Tomorrow, Tomorrow...I love ya, Tomorrow!

I can't believe my surgery is finally tomorrow!!! I also can't believe I made it though the pre-op diet without one of the cats being eaten :)

I'm super excited and impatient, but strangely enough not nervous at all. Unfortunately, my hospital is pretty close to the UN, and for those of you not in NY, traffic is a disaster all over the city this week, as the UN is in session. I am used to dealing with this, as I only work a block from the UN, but it could be a pain in the ass tomorrow morning when my mom and I are trying to drive to the hospital. Hoping they schedule me for an early surgery so we can try to beat the traffic (and then I get to go home and get into my own bed that much earlier!)

So, weird question re: full liquids vs mushies. My surgeon has us do 10 days full liquids, and then 10 days mushies. Their definition of "liquid" is, if it can be consumed thru a straw, it's a liquid. This isn't a problem with soups, etc...but wouldn't this count Jell-o out? Does this mean no yogurt for 10 days? No string cheese? Sigh.

I am going to hit up Cosi and buy some of their yummy nummy tomato soup to have for the weekend, when I will hopefully be up to eating again...and then hit GNC up for some Isopure. Any specific recommendations in that area? I've never bought any sort of protein before...we have a couple of kinds of whey at my house for my dad, but he doesn't exactly endorse them!

Also a quick shout out to Lynne (http://girlbanded.blogspot.com), who is having her surgery today! See you on the other side, lady!

Made It thru Week 1, and my First BYOC!!!

Whew. Week one of pre-op diet was rough rough rough. A lot of people said by Day 3, they weren't as hungry....this was not the case for me. I thought it would never go away! But thankfully by Day 8 (yesterday), I found I actually wasn't that hungry and even ended up skipping a shake. Hard to believe I only have 6 days 'til the day of surgery! Everyone keeps asking me if I'm nervous, and I have to say - no!!!! Impatient and excited, but nervous, no. I did lose almost 5 lbs already on pre-op, even with TOM making an appearance today, and with my little cheats, so I am hoping to get down a few more before Thursday, which is the big day.

I am almost caught up on everyone's blogs, and do apologize for how long it's taken me to follow some of you back! If I am not following you back yet - please leave a comment with your blog link! I couldn't find some people's actual blogs. However, I did get a new toy this week, a brandy new MacBook Pro (I am a total Apple geek) which I want to spend lots of time playing with, so I will probably be online a lot more in the next few weeks! Plus I love typing on the keyboard (much bigger than my old Macbook) so you'll be getting lots of blogs from me, I am sure.

Onto my first BYOC! How exciting!

1. Last week we asked your favorite thing about being an adult. This week the question is: what is one thing you miss about being a child?

Definitely summers off! Even though things do slow down for me at work during the summer, what with people going on vacations, etc - I still have to wake up early, which is NOT something I am a fan of.

2. When you make a serious life decision – do you use your head or your heart?

Always my heart (which may or may not have the best results)...and then I use my head to figure out how the hell I am going to make it happen. I am known in my circle of friends for making insane decisions, and then somehow always pulling it off, so I guess I have a pretty good system going!

3. In relation to blogs….are you a never commenter, a sometimes commenter, an almost always commenter or a direct emailer kinda person?

Can I add a new category in between sometimes and almost always, called usually? I try to comment a decent amount of the time, but sometimes I don't have anything to really offer, and I don't want to be trite.

4. If life was a flavor – would it be savory, sweet or sour?

Savory. Served with grilled onions, lol.

5. Repeat question. Summarize your week in life or in blogland.

My week - well, as I said above, just been trying to get through pre-op. Working my last shifts at the night job for a few weeks, and trying to get everything done at day job. I also applied for a new position at day job, which is a level up in both title and salary, so I am crossing my fingers that something happens there!

My First Blog Award and Day 7

I was nominated for my first blog award! I am all veklempt :)


1. Answer the question: If you had one chance to go back and change one thing in your life, would you and what would it be?

I don't think I would change anything. Even the mistakes I've made have either led to learning experiences, or led me towards things in my life that I now hold precious. Oh, I know what I would change - I would change not winning the MegaMillions the last time I played (sucker was at like $220 million!!!)

2. Pick 6 people and give them this award. You then have to inform the person that they have been selected for the award.

