amylynns

My youngest daughter and I.

My son, Jared and I on graduation day!! My honey and I.

OOOOPS!!! I totally put the wrong weights in that last post! Haha! I was 167 this morning....had been stuck at 168 for a couple weeks and had bumped up to 170, not 180!

@Beni--Hey! I've been reading everyone's posts, just no time to sit and reply! So glad the scale is moving for you again! yay!!! Mine has been on 178 for a couple weeks. Even creeped up to 180 for a couple days, BUT, it was during my monthly, so figured it was from that. This morning it was at 176, but I like to stay at a # for a couple days before I'll record it, LOL! So busy here! We have 2 of our boys graduating high school! We did one party last weekend, this weekend is the actual graduation ceremony, and then the other son's party is the 24th. THEN--Brett and I and the 2 boys leave for Hawaii on June 3rd! It's going to be here before I know it and I'M NOT READY!! I need clothes for Hawaii!!! Plus, I REALLY wanted to find a dress for graduation---OH--and we have a wedding to go to on the 23rd also, which I'd like to find a dress for too. **Sigh** I have no time to shop! We're in about the same size Beni. I got a couple pair of 11/12 pants at Maurices. Cannot believe I fit into that size comfortably. I haven't worn that size since before I got pregnant with my first baby and she's 21 1/2 now!! :D Dresses are going to be an issue for me. My calves have always been big, and dresses do no compliment them at all. UGH....We'll see! Just found out I don't have to work on Saturday now, so hopefully I can go shopping! Yay!

Someone had asked me the other day about my son and his surgery. He's ok. He's 14 yrs old. He has what's called an inter-muscular vascular tumor in his elbow. Back in 2013 he had it surgically removed. We did another MRI the next year and it was growing back. The surgeon pretty much left it up to my son when he wanted surgery again....With the original tumor (non cancerous by the way) the ulna nerve in his arm ran right through the middle of the tumor, so it was a pretty big, 5 hour surgery to dissect it away from the nerve. Then he literally moved the nerve to another area. So when the tumor started growing back, our hope was that he wouldn't have pain, since that nerve was moved. But he did have pain. He took it as long as he could--pretty much wanted to get through his basketball season as school first. :-) SO...anyway--this time, they tried a new procedure. Instead of opening up his arm again, they used a type of live MRI laser deal. He has 6 puncture wounds in his arm, where they put the laser machine in, and literally lasered away the tumor. THey'll do another MRI in 3 months to see if it's growing again. THe Dr. said with these types of tumors, they typically keep growing back, especially through puberty. So hopefully when he's done growing, it'll slow down. He's 6' tall right now at age 14, so we'll see how much more growing he has to do! Beni--Sorry you're sick! :-( I had a horrible sore throat and sinus pressure ALL over my head last week. It was so painful. It was when I was at the hospital with Zach. Ughh..so miserable. Heading out for my MRI on my back/hip. I'm very confident it's going to turn out to be absolutely nothing, but I'll make my Dr. happy and get it done.....

@Luna222---If you haven't called your Dr. yet, you might want to just call in and ask them? That seem odd!? Do you have your gallbladder? I had mine out back in 2009 and I remember having pain between my shoulder blades, along with other pain, but might be worth checking out. Nothing else new to report here either. I'm PMS-ing this week, so I'm feeling bloated. I think I'll just stay off the scale for a few days. I think Spring was here for half a day then skipped to summer! It's toasty today, and humid. Ick. Can't we just have a nice 70 degree day? :-)

Goodness, I've gotten behind on here. My son had surgery in Rochester,MN at Mayo Clinic, so I've been gone for 3 days. Kind of glad to be back at work today! (haha, so I can catch up on my social networks! LOL!) My hair: Yes, I just told my hair stylist a week or so ago that it'd been itching really bad. Thought for sure I had bugs or something, LOL! No bugs! She's having me try a Paul Mitchell brand moisturizing shampoo and conditioner. It's ALOT better in just a week!! ALOT! I'm not losing near as much hair I was, so I'm relieved that's calmed down. I think the biggest help was increasing my protein! I just had a color glaze put on mine too when I was there last, and it's a really good moisturizing glaze, so that may have helped too. I'm also finding I'm able to eat more at a meal, but as long as I'm still losing I still feel very much in control. I hadn't been sick after eating for about 2 weeks and I actually got worried that I wasn't going to have that "safety net" to keep me in check. But then, BAM, I got sick on something. (can't remember what now) I was relieved actually. We ate a lot of hospital food the last 3 days, and a lot of eating out. At the hospital I made pretty good choices though, but I noticed things were very high in sodium, WOW! Eating out also--my goodness, didn't eat a whole lot because it was way too salty for me! I wasn't too surprised when the scale was the same this morning, actually a bit surprised when I didn't have a "sodium gain!" By the way---I'm in the 160's!!!! Whoohooo!!!!! My ticker is still messed up! I deleted it completely. And then looked at my posts, it was gone--the one that wouldn't update correctly. Then I re-created a new one. It showed up on my posts, ALONG with the WRONG one again!? I sent a message to the head guy, Alex, on here. Maybe he can just go in and delete it for me. Ok, I'd better go get some of this work done that didn't seem to get done itself while I was gone!

