I've hit Onederland people! This is a weight loss goal for anyone who is morbidly obese. Onederland is when your weight is in the 100's and not 200 or more. It is pronounced "Wonderland" and it is a very nice place to be. So excited to weigh in at 198lbs today! This means that I not only did I hit onederland, but with a new BMI in the 33s, I am technically only "obese" and not "severely or morbidly obese". Woo Hoo! I am still a little sick, so there won't be much celebrating. But, I will enjoy this day and all the hard work I have done to get here. Truth be told, it hardly seems like hard work when I feel so good, and the band helps me eat less food. But, dealing with mental hunger has been the challenge. And I have met it head on!
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I got sick two days ago. Sore throat. Aches. Pains. Pre-band that meant eating lots of toast, or food to make my throat not hurt. But post-band I can't stuff things down like I once could. So I resolved to eating some soup and beans. Just a little. I am trying to get better. I am so close to Onederland. I really want to feel like celebrating when I get there!
You didn't really think I could stay off of it. Did you? I'm so happy he fixed my digital scale last night. I got up this morning and did my weigh in. 201.4!!!! Down 2lbs from my 4 day plateau. 20 lbs down from surgery date! Feeling very accomplished.
Ok ok.... I will try not to weight myself SOOOOO much, but it feels SOOOOO good to see the hard work paying off. 49 Days of Lap-Band Glory
Since it is seven weeks post-surgery, and I have no scale to measure my weight right now...let's look at my other stats: 1. Energy: Doing really good in this department. I definitely have "spring fever". It's hard to sit still inside. I want to go on hikes or camping or gardening. 2. Incisions/Scars: These are fading nicely. Only the scars themselves are a light pink-ish color. I will post more incision photos at my 8-week post next Monday. 3. Sleeping: Love to sleep. Haven't had any big issues. Oh, one night my stomach woke me up at 3am making all sorts of weird noises. It was on a night when I probably ate too much food. 4. Food: I am totally into MEAT! I still only eat about 3/4 cup, but love STEAK!! I've also had some cooked broccoli, pizza (did not like the feeling after), cupcake, tortilla chips, shrimp, STEAK, sausage, bacon. Did I mention STEAK? I don't crave sweets, I crave MEAT! I haven't had a "stuck" episode. Thank God! I really try to chew chew chew! 5. Exercise: I did some Yoga, but mostly am walking the dogs and just getting outside. 6. NSV: Lot's of people telling me I look so much skinnier. I bought size 16 pants at my favorite store. Bought a Medium-but it's loose- sweater. Definitely can't shop at Lane Bryant any more for shirts. I have some of their smallest size (14) and they are too big! 7. Bonus NSV! I don't feel super fat in photos! Actually I feel like I have a chin these days! STOP LOOKING AT THE SCALE EVERYDAY! I've been excited in anticipating the pounds dropping off in .20 increments. Everyday since starting this journey, I have seen downward movement. I step on that scale every day and it is such validation! Except for the past 3-4 days, I have only seen the SAME number: 203.00. Uggg! I tried doing more exercise, eating more protein, yet every day: 203.00. No 202.80 like I expected. It's been my birthday week and I have been eating slightly more than usual, but still really low low low amounts. It seems I plateaued.
