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Morelgirl's Lap Band Life

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Exhaustion = Philosophy***

Feeling so tired today, and I'm not sure why, so I might just decide to blame the weather. Yesterday was beautiful, but today it's back to Spring in the PacNW. Translation = Cool and Rainy.   So I was out of touch for a couple of weeks there. Nothing horrible happened, but I had a work deadline that butted right up against a trip out of town, so I was a bit preoccupied and not spending much time on the forums or even online in general. I did learn something, though, that has made me both happy and totally surprised: So far, having the band has meant that even when I get incredibly stressed and stop paying super-close attention to what and how I'm eating, I still don't go back to my old habits. At least not totally. Before the band, a work deadline combined with a couple of weeks of stress would have meant an automatic 5 lb gain or more. This time, not so much. I pretty much stayed the same overall. It's still sinking in, really, because it's such a foreign concept to me. I mean, intellectually I knew from the beginning that getting the band would mean a permanent lifestyle change, but it's still weird to me to see concrete evidence of that.   Or maybe that's just me.   On Tuesday, I got my third fill, bringing me up to 6.5cc in my 11cc band. I'm still not feeling restriction, but I'm hoping I'm just one of those people who needs a little time for the fill to settle in. I keep expecting to hit restriction and have to start eliminating items from my diet, but so far I can eat anything and everything, including bread, pasta, rice, beef, and raw veggies. I'm not sure if that's good or bad. I mean, I don't want to have to give up foods, but it makes me feel like something less than a "real" bandster for some reason. I mean, part of why I got the band was so that I could change not what I ate but how much I ate, but it's weird to hear all the stories about how people with bands absolutely canNOT eat certain foods and know that I have no issues with them. I keep waiting for it to change, but will it? And if it doesn't, am I still a bandster?   *sigh* Like I said, I'm tired and philosophical today. Maybe I should just go have a nap now...     ***Apologies for the rambling. I really do need more sleep.
morelgirl

morelgirl

0
 

Can't You Just Be Happy For 5 Minutes?!?!?

Well, yesterday I was. I was happy for 5 minutes. Maybe 7. I didn't time it (though now I think maybe I should have).   I had my weekly weigh in, and for the first time since the week after surgery, I actually lost 1 whole pound. Plus. I lost 1.8 lbs. Yippee! That's like a normal weight loss, right? That means I really CAN lose 1-2 lbs per week just like the surgeon told me. I can be a real bandster! I can lose this *#$#&$%@! weight in less than 5 years! I can do it! I ROOOOCCCCCKKKKKKK!   Then I remembered that I lost 0 last week. Zero. Zilch. Goose eggs. The big nothing. Which meant that my mind automatically did the math (I hate when it does that. I hate math.) and calculated that this fact brought my average down to 0.9 lbs for those 2 weeks.   Yup, less than a pound a week.   Cue 3-year-old temper tantrum. It was a thing of beauty. Seriously. I scared the dogs.   At this point, I'm seriously considering adding lithium to my list of supplements. These mood swings can't be healthy. Yesterday, I let my annoyance guide my eating (but I still tracked it all). Today, I'm back to sanity (or my version of it) and reminding myself that I get a fill next week. My second fill. One that will hopefully bring me that much closer to restriction. I want it so bad I can taste it, and it tastes like skinny.
morelgirl

