Vegas

We Got on the train this morning. I do love walking to public transport towards a vacation. David made all of the plans and I didn't have to think about anything (hooraayy). We landed in Vegas and were met by a woman with our names on a card (I have never done that before).

We checked in at the Venetian and unpacked then went for coffee. We then walked from the strip all the way to the old part of downtown Las Vegas. We figure it was about 4.5 miles

Along the way we wandered through the Wynn.

Down Las Vegas Boulevard past old Las Vegas
(or as I like to call it-The seedy side of the strip). We went past several wedding chapels and walked upon the Pawn shop from a cable TV show
(it was packed so we took a picture of the sign and kept trudging along towards Freemont Street. We had dinner at an Irish pub and after a peppermint Schnapps and hot cocoa for me and a bloody mary for david we kind of forgot we were supposed to wait for the ceiling lights to come on. We caught the bus instead and came back to the hotel. After a bit of chocolate from Godiva and a romantic gondola ride we popped up to our hotel room for a rest and picture download.

I think I am ready for some Gelato now :) More tomorrow.

xxxooo

I'm Hongry

Holy moly..I am Hongry..not hungry..this is some big Hongry. I keep joking to my family that I must have passed a big hairball down my stoma because I have not had this kind of hungry in years. I feel like hoovering everything in sight.

Methinks the fill is in order.

1. Weighing in at 172!!!!!
2. Hongry.
3. Can only eat 1/2 a cup but the food swishes through quite quickly.
4. aaaaaaaaghghghghghghg

Tomorrow morning we leave for Las Vegas. I am torn. I am happy that I can eat more than usual. I am scared that I will put on more weight. I will eat but I am going to do some serious walking in hopes of keeping the damage to a minimum before I get a fill.

xxxooo

When Do I Think Fill

Lapband Gal has a good topic on her blog today. I love it when someone unhinges my inspiration and her post has definitely done that. What follows is not a rebuttal but more a deeper explanation from the stand point of my brain anyway.

I don't things are as black and white as can't eat foods/can eat foods. Although we tend to want simple rules weight loss just doesn't. I use a bunch of variables to decide whether I need a fill. What can I eat? how much can I eat? how long do I stay full? Am I gaining or losing weight?

1. What can I eat? In the beginning I tried it on all the time and tried to eat things I really shouldn't have. I am a control freak and not in a good way :) I didn't chew well or stop soon enough on some foods. Hence I would PB (or throw up) when I ate them. It wasn't the food or the band it was my chewing and pushing the plate away when my stomach said so that was the problem. Those things were bread, scrambled eggs, potato and hamburgers. I can eat any of these things now because I am used to slowing down and pushing my plate away when I need to.

2. How much can I eat? In the beginning my fills informed the quantity I could eat. I was supposed to eat between one and two cups of food but eventually my pouch could only hold 1/2 c of food. If the food went through the pouch quickly I could eat and pause and eat some more but with good restriction the 1/2 cup goes in and sits for about 30 min. In the past I have used the grilled cheese test. I make a grilled cheese sandwich and my pouch holds 1/2 a sandwich minus two bites.

3. How long to I stay full? My fill level is really variable during the month. Water and hormones have a big impact. I go from pretty open to really tight depending on the week and day. During my period I am pretty tight. Just after I am really pretty open. I have really had to play with my fill level to decide how tight I could stand. about a month ago I had a little unfill (.25 cc's) and It has evolved into almost being too empty during my open week and just right during my tight week. Before the unfill I was perfect during my open week and too tight for two or more weeks.

4. How much do I weigh? I carry my weight in my tummy. When I gain just 4 pounds it is all in a tire around my waist. I believe that this greatly impacts the fat around my lapband. I can be tight to loose with just a couple of pounds weight loss. Because of this I have tended to get a little fill and tough it out for a few weeks in order to drop some weight and then I grown into my tightness (it basically gets looser). On any given fill I have rolled around 5 pounds. At this fill I am hanging from 169-164. When I was tighter it was 162-166.

When a pile of these variables is not satisfying to me I think about a fill. So my thinking goes something like this:

1. Oh my freaking heck I am gaining or not losing weight. I then ask myself a couple of questions. Is my eating where it hsould be? Is my exercise where it should be? Am I eating the right things? Am I eating too much? Too often? Once the initial thought occurs I wait on things for about a month testing one thing or another until I either revise my thinking or admit defeat and go in for that fill.

xxxooo

I am actually thinking about a tiny one right now (well after my trip to Vegas :))...I have recently dropped one of the pills I take and I think my tightness has decreased a little bit. I have been able to eat more and my scale popped over my top threshold (before I freak out in fear) of 169.

