10/12

Holy sh!t. So I had bought this shirt about two months ago and mistakenly grabbed a size smaller than what I wanted. I grabbed a 10/12 instead of a 14/16. This was before I stopped the bad habit of buying clothes without trying them on. Anyway, when I got home and tried it on, it was skin tight, it's one of those tapered, fitted shirts that I love to wear with jeans or khakis. The fabric is a little stretchy and so it has a good bit of give, but it was just too tight. Fast forward to this morning. I see the shirt and am like "what the hell?!" and I tried it on and it freakin' fits perfectly! I'm totally tripping. A size 10/12, can you believe that? And to make things even more interesting...I'm about to wear a size 16 pair of khakis tomorrow! So let's see, I can wear a 10/12 top, a size 14 skirt and 16 in pants. That's amazing to me.

Tennis last night was totally awesome. It was freakin' freezing, but it was awesome. Half the people didn't show because it was 45-ish ° and very windy, but after 15-20 mins of running around, I had to shed a couple of the layers I was wearing. The only thing that froze were my fingers. The mobility thing is finally working out, I'm staying alert, keeping my racket in front of me, following the ball and keeping on my toes. One problem I still have is sometimes my mind just wanders off in la-la land when I'm watching the other team and so instead of thinking of what I should be doing in preparation for their return, I sometimes just slightly space out, marveling at the fact I got the darn ball over the net. That's my ADD acting up.

I'm going shopping after work today. I have got to pick up a coat, some thermals, sweaters, gloves, thick socks and some kind of scarf or something. I ain't about to freeze and it's only going to get worse.

Good stuff.

Had a good weekend, got a ton of sleep Friday night, something like 10 hours, I must have been tired. All my football teams won so I am happy about that. Went to tennis practice today although I had decided I'd rather just be a vegetable and not go, but at the last minute, I went. It's funny, I still find myself trying to talk myself out of going places and doing things, at least now I can talk myself back into going and doing. I had fun and slowly, but surely, I can see some real progress. I've been working on my mobility -- making sure to stay on my toes, knees bent, racket out in front of me, eyes up. There are so many things to keep track of that it is only with practice that it'll come together. I will probably pick up a Thursday night drills class. It's for 2 hours (yes, quite the workout) and I think if I do that and do two one hour sessions a week with a ball machine, that'll be plenty of exercise for me. I've also thought about my evening commutes. If I leave 1/2 hour earlier, I can walk the 1.5 miles to the main bus terminal which is 3-4 stops before my usual one and that'll give me a bit more exercise without costing me any more time. I will definitely think about it. It'll only suck if I am lugging a bunch of stuff which is not that often or if the weather sucks, but then I can just go to the nearest stop and call it a day.

I have been having crazy abdominal issues and I'm not sure why. My diet hasn't changed much, but I've had alternating D and then C. It's weird. The only thing I can think of is maybe it's due to the fact that I had stopped taking probiotics and have been trying to mitigate the constipation with a combination of magnesium oxide, stool softeners and Milk of Magnesia. I haven't had any low carb tortillas or any low carb bread which maybe be causing my constipation. If nothing else, it was a good source of fiber BUT it caused a good bit of gas. My stomach is constantly noisy, lots of rumbling going on and it's not all hunger based. Hmmm, I dunno, I'm just going to try to keep my eating real clean this week to see if things settle down.

I think I have found my next pet project and I'm fairly excited about it. It'll take some time to spec out and more time to build, but I think it'll be cool. In the meantime, I am going to implement a smaller proof of concept idea which shouldn't take me long to do. It's a little application that I built some time ago that has been helpful to me that I think others might find helpful as well. As much as I love the relatively easy corporate life, I eventually want to get back to running my own thing and this time I want to do it right.

Alrighty then, time to go do laundry and make my lunches for the week! Being prepared makes life during the week so much easier, sometimes it's pain to spend the time on the weekend doing it, but it's paying off. I'm looking forward to reporting a good loss for October which just confirms for me that the DS window doesn't necessarily always close after 18 months. With a little effort, you can lose more weight and get closer to your goal.

Getting out there.

Last night, I attended a social function after work. I was both excited and nervous. Why? Because this whole socializing thing is difficult, but I am making myself do it. It's sort of an industry related thing where a few dozen like-minded folks got together and talked about the businesses we're in. Lots of smart, witty and some geeky & nerdy folks all around. It was good and hopefully I can establish and sustain some working relationships. I still do not have the confidence to feel like I can survive and hold my own in any social setting so luckily a couple of my coworkers went as well so I didn't have to fend for myself. I made an extra effort to look the part before I left for work, nice jeans, button-down fitted shirt, cute hair, sensible jewelry, appropriate shoes. My sister says to never leave the house lookin' crazy -- you never know when you'll meet your future husband -- so along those lines, when I do know I'm going somewhere out of the ordinary, I try to take it up a notch.

