The Further Adventures of Deluzy

And to add a little cheese to my whine ...

My weight's been up by a few pounds in the past several days -- during exactly the same time that I've been riding herd on my carb consumption and being vigilant about maximizing protein.

Sigh.

I can feel that I'm constipated, despite my use of a couple of laxatives to unplug me.  Frustrating. It's a little too far past the end of my period for monthly timing to be the culprit, so you got me.  Sometimes I think eating a lot of meat stops me up, and indeed, it might be that since I've ratcheted up the meat in the past few days to amp up the protein. 

I probably need to eat a few Krispy Kremes to clean out my system (kidding -- though since DSers don't process fat very well and most of it passes right through them, eating something high in fat and protein and low in carbs might not be a bad idea.  A big plate of bacon and fried eggs, perhaps). In general, activity seems to help over time, as does caffeine.

Part of the problem could be my large hernia, of course, interfering a bit with my guts. It poses no danger, apparently, but it could be one of the factors in occasional temporary back-ups.   

Anyway, it's at times like these that I not only don't like what I see in the mirror but I suspect that the image I see there is a bit body-dysmorphic  I spent about 30 minutes trying on and discarding clothing today after my shower because -- here we go -- I felt as if everything I put on made me look fat.  The more items I discarded, the more stressed I got -- and yet this is not something I usually do. 90% of the time I pick out what I'm going to wear and it's no big deal. Today, however, I stressed big-time..

Head trips suck.

Whine, whine, whine

Just counting down the days until classes end!  It's only another couple of weeks, and really, after tomorrow, I'm simply listening to my classes present their projects so I'm not "on" in the same way that I usually am -- but still. I'm feeling tired, whiney, and as if I don't want to expend the effort.

For the record, I know my students feel the same way -- because I ask them! Might as well be empathetic in my own exhaustion and use it as a means to connect with students rather than feel alienated from them -- and vice versa.

Fortunately, each and every time I step foot in the classroom, I get a jolt of adrenaline just before I enter the room and so this attitude doesn't really carry over past the threshold -- but it's definitely there in the background.

Naturally, this is also the week of the external program review in our department, so tomorrow and the next day are going to be jam-packed with meetings, lunches, and dinners with the visiting evaluator from another university.  He's not assessing individuals, but he is paying a visit to one of my classes to talk to the majors tomorrow; they have a test, so they'll show up, and I've warned them via email to be on time!  They have a problem with that, in part because parking around an urban university can be difficult, but they need to get it together for tomorrow.

I'll have to dress like a grown-up tomorrow so today I'm going casual: black jeans, boots, a nice top, and a linen jacket. With late-afternoon office hours and an evening class, I think I can get away with it.

And really, anyway, who's looking, forgodssake?!

Damn

My husband flew this past weekend after all, despite guessing that he would probably just hang out at the site -- and he had a wonderful time doing it. 

He truly loves hang-gliding and comes home happier after doing it so I'm glad about that -- but man, I really enjoyed his hiatus from it, during which I didn't have to worry about him dropping out of the sky.

Damn, damn, damn.

We talked a little about it this morning. He knows I wish he had a safer hobby; I know he's a conservative hang-glider pilot and does his best to be safe in an inherently dangerous sport, and we each respect the other's feelings. I absolutely will not tell him he "can't" do something he loves; if our positions were reversed, I'd hate that.

He's going to be flying more often until the weather heats up at his site, probably around mid-July.  And I'm just going to have to suck up my worry, trust that he doesn't want to die, either, and let the chips fall where they may. 

And light a few candles for his safety.

Weekend musings

I've had a relaxing and mildly productive weekend with my husband away on an overnight hang-gliding trip (yes, I worry -- but he used to go every weekend when we first met, and lately he hasn't been in over a year: I think the fact that a fellow hang-glider pilot he knew fell out of the sky and died a couple of years ago, leaving a wife and two little ones, inspired him to scale back -- that, and the fact that he now has a home life that he enjoys with me and the kitties.)

In my husband's absence, I enjoyed having the house to myself (though I'll enjoy having my husband home safe and sound more).  I did a (very) little light house-keeping, tidied up, worked a little (as I am also doing today), and then last night I settled down with a couple of DVDs to try out our new 50" plasma TV screen.  My husband is the one who pushed for it, but I have to say it was kind of wonderful to watch the ever-fabulous Now, Voyager (1942) on it, and even last year's The Invasion, a riff on the 1956 classic Invasion of the Body Snatchers, was more interesting than it would have been on a smaller screen.

