Check-up and 10 pounds to go

I had my annual physical on Thursday. Because I had gone in the week before with my dizzy issues my blood work was already back and the doctor referenced that as we talked about my overall health. She said that my blood work was great. She has agreed to write me a letter stating that asking for my insurance to permit my plastic surgery payment to come from our health spending account and all of the other parts of an annual physical.

While I was there we discussed (in a general sense) her other patients who had had gastric bypass and lapband. At one point she stated that she was concerned that one of her Gastric bypass patients could only eat 6 ounces at a time and she stated she felt like she should be able to eat more. I stated my piece and said that I could only eat 4-6 oz of food at a time but obviously since it took that in order for me to lose weight that I must just have the metabolism that requires it. She said that if I had signs of malnutrition my blood work would show it and it did not.

I think we all just get so caught up in what we think we are supposed to eat in quantity that we forget that everyone is different and eating very small amounts of food may or may not be needed depending on the individual. I think we also forget how much food we are served in restaurants and in packaged foods and have forgotten what a reasonable serving of food is. I know it took quite a bit of readjusting over the past two years to come to terms with the meal sizes I eat now. I am grateful that with the band I was allowed to gradually decrease my meal sizes in order to re accustom myself to the new size. Even now when I am with David and he orders a burger and fries or we are out eating and the enormous portions come I am surprised and how much I used to eat.

I lost another pound today and have hit 130 pounds lost. I will need to get a few bits of new clothes as I think I may have finally popped fully into size 12 (fingers crossed). I now have just 10 left to 'normal' bmi land. My two year Bandiversary is August 21 (the day after my wedding anniversary). I am loving the revised weight-loss run :) I hope I can coast it home to 164.5

Product Plug

On Sunday we went to Costco for new tires on my car and while there We had a shop and a meal of samples (it is awesome to get full on store samples!!). Very rarely is a sample good enough to make me actually buy the product they are hawking. I actually tasted, read the label on this one and bought a case immediately...

Chobani Greek yogurt is the perfect storm of tasty desserty goodness, no work standing at the blender. The right balance of low calories and high protein and I think that pretty makes up a lovely guilt free snack item for my evening munchies. I got a 12 pack of blueberry, strawberry and peach. There is no sour yogurt taste and it is really creamy for a skim milk product. 18 grams of protein and 140 calories....Oh yeah...I am a happy camper right now munching on peachy goodness.

Yeah Baby!!!

Another post vacation pound disappeared today.

Was this a plateau? I cannot fathom how I can go weeks and weeks with barely a shift on the scale (or at least only wobbles up and down around the same two pounds)and then whammo I go a week and lose four pounds with little effort and lots of vacation eating out.

Things that were different:

More activity/exercise
more water
More food and more dessert than normal


So was it the interruption in my routine? was it the exercise? was it the food? was it the water? Was it just time? Even now after two years and what I would consider success I have not worked out the magic formula. Is that why the world has such a difficult time losing weight?

The Scale Moved

How cool is it that with the band and copious amounts of exercise that we can actually lose weight on a vacation!!! The vacation is now officially over (we arrived back home last night in time for me to prepare for class and teach this morning).

The stats from the vacation are: I was tight and had to eat carefully. I had a few bits of candy, two small bowls of ice cream and 4 bites of cheesecake during the five days. I had one failed meal attempt and one pb episode. The rest was fairly smooth. each day had at least one active period. Most were very active. We spent two days on our bikes (8 and 10 miles), one day was a 3 mile walk. One day we went rafting and I paddled and on the 4th we shopped and walked around the fairgrounds. Yesterday was a butt in the car and then couch day.

The total official weightloss this morning for the week was 2 pounds. I now have lost a grand total of 127 pounds, gone from obese to overweight. I am 13.5 pounds and 2 bmi points left to be of a normal BMI range.

I am at this minute very hungry. A little voice in my head is whispering...go get a fill quick go get a fill. Another voice is saying...leave it a tad loose and try eating more healthily but with larger volume. Foodwise this morning has not been stellar but it was also kind of hectic. I cannot even call for an appointment until Monday so will see how the rest of today and tomorrow goes and then make up my mind.

