panting

so the two pairs of pants i rediscovered a few weeks ago are too big already - off to the tailor they went - one at a time, of course, as my pants options especially are so limited that i can't be without two at the same time. so for $17 a pair, my trusty tailor took in the whole leg and added a waist button. because i still wanted the same bootcut style, she nipped them in from the sides, removing some fabric from inside. they looked really good. for a week. now they're too big again, and i actually do feel frustrated by it. i've always thought it would be one of those "good problems to have," and of course, it is, but it's annoying in the morning to feel like i don't have anything to wear. i have a few pairs of 18/20s in my closet that i'm excited to get into and i'm hoping i don't miss their season, but i'm not there yet.

so i broke down last week and bought a pair at avenue, always a trusty source...first i tried on a size 24 which was okay in the waist, but way too baggy. then i bought a size 22 skinny pant and rapidly returned them the next day...just not me. when i was there returning, i tried on the other pants (from the day before) in a size 22 which were less baggy, but still a little too much. i didn't think the 20 would fit AT ALL, but it did, in a petite! they're the tiniest bit snug, though totally wearable, but i know in a couple weeks i'll be bringing them to the tailor for a nip and tuck. and then before long, they'll be donations.

my lounge and pajama pants are swimming on me, but i can get away with wearing those for a while longer. when they fall off me in the middle of the night en route to the bathroom, i'm alone in the dark so there's no embarrassment. i even laugh a little in my half-slumber state. soon, those pants too, will be purged.

it feels so good to know i'm using what i need and then giving stuff away to someone else who can use it. there's a womens' shelter right near my office that takes plus size clothes, though mitchell thinks i should share the wealth, since i've already given a huge bag to them. specifically i have a couple dressy dresses (bridesmaid dresses) and some coats that i want to make sure go to good use. i have to do some more research about options of where to bring them.

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making up for lost time

an interesting thing is happening. well, a lot of interesting things are happening, but one in particular to talk about today.

i've started to wear makeup - the green kind that tempers some of the redness of my rosacea, and some great powder. and i've started to run a straightener through my curly hair because it looks better with that modicum of effort. and in doing these things, i don't flip so fast through the magazine pages about makeup and beauty products, because i don't feel like they're in a world so far from mine.

now let me be clear, i've always loved makeup and manicures and products of all kinds, and back before i ever went on weight watchers and lost weight the first time, i spent tons of time and money on gussying up. that was a time when i felt confident and pretty in spite of my weight, and i felt confident that others agreed. my mother, expressing her concern about my weight and health, once suggested that i was in denial - only looking at myself from the neck up. and that was true.

when i joined weight watchers and lost weight, people started sharing their prior impressions of me and their worries and observations - how heavy i was getting, how you couldn't see my pretty face anymore, how i looked physically uncomfortable in chairs and booths and cars. at the time when i was losing, it was sort of thrilling to hear those things because they were the "before" to my fast approaching "after."

but once i started to regain, eventually to much heavier than i started, those comments were indelible in my mind and i became more insecure and embarrassed than i had ever been before - the blinders had come off. i didn't have the energy or confidence to care about makeup and hair anymore. i developed this hopeless feeling that no matter what i did, all people would see was my size, so i did the bare minimum. in a lot of ways, effort on makeup and hair is a visual sign that you care, and that you think your appearance matters and that you want others to agree. it’s a way of putting yourself out there in regards to how you look, and it's vulnerable. it felt presumptuous and embarrassing to me. i couldn't relate to my mother and sister's excitement over a new primer or an undereye cream because it just didn't feel like it mattered. it almost made me depressed that they cared - like, what difference does it make? i vaguely remembered with shame when i cared, but that was before i had learned that it didn't matter and that it was a waste for me to have tried.

so recently, when i started feeling good enough to try again, i had certain hesitations, the largest of which was that i wouldn't know what people were responding to when they compliment me on how i'm looking. it sounds vain, and maybe it is, that my main concern was how a new aesthetic effort would impact the compliments i received. but it was more that i felt the need to know where i stand physically -- perhaps more with myself than with anyone else. i’m in a neither here-nor-there place with size at the moment…not so large that i draw attention, but large enough that i don’t blend in either. so how would i know if people were noticing my weight loss or if it was the makeup or the hair? when people say how i've started to look so small, how do i know if it’s me shrinking or the flatter, more controlled hairstyle? and when people say i'm glowing, how do i know if its the makeup or my emerging health and happiness?

well...i don't know. and it doesn't matter, because they're inextricably linked. people might be noticing a smoother complexion or glow because of the makeup, but the makeup is there in the first place because my emotional and physical transformation made me strong enough to put it on.

