Trip to the Emergency Room!

Hopefully I can share this warning with those of you out there with high blood pressure or loved ones with high bp.

After a lovely morning walking around the lake earlier this week, Alex and I talked about lunch and he said he wasn't hungry.  Then we ran a quick errand, and he was saying he felt nauseous.  Got back to the apartment and he started throwing up.

I just assumed that he had a stomach bug but after about an hour he asked to go to the emergency room.  He said he'd just never felt like that before.  I have to admit when I thought it was a stomach bug, it seemed extreme to go to the hospital, but I'm so glad that we did considering how things turned out!

He's fine now, but it turned out that his blood pressure was up near 200, and that was causing intense headaches and nausea.  Given the headache, they did a cat scan just as a precaution, but he was all clear.

Alex had high blood pressure problems in the past but after the band, it had gone back to normal and our general practitioner had said he could go off his RX. Obviously, without medication, it had gone back up, but he didn't know.

We followed up post-ER visit with our new doctor who gave him a stronger prescription, and his numbers are lower already.  The doctor said to take it easy and be cautious with the walks and exercise but that he can continue walking, etc.moderately.

We also got him an at home blood pressure monitor though it's pretty unreliable in its readings.  Might need to try a wrist one instead.

Bottom line, is that high blood pressure can sneak up on you and you have to take it seriously!  I certainly will from now on!

Hanging out poolside

Today was such a gorgeous day I decided to go for a swim in the late afternoon.  I've been back in Austin since Wednesday and am exploring everything now. I figured that since it had been in the 80s all day, the water would be nice and warm.

Turns out that I was wrong!  It was rather chilly.  Even after getting in and trying to get used to it.

The pool area is just lovely however.  So much so that I even got Alex to hang out there for a while.  I'll definitely be back.

The gym is down next to the pool as well, though I haven't done much more than scope it out.

We were the only ones in the pool area.  There's a pic of me below.  I wasn't all that shy in my swimsuit until Alex reminded me that alllll of the apartments above look down on the pool!  

I LOVE Boston!

I'm at a conference right now in Boston which reminds me a) all the reasons I really do love my job and b) just how awesome the city of Boston is!

I always intended to move back to Boston after I moved away to go teach English in Istanbul.   However, despite all my efforts, life had other things in store for me!

So, here I am this week, 4 or 5 years after my last visit.  10 or so years since I lived here.

Mostly I'm working which has been great, but a couple of times, I've gotten to get out and have dinner or a meal with friends, colleagues and/or customers.

Eating so many fabulous meals out with others really reinforced that despite the fact that sometimes I *think* I can eat a fair amount, really compared to everyone else at every meal I've eaten, my portions are just tiny.  A few people have said, oh will that be enough?  LOVE IT!

And since I'm so busy working and satisfied with hanging out etc, I've turned down lots of opportunities to eat bad things.  Like fancy desserts, chips, etc.  A small amount REALLY does satisfy me.  And for whatever reason, I'm not wanting to snack at all like I was before.  

I do have to take it easy eating and talking.  Make sure everything goes down well of course!

More sight seeing tonight and tomorrow.  Can't wait!

I know I'm fat but...

It's a bit ridiculous that the arms on the desk chair in this hotel room are so narrow that my butt almost gets stuck getting out of the thing!

You might think it would encourage me to lose weight, but instead it just makes me wonder why the chair is so poorly designed!  ; ) 

We're finally, officially in our new apartment!

Yayy!!!  We moved into our new apartment this Saturday.  Unfortunately, I didn't get to stick around long as I'm already away on a business trip in Boston for a week.

Every where i go, there's crappy crappy rain.  Alex just posted this pic of some crazy lightning outside our apartment in Austin.  Here in Boston it's been rainy too.  I'm off to New York after Boston, and guess what the forecast calls for?

I don't have pics of our new apartment yet (it would be all boxes if I did); however, this is the view from our balcony.  (The one from Alex with the lightning and rain).

And I'm pleased to say that the pics I posted previously of our apartment (which were from the model unit) are pretty much identical to the actual apartment.  We had only seen a larger model unit, never the actual thing before we moved in.

