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Aloha Today marks 6 weeks since surgery, and Wednesdays are my ‘official’ weigh in, although I do weigh every morning. I just record it only on Wednesdays. Yesterday the scale showed me down 40 lbs since start of pre-op, 30 since surgery. This morning I showed down 39 lbs since pre-op and 29 since surgery. ~sigh~ this is my first gain, and I’m guessing I ate something salty yesterday. I am absolutely not bugged about this. I will continue to weigh every morning. I am not obsessing. Just yesterday I had a meeting with my NUT and I asked her what her take on stalls is – is it something that just happens inexplicably, or is it usually something the person is doing wrong? Mind you, when I asked this I was still moving full steam ahead losing every day. LOL maybe I jinxed myself. ANYways, she said stalls just happen sometimes, but the individual has the power to break them. All this being said, I know that 1 lb gained overnight certainly does not constitute a stall. It has just set me to thinking about it. There will come a time when I actually do hit a stall. I want to be prepared for it. So screw the 1 lb overnight last night – I am very, very pleased with my progress! I am beginning to go shopping in my closet, and that is fun. I realized last weekend that I can cross my legs; hooo! that was a thrill! My nightly hikes have become more energetic – I can go longer and faster and work up a good sweat. My dog is loving it! I was thinking this morning that something I would love to be able to do would be pushups. Real, honest-to –goodness, straight leg, military style pushups. No way in hell I can do it now, but I was thinking how cool it would be to be able to do them eventually. My (very athletic) husband would be so impressed! And then I had a brainstorm that I will train myself in secret to be able to do them as a surprise for him! Every morning when he gets in the shower I am going to roll out of bed and start trying to do them. And then one day I'll say "look what I can do!" I also want to get some hand weights. My bariatric exercise specialist had given me a band to do arm strength training with, but I have begun to get very nervous using it because I am terrified it’s going to snap and put my eye out. Paranoid? LOL. Perhaps! But I noticed that in very tiny print on the typed instructions she gave it says “caution: wear eye protection when using the band”. LOL she never said it out loud, she didn’t wear glasses when demonstrating it for me, and I have never, never seen anyone in person or on TV wear protective eyewear with the band. Leave it to paranoid me to start thinking about goggles though. Actually, I’d just rather get some hand weights and not worry about it any further. So far my hair is the same as it’s always been – yay! I am fond of my hair. But I think it’s just a little early yet anyways to see any losses. I won't be surprised when it starts to thin a bit in a month or two. My nails are still growing like mad—I finally had to actually clip them so I could type. In the past they’ve always broken way before they got to the point of needing to be clipped. Hope this nice side effect lasts I guess as long as I get my protein and take my vitamins it will. My energy is getting better all the time. Still would love more energy, but I have faith that my energy level, along with other things in my life, will just keep getting better n better as time goes on. Onward!

