Mini-Grr (while counting my blessings. . .)

So, it's April 30th today. My big pre-op six-month goal was to be down 40 lbs by the end of April. How did I do? 39.6 pounds.

Yes, that measely .4 has hung on for dear life, despite that I was especially good during the last 2 days and also got my butt kicked in the gym by my trainer last night! I know it's a TOM (time of month. .) issue, but darn it!! I wanted to see that new number today!

I really hope to be able to post a 40 tomorrow. I guess if I lose it by the morning, that still will count! :) :) I'm not really complaining -- I am thrilled to be doing as well as I am. BUT, I didn't come this far to have my goal foiled by some tenacious .4!

The Privacy Balance. . .

Most of you know from prior posts that I've told my closest friends and most of my family about my band. I also am trying hard to keep my band life and work life (professional reputation, etc) separate -- and I'm still struggling with the balance.

Funny enough, this subject came up in a recent string on LBT that led to a pretty heated discussion, mainly because the original poster was making some very ignorant and inflammatory statements about how not telling people is morally and socially irresponsible, etc. I completely disagree with that. Still, I do struggle with keeping my privacy at work vs. being open with the people there who I really like and consider as friends.

The way I have to look at is that the moment I tell one or more people at work, I will have to expect that other people (who I do not want to share this with) will find out. So, if I want to keep any privacy at work, I need to stick to sharing this information with purely personal friends and family. As the old saying goes. . the best way to keep a secret is not to tell anyone. . .

Yesterday, a colleague who I really like and consider to be a friend asked me about my weight loss. She is very thin, but her mother is more than 100 pounds overweight, and she is trying to inspire her to lose. It sounds as though the family is very involved in trying to get the mother to diet, mainly out of concern for her health. I gave her the best advice I could (without mentioning my band) and suggested that her mom look into surgery as an option. Part of me wanted to tell her, in the hope that it would help her mother. But, the small chance of that happening vs the sacrifice of my personal medical privacy just did not make that an option that I was willing to take. Funny enough, I learned in that conversation that my friend is completely opposed to WLS and has discouraged her mother from considering bypass surgery.

I feel that I made the right decision for me, but that does not mean that it wasn't hard not to tell this person who I like and consider as a friend. If you have this situation, how are you handling it?

Spring Closet Cleaning!

Today, I had some of the most fun I've ever had cleaning out my closet! My mother was here, and we turned up the disco music and went through pretty much everything in my closet to see what fit, what is too big, and what things might fit later that are worth keeping.

What? Whose pants could these be?!? :)

Yes, ladies & gentlemen. . . these pants USED to fit me! But that was then and this is NOW!! I'm down 39.8 lbs as of this morning - just on the cusp of 40!! The bathing suit I'm wearing is from 2005 and was too small until recently -- I've been wearing it when I go to the pool in my building to swim laps. Perfect!

Here I am in a new green Victoria's Secret halter maxi-dress (sorry you can barely see that dress, but I'll surely post some photos this summer). The dress I'm holding up is one that I think would look particularly great on a fellow bandster, and I've offered to send it to her if she's interested. I'm probably going to put the other stuff on eBay or give it to Goodwill, but this dress still had the tags on it and was just too cute to not do make a present of it to a fellow bandster who is doing great!

As for these capris. . . can you believe they were getting tight at the end of last summer? Wow. I feel like someone came into my closet with a magic wand and made all of my summer clothes a few sizes bigger. It's so amazing and surreal to try this stuff on, remember wearing it, and really SEE just how much a difference 40 lbs (ok. . 39.8) :) can make.

Room for two?

Have I mentioned that I love my band? :)

Scar Attraction. . .

Only time for a quick post this morning, but I have to say how great that Epidermis product is that I've been using on my scars. They have really faded a lot! I wish I would have known about this stuff at the beginning!

Here is the link again, in case anyone wants to get it. I posted more information about the product and what size is probably best in an earlier post. http://www.biodermis.com/scar_products/epi-derm

Happy 6-Month Bandiversary!

Today is my 6-month bandiversary, and all is going well. At this point, a few observations are that:

*I'm almost 40 pounds down!!