So today, I thought- TODAY IS THE DAY! I know it! I was really good yesterday and didn't lounge watching TV, but was ACTIVE cleaning the house and doing yardwork. And of course, this morning, as I stepped on the scale: -----. Nothing. Nada. In fact, no digital read-out what-so-ever. I replaced the batteries and tried again. Nothing. Blank. The scale (which I cleaned really good this weekend- maybe with too much cleaner?) is broken. Ok universe, I hear you. "Stop obsessing about the pounds!" Today I turned 43. And instead of tuna and beans, I splurged on food. When I though about my birthday "dinner" I toyed with the idea of going out to a special restaurant. But, honestly, going out to eat is not as much fun as it once was. It is hard to go out, order something big and delicious and then only eat a small fraction of it. It makes me feel very wasteful. I decided an at-home BBQ would be better. I wanted my favorite foods. Bacon-wrapped steak and shrimp. Russ also may home-made mashed potatoes plus some rolls for the kids. I LOVED it! I ate 3 shrimps, and 4-5 bites of the most delicious bacon steak, and a couple of spoons of mashed potatoes. Believe me, I wanted to eat more it was so delicious. But my band was saying, "Nope, you've had enough". I could feel that I was full. It's a good thing, too. Prior to the band I would have eaten so much more. Not only because it tasted good, but because it was my birthday and I "deserved it". That's how I would have fallen off the diet wagon and yo-yo'd back up in weight. The lap-band is keeping me on track. I got so many well wishes on my birthday, plus a lot of "You are looking so good!" "So skinny" "How much have you lost?". Even Russ said, "It's really noticeable". This makes me so much more happy and content than eating more delicious bacon wrapped steak. Russ bought me cupcakes to celebrate my big day. You can see how much I ate in this picture: It was just enough to celebrate another year!
This week has been all about trying new foods. I ate 1/2 of a slice of pizza during a brainstorm session at work. I cut each bite with a fork and knife. Enjoyed the yumminess of it. It smelled so good! But, after I ate it, I felt zapped of energy. I felt more tired than when I ate my measley 1.5 oz of tuna and relish. Was it the grease? Was it the crust? I don't know. But, I didn't like the feeling. It didn't get "stuck" or anything, but it just didn't really make me feel "good".
The next day, there was a pizza brainstorm again at lunch. I opted for my tuna. I liked that post-eating energetic feeling A LOT better. Speaking of energy... It is still crazy to me that I can eat only a little bit of food and have CRAZY energy. Energy that makes me bored watching TV. Energy that makes me crave a walk outside, or to clean something, or just NOT sit. Maybe it's the type of protein-rich food I am eating. Maybe I am inspired by the money I am saving! Here is what I have been eating: Breakfast: Without fail, I have one egg with a bit of sharp cheddar cheese every morning. I started buying organic free-range eggs. Since I only eat one, I feel I can splurge! At $5.00 for 18 eggs, that's only a $0.27 cent meal. Lunch: On workdays I eat 1/2 of a 2.6 oz packet of tuna, with a little bit of relish. That nets out to about $1.10 for lunch. This weekend, I ate some chicken and steak out of Russ' Flamebroiler rice bowl. (I haven't tried rice yet). Again, I'm a cheap date. A whole bowl is $4.50. I probably ate $0.50 worth of meat. Dinner: Last night Russ made hot dogs, hamburgers and homemade tortilla chips for the family. I ate about an 8th of a burger patty. Since we got them at Costco at $10 for 12 patties, I figure it was about $0.11 of food, plus 5 chips ($.05?). AND I overate on the chips. 5 was way too many. I should have stopped at 2. Nothing got "stuck", I just had that "Thanksgiving full" feeling and my stomach made noises all night. So, let's see, my whole day's worth of food post-band is roughly $1.50. Add my go-to Protein Shake snack ($1.10) and that's $2.60. Pre-band I probably spent $5 per meal at least. At this rate, it will only take me 3 years to repay myself the out-of-pocket surgery cost ($15k). Not to mention the savings on prescription meds, deteriorating health, and mental mind bandwidth over weight issues. Not a bad investment! I haven't been able to shop at my favorite mall clothing store, New York and Company, for years. A couple of weeks ago, I was finally able to fit into a pair of size 18 pants (their largest size). That was a great moment! But, then after wearing them for one day, I realized they were too big! Over the weekend, I went back and got a size smaller: 16! Here is a pic of me this morning wearing my new pants! Woo Hoo! So last night, I had dinner. Actual dinner! It was