morelgirl

2
 

Calories In V. Calories Out Is B&#%!$@!t

WARNING: This post is brought to you almost exclusively by Emotional Me. She isn't happy.   Whoever came up with the idea that weight loss is merely a matter of calories in v. calories out was a moron. But I might be a bigger moron for buying into it. Being overweight is a hugely complex issue, one that might be affected by, but has a lot more to it than, merely eating too much or moving too little. If it didn't have a lot more to it, there wouldn't be so many of us who dieted and failed to lose weight, exercised and failed to lose weight, cut portions and failed to lose weight. Who just plain failed to lose weight.   Do a little research and the internet will tell you that in order to lose 1 pound of fat, you simply need to eat 3500 fewer calories than you have expended. Allow me to demonstrate to you that this is b@#&$%!t, using myself as an example:   Using multiple factors including my height, my weight, my sex, my age, and my level of activity (which I underestimated, just to be safe), I calculated my Basal Metabolic Rate and the number of calories required by my body each week at present time in order to maintain my current rate. We'll call that number B (for Baseline).   Next, I used My Fitness Pal to track every single item that passed my lips during the past seven days. I'm not kidding about that. If I ate it or drank it, I tracked it, including my 1 calorie calcium supplements and my 5 calorie multivitamins. I missed nothing. My Fitness Pal is great in that it keeps track of each day's calories and also charts your average calories throughout the week. We'll call the number of calories I consumed C (for Consumed).   According to the experts, weight loss is a simple matter of B - C = X . If X is a negative number, then that means you're using more calories than you're eating and you should begin to lose weight. If X is -3500, then you should lose 1 pound. This equation is crap.   I know this because in my B - C = X equation for last week, my X = -7036. I ate 7036 calories fewer than my body required to maintain its weight last week. And what happened? I lost 0.3 lbs.   0.3   Frankly, I'm hocked off. But more than that, I'm scared to death. All the lap band can do for me is to help me to consume less food and fewer calories. If doing that won't actually translate into weight loss, what the hell have I done? What have I spent all those thousandds of dollars on? What have I put my body through? What have I been obsessing over for all this time? Has this all been a big, heinous mistake?   I'd like to allow Logical Me to talk me down from this clock tower I'm occupying at the moment, but frankly, I can't hear a word she's saying over the ranting, raving, and screaming of Emotional Me. Eventually, I hope Emotional Me gets tired and shuts up (or just screams so much, she loses her voice) and Logical Me can get me back on track, but today, so far, is NOT a good day.
morelgirl

morelgirl

7
 

Boy, I needed that

I had a difficult weekend. I've been stressing over a work deadline for the last week or two, but things are really coming to a head. In fact, I'm beginning to hear that whooshing sound a deadline makes as it goes shooting by me. It won't be the end of the world, as it's mainly a self imposed date, but I'm still frustrated with myself that I haven't been able to make it, so the stress is building. In the past, stress for me has always equalled overeating, so my head hunger has just been rising and rising lately.   Yesterday, it got the best of me. I ate and drank way too many calories. Admittedly not as many as I could have, but still way more than I needed. Knowing that bad news at this point would only make me that much more likely to want to quit, I deliberately did not do my weekly weigh in this morning. I do that every morning right after I get up, after I've gone to the bathroom but before I put on clothes, and I record the result of each Monday's scale readout. Today, I officially took the day off. Of course, I couldn't stay completely off the scale, but I waited a couple of hours and weighed myself with clothes on. That way, I can pretend the number is inaccurate. Of course, the number was up so I started to get down on myself,   Then, I realized something. I hadn't taken any measurements of myself in just over a month. Out came the tape measure. I don't take a ton of measurements, just three that are recorded in MFP, but I'm still really glad I remembered to do this. I've lost 3.3 inches! Knowing that was like a huge weight (no pun intended) lifted off my shoulders, because it means that what I'm doing is really making a noticeable difference. The numbers on the scale can get kind of abstract because they move up and down so easily and are influenced by so many things, like salt and water and TOM, that sometimes it doesn't feel like those losses are real. The ones on the measuring tape, though, those can't be disputed.   I really needed the good news today. It helped me to get my head back on straight so that I can take a deep breath and get back to work, both professionally and with my band. I know this journey won't be quick and it won't be easy, but sometimes a reminder really helps. Once a month measurements, which I had planned to do all along, gave me that reminder today, and boy, I needed that!
morelgirl

