NOT a baby… no no no…  Today is my NINE MONTH SURGIVERSAY… yep 9 months ago today I was in surgery.  It’s amazing how fast it goes.   This is an idea of my day now:

ok here’s the daily report:

scale: 172.4 this is:

down 1.6 from yesterday
up .8 from last tuesday
down 5 pounds from a month ago ( my surgical monthly report shows that I’m LOW average this month)
down .6 for the entire MONTH of JUNE

down 80.4 from surgery date which is just under 9 pounds per month… ugh.  I wish it was more.

oh and I’m down 113.4 from the heaviest on my home scale.  wow that’s almost a whole person.

basically the TREND is good… and isn’t that what matters?

fashion: blue crop pants with the blue flowered top, diamond drop earrings (hair is up today so that’s an important point) white sandals. going to be mid 90s today… we are going to hit 100 on Thursday it appears…

exercise: after work… will ATTEMPT the first C25K podcast today IF the ankle settles down. it has been going out the last two days. the chip is moving and it hurts to dorsi-flex (toes to shin) the joint and sometimes when I step it locks which HURTS badly… when the chip is stationary the ankle is JUST fine… I don’t know if it’s PMS related or weather related or just random but I do know it’s a pain… the knees (thank FSM) are just fine today…. I will also do some weight work and my stretching today

food:

commute: click/milk/protein/coffee  (this is the daily breakfast 99.9% of the time)
snack: yogurt
lunch: cottage cheese w/cucumber and tomato pita puffs (salty little puffs of air with minimal nutritional value)
snack: cheese and banana (pre-workout)
dinner: something cool…. it’s HOT….
LNS: fudge pop probably

this is a pretty typical day for me.

of course I wake up around 5 am (and loll in bed about 15 minutes with dogs and hubby)

i get up

I potty  (and hope that the colace, magnesium oxide and benefiber of the day before worked)

I brush my teeth

I get on the scale NAKED…. while I may weigh more than ONCE I only count the first weigh.  I would say 99% of the time.  Occasionally it’s way to whacked out (too low or too high) to be accurate….so I reweigh to find something closer to the day before.

today is not a gym MORNING (it is however a gym DAY) so I shower and dress for the office and take the gym bag with the gear with me for after work.   In fact,  almost EVERY day is a gym day now…  who would have ever thought I would love going to the gym.  I wish my knees and ankle were happier with me about it… and I wish my butt/back/piraformis did not hurt so much… but I wonder how bad it would be if I didn’t go to the gym almost daily.

Yes I am in the gym pretty much everyday.  I usually skip either Saturday or Sunday (usually Sunday) but this past week I skipped Saturday.  AND if I don’t have plans and bri is racing I might go both days anyway.  I am thinking of trying the Couch to 5k but I worry that I’m doing too much with my ankle and bad knees… Yes KNEES… the left knee has a torn meniscus and a misplaced Baker’s Cyst… the right knee.. arthritis.   so not cool… so not happy about this.  oh and my ankle is acting up again…

It does not stop me from hitting the gym. I love Yoga. I love the stretch, I like to lift, I even like to run but my body takes a pounding….

Food is a bit more complicated.  I eat more fat and carbs and calories than you would think I should but less than the gowear fit thinks i should.   Maybe that’s why I’m stalled this month.

Yes I lost 5 pounds during the surgical month of 5/22-6/22 but I’ve lost NOTHING for the month of June. and that makes me sad and frustrated.  It’s not abnormal.  It could be from eating too many carbs, it could be from not eating enough food.  it could be from not drinking enough water, it could be from many things or nothing at all.. who knows.

all i can do is keep moving forward… can’t believe it’s been 9 months now… wow.

Tags: Exercise, gym, surgiversary, WLS

well here I am  8 months and a few days out… weighing in at an interesting 176.4 this morning… WOW.. so close to 175…  never thought I’d see this.

169 puts me at OVERWEIGHT  I am 7 pounds from OVERWEIGHT… OMG that’s less than my babies weighed at birth.   I am working through the pain of a pulled butt cheek… LOL… I’m still in the gym and LOVING it.  I feel pretty good.  I sometimes think i look good… it’s almost like I don’t want to allow myself the luxury of admitting I look good.  Like that’s vain or shallow…   Did I do this for my health or my looks?  WELL…. a little of both I guess…  I like the good numbers on the blood work, I Like feeling fit and healthy. I LOVE YOGA..

