The end of a decade and the start of a new one!

It kind of shocks me that it's the end of a decade. Y2k seems like yesterday, but of course really a lot has happened since then.

In 2000, I was living in Boston in my first major publishing job and finishing up grad school. I had lost 100 pounds and was on the top of my game!

I moved to Istanbul to take some time off and teach after grad school in the Spring of 2000. After living in Turkey for a year and a half, I moved back to Houston to get back on my feet financially.

I was rather depressed during that period and gained back all the weight I lost. Oh no! So I needed another major change and planned on moving back to Boston, but somehow ended up in New York. Had a couple of friends that had moved here so I thought, what the heck and applied to a job on a whim. Needless to say I got that job and moved here. For the first few weeks I kept thinking "New York!?!? How the hell did I end up here!?!" But six years later, I can definitely say that I love this city.

And of course, I met Alex here and now we're married. I was surprised that being a newlywed is so romantic!

And now I have this band and am back to losing weight again!

A lot of the last 10 years was about career, and I'm ready for this new decade to be all about family. And health, wellness, and happiness!

Here's to a fabulous 2010!

Another pound down

So at least I'll be starting the new year back at my last mini-goal. Only 1 pound up from my lowest post-WLS.

Just tried on a dress I got as a Christmas present, an Old Navy size 20, and it was too big. Granted that means I have nothing to wear to the New Year's Eve party tonight, but I am glad to see that that size 20 was too big!

Domesticated Eating

I feel like Alex and I just ate a real, domesticated, married couple meal. With one small exception. I'll get into how it came about in another post, but we just finished eating a meal of bbq chicken (thanks mom for the stove-top grill, and I think that Native Texan bbq sauce was part of dawn's gift of Texan fixin's.) My chicken was of course of the soy variety, but YUM anyway!

And then we had that with mashed potatoes (with aged comte cheese and garlic) and with corn.

We don't always cook at home and when we do, it's not usually a meat and potatoes type of meal, so this just made me feel so domestic and "married." The next step would be to eat a meal at the table instead of instead of in front of the tv watching a movie!

Back down that same pound

Talking about yo-yo-ing. I'm back down one of the same pounds I've been up and down the last couple of months! But at least the scale is heading in the right direction. And given the new year, and no more holidays and no more excuses, hopefully, the scale will continue to head in that direction. Only 6 more til my next mini goal.

How are you all feeling about New Years? I'm not feeling like tomorrow is a big excuse to blow it all. Though we do have plans to attend a New Year's Party of a friends in the West Village, so there will be opportunity. I'll just have to make an effort to count the number of drinks I have and alternate alcohol with water.

Yo-Yo-ing

I'm back in NYC. I enjoyed a fair amount of indulgence traveling around Texas last week and reminded myself that there are definitely times where I have little self control. For those pre-band who are worried that holidays just won't be the same, for Alex and I they pretty much are the same. We eat less, Alex said he had to be more strategic in what he chose to eat, but we still indulged.

I'm 2 pounds up now, but as of today, I'm limiting my intake. For today, no ordering out (a big no-no that we do way too often) and then as of tomorrow, I'm back to calorie counting and smaller portions. Good thing there are no more excuses in the coming months. Just time to get in the swing of things.

Since I'm up again, I'm 7 pounds to my next mini goal, but it's a big one for me!

Not entirely MIA, just on vacation

So I was without a computer for most of this week as I've been on vacation in Austin and San Antonio since last weekend. I'm at my mom's in Houston now so I'm able to catch up a bit. I've been indulging as I always do in Texas, but this most recent fill has stopped me from going too overboard. In fact, I'd be totally fine if I weren't snacking between meals. The meals themselves are great; it's just that you can "trick" the band by eating and snacking again when you are no longer full, before the next meal (oh no!)

I'm back in NYC after Christmas and am actually quite psyched about the possibilities of weight loss for the new year. So much so that I'm going to get back on the horse Sunday rather than wait until New Year's Day.

Off to wrap gifts now. I love Christmas!

Merry Christmas to you all!

7.1ccs in a 10cc band

So as mentioned, I went for my third fill yesterday. I had heard a few people talk about Gaspar at NYU, and this was my first time meeting with him. I cannot recommend him highly enough. I told him I was nervous and that my other fills had been difficult, and he totally got it. He said this is what I do all day long, I know what I'm doing. He said he knew I was nervous about having someone "grind" the needle around trying to find the port, and it just clicked. When he used the word grind, I knew he knew exactly my discomfort before. That's exactly what happened the other times.

