"Filling" In

I had another fill today. This brings me up to 8.5 in my Band. At the office, I was down to 277.4, a loss of 2.5 pounds since my last fill 3 weeks ago. So things seem to finally be moving. I've decided to use the clinic weight as my "official" weight, because our scale here seems to be a bit flaky. The scales at the clinic are finely calibrated to 1/10th of a pound, so I'm going to use those. I'm thinking they're a bit more reliable than the Target clearance-aisle scale I have here - the one that is frequently jumped on by my boys and has sadly seen more than its share of over-flowing bathwater.

I made a graph with my stats that should update dynamically every time I add new data. It's probably about time for some pictures, too! What do you think? Is anyone still out there? I think I'm just now getting the hang of this band thing....

Stepping it Up

I had an appointment with my beloved PCP today. With all of my health problems, I was amazed that I hadn't been in to see her since August. Sadly, I have only lost 3 pounds since then. *sigh*

She is so awesome and is the one who encouraged me to get this surgery in the first place. She truly cares about me and takes time to listen to me. She is going to help with the insurance debacle, and she also set me a goal: Lose 10 more pounds by January 4. It's totally doable, but is going to take some stepping up on my part- both with food choices and with making more frequent appointments with my clinic. She encouraged me to move my other health stuff to the side for now and put all my focus into the Band right now.

She affirmed me and we did celebrate that in this year of big stressors, I have lost weight, not gained. She listened to all my frustration with the clinic (ultra-conservative fills, and unsupportive staff) and repeated some advice she had given me early on that I had fully intended to follow, yet didn't: go in to the clinic every 3 weeks, no matter what. I'm not sure why I didn't follow through with that - I think it might be because I had 3 visits in a row where the nurses were shaming and unkind and then here is the insurance problem that they've exaserbated, blaming me all the while. This kind of poor support and shaming mixed with my deep-seated issues (nobody gets to be 300+ pounds unless they have issues, trust me) shut me down. I also continue to struggle with choices and I think I was afraid to go in and hear the messages that I needed to hear about nutrition and focus and working on this weight loss in a determined way. I needed to be told in an empowering way. My clinic may not be able to do that, but my PCP does. It's sad that I can't get emotional support from my clinic, but I need to stop feeling bad about that and start seeking that support other places. I need to use the clinic as another tool.

It's time for me to step up: to not let the messages from my clinic dictate how I feel, to continue to work through my issues and not turn to food, and to work harder on making really good choices. The band can't do all the work. Not even close. I have to do my part, too.

Now I have a challenge - watch me come through!

Brick by Brick

So I’ve been binging this week. It’s been rough, but it’s also made me really appreciate my band. I can still eat 4 pieces of candy and some popcorn, but I can no longer eat half a loaf of bread toasted with peanut butter. It took me a while to realize what was going on. This is such familiar territory for me: eating instead of feeling. I was so disconnected from my feelings that I was numb – feeling instead like things were “fine” when deep down I knew they weren’t really fine, but I couldn’t figure out what was bothering me.

In therapy today, it all came out. In real life, there don’t seem to be the “breakthroughs” you read about or watch on TV. So rarely, in real counseling, is there a single moment that shatters the glass that’s keeping you locked in your bell jar. Never is there the one idea that pierces through all the layers of defenses you have so carefully built. Instead, it is slow, tedious work. Brick by brick, you dismantle the edifices of dysfunction. Some bricks give way easily, some have to be pried out of place with great force. Some require lots of patience and need to be loosened by myriad levers of varying shape. Each brick is removed, examined, caressed, recoiled at, chucked, saved, worried over, or smashed into a million pieces. Sometimes my unconscious goes back through and rebuilds part of the walls.

Today we looked again at a brick I’ve seen many times before, woven into the walls of my defenses. It’s the brick that says “I’m not enough”, “What I do doesn’t matter”, and “Why me?”. These are heavy bricks. They are misshapen and ugly and so firmly wedged into place.

Anyway, so this week’s binge and this week’s bricks have been looked at. This is much more than I could have accomplished before the Band. I would have been so overcome by shame and fear that the binging would have gone on for a while and I would’ve made myself miserable – the familiar kind of miserable (fat, undisciplined, ugly) to avoid feeling the deep miserable underneath (unloved, unworthy, misunderstood). But by dealing with the underneath issues, I can finally dismantle the wall, brick by laborious brick.

This is not an easy journey, not by a long shot. But the Band is truly helping. It is harder and yet more rewarding than I anticipated. And oh, so very very slow.

So, the Lap-Band Update

Well, since I last wrote anything of substance about it, I have had two fills. And boy, have they finally made a difference. I know I’ve said it before, but I really truly finally feel restriction.

How do I know this time is “the real deal”?