I guess it’s hard for me to see that I could stop losing in 10 pounds and be done… I think I want to be 145 for a  while…

Tags: Diet, Exercise, yoga

So much to talk about… so much on my mind…

I got my GO WEAR Fit yesterday from my friend Katie..  and I charged it and synced it with my laptop at home (and i can look at the reports at work) I put it on last night but it was after dinner and working out…I did sleep with it but I haven’t synced it so I’ll see tonite.   Some folks don’t put their food in. I may or may not on a daily basis but I will for a few days at least…

I’m still figuring out the display and the armband thing with it.  Putting the armband on is no big deal… wearing it is no big deal… in fact you can’t even tell I have it on today… and it doesn’t bother me… I hope it helps.  I did take a one year subscription and it doesn’t seem too bad.. it will be interesting to see what happens.

This morning while I was on the elliptical (finishing up 20 minutes of cardio (and I worked hard at it) the darn display beeped at me to tell me that My moderate goal was met.  I have tried to look it up and I can’t find it.  oh well I’ll ask around over on OH… I then took a kick ass yoga class with tammie.  I held a tree today. I still wobble badly at tree with a kickstand because of the closed eyes.  I can do a beautiful modified half moon and my child’s pose is improving.   I can do half moon on the left much easier than on the right…

The point is yoga class rocked today and I worked up a nice sweat…

I’ve noticed in the last few days especially I’ve hit a new point.   Yesterday I felt THIN… this morning I feel NORMAL… and it seems that  all the women at the gym that used to find me invisible no longer do…. Now this may be a function of the fact that they see me 5 times a week consistently or it may be a function of the fact that I no longer have that FAT chick appearance…   I don’t know.  I’m not sure I want to know.

What I do know is that I am loving the gym.   I love going, I love how I feel when I’m done. I actually liked sweating today.   Who’d have thunk it ya know…

Why is it that when I think about things they sound so profound and then when I go to write them they seem so trivial.

Tags: Body Media, Exercise, Go Wear Fit, gym, yoga

I have several topics today, so which do you want first my knee, yoga, my lovely potty issues or the hubby and his stress over my becoming a ‘skinny bitch’….  (have I mentioned that I Hate that term…. not bitch but SKINNY)  I am NOT a SKINNY bitch.  a BITCH yes but NOT skinny…

Let’s do potty first since it’s a drive by… WHY does my body NOT cooperate and potty at the time of my choosing?  WHY must we do it at the MOST inconvenient times. and why does it take so damn long?  I hate potty at work… PEE is fine… POTTY at work is just adding insult to injury.   Ok enough whining about potty… which BTW requires  DAILY:

enough fluids  (over 64 ounces of clear fluids)

2 colace

4 magnesium oxide

1 serving of beneifiber powder

a half a cup of fiber rich dried fruit from trader joes

exercise

some decent amount of fat… avocado, guacamole, gravy

See while simple it’s still complex…..

Oh well enough of potty…

My knee… my left knee is severely compromised.  oh hell my whole left leg is compromised I”m blind in one eye, i have a bad right flank (the piraformis) and I’m lame in my left leg… If I was a horse they would have shot me years ago…  Yesterday I went to see my favorite orthopedist.. Ian Weiner… Love that man. he’s a trip…

First of all he recognized my voice but NOT me… he had not seen me since before surgery… WOW… cool too…

then we checked the knee… swollen, painful, and it CLICKS…. so we did a four view Xray series and then he said  “let’s inject it with cortisone unless you WANT me to scope you…”    I did have an MRI of the knee in 2008 and we KNOW it has a medial meniscus tear and a misplaced popliteal cyst WITH debris so probably EVENTUALLY I will need surgery… but this buys me at least 6 weeks if not longer..

So I got up this morning and potty was not happening (my body decides when now ugh) and I went to yoga…. yummy YOGA..I can so see improvement in my practice now… my moves, my strength, my flexibility, my breathing… the only real pain i had today was the priaformis on the right side… and a bit of knee pain in the squatting poses…  I think I will cry if i have to give up yoga for any period of time… it’s what keeps me getting out of bed with minimal pain.  NOTE I did not say NO PAIN….just MINIMAL pain…  At fifty I think I”m not going to be pain free… not on my salary…  I would need daily massages  and working with the trainer to work this kink out… even PT is expensive… a 20 dollar copay per visit.. ugh.