http://www.stuff.co....r-says-shes-fat Dear Mum, I was seven when I discovered that you were fat, ugly and horrible. Up until that point I had believed that you were beautiful - in every sense of the word. I remember flicking through old photo albums and staring at pictures of you standing on the deck of a boat. Your white strapless bathing suit looked so glamorous, just like a movie star. Whenever I had the chance I'd pull out that wondrous white bathing suit hidden in your bottom drawer and imagine a time when I'd be big enough to wear it; when I'd be like you. But all of that changed when, one night, we were dressed up for a party and you said to me, ''Look at you, so thin, beautiful and lovely. And look at me, fat, ugly and horrible.'' At first I didn't understand what you meant. ''You're not fat,'' I said earnestly and innocently, and you replied, ''Yes I am, darling. I've always been fat; even as a child.'' In the days that followed I had some painful revelations that have shaped my whole life. I learned that: 1. You must be fat because mothers don't lie. 2. Fat is ugly and horrible. 3. When I grow up I'll look like you and therefore I will be fat, ugly and horrible too. Years later, I looked back on this conversation and the hundreds that followed and cursed you for feeling so unattractive, insecure and unworthy. Because, as my first and most influential role model, you taught me to believe the same thing about myself. With every grimace at your reflection in the mirror, every new wonder diet that was going to change your life, and every guilty spoon of ''Oh-I-really-shouldn't'', I learned that women must be thin to be valid and worthy. Girls must go without because their greatest contribution to the world is their physical beauty. Just like you, I have spent my whole life feeling fat. When did fat become a feeling anyway? And because I believed I was fat, I knew I was no good. But now that I am older, and a mother myself, I know that blaming you for my body hatred is unhelpful and unfair. I now understand that you too are a product of a long and rich lineage of women who were taught to loathe themselves. Look at the example Nanna set for you. Despite being what could only be described as famine-victim chic, she dieted every day of her life until the day she died at 79 years of age. She used to put on make-up to walk to the letterbox for fear that somebody might see her unpainted face. I remember her ''compassionate'' response when you announced that Dad had left you for another woman. Her first comment was, ''I don't understand why he'd leave you. You look after yourself, you wear lipstick. You're overweight - but not that much.'' Before Dad left, he provided no balm for your body-image torment either. ''Jesus, Jan,'' I overheard him say to you. ''It's not that hard. Energy in versus energy out. If you want to lose weight you just have to eat less.'' That night at dinner I watched you implement Dad's ''Energy In, Energy Out: Jesus, Jan, Just Eat Less'' weight-loss cure. You served up chow mein for dinner. (Remember how in 1980s Australian suburbia, a combination of mince, cabbage, and soy sauce was considered the height of exotic gourmet?) Everyone else's food was on a dinner plate except yours. You served your chow mein on a tiny bread-and-butter plate. As you sat in front of that pathetic scoop of mince, silent tears streamed down your face. I said nothing. Not even when your shoulders started heaving from your distress. We all ate our dinner in silence. Nobody comforted you. Nobody told you to stop being ridiculous and get a proper plate. Nobody told you that you were already loved and already good enough. Your achievements and your worth - as a teacher of children with special needs and a devoted mother of three of your own - paled into insignificance when compared with the centimetres you couldn't lose from your waist. It broke my heart to witness your despair and I'm sorry that I didn't rush to your defence. I'd already learned that it was your fault that you were fat. I'd even heard Dad describe losing weight as a ''simple'' process - yet one that you still couldn't come to grips with. The lesson: you didn't deserve any food and you certainly didn't deserve any sympathy. But I was wrong, Mum. Now I understand what it's like to grow up in a society that tells women that their beauty matters most, and at the same time defines a standard of beauty that is perpetually out of our reach. I also know the pain of internalising these messages. We have become our own jailors and we inflict our own punishments for failing to measure up. No one is crueler to us than we are to ourselves. But this madness has to stop, Mum. It stops with you, it stops with me and it stops now. We deserve better - better than to have our days brought to ruin by bad body thoughts, wishing we were otherwise. And it's not just about you and me any more. It's also about Violet. Your granddaughter is only 3 and I do not want body hatred to take root inside her and strangle her happiness, her confidence and her potential. I don't want Violet to believe that her beauty is her most important asset; that it will define her worth in the world. When Violet looks to us to learn how to be a woman, we need to be the best role models we can. We need to show her with our words and our actions that women are good enough just the way they are. And for her to believe us, we need to believe it ourselves. The older we get, the more loved ones we lose to accidents and illness. Their passing is always tragic and far too soon. I sometimes think about what these friends - and the people who love them - wouldn't give for more time in a body that was healthy. A body that would allow them to live just a little longer. The size of that body's thighs or the lines on its face wouldn't matter. It would be alive and therefore it would be perfect. Your body is perfect too. It allows you to disarm a room with your smile and infect everyone with your laugh. It gives you arms to wrap around Violet and squeeze her until she giggles. Every moment we spend worrying about our physical ''flaws'' is a moment wasted, a precious slice of life that we will never get back. Let us honour and respect our bodies for what they do instead of despising them for how they appear. Focus on living healthy and active lives, let our weight fall where it may, and consign our body hatred in the past where it belongs. When I looked at that photo of you in the white bathing suit all those years ago, my innocent young eyes saw the truth. I saw unconditional love, beauty and wisdom. I saw my Mum. Love, Kasey xx This is an excerpt from Dear Mum, a collection of letters from Australian sporting stars, musicians, models, cooks and authors revealing what they would like to say to their mothers before it's too late, or would have said if only they'd had the chance. All royalties go to the National Breast Cancer Foundation. Published by Random House and available now.

Hi Everyone, I am watching Dr. Oz right now and the show's subject is Toxic Love. Very interesting about what loved ones do to each other when they have health issues. Dieting together, a mother telling her daughter, you're fat etc. and cooking the wrong foods. Right now is a couple and the wife wears an insulin pump and the husband cooks all the wrong foods. The therapist is trying to help all the people. Great show. I know of people like that, that make and feed the wrong foods to the diabetic, the WLS person, like all of us etc. Who is the the toxic person in your life? Mine is ME!!!!!!

