Happy Halloween

A nifty little American Greeting online card I received from a friend. How appropriate.

Scale, back!

My scale is back in the bathroom. It was banished for a couple weeks while we were trying to train our new kitten.
I had been really obsessed with the scale before it was taken out of the room. I'd weigh myself when I got up, after I dressed, before I peed, after I peed, before I drank/ate, after I drank/ate. It was ridiculous--and self-defeating. It was like I never even saw the weight come off because I was so busy watching the tiny ups and downs.
Now it's been back in the bathroom for a few days and I can already see myself falling back into that old routine. I think I weighed myself at least 4 times today! Did it do me any good? No, not really. (Okay, I did discover that I could fart out about .5 lbs in gas.)
I wish my scale was built into my treadmill. If I wanted to step on the scale, I'd have to put the treadmill down, turn it on and walk 30 minutes before the weight would measure.
Maybe I should just head to the treadmill when I want to weigh myself. I need to start exercising. I tell myself I don't do it because my leg feels like it's popping out of my hip and my sciatic nerve bothers me. But it's starting to sound more like an excuse. I see my PCP in a week and half and I know she's going to ask about my exercise routine. How wild would it be to not have to LIE about my level of activity?

Snacker Doodle

I love snacks! I loved them even more BEFORE surgery when my entire day was pretty much one big snack. But the fact that I still get snacks AFTER surgery is like finding a $1 bill in an old purse you dug out of the closet. It ain't much but it makes you feel like you won the lottery.

I just got done having a snacky-poo of Carb Options Peanut Butter (2 tablespoons) and a glass of Chocolate Soy Slender. De-lish-us. I think I made that peanut butter last 15 minutes. And I discovered that if you take a bite of PB and swallow, but don't lick your teeth so you still have a little PB residue in the crevices, then take a sip of choco soy and SWISH it around...it almost tastes like a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup!

Other favorite nibblers for me are cheese. And cheese. Oh, and also cheese. Any way I can get my protein, I'll take it. (I'll write another day about my search for appropriate fiber sources.) I've tried some soy crisp crackers, popcorn cakes, rice cakes and rye crisp. Moderation, dear, moderation. More than a couple and I feel like I've just been given permission to lick clean the inside of a potato chip bag.

It was pretty late tonight when I had my PB snack--after 10. Normally (post-op) I wouldn't eat anything so late. But I was on my way home from teaching a class and all I could think about was what drive-thru had food I could eat. I wasn't hungry. Just wanted to EAT. So I told myself that if I made it home without any detours through any order windows, I'd have a snack. So for about 10 miles, I took a mental inventory of the refrigerator.

I think one reason I wanted to eat on this particular night at a time when I generally wouldn't was because every other time I'm driven this route at that time of night by myself, I would have stopped at a McDonalds or Taco Bell. Just because I could. And I would have ordered more food than I needed--and I would have eaten it all.

The HABIT of is harder to break than I thought. Sometimes I think I use the excuse of my surgery to EAT at meal times. For example, tonight I got home from work around 5 and knew I had to leave by 5:30 for class. I wasn't hungry and wasn't going to eat. But then I convinced myself I had better eat because I wouldn't be able to later. Well, I wouldn't be able to eat that stuff on the stove later on because I'd be elsewhere and be preoccupied. But I could have eaten something else later had I packed a meal and took it with me. But the habit of eating at 5 took over and I did it.

I can see these habits of mine could be a royal pain in my shrinking ass.

2 months down, 20+ years to go

Today is my 2-month anniversary of my WLS. Here's what's different:

GOOD

• I weigh @55 lbs. less
• I'm wearing clothes at least 2 sizes smaller
• I can walk from the far end of the parking lot to my office at work without panting
• My rings are sliding and sometimes falling off
• I snore less and sleep better
• I don't take meds for my high blood pressure or diabetes anymore
• I don't have constant heart burn
• I save about $75 a week on restaurant bills
• I can sit in an airplane seat without an extender
• I fit into restaurant booths
• I don't get bruises from the armrests in theatres
• I have a bigger lap for my kittens to sleep in

BAD

• My skin is very dry, almost painfully so
• I burp like a guy--all the time
• Sometimes my intestinal gurgles keep me from falling asleep
• I feel like my emotions are out of control
• I second-guess people's good intentions toward me

So all in all, the good far, far, FAR outweighs the bad. I told someone tonight that I would do it all again in a heartbeat. And I really would. I don't even know if I'd do anything different. Well, I probably wouldn't buy the crap load of protein mixes that I "just had to have."

Life's good right now. No complications, no dumping, no regrets. I hope th enext few decades of my life go just as well.

Tick Tock, Tick Tock

3:35 PM: I just ate my afternoon snack. My head is telling me more. My pouch is pretty quiet. But I'm not going to do it. I'm not going to eat another thing until the appropriate meal time. God help me. I wish I smoked.

UPDATE: I made it 'til dinner without snitching, sneaking or stuffing food in my face. Unfortunately, I was so excited to see food that I scarfed it down a bit too quickly. Although I didn't puke (yet), I've been belching like satan himself is about to rise from the depths of my gut.