Pre-TOM Tightening and Better Now

Yesterday i stuck to a very careful menu of soft food. Breakfast was a peppermint mocha. Lunch was a bowl of cold pea soup with crab. I had a bit of candy as a snack and a Starbucks peppermint mocha frappachino (my first in what seem like forever). For dinner we tried to go to a local brew pub but when they were full we crossed over to a somewhat scary looking seafood place. It had the BEST food I have ever had. I had thai green curry soup with white fish. In the evening I had a couple of pieces of cheese and popcorn. The food went down fine.

Today I made yet another eating mistake and attempted a couple of breakfast sausages and then later 5 mini rice cakes. The sausages seemed to go OK but the rice cakes did a bit of fighting back but was OK in the end. I skipped lunch. Dinner was a piece of chicken, a bite of my husbands burger (Goodness it was tasty) two rows of corn on the cob, 1 tablespoon of potato salad. A piece of tomato, celery and 2 oz of cheese. Midway through the day I had a slushie and this evening I had a bit of vanilla ice cream with a tablespoon of gooseberry jam (my oh my so tasty).

I figure the out of the blue sticking when I haven't had a problem in ages was probably due to my impending TOM and band tightening. (no this is not an excuse to keep on drinking! :))


So now to the action-Yesterday we did a bit of shopping in Bend (Oregon) and then went on a river rafting trip. It was a whole lot of fun!







Today we biked 10 miles around the resort doing a geocache puzzle with clues. The puzzle maker and cache were very well hidden and written. The only down side is we had to let the ultimate cache stay where it was hidden because of the swarm of mosquitoes swarming around the area. We had all drenched ourselves in deet and I still ended up with 5 bites by the things. 4/5 were on my butt through my bike shorts!!!

There is a scale hidden in one of the closets in the rental house. I got on it and did lose 5 pounds since I got here but...But....BUT...I am not going to count on anything until I get home. This one is an old fashioned spring one not a fancy digital like at home. I did have a thrill when I got on the scale and didn't have the numbers roll up past the highest point. I also did not feel compelled to hang onto whatever surface I could to make myself a little lighter.



:)

Never Drink and Eat

Man o man....I did it again. I made some home-made reisling and orange juice and had a large glass of it. Yup--it was that tasty. Very much like sangria.


I drank my pre-dinner drink while sitting on the back deck and watching 4 deer munch on various bushes and just sit in the shade for a rest.

So then there was dinner. We barbecued steaks. I made potato salad. There were beets and, tomatoes and cucumbers. Well that was my plan. I ate a small piece of steak (it seemed to go down fine). I ate a beet..it went down fine. I ate two tablespoons of potato salad. They all seemed to be fine. Fine that is until the pain started. I @#$@#$# forgot to chew something well enough. I am going to blame it on the wine. I then spent the next 20 minutes writhing in agony in my room trying to eject whatever item I failed to chew out. I ejected all of the food I ate and then some.


Ultimately I have now managed to have a cup of tea with milk for dinner. :(..I might try a yogurt later I guess.

What a Difference a Year Makes

So our vacation this year is quite different than ever before. We are sharing a house with friends in a sort of vacation area that by summer is filled with paths, parks, horseback riding, a river etc. Yesterday we rode our bikes for 8 miles, shopped around a little area shopping mall and then went horseback riding. For dinner we drove into the nearby town and had a lovely dinner and then came back home and crashed.

Both of our families was able to keep up and it was absolutely awesome. We are all a bit sore today but a vacation like this was not even in the realm of my thinking a year ago.

Eating has been fine. I did not get a super slammed shut band yesterday but it seems to be on the perfect side. Eating home is much easier than attempting to eat out. We have been eating breakfast in and lunch in so far but dinner we had out both nights. Last night we went out to a yummy swanky place.

I have been craving steak so i ordered a flat iron steak for dinner with a sweet potato and steamed green beans. I had a yummy pre-dinner drink with orange juice and reisling wine with a couple of blackberries floating in it. I skipped the bread (as that before dinner treat has caused me trouble more than once). The steak was SCARY. It was chewy and had quite a bit of connective tissue. I had 4 bites and did my best to chew the crud out of it but the fear got to me so I handed it over to my friend (we were sharing). I had three green beans and about 3 bites of my sweet potato. The kids ordered dessert and I had three bites of the most delicious cheesecake.

Today after a good nights sleep we left the house again and took a long walk (at least 3 miles) and found two geocaches nearby and are now eating lunch in again. Our afternoon plans are to go hike in to a cave and check out a local nature/history museum. I will get some pictures today and upload them.