So, I have this friend....
Don't you just LOVE when stories start out that way? In high school such a phrase was often followed by: “who is having sex with her boyfriend and needs to get on birth control but she can't tell her mom and doesn't know where to go to get it” which was then followed by YOUR mom narrowing her eyes at you, getting a little sweaty on the forehead. Which was then followed by you cocking your snotty teenage hip to the side whilst responding “NO! REALLY! Its my FRIEND! Not ME! I SWEAR, MOM!”
Anyway – I have this friend, we'll call her Olive Oil. She's skinny. Really skinny. Always has been, always will be. And she's beautiful. And a whole bunch of other things that are wonderful and lovely and covetous. Like, she never fails to give people the benefit of the doubt. And she doesn't like to gossip. What is UP with that?
You already hate her, don't you?
Here, hate her some more: She once bitched and moaned to me about how she was sad that after birthing two kids she could no longer fit into her size 2 jeans. SIZE TWO. This conversation happened while we were eating our Panera Bread lunches – my salad (dressing on the side!) and her foccacia bread sandwich (extra cheese on the side!) and NON-DIET Coke. She DID get some salad too, that day though. In her lap.
Then I took off my size 20s and wrapped her skinny butt in them and stuck her in the trunk of my car. It was all done with love though.
Anyway, we've known each other for a long time. She's seen me at my heaviest, she's seen me at my skinniest. She's seen me happy with my body and hating my body. What she's never seen me as though, is NOT on a diet.
She's been with me to Walgreens when I was spending my allowance on Metabolife. She's eaten my Everything Bagel after I'd taken off the turkey and cheese while doing Atkins. She's scrunched up her nose at my Slim Fast and tasted a bite or two (and spit them out) of my Jenny Craig turkey and rice soup. She's listened while I've calculated the amount of Weight Watchers points in my chicken fajitas and wondered aloud how I fit in all the exercise I do. After school I'd eat carrot sticks and she'd have McDonalds.
Somehow, amidst all of my dieting and her NOT dieting, I continued to get fatter and she continued to get skinnier. In the abbreviated words of our deteriorating youth: WTF?
So, Olive Oil has been having some issues with feeling dizzy and disoriented and lethargic. She's not yet seen a doctor but she thinks she's has issues with her blood sugar. Her hypothesis was that she had started doing some exercise but had not upped her caloric intake enough to account for the amount of exercise she is doing. Her current solution? Stop exercising.
I suggested EATING MORE, because, well, for a fat girl, that's as instinctual as buying the black one because its most slimming. Elliptical for 30 minutes = a night of eating buttercream frosting out of the can. IT'S MATH PEOPLE.
Then she said something so horrific, so foreign, so unbelievable, I ALMOST put down the miniature Snickers bar I was licking. She said: “BUT SOMETIMES I'M JUST NOT HUNGRY.”
Stop the press! My skinny friend DOESN'T LIKE TO EAT WHEN SHE'S NOT HUNGRY?!
“Are you sure?” I asked? “What about just ½ a cheese stick or maybe a handful of nuts? M&Ms? A Whopper Jr.? I mean, you're skinny, C'MON! Live it up!”
But she insisted. She doesn't like to eat when she's not hungry. Not even a little.
And for the first time in my life, I kinda 'get it'. I'm not totally 'there' yet but thanks to Leona, I'm starting to understand what its like to have a normal relationship with food. I can't say that I don't pop a chocolate or potato chip every now and then, even though I'm full from lunch. And sometimes just seeing that its 6pm makes me hear dinner bells. But they aren't ringing that loudly and sometimes I'm able to shut them out as I would a Michael Bolton song on an elevator.
Every fat girl knows that 'only eating when you are hungry' isn't some giant secret that the skinny girls are keeping from us. We know its common sense. It is just that, for whatever reason, we've been ignoring that instinct for so long that the sense isn't so common.
After 27 years of doing it, eating when you aren't hungry isn't just a bad habit, it's inherent.
They say “you learn something new every day.” What they don't tell you is how hard it is to UNLEARN something you didn't want to know how to do in the first place.
Me & Olive Oil in 1995. She made brownies for our road trip but I couldn't eat them since I was on a diet.
Also, yes, her waist was and is, smaller than my bicep.
Camille's post regarding whether or not to tell her mother about her Lap Band got me thinking about the 'support' that I've received from friends and family since deciding to go forward with the gastric band and the LACK of support that so many of my other banded blogger friends have had with regard to their weight loss surgery (WLS).
