A New Milestone (and New Clothes!)

Howdy. I'm doing great! I am now at 16 weeks post-op, and I've reached a really cool milestone. I've now hit the mid-way point ... I've lost the same amount of weight that I have left to lose.

Here's my new update:

Original pounds to lose: 140

Pounds lost so far: 70

Pounds left to lose: 70

Cool, huh??

On my last doctor's appt., I had two things that I needed to work on. More fluids, and being more vigilant about having dairy twice a day. And I've really stepped it up since then on both counts. The fluids thing is really about remembering to have something to drink with me at all times. Like right now I just finished my iced tea, and I have a water in the fridge, but I need to get up and go get it. Plus I have to pee really badly, so the water doesn't seem that tempting right now.

The dairy isn't that hard - I really love milk (it has to be skim, but it's easy to get used to skim milk if you drink it enough) so I've been pouring myself a glass as soon as I get home and I take my vitamins with the milk. There's only two things that count as dairy in U.S. Bariatric World - yogurt and skim milk. And I get sick of yogurt really easily. But I can do the milk, so I've been concentrating on that more. Apparently calcium is super important to weight loss. Guess all those "Got Milk" commercials saying that is not just a bunch of crap.

Hmm, haven't checked out the Walmart fashion lately - maybe I should stop by there on my way home from the office tonight. :)

Hey, I found another really cool cheap source of clothes! And you would ALL love this! Sarah Jessica Parker has a new line of clothes out called Bitten SJP, and everything in the line is under $20!! It's sold exclusively at Steve and Barry's, and luckily they have one in Orlando, but if you're somewhere they don't have a Steve and Barry's you can find a lot of the line on eBay. OMG, the stuff is adorable. Most tops are $9.98 or $12.98 ... jewelry is $5.98 ... sunglasses are 9.98, purses are $9.98 ... even dresses and really cute denim jackets are $20 or under. You MUST check it out. I was in heaven wandering around the store on Friday night, and bought like 7 or 8 items and the total was around $70. Plus Rudy was with me and he was happy because Steve and Barry's has a lot of college t-shirts and athletic wear for guys, so they're kept occupied and out of your hair. :) Here's the site: http://www.bittensjp.com/ I bought the dress and top in these pics, except I bought the top in purple.

And the other cool thing was that even though the sizes go up to XXL and even size 20, I bought all XL's and L's. However, since little miss SJ Parker has such a tiny little ass on her, I found the pants run small. The same size I wear in all other stores were too tight for me in her line. But that's okay - I bought a size 16 skirt so I was happy about that.

So glad to be out of the sizes that start with 20... :)

Some quick pics!

We just got some pictures developed, and it was like 2 years worth of pictures. There were trips from San Fran in 2005 and in 2006, Boston, Savannah, and most recently Philly last month. So there were all different sizes of me. And if there was any doubt in my mind whether my weight loss is noticable, these pictures laid that to rest. Thought you'd enjoy seeing a bit of contrast:

Danny and I in San Fran 2006 (77 lbs heavier):


And in Philly last month (about 22 lbs.heavier than I am today)


Yay!

How Low can I Go? (And I'm Not Talking Weight)

So I've got my own little industry going now, posting my clothes on craigslist that are getting too big for me. I've sold a few bags of them 3 different times now, and every time that I post them, within an hour I have like 20 emails from people wanting to take them. I've sold them in lots (each lot is like 2 or 3 bags full) and each lot for $25. It's definitely a great deal for the women buying them, because they're super cute clothes, but it's great for me too, to clean out my closet. And to make room for more! I have one woman who has bought from me two times, because she loved the first batch so much, so when she saw my next posting she was thrilled and wrote me right away.

If you have never discovered www.craigslist.org, by the way, it's awesome. It's better than ebay to me because it's local. Ebay is wonderful, and I do kind of have an unhealthy addiction to it. :) But with craigslist you can have someone just pick up what you're selling and not have to deal with shipping it and all that crap. We just sold most of the furniture in our garage that we weren't using - I listed it all on Craigslist and in one day we had someone here buying it all. So I guess craigslist is the eBay for immediate gratification junkies.

So let's talk about clothes now. I am having so much fun buying smaller and smaller sizes. I've gone from a size 26 to a size 18 pants, and in tops and dresses from a 22/24 to just a regular L or XL. I bought a dress at Kohl's this weekend that was a large!! Not a plus size. Not even an extra-large. Just a regular old size large. Like a normal sized person. You have no idea how thrilling that was to me.

But when I buy something - especially pants and skirts - they only fit me for a few weeks. So I don't want to - and can't afford - to buy expensive clothes right now. I don't want to bond with a new favorite skirt or something and then have to kiss it goodbye and hand it off to one of my craigslist customers.

So my new kick is to find the cheapest place to buy clothes. A couple of months ago I discovered Dots, a store where everything is like $5, $10, or at the most $15. And the stuff is really cute for the most part! There are several stores in the Orlando area - they are one of those places you might have never noticed but I'm telling you, it's great!

And good ol' Old Navy and Target (pronounced the French way, of course) are always great for some reasonably priced stylin' clothes.

But I wanted to take it to a new level of cheapness. Someplace I would never have dreamed of buying clothes before. Reach a new personal best. Outdo myself with how cheaply I can buy cute clothes. But I have to remain stylish and trendy.

So I'm going to "out" myself and admit that I've found a new source. I'm gonna come right out and say it. Walmart. Yes, I have bought 2 pieces of clothing at the ultimate ugly corporate giant.

It happened by accident. My husband and I were at Walmart one night to buy a beach chair. And as we were passing by the women's clothing, I said to Rudy, "Oooh, that's actually a cute top." It was a long, empire waist tunic in red, with a really cute cut to it, nice material and I'd just seen one like it in Lucky magazine. :) And it was like $14.99. So after getting the beach chair, my husband had to go buy something in hardware, and I wandered over to the clothing section. And I found myself WANTING that top. And I noticed there were a few other cute tops there too. So I bought the red tunic and I felt kinda naughty.

Then the next day I went back and bought a pair of pinstriped black and white crop pants. From Walmart. For $16.99. And right now, writing this, I'm finding myself wondering whether I should go back and see what's the latest in Walmart fashion.

Don't you judge me.

http://orlando.craigslist.org/
www.dots.com
http://www.walmart.com/catalog/product.do?product_id=5645865

So then, the next week, I went to Kmart. I figured if Walmart had cute clothes, then its ugly cousin Kmart must have adorable stuff too. Yeah, well .... not so much. Tacky, tacky, tacky. Very Your-55-year-old-Aunt-from-Indiana looking stuff. Even the Jacklyn Smith line (have you seen her lately? She's 61 and still gorgeous!!) looked like old-lady stuff. I did, however, find a couple of cute cotton nighties by Joe Boxer and got them. For like $7.99 each.

Even my nighties and underwear are way too big for me now. Yesssss!

I'll let you know about other bargains I find. And if you know of any, please, please let me know. I love online shopping too, so please post a comment and give me the website!

I need to set a new personal best in cheapness. And where can I really go down from Walmart???

Okay, new update - at just 3 months post-surgery:

Original pounds to lose: 140
Pounds lost so far: 64
Pounds left to lose: 76

Plus the 15 lbs. before the surgery, so 79 total!