ifyourstomachoffendsyou

Hi everyone, I'm lurking. But I'm working on my blog tonight and I have laundry to do. Got a new pair of pants for $12 at Kohls today that look like dynamite. Cheri

Weight Watchers Dexatrim Slimfast Atkins Jenny Craig Hypnosis(thanks, I forgot about that) Thyroid with an unknown appetite suppressant Overeaters Anonymous TOPS exercising like a maniac a religious group (lasted 2 meetings, too many rules, too much talk about gluttony, figured Jesus would not have attended either) various supplements which I believe had extreme amounts of caffeine and who knows what in them. I've lived 57 years. I don't even remember all the things I did and tried. My hysterectomy 10 years ago is partially responsible for the redistribution of my weight. Pregnancies, nursing, age and weight loss have warped the rest. But I'm still looking much better. 47 lbs off, 23 to go. Whoo hoo! Not there yet. This is the weight I was at the end of my pregnancies. But my health is so much better. No more blood pressure meds or supplements. No more reflux meds since the Dr. fixed my hiatal hernia when he put in the lapband. I'm thinking soon no more cholesterol meds. I've discovered Miralax and am no longer eating fiber like a madwoman to counteract the constipation I've suffered since a baby. Life is good. Got other issues but this part of my life is so good.

By the way, I've lost 47 lbs., 23 to go. Whoo hoo!

My body has changed so much since the last time I weighed this much. I've totally lost my butt and now have the typical Dutch flat wide back end of a bus hind end. I also had a fat abdomen but not a tummy. Now I've got 2 rolls and the bigger one is on top My waist is thicker, my hips are thinner and so are my thighs. If it fits my waist it bags on my butt and thighs. So what suits me is not currently in the stores. LOL. But I still look better in clothes than before, and want more of them. Cheri

47 lbs gone today. 23 to go. Can't believe it. Whoo hoo! Janet, sorry about your loss. Ocotillo, cute pics. Take care of ribs, knees, necks, adhesions, fibroids, elderly relatives, obstreperous young people, depressed young people, addicted young people, recovering young people, and sweet children and grandchildren.

Janet, sounds like a crap day. I agree, a little tough love is in order. He'll live without the phone and the car. Get his own rides places or maybe this "friend" will let him drive his car. I hope he pays his own insurance. I took my son off my insurance by the age of 17 after he got in several accidents. We lost our coverage so I excluded him from the policy and he wasn't allowed to drive our cars. One thing, he always found work and made enough money to buy his own car and pay his own insurance. I also quit getting him out of bed and let him bear the consequences of those actions. I refused to do his laundry and made him drop out of school at 16 when he ditched constantly and got F's. He was in a private Christian school and I wasn't paying for F's. He went to public school for two whole weeks and started ditching and not getting up in the morning. So I researched it and had him drop out. After one year out of school he could take his GED. I made him sign a contract that he had to work full-time, go for an ADHD eval and take meds if recommended, and be back in school, or working towards his GED by 18 or he was out of the house. He lasted 1 semester before begging to go back to the Christian school. I wouldn't enroll him till he paid me $300, $50 for each class. I told him he'd get nothing back on F's, $25 on D's, and $50 on C's and above. On the day the semester started he finally handed me the money. He eventually got back all but $50. Eventually, when they wouldn't let him graduate with his class because he had too many credits to make up, and he was ditching school again, and I didn't know it, but his father had been telling him he was planning on leaving me, I had him study for his GED in the state where he'd dropped out (we lived on state line in Indiana). They didn't know he'd been attending in Illinois. He took the GED while on his ADHD meds and passed with such a high score he made the Albert Einstein Society and got a college scholarship. He ended up with a degree in marketing. It took him 5 years to get thru college and the last year I gave him $5000 from the sale of my house and told him he was on his own. I was getting remarried and he wasn't living with me anymore. One of my better decisions. I had no guilt and didn't have to put up with his assinine behavior anymore. (He is an alcoholic, though a very high functioning one.) He is now over 30, married, and has a little girl he adores. He owns his own home and has a nice wife and a relatively good job. I have heard him say that being on his own was the best thing that ever happened to him. He says this like it was his own idea. He still can be a real donkey's rear end, especially around me, so I tend to see him only when there's family get-togethers. I don't see my grandaughter nearly as much as I'd like, but my mental health is more important. My other son is a whole nother story but I'll save that for another time. Cheri

A pb is a productive burp or as I prefer to call it, a puke back. Why does he reset the scale?

