Happy New Year!!!!

So I was going through my office closet and came across a t-shirt I bought like 4 years ago, it's a size 4X. I completely forgot I had the darn thing and I'm wearing it now over two other t-shirts and an Old Navy fleece pullover. I remember buying this t-shirt online and never getting to wear it because it was too snug, now it's like a tent. Very cool. I'm going to have to suck it up and head to Walmart or Ross or something to pick up some jeans. Sigh.

Two of my sisters and I are planning a very cool vacation in mid August next year. I am so looking forward to it. We are going to rent a beach house in Destin, FL for 4-6 days. They will fly into Atlanta a couple of days beforehand and we'll hang out and see city, then we'll drive down to Destin and spend several lazy days on the beach. My sister, S., has three boys and T. has a girl and a boy, they all range in age from 8 to 17 and they should enjoy it as well. The three of us are the youngest daughters, and ironically, the only three with any sense. I'm not sure what happened with some of our older siblings, but it is interesting to see how the younger ones seem to have their heads screwed on tighter than some of the older ones.

Today is going to be crazy busy for me, I have to get a ton of work done before I can head out and enjoy the New Year. I have fleeting thoughts of heading downtown to see the Peach Drop, but that scene is crazy and I'm not sure I am in the mood. I have an invite to a house party so I may do that. I don't know, we'll see. I wouldn't be surprised if I was enlisted to be the designated driver, I don't mind at all, I'd rather do that than bail somebody out of jail or go to their funeral. It looks like I will have a dinner to attend to tomorrow, I'm planning on sticking to my plan and enjoying all the protein and veggies I can eat and ignoring anything sugar filled.

And on that note, have a happy and SAFE New Year's Eve, y'all! Have fun and I hope 2008 is a good one for you! Somebody drink some champagne for me!

Peace & Love!

Overcome The Fear - 2008

Goals and behaviors to help push past that which has kept me from living the life I want to live and being the person I want to be. Click here to review 2007.

Specific Goals

1. Start 2008 with at least 30 consecutive days of good, high quality nutrition, hydration and supplementation. To remind myself that my DS still works and works well when I stick to the plan and lead a completely healthy lifestyle.
   
2. Complete (and run) four 5K races this year.
   
3. Complete the Peachtree Road 10K Race on July 4th.
   
4. Complete the US 10K Classic Race on Labor Day.
   
5. Go to an amusement park and ride a roller coaster or two. By summer, I should fit, no problem.
   
6. Retire the glasses for good and get contact lenses.
   
7. Reach the milestone of having lost 300 lbs.
   
8. Reach goal weight of 199 lbs.
   
9. Go to alma mater and thank my college mentor.
   
10. Read 20 non-work related books. On the list so far:
    
    
    
    1. Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides
       
    2. The Memory of Running by Ron McLarty
       
    3. No Country for Old Men by Cormac McCarthy
       
    4. The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls
       
    5. Darwin's Dangerous Idea: Evolution and the Meanings of Life by Daniel C. Dennett
       
    6. The Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini
       
    7. A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini
       
    8. The Pillars of the Earth by Ken Follett
       
    9. Love in the Time of Cholera by Gabriel Garcia Marquez
       
    10. A Soldier of the Great War by Mark Helprin
        
    11. Dreams from My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance by Barack Obama
        
    12. The Audacity of Hope: Thoughts on Reclaiming the American Dream by Barack Obama
        
    13. The Now Habit by Neil Fiore
        
    14. Feeling Good: The New Mood Therapy by David D. Burns
        
    
    
11. Pay off credit card debt. ($1800)
    
12. Go to the dentist.
    
13. Get yearly checkup with the gynecologist.
    

Nutrition/Supplementation/Exercise

1. Get off the blood pressure medication.
   
2. Get better about maintaining nutritional goals when outside of my comfort zone.
   
3. Perform at least 30 mins of vigorous exercise at least 5 times a week.
   
4. Learn to play tennis and join a team.
   
5. Halve my consumption of artificial sweeteners.
   
6. Eat more vegetables
   

Personal Relationships

1. Spend time with my niece and nephew at least once every month.
   
2. Meet with two of my friends (E & N) for lunch every month.
   
3. Take 2-3 trips home to see about Mom & Dad.
   
4. Take a summer trip with my sisters.
   
5. Learn to have more patience with my business partner.
   

Professional Relationships

1. Join the Technology Association of Georgia.
   
2. Join and participate in my local Alumni Association.
   

Recreation

1. Obama in '08 - Volunteer a day a week at the Atlanta Office. Meet new people, participate.
   
2. Find a church and attend regularly.
   
3. Join the local photography club.
   
4. Find cute boys to date … and date them.
   

Miscellaneous

1. By February 1st, reduce by 90% my use of plasticware, paper plates, paper napkins and bottled water. Reduce waste.
   
2. The Great Purge - dispose of or donate most of the remnants of the old me. Basically get rid of the clothes and crap that don't define who I am now or the person I want to be.
   
3. Try makeup.
   

Month 16

Time to dance the jig, boys and girls, this morning's weigh in produced a big fat smile on my face! Weight: 271.0 lbs, for a 2.8 lbs loss from the previous day, which makes it a 1.0 lb loss for the month and 245.6 lbs total lost so far! Woo-hoo! I honestly thought I'd end the month up a pound or so, but I am happy to see that is not the case! What a month! I feel ecstatic and completely thrilled! I won't rehash how I feel about how this month went, I went into all that in my previous post, but I will say, thank the Lord, this month is freakin' over!

Just a little over 70 lbs to go til Goal #1 is met! Woo-hoo!

I heart Lou

Positive self talk works wonders for me, but it is something that I have to work really, really hard at as I can easily slip into negative self talk. This is something that is at the top of my life list of things to work on and improve. I keep a notebook of quotes, poems, excerpts, observations, etc. that I carry with me and came across one today from Lou Holtz on Beliefnet.com:

Successful people will always tell you you can do something. It's the people who have never accomplished anything who will always discourage you from trying to achieve excellent things.