*I feel lighter and healthier

*Everyone has been noticing that I've lost weight

*I feel like I look much better

*I'm on the cusp of fitting back in my Banana Republic pants (though they really aren't in style anymore, so it's just a point of pride to have them fit properly!)

*I'm starting to get excited about shopping again

*I am about half way through the weight loss part of this journey, and feel confident that I'm going to get to goal and keep it off.

*I am really, really happy that I decided to get my band.

Happy 6-Month Bandiversary!!!

Wow!

I just realized that I've now lost more than one pound for every year I've been alive! (Let's make it two. . ) :) :)

THIRTY-NINE!!!!

My scale has been stuck at the same weight for nearly 2 weeks. So, this weekend, I mixed it up with what I was eating, and actually took in MORE calories than I'd been having (at the advice of some bandsters on LBT). Then, yesterday, I got back to my usual routine and swam and. . . . . lo and behold! The scale is down 2.2 lbs this morning.

I'm at 39 lbs down in total! It looks good for me to make it to 40 down by the end of April, which is where I hoped to be when I started this process!! YAAAAYYYY!!!

You know you're a bandster when. . .

It's raining tonight, and it's been nice to be at home. My new goggles from Speedo arrived today, so I went upstairs to my pool and swam laps for about half an hour, which was really wonderful!

I read the best post on LBT today -- it was 24 pages (!) worth of posts about "You know you're a bandster when. . . " I read every post -- and it was so interesting, entertaining and inspiring to read! I posted my thoughts as well and wanted to incorporate them into my blog. Here goes.

You know you're a bandster when. . .
. . every time the waiter comes to the table you rave about the food so that they won't ask (again. .) if anything is wrong with your meal!

. . . you can't find anything to wear because all of your clothes are too big!

. . . you have to go shopping to figure out what size you are!

. . . you update your signature on LBT every time you drop 1/10th of a pound! (But don't update it if it goes up a wee bit before you lose again. . . Or is that just me?) :) :)

. . . you are no longer terrified that you'll get stuck sitting in the middle seat on a flight (and all the seats are much more comfortable)

. . . if you get hungry, you are REALLY REALLY hungry, but get satisfied with just a few bites. (I've learned to stop myself from telling people who don't know about the band that "I am so hungry!" when we sit at the table because then they think it's really weird that I hardly touch my meal.)

. . . abbreviations like PB, WLS and NSV need no explanation! (Productive burp, weight loss surgery and non-scale victory for any newbies!)

. . . you lose weight over Christmas and Easter . . whereas in the past, you always used to gain!

. . . you read all 24 pages of the "You know you're a banster" thread because it's just so true and feels so good to see that other people are going through the same things you are!

Cooking with Catherine. . Part IV (I think!)

Today, I had my mother and her BF over for brunch. I found a recipe in the Williams Sonoma catalog that I was dying to try out, so they got to be my guinea pigs!


They also brought me 2 dozen gorgeous long stemmed red roses -- So nice!

I made an Asparagus, Goat Cheese and Prosciutto Frittata. WOW, was it yummy! I'm not saying that it was the most dietetic thing I've ever made, but this is a great recipe for brunch, and it went down just fine. I served it with a fresh loaf of whole grain bread (I bought a parbaked loaf & popped it into the oven for 18 minutes), fruit salad and sparkling wine (shown below), with an organic lemon cake as dessert.

The ingredients (er, except the tomatoes, which I added in on a whim at the last minute)

Here is the recipe (as modified by me):

10 eggs (recipe called for 12, but I was only serving 3 people)
3 Tbs. fresh chives (finely chopped)
1/4 Tsp. fresh tarragon (finely chopped)
2 Tbs. fresh chervil (finely chopped)
2 oz prosciutto (cut into 1/4 inch strips -- I also removed the fat)
1/2 tsp salt, plus more to taste
Freshly ground pepper to taste
6 oz goat cheese (crumbled)
2 lbs. asparagus, tough ends trimmed (I just used one bunch and that was enough -- I think it was a little over one pound)
2 Tbs. unsalted butter
1 leek, thinly sliced and rinsed well
6 petite roma tomatoes (not in the recipe, but added a nice flavor and color)


First, cut off the ends of the asparagus and steam them until they are just tender. I put them in a glass bowl (in photo above) with a little water in the bottom (about 1/2 cup) and steamed them in the microwave by cooking them for 2 minutes 30 seconds.

