Jump to content
×
Are you looking for the BariatricPal Store? Go now!
$99 Yearly Supply Alert! 🌈 "1 per Day!" Bariatric Multivitamins
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0
  • entries
    35
  • comments
    93
  • views
    17,271

About this blog

Morelgirl's Lap Band Life

Entries in this blog

 

Quick And Dirty

This is a quick update because things are fairly status quo at the moment. It was a crazy weekend punctuated by the pain of having to go and order my dress for my bff's May wedding. Let me tell you, there's nothing in the world that can slam a new bandster back down to earth like trying on satin dresses in a bridal shop in front of about 97 million mirrors. I mean, I'm doing well, but I've only been banded 6 weeks and am not at restriction yet, so I've lost only a tiny fraction of what I need to. Clothes shopping is still painful. I had picked out the dress ahead of time from photos based on the style, which is one that would generally be quite flattering on me, and since I'm the only bridesmaid, I could have any dress I wanted. I had it in my head that I wanted to buy something that I really loved so I could wear it again and get some use out of it, but when I tried it on, it was really more of a "meh" moment. I liked it fine as a MOH dress, but I didn't love it, which was really disappointing. Then the bff saved the day by reminding me that even if I did buy something I really adored, the chances of my being able to wear it again were pretty slim because in a few months, it wouldn't fit anymore!!! Wow, did that totally change my prespective. Suddenly, all was well again and the dress got ordered.   Then this week started out with a bang. Literally. I live on a corner lot which is entirely fenced in three sections, thank goodness. the back yard is separated from the front and side yards and is where the dogs go out to play. The front and the side are more for show with nice plants and stuff (it was landscaped by the previous owners...I have a black thumb for anything except herbs). Well, sometime between 9 am and 11 am yesterday, some a#$@!%)$ took the corner too tight (frankly, based on the look of it, they HAD to have been under the influence of something) and destroyed about 30-40 feet of my fencing in the side yard. Uprooted 4 posts from their concrete moorings and everything. And then just drove off. Leaving me with a huge mess and no chance of compensation for the damage. If anyone had seen the car and given the police a lead, I'd be able to make a claim against the owner's car insurance, but no such luck. I could claim it on my homeowner's insurance, but based on my deductible and the fact that the claim would sit on my policy for the next 5 years, I'm better off just eating the cost. This makes me less than happy.   The only bright spot at the moment is that I think I might actually have a real loss this week (fingers crossed). This is based on my daily unofficial weigh-ins. Tomorrow is the real thing, so today I will be watching my salt intake and trying to be extra mindful so that I can maintain any loss I've had long enough to record it tomorrow. Cross your fingers for me, please. I'm kinda sick on losing less than a pound per week.   So that's what's going on and why I haven't posted more the last few days. Trust me, if I have a decent loss, I WILL be posting again tomorrow.
morelgirl

morelgirl

1
 

Putt-putt-puttering Along

Reality has set back in. For the first seven days after my last adjustment (first one in 6 months) I was in paradise. Scale kept dropping close to a lb per day. Yay! Thanks, Santa, that's just what I always wanted! Then there was the aberration of a 1 lb gain that I knew had to be bs, so I ignored it, checked my food log, and chalked it down to sodium. Since it was almost all off the next day, that's still my story and I'm sticking to it. Today, the scale just stayed still, so I'm exerting a lot of energy reminding myself that as long as I AVERAGE 1-2 lbs per week down, it's all good. I'm good. Everything is fine.   Can y'all hear me chanting, "Ohhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmm?"   I know I can't expect any weight loss to be smooth and perfect and steady downward every time I get near a scale (but, oh, wouldn't that be wonderful?), but it's tough to remember that when my inner toddler is whining, "Are we there yet?" every five minutes. It also doesn't help when my inner b***h can't stop pointing out that if I hadn't taken all those months off and regained, I wouldn't now be facing the extreme frustration of trying to lose 10 lbs I had already lost. She's so annoying sometimes. Still, I am what and who I am and where I am, and I can't change that by looking backward, only by moving forward.   Went shopping today to stock up on lean protein and make sure I had enough variety in the house to keep from getting bored and cranky, which makes me want to break rules. No rule breaking here, just good healthy food and lots of protein (good thing I love chicken).   I know I can do this, especially since I have another appointment coming up in 5 days with the promise of another fill if I need it (oh, I do, I do, I swear I do!). I can no question hold out until then. And after that fill, I will be able to hold out until the next one. If I weren't strong enough for that, I wouldn't have come back with my tail between my legs a week ago. I'm here, I can do this, and I'm too danged stubborn and cussed to give up now.   So there!
morelgirl

