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This has officially become easy... yes I said easy! I raise my heart rate for a few minutes and lose weight! My appetite is virtually non-existent, my growlies in my stomach tell me when to eat and now it doesn't take much to satisfy them! Even water does the trick when I'm out of calories for the day. I can eat what I want in 1/2 cup portions. Still try to use my calories wisely though. I drink at least 40 oz of water a day and eat an average of 800 calories. I did PB eating a piece of chicken wing the other night and I can tell you I used to do it like almost every day before I got my head in the game, and it was never as near painful! Even have to allow water to take its time going down right now. So right now I'm on cruise- control and my 15k investment is finally allowing me to do what I should have been doing years ago..... Hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh...... I exhale.... I am no longer worried that the weightloss is going to stop. I weigh myself everyday just to get the rush when I see it go down. If it goes up (cause there are days it does go up!) It doesn't phase me cause I know I need to eat 3500 calories to gain 1 lb of fat and there' s no way I'm eating any way near that amount, so it has to be water or something else. After doing some research on the basal metabolic rate(bmr), I think that many of us are being advised wrongly by using the calculators. The calculator told me I needed over 3000 cals for my bmr, having a somewhat sedentary lifestyle. But the body weight analyzer scale advised that I only needed 2200! So now I don't have unrealistic expectations about losing tremendous amounts of weight when I only need 2200 cals to maintain my current weight. I now realize that even if I starved myself and didn't do any exercise whatsoever, I would only manage to lose 4lbs per week! Also I find myself questioning the starvation mode theory. Afterall bypass patients have to eat way less than 1200 cals and they still lose weight. So if I can get in enough of my important nutrients such as protein in under 1000 cals, that's what I'll do. I find the scale sticks for long times whenever I try to go over 1000. Below 1000 works for me, it might not for you. I am no longer worried that my loose cothes will start to get back tight! I wore a 22 jeans today and the legs have space! My greatest joy comes from hearing my sons' and husband's remarks about how much they enjoy watching me shrink! lol I have more energy now to actually get out of bed and make them lunch and they are thoroughy enjoying the healthier meals the're now getting, plus I'm getting in exercise by being out of bed an hour earlier. Win-win! To my weightloss.... This morning, beginning of my 7 week, I weighed in at 310 lbs. That's 25lbs in the 6 weeks, 5lbs this week and 42 lbs down from my pre-op weight. I am estatic! My BMI is exactly 50! So I know by next week it will be below 50. ESTATIC! Till next week......

This is day one of the soft foods after my unadjustment on Wednesday..I have to say..it feels good to sleep without the acid reflex! One of my biggest problems is that I eat too fast. My Dr suggested I start a food diary..what I eat when and how long it takes me to finish.. I thought ok? I'll write I ate in 5 minutes..lol how is that gonna help? My best friend suggested I read a book while I eat..IF I enjoyed to read, that might work... Walking around the Dollar Tree yesterday I found one of many word search and crossword puzzle books...Hmmmm! I bought a Large Print (lol i'm gettin old) book and started with page 1. At the top I put the date, time and what I was eating in this case Oatmeal ( I found an active living weight control brand..180 cal 40from fat, 1gm sugar, 8gm protein 7gm fiber..and it was actully pretty good). I finished the 1st page faster than I did my Oatmeal but just continued to the next page and carried over the times only this time I recorded what time I started this Puzzle.. When finished I recorded the time I was done eating and all in all how long it took me to eat. 18 minutes...pretty good for someone who last week would have ate the bowl in 6mins. This is just a small step to my better eating Hopefully someone else can benifet from my tool.

Not that this probably matter to anyone BUT..I thought I would let those that read my blogs about the name change... For ever!!!! I looked for that special someone! When I started my email account and needed to come up with a screen name, I figured on lkn412luv translation lookin for one to love...However now..this site seems to be the perfect place to change that! I have met someone..we are goin on 4 years in July and he has loved me FOR ME..even before I knew he did. We worked together and wernt really freinds..Lol I just tolorated him I guess you could say..one day he sent me a text message asking me out...all of me!..He has been very supportive in my journey and does everything possible to get me thru the rough times. SO needless to say the name changed from lkn412luv to FndSum12luvme... Just thought I would share!

