Odd Day

Today feels very surreal. There are multiple reasons I could be feeling this way: 1- this past week I came down with a case of sinusitis (it sounds fake to me too, but the sore throat and exhaustion were very real), which put me out of commission for a few days. 2- With the aforementioned sinusitis, I was closed up in my apartment sleeping for the past few days and finally ventured out for groceries only this morning. 3- The weather is taking a notable shift towards what could be classified as fall weather, which seemingly came out of nowhere. 4- I just had a latte after abstaining for 5 days and have a major caffeine buzz going.

My feeling odd is probably a combination of the reasons listed above, but I will shuffle on and attempt to get back into tasks that keep me a little more grounded. I will note that even though I was drinking a number of liquids and having lots of soup, I still reduced my gravitational pull to the earth by two more pounds this week, making my total loss now 16 pounds in about 6 weeks. I’m still on track and still losing at a healthy pace. I still feel like I am hardly losing at all and I’m going at a snail’s pace, but I just keep reminding myself that if I am able to keep it up at this rate – my loss will be over 100lbs in a year. If I make it somewhat close to this rate, I will be very happy. I know that it will take a long time and a lot of work to become my ideal size and shape, so it is nice to have small successes along the way. Now if only I could start actually seeing progress and start feeling normal again. One day at a time, I guess.

Facing Frailty

Sundays are great. I find that I am most inspired to blog on the quiet Sunday evenings I have to myself. Tonight I feel that there is a lot I’d like to say, but every time I type something out it sounds contrite or oddly negative. I try to keep things I release to you, worldette, fairly positive [who wants to read sad ramblings? Not me.] – though at times I feel terrifically fragile and human. I have gotten far enough in my own self-knowledge to realize that I am not bad, but sometimes my frailties show their ugly heads and push positivity aside.

This week I was involved in an amazing event. A friend from middle school (who I recently re-connected with after living on the other side of the country for over a decade) is on his first solo tour with another musician, and he could not find a venue to book in Seattle. So, being a big fan of his and a loyal friend I sent an e-mail to a friend who lives in a great house for sharing music. This friend agreed to host, and also invited some of his friends who are in process of starting up a new waffle company to share their product. So Tuesday became an awesome evening of waffles, music, and joy. After my friend finished his set, the evening turned into one big jam session that ended with dancing to electronic music and a splendid rendition of the Star-Spangled Banner to end it all right. The event itself was a great success, bringing in around 40 people (on a work night!) to share in the good times. The two musicians stayed the night in my apartment and went on their way the following afternoon.

After such a great 24 hours, I thought I would be energized and ready to conquer the remainder of the week and weekend. There were many personal victories: even with more hunger than I’d like, I kept to my eating schedule. I was in a room full of waffles and didn’t eat one – I was actually satisfied in just smelling them. Even at the end of the week, I marked that I had lost another two pounds. I should have been on cloud nine – but I wasn’t.

Friday night, I found myself feeling lonelier than I have in a long time. Being one who loves living on my own, it troubles me when I get to feeling like this. Solitude is something I enjoy, but loneliness is a fierce beast that comes out of nowhere and bites me on the ass. It is in the lonely moments when the irrational eater comes out of me. Within mere moments of being home, I found myself lurking in the kitchen – pondering what I could eat out of what my cupboards contained, and taking it further to thoughts of what high calorie items I could purchase down the street. I wanted to feed the beast, thinking that food would quiet the insecurities I had over being alone with nothing to do on a Friday night. Food was going to be my friend that night – it was going to remove the cloud of negativity that was hanging over my head.

Fear not, friends – I did not overeat or binge. I didn’t even consume a ridiculous amount of calories or walk down the street to procure the forbidden liquid calories. Practicality is also a strong muscle, and at the end of the day it merely made more sense to cook something on the stove and start reading my new book – The Beck Diet Solution. Minutes later, I was comforted by explanations within the book; telling me that I am not alone in my thinking and that with the tools it contains I would learn how to change the thoughts I have about food. The book did not take away the loneliness, but a late-night call from a friend and a DVD managed to calm me and add a little happiness to the evening.

I find myself a little more sensitive as time passes with the band. I have huge underlying fears that I am going to fail in some way; but every time I check the scale, it is down another pound or two. I have taken to calling the scale a cruel liar at times, but the numbers aren’t lying. I am getting smaller. I hate how long it is taking, but I know this is the way to go if I want to sustain it for life. A year from now, I want to be able to shop for clothing in a local boutique without being paranoid that I would bust every seam in the place. I am tired of feeling like an elephant, and am looking forward to being an “after” photo. There are certain situations that make me uncomfortable with my new eating style, but I am happy in learning how to arm myself when circumstances around me are out of my control.

Thank you for supporting me, worldette. I do get your notes and really appreciate the love that is out there. I may not respond in any sort of timely manner, but know I am thankful to have you out there routing for me.

Post Script:

If you were wondering, the friend on tour is Freddy Hall: http://www.freddyhall.com/

He’s traveling with yellowbirddd: http://yellowbirddd.bandcamp.com/

And the waffle company coming to Seattle is: http://www.facebook.com/LightsOutWaffles

Check ‘em out!