Stephanie (http://dreamsofskinnyhighheels.blogspot.com) for welcoming me so warmly into this little blogging community.

Nicole (http://bigfatbandjourney.blogspot.com) for being my NYU bandster buddy - she had her surgery on Monday, and I am hoping it all went well!

Sarah (http://losingweightgainingtons.blogspot.com) for being a HUGE inspiration (shhh, don't tell anyone, but I want to run too!!!)

Amy (http://cheeseandsunkist.blogspot.com) for being the bandster that everyone wants to be!

Colls (http://colls-thistimeimeanit.blogspot.com) for being a fellow NYC area bandster and having kick ass red hair!

Yana (http://girlmeetsband.blogspot.com) for being the first bandster blog I found, which led me to all of you!

3. You have to thank the person (people) who gave you the award.

Thanks so much to The Banded Lady (http://thebandedlady.blogspot.com)! I am a newbie around here, and am just beginning to get involved in this wonderful "family". I never imagined how much support I'd receive from this group. Woo!


I have made it to Day 7 of pre-op. It's getting slightly better, after the modifications I made. Last night, I went shopping to buy some things for my new apartment that I'll be moving into in November. After finishing off the bathroom shopping at Bed, Bath & Beyond (easily my fave store), and I headed down to Target to return some stuff and pick up a few other things. I was starving, and made the decision to cheat. The "cafe" was closed by the time I checked out, which I decided to take as a sign. Driving home (about 10 minutes or so) I waged a war with my own brain on whether or not I was going to stop somewhere and get something. I admitted to myself that I wasn't actually hungry, just tired, cranky and way over this diet. Somehow, rational brain won over cranky emotion, and I went home, had a jello and my final shake of the night, then went to bed.

I had my first esophagram this morning - wasn't nearly as bad as I was expecting it to be. Over pretty quickly too. I think I am all set for surgery, just need the day to actually get here now!!!

Day 5 - Making Some Changes

Wow, I can't believe I am already at day 5 of this God-awful pre-op diet. I think I read on someone's else's blog this weekend (from back when they were doing the diet) - that they bitterly regretted ever saying that they couldn't wait until they were doing the 2 week, all liquids diet. I hear ya, sister. I said it many times leading up to this and I will never say it again!

With that said - I totally lied when i said I wasn't going to cheat any more. LIED. Some were very minor, one was a total freakout. No need to go into details, but suffice it to say, that I have not been bale to stick to the surgeon's orders on any single day of this so far!!! So I decided, in order to avoid another major meltdown that involves Golden Arches - a few tweaks need to be made.

With that admission out of the way, I am going to swap one of the shakes (Carnation IB in my case, so I am allowed 6) for a Greek yogurt. It's the same calories, a scootch less fat, a teensy bit more protein, and keeps me feeling full MUCH longer. I am also going to double my veggie allowance to 4 cups a day (dr said 2, but I don't see how eating more steamed non-starchy veggies could hurt). Then I'll allow myself a string cheese sometime during the day, and a slice of this really great vermont cheddar at night (pre-sliced so no wiggle room in serving size). I am cutting out the broth, because all it does is slosh around in my tummy and make me hungrier. I'm going to up the water a bit (altho it's pretty high already - a typical day is 3 liters). Hopefully these minor changes will be enough to keep me on the (mostly) straight and (sort of) narrow. I'd rather plan in a little less rigidity, then freak out, and go to McD's for 8 chicken McNuggets and a double cheeseburger (errr, not that that happened....)

I can officially say that my surgery is next week now. Can't wait! It means I need to get a little more organized at work, so I don't leave anything hanging for the colleague who will be covering for me in my absence.

One teeny request - everyone send good luck vibes to Nicole over at A Little Bit Less of Me, she is having her surgery today! Yay Nicole! Can't wait 'til I get to join you in the club, and sending you big virtual (but gentle) hugs!!!

Day 2 of Pre-Op Diet

Whew. Made it through Day 1, sort of. I have to confess to you lovely ladies - I cheated. Just a little bit, and I felt so guilty about it afterwards that I don't think I'll be doing that again.

