kchristian

Well here we are. I have survived the first month of my gastric sleeve. Yesterday marked the one month date since I surrendered my stomach to the great nation of Mexico.
 
I can’t say it’s been a completely smooth ride, I’ve had my moments of restriction pain, nausea and frustration… and the three week stall threatened to crush my spirit plateauing me for a good 8 days, but at the end of my first month, I can say I have lost 16 lbs.
 
16 lbs man. That’s nothing to sneeze at. I have read many blogs and posts where people are light years ahead of me on the losing scale and for a short time I allowed that to frustrate me. Then I remembered one great fact.
 
The power of the law of attraction. What I ask the universe for, I get. Always.
 
It does not always seem like things are working the way they should but in the end I get the result I have asked of the universe… this rate of weight loss (which I may find slows further) is aiding me to help my skin retract – which is what I am asking for… no loose skin, no loose skin, no loose skin.
 
So let’s step back to the plateau. It was pretty hard on my nerves, and I think I allowed it to affect me physically because I started having some digestive problems as well, after all had been fairly smooth sailing for the first couple of weeks. I decided one day to sit down and think about the things that I want.. and the things I have wanted, over the last few years…
 
In May 2010
I wanted to lose the weight and get back into shape
I wanted my husband to stop drinking and being abusive to me
I wished I owned my own home
I desperately wanted to have a baby, having fought infertility for 6 long years
 
In May 2011
I wanted to lose the weight and get back into shape
I wanted my husband to stop drinking and being abusive to me
I wished I owned my own home
But I had a beautiful baby boy!!!
 
In May 2012
I wanted to lose the weight and get back into shape
I left my husband!! (... but I still wanted love)
I purchased my own home!!
I have a beautiful son!!!
 
In May 2013
I am losing weight!
I have love with my soul mate!
I purchased my own home!!
I have a beautiful son!!!
 
BUT... I’m on a stall.
 
REALLY JILLIAN???
 
Perspective perspective perspective!
 
And the non-scale victories are amazing!!
I sleep Better
My pitting edema that has haunted my feet for the last 5 years is practically non existent
The sciatica is gone
And the biggest one is the strength I feel when I power walk.


Everyday I walk up the nature trail beside my office building at lunch time, or behind my home – and I feel the power. I feel myself walking away from all my misery of the past, all my heartache and disappointment…. The chains drop from me as I go. Pretty soon, it will turn into a run, and once I start running… I will never stop!



Join me on My Fitness Pal: JillianMarie73

Week 1 on my high protein low carb eating plan and exercising 6 days a week. I had been having really bad issues with being extremely hungry at night so I told myself this past week i was going to work on kicking that to the curb. I ate dinner a little later one night that worked, I took a 1/2 protein shot one night and that worked and then I cleaned a few nights and kept myself busy by doing my nails and that also worked. All week I didn't snack or eat crazy stuff after the girls went down. So problem being worked on and I think solved. Thank you to all who responded to my post on the forum your suggestions and comments helped ALOT.
Now also my weekends are horrible my husband is home wants to go out to eat all weekend and weekends sabotage my hardwork from the week so this weekend If we went out I really thought hard about what I was ordering and tried to order healthy all the time. We ate out 3 x's first time was Wendy's so I got a grilled chicken wrap and side salad, 2nd was Chili's and I got a low calorie meal and replaced my rice with brocolli so I had chicken , black beans and Broccoli, the 3rd time was the hardest - Popeyes- I took the skin off the chicken and heated up my left over black beans from the previous night. I did have a biscuit but I made sure to work out after dinner so I could burn some calories. All in all it was the BEST weekend I have had so far!!!! I even made cinnamon buns for my girls on Saturday morning and didn't have any. I figure I am going to have to cook stuff I can't have and what a better time to start working on controlling myself from eating it but now.
So all my hardwork paid off and I was down 5.2 lbs this morning. I was so excited to see it working and I also feel great, more energized and alive. I can always start doing the healthy things but some where down the line i always fall off and gain it all back. This time knowing my Sleeve is just around the corner 42 days to be exact to stop that from happening has me smiling , I can see myself healthy again!!! Can't wait.

