I started school again last night. This is my last year... in April I will finally earn my B.A. in Christian Ministry. Sweet.
This new class is on the significance of the New Testament. Very interesting subject, and the prof seems pretty cool. Tough, but cool. It's weird... he's several years younger than me, and he has a Ph.D. Makes me feel like a bit of an underacheiver.
The Thing That Wouldn't Shut Up is back with a vengeance. He pissed me off sooooooooooooo much last night. First of all, he didn't even open his textbooks before class. The bindings weren't even cracked. He even said that he didn't do any of the readings. However, he had a lot to say. How the hell can you participate in a discussion of the text in an intelligent manner when you haven't even read it????? Well, you can't. And he didn't. Blahblahblah, all frickin' night. "Yeah, when you said that, I started thinking about how so-and-so got himself a puppy, and how he wanted to bless that puppy..." What the frick????? What does that have to do with the formation of the New Testament canon in the third century???? The worst part was that the prof didn't seem able or willing to just cut him off and get back to the topic. I'm sure we could've gotten out of there at least a half hour earlier if that guy would've just put a frickin' sock in it.
The funny thing is that he's STILL calling that one lady "LeeAnn", and that's not even her name! For cripe's sake, we've been taking classes with her for a year and a half, and he still can't get her frickin' name right no matter how many times we tell him it's NOT "LeeAnn"! I mean, come on!
Apparently, this guy is going to be ordained as a Baptist minister in his church. I would hate, hate, frickin' HATE to go to his church and listen to one of his sermons. It would take like two hours, and it would most likely be a rambling, pointless, mispronounced mess and a half.
I still totally do not get how he continues to make his way through the program. He turns all his crap in late, if he turns it in at all. I know for a fact that he has turned in papers over a month after the end of a class. How can he be passing any class we've taken when he never does the frickin' work???
I know I shouldn't let this get to me, but it does. I work my frickin' ass off in school. I study, highlight, take notes, write my papers and turn them in on time. He has no job, has no kids at home, has a buttload more free time than I do, yet he never does the work for any class we've taken but somehow manages to pass. What the hell does he do all day???
Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system I feel much better. In my defense, I do have a bit of PMS this week so I'm feeling extra bitchy. Hopefully it will be gone by the next time I have class. If not, The Thing That Wouldn't Shut Up might end up getting his ass kicked.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Monday, September 11, 2006
Woooooooooohoooooooooo!!!!!
The kids are back in school!!!!!!!!
Horrible of me, right? I should be cherishing every single moment I have with my beautiful children, right? Shya, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.
Don't get me wrong... I love my kids so much it hurts, but I also love my free time. My little ones have to catch the bus even before my teenagers, because they go to a charter school that only has four bus routes for the entire Twin Cities area. Luckily their bus stop is right by our house, so I don't have to drive them to a centralized location. One morning I let them sleep in for an hour and drove them to school so they wouldn't have to sit on the bus for an hour, and get this: THEY WERE PISSED OFF. They actually want to ride the bus for a frickin' hour each way because they have friends on the bus. Fine by me, because that means that I can do whatever I want between 6:45 AM and 3:45 PM. Nine hours of me time, baby. Sa-weet. Plus, they started school almost a full week before the regular school district, so I was out shopping while the other moms on the block were still wrangling kids.
I've started going to the gym again in the mornings. I didn't go all summer, and I felt really guilty about it. As punishment for my slacker ways, I've been working really hard. I'm especially working on my butt, abs, chest and arms. I've been doing 20-30 minutes on the elliptical, 20-30 minutes on the stationary bike, then lifting weights on the nautilus machines, and then doing ab crunches until I want to die. I've been steadily increasing my times, programs, levels and weights. My hope is to be significantly toned by the first anniversary of my weight loss surgery. I have a nice, long playlist of workout music, so that makes it easier. Lots of Prince, Guns 'n' Roses, Led Zeppelin, Violent Femmes, Aerosmith, Def Leppard and David Bowie, plus a little Elton John, Black Sabbath, Billy Joel, Kiss, Sex Pistols, and a couple selections from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Yeah, yeah... I know I'm a big geek, but I don't give a crap.
