Post-Op Week 48 Progress Report: In Which I am Too Small For Lane Bryant

Not surprised by this week’s progress, as it follows the pattern I have come to know over the last few months.  I have made a few tweaks to my program in the past two weeks and I think they are paying off. 

I’m lifting weights now, and working out 3 days a week for a minimum of 60 minutes each time.   I decided about 3 weeks ago that if a workout was going to count toward my goal of completing 100 workouts this year, that instead of it being 30 minutes in duration, it had to be a minimum of 60 minutes in length.  I toyed with the idea of having them be 45 minutes long, but then I thought, why?  It’s just 15 more minutes.  So an hour became the target workout length.

I have also started supplementing with green tea capsules and Co-Q10.  My doctor’s plan calls for you to drink green tea, which I hate.  I can’t get past the taste, so I decided to get the same benefits from taking caplets instead, 800 mg daily.  A friend has recommended trying out a higher-grade green tea, which I may do.  I’m taking the Co-Q10 because I still take a medication for my triglycerides.  This medication is something I will likely take the rest of my life as heart disease runs rampant through my mother’s side of the family, and about 9 years ago, I demonstrated signs of hyperlipidemia.  Not wanting to risk a heart attack due to clogged arteries (which had happened to two relatives on my mom’s side–a cousin and an uncle, one of whom was under 30 at the time of his death), I got myself to a cardiologist who put me through a battery of tests and determined that I should be taking Tricor due to my family’s history.  So I still take it, just at a much reduced dose.  Taking Co-Q10 was recommended to me by a doctor friend a while back and I finally started it back up again two weeks ago.

This week’s challenges are many:  it is the first week of summer, and I have to build myself a structured schedule so that I can stay on track.  That is one thing the school year is good for in terms of my weight loss: structure.  Giving myself a structured schedule in the summertime has always been a challenge for me, but I think I am equal to the task.  My plan is to wake up each morning at 8-8:30, have a bit of breakfast, do what I need to get done here at home and then hit the gym for an hour at least 3 days during the week, just as I am doing now.  There will be some mornings that I need to be up earlier due to work commitments, but I think this schedule can work.  Bedtime will be by 11:30-12 each night, just as it is during the school year.  I want my schedule to mimic my school year schedule as much as possible so that staying on track with eating and exercise is easier to manage.  Last summer, I didn’t have this problem but I think it was mostly due to the fact that at this time last year, I was pre-op but not yet pre-op dieting, and then after July 8, all I did was drink meals all day long!

These next couple of weeks I also need to manage my stress (translation:  DO NOT EAT ALL THE FEELS), as I will be sitting out of a professional development event I normally participate in due to someone else’s screwup.  I’m still super pissed about it, but at this point, it’s out of my hands.  So this week will be spent at the gym, walking at the mall, and doing stuff around the house.  Not how I imagined the first part of my summer being, but I will live.  It is a mixed blessing once I think about it, because I would have been in a situation where mealtimes would have all been buffet-style, with no guarantee that high protein options would be available.  I would not have been able to drink as much water/tea as I currently do.  Exercise would not have been difficult, as the environment I would have been in would have allowed me to walk nearly 6-7 miles daily.  The biggest thing I’m going to miss is hanging out with my friends that I ONLY see at this event.  I haven’t seen some of them in two years now, and now it’ll be another year (if I’m asked back) before I can see them again.

*sigh*  I need to stop writing about it because the more I think about it, the more it pisses me off.

Anyway…today I got to celebrate a win.  I had a rewards check from Lane Bryant that I needed to spend before it expired–I always forget that I have the damned things and then they expire.  If you’ve ever gotten them, then you know they’re like free money.  So I decided I’d go see if they had some bras there that would fit me.

I went in, looked around at the lingerie half of the store since this particular location had a separate Cacique store (the LB lingerie division), and ran into a problem I never thought I’d ever have.

There wasn’t anything small enough to fit me.

This felt really odd to me.  I’d always had the opposite problem:  there was never anything BIG enough for me.  But now?  Nothing small enough.  Totally surreal, and unexpected.

I was still able to use the rewards check though.  I went ahead and bought some underwear because the bottom half of me still wears plus sized bottoms and most likely always will.  I determined today that I am built like a genie bottle:

from http://www.jeanniebottles.com

My butt and hips are always going to be much larger than my top half.  I am okay with this.

This whole idea of being too small for a store that I used to shop in almost exclusively is strange and foreign to me.  It isn’t clicking with me yet that in the near future, Lane Bryant may no longer be an option.  I already know that places like Catherine’s and Avenue are places I will never set foot in again to buy clothes for myself.  A part of me is glad that I will never have to buy clothes at those places again, but there is a part of me (Fat Girl, maybe?) that is confused and overwhelmed by the multitude of choices that exist for me now.  There are so many choices, and I want to wear them all!  Probably because for so long I’ve been confined to garish prints, black solids, and shapeless silhouettes.

Now that I’ve got a shape, and it’s not round, I’d like for it to be seen.  Stylishly, of course, but visible.

And if not shopping at Lane Bryant makes that possible, then I need to learn to be good with never shopping there again.  Not even for underwear.

It’s time to cancel that store card and move on.