Ok i know that i already posted a blog earlier but i cant help but to remember things that i want to talk about and didn't. Life with lap band isn't perfect and it wasn't meant to be its a tool just like a computer or a calculator is its there for help. It isnt there to just take the fat away while you do nothing its not an easy fix, now the reason i say this is because i can not count the number of time i have been told well isnt that cheating? And this is my answer "NO you dont understand i have a leave of control that wasn't there before. I have this tool to help me to not make bad choices and sometimes i do and then i realize by my own hard hardheadedness that maybe i shouldn't have done that. But again its nothing more then a tool". Then another question i have been ask is Why couldn't you have just done this on your own? This would be my Favorite question. And here is what i usually say " have you ever been on a diet and got stuck at one number and at the end of the day you just felt like it wasn't worth it any more? Well it was like that for me and i would give up or maybe you went on a diet but at the same time wanted a big plate of food and you just said screw it and ate whatever you wanted any ways and then gained weight and the whole thing just didn't seem to work for you? that is why i did it because i need control and i need a way that wont let me cheat and i need to feel like i can do something about the way that i look." Here is what the people who love you and care about you need to understand its all about you with lap band now i dont mean go and forget about others but you have to make your weight loss something that is yours. Something that you can control and something that is for you because if you dont want to do it then you wont. It has to be for you and yes there are other reasons mine was i wanted to go to a water park with my family and wear a swim suit nothing skanky just wear one again. i told my self that if i could get down to the 100s by Christmas we were going to great wolf lodge (its an indoor water park). I know i was banded in September and didnt give my self much time but for Christmas i was at that water park and i was in a swimming suit. Again nothing skanky and i wore shorts and a shirt but the good thing was that i didnt really have to and i damn sure didnt have to wear boys swim trunks and i didnt have to wear about ten undershirts. I was in a women swimming suit and i wasnt scared of well maybe i shouldnt wear this im too fat. i was 210lbs and that to me was so much better then 280. I have done things now that i would have never been able to do before. If i had never have done this for myself and done it for someone else i don't think that i would have stuck with it. I think it would have been like everything else that i had done before to try and get the weight off and yes before it was for someone else and it wasn't ever really for me. Some question will really get to you and might even make you think well should i really have done this? When i had this done i didn't want to let anyone know what i did i was scared that they would think i was cheating and that i had failed. But i realized that not to many people really think that not to many people are really that fast to judge you. However i have found some that are. See when you start to loose a lot of weight people what to know how, how you did it and what you are doing. And again at first these where not easy question to answer i mean how are you supposed to tell people that you have had weight loss surgery. For a while i thought well maybe i have cheated myself maybe i could have done this on my own and i didn't really need the lap band. But the truth was always there i needed some help i needed it and so i posted on Facebook what i did and just sat and waited. I waited to see what people would think of me now that they had the chance to ask me and find out what i had really done. and it turns out most of the feed back that i got wasn't bad it was mostly all good, and then there is the question here it is " was your husband going to leave you because you where so fat?" No my husband loved me for me not for what i looked like i mean he says that i am more fun now but he has always loved me. I get a look sometimes when i tell people that i have had lap band like ummm you did what? and sometimes its a pitty look like oh that poor girl she must have weighted 500lbs. But with time it gets easier to deal with all the questions all the bad look and you end up just smiling and knowing that you did what was right for you. And do be surprised when people act like you didn't know you were fat. LOL this is one of the questions i hate the most. " well what made you decide you were fat?" Im always like wtf! Do you really think that i didnt know i was fat? I looked im a mirror every day of my life. In fact i didnt decide i was fat i decided to get help for myself, because i wasn't doing a very good job on my own. Here is something else that i have learned people treat you different even some of your friends will treat you different. I mean people are nice but sometimes when someone sees you like a cable guy or something they will be nice but that's pretty much it. Example i had a cable guy come to my house to install internet for after my surgery. He was nice answered all my questions and did his job and left. two months ago i had to call them back because of some outside issues and the way i was treated was completely different he had a conversation with me and told me all kinds of things but when i was bigger he wouldn't say more then a few words to me at a time. People in stores treat you different to my husband thought i was joking until i told him to come in a store with me. One that him and i had been in when i was bigger and i had to ask for help and i had to get my own stuff they did very very little. But as soon as i walked in all of a sudden i had three people ask me what they could get for me and what size i needed. My husband has never questioned that again. When your big sometimes its hard for us to take up for our selves sometimes its like well whats the point? And i cant speek for any one else but i was like that for a long time after the surgery i didnt see the difference and i thought well if someone was to call me fat all i could do is cry and go home like i always do. Untill two weeks ago i didnt realize that i did look different that i wasnt really "fat" any more. but i was standing up to people who i would have never stood up to before, i got to a point where i wasn't going to let any one say anything about the way that i looked what my children where eating or anything and for the first time i stood up for my step son and it felt really good to do that for my child. That was another turning point were i thought wow i can do this and i didnt loose it i wasn't told to sit down and shut up and i wasn't called fat. LIfe after lap band isnt always fun and its not easy but i would say its more then worth it. And sometimes its crazy frustrating i mean who doesn't want a big burger from time to time or a big soda or just alot of crap all at once. But when you realize that you have the control and the will not to it all seems worth it. when your daughter comes up to you and throws her arms around you and says WOW MOM i can fit my arms around you like twice, then its all worth it. When you can do things with your husband that before just were not possible then its worth it. When you see a man from your past that put you down and told you, you where ugly and fat and couldn't been seen with you, and he says to you wow your so pretty and you can just sit and smile and tell him thank you or tell him he can go to hell which ever then you know that it was all worth it.

