Not the healthy kind, mind you, that involve long walks over varied terrain where you can breathe the fresh air and move your muscles all in the embrace of nature's beauty. No, I'm referring to the kind of rambles where I attempt to disguise the fact that I have nothing new to say, but feel the need to vent the same old whining on you poor people yet again. Feel free to ignore me. I ignore me half the time.

1) This has not been a good week, loss wise. Despite getting my first fill a week ago today on 2/29, I do not have restriction. Well, barely any. I am able to eat way too much (though admittedly exponentially less than before the band) and my scale is showing me the un-love by reusing to creep downward. If I'm lucky and my daily spot checks are accurate, I can expect to either stay the same, gain a few ounces, or lose at most 0.2 lb when I officially weight in tonight. I find this very discouraging.

2) I made an appointment to return to my dr for another fill as soon as my three week waiting period is up. 3/23 will be fill number two, and I have my fingers crossed that this will give me at least a little restriction. Well, I should be honest. I think I do have a teensy-tinesy bit of restriction now, because I do notice that I stay full longer after eating than I did before my first fill, but I can still eat a cup or more of food at a time, easily, and that's too much. I also have had no trouble eating anything I've attempted from bread, to pasta, to rice, to chicken breast. It all goes down. I need more help here.

3) I'm struggling really hard to keep all of this in perspective and not have a hissy fit over how much weight I'm not losing at the moment. When I see posts form people who've lost 25 lbs since surgery without even a single fill, it takes me a minute to climb down from the clocktower and stow away my rifle. I know it's not helpful to compare myself to others. Everyone is different. Everyone loses at their own pace. I myself have a whacked out metabolism. I know this, and I get a reminder of it everytime I take a dose of sinus medicine or a sleeping pill, because even if I halve the regular dose, it take at least 36 hours for me to work that stuff out of my system. I also have PCOS, which I know makes weight loss slower for most people. but damn it, I want to be losing! That's why I payed for this dratted surgery and went through the process of being knocked out, cut open, and banded. I want the loss. NOW. *picture me stamping my foot and sticking out my lower lip like a three year old being sent to bed early*

4) Last night was my first social special event since being banded. My housemate's coworkers threw her a wedding shower, to which I was invited. I enjoyed attending, but I did overdo a bit on the food. Not horrible (I only went about 70 calories over my high calorie goal for the day) but I still felt like a bit of a failure. I was able to limit myself to 1/2 a glass of wine and 2 buffalo chicken niblets, but someone had made spinach artichoke dip, and I'm a sucker for that stuff. I mean, it calls to me in the seductive tones of a stubbled, sweaty, banged up hockey player (did I mention I looooooooooove hockey? and hockey players... it's a sickness) whispering in my delicate shell of an ear about love and passion and eternal bliss. I ate about a quarter cup of it with crackers and chips. And a few strawberries. And about a teaspoon of brie. And part of a pinwheel wrap. And three bites of cake. Lord help me. I know I should be keeping in mind that I ate a LOT less than I would have pre-band, but my mind just wants to linger on the things I did wrong instead of the things I did right. I hate that.

So anywho, like I said nothing I've said here is new or earth shattering, but I have a little bitty problem with patience. Not standing in line patience, or waiting for a package to come patience, but patience with myself when I think I should be reaching a goal. At the moment, my goal is to get back under 200 before my birthday (4/22) and I'm starting to wonder if I'll make it. Trust me, I'll keep making the old college try, but at the moment, I could use a little encouragement.

(Hear that, Mr Scale? Throw me a bone, why don't you????)