Wed-nes-day Weigh In

Last Week: 246.6 lb
This Week: 244.0 lb
Loss: 2.6 lb

Am I the only person who says "wed-nes-day" in her head while she types the word? I hope not. I also use "S.U.C.C.E.S.S. that's the way you spell success" when necessary. Thank you, elementary school.

Aaaaanyhoo...

I knew the weight would go away. Stupid Rally's fries. It was a teeny tiny little bonus that another 0.2 lb went with it, so I'm happy with this week's results. I'm now down this many pounds from my HNPR weight:

I made an appointment for a fill on April 6th. Can't wait to get in there and see Kim. I'm thinking 0.5 cc this time, but we'll see what she recommends. And apparently, my surgeon's office is changing things up now - the lady I made my appointment with (a new girl - Teresa) said that they have a new policy that if it's been "a while" since you've been in the office, you have to get a barium swallow before you can come in. She didn't specify what "a while" actually means, so I'll have to find out when I get in for my appointment. Apparently it means more than 9 weeks, since that's how long it will have been for me.

Originally, I was annoyed that they might make me do the barium swallow, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the only reason I didn't want to have to do it (besides having to pay for the damn thing) is fear that they'll find something wrong. This is me working through my instinct of sticking my head in the sand in the face of a problem. (Go me!) So I said to myself, "Self. If there's a problem (yo I'll solve it), you need to know. That's how things get fixed. Get over it."

In the end, I don't have to get one this time, but there might be a time in the future when I do. And then Self is just gonna have to deal. And maybe listen to some old school Vanilla Ice.

In crappy news, my Diet Bet ends tomorrow and I'm not gonna make it. $20 down the drain. I'm really interested to see how many of the 400+ people did meet their goals, though. Good on them.

In slightly-less-crappy news, I completed enough classes this term to remain eligible for financial aid next term. I'm technically in "warning" status for next term (April 1 - September 30) and have to complete a certain percentage of my classes in order to stay enrolled in school. Blargh. Mess. But I always do much better in the April - September term because things are calmer during that time of year. And I don't want to go through the stress I've been going through for the past 2 months again. So I'm convinced that this next term is going to go much more smoothly.

Oh, and bonus - one of the classes that I actually DID complete this past term was my LAST MATH CLASS EVER. Hallelujah, praise the lawd.

I'm carrying over three courses into next term - Science, History, and Human Development and Learning. And I'll be adding two more classes to that - Diversity and Inclusion and Testing. Human Development, Diversity and Inclusion, and Testing are all Foundations of Teaching courses. Science and History are liberal arts requirements. Can't wait to be done with those two because then I'll be past all the gen ed courses and only doing education courses. Woo!

Wednesday Weigh In and Meeting A Blogger Crush

This is my 300th blog post! What do I get for that?

Last Week: 244.2 lb
This Week: 246.6 lb
Gain: 2.4 lb

I was doing so well. Bringing my lunch, tracking my carbs, calories and protein. And then the french fries happened. I picked the absolute worst time (10 pm the night before a weigh in) and the worst food (Rally's french fries and a Hi-C - carb city much?) to give in to a craving. And today I'm super bummed about it.

AKA: "The Devil"

But look! I didn't hide from it! I didn't pretend it doesn't exist. It's here. And it will go away.

It's one weigh in. One give-in to a craving in an otherwise great food week (so far.) Meh, whatevs.

In other totally awesome news:

Last night, I got to meet one of my girl crushes - Jenny Lawson, The Bloggess!

Darn you, Books & Co. employee, for not being able to take clear pictures!

If you're not familiar with her blog or her memoir, Let's Pretend This Never Happened, Jenny kind of comes with a warning. She finds humor in very offbeat things. She says things people just don't say. She's wonderfully weird. She cusses. A lot.

In fact, Books & Co. told her she couldn't cuss during her reading and talk, so she decided to replace all of the cuss words with "hippopotamus". She chose to read aloud the third chapter in her book, called "Stanley the Magical Talking Squirrel" (in which her taxidermist father scars she and her little sister for life by making them believe that a roadkill squirrel is alive and speaks to him...seriously, you just have to read the book.) Originally, she was going to read a different chapter, but it had too many hippopotamuses in it, so she chose the "cleanest" chapter, which was still chockablock with hippopotami.

As a side note, one of the things I absolutely LOVE about her book is that she tells these completely outrageous stories - and remember, it's a memoir, so it's supposedly a recollection of her life - and the stories are so ridiculous that you think, "No way. You're making that up. That didn't really happen." And then you turn the page, and there's a picture showing that they really did have a pet raccoon named Rambo that they dressed up in pajamas.

One of the funniest parts of the book signing was when she went on a small side tangent about fellatio and Texas law. And how her friend got her father to pay for a ticket by telling him that fellatio was Spanish for "speeding". Probably a "you had to be there moment", but hilarious nonetheless. 

