7 Months Out

I am just now realizing today is my 7 months out date.  The last month has been fun.  I hit 100 pounds lost, cut my hair, had my 20 year high school reunion, and visited with my family in Savannah.  To date I am 104 pounds down from my highest weight.  I am 82 pounds down from surgery.  It is still slow going, but it is steady.

I have my small pouch days and my bottomless pit pouch days.  On the bottomless pit days, I try to stick with no sugar added popsicles and fudgsicles.  On my small pouch days, it is hard to get in all my protein.  Those days I try to eat a lot of greek yogurt with roasted soy beans to make sure I get some protein for the day.

Once again I will say, this surgery fixes your stomach, not your head.  There are days that I am quite pleased with the weight loss, especially days that I realize the size 22 pants are finally get loose fitting in the waist.  I truly cannot wait to get into a size 20 pants!!!   But then there are those days that all I can think about is the fact that I still have another 100 pounds to go.  There are those days that all I can think about is food.   I need to keep focused on the small goals.  Better yet, I need to make some small goals.  Lets see...

1.  I would like to get below 245 by the first day of school.  That is another 8 pounds in 3 weeks.   My average weightloss is around 3 pounds a week.  That should not be too much to ask, right? 

2.  I want to be able to wear a few size 20 pants (all depends on cut) by the time I start clothes shopping for the school year.  I have refused to buy anything new (except for the reunion clothes) this summer.

Enough dwelling on weight and size.  Here are a few pictures from my class reunion.  I was voted "Most Changed."  That could be taken in a good way or a bad way.  I think most of my home girls that keep up with me on Facebook voted for me.  I am pretty close to the size I was in high school.  However, most remember me with long luscious hair from middle and high school.  As you can see by the pics, my hair has all been chopped off.  Woohoo!

The Century Mark!!!!!

This morning when I woke up and hopped on the scale it read 257.6.  That is 100 pounds from my highest weight a little more than a year ago!  I have lost 78 pounds since surgery in December.  The other 22 came off during my pre-op phase.  As for inches, I have lost 8 inches from my waist, 10 from my abdomen, 10 from my hips, 7 from my breast, 2 from each arm, 2 from each calf, and 3 from each thigh. That is 49 inches lost! 

It has been a difficult journey, but one that I would not trade for the world.  I still have to do all the work I would need to do to lose weight without the surgery.  The difference is I now have the opportunity to keep it off.  I still have to work out, watch which foods I eat, be aware of any trigger foods, and avoid excessive snacking.  Regardless, I would not trade this for anything. 

A few Non-Scale Victories:  I can actually cross my legs when I sit in low chairs.  I can climb stairs without losing my breath and breaking out in a sweat.  I can stand out in the hot, southern sun and not pass out.  And my favorite one - I am completely off of all medications!!! 

Here are a few comparison pics for your viewing pleasure. The first set is the night I came home from surgery.  The second set from this evening. 

Summertime is here!

Well, school is out.  That means I am home with the little one.  That means I need to watch out for grazing.  This is becoming a problem that needs attention.  I eat from boredom.  Not stress, but boredom.  This surgery definitely fixes your stomach, but it does nothing for your head.  I have seriously been considering seeing a therapist for the head hunger.  It can be a big monster every now and again. 

The last month has been a little stressful.  I hit my first long stall.  Up until this morning I was up and down from 265 to 267.  This morning I finally broke the stall and registered my first loss since May 7th.  I have read time and time again that these stalls are normal and a part of life after weight loss surgery.  Knowing that DOES NOT make it any less stressful. 

In other news, I have once again cleaned out my closet.  This time I discarded EVERYTHING larger than a size 22 or 2X.   There are two 40-gallon contractor bags worth of clothes that need to go to family, friends, or the Goodwill.  Getting the clothes to my family means holding on to the clothes until July 9, which is my next trip to Savannah.  By then I hope to be adding more clothes to the discard pile. 

Tonight after dinner, we took Ian to one of those local fairs that set up in strip mall parking lots.  He was apprehensive when it came to riding rides without me.  Luckily, I have lost enough weight to get into a few of the kiddie rides so that he was more comfortable riding.  Once I rode with him, he was totally comfortable riding alone. 


 

My Birthday and Mother's Day

Sunday was not only Mother's Day, it was also my birthday!  Mark had a great idea last week to fire up the grill Saturday and invite some of our friends over.  We celebrated my birthday and honored his mom for Mother's Day during the cook out.  We grilled burgers, hot dogs, and veggies.  My grilled tomatoes were soooo good!   Suzy brought over a yogurt and fruit salad.  Leslie brought fruits, veggies, and dip.  And Jaime brought over cupcakes!  I did not have to bake my own birthday cake!  Her recipe is just a box mix with a can of diet soda to moisten.  It was not bad.  I was only able to get through half of the cupcake.  :) 

Water aerobics continues to go well. 

To date, almost 5 months out, I have lost 70 pounds since surgery and 92 pounds total.  I feel absolutely amazing.  There are days that I still feel extremely fat, but they are becoming further and further apart.  I still have a long way to go though.  I need to lose at least 100 more pounds.  As I continue to lose weight, I am noticing places that will need some tucking here and tucking there!  :)  Especially my arms.  WOW!  Holy batwings!  I have a 20 year highschool reunion coming up in July.  It would be nice to get down at least 20 or 30 more pounds before then.  I think that is totally feasible with this surgery.  I just need to make sure to watch what I eat and continue to exercise. 