As expected, work is getting to be not so intellectually challenging. To be fair, unless you're in retail or are affected financially by the holiday season, 4th quarter is usually a slow one. I feel like I need a pet project to focus my energy on and have been trying to figure out what. I do know this, I don't think I can stay in this current position long term. It's very comfortable, but a little tedious. My day-to-day is about 5 levels below what I'm used to doing techology-wise. My options are to start learning some new skills and transition to another department or after a few more months of the good, lazy life, start thinking about a project that will eventually get me back to being self-employed. I've thought a lot about how I want my next venture to go and with whom I'd like to work so I think by the time I'm ready to make the jump, I will be much better prepared mentally for it.

I don't miss working at my business with my business partner, not at all. I hardly think about it anymore. I honestly thought I'd be dwelling on what they were doing or how things were going, but not so much. The only thing I miss is having sole control over the application I built, being responsible for it's every tweak and nuance. Much of it was a huge pain in the ass, but the software itself have big upside and a lot of potential. Too bad BP is such a loon, it really could have taken off. From what I hear, she is already starting to stress out the three people we hired to replace me. Sigh. I guess it's never ending.

Death by sucralose???

In my effort to reduce the amount of carbs in my day to day life over the past two years, I realized that I am consuming a frightening amount of artificial sweeteners, namely Splenda. I should probably try to reduce it, it can't possibly be good for me. Let's see....I have three protein shakes a day. They have some kind of artificial sweetener, so I can't do anything about that. The problem comes with my morning cups of coffee, I hate to admit this but in my 16-18 oz cup of coffee, I use like 7 Splenda packets. Yep, I like my coffee super sweet. Then, I buy these sugar free drink mixes at Kroger or Walmart. I don't think they use Splenda, but whatever it is, it's probably a good amount.

Yikes! Giving it up or greatly reducing my consumption of fake sugars is going to be tough. They really, *really* help with my sweet tooth, but I'm starting to get paranoid about the potential damage that fake crap could be causing, y'know. I mean, it can't be completely harmless, can it?

A better grip

I got my tennis racket's grip redone and it makes so much difference. I had a sore arm and hand all week because I had a death-grip on it during drills Monday night because it was too small. I asked for help and one of the tennis instructors was more than happy to redo my grip for me. This is significant because I still find myself hesitant when I need someone to do something for me, remnants of my 500+ lb self.

During our tennis session today, the same instructor was encouraging me to react quicker to the ball. I still have moments where I suffer from stand there and stare at the ball syndrome. I haven't pushed the limits of my agility yet, I think there's a mental wall there or something. I'm aware of it and will try to move around better. It's hard though because, again, I function within a framework where my mind and my body are not always on the same page as far as ability goes.

Back to work tomorrow...boooo. I kinda liked my long weekend, oh well, gotta pay the bills!

Poking through

Support group Thursday night was good, dinner beforehand was good, all in all a good day. I scored three pairs of pants from support group, two pairs of 12's and a pair of 10's. Obviously I can't wear them now, but by the time spring comes around, I should be good to go. I tried to put on one of the 12's but couldn't get them past my hips. I will try again in a month or so. I have two pairs of size 16's, now these are regular 16's not 16W. I tried on a pair last night and should be able to wear them with confidence in a couple of weeks. Woo-hoo!

Yesterday I had the day off and had plans to get so much done...and I didn't. It was cold and rainy outside so that meant a day of doing nothing. Everyone needs one of those days every now and again. Being a slug rocks.

So, I get out the shower this morning and am putting my favorite body lotion on when I feel a small hard nodule about 1/3 down my DS incision line. I rubbed it again and yep, there is definitely something there that wasn't there before. It feels like something is directly right under my skin. It doesn't hurt at all. The only thing I can think of is perhaps its a stitch from my DS surgery that the tennis ball I took to the stomach Monday night dislodged and is now trying to poke through. It could be that as I'm losing abdominal fat, the stitch is just now more prominent. I'm not sure. My scar line is pretty numb so it's not like there is a lot of sensation that I can feel. I don't know, I will just keep my eye on it.

