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So since I live about 1.5 hrs away from the doctor/hospital, I tried to cram as much into today as I could. I'm glad I did with one minor exception which I will get to. First up was the nutritionist. Good news, I lost 12 pounds since last visit 4 weeks ago. Bad news, I have to cut 200 more calories from my daily intake. Sigh. I knew that I couldn't stay at 1500 and I have had many days below that...but I thought with what I lost it might only go down 100. Not sure why this is freaking me out so much...but 1300 just seems like so much less than 1500. Also have to cut anything made with flour...entirely. While I haven't had any pasta (a known trigger for me) I have had an occasional piece of toast....I feel silly mourning a piece of toast but I am. Next was the EKG. Pretty easy. Kept clothes on, hooked up with sticky pads one on each lower leg, one on each arm just above the elbow and then right around the left breast. Lay still. Done Then it was off to get the upper GI. For this one I had been fasting since 600 the night before...not even water! So after being sent to the wrong area twice I got checked in and found out that they were doing a chest xray as well. So off with the top half of the clothes, on with an ill fitting (like didn't even come close to closing in the back) hospital gown. The chest xray room had to be no warmer than 60 degrees...it was really cold. After I finished the tech gave me a warm blanket for my shoulders/back which felt awesome! The Upper GI was not horrible, but not fun either. First you drink a fizzy drink like alka seltzer and they tell you not to burp....which you really want to (or at least I did). The fizzy drink is to introduce some air into your empty stomach so that the second drink ( a really thick barium drink) will be able to coat your stomach. They use the barium to provide contrast when they take the pictures. I am using a teaching hospital so I had a newbie doctor...being coached by an experienced one. It was soo funny, I was trying really hard to not follow the coaches directions, even though it seemed silly because I could hear everything she said. So you are standing on a footpad with a bed attached and as you drink the thick drink they start taking fluoroscopy pictures following the barium down the esophagus, into the stomach. After a couple of swigs of the thick stuff, they start to lower the bed which is kind of a weird feeling until you are laying on your back. Then it is roll over time, which was not easy for me because 1. I'm a big gal, 2. the machine actually taking the pictures is right on top of me and 3. that ill fitting hospital gown got stuck....but I got all the way around...first left side, then tummy, then right side, then back to the back. This is all to literally roll the barium around in your stomach. Then, while laying, they give you a cup with a straw and a thinner barium and this time they are watching it leave the bottom of the stomach. One more position, on the tummy with the left leg bent to check for a hiatal hernia and then I was done. Whole thing took about 30 minutes once I was in the room. The only bad thing was I had planned to have breakfast in the hospital cafeteria...but GEESH. Would it kill them to have a healthy option....I guess it was between breakfast and lunch but the choices were small to none. Cardiac clearance was last, she took a cardiac history, asked about exercise habits, asked if any cardiac symptoms....all in all about a 20 minute talk and she said I was low risk and she would send a report to the dr. Yay! So , all in all, pretty efficient, arrived at 0800 and left at 1215....That's all the pre insurance tests...one more monthly visit to the nutritionist and I should be ready to submit!

So I've been stuck at 252 for the last two weeks. Stalls suck. I have my three month post op this month (on the 19th, although it has been 90 days post surgery as of today). I desperately want to be in the mid 240s for this visit. It's a mental goal of mine based on where I feel I should be at 3 months out. I'm gonna try to low carb and cut back on weights this week (fast and light as opposed to slow and heavy), to see if that kickstarts my weight loss again. I'm going to continue swimming and taking my body works plus abs class. I love both of those things so much. LOL. I probably should better track my carbs. But I work out a lot ( almost two hours on cardio/weights days) and I know you need carbs for fuel when you are working out. Since the surgery, I do not seem to have the sensitivity to carbs that I had before my sleeve (considering that I was diabetic). But still, my guidelines pre-sleeve were to not go over 50g of carbs at a meal and 30g at a snack. That always worked for me to keep my blood sugars even. Those are the same guidelines I adhere to now. I know other sleevers are much stricter on carbs, so we will see if tweaking them does me any good. Stall busting is complex business. I know I am not cheating my sleeve and overeating. I know my sleeve has not grown because I can still only eat tiny amounts of dense protein. Calorie wise I am good. So the trick is to rejigger something somewhere to kick it back into gear. In other news, the second bathing suit I bought works divinely. It is a Land's end surplice front tugless tank. Looks better on that it looks hanging up. But my girls don't fall out. My old suit was a surplice front one as well, but it was a size 26. this one is a 20. I apparently have to buy my swimsuits for my boobs (smaller) and not my hips (bigger). If I buy for my hips, the girls will make an appearance. And it was on clearance. The suit is a bit tight in the hips, but not to the point where circulation is being cut off. Ha! The things I do for fitness. I spend a lot of money on fitness gear. But I always have. in the early 00s I used to work out at home and had all this stuff - weights, steps, mats. Now I work out at a gym and I still have all this workout related stuff.