Sorry MIA Again

Slacker is what you can call me.  At least for blogging lately. 

Everything has been going well, except for the losses.  Up until this morning I had been going up and down the same 2-3 pounds for the last 4 weeks.  I finally broke the stall this morning.  I am now 64 pounds down from surgery and 86 pounds down in all.  I LOVE that I am so close to the century mark. 

Today, I had a really nice moment.  I saw a retired administrator this afternoon, one I have not seen in almost a year.  She didn't speak to me at first and then realized who I am. She looked at me and said, "There is something different about you.  What is it?"  I looked at her and said, "About 86 pounds."  She was astounded!  She actually confessed not recognizing me when she came in the room. 

Water aerobics is going very well.  I absolutely love it! 

Support group was great this month.  We had a guest speaker.  She is a personal trainer.  Her talk was not about things we should be doing or "moves" or what not.  She mainly spoke about fitness myths, why we should do it, motivators, the difference between exercising and being physically active, etc.  It was a very interesting talk. 

I also borrowed a book from my bariatric coordinator, The Emotional First Aid Kit: A practical Guide to Life After Bariatric Surgery.  It has been quite and interesting read.  It was written by a psychologist, so many of the topics and suggestions are things she does with and for her patients.  It has an abundance of self talk guidelines and many individual stories of success and failure. 

During my last appointment with Dr. Macik, he and his nurse both encouraged me to make sure I am drinking 4 cups of milk a day.  Now, take in mind, I am trying to keep my calories around 1,000 a day (here lately I have been exceeding that number).  Milk has 9 grams of protein and 12 grams of sugar.  Now most of us are told to drink our milk for the calcium and vitamin D.  With my new designer gastric system, I am unable to digest calcium from the milk.  So why should I waste 360 calories on milk?  I posted this question on Obesity Help.  One answer actually blew me away today. Here it is, copied directly from the message board:

Post Date: 4/28/10 1:28 am
Not to get into a major science discussion but if you’ve had RNY, milk has nothing to offer except 12 grams of sugar and all of the wasted calories that go along with it. About 80% of the protein in milk is in the form of casein, the remaining 20% is whey. Whey protein is fast absorbing (40 minutes to 1 hour) and casein is slow absorbing (up to 7 hours). Nutritionists encourage people to drink milk because casein provides a full feeling for longer; the protein is slowly released into the system through the filtration process. Unfortunately that process is dependent upon casein forming a gel in the gut when it combines with the acidic environment in the stomach and slowly working its way through the digestive process. Trouble is that we no longer have our pyloric sphincter; it has been bypassed and is no longer available to contain the milk in our stomachs. Combine the loss of sphincter function with the less acidic environment in our resized stomach and you no longer have a welcoming environment for this long acting form of protein. If it can’t form the gel, it defeats the purpose. For me, I consider milk to be more than a waste; it’s counterproductive to what I had surgery for. Truthfully, I don’t personally know any long term post-ops (5+ years) who drink milk that haven’t had a bad regain issue. I do know lots of post-ops that drink milk and get in the revision line. That’s a pretty dangerous thing to do! I know it’s not popular to come out against milk, but the science is there. Just my 2 cents.

Science. I am not sure how accurate it is, but ya gotta love it!

My Huge WOW for the Week!

So I started back with water aerobics Tuesday.  I have been taking water aerobics during summer months for several years now.  For the past few summers I have been attending classes at the West Gwinnett Aquatic Center about 5 minutes from our home.  Because the class is a deep water class, we are required to wear floatation belts, seen here.  The belts only come in 2 sizes: S/M and L/XL.  Of course I have been squeezing my belly into the L/XL, with the straps pulled out as far as they can go.

Yesterday, I put the belt on and without thinking about it, I have about 12 extra inches on the straps!!!  WOW!!!  This WOW was so much different.  I knew going into this journey that my clothes would eventually get too big.  I knew I would eventually have more stamina to accomplish things in life.  It never occurred to me that I could fit securely into my swim belt!  It was not something that was even close in my mind.  That is what makes this WOW experience one of the best ones so far! 

17 Weeks 3 Days

It looks as if I will continue to use Livestrong/Daily Plate for my food journal.  I do not like Fit Day and Obesity Help does not offer it publicly, except to members. 

I am back to work this week.  It truly helps being on a schedule.  Ian and I traveled to see my mama last week for a few days.  It was very difficult to keep track of how much protein and fluids I consumed.  Being back on our routine will help. 

I am now down 83 pounds.  The last few pounds have been slow to come off.  I have been flirting with 274 for several days now.  Well, actually, it has been close to a week, and I spent a week at 275.  The week before that was 276.  I need to get back to journaling, exercising, and counting protein and fluids.  I know I have not been 100% compliant the last month.  I now hate holidays that have candy.  Especially small candy bites that I can actually eat.  Tootsie Rolls.  Ugh! 

As for exercise, I start back at water aerobics tomorrow!  Yippee!  It is my all-time favorite thing to do!