I pb'd tonite. Haven't done that for a while. Lately, at night I have no trouble eating, my band is loose. I was eating thinly sliced Kielbasa with sauerkraut. Think I probably ate a little too fast. Or the kraut turned to instant gas and filled my tummy.LOL

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 Trimming the Fat Well, what can I say. I'm back at work full blast. I see kids before school and a large number of kids after school in order to bring up the number of contacts with the kids, both for their sake and for mine. If they qualify, I can see them 5x a week for math, 5x for reading. But fitting that many contacts into the school day is extremely difficult, especially with a lot of the scheduling changes to accommodate the smaller population at RCS. But my program brings in money based on the number of contacts I have with the kids. Also, the kids really need the extra help. I'm really glad I have the weight off, or I would never be able to handle that many straight periods of teaching. I think I teach for 10 or 11 periods a day. Then I go home and eat and then try over the next 2 hours to get out and walk for at least an hour. I check out Facebook and Lapbandtalk, play a little Mafia Wars while I watch a little TV. I think about writing in my blog--and sometimes I still do--then I go to bed. Food is going well despite loss of restriction. I can't get in to get a fill until Oct. 27. So I'm back dieting until then. That's a royal pain. It was so nice knowing the band wasn't going to let me overeat. Now its hanging on by my fingernails time again. One thing thats actually helping right now is the fact that I've divested myself of all church commitments except for choir. I spend time with my grandchildren, but other than that I haven't much of a life. I'm not a phone person, so spend very little time talking to people. The lack of things to do, instead of always running, actually allows me some structure and predictability in my life--especially my evenings, which is a friend to dealing with food. My days have never been that much of a problem because work has a routine. It's always been evenings and weekends that the food gets out of control because there are no routines to act a external controls. I feel like God is preparing me for something. I just don't know what. I think about getting involved with certain things and then I think--do I really want to? I'm becoming somewhat reclusive, a loner, in my personal life. I think I appear gregarious in public but there's always a certain level of discomfort in a public setting. Will I put my foot in my mouth? Will I talk more than I should? Will I accidentally hurt someone's feelings? Will I get pulled into gossip? Will I express myself poorly and will someone take what I said the wrong way and try to cause trouble for me? Will I unknowingly lose a friendship? Those are the fears of an ADHD adult woman. Fears founded in reality for all those things have happened to me. Frequently. I still chat on lapbandtalk. I've poured out a lot of myself into this blog. I respond to other's comments on Facebook, but have very little to say myself. I'm running out of words for this blog. I've been emptied in some ways. As the food takes more of a back seat in my life, and I run out of words, and the committments to all but family have been dropping away, I'm wondering what's going to replace it. Even my job could end after this year. I can feel myself withdrawing slightly from all the things I did at RCS-letting go of RCS' future. I've planted a lot of seeds, now its in other's hands. I'm seeing the fruit of some of those seeds which makes me feel incredibly humble that God has used and is continuing to use those ideas. God is changing me. Removing baggage. Trimming the fat (LOL) in more ways than one. I'm waiting for the next great passion to hit. The thing that will grab me and motivate me and give me vision and trigger my problem solving ideas. If I could get paid for having ideas, I'd be rich. By the way, I'm up to a 44 lb weight loss. That leaves 26 to go. God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.