I don't have the energy to get all philosophical about it but I wanted to share a quick story that I think pretty much sums up how friends and family SHOULD act regarding a person's decision to have WLS.
Last weekend I, Kate, and some of our other mommy friends went to the mountains for some “relax and recharge” time away from husbands and kids. Hot tub, wine and massage. Need I say more?
Kate and I have been very open with our mommy group about our band surgeries. Partly because we spend so much time together between playgroups, mommy's night outs, birthday parties and family events it would be hard to keep such a secret from them. And partly because honestly, they are all such amazing women and have been supportive in every facet of each other's lives that we felt 'safe' with them.
Well, on the drive up to the mountains, Kate, Shannon and I were all in one car. We were talking about potty training, tantrums and other toddler challenges and kind of out of nowhere Shannon says “I am just so proud of both of you girls and the progress you've made with your weight loss. You both look so good”.
She didn't quantify it with comments about us having had surgery to help us or question whether we'll be able to 'keep it off'. She just did what a friend should do: support us through our journey.
So, not only is Shannon a great friend, she's also a wise woman because damn if we DON'T look good.
See for yourself:
Kate is in the center
In the couple of weeks since I've been gone from the blogosphere I've enjoyed such things as hot tubs, wine, pumpkin patches, girls weekend away, wine, a massage by a hippy mountain man that repeated the phrase “relax and restore” about 37 times in the course of 90 minutes, wine, and of course, vodka.
Yet, each of these events, with great stories accompanying, have taken a back seat in my brain since watching this vlog by the crazy yet inspiring Amy W., and her blog posts that followed.
Typically I prefer to be the star in my blog but such an even as eating an entire hamburger WITH BUN, whilst sporting a Lap-Band, trumps my self-centeredness and it simply must be addressed.
See, I'm feeling a bit like you feel after someone you know has experienced something tragic—like a car accident, or the loss of a loved one or your skirt tucked into the back of your pantyhose: What if it was me?!
I try not to be too judgmental (at least not to anyone's face) and so I'm withholding my judgment for Amy's cardinal banded sin. And it seems like she's received enough spankings from her followers to warrant her a plaque in the S&M hall of fame. Instead I find myself biting my fingernails with worry, furrowing my un-botoxed brow and looking at burgers, bagels and doughnuts in an entirely different with mixture of horror and longing.
See, hearing that my inspiration has successfully gone where no bandster has gone before has done a number on me.
Call me naive but I seriously thought that eating burgers with buns, untoasted loxed and creamed cheesed bagels, Panera's Chicken Caesar Sandwiches were feats that were simply not possible with banded restriction.
Now, if you have followed my banded history you know that it took me F.O.R.E.V.E.R. to get any resemblance of restriction in my band. But once I got some (at about 7 ccs in a 10 cc band) Leona put the “kabash” on just about every food I've mentioned above. She simply stops it in its tracks.
While I recognize that everyone is different and perhaps Amy's ability to conquer this burger-beast is a one-off, I live in fear.
Regardless of how much research we did prior to getting our bands, regardless of how mentally and emotionally ready we were for such step, getting the band did require us to take a leap of faith. The gastric band, in the world of medical procedures, is relatively new. There aren't exactly thousands of well known bandsters who have had their band longer than a few years and are out there sharing their stories.
How do I know I won't tap out my band and be without restriction forever? How do I know that this amazing feeling of fullness and satisfaction that I get now after eating a small amount of food won't disappear someday even with a filled band?
Although each day I am finding new ways to analyze my relationship with food and with feeling/being fat, I haven't conquered it yet. I'm not yet free.
I still NEED MY BAND TO DO ITS JOB.
While I hope that I can be buried with my band, a thin, healthy woman, a part of me also hopes that if for some reason Leona and I had to part ways, I would still be able to maintain a healthy relationship with food and my weight.
I'm using this band as a tool, not as a cure.
My paranoia, however, is that Leona is going to crap out on me before I'm ready to make my way into remission.
Normally, relaxation comes at a price.
In my neck of the woods a pedicure is $35, a evening of cocktails with the girls is $50 and a Swedish massage is $70 (“happy endings” are extra – unless you have a gift certificate).
