Pre-Eating Anxiety

What a great weekend! Relaxing, fun, time with old friends and the Hubs... what more could a girl want?

Not a great eating weekend, though. For one thing, I WAS HUNGRY. And for some reason, I really wanted to binge. I was a little sad/stressed on Friday after we checked into the hotel. Alex had a bunch of conference calls, so I went to walk around a mall nearby. I hadn't eaten lunch and when I hit that food court, let me tell you, I WANTED IT ALL. Luckily, my band saved me from doing serious damage, so I had a bowl of soup from Panera. Then I kind of went off the deep end and had one of those "cookie sandwiches" from Mrs. Fields. Ever seen one? Two chocolate chip cookies sandwiched together with an obscene amount of frosting in between. A jillion calories, easily.

The only saving grace here was that on Saturday we went to EPCOT and walked for four hours in 85-degree heat before the wedding. Thank God, I think that helped things because at least I was on the move and hopefully it cut down on the number of calories my body absorbed from that damn cookie sandwich.

Here's what I'm noticing lately: I get a strange anxiety before I eat, because I know I won't be able to eat much. It's kind of a mix of serious irritation and anxiety. I WANT to eat a lot; I know I probably won't be able to. It's frustrating and kind of perplexing. I hope it will dissipate as I get more accustomed to this new life with abbreviated meals.

I'll do a picture post sometime tomorrow with outfits from the wedding. It all worked out well, and I was happy with the clothes. Which doesn't happen very often...

Also:
1. Didn't have any problem eating on the plane. Alas, JetBlue's Doritos Munchy Mix goes down like buttah.
2. Had my first Corona since being banded. No problem at all, didn't feel funny going down or anything.
3. I noticed a real uptick in my confidence, particularly being dressed up. I'll talk more about that in the photo post tomorrow.
4. Scale says I'm up 2 pounds. Maybe some is from flying? I don't think so, though. I ate a lot of crap. Not a good Swimsuit Challenge Week for me.

**UPDATE** Just had the most horrible PB I've ever experienced. I've been eating and eating and EATING today, attributed it mostly to hormones. But my band finally said enough and I threw up. Violently. Three times. Not much of substance came up, and I wasn't nauseated before it happened, so I'm sure it's band-related rather than food poisoning or something.

You Guys Rock

Thanks for the yes-it's-swelling reassurances yesterday. You were right, I woke up this morning back to my ticker weight. I'm drinking water like it's going out of style.

Also, the outfit help was excellent. I'm tentatively going with the blue, and I got a perfect pair of sandals to match. I also got a pair of wedges, so I'll decide at the last minute which look better. The Hubs is always brutally honest. (Side note: The first time I really got dressed up to go out with friends after our second baby was born, I walked downstairs and asked what he thought. "You look like half of a country/western act," he said. AND HE WAS RIGHT.)

Hopefully this time will be better. I'll post pictures when we get back.

Have a great weekend!

FASHION SHOW ~ Need Guidance

FASHION EMERGENCY!

I'm going to a wedding in Orlando this weekend and I need some fashion advice for the rehearsal dinner outfit. The dinner is at an event space, invite says the menu is barbeque and the dress is casual.

It's supposed to be 85 degrees. I assume the dinner will be air-conditioned (sweet Jesus, the wedding on Sat. nite is "in the garden." Sweat much?).

Ideally I'd wear a sundress-type thing, but I don't have any that fit and my legs are fugly so I don't love dresses. I went shopping today. (If you live near a Lord & Taylor, they're having a 25 percent off sale right now and it's awesome.)

**Please disregard the bad hair, no makeup and lack of foundation garments.**

The pink one is the most comfortable:

Once I saw the photo, it's not as cute as it was in the dressing room, although I like the rosette neckline:

This blue shirt caught my eye, and I feel like it's all fancy because it's Calvin Klein. But it's kind of strangely shaped, at least on me. It also cuts me off at my widest point.

Lest you think I look thinner in that photo, it's just because I cut my feet off, which made my freakishly short legs look longer. See?