FINALLY I want to talk relationships… my husband is a dear man and I love him madly.  He’s lost 34% of his body weight compared to my 27%  (neither is anything to sneeze at) and he’s losing very very slowly now…  OTOH my body is changing rapidly… his is changing I can see it… but the scale is not moving for him… he’s getting frustrated and feels like a failure… he’s so NOT a failure,  he’s doing great.. EXERCISE is not what he wants… it’s what he needs… and it’s not making him happy and I don’t blame him.  we have to find what he likes… for me I clicked with YOGA…  maybe too much…he won’t swim and he can’t do much walking… how frustrating for him…  he’s 14 pounds from TWOTERVILLE and I hurt for him…  I want him to be happy…

oh well… off to work…

Tags: brian, constipation, Exercise, knee pain, potty, supplements, yoga

Hi OH HI….  Hello….  HI THERE!   (do you speak dog?  cause that’s how I talk to the pups…)

It’s THURSDAY…. a bright sun-shiny spring day in Baltimore… which is about as good as I can come up with.

Today is LUNCH WITH THE BFF…  that’s how the invite came…   love that girl. have for nearly 20 years…. long before she loved me I knew we would be buds… she’s saved my life a few times in every sense of the word…   I would travel almost anywhere for her…  oh wait, I have….  the ADD tour of the south 2 summers ago was one of my favorite vacations ever.   TEN days in a VAN with her… driving from city to city to get some furniture to her darling daughter in TEXAS….  this trip involved a pilgrimage to GRACELAND… oh and drunk dialing my darling husband from NOLA  but that’s another story for another time…

So there was a blow up at southbeachfriends yesterday.  My fault.  Truly.  I was snarky.   Yes I was.   BUT I really feel that I was snarky BACK.    The key is at least I ADMIT to being a bitch….  an evil SNARKY bitch while those that I snarked at think they did nothing wrong.  How sad for those that live in imaginary worlds where they are wanted.  NO ONE BELONGS WHERE THEY’RE NOT WANTED  (I’ve got that song on right now… What You Didn’t Say) I love Mary Chapin Carpenter and have for years and years and years.   She was my gateway to Country Music.

Who invented the word SNARKY???  it’s such a good word.   Ok I looked it up. It’s a 1906 british slang term from  1866 SNARK…  meaning irritable who knew?   I thought it was an internet thing…  as now it’s used to mean a cranky response… as in  NESSA was SNARKY to  <insert the name of whomever I was snarky to today> when she said <insert my most passive/aggressive mean spirited comment here>.

Sadly for folks  I’m always snarky when I OWN THE SITE and can do so.     What’s really sad is that I’m not even going to the site today.   Not cause I’m afraid to see what was said   who the hell cares what they think.  I’m not going because I’m waiting to calm down enough to just be able to say “WHATEVER” to them.

The truth is there are several people at  SBF that I don’t want there but since I can’t see a reason to remove them other than I don’t like their motives, I can’t justify it.  At least not in my mind.    Not that they don’t think I will remove them.  AND that is the KEY to why they are the way they are.  THEY HAVE NO CLUE WHO  I AM OR WHAT I’M ABOUT.  How sad for them.

I know there are webmasters that rule with an iron fist and it’s my way or the highway… and they seem to think that I’m censoring them.   ummm  NO!  Censoring them would mean I delete their posts and deactivate their accounts.      Some of them are even attempting to  set up ‘reading accounts’  in the fear that I will deactivate them.   I f that’s what they think they need to do, I can understand why I don’t want them there, because they don’t grasp that although I totally disagree with their thought patterns, their beliefs and their motives, I will allow them their delusions and freedom AT THAT SITE.  Yes I will.   Truth be told,  while I OWN it.  it’s not MINE… THIS IS MINE.   I delete users here daily.   I moderate EVERY SINGLE POST here.  and will continue to do so….  Aaron and I are the ONLY moderators here.  But the SBF site,  well  their belief that I censor is just ludicrous.