Tuesday, September 22, 2009 Trimming the Fat Well, what can I say. I'm back at work full blast. I see kids before school and a large number of kids after school in order to bring up the number of contacts with the kids, both for their sake and for mine. If they qualify, I can see them 5x a week for math, 5x for reading. But fitting that many contacts into the school day is extremely difficult, especially with a lot of the scheduling changes to accommodate the smaller population at RCS. But my program brings in money based on the number of contacts I have with the kids. Also, the kids really need the extra help. I'm really glad I have the weight off, or I would never be able to handle that many straight periods of teaching. I think I teach for 10 or 11 periods a day. Then I go home and eat and then try over the next 2 hours to get out and walk for at least an hour. I check out Facebook and Lapbandtalk, play a little Mafia Wars while I watch a little TV. I think about writing in my blog--and sometimes I still do--then I go to bed. Food is going well despite loss of restriction. I can't get in to get a fill until Oct. 27. So I'm back dieting until then. That's a royal pain. It was so nice knowing the band wasn't going to let me overeat. Now its hanging on by my fingernails time again. One thing thats actually helping right now is the fact that I've divested myself of all church commitments except for choir. I spend time with my grandchildren, but other than that I haven't much of a life. I'm not a phone person, so spend very little time talking to people. The lack of things to do, instead of always running, actually allows me some structure and predictability in my life--especially my evenings, which is a friend to dealing with food. My days have never been that much of a problem because work has a routine. It's always been evenings and weekends that the food gets out of control because there are no routines to act a external controls. I feel like God is preparing me for something. I just don't know what. I think about getting involved with certain things and then I think--do I really want to? I'm becoming somewhat reclusive, a loner, in my personal life. I think I appear gregarious in public but there's always a certain level of discomfort in a public setting. Will I put my foot in my mouth? Will I talk more than I should? Will I accidentally hurt someone's feelings? Will I get pulled into gossip? Will I express myself poorly and will someone take what I said the wrong way and try to cause trouble for me? Will I unknowingly lose a friendship? Those are the fears of an ADHD adult woman. Fears founded in reality for all those things have happened to me. Frequently. I still chat on lapbandtalk. I've poured out a lot of myself into this blog. I respond to other's comments on Facebook, but have very little to say myself. I'm running out of words for this blog. I've been emptied in some ways. As the food takes more of a back seat in my life, and I run out of words, and the committments to all but family have been dropping away, I'm wondering what's going to replace it. Even my job could end after this year. I can feel myself withdrawing slightly from all the things I did at RCS-letting go of RCS' future. I've planted a lot of seeds, now its in other's hands. I'm seeing the fruit of some of those seeds which makes me feel incredibly humble that God has used and is continuing to use those ideas. God is changing me. Removing baggage. Trimming the fat (LOL) in more ways than one. I'm waiting for the next great passion to hit. The thing that will grab me and motivate me and give me vision and trigger my problem solving ideas. If I could get paid for having ideas, I'd be rich. By the way, I'm up to a 44 lb weight loss. That leaves 26 to go. God is good, all the time. All the time, God is good.

Reading everyone's posts. Lori good luck with surgery. You'll do great. I did. Phylser's doing great. Laura, I would make a big joke out of the beat the bed bugs till their black and blue. Did it since they were babies so they never thought of it as violent, just as funny. We all do too much for our children. Mine at least are all out of my house, married and functioning on their own and not a financial cost to me anymore. That's a blessing, but it took some tough love and judicious use of $ to get them there. And each child was different. But I'm still on call with my kids and grandkids. The drain is more emotional. My DD is the neediest. Her oldest son is mildly autistic. My daughter has severe, close to debilitating PMS. Her thyroid is low but not low enough for meds, her spine is worse than mine, she's developed asthma and right now may be fighting walking pneumonia and/or swine flu. She gets sick easily and emotionally distraught frequently. I drove to her house after work (50 min.) because she called me at work since she needed to go in for labs and x-rays and could not manage with her two boys with her. Plus, my DGS, the four-year old with autism, had been begging to see me all day and wanted to talk to me on the phone. This is the way its been since DGS was born. Difficult pregnancy and birth, C-section, and difficult baby. My car could just about drive itself there. She also has two older step-daughters who are there part-time who have a crazy mother they live with the rest of the time. She also has a very cute, very rambunctious two year old son. My son's each have a daughter but their wives have family support systems and I'm not needed nearly as much. My daughter's husband's parents are both deceased. Her husband is a cop who works a lot of overtime and a wierd shift that starts in the afternoons and lasts most of the night. She is constantly sick and does not respond well to medicines. She tends to get the rare side effects. So back to how much we do for our children--I guess it just goes with the territory. Knowing when you're making matters worse by doing too much and keeping your kids from growing up--that's the hard part.