Wahoo--An Old Chapter

I did my student conferences today (A grueling noon to 9pm). They did very well as did I except for a minor hiccup when my document with all of their grades on it vanished off my computer. Sometimes a paper copy is worth the extra copying time.

I recovered (I think) and finished everyone. I left all remaining portfolios in the office for students to get on their own and came home. I only have final grades to upload on the school computer system and this job will officially be over. I can now concentrate on getting the shop ready to open May 1.

Fingers crossed.

xxxooo

What the heck is the deal with booze and my stomach eh?

Does anyone else have trouble with alcohol? is it me? is it my band (cause I like to blame everything on that you know). I have managed to drink two peppermint patties over the last few weeks (hot chocolate and peppermint schnapps is SO Good). but last night I brought a bottle of wine to my friends and drank 1/2 ok most of the bottle. It was a bottle of sparkling. I didn't snack or eat anything just drank. When the bottle ran out I had a small (ok two) chocolate egg things. They were melty and still got stuck (what is the deal). I had pain and had to visit the oval office. Yup..new name for it. Arghghg..I just want to get a little drunk once in a while :(.


xxxooo

Great Book So Far!!!

I mentioned the new book I am reading in my post last night..oh wait that was this morning. The book is REALLY good. I have just read the first chapter but wow is it hitting home for me.

I heard about it during an interview with the author on All Things considered on the radio on my drive to work last week.

So so far i have read about how they have done this big study of people who successfully changed their lives. The key change was changing one thing at a time. The main example person quit smoking so that she could go on a cross desert hike. She focussed on the smoking but funnily enough in the process she ended up changing her diet, exercise, and finances not because she wanted to focus on it but because she picked those things up in order to avoid the smoking.

Researchers asked this woman to take part in their study and they imaged her brain and found over time that she has actually changed the way her brain works (lights up). Her new habits heat up different parts of her brain while the old areas no longer light up.

at least 40% of what each of us do is a habit (this includes big stuff like my morning coffee run down to little stuff like which shoe i put on first).

Businesses take advantage of our habit forming by changing one thing in what they do in order to increase business. For example Starbucks gives you a half off coupon to get you to come in twice a day instead of just once in order to get a new habit started from you that increases their revenue.

It is a good good book thus far.

xxxooo

4 am and all is well-BYOC

1. How do you feel about college? If you have kids or siblings - will you encourage or require them to go? How long did you go and what for?

I am a college teacher so of course I'm big on it. I learned a lot personally from the classes that I took. If I never earned a dime from it that alone would be worth it. I was the first person in my family to earn a Bachelors Degree, Masters Degree and Ph.D. I luckily had a free ride and have no loans to pay back on my own education. I figure that provided me with the opportunity to pay it forward and I have done my best to pay for most of my three daughter's college educations and I hope someday to help a non-family member pay for school.

I want my children to do what they want to do with their lives...but I hope that includes some educational training. So far I have a mathematician, a admin assistant (who has a bachelors degree in international political economy) and a nurse in training. Grace is 10 and says she wants to be a computer engineer like her dad.

Statistically those with bachelors degrees out earn those with a high school diploma and those with a high school diplomas out earn those with none. Beyond a bachelors degree there is no such earning link. It is a crap shoot. I push for my students and my children to dream big, work hard and I have their back in those pursuits.

2. Pink or purple? Coke or Pepsi? Pen or pencil? Cursive or printing? Ketchup or mustard?

Any color is great but I really like green best.
Diet Coke
Both depending on the job at hand. If it is math is is a high quality mechanical pencil. If it is grading or writing then a really nice pen. White board markers are fun (oh and I love purple the best when it comes to pens).
neither cursive or printing..I am a typer.
ketchup on some things mustard on others.

3. If you could live in any generation - which one would it be? I would live in this one for convenience, standard of living and all that jazz but as far as style goes I really like the forties. I love it that everything retro is stylish right now. We can pick our time and play for a day.

4. What do you sleep in?

Usually just underwear. I kind of have a hot flash problem at night. So I cannot even sleep under our duvet anymore. Just panties and a waffle blanket. When I am cold..like really cold I wear pajama bottoms and a tank top but by morning I usually wake up and find out that sometimes while sleeping I shucked them both.

5. Repeat question - summarize your week!

busy busy..I have done some reading and some posting but finals week is upon me. I am still up at this unGodly hour because I am a night owl but also because I was grading exams. On Monday I have conferences with my students and then I am full on to get ready to open my knitty/crafty shop. Stuff is moving in that area.

