Wednesday, February 1, 2012

I am so FREAKING positive... Or not

Hi everyone,

I know I am a crappy, unfaithful blogger... But I do tune in here all the time to see everyone's posts and successes... You are all so inspirational, and I think there is nothing cooler than you ladies taking control of your weight and being so positive and upbeat well you are doing it.

Unfortunately, I am terminally uncool. I am not feeling positive and upbeat at all this past month. And for once it's not Alberta winter. It's my damn weight. christmas was a write off, but I managed to only gain abut 3 lbs which is basically a miracle. I got a 2nd fill Jan17th and now have a little restriction. After the fill I reached a new low 178.8, largely due to liquids. That was Wed. By Saturday my weight had jumped up to 184... Yikes. And yes, I know it's water and constipation and last nights steak dinner, but it's also a measly 4 lbs less than weighed the day of my surgery, 4 months ago.

I've even been pretty good... 1200-1400 calories a day, gym 3 days a week. Weight training with personal trainer twice a week. I'm not always perfect, but I am following the rules... And I should be skinny by now! Whaaaaa! Okay... I'm done.

So, obviously what I'm doing now isn't working, and I need a new plan. Maybe I have lost some inches... I should have measured before.

I know it's not a race, but I'd be happy with half a lb a week if it was consistent. I don't want to feel like this will be one more failed attempt at weight loss... I won't let it be. Sciencesays this has to work... And I will make it work. Did anyone else experience anything similar in the earlier stages of banding? What did you do to get the weight to start coming off? Any advice would be appreciated.

Peace, Love, Oatmeal <3

Friday, November 18, 2011

Vacation, Adventure in Fills and Pleasant Weight Loss Surpises

Hello my lovely, inspirational ladies. I know I don't SAY much, but I have been keeping up on all your happenings. It has been a zoo here! I've been on two holidays since I posted last, Las Vegas and Florida. Work is in year-end chaos, and I've had to major investigations on the go... no fun, no fun. Anyways, I thought I'd post some pictures from Flordia... and Harry Potter Land! They made the castle... it was intense. Anyways! Pictures!... are not included in this post because my P.O.S computer is broken. But next time, fo-shizzle.

Also, I had my first fill yesterday. It was a... interesting experience. The fill clinic is two hours away from house, so I got to make that enjoyable drive in a blinding snow storm. They are predicting -36 celius with the wind chill here tomorrow, so winter has come on hard and fast. Anyway, I got to the clinic which was smack in downtown Edmonton. I get inside, and there are two fill nurses, a trainee and the actual nurse. Guess which one had to poke 8 times before she hit the port? She had me believing the port was flipped for a long, nasty moment. Anyway, they added 1CC, which puts me at 7.5 CC. I feel a little more restriction today, but I'm told its too early to really know if its made a difference. They give fills every 4 weeks, so I hope this one made some difference. It would cuh-ray-zee to actually lose weight over the holiday.

I guess I should confess I'm a scale coward... I only want to step on the scale when I've been sort of well behaved for a week straight. The fill nurse made me weigh myself... something I haven't done since before Vegas. So, I weighed in at 179.5 lbs... down from 188.5 lbs on my surgery date Sept, 17th. I'll take that! I know some of that was my fluids recovery, but I've been on real food for 5 weeks now and no weight gain. Heck, I even lost on my Florida trip, which is fairly amazing considering how many lbs of crab legs I ate. Not quite my bodyweight, but close.

Happy Thanksgiving Season to (did I miss it already?) to all my American friends... I hope someone is thankful for that fact that it's not so f***ing cold down there. I know I was... 26 degrees, with a gentle ocean breeze sounds glorious right now. See you guys!

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Solid Food, Zombie Apocalypse and... AM I SKINNY YET?

Hi Everyone!

So... I think I'm going to be one of those bloggers, who fall off the face of earth for long periods and then return and writes loooong epic posts.

So, It's been almost a month since my surgery already (cuh-ray-zee!) and I am feeling pretty well back to my old self. I have lost 17lbs and now weigh 182.5 lbs (this morning) that's up a little from where I was but I expected to gain some weight back with solid foods and Canadian Thanksgiving in there. I've lost about 5 lbs since surgery which is pretty unremarkable but better than a kick in the pants. I'm afraid I'll gain it all back before I can have a fill.. I haven't been as well behaved food wise as I should be. Maybe it's like the feast after the famine and it will go away soon. By the way, I made stuffing for the first time ever on Thanksgiving and it was AWESOME. So proud of myself. I am extremely not... domestic, or talented in the kitchen, so this was sort of a big deal.