So I had my 6 shakes, plus 2 Jell-Os, a cup of broth, and about 2 cups of steamed broccoli and cauliflower (actually really good with a squeeze of lemon juice and some garlic pepper salt - that may have been because I was so hungry tho!) Then I got home from work (had night job last night), after successfully avoiding ALLL of the food that was in front of me, that I was serving, that my co-workers were eating, etc, and I snapped a little. The other night before the pre-op started, my dad made pot roast (nom nom nom), and I made a Brie-en-croute appetizer (basically Brie smothered in caramelized onions and apples, wrapped in puff pastry and baked), which we served with homemade crostini (sliced baguette brushed on both sides with EVOO, and seasoned with salt and pepper). Some of the crostini were left over, and were sitting in a baggie on the counter.

So when I went to take out the garbage, I brought 2 with me, and ate them in our front yard. Oh my God did they taste good. Then I realized that I had essentially snuck out of the house to eat something. So I came back inside, and something in my brain thought it would be a good idea to eat one of the fudge covered graham crackers in the freezer for my dad. After that, I went and locked myself inside my room and forced myself to fall asleep.

WHEW. OK. That's over with. I feel so guilty about "cheating" on my first day of the pre-op, that I am going to kill myself to stay on the rest of this diet. 1 day down, 13 to go (and today is half over). 1 shake in for the day, 5 more to go. Thank God I don't have to work tonight.

On the bright side, I was down 2.2 lbs this morning! If this keeps up (and I will be ok with it if not), it'll give me a nice head start to get through Bandster Hell with.

Thanks for all of the supportive comments yesterday - I truly think the people here are successful because of the community, and I am honored and grateful to be allowed into your circle :) I don't really know you that well yet, but I kinda think I love every one of you!

And So It Begins...

I started my pre-op diet this morning. Oh joy. 14 days of 6 shakes (I am using Carnation Instant Breakfast powder mixed with 1% milk - which is something I love in "real" life...we'll see how I feel about it in a few weeks!), sugar free jello, sugar free popsicles, and 2 cups of steamed (aka boring) veggies a day. I am one shake and one .5L bottle of water in for the day (my company is very nice and provides us free bottled water, so it makes it very easy for me to track....I just count the empties on my desk at the end fo the day!) So far, not hungry, and I am only a half hour or so away from shake #2.

I also finally added in a ticker, and stats, etc. As I mentioned in a previous post, I am kinda OCD, so I wanted to wait until today to post exact start weight, etc. Today's weight is what I will be using from here on out.

I go for my pre-surgical testing tomorrow, and then my esophagram next Wednesday. Not really looking forward to either one, but at least the testing tomorrow keeps me out of the house a few extra hours (more on this in the next paragraph). I can't believe that 2 weeks from today, I am finally going to be banded! I am so excited, and I am not going to lie - the time off work will be reeeeeeally nice as well! I have a "boring" day job, at a pharma company in NYC, and then I work a few nights a week as a waitress in a comedy club. I'll be out of the day job for almost a week (having surgery on Thursday, will come back to work the next Wednesday). I get a whole month off of the night job!

So, back to being out of the house for a few hours - right now, my parents' house is a dieting minefield. As I mentioned way back when, my father is currently battling gastro-esophageal cancer. The tumor is right at the bottom of his esophagus, which makes it very difficult for him to eat. He's lost approximately 130 lbs since November or so. Because of this, there are lots and lots of high calorie treats in the house to try to tempt him (at this point, empty calories still count as calories for him, since we want him to GAIN weight). This should be fun...

I will leave you with a pic from last Saturday night of me and my friend M (we have been friends since we were 16) at S's show. The girls are trying to escape a little, but I felt damn good that night...a little less so upon seeing this pic. Sigh.

Thank You!

Just a quickie here - wanted to say hello to my 31 (!!!) followers - thanks Stephanie! If I am not following you yet, it's because I want to do this right and read your entire blog before clicking the follow button (can you say OCD?!) This way, when your posts pop up in my list, I can read them right away :)

I am getting there - life's been a bit hectic between moving out of my apt and back into the parents' house, getting settled in here, still working both jobs, and oh yeah, this one was fun, a quickie trip to LA.

I took some before pics today, and went for the gusto. I stripped down to bra and underwear. NOT PRETTY. I'll get the nerve to post those in a few days, along with some starting stats. Pre-op liquids start on Thursday! I have less than 23 hours to eat "regular" food for quite some time. Wowsers.