How very true that is. I've come across a ton of DSers over the past two years since I first started looking into this surgery and made a decision early on to keep my eye on those who were serious about it because I knew that those are the people who knew how to be successful -- note, I didn't say perfect. They are the ones who really worked their DS and who got right back up after each fall, often these were people who had been morbidly obese their whole lives or who had serious medical problems or who had children who greatly depended on them being there -- basically those with a lot to lose. I know for me, I was at a turning point in my life. I've said this a few times, but there was nothing in my life that was stopping me from being that woman on TV you see who was like 700 lbs and had to be carried out of her house because she couldn't even walk anymore. That was going to be me, no question, no doubt in my mind. I was on the cusp of my downward spiral of poor health. I was thisclose to being a full blown diabetic and going down a path I'm not sure I could have survived. It would have taken a few years, I'm sure, but it would have been a done deal for me. That's some scary shit. As much as I would love to be perfect with my DS, I know I'm not, but I keep trying, dangit. This blog is a HUGE part of it. My rambling and over-analyzing and postulating about what I eat, how much I poop, what supplements I am taking, etc., it's all me trying to succeed. I force myself to blog when I'm doing great and when I suck because I know if I find myself not blogging, then I know that's me giving up and giving in and I don't want that.

I don't know, how this one thing led to another, but I just want to be that success story. I want to be able to say I reach my goal because I worked my ass off, that I not only pushed past my failures, but I picked them apart to see where I could improve and make changes and do better. I want to be able to say, this was the hardest thing I've ever done, but I did it. When I walked that 10K, those last couple of miles that's what I thought about. There were certainly moments when I wanted to hop on the quitter's bus and call it a day, but I just kept telling myself "you can do it, you are doing it" and kept on walking. The finish was far from what I imagined, there were no crowds cheering me on, just lots of tears (mine) and an immense sense of self satisfaction.

I guess these thoughts are in my head as I close out month 16. For the record, it will show that I hadn't lost a pound or even gained a couple and maybe a year from now, it won't matter to me much, but right now it's significant because I made a decision that I knew was the best thing for me (getting off the diuretics) but one that I knew would be difficult to reconcile emotionally. Gaining and losing 16 lbs in one month is not fun (nor do I recommend it), but I honestly feel it's probably one of my most proudest months because I was able to make the right decision for me and stick to it AND not let the weight gain completely derail me. Six months ago, I don't think I could have done it and it just makes me happy that I've somehow developed a bit of personal strength along the way. The DS obviously has changed my health for the better, but I'm so thankful that it's given me an opportunity to grow and learn and mature.

Number Crunching

So. I've been using my new scale for the past four mornings and the results are below:

Day	Weight	BMI	BF %	BF lbs	Water %
12/26	273.8	38.7	47.5	130.1	28.6
12/27	273.2	38.6	47.5	129.8	28.6
12/28	273.4	38.7	47.6	130.1	28.5
12/29	273.8	38.8	46.8	128.1	28.9

You can see the effect of drinking a gallon of water yesterday had on my results today. Kind of a bummer at first glance, but when I did the math, I could see that my Body fat by poundage is actually showing a significant loss from 130.1 to 128.1 even though my weight hasn't necessary shown that loss. This is the kind of info I love and it certainly makes me feel better. Gosh, I wish I could have had this scale at the beginning of the month! There are some funky jumps, but I think over larger time frames, I should be able to see positive trends.

My trip to the data center got pushed to later next week. Ugh! Well, that leaves me with a free day today. It's not raining so I think I will go to the park for a walk and maybe swing by the YMCA for the full tour. I'm planning on getting my membership soon, but I want to see all that they've got going on.

Have a good weekend, y'all!

No mas!

I'm contemplating ditching a dinner New Year's Eve Day because it's the start of one my New Year Resolutions which is to start the year off with 30 days of kick-ass nutrition, hydration, supplementation and exercise. I just really, really need to remind myself how well I can do, how good I feel and how well my DS works when I don't engage in any sabotaging behaviors. As of Jan 1, I have 8 months of my weight loss window (if you believe in such things -- I'm not entirely convinced) so I'd like to hit goal by August 30th. I am around 75 lbs away from goal #1 (199 lbs) and around 100 lbs from goal #2 (175 lbs). This year will be my last year for losing weight, after this I am done. I finally saw the commercial Valerie Bertinelli did for Jenny Craig where she very poignantly said that this New Year's would be the first one in 20 years where she wouldn't wake up and the first thing on her mind was losing weight (or something like that) and I certainly understand the emotions she was feeling. 2008 is it for me. I promised myself at the beginning of this journey that I was going to do the work and get it done, that the next two years would be my last two years of "dieting" and I'm going to stick to that.

This morning I weighed in at 273.4 lbs, up 0.2 from yesterday which was to be expected. I didn't drink enough water yesterday, maybe 64 oz and I drank the first 32 oz around 8:30 AM and the last 32 oz around 10 PM, so that wasn't so great. Today it's back up to a gallon and hopefully I can spread it out more. I hate to say it, but sometimes water sucks. One thing though, I haven't had nearly as many diet sodas as I previously did now that I am drinking all this water. I have this nagging notion in the back of my head that all those artificial sweeteners can't possibly be good for me so I least I can take a little comfort in that.

It's been raining off and on all day in Atlanta and we certainly need it. The drought we've been having has been terrible, every little drop counts. I just got back from the bank and the whole area is covered in this misty fog, it's actually quite beautiful and serene. I wish I had my camera with me.

There have been quite a few posts on the DS board at ObesityHelp.com concerning Flagyl. When I went down to Savannah in August, a good friend gave me about 20 or pills and I think in all I've taken make 4. I heard a rumor or two that it may slow your weight loss and after looking at the pros and cons, I decided I just don't need it right now. My smelly gas is more than manageable when I am mindful of what I eat. Eating a low gluten, low dairy, low carb diet really keeps the gas at bay and it's only when any of those three things aren't so low is when I have issues. When I am at goal, I can see myself being on Flagyl as I can tell you right now, the first thing that I will definitely be eating a lot of is cheese. I love it and I miss it and at that point I won't care if it clogs me up. Cheese is my favorite food so I must have it again. Yum.