The layout, fixtures and all the little details are just the same as our apartment.  Loving the place, but I'll be away for another week before I can enjoy it some more.

So I'm supposed to be working from home...

But really, this is how I spend my time all day!

The first one is me with my two dogs and my mom's dog Charlie.

The second photo is Alex's Vanity Fair-esque shot of the dogs -- both ours and my mom's two dogs (so from left to right, Brit, Charlie, Cali and JJ).

And I suppose I do get some work done on occasion too!

Tomorrow I start working from home

Tomorrow is my first day working from home. Permanently.

I've had lots of thoughts about getting bored or depressed working from home. Or not working enough during the day and then having to work at night to make up the time, or just working all the time.

One thing I haven't really thought about however, or feared, is eating all day being at home. I'm thinking I can't be as bad as I was with that vending machine at work! Assuming I avoid the delivery and fast food trap.

There's the main, HUGE Whole Foods on 6th and Lamar not too far from us, so I'm thinking when I want to go out I can take a wander over there for a fab salad for lunches.

I also just posted something on one of my other blogs about getting an espresso machine to avoid too many Starbucks or morning breakfast outings.

For the time being however, I have two more weeks in Houston before we officially move to our new place in Austin. So I'm kind of between homes for a little while. I'm quite curious to see how two weeks of working in limbo is.

Snacking less but in sugar shock

Overall, I'm finding that I'm snacking a bit less with our new schedule. Snacking is my utter downfall, so this is definitely a good direction to be heading in.

However, I'm in a bit of sugar shock right now as I offered to make cupcakes for my niece's birthday next weekend and tonight was the trial run. I want the icing and decoration to be just perfect, and I was definitely in need of practice.

If anyone is wondering, cupcakes go down just fine. And I'd say I'm at my sweet spot fill-wise right now. I can say that after 2 and a half of them. (They were small and pretty "airy," and I ate them over about an hour or so. I decided just to make that my dinner.

Grocery shopping is a joy again!

I'm on vacation this week and lounged a bit too much yesterday. It was only my second day off but a good reminder that I need to stay active to feel good. Too much sleep and indulgence is a bad thing for me.

So today we got up early, ran a bunch of errands and made our way to the local Kroger. I've mentioned my experiences grocery shopping in New York City previously, and shopping in Houston is just such a drastically different experience. A lovely, wonderful experience!

Yesterday, we actually went to WalMart and that I found a bit depressing and too suburban, but Kroger today was great. The selection, the veggie options, the incredible prices, the wide aisles(!!) and the friendly service.

The best part is that now that we have groceries, I'm no longer stuck in the cycle of fast food eating!

Simple things I know, but we're still living out of suitcases until we move to Austin two weeks from now.

A new life in Texas!

So after many days packing and a three long days of driving, we arrived in Houston early Tuesday evening just in time to have our dogs meet up with my moms two dogs in the park near her place. This was recommended to make sure they all get along okay at Mom's house.

Our new apartment in Austin isn't available until March 20th, so we're crashing with my mom for 2 weeks.

Once we left our apartment in Brooklyn, I felt such a sense of freedom. For at least the three days we were on the road, without an apartment, not having to work or check email or anything, I felt like I had no responsibilities. It was incredibly freeing and fun.

And I love technology because it totally made our drive! We had the GPS on my G1 phone for directions, Alex's music mix on his iphone, a Starbucks GPS finder for anytime i felt like a nice strong coffee. Alex even had an app showing the cheapest gas.

I could really see the difference with Alex and his most recent fill. It definitely helped and he was eating less than me!

Now i just have to figure out my eating in Houston. I'm definitely out of my routine, and for the last two days have been totally vegging out and relaxing.

The weather is completely glorious so I should take the dogs for some long walks. I did one the first day we got here and i can say it ain't easy walking four little dogs at once!!

Tonight, we're off to watch my nephew in a school show. Usually I'm never around for this kind of thing so it should be fun.

One last late night in the office

So I suppose you could say I'm procrastinating on getting the rest of my stuff done since I'm here on my blog posting!