My weight..blah...a little up and little down same old same old. My biggest challenge is nutrition. I am more than happy to have snacks instead of meals these days but the problem is that I can totally skip any good protein, fruit and vegetables in the process. crap is easy to get down on the fly. Real meals not so much. I am trying to get at least one sit down meal a day and will do even better when I am not working two nights a week (makes excuses really easy).

Some things have hit home-Justines decision-making about whether she wants to stay or lose more and is the effort worth it. I think we all think about that every day. I know I do. I have also read with interest some of the bloggers (more than one) posts about thinking and having the sleeve instead of their bands. Oh and Im debating about Chicago for year three of the Boobs gala event. I did really have a good time last year.

Finally, I started reading a book about habits, how we form them and how we can break them. I am looking forward to learning more from the author. I will post about it if I gain any insights.

I suppose I need to try and sleep a little. nighty night all.

xxxooo

xxxooo

Fast Food in Review

Today is final exam day for my math classes. I am in fact sitting at the front of the room while the little darlings work in concentration on their final exams. This post is not about that though..it is about what I did and re-discovered on my drive into work.

I wrote the exams last night (really an update of old ones). I Took and edited the exams this morning and did some other paperwork. As usual I was in a rush to get out the door for work but today I was really hungry for lunch. I am usually good with my coffee and vitamins for breakfast well into the late afternoon or dinner even. So what does a really hungry girl in a rush do? Why fast food of course.

I used to be a fast food queen. Most days would find me in one drive-up window or another grabbing breakfast, lunch or dinner. Sometimes I would drive up to more than one window in a day. I could grab food and get it down my gullet while driving to my next appointment, home from work, too work or over the mountain on my long commute for professional development classes. Well..the band at first forced a change here. At first I had to cut back (Way back) on my meals. I switched to a kids meal from my old two cheeseburger meal. I drank my drink first instead of simultaneously wolfing down fries and gulping diet coke with burger chasers. Then the fries..they had to go. I just could not eat them. I got so excited about their mere presence in my hand that in two bites they would be swallowed. Finally the burger had to go. My band was too tight (I thought). I couldn't eat burgers or fries anymore. I switched to chicken nuggets or fish.

Well this gradual loss of all things fast food was VERY painful at times. I cried, I salivated, I even had a small unfill at one point. Eventually I gave them up entirely and then slowly after I learned to chew better, listen more and eat more slowly I got some of it back. For some time I have been able to have a few fries or 1/2 a hamburger with half a bun.

Something happened along the way though. This shift in eating from all things fast to high quality fresh things at sit down restaurants (not in the drivers seat) changed my palette. I drove through Jack in the Box today for the first time in a long time to slam a quick meal (I know I should have just gone hungry). I now know how to eat my fast food successfully but...here is the funny thing. It tastes like CRAP! I had curly fries and a fish sandwich. The first two fries tasted good. the 3rd and fourth not so much. I swapped to my fish. I grabbed the fish without the bun with my teeth while driving and blech...Not good. I took two more fishy bites and chucked it back in the bag. Fast food is crap. It is greasy, it doesn't taste very good...When did that happen? I loved my burgers and fries..I mean LOVED them.

quite a while ago I wrote a break up letter to McDonalds. I was really bugged by the loss of my fast food at that point. Today I feel like fast food is like an ex boyfriend or ex-husband. I remember the good times but I really don't want to go there again.

Maybe if I try really hard I can do the same with some of my other bad habits....

xxxooo

BYOC and Sheesh where have I been?

I read the BYOC questions after I wrote my post today. I like the questions this week so..you are getting both. :) Try not to fall asleep!

1. When you're sick - what comforts you?

I like my pillow, a blanket and to lay in bed or on the couch and watch TV. I want full control of the remote control and to be mostly left alone. I do however like people to check in every once in a while and bring a glass of water, soup or just a short conversation. I, on the other hand, am a pretty cruddy nursemaid and I need to get better at it..to pay it forward so to speak.

2. How attached to your cell phone are you?

My cell phone is always dead. I forget to plug it in and it dies on a daily basis. I like having it when I want it..but mostly my kids call me on David's phone and then just ask for me :)


3. What brand, color and kind of sneaker do you own to work out in? Why? Do you get a custom fit or just pick one off the shelf?

I live about 4 miles away from the headquarters of Nike and despite their sometimes poor human rights track-record (Chinese labor). I love, love, love Nike tennis shoes. I wear no other brand and have ...hm let me go count...There are currently six pairs (this is after a good shoe sort-out). The brown pair's days are numbered. My current favorite are the red pair. My daughter gave them to me for my birthday and I love them :) They are Nike Free's red with orange trim. The sole of these shoes make you feel like leaping and running for joy.

4. Do you ever wish you'd picked a different name for your blog and why?

I did change the name of my blog a few years ago. It used to be just boring old tina's weight loss journey (hence the address) I changed it to losing it..because I ended up blogging about lots of the stuff included in my crazy life.