But not this time. He felt the port, inserted the needle and it was done. Easy and only a pinch. It's more of a pinch than giving blood because it's a bigger needle, and it gets sore afterwards. But he totally took the fear out of it! Yay Gaspar!

And I'm definitely feeling restriction even with my liquids. Felt it with my soup last night and my coffee this morning. It all goes down just fine, but it's nice to just know that this fill "took."

So I now have 7.1cc's in a 10cc (small) band.

Weigh In

As a step toward getting back on the wagon, I made myself weigh in this morning. I've been eating so many cookies and indulging so much in the "holidays" that I was nervous to see the number.

But i was only two pounds up. I can live with that. It's not undoable. However, it does undo my most recent mini-goal.

I also weighed in at NYU. Only 3 pounds lost since my last appointment but that's better than a gain. It's been a while since I was in last which is why that's a bummer!

Soup recipes?

Anyone have any good soup recipes to share? I figured I should start making soup instead of cookies at this point given my post fill diet.

Vegetarian ones would be particularly appreciated.

I get lunch from this place called Columbine here in Tribeca on occasion, and they have the most to-die-for soups. Makes having soup for lunch an actual luxury. (As does the price, but if that's all you get then it's not bad at all! Another benefit of the band lifestyle).

Mmm...Cookies

So we had the cookie swap here at work and I ate cookies. I kind've forgot I wasn't supposed to because they went down just fine after my fill this morning.

But I'm back on liquids now. I'm kind've just fine about having had the cookies since I put SO much work into organizing and baking for this thing.

Yum. Now back to being good.

Loving this new fill. Will do a separate post on that later.

When I don't blog, you can rightfully assume I'm off the wagon

I mentioned to someone today at our bandster brunch, that when I'm not blogging here, it pretty much means I'm off the wagon. When I'm on the wagon, I'm much more tuned in. I do check in and read others blogs, but when I'm doing badly, beyond a post or so, I don't usually want to acknowledge that. Denial is just easier.

So I'm making myself blog and engage with the whole weight loss thing. Since all I really want to do right now is sleep and eat more of the Christmas cookies I made.

As I mentioned previously, tomorrow afternoon is the work cookie swap I organized. Tomorrow is also my fill day in the morning. I'm not sure how those two things will go when happening on the same day. I'll check in then and let y'all know how i handle the cookies being on liquids. It's going to be a bit obvious if I don't eat given that I organized the darn thing!

I'm absolutely looking forward to the fill though. It's been too long. I just hit a point where it's no longer free (after 3 months), so I was putting it off.

Banster Brunch

Thanks to Jen for organizing a great bandster brunch today. We met up at Dos Caminos in Manhattan and indulged in Prickly Pear Margaritas. YUM! It's probably the only time I would let that much guacamole sit on the table, but we were all engrossed in the conversation.

It was Jen, Colleen, Carla, Catherine and me. Unfortunately Yana was sick and unable to make it, and Jacqui was out on Long Island. Hopefully we'll see you ladies next time!

It was great to meet everyone in person after following their blogs and to have others to talk openly to about the band and weight issues.

The card in my camera was full, so I didn't get any photos, but a few others did. Can't wait to see their pics!

Half Days

Took half days yesterday and today. Was just unfocused at work with all that was going on. Would've taken full days off, but I wanted to see a few people and had an all staff mtg (and another really boring mtg) this morning I had to at least show up for.

I'm organizing a holiday dessert hour / cookie swap (i know, i know!) for Monday and given the layoffs, I offered to take on coordinating our secret santa. (The previous organizers were both laid off as were some of the participants so we decided to re-draw and send the organizers a little gift as a thank you / we miss you to them).

I'm happy to have some holiday things to distract me though as I was worthless work-wise. Was just feeling really pissy in the mtgs I did have to go to.

And I decorated our Christmas tree finally last night. I'll post a pic later this weekend.

And I'm preparing packages of Christmas cookies this weekend to mail and for our dessert hour Monday. And the rest of our Christmas cards.

Let's just hope I don't eat too many of the cookies while I cook. The plan is to package the gifts to mail immediately to prevent that!

I've been on a tear food wise. When I stress that's what I do. Just waiting for my fill on Monday morning. Yes just before our dessert hour, so I'll be on fluids only that day and liquids and soft foods the rest of the week. Ironic the timing worked out that way! Can't decide if that's an oops or a yay!

Layoffs at Work

So today was just a super crappy day for numerous reasons some of which I won't go into, but walking to work in the cold sideways rain this morning wasn't a good sign of how things would go.

