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

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

Today is April 22, 2010, 7 months ago at this time I was in surgery.  I had Gastric Bypass at St. Agnes Hospital with Dr. David Von Rueden on September 22, 2009, just 5 short weeks after my darling husband Brian had it.   At the time it seemed like a good idea.  Now I’m not so sure.

This has been a rough week for Brian.  He is in a LONG LONG STALL and he feels like a WLS failure.  He is not.  He is down nearly 35% of his body weight in 8 months… this is a good thing. He has gone from over 475 pounds to under 315… this is TREMENDOUS… the problem is, he’s still over 300 pounds and I’m not…   While he is VERY compliant about his food and drink, he’s not so compliant about his exercise.  And he knows it.  And we are working on it.   I wish this WAS magic.  It’s not.  It’s HARD work.  Trust me on this….  I work HARD to get as far as I get… and It is slow…  Let’s look at this:

The morning of surgery I weighed 253 on my scale.  (Or was it 256 I can’t remember)… let’s say 253 because I don’t want more credit than I deserve. This morning I weighed 184.4.  How casually I can say that now… but OMG I never thought I’d see the 180s again.

Let’s look at my weight loss monthly since surgery:

Date                              Weight              Monthly Loss      Total Loss      # of months

9/22/2009                 253                        0                                  0                           0

10/22/2009               236.4                     16.6                             16.6                      1

11/22/2009               225                        11.4                             28                         2

12/22/2009               214.2                     10.8                             38.8                      3

01/22/2010               204.8                     9.4                               48.2                      4

2/22/2010                  197.6                    7.2                               55.4                      5

3/22/2010                  191.8                    5.8                               61.2                      6

4/22/2010                  184.4                    7.4                               68.6                     7

The red text indicate months I lost less than average

The orange text indicate months I lost AVERAGE amounts

The  green text the months I lost MORE than average.  Of couse once you get past month six it’s a free for all… so there really is no average… I guess I’m all green now….

So what is AVERAGE?

According to my friend Pam T.

Month 1:                                                       20ish pounds lost

Months 2-6:                                               7-10 pounds per month lost

Month 6 and beyond:                           5-7 pounds or whatever your body feels like doing

So the average at 7 months out is anywhere from 60-77 pounds.  I’m right in there at 68.6 pounds… just under ten pounds per month… but still over 2 pounds per week… ya gotta look at the averages…2 weeks ago I lost NOTHING for the week.  NOTHING… not one ounce.  The week before I lost 3 the week following 3.2  so over a 3 week period I lost over 6 pounds…   Heck I weigh daily and if I did not look at monthly and weekly averages I’d be NUTS.  Because weight loss is not linear, comparable or predictable…

So what is a typical day like?   I think that’s often the question newbies to WLS have…

Weekdays:

Alarm goes off  at 4:55  of course somewhere around 4:30 we all stirred.  I adjusted the tv for the news. the dogs rearranged themselves, hubby went potty… (interestingly enough I do not get enough fluids to make me get up and go potty at night any more…) we then nap till the alarm goes off.  Lazy mornings mean we aren’t bolting out of bed till 5:20…  If it’s MONDAY, WEDNESDAY or FRIDAY, I’m packing work clothes in my gym bag, breakfast, lunch and snacks in my lunch tote grabbing a shower and heading over to the gym.  If it’s THURSDAY I pack gym gear in the gym bag, and head to work because I train with Tammie on Thursday afternoons.

Personally I much prefer Yoga Mornings and wish EVERY morning could be a yoga class morning… Yes I know I could do yoga at home alone… but the dynamic of the class helps.  I plan to record the classes on my itouch along with recording my training sessions with Tammie she can state the name of the machine and the weights and reps for me.. It will be a big help when I’m on my own.  And yes after this set of workout sessions I will be on my own… makes me sad and scared but what else can I do.. it’s very expensive to work with her.  WORTH every penny but still….and I can’t depend on her forever, eventually I have to be on my own and take care of myself…

As usual, I digress…  ah the joys of an ADHD brain.  I think blogs were invented for us…  we ramble along in our own little worlds ya know…  But I do love yoga.  Especially now that I can move… and breathe and it feels better to do it than to not do it.  Yoga has become one of my transfer addictions… seriously.  I love it.  I need it.  For several reasons.