5. Repeat question. Summarize your week in real life and in blog land.

I have been my usual busy busy-bee self. I did not attend much to my blog this last week. between seeing my aunt and uncle as much as possible before they headed home, getting ready for finals week for my students, spending as much time as I could out in the sunshine and watching my grandson oh..and a little dalliance with my new online girlfriend pintrist I neglected blogland. By the way: Pintrist is one cooooollll social media site. I can pin anything and know where to find it again. It is how I always wished I was organized with bits of paper.

Now my regular post before I got sidetracked on the BYOC:

Ok Spring has done Sprung here in Portland. HOOORRRAAAYYY-In the last couple of weeks stuff has been happening and I have almost blogged several times but...I have pictures that are downstairs and I am always upstairs when I get ready to post. Guess what? yup..camera down my butt is up in my comfy chair yet again. I am blogging anyway but pics will be coming.

Back to Spring: The last two days have been sublime. I left my coat in the closet and wore sandals!!! We played at the park. I opened the back door. I gardened in my little plot. David and I cooked dinner and cleaned up the kitchen (without coming to blows :)) cause the kitchen is big! My herbs are happy in their new home (I transplanted them to our raised bed) and I have spring flowers in my pots. We made Grace a terrarium (that was going to house a turtle until I found out that they cost 100.00!!!!! We are looking at cats again (I know..crazy right?).

Last weekend I had the chance to wear the dress I chose not to wear at BOOBS 2011. Funnily enough it fits better now than it did then and I am up about four pounds or so since then. My fat and skin is shifting (what they say is true I guess). I obviously for once I am coming out ahead in this putting off a tummy tuck (really it is because I am a cheap chicken). Anyhow..I have pictures of my sorry self in the dress and even a peek of my wonder underwear.

The underwear is one of Many..pairs of skin harnessing garments I now own. In fact when we moved and I cleaned out my drawers I found that my biggest item pile in the drawer stuff was of the spanks kind :) Before you get too worried..the dresses pile is hanging or it would way out measure the pile that is underwear :)

I put on the new still tagged dress to take my second oldest daughter and her boyfriend on a double birthday date (hers) to a fancy local restaurant in Portland called Portland City Grill. It is up on the 30th floor of a building downtown and has great views of Portland (again there are pictures sitting downstairs that I will try and load tomorrow).

My aunt and uncle were sprung from rehab today and they drove home!! My cousin took the train down and drove their motorhome with my uncle lounging in the back while my aunt followed in their car. I saw pictures this evening and they were living it up with their son, daughter-in-law, and granddaughter at a local restaurant this evening in their hometown. My uncle still has things to deal with but he is well and truly on the mend.

One more week remains of the term. Next Wednesday my lovely mathy students will take their final and we will have a Spring break. I plan on spending mine on a romantic trip to Vegas Baby :) wahooooooo. We have reservations at a swank hotel and two fancy restaurants. We have tickets to Blue Man Group and are going to try and get some to Rod Stewart. I will bring my swimsuit and spend as much time in the sun as possible.

My yarn shop is on the todo list for tomorrow-more cleaning and distributing boxes of stuff. shelves are going up and we will take another trip to Ikea for more storage gear.

xxxooo

Spring Where are you?

It snowed this morning (I thankfully missed it sitting on the ground). It is now rainy and I have yet another cold/flu thing. Apparently I didn't give my grandson his latest illness because he has now given the thing to me. One begins to ask just how many times can one catch the same cold/flu? I would think they have to be different but sheesh. How many versions can there be that the flu shot missed?

arghghghgh.

On a good note as much as I would like to say I have been in total control of my eating it has been up and down and despite my lapses the scale popped right back on goal again this morning. It is really days like this that make me soooo grateful for this ring of plastic hugging my stomach in protection from my sometimes senseless brain above it.


My job chart mentioned below is REALLY working well for both Grace and I. It somehow keeps us focussed on just a couple of things. I think I really got stuff done but it all somehow is more notable when I can pull a piece of paper off a chart, wrinkle it up and say..right then that one is done.

Today is my day to tutor a couple of my math students. Thus far this event has been a great motivator to keep the downstairs clean. When I woke up and surveyed the downstairs today I found an unholy mess. Not only is there the clutter from moved in stuff not quite to its designated new home yet but David decided that last night was the night to dehydrate, grind and mix sprouted whole wheat bread for us (supposedly much healthier for you than regular wheat bread). Well...sprouted wheat, flour, and crapola is now all over the kitchen as if someone let off a bomb. eeek...I have some work to do quickly.

xxxooo