Its Friday.........

Class is still good but it is the weekend. My husband and youngest are coming over here and we are going to do a little relaxing in the high desert. It is probably the closest we will get for a vacation this summer so I am going to do my best to enjoy it.

After class today we had to clean out the classroom in case someone else needed the room for the weekend. As a result my hotel room has a wooden ball track from floor to ceiling leaning next to the bed, a desk top copy machine, a box full of cords, projector, document reader, video camera etc. sitting in one corner, my rolling bag of supplies under the sink, a box full of our snack on the end of the bed, my overstuffed backpack and purse also on the bed, and a case of water also under the sink.

When David and Grace arrive they are going to come with my scale (I am dying to know if I lost anything), their bedding, clothes...eeeeeek I'm scared.

I have a hotel problem. I like them to stay tidy. At home I can take mess (I think it is years of conditioning) but in the sanctuary of my hotel room I arrive, unpack and hang my clothes, iron any shirts and hang them, put my stuff away when I am done with it. My only concession to messiness is that I always sleep with papers or my backpack on the half of the bed im not sleeping on (easier to pick back up in the morning for more work).

David and Grace have a hotel problem..They like the throw their clothes, toys, laptops, underwear, socks....you name it they throw it...on the floor. I know that in one day my sanctuary will be a garbage dump. I try to stay on top of them and it but my stress always increases in a hotel room with the mess. ack I can feel my shoulders stiffening by just typing this.....breatheeeee their company is more important then the mess........Sometimes I wonder if I should have remained childless and single. :) I am sure we will have fun despite the messiness.

Food-I was a tad more open today but did not really have time to eat. I did just down some coconut flavored M and m's...they were tasty (mounds in tiny niblets).

1/2 chicken and cheese sandwich (minus crust)
1/2 cup potato salad (170)
1 oz cheese (110)
1 100 calorie yogurt (100)
11 doritos (150 calories)
1 bag of M & m's (210)

total 740 calories of mostly crap...I will probably have something more tonight...hungry now but will drink first.

Working Out of Town

Every summer since 2004 I have worked in Central Oregon doing professional development in mathematics and mathematics education. It is going really well and I am having a great time at it. There are five of us over here (2 math ed professors, 1 physics professor, one science ed professor and one math ed grad student). During the morning we do math (problem solving and working up to doing mathematical proof). In the afternoons the science people are doing various physics topics with our teachers (from grade 1-7). I don't know if it is the crop of teachers we have or we are doing a great job in organizing the classes but our students this year are doing so awesome. I have always loved teaching in-service teachers but this summer has been magical. A teacher-educators dream come true as every day is better than the last. I reaffirms my faith in all things educational..:)

ON the food front I am doing really well. I have tightened back up and am back to only being able to eat 1/2 cup of food at a time again. My class schedule means that i have to be in the classroom at 8:00am. I eat breakfast in my room or at the classroom. I eat a packed lunch and then go out to dinner with two or three of my colleagues who are also staying at this hotel. I will list my daily menus below:

Monday-1/2 my sandwich for breakfast (i had to throw away about 1/6 of it because i was too full), lunch was the other half, back at my hotel I had a 100 cal yogurt and dinner was 3/4 cup of Asian chicken salad. I had a screwdriver to drink before dinner.

Tuesday-1/2 my sandwich for breakfast (again threw some away), lunch was the other half. In the afternoon someone got out snacks and I nibbled my way through about 6 of them (bad I know). For dinner I had 1/4 of a southwest chicken wrap thing. That evening I had 4 cherries (any more and I would have stuck).

Wednesday-another 1/4 of the southwest chicken wrap but I ended up throwing 1/2 of that way (challenge-what is 1/2 of 1/4 haha). I got full and kind of stuck and the sandwich was super spicy on day two. I will throw away the second 1/2 tonight. Dinner tonight was a chili covered baked potato and a trip to the salad bar-a waste really on me. I had 1/4 cup of beets, 1/4 cup of peas, 3 noodles from a macaroni salad. By the time my potato came i could eat 4 more bites of the chili and I was done. I took the rest back to my room and have eaten the chili off 1/2 and had a few bites of the potato.

so---eating out with others. Everyone on the team knows I have had lapband surgery except the physics prof. It has been really weird eating such a small amount of food in front of someone who I can tell notices. The math grad student (we have a really good working relationship and flip each other crap constantly) started laughing and gave me crap when I brought back such a small amount of salad bar food. I told him to shut up and if I didn't have a problem with my portion sizes he could just live with it...again the physics professor is clueless about this whole thing. He is totally nice and I would tell him but it is sort of a personal thing and kind of too much information I think....

Anyway as I was paying for dinner the other science ed professor and I walked over to the register alone and I asked her if I should just tell him because i am sure he notices the small amounts (I have had two waitresses ask me what is wrong with my food!!)...I always say it is great and bag it up to take home. She said I should just keep it to myself and it was fine....so I'm keeping it to myself.

Eating out is kind of strange but I am loving the sense of control I feel over my food intake. I am loving that I have so much more energy (I used to be exhausted at the end of a teaching day with swollen ankles). I love it that I am surely losing weight (I am going to have my husband bring my scale over the weekend!).

Up until Friday I was holding my wardrobe to 2 pairs of shorts, 1 pair of capris and two pairs of jeans. Well we are having a heat wave-in the 100's every day and I figured i Had better get some more pants (I have shirts because you can keep wearing them too big). I now have two more pairs of capris.

All in all-life is good....