morelgirl

1
 

The Breakfast Rant

Breakfast and I have never been friends. Then again, mornings and I are not on the best of terms either. I'm so not one of those people who get out of bed ready to face the world and any challenges that come at me. Rather, I get out of bed bitter, grumpy, semi-conscious, hostile, and mute. It takes a minimum of one cup of coffee before it's safe for anyone in the vicinity to approach me, let alone talk to me. If I attempt to eat sooner than at least 1 to 1-1/2 hours after I wake up, everything I swallow makes a return appearance. Before banding, I ate in the morning depending on craving, attitude, and general quirk of fate. Since being banded (while being compliant) I never eat breakfast.   I know all the "rules" about breakfast. It's the most important meal of the day. You need to restart your metabolism after your overnight fast or your body will go into starvation mode. Eating breakfast makes your metabolism work harder all day to burn more calories. People who skip breakfast usually eat more calories over the course of the day than people who eat it. I've heard it all more than once, but the key word (especially in the last bit) is "usually." In other words, it's not always the case.   Take me, for example. My normal routine is to wake up (reluctantly) about 8:30 or 9 (I love to sleep, and I work for myself, so I allow myself the luxury there). I shower, then stumble out into the house for a cup of coffee. Since I drink my coffee with cream (half and half, 20 calories worth, carefully measured), I try to limit myself to one cup. By 10, then, I'm usually ready to start my day. Generally, I get quite hungry by 12, so I begin fixing lunch and eat around 12:30. Then my tummy starts rumbling about 3 at the moment, since I need another fill. If it's not too terrible, I hold out til 4, when I have a small snack (cheese or something else protein rich). That keeps me until dinner around 6:30 or so. It's a system that works for me. I count all my calories and stick to my plan without issue.   Well, every once in a while I start questioning myself about whether I might really be doing this all wrong, and I decide to have breakfast to see if everyone else is right. Today I planned to up my calorie intake anyway, so I decided that it would be a good day to experiment with breakfast. I got up at 8:30 and went through my routine, but at 10 instead of just finishing my coffee, I was sitting down to a healthy breakfast of about 300 calories. I ate it, finished around 10:30, and since enough time had passed, it stayed down. It was yummy, so I enjoyed it, and it was almost entirely protein, so it should have kept me satisfied until around 1 pm. By 11:45 I was hungry again. At noon I was ready to gnaw my own arm off, and all day since I've been hungrier than usual and exerting all my self control not to eat more than my planned intake. Now this may be evidence that my metabolism is working faster due to breakfast, but to me it's not worth it. I can lose weight without the boost, and I do it without the misery of constant hunger that breakfast seems to cause in me.   Maybe that makes me a freak of some sort, but I've finally decided that what works for me is the most important thing.   That, and losing the weight, of course.
morelgirl

morelgirl

1
 

If I Know It's My Fault, Why Is It So Hard To Fix?

Today, I'm buckling down, because I've completely stopped losing. In fact, over the past month, I've gained 0.6 lbs. Now, part of me is celebrating and praising my band that I've ONLY gained about half a pound when I have been doing nothing right and totally slacking off this process of being banded, but the other half of me is kicking itself repeatedly in the head and screaming that I'm a #&*%#$%! idiot for paying thousands of dollars for surgery if I'm not going to follow the program that goes along with it.   Remember Logical Me and Emotional Me? Yeah, they're at it again.   It's been a rough few weeks, and instead of buckling down and meeting the challenge, I let myself fall back into old habits. My excuses ranged from a deadline for work, through a long-planned (since well before banding) out of town girl's weekend that included much wine and some fabulous food, through the stress of helping my BFF with her wedding (happening in 11 days) prep. The truth is that life is always going to throw stuff like this into my path, and while I may not have dealt with it well this time, that's no reason to give up or to expect to deal with it poorly next time. Every minute is a chance to start over, or to at least get back on track, so that's what I'm going to do.   Of course, I could have been a lot worse, and remembering that is helping me pick myself back up. I'm definitely still eating less than I would have pre-band, but I've allowed myself to slack off on paying attention to my physical hunger as opposed to my head hunger, so that's today's number one priority. Along with getting back to drinking my water. All the fundamentals, as it were. I've already made it through breakfast and lunch successfully, counting my chews, spacing out my bites, and taking at least 20 minutes to eat. I also have a plan in place for dinner, so I'm cautiously optimistic.   I think the important thing to remember is that I am in control of this process. When I follow the rules, I will lose weight; when I don't, I won't. It's really that simple. The power is in my hands. Time to use it for good instead of evil.
morelgirl

