Things I have learned after one year...

Today is my one year anniversary of my surgery. I have lost 120 lbs total. I have lost and regained the same five pounds for 3 months now. Totally my fault. My head is trying to catch up with the weight loss, I have been making excuses for not eating right, money, time, stress. Whatever! They are horrible reasons to not use this gift I have been given. I have learned a few things along the way... I can eat way more now than I could in the beginning. Granted it is no where near pre op but more than a few months out of surgery. Before surgery I would go to McDonald's and order a filet of fish, a Big Mac meal w/ Large sweet tea and a double cheeseburger. Today when I go to McDonald's, I order the chicken nuggets happy meal, eat about 1/2 the fries and about 3 nuggets. Big difference. I have learned that I can eat a lot if I let myself graze. This is not a smart thing to do. I can get in just as many calories when I graze as I did pre op. Scary huh? Like yesterday...I am ashamed to post this but I just want you to know it is possible to consume as much food post op as pre op if you spread it out versus 3 meals and 2 snacks VSG portions... I had one egg and 4 pieces of bacon for breakfast. Ate about half the egg and 2 pieces of bacon...about 30 minutes later I was able to finish it. I started on a ziploc bag of cashews about 10;30am, munched on them off and on all day. Had a hershey bar in my desk, broke off a piece here and there, finished it off my end of day also. Lunch I had a chicken pot pie, could only eat about a third of it and about 30 minutes later, I took those last few bites and finished it off. While cooking dinner I had a bite of carrot cake. For dinner I had 1 hamburger patty, spoonful of mac and cheese and 8 french fries. I ate off that plate for an hour and got it all down! Later that night while watching tv, I had another bite of cake, 30 min later I had a 2 oz bowl of cereal, 30 min later I had a half a cookie. That is a LOT of food. Lesson from all this, once you are full, throw away the rest of the dang food or put it up for the next meal. In order to stay on track and keep on losing:
DO NOT NIBBLE ON THE SAME PLATE FOR MORE THAN 15 MINUTES.
DO NOT EAT BETWEEN DESIGNATED MEAL AND SNACK TIME
PROTEIN FIRST, VEGETABLE SECOND, CARBS LAST
DO NOT DRINK FOR AT LEAST 30 MINUTES AFTER YOU EAT
DRINK AT LEAST 64 OZ OF WATER EVERYDAY
DO SOME FORM OF EXCERCISE FOR AT LEAST 15 MINUTES A DAY

Those are pretty basic and simple. Staying on track and breaking old habits is hard as hell!
I am not where I am supposed to be but THANK GOD I am not where I used to be which is 381 lbs, size 30/32, unable to walk from my car to my office without being out of breath, unable to shop in Walmart unless I used a scooter. Today I can do all those things and more, I have not used a scooter since surgery, I weigh 255 lbs and in a size 22/24. I have a ways to go but I will get there.

Good Riddance 2009

This year has been nothing but a rollar coaster to say the least. I had big hopes for 2009 being my surgery was in January, this was going to be a year of change, a good year. Change did come but it wasn't all good. The news calls this the year of death because so many celebrities died, well it was my year of death too. I came close to death after my surgery, lost my uncle in February, my grandmother in April, my father in July and two days before Christmas my cousin lost her husband. Most importantly I lost the former version of me, the death of the fat me. It has had many challenges and played some serious mind games with me. I have battled with eating the right foods and exercise. These past few weeks I have been eating like I did last christmas before I had surgery. Like I was never going to be able to eat those types of foods again...sord of a get it while you can attitude. I know this is not true. I dare not say 2010 is going to be a great year because well we saw what happened when I said that last year. I am planning on trying to learn to love myself. Try to figure out why I choose food as a comfort and prefer my fat as a protection shield. I have got to do something or I am going to sit here at 126 lbs lost and go no further. The strong side of me will not let that happen. I want to become a gym junkie, I want to run. 2010 will be the year of finding me. I came up with some resolutions, some weight related some not. They will not all happen in January but I posted them on a sticky and put them on my computer as a reminder so maybe I will accomplish them one by one. They are:

1. Join some walk a thons (Got some great information on American Heart Association and Kidney Foundation)
2. Give back to the community (I want to do meals on wheels and volunteer at the local women's shelter)
3. Run (I plan on walking to the end of my road, eventually jogging and just going a little further everyday)
4. Only have sweets and junk on birthdays and holidays, stick to the program
5. Take shooting lessons and get my gun permit (this is way out in left field for me but I have always wanted to do it)
6. Travel (no where big, just a couple of trips to somewhere)
7. Go to church more (I need to reconnect with God, I need him to complete this)
8. Live life, do something everyday, whether it is call someone on the phone, the gym, volunteer, clean, shop, go to visit a friend, something!
9. Make mommy and me dates (My girls are older, I need to set aside time for them so I don't lose our connections)

Big goals! I have NEVER had this many goals. It has always been lose weight, that is it. I am not getting any younger, i want to live. I wish you all the best New Year.