I still need to finish my work projects before my "vacation" / cross country drive. I also have to finish packing up and cleaning my cube and then go home and pack up for the rest of our stuff to ship out tomorrow.

But instead of doing all that I'm here blogging and checking facebook. For a momentary break anyway.

I don't find myself nostalgic about the move at all. Very excited and happy! And busy. I can't wait for the next couple of days to be over and for us to get on the road already.

Anyone want some free Juice Plus Supplements

I have a bunch of unused, unopened SEALED bottles of the powdered Juice Plus supplements that NYU recommends for band and bypass patients. I never ended up taking them, I prefer the chewables, but they are perfectly good and were not cheap.

Consider this the sisterhood of the supplements.

Any takers? I'm moving and I honestly can't bear to toss this out considering what I paid for it!

I'm hoping to get someone who is interested by tomorrow (Thursday) so I can drop it in the mail before we move. U.S. only pleaseeee...

Highs and lows

Feeling a bit worn out. Maybe that's just because it's 10.30 pm, I just got home and now I'm looking around at all the stuff I have to pack. And thinking about an "urgent" work project that was due 2 weeks ago! ack! Three more days to get all our packing done and now i'm starting to stress. It'll get done I feel confident. I'm in a better place than with other moves (thanks to Alex) however, I'm just wondering how late I'll have to stay up to make it all work.

We're selling everything and getting rid of stuff on Craigslist and people are such flakes. They just don't show, so poor Alex is all stressed. After making arrangements with our landlords and everything to get the couch out through their hallway, the guy didn't come. Very lame. The other person didn't come and didn't call too for our entertainment center.

So those are the lows. The highs are that I just feel so great about my job. I'm crazy excited about our move to Austin and all the possibilities. I'm even looking forward to the time off and the cross country drive. And tonight was fun because I got to hang out with my friend Nora. We went to Max Brenner, a fancy chocolate/dessert place here in NYC in Union Square. Incredibly decadent, but I don't feel bad at all because the band only allowed me to eat a fraction of what I ordered.

Yay for the band!

I'm going to motor through the rest of this week and revel in having next week off.

My most recent fill and addictive eating

Those of you who follow this blog know that I struggle with poor eating habits or emotional eating. And really its more than that. There are times when I'm full, and I just keep eating because I'm seeking something more than taste or sustenance from the food. And that's where the band doesn't fix the problem. The mental reasons we eat. I watched something on TV last night about addictive eating and that of course is the heart of it.

You can't go cold turkey, you have to eat something, so it's a challenge. And if I'm honest, I basically just stopped taking responsibility for my eating for a while post band, because I thought, hey, isn't the band supposed to be doing the work, not me?

I had a fill before LA, and it really put me at a sweet spot and that helped a bit to get my head straight. Unless the band loosens a bit, I definitely would not want any more of a fill. I can eat but not too much. I get stuck on occasion but don't really have any problems with PBs etc. I think I'm in a good place.

It's been less than in weeks past, but there still have been occasions where I just want to binge basically. Binge is a relative thing of course. I don't mean shove food in my face as fast and as much as I can. But I do mean getting soda, chips, and candy bar and chowing down.

I tend to want to do this when I get home from work. But what happens if I'm already full, I shouldn't still want to eat that junk. But I do anyway. And in fact, it's hard to talk myself out of it. It's just in my head that it'll make me feel better. And it does, that's the problem.

Alex had a large fill this week, and it did a lot to help limit how much he can eat. It's good for he and I to both be on the same page about meals, etc. So that will hopefully help us both be good influences on the other.

I wonder about this addictive eating thing. I expected all the band blogs to deal with this issue very regularly, but I only see a few bloggers talk about patterns similar to mine.

Curious how many of you out there deal with these same issues and how they affect your weight loss success.

Lap-Band Billboards

I wanted to post this pic from my trip to California last week. We were driving a lot in LA and everywhere we went, I saw these billboards for the Lap-Band surgery. I wasn't really a fan of them though because they made it seem like a quick fix and almost like a cosmetic surgery or a pill you pop.

