September Bandsters

[kareyquilts 1]

Diane: From one red head to another, you crack me up! I think I'll take BJean's suggestion and get a spray on tan and try and enjoy it for all!

BJean: It has been a while. How are you doing? Thanks for your advice. I think I will wear the special socks. I'm planning on needing a lot of time for healing and just hope that all my exercise will help me recover well.

[BJean 16]

Exercise???!!!! Take it easy, girl. Those long muscles in your abdomen need some TLC for quite a while.

I'm doing all right. I haven't lost one more pound than what I had lost by last summer. I'm still reporting in, getting weighed and counseled, regularly. I've gained a few and lost a few, gained a few and lost a few. It is very frustrating, but I have talked my DH into getting onto a Medifast plan. He starts next week and I have no doubt that with the two of us doing better at the same time, I will get back on track. Thanks for asking!

[TheGh0st 9]

Yipee!!! When I got on the scale this morning I'd dropped another pound! I'm still going to have to average a smidge over 2 pounds a week to get to goal by my anniversary Mar. 9th but for the first time in over a year I'm starting to feel like I might just hit one a short term goal I've set for myself. Yipee!!!

[kareyquilts 1]

Diane: Congratulations on the weight loss. You're going to do fine!

BJean: On the exercise, I meant the exercise I'm doing now to get myself in shape. I don't think I'll be exercising for a while after the surgery. Sorry that your stalled on the weight loss. Boy do I know how frustrating that is! I think that Medifast is a great idea. It gets rid of the guess work for the amount of calories going in. Have you ever thought about getting the body bugg. It helped me get ove my plateau. Are you still going to Water aerobics?

[kareyquilts 1]

Diane: Congratulations on the weight loss. You're going to do fine!

BJean: On the exercise, I meant the exercise I'm doing now to get myself in shape. I don't think I'll be exercising for a while after the surgery. Sorry that your stalled on the weight loss. Boy do I know how frustrating that is! I think that Medifast is a great idea. It gets rid of the guess work for the amount of calories going in. Have you ever thought about getting the body bugg. It helped me get ove my plateau. Are you still going to Water aerobics?

[BJean 16]

I know you've been a great proponent of the Body Bugg and I've heard from others that it is a really worthwhile tool. I got a scale that I figured would give me similar information but it didn't work very well for me. I think that the Body Bugg is something I should definitely consider. No one that I've talked to that has one has been disappointed in the Body Bugg.

I just signed up with my DH for Medifast. Gotta do something. I really have to get off this high spot I'm stalled on. Plus, he needs something to get him healthier as well. It will be good that we're doing this together. I am pretty psyched about it. Maybe our next investment will be the Bugg. I appreciate your input, karey! Thanks.

[TheGh0st 9]

So much for doing fine. I was going to try to not watch my carbs as strictly over the weekend and just eat "sensibly". Which started off alright. I even had what I thought was the most fantastic NSV of my life when on Friday my husband announced I no longer needed to lose any weight. I was flabbergasted to say the least! It was the first time since I ever knew him that he didn't think I needed to diet, and only the second person (besides my mother that is) to have ever told me that. And that was over 20 years ago!

You would think I'd be over the moon, and I was all that night. I kept thinking how happy his comments had made me and how much weight seemed to be lifted off my shoulders to know that from now on any weight I continued to lose was truly being lost just for me and not for him or anyone else. But ofcourse it didn't last. The very next day he was all over my case about something I was eating that he thought I shouldn't be able to eat with the band saying he thought it showed I needed another fill. And to make matters worse he added that it disturbed him that I had "read so much" into his one innocent comment about my not needing to lose any more weight. It made me feel like he was having second thoughts about having ever said it. I don't know if it was because he was afraid I would take it as an excuse to stop watching what I ate and start gaining again or if he hadn't really meant it when he said it but I don't think he could have said anything more hurtful to me after having made me so happy.

Then just to fullfill the prophecy I had to turn around and eat 2 slices of cherry pie that he bought at the grocery store, a king size candy bar and a snickers ice cream bar to boot. And if I get a chance I'm still of the mood to go out and get a chocolate frozen custard with chocolate chip cookie dough mixed in. All behind his back ofcourse and now I've gained half of what I lost back and am so disappointed in myself.