Then, whisk together the eggs, chives, tarragon, chervil, prosciutto, 4 oz goat cheese (save 2 oz for later), 1/2 tsp of salt and about 1/4 tsp of ground black pepper.

You just know this is going to be delicious
with all those amazing ingredients!

Next, put 1 tbs. of butter into your pan over medium heat (I used the same skillet for everything -- there is a photo below) and saute the leeks with a pinch of salt for about 4-5 minutes. Then, add in the tomatoes and cook for another 3 minutes. When they are done, put the leek and tomatoes into the bowl with the egg mixture.

You are going to want to set aside about 8 stalks of asparagus to use as decoration on the frittata. Cut the remaining asparagus into 1/4 inch pieces and add them to the egg mixture.

Put some more butter (I used a bunch -- not sure if I used the entire 2nd tbs) into your pan. I used my Calphalon 10 inch pan b/c it has a metal handle and can go in the oven. It's not non-stick, but that didn't turn out to be a problem, thankfully!

Then, pour the egg mixture into the pan. I wasn't really sure about the best way to cook this -- and had serious doubts about flipping it mid-stream -- so I cooked it on the stove top for about 5 minutes. Then, I put the asparagus on the top in a spoke pattern, as shown below.

And THEN, I cooked it in a 350 degree oven for another 20-25 minutes. When it came out, I flipped it out onto a plate (carefully!) and then used another plate to flip it over again so that the asparagus pattern showed.

Here is the finished product!

I am definitely going to make this again. Although I was nervous about how to cook it (the recipe I used called for a special $150 frittata pan. . totally unnecessary) and flipping it over, it was easy to make and everyone loved it. Bon appetit!

Comparison. . .

It is absolutely gorgeous in NYC today -- sunny, warm (well, warm enough!) and everyone is out and about, soaking it in! My mother is in town as of this morning (she and her long-time beau are meeting up here before going to Boston for the week). So, I asked her to take a full-length photo of me so that I could compare that photo to one that I took in a similar outfit in Germany in May of 2008.

Here is the photo from today:

And here is the one from May 2008:

It was interesting for me to be able to see some differences in my face, legs and mid-section. Slowly but surely, I'm getting there! Have a great weekend, everybody! :)

Accountability

A message that I got on Lap Band Talk today made me think about accountability and the things I'm doing now that keep me on top of my weight.

We were talking about getting on the scale every day -- and whether that is a good or a bad thing. For me, it's a positive. Weighing myself is part of my morning routine and is how I track how I am doing from day to day. I know that I bounce around a bit before I lose, so I don't get stressed if the number goes up from the lowest number before I hit a new post-Band record. I just find it a good way to stay on top of things and to remind myself that I'm accountable every day for what I eat.

This also made me think back to how I was behaving when I put on all of this weight. Aside from not watching what I was eating, a big part of how I let it get so out of control was that I didn't have a full-length mirror in my apartment for 5 years. Also, my scale wasn't in a spot where I could easily hop on and off (I had to move a basket of towels, drag it into the right spot, etc.).

In view of that, I was largely able to ignore just how much weight I was packing on. Of course, I had to keep buying bigger clothes, but that was infrequent enough that I didn't think about it on a daily basis. Now I have a full-length mirror and a good scale (my Homedics Health Station -- measures to the 10th of a pound and has been working well, despite a few glitches at the beginning). My scale also is in a spot where I can just get on & off without having to move anything other than my feet. So far, so good.

I'm working out with my trainer again tonight. Hopefully that will start making the numbers get smaller on the scale as well!

Easter Weekend Photos

I had a really great time in Florida over the weekend. Just being out of the freezing cold for the first time since winter started was a huge treat! Also, it was really nice to be with my family and to have a few days' break from the office. I went to the beach every day that I was there, and really loved sinking my toes in the sand and watching and hearing the waves in the ocean.

