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!

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! 

New Year, New Choices...and a Wednesday Weigh In

Last Week: 254.2
This Week: 252.6
Loss: 1.6 lb

Well, Happy New Year to me! I wasn't expecting a good number today, what with all the holiday mumbo jumbo going on. 1.6 pounds is awesome, and I'm super happy with it. I finally hit my first mini goal of 10 pounds down since starting the pre-surgery diet. (Which would have been at 253.8, so I kind of just blew through that one!) But I didn't quite make it to my goal of losing 30 pounds in my 30th year - just 28.4.

Wait.

Just 28.4? JUST TWENTY EIGHT FRACKING POUNDS?! Anna! Get your head out of your ass! You lost more than 28 pounds last year! That is amazing! And way better than gaining weight every. single. year. of your life like you HAD been doing.

(Okay, okay, voices in my head...28.4 pounds is A LOT and I'm freaking awesome. Better?)

Ahem...anyway...

And so, for the first time I can literally ever remember, I'm starting this year weighing significantly less than the last. And it feels awesome. And I can't wait to see what is to come. Here are my commitments for 2013:

• I have a fill on Saturday, and I'm committing to fills every two weeks until I get to where I need to be. No more wasting this tool (and my money!)
• I'm committing to bringing my lunch more to work. I'm not going to say a specific number of times or anything, but that I will bring it more. Which shouldn't be hard, because I can probably count on both hands the number of times I brought lunch to work last year. 
• I'm committing to at least one 5k. Even if I have to train and run it by myself, I'm doing one. 
• I'm committing to moving more. My Mom bought me Just Dance 4 for the Wii, and I've busted a few moves and busted out some sweat, so that will be one of my options. As a tiny little side commitment attached to this one, I'm committing to stop ignoring the fact that my workplace has a fitness center that I walk right past several times a day.
• I'm committing to following the bandster rules. Even the ones I hate. *cough*Nodrinkingwhileeating*cough*
• I'm committing to focusing more on school. Gotta get that done in order to leave my crappy current job. 

My favorite commitment this year is that I'm committing to have more fun. Because as Ferris Bueller said,

 "Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you might miss it."

TTT

It's time for Laura Belle's Ten Things Thursday, and it couldn't have come at a better time. I was staring at a blank Blogger screen until I remembered that it's Thursday, so my blogging is basically done for me!

{1} My weigh in yesterday was 257.2. If you'll recall, that was also my exact weight on 11/07 (Surgery Day), and last week on 11/21. 257.2 likes me and I'm not sure why. The feeling is certainly not mutual.

{2} My very first fill is only 8 days away! I am super excited for this, and only a teensy bit nervous. I gave myself 3-4 insulin shots daily for several months of my pregnancy, and I give myself my Bydureon injection every week, so the needle part isn't totally freaking me out, but I'm not exactly thrilled about the prospect, either. I just want to get on the path to restriction and feel like I'm starting to get my money's worth out of Tim Gunn.

{3} Mission: Christmas Dish Cloths has slowed down a bit. I've lost my motivation at the most unhelpful time. I still have about six sets (12 dish cloths) to go. Blargh.

{4} I bought some Powerball tickets yesterday but refuse to find out if we've won or not. I wanted to go to bed thinking there was still a chance that I could be a bagillionaire. Still to now, I know nothing about the drawing and if anyone won. I'm holding on to the dream a little bit longer - getting the most out of my 12 bucks.

{5} If I won the lottery, the very first thing I'd do (after putting it in an account under a business or different name) would be to build a big ol' custom home. We live in a comically small apartment that is busting at the seams with our junk. Not to mention the fact that there is an entire ROOM full of our junk stored at The Hubs' parents' house. I literally feel like our walls are closing in on us.

{6} Today is my "official" day of starting Phase 4 foods, which in non-surgeon speak, means I'm back to all normal foods. Woo. I pretty much had been eating normal foods (choosing more soft/mushy items when they were available) for about a week now.

{7} My focus this week has been trying not to drink with my meals. I knew going into this that this one bandster rule would be the hardest for me to follow. I have always been a HUGE drinker with meals - I just hate the feeling of leftover food particles in my mouth. I've been focusing on it this week and pushing myself out of my comfort zone to try to get over the mental yuckiness of not being able to "wash" my food down. It's a work in progress, and one which I will really need to get under control once I've got my fills in.

{8} I have been kind of ignoring school for the past month or so. My second term started in October, which means I have until the end of March to finish the 5 classes I'm scheduled. Because it's all online, I don't have to actually attend classes on any sort of schedule, which means that I can just pretend it doesn't exist if I want to. Not good. Finally this week, I got tired of feeling guilty during my weekly mentor call and finished two assignments for my math class. (Math - patooey!). I turned them in on Tuesday and they still haven't been graded, which annoys me. If they pass, I have two more assignments for that class and then it's OVAH. And I will be done with math FOREVAH! (Except for studying for the math portion of the Praxis 1, blargh.)

{9} December's calendar is filling up fast. For us, October and December are the two busiest months of the year, and I almost dread them. As of right now, we have eight events on our calendar and still need to find time to get/decorate our Christmas tree and go see the trains at the Cincinnati Museum Center. Busy busy busy!

{10} My kid is the cutest thing on the planet. He's so much more into Christmas this year since he understands more of it. I don't think he understands the concept that Santa brings gifts on one special day, but he knows what Santa and Rudolph and elves and presents and Christmas trees are. He even "sings" Jingle Bells, which comes out something like "bumble bells, bumble bells, bumble bells, bumble bells, bumble bells..." on repeat. I'll have to try to post some video for y'all.

Aaaand, that's all folks. It was easier to come up with 10 things today! Hope everyone is doing well.