I don't know if y'all have noticed but I have not been posting my weight lately. I'm very, very focused on reaching my weight loss goals, but I don't want to get too lost in too much number crunching and overanalyzing which I am prone to do. :) I am still weighing every day and tracking my food to keep myself accountable. Another little tactic that has been working for me to help me keep on track is allowing myself either one meal or one 2-hour period a week, usually over the weekend, where I can eat whatever I want. It's a small enough window where it won't throw off my efforts and it's something to look forward to psychologically and plan dinners with friends or any other outing accordingly. This week, I used it up at the restaurant we went to before support group and the awesome thing is that I still registered a loss on the scale the following day! So awesome AND if I don't have occasion to need it, I don't use it.

Today, it is again cold, not so much rainy so I'm going to go do all those errands I said I was going to do yesterday! Have a good one!

FYI: Calcium Supplements

Review your Calcium Citrate package labeling:

1000 mg Calcium Citrate - WRONG! Contains only 21% elemental calcium or just 210 mg of the calcium DSers need.

1000mg Calcium from Calcium Citrate - GOOD

1000 mg Calcium (as Calcium Citrate) - GOOD

1000 mg Calcium (from Calcium Citrate) - GOOD

Found here: Calcium Citrate vs. Calcium Bicarbonate

Progress is good

So I guess I'm in one of those moods where I am going over what I am eating and trying to improve or rather trying to identify some areas of concern, address them and look at some possible solutions. One of my biggest struggles is with my sweet tooth, I think it's genetic, because my mom is the same way. I've mitigated it mostly by a combination of opting for sugar substitutes and outright abstinence, but I don't feel like I am being as successful as I can. I would love to be one of the people where moderation works well for them, but I just ain't it. Usually it 100% or 0%. The biggest sugar hurdle I conquered some time ago was with sugary beverages - sodas, drinks, etc. I just don't do them anymore, it's almost habit now, but what makes it such an easy habit is that it is really easy to find alternatives for full sugar drinks. Such is not the case for everything.

My biggest cravings usually have to deal with pastries and baked goods. It seems like I can be fine for days on end, but then I get hit with intense cravings for something sweet & buttery or something rich & chocolatey. It's like an overwhelming urge that is hard to just ignore and let pass, especially this time of year. I'm really worried about becoming complacent and letting the next few months slip away, I've done that the past two years, I don't want to do that now. I am doing really well right now because I've settled into a routine, the problem areas seem to pop up over the weekends where my time isn't as structured. I'll have to think about that some more and come up with something. I've made it a point to get out and go run or play tennis on the weekends to make sure that even if I do eat crappy, I can burn a good chunk of it off.

With Halloween coming up and freakin' candy everywhere, I think I've found a solution that will really help me in those moments where I feel like I want to swallow bite-size chocolate bars by the handful. I was at the grocery store today and saw South Beach Living Dark Chocolate Covered Soynuts Snack Pack Delights. I picked them up and have since tried them out. I dig 'em. They're chocolately and candy-like. So awesome. I am going to keep them at work because that is where the temptations are so if I just can't resist, I have a backup plan.

I've been almost completely gluten free for almost two weeks. I haven't had any low carb tortillas or bread, nor any low carb pasta. Cheese is still in my diet, but in much lower quantities. Lately it's mostly been in Alfredo sauce, one of my favorite dishes at the moment is to make chicken thighs, slice them up, cook them in some butter, onions, garlic powder, salt & pepper. Then I'll have my five containers for lunch for the week and then I'll put 1/2 a can of french style green beans in each one. Then I'll add around 1-2 tablespoons of Alfredo sauce and 1/5 of the chicken. At work, I'll nuke it all, stir and enjoy. Yum! I like eating real food for lunch at work and this makes it easy to knock out lunch for the week and it's damn delicious. The only other cheese I'll have is a slice for my lettuce wrap for breakfast. I don't have time to cook in the morning so I usually just have a shake before I leave and I actually pack my breakfast. Lately it's been lettuce wraps, a variety of 3-4 lunch meats, a slice of cheese, some pickle slices and a dab of mustard tucked in a romaine lettuce leaf. Not your typical breakfast food fair, but works for me.

I'm back down to 2 protein shakes a day with no signs of edema, so that's good, although I do sometimes get hollow leg syndrome and feel like there is not enough food in the world. It's weird because I usually have to wait at least an hour or more between feedings, but sometimes it feels like I could eat again after 15 minutes. I feel like that way now. Part of that is because I went running today and nearly ran 1/2 a mile non-stop, then did the same for two 1/4 mile intervals. I've never done that before so I was sweating big time by the time I finished. By the time I got home (after the grocery store) I was feeling seriously depleted, even a couple of hours afterwards, so I've been eating & drinking water like crazy.