Our division had some pretty sweeping layoffs at work. We have a new director and she came in and reorganized us all a few weeks back and today all the layoffs came. I think there will be more very significant changes in job duties in editorial in the next week or so. The job changes for marketing (where I work) came right before our wedding, so that I think is done. Who knows if they'll reorganize our sales force more in the future however.

The crappiest part is who was let go. Close friends, people I hang out with, several of the key people in our book club at work. All people that I'm friends with or who have been with the company for ages. Some senior level people as well as mid-level.

As Alex says, that just suxors.

Not much else I can say except that I will seriously miss having them all around!

Having brunch with the lap-band ladies this weekend!

A couple of NYC bandsters, Jen and Catherine, have arranged a brunch at a local restaurant called Dos Caminos this Sunday. There will be perhaps 8 or so of us? I think it'll be awesome to meet people in person since I've been following their blogs all this time.

I'll let you all know how it goes Sunday. Then I'm planning on going to a couple of the other holiday markets I didn't get to last weekend, including the Bryant Park one to visit Nora and then maaaybbbe if I have any money, the Brooklyn Flea one. That might have to wait though.

(Can you tell it's already the weekend in my mind?!?!)

The decorating appeals to me, just not the cleaning up part

So I've been totally into Christmas this year. I think being a newly wed really helps. I just want to be utterly domestic.

We shlepped over to our storage unit and got all of our Christmas stuff (a lot of it) and then wheeled it all back to our apartment which is about 3/4 of a mile away. Had to put some serious effort into getting it to fit into the cart and two other rolling bags.

These are definitely the times I wish that I had a car instead of just a cart! A grandma cart, like this one above. Sure makes life difficult sometimes.

I've got the tree put up, got out the Christmas albums last night, have been baking up a storm (oh no) and am writing our Christmas cards. The only thing I haven't done is actually decorate the tree as that will involve rearranging the furniture and cleaning up a bit and that part of this process, I'm just not feeling.

Hence the reason I'm doing our Christmas cards!

Feeling a bit of a sore throat though, so I'm hoping that won't lead to anything bad. I'm trying to ignore it and just be festive instead. Usually if I wake up with one it might go away, but it just came on this evening, so that might not be good.

Slimfast Recall

Don't go drinking SlimFast! News just in that's 10 million cans have been recalled due to bacterial contamination!

Read the full story here.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703558004574580040211489548.html

Definitely the time to try another brand!

Today's a bummer day

So I got some bad news today and am feeling pretty bummed and on top of that I had a realization about my money situation yesterday and am totally depressed about that.

So you know those things we dont talk about in society, money and weight. So we've all opened up and talked about weight on these band blogs, but not about money.

Seems as though whenever I have any money in my pocket, I seem compelled to spend it. Food of course being a major area but I manage to spend it all in lots of places.

Is there anyone else out there just as dysfunctional with their money as with their weight? Or am I the only one?

I figure the two issues have to be related, at least for me.

Time for a fill

So i called to get an appointment for a fill, and they said that they had nothing until the end of Dec. Oh no!

I cancelled last month's appointment so I haven't had a fill since mid Oct. So that'll be about two and a half months apart.

I'm just so caught up in the holidays (check out my other blog Dabble to see some of what I've been up to) that I've been indulging and baking.

So for a baby step, I'm going to at least make myself count calories and see where I go with that. It's always up and down with me in terms of motivation, but the good thing with the band is that you can't quit it!

In fact, a couple of times this weekend I've surprised myself getting super full and have felt glad to have the band! I just need to make wiser choices about the foods i do eat and I'm not really feeling that at the moment.

Back in the right direction

I'm exhausted. Today was a long day, mostly in a good way. I've just been walking a ton and just now got home at 10pm, so I'm wiped out.

However, today's good news is that the scale went back down a pound. I hope it keeps heading in that direction, and that there are no more yo yo's in store for me in my near future.

Almost PB'd at work today

On of all things chips and a glass of milk. So yes, I was eating chips, and drinking at the same time!

Problem was I wasn't at all paying attention, I was eating in a hurry, and after just a couple of chips, I was like "What the!?!?"... and it started coming back up, and I was feeling some pressure, and I felt like I was going to gag, but then it just passed. Thank goodness.

I was in my cube, which is relatively private, but you never know. And i was just thinking up excuses in case someone came into my "office" and saw me bent over the trash can.

Oy! Up one more pound today.

Which makes three pounds up since last week. Which is more like what I was expecting!

Fingers crossed the scale doesn't keep moving up!

I read on another band blog (forgive me for not remembering which one) that it can sometimes take 4 fills to really see the difference. I've had two (but am at like 6-something CC's) and while I can tell the difference from before, I can also eat more than expected.

It's definitely time for another fill appointment!