100 Ways -- Recent Wow Moments

A while ago I started a "100 Ways" series of postings and began listing 100 ways my life has changed since WLS. I suspended the series because I knew there would be many more WOW moments to come and I wanted to start again after I'd gotten a bit further out from surgery. So here I am at nearly 8 months out and I've been feeling pretty great. I wanted to share some of my recent WOW moments with you all. 

So, picking up from where I left off before... 

31. I'm now wearing a 16 pants and large or x-large shirts 

32. My arms are skinny (well, up to the elbow at least) 

33. I love my feet now. My toes are no longer fat and stubby, they are long, thin and elegant. 

34. I bought a new bra this weekend. Pre-op I was 44DD, now I'm 38D. Holy cow! 

35. I bought a new car - Honda Civic - a couple weeks ago and I actually feel comfortable and roomy in a compact car. I have a skinny car now! 

36. It takes like 2 minutes to shave my legs now -- used to be a huge undertaking when my legs were fat and had lots of surface area! 

37. My walking group is scheduled to do 6.25 miles at tomorrow night's training and I'm not worried about it at all. No problemo! 

38. My Pandora bracelet (my WLS reward jewelry) is way too big for my wrist. I bought it small thinking it'd fit fine after I lost all my weight. Now I think I'm going to need to buy another one in a smaller size.

39. I've lost 91 pounds so far and can't quite wrap my head around that number. Seems unreal to me at one moment then I'm struck with how amazing that number really is. 

40. I'm working on myself and all the areas of my life I want to see changes in. It feel great to focus on ME and not feel guilty about it at all.

Water, water, water ...

So the main part of the craziness in my life has passed. I've got a mountain of boxes waiting to be sorted and all my crap priced for the yard sale, but I'm determined to take tonight off and just relax and recoup. Tomorrow starts the next phase of craziness. So as I'm sitting here reading OH (www.obesityhelp.com), I came across a discussion about water intake. It talked about the importance of getting all your water everday in order to hydrate your body, help with digestion and also to flush away the fat that is being burned for energy. And then it hit me that I've been really slacking lately on my water. It's 9:00 p.m. right now and I've only had about 30 ounces of water so far. That's a long way from my 64oz minimum requirement. So I'm going to try and get at least 1 more glass of water in before bed (hopefully it won't keep me peeing all night). And tomorrow I'm going to get back on track and focus on at least 64oz every single day. Here's the plan: 8 oz. in my protein shake 20 oz. before lunch 20 oz. before going home from work 20 oz. before bed I wonder how long it's been since I've really been conscious about getting that minimum in. It makes me wonder if poor water intake has been contributing to my slow weight loss. Let's see if this helps get that scale moving steadily again. ~Pam

A Thousand Miles per Hour

Life has been running at a thousand miles per hour lately. It started last weekend and I don't see an end in sight until after the July 4th weekend. Here's a quick rundown: Saturday - bought a car then cookout at parent's house Sunday - Father's Day cookout at grandparents' house Tuesday - took the day off work to deal with car stuff, walked 5.5 miles with training group Wednesday - worked overtime Thursday - worked overtime, met a client, parents came to my house later Friday - worked overtime Saturday - 14 hour scrapbooking crop in Detroit Today - was on Grandma Duty and spent the day doing errands and stuff up north Tomorrow - will probably work a bit more overtime Tuesday - all day/night golf outing (on the host committee) Wednesday through July 3rd -- pricing stuff for the yard sale July 3-6 - yard sale at Aunt's house I'm already tired. And looking at what is ahead makes me want to take a nap. LOL! I've discovered something about myself when I'm overly busy. Actually, guess I already knew this, but it's proving true once again. When I'm busy, I don't eat. The weekend I bought my car I skipped both breakfast and lunch both days. Today I slept in a bit because I was in Detroit till late and didn't get to bed until about 2:00 this morning. So I slept through breakfast and didn't eat lunch until around 2pm. So the problem I'd been having with not eating well, grazing and eating crap --- just fix that with being busy and I don't eat. LOL! I need to find a happy medium so I can be happy with how I behave no matter what my schedule holds. And now I'm worn out and ready for bed. I'll try to get an update posted soon about how I'm doing with WLS and my progress. ~Pam

My Plateau ....

is broken. I weighed this morning and was down 2 pounds. A total of 89.2 pounds since I started this journey. But even though the plateau is broken for the moment, I still feel like I need to make some changes. After discussing my current status a bit at last night's support group meeting, I've gotten confirmation from some old-timers that I'm not eating enough. So ... here's my new plan:

• Increase calorie range to 1,000 to 1,200 per day
• Keep nutrient balance the same at 40% protein, 40% good carbs, 20% food fats
• Keep exercising and following my Crim Fitness Training Program schedule
• Add strength training to my workout routine at least 3 days per week

