Portion Control

The scale improved my mood a bit this morning - 204.8. I'll take it.

The pups continue to be cute and active and nippy, and my pounding headache is gone. The baby still has some kind of virus so she's not happy but the Hubs is home (with his own unspecified ailments) and helping.

Portion control continues to be the bane of my existence. I am forever serving myself wayyyy too much and then continuing to shovel it in even when I know I'm physically full. Why is that?

GRATUITOUS PUPPY PHOTOS

I hate to be a whiner, I really do. But today I'm doing it anyway. If you dislike whining, you might want to skip this one.

I. AM. SO. EXHAUSTED. Like, this exhausted:

I haven't showered in two or three days. I have a cold and my head is POUNDING and my throat is sore. The baby is coming off a stomach bug that included vomiting all over her car seat and down-the-leg, through-the-clothes diarrhea, Older son is coming off strep throat, Hubs was traveling all week and I have these two little puppies that I am socializing and training. Wednesday night I had five hours of sleep, and last night I went to bed at 11 pm - after running the puppies around through the day to tire them out - only to have the baby wake up screaming at 3.30 am for an hour and Younger Son come running into my room at 5.50 am covered in blood because he bonked his head and this crazy hemangioma thing he has burst and bled everywhere. He looked like Sissy Spacek in Carrie.

And have you ever tried to reassemble a Britax car seat after washing vomit out of the cover and various pieces of foam and straps? I feel like I should be awarded an engineering degree from MIT after that feat.

I don't even know what I've eaten, it's been leftovers mostly. I had a bunch of tikka masala sauce left, so I put it over cannelloni beans and quinoa - totally delicious, high-protein and good fiber. That almost negates the cream in the tikka masala sauce, right?

Yesterday the scale was down to 205.4 but this morning it's up to 206 again, so I'm holding steady. The puppies leave Sunday at 4 pm. They are so, so sweet but oh my god they are a lot of work. And I'm running out of newspaper... SEND HELP.

Woof!

In band news, I have nothing exciting to report here. No rockin' weight loss, no horrific vomiting episodes, no complaints about my doctor. My band is... fine. My hunger pops up here and there but generally it's manageable. Lately, I've been eating three meals and one or two snacks a day.

I have my Zone bar around 9 am (s-l-o-w-l-y, usually in the car as I drive to nursery school), and then lunch around 11.30. Lunch this week is a serving of chicken chili that I've made three meals out of. Then in the late afternoon I may have a piece of cheese and a few olives. Dinner is fish or chicken or cheese and an artichoke.

We have two pups visiting us this week from Guiding Eyes for the Blind. Kimball and Kylie are here till Sunday, which means we are BUSY feeding them, playing with them, taking them out and cleaning up after them.

The good news is, I'm so busy with them that I don't have much time to graze.

I'm holding steady at 206 right now, just hangin' out here waiting for the scale to do me some favors. I think it'll start moving because I've been eating pretty well lately, and the burst of energy required to keep up with the pups should help too.

Fall Has Arrived

We finally have a real fall day today! We took the kids and our nephew to the Bronx Zoo this morning, and it was cold enough that we had to wear jackets. Fall is my absolute favorite season, so I am completely excited about this. Plus, I walked around for two hours so I got some exercise.

The scale is inching downward again since my fill on Thursday, but I'll be interested to see whether it keeps moving. I'm not back down to my most recent low yet, so I'm not in new territory now.

My weight was holding steady at 5.5 cc's but the band was way too tight at 5.75. My surgeon tells me he doesn't like to go in increments smaller than 0.25 cc's for fills, which doesn't make much sense to me. The Hubs says if this fill doesn't quite get me over the hump I should just go in and ask him for 0.1 cc's and say I feel very strongly that he should at least try it. I think the Hubs is probably right. We'll see. I go back in a month.

I have to say, though, it is bliss to not be overly tight. We went to an Indian restaurant last night with some friends, and it was lovely to not worry about whether I'd spend half the night in the bathroom. I had one bite of each of the four appetizers we ordered and about 1/3 of my halibut. No naan for this girl, but it was a great dinner and I was able to relax and enjoy it. Plus, we found street parking in New York City on a Saturday night, which is like winning the lottery.

I'm Tweaking My Goal

When I saw my surgeon today, he asked if I had a specific goal weight in mind. I said I'd officially be out of the 'overweight' category at 145, according to the BMI chart. But I've never weighed 145 in my adult life, so I'm not all that confident I'll get there.

Dr. M said he thinks 160 is a good goal, I would be pretty healthy at that weight and if I keep losing beyond that point, great. But if I stayed between 160-165, he said that would be a really solid goal.

So I'm changing my ticker to reflect the new goal. Which is kind of exciting because now I have even less to lose before goal! I'll keep 145 as an aspirational goal, but I won't drive myself nuts trying to get there if I find I taper off at 160 or in the 150s.

Also, I did mention to my doctor that I had a terrible time getting in touch with him when I was overfilled earlier this month. I told him exactly how I had tried to get in touch, and he seemed surprised when I explained I called the office three times and his service once over the course of 24 hours. He said he must not have gotten the evening page, and he apologized for not having gotten back to me.