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alert!

this is one of those things that makes me wonder about all the info out there...apparently, i really should have a medical alert bracelet, which now that i think of it (or that the message boards i read thought of it) makes total sense. i can't take NSAIDS, i can't have sugar and i now know i definitely can't have a blind NG tube...didn't even know what that was until yesterday. it's a feeding or intubation tube that would ruin my pouch and cause many potential problems.

thanks to lauren's hope, there actually exist pretty medical alert bracelets. this rose gold option is the one i'm considering, although the rose gold tag only comes with a red medical alert symbol. i might go with a silver tag with the rose gold bracelet to mix it up and have a better set of color options. oh, the problems. i rather like this engraved, colorless tag style which i suppose i could order separately and pair with the rose gold bracelet, but i worry that something so subtle might be too...subtle, and emergency personnel might miss it. and then what would be the point in having a bracelet in the first place?


hmm...what to do, what to do.

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buckle up for safety

in a letter dated 11/10/10:

to whom it may concern:

i am writing to contest the seatbelt traffic violation ticket i received on 10/12/10 on route 25a.

as i briefly explained to the officer who pulled me over, i am extremely overweight and the seatbelt did not comfortably fit across my chest, and i was therefore wearing it across my lap only, with the chest strap behind me. ironically, i was on my way home from my last pre-operative appointment with the surgeon who performed a gastric bypass on me the very next day, 10/13/10. please let me know if you need proof of my surgery and hospital stay.

i completely understand the importance of wearing a seatbelt, and i always do – i just was not (up until about a week ago as i have lost a considerable amount of weight already) able to wear it both across my lap and chest.

understand that my weight was an embarrassing, limiting and frankly dangerous situation, an incorrectly worn seatbelt being one of those dangers. also, though, the surgery and all the associated costs were, and still are, a tremendous expense to my family (my insurance does not cover it at all) so i ask your leniency with regards to paying this fine. please understand that i am law abiding in all respects, and do everything i can to be a responsible driver and citizen.

i truly hope that you can extend amnesty in this case, and trust that i am now finally able and quite happy to wear the seatbelt as intended.

i thank you for your time and kindness in this matter.

best regards,

carla rothberg

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what a difference a lime makes

i can't believe what an epiphany ice water with lemon or lime is. of course i've been hearing people talk about it for years, but to think it actually makes me able to drink large quantities of water is astonishing. i'm actually enjoying water, and thinking about how it's nourishing and servicing my body as it circulates.

it gives me something to sip while i'm at my desk, while i'm out for dinner, in the car...i'm getting used to the idea of drinking more water than i do coffee or anything else artificially sweetened. i am well-stocked with both lemons and limes at home, and at work. i think there's actually even a lime in my bag right now.

the little things, huh? actually, there's really nothing little about it. it's healthy, it's a positive habit, it's a change to negative behaviors, and it's damn refreshing - pun intended.

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well worn

the pants i rediscovered a few weeks ago in my closet are too big now, as are the pants i bought a while ago to get me through a few sizes and the coat that was too tight to button even right after the surgery. i'm planning a trip to the tailor i use to see if she can make the pants less baggy somehow. in some ways, it's not even the waist as much as it's the extra fabric all throughout the leg. i know a waist button would be easy, though i don't know that she can do much about the leg part. we'll see - and if not, i'll just have to buy a pair or two to get me through this size, and then i think i have a bunch in the next size down. when i started this process, i was a 30/32 and often those tops were too small, though the pants were okay (the one pair of pants i'm saving is a pair of 30/32 black pants that were my go-to for a long time). at this point, i'm wearing a size 22 pants, and they're getting too baggy. i have the smallest size i've ever worn as an adult - a gap 14 - hanging in my closet SO ready for me when i'm ready for them.

i am packing up yet another package of very plus size clothes to bring to a women's shelter very in need of larger clothes. i'm so happy to have my things help others, especially when it's a community of such narrow, special needs - it's formerly abused, very plus size women who need clothes - how much better could it feel to help? but i have to say, as i go through my closet, it bugs me that there are items i will totally miss the window on, seasonally. for example, i have a fantastic faux fur jacket that i barely even fit in when i bought it, but i think by the time it fits me, it will be late spring. and by next fall/winter, it will be too big. same deal for THREE pairs of great size 18 bootcut corduroys in fun colors. i pulled them on today just to see how close and though the legs looked great, the waist was nowhere near closing.

but i can't get hung up on that stuff. i'll have plenty of time to shop for my forever wardrobe, or what i've always mentally referred to as "the thin list," an entirely new wardrobe from scratch when my weight loss is done. i find myself fantasizing about it all the time - what a unique and awesome experience that will be. i have never, EVER bought an item of clothing that i intended to own forever because i've never been at a size i planned to stay at. so literally, EVERYTHING must go. it's like a fire sale, and i'm thinking of organizing a swap in the spring or bringing batches of clothing to the support group meeting in addition to the shelter.... though i wonder if anyone there needs clothes that size. hard for me to tell if i'm the largest one in the room because my perception has become so skewed - probably mostly out of self-preservation. but maybe there will be someone at the beginning of their journey, considering the surgery or just there to listen who could benefit.

