The Further Adventures of Deluzy

Back to the salt mines tomorrow

But you know what?

By not doing much work at all during spring break, I think I replenished my energy stores to make it through the final six weeks of the semester.

Sure, there's work on my desk to slog through and the pile could be a little lower if I'd attacked it during my break -- but I honestly needed the rest more.

I'm beginning to actively look forward to the Alaska trip -- it's finally beginning to seem real.  The way I figure it, I'll have just enough strength left to haul my ass onto the ship before I collapse, as the trip itself begins right when semester grades are due.

I guess I'd better fix my ticket in the next few days while I'm thinking about it.

Never get complacent

Turns out I had a delayed, mixed reaction to the idea that I can wear a small in tops. 

It was good for my ego in the moment in the store, but later last night I did some unplanned eating of carbs, and only when I thought about it this morning did I make the connection:

1. Me, a small? --> celebrate with food!!
2. Me, a small? --> YUCK, I don't want to be a small --> too vulnerable --> eat for comfort!!

What a mix!  Yes, indeedy, there's still plenty of head work to be done.

Mindful eating

That's what I've been practicing for the past couple of days in order to get myself out of the Carb Rut I'd been in for the past several weeks. 

I turn to carbs when I'm stressed, tired, whatever -- and sometimes that's simply about reverting to old patterns from the past because they're familiar and require less awareness and vigilance on my part -- in short, less energy. In view of my pre-spring break schedule, energy was in short supply.

Not that the carbs helped with that -- they really just made it worse in the long run.  A quick up, followed by a prolonged down. I'm not carb-averse, mind you; I simply need to keep them down to a dull roar. If I want them, I'll have them -- but I don't want to engage in the fatigued, mindless reaching for carbs. When I eat them, I want it to be a choice, and I want them to taste good, and I want to enjoy them.

Anyway, Protein First and Practicing Mindfulness have been working for me for the past couple of days.  DH and I went out for an early lunch today, I had a delicious chile verde, about a third of my salad, skipped all but a couple of bites of the rice and beans, and was stuffed. 

About 5 hours later I thought about what I wanted when I was out running errands -- and what I wanted was a small hot chocolate and a piece of shortbread.  I had them.  They were delicious, too.

I came home and had a piece of cheese.  More deliciousness.

And this evening I'll probably have a protein shake (not so delicious but necessary) and some popcorn.

My weight's dropping once again. If I stick to DS basics, take my supplements, and allow myself the occasional treat, it all works.

Which still amazes me.

Another amazing thing: I stopped at a clothing store that's a little pricey but it was having a 70% off sale.  I tried on three tops and jackets, none of them in styles I'd normally go for, all of them in medium.  I asked for the next up in one of them -- and the saleswoman brought me another medium, thinking I was already wearing a large.  "Well, the size you have on now is too big," she said then, surveying me.  "if what you have on now is a medium, then you need a small."

Hmm. 

I couldn't wrap my brain around that one.  I bought the medium.

One of the tops was a wrap top. Let me just say that wrap anythings have always looked crappy on me, fat or thin.  But this suddenly looked good.  Works with skirts or jeans and boots. $14.99. I bought it, too.

When I catch unexpected glimpses of myself in mirrors now, I'm usually struck by two things: 1) I'm much smaller than I think of myself as being; 2) I look just like my mother as I get older.

Both impressions are probably pretty accurate.

Eating disorders

Link: Eating disorders not otherwise specified.

I realize this may not be a particularly popular view and also that I'm basing it entirely on anecdotal evidence, casual reading of medical literature, and personal experience -- but I'm coming to believe that the majority of women who battle morbid obesity suffer from clinical eating disorders. Those disorders don't always take the form of anorexia or bulimia -- hence, ED-NOS, or "eating disorders not otherwise specified" -- but they're just as real.

(Actually, this is not a new position for me: I've always believed this.)

Further, those disorders generally don't go away with weight-loss surgery or with the excess weight.  They remain, or they morph into some other variant to accommodate the surgically tweaked body -- but they're still often very much present, and they're usually tied to other, larger issues having to do with control/lack of control, and so on.

