Weight Watcher Cat Says . . .

Someone posted this on OH today and I found it to be quite hysterical:

I just thought I'd share. I'd write more but then I'd run out of time for the gym. With this week's insane schedule, I really must go work out while I can. More antics later!

No points left,chubby. Baahahahaha! I need a WW cat to live in my fridge!!!

Good laugh!!!!

Tammy on the TN board posted a link to a website that calculates your ideal body measurements based on your wrist size.

It says I should be 40"-28"-34"!!!

I cannot stop laughing!!!! Is this before or after my boob job?? Saggy, rolled up boobs or perky plastic boobs??? With significant weight loss, boobs tend to lose volume or deflate. Long boobies. Just the thought of getting geared up (hoist and stuff) to measure cracks me up!

Whew. Finally calming down. Those are a lot of inches to lose. I'm almost 3 months out and my clothes are quite saggy. My beige skirt with brown and red print practically fell off me on Tuesday. So I know I've lost a lot of inches. I couldn't even zip it up all the way last year.

Perhaps I should measure up next week and see where I'm at. I'm totally sure I'm not 40-28-34 (hahahahaha!), but I know I am not 51-50-54 anymore, either.

I can't wait to get home to my MyoTape!!!

Dear Diary!

I have had 4 stuck episodes since my last fill.  Some of them are due to seeing what my tighter band will tolerate.  The others are because I'm not cutting teeny bites and chewing them like I should.  I'm still new at this and there is definitely a learning curve, especially after fills!

Last night, it seems I have shown to myself I can indeed listen to the band's messages!

I was over hungry yet again when I got home.  I wanted to work a bit with the puppy Millie, so I got some rotisserie chicken (yeah, got stuck on that the night before) out to work with her.  Our trainer Kat says if you want them to learn the fastest, use really high value treats.  She's right.  Millie will really work for rotisserie chicken.  For kibble? Not so much.

Anyway, the chicken was soooooo good.  A tiny bit for Millie.  A tiny bit for me.  Lather, rinse, repeat.  After a few bites, I felt that twinge behind my sternum.  OH!  That means STOP!  

Guess what?  I STOPPED!!!!  No sliming, no PB.  Just a few minutes of discomfort until the chicken chunk settled.  I waited awhile and then all was fine in the world.  Ahhhh.  I'm definitely going to get the hang of this thing eventually!

A monumental day

I weighed in this morning at 214.6 pounds.

I have not been this small since my brother's car accident and subsequent death in November of 2000.

At that time I was working with Jamie Pope, a Vanderbilt dietician who teaches in the Nursing School and ran the weight management program through Health Plus. Her lectures were great and I still remember so many of her gems of wisdom. She got me on the food diary bandwagon and gave me great feedback.

One of the topics she discussed was that if you look back at all the pivotal times in your life, you can see how it often tracks with your weight. Break up with your boyfriend, weight goes up. Battle depression, weight goes up. Got new job, weight goes down. Things like that. Life happens.

I was at a very motivated point in my life and had lost about 40 pounds through that program. Then life happened and all bets were off. I will say it was one holiday season during which I didn't gain any weight! But then again, I distinctly remember seeing the scale stuck at 215. I thought, gee, I can't eat because of my anxiety about all that was going on. You'd think I'd at least lose a few pounds. But I didn't. The scale would not budge below 215 and after Bubba died and the post-traumatic depression set in, I put on 59 pounds over the next few years.

I had my breaking point last fall when I saw myself in the mirror at a friend's house. I called the next Monday to get an appointment with a bariatric surgeon. And today I am down 59.4 pounds and 0.4 pounds under my lowest adult weight in the last 10 years.

Yes, losing weight with the Lap-Band is a slow and challenging journey. But I wouldn't have it any other way. I am very proud of what I've achieved so far.

Pretty sure I was born with a tail

One of my favorite Family Guy scenes is with Lois and Meg rummaging through stuff in the attic.  Lois says to Meg in her nasal, New England accent, "Oh, look, Meg, it's your little baby booties.  Oh, and your little bronze hat.  And your tail."

My WHAT?  

I am pretty sure that I was born with a tail.  Just call me Meg.  

One day I was standing in the kitchen, scratching my butt.  You know that upper butt dimple region* just above the crack proper.  I shifted my weight and all of a sudden I felt this pointy thing--what the??  My butt was also sore and I immediately jumped to the conclusion that I had a pineal cyst, which had been the topic of discussion a day earlier on my favorite weight loss surgery message board.

Of course I am immediately intrigued by anything gross and pineal cyst certainly fell into that category.  You're welcome.  I did not put a link to the pineal cyst entry in Wikipedia, which has a lovely color picture. Yeah, no one warned me, thank you very much.  Do not Google this and look at images.  If you do, you get what you deserve.

Anyway, the pineal cyst discussion lead to a delightful and energetic series of PMs on dermatoid cysts with a gal named Karan, who might actually have one!  I'm sitting on pins and needles waiting to hear if a.) it is indeed a dermoid cyst and b.) if it has hair and teeth!  YIKES!! But I digress.

Initially, a sore butt in the upper butt crack dimple region (UPCDR) made me suspect a pineal cyst.  But after a day or two, I decided it was not the case and my bum was sore from riding the recumbent bike at the gym, instead.  Whew.

So if my sore behind was due to the bike rides, what was the pointy thing?  The end of my tail???  I wish I were friends with an x-ray tech. Psst.  Can you get me in there for an upper butt x-ray?  Oooh, maybe we can sneak into the fluoroscopy suite tomorrow after the support group meeting.  Do you think you need a key to fire that thing up?  Oh the quandry!  Why does this weirdness always happen to me?!?

The issue is there is no way I would have survived childhood without being reminded constantly about my tail, had I had one.  We love picking on each other about stuff like that.  My mother can say once in passing, "That water is as green as green can be," and BAM!  It haunts her for life.  So it goes without saying that if I had a tail, I would have been reminded of it with great frequency.  My brother would have had a field day with that knowledge!

So now I have ruled out pineal cysts and am left with two options.  #1: I had a tail.  #2: Losing almost 60 pounds makes your ass bony. Relatively speaking, that is.  Losing my posterior padding is doing a number on me.  I can feel the bones in my behind and sitting on them for hours on end is not comfy.  Freaky!  Do skinny people writhe in pain constantly from this?  Do fat people on the downslide always go through this fanny transition?  I prefer to sit on my hips now, legs crossed at the knee.  It takes the pressure off the butt bones.

Perhaps I should take a moment to review hiney anatomy.

Huh.  Maybe that thing I felt is one of those ridges at the top of the tailbone, which seems to correspond with the UBCDR.

Nevermind.

*  I don't even know if the upper butt dimple region is normal--this could be where my tail was removed!  I need to borrow Angela's kid and inspect his baby butt to see if he has one.  An upper butt dimple region, I mean.  Not a tail.  She SO would have told me about that!