I know I’m going to have to go to the site soon.  I know i have to deal with this insanity.   Today I do not. Today is send the Critical Patch letter day at work.  Today is not a good day for me to play with whiners.

Today’s health report:

There was no dinner last night there was noshing… half a protein bar, have a protein tidbit, got home had some imitation crab and some bacon horseradish cheddar then ate  pudding, banana strawberries and chopped pecans with whipped cream… oy such a diet…   but there was serious exercise yesterday…half an hour on the arc trainer,  an hour of yoga that left my knee hurting so badly I have an appointment with  the ortho knee guy on Tuesday… probably to ask about a brace since today the knee is feeling much better… yesterday I thought for sure I was going to need surgery. I know i have a misplaced Baker’s Cyst and a partially torn meniscus which may or may not now be totally torn due to use…  SERIOUS use…  Yoga three times a week is really stressing the knee but I need the YOGA so I can walk the rest of the week…. and to keep my brain sane…  I do have some transfer addiction clearly…

I would do a yoga class every morning if they offered it at the gym…

oh the scale this morning:  185.4.   amazing.  it was 189 when i went to bed.  WHY I got on the scale last night I have no idea.   but i did and i expected 187 or so this morning… Yay me!

today:

commute:  click/designer whey/milk/coffee

breakfast:   none

lunch:  applebees with donna

snack:  cheese or protein bar or both half a banana

dinner:  no clue

snack:  dried fruit I”m sure no potty this morning.

Tags: Dogs, Exercise, frustration, knee pain, mary chapin carpenter, ranting, raving, whining, yoga

Good Morning…
A bright sun shinny day here…

up and at the gym did 30 minutes cardio then an hour of OMG I love

today for the first time I realized I was going to do a shoulder stand without a block!

we were doing spinal rolls and then we did a hands under the hips legs up and I realized that the ab strength has improved enough that I was going to try the shoulder stand…. when it came to do it… UP THOSE legs went… then the knees came around the ears… woo-hoo and then straight legs back… OMG almost able to do a PLOW…. and to think back in November I could not even do a down dog or hold a modified plank. We did a sun salutation this morning that involved multiple standing poses including triangle and half moon…. my left side half moon is so much stronger than my right side half moon… (meaning I can stand on the right leg better than the left)… Yoga so shows me the differences in my body.

Sadly this morning my left knee is throbbing. I think that the partially torn meniscus is becoming a totally torn meniscus… oy vey.. and no aleve…

oh well.

scale was 186.2 this morning so creeping back down

food today:

commute: protein click milk coffee
work: hot beverages
lunch: homemade chicken soup with shredded chicken and carrots
snack: think thin protein bar
snack: 2 cubes swiss cheese half a banana
dinner: have a recital for Amy tonite so not sure….
snack: strawberries w/pudding (SF) and chopped pecans

Tags: Exercise, knee pain, NSV, yoga

Tags: Dogs, Exercise, NSV, raving rambling, yoga

3/2/2010…  Yoga and Eating and Body Dysmorpia OH MY….

So many things I want to talk about today…

Let’s start with positive stuff…

DO YOU YOGA?

I have discovered that loving yoga is very very (at least for me) dependent on the instructor and the class size. I prefer a smaller easier paced interesting class.  AND I prefer MORNINGS.  Go figure.  When the heck did I become a MORNING person???

Anyway, the afternoon classes at my gym are full; VERY full (about 40 people) while the morning classes are about 10 people or so.  Maybe 13 if it’s crowded.   Also Tammie my wonderful trainer teaches it two days a week and Michelle teaches it on Wednesday mornings… I LOVED class today and I look forward to Yoga days even though I have to work till 6 those nights…

What do I like about the Wednesday morning yoga class?  Well for one I like the instructor.  She’s NOT young. She’s not SKINNY, She’s got scars and wounds and boo-boos and she gets that so do we.  But boy can she move… and bend and twist.  Boy is she fit.    And her voice is gentle and lilting and she explains things… why we do them and how to do them…

Also the flow of the class is great.  First we stretch EVERYTHING and that feels so good…. Then we do the individual components of the flow we are going to do and that helps the body remember what we are doing… Then we do the actual flow and that’s the hardest part. Sometimes I want to QUIT but because the class is so small I can’t HIDE and do that so I suck it up and do my best. After two or three reps of the flow it’s back to stretching and then Shavasana

I actually FELL DOWN in class this morning… just fell RIGHT OUT of the pose…  CRASHED to the ground…. How embarrassing.  We were doing some interesting poses that I had never done before called Dragons and I loved them they were not HARD but they were a lot of twisting and moving.   We did them instead of the ‘regular’ sun salutations.  I just am a klutzy, confused kind of yogi… and it showed.