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.

Today is my sleeve surgery, and I'm surprisingly NOT too nervous. The doctors and whole staff have done a fabulous job informing me of everything, that I feel confident knowing what is about to happen to me.
 
I lost 2.5 lbs yesterday. UGH - the 'clean you out stuff' is not fun. But now I'm down 12 lbs since the start of the liquid diet and 20 lbs since I began this journey in Oct. of 2012.
 
My mom and husband are just wonderful and I feel better about the kids' welfare. Silly mommy needs to step back and take care of herself!
 
I am proud of myself for sticking with the program and making this HUGE change for ME. I feel better about myself already. Now my only concern is my boobs - their race to my waist is quite apparent and I'm thinking losing weight will only fuel their decent! Hmmmmm . . .
 
The stupid song "I'm so excited" won't get out of my head, but I guess that's a good thing. I can't wait for the new me to meet me on the other side!

Ok, the good news. I graduated from walking indoors to walking outdoors. Now the bad news. Monarch butterflies are bullies!
 
I've finally gotten enough endurance and stamina to start walking outdoors. I still don't like exercising, but I do like the effects. And I just can't make myself use either my recumbent bike or treadmill - they're just too boring. And besides, the computer is just 10 feet away the whole time, pouting from lack of attention. Did I mention that my Dell is an attention wh*re?
 
So I have to get outside to walk. I have a state park just a few miles away and there are some nice nature trails that are about 1 mile in length.
 
I've only been out there with my best friend. That way, if we run into a bear or wolf, I don't have to outrun the critter, I only have to outrun my friend!
 
But this week, my friend is out of state, visiting his sister in Ohio. So it was questionable if I was going to motivate myself to get out and walk today at the park. But I mustered up the energy and drove out to the park.
 
So here we go. I got my bright yellow shirt, the $5 forest green cap that I picked up in Alaska (is says, "If you ain't the lead dog, the scenery never changes!") and shades. Oh goodie, I look like a guy cruising the park looking for other guys - that has been known to happen at this park.
 
Luckily for me the park was almost deserted and even better, no one was on the trails. So I started my normal route. Around the lake, skirt the canal and head back to the car through the flat areas.
 
There are some ups and down areas that I think help strengthen my legs and ankles, but not so steep as to cause me pain, or worse, hurtle down hill out of control! Going uphill is no problem. I just don't do down's very well. I'm not good at getting down, boogieing down or going down hill.
 
Anyway, back to my story. I was minding my own business, walking the trail, hugging the shade, and lost in my own thoughts when suddenly a black shape swoops out of the woods. Mere inches from my left arm.
 
And I did what any manly man would do. I flinched and started windmilling my arms (oops, I meant to say, "used my master karate skills"), to swat away whatever that deadly critter was - to keep it's venomous fangs away from my throat!
 
A lifetime later (or about 3 seconds in real time), I realized it was just a huge Monarch butterfly fluttering by. He casually fluttered across the trail and back into the woods. But I swear, this was no ordinary butterfly. I think it was a Pimp butterfly, cause he fluttered with a limp and was very colorful, like a pimp, and had an attitude. I swear I heard him say, "Punk ass bit*h!" as he fluttered back into the woods.
 
I'm sure he told all his butterfly friends about how he - a 1 ounce butterfly - scared a 280 pound man and made him flinch. I guess I'm lucky he didn't give me two punches for flinching or have a smart phone to capture a video of whole thing. Otherwise, I might be on Youtube ring now, going viral.
 
P.S. The good news is: I managed to walk just over 2 miles AND, as a bonus, got in a killer arm workout. But I fear the psychological scars may never heal.
 
Keep Pimpin that Sleeve!