As I always said to my children and now to my grandchildren, "Nite-night, sleep tight, don't let the bedbugs bite, but if they do, take your shoe, beat them till they're black and blue." Or alternatively, "Shadrack, Meshack, and to bed we go."

Hi all, Can't get a fill till Oct. 27th because I don't want to take off from school to get it. So I need it in the late afternoon and only my own surgeon does afternoons and he isn't scheduled till the 27th. So I'll be "dieting" without much help from the tool as my restriction is pretty much gone. Julie you are way beyond the ability of chiropracters to diagnose or help you. Their maipulation may be aggravating the probelm. Are you taking an anti-inflammatory regularly for the pain as well as the vicodin? You can take both but you can't combine the vicodin with Tylenol because Vicodin has tylenol in it. I totally get the pain. I had to find a position that didn't hurt and stay in it as much as possible. I did absolutely no housework. Any kind of scrubbing motion or pushing on things or the kind of twisting you do with vacuuming created pressure on the herniated discs. I'm wondering if the shoulder manipulation you've had done put pressure on your neck in a way that created pressure on your discs. There've been times I haven't even been able to swing my arms while walking because it put pressure on the herniated discs. Physical therapy and chiropractic manipulation also irritated and made the discs put pressure on the nerves. Relief lasted only until my drive home. Then I was in even worse pain. Your pain sounds very much like herniated discs. It can radiate down your chest, down your back, give you headaches and send pain and numbness across your shoulders and down your arms. It can make you think there's pressure on your heart and give you indigestion. I'll be praying for you. The Lord bless you and keep you and cause his face to shne upon you. The Lord lift up his countenance upon you and give you his peace. Hang in there sweetheart.

Thank God, the worst of my gas (from both ends) is in the evening, or I actually manage to hold it until I use the bathroom at school. I was so afraid I'd be letting er rip in front of my students. I no longer seem capable of the silent but deadly farts. But I think all that extra space in my digestive tract that used to be filled with food is now filled with gas. The rumblings when I go to bed at night can be pretty awesome. I can just about blow the covers off the bed. Nobody light a match.

Just wanted to say one thing about restriction. My Dr. told me the band rests around a fat pad around the stomach. As you lose weight the pad shrinks and the band gets loose. That's why we're on a neverending search for restriction. I lost 8 lbs and lost my restriction so I'm back to dieting till my next fill. I don't think you actually reach your sweet spot until you hit a goal you're satisfied with and the band helps you stay there instead of gaining it all back. If I start gaining again I'll get filled until I can't gain it back. I know better than to rely on my own willpower. Did that for years and I could lose but then I'd gain it all back. Without the band, the head hunger would take over again. Laura, I would bet some of your weight fluctuation is due to Water retention and Fluid buildup from your female issues. Those fibroids swell at PMS time too. I used to have as much as a 7 lb. weight fluctuation. Hope you get the best treatment. Julie, I hope you do too. I'm all too familiar with the spinal arthritis in my neck and lower back. I've had major neck surgery by a neurosurgeon, one of the best in the area. He removed a lot of bone but didn't fuse me, allowing me more mobility but also leaving me prone to reinjury. I've also had shoulder surgery and now my other shoulder needs something after a fall last winter. My hip frequently kills me even though I lost a lot of weight. It wakes me up at night. Plus, of course, I've had double knee replacements. Right now the incline board I have where I hang almost upside down is keeping me going. I'm at least an inch taller after I get off that thing. Its really helped with the neck and lower back and even with the hip. Some of the hip pain actually comes from my back. But I can tell there's spurs inside the joint. Sometimes I rotate a certain way and I can feel them scraping and tearing things up. I am much more limber with the weight loss though. I was almost running after my grandaughter tonight. She wanted me to be the monster and I was surprised how well I kept up with her. I also had my grandsons on the junglegym again a few days ago and was keeping up with them on my son's hilly property yesterday. I walked for an hour and a half today. It's the stairs at work that kill my hip. Going back to work this fall really triggered the hip pain again. I had built up everything else with walking but I didn't climb steps this summer and my hip healed up. Stairs are the killer. Probably need a hip replacement someday, no matter how much I lose. When I go for a little R&R, it isn't for Rest and Recreation, its for repairs and replacements. LOL! What a topic. Aches and pains. I remember listening to older people talking about these things and thinking I'd never be like that. LOL. I first put my knee out of joint at 16 yrs old. My shoulder started hurting from all the swimming I did at that age. Its been downhill ever since. Take care everyone. ttyl.