 I didn't post anything during full fluids and purees.... mostly because there was nothing to post about. Other than apple sauce and soup. Both of which I will probably never eat again. And then, suddenly, BAM solid food. It was almost like I wasn't ready for it. I was working out of town all last week... so I started solid foods on Tuesday without the ability to really measure my meals. Anyway, nothing disasterous happened. I was a little uncomfortable the first two days. I sorta felt like something was stuck in my throat. But, no PBing or sliming or anything dramatic like that.

I'm eligible for a fill in just a few days. And I'm pretty sure I need one because I can definitely eat more than 1 cup of food. It's strange, when I overeat the shoulder pain return with a vengeance! I had to take painkillers the night of Thanksgiving because I made a piglet out of myself.

This whole process has forced me to take a long, hard, HONEST look at my eating habits, and they're way worse than I thought they were. A couple years back I used Her*bal Mag*ic to lose about 70lbs. Before I did that program I had no idea what it meant to eat well. I didn't know what was in food. Odd right? But I seriously had no idea about calories and fat content. So, HM educated me a little and since leaving that program I've always sort of kept an eye on my food intake and kept my weight under control.

So what happened that caused me to gain 40 lbs in all of 6 months? Well... there's a couple things, but a big one I think is that I moved in with my boyfriend of 2 years, TFG. A couple things happened immediately following that:

1) Food intake increased. And, all of a sudden, I wasn't preparing my own meals anymore. We are eating to TFG's preference, which includes alot of carbs and fried foods. Temptation is everywhere.

2) Activity level decreased. I don't know exactly why this is... I've never been a hang out and watch TV kinda girl, but all of a sudden I find my butt planted on the couch more than I care to admit. And I have no energy to fix it. I've been back to the gym a couple times in the last few weeks and I am feeling better because of that. But still... I'm not active like I was when I lived in my old place.

Now, I'm not blaming TFG or the house or anything else for my circumstances, but I DO noticed a direct correlation between all those  changes and all this weight gain.

Also, because I've been able to eat solid foods for two weeks, and I have managed to eat pretty much anything I want with no consequences, I've noticed that I am eating a TON of carbs (which are the HM devil). I don't like potatoes... so I hardly eat them. But bread, rice, egg noodles... bring em on.

So this week, I want to get a fresh start. We are leaving for Vegas on Oct 27th and I want to have lost another 2 lbs before then. Also, I want to get a fill before we go. Hopefully I won't have too much trouble scheduling that. I live about 2 hours from the closest fill point so it will be tough to schedule and will mean taking a day off of work. I've been thinking about asking my GP to get the training... but that's a big step considering he doesn't even know I had the surgery. This is the man who delivered me by the way, so I feel a tiny bit guilty I must admit.

I'm so excited for Vegas and a get away. Things have been pretty tense around here and I think both TFG and I really need to get away for a little while. When I get home from Vegas weekend I turn around and pretty well fly directly to Florida for a week with my family in DisneyWorld... ahem... HARRY POTTER LAND! *end nerd attack*. So, that's pretty exciting too.

Usually, when we talk about vacations one of my big fears is food and weight gain. Especially because, being 23 years old, alcohol is still a big part of what it means to be on vacation. I'm less stressed now that I have the band. I can already feel myself eating less than I used to, which is a great starting point. Hopefully with a fill I will be well on my way to weighing 150 lbs again.

Uhm... closing note, Jello shots are the devil (the regular one, not the HM one). And the 47 I drank last night are making me feel a teeny bit rough today. So instead of doing all the productive stuff I was going to do, I have dedicated the day to online Christmas shopping.

Oh! And Zombie Apocalypse! Holy jeeze, I read One Slim Cat's post and my mouth fell open and I just sort of stared for 7 minutes before fits of laughter set in. Not because I find Z.A amusing, quite the opposite, this is a real and serious concern... but because I had just invested an hour of my hung over life in watching the History Channel special about the origin of Zombies and how the Z.A could actually take place, and what to do to survive said Z.A... anyway, it just seemed fitting. And it made me giggle.

Have a great week everyone! I hope all you BOOBs had a great time in Chicago... I thoroughly enjoyed reading about it. Thanks to everyone who has been so supportive and great in this community. You guys are awesome and without you I likely never would have gone through with the surgery.

Cheers!

Tuesday, September 20, 2011

Help... Weird symptom

Hey guys,

This is day four since my lap band was placed and I've developed some kind of weird symptoms. I am burping pretty much continiously, especially after drinking. Also I have some lower abdominal pain going on... Kind like there's a fist behind my belly button. I won't even tell you about gas passing... Yuck. Is this all normal guys? Any advice would be helful... I'm kinda worried and the clinic hasn't been much help. Thank!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Surgery Day, Clear Liquids and the Yellow Brick Road to Recovery

Morning everyone!

So, I've officially been banded. It's day 2 of my 5 day clear liquids phase. I don't feel bad at all. A bit of gas pain in my shoulder, and my port incision hurts a little... but other than that, not much pain at all. In fact, this is already a thousand times better than my damn wisdom teeth last month.