And six days on a Caribbean island, my 2-year old in the safe, albeit cookie-filled hands of her grandparents wasn't cheap either. We paid off the vacation monetarily but I'm paying a much higher price via sugar withdrawal induced tantrums, 6 a.m. wake-up calls and acoustic bombardment torture in the form of an alien life form known simply as “The Wiggles”.
Seriously, if they'd wanted to get Noriega out a few days sooner, than they should have played Captain Feathersword reciting the Declaration of Independence over and over again instead of the Howard Stern show: “Ahoy there me hearties! We hold these here truths to be self evident. Oooh hoo!”
Side bar: Did you know that the U.S. Military has used NEIL DIAMOND to torture prisoners at Guantanamo Bay? NEIL DIAMOND?! Who doesn't like “Sweet Caroline”?! That's like saying you feel “tortured” by having to watch puppies and kittens playing with a ball of yarn. No wonder they aren't getting any information out of those guys about where the heck Osama Bin Laden is hiding. Great. I now have to wonder if 'waterboarding' is actually just a day in a jacuzzi.
All these minor annoyances aside, vacation was wonderful. Lots of sleeping, lots of swimming, lots of reading, lots of drinks made with two shots of liquor and names like “Sandals Sunset”, “Orange Bliss”, “No Pressure” and “Knock You On Your Ass So Hard You Have To Take Two Naps In One Day.” I think that last one has tequila in it... and vodka...and rum...and Vicodin.
One thing there was NOT lots of, however, was eating. Our resort was an 'all inclusive' which, translated, means “fat people like it here”. Buffets abound at Sandals' resorts. And when the buffets are closed? No pressure, no problem my brotha! A burger and fries from the seaside bar awaits you!
In the past, just being near all this food, all the time, would have made me eat. I could have finished off lunch and still been signaling my cabana boy to bring me a large order of onion rings with an ice cream sundae on the side.
It was strange being constantly surrounded by food and yet NOT EATING. What was strangely familiar however, was being surrounded by fruity drinks and using the phrase “Sure, I'll have another! Put whipped cream in it this time!” So all in all, balance was achieved.
All this said, pina coladas and strawberry daquiris are sliders so even though I stayed the course with eating, I came home two pounds up due to the alcohol imbibing. Lucky for me Sandals does not have an all-you-can-eat-soft-serve-ice-cream-bar (although I complained loudly to several different resort employees about not being able to 'get my ice cream on') or it would be worse.
But here I am, 4 days post-vacation and those two pounds have disappeared so once again, I'm most thankful to my Lap Band.
Husband and I went on vacation but thank jeebus Leona doesn't take holidays. I hired that bitch to be a workaholic and as expected, she's exceeding expectations.
In a cabana right before my second drink of the day
After my second drink of the day
A couple of milestones have come and gone for me and yet I've not gotten my act together to even blog about them.
First, I hit the halfway marker to my “goal weight” a few weeks ago. I put the aforementioned goal weight in quotation marks because I'm fairly certain that I will be setting a lower final goal for myself after I reach this one, but in my adult life, I've never been under this particular weight so it is hard for me to contemplate I could ever weigh LESS than my current goal weight.
If you're confused by the last paragraph, you're not alone. So am I. I deliberately talk AROUND weight numbers. For someone who prides herself on her writing's clarity, this kind of number anonymity proves a challenge.
Its as if I'm in high school, passing notes back and forth about “Him”. You know, “He is SOOOO CUTE!” and “He, like, TOTALLY like likes Angela but she only likes him and I hope he realizes that I TOTALLY like, like him and he asks me to check out his Nirvana CD collection this weekend”.
Then I TOTALLY had to figure out what “Smells Like Teen Spirit” even meant and remember, this was the dark ages, before Google and the interwebs so I had to watch a TON of MTV and read the CD jacket over and over again. I figured out that Kurt Cobain was talking about teen apathy but the quest continued because then I had to figure out what apathy meant. Then I got bored and figured that if I made out with the guy, he wouldn't really care whether I knew what the song was about or not.
I digress.
Basically, I don't tell my number. No, not THAT number! I'm totally open about THAT number. It's 27.
But there is NO WAY I'm posting on a web site how much I weigh. Forget it. My HUSBAND reads this!! Couples need BOUNDARIES, people. He may poop with the door open and ask me to pop his zits, but that doesn't mean the mystery isn't still ALIVE!
