My wife and I have been quite open with our two daughters (9 and 12) about my lap band. Before surgery we walked them through what would happen, how it would affect my life and more than that why I was doing it. So as I have had to adjust to my new lifestyle, my daughters and wife have adjusted with me. But I didn't realize the extent of that adjustment until I heard these words come out of my 9 year old's mouth "Mom, you are chewing too fast, you need to slow down!" The look of shock on my wife's face was priceless
I remember during my undergrad studies in Psychology reading a paper that talked about people who were addicted to gambling and a peculiar memory trait that only allowed them to remember the times that they won. This caused them to constantly misjudge the odds when placing a bet, because the were overly optimistic about their chances.
I think that we who are fat have a similar trait, but in reverse. We only remember the times that we have failed in our journey to be fit, and so when there is temptation, when there are rough spots we err by forgetting all the scale victories, all the nsvs, all the times that we beat temptation and made a right choice and we only remember the times when we failed. So we believe that failure is inevitable and give in.
Today has been a hard day for me, I am experiencing a bit of bandster hell, combined with a generous portion of head hunger and emotional eating and the only thing I can think about is why bother, I am just going to fail anyhow. No, I haven't given in to those voices, but I have had one NSV after another this last week, I am within 4 pounds being at the lowest weight I have been at since I was a freshman in high school, and yet my failures are the memories parade before me today.
One of the things that the people of the Old Testament did when God did something spectacular in their lives was they built a marker, a pile of stones to remind them of the victory that had happened in that place. I think I need to start building some markers in my life so that I can concentrate on the victories, and not the defeats.
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I'll have a strong cup of decaf and play a video game instead.
And no, I am not talking about the size of my butt!
Just looking at my ticker and based on my surgeon's first goal for me, I am over have way there, but as many veterans have warned me weight loss has slowed, but is still on a downward trend. It would be nice to extrapolate based on what I have lost so far as to how long it will take me to meet that goal, but WLS doesn't work that way.
My spin classes have been giving me great cardio, and building my leg muscles but they have also been playing havoc with the scale. As my body retains water to deal with the micro tears that encourage new muscle growth, the scale stays the same (or climbs) for days on end, then one morning I will get up and have dropped 3-4 pounds from one night to the next. But if I am logging my food, and exercise I can pretty much ignore this by knowing what is real.
Next step is adding in strength training, since I don't want a lot of upper body mass, low weights and lots of repetition will tone my upper body without making me look like the Hulk.
Cleaning our closets out finally got to me, so I went in to do mine, and it is only about a quarter full now. Got a nice NSV in the process as well. 2005 I hit the lowest weight of my adult life when I went from 324 to 249.8, I stayed there for a couple of weeks and then started gaining again. During the that time I bought a couple of nice sports shirts that I really loved, but haven't been able to wear since, and I ran across them while I was cleaning. On a lark I tried them on and they fit.
Now looking forward to the sale at Kohl's in a couple of days with a 20% off coupon in my hot little hand.
I had my second fill today, the nurse added 1.5 to my 10 cc band bringing my total up to 2.5. Same little ache in the band area after fill, which quickly fades. So, liquids today, mushies tomorrow and solids on Sunday.
I have been adding some processed foods back in to try and combat the cravings. Taquitos the other night, and pizza last night. Some things lose their allure when I choose to eat them (taquitos), some things are still trigger foods (pizza), none of them satisfy and curb my hunger like non-processed nourishment. Well, I guess I will just have to sacrifice and eat more ribeyes.
I was shaving this morning and my wife came in and weighed herself, curious I asked how much? Her answer was 122.5 (she is 5' 5"), and that around Thanksgiving she noticed that her back was hurting so she dropped 5 pounds and had been holding steady ever since. You know how my wife dropped 5 pounds and then holds her weight steady? She simply eats less. Not a diet, not skipping meals, not exercising, she eats less of the things that she eats every day. If she wants a beer or a cocktail, she will skip dessert.
This is how normal people interact with food. I am not normal, I am a mutant when it comes to food. The band is my tool to help me pass for normal person
Moved to solid foods on Friday, not only have Mistress Band and I not been on the best of terms since then, my weight loss stopped.
This is why when we talk about calories in versus calories out, we always need to look at the big picture rather than the daily total. Once my body gets used to what I am feeding it, the loss will start up again. Until then I just need to concentrate on making sure that I am eating what and how much I am supposed to, getting my water and exercise in.
On the plus side, I had my first spin class yesterday and survived.