Well, off to enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee before I hit the shower (yes, I'm still sitting here in my sweaty workout clothes) and gear up for an afternoon of errands.
Horrible of me, right? I should be cherishing every single moment I have with my beautiful children, right? Shya, and monkeys might fly out of my butt.
Don't get me wrong... I love my kids so much it hurts, but I also love my free time. My little ones have to catch the bus even before my teenagers, because they go to a charter school that only has four bus routes for the entire Twin Cities area. Luckily their bus stop is right by our house, so I don't have to drive them to a centralized location. One morning I let them sleep in for an hour and drove them to school so they wouldn't have to sit on the bus for an hour, and get this: THEY WERE PISSED OFF. They actually want to ride the bus for a frickin' hour each way because they have friends on the bus. Fine by me, because that means that I can do whatever I want between 6:45 AM and 3:45 PM. Nine hours of me time, baby. Sa-weet. Plus, they started school almost a full week before the regular school district, so I was out shopping while the other moms on the block were still wrangling kids.
I've started going to the gym again in the mornings. I didn't go all summer, and I felt really guilty about it. As punishment for my slacker ways, I've been working really hard. I'm especially working on my butt, abs, chest and arms. I've been doing 20-30 minutes on the elliptical, 20-30 minutes on the stationary bike, then lifting weights on the nautilus machines, and then doing ab crunches until I want to die. I've been steadily increasing my times, programs, levels and weights. My hope is to be significantly toned by the first anniversary of my weight loss surgery. I have a nice, long playlist of workout music, so that makes it easier. Lots of Prince, Guns 'n' Roses, Led Zeppelin, Violent Femmes, Aerosmith, Def Leppard and David Bowie, plus a little Elton John, Black Sabbath, Billy Joel, Kiss, Sex Pistols, and a couple selections from the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. Yeah, yeah... I know I'm a big geek, but I don't give a crap.
Well, off to enjoy a leisurely cup of coffee before I hit the shower (yes, I'm still sitting here in my sweaty workout clothes) and gear up for an afternoon of errands.
Sunday, September 03, 2006
Alright, I'm gonna come clean...
Some of you who read this blog and don't know me well have asked how I managed to lose 94 lbs in 9 months. I have skirted around the issue by saying that I am on a high-protein, low-carb diet, which is not a lie, but it's not the whole truth either. For those who are struggling with being overweight and overeating, I feel that I am doing a disservice by not being totally honest. So here goes (taking a deep breath)...
I had gastric bypass surgery on November 17th, 2005. There, I said it.
Now, some people are under the misguided assumption that weight loss surgery is the easy way out, the magic cure, the silver bullet. My older sister actually said, "You cheated." I am here to tell you that it's not that easy.
When other women tell me they are jealous of me I laugh. Yes, I am at a normal weight. Yes, I can wear a size 6. Yes, I can exercise, enjoy physical activity, and have a lot more energy and stamina. Yes, I look like a totally different person. But it's not all sunshine and lollipops.
I had this surgery because I was diabetic, had heart problems, had acid reflux disease that was burning a hole in my esophagus, and have a neurological disease that was made worse by my excessive weight. I ate when I was bored, stressed, sad, happy, angry... food was my drug of choice. I finally came to the realization that my eating habits would kill me, and that, after 18 years of yo-yo dieting, schemes and scams, and exercise programs I couldn't commit to, I was powerless to change. I knew that I had to make it physically impossible to overeat or I would be dead within ten years.
I am one of the few people who has been blessed enough to not have any real complications, but there are plenty of people who end up with infections, strictures that close off the opening to their stomach, vomiting, paralysis of the stomach and intestinal muscles, and some even die as a result of the surgery.
I can't eat sweets. No candy, no desserts, no regular soda, no birthday cake, no pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. It is awkward to refuse dessert at a party or a dinner at someone's house, and more awkward to explain why.Too much sugar causes a condition called dumping, where the intestines dump loads of fluid into my bloodstream to counteract the sugar overload. My heart races, I feel like I'm burning up, I get light-headed, and generally feel like I want to die for about 30 minutes. Then I have to sleep for an hour or so to recover. It's bad enough when it happens at home, but it's happened a couple times in public, and it really blows. The same thing happens when I eat things that are greasy or fatty.
