Opinions for Nothing

50 Reasons It Sucks to Be Fat

I am having gastric bypass surgery tomorrow. If you have been reading my autobiographical posts, you know I have been overweight for two-thirds of my life. I started looking into gastric bypass in February. I decided to go through with it in May, after my mom was killed in a car crash. I don't want to struggle with my weight until the day I die, like she did.

At my last weigh-in, a couple weeks ago, I weighed 286 pounds. I am 5'6" tall. I imagine I will weigh about 280 tomorrow when I go in for surgery. My scale is broken, so I don't know for sure.

I wrote the following list on July 11th, when I weighed 295 pounds, my highest weight ever.

1. I weigh as much as the Olsen twins, plus one of their friends.
2. My feet hurt.
3. I'm not pretty anymore because my face is so fat.
4. My knees hurt.
5. I can't find cute clothes in my size.
6. Even cute clothes in my size look like crap on me.
7. I can't wear skirts because of the painful chafing of my thighs.
8. I can't wear heels.
9. Even my armpits have rolls.
10. Skin tags.
11. I can't do my own pedicures.
12. Sex is [redacted]*
13. My ankles swell up at the end of the day.
14. I haven't worn a dress since my wedding day.
15. Heartburn.
16. Even one flight of stairs has me breathing heavy.
17. I'm too heavy for my bike.
18. No one ogles me.
19. Stretch marks everywhere.
20. I have two bellies, one below my waistband and one above it.
21. My breasts are sad sacks.
22. My butt moves independently of my body.
23. I've damaged my body so much that when I do get to my goal weight, I'll need plastic surgery to attain even an approximation of a normal body.
24. I rarely want to take my girls for a walk or to the park.
25. I don't want to be seen in a bathing suit.
26. I barely want to be seen fully clothed.
27. I'm not as fun or as interesting as I used to be.
28. I want [redacted]
29. Shaving my legs is a chore.
30. I don't even want to walk to the next block for lunch.
31. I needed a seat belt extender on my last flight.
32. My blood pressure and cholesterol levels have crept up (but are still normal).
33. I sweat.
34. I'm lethargic.
35. I don't fit into the bath tub.
36. I don't want to go to Magic Mountain anymore because I am afraid I won't fit on the rides.
37. I don't have enough pictures of me with my kids.
38. I'm worried about [redacted]
39. My seatbelt buckle digs into my hip.
40. I didn't buy a Miata because I thought I would look ridiculous.
41. I can't play comfortably on the floor with my girls.
42. I can't wear tank tops. I mean, I don't.
43. I had to get my wedding rings resized.
44. I had to turn down an opportunity to get a free mini-wardrobe from Gap for a blogging conference I [was] attending. They don't carry my size.
45. When I was pregnant, I had to mail order most of my clothes.
46. And no one could tell I was pregnant.
47. [redacted]
48. [redacted]
49. I can't run.
50. I am too embarrassed to take yoga classes again.

*This is from my journal. I didn't remember there were a few things that were a little too personal to post.

What I've Been Reading (Links Galore)

After I finished the Hunger Games Trilogy, I moved on to the Vampire Academy series. Hunger Games kept me hooked from start to finish and was excellent. I recommend it to anyone, unless you are staunchly against post-apocalyptic fiction. I didn't take to the Vampire Academy series right away. Once I got into the second half of the first book, though, I found it entertaining. There is one book left in that series, which will be released in December. Yesterday, I started reading The Happiness Project by Gretchen Rubin on the Kindle app on my iPhone.

Online, here are the things I have read and bookmarked:

Cheap Styling Products for Curly Hair [That Work]

A list of popular weight loss surgery posts on Journey to a Healthier Me

Roundup: Social Media Monitoring Tools

 

Getting Things Done: My GTD System

A few years ago, I read a book called Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity. (Google it for one billion articles about it.) It is a small book and a fast read, but that's all I did -- read it. I didn't get anything done. It was probably another year before I picked it up again, prompted by a mention of GTD (what organization nerds call it) on a web site. I slowly started to put the principles into practice. I went through a few paper-based implementations before I arrived at the one shown here.