BUT, the key was I showed up. I did it and it felt GOOD.   AND I WANNA GO BACK!  AND I find that I’m starting to PUSH myself a bit harder in the gym than I did.  I like that light pain of the stretch, the feel of the heart rate going up when I’m doing cardio on the Arc Trainer.   I look forward to my time with Tammie, my trainer.  (I call her evil trainer woman or Tammie the torturer but gad she’s AWESOME and she’s really helped me push myself just a little bit…

But I digress and I want to get back to yoga.  I was getting a bit lightheaded in class.  It could have been from the CLICK I had this morning for the first time.  Or that I was dehydrated, or hungry, or my blood pressure was dropping.   I actually spoke to the nutritionist at my doctor’s office this morning because at one point I had to do Child’s Pose to get myself together.   Sloane seems to think it could have been DUMPING because the click has 7 grams of sugar.  OY do not get me started on DUMPING.   I don’t dump.  I wish I did.   Maybe I’ll start.  It would be nice.  What is dumping?  I’ll write something up on that later…

So there you have it, I went to yoga and I loved it.  I would do yoga every morning if I could… It’s just not the same if I do it at night… I’m not sure why.  But I’m betting it’s the class and the feel of the gym in the A.M. Now I’ve been doing yoga for a while and a few years ago I was doing it a lot and I liked it then… but as of recently I’m finding my YOGA groove…  and it’s GREAT..

I SCREAM YOU SCREAM WE ALL SCREAM….

for ice cream???    Naw but food is an issue.  And before we talk about Body Dysmorphia I want to talk about food… I love food.  A LOT.  I mean after all I did not get to be nearly 300 pounds because I don’t like to eat.   But I like CRUNCH and I’m missing POPCORN….  So I’ve started eating crackers.  NOW mind you crackers are allowed.  And I’m eating high protein low fat good for you crackers (in the APPROPRIATE amounts with appropriate protein accompaniments) such as Glen Soy or Wasa crackers and that’s FINE.  Ranesa (the LCSW) said so.  Sloane (the nutritionist) said so.  I  KNOW so; and yet I have GUILT about these foods.

I should NOT have GUILT about food.  FOOD is not good or bad.  It just IS.  Or at least it should be. Shouldn’t it? I mean after all, we NEED food to survive.  But we also enjoy it right? Is this a punishment I inflicted on myself?  NO I don’t think so.  I sometimes think that because BRIAN is not eating crackers at all.   I know this is my journey and not his but it’s hard to not compare since he had his surgery 5 WEEKS before I had mine.  Or maybe it’s because so many of the online support folks I know eschew carbs in all shapes and forms.  Or perhaps it’s the doctor’s orders that we not have BREAD, RICE or PASTA for six months.

I did read that after 6 months we can have up to 4 oz a day of this stuff.   Well let me tell you that FOUR oz of soy crisps is A LOT of soy crisps.  I may go home and measure it out… just to see.  They weigh like NOTHING.   So I’ve not been losing weight and I wonder if it’s from adding the crackers.   I mean I know I need the carbs and it’s not like I’m eating a candy bar or ice cream…  (Both things I loved before surgery.)

So I’m trying to wrap my brain around just what I should be eating.  I’m trying to figure out how to make this work.  I’m scared to fail and I think that’s the biggest issue.   I do not want to fail at this.  I mean if I fail at Weight Loss Surgery what’s LEFT???

I wonder if it’s guilt or FEAR.

FEAR that I may not be able to stop. FEAR that I’ll revert back to being a HUGE FAT person again  (but wait how can I think that when I already think I’m a huge fat person even though I’m down  NINETY POUNDS from my heaviest and FIFTY SEVEN pounds since surgery?!?!?!) OH wait.. That leads us to:

WHO’S THAT GIRL IN THE MIRROR???