But how bad do you want it?

Well you know when I don't blog regularly I am doing bad weight wise or there is something going on in my personal life. I guess it is a little of both but MOSTLY doing bad weight wise. I have asked myself several times over the past month, c'mon seriously? How bad do you want this? Why are you slacking? I have eaten junk and more junk. I have got to start working on the mental part of this whol journey because I am doing some serious self sabotaging to myself. I have lost 119 lbs, have gained and lost the same 5 lbs over the past 2 months. I should be down AT LEAST another 30 lbs by now!! I DO NOT want to stay at 260 lbs..I want to keep going. The diet is not hard, I truly do not EVER get hungry so why do I gravitate to the sugary sweets and chips and pizza? I think there are a couple of things going on.
#1: It is there and it is quick

#2: It tastes so darn good

#3: Hell, everyone else is eating it and it's not fair that I can't (Wow did that sound a 2 year old or what!)

#4: I hate the way my body is looking, I hate that I have to wear longer sleeves and longer shirts to cover up the excess skin. The left side of my stomach is still not shrinking along with my right so there is literally a hump (a ball of fat) and in the past when I am disgusted or mad at myself what do I do, EAT!

#5: I think I am scared of the attention. I am getting a lot of compliments and what are you doing and you are so skinny looking. I have always been the wallflower, no one noticed me. Now I find it makes me nervous and I still can't make eye contact, I just want to hurry up and get past them so I can hide just as I always did. I feel people looking at me now so I am even more self conscious of the excess skin so I think I am subconsciously trying to gain weight to go back to my safe place. Which is totally weird because I don't like how I felt before. I can shop now and walk and stand and not hurt like before.

The mental part of all this is definitely harder than I thought. I heard people say that but I really thought, if I could just lose weight everything will be perfect. Guess I lied to myself...now how do I fix it?

Other stuff going on, went to the doctor for my physical and blood work...vitamin D and iron were extremely low, thyroid levels out of whack a little. Up'd my vitamins and will make an appointment with the endocrinologist after christmas. She documented the excess skin issues and I told her my upper back pain has increased with this last 20 pounds I have lost. She said it was the excess skin pulling. Great!! Had another reality check early November...my mom had 3 blockages in her main artery and she has never been overweight or smoked. So heart problems are definitely in my genes between her and my dad...all the more reason to get this crap under control.

Good stuff: Went on a cruise to the Bahamas November 6 with some family. This was to celebrate my 100 lbs loss. So many wow moments that skinny folk take for granted. Being able to walk down the aisle in the plane, buckling the seatbelt without an extender, walking from one side of town in Nassau to the other without needing a chair right away(normally I would just not go because I knew I couldn't walk it), feeling normal sized around all the people, not avoiding picture taking, wearing high heels to dinner and then walking around the cruise ship with no efforts, taking the elevator even though it was crowded instead of waiting for the next one(out of fear there was not enough room for me), carrying my luggage and walking the airports...just going on a trip like that! It was awesome!!

Unfamiliar territory

So I joined a gym finally. My cousin owns it so he walked me through some weight machines for strength training to make sure I knew how to work them. I don't know that I would have gone in a regular gym anytime soon had I not known someone. I am supposed to be going at least 3 times a week. Doing the different strength training excercises and then cardio for at least 20 minutes. I find that when I go I feel so out of place. I feel like everyone is staring at me so I have a hard time doing the machines so I stick to the cardio area. I know I need to work my muscles in my arms, back and belly. I have got to figure out a way to overcome this because I am only hurting myself. I wish I could go early morning when there is no one there but sigh I must make a living. I have done the treadmill and increase my speed each time I go in and am amazed that I can walk for 20 minutes and then step foot on another machine. Sometimes I forget that I used to not be able to even do dishes without hunching over the sink. I tried the eliptical and found it to be fun. Fun? Did I actually say that? Although I can't do it for very long yet. I have done the bicycle also. I find that if I can get past the initial burn in my legs and feet instead of quitting that it eases up and doesn't hurt as bad, it becomes tolerable. So right now, I am fiddling with the machines for about 10 minutes and find that I venture to the cardio area. I generally do about 35-45 minutes on the different cardio machines depending on how far I push myself. My goal is to do a little more each time so I can get to the point of a good 2 hour work out.