Speaking of belching, I do take pleasure in a weird sort of way when toss out a good one. Since I seem to do so much of it, I guess it could be a twisted kind of positive reinforcement.
UUUUUUUUUUUUUUUURRRRRRRRRRRRP!

Knowing that I'm likely to want to eat again tonight, I've got a game plan to prevent the munchies. First, I'm not going to even walk into the kitchen. There's just no way I can clean up the dishes from dinner. Or empty the dishwasher. Or refill my water bottle myself. The risk is just too great. Second, to eliminate any temptation created by walking through the home, I'm going to park my fat ass in front of the TV set for some quality programming. (I think Supernatural is on tonight). Finally, because I might feel guilty for not excercising--which could make me thirsty and require a trip into the kitchen--I will look through Sunday's newspaper ads to see if anyone has an excercise ball and dvd on sale. Maybe, just maybe, I'll go buy it, too. (Depends if Supernatural really is on or not.)

Food SUCKS

Crappy, crappy, crappy food day. Or it least it feels that way. Here's what I shoveled in:

• Protein Shake
• Ostrich Burger with cheese
• Applesauce
• Mozarella Stick
• Soy Crisps
• Lentil Soup with cheese
• Rice cakes

I look at that list and it doesn't seem so bad, except that it was HOW I ate. And that was like a cow: grazing.

It was a stressful day at work and my first reaction was to reach for food. Even when I got home tonight, I couldn't stop. It was probably a huge mistake to think that I could handle anything even remotely resembling, tasting or crunching like chips. I never should have bought them. If they're in front of me, they might as well be inside of me, because that's where they are going.

I wish my head could have been rewired like my gut was. I read a lot about head hunger. People told me about it. Why did I think I'd be immune?

I tell myself that tomorrow will be another day. But it's another day with popcorn cakes shoved in the bottom of my desk drawer, waiting for me to be pissed off, bored, crazy, giddy, goofy, and to reach for the bag and start inhaling. I know I should just throw them away. I'd like to think, though, that I had some self-control. Then again, if I had self-control would I have ended up where I am now?

God, food sucks. And so do I. Today.

Es-Aych-Oh-Pee-Pee-Eye-En-Gee SHOPPING

Was it the Pet Shop Boys that sang SHOPPING? God, where has all the good music gone. I digress.

I did go shopping yesterday. At a mall. I actually went into fat girl stores I've never visited before (Casual Woman Annex and Torrid--I know, 2 extremes) because I never thought I'd fit into the clothes.

At first I was really excited that these clothes not only fit, they even looked okay. But it was depressing. I felt like I really shouldn't buy anything because how long would I actually be able to wear it? And then I started to feel like I just didn't "fit in", like I was some kind of imposter that, any day now, would balloon up and never even fit through the door. I didn't feel REAL.

I look in the mirror and wonder when someone's going to figure out that I'm a fat girl, used to be a really fat girl and someday will, once again, be even fatter. I just don't trust all the change yet.

Later in the day we went to Target and I tried on a coat there. Now Target, Walmart, any store like that I NEVER even look at clothes because I'M TOO FAT! I looked at myself in the mirror and then looked behind me because my brain couldn't believe the person staring back could be me.

Will my head ever catch up with my body? Will clothes ever be sized consistently from one store to another?

And what kind of "style" is right for me? I'm used to BIG. But sexy? Professional? Casual? Slut? Preppy? (Okay, someone told me they saw a high school kid wearing an IZOD shirt with the collar flipped up. Say it ain't so!) I'll take any recommendations. Maybe I'll take the camera to stores with me, try on styles and post pics so someone else can tell me what to wear. Fat Fashion Frenzy.

Mincemeat

Eight weeks ago I had laproscopic RNY gastric bypass surgery. They chopped off the big stomach, made a new little pouch and rewired the thing to another part of my intestines.

I wonder what my old stomach is doing. Sometimes I think I feel it in there, aching a bit, probably wondering what the hell just happened. It kind of makes me feel like I have an identical twin inside of me, like when you read about people who discover that a tumor is actually deformed embryo all wadded up and twisted inside.

Setting up Shop

One morning, when I was five or six, I woke up early, earlier than my parents and my little brother. Early enough that I knew if I snuck quietly passed the other bedroom doors, I could make it to the kitchen. And to the plate of bars that my mom's friend Gayle had sent home the night before.

I coveted those bars. I knew when I nibbled on one for the first time that I wanted MORE. And I woke up with that hunger grumbling in my kid belly.

So I took one. I shoved it in my mouth, chewing quickly, trying to hide the evidence before a parent appeared. And then I ate another, and another, and enough that when my mom finally noticed a couple of hours later, the plate looked empty. I undoubtedly looked guilty.

That was the first time I remember snitching food and trying to hide it. The first of many, many, many times.

I still feel like that little girl--more than 30 years later, more than 100 miles from my mom. Except now I'm a gazillion pounds overweight and desperate enough to stop the insanity to have had a RNY gastric bypass.

But, amazingly so, the more pounds that come off, the more that little girl fights to come back. Let's call her Shrinking Violet.