In fact, I was thinking I definitely would not tell my LA friends and family especially after seeing the way it's promoted there. I'd be afraid people wouldn't take me seriously with it.

Those of us who are banded already struggle with people who think we take the easy way out, and this definitely just makes it worse.

Back from LA

Whew! What a whirlwind life has been lately. So as you know, I'm moving to Austin, and now we're down to the last TWO weeks! Crazy. I FINALLY got to make the big announcement at work today, so I was pretty much gabbing with everyone all day long! When I'd say I was moving to Austin, they all assumed i was leaving the company, but nope! And they were all relieved when I said I wasn't which makes you feel good.

I had a last minute business trip to LA last week which was fab. GORGEOUS weather, especially when compared to all the snow in NYC. Totally missed the whole storm. Yay!

I had less free time than expected, but work-wise it was just excellent. Visited with lots of customers, was really motivated job-wise and had a lot of fun with my coworkers. A great opportunity for professional growth too.

I had been a bit nervous about getting a fill right before the trip given all the business meals etc, but that turned out okay.

It's interesting because for some meals with our managers and one of our authors, I felt like I had to explain why i was eating so little, and then for other meals with my aunt and uncle (who i visited on the last day), I felt like i was eating a lot! I probably ate the same in both situations however.

So much to love about LA including the scenery, all the posh-ness ;), and that FAB weather. However, the crazyyyyy traffic, not so much. And somehow I thought the traffic wouldn't bother me after driving in New York!

Looks like I'll be traveling lots more for this new job. Mostly in and around Texas since they want to take advantage of having me living / working "in the field" but I'll probably be all over the US in general. I'm cool with it, but we'll have to see how Alex reacts. I keep telling him to expect it, so we'll see how it goes!

Do you gurgle and make noises?

So I was talking to a friend a while back who doesn't know I have the band, and she was talking about a different friend of hers who does (rather judgementally, just reaffirming why I haven't told her.)

One of the things she mentioned was that this friend "makes noises." Her stomach gurgles and makes all sorts of sounds after she eats.

And for some reason after that I started paying more attention and noticing that my stomach also gurgles. Sometimes it sounds like it's growling, other times like it's "processing." It's not related to gas or an upset stomach or anything like that. I just make weird noises. HA!

At first it was just at night in bed, Alex would hear it and chuckle. But as I get additional fills, I've started hearing it at work too.

Just every once in a while, nothing too embarassing yet. But it caught my attention when my friend brought up the topic. I'd hate for her to hear my tummy and with all the other clues figure out my little secret!

Have any of you experienced this? And it's new post-band right?

Today is my 6 month bandiversary

In general, not sure how I feel about that. I do know that despite not having lost as much weight as I could have, I am definitely glad I got the band. It just makes me pay more attention and makes me more accountable.

And with one or two exceptions in regard to experiences, in general I'm not a freak or outcast when it comes to other people who don't know about the band. I'm still pretty normal overall. I'll have to write about this new tummy gurgling thing soon though.

And the good is that my blood pressure is normal now, and I have lost 35 pounds.

However, I'm glad it was covered by insurance. Had I spent all that in cash or even a large deductible, I would be quite upset about my current status.

I'll write more later on this topic...

Got the ok to get pregnant (and a hug from Dr. K)

So today's visit with Dr. K turned out to be a good one. I hadn't been to the NYU office in 6 weeks as it turned out, and in that time, I gained 6 pounds.

I wasn't surprised by that as I've been watching the scale, but of course the question came as to why.

I told her the truth which is just that I've been struggling with emotional eating, and I've had a fair amount of stress. She was surprisingly receptive when I told her about Alex being laid off and all the lay offs at my company and how I was reorganized into a new job. And now the move.

Despite the office itself being totally slammed, Dr. K was calm and spent more time than usual with me. She did say she thought it might be hard to find a Lap-Band doctor willing to take on a patient who they didn't operate on which surprised me. But I am going to send her my list of doctors, and she'll make a recommendation from there.