Me dying Easter eggs with my adorable niece & nephew.
My niece is missing her 3 front teeth, which made
for some cute & silly photos!

One of my favorite Easter traditions is that my mom has been known to make a bunny cake. We bake two round cakes, use one for the face, and cut a bow tie and ears out of the other. It was a total blast to decorate our cake with the kids! (Also, showing my true maturity level, when I cut the cake, I told my nephew that I "cut a bunny," which had him in stitches. . ) :)

Even after losing 36.8 lbs (today's count), it's still really hard for me to look at full-length photos of myself. When I saw the one below, I was like "What the. . ?!?" I honestly thought my hips were much smaller than this by now. I guess that the camera angle, pleats and color aren't helping me here. Nonetheless, since I'm The Queen of Crop, I forced myself not to chop this photo down and to preserve some evidence of what I looked like at this point in the journey. I'm not dwelling on the whole Being-Disappointed-That-I-Don't-Look-Thinner thing because I know that the weight is coming off, and I feel good about the healthy, slow rate at which I am losing. I also feel good because on this trip, I noticed how much more comfortable I am on the airplane now that my bee-hind is a whopping 4.25 inches smaller than it was when I started. It really made a difference.

I'm also including a photo of my mother below. She also has had some great weight loss success in that she has reached her goal weight! She had a number of pounds that she wanted to lose and has been dieting and getting good exercise since at least October. And, she really looks great! :)

Fun in the Sun!

I'm in Florida right now at my mother's house for Easter! I got here on Thursday afternoon, and overlapped with my brother, sister-in-law, niece & nephew for about 1 1/2 very fun days! They left this morning. We had a great day yesterday, spending the morning at the pool, the afternoon at the beach, and at night, I cooked dinner for everyone (a green salad followed by flounder and sauteed mushrooms).

Here is the flounder. . .

After dinner, we had my brother's family go for an errand, and my mother and I hid tons of presents and plastic eggs with coins in them all over the house. There were 32 things for the kids to find, and they had a blast tracking them all down! :) After that, we decorated a cake in the shape of a bunny, which was a lot of fun! I'll post photos when I get home!

I'm off to the beach shortly - - woo-hoo! It feels so great to get some sun after a LONNNGGGG winter in NYC! Plus, it also feels so good to be out there in my bathing suit weighing 36 lbs less than I did last time I was here. :) Yay, band!!

Fun with Food. . . in Chinatown!

On Sunday night, I met up with Marjorie and her friend M (who used to live in Shanghai and speaks Chinese) to go to a place that M heard was the best hot pot restaurant in NYC. The restaurant was a little hard to find, since it's right across from the Manhattan Bridge, on a stretch of Canal Street (125 Canal at Christie) that my cab couldn't get to -- I had to get out and walk across a pedestrian bridge to get there!

Here are Marjorie and M at the restaurant, with our hot pot spread in front of them!

I've never had hot pot before, and I was REALLY wondering just how this was going to go down. We ordered the pot with half spicy broth and half chicken broth (not spicy), and then put in our food so that it could cook. Fortunately, the meats were sliced very thin and everything cooked up to be relatively soft, so I was able to try everything without getting stuck at all!

Here is a close-up of our hot pot!

Another view of the meats, veggies and tofu

we cooked in the hot pot:

And, here is a blurry photo of me. .
The food was delicious, went down well, and it was very cheap by Manhattan standards -- not to mention that the company was very good. All in all, a successful dinner!

And, as of this morning, I'm down another .8 . . yay!!! I'm trying to get to (or past. . ) the 40 lb down point by April 31st, which I think is pretty realistic, though my weight has been stalling a lot lately. I started working out with my old trainer again last Monday, though with pay cuts at work, I don't think I'm going to be able to keep that up. Still, it was great to get a jump start on the exercise front, and I'm feeling motivated about getting to the gym in earnest now.

Fun at the Guggenheim

The Guggenheim Museum has parties on the first Friday of every month -- and they are really a lot of fun. They bring in a DJ, set up a bar, and open up the museum until midnight. It always draws a really fun crowd and gets pretty packed! Last night, I headed over with my friend Marjorie to meet a few other friends there.