Here's an Eileen Fisher number. I love the shape, although gray generally makes me look like a corpse. But I adore the way the sweater minimizes my ass shelf. It could end up being way too hot, though.

Finally, there is a boring and slightly too big sailor-ish type shirt. It's navy, not black.


So what do you think? Which one should I wear?

Note to Gilly: No worries about this week's weigh-in. Between the rehearsal dinner and wedding dinner and flying home Sunday, there's zero chance I'll have a loss this week. So you can call off the hitman. But I'm coming back BIG (small, really) next week.

Swelling... Please Let It Be Swelling

Scale was up this morning, 3.5 pounds since Sunday. Also, I'm starving this morning. WTF?

Sadly, I think the olives may be the culprit. Couldn't get my engagement ring on yesterday; couldn't get wedding or engagement on today.

This is totally because of water retention, right? PLEASE SAY YES.

Pouting

So tomorrow marks three weeks since my fill, the one that put me over the top and severely limited what I could eat. I have generally been excellent about this - not a single lick of ice cream or milkshakes or other potentially damaging band foods. I've stuck to the good stuff. Except for the Key Lime pie in Florida.

This evening I went back to my little spreadsheet to see how much weight I've lost since that momentous fill: Six and a half pounds. In three weeks. Now, I know the whole 'two pounds a week is really awesome' argument, and I know we're not in this to lose weight fast. But frankly I've kind of felt like I'm sacrificing a little over these three weeks, and the least that could happen is some serious weight loss.

Things are loosening up a little, though. I had two poached eggs for dinner and a couple pieces of very crispy bacon.

Big NSV: Two different people commented on my weight loss today. Someone mentioned they started getting comments after losing 40 pounds, and sure enough that's when people seem to be noticing on me.

Small NSV: I bought new running shoes today, my first pair of real running shoes in ages. The guy who fitted me was so awesome I could have kissed him - he made me jog on the treadmill and videotaped my feet to check my stride, studied my arches and checked the width. I've never had such a thorough fitting for a shoe. The sales guy, a total hipster who commutes from Brooklyn, could not have been nicer. LOVE HIM.

TOM... (.) ...

You pickin' up what I'm puttin down in the headline? Sure you are.

It's been hard for me to have a realistic sense of how hunger and eating change through my cycle because I'm only on month 4 with the band. Up to now it's really been mostly that I've noticed my fingers swell and stay swollen for a while.

This may be too much info, and if so then you should stop reading here. But I find it interesting from a biological and scientific point of view, so I'm gonna go ahead and say it.

I ovulated yesterday, or maybe the day before (after many cycles of charting and ovulation tests in my baby-making days, I have a pretty good sense of when I ovulate). And I swear, my hunger kicked up almost immediately. Yesterday and today I've been much more into snacking. Not horrible stuff, a few olives here, a Babybel light cheese there, that kind of thing. But I had just been marveling at how uninterested in food I was most of the time. Until ovulation.

I guess those doctors who say hormones control the speed at which your esophagus pushes food into your stomach may actually know what they're talking about, right? So I'm hunkering down and trying to eat healthy stuff.

Also, I've been losing a lot of hair in the shower lately. Fun, fun, fun!

Olives, Olives, Olives

I've never liked olives much. I didn't despise them, but mostly I could leave 'em on a plate without any problem.

Lately, I am *obsessed* with kalamata (calamata?) olives. I'm all about the briny, but I think part of it is that olives are a "normal" food that's easy to snack on and that I can actually swallow without any band problems. Those kinds of foods are few and far between for me these days.

My dinner from Saturday night:

That's brie with fig spread and olives. Oh, and a sip or two of pinot noir.

(I cannot tell a lie: I went back for more cheese, so this wasn't my entire dinner.)

Also, last night I made the best scallop recipe ever. I love, love, love the Barefoot Contessa, her recipes aren't super simple but they turn out perfectly every single time I make them. Last night I made scallops provencal; soooooo good. A little heavy on the butter maybe but for a once-in-a-while meal they're awesome.

That's all I got for now.