Today I've had another reasonably relaxing day, minus the DVD-watching.  Mindful that my PCP told me my protein levels are low, I began the day with a protein shake and a latte, both of which I drank while sitting in the back yard in an Adirondack chair and enjoying the morning sunshine.  Then I threw together a beef stew in the crockpot for dinner tonight and for additional meals later this week.  Protein Central.

Moreover, I've decided it's time to cut out the refined sugar carbs except for an occasional treat once or twice a week -- n minimal amounts -- and to scale back even the  non-sugar carbs.  Popcorn, okay; popcorn and chips, not okay. And so on. I'm serious as a heart attack about not taking my DS and its benefits for granted, and I need to recommit to the basics of DS eating.  I gave myself a B+ the other day on that front -- but I'd like to shoot for an A instead.

Regalia police

Oops. 

Apparently I had no idea how to arrange and wear my doctoral hood correctly. 

My senior colleague E, whom I love and admire, flagged me down in the vast holding area before tonight's convocation began, and did a lot of tsk-tsking and clucking.  I guess I was wearing the hood inside out, for one thing, and with my alma mater's colors poorly displayed, for another.

"Uh, this is how I wore the hood when I got my Ph.D." I mumbled, embarrassed, as E fussed over me and rearranged the silk and velvet drapery hanging down my back. "I haven't worn one since."

"Girl, didn't they teach you anything?!" she said, folding, tucking, and smoothing.  "There!  Now, look in the mirror. Doesn't that look better?"

Oh.  Um, well, yeah, as a matter of fact, it did.  Suddenly the midnight blue and gold of the hood were beautiful, not tawdry, when arranged correctly. It actually looked as if I might have a Ph.D. As if I might be Smart. Or at least know how to stay in school for a long time.

(Sigh. What do you expect? I'm the same woman who never fully unpinned the beautiful lace train of her wedding gown before walking down the aisle to be married -- and the train was the whole reason I  decided on that particular dress in the first place.)

I'm hopeless.

Preliminary lab results

I'm here in my office, about to climb into academic cap and gown, and my PCP called with preliminary lab results. 

Bottom line (for her):**

• My iron's low but not as low as it has been in the past.
• My protein is a little low (I need to look at all the numbers before I know what that means from a DS perspective -- possibly more protein shakes)
• My liver enzymes are still high (common after WLS) but coming down.
• My good cholesterol and bad cholesterol are great.
• My blood sugar is wonderful.

(Apparently I'm my PCP's only DS patient, though she has any number of other WLS patients, and she told me today that so far I've had the least number of health issues due to surgery of any of her WLS patients -- by a long shot. Frickin' amazing.)

But it's that fifth bullet point that blows me away the most.  Normal A1c levels are 4-6%, and I was at 11.7% on three different diabetes meds on the day of surgery.

Today I'm off all diabetes meds and at 5.1%. Smack-frickin' dab in the middle of normal.

Now, the A1c is up from a year ago's 4.5%, as my body adjusts and I'm eating more carbs.  My feeling is that I'll always need to stay aware and moderate those carbs -- maybe better than I do at present, in fact, and so I need to work on that now while I can and it's not a crisis stuation. And perhaps when I'm older the Type II diabetes will return anyway:  my mother was tall and skinny and had it, after all. 

But right now? I'm grateful for every second chance this surgery has given me, and I'm going to work hard to protect them!
_____________
** My PCP is going to mail me a copy of my labs so that I can go over them with a fine-tooth comb and send them on to Dr. K as well. I'm sure I'll see numbers that make me nervous because I always do -- but I'm glad that the initial evaluation, at least, is more or less positive.  We'll see what the vitamin results are a little later.

Note to Sharon: If I dare to  miss my 3-year benchmark labs in December, slap me with that wet noodle again! Tolerate no excuses about busyness. Who's not busy, after all?! 

Donning the duds

Yes, it's that time of year for graduates and professorial types: it's time to climb into caps and gowns and celebrate academic achievement.