<DEEP SIGH> I left the best for last.  I mean how to tackle this topic and not sound like a total loon…  I’ve lost a lot of weight.  I used to wear a tight size 26 I really needed a 28 but in May 2006 I started South Beach Diet and lost over 80 pounds…  I kept that off till October of 2008… but I NEVER got below 206 pounds…  And then Bagel died and I gained and gained and gained.  I was up around 271 and wearing size 24 and they were getting tight.  I got down to 253 for the morning of surgery and now I’m about 196 or so…  NOT skinny by any stretch of the imagination but at a lower weight than I could ever imagine since I was in my very early 30s..   AND YET, (she says ominously) I feel HUGE sometimes.  I feel like a total failure sometimes.   I look at myself in the mirror and I’m in awe of me… and sometimes I look in the mirror and I’m in awe of that cute lady with the cute curly red hair and the WAIST.. I mean who is she… cause damn she’s not me…  I’m a FAT CHICK.   I’m the chick that has to turn sideways to fit through doors.   I’m the girl at the table because I don’t fit in a booth.  I’m the girl who breaks chairs…  I see me in the mirror and I know on the surface it’s ME but when I’m not looking at me in the mirror (and I do it often because I’m AMAZED it’s me not because I’m vain) I have my mind’s eye that I’m still HUGE  and size 26.  I guess in the Matrix I’d be huge since that’s my self image.

There are so many things I don’t know how to deal with.  I don’t know how to know if I’m eating right.  I don’t know how to make sure I eat to lose weight because with WLS eating is different. We focus on protein so much that I don’t really get veggies much.  I miss them.  Sometimes I can eat more than others.   It’s hard to find a balance. I struggle with food. I struggle with image. I  think I’m punking out in yoga class cause I step out of the pose but  I’M TRYING and that’s better than a year ago.

So   I don’t know how to see me as I really am and I’m not sure I’ll EVER find that out.  I know good foods.  I know that it’s a matter of calories in vs. calories out.  At least it’s supposed to be.  You would think that with 1000 calories per day about I’d be losing a lot more weight…  Tis a puzzlement…

Tags: body dysmorphia, dumping, Exercise, yoga

Weird Weird Weird.  The New post toolbar is missing my fonts and sizing.  Oh dear.  At least I have my colors.  This is what I get for tweaking.  I did find a message board for wordpress and will be installing it.  Ethnic chicken will have its own message board… how cool is that???

News:   we lost girl child last night, I found her. Sleeping in her room.  Oy.  She never even told me she was going to bed. Or if she did I did not hear her.

Brian got home around 11:30 from race practice.  Not a good practice.  He’s already gone for today.  Since I’m going out tonight I won’t see him till later.

Tummy is a tad upset…  I made a new casserole for dinner last night and it sucked.  Gummy, flavorless… and appears to have not agreed with me.  UGH.  Oh well live and learn.

I’ve put in a load of laundry already

I’ve called the Baltimore Sun to have them send out a new Sunday paper that was delivered last night (Friday) and is soaked. It never came.

Still looking for someone to take the table and hutch.  I think we are going to have to move it to goodwill ourselves.

My wrist hurts (right).  I think I pulled a muscle or something yesterday.

The dogs are being restless and annoying but it’s raining so they have to suck it up.

Tomorrow we are gaming with Norman.  Amy has something to do.

Tonight I’m going out with girl friends.  OY!  Must stop and get some cash before I go.  I’m excited.  I don’t go out with the girls all that often.

Oh well not much to really say today.

I could talk about my lack of control food wise but I am not sure I want to.

Did I mention that I put the gym membership on hold?  I was going to cancel but she told me I could put it on hold for 3 months (April may and June) and then I can get a doctor’s note till after my surgery and recovery to put it on medical hold till I am ready to come back.  With Brian.  So I’ll try that for 3 months it’s only 25 dollars a month for the hold.   Gives me time to think.

I kept thinking I should get on the bike this morning but I did not.  Oh well.  Maybe I need to push myself harder.  I know I need to tighten up on my food….

ETA:

Food has been very carby today

Fluids light

Exercise non-existent (I’m going out tonight I plan to dance some)

I’m home alone today that’s always a bad thing for me.  I really need to discuss this boredom eating with the nut. At my next visit.

Tags: Dogs, Exercise, food, gym membership., message board, rain, ranting, raving rambling