I have to go down to the Data Center tomorrow where my company's servers are being co-located. Fun. I don't know if y'all have ever been in one, but they are actually kinda cool if you've got a moderate geek quotient. The only bad thing about a trip to the data center is that it if usually very cold and it's illuminated 24/7 with very bright artificial light and there is a non-stop electrical buzz, after all we are talking about a giant room with thousands of servers that need to be cooled. Data centers are high risk so there's usually multiple levels of security to have access to your own servers and typically if you were to see the building from the outside, it would look totally non-descript. Hopefully I will only be there for a few hours, I really don't feel like freezing my butt off all day!

Fantasy & Reality

Weight this morning: 273.2 lbs, down 0.6 lbs from yesterday, and only 1.2 lbs away from my lowest weight for a total loss of 243.4 lbs. Over the course of around 30 minutes I weighed myself four times, each after visiting the bathroom and my weight went from 274.6 to 274.2 to 273.8 then to 273.2. My body fat percentage started off at 46.9% then finalized at 47.5% which is exactly what it was yesterday. It looks like day-to-day trends might be somewhat useless, but I'm hoping week-to-week or month-to-month will show some positive trends.

I actually took a nap yesterday, something I hadn't done in awhile, at least not during the work week, but it was the day after Christmas so no big deal, I think everyone was a little foggyheaded as well. I read this blog post, The Fantasy of Being Thin, and it certainly got me thinking and in short it's spot on. It characterizes characterized me to a T. I was all about the "just wait til I'm skinny" syndrome. In 2007, I certainly became aware of it although I lacked a clever name or description to attach to it. For me it was the slow developing realization that losing the weight wasn't necessarily making me happier. It's not like losing X lbs translates into a Y increase in total happiness and contentment. Losing 341 lbs will not automagically make my way in life categorically better. All it does is (1) make is easier for me to move (2) increase the odds that I will stick around longer. What I realized was that getting to goal is not about finally being able to be happy in my life, deep down it is about greatly reducing my ability to use my weight as an excuse, as THE excuse for any and everything. Turns out, I needed to rethink "me". Not an easy thing at all and needless to say, quite humbling.

Anywho, yesterday I was watching TLC or the Discovery Channel (can't recall which) and they had a show about Plastic Surgery, Before & After and happened to have several people who have had WLS and were going through the process of basically lopping off all their excess skin and I found myself a tad bit envious of them. Not because they were having surgery, but because they were a helluva lot more flabby than I am. I can't wait to get to the super flabby state where my flab is more skin than skin & fat, especially in my thunder thighs!

I am still having a problem when I sleep on my side and wake up a few hours later with pain in my hip. There's got to be something I can do about it. If I sleep on my left side, my right side with hurt, I then have to sleep on my stomach then transition to sleeping on my right side. I'm pretty sure it had something to do with the lack of padding between my legs that's causing the pain, but I can't think of anything I can do, like an exercise or stretching, that will alleviate the pain. I tried using a pillow between my legs, but I move my legs too much and always have to readjust. Oh well, maybe it's just something that will resolve itself over time.

Whoa

Yesterday afternoon, just before we hit the lazy part of the day, I helped a friend organize a couple of closets and helped move several storage boxes from the 2nd floor down to the basement. I think I made 5 or 6 trips and wasn't winded at all, my friend was. This morning, I definitely felt a little tightness in my back. Also my right wrist hurts a little bit. Lately, since I've got bony elbows now, I'm constantly hitting a nerve somewhere in my elbow because when I'm working every now and then a weird sensation runs down my arm from my elbow to my fingers. Very annoying, I may need to revisit my desk & chair heights, they haven't changed at all since surgery and they probably should.

I always worry when I have more carbs than usual what the effect will be on my innards, so far today, just lots of gas, again, I am anticipating some mediocre weight loss days ahead as the cheese finds it's way to the promised land, not to mention the potatoes and crepes and mousse.

I had this weird moment this weekend when I was standing in front of a large mirror after I had taken a shower. The lighting was different than my bathroom and it was like I was looking at myself for the first time in a long time. I spent a good 2-3 minutes looking over my body and just had a fleeting moment or two where I actually thought "who is this?" It wasn't a bad thing, it was just a moment of whoa, for lack of a better term. I was standing to the size, my arms were up, my chest in, shoulders forward and I was struck by the contour of my arms, back, etc. It was like I was seeing myself in another person's body. It's amazing how your body changes when you don't stop to see the whole picture. What I have noticed lately is that I can feel my rib bones on my back. My jaw line is more prominent, my hips are bonier. On the flipside, where most of my body is flabby, the back of my thighs still have thick layers of fat, really the only parts of my body that do. Honestly, it looks a little deformed, but although it doesn't look like it, I know my thighs continue to shrink. I remember when I first tried on the jeans I am currently wearing. I bought them a size smaller knowing that I'd get to wear that size sooner or later. I remember them being so tight, I could barely sit down comfortably and didn't even dare trying to cross my legs. Now, I only have a few more weeks to wear them as they are already too big, but you know how I like to wear things past the time I should get rid of them.

The DS still amazes after all this time and I'm sure it will continue to amaze for a good while.

Post-Christmas Thoughts

Not to be all about the food, but I've eaten like a queen the past two days, unbelievable! It started Christmas Eve, we had Alaskan King Crab legs, baby gold potatoes, whole artichokes and a ramekin of melted butter. The crab was absolutely divine, it was incredibly flavorful and tender and those things are huge, each leg was pushing 24 inches long. For dessert that night, we had cupcakes, yeah, that was kinda lame after the awesome dinner. Christmas morning we had crepes, lots and lots of crepes. Not my favorite thing in the world, but pretty good and quite versatile. Christmas dinner we had filet mignon with sauteed mushroom in some kind of sauce/gravy, these huge sea scallops cooked in a white wine sauce, asparagus spears, sweet potato crisps and warm multi-grain bread with lots of butter. Dessert was a duo of dark & white chocolate mousse. There was also an apple tart-like dessert that I didn't try. Very, very good meals, especially the crab. Now I know why it's so expensive.

