Showdown with the Surgeon

OK, so it wasn't all that dramatic. And I almost didn't do it because I hate confrontation (though the Hubs might beg to differ). But I thought of all of you, truly, and that made me brave enough to say something. I did it in a nice way, because he really is a nice man and I think he might just be clueless.

So I said, "Listen I was really freaked out when I called you because I couldn't eat solids. When you said, 'well I'm not going to open you up just so you can eat' all I could think was, this isn't what I signed up for."

He stopped for a minute and said, "I hope I wasn't too curt on the phone." I just kind of smiled, like, welllll actually... and then he went on to agree that of course a liquid diet isn't at all what the band is intended for. He just meant that if I was OK having soups and liquids for a few weeks, it'd give me a jumpstart on weight loss and would naturally loosen up as I lost weight.

He was very happy with my weight loss and I'm going back in a month to check in again.

In other news, I am thrilled that Sandra Bullock adopted a baby boy. Good for her.

Greetings, Earthlings!

Did you see that Stephen Hawking said he thinks there are aliens riding around in space ships and it might not be a good idea for us to try to get to know them? He may have a point there.

That's all I have to say about that.

I lost another half pound, bringing me to 42.5 pounds down which is super-dee-dooper but I'd love to kick it up a notch. Of course I'd like to do that while still eating cheese, chocolate and olives. And drinking wine. Oh, and not exercising much. So I guess I should stop bitching about why I'm losing so slowly.

I have an appointment with my surgeon tomorrow. WILL NOT be getting another fill, I think I'm plenty tight right now. Just a checking in kind of appointment, and I will try to offer some constructive criticism about the way he handled things when I asked if I should come in for an unfill a few weeks ago.

We're going to dinner on Thursday with my husband's partner and his wife. I know them both pretty well, they're very nice. We're going to an Indian restaurant and I'm a little worried about what to have - I can't eat much meat these days, potatoes will likely get stuck, there wasn't any soup on the menu. AHHHH. Thought about chicken tikka masala because of the sauce but it's still white meat so I think I'd get stuck. Maybe I'll go vegetarian and get one of those spinach dishes. I didn't see fish options, but maybe they'll have a special? I don't know. I love Indian food, but I'm not sure how this will go.

Also, my hair just looks like crap lately so I'm getting a few inches cut on Friday. Really excited about this - so much so that I may do a VLOG to show it off.

Finally, does anyone have a good recipe for band-friendly turkey chili? If so, please share!

Fashion Show Picture Post

Looking through these photos tells me two things: 1. I finally am feeling comfortable enough to have my picture taken. 2. Need to work on the frozen smile and wooden poses.

Sigh. All in good time, lovies.

I packed three shirts to wear for the rehearsal dinner, and ended up wearing one I hadn't put in the previous fashion show post. What can I tell you, it was a wild card.

Rehearsal dinner outfit:


Please note the thongs that match the shirt. I never do that kind of stuff. I was proud of myself.

The day before I left for the wedding, I took the baby back to the Lord & Taylor sale to spend some time in the shoe department. She had the time of her life licking playing with the mirrors and eating all the paper inserts that come in the shoe boxes, and I tried on a gazillion pairs of shoes.

I got these for the wedding/summer events:


I sadly report that my hair never made it out of the ponytail in Florida. It was hot and a little humid and, well, I was too damn lazy to put the time and energy that would have been required to tame my hair into something respectable for an outdoor wedding. So I went with the pony. Not an awesome look, but there you have it.

The dress I ended up wearing was a last-minute find. I realize my posts this week make me look like a complete shopaholic but please believe me when I tell you I almost *never* shop. I buy from Lands End or Lane Bryant online whenever possible, I wear shoes until the soles are long gone, my sons keep telling me my shirts have holes in them. You get the picture. The dress I had planned to wear is 10 years old. I bought it for my engagement party, and I've worn it to almost every wedding or engagement party I've attended since.

But I saw this dress and it was on sale at Bloomingdale's in Florida, and the colors were perfect for a Florida garden wedding. Oh, and it was a 16W!


It's time to work on the upper arms. And I really need to get my glasses straightened.


So there you have it. Thanks for all the advice, it was fun hearing your opinions on everything.

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).