I am finding that I can definitely eat more than when I first had surgery. My stomach is a finicky thing though. Like for example, when my monthly friend came along this past month that whole week, no matter what I ate, chicken or slider foods I could eat a lot more than normal and I seemed to want more. For breakfast that whole week, I was eating 1 whole scrambled egg with cheese and about 3 strips of bacon. Yesterday I got the usual egg and 3 bacon strips and could barely finish the egg and ate a piece of bacon and started on the second piece and knew if I took another bite I was going to be sick. Weird huh? This whole past week I have been craving carbs so I had a 3 oz bowl of mac and cheese and at it all...yesterday I thought I got tuna for lunch but it turned out to be tuna and pasta...anyways, took 2 bites of the pasta and was full. Within a minute I had the foamies, saliva filling my mouth, I went to the bathroom thinking I was going to be sick but it passed. I tell ya, you never know how your new stomach will take the food you are giving it. I am glad to know that part of the amount of food I was able to eat was just a passing thing though. I was beginning to worry a little.

Ramblings

Well, down to 270. Haven't seen 270 since my youngest was around 2. I know that is still heavy but compared to 381, those are beautiful numbers to me. My hair seems to be coming in thicker so I think the worst is over as far as hair loss goes. I am looking forward to putting highlights back in it. Lots of sagging skin, pretty depressing sometimes but I try not to dwell on it. I keep saying I am going to start going to my PCP so that I can have some type of documentation on record about skin issues so if I need a panni (which I am 100% sure I am) I will have a better chance with insurance. My boobs, arms, belly and thighs look like a deflated balloon. I have heard so many different things from it will tighten up some over the next year to try this remedy, try this one. I'll try em, heck if I find something that works that would be fantastic. My sagging stomach is what makes me still feel like I am 381 lbs. When I sit down I see these thinner thighs under a mountain of flesh that spreads. I wear a spanx and it helps (some) with clothes on. I find myself looking at all these before and after pictures studying people's belly area. This is just one of the downsides to WLS but I still say the good outweighs the bad and I would do it again in a heartbeat.
I finally got to try a new recipe this weekend. I am finding I am getting bored with the same foods and steering off course with junk food. I got this recipe from SuzieQuizie on OH.com:

Chicken Eldorado1 lb cooked chicken breast chopped1 medium onion, chopped fine1/2 tsp granulated garlic3 tsp cilantro dried, or 1/4 cup fresh1 ½ tsp ground cumin16 ounce tomato sauce1/2 cup ripe olives sliced(optional)8 ounces sour cream (light was great)2 Tbsp olive oil1 cup cottage cheese ( lowfat is good)1 cup chopped fresh or canned green chiles7 oz bag tortilla chips crushed ( didn't use any in this but did crush about 4 baked tortilla chips over the top for a little crunch.Still very low carb and was really good. 8 ozs monterey Jack cheese shredded

In sautee pan, using the 2 Tbsp olive oil, add onion and sautee until translucent, add garlic, tomato sauce and olives.Cook over low heat about 2 minutes until nice and bubbly; add chicken, set aside.Combine sour cream, cottage cheese and chiles. Layer half the chips, meat mixture, sour cream mixture and Monterey Jack cheese in a greased 2 1/2 quart casserole. Repeat this layering a second time. Bake at 375 preheated oven for about 30 minutes till hot, and cheese is melted. Serves 6 to 8 Variations:Could add jalapenos, black beans, corn, or could even use salsa instead of the tomato sauce, just watch the sugar content in the sauce or salsa you use. Lots of possibilities for variations with this one. Ground pork, turkey, or beef instead of chicken would be great as well.

I replaced the clilantro and chiles with a can of rotel instead and just used regular canola oil instead of olive oil. It was really good, a little more runny than I would have liked, could have been my variations and I didn't put the tortilla chips in the casserole. I think next time I make it I am going to skip the cottage cheese, bake the chicken, tomato sauce, rotel and monterey jack cheese and then top it w/ sour cream after it cooks.