Had a late lunch with some friends, so that was fun and then came home and took a nap. It's laundry time right now so I'm chilling and getting mentally prepared for the week. It might be a doozy. I have to pick up a few technical skills over the next few weeks so I'll have to keep my ADD in check. Tennis drills tomorrow night and I plan to be more prepared than last time. My energy stores tend to bonk around an hour so I gotta find something that I can digest mid-drills that'll prevent me from being sluggish.

I just tried on a size 14 skirt...and it fit. :)

Awesome Deal!

So I went to Best Buy with the intent of purchasing a DVI-to-HDMI adaptor for my use with my Dell Studio laptop and my two 22" monitors. The plan was to use one VGA connection for one monitor and the DVI for the other monitor. Anyway, so I get there and I'm strolling around the laptop section and see the returns table of open box computers and I see several Macs and in particular I see a salesperson talking up a Macbook Pro to this other customer. I made my way over to the other side of the table trying to see if there were any other Macbook Pro's around. There were not and when I heard the price, I was immediately filled with regret. Had I been over there 2 minutes earlier, I would have seen the computer and snagged it. Anyway, it didn't take much convincing and the customer was, of course, sold. I was bummed, but I thought "ask the salesperson" so I was like "hey, do you have any more Macbook Pro's?" and he said "Yes!" and I was like "holy crap!" So, he goes back and 5 minutes later, he brings back a Macbook Pro that was recently sold and had to be returned. The price was $1599 and I said "I'll take it." This computer retails for $2000 and it initially was the one I really wanted, but didn't get because it was a little outside of my budget. $1600 is much more like it. I think the price was cut more than normal because Apple is about to release the next version of the Macbook Pro, but that's fine by me. I plan on selling my Studio 15 plus one of the 22" monitors and should get somewhere between $1000-$1200 which would be absolutely perfect! I am a happy girl! My Studio 15 was okay, but it had Vista installed and I'm not a fan of Vista, the operating system is okay, my biggest beef is that some of the software I like to run doesn't run on Vista so I either had to do a lot of remoting onto servers or had to use different computers. With my Mac, now I can run Parallels or VMWare and run Windows XP as well as the Mac OS so it's all good! I will have ever thing I want on one machine. Awesome! It's funny how things work out.

Should be a good one this weekend. Gonna go put my new running shoes through a work out in the morning, then it's Texas v. Oklahoma @ noon. I also gotta run out and buy some computer accessories, I finally have all the major pieces I want assembled together, but need a few cables and such to get the setup right. Woo-hoo! I love nerdy stuff like this. A random comment along the same lines, I ended up using both my 22" monitors, I have them adjusted to the right angles and heights where it works out great. Sunday it's tennis, football and a little excursion with some friends.

The pressure is starting to creep a little at work. We have a few resource deficiencies which means my thoughts of a nice, slow ramp-up to some of the more technically challenging stuff ain't happening and so I have a pretty sharp learning curve over the next 2 months, actually probably through the end of the year. It's a good thing because it keeps my mind occupied. One thing I don't need and don't want is to be bored. I hate being bored.

I sent some pictures of my Dallas trip to my sister in St. Louis, I haven't seen her in about a year. She doesn't think I need to lose anymore weight. I'm getting much more of that nowadays, everytime I talk to my mom she asks me if I've lost any more weight. I keep telling her no or that I'm done even though I am not. I'm trying not to consistently weigh til the end of the month, some mornings I'll hop on pre-poop, just to see and sometimes I'll weigh when I come home from work and have stripped off all my work clothes before I slip into something casual. One thing I've noticed is that it's a completely rare occurrence for me to weigh less when in the evening than in the AM. That used to never happen to me. It's kinda cool, the downside is that the following morning's weigh-in isn't as dramatic a drop, so I guess it all evens out. Anyway, I may do an official weigh-in tomorrow just to gauge progress. I'm still with the Big C, ugh, so that's affecting things. Only way to really resolve it completely, at least temporarily, is to do laxatives, but that means staying close to home all day and I ain't doing that this weekend.

