group tonight since the princess is "on vacation" at my mom's. so it is also dinner.  but there is also a lot of fat.  ugh.  cheese.  cheese has been haunting me this whole journey.  i know deep in my heart i need to scale back on the cheese if i want to see this last 30-40 pounds gone. 


so, like i said it *is* a lot of food and i am honestly walking a thin line today between being prepared and bingeing.   recognizing this, first thing i did this morning was put my lunch bag in the employee breakroom downstairs so it is not sitting on my desk or in the refrigerator in my department.   i plan to have the chilli, cheese and crackers for lunch.

speaking of support group....tonight is supposed to be a cooking demonstration.  should be fun.  i feel sooooooooooooo out of the support group loop. i used to go religiously every monday since the week after my surgery.   it just seems like since september it has been one thing or another and i have not made it there except once or twice.... and now, after tonight i will not be able to attend until april.  i am really really really freaked out by this.   but i am planning on taking an important class on monday nights through march 28th.  i am really trying to get into the already full thursday night class.  but if not i am going to have to suck it up and miss support group.  this class is just as important to my future and soul as group is....but.... i have always been a firm believer that my personal success is directly tied to the trifecta i have created for myself: support group, blogging and therapy.  i am going to have to lean on blogging and therapy more and more.  the good thing is that i will continue working out with two other women from support group most weeks twice a week.  so that keeps a connection for me and really the conversations and support we give each other is more valuable sometimes to listening to people sabotage themselves at support group. 

did i mention how excited i am for the lapband disney trip on january 2nd?????  lol.  i.am.excited.

Florida BOOBS!

Friday night I finally met Stephanie of the Electric LapBand.   We met up for dinner and had a great time talking.   Turns out that we went to the same middle and elementary schools and rival high schools.   small world, huh?

Speaking of Small World...WE ARE GOING TO DISNEY WORLD! (see how i did that? lol)  

That's right, ladies...you too can have your picture taken with Heidi and Stephanie! And Babbling Amy too. and Maria too. And hopefully more Florida BOOBS.


Mark your calendars.... Sunday January 2nd -- EPCOT.    Plan to meet towards the left of the entrance turnstiles between 8:30 and 8:45AM.   If you are coming later...let me know via the blog and I will send you my cell to contact us by.

I, personally, am SOOOOOOOOOOOOOO excited!    Spending time with adults at Disney is something I rarely get to do -- even though we go almost once a month.  And to be with Lapband friends will be very cool.  

I hope those we can, will!