The past two days, I'm really proud that I didn't engage in any overeating, in fact there was a point Christmas Day that I was feeling a little unsteady because I hadn't had enough protein or water so I made myself a protein drink and snacked on some cheese (I know, I know). There was plenty of food around and it would have been so easy to eat cookies, more crepes, candy, pasta, etc. non-stop, but I didn't have any real strong urges to. I mentioned the cheese earlier and I know I will probably be clogged up for a couple of days, but it was either eat a few slices off the cheese tray or eat Christmas cookies, so I opted for the cheese. It was good, by the way.

TMI time. The morning of Christmas Eve, I weighed in at 276.2 lbs, a little disappointing, but progress was still being made. Since I was away the next morning, I have no idea how much I weighed, but I will tell you, that I must have pooped and pooped and pooped and pooped some more. I don't know what the deal was, but good grief. It's always nerve-wracking when you are away from home and you have to deal with DS issues, luckily I was able to use a little used bathroom and I brought vinegar to pour in the toilet to help mitigate the poop smell. Christmas morning, again, lots and lots of poop. This morning, lots and lots and lots of poop. Ugh. I don't think I ate that much to warrant all the poop. I don't know. Anyway, all that pooping paid off because this morning, I finally weighed in at 273.8 lbs. Yea! I have almost lost all the water weight I gained. Woo-hoo! Since I ate a good bit of cheese yesterday, I know I will probably gain over the next 2-3 days as it makes it's way slowly through my system, but I am hoping that by the 30th, I'll be back to normal.

I didn't get a whole lot of presents this year, but I did get my new scale and I LOVE it so far! It's the Omron Body Composition Monitor with Scale (HBF-500). It came in late afternoon Christmas Eve so I didn't have a chance to use it because I had to head out the door, but I got the chance this morning. It's much, much better than the previous one I used and had to return. It's pretty substantial, the pads that send the electrical pulse are large and I didn't have any problems figuring out how it works. Here are my readings this morning:

Weight: 273.8 lbs
Body Fat %: 47.5
Visceral Fat: 9 (0-9 is normal, 10+ high)
Skeletal Muscle %: 23.9
Resting Metabolism: 2114
BMI: 38.7

The numbers I am most concerned with are weight and body fat percentage, but I will track all of them to see my progress over the next 30 days, at that point I will decide if I need to keep tracking it all or not, but I think tracking BF% is a no-brainer since I seem to be susceptible to having water weight issues. One thing of note, both this scale and the one I returned consistently gave readings 1.4-1.8 lbs lower than my old scale which leads me to a dilemma I currently find myself in. I have three scales right now, two of which are sketchy at best. I think I will just have to get rid of the sketchy ones and keep the new one. I've been weighing on two scales since before I had surgery and I ain't about to start weighing on three! I think I will bring the one that weighs up to 550 lbs to support group meeting and see if anyone has a use for it, the other one I will bring along as well and if neither of them get picked up, off to Goodwill they go!

Today might be a little rough, I got maybe 3 hours of sleep Christmas Eve and around 7 hours last night and I'm seriously contemplating taking a nap right now. Nutrition-wise, I am keeping things simple and will be drinking lots of water. I have one or two more social gatherings to attend in the next several days and then it's back to a normal routine. I hope everyone had a good holiday, I sure did!

I Am Legend

Back from dinner and a movie and I must say, I ate pretty darn well. We ended up going to Bahama Breeze for dinner and I just had the Jerk Shrimp appetizer as my entree. It was mediocre, the shrimp wasn't fresh and was vastly overcooked and under seasoned. I've been here before and had Grouper that was to die for, but was and am disappointed. Regardless, I stuck to the plan, although I did have a french fry. Potatoes are a weakness and (unfortunately?) they do not have any gastronomic consequences. At the movie, I got $4 bottle of water (1L) and a hot dog sans bun and that was it. I don't think the hot dog was very nutritionally sound (what hot dog is?) but at least it was *some* protein, so I am content. I got home maybe 1/2 an hour ago and I'm hungry again, so I am going to heat something up and that should hold me over til the morning. One cool thing about going to the movie theater is that I easily fit in a movie seat, both armrests were down and I was perfectly comfortable.

I also found out some good news about Christmas dinner, I won't need to bring a dessert. Thank God! I always worry that I might dig in or make extra "just because". Now I don't have to worry about it. Whew!

Tomorrow I am going to Costco with BP and her husband. Yes! I have heard they have Angus burgers there. I must go see. I will probably be spending at least a few minutes tonight trying to figure out what other stuff I can get at Costco while I am there. I have heard that they may carry some of my supplements so I must go and see, specifically the iron supps. If I can save a few bucks by getting them there, again, a happy girl I will be. I will also try to pick up a few staples and I'm hoping that maybe they have some clothes, maybe I can pick something warm up. The weather is rainy and cold, I hate it. Must further address the "freezing my ass off" problem. Yeah, well, time for food!

BP & BP

Well, a marathon meeting it was. I got to BP's house around 11:30 AM and didn't leave til close to 9:30 PM. The general staff meeting itself was relatively short, maybe an hour, actually it wasn't much of a meeting. I didn't realize BP was planning a sort of mini-Christmas Party so there were a few decorations around and some "party" food. I, like a good DSer, did bring my food, a protein shake, some chicken wings and some pork ribs so I was good to go, or so I thought. BP made these little pizzas that were pretty good, she made cut English muffins in 1/2, then piled each half with about 1/2 - 3/4 cup of a really meaty pasta sauce and a slice each of provolone and mozzarella cheeses. When I first got there, I just had a bowl of the meat sauce because I was starving. A little while later, I had one figuring the carb count was probably only around 10-15 carbs and man, it was delicious. I had one more a few hours later and another bowl of meat sauce a little while after that. Closer to eight o'clock, I had about 4-5 oz of my pork ribs and I also had a couple of SF jello snacks mixed in throughout that time as well. She also had an array of Christmas treats -- cupcakes, candy, etc., but I didn't have any of that although I do have to say that the cupcakes looked tempting, but I could almost taste the "too sweetness" and it kind of made it easier to ignore (not to mention the fact that I want to be good until X-Mas dinner). I've mentioned that I definitely take after my mother and have a wicked sweet tooth, but post-DS even though I do sometimes crave sweet foods, they often disappoint because they just seem about 50% sweeter than what I remember and often are too sweet for me to really enjoy which is good because the less sugar and white stuff in my life, the better. I wish I could say I ate perfectly, but I think when confronted will kinds of options, I'm glad to have made some good, although not perfect decisions. When I plugged everything into Fitday, I still came in sub 50 grams of carbs for the day and that is definitely within limits. I didn't drink a gallon of water yesterday, more like 64 oz which isn't too bad.