Me? I fall into the vague DSM-IV category of "binge eating disorder." even before it existed as a diagnosis.  I do far less binge-eating now than I did prior to surgery, but my point is, the urge is still there and sometimes I still do it, mostly when I'm under stress or in need of comfort.  My choice of foods to binge on has changed somewhat (once in a while I can actually get myself to binge on protein!), as has the quantity -- but when I'm of a mind to do it, I can still put away a considerable amount of food, and I will pay the price the next day (no, not with purging -- that's not my particular form -- but with a surgically tweaked body that will rebel against excess carbs and fat and force me to spend lots of time on the pot).

Like an alcoholic, I suspect I'll always be in recovery from this particular disorder; for me, it's a condition that, like Type II diabetes, goes into remission but isn't cured. (I know, I know: folks say that the DS and other forms of WLS "cure" diabetes.  You'll find that most doctors use the term "remission" instead, and I think that's a more realistic way of looking at it.)

But you know what? That's okay. "Recovery" and "remission" are terms with which I can live and which, to me, imply compassion for human frailty and the vicissitudes of human existence.

Recovery and remission are reasons for hope, not guarantees. And hope is priceless.

A new blog discovery (for me)

Wow.  Dances with DS -- which I clicked onto from Sharon's blog: at 6 years out from her DS, Jane is a great success story, and posts like the following illustrate why (I've taken the liberty of bolding her main points):

A good set of workable boundaries will automatically act as a ‘damage limitation’ structure. ‘Automatic’ is what we should be heading towards because if we feel we are continuing to make huge efforts longer term , it indicates that we may not have given things enough thought.

Here is my workable set of  boundaries which I still live by today:

• Always eat breakfast.
• At any meal: eat my protein FIRST then my veggies, then if I still wanted a simple carb I’d have it.
• Make my protein as tasty as possible. I started using lot’s of different spices and herbs and sauces to give my protein extra zing factor.
• Find out what head hunger is vs real hunger. ( I starved myself for a day to find out what real hunger felt like and boy is it different from the head stuff!). Once you feel it, you will know the difference.
• No food is utterly taboo, but I can only have sweet simple carbs after 8pm in conjunction with a ‘buffering’ snack such as nuts or a bit of cheese. A buffering snack is a way to evade a direct sugar hit on my insulin. Recently I use cinnamon sometimes, as it has been shown to help slow down release of blood glucose.
• Try to figure out my cravings & start to use less harmful food replacements. Chocolate can be replaced with hot chocolate milk. Processed cereals can be replaced with a muesli made of :organic oats, spelt flakes, rye flakes, seeds and nuts. Bread can be replaced with rye bread, or soya-linseed loaves. Desserts can be replaced with hot fruit & creamy yogurt or low fat(for those who follow low fat) ideal milk concoctions that include sugar free jellies perhaps.
• Taking vitamins and minerals is NOT a choice.  It’s a non negotiable daily fact for me. Point blank.

These are really wonderful "workable boundaries," as Jane calls them, and ones that I put in place for myself as well. I've slipped a bit in recent weeks, however, and so her guidelines are a useful reminder.

They're also an illustration of how livable the DS is.  In most cases there are really very few restrictions -- just more or less productive ways of maximizing the results of the surgery itself.

One more reason to be grateful.

The staff of life

Q: What food should I most avoid because it's empty carbs, has no protein, retards weight loss, and produces seriously bad gas?
A: Bread.
Q: What food have I been eating a lot of recently?
A: Bread.

I'm not stupid.  I just play stupid in real life from time to time.

It's not the sweets that get me, or at least, not the chocolate and candy.  It's the bread.  All breads.  White, wheat, whole grain (granted, my body processes the second two more productively and with less drama).  Croissants, bagels.  Wonder Bread.  It just has to be bread.

In the first year after surgery, I was very careful about eating bread and aimed to keep my daily carb gram count below 100 (70 when I was feeling particularly vigilant -- though  there are plenty of  DSers out there who minimized that count more strictly than I).