I ran across a post about using baby silverware or chopsticks to help get the proper speed and bite size for bandsters. So I decided to try it out. This morning's breakfast consists of 2 scrambled eggs, 1 cup of spinach and 1 Tyson reduced fat sausage patty. I cut the spinach and sausage to the proper size, dumped that and the eggs into a microwavable container, and when I got to work this morning microwaved it for a couple of minutes. I am now sitting at my desk with the chopsticks I bought off of Amazon, eating breakfast, and it is working well. The chopsticks slow me down and force me to take small bites and I don't feel nearly as silly as I would with a baby fork or spoon. That and the sticks are much easier to clean.
I packed my normal breakfast of a Protein shake and a some steel cut oats, and drank my shake when I got to my desk. a couple of hours later I was hungry again and pulled my oatmeal out. Then Mistress Band spoke, "I'm not eating that stuff, get me some more protein!" So down to the cafeteria for a couple for eggs and hash browns, threw 3/4 of the hash browns away, and Mistress Band is now one happy camper.
When I woke up this morning, I was feeling pretty lethargic, I knew I had been doing a lot of physical labor on 1300 calories a day with the constant snow fall here, but I thought I had been allowing for that. My body disagreed, and a real part of my journey is learning to listen to my band and my body.
Food for thought.
I was banded on 1/7/13 and one of the things that my instructions talked about was that during the "Healing Phase" of my eating, many patients stop losing or actually gain weight. With this in mind I have been very careful to log all my food and count calories Even thought my NUT said that calorie counting wasn't necessary, she told me to shoot for between 1300 - 1500. So, this morning I was able to go back to one of my pre-band rituals of Saturday morning breakfast with a friend, but I was scared because I was flying solo, no scale, no measuring cups, just me and "Mistress Band".
So, the result? I ordered two eggs and hash browns, I pre-cut all my food to the proper size, and tried to focus on the conversation and my eating. Pretty soon I hit a soft stop (hiccup) and then each bite I started asking myself why I was taking that bite. When the answer because "Because it tastes so good" I put my fork down and moved the plate out of reach.
At that point, I was satisfied, not full, but satisfied and it looking at my plate, I realized that I had eaten about the same as I would have if I had pre-measured it. Maybe one day, I will be able to move rely totally on listening to my body and my band, but until then, I will log and count.
I still don't understand my body and why it does the things it does. I have slowly been building up my daily calories as I work through the mushie stage, my goal is 1300 a day. Well for some reason yesterday I just had the urge to graze, and the only way I kept my net calories at 1300 was to exercise. I wanted to eat all day long. Now today, I am having a hard time getting down 900 calories, I simply have not been hungry all day long. Add 550 calories of exercise on top and MFP is going to yell at me
Same foods, no emotional upsets, but my body is behaving totally different. It will be interesting to step on the scale tomorrow morning and see what other surprises my body has in store for me. This is one of the reason that while I am a firm believer in the burn more calories than you consume weight loss formula, I also believe that this is a "big picture" paradigm and only really works over the long term.
Went for a fill appointment this morning, talked over my hunger levels and loss history over he last month and the nurse suggested a .2 tweak, bringing me up to 4.9. So, liquids today, and mushies tomorrow. And I don't have to go back for a month.
I Corinthians 10:13 ESV
13 No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it
I have seen a common theme in the posts of new banders, and it is "I don't know if I can do this, what if I fail?" This where the I draw solace from the stories of our veterans, successful or not. I know that I am not going into uncharted territory, that someone has been there before me, faced the same issues as I will and they were successful, and if they were successful, I can be as well. It is also one of the reasons that I answer the posts that I do, not because I have all the answers (or really, any of them), but it is just to let people know that they aren't alone, that yes it sucks right now, but there is an end to it and they need to focus on their goal, they too can reach the other side.
Oh, and the verse also speaks to the care and control that God exercises in our lives, but that is a topic for a different blog
The company that I work for provides insurance through one of the top 5 insurance companies in the nation, our employee count is under a thousand and we are provided with an online registration portal. So far registration has been pushed back twice for web site issues, and when it finally come online today, it crashed after a couple of hours.Maybe the Obamacare website isn't so bad after all.
eating on Vacation that is.
Away from my home, my scale and my kitchen for a week visiting family in Northern California. An Easter brunch that my sister-in-law served that centered around a ham, chicken and lasagna, side dished, appetizers and deserts from Hell. But the real villain were the chips and candy at my Sister's house. The good news is that I am only up .75 of a pound for the week, and after I flush all the excess sodium out of my system, my weight will probably be a wash. I just kept B-52 and others on the forum in mind who weren't counting calories, and tried to listen to my band, watched my bite sizes and speed. I had one stuck incident that caught me totally by surprise, but other than that eating was no problem.
Glad to be back home though, although I would like the rain to stop so I can get on my bike, Catfish is getting ahead of me, and that just won't do!
Spent 4 days in Hawaii on a work assignment, and maintained my weight. The office was about a mile away, so I didn't get a car and walked to work each day. While my food choices could have been healthier, I listened to my band and life was good.