We flew into Toronto on Thursday evening, and got into the hotel about midnight. Our flight was delayed so I didn't get to visit the CN Tower and have my last 'pre-band' meal up there. Likely for the best though, because I was so tired by the time we got into the hotel I didn't have much trouble getting to sleep.

The next morning I get into the Clinic at 8:30, as scheduled. I met with Counsellor lady, who took my picture and answered any other questions I had. To be honest, I didn't really have any. I have been reading about this procedure obsessively for almost a year, plus all the great advice from you wonderful ladies... I felt pretty confident going into surgery. It was almost 11 when they asked me to come into the Operating Room. I had been fairly panic free until this point, but I walked into this room and there's all these sharp objected and this surgery bed that looked like something from the movie Hostel... straps for arms and nasty bent stirrup thingies. At this point I'm pretty scared. The nurses and doctors were wonderful tho and the next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery.

They kept in the Clinic for a few hours and then we (my Mom and I) went back to the hotel room for a nice long afternoon nap. That evening we went for pedicures at the hotel's gorgeous spa. Saturday our flight didn't leave until 3:30 PM, so we had some time to wander around downtown Toronto. What wonderful shopping! Mom and I agreed we would have to come back when we had time to stay and explore. I did find a HOT pair of redneck sex appeal boots, which came home with me. (Thanks, mom!) Anyone who's read this blog from the beginning now knows that my Mama spoils me rotten. That put my total new shoe count for the banding trip up to 3 pairs:


The flight home was probably the worst part of the whole experience. My band felt really tight and it was uncomfortable to be stuck in that little seat for so long. I watched the movie Hanna, which was totally bizarre.

This morning I woke up feeling really good, still a bit of gas but nothing horrible. The Gas-X seems to be helping. The Clinic gave me Dem*erol, but I don't like to take narcotics, so I've just been layering liquid Tyleno*l and Advi*l. Seems to be working fine. Back to work tomorrow, the first day of another week long Audit. Yikes! It should be fine though... if I continue to feel this good I'm not worried about going back to work. Also, I'm not hungry at all, which seems weird considering I haven't eaten in three days. But, hopefully that's a good sign.

Have a great week everyone and thanks for all your encouragement!

Friday, September 16, 2011

Today is the day!

Yep... THE day. We flew into Toronto last night and I am on my way out the door to the clinic. Wish me luck!

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Pre-Op Detox and the Count Down is ON!

Happy Saturday Everyone!

These last couple days have been much better... so no more super-b*tchy blog posts for me, one was enough. TFG is doing great, and thanks everyone for the well wishing. His wires will come off October 3rd... right about the time I'm doing my last day of mushies. Coincidence? Well, probably, but at least we can suffer through liquids together.

The pre-op detox was tough for the first few days, likely because I was coming down off a 7 year caffeine high. But, I gotta say, I usually drink no less than 3 Diet Pepsi in a day, and for the last week NONE, nada, no cheaty-cheaty. And I feel good! Actually, I feel great, I've got more energy than usual and I'm having a way easier time getting up in the AM... no 45 minutes snooze alarm.

I found these meal replacement bars called Nutribar and they are the bee's knees (yes, I know, but my sister is only little and I had to banish "cat's ass" from my vocabulary because it perplexed her). These bars have 220 Cal, 35%-45% of most of your daily nutrients and they actually taste delicious. They also claim to keep you full for 5 hours, and seem to actually deliver. Anyways, these little buggers saved me from a life of cottage cheese and egg whites so I'm eternally grateful.



So far I haven't gone into a cottage cheese induced rage at work, which is good. We recently did the Myers-Briggs personality test and I discovered I am an 'ENTJ'. Which, pretty much means I shouldn't try to nuture anyone ever. Poor TFG, no wonder I was such a lousy nurse maid. It's actually kinda interesting, and it gives you a good starting point for understanding people you find friggin impossible... trying. One day I'll tell you the story about why I never EVER do on-line personality tests (Stooopid Eharmony).... but not today!

The time to take pre-op measurements and photos is fast approaching. *GULP* I'm not normally internet-photo shy (see the Pictures from the Crazy Times tab) but for some reason this is causing me a little anxiety. Is it the prospect of putting bikini clad photos on the internet... a little. But mostly, I don't want all of the nice people in blog land to discover...I have no belly buton. There, I said it. And it's horrible. So, nobody laugh when I post the pictures, or at least if you do laugh don't tell me because I'll be traumatized.

So far I've lost 7 lbs on the pre-op detox. I'm hoping to sneak back into 180's before we fly to Toronto on Thursday. In my next post I'm going to do goals/rewards and measurements/pictures... so stay tuned for that hot-mess.

Have a great weekend everyone! XOXO