Halfway to Goal

It took me until this evening to go in and change the ticker I use on my Obesity help avatar. I found, when I was done, that I am halfway to goal!! 67 pounds gone and 67 yo go (wooohoooo). I have set my goal at 170 at this point. That weight is what I weighed for most of high school (except during 2 weeks when I made it down to 160 and promptly gained it all back).

If I make it to 170 and still feel like I have more in me I will alter my goal and keep on going to 150. 150 is what the insurance companies want me to weigh.

A Thankyou to the Scheduler

Well the irritation and stress from yesterday and probably poor eating speed and chewing meant that I did not do so well with keeping food down. I had to do a little spitting after breakfast, had a pb at lunch and finally lost dinner altogether when I got a small piece of hamburger (lean ground cooked in non-patty form at home) stuck.

This morning I finally cracked 240 and am down to 237. I will take it and do my best to keep eating the way I should.

I got through to the scheduler and she claimed that she made the appointment and it was correct and had been that way all along (just crap because I had a whole conversation about the two weeks I was out of town)...I am still kicking myself for not checking two weeks ago.

But--it is still apparent I have some restriction. I am fully capable of controlling myself for the 2-3 weeks I have to wait. I am going to do my best to lose more weight while I wait.

The Schedulers Strike Again

So you would think I would have learned to check up on the schedulers at my surgeons office. They have screwed up my appointments before but no...i trusted them again to actually make the appointment they said they made. Well-in double checking my appointment time for today I found that The person...the @#$@$%^#@# person has made my appointment for next week despite having told her if I cannot have an appointment this week I cannot come in for two weeks. She said-you have an appointment next Wednesday at 11 She actually gave me an appointment in two weeks at 11am and Now I have to cancel it because i am out of town for two weeks and I will have to go yet another two weeks without a fill....I am steaming mad. Worse yet I am mad at myself for not double checking on the stupid woman. arghghghghghghghg

I will try and call at 8am but I find it unlikely I will get in.

I have not been very good and white knuckling my food intake-Despite that, however I am still holding at 240....Hopefully that will continue but making progress before I go to Germany in September would have been nice.

:(

Tina

Ready for the Fill Already!!

I had been on a foodie-bender so to speak since last week when my stomach opened and I was suddenly able to eat naughty foods. Compared to pre-band days and probably at Christmas time I am being very good but when comparing it to last month I have been very very bad.

I still cannot fathom why I am soo open. Sure I have lost some weight but I am fluctuating around the same 240-243 pounds and not really tightening up just floating around.

I had a little mishap with a hamburger (yep you read it HAMBURGER). I ate 2/3 of one. I enjoyed the hell out of it. About a half-hour later my stomach did a huge reject of the thing and i spend several minutes in a swimming pool bathroom desperately trying to quietly(yeah not easy) expel the bite that I swallowed too quickly in my excitement.

I cannot really eat a large amount of food at any time at least not any more than I could before (still 1/2 a cup) but I can now sit that half a cup out and eat more in between 5-15 minutes. I have tried to eat things that i know will stick longer (things that normally I would just hurl when I am tight). I have had untoasted sandwiches but made them and put half in the fridge before I ate it. The sandwiches seem to last the best. I have had some salad (but very cautiously) and been OK. You already heard about the hamburger.

Tonight I went to the movies again (Harry Potter was excellent!). It has been about 3 weeks since I went to the Greek chick flick movie. When I went to that one I could only eat 1/2 cup of popcorn and my diet coke moved through slowly. Tonight I knocked back a medium diet coke and then chased it with 1/2 a small bag of popcorn.

I am convinced it is time for a fill (how many more posts do you think it will really take!!) but I am scared at the same time that I will tighten up on my own and be in big trouble...or worse yet that something has malfunctioned.....

it is fine... it is fine... you just lost fat around your band... it is fine...I will keep saying this until I talk to the nurse practitioner on Wednesday.

Filming In a Video Store Near You

I left my laptop cord at work last week. As I only go in once a week the last thing I wanted to do was spend the gas to go 120 miles back in just to pick up a chord. So I quickly emailed all of the files I could think of needing this week onto my old computer and attempted to make do for the rest of the week until it was time for another meeting.

Well the other computer cord bit the dust and quickly ran out of battery and I was shit up a creek with no computer and papers to correct, write and submissions for my yearly ed conference to prepare. (the cord died on Sunday). So at 5:40 pm we were driving around to all of the computer stores we could think of cord hunting for both my new and old laptop (cords have really gotten cheaper than they used to be!!)

so finally getting to the title of this entry-We ended up at Fry's (techy-nerd heaven and my husband disappeared from view in about 2.5 seconds flat). This disappearing act is a common one for him. Grace and I (and anyone else along for shopping) spend the rest of our time looking up and down the plethora of techy aisles trying to find him. Well on Sunday-in our search I happened upon one of those events that used to make me shudder...A video camera catching walkers by. Normally I would spot the thing ahead of time and jump to the other side of the aisle to avoid being caught on film. well this time in my quest to search out aisles I walked right into the path...I saw...I did not shudder in horror....I thought...BETTER!! I think this is probably a significant event. I don't look scary lumpy anymore.

On the fill front I have an appointment for next Wednesday. I am trying to figure out how much fluid to ask for. There is a person in the lapband boards (living quite near you actually Caroline)who said her doctor has her drink cups of water after a fill (mine does this) and then eat half of a yogurt. He used this technique to figure out exactly how much fill she needed. Apparently his strategy was the water should go through quickly but the yogurt should hold up a bit.

I am thinking of dragging a pot of yogurt with me and giving it a try---Do you think the nurse practitioner would think I'm a crack pot?