1. it makes me feel better emotionally to have accomplished something

2. it makes me feel better physically and it’s helping to keep me flexible and limber

3. it’s a nice start to my day.

But back to my day….

Every morning I make a protein drink to have in the car on the way to work (I drink some on the way to the gym on gym mornings)

8 oz milk

2 tsp benefiber

1 scoop Click (vanilla or mocha)

1 scoop Designer Whey Vanilla Praline Protein Powder

2 squirts of sf syrup (praline or vanilla usually)

shake this well in my CLICK shaker  and pour into my travel mug that has already been filled with an espresso shot of coffee.

nuke for 45 seconds.

I start EVERY morning with this drink

it’s got about 32 grams of protein and it holds me all morning.   Of course I’m not a big eater yet…  most days.  I do have my moments.

Anyway I have to remind myself to eat and drink… I swear I could go all day with nothing.

I have alarms set to remind me to take my vitamins…

Food that is good for me is not interesting.  I’d rather not eat.

Food that I miss (ice cream, bagels, cakes, cookies etc) scare me and I don’t touch them….

EATING is a chore.   Truly.   it is NOT the pleasure it once was and I am sure will be again…

I don’t think I get enough veggies. I don’t get a lot of fruit…

Protein I’m good with cause of all the protein drinks…

Clothes…

clothes are interesting.  I never thought I’d struggle with body image but I do.  I do not see myself as thin. I have to take a trusted friend with me shopping or else i don’t do well… I buy shirts too big… LOL how funny to me that I am struggling with this….  I was in size 26 at my heaviest.  my 24s were tight the morning of surgery…  now i’m in 14s pretty much… some 16s.  I keep saying I’m in 18s but the 18 jeans were pulled down last night without unbuttoning them… I think 16s are the biggest I can go now…

And shirts… depends on the cut  large or XL  but NOT  3x or even 4x.  And yet I still gravitate towards the big girl sizes…

Bras… were 48DDD now I think 42DD or even 40DD not sure… have to be fitted.. oh joy…

So here I am at 7 months out… losing weight, feeling great loving life,

are there any down sides?

yep… food struggles… emotional upheavals….body image issues,  SKIN… oy I’m starting to try to figure out how much of me is fat and how much is skin….  I’m starting to think there is way more skin than I thought… because although I’m still a solid 184 pounds,  I don’t think I have much more than 30 more pounds to lose… and I have no idea where I am going to tuck all this skin….  I guess I better start saving for plastic surgery….

Tags: averages, brian, clothes, failure, gym, shopping, surgiversary, trainer, weigth loss, WLS, yoga

Good Morning!  (Don’t you hear Debbie Donald and GENE?)

I guess I have to fix it when I get home!  NOTE TO SELF: FIX YOUTUBE LINK!

today is going to be spring like.  still a bit damp this morning.  I got to work and signed 6:15.   it’s a long walk from the parking lot to the security building through the guard station, back outside, down the steps throught he double set of doors, past another guard then then through the turnstile.

Scale was UP this morning.  251.4  I MUST get a hold of myself!  I was pretty good yesterday except for lunch.   Today brian said he would get something to eat.  always makes me nervous.

I’m quitting the gym.  it’s 98 dollars a month that i’m NOT using at this point.  I’m walking the link at work and i have some light weights, an exercise bike and a wii fit at home.  I need to save some money!  I think after brian’s surgery and he’s ready we will join as a couple.

Hannah is sick again. I have to call the vet.  there’s another $140 dollars.  Maybe we can try a different CHEAPER antibiotic!   Her last one was $63.00 for 14 pills!  and she didn’t even like them that much.

Bri is going racing tonite… and tomorrow and maybe sunday.  tomorrow night i’m going out with friends…

oh well time to work!

ETA:

Hannah has the vet at 11:15 so I’m leaving work at 10:30 taking BOTH dogs to the vet because I’m afraid to leave Harley alone in the house with no one home.

And goodness who am I turning into?  I’m coming back!

Tags: brian, gym, hannah, movies, singing in the rain, youtube