accessories, well that's another story. bags always fit. ALTHOUGH...i am excited to be able to wear lots of bags on my shoulder like other women do, while i often have had to treat straps as handles because of the size of my arm. so THAT opens up a whole other door!

it's exciting to think about shopping for my sister's wedding and considering dresses made for the mainstream. it's almost impossible to imagine what size i'll be by september, so i won't start looking until june or july, since i'm sure i will buy off the rack. my parents are being generous enough (as they were to give me the privilege of the surgery itself) to buy me the dress i choose so i can be excited about the prospect of shopping and not have the burden of the added expense. this is one of the ones i'm admiring, and here's another.

i feel really good culling through my closet every couple weeks and pulling out stuff that doesn't work anymore - some of it never did. as i see my hanging clothes and folded clothes starting to thin out and be less overstuffed, it makes a nice visual for the very thing happening to me.

going out

going out to eat has actually become something of a nuisance. i never thought i'd say that, or think it or even be able to conceive of it. here's why (fair warning: this is really whiny):

• most places have VERY few options for me because of all the restrictions (no sugar, no alcohol, very low carbs, nothing white, no carbonation, the list goes on...) SO what happens is i basically have to get whatever is safe, keeping in mind the necessity for the vast majority of what i eat to be protein (i need 80-100 grams daily). so often when dining out, i have to spend more than i want to on something that i might very well not want, and i often have to send it back for correction. here's an example: in toronto, we all went out to lunch one day and i wished i could just have a bowl of soup - cheap, easy, just the right amount of food. however, a few of the soups clearly had sugar or were very carby, and the others were unclear - no dice. so i had to get a salad with grilled chicken because the only other safe option was a cheese plate which, although it is protein, it's more calories and fat than it is protein. so a $20 salad with chicken it was. and on the triple check of whether the dressing had sugar, it turned out it in fact, did. glad i asked the third time. it's not that i want what other people are ordering - because strangely, that's not how my temptations work anymore, it's just that i don't always want what i'm ordering. and then sometimes i do.
  
  
• its expensive - most of the time when with other people, it's standard to split, but i eat a quarter of what most people eat and i don't drink at all - nothing, not juice, not soda, nothing. some people insist on paying more because they recognize it on the bill, but it just kind of sucks, the whole interchange.
  
  
• ordering is a whole scenario. i have to ask very, very clearly whether there is sugar in anything. in most cases, i tell the waiter right up front that i can't have any sugar and i ask for their help. i feel no shame, and i feel no apology, i just sometimes feel tired. tired of talking, tired of asking, tired of stressing importance. even when i get coffee, which i prefer iced, i get it in a hot cup because i can't use straws (too much air/gas) and i'm like the sweet and low gestapo, making sure they don't put sugar in. i have dreams (LITERALLY) that i find myself sucking on a piece of candy and then realize in a panic that it's sugar. i just tire myself out with my coffee order some days, plus my time in toronto highlighted to me that my coffee habit is an all-out addiction, to be addressed at a later point.
  
  
• everything requires explanation or special dispensation. WHY i'm only ordering an appetizer, WHY i don't need a drink, WHY i want water in my wine glass so i can feel like i'm partaking. even when dining at someone's house, most people don't know about all the restrictions, they just think you eat very little, and why should they know any different? i don't expect anyone to get it, it's taken me this long to get it straight. it's just then a decision - eat before and figure i'll pick, or call ahead and give them a full rider of what i do and don't eat, like i'm either an infant or a rock star on tour?
  
  
• i don't look forward to eating like i used to - of course dinner is about the company and not the dinner, but the way i feel these days, i'd rather just have the company. this is a totally incompatible feeling with the rest of the socializing, celebrating, living, breathing world, and i know this. if it were only up to me, i would never dine with anyone, because it doesn't feel fun or necessary. i feel like my nutrition can happen quickly and with no pomp and circumstance - 20 grams of protein here, 20 grams of protein there - can be rolled up turkey and a handful of almonds, or half a greek yogurt with some SF jelly mixed in. i don't want to pay a lot for it, and i don't want to spend a lot of time on it.
  