On a serious note, though, Jenny struggles with mental illness on a daily basis - anxiety disorder, impulse control disorder, and depression are among the illnesses she has dealt with, spoken about, and raised awareness of. She shared some great advice that someone (I can't remember who now, which bothers me) gave her when she was about to have a panic attack over recording her audio book. She sent a frantic email to this person (ugh, who was it?!) and they sent back one sentence that changed her life:

"Pretend you're good at it."

Now, Jenny uses that advice when she's near a panic attack, an agoraphobic woman faced with standing up in front of hundreds of people on her book tour. It was totally a takeaway for me, applicable in so many areas of my life. I'm going to try to remember it from now on - whatever may come my way, whatever paralyzes me with fear, whatever I think there's just no way I can accomplish - I'm gonna just pretend I'm good at it and see where it takes me. 

It was a great night. I'm glad I went. 

And you should totally read that book. 

Because, Who Doesn't Love Progress Pics?

The picture on the left is from August 2011. On the right, this past Sunday. Almost 40 pounds...NUTS.

NSV and Being a Preppy

Happy Monday morning to you!

Hope you all had a great weekend. Mine was spent sans husband and child (lovely!) running errands, cleaning house, and working on school stuff. The school situation still looks bleak, but I'm trying to stay get positive about it.

No matter how dreary and depressing the school situation might be, I've got an NSV to tell you about that definitely put me in a good mood!

MFN (My Friend Natalie, the lovely lady who did the Shamrock Shuffle with me) has a birthday two days after mine. We were even born the same year (1982 represent!), so I'm officially two days older than her. So naturally, having a BFF whose birthday is so close, we usually celebrate together - usually by NOT running 5ks - and get each other small gifts.

MFN is going to school right now, so she works two part time jobs. One of those jobs is at The Loft outlet. And I can honestly tell you that I've never set foot in The Loft in all my life. Because I have always known that it was futile. Nothing there is going to fit me, so why put myself through the drama? But at our post-what-we-thought-was-a-5k-but-later-found-out-was-a-4.5k breakfast, Miss Natalie handed me a shopping bag from the store.

I thought she was just re-using a bag and never expected the gifts inside to actually be from The Loft. But they were. Two super cute shirts. And Natalie is super supportive of the whole Lap Band thing, while also being the friendly kind of realistic, so she told me that the shirts were something to work toward. I had no expectations of being able to fit into something from a "regular" store in a "regular" size, so I thanked her for the motivation and went about my day.

But yesterday, I was trying on a bunch of other clothes that I already owned, and figured I'd give it a "what the hell". Do you see what I see?

Blurry pic, and I'm looking slightly zombie-ish around the eyes. Makeup, Anna! 

Your eyes are not deceiving you.

HO-LY HELL. This is seriously mind blowing to me. I cannot believe that shirt actually fits ME. Now, the universe making sure I don't get too cocky about anything, made sure that the other XL shirt MFN gave me was a completely different story not fit for public consumption. But this shirt. It fits. A size XL from a regularly-sized-people-shop-here store. NUTSO.

In other news, and on the topic of being a preppy:

Remember my recent post about being lazy? A lot of you had great suggestions about preparation being key to actually getting shit done. So I took advantage of a recent grocery shopping trip and the fact that The Hubs and The Kid were gone, and got my prep on.

Thanks, LoganMan, for donating your snack cups to the cause. 

I bought some lunch meat and portioned it out into 3 ounce portions. I used chicken and turkey. I also bought a quarter watermelon and sliced it up into chunks. Wow, that was a juicy job, let me tell you! Easy enough, but definitely messy. It then got packaged into containers of about 4 ounces each. Then I packed two tablespoons-ish of my current obsession, Dean's French Onion Dip, into small containers to go with pretzels that I keep in a drawer at my desk. Combine these with an EAS protein shake for breakfast and some yogurt for a snack, and I am ready to go! 

Lookie here, all organized and shit. 

And then, I took it all one step further, and pre-bagged each day's lunch. I packed for four days of lunches, figuring I'll give myself Friday as a day to eat out as a treat.

Middle row, pretty Kroger bags all ready to go! 

Oh, and if you're wondering what those brown things are sticking out of the beer bottles at the top left, The BFF made The Hubs Beer Reindeer for Christmas. Those are pipe cleaner antlers. LMAO. 

Anyway, it felt great to be so prepared and ready to go. It was awesome this morning to just be able to pick up a bag and walk out the door. The only downside is that all that prep came at a cost to my school work - I had to choose which thing I wanted to spend time on, and prepping and packing four days of lunches (including cutting up a watermelon and peeling/slicing four baby cucumbers for The Kid) isn't really a quick process. I'm happy to have done it, though. Can't wait for lunch today! 