This is a junior size Circa notebook from Levenger. The pages are removable. The tabs I use correspond to the "contexts" I have (a GTD term). They are: to do at work, to do at home, to do online, to do on the phone, and to do someday. Anything that I am actually going to accomplish gets categorized onto a list within one of the first four tabs. Anything that I want to do but might not actually get done, is put on a list on the last tab. I used to track dates of entry and completion, but those ended up being unnecessary. Now, I just use a check box. When a page is all checked off, I take it out and recycle it.

I tried various paperless solutions but none ever worked as well for me as the paper-based solution. The problem with my paper-based solution is that I only looked at my notebook when I was at work, even if I carried it around in my purse. It meant that I stayed productive at work, but not so much at home. (By the way, I credit using the GTD system with a promotion to Director, and a couple of fat raises, even though I took two maternity leaves two years apart.) With my recent switch from a BlackBerry Curve to the iPhone 4, I thought it was time to give it another shot. I asked the magic Twitter if it knew a good GTD app for the iPhone and girlvaughn said that she uses ToodleDo.

I instantly liked ToodleDo. It is a perfect electronic representation of my paper-based system. I can now attend meetings with only my iPhone and, more importantly, I use it all the time, not just at work. I have been much more productive in my personal life since downloading the app. Once I really get used to being paperless, I may give Evernote a try. It seems so daunting to me, though.

Cleaning My Hair with Baking Soda

A couple months ago, I came across this blog post titled, "How to Clean Your Hair Without Shampoo." I was intrigued by the idea that my hair could be clean and shiny and frizz-free by washing it with only a mixture of water and baking soda, and maybe using a finishing rinse of water and apple cider vinegar.

For the past three weeks, I have been using only water and baking soda to clean my hair and, for the most part, I quit using other styling products. I also added a bit of tea tree oil to my mixture to keep the lice away since lice was found in my daughter's school.

This morning, I washed my hair with good old (chemicals) shampoo and slathered it with (more chemicals) conditioner. I'd had enough! I felt like the mixture wasn't getting my hair clean enough. I know the author of that post said that it could take a month or two before your hair stops being extra oily and gets used to the new regimen, and I could have fiddled with the proportions of my mixture, but I just don't have the patience for it right now. Maybe I will try again in the summer.

When I Was Fourteen

When I was fourteen, I met my mom's boyfriend, Roger, for the first time at my birthday party. It was a family party at my grandma's house. I don't remember if he bought me anything for my birthday, but for Christmas that year, he bought bowling balls for my sister and I. He bought my mother a diamond watch.

We left my grandma's house and moved into a condo in Lakeside Village in Camarillo with Roger. He had two small children, Chris, age 8, and Jenny, age 6, who lived with their mother.

I realized that the only way I was going to go to college was if I earned some scholarships and paid for it myself. I quit slacking off in school and buckled down in my honors classes. I usually ate lunch in the quad with Melissa Greason, Shelly Rosecrans, and Kim Rust, who were in my grade. Through them, I became friends with Karla Whitaker, Heather Lewis, and Carmen Kisner. I don't remember if Jennifer Poole was friends with them yet or if she came the next year.

In California, all ninth graders have to take Health class. (Wear a condom! This is what genital warts look like!) Some of them fail and have to take the class again in tenth grade. That was the case with Maria, who sat next to me in Health class. Maria is still the most badass girl I have ever known. I helped her pass Health class and she offered to jack up anyone who messed with me.

My Super Easy Tamale Casserole Recipe

This is so easy and delicious that I can't believe I thought of it on my own.