So my first consult isnt until the 29th. Ughhhhh.March is going so unbelievebly slow.But in the meanwhile Ive really been focusing on what my workout regime is going to be/What areas I really need to work on. I know this sounds weird, but one of the things im looking forward to when I finally start to lose weight is actually having noticeble clavicals. Yes clavicals.Ive always been obsessed with Tyra Banks' clavicals. Theyre so defined and nice. Ive always been overweight and top heavy so Ive never had defined ones.(Not even when I was 6!! lol smh).I know there arent any actual exercises to get them (lol) but I just need to do hell of alot of cardio to melt this fat away. Pretty random but thats whats on my mind as of now......Do/did any of u guys have any weird want(s) after yall lose/lost weight??

Ahhh, exercise! Those wacky movements that cause our muscles to ache and for a voice deep down to scream "Take that!" to the world at large who says that big people are just lazy. So I work in what is (not) affectionately known as "The Batcave" or "The Fortress of Solitude". Basically it's a very, very small windowless room next to a giant convection oven that is sweltering even in the depths of winter. So while I am far, far away from being nature girl (I hate bugs, being dirty, trees, and those bushes that always cling to your legs and are currently spludging pollen like it's an Olympic sport) a friend and I decided to picnic and hike at Umstead State Park. So off we hike (amble) on a nice 2 mile trail. Yet a good gossip later we found ourselves having taken a switchback and somehow jumped trails to the 7 MILE LONG ONE! Now this Plumptious Lady is good for about 3-4 mile up and down trail hiking but not for any more than that! So we continued walking and stumbled across this dude jogging. We asked him but he had no clue how to help us, which was okay because he was shirtless and hot and I enjoyed the eye candy. We then wandered across this couple who were dressed as "serious hikers" and while she tried to help us he was a total jerk and kept on walking. Also, I would like to take this time for an aside comment, "Hey, fella, karma's a b**ch and I hope you enjoyed your hike while knowing that two bodacious babes were more lost than Hansel and Gretel. May a good Samaritan be scarce when you need one". All we wanted to know was where an intersecting trail was to take us the fastest route back to the cars so my friend could get to work on time. So, basically when I decided that it was going to have to be cannibalism and my friend would have to take one for the team we found a superhero dressed in black workout spandex! (She also goes by 'Carmen' in her day-to-day life) This wonderful lady walked us to her car and gave us a lift back to our cars. Thanks, Superhero Carmen! My friend will never know how close she came to being lunch meat... Well, now I'm back home with my legs wrapped and elevated (stupid surgery scars) and my feet singin' the blues. Yet deep, deep inside is this skinny person standing on top of a rock (like in that credit card commercial) with her hands up Richard Nixon-style screaming, "Ha! I did it, I kicked hiking left butt cheek! Mwahaha! The world is my oyster and all I need is a lemon slice!" I couldn't have done this multi-mile hike a few months ago and it's nice to see that the jogging and weight lifting has paid off even pre-surgery! I think, however, that next time I want to experience some of the 'great outdoors' I'll just go walk around one of those open air malls. They have restaurants as I really don't think that my friends would taste good without either tabasco or A1. And who carries condiments on a day-hike....? *grin* (I had to re-type this from memory. Apparently the "Add Entry" button doesn't add the entry to your blog, but deletes what you have written and opens a new blank entry page. Awesome. Not.)

I think I am adjusting pretty well. So far I have lost 12 pounds in the almost month since surgery. I have my first fill on 3/14. I still am feeling pretty good. I do not eat anymore than 1/2- 1 cup at a time and I always eat my protein first. Water is a bit of a struggle because I have to make sure that I drink it slow enough to not cause this overwhelming feeling of being super full. Mushies have been so great!! But honestly I am not looking forward to solids. The thought kinda scares me. I know I can not stay on soft food forever, but i just am not looking forward to regular food. And I will be back to liquid and mushies after I get my fill for a day or two, so I really will not have a chance to actually be on solids for long. Sigh....... I am enjoying not being focused on food and also I have learned the difference in between being hungry and just eating for the heck of it! My mother is not really happy that I did this. She told me that between her and my brother that they thought I was being vain and it was not as though I was spilling out of my clothes and falling out of my seat. Well, I am never going to spill out of clothes, because I always have clothes that fit. But buying a size 24 in said clothes is not ideal. Oh and nevermind that I take meds for high BP for two years( I was able to stop those recently) or that my back, knees and feet were hurting all the time. My feet will swell at the drop of a hat due to the amount of walking I do and the weight I carry. I am only 37 years old and quite honestly I should not have these "old lady issues" So it hurt my feeling when she said it, but I just told her that I did this for me and my health. I can't place my health and expectations on no one but me. I have been getting lots of compliments on how defined my face is looking. I looked in the mirror and it actually looked "skinny" to me!! I can not express how happy I am that I have made the choice to do this!