bottoms up, part two

so remember how i totally handled my liquor the first few times i tried drinking again? yeah, not so much one night a couple weeks ago when out for a work function. luckily, i don't think i was inappropriate (i don't think...), but i felt like death on a stick the next day. i think i probably had about three or four drinks over the course of the night (note the word probably, as i actually have no idea), and i have to be clear and say that the probably three or four drinks i had were over the course of probably 6 or 7 hours...i don't want you to think me totally irresponsible. anyway, i ended up at penn station close to midnight eating a piece of pizza. so yeah. looking back, there were a few problems: 

first, i hardly ate at dinner because our dinner had been pre-ordered and it was pizza.  i didn't eat it because i don't eat things like that anymore (yes, i do note the irony given a few sentences ago....) by the time i realized that the various pizzas on our table were in fact dinner and not an appetizer, there wasn't much time to order and they weren't very protein friendly. i ended up with a few bites of a very wilty green salad, and that was that. i wasn't hungry, i was perfectly comfortable. and buzzed. and having a great time. that was the other problem...

i was having so much fun! i didn't want it to end, so i kept drinking. very simple, really. and in many ways, that's been my problem with food too. i like it, it tastes good, it feels good, give me more. of course over the years as my wires have gotten crossed, it's gotten more complicated and more nuanced than that, but the bare bones of it are there.

when i was calling home checking in, mitchell was nervous. he could hear that i was more than just tipsy, and he was worried. i assured him that i was fine (i was!) and that i was just having fun. i got home fine, threw up a little (sorry) and then woke up a few hours later certain that i would never again feel normal.

i haven't had a drink since then, but what i do notice is that i've been so hungry (i did get my period also, so there's that too) and i've been craving carbs since then. THANKS PIZZA. it's kind of ridic how that works. it was ONE NIGHT. and yet, the carb bug has infected my brain again. and i don't mean brown rice and flax and quinoa, the grains and carbs i do eat. let me put it this way...the next day, once i felt somewhat human again, all i wanted in the world was a bologna hero. imagine that. 

NO I DID NOT EAT A BOLOGNA HERO. but i wanted to.

TGFS (thank god for stretch)

alright so remember the great advice from my nutritionist about stretchy black pants? they're totally necessary when shrinking sizes quickly without an unlimited shopping budget. so thank god for target's gilligan and o'malley ones. i think they're actually pajama or lounge pants, but they work perfectly for me for a wide variety of settings, including work. these are the pants i call my "tall pants" because i swear, they make me look taller.

a couple months ago, i bought them in a large (and was THRILLED that a normal size large fit me!!) but in the last month or so, they've become so large and droopy and messy that they no longer work. i think they've gotten longer too, pooling around the ankles. totally not okay. so this weekend, i went back and got the same pants in a size medium. what is WITH their sizing? not that i'm complaining...

well i'd like to think i would have figured out the stretchy black pants tip on my own, but i'm just so thankful it was suggested to me because it's made getting dressed an easier (though still not easy) feat than it would have been.

happy surgiversary to me

today marks a full year since my surgery. as i went through my day today, i paused a few times to look at my watch and remember exactly where i was and what was happening a year ago to the minute. i remember these feelings very well, and probably the way a parent might feel for a child, i feel nervous and excited for my year-ago self. what a year it's been.

image

betwixt and between

so it turns out you can be between sizes in just about anything. i can't decide which pair of my glasses look right on me right now, if either. one pair looks too big and boxy, and the other too small and slight. my face seems to be right in the middle. plus these photos aren't doing me any favors...

thoughts? preferences? contacts?

pain in the butt

my behind hurts all the time. well, that's not fair to say. there are periods of time where it doesn't hurt, but mostly any time i sit, or when i get up from sitting it hurts. the obvious explanation is that there's less padding, and that is partially the case, but there are some other factors too.

aPPARently...this is a common complaint for people that spent many years being very overweight and then lost weight. it's not just the lack of padding, but also that all the years of having so much extra fat around the tailbone made it protrude, and now that there is no longer all that tissue, the bone is still protruding and there's no tissue to surround it, so it's exposed. something like that. and that's about what it feels like.

in the car, we have a wedge pillow like this that seems to, for the most part, make it pretty painless but it doesn't work on my home seats. it sinks or something. i have to look into some other options...apparently me and many others, this website would have me believe. so at home, i end up sitting on my hip or one butt cheek to avoid the pressure on my butt. and at work, it's never really been a problem until more recently, so now i use a cheerful little pillow to sit on. overall, it pretty much sucks. i used to love sitting upright on my bed on a weekend afternoon catching up on TV and it just doesn't have the same luster when i have to watch said TV on one butt cheek to avoid searing pain. but the most aggravating part of the discomfort is the one i feel - intense but short - when i stand up...i guess from all the compression and then the subsequent release.

the other factor that i have to say definitely has an impact is the loose skin in that area. when i'm seated, so much extra skin bunches up between my lower back and my butt and that also presses down on the top of my tailbone...can you picture this? would you want to?

i'm told by my surgeon's office that although there is no cure for this problem, nor does the tailbone ever go back in from its protrusion, people only seem to complain about it while they're still in transition and not once they're done losing weight. i guess it could be they just adapt and stop complaining, or maybe they learn to only sit in ways that take the pressure off. 

can you believe this problem?

reflections, part 2

today, for the first time, i didn't recognize my own reflection as i walked by a window. it was a really exhilarating moment ... one of only a few i've had since this process started. let me be clear - it's not that i'm not full of joy and relief - i am, almost every day. but it's one of those things...though it feels surreal sometimes, most of the time, it just feels like my life. it's not without challenges, nor should it be. and it hasn't gone fast - i have felt every day of this past almost-year and it has been hard work, emotionally and physically, and an ever-evolving life. 

so when people ask me "can you believe that you've lost all this weight?," my answer is yes. when people ask if i can believe it's only been a year, my answer is yes. and when i look in the mirror, i most of the time don't feel tremendous waves of emotion when i see my reflection, which is in itself an improvement. i feel okay with what i see, and while i recognize the progress in broad strokes, i don't often experience a rush of pleasure or shock when i see my reflection. but today i did.