If I were willing to spend multiple hundreds of dollars, this is what I'd be wearing tonight to the Honors Convocation -- but until I get tenure and am damn sure I'm going to need the elaborate silks and velvets on an annual basis, I'm opting for the cheap rental version of doctoral regalia: a) a generic black gown with three black bands; b) a generic black mortarboard; c) the hood you see pictured here. (Yeah, in theory it's all tax-deductible as a business expense -- but frankly, I'd rather take a trip to Alaska this year than deck myself out in UCLA blue and gold.) The generic version with university-specific hood is just going to have to do me this year.

My department should be happy.  At least I'm not raiding the theatre costume shop, as I did last year, to don a gown of indeterminate origiin with a doctoral hood from an anonymous university.

(I thought it was amusing, never having been at a university that placed such a high value on wearing regalia before, but in retrospect I believe I may have slightly miffed a few of my colleagues with my laissez-faire approach.)

The convocation is at 6 p.m. tonight, but I have to leave for campus at 3 p.m. in order to pick up my rental duds before the university bookstore office closes at 4 p.m.  I didn't exactly plan this very well, but after I pick up said cap, gown, and hood, I'll just hole up in my office and get a little work done before the ceremony begins and we all process in like great flapping crows.

Disordered eating

Link: Elastic Waist - Rants and musings on weight, body image, celebrities, fitness, food and other fixations.

Okay, I admit it. Although I'm genuinely very satisfied with my weight-loss results (and even think my face looked better with 40 more pounds on my frame), sometimes I feel like a B+ student instead of a straight-A honor's candidate.

Why?

Because I did not get down to Skinny.  I just got down to -- Normal.

How sick is that?  Rationally, I don't like the way Thin looks.  On pretty much anyone.  I like the way Normal looks, and I like how I look, being Normal. More importantly, I like the second chance at life that Normal gives me.

But part of me wonders what I would look like Skinny -- even though, intellectually, I know that the answer is, "Unhealthy. Old. Unattractive."

That'd be okay, though, right, because I'd be Skinny?

I have a pretty positive body/self-image at this point in my life, I think, realistically speaking -- and yet I still have these thoughts in passing -- so I can imagine how genuinely emotionally tortuous the vicissitudes of a full-blown eating disorder are.  It makes me sad for those in the grip of one, and it makes me rejoice for those who are emerging.

And it also makes me frustrated with myself and a tiny bit insecure, no matter how far I've come.  (Is it really okay that I'm not a Stick?  A size 2?)

Hmm.  You know what?  You bet your sweet ass it is. (And I like my ass now.  True, it's a tad flat, and unclothed it has a certain sag factor to it -- but in well-fitting jeans?  It's okay for a middle-aged chick. ;) ). 

Blood pressure

Okay, as my doctor pointed out at my visit last week, we may need to get me off the BP meds altogether. 

All other meds connected to my obesity-related health conditions (e.g., Type II diabetes, high cholesterol) have been discontinued as of more than a year ago, but high blood pressure remained an issue.  Hell, it's all over my family, as are strokes on both my mother's and my father's side of the tree, so that's not a surprise.  We did cut my BP med dosage by half after my weight loss stabilized because I was getting light-headed a lot, and that seemed to help.

Now, however, even at the half-dose, I've begun to experience the dizziness and light-headedness again.  I don't get it because I'm in the low 160s most of the time now, so the change has occurred without further weight loss.  I have no idea what's made it drop further.  I don't go out of my way to exercise (sadly). I don't eschew sodium. Maybe it's just my metabolism, continuing to adjust to carrying less weight.

My BP a few minutes ago? (I took it because I was feeling weird ... kind of a low-blood sugar/low BP sort of a feeling --> which, by the way, doesn't feel good).  101/59.  If it keeps up this way (as it has for a few weeks), I'm going to ask for a quarter-dose.  Off the med, I'm now about 122/80 but that's considered medically borderline-high, not normal -- and as I say, strokes abound in my family.

I want to play it safe -- but I also don't want to collapse because I'm over-medicated!

A minus 30

A month from tomorrow I'll be Alaska-bound. Am I looking forward to it? You bet! 

I realize it's a little incurious of me, not to mention very middle-brow, but I swear I'm looking forward to the ship more than the actual Alaskan destinations.

Let's face it, the Alaska I see will be tourist ports of call and little more than that.

The ship will be a relaxation space.  If I do nothing more than sleep, eat, and get in walks on board and in port, I think I'll be a happy woman for 7 days.

Tick-tock.  Counting down ...