The meeting itself was good, we talked about our company top down and I feel really good about our direction. I really feel that this is the year that we truly break out and I'm excited about it. It's 5:00 in the morning and just thinking about it caused me to wake up early. No big deal, it's exciting stuff so I don't mind.

BP also has a blood pressure gadget. She bought it because she was convinced the stress of running a company coupled with the drama of what was transpiring between her husband and his ex-wife and the whole custody nightmare was going to slowly kill her. I took my blood pressure twice last night to see if the diuretics were causing my previous good readings and a couple things of note. One, the regular-sized cuff fit my arm! Woo-hoo! No extra large cuffs for me anymore! Two, the first reading was 104/72 and the second was 102/78. How awesome is that. I'll be conservative and say that I should definitely be off the meds by the end of the first quarter. Gosh, I am so excited about that! Third, my heart rate is back up to around 50-55 bpm. It was around 40-45 a few months ago which made me a little uneasy, but this range makes me much more comfortable.

Overall, a very good day yesterday, the blood pressure readings just thrill me to tears, I can't wait to see my PCP in a couple of weeks. Today is going to be a little busy. I have some work I have to knock out this morning and early afternoon then it's off to have dinner with some friends and then we're going to go see I Am Legend. I won movie tickets at my support group meeting so why not get out there with the rest of humanity during this crazy weekend. I'm hoping we go to this really good seafood place close to the movie theater instead of the Italian restaurant that someone mentioned when we were discussing plans. It's much easier to order from there than from pasta central. I'm looking forward to some well-cooked shrimp and scallops. Yum.

I keep going back to that wonderful conversation I had with my cousin last weekend, I'm starting to realize, more and more, what a great blessing that was. One of the things she told me to do was to stay busy. Fill my life with things I enjoy to do, don't spend a great deal of time alone doing nothing. Such great advice. Metro Atlanta is a great area and although I do have one or two specific passions, a lot of things interest me so why not take advantage. What my cousin did was take a few classes, I think she mentioned flower arranging and something else, I forget what, but they were things she enjoyed in and of themselves, the social aspect of it was secondary. Definitely something else to mull over as I try to make positive changes in life.

Support Group Meeting/Running

The day didn't start off great yesterday, but it sure ended well. Support group was awesome, as usual. Y'know what the best kind of holiday party to attend is? A weight loss surgery support group holiday party. Why? Because all the food is WLS friendly! There was so much of it, but I mostly stuck to meats, roasted pork w/ onions & apple, spicy chicken wings, sweet & sour chicken (I think), salami, yum. I was all about the protein so I only had tastes of a cinnamon/splenda bar, a low-fat, low sugar cheesecake and the banana pudding for posterity. I got the recipe for the cheesecake, it was great and I'm not a big cheesecake fan.

I also signed myself up to volunteer for the Walk from Obesity planning committee. For some reason I thought I missed the whole thing when I went to Barbados, but I guess not. I also volunteered to be the group's photographer, especially for the newsletter. God knows you don't have to ask me twice when it comes to photography. Good stuff.

Well, today is going to be busy. I am meeting with my business partner and our head of Customer Service/Sales to go over our 2008 Initiatives. Can you say marathon meeting? We have our weekly staff meeting at noon and then the three of us are going to stash ourselves away for the next several hours to go through all our ideas, goals, hopes and wished for the next 12 months. I am actually looking forward to it as it is the most interesting part of the business for me right now. Since I'll be out of my daily routine, I am being safe and taking my food with me for the day, I don't want to be caught without good food to eat.

I weighed in at 277.0 lbs this morning, down 1.2 lbs from yesterday and just 5.0 lbs more to go. This weekend I think I am going to go and get fitted for some proper running shoes. I saw Beth last night at support group, she's my running mentor and told her about my Peachtree Road Race goal. I know Kim will be running and maybe a couple other folks as well. I will be following a Couch to 5K plan of some sort and can hopefully expand it so that I can feasibly run a 10K by July.

Alrighty then, I'm out of here!

BatSh!tInsane

I spent the better half of the day along with a good chunk of our staff dealing with two crazy customers. One is a guy who called our business number 40+ times within a few hours breathing heavily into the phone. One rep stated she heard a lot of rustling in the background...now what do you think that @sshole was doing? Pervert. His last call was to menacingly tell one rep that he was in the woods in the back of her house. Jerk. Our phone system is fairly sophisticated so he doesn't know we know who he is. Idiot. Goddamn, some people are just batshit crazy. Then there's another @sshole who is pitching a fit and threatening us non-stop because one of the warehouses mis-shipped a $15 item. It happens, we ship tons of stuff every day, mistakes happen and we were in the process of rectifying it, not even waiting for him to ship the product back to us (at our cost) before shipping out the correct one. This dude goes ballistic calling one of reps all manner of profane names, threatening lawsuits and bodily harm, blah blah blah. Y'know, I tell ya one thing, it's kind of like that saying: "it's easy being brave from a distance", well it's easy being an @sshole/jerk/b@stard/etc. from a distance. Why do people feel it is okay to act like that? I will never understand... My mom refers to that behavior as lack of home training. Both these geniuses will be finding out just how brave they really are.

Breathe....breathe. Okay, time to get ready to go to support group meeting.