Aaaahhh!! I can't get my ticker to update right? When I go in to edit it, it's right. But won't show up right in my signature. So I "re-added" it to my signature, but now I have 2 tickers on it, LOL. But it only shows one when I go into tickers. Grrrr! I'm afraid if I delete it, it'll mess up my original weight. Like if I delete it and re-add it, will it let me start at 249 and have my current weight at 171? Anyone have any tips?

I did not have an open incision, but I went home with a drain in one of them. I had to wear it for a week. When they pulled it out, it was the most horrific pain I've ever experienced. I'd rather have all 4 of my kids with no pain meds than have that thing pulled out again! Then I ended up getting an infection in another incision. A round of antibiotics took care of it good though. My whole right side where the drain was, was VERY painful, especially the week it was in. I hope you get feeling better soon!! Keep an eye out for any infection symptoms. Take your pain meds and stay hydrated! Keeping hydrated will help with the pain too.

@Beni--I hope that's the case! My BMI still says I'm over weight so I think I have a little further to go. I even checked it at 160, and my BMI would be 25, still over weight!? Dang! I'm not going to stress over it though. Honestly, I'd be fine weighing 150, I just didn't want to set myself up for failure if I didn't hit that number. I figured 160 was doable. So I'll just see what happens when I hit 160 and go from there. My Mom figured I was down to 130 by looking at me, and that was when I was at 180! So I guess I look smaller than I weigh. I need to take a new full body picture and put it next to my before picture so I can visualize for myself what I look like. I struggle with Protein too Beni, it's hard a lot of days because I'm just not hungry enough normally to eat more than I am! My typical day for meals is: Breakfast: something with an egg. Whether I make an egg sandwich at home (one slice of 45 calorie bread, 1 small egg, 1 slice cheese) Or I'll get an Egg White Delight sandwich from Mc D's when I'm in a rush! :-) I can't eat the whole thing. Lunch: salad with tuna or ham/turkey along with cheese, nuts, black Beans and a 45 calorie dressing. That's my usual, or on a rush day I'll have a frozen meal. I try not to do that often, but it's convenient for crazy work days. I make sure I choose the lowest carb and sugar ones. Dinner: Some sort of meat and veggie and small bit of carb. (usually some sort of potato) Snacks: I have 1-2 a day. Beef jerkey, greek yogurt, apple & PB, cheese sticks. I average 750-950 calories a day and 40-60g of protein. I'd like the protein to be 60-80 though!

So I'm a bit worried....I have "my" goal set at 160 pounds. But I was looking on line at different sites to see how much I "Should" weigh. Most sites are saying between 115-145. I don't know that I can get that low? Or if I'd look good at that weight?? How did you all decide on a goal weight?

With my insurance, once I qualified it didn't matter if my BMI went below 41 at that point. As long as it was 41 or higher on my first consultation, that's what they went by. So as odd as it sounds, go ahead and try to gain a few pounds! I did the same thing, to make sure I was going to hit that 41. (I know, seems so wrong, but sometimes you just have to do what you have to do!)

@PinkPolkadot619--So awesome you and your BF are losing weight. Wow! That's great! I'm sure between having your period, traveling, eating some foods that you don't normally eat--you'll have that 3 pounds off in no time!! I freak out when I'm constipated because it seems I'll gain a couple pounds, but then I drop about 3 when I finally go!

And that's awesome your boyfriend did so great!!! What an accomplishment!! I LOVE your pics you posted too!!! The last year pic compared to this year was amazing!!!

@PinkPolkadot619---Focus on your protein!! You might be carrying some water weight too, from traveling! Give yourself a few days and then weigh again.

I had the same problem, even now it's hard for me to drink protein shakes. Makes me feel WAY too full! I went to an un-flavored protein and mixed it with broth. That helped a lot.

Hang in there!! I was right where you are 5 months ago. Promise it gets better!! Focus on getting Protein in, it'll help with healing also. I had the sharp, isolated pain in my belly also. Then one day, I felt a "snap" in my belly and the pain was gone. Someone told me it's like an internal stitch gets caught or something, and it'll break free at some point and no more pain. (if that's what you're feeling) Constipation will get better as well. Are you still on pain meds? They'll cause that. Also make sure you're getting in your liquids. It'll help with the constipation. I had so many days/ weeks/months of thinking, "What have I done?!" But I am SO happy now, 6 months out--78 pounds gone, that those horrible days are a blur now. People who say we've taken the easy route are SO wrong, it is not easy AT ALL! But anything worth fighting for, isn't easy. Once you can increase your protein, it'll also help you lose more quickly. Same with drinking Water. You'll get there, promise!!

@joankrie--Yes, it's so hard to wrap our heads around that fact! I automatically go towards the plus section, even tried on a plus size dress, SWAM in it, LOL! It was liberating to get rid of all my plus size clothes! But yet, that little spot in my head said, "But what if you need these again?" NO!! I will NOT need these again!! We've lost weight so quickly, it's like our brains need time to catch up to it all!