Here is it Thursday - the 4th of July! I was so excited about my visit to see my surgeon on Tuesday but it was really no big deal. There were seven other people in the room who are getting their surgery the same day. Hello assembly line... Here are the highlights: They went over the "Eight Golden Rules" of lap band success Eat three or less small meals a day Do not eat anything between meals (this will be difficult) Eat slowly and stop when no longer hungry Focus on nutritional foods Avoid calorie containing liquids Exercise for at least 30 minutes a day Be active throughout each day Always be in contact with support staff (go in for monthly adjustments) [*]We got our prescriptions for pain relief and an anti-nausea suppository (good times) [*]My surgery time is 9:15 - and I need to be there two hours early and it's an hour+ drive. [*]We got a video to watch at home. Jason watched with me so that he can see what I need to do and how he can support me. Once our patient advocate left the room everyone talked about how they cheated on the pre-op diet! I have been so good and hadn't cheated at all (notice how I used past tense). So when I left there I came home and made my lunch. I nibbled on little naughty things here and there like it was no big deal. I was sabotaged by the strangers in the room and the conversation with our surgeon. He told us that a lot of doctors around the world don't put their patients on a pre-op diet to shrink their livers. He said he does it with all of his patients because one time he had a patient that had binged before surgery eating all of his "one last time" foods. His liver was so big and fat that the doctor couldn't put the band on. So the guy went through surgery and recovery, but didn't get a band. That is sad. So I really left feeling like the diet wasn't as big of a deal as I thought it was. I wish I'd never gone to that stupid meeting - pre-op is now harder than ever. My surgeon is cute - something about doctors is handsome in general. So I had a private meeting with my handsome doctor to ask him if my ginormous boobs would be a problem during the operation or during recovery. That was fun. : / He smiled and said it wouldn't be a problem. I feel a little uncomfortable with a handsome doctor opening me up. Not sure I want an unattractive doctor doing it either. Happy Fourth of July to everybody!.

I vividly remember trying to find something patriotic to wear last 4th and being so frustrated that everything was too tight and looked awful. This year I'm wearing a cute red top and black short shorts and feeling good. Next year I hope to be wearing a nice sundress unselfconsciously. We took a one month progress photo yesterday and compared it to one we took last Feb. when I was at my heaviest. I am awed by the difference. I think it hit me yesterday that this weight loss that I've been obsessing over for YEARS is finally happening. I saw a friend at the parade who hadn't seen me since a week before the surgery and she was surprised at my loss. Wondering what it will be like going back to school in Aug., 6 weeks from now. Hoping I'll be down another 15 lbs. by then. Still haven't figured out what to tell the students. Losing 40 lbs in 10 weeks isn't exactly 'normal.' I've developed an odd side effect - seriously dry, itchy skin. No matter how much or what kind of lotion I put on my face, I was awake half the night itching. I'm also concerned that as the fat exits my face, more wrinkles are showing up and making me look OLD! UGH! Well, dear husband doesn't seem to notice or hasn't said anything if he has. Love that man! Well one month ago today I was being taking from post-op to my room and hating life, wanting to turn back time and change my decision. Today I'm well beyond that point and very happy with my choice to change my body in order to change my life.

In the lead up to my surgery, my surgeon was 99% sure the band was going to have to come out, but agreed to get approval from my insurance carrier that if when he got in there, it appeared the band or the problem could be remedied without removal, that he'd fix the problem and leave the band in. Again, my fear of packing the weight back on overriding the numerous problems I've had with the band. Nevertheless, I came out of surgery feeling relieved that the band was out and finally I'd have no more painful or embarassing food adventures. I was surprised at my disappointment of finding out the band was still in and the protruding, lopsided, scarred port area even bigger than ever. The surgeon repaired a hiatel hernia - just like when I had the band placed three years ago. It's been three days and I can barely swallow the pain meds. Liquids are still going down with the old 'stop and drop' feeling. Not hungry but how laughable - still haven't lost a pound even after four days on nothing but clear liquid. Here we go again.

I started my pre-op diet (Atkins - no more than 20 grams of carbs a day) last Tuesday. It's been relatively easy. I've only had a few times that it was truly difficult. The first time was the s'mores on vacation, the other was cutting the Bluebonnet Cafe pancakes for my son, and the third was the banana bread from yesterday. I overcame all of these events because I didn't want to jeopardize my surgery. Today I weighed myself on my fancy new Weight Watchers scale and I have lost 8 pounds since starting the pre-op diet! While this is good news...it's made me question whether I should go through with surgery. Maybe I should just stick it out and keep working on it...But I know myself. Honestly and thoroughly...I know myself. I can sustain a program for a while, but as soon as I get off of it...I GO WAY OFF. The band will help me monitor myself. I go in to meet my surgeon tomorrow. I really hope they weigh me and are excited about my loss so far. If this loss continues, at the end of next week I should be back to where I was before I jumped off of Weight Watchers in May. I am looking at everyone's before and after surgery pictures. It is very inspiring, but I have a hard time imagining myself under 200 lbs again. A REALLY hard time. It's seemed so out of reach for so long, it feels like a fantasy to let myself think about it. Like I should be laughing at myself for thinking that far ahead. In OTHER good news, a friend of mine that blogs a lot is going to work with me to fancy up my page and help me make it look more appealing. I had blog envy yesterday when I looked around at a lot of other blogs. I thought this blog was going to be helping me so that I didn't talk about weight loss, weight loss surgery, or the things I'm going to do after surgery during every waking hour. To the unspoken dismay of my friends and family...it has started working yet. I'm still blabbing away! I can't wait to post about tomorrow!

I can cross my legs while sitting. I stood up at church to pray, bowed my head and realized that all I could see was my boobs....no belly sticking out further than my boobs! The steering wheel can be lowered while I drive. I walked 3/4 of a mile today without panting and thinking I was having a heart attack. I make still look like Shamu but I am feeling like Flipper!