PS Is my blog depressing? You guys all have these cheery, bright blog designs and mine is black black black. I'd like to think it's because I'm so sophisticated but I think we all know it's really because I'm lazy. Should I redesign for spring? Please weigh in (heh).

BOOBS in Chicago

I'm coming to Chicago!! (In the unlikely event that you haven't yet heard, all lapbanders fun people are invited to the awesome get-together planned by our bloggy cohorts. Details here.)

When I first heard about the trip, I thought, "AWESOME! How cool is this going to be!"

And then I thought about it more and I started to get nervous. Bonnie posted about this as well. What if we all show up and it's awkward (seems unlikely if Draz, Jenny, Amy W and Joey are going, but still...)? What if I snore and keep my roommate up all night and she hates me?

But the more I think about it, the more I think HELL YEAH we're gonna have fun. If the Hubs reports that I'm still snoring a few weeks or a month from now, I'll get my own room.

I've only been to Chicago a few times -- once in 8th grade to visit a friend I met at Space Camp (!), once for a wedding in the 'burbs and a few years ago for a funeral.

I love the 5K idea, and with five months' notice I think I could pull it off.

What time do we think people will be arriving on Friday and leaving Sunday? Just wondering as a general guide when looking for flights.

xoxo

Don't Eat That!

Happy Sunday to all of you!

This recent fill seems to have brought me whole-hog into the reality of life with a band. Before I was careful about chewing but never really had to pay the piper if I went a little too fast or took bites that were a little too big. No longer. I have to be vigilant, or I feel miserable. This is all contributing to good weight loss, but sometimes it kind of sucks.

Last night I tried a reallllly small bite of hamburger, no bun. Did not go down very well. I didn't have a full PB, but it got stuck and hurt. It's clear to me that hamburgers are off my OK-to-eat list.

I'm also finding that I get *really* hungry all of a sudden. It sneaks up on me, probably because I'm not spending so much time thinking about food. But then I realize I'm STARVING and it's really difficult to eat slowly and take small bites when I'm ravenous. So that's a change I'm still getting used to.

The list of what I can eat comfortably is getting smaller. I was pleasantly surprised yesterday to find I could eat some sliced bell pepper and cucumbers, which I've been too nervous to try these last couple of weeks. The meat, though - looks like I'll be shelving that for a while. Bring on the fish!

Tonight, I'm making halibut with an avocado-yogurt sauce. (It's adapted from a Rachael Ray recipe for fish tacos. I don't make them into tacos, just serve the fish with sauce. I use Greek yogurt, so it's a good high-protein meal.)

Happy news: The scale reports another pound down, thanks to peeing out all the retained fluid from yesterday's flight. That brings me to 224, which was a mini-goal for me. I now weigh less than I did the summer I finished three triathlons. On to the next mini-goal. Two sixteen, I'm gunning for you!

I Left a Little Bit of Myself in Florida

First things first: I LOST WEIGHT ON VACATION. At least 2 1/2 pounds from last Saturday's weight, and I'm hoping it's a little more because I think I'm retaining water from flying today.

Second, I deserved to lose weight on vacation. I ate really well -- fish almost every night, very little snacking, some swimming and walking, careful to make good choices. I got really, really stuck once in the morning but otherwise had no big problems other than when I inhaled a sip of wine rather than swallowing it. This was at a restaurant, and my mom almost died because she thought I was going to throw up my dinner. I was coughing and choking and laughing, trying to tell her it just went down the wrong pipe and nothing was coming back up.

Third, I did not diet. My portions were small out of necessity; I had to stop or I would have gotten sick. I had a small(ish) slice of Key Lime pie five of the nights we were there and a glass of wine almost every night with dinner. Still lost weight.

Fourth, papaya enzymes are incredibly helpful in breaking up food that is taking its time going down. I had a couple of very minor episodes when I took a bite too quickly or didn't quite chew enough, and felt better within a couple minutes of taking the chewable minty-fresh papaya pills. I was skeptical when I first heard about them, but I'm a believer now.

I have more to write about but I'm short on time now. I have a lot of blogs to catch up on so I'll try to do that over the next few days and see how everyone is doing. xoxo