New Rules, New Lessons

Today I wanted ice cream. 


This desire for ice cream was so powerful, that it pushed me to take a detour while on the way home from church. I drove in a direction that passed by both Molly Moon's and Fainting Goat (ice cream and gelato shops, respectively) in Wallingford. I could taste the creamy deliciousness; I was imagining I where I would park and what I would order. I was starting to make up excuses for why it would be a brilliant idea to stop. I was not at all hungry, but staring at the seductive ice cream signs had me trying to justify stopping in. It was then that I suddenly imagined myself as an alcoholic just driving by the bar to see if her friends were there – missing the carefree days of yester-year when she didn’t care or see the consequences of having that one (or seven) beer(s), thinking it wouldn't hurt to have just one for old time's sake. Then it hit me – I had a tool to overpower this desire. A promise, or rather a rule I made last month explicitly regarding all sweets, especially those of the ice cream persuasion:

No ice cream, cookies, or members of the confection family may enter my apartment (save for the rare sugar-free pudding or Jello). If I crave a sweet, I must walk from my home and get the smallest serving available from the shop. Low quality or excessive portions are unacceptable and not an option.

To keep driving and make it home, I found myself chanting a mantra in my head as I passed by both havens of frozen delights: “If I want it that badly, I will walk here. That’s my rule.” This stuck out to me, because it was the first time I realized that I truly do have power to control what I eat. It also was the first time I noticed I was explicitly using a tool I picked up from the lap band support group I’ve been going to.

Just last week the nurse that runs the support group for lap band patients (who is also a ‘bandster’) shared that every time she thinks of pizza, she says to herself (and whomever may be around to hear it) “pizza is not a healthy food choice.” At first, I didn’t know why this in particular stuck out to me so much; but now a few things are starting to make sense. As I am a fan of bullet point lists, I thought I’d share a few things that I’ve been learning about this new banded life:

• I have power over what I eat. Just because something is in front of my face, or because I feel a certain way does not mean I have to throw all the work I am doing out the window. I’m actually a pretty strong lady, and I refuse to continue letting food pull me away from my goals.
• Resistance is like a muscle that has to be worked. The more I work at resisting, the easier it will be. I may even be able to start resisting in really challenging situations – like parties or social gatherings.
• It doesn’t take much food at all to keep me going. I am still learning how to portion correctly and to fix what my eyes think I am hungry for, but I am starting to learn that what I thought about eating and dieting until now has been all wrong. I do not need to have 4 or 5 tiny meals a day. I do not need to keep snacks in my work drawer as contingency food to keep me going so I don’t binge at dinner. I don’t need more than a few vegetables to last me a week.
• Breakfast really is the most important meal of the day. It is worth taking a few minutes in the morning to stop, sit, and eat a small breakfast. I eat on a schedule, so having breakfast before I leave for work allows me to have coffee shortly after I get in, AND it allows for me to have lunch at a decent time.
• Planning ahead is vital. I HATE doing it sometimes, but packing my lunch the night before or checking the menu of a restaurant for possible food options really makes a huge difference.
• Eating out is not impossible. Though it is hard sometimes, and has lead me to re-consider a lot of my social practices. I’ll expand on this in a future post.
• It’s okay to throw away food. It can go in the garbage or go in the toilet – either way it ends up being crap.
• My body will know if I’m not making good food choices. Already, I am learning when I’ve eaten too much, or haven’t chewed enough, or the food I chose was just wrong. Other things are changing as well – I don’t crave bread or chocolate. It’s like the band turned off the switch that dictated that Bruscetta as my favorite meal and chocolate as necessary for survival. By the way, pizza is not a healthy food choice. 

Today I realized that it has been exactly one month since my lap band surgery (07.15.10 – a day in my history that will not be forgot). In these 4+ weeks, I’ve learned a lot about myself and my relationship with food, but I know I am just on the edge of it all – this is going to be a life-long journey and I am only on the first step. According to my little home scale tracking spreadsheet, I am currently 10.2 lbs lighter than I was the week before surgery. I don’t think I look any different. I am still massively afraid that I am going to do something to sabotage this, or that I will flat out fail. But all these little steps are progress, and I am excited to share it all here.

  

New Directions, New Journey

Hello world, or maybe I’ll call you “worldette,” since I imagine that there is a very small fraction of a small fraction of the world reading this – if anyone at all. I do realize that it has been months and months since I have put in a blog post up here, but much has happened, and I am newly inspired to blog and share a little more about me personally and the new journey I am on.