Why do I let him get to me like this?

[kareyquilts 1]

Diane: My oh my! What a hurtful weekend! Why is your husband bringing home cherry pie? I think it's very undermining to you. He is certainly sending you mixed messages! I can't have stuff like that in the house and it's really not very good for anyone, whether they need to lose weight or not. It was great that your DH thought your weight was good and he probably didn't mean to hurt you, but I guess you need to teach him what a powerful effect his words can have on you. That being said, did it make you feel better to eat all the crap? It didn't teach him anything, that's for sure! I don't want to come down on you, but I know that you want to conqueror this weight thing and I think that you almost have. Maybe you should have gone and bought a new outfit or went for a walk or written your hurt feelings down. I don't think the food thing helped you at all. Can you open up to your DH and ask him to stop bringing crap into the house and tell him specific things he can do to be supportive? Just remember, one bad weekend won't ruin your efforts or your relationship. I wish you the best.

[kareyquilts 1]

Reporting for this week. I'm down 1 more pound. 17 more to go!

[BJean 16]

TheGhOst: I believe that the answer is control or loss of control issues.

First of all, if we allow our friends, family or spouse dictate what is successful weight loss behavior for us, we might just begin to realize that we may not actually be losing weight for ourselves. If we aren't losing for ourselves, anything and I mean anything, can throw us a curve.

I have even weighed myself and discovered a nice loss only to go out and eat a hot fudge sundae afterwards. Now that is self-destructive behavior in anyone's books. So why would I do that if I truly cared about myself and truly wanted to lose weight? I might do it if I really didn't care about myself and didn't really want to lose weight. Or if I was angry at something my spouse or a friend told me about my weight and I bought into it.

That is a really lousy feeling - to face the fact that I am undermining myself or allowing someone else undermine me by rebelling when I don't like what they say to me. Especially if the rebellion takes the form of eating something I shouldn't be eating if I want to lose weight.

If someone has a brilliant answer to deal with this sort of behavior, please let us know!

[TheGh0st 9]

Congrats on your pound, I know how hard fought they can be at this stage.

Yeah, I knew better about the food. I wanted to post about it online but was so upset at the time I was afraid I'd write a novel twice as long as the one I just wrote. (Plus my computer at home is very SLOW) still there was no reason for the food I ate or the food he brought home.

He is 6'1" to my 5'2" but is slowly creeping up the scale (currently at 225) which puts him at a nearly identical BMI to me. And he eats constantly. I have no idea why he brought home the pie. Whenever anyone else brings us anything like that he thows it away as soon as they leave, especially if it is something he knows either I or our son likes more than him. He had ate nearly half the pie when I ate a 1/2 a slice. The next morning he saw I'd had some and got all upset with me about it. Thought the band should stop me from being able to eat ANY pie. I said no it just makes it so I had to skip my dinner to have room for it. Not a healthy option I agreed but still not a sign I needed a fill.

Today I ate one more large slice for "Breakfast" then brought it to work for my co-workers to eat so neither DH or I would be tempted to eat more.

The big fight was more over respect. If I come home and he has been working on the house I might ask if he has done X or Y so I know what is left for me to do. Instead he gets upset thinking I'm looking for something to criticize so I apologize and tell him that isn't what I meant. But when he does something similar (like this weekend) and comes home from "a drive to think" and starts asking what all I've done around the house and I mention he is sounding overly critical his response is to tell me that maybe if its a sign I should have done more. The last two weekends in a row we have gotten into similar arguments that escalate until we are both cleaning but he is stomping around the house in silence like a little child having a tantrum. I'm getting VERY sick of this. I don't deserve to be treated worse than a stranger on the street. I tell him this but he says he doesn't have to live with strangers he has to live with me. And if he did live with them he'd treat them the same way. I have no intention of leaving him but feel this is only going to get worse before it gets better because I am not going to back down on this until he starts to shape up and at least apologize when he behaves like this just as he expects apologies from me when he thinks I'm nagging or complaining.