  

so that's my rant, and i know the feelings are temporary and ever-changing, and i'm not a curmudgeon, but it's hard for me to own these feelings and resist the temptation to follow them right up with "well, hopefully eventually...."

right now, i'd just rather linger over coffee or go shopping with someone because those are things i can partake in and be 100% satisfied and for this moment, i need to feel okay about feeling that way. and then after that moment, that's where the work is, in finding a balance. i don't like feeling this way really -- though the indifference is definitely liberating and bizarre -- because it's lonely in a lot of ways. and in some ways this is exactly what i was afraid of - not being able to enjoy eating and look forward to it the way i always have because on some levels, that brought me so much happiness. do i miss that? yes, i do. quite a bit.

but the bottom line is this...i never thought i'd simultaneously be so right about that fear - the not looking forward, the not taking pleasure - and still feel so good and happy and full of hope and joy. i thought i needed the food -- and the promise of the food -- to feel that way, and i'm glimpsing the fact that i don't.

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these days

at this moment in time, i have lost precisely 90 pounds since the start of the liquid diet. it feels surreal to be on the precipice of the monumental 100 pound mark. it's not that i haven't been there before - i've even been to 130 pounds lost - but then, i felt like i was fooling everyone around me. after years of thinking about why, i've determined it was because i was fooling myself - i wasn't changing on the inside - the cardinal sin of impermanent weight loss. i'm changing now. each day, i'm changing.

i can feel myself being more accepted in the world these days - people make eye contact and smile at me, people walk around me in the aisle of a store, where they once needed me to move. i find myself constantly apologizing to people because i feel like i'm in their way, even though for the first time in years, i'm not. i move quickly, and i don't need to pause at the top of a flight of stairs. most times when i walk up the stairs, i feel like running in some corner of my being, though i've trained myself to move so slow that it feels like my legs are fighting the rest of my body. make eye contact with me now, and every single seat i sit in feels just fine.

i got a haircut and neither the seat my hair was washed in nor the seat it was cut in dug into the sides of my thighs, a common occurrence before now. the smock covered me easily, and i could bear to look at my reflection even in that most unflattering of getups. previously, i always felt like a sumo wrestler in that cape with my wet hair totally flat against my head. in order to hold my head up high - literally, so they could cut my hair - i had to push past the feelings i felt about the way i looked and just block it out, read a magazine, keep it all in. i can't help but thinking how different this week's haircut was than one just about one year ago.

the driver's seat in our car is starting to feel too far away from the wheel, like it will need to be adjusted soon. the pants i rediscovered a few weeks ago in my closet are too big now, as are the pants i bought a while ago to get me through a few sizes and the coat that was too tight to button even right after the surgery. i am packing up yet another package of very plus size clothes to bring to a women's shelter very in need of larger clothes. it feels really, really good, and it brings to mind my own very exciting thoughts of assembling what i've always mentally thought of as "the thin list," an entirely new wardrobe from scratch when my weight loss is done. i find myself fantasizing about it all the time - what a unique and awesome experience that will be. i have never, EVER bought an item of clothing that i intended to own forever because i've never been at a size i planned to stay at. so literally, EVERYTHING must go. it's like a fire sale, and i'm thinking of organizing a swap in the spring or bringing batches of clothing to the support group meeting, though i wonder if anyone there at any point in their journey needs clothes that size. hard for me to tell if i was the largest one in the room at any point because my perception has become so skewed - probably mostly out of self-preservation.

i can cross my legs now, and i do every chance i get. it feels amazing. i am starting to have a lap.

flying high: an update

i just got back from a trip to toronto that proved to be full of milestones i want to remember. first and foremost, i rode on a plane in a middle seat with the seatbelt buckled with no extender, the armrests down and the tray table in it's NON upright position. pretty amazing feeling, i have to say, even through my xanax haze.

although i still don't enjoy flying, it's really interesting to see how much less anxiety i have about it when the whole issue of seatbelts and size and space aren't in play. in the past, i would have hesitated to go at all, and even if i had broken through that wall, i would have worried myself numb for the month leading up to it about getting there early enough to get to the ticket counter and explain how if there were any extra seats on the flight, could i please be seated next to one of them to give me extra room. in most cases, the flight staff were nice about it, but to even have to ask...not a highlight. of course i came with my own extender - like a plus size barbie - that mitchell and i had each gotten from a really great site that sells items for really heavy people. i remember upon discovering it, the relief and calm i felt at not only the knowledge that other people had trouble getting shoes on and reaching their feet and buckling standard seatbelts and sitting in beach chairs...but that there was actually a company that catered to us.

not only that, but i was able to slide my rubber boots on and off with ease each time we passed through security, and able to sleep on an air mattress comfortably (though i can't say i wasn't worried about a weight limit or that i didn't bruise my knees every time i had to get up by kneeling on the wood floor - next trip).

all my relatives that i saw were well aware of the surgery and asked tons of questions which i loved answering. it felt really great to talk about, and i felt like it was great for me to be talking to some new people about it, since i tend to talk to the same people about it in my every day life. it was great to have fresh questions to answer, and fresh answers to ponder.

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