Despite that we all got rained on and are looking a little frizzy, I thought I'd post a few photos.

Here is me remembering not to fall over the wall. . .

Self portrait of J, Marjorie & me

And another one of the crowd. Fun night!

Scar Fading. . .

One of my good friends recommended that I start using a scar-fade treatment called Epi-Derm. She had really good results with it, so I bought some on-line about 2 weeks ago (here is a link to the company's site, in case anyone is interested - http://www.biodermis.com/scar_products/epi-derm).

I bought the Gel Patch that cost $29, but in retrospect, I think I would have done better to get the $40 sheet. I just didn't want to spend that much before I knew whether it worked. So, now that I know it does, I'm going to buy more. I feel like it's really working well.

Also, I didn't realize at first that you are supposed to use medical tape to keep these on (they stay on fine without it during the day, but not so much when you're sleeping). Each strip that you cut (whether from a patch or a sheet) lasts about 10 days. . if you don't lose it! (You wash the patch and skin once a day.) So, a little bit should last a pretty long time if you use the tape.

Here is a new photo of my two scars.

And, below is the photo that I took on January 9, 2009. You can see that the big scar has gotten a bunch lighter and is no longer as red. As far as I can tell, most of that just happened in the last 2 weeks. Both scars also seem to be a lot more flush with the rest of my skin.

Thirty-five!!

Finally! It was taking forever to get down that one last pound to take me to 35! Of course. . that's because in the interim, the scale went back up 2 lbs as a result of me overdoing it a bit at the dinners and events I've had lately. But, it's down now. :)

I just realized that in 3 lbs, I will have lost a pound for every year I've been alive! I'm happy too that my initial prediction (that I'd be down 40 lbs by sometime in April) is pretty much right on target. Wow. I can't believe how smoothly all of this is going. Not that I don't get stuck and slime here and there, but by & large, it has just not been very hard.

Worried friends. . .

I went to the Patent Prom last night and had a really good time. I caught up with a bunch of old friends, met a lot of people, and managed not to drink too much (I live in mortal fear of being hungover because I can't throw up from the lower part of my stomach like a normal person anymore).

Here is a photo of me with my friend Monique and an attorney named David who she works with from time to time.

Monique and my friend Rob (who I've known very well for more than 10 years) are the people I had dinner with on Thursday night. At dinner, I ordered a beet salad to start, and tile fish with risotto as my entree. The salad was huge, and I could only eat a little. I also couldn't eat much of the fish, and my friends exclaimed "Oh no! You didn't eat anything! Was it alright?" I reassured them that it was fine, and I had the leftovers packed up, since I really hadn't eaten much.

Rob walked me out of the Waldorf when I left last night, and we were talking. I asked him if he'd noticed that I had lost weight (we are close friends) and he said yes, but he said that he and Monique were concerned that I wasn't eating. I didn't want to tell him about the band, so I just said that what I'd ordered wasn't really what I had wanted and that (I use this one a lot) part of my new diet is chewing each bite 30 times, so I get full faster.

I hope that made sense to him. I really don't want my friends to think I have an eating disorder! I could tell Rob about the band (and maybe I will at some point), but I wasn't really planning on it. I really don't want him to be worried. Maybe I'll tell him if he brings up the eating thing again.

Here is a photo of me & Rob. I didn't post it initially, and my mom called and said "Wow! Rob really aged a lot!!" She thought he was the older gentleman in the first photo!

I'd be interested in hearing from fellow bandsters how you handle this kind of thing. Sometimes I feign a stomachache (though I don't want to act sick or have people fuss, so that's not my favorite) and sometimes I feign having had a late lunch. Other than that, I'm at a loss!

Dress Stress and Old Photos. . .

I have a black tie event tonight (it's the NY Intellectual Properties Assn's Annual Judge's Dinner. . . a.k.a. "The Patent Prom"). :) I really, really did not want to buy another gown for this event, given that I'd only be able to wear it once, in all likelihood.