morelgirl

4
 

Better To Emote Than Eat

My bff/housemate went to stay with her fiance for the weekend, so this is the first time I've been alone (I mean, other than when she's at work during the day...I work from home) since being banded. I was a little worried that old habits might kick in and have me eating badly while left to my own devices. Even though I've been making all my own meals this whole time, in the time BB (before banding) a weekend alone would have seen me too lazy to cook and living on take out or fast food. I mean, why bother going to the trouble to actually take care of myself when there's no one to eat with and no one to see my bad habits? Fortunately, AB (after banding) I'm still feeling the motivation of a new adventure and did pretty well for myself.   Spending a bunch of time on LBT did, of course, help me keep focused and honest with myself. I'm being more and more careful about weighing and measuring my food as opposed to guesstimating. After so many times on Weight Watchers, I generally do farly well with estimating tablespoons and cups, but it's always good to give myself a refresher course. I also did some cooking. I found a recipe for Wendy's chili that made so much of the stuff that my freezer is now full of tiny cups of it! I also cooked a couple of chicken breasts in the crockpot until they fell apart and I've been using those for chicken salad. Just add lite mayo, plain greek yogurt and spices and it's pretty yummy. I'd love to throw in some diced celery and pickle relish, but I'm still wary of those fibrous vegetables. Maybe in another few weeks.   Wednesday will mark my 3 weeks since surgery. Since my doctor plans to do my first fill at my 4 week appointment and wants me ready for solids by that point, I'll probably begin transitioning to soft solids in the second half of this week. Like with every other stage of this progression, I have my initial, "what counts as a soft solid?" confusion going on at the moment, but I'll figure it out. After all, I can always look it up on the forums!
morelgirl

morelgirl

2
 

Back to Work

So I made a couple of forums posts that explained what happened to me, so I won't rehash it. Suffice it to say that frustration both psychological and financial made me give up on my band for the past 6 months, but on Wednesday, I got my first fill since August of last year. It brought me up to 9 cc in my 11cc band, which still scares me a bit, but this is what's happened so far...   I spent Wednesday and Thursday on liquids, progressing to a thick puréed black bean soup last night for dinner. Today I'm going a stage further having the rest of the black bean soup for lunch without the purée-ing. It's still extremely soft and barely more textured than a purée, but I wanted the practice of chewing something slowly and thoroughly to get me back in practice. Plus, it's easier for me to remember to wait between bites when there's actually something to bite onto, even if it's a mushy black bean. Getting back into the habits necessary to live with the band is big for me, since I haven't used them in months.   The weirdest thing happened during lunch, though. Eating slowly and chewing bites, I ate 1/2 a cup of soup with sour cream on top and stopped. I'm trying to listen HARD to the band, and after 1/2 a cup, it told me I was satisfied. How weird is that? I don't know if I'll be hungry again in an hour, but if I am, I still have the leftovers (every last calorie allowed and accounted for) to eat to make the hunger go away. I don't know if I've actually ached restriction and am trying to remember that I won't know for potentially a week or two after the fill. But I also know that I have a follow up appointment in 12 days and a new doctor who is more than willing to do whatever it takes to get my fill right and get me to the sweet spot I'm still searching for. So, you know what? It's all good. I'm good, and I'll only get better.
morelgirl

morelgirl

3
 

Back On The Chain Gang

Not that following the rules of being banded is the equivalent of being on a chain gang (face it, it's not hard physical labor, just a good mental work out) but I've always loved the Pretenders. I mean, how cool is Chrissie Hynde?   I got myself back on track as of Tuesday, and I've had a few good days this week. Of course, I'm also back to weighing myself obsessively (give and take, I suppose), so I'm trying to remember that it's normal for weight to fluctuate day-to-day, so having the scale go down steadily for a couple of days then be up a bit today is not really a sign of the coming apocalypse. Nor is it any reason to quit doing what I'm doing.   Put down the chips, ma'am. Step away from the chips.   Overall, I'm feeling pretty good. Since I just had my last dress fitting for my BFF's wedding, I could definitely be feeling worse. Do I love the way I look in my dress? No. It's okay. It's a good style for my body type and the color is really nice for me, but in my mind, I won't look good in a dress for at least another 30 lbs. But, I do like that I don't have to worry about whether or not I can wear it again, since by the next time I have an occasion for a really nice dress, it ought to be way too big for me. That keeps me feeling pretty positive. It's the little things, right?   So things are pretty good. The wedding is one week from tomorrow, meaning that's one level of stress I get to shed. I just need to take one day at a time, especially while the BFF is away on her honeymoon, since that's someone who can't hold me accountable during that time. I'll need to do the heavy lifting myself. But you know what, I've built up some fairly big bandster muscles over the last 3 months. I'm pretty sure I got this.
morelgirl

morelgirl

0
 

Am I Really Going To Have To Be Adult About This?