Poop and more poop

Good grief, I've been a pooping machine this morning. I think it's the pork ribs clogging me up or the additional iron I am now taking, but it's Poopfest 2007 all over again. Adding the additional iron is doing wonders for me with me not feeling as !@#$-ing cold all the time and I do feel a little more pep. Poop-wise, I pretty consistently have a 18-24 hour turnaround from start to finish. The only exceptions to this are when I eat cheese or wheat products (bread, pasta, etc.), that crap tends to clog me up for at least 2-3 days. Not good. All that pooping definitely showed up on the scale as I weighed in at 278.2 lbs this morning, down an even 2.0 lbs from yesterday and 238.4 lbs overall, but up 6.2 lbs for the month (boo!). I can't wait for my new scale and body fat monitor thingamajig to come in ... like I need more data to obsess over! The UPS tracking number says I should get it on the 24th.

Tonight is support group meeting, yea! I can't wait to go, I love it so much. Unfortunately, I won't be able to say I've lost any weight, but I think getting off the diuretics was the right thing to do so I can say I made a positive decision for my longterm health and now that I am at least getting back to where I was, I am more and more content with my decision. One of the first things for the New Year is an appointment with my PCP to get some labs done as well as to see whether or not I can get off the blood pressure pills. I've been averaging 110/70 the last few times I've taken it and that was several weeks ago. My only fear is that the diuretics may have been contributing to that, but I won't know til I test again, so I will probably just try to get my blood pressure taken tomorrow to see.

Deluzy's post about readership has inspired me to incorporate a reading goal for 2008. A few months ago, I decided I would work my way through Oprah's Book Club as I had already read many of them, but I didn't give myself a timeline to do it. I think I will try to do some of the books at that list, but I need to find some other intellectually stimulating books as well. When I was in Barbados with several of my old college friends, it was so refreshing to be able to engage in intelligent conversations about a variety of things. I don't get that in my day to day and I miss it. I need to keep my mind sharp, so I will be finding books that can get the neurons firing. My initial thoughts are to get through a book a month, but I can read much faster than that, so I may opt for one book every 2 weeks. I do like my television shows so that will definitely cut into reading time, unless of course that writer's strike goes on longer than I expect. By the way, I'm taking book recommendations!

Decaf, Sugar free, Lactose Free

That's the way I like my coffee. I was never much of a coffee drinker until this year and was drinking a lot of it at one point, especially caffeinated coffee. Right now, I am trying to limit myself to one or two cups a day and limit the amount of Splenda and creamer I use. I am using about 1/3 of the creamer I used to use and about 1/2 the Splenda. It's my one indulgence per day, mostly because I'm freezing and it warms my insides nicely. I could probably be consistently happy with one cup a day if I get myself one of those mug warmers or a good travel mug. I bought one travel mug and it's basically useless.

Weight this morning was 280.2 lbs, down 1.2 lbs. Slowly, but surely, just 80.4 lbs to go til goal. I'm still a tad annoyed that I have to lose those 16 lbs all over again, but it is certainly motivation for me to quit screwing around and not a lot of little things slip. One of these days I will post my weight loss spreadsheet and you'll be able to see just how truly obsessive about this I really am. One of things I do do is have a column where I can just jot down quick notes about the previous day so that I won't have to remember everything. There will be stuff like "very little poop" or "too much cheese" or "not enough water" or "too much salt, not enough protein" and when I've eaten poorly there'll be notes like "too many carbs, not enough water" or "ice cream … yum, but bad" or "too many pickles, not enough poop". Oy, sometimes I crack myself up. Anyway, it keeps me honest when I'd rather sometimes delude myself into thinking I'm doing better than I am. I noticed that I started to consistently slip up more in August when I was fretting about hitting my one year anniversary. One days when all is good, I don't leave notes, but in the last 3 1/2 months there are a ton, kinda makes my whining a little unwarranted. Sigh. I don't know how smart it is to look at 2008 as a fresh start, but that's how I am looking at it. I am somewhat proud of myself in that I haven't looked at the entire month of December as a munch-fest, but I do know that there are at least a few more parties and dinners left til the end of the year and I want to enjoy them, the goal is to NOT allow a few hours of excess turn into a few days. The longterm goal, afterall, is to be able sustain a healthy way of eating 90% of the time and to be able to have a "normal" meal every once in awhile and not slip into past pre-surgery behaviors.

In reality, I don't not like how I eat now, what does causes me anxiety about the way I eat is knowing that I still have a lot of weight to lose and therefore stressing about that naturally leads to stressing about what I eat. When I hit goal, I don't anticipate changing my diet a great deal. A big part of that is dealing with the cause and effect of certain foods, I'm a DS-er that needs to limit certain things if I don't want crazy poop and I do NOT want nonstop crazy poop especially since I have so many new social things planned for the year. I don't want to be the new girl with the crazy poop.

Anyway, I have on a size Large t-shirt right now and it's kinda roomy. What a trip! Don't ask me why, but I tried on a pair of size 18 shorts I acquired several weeks ago and I was able to button them -- couldn't breathe very well, but I was able to button them up and walk around, although I didn't dare try sitting down. How cool is that? I don't have any size 18 jeans, but I do have a size 20, I tried those on and couldn't zip them up. The last time I tried them on I couldn't get them past my hips. Crazy. At least I can take comfort in the fact that I am getting smaller even though the scale is playing with my emotions.

Supplements!

Ok, Tiffany asked about supplements so here is my supplement routine and where I buy them from:

Early Morning:
Lisinopril 25mg (blood pressure)
Protonix 40mg (excess stomach acid)
Centrum Silver Chewable Multivitamin
Calcium Citrate Chewable Wafers (2)
- 500mg Calcium
- 400IU Vitamin D
- 500mg Magnesium
Biotin - 10mg
Vitamin K - 100mcg
Vitamin D - 50,000IU
Vitamin A - 25,000IU
Potassium - 550mg
Acidophilus - 1 Billion CFU
Iron - Polysaccharide Iron 150mg

Lunchtime:
Calcium Citrate Chewable Wafers (2)
- 500mg Calcium
- 400IU Vitamin D
- 500mg Magnesium

Dinnertime:
Centrum Silver Chewable Multivitamin
Calcium Citrate Chewable Wafers (2)
- 500mg Calcium
- 400IU Vitamin D
- 500mg Magnesium
Iron - Polysaccharide Iron 150mg

Bedtime:
Calcium Citrate Chewable Wafers (2)
- 500mg Calcium
- 400IU Vitamin D
- 500mg Magnesium

The Lisinopril and Protonix are by prescription.
I buy the Centrum and Potassium from the grocery store.
I buy the Acidophilus from GNC.
I buy the Vitamin A, D, K and Iron from Vitalady.com
I buy the Biotin from Vitacost.com

My labs, so far, have been good and my next round will be next month so we'll see if I need to tweak anything.