TTT (Around The World Edition)

Oh, dear pregnant and beautiful Laura Belle, what would we do without you and your Ten Things Thursday? The wonderful time in bloggy mcbloggerton land where I get to drone on about randomness and still feel accomplished. (Oh, wait. That's pretty much every time I post.) But I digress...

Uno: What does "prime the band" mean? I have heard some people say that drinking a certain amount of water before you eat "primes the band". What is that exactly? Just something I've wondered for a while.

Deux: Thank you all for the kind comments and responses to yesterday's post. Often times, we are our own harshest critics, and it is so wonderful to have you all here to remind me that I don't have to be so darn mean to myself all the time! Plus, y'all had some great tips on organizing and getting stuff done which I'll be trying to implement in the near future.

Three: Do you know the blog Young House Love? On a post yesterday, they linked to a company called A Vintage Poster, wherein I found this gem which was so apropos to my Whiny Wednesday post. I just need to pick a place to start and get to gettin' rather than feel so paralyzed by everything.

Vier: I'm running out of languages, gonna have to start googling soon. Did you even notice? :)

Fimm: School continues to stress me out. It just doesn't seem possible that I will be able to complete all my assignments, turn them in, and have them graded (which takes 3-5 days for each) by the 31st. Darn me and that procrastination monster.

Sex: (Well, Latin, you saucy minx...) I'm not having any. (badum ching!)

Sette: I have been obsessed with Olive Garden lately. I wish I were kidding when I tell you that I have had it four times in the past seven days. Cheese ravioli rocks my socks.

Juróom ñett: I once worked with a guy from Senegal. His native language was Wolof, which is just fun to say. (Pronounced "WOHL-ahv"). He was also fluent in French and English. He got very offended if he called your name and you answered with "What?" In his strong Wolofian/French accent, he would say, "Don't say what to me. It is rude." I am reminded of him several times a week when Logan calls for me and I say, "What?" 

Nau: The Bloggess is coming to Dayton next Tuesday for a book signing. I'm going with a friend from high school. Although, I bought the electronic version of her book, so short of having her sign my Kindle, I think I'm going to have to shell out more moolah for a book I already own. Blah to that. 

Tō: I work for a regional group of retail furniture stores. Many times in the almost-two-years I've worked here, I've had friends or family ask about getting my (pretty decent) discount. I'm too chicken to do it for them because I don't really know how the process works and I'm afraid I'll get caught. Wimpy McWimperton, right here, buddy. Not sure why that popped into my head as a TTT, but thereyougo.

Blogger challenge: List all 10 languages in the comments! I gave you lots of hints...

Being Honest (and a Wednesday Weigh-In)

Even with the Lap Band, this weight loss thing is difficult. Things haven't been going well for the past two-ish weeks, and I purposefully didn't weigh in last week because I knew the numbers were going to be bad. Like, up three pounds kind of bad. So I didn't weigh in. I didn't want record of that. And part of the reason is because I know how much my weight fluctuates (scale whore, much?) and I knew that my weight probably wouldn't be as bad the next week.

And the worst part about sticking my head in the sand like that? It worked.

While my weigh in last week would have shown me up more than three pounds, my weigh in this week shows me down almost one pound.

Two Weeks Ago: 245.0 lb
This Week: 244.2 lb
Loss: 0.8 lb

*edited: accidentally posted my weight as 244.8, but it was 244.2. Thanks Connie for checking my math!*

Obviously this isn't discouraging me from skipping bad weigh ins, now is it? Ugh. The scary part is that those are old habits - avoiding accountability, pretending like nothing is wrong, hiding from the truth, etc. Those are Fat Anna habits, and I have got to get better at working through them. The Lap Band isn't going to fix any of that for me. I have to do it on my own. (Scary!)

It just sucks. And the root of my problem is nothing but sheer laziness. Sure, I could blame it on stress (because I am stressed beyond belief). I could blame it on my schedule (because I have a lot on my plate right now). I could blame it on the band (because I think I'm still a little outside of the green zone).

But really? It's just laziness. I'm too lazy to pack my lunch. I'm too lazy to pack workout clothes. Even if I did pack clothes, I'm too lazy to actually go to the fitness center and work out. I've been too lazy to take my Bydureon injections, so my hunger has returned full force and I can feel my blood sugars getting a tiny bit out of whack.

Do they make an anti-laziness pill? Hell, who am I kidding? Even if they did, I'd probably be too lazy to take it!

How do I change this? How do I make myself do the things that I need to do? Even the things that most normal people do on a regular basis? (Like vacuuming more than, oh, maybe once a month. Or doing laundry before the entire family runs out of clean socks and underwear. Or dusting, like, ever.)

And I can hear my awesome friend Heather whispering in my ear right now that I need to show myself a little grace. So I'll move on from Whiny Wednesday...

