Marathon Sunday

Today is New York City's most exciting and fun day of the year: Marathon Sunday. If you've ever wanted to experience New York at its best, spend a day cheering for runners through all five boroughs of the city.

When I moved to New York in 1999, I lived half a block from the marathon course. The morning of the marathon I grabbed a bagel and walked down the street into a giant party. Bands played, the crowd lining First Avenue was five people deep, people blared music from their fire escapes and hosted marathon parties on their terraces. It was exhilarating, and I wasn't even running! I stood for a couple hours and cheered myself hoarse, yelling for the runners and clapping till my hands went numb. It was completely awesome, and I think it was the first time I ever realized why people love New York so much.

I knew how important the cheering section was to the runners because I had run my first (and, to date, only) marathon just a week before, in Washington, DC. Here I am with my mom at the finish of the Marine Corps Marathon:


I was slow (finish time: 5:45) but I was so proud of myself for actually finishing a marathon, for keeping my body moving for 26.2 miles. I was at my skinniest adult weight, 162 or 164 can you believe I can't remember exactly? And I was about to pile it all back on as I scaled back my running and kept up my eating.

I actually enjoyed running the marathon, and I tried another one a year or so later but dropped out at mile 7 because I'd done a terrible job training. (Life lesson: Prepare or die.)

I've never run New York, and I'm told it's a tough course with a lot of hills. My father-in-law has run the last seven or eight NYC marathons, and we usually go in to meet him at the finish line. For the most part, you can't meet a friend at the finish line, but he takes so long (seven and a half or eight hours) that the police usually let us take the kids to see Grandpa's big finish.

I haven't run consistently in years but lately it's been popping back into my head now and again. I looked online, and the NYC Half Marathon is March 20, 2011, which would give me more than four months to train for 13.1 miles. I'm sure I can do that.

As far as I can tell there's a lottery system for entries, but I will probably sign up with Team in Training. I've done a couple other events with them, and their coaching is good, plus it's a big support source for the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society.

Who wants to join me?

PS It's Weigh-In Day for the first week of the Holiday Challenge. Don't forget to send your weight info!

A Little Shopping

Hellllo blogworld! I got a haircut yesterday, and since I *rarely* blow my hair dry, I'm going to post a photo from last night.Which was taken in a bathroom with really harsh lighting. Sigh. Aging is so sad.

Anyway, the hair:

This morning I did a little shopping with the munchkin. Not as much as I would have liked, but those 17-month-olds do what they want, ya know?

My winter jacket from last year is wayyyy too big. I have a nice black dress coat circa 2007 that fits well now, but I needed a warm winter jacket. So I found a really pretty pearly-white one today. A regular XL! Plus, it's cozy. Win-win. (The hair didn't hold up so well, but I enjoyed it while it lasted.)

I also tried on a 16W purple velvet blazer (prettier in person than it sounds in writing), which was too big. Then I tried the 14W. Guess what, blog friends? Also kind of loose. Exciting.

Then I pushed my luck and tried a size 14P Calvin Klein skirt. HA. That was a reminder of the work ahead.

This latest fill, just a smidge (0.1 cc's to be exact), seems to be working nicely. I do feel more restriction and I've been looking for food less frequently. Plus, the scale is slowly moving down again, which is a nice change and a sign of good things to come.

Before I had my band surgery, I was obsessed with what I wouldn't be able to eat anymore. I asked everyone and got a wide range of answers. What I didn't realize was that what you can or can't eat is entirely dependent on how much fluid you have in your band. That seems pretty obvious now, but for some reason it didn't occur to me for a while. At 5+ cc's, I can't really eat pasta. Maybe one bite, but for the most part I don't care enough to try it. Sometimes I surprise myself, though. Even where I am now, at 5.6 cc's, I had a small portion of butternut squash risotto for dinner the other night. I added extra chicken stock to my portion so it would be soupier. It was delicious, I didn't "miss out" on anything and my band did its job by keeping my portion in check.

However.

The one thing that I don't think will work at all with my band is anything doughy. I haven't tried, because the misery of sliming and throwing up isn't worth the risk for me. But I know that I will likely never eat another Philadelphia soft pretzel. Or those doughy cinnamon buns with frosting.

For the most part, I really don't miss it. Once in a while I may have a three-second pity party, but then I glance in a mirror and recover pretty quickly.

We have a couple of dinners planned in New York City this month (both with the Hubs' colleagues), and I'm not too worried about having any problems.

If my restriction stays consistent (I know, that's the tricky part) then I think I'll be able to enjoy my meals without fear of ralphing in front of a bathroom attendant. One of the dinners is at Per Se, which is supposed to be over-the-top delicious. Per Se is famous for its amazing brioche. Ain't no way that will go down, so that's a teeny bit sad. I predict I'll get over it.

But, yummm, doesn't that look like some buttery deliciousness?

Just a Smidge, Please

I had my fill appointment this afternoon, and my surgeon was great. You never know with this guy. I was so dreading going in there, and my weight was a half pound higher than a month ago. That wasn't a surprise, though.

My doctor asked lots of questions, listened to what I had to say and ended up giving me the smidge of a fill I asked him for. I went from 5.5 cc's to 5.6 cc's now. Let's see how it goes...

Holiday Challenge - I'm in!

I've essentially stayed at the same weight for a few months now. It's getting old. It's my own fault. We've been through this.

I've gotten discouraged lately, and even started slipping into my pre-surgery negative thinking. One of the greatest things about this surgery is that my mind has felt so freeee of the constant berating I was doing to myself, so I'm unsettled by this new development.

Tomorrow I see my surgeon. For some reason, he feels that fills should go in 0.25cc increments or more. Never less. I'm at 5.5 cc's and the last two times I went up to 5.75 ccs I was too tight.

