At least for a little while. Went out to breakfast with a friend, ordered off of the menu with no substitutions (scrambled eggs with veggies and feta), enjoyed a nice conversation, took small bites, ate slowly, sipped my coffee a couple of times and when I was no longer hungry piled my plates up and pushed them away. I ate about 2/3 of my eggs, 1/4 of my potatoes and half a slice of dry toast. AND I WAS FINE WITH THAT!
Now, that wasn't say that the head hunger voices weren't screaming in the background about wasting food, about how good it tasted, about taking just one more bite. They weren't as loud as they usually are, I just checked and made sure that I wasn't hungry (Satiated), and dismissed them.
There is hope...
I packed my normal breakfast of a Protein shake and a some steel cut oats, and drank my shake when I got to my desk. a couple of hours later I was hungry again and pulled my oatmeal out. Then Mistress Band spoke, "I'm not eating that stuff, get me some more protein!" So down to the cafeteria for a couple for eggs and hash browns, threw 3/4 of the hash browns away, and Mistress Band is now one happy camper.
When I woke up this morning, I was feeling pretty lethargic, I knew I had been doing a lot of physical labor on 1300 calories a day with the constant snow fall here, but I thought I had been allowing for that. My body disagreed, and a real part of my journey is learning to listen to my band and my body.
Food for thought.
After 2 bites, I decided it just wasn't going to work. I started dinner prep way too hungry, testing this, tasting that, drinking something else. By the time the steak came off of the grill I had already eaten my cup, and Mistress Band told me there wasn't a steak on the planet worth what she would put me through if I ate any more.
Sigh...6 months is not enough time to undo 50 years of bad eating habits.
I just got back from vacation at Yellowstone and like many banders I was tighter while at the higher altitude, and discovered that I felt better. So since I had a LB fill appointment this morning, I had them tweak my band with a .25 cc fill. But back to liquids for today and soft for tomorrow.
Try something else. I am tired of my scale plateau, so on Missy's recommendation I am going to try carb cycling for a week or so to try and break it. So Missy if it doesn't work, I am holding you personally responsible
I had my second fill today, the nurse added 1.5 to my 10 cc band bringing my total up to 2.5. Same little ache in the band area after fill, which quickly fades. So, liquids today, mushies tomorrow and solids on Sunday.
I have been adding some processed foods back in to try and combat the cravings. Taquitos the other night, and pizza last night. Some things lose their allure when I choose to eat them (taquitos), some things are still trigger foods (pizza), none of them satisfy and curb my hunger like non-processed nourishment. Well, I guess I will just have to sacrifice and eat more ribeyes.
And no, I am not talking about the size of my butt!
Just looking at my ticker and based on my surgeon's first goal for me, I am over have way there, but as many veterans have warned me weight loss has slowed, but is still on a downward trend. It would be nice to extrapolate based on what I have lost so far as to how long it will take me to meet that goal, but WLS doesn't work that way.
My spin classes have been giving me great cardio, and building my leg muscles but they have also been playing havoc with the scale. As my body retains water to deal with the micro tears that encourage new muscle growth, the scale stays the same (or climbs) for days on end, then one morning I will get up and have dropped 3-4 pounds from one night to the next. But if I am logging my food, and exercise I can pretty much ignore this by knowing what is real.
Next step is adding in strength training, since I don't want a lot of upper body mass, low weights and lots of repetition will tone my upper body without making me look like the Hulk.
For now anyhow, had my second appointment were we decided that I didn't need a fill. Steady weight loss (Of course not as fast as I would like), 3-4 hours of satiety (Depending on if I stay away from simple carbs and focus on protein). Can pretty much eat anything, but have to be careful and have had a few stuck episodes in the last month when I wasn't.
It is kind of a bittersweet place to be, the green zone is this magical fairy land that is held out to us from the time we are banded, and yet here I am. I still wrestle with eating too fast, I still am plagued by head hunger, I still have to exercise, I still have weight to lose, I still get plateaued.
WAIT A MINUTE, YOU MEAN I STILL HAVE TO WORK AT MY WEIGHT LOSS, I THOUGHT THE BAND WAS MAGIC!!! I WANT MY MONEY BACK!
I was banded on 1/7/13 and one of the things that my instructions talked about was that during the "Healing Phase" of my eating, many patients stop losing or actually gain weight. With this in mind I have been very careful to log all my food and count calories Even thought my NUT said that calorie counting wasn't necessary, she told me to shoot for between 1300 - 1500. So, this morning I was able to go back to one of my pre-band rituals of Saturday morning breakfast with a friend, but I was scared because I was flying solo, no scale, no measuring cups, just me and "Mistress Band".
So, the result? I ordered two eggs and hash browns, I pre-cut all my food to the proper size, and tried to focus on the conversation and my eating. Pretty soon I hit a soft stop (hiccup) and then each bite I started asking myself why I was taking that bite. When the answer because "Because it tastes so good" I put my fork down and moved the plate out of reach.
