Stay on Top of Your Fills Girls

Last night I dreamed up a post where I listed all of the ways I could cheat my band. I have lapsed once and 'gone there.' I have been somewhat hungry this week and stressed over my husband's hospitalization. All in all it has been a great week for weight loss and leads me to the above title for your reading pleasure.

Stay on Top of Your Fills. Up until a couple of weeks ago I had been complacent. Did I need a fill? Did I not need a fill? My stomach and mouth and fallen back on some old ways that were not healthy and definitely did not help with weight loss. I still had decent restriction but not that magic amount to make me step back when eating and say say..woahh slow down with the chewing Tina and woahh your going to try to eat what??? I should know better than that. I tested my way through this and my consequences were that I stuck from 219-222 for about 3 months.

Since my last fill those feelings are back. I cannot sit down to pasta for example and let it slip down unchewed. I cannot eat mashed potatoes without great care (oh and I do mean great!!). Fruit has to be eaten slowly and with serious mastication. A yogurt takes 20 minutes to eat.

So much of this band thing is a careful dance between the physical and the mental. The physical-if the fill is good the food stays with you a long time and only that small space above your band gets filled. The mental-if you choose slippery foods and take your time they will slide down. Ice cream slides and I have found that I can eat mass quantities on an empty stomach to the tune of 800 calories!!! Naughty Naughty. I cannot chew properly, get stuck and painfully hurl my meals back up. I can eat more than my upper stomach can hold and face discomfort for about a half hour and portentially several 'productive burp filled spit episodes.'

Alternatively I can comply. I can eat slowly, I can cook healthy meals with vegetables hidden in them for roughage and nutrition. I can use my quick measure coffee mug to make sure I am serving myself the correct amount (1/2 cup). I can take as much time as it takes my slug, slow daughter to eat her full serving to eat my little tiny serving of food. I can stop when my stomach says it might be full.

This week has been mostly compliance. I have been cooking in more (mostly because David's illness has scared me into thinking he needs to improve his eating habits as much as I do). Plus we are broke from all of the home fix it. Of those cooked meals I take and eat my half cup serving size (if not it has been to my peril). I have chewed!! I had peaches one evening with a low fat vanilla yogurt and took my sweet time chewing and resting for almost an hour (fudging on the 30 minute meal rule but I need roughage!!).

How to cheat the band. We all know it. I am pretty sure we all do it sometimes. Ice cream...It is good, it gets you through the pity party, I am feeling empty feelings that sometimes creep up from behind. I used to fill these feelings with food. Now that food sticks I turn to ice cream. This fill slows me down but I have to avoid the darned ice cream. I have gone to my local fruit smoothie store instead for a low-cal option with a boost of whey and it seems to help. I have even ungrooved my 8 year old's daily request to get an ice cream on our way home. She has now begun to ask for Jamba Juice. My drink is 180 calories plus whatever the whey scoop is (usually 120). It holds me until dinner and beyond. I hope this good behavior holds. The empties are like a monkey on my back sometimes!

There are other ways to cheat. Ice cream is my cheat of choice but I can also eat potato chips quite easily (pringles especially). Instead of chips I have found that 95% fat free microwave popcorn hits the spot. I had some last night when I was feeling hungry and wanted to get a sense of volume but not make myself sick.

Booze-I can drink it like a fish still. Right now I barely get enough water in so it has been fairly easy to limit the booze. The party season is looming and this might prove more difficult. I have not yet done this but am going to vow to drink two cups of water before and after each alcoholic beverage. I imagine that this liquid front load will have me in the bathroom so much that I wont have time to get drunk on liquid calories :) haha.

Sooooo....post your problems and solutions. Maybe we can compile a list of band diversions for naughty foods and how to fill the empties when they creep up on us.