a TACO. One delicious taco with meat and cheese and a crispy tortilla shell. I even cooked up tacos for the entire family. Up until now, I had been eating a bit of tuna, a bit of egg: all individual lonely ingredients in my "mushy" phase. I have read posts about bandsters indulging in pizza, muffins, spaghetti and other real foods. I haven't had the luxury, yet. The whole concept of getting "stuck" scares the bejeebus out of me. So eating a real taco was an exciting thrill. And it tasted sooooo good! I was definitely full off of my one taco. On hindsight, it might have been a little too much food. But, it wasn't overly packed with ingredients. It was just the right amount of savory meat, sharp cheddar, and crunchy goodness. I ate it slow, and chewed it down to nothing before swallowing. Sorry to go on and on about the taco, but it was a great moment! As Russ said, "It's so good to see you off of liquids". Me too, baby! It's official! I've lost 15lbs since my surgery date 5 weeks ago. That's 3 pounds a week which is a really good track record. On top of that I have an NSV! I have to go back to the mall today. I have to buy a size smaller pants than the ones I bought just two weeks ago. I bought some very nice black pants for my trip to Boston. I was just happy they fit. I didn't realize they were actually too loose until I wore them on my trip. A good, yet expensive, problem to have. I was banded March 3, 2014. The weekend before my big day, I took some "before" photos. Here are some progress shots: My incisions are healing nicely, too. Remember day 15, I was still recovering from the allergic reaction to the dermabond. All I can say is that I think I am doing well. I am very happy with the Lap-Band! The hard work is paying off!
Today was an interesting day. I tried yoga for the first time. Some of my friends are really into practicing yoga, and I have been curious about it. Since there are a lot of abdominal exercises, I needed to wait till my incisions were not as sore to start. My friend, Raquel, was going to an intro class at Core Power Yoga. So I decided to tag along.
It was very relaxing. I didn't have many problems with the movements, except for those that focused on the right side of my torso. Some of the stretches made my port area feel sore. The great thing about yoga, is that you can just go into an easier pose until the class switches to something else. It was actually very relaxing. I also felt good to be able to do some light abdominal work. Later in the day, a bunch of us went out to dinner. I split dinner with Russ. And by split, I mean I ate a few bites of his food. Here was my dinner: 1/2 grilled shrimp (cut into pieces) 1 1/2 regular bites of steak (cut into pieces) 3 bites of salad 6 bites of cooked zucchini And by the end of my "dinner", I was FULL! It was a little hard because it was really good food, and I loved the taste. I just wanted to suck the juice out of all the meat, but not eat it. That would not be proper etiquette to spit out pieces of food, but it was so tasty! This past week, I traveled to Boston for work. I was living out of a suitcase in a sophisticated West End hotel. Still on mushies, I brought 2oz packages of Tuna and some Premier Protein bars for mid-day eating. I figured that for breakfast, I could order a side of egg. You may have read my previous blog post about ordering an egg in the airport. It turns out, the idea of ordering "one" egg, is a very foreign concept. I decided to take some pictures of this challenge. The first place I ordered "one" egg was at the hotel restaurant. The platter was full of egg and I ate maybe 10%. The waitress was very concerned that I didn't like it. No matter how much I said I did and that I could not eat all of it. She decided that she would not charge me. I think she still believed I didn't like it, and that was why I wasn't eating it. One my flight home, I grabbed a bite at the airport. Since I have had bad luck with the quantity of egg (I hate wasting food), I told the waitress that I had just had surgery and could only eat soft foods. I said would it be ok to order just "one" scrambled egg. She said no problem! The portion here was better than the other places, but still a lot more than "one" egg. She charged me $1. Fabulous!
My boyfriend and I have started joking about creating a restaurant that caters to the bariatric surgery patient with better portions. We would have a "Broth Bar" (like a salad bar), smaller plates, and lots of "side-size" options. Normal restaurants just can't seem to want to put out small portions. It's always too much. And when one is traveling, it is impossible to save it for later. Alas, I'm home now, and can make my "one" egg- the perfect portion for me. |
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