So many posts, so little time. Julie. I'm so sorry about your pain. Before my neck surgery I could not even wear a coat and walk through the store for more than a few minutes. The pain from the weight and pressure of my coat was too much. At this point I'm beginning to think that private health care is so badly managed that government health care could only be an improvement. You need that MRI asap. Start making phone calls, threaten a law suit, contact a lawyer. Laura, I had a fibroid attached to my ovary the size of a large grapefruit. It bled too at my TOM. Happened to have a physical just after one of my heavy bleeds and the Dr called me in a panic about my hematocrit. She told me one more TOM and I'd need an emergency hyst with blood transfusion. They gave me shots to stop my period to give my blood a chance to rebuild. Instant menopause. Then I got the hyst. Saved my life. Had more energy than I'd had in years. No more TOM. Instead of no libido, I had more than I'd had in years. Doodle, Eli's mother may need some parenting classes. She's never been a parent while sober. Have her investigate Love and Logic. Also, she and Eli may not be ready to be fulltime together right off the bat. He undoubtedly misses you and the stability he experienced. Your daughter also needs time to continue to work on her sobriety, hard to do with an uprooted child around. I'd suggest a more gradual transfer. I spent time with my grandsons again today and am going to my grandaughter's birthday tomorrow. I actually ended up not thrifting, I had a 30% off coupon and Kohl's was having a good sale with power hours and cashback. Got some black cropped pants cheap and several lightweight fall tops. I'm hoping I can get through the fall without buying much more. CBL.

Platform shoes! LOL. I love good walking shoes. I walk 2-3 mi/day at least 5 days a week. Its the only exercise I can really do. Walk outside as much as possible to enjoy the view, fresh air and the sunshine when available. I do have a treadmill I picked up at a garage sale for $35 that I use when the weather gets bad. I can also go to the community center and walk for free on their walking track.

Feel Free to Fart Frequently.