So. . last weekend, I tried on the beautiful midnight blue gown that I wore on Halloween (there is a photo posted from back in Oct.) and it still looks decent. HOWEVER, I must have spilled something on it, since it had a spot that I hadn't noticed. I took it to the cleaner and said that I had to have it on time for a Friday event. I thought that meant Thursday night delivery (my cleaner is in my apt. building and they give the clothes to the valet service when they are ready. . believe me, I know how ridiculous this sounds). :)

Thursday night I get home and . . no dress. Cr*p!! I wanted to make sure the spot was out on Thursday so that I could emergency shop on Friday if necessary. So, I decided to go through my closet for backups. It wasn't pretty, people.

The brown dress I wore to my friend Sharon's wedding (there's even a photo of it in an early post) is totally too big. It just looks bad. . loose in all the wrong spots. And, this pretty bustier/long black skirt combination that I bought to wear to my cousin's September 2004 wedding is still too tight (WAY too much cleavage for a work event). And there wasn't anything else that was a viable option.

I was kind of stressed last night -- what if the dress doesn't come in?? What if it still has a big spot on it? (A: I'm wearing it with the spot and pretending I got it that night. . ) :) Long story less long? It's totally fine -- it's here, the spot is gone, and I'm good to go! WHEW.

I will admit that this event has been a stressful one for me. I'd managed to skip it for about 7 years, but at my current firm, it's a must-attend event. It's also the one time during the year that I am bound to run into a TON of people I've known through the years. And, given that I hadn't seen many of them for years (i.e. years when I put on a significant amount of weight), I was always nervous about how people would react when they saw me.

The thing is, the people I was worried about knew me when I looked like this:

This is me with my friend Sascha back in the summer of 1996, when I worked as a summer associate at my first firm.

This is another photo from the same summer. . . I was about 145 lbs then. . . a great weight for me, and I felt pretty darned good.

Last year, I ran into one major @$$hole from my old firm (he was born that way, so I don't take it too personally), and he was really drunk. He didn't recognize me at first, so I said "Hi, X . . How are you?" He drunkenly looked at me and realized who I was. If you could have seen the way he looked at me, I am sure you would have wanted to smack him. Clearly, he was thinking "Holy S, have you put on a TON of weight!" I'm not imagining this or being overly sensitive -- it was really that obvious. This was particularly horrible, since we were standing with other people who I know and like, and it would have been impossible for anyone to miss his reaction.

So, while this year, I'm not exactly the spitting image of my 25 year old self, I'm feeling much better about how I look -- and future prospects for how I will look -- than I did last year.

BTW, can you BELIEVE that I thought I needed to lose 10 lbs when I was the weight I was in those photos?!? What in the world was wrong with me?

Close[d] Encounters. . .

I haven't written for a few days because I wasn't sure exactly how much I wanted to blog about this. Still, it's totally band-relevant, and definitely part of this process.

On Monday night, I had dinner with my ex-boyfriend. The one of the Peter Pan Avoidance Tour. I told him about the band back in November, which was the last time I saw him (I was about 13 lbs down then) before he took off on a 3-month trip.

On an emotional level, the dinner was a really good thing for me to do to get some more closure. It's hard for me to understand how a guy who says he loves and cares about me, that I'm his best friend, that he still feels the chemistry between us, and that our relationship is "World Class" and "the best one [he's] ever seen" wouldn't also have the desire to marry and have children with me. But that's the case. So, while I really thought he was the right guy for me for more than 2 years, it turns out that he isn't after all, since those are two things I really want.

OK, so now for the happy band-related part. I did get to walk into that restaurant knowing that I am 34 lbs thinner than when I started (and than the version of myself he likely has in his mind, has in photos, etc.). I also got to see that "WOW!" look when he saw me take off my coat. He kept trying not to give me the full-on elevator-eye treatment, but it was clearly a struggle for him. And, it was great to hear how good he thought I look and all of the nice things he had to say about that. He also noticed that I'm actually thinner now than when we first met, which is true. So, I guess that's an NSV -- definitely a very bittersweet one, given the things we talked about, but an NSV nonetheless.

And, to lighten the mood, here is a photo taken of me last night at Artisanal (great bistro-style restaurant with amazing cheeses -- my friends and I were happily surprised to be given the table in the private cheese cellar, which was amazing! Look at all of the cheese behind me. . )