Progress

I went into Wallyworld a few days ago on a whim, I wanted to see if I could pick up eggs cheaper than at Kroger and I ended up spending around $40 on food. The eggs were cheaper, but I also picked up a pack of Country style pork ribs which I slow cooked yesterday. Oh my God, the deliciousness, they have such great natural flavor! I tried not to add too much salt so I used a lot of Mrs. Dash and they came out great! If I could recommend any small appliance to DSers, a slow cooker would be it. I have a Nesco that my mom bought me. I love the thing. Anyway, I also picked up some shrimp, a couple dozen of eggs (only a few cents cheaper), an onion, some decaf coffee, creamer and some Earl Campbell sausages which frankly, I was surprised to see as I thought they were only sold in Texas. I love those sausages, the only bad thing is that they have a high ratio of protein to carbs, almost one to one, that ain't good. Anyway, I may have to start really looking into doing my regular grocery shopping at Walmart, ate least for the basics.

Well, I got on the scale this morning and weighed 281.4 lbs, still 9.4 lbs above my lowest at 272.0 lbs, but down from the 288 lbs I ballooned to after I got off the diuretics. I frequently review Kilaani's OH profile to keep perspective on things. I especially like how she shows her progress every month, some months she gained or didn't lose, others she lost a ton, often well into her 2nd and 3rd year. That gives me so much hope. I have definitely changed my thinking about the "weight loss window". I think you can still lose weight past it if you are consistently eating well and exercising.

I have been spending less and less time at the DS board on ObesityHelp.com and more and more time on their Exercise and Fitness forum. I mentioned, probably a year and a half ago, that I have delusions of being an athlete and in 2008 I am going to make that happen. There is a big race on July 4th, the Peachtree Road Race that I want to run, it's a 10K in the heart of Atlanta during one of the hottest months of the year. I want to be able to run it, I mean, actually *run* it. My last 10K, I ran maybe 100 yds and that was it, took me 2.5 hrs to finish the darn thing, but I want to do this 10K and actually run. It's roughly 6.5 months away, I am hoping that's plenty of time to train properly for it. I'm still a little back & forth about the gym membership. I want to have variety in my activity and I'm not sure that I will be going regularly. This particular gym doesn't really have any kind of aerobics classes, it's mostly just exercise equipment, not that I'm keen on aerobics classes at the moment, but I'm liking my Walk Away The Pounds DVDs so much, I might want to eventually try something else and I'd like to have that option. That basically leaves the local YMCA which is a little further out from my house, but close enough to go everyday plus they have a ton of stuff AND the park where I walk/run is next door. So maybe that makes the decision easy. I'll have it figured out soon enough.

Christmas Party #2

So the party last night was pretty cool, I can honestly say I had a decent time. Comparing this year's party with last year's I can easily see a difference. This year I actually had some fun and the food was pretty darn good. My cousin barbecued chicken and a couple of pork tenderloins. Oh my gosh, it was delicious! I brought some chicken and pork home with me, the only thing I did. There was also salmon (not that great), mac & cheese, green bean casserole, lasagna, salad, baked sweet potato casserole and some other stuff I can't remember. All I had was some salmon, chicken, pork and a couple tablespoons of mac & cheese. The mac & cheese was a little mediocre, but overall, I was satisfied. I brought two chocolate chip pies and had a small piece of that and two small Christmas cookies. That was pretty much it. I was actually surprised I didn't eat more, but today I have been starving since I woke up.

Speaking of, BP is out of town and today is my day to do the pet sitting. Since her daughter moved back home, there are a total of 4 cats and 2 dogs that need attention. I got here around 9 AM and let the dogs out, got them fresh water and food, then I fed the three adult cats and the one kitten. The kitten is a little clingy but otherwise okay. BP, as it turns out will be back this evening as they got word that the weather is turning for the worse and they are right. It's miserable right now, not northeast miserable, but miserable for Atlanta. Last night it rained for several hours which sucked because I had to drive all the way down to Stockbridge, GA which is about 50 miles away from me. It took me an hour and forty minutes to get there because of the rain and because it was freakin' dark and I had no idea where I was going. I hate that, it was like a perfect storm of anxiety for me. I hate going to unfamiliar places, at night, in bad weather...it's was nearly enough for me to turn my ass around and go home.

I have been doing a lot of thinking about goals and such for 2008 and the overriding theme for me is to overcome my fear and to really work on my internal thought processes. I have a tendency to engage in a lot of negative self talk and often some self-sabotage, and it's not always conscious. I really want to get past that or at least make some big strides to get past that, then I will be happy. I know a big part of it is incorporating some mantras in my daily life, affirmations, if you will. One mantra I have had with me for a few years, but often have forgotten to employ is "Choose Better". It's like my mom always says, it's all about the choices you make. It's not always about big choices, but for me it's day to day little things. I'm the type of person that can easily get caught up and lost in the big stuff, but I have found that the small choices, the ones that you make 100 times a day, those are the ones that have a greater impact on my life. Choosing the Duodenal Switch over the Roux-en-Y was a big choice, one that required a lot of thought and consideration, but choosing to eat a chicken leg over some chips, drinking another glass of water instead of a diet drink, choosing to take my Vitamin C instead of blowing it off, those choices are so important too because they help establish a pattern or blueprint for the rest of my life.

I was talking to one of my cousin's last night about weight loss surgery and was explaining to her that she needed to research the duodenal switch instead of the RNY and that led us to a greater conversation about manifestation and about what your thoughts and actions, attitudes and behaviors manifest in your life. In my heart I know I want to reach my goal of 199 and my ultimate goal of 175, but that isn't what my thoughts are, often I see myself thinking "I'll never get there" or "why is this so hard" or "could I be happy where I am at", etc. Sometimes I will recognize these thoughts and they often serve as motivation to get myself in gear, but I don't want to be motivated by negativity. I want to surround myself with good and positive things and be motivated and succeed based on those things. My cousin said to focus on what you want, and be specific and to be a good and positive force in the world and those things that you really want and that your heart truly desires will come to you. I truly believe that, the work I have to do is to work on my thought process and behaviors to make that happen.