The Hubs tells me I should go in and ask the doctor to give me a 0.1 cc fill to put me at 5.6 ccs. I am going to ask. Wish me luck. I'm dreading going back because I'm doing shittily on this whole thing and I tend to get a lecture every time. Sigh.

Lucky for me, Kristen has fabulously agreed to host another challenge. And I'm in!

Hostessing

A year ago this month, I took a cold, hard look at myself and realized I was going nowhere fast with weight loss. My weight had gotten completely out of control; at 266 pounds I was sore, tired, ashamed and grumpy most of the time. My joints ached, I was impatient with my children and husband, mortified to be around people and furious with myself for being unable to pull my act together.

I went to seminars at three different hospitals and made up my mind to get a Lap-Band. In the almost 10 months since my surgery, I've had highs and lows. I'm currently stalled in my weight loss.

But the benefits of the band, and of my thinner, healthier and much more comfortable body, continue to show themselves.

Since June, I've hosted three big, nonfamily parties at my house: One for the incoming families at my kids' preschool, one for our friends and one (last night) for our neighbors. The preschool and neighbor parties involved meeting and talking to A LOT of people I had never met before.

We do the friend party every year, so that's a given. But this year I wasn't mortified to see our friends, which was a nice change!

I know for sure that I never would have had the nerve to host the other events. In fact, last year we had several new families move to our street and I thought about having a block party but immediately pushed the thought out of my mind because I knew it would be too embarrassing to meet everyone when I was so fat.

This year I outweighed every woman at the party by at least 50 pounds, but I still felt good, and confident, and happy to meet new people and talk to our neighbors and make new friends.

That's an awesome NSV, isn't it?

'Good Enough' Syndrome

I see that many of us in blogland are struggling or feeling stuck on the scale, and Lord knows I'm in the same place. I'd blame it on the weather, except Cara's got the same thing going on and her seasons are the opposite of ours.

I think the real reason for my own sluggishness, laziness and overall lack of attention to what I'm eating is a result of 'good enough' syndrome. I've lost 60+ pounds, and while I'm nowhere near thin, I feel normal-ish. What I've lost is good enough to feel not so bad. Joey has something similar going on.

My feet and knees don't ache when I walk. I don't struggle to stand up. I can run up and down the stairs with laundry baskets and babies without being out of breath. I don't shop exclusively at fat-girl stores, although I'm not entirely at regular stores either.

Life is busy so it's easy to put my attention and effort elsewhere - into my children, their schools, my marriage, the house... whatever.

I know this isn't really good enough, though. I'm not at a healthy weight. I don't want to stop here. The journey continues.

PS No regular sugary Cokes since last week. WOOT.

Is This Thing On?

I don't like to point fingers, but someone isn't working her band. Someone is eating more than is strictly necessary, and not particularly healthy stuff. Someone has re-developed a Coke habit. Regular, sugary Coke.

Consequently, someone has gained a few pounds over the last week. Like six. 209 this morning, my friends. That's ugly.

Some of it was stress eating, some of it was being on vacation for a few days. All of it is my fault. So here I am, being accountable and whatnot.

Onward and downward.

Heartbreak, Happiness and Joy

Last Sunday afternoon, as I was packing up the puppies to go back, the phone rang. It was my friend E's mom, telling me that E's teenage daughter had killed herself that morning. Her 12-year-old son found his sister hanging in the garage.

That kicked off a whirlwind four days of shock and sorrow and sympathy and trying to figure out how to explain it to my oldest (who is good buds and classmates with E's youngest).

On Monday, I went to E's house to hug her and cry with her, and took her two youngest to my house for dinner and a playdate. My two boys and her two and another friend made pizzas and ran around with lightsabers, a little slice of normalcy in a horrible situation.

Wednesday evening, I waited in the aisle of a tiny New England church as red-eyed high schoolers and their parents walked past the girl's open casket and fell into her parents' arms, sobbing. E and her husband stood next to their child's body for four hours, comforting an unending stream of her friends, family members and classmates.

Thursday was the funeral, and it was emotionally draining, after an already emotionally demanding few days.

Friday morning I frantically packed for our long-awaited trip to Sonoma for the Hubs' cousin's wedding.

My sister called at 7 am to let me know she was in labor, and I told her she had seven hours to push that baby out before my flight took off at 3.55 pm. We didn't know whether she was having a boy or a girl, and I was dying to know.

My sister never misses a deadline. God bless her, she birthed that child - a boy! with adorably huge cheeks! - with half an hour to spare.

We had a whirlwind trip, drove through wine country, visited a winery, had a couple good meals, saw lots of Hubs' family members, went to the wedding (a whole 'nother story, but the bride and groom were glowing with happiness so that's all that matters) and then drove from the wedding Sunday night to San Francisco airport, where Hubs boarded a redeye to New York and I boarded a separate redeye to Philadelphia.

This morning, my mom picked me up at the airport, I took a nap at her house and then *finally* got to see my new, adorable nephew. I'm so proud of my sister! She had a tough labor, and aside from the hemorrhoids from hell she is rocking the postpartum gig. I spent a few hours with her, then got on a northbound train and took a taxi home from the station.

In one week, we've experienced a totally unnecessary, horrifying, tragic death, the happiness of a couple starting their life together as husband and wife, and the sheer joy of the arrival of a healthy newborn addition to our family.

I am exhausted, and emotionally drained, and so grateful that my children are upstairs asleep in their beds. And heartbroken that my friend's family will never be whole again.

Checking In

Life is getting in the way of blogging, so I just wanted to check in and say hi. Holding steady at 205.4, not eating all that well. Gotta work on the refocus.

I'll get back to reading and commenting soon. In the meantime, take care.

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?