A few bullet points of some big changes that have occurred recently:

• Mid-March: I started in a new position within my company (www.teague.com). This was a very good move for me, and has turned into a great opportunity to learn a ton about a very interesting field: aircraft interiors. There is a little more pressure, and I have a good amount of responsibility for a number of different tasks; but I enjoy what I do and am happy to have this as another step on my career path.
• Mid-May: I left my “rent-free” lifestyle (meaning: I moved out of my parents’ house), and moved into a one bedroom in the Fremont neighborhood in Seattle. I love where I live and my apartment is the perfect size for one person. I see the fam plenty, since they live very close to my office up north (and I use their cable to keep up on True Blood). I have yet to fully take advantage of all the neighborhood has to offer, but am happy that there is so much to discover – every free weekend can hold a new adventure!
• May: I made the final payment of the smallest of my college loans. It wasn’t a very big one, but paying that off felt like getting over the first hill on my path to getting out of student debt. I have come to discover that my debt is about average for most people my age who had to take on most of the burden of their undergraduate degree, so I am happy that I am staying on top of it and that I will have great credit on the other end.
• June: Two people who have played important roles at different times of my life got married. It was wonderful to see them enter into the new phase of married life, and to be invited to take part in the celebrations. In turn, I feel that I am in a new phase of life, the “almost all my friends are getting married or are in serious relationships” phase. I am happy that I celebrate my single status and am working most on becoming the best version of myself. Though I will admit, I am quite open to any opportunity to stop being single, if only for a little bit every once in a while.
• July: My parents, in an amazing gesture of love and generosity, provided me with a life changing opportunity to get what is known as a lap band. (See: http://nwwls.com.) I had the surgery on July 15 and have been slowly recovering since then. It is because of this surgery that I have been inspired to start blogging again. I feel that having the band is going to change much more than my relationship with food and the way I look (both of which I hope to see major changes in). I don’t really know what will change, but I can see specks on the metaphorical horizon.

Major weight loss is something that will take time to come by, and not without persistence to get past the challenges and plateaus along the way. I look forward to what lies ahead in every facet of my life, and to sharing it here. Blogging forces me to articulate things very clearly, and I think that it is a great tool to use to get through transitional phases of life with grace.

Thank you, worldette, for reading. I enjoy imagining an audience of people out there who just might care about goofy ol’ me. It’s comforting and fun.

Life and the Domino Effect

“When someone makes a decision, he is really diving into a strong current that will carry him to places he had never dreamed of when he first made the decision." The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho

My mom was reading The Alchemist a few weeks ago and shared this with me when she came upon this, saying it sounded a lot like what I am currently going through - and I couldn't agree more.

In early February, a position opened up within a different department in my company and I decided to go ahead and apply for it. The position, officially entitled "Documentation and Aircraft Photography Coordinator" sounded like something I was almost perfectly qualified for, and could be a potential stepping stone towards the yet-to-be-discovered career of my dreams. The decision to apply was one that I danced around and almost failed to make. There were excuses running through my head as to why it would be a bad idea, why I shouldn't apply, but at the end of the day I decided that I really had nothing to lose - so I went for it.

After updating and submitting my resume to the hiring manager, things just took a momentum of their own. I literally felt like I just pushed a single domino, and everything around me started moving and falling into place. Before I even interviewed, my manager wrote a glowing e-mail recommendation to the heads of that department. Following my interview, I later discovered that those managers started asking about me around the company and made the decision to hire me soon after. (I wouldn't learn about any of this until the week after the made their decision - though a number of people started asking pointed questions and looking at me when very knowing eyes, so I had my suspicions, but zero confirmations.) At the beginning of March, I was offered the job and started mid-month - after what felt like almost zero effort on my end. All I had to do was take that first step.

From there, I started to realized the job change was just the kickstart I have been waiting for in my life. Not only am I in a position that is a little more interesting (and will give me more direct exposure to design and the work my company does - you can see some of it at www.teague.com), but I now feel ready to allow the other parts of my life to gain a little focus and momentum. I have already been included in social activity outside of the office, I have had more inspiration and motivation to find a community, and my mind is gearing up to search for and embrace more changes as this year continues.

All this because I decided to hand my resume to a manager.

Food for Thought

Your next move does not need to be right forever, it just needs to be right for now.

Reading: Time to Stop Procrastinating the Fun

With the beginning of the New Year, there have been many articles popping up giving advice and support to people on making resolutions and keeping them. This article, while not necessarily specific to resolutions, has become the fuel for my newly evolving resolution.

Delaying our own gratification.

It could be just me, but I think we all do this on some level. Think of when you grab that handful of jelly beans (or any other sweet or nosh) with a mix of flavors. I know when I am in this situation, something peculiar occurs: I eat my least favorite flavors first - giving way to the whole concept of saving "the best for last." But why do I [we] do this? Why even grab the least favorite flavors at all? Why do I always end up with a tasty palm full of cherry red jelly beans, when I've already maxed out on the less-pleasant orange and yellow ones? Why didn’t I go for what I wanted first?

While this isn't a direct analogy, I am sure my point is clear. This year, I will not fall back into patterns of waiting for a "better" time to do something I find enjoyable. My self-improvement aspirations also fall into this category. If something comes along that sounds fun and adventurous, I will do it (unless practicalities like financial and time resources do not allow for immediate follow through… in that case I will make a plan for execution – no excuses).

Next time I see that red cherry jelly bean, I will savor it first and leave those pesky orange and yellow beans to stay in the bowl for someone else to consume. Best not waste time and effort on things that I don't want in the first place.

Bring it on 2010. I’m ready for you.

*If the link above does not work, you can find the article here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/29/science/29tier.html