I'll keep you posted on how it goes. Pam

Disappointed

Tuesday night is my training night when I meet my walking group and we do our workout together. I missed my group training tonight. I'm so disappointed. I am on "late phones" this week at work (each secretary has to take turns staying until 5:15 to catch any late phone calls that come in after hours). So by the time I got out of the office building and on the road it was 5:20. But I still should have been able to make it to meet the group on time.... Then traffic was horrendous! I was on my way and saw that traffic was backed up, so I turned off the main road to take another road around -- kind of a long, shortcut -- only to get almost all the way through to come up to a downed power line and the road was shut down. So I had to turn around and go back and wait in the long line of traffic on the main road again. Then traffic was even slower once I got on next main road and turned out that a traffic signal was out (power outages everywhere here lately) so things were backed up. By the time I got to the Interstate I only had 15 minutes to get to the meeting place that was 25 minutes away. I just couldn't make it in time so had to call my leader and tell her I wouldn't be there. Dang it! It still makes me angry even now. My drive to work is almost all on the Interstate except for the last 8 miles from the time I exit until I get to the office. It's that 8 mile stretch that screwed me up tonight. In fact, it even screwed me up this morning .... there were several traffic signals out so it literally took me 45 minutes to drive those last 8 miles making me late for work. Days like this really make me hate my job and this ridiculous commute I do everyday. Yes, folks, I drive 150 miles every single freaking day. It usually doesn't bug me. But today I'm pretty pissed. Guess I'll go work off this mad with a workout here in my neighborhood. Won't get in the 4.5 miles I was going to do with the group, but at least I'll work up a sweat. ~Pam

2 pounds in 5 weeks

I’m stalled.

Or at least I’m moving VERY slowly right now. Cumulatively, I’ve lost 2 pounds over the past 5 weeks. And I’m losing it by the ounce …. just 1/3 of a pound this week, 1/10 of a pound last week…. You get the picture. And I’m not losing inches right now either. It’s frustrating and agonizing.

I know, I know, I know, it’s all just part of the process and it’s completely normal. I know all the right answers. But that doesn’t make it any less frustrating.

I called the nutritionist this morning (yes, the same one I met with the last time I had an appointment, I was hoping to talk to the other one, but got stuck with whoever answered the phone). I asked some questions and asked for her advice on what changes I needed to make, etc. She refused to tell me how many calories I should be aiming for. At my 3-month appointment I was given the guideline of 800-1000 calories per day, but not given any additional guidelines at the 6-month mark and now she won’t tell me anything at all. Yes, I even asked her about 6 times and she still wouldn’t give me a number. She just kept repeating her "rules" and wouldn't give me any specific information about how things might need to be adjusted for me personally and how my body was reacting to her rules.

Right now I am eating about 900-1000 calorie per day and getting 90-100g protein and about 60-80g carbs.

Here are the “rules” she said I needed to follow:

• eat 3 meals per day
• drink 3 protein shakes per day
• make sure I’m getting all my protein in each day - 60g-80g
• focus on portion size, not calorie count
• drink plenty of water


So here are the “rules” that I’m technically breaking:

• 60-80g protein/day --- I’m taking in 80g to 100g per day. It has stopped my hair loss and also boosted my weight loss when things were very slow at 4-month mark. Plus, other medical professionals on my bariatric team (the MD and the psychologist) always say 80-100g, the only person saying 60-80g is the nutritionist (and you know how much I trust her!)
• 3 shakes per day --- if I added an extra 2 shakes per day, I’d be getting an additional 60g protein per day. I’d rather eat real food than drink protein shakes that I don’t really enjoy. I do 1 shake per day first thing in the morning and get the remaining 70g protein from food in my meals and 1 snack.
• I count calories --- Actually I count protein grams using Fitday and knowing what my calorie count is, that's just a side benefit. I use an online food journal to count my protein grams because I’m too lazy to keep that running tally in my head all day – plus it’s more accurate than guessing.

I guess I have a different philosophy on calorie counting than my nutritionist does. She doesn’t think it matters how many calories I eat in a day – almost like she doesn’t believe I could possibly be eating enough calories to make a difference, as long as I’m following her rules. I personally think it’s easy to rack up the calorie total, even if I’m following her rules. Here’s what I mean:

My typical day's meals are about:

Breakfast (yogurt w/ granola)
Calories: 150
Protein: 14g

Lunch (today is chicken/zucchini casserole and a side salad)
Calories: 250
Protein: 23g

Dinner (tortilla pizza w/ turkey pepperoni, mushrooms, cheese)
Calories: 230
Protein: 22g

My protein shakes (made with 1 scoop powder and 1 cup milk):
Calories: 196
Protein: 35g

If I have 3 per day that equals:
Calories 588
Protein 105g

So my total intake for the day – if I listened to the nutritionist - would be:
Calories: 1,218
Protein: 164g (54%)
Carbs: 91g (23%)
Fats: 30g (23%)

I could live with the calories being at 1,218, but I can’t live with the protein being so high and out of proportion with the carbs and fat. I also don’t see how she can recommend doing 3 shakes per day AND 3 meals per day and still expect a person to remain within her protein rules of 60-80g – it just can’t work logically. Unless she thinks I’m still just sipping on broth and pudding or still eating 1 ounce of food at a time. Or unless she thinks protein shakes only have 10 or 15g of protein in each one. I just don’t get it. Obviously my nutritionist isn’t much help and that is really starting to piss me off.

So I need to figure out what I’m going to do to break this stall. Do I just keep doing what I’m doing and hope the scale begins to move again or do I make changes to my eating plan? I’m already doing a ton of exercising and can’t fit much more into my schedule, so that’s not the issue I don’t think.

Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

~Pam

Progress Photos

About 10 days after my surgery a friend suggested I start one of those 365 photo projects. So I started taking a picture of my face everyday since then (I've missed a few days). It's amazing to see the difference as the months go by. The first picture in September was taken at my sister's wedding before I even had a surgery date scheduled. Each picture I used is from around the 13th of each month --- I had surgery on November 13th.

A good weekend

I stayed on plan this weekend and got lots of exercise. It feels good to be successful - even in small goals. ~Pam