OK sorry for the vent. I'm headed home now. will get back on around 10pm.

[TheGh0st 9]

TheGhOst: I believe that the answer is control or loss of control issues.

First of all, if we allow our friends, family or spouse dictate what is successful weight loss behavior for us, we might just begin to realize that we may not actually be losing weight for ourselves. If we aren't losing for ourselves, anything and I mean anything, can throw us a curve.

I have even weighed myself and discovered a nice loss only to go out and eat a hot fudge sundae afterwards. Now that is self-destructive behavior in anyone's books. So why would I do that if I truly cared about myself and truly wanted to lose weight? I might do it if I really didn't care about myself and didn't really want to lose weight. Or if I was angry at something my spouse or a friend told me about my weight and I bought into it.

That is a really lousy feeling - to face the fact that I am undermining myself or allowing someone else undermine me by rebelling when I don't like what they say to me. Especially if the rebellion takes the form of eating something I shouldn't be eating if I want to lose weight.

If someone has a brilliant answer to deal with this sort of behavior, please let us know!

As usual you nailed it right on the head. I know that a big part of why I did it was the idea if you are going to nail me to the wall for something I did that wasn't that bad then I might as well go whole hog and be bad. But I knew the whole time the only person I was hurting was myself. I've also started to realize there is a lot of truth to the idea that I've always been afraid of failure and people leaving me. Being overweight was always a great "out". that way if they left I could always say it wasn't the "real" me they left it was the "fat" me. Losing this weight is exposing a lot of other issues in myself and our marriage that we are having to face individually as well as together.

It won't be easy but we are both committed for the long haul.

[BJean 16]

TheGhOst: It has to do with power. He did a good thing by encouraging you, but then he treated you like he's your parent or counselor. Like it's his place to correct you or like you need his input to gauge your success.

No one likes to feel that they are being controlled or managed. Not when they're an adult too and supposedly in a 50-50 marital relationship. (It's never 50-50 in both partner's minds.)

I have had similar incidents and it makes you really want to freak out. You know, intellectually, that it is stupid to let someone else have such an impact on your weight loss, but emotionally it hurts and you want to prove that you can make your own decisions when it comes to your own body.

I wish I had a good answer to give you. I've even gotten on the scale and found that I had a good loss, only to go out and eat a hot fudge sundae afterwards. Now if that isn't self-destructive behavior, what is?

Because when we let our friends or family or spouse dictate what is success for us, we might learn that we're not really doing this for ourselves

[BJean 16]

Well a funny thing happened to me on the way to a posting. I wrote the first one above and got called away from my desk. I didn't think that I had posted it so I wrote the second one and just sent it. Now I find that I posted twice saying the same thing. I'm a doofus. Senility is not pretty.

The GhOst: I think the issues you all have about housework are very normal and everyone I know has those. One thing that DH and I have finally figured out is that he is never going to think I'm doing enough and I'm never going to think he's doing enough. So rather than criticize each other and fight all the time, we just live with each others' messes sometimes and wait for each other to clean up our own stuff. Of course when your kids are small, you have to clean up their messes from time to time. But you can get everybody involved without everyone getting angry and having a bad day over it. I'm no expert at this, but I've seen friends who make a game out of it. One thing I know for sure is that feeling like you're a slave to your house only makes you want to escape. And that's a bad thing.

Btw, I don't care much for donuts or bread things (especially now that I have the band) but my DH loves them. I have actually brought home donuts when I know no one should eat them because I want to make him happy. That is not cool. I think your DH should be spanked for bringing home the pie, but only in a good way.

[kareyquilts 1]

I think BJean is right on. There seems to be control issues on everyone's part. I absolutely hate it when my DH or DM decides to be the food police! Now, I just make a joke about it and do what I'm going to do. Sometimes it's okay to have a treat. Only I know my calorie intake, my physical exercise and my appetite. I'm certainly not going to tell anyone else what to do in that department. Housecleaning is a whole other issue and everyone has issues. I think that you all should go to a movie or have some fun together. Humor and fun help most things. Hope you all have a good week!