Oh, and the storm? The one that brought warning after warning and cancellation of all activities? Hasn't hit yet.

The Storm's A-Comin'

Apparently we are on the verge of getting a huge wind storm. So big that the public schools are dismissing an hour early and canceling all after-school activities, causing mothers everywhere to scramble afternoon plans to pick up our children. I also just got a reverse-911 robocall from the town warning me to expect downed trees, road closures and flooding.

Where I live, a big wind storm means we are going to lose power. Fo sho'. We lose power when a light summer breeze passes through town, so I am just praying that all the chicken stock I made and froze on Monday doesn't end up going bad. I'm heading out now to get some more flashlights because ours are for shit.

I got a fill today, back up to 5.5, which is 0.25 cc's less than when I was overfilled. I haven't tried to drink anything yet, busy day, but I'm hoping all goes well since it seems I'll be preoccupied with other matters for the next 48 hours.

I had lost a few pounds before I got sick from the overfill, then lost a lot from being dehydrated, then gained some back from the unfill. Today when I weighed in, I weighed exactly what I weighed when I got the fill that proved to be too much. So the whole experience netted me exactly zero pounds lost between Sept. 2 and Sept. 30.

Here's hoping October is a more productive band month for me.

Wow.

What a weekend. I can't imagine any scenario in which I could have had more fun or felt more relaxed or, or, or...

It was awesome, and everyone was great and it was like walking into a party where you know every single person. I got all teary in the airport on the way home thinking how amazing it was to be with so many people who understand where I've been without having to explain anything.

Thank you to the planners who spent sooooo many hours making sure everything would be perfect for us. It really was. I love the t-shirt and the goody bag and the wine and the Friday mixer and the Saturday dinner and the karaoke craziness and the Chicago architecture and all of you. You are just as fabulous as I hoped you'd be.

Three More Days... Three More Days!

So I found a dress. I tried it on without Spanx and it's a little snug but it's really pretty and I can wear it for the wedding in October as well as in Chicago.

Frankly, there's nothing worse than a fat girl in a too-tight dress, so I'm bringing a backup and I will rely on some of you to tell me the *truth* if it's not quite ready for prime time. Still need to figure out shoes and accessories. I am terrible at accessorizing. I wear the same earrings and my wedding rings every single day. I don't even wear a watch anymore.

Here's an interesting little tidbit for those of us with Allergan bands: My mom has Allergan product(s) - her new boobs, acquired last spring - and she keeps getting all kinds of free stuff from them. Lots of cosmetic samples, Latisse, that kind of thing. I also have an Allergan product, and I have gotten jack shit on a stick from Allergan. Not even a postcard. What's up with that?

Cat Bites, New Tires and the ER. All in One Day.

I was all set to do some shopping to find a dress for Saturday that will also work for a wedding in October. Never made it further than the local Toyota dealership, which sucked up two and a half hours to diagnose my tire pressure problem and prescribe two new tires. Could have had a reallllly nice dress for five hundred ninety seven dollars.

This evening, as we were saying goodbye to a friend of older son's who was here playing, Cooper the neighborhood cat wandered into the front yard and the kids went over to say hello. He's a friendly guy, belongs to the family down the street, and often comes to hang in our yard for a couple days at a time. He also sometimes walks with us to and from the bus stop, rubbing against our legs while we walk.

For some reason, when younger son petted him today, Cooper nipped him and left two puncture wounds in younger son's hand.

Have you ever googled "cat bites" before? Don't, because you will immediately drop dead from panic. Cat bites have a high infection rate, and there is always the rabies concern. Which is exacerbated because a rabid coyote recently attacked a father and his daughter a couple weeks ago around here. So everyone's on high alert, and Cooper is a wandering kind of cat who goes home every few days or so but otherwise is out and about.

I washed the bite, called Cooper's mom, who was really nice and promised to check with the vet and make sure Cooper's rabies vaccination is up to date, waited for the Hubs to come home, took younger son to ER on pediatrician's recommendation, and waited two hours there. He's on a prophylactic antibiotic for a week.

And I still don't have a dress.

Q: What Size Am I? A: All of Them.

I am at an in-between stage. I haven't entirely shrunken out of the fat girls' sizes, but I do fit in some clothes that don't have a W after the number.

I can fit into a size 14 dress if it's flowy and a size 16 dress if it's not. But the size 18 pants I got at Macy's fit just right. I can fit into my Lane Bryant size 14 jeans but the LB size 16 pants from a few years ago are a little tighter in the waist than I like. The 16W Not Your Daughter's Jeans I bought fit like a glove - a very fitted glove. On top, most XLs work for me, including J.Crew and Banana Republic, but not Ann Taylor.

All of this makes shopping rather tedious.

Plus, my period is due any day now so I'm hungrier and the scale has gone up the past several days because of the rehydration process. And retaining water. And possibly the red velvet cake and M&Ms.

The good news is, I should be through all of it and happy as a lark when I board my plane one week from tomorrow to go see you lovelies in Chicago.