Seriously, there are times when I totally resent having to be a grown up, especially about things I want but am not getting. Those are the times when I want to throw myself down on the floor and have a kicking, wailing, punching, sobbing fit worthy of a sugar-crashing three-year-old. And I could do it. Trust me. I could rock the #$&% out of that. RIght now, I'd like to give in, but instead, I'm just going to whine and trust that if you don't want to hear it, you all know where to find your "back" buttons.   I think I'm going to have to resign myself to being a "slow loser."   Sheesh, even the term makes me want to gnash my teeth and curse creatively. Really, I still cling to hope that I'm wrong about this and that at some point, something will click in my stubborn little (I mean that metaphorically) body and the pounds will start to drop off at the rate of several lbs per week, but I have the sick, sad feeling that I shouldn't hold my breath about that.   Offically, I weigh myself once per week, every Wednesday night. That's the weight I record on my ticker and in MFP, and in my brain, that's the weight I attach to myself. I am what the scale says I am on Wednesday nights. However, that doesn't stop me from weighing in every day or two just to check myself. Or to obsess about my weight; however you want to look at it. Before I had my first fill, it was wasy to blame my eensy-weensy incremental losses on bandster hell. To even be happy (to a small extent) at not having gained. After my fill last week, though, I'm running out of excuses. I'm not so restricted that I can't eat every food I've tried (haven't tried white bread) including rice, pasta, and chicken breast. But, while I can eat what I want, I find myself filling up on a cup of food or so and staying full for 4-5 hours after a meal. From what I've read, that should mean I'm at least close to an appropriate fill. Doesn't that mean I should start really losing now?   I'd like to think so, but in the last 5 days, the scale has gone up 0.4 lbs and now down 0.6 lbs, leaving me only 0.2 lbs below my last week's weight. 0.2 lbs? Seriously? Is that all I can expect to lose in a week? Less than 1 lb? How can I lose less than 1 lb when I'm averaging 1000 calories a day, not eating junk, eating my protein first, and not filling up on hi-calorie, low-nutrient sliders? If I'm following the rules, I want to see results, damn it!!! I deserve it!!!   Yes, yes, Logical Me realizes that any loss is a step in the right direction and that the goal is to lose slowly and steadily while maintaining my health and my sanity. Well, my health seems assured, but I can't vouch for my sanity. I mean, seriously. This is going to drive me bonkers.   My surgeon will allow me to return for another fill in 2-1/2 weeks, and at the moment I'm planning on doing that because I don't think I can deal with losing less that 1 lb per week. I think that might kill me. Or cause me to kill someone else, and really, prison jumpsuit orange would totally make me look sallow.
morelgirl

morelgirl

4
 

Am I Hungry or Am I Hungary?

I'm actually fairly certain that I'm not a nation in central Eastern Europe, but beyond that, things start to get fuzzy. While I was off the bandwagon, I forgot all the rules about listening to my body and my band to determine what was hunger and what was head hunger. Actually, it would be more correct to say that I ignored all those rules, and now that I'm trying to pay attention again, I think my skills have rusted.   I'm not sure I was ever very good at really distinguishing between head hunger and real hunger, but at the moment, making that distinction seems harder than ever. Maybe it's because I was a slacker for so long, or maybe it's because during the coming ten days, making the distinction is going to be the difference between getting an additional fill at my next appointment and not getting one. I think the pressure is getting to me. I'm back on solids today and trying to tell how long one of my small meals is really lasting me, and I'm having trouble deciding. I know the only thing to do is to track my calories, get all my protein and keep at it, but that isn't actually helping my confusion.   For now, I think I'll just eat my meals and wait for my stomach to growl and know that does mean I'm hungry.   And maybe I'll learn what a soft stop is before I hit my 10 year bandiversary. :-)
morelgirl

morelgirl

1
 

Almost Like I Was Banded!

Well, I finally did it! I finally lost an amount of weight in one week that didn't show up on the scale as 0.something or 1.something. This week, I lost 2.8 lbs!!! (Picture me doing a happy dance here. It involves sparkles. And trained poodles.)   This feels almost like I've got a lap band. It's hard sometimes to read about how fast other people are losing weight when I've been losing mostly a pound a week, if I'm lucky. 2.8 brings me real satisfaction. Even if it doesn't happen like this every week, getting a result like this at least every once in a while is like a shot of inspiration. I can take this and run with it. GO ME!!!
morelgirl

morelgirl

5
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