1 lb. ground beef, browned and drained*

1 can of corn, drained**

1 can Ro-Tel Original Chile Tomatoes, with juice

Shredded cheddar cheese***

1 tiny can of mild green chiles, drained****

1 package corn bread mix*****

Mix the ground beef, corn, cheese, and Ro-Tel in a 9x9 square casserole dish, or a slightly bigger oval dish. Prepare the corn bread mix according to directions. Add the green chiles and cheese to the batter, mix. Pour the batter on top of the other ingredients, completely covering them. If I use a 9x9 pan, I usually have some batter left over. If I use a larger pan, I use all of the batter. Add a little more cheese on top. Bake according to the corn bread directions. Make sure the corn bread is very golden brown on top, or it will be too gooey on the bottom.

*I've used fake ground beef soy crumbles and it was still good. It's probably good with ground turkey, too.

**I've used frozen corn as well. Still good.

***Use as much or as little cheese as you want. Or none.

****The green chiles are totally optional. I only recently started doing this. Delicious.

*****I use Marie Callendar's corn bread mix. It tastes the best and only requires water.

My Perfectly Easy Stovetop Tuna Noodle Casserole Recipe

When I was living in Alaska after college, two things motivated me to make tuna noodle casserole: homesickness and hunger. I had no idea how to make tuna noodle casserole and I didn't have internet access. Plus, it was 1997, so it wasn't like there a million recipe web sites around. I knew the major components were tuna, egg noodles, and peas, so I started with those ingredients. I ended up making a stovetop version that requires no oven cooking and no culinary skills.

Stovetop Tuna Noodle Casserole

1 can of peas

1 small can of tuna

Half a bag of No Yolks wide egg noodles**

I can of Campbell's Condensed Healthy Request Cream of Mushroom soup***

1 tablespoon of mayonnaise****

Paula Deen's House Seasoning to taste*****

I use two pans to make this recipe because it is faster that way. I boil the noodles in one pan and combine all of the other ingredients in the other pan. Heat those ingredients while the noodles are boiling. When the noodles are done, drain them, then add them to the other ingredients. Stir and serve.

You can make this in one pan, too, if you want to save dishes, or if you are a new college grad and only have one good pan. Boil the noodles first and drain them. While the noodles are in a collander in the sink, heat all of the other ingredients in the pan, then add the noodles back in.

Easy, right?

**Half of the normal size bag, not the jumbo size bag. This recipe works best with No Yolks noodles, which are thin and light. I find regular egg noodles to be too thick.

***Full fat cream of mushroom soup is too thick and creamy and doesn't have as much flavor as the Healthy Request version.

****The mayo is optional, but it is only one tablespoon and it really makes a difference, so leave it in.

*****Before I started using the Paula Deen's House Seasoning, which has salt, pepper, garlic, and onion, I just used salt, pepper, and garlic powder.

More than you want to know about my right breast

At the follow-up appointment with the surgeon on Monday, he removed the steri-strips that held the incision together. The wound closed up nicely and looks good. In fact, you can barely see it because he made the incision right along the edge of the areola. If you compare Righty to Lefty (a.k.a. Biggie and Smallie), the areola looks a little jacked up, but that's fine since it never fully recovered from pregnancy and breast feeding. I'm just glad I don't have a Frankenstein boob. Or cancer.

Shutterfly Holiday Photo Cards

Every year about this time, I start to drool over the holiday cards on Shutterfly and I dream about getting a professional family portrait taken and being witty for a full page of a family newsletter. That particular dream has never come true. In fact, I don't think I sent out cards at all last year, since that was right about the time that THE WORST YEAR OF MY LIFE was starting. It's over now (I say, definitively, hoping to ward off any other bad things), and I am once again salivating over the holiday photo cards at Shutterfly. This year, I am actually going to do it. I have already scheduled the family photo session. Now all I have to do is choose a card.

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NaBloPoMo

"What the hell is NaBloPoMo," you might be asking. Or, you might be asking, "What the heck is NaBloPoMo," since you don't like to curse.

It's National Blog Posting Month. Participants commit to posting every day this month.

Two down, twenty-eight to go.