In other, less frustrating news, the DietBet that I'm participating in now has more than 400 members and is worth $8,380.00. I have five more pounds to lose by March 28th to be eligible for my share of the pot. I really need to up the ante (bad pun intended) on myself to get there. 

I'll do it. And it will be super-redonk-amazeballs to be in the 2freaking30's. I can't even tell you the last time I was in the 230s. Don't even know. But I'll get there soon. (I did, finally, force myself to take my Bydureon injection last night, so hopefully that will help some.) 

Ugh, I feel like this post is all over the place, so I apologize for my schizophrenia. Have a great day, y'all! 

Everyday I'm Shufflin'...(a long semi-rant)

Saturday was my 31st birthday. I decided long ago (never to walk in anyone's shadow) to do a 5k to celebrate this wonderful occasion. So I picked The Shamrock Shuffle. It turned out to be a HUGE race, with over 5,000 participants.

MFN and I before the race. It was COLD.

This race was so poorly organized, but I didn't really realize how bad it was until later that night. Random things would happen throughout the experience that I would kind of question, but because of the excitement of being there, I just kind of let them go. But now, after the adrenaline is gone, I'm really kind of bummed about a lot of things. 

1) The "festival" area where the before and after block parties were held was A MESS. Everything was tightly packed in a small space, when they had tons of room that they could have spread out into. They were giving away free food both before and after the race, but it was stuff that I would NEVER consider eating at 8 am - Cool Ranch Dorito Tacos from Taco Bell, Chips and Guacamole from Qdoba, Frozen Yogurt from Menchie's Frozen Yogurt (it was like 30 degrees outside!). Re-donk. 

2) The starting line for the races was a short walk away from the festival area, but (this is hard to explain, so I'm going to try my best) the only way to get to the starting line was from one direction. But the direction we were all coming from headed straight for the front of the pack, the front of the starting line. So people didn't realize that they had to keep walking and go to the back of the pack if they were walkers/with strollers/with dogs, etc. They just walked up to the mass of people and stopped, not realizing that they were in the front of the line. The start and first half mile of that race was a complete clusterf***. 

3) My second biggest pet peeve of the whole thing - they had no mile or km markers along the whole race! Who "professionally organizes" a 5k and doesn't put up mile markers?! Natalie and I aren't cool enough to have runner's Garmins or anything like that, so we had to go off of our estimated time. It's a really good thing that I thought to look at my phone as we were crossing the starting line, or we would have had absolutely NO idea about our approximate location on the course. 

4) The finish line signage was backwards! We were moving along and I saw a big thing of signage up ahead of us, but it was facing the other direction, so I thought there was no way we were headed for the finish line. Usually, the word "FINISH" is facing you, and that's how you know. Not with this ass backwards race. The "FINISH" signage was facing the freaking spectators! WTF, dude?

5) They were completely unprepared for the waves of finishers at the line. Nobody was manning the water stations, so people were piling up trying to get water out of big plastic cases. There was nobody directing people to/where to turn in their timing chips. As a result, Natalie and I didn't even realize we still had ours until we were eating breakfast at IHOP later! Now we have to waste time and a stamp to mail them in. 

The backwards finish line. High on thinking we had completed our goal. But did we?

6) And my biggest pet peeve about this stupid race? The organizers posted on their FB page later that evening that the 5k course was actually shorted. Remember back up at number four when I said I thought there was no way we were actually headed for the finish line at that point? I knew something was wrong. I knew the numbers didn't add up. I thought we had to keep going around and head into the finish corral from the front, because it just didn't feel right. And our race time seemed really freaking good for two girls who hadn't trained much at all and who walked the vast majority of the course. Well, la ti da, no wonder our times were so good - instead of doing 3.1 miles, we only did 2.8. They shorted the course by three tenths of a fracking mile! Instead of a birthday 5k, I did a birthday 4.5k. I was robbed. 

And you know, I try to stay positive. At least I got out of bed. At least I paid the $30 entry fee. At least we did it even though it was butt ass cold. At least. But at the same time, there's something about that distance. Something about officially going 3.1 miles, that I feel like we didn't really accomplish our goal. Even though we thought we were doing it at the time, we didn't. It's a bummer. 

But we did have fun. Natalie worked really hard to distract me through the parts where I wanted to die. We gossiped about girls' jiggly butts in their too-tight running pants and tried to figure out which ones were wearing underwear and which ones weren't. At one point, we started singing songs to keep our brains occupied. We would sing until we forgot the words, and then pick up another song. I'm sure the people around us hated us, but I really don't care. We traded sweaty gloves back and forth when our hands got too cold or hot. We plotted our outfits for next year, if we decide we're crazy enough to do this again.

We did have fun, and that's what birthdays are supposed to be about. Not-really-a-5k-5ks and all.