Laura, Nels is darling. Sorry about your dad. Thank God he gave Adam and Eve clothes. And that I didn't go into the lapband for my looks so much as my health--which is doing well. I'm going thriftin' on Saturday. Hopefully I'll find some clothes that fit now and will shrink with me for a while. Lots of sickness going around. Hope everyone stays healthy and/or gets better soon. Just remember, Mother's rock, Grandma's rule, and Teachers rock and rule.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009 Sometimes Reality Bites So, my husband is looking for part time work to supplement his Social Security. Probably Best Buy again. Its crazy that a 62 year old highly competent man can't get full time work--mostly because employers don't want to pay health care for an older worker. It feels like this is no longer the land of opportunity. So many workers being kept part-time to avoid paying health care. I wonder if all the companies outsourcing to other countries and paying as little as possible to workers in this country realize they've created an underclass of people who can't afford the products and services they're providing? So they cut even more creating a vicious cycle of increasing near-poverty. I'm so full of arthritis. Even with the weight loss the extra excercise keeps me in constant pain--especially at night when it wakes me up. Mostly its my hip waking me up. I think the steps at work are whats killing the hip. Walking doesn't seem to irritate it much, but add the stairs and its too much. I've adjusted my classroom to accommodate my arthritis. I sit mostly while teaching. I have a flat overhead I use with some materials (it lies only a half inch higher than the table) so I can use it sitting without having to raise my arm to write on it. My assistant does most of the paperwork which relieves me of enormous stress on my neck. But the school is not handicapped accessible and I do climb stairs a lot. I frequently need to speak to a teacher who might be two stories up or go fetch a class that's running late or that the teacher forgot to send. I wish I could work out more so that when I hit goal I won't have to stay at 1000-1200 calories to maintain but I don't think that's going to happen. Just ate some Cheetos, not a lot, but that tells you what kind of mood I'm in. Haven't had those in months. Not since before surgery. My job may not exist next year and the thought of finding another teaching job where I can adjust things to accommodate both my arthritis and my ADHD is quite overwhelming. It took me a number of years to get everything running so smoothly. I've lost jobs before but I wasn't 57. Oh well, the Lord will have to provide if I can't. He's always opened a door for me, but I see all kinds of believers struggling desperately because of the economy and a broken health care system. Kind of a downer, eh? I'm not sure I can "10-10-10" this. I'm not sure there's a decision to be made at this point. I really don't want to go back to school which I think I'd need to do to get another teaching job. I probably could do a pros and cons on that. To stay in teaching or not, to go back to school or not, to look at other careers and receive training or try to break into those, or not. Or I may just be buying trouble and the new vendor next year will hire me without making me go back to school or changing my program so it no longer fits me. For the next 10 minutes it doesn't impact me. In 10 months I'll know and I should have a back up plan in place. In 10 years I'll be retired and the amount of income I'll have depends on my choices now as well as a whole lot of things beyond my control--like the economy, my meager retirement fund, the decreasing value of my house, etc. I have to overcome this inertia that's paralyzing me, but my ADHD works against me. It needs the overwhelming pressure of an immediate crisis to focus on a problem and solve it. Sorry about that. Once in a while the "what ifs" start to overwhelm me. Life is never easy. But my band is working and I'm working it and the weight is dropping. Praise God.

Tuesday, September 15, 2009 Sometimes Reality Bites So, my husband is looking for part time work to supplement his Social Security. Probably Best Buy again. Its crazy that a 62 year old highly competent man can't get full time work--mostly because employers don't want to pay health care for an older worker. It feels like this is no longer the land of opportunity. So many workers being kept part-time to avoid paying health care. I wonder if all the companies outsourcing to other countries and paying as little as possible to workers in this country realize they've created an underclass of people who can't afford the products and services they're providing? So they cut even more creating a vicious cycle of increasing near-poverty. I'm so full of arthritis. Even with the weight loss the extra excercise keeps me in constant pain--especially at night when it wakes me up. Mostly its my hip waking me up. I think the steps at work are whats killing the hip. Walking doesn't seem to irritate it much, but add the stairs and its too much. I've adjusted my classroom to accommodate my arthritis. I sit mostly while teaching. I have a flat overhead I use with some materials (it lies only a half inch higher than the table) so I can use it sitting without having to raise my arm to write on it. My assistant does most of the paperwork which relieves me of enormous stress on my neck. But the school is not handicapped accessible and I do climb stairs a lot. I frequently need to speak to a teacher who might be two stories up or go fetch a class that's running late or that the teacher forgot to send. I wish I could work out more so that when I hit goal I won't have to stay at 1000-1200 calories to maintain but I don't think that's going to happen. Just ate some Cheetos, not a lot, but that tells you what kind of mood I'm in. Haven't had those in months. Not since before surgery. My job may not exist next year and the thought of finding another teaching job where I can adjust things to accommodate both my arthritis and my ADHD is quite overwhelming. It took me a number of years to get everything running so smoothly. I've lost jobs before but I wasn't 57. Oh well, the Lord will have to provide if I can't. He's always opened a door for me, but I see all kinds of believers struggling desperately because of the economy and a broken health care system. Kind of a downer, eh? I'm not sure I can "10-10-10" this. I'm not sure there's a decision to be made at this point. I really don't want to go back to school which I think I'd need to do to get another teaching job. I probably could do a pros and cons on that. To stay in teaching or not, to go back to school or not, to look at other careers and receive training or try to break into those, or not. Or I may just be buying trouble and the new vendor next year will hire me without making me go back to school or changing my program so it no longer fits me. For the next 10 minutes it doesn't impact me. In 10 months I'll know and I should have a back up plan in place. In 10 years I'll be retired and the amount of income I'll have depends on my choices now as well as a whole lot of things beyond my control--like the economy, my meager retirement fund, the decreasing value of my house, etc. I have to overcome this inertia that's paralyzing me, but my ADHD works against me. It needs the overwhelming pressure of an immediate crisis to focus on a problem and solve it. Sorry about that. Once in a while the "what ifs" start to overwhelm me. Life is never easy. But my band is working and I'm working it and the weight is dropping. Praise God.