I'm on the hunt for some more restrictive control garments. Spanx and Assets are fine, they work pretty great for the stomach area, but I need more control in the thighs and I haven't so far found anything that works like how I need them to work. There has got to be something out there, I will find it. I had soooo much excess skin in my thighs, and I mean a lot! Pre-surgery, my thighs were the part of my body that were the most grossly disfigured by my weight. With the drastic weight loss, they have proportionately more excess skin than the rest of my body. It can be annoying because it affect the way I walk and the size of pants I can wear. All pants have excess inches in the waist because I have to get larger sizes to account for my thighs. I don't have *that* much more weight to lose, but without a doubt the weight I will be losing will be mostly below my waist. Removing the excess skin around my midsection, stomach and arms would put me in like a size medium t-shirt, there isn't a lot of fat left up there. Below my waist, I plan on being a 12/14 by the end of the year, I'm guessing. That would be awesome!

Last night I got nailed in the knee by a fast moving tennis ball. What is with (some) men? Why do they all think they're freakin' Roger Federer and have to whack the ball as hard as possible?!? This is freakin' Monday night drills, not the US Open. Geez. I don't see a bruise as of right now, but with my skin color, it might take a day or so to show up, if it ever will. It's doesn't hurt at the moment so that's good.

I don't think my magensium plan is working. I'm gonna increase my dosage one more time and if that don't do it, I'm moving on. Gonna go back to softeners, I think for some relief. I'm in a little bit of a funky mood right now. My screw-up brother is having some real problems out on the left coast and I'm torn between sending him money or just passing him off to my parents. We are less than 2 years apart but you'd think we had two completely different sets of parents. He is almost a direct opposite of me, in almost every way, especially since he is spoiled rotten. He was the first child born into the house after a 10 year gap so he was like the 2nd coming of Christ practically and it absolutely ruined him. By the time I came around it was more like "alright already!" I love him dearly, but he is very difficult for me to deal with. Most of the time I want to throttle him, but I know that as he gets older, all that immature BS he's so accustomed to ain't cutting it anymore. When I went home to see about my dad, not only did my dad have to pay for his flight home, my brother did squat while he was there. I mistakenly thought he would help me figure out a lot of my parents personal affairs and such, but nope, completely useless. After about the third time he scoffed at me for asking him to pay for his own meal when we went to dinner, I just about had it. At this point, I'm not sure what I will do. Him and my dad had a tumultuous decade or two and are slowly getting back on solid terms so I know that if I brought it up to him, he's more than willing to help his son out. Ugh, it's just kinda sad. I'd hate to be pushing closer to 40 than 30 and have a lifetime of regret. I guess it's more motivation for me really get out of life the things I really want.

5' 11 1/2"

Somehow, I've grown a whole inch. I'm not sure when this happened or whether it happened over time, but the last time I was measured in a doctor's office was way back in 1992 and it was part of my medical evaluation in preparation for college. At the time I was 5' 10 1/2" and probably close to 300 lbs. I don't know if this is an after effect of losing 280 lbs or whether I've been this tall for years, but I think it's cool mostly because it changes my BMI, down a full point! Woo-hoo!

Back when I was an inch shorter, reaching my mini-goal of 216.6 lbs (equating to exactly 300 lbs lost) will still make me obese with a BMI of 30.6. Now that I'm taller, :), my BMI will be at that mini-goal will instead be 29.8. Freakin' awesome! In reality, it doesn't really change anything, I will still lose the weight I will lose, it just gives a better perception on BMI points lost.

I've really been trying to focus on my Calcium lately. I have this growing (irrational?) fear of breaking a bone, especially with my increased activity. I've largely ditched the Upcal-D as it's very sweet and has a lot of sugar which I do not need. I still have a few bottles of the Twinlab Calcium Citrate Chewables, which I like. They're very sweet and candy like and I usually keep them on hand when I want a piece of candy or something or if I am out and about and need to get some calcium in. My primary source is Citricals Calcium Citrate mammoth pills. They suck to take them, but I don't really want to mess around and if it's something I gotta do, well then, I'm gonna do it. The problem with Calcium Citrate is the constipation it causes...an ongoing battle for me. Right now I am following a suggestion that I think I got from Vitalady to take 500mg of Magnesium Oxide with my Calcium in order to move things along. I'm not sure it's working well, I still have a persistent overfull/uncomfortable feeling which can't be good. About once a week I'll have a huge poop and feel much better, and of course the scale will drop accordingly. I may go back to daily stool softeners to see if that helps.

Anywho, since I've left the day-to-day running of my business, I have such a restless mind. It took a little bit to decompress and clear my head of all that bad juju, but now I have a fire to do something else. Right now, at my current gig there are a couple of people who are leaving the group which means that I will be doing a bit of training over the next few weeks on some new technologies specific to the job. I am however, trying to find a learning path that is more along the lines of technologies that interest me more. I'm looking into a few things and luckily don't have to rush into anything. We'll see where that goes.