I found that I absolutely love the Kashi products. The Kashi go lean honey almond flax cereal tastes like Honey Smacks only the bites are harder. So good. Higher in carbs than I would like but it has 9 grams of protein and it is healthy, better than that bowl of Honey Smacks. Their happy trail cookies are so good also. Gives you that sweet cookie taste you are seeking without all the junk.

Still not sick of chicken, although my family is. Loving teriyaki salmon and baked tilapia. Never thought I would like baked fish!!

Wow! I actually lost 100 lbs

Just like when I got under 300 and I didn't have the reaction I expected, same thing happened when I hit the 100 lb loss. Don't get me wrong I was excited and called a couple of friends but at the same time, it was eh whatever. I think my brain is just not where my body is. Almost as if, it doesn't believe it or can't process what is happening so it discounts it. I got back on board a week ago, protein first, walking a mile at work everyday and BAM, the weight just dropped. I dropped 9 lbs in a week. I got up for work one morning and couldn't wear 3 pairs of my pants. They were literally falling off. I pulled out some reserves I had in the closet. A size 22/24! Could not believe it! I felt so confident that day. I felt normal for the first time in a long time. Over the weekend, I tried on some of my other reserves and some were too big..26/28's. New shorts and pants with tags still on them. I bought some of those years ago thinking someday. I kind of chuckled to myself and said someday came and went...goodbye 26/28's forever! I went to Goodwill and Ross just to see if I could find a few pairs of pants and here is proof the brain is just not comprehending. I picked up a 22/24 , held it up and said there is no way I can get into that, hung it up and walked away. A few minutes later I said to myself, yes you can! Go get them damn pants and yes...they fit! :)

Losing my dad and 3 lbs before the 100 mark!

In my last post my dad had come home from the hospital after a 6 month stay. He was home for 8 days and he passed. Needless to say this has put me on an emotional roller coaster. I am 3 lbs away from hitting 100 pounds lost and can't shake the emotional eating and smoking. I knew we didn't have that much time with him left given how weak and sick he was but I didn't expect the phone call that morning of July 23rd. My dad had become increasingly weak and my mom was having a difficult time getting him back and forth to dialysis every other day. I had stayed the weekend before and came by that Wednesday night to talk to my dad because the case worker was questioning my mom's ability to care for him. God, how I wish I hadn't had that conversation with my dad now....you know, you go through all the what if's in your head, what you should have said, what you did say, what you didn't say. I told him we needed him not to give up, to push because they were questioning mom and we were scared they were going to put him in a nursing home. He said "Don't say that" Did I push him to give up??? I will always wonder that and I have my moments where I feel overwhelming guilt for that. That wasn't my intention. He also didn't want me to leave and I told him I had to go to work the next day, that I loved him and I put my forehead to his and told him to trust God. That is the last correspondence I had with my dad until my daughter called me at 7:39 the next morning to say, "Mom hurry papa's gone!" I felt my world stop. The only good in all of this is that #1 My dad is no longer in pain and he is in heaven where there is only happy tears and no more suffering, #2 God answered every prayer we had asked over the past 6- 7 months. After my dad was in a coma for a few months, the doctors had no hope for him to really walk again because his feet had dropped, after the trache was placed, the doctors said he was too dependent on the ventilator and would probably always be on a feeding tube and never talk again. We asked God for a healing or to not let him die in this shape in a hospital, to bring him home. My dad walked, my dad talked, my dad ate food and my dad came home. My dad was also afraid to die, he was scared to leave us and he was afraid it was going to hurt. I promised my dad that when it was his time to go, he wouldn't be scared that God would come get him. He died peacefully in his sleep, no gasping for air, nothing, just peacefully. God helped me keep my promise to my dad, he wasn't scared. He was a true miracle and even through the pain God's grace showed. He was way too young to leave this world but his quality of life here on earth wasn't what he would want to live and I know he is better off where he is at now.

8/29/1948 - 7/23/2009

God saw him getting tired,
When a cure was not to be.
So He wrapped his arms around him,
and whispered, "Come to me".
A long battle and a fight he did give,
until God called him home for eternity to live

Though our hearts ache and miss him everyday
I could not wish him back
To suffer through that again.
For when I saw him sleeping that Thursday morn,
I could see he was at peace and free from pain evermore.
Now he is seeing his loved ones,
worshipping Jesus and cracking jokes,
perhaps tomorrow he'll find a fishing hole
and sip on an 8 pack of little Cokes.