At that point, I was satisfied, not full, but satisfied and it looking at my plate, I realized that I had eaten about the same as I would have if I had pre-measured it. Maybe one day, I will be able to move rely totally on listening to my body and my band, but until then, I will log and count.
Plateau finally broke, and I have dropped 5 pounds since my fill on Friday. Last couple of days have been really interesting as I believe I am in the green zone with 4.3 cc in a 10cc band. Well today is different and my body has been hungry most of the day. But I ate my normal dinner, and had my evening treat (Skinny Cow), but I was still hungry. So I pulled a couple of chicken thighs out of the fridge, warmed them up and I am munching on those.
The sweet treats are nice, but the protein is what keeps the hunger away for me.
is that it makes me hungry, and not just on the day that I exercise. Ate more calories than I intended at lunch, and I am at least a couple hundred in the red tonight. So my current fix is a large glass of crystal light and a small bowl of pickled cucumbers and onions. Thank God I am married, I think I find my sweetie and give her a big kiss
BTW if you interested in the recipe
Slice a large cucumber ( I prefer the english variety so I don't have to peel it)
Thin slices of onion, I prefer red (bermuda) onions, but all I had in the fridge was a yellow
Toss of a couple of tablespoons of sugar (or artificial sweetener if you use it)
pour enough red wine vinegar (I grew up with cider vinegar, but I prefer the red wine) to get everything wet.
Tomato wedges are good, but didn't have any
Put in as sealed container shake real good to mix things up and put it in the fridge and turn it every once in a while, the longer the better.
Nutritional information? Haven't a clue.
I am not mocking or belittling the concerns and issues that some are facing as the ACA takes effect, but I want people to understand that there are two sides to the story. Healthcare has long been broken in our country, and while the ACA is by no means perfect, it is a start. Let's move forward and make it even better.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/09/us/amid-the-uproar-over-the-health-law-voices-of-quiet-optimism-and-relief.html?pagewanted=2&ref=politics&pagewanted=all&_r=0
I still don't understand my body and why it does the things it does. I have slowly been building up my daily calories as I work through the mushie stage, my goal is 1300 a day. Well for some reason yesterday I just had the urge to graze, and the only way I kept my net calories at 1300 was to exercise. I wanted to eat all day long. Now today, I am having a hard time getting down 900 calories, I simply have not been hungry all day long. Add 550 calories of exercise on top and MFP is going to yell at me
Same foods, no emotional upsets, but my body is behaving totally different. It will be interesting to step on the scale tomorrow morning and see what other surprises my body has in store for me. This is one of the reason that while I am a firm believer in the burn more calories than you consume weight loss formula, I also believe that this is a "big picture" paradigm and only really works over the long term.
Went for a fill appointment this morning, talked over my hunger levels and loss history over he last month and the nurse suggested a .2 tweak, bringing me up to 4.9. So, liquids today, and mushies tomorrow. And I don't have to go back for a month.
I Corinthians 10:13 ESV
13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it
I have seen a common theme in the posts of new banders, and it is "I don't know if I can do this, what if I fail?" This where the I draw solace from the stories of our veterans, successful or not. I know that I am not going into uncharted territory, that someone has been there before me, faced the same issues as I will and they were successful, and if they were successful, I can be as well. It is also one of the reasons that I answer the posts that I do, not because I have all the answers (or really, any of them), but it is just to let people know that they aren't alone, that yes it sucks right now, but there is an end to it and they need to focus on their goal, they too can reach the other side.
Oh, and the verse also speaks to the care and control that God exercises in our lives, but that is a topic for a different blog
The company that I work for provides insurance through one of the top 5 insurance companies in the nation, our employee count is under a thousand and we are provided with an online registration portal. So far registration has been pushed back twice for web site issues, and when it finally come online today, it crashed after a couple of hours.Maybe the Obamacare website isn't so bad after all.
eating on Vacation that is.
Away from my home, my scale and my kitchen for a week visiting family in Northern California. An Easter brunch that my sister-in-law served that centered around a ham, chicken and lasagna, side dished, appetizers and deserts from Hell. But the real villain were the chips and candy at my Sister's house. The good news is that I am only up .75 of a pound for the week, and after I flush all the excess sodium out of my system, my weight will probably be a wash. I just kept B-52 and others on the forum in mind who weren't counting calories, and tried to listen to my band, watched my bite sizes and speed. I had one stuck incident that caught me totally by surprise, but other than that eating was no problem.
Glad to be back home though, although I would like the rain to stop so I can get on my bike, Catfish is getting ahead of me, and that just won't do!
Spent 4 days in Hawaii on a work assignment, and maintained my weight. The office was about a mile away, so I didn't get a car and walked to work each day. While my food choices could have been healthier, I listened to my band and life was good.
