Home again, and getting the house in order. Can I say how grateful I am that we can afford a little help? Adriana came yesterday morning and this morning -- yesterday let me run off to see Roshani before she left town, and today let me unpack the suitcases, put everything away, and make myself a leisurely breakfast. So nice. School starts again next week, but it's closed now, so it would be us 24-7 with the kids if we didn't have a little help. I love help. Adriana's mother cleans houses on the side, and we've not had house-cleaning help in the budget the last year, but I'm going to splurge and ask her to come out for New Year's. Because it just feels better, starting the year with a super-clean house.
Speaking of breakfast, I'm also trying to get myself in order, health-wise. According to the Wii, I gained 1.5 pounds over the holidays -- not great, but pretty much in line with average holiday weight gain. I would like those pounds to go away, so I'm going back on low carb today and starting up exercise again tomorrow. (It would be today, but am fighting a lingering cold with hacking cough; am trying to rest today and hope it's better by tomorrow.) If all goes well, I can lose that holiday weight in the next week and a half, before school starts. So that's the immediate and should-be-manageable goal. (Breakfast this morning: two eggs with onions, green chili, mexican cheese, one slice of multi-grain bread, a handful of grapes. Lunch will be a Lean Cuisine spa meal, Thai noodles with chicken.)
And then we'll see -- I'd really like to lose an additional 20-30 pounds, to get from overweight down to the normal weight range for my height. It's harder to do during the semester, though -- there are very few low-carb options on campus, aside from salad, and gods, I cannot bring myself to eat a cold salad in the middle of winter. I ought to pack curry lunches (with a bit of rice), but I often am not that together in the mornings, especially since I'm teaching at 9:30 this semester. (Better if I pack them the night before, actually. Maybe I can try that.) The big weight-loss project might have to wait 'til spring or summer -- we'll see.
I did sign up for a free exercise class ("Let's Get Moving: Improve your overall fitness: Spirit, Mind and Body. This workout concentrates on cardio, strength, flexibility and body composition. Core training and yoga stretches will relax and rejuvenate you.") at my YMCA, Jan 3 - Feb 13, three mornings a week (the days I'm not teaching). We'll see if I actually go. The gym is only a two block walk from my house, so that makes it pretty hard to justify wimping out. And yet, I bet I can do it. I'm very short on workout clothes that fit, for example -- that's always a good excuse for not working out, right? (Any recommendations on good workout clothes?)
As for the last body thing -- I have an appointment today to talk to a surgeon about breast reduction. I'm a little nervous, but am leaning strongly towards doing it. Need more info first, though -- we'll see what I think after the consultation. I do find myself mostly torn on what I'd want to aim towards in terms of size. B sounds great in terms of ease of dressing (no bra an option?), running, comfort. But it's a pretty big drop from DD, and I'm a little worried that I'd be weirded out to have my body change that much. I've always been curvy on top. C is a more modest shift -- but maybe I'd just be frustrated afterwards that I hadn't actually done enough to really address the back pain issues. Ugh. Hopefully the doctor will be willing to advise.
Any thoughts? I'm not sure how much choice I'm going to have about this in any case.
I don’t know if you’d be interested in this type of low-carb, but it’s what’s been working for me — Primal Blueprint. Then again, it turned out I was horrifically allergic to grains and cutting them out of my diet has been the best thing I’ve ever done. Period.
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As for breast reduction — The young woman I mentor (I think you met her at WisCon) did it — as did her mom — they’re both still *so* happy that they did it. Best of luck!
From a purely functional perspective, B sounds nice to me. Big enough to play with, small enough not to be a pain, what could be better. :^)
From an appearance perspective, one thing to think about is how you’ll look if your weight does or doesn’t change, for whatever reason. Will C boobs look relatively bigger than you want if you do lose a lot of weight? Will B boobs look relatively smaller than you want if you don’t?
For that matter, how will weight changes affect your breasts after surgery? (That might be something good to ask your doctor — if you drop to a B cup and then lose thirty pounds, what will be the net effect?)
Do you have access to a microwave at work? For no-prep, low cost, relatively healthy, warm and tasty office lunches I have a stash of canned soup. Hard to find tasty ones that aren’t high in sodium but I’d guess that low carb/low cal should be do-able.
I do have a microwave, but somehow soup seems…non-substantial. Unless it has lots of noodles, and then it seems high-carb. 🙂
But perhaps I can try creamy soups at work. Hmm…
Irilyth, the weight loss thing is interesting; I hadn’t thought of that. As it turns out, I don’t have nearly as much choice in the matter as I thought I might — more on that in a separate entry.
I had breast reduction surgery in 2001 and lost about 75 lbs. between 2007 and 2008. I was a B after surgery (I was an F before) and a B after the weight loss, but the difference was that I was a very full B after surgery and a very loose B after the weight loss. If you’re thinking of losing more weight, I’d suggest holding off on surgery until your weight has settled where you want it to be. If you gain a little, you’ll be a touch bigger/firmer, but I’d recommend against having a reduction and then losing more weight, as the shape and feel of your breasts might change some.