• FOR THE FIRST TIME EVER, I have thrown up for eating too much (not just eating too fast, or not chewing enough). It was last weekend at a soccer party for my son. The avocado dip another mom made was Just. Too. Good. And I had a couple chip-fuls too many. Thankfully I could feel the trouble brewing and was able to make it to the bathroom (and thankfully it was empty except for me).
• I am finally feeling “full”. As in, when I obey the rules and adhere to “mealtimes” (snacking will kill you with the Band), I am not hungry. No more watching the clock and debating with myself – I’m truly Not Hungry. This is amazing.
• In a combination of the above two items, I am finally experiencing what Bandsters refer to as the “soft stop”. I believe a “hard stop” is what happened to me at the soccer party (easting too much and then having to PB/throw some up). The soft stop for me feels like a constricting of my stoma. I feel like I’m getting signals to not eat any more. If I disobey, I get the hard stop (PB). This is all new since my last fill on October 24th, so I’m still learning.
• I am learning to take small bites and chew chew chew. I know this is what we are supposed to do, but until the above happened, it was easy to forget. Now it is essential.

The scale numbers haven’t gone down much, but I’ve finally gone down a whole size or two: instead of being a 26/28, I’m most definitely a 24/2x. I was able to dig out some old favorite clothes and get rid of my 3x’es. I also had to get new bras.

I’m currently at 272, but my period is due any minute. I always thought that meant I was heavier and would lose after my period started, but a friend of mine always loses weight just before hers starts. I have no idea any more. But since I’m doing this NaBloPoMo thing to get back into the care and feeding of this blog, you’ll hear more numbers from me soon.

I'm Wearing Oprah's Bra

Ok, so not her actual bra, but one that was deemed favorite enough to be given out in a frenzy at one of her shows. It was picked out for me when I finally went for a bra fitting today. I’ve lost enough weight (40ish pounds) that the girls were looking a bit lost in my old bras. The final straw was when Dave asked me why my sweater had a funny crease in it and we determined it had nothing to do with the sweater – it was the crease made by extra folded fabric in my cup due to boob-deflation.

Whenever I go bra shopping, I am reminded why I never go bra shopping. And reminded why, when I do go, that I need to be fitted. I could not pick the right bra off the rack if getting it right would stop a nuclear countdown and save the world from annihiliation. A tender slip of a legally-blonde salesgirl measured me (big points for not looking disgusted or backing off from “catching” my overweight-ness), announced “42D” with certainty, and disappeared to get a “test fit” bra. It fit perfectly, but of course is just for “test fitting”. She left me in the sample bra and disappeared (and I do mean disappeared) back on to the sales floor to find bras for me to try on.

While she was gone (a good 10 minutes!), I contemplated boob issues:

• Why are my areolas so massive? They used to be tiny and demure – not bringing attention to themselves. They don’t gain weight along with the rest of my body, so why have they gotten bigger? Is it the breastfeeding? Theory has it that’s what they’re good for in the first place: guiding the nearly-blind starving infants to the fountain of goodness (or 'trickle of goodness' in my case). But why is this “hey – eat here!” sign not designed to fade after weaning? I don’t need to advertise to the WORLD where the center of my boobs are. The only people who needed the road map are long past nursing.
• My left breast is bigger than my right. So, do you buy a bra to fit the bigger one, or the smaller one? Does it matter?
• Why do bras cost so much? It’s like swimsuits – the smaller the amount of material, the higher the cost. Bizarre. $60 a bra? Wow.
• Where on earth did the saleslady go? Is my size freakish? It would figure.
  
• I really should plan ahead and wear a white T-shirt to my next fitting.
• I hope that next fitting is a looooong time from now.
• For how big my hips (and ass) are, my boobs are tiny. I’m sure I couldn’t fit in Oprah’s actual bra if I wanted to, but I could give her ass a run for its money.
• No really, how long does grabbing a couple of bras take?
  
• How did they manage to do actual bra fittings for an Oprah audience? Think about the logistics of that for just a minute - did they have hoardes of fit specialists? Boxes upon boxes of sizes? I mean, if the whole point of the episode (as the saleslady told me) was to spread the word that most women are wearing the wrong-size bra, and encourage them to get fitted, you couldn't exactly just fling random bras as the audience members, could you?
  
• I am very long-waisted, so if I have too much “lift” in my rack, I look freakish. It’s like I have two wayward shoulder pads that migrated just under my collar bone and then nothing for a loooooong way down until my curvy hips burst on to the scene. This makes me harder to fit that in should be. And provides for some comical dressing room moments. (Thankfully the saleslady had a good sense of humor).

She finally re-emerged and after a few more (thankfully shorter) scouting trips to the sales floor, we found 2 bras that fit. The choices are a bit overwhelming. You can get bras with Swarovski crystals....bras with memory foam....bras that call the shop and book a fitting when they're wearing out - just kidding.


I'm glad to have new bras. Most of all, I'm glad to be done with this horrific chore for now.