I also asked her about whether I had the okay to get pregnant and she said yes!! So we're in the clear! We'll probably take our time with all that's going on though.

And I got a hug from her when I was leaving. Certainly the first time a doctor has hugged me.
It was a very nice visit overall.

I also got a fill, one of the easiest ones. .3 ccs. We'll see how it works.

Dr. K tomorrow

I'm feeling a bit nervous about seeing Dr. K tomorrow since I've gained a few pounds since my last visit. Granted without the band, and with all this stress and change over the last few months, I'd have gained all my weight back plus another 30 I'm sure!

But I know Dr. K can be tough so I'm cringing about going in tomorrow. Last time I went in I saw Gaspar instead since he was easier to book.

I'm off to finish watching the Lost season premiere now and finish rewriting a report I worked late last night finishing. Arg...

No matter how hard I try...

...french fries just aren't as good post-band!

It's like my mind knows that they are bready and not so band friendly! And I have tried! It's weird that my actual taste would change? Not sure what that's about!

Fill moved up!

Turns out I have a business trip next week to LA, kind of a last minute thing. I'll be presenting technology to some customers and then will be making some other visits with our reps and managers. Kind of a new thing for me in my new job as marketing product manager.

Given that I'll be gone, I had to reschedule my fill appointment with Dr. K and this Wed was all they could give me. I'll take it!

I find myself having more trouble eating bread and whatnot, so I'm thinking with this next fill I'll be more like many of the other bandsters out there who can't eat breads, etc.

Actually had a smidge of trouble with a leafy salad the other day, though I had another today without really any trouble. But I must admit I was cautious and chewed, chewed, chewed. The more I have issues with things going down, the more I chew. A good thing I suppose.

Pick pocket

What a lame day so far, and it doesn't help that its Monday.

Woke up not feeling well. I've just felt like I've had a lingering cold for a week or two now and had a sore throat this morning. Just couldnt sleep last night at all which makes getting up earlier than usual hard.

We had to go to the DMV this morning so I could get a NY State license since we bought our new car here. The place was packed but I'm shocked to say, well organized. No frills though. You need a pen, you buy one. See below. I'd never seen that before!


So we waited in one line, then a second line, finally a third line and I got my temp NY license. Unfortunately, that's when Alex realized he no longer had his cell phone. We had just been sitting looking at it together reading an email, so we knew exactly when he had it. Then he slipped it in his pocket, the place was mad busy, he goes back to his pocket and it's gone. Not on the ground or anything. Given that we both knew he had just had it, it had to be a pick pocket. Perfect location too since it was so crowded and everyone's distracted with their DMV business.

Alex was extremely upset since he uses it like a computer and it had all kinds of personal info on it. We started immediately changing account passwords, etc after reporting it lost/stolen. Not to mention that the iphones themselves are expensive and it is like Alex's little baby, he loves that thing!

When I'm stressed, of course my instinct is to eat, but they forgot to include my donut when i drove through for coffee! Serves me right I suppose. I did instead get soup and salad for lunch at my favorite healthy place, Columbine in Tribeca. So I suppose the day can only improve from here!

Let's hope!

Inching my way back to 40 pounds lost

The scale has been up and down a lot this week, but hey, at least it's going down as the general trend.

Daily weighing definitely helps me stay accountable for what I eat every day! Otherwise, today I might have just gone of the deep end, but now I've just been reminded, oh yeah, i actually want to lose weight! So that means don't pig out!

Anyone out there have posh NYC restaurant recommendations?

My boss just sent me this fab list of the NYC's most stunning restaurants, and I'm happy to say I've been to a few of them. Spice Market was particularly gorgeous!

One perk of my current job has been that it's enabled me to eat at some of NYC's finest restaurants -- given that my boss is a total foodie, we do posh things for sales meetings and we used to have vendors take us out for really incredible lunches.

Sometimes posh=small servings, so it doesn't even mean I have to totally over do it.

Sooo...I think I need one more fancy restaurant outing in NYC before we move to Austin.

Any of you guys have recommendations? I know Colleen recently went to Asiate and loved it. So that's on my list. Any other suggestions?