He's been with me through wedding planning induced madness, fertility treatments, a 36 hour natural childbirth, post-partum depression, sleep deprivation, PMS and the plate throwing incident of 2004 when Friends went off the air but I'm pretty sure he'd start packing his bags if he knew how much I weigh.
Also, my sister reads this and no matter how fat I am I always want her to think I'm thinner than her. Because sisters love each other like that. Oh, and mom? Jess threw a party, WITH BEER, when you went to visit grandma that one time. Neh neh neh neh boo boo!
Anyway, I'm kind of private about my 'number' but I still want to share with you that I'm over half way to my goal!
The second milestone (See, I said I had a 'couple' of milestones to report but I know you're bored so I'll get right to it) is that I'm no longer 'obese' but now officially in the overweight category of fatness.
Awesome! Now when people use the term 'overweight' to describe me because they are trying to be polite, they will also be accurate. I love accuracy!
I remember at the beginning of my Lap-Band journey I would scour the blogs looking for wisdom from those who were at their halfway points. For me, halfway to my goal seemed so much more attainable than 'goal'. I just couldn't get my head around the fact that I might actually settle into a 'normal' weight someday. I still can't. Halfway to goal seemed within my reach.
So I'd read bullet pointed posts about “What I've Learned,” nodding my head in agreement, getting excited about my turn to use bullet points and be wise and inspire. Unfortunately I can't seem to get bullet points to format correctly on my blog and, well, I'm not much wiser.
The one phrase that keeps running through my head is one that we learned in our childbirth class.
Husband and I decided together that we really wanted to have Ruby naturally, without any kind of interventions or drugs. We TOTALLY make decisions about my body together because he TOTALLY had a vote on whether or not I'd push a 8 pound watermelon out of my vagina without an epidural – or illegal drugs.
In any case, we got all hippy dippy and took Bradley method courses where we held ice in our hands, dealing with the pain of the numbing cold --- because your vagina ripping open and cold hands are TOTALLY in the same category of pain --- and practiced visualization techniques to help me focus on something other than the pain and the fact that he was eating a turkey sandwich while I was getting giant hemorrhoids from the 4 hours of pushing. You know, really helpful stuff.
But there was one phrase that the instructor insisted our partners say to us over and over again, no matter what was going on, no matter how hard it was, no matter what we said or how we screamed. She said our partners should tell us WE CAN DO IT.
Husband must have said that to me over 1,000 times while I was bringing our baby into the world. And its pretty much the only wisdom I have to impart to all of you new bandsters today: YOU CAN DO IT. YOU CAN DO IT. YOU CAN DO IT.
TOTALLY.
Well! Back from a very BOOBY weekend and feeling more supported than ever! Get it?
Seriously though, the 1st annual gathering of banded bloggers was a raging success. Kudos to all those who planned, stressed and organized to make the weekend such a great one.
Before I relay some my weekend highlights, I will of course answer your most pressing question: What does Amy W. wear to bed?
Answer?: A full coverage burka. Seriously. The woman may as well be a NUN as conservative as she is. I never even got a GLIMPSE of the breasticles.
I should have roomed with Gen, who, I discovered, asks her roomies to get in the shower with her.
She “claims” she needed bathing assistance due to the broken elbow she suffered during our first night of vodka induced debauchery but I think that was all a ploy to try to get her roomate Jennifer in the shower with her. You decide.
With each person I encountered, my appreciation for my Lap-Band grew. Women who claim on their blogs to be shy or wallflowers became animated the minute you asked them how much weight they've lost.
Those who have reached 'goal' were open and generous with their tips, stories and praise for the rest of us.
Those who were brand new to banded-life reminded us of the importance of appreciating the journey.
While I didn't have the opportunity to accost celebrities like Gilly did or find new boots like Angie did, I did find in Chicago exactly what I expected to find: A great group of women who put the “awe” in “awesome”.
p.s. a giant 'thanks' to my roomies (Alexis & Amy) who put up with my very 'over-served' self on Saturday afternoon!
Here's something I never thought I'd say:
"Excuse me, miss? Do you have these jeggings in a longer length?”
Of course, I also never thought I'd say “Don't put your foot in your mouth while you're eating your goldfish crackers.”, but these are the kinds of phrases that happen to you with age and parenthood.
If you don't know what 'jeggings' are, not to worry. They are a fashion trend that has the life span of the house fly circling my fruit bowl.
Just long enough to take me through Chicago in style!
