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

Hi from Florida!

Hi there, just wanted to pop in with a quick update. I think I may be just a hair past my sweet spot. I'm very limited in my eating, quantity-wise. I have a few bites, maybe five or six, and I can't eat any more. It's kind of frustrating sometimes, because I still *want* to eat more. But that's the whole point of the band, right?

I'm not really hungry, I'm not spending too much time thinking about food. I had one stuck/PB episode this morning but otherwise the eating is going really well. Even with the Key Lime pie I've been enjoying. I don't have a scale here, but I'd be surprised if I gain anything this week.

I hope you're all well - I'll catch up on your blogs next week when we're back home. xoxo

Well, the scale settled in a little lower today, although still not at my low from last Sunday. So unless there is some kind of miracle between now and tomorrow, I will show a gain for the Swimsuit Challenge this week. Bummer.

I shipped our suitcases to Florida last week because I knew it'd be too much to juggle the luggage along with the kids at the airports. It wasn't easy to find warm-weather stuff for me to wear. I have a LOT of clothes for about 20 pounds from now. I won't need to buy a thing if I can lose that fairly quickly, I'll be set for the summer. In the meantime, I have one pair of capris (and I HATE capris because I'm short and they make me look even shorter) and a bunch of shirts. So there's another good reason to get this weight loss going.

I'm planning to do lots of good walks with my mom while we're down there. She often walks three miles a day, and I'm looking forward to putting the baby in the stroller and walking to Starbucks and back with her. That should get me into better shape, which will give me a little more confidence to start formal workouts again.

As for the band, it has loosened up. Still tighter than I'd like, but tolerable now. I can eat solids, just v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y.

Thanks for the comments about my son. The pediatrician gave me a couple names to call and I'll see how that goes.

Whootenanny Business, and Tough Day

After all the whootenanny talk, with the powders and the Barbies and the traumatized four-year-olds, I decided to go professional. Got a bikini wax today. Couple things:

1. It didn't hurt. Not like you hear, anyway.
2. It was more thorough than any gyno exam I've had, and I *didn't* get a Brazilian. I can't even fathom how that would work.
3. I am virtually certain I'm the fattest person this woman has ever waxed, but bless her she was lovely the entire time. And I tipped her well for her trouble.

It's been kind of a shit day. I'm three pounds above my Sunday low. I'm on the verge of tears. I was starving all morning, didn't make very good choices. Got a call from my son's teacher than he's lying, but almost exclusively about food -- trying to buy lunch after he eats what we've packed him, trying to finagle a second snack from her after he eats the one from home, etc. I don't even know where to begin. I called the pediatrician to ask for help.

We leave on Sunday to visit my parents in Florida, just me and the kids. The Hubs has to stay home and work for a living.

I've flown a lot with the boys - they're pro travelers - but never with all three of them before. I'm girding my (newly waxed) loins for shlepping three kids, a car seat, stroller, bottles, snacks, sandwiches and various carry-on items through security, on and off the plane and through two airports. Pray for me. I need it.