I have to avoid fresh-baked bread, because I don't produce enough stomach acid to break it down, so it becomes a big lump in my stomach and gets stuck. I have to avoid rice because it expands in my stomach, which is about the size of my thumb, and gets stuck. I have to chew each bite of food to the consistency of applesauce because if I swallow something that is bigger than my stomach opening (about the size of a pencil eraser), it will get stuck. When something gets stuck, the only thing I can do is try to puke it out. If that doesn't work, I will end up in the ER at Abbott-Northwestern, getting the stuck food removed by endoscopy. Not fun, and definitely not attractive. So far, my fear of such distress and my fear of making a spectacle of myself in public has kept me from breaking the eating rules of a bariatric post-op.
I have to exercise at least three times a week, just like anyone else. I do an hour of cardio and a lot of strength training three to five days a week. If I don't do this, I run the risk of gaining the weight back.
I eat three small meals a day, and I avoid snacking as much as possible. I drink anywhere from 42-64 oz of water every day. I work hard to get in 50-80 grams of protein a day. I avoid carbs. I average 500-700 calories a day. I take multivitamins and chewable calcium supplements every day, and I give myself a vitamin B12 injection once a month. Sometimes I snack way more than I should, and I have been known to make a meal out of a stack of barbecue flavored Pringles and then try to justify it.
On the appearances front, I still have an extensive map of stretch marks from all the excess weight and several pregnancies. I have loose skin that can only be corrected by having several expensive plastic surgeries. It is hard to look at myself in the mirror without my clothes, because I look like the saggy-baggy elephant from that Little Golden Book story. I am a wreck. My hair started falling out about two months after my surgery as a result of the shock of major surgery on my system coupled with accelerated weight loss. Now that I'm through losing weight my hair is starting to get thicker again, but a lot of it is coming in white.
On the emotional side, I feel like I don't even know who I am anymore. I feel like I am capable of so much more than I gave myself credit for before surgery, and I feel I have more to offer now that I am healthy, but I am not at all sure how to go about reaching for the happiness and fulfillment I feel I want and deserve. Also, men look at me differently and treat me differently. At first I was thoroughly disgusted, but now I've come to terms with it and can see the humor in it. I am ashamed to say that I have occasionally used my appearance to get what I want, like getting the cook at McDonald's to make me an egg mcmuffin even though it was at least a half hour after breakfast ended, or letting a guy at the bar buy me a drink even though I told him he would get nothing in return. I am still trying to come to terms with my appearance. Let me tell you, I've learned that there is safety in obesity, because it can make you invisible to the world. All of a sudden people see me, and it's really kind of scary. I'm not always sure how to react. Suddenly I'm vulnerable in a way that I've never been before. I do miss the anonymity I had when I was overweight.
Now that I've stated the downside of weight loss surgery, let me say that I would do it all again in a split second if I had to. There is nothing like being able to play with my kids, going for long walks, fitting on the rides at Valleyfair, being able to stay awake all day, and sleeping well at night. I don't miss my pre-surgery regimen of eight different medications twice a day, or the finger sticks to check my blood sugar four times a day. Even with the drawbacks, even with the strict food rules, even though I'm having to redefine who I am, having this surgery was one of the best things I've ever done for myself.
(Another deep breath)... and that's the whole story. My apologies to those of you who feel I have misled you up until this point. I feel much better now that I've come clean.
I had gastric bypass surgery on November 17th, 2005. There, I said it.
Now, some people are under the misguided assumption that weight loss surgery is the easy way out, the magic cure, the silver bullet. My older sister actually said, "You cheated." I am here to tell you that it's not that easy.
When other women tell me they are jealous of me I laugh. Yes, I am at a normal weight. Yes, I can wear a size 6. Yes, I can exercise, enjoy physical activity, and have a lot more energy and stamina. Yes, I look like a totally different person. But it's not all sunshine and lollipops.