But when I passed my two-year anniversary this past December 12, I noticed that I became much more lax with carbs, particularly at night (which, historically, has always been the riskiest time for me in terms of food consumption).

The carbs that my body can deal well, the ones that don't really seem to add weight or produce gas, at least not in the amounts that I eat them?  Potatoes (thankyoujesus) and popcorn (ditto).

The carbs that retard my weight-loss and produce stinky gas? You got it -- breads!

The carbs that put weight on my frame and also produce stinky gas?  Chocolate, candy.

(Of course, the white-flour-based carbs that a lot of breads contain convert almost instantly to sugars once they get processed, so it's no wonder I respond to them as if they were chocolate.)

I'm truly grateful that potatoes and popcorn still work for me, as I depend upon them -- in moderation -- for my carb fix.  Which is all the more reason to deep-six the other forms of carbs that don't work so well for me, or at least to restrict them more carefully than I have been doing.

They are no doubt the reason why I found myself four pounds above goal yesterday when I stepped on the scale.

First four, then forty. 

No thanks.  Even the very best bread is not worth that.

I think it's time for a protein shake.

Men's best friend

I made the pilgrimage an hour north yesterday to get a glimpse of the new doggy additions to D and J's family.

I didn't get a photo of the miniature Doberman, but he looked a lot like this one (pictured, left) -- except that because he's only 7 weeks old, he's tiny. Gracile, delicated, and, well, tiny. We're talking microscopic. He was utterly terrified of me and snuggled against the necks of both his papas for security and comfort.  They named him Thor, if you can believe that.  He has a lot to live up to.

The puggle, on the other hand, was the classic roly-poly puppy who greeted me instantly with kisses and decided she was in love with me (she is, if anything, cuter than the picture of her that I posted yesterday).  I became an honorary aunt the moment she saw me.

Gotta love that.  But each little one was pretty sweet in his or her own way.

D and J are still shedding tears for Babar, but it's a good thing to have the newbies there to distract them from their grief and wiggle their ways into those saddened hearts.

Puppy love

My friend D and his partner J lost their longtime beloved dog Babar last Thursday (he lived a long and happy life with his humans), and they're affirming their love of dogs and of life by acquiring a couple of new companions.

Recue dogs, one a 3-month old puggle (pictured, left),whom they've named Celeste (Babar's wife in the Babar storybooks), the other a miniature Doberman who's 7 weeks old.  ("I don't like Dobermans," D observed in resignation, "And I don't like miniatures.  Oh well.  They need homes.")

Dog Central.

I'm going up to visit the new members of the household this afternoon, and I'll try to get a photo of the Doberman.  Apparently he's absolutely tiny, bouces off the walls, and reminds D of a flea in his tendency to jump  around.

This should be amusing.

Measure twice, cut once

Ohforfuckssake.

In the midst of my fatigue and stress this semester, I booked a round-trip ticket from my home town to Anchorage for the May cruise to Alaska.

Only thing is, we're flying into Anchorage but disembarking in Vancouver, BC.  As in, I'll be flying home out of Vancouver, not Anchorage.

Man, I don't even want to think how much this change is going to cost me.  And I'm not going to deal with it until I get my April paycheck!

(Thank god I'm reviewing my travel documents in advance.)

60 days -- and counting

Yippee!! Today my Countdown to Alaska counter shows only 60 more days, and in fact last week I got a package in the mail from my travel agent, complete with all manner of materials I need to sort through for the trip.

I was too busy last week to do more than glance through the materials in the package and then fling it onto an ever-increasing pile of paperwork in my study, but I caught sight of baggage tags for my suitcases, an informational booklet, and a request to provide some information online for the cruise line so that the cabin my friend D and I have booked can be personalized a bit for our arrival (and, no doubt, so that the company can  market to us more effectively the many optional adds-on on board ship!).

I slept in until 9:30 this morning (you gotta love spring break!), and as the clock is now ticking toward noon I think it's time for me to shower, dress, and then perhaps sort through the packet of cruise information. There may actually be something pressing in there that I need to address before the trip, and it'll be fun to connect with an event that still seems far in the future, a nice way to experience the thrill of anticipation.