I'm glad I'm working on all this self-improvement stuff now instead of waiting for January 1. My life doesn't start anew with the New Year, I just want to be able to set out some specific, well defined, tangible goals for 2008 that are a reflection of the self-improvements I want to make.

One of those days...

Yesterday, I was friggin' starving. I don't know why, but God Almighty, there was not enough food in the world! There has got to be a reason for days like that, maybe not getting enough nutrition? I'm not sure, but I ate like 2800 calories yesterday, much of it fat.

Weight this morning is 283.4 lbs. So it's slowly moving down, even though I ate like crazy. Seems like I will have to lose those 15 lbs all over again, I don't see a big whoosh happening. Bummer. Oh well. Marathon, Tia, marathon.

So tomorrow is the big Christmas party with my dad's side of the family. I'm not particularly looking forward to it, but I will try to make the most of it. It's not that they aren't cool people, I just don't know them that well and feel like an outsider. It's mostly my dad's sister and her kids & grandkids. My 1st cousins are all a good 20-25 years older than me so it's my 1st cousins once removed that are more my age, but again, I see them only once a year. I have some mixed feelings because, y'know, they are family and I'm big on family, but they tend to not include me in things. I know they do a bunch of stuff throughout the year but I never hear about it, my dad just insists I go to the Christmas part. I am going to make a real effort this year to be engaged as much as possible, I'm hoping to win them over with my camera, everyone loves good family pictures.

Yesterday I went out and bought a scale, it's not the Tanita that I wanted, but one that allegedly measures body fat, water percentage and weight. The weight functionality works fine -- it weighs me around 0.8 - 1.6 lbs lighter than my current scale, but the body fat and water percentage functionality no worky and I don't know why. The instructions suggest that I dampen my feet before getting on, but I tried that and still no worky. I'm going to try it post-shower and see if that works, if not, back to the store it goes and I will try something else. I think the problem is there is only a thin metal strip that sends and measures the electrical pulse, other brands have wide pads across the whole top surface of the scale. I think that's the problem. The weight I am not too concerned about, because we already know that can fluctuate greatly and losses and gains can be masked by water weight. I'm thinking I want one of these hand-held devices or this one. The first one is handheld and the second is more sturdy and as you can see has a handheld pull up thingy with a large surface area. If I can accurately track body fat percentage over time, I think that will do wonders for my sanity.

Slowly, but surely....

This morning I weighed in at 285.4 lbs, needless to say I haven't wanted to put that in print. Sigh. That's 13+ lbs higher than my lowest. I have to admit to almost, almost breaking down in tears the other day when I stepped on the scale, but I fought them back, damnit! Tuesday the scale read 288.0 lbs, talk about frustrating. I'm trying to be rational about this. This is day 8 from when I stopped diuretics. I wake up with a puffy face, puffy fingers, puffy legs, so annoying. I know it's a reaction to getting off the diuretics, but goddamn, that's a big reaction! Oh well, at least it's going down, I will probably not lose any weight this month to be honest which makes it even more difficult to stay on track. I will be content to just slowly make progress if it means I won't have to do this crap again! I comfort myself with the knowledge that this is a marathon, not a sprint.

Anyway, I went grocery shopping and was absolutely shocked to see how expensive eggs are. What the hell! I usually buy a dozen Jumbo sized eggs for like $1.79, today they were almost $2.25. A dozen of large eggs was $1.99. I instead went with the 1 1/2 dozen large eggs for like $3.75 or something ridiculous. Good grief, I wonder if it is due to the increase in baking that goes on around this time of year. Ironically, butter was pretty inexpensive, I picked up two packs of butter for $2.18 each, sometimes it can over $2.50 per. I don't know about y'all but I go through a lot of butter and I always have at least a pound of butter in my fridge, always. Butter goes with everything and it helps keep things moving.

Yesterday was another warm day which meant I wasn't totally freezing. Unfortunately, I couldn't go out to the park because we had a staff meeting instead of the usually Friday meeting. BP left for a short trip this morning and won't be back til the weekend. Today's high will be 70, but it looks to be a little overcast as it is supposed to rain later tonight. I may go out there, we'll see how the afternoon goes.

Finally and most importantly, congrats to Deluzy! She celebrating celebrated her two year surgiversary! You go girl! I've been reading her blog since I started on this journey way back when. Such an inspiration!

BPL v. SBL

I came across a post on OH about a study on weight loss and the length of the bypassed bowel in Duodenal Switch patients. Here is the abstract and I've highlighted an interesting part:

BACKGROUND: It is commonly believed that weight loss after biliopancreatic diversion/duodenal switch is inversely related to the length of the alimentary limb and the common channel. However, the effect of the biliopancreatic limb length (BPL) on weight loss has received little attention. METHODS: A total of 1001 patients after biliopancreatic diversion/duodenal switch (209 men and 792 women, mean age 42 +/- 10 yr, mean body mass index [BMI] 52 +/- 9 kg/m(2)) were divided into 2 groups according to the ratio of the BPL to the total small bowel length (SBL): a BPL <=45% of the SBL versus a BPL >45% of the SBL. The nutritional parameters and percentage of excess weight loss were compared between the 2 groups. RESULTS: In patients with a BMI of <=60 kg/m(2), the percentage of excess weight loss at 1 year postoperatively was 66.8% for those with a BPL <=45% of the SBL and 69.3% for those with a BPL >45% of the SBL (P = NS). At 2 years, the corresponding percentages were 73.7% and 79.5% (P = NS) and, at 3 years, were 73.4% and 75.2% (P = NS). In patients with a BMI >60 kg/m(2), the corresponding percentages of excess weight loss was 56.8% versus 61.4% (P = .07) at 1 year, 62.2% versus 77.5