If your relationship was based around food and being fat together then she's lost her reason for being your friend. If it was based on a lot more than that she'll get over it. Have a great evening.

Thanks for your concern, everyone. Still a bit down today. I don't want to go in for a fill but I think I'm going to have to fairly soon. I'm kind of up and down. Yesterday I had a great time singing at a rehearsal for my school's 125th birthday worship celebration. THen I came home and the "what ifs" started. Today I made a great fish dinner. I took Tilapia, dusted it lightly with flour. and sprinkled it with Lawry's, chili powder, curry powder, ginger, and fresh ground black pepper. I sprayed my pan with olive oil and fried them up. A little lemon and mmmmm. Then I went shopping. I'm in between an XL and an L. Neither looked right. The mirrors and lighting in the fitting rooms are absolutely unforgiving. My body's fat distribution has changed so much from the last time I lost weight. My upper stomach sticks out more than my abdomen, but the abdomen has the hanging skin. My thighs are thinner but unbelievably flabby and flappy. My legs are full of varicose veins. My butt has become the typical Dutch butt--wide and flat like the back end of a bus. Once upon a time my figure was hourglass. That was depressing. I left the store and didn't buy anything. Makes me want plastic surgery but I'll never be able to afford it. And I'm scared of the pain. Sounds worse than my knee surgeries, neck surgery, and my hysterectomy combined.. Gettin' old is a real bitch.

Monday, September 14, 2009 10 minutes, 10 months, 10 years Talked with my 7th grade girls group about the 10,10,10 principle, which is a way of helping you make decisions. We make decisions just about every moment and we need to ask ourselves what would the results be, good and bad, 10 minutes from now, 10 months from now, and 10 years from now. I thought about how that applied to food and how something that looks good right now and would satisfy our craving right now (or maybe not) ends up cumulatively as weight gain 10 months down the road which 10 years down the road puts us on the path of high blood pressure, high, cholesterol, high blood sugar, and prone to heart disease, strokes, Alzheimers, breast and colon cancer, Dr.s' bills, food bills, wardrobe bills, loss of income from not being able to work as well or at all, shame, etc.,etc., etc. Of course, for my kids, the consequences of bad decisions now, like just going outside and walking around at night in high risk neighborhoods, can be fatal. Told them I didn't want to be visiting their graves, or their jail cells, or them struggling to raise 3 babies from 3 different fathers. None of them thinks any of that could ever happen to them, but they were almost all telling about dangerous situations with kids showing them guns, bangers trying to sweet talk them, predators trying to talk them into their vehicles, and they find it very exciting. The part of their brain that foresees the potential consequences of their actions is not fully developed until the mid-20s, but stupid actions we all took when we were young didn't usually have the severe consequences that my 7th graders are more likely to experience. Some of these consequences for bad choices didn't exist. HIV, getting shot, crack cocaine, meth--its not like there weren't drugs available but they weren't so instantly addictive. Teenage pregnancy existed but it wasn't as widespread, nor was it an accepted way of life. I'm hoping to give these kids a tool, 10-10-10 to get these kids to think beyond immediate gratification. 10 minutes from now, 10 months from now, 10 years from now. Puts things in perspective. For me, for them.