I had this surgery because I was diabetic, had heart problems, had acid reflux disease that was burning a hole in my esophagus, and have a neurological disease that was made worse by my excessive weight. I ate when I was bored, stressed, sad, happy, angry... food was my drug of choice. I finally came to the realization that my eating habits would kill me, and that, after 18 years of yo-yo dieting, schemes and scams, and exercise programs I couldn't commit to, I was powerless to change. I knew that I had to make it physically impossible to overeat or I would be dead within ten years.
I am one of the few people who has been blessed enough to not have any real complications, but there are plenty of people who end up with infections, strictures that close off the opening to their stomach, vomiting, paralysis of the stomach and intestinal muscles, and some even die as a result of the surgery.
I can't eat sweets. No candy, no desserts, no regular soda, no birthday cake, no pumpkin pie at Thanksgiving. It is awkward to refuse dessert at a party or a dinner at someone's house, and more awkward to explain why.Too much sugar causes a condition called dumping, where the intestines dump loads of fluid into my bloodstream to counteract the sugar overload. My heart races, I feel like I'm burning up, I get light-headed, and generally feel like I want to die for about 30 minutes. Then I have to sleep for an hour or so to recover. It's bad enough when it happens at home, but it's happened a couple times in public, and it really blows. The same thing happens when I eat things that are greasy or fatty.
I have to avoid fresh-baked bread, because I don't produce enough stomach acid to break it down, so it becomes a big lump in my stomach and gets stuck. I have to avoid rice because it expands in my stomach, which is about the size of my thumb, and gets stuck. I have to chew each bite of food to the consistency of applesauce because if I swallow something that is bigger than my stomach opening (about the size of a pencil eraser), it will get stuck. When something gets stuck, the only thing I can do is try to puke it out. If that doesn't work, I will end up in the ER at Abbott-Northwestern, getting the stuck food removed by endoscopy. Not fun, and definitely not attractive. So far, my fear of such distress and my fear of making a spectacle of myself in public has kept me from breaking the eating rules of a bariatric post-op.
I have to exercise at least three times a week, just like anyone else. I do an hour of cardio and a lot of strength training three to five days a week. If I don't do this, I run the risk of gaining the weight back.
I eat three small meals a day, and I avoid snacking as much as possible. I drink anywhere from 42-64 oz of water every day. I work hard to get in 50-80 grams of protein a day. I avoid carbs. I average 500-700 calories a day. I take multivitamins and chewable calcium supplements every day, and I give myself a vitamin B12 injection once a month. Sometimes I snack way more than I should, and I have been known to make a meal out of a stack of barbecue flavored Pringles and then try to justify it.
On the appearances front, I still have an extensive map of stretch marks from all the excess weight and several pregnancies. I have loose skin that can only be corrected by having several expensive plastic surgeries. It is hard to look at myself in the mirror without my clothes, because I look like the saggy-baggy elephant from that Little Golden Book story. I am a wreck. My hair started falling out about two months after my surgery as a result of the shock of major surgery on my system coupled with accelerated weight loss. Now that I'm through losing weight my hair is starting to get thicker again, but a lot of it is coming in white.
On the emotional side, I feel like I don't even know who I am anymore. I feel like I am capable of so much more than I gave myself credit for before surgery, and I feel I have more to offer now that I am healthy, but I am not at all sure how to go about reaching for the happiness and fulfillment I feel I want and deserve. Also, men look at me differently and treat me differently. At first I was thoroughly disgusted, but now I've come to terms with it and can see the humor in it. I am ashamed to say that I have occasionally used my appearance to get what I want, like getting the cook at McDonald's to make me an egg mcmuffin even though it was at least a half hour after breakfast ended, or letting a guy at the bar buy me a drink even though I told him he would get nothing in return. I am still trying to come to terms with my appearance. Let me tell you, I've learned that there is safety in obesity, because it can make you invisible to the world. All of a sudden people see me, and it's really kind of scary. I'm not always sure how to react. Suddenly I'm vulnerable in a way that I've never been before. I do miss the anonymity I had when I was overweight.