morelgirl

1
 

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
 

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
 

Water, Water Everywhere

The excitement of the moment is that I will be getting my fence fixed! Yay! In a remarkable stroke of luck, I got a phone call last week from a detective with the local police department (this was entirely different from the department that took my report of the fence damage...since I live outside the incorporated city limits, the sheriff's department had jurisdiction over my report). It turns out that she was in the neighborhood the morning of the incident and actually SAW a tow truck hit my fence, tear it down, then turn and flee the scene. Since she was out of jurisdiction, she didn't stop them, but she made note of the name of the towing company and tracked down their phone number. When she called them and explained that the driver could be arrested because he hadn't stopped to exchange info or report the hit and run, suddenly the company was happy to contact me and arrange to pay for the fence repair. So next week, I'll have the fencing company out to replace nearly 40 ft of damaged fence. Woohoo!   Other than that, I'm mostly holding my breath. My daily weigh-ins seem very promising this week, but I'm scared to believe it yet. I haven't been doing anythig really differently than I have over the last 2 weeks, when I began varying my calorie intake daily. Actually, that's not quite true. The one thing I've altered a little bit is that I've been much better about drinking water since my last weigh-in. I still don't drink nearly the amounts you hear recommended (2/3 of your body weight in ounces??? I'd end up drowning myself!!!), but I've been getting in a minimum of 8 glasses of fluid and guaranteeing that at least 6 of them are pure water. So maybe that's actually helping? I've heard people before swear up and down that drinking water can help you lose weight, but I guess I'm just stubborn and hadn't really paid attention to it before. Silly me.   Anyway, official weigh-in is on Wednesday, and I've got my fingers crossed that the number on the scale from this morning either holds steady or continues to drop. We'll see!
morelgirl

morelgirl

0
 

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
 

Off Site Blog

To anyone who might be interested, I've started a band blog off of LBT. The link is here: http://themagicminimushroom.blogspot.com/   Posts may or may not overlap here and there (they do not at the moment), but I think I probably have enough rants to be okay with both at the moment.
morelgirl

morelgirl

0
 

Truckin'

Apologies to anyone who is (like me) old enough to see that post title and now has the Grateful Dead stuck in their head. At least be comforted that I am in the same boat.   It is appropriate, though. I am truckin' along here 10 days post-surgery. I'm really enjoying my mushies over last week's liquids, but I am trying to keep an eye on my calories and getting as close to my minimum protein goals as I can. On that score, I can't wait until I can actually eat meat again. It has sooo much more protein than the softer eggs and beans and cheeses I'm most comfortable with at the moment. Honestly, I'm so comfortable and having such an easy time of it, that I'm guessing I could probably handle soft solids if not solids already, but after pushing for early mushies, I'm trying not to rock the boat too much more. And honestly, I'm not really having hunger issues yet, either. I mean, I get hungry, but it pretty much corresponds to mealtimes and 1/4 to 1/2 cup of food keeps me satisfied for hours. I still worry, though. I'm a bit paranoid about whether I'm inadvertently stretching my pouch, but I think my volumes are small enough to be safe. Fingers crossed.   Some soreness around my largest incision still, a bit worse today after I overdid it a little yesterday on the bending at stretching, but nothing liquid Tylenol isn't dealing with. First fill should be in 18 days, and I'm marking the time off with eager anticipation!
morelgirl

morelgirl

0
Sign in to follow this  
Followers 0

PatchAid Vitamin Patches

Bariatric Forums

For Patients

Health Professionals

Search Surgeons

Bariatric Surgeons: Want to research a weight loss surgery surgeon? Enter their last name below to start!

×