Now that I've stated the downside of weight loss surgery, let me say that I would do it all again in a split second if I had to. There is nothing like being able to play with my kids, going for long walks, fitting on the rides at Valleyfair, being able to stay awake all day, and sleeping well at night. I don't miss my pre-surgery regimen of eight different medications twice a day, or the finger sticks to check my blood sugar four times a day. Even with the drawbacks, even with the strict food rules, even though I'm having to redefine who I am, having this surgery was one of the best things I've ever done for myself.
(Another deep breath)... and that's the whole story. My apologies to those of you who feel I have misled you up until this point. I feel much better now that I've come clean.
The Fair is a veritable smorgasbord-orgasbord-orgasbord...
We went to the "Great Minnesota Get-Together" on Friday night... every year I get more disenchanted with the frickin' fair.
The prices are outrageous... I mean, two bucks for a cup of Crystal Light lemonade??? Come on! And you know the midway rides are getting lame when the operator apologizes to you as you exit the ride.
The thing that gets me every year are the frickin' crowds. Why is it that the state fair removes everyone's ability to navigate and to avoid trampling people? If you know me well you know that I hate, hate, hate being touched by strangers. I get the "fight-or-flight" feeling going, and I get anxious and pissed off. One year, when I was really pregnant and couldn't control my emotions, I got so pissed off about people bumping into me constantly that I started pushing back. My parents were appalled. This year I was able to control my inner bitch, but I left wanting to beat down the next stranger who bumped into me, came to a dead stop in front of me, or came walking straight at me with no intention of stepping to one side or the other. Do not engage me in a standoff, people, because I can guarantee that you will not win.
The funniest thing I saw were these two old ladies who were riding giant tricycles. I kid you not. Adult sized trikes. With baskets on the front. Holy crap. I turned away to get my phone so I could snap a picture, but when I turned back they had gotten off the trikes to buy some cheese curds. Dang it. I gotta learn to move faster, because my prey always manages to escape before I can snap a pic.
I was sort of proud of myself as far as my food choices. I went for the high protein just like I'm supposed to do. I did cheat a little by drinking with my food so I could eat more, but all in all I was good. I had sauteed gator, shrimp cocktail, frozen grapes, and two sugar-free lemonades.
The kids were well-behaved, which made things a great deal easier. By around 9 PM they started whining about wanting to go home, but that was cool. We were about ready to go anyway.
I'm kinda glad we went for the kids' sakes, but I can't say I would mind skipping it next year.
The prices are outrageous... I mean, two bucks for a cup of Crystal Light lemonade??? Come on! And you know the midway rides are getting lame when the operator apologizes to you as you exit the ride.
The thing that gets me every year are the frickin' crowds. Why is it that the state fair removes everyone's ability to navigate and to avoid trampling people? If you know me well you know that I hate, hate, hate being touched by strangers. I get the "fight-or-flight" feeling going, and I get anxious and pissed off. One year, when I was really pregnant and couldn't control my emotions, I got so pissed off about people bumping into me constantly that I started pushing back. My parents were appalled. This year I was able to control my inner bitch, but I left wanting to beat down the next stranger who bumped into me, came to a dead stop in front of me, or came walking straight at me with no intention of stepping to one side or the other. Do not engage me in a standoff, people, because I can guarantee that you will not win.
The funniest thing I saw were these two old ladies who were riding giant tricycles. I kid you not. Adult sized trikes. With baskets on the front. Holy crap. I turned away to get my phone so I could snap a picture, but when I turned back they had gotten off the trikes to buy some cheese curds. Dang it. I gotta learn to move faster, because my prey always manages to escape before I can snap a pic.
I was sort of proud of myself as far as my food choices. I went for the high protein just like I'm supposed to do. I did cheat a little by drinking with my food so I could eat more, but all in all I was good. I had sauteed gator, shrimp cocktail, frozen grapes, and two sugar-free lemonades.
The kids were well-behaved, which made things a great deal easier. By around 9 PM they started whining about wanting to go home, but that was cool. We were about ready to go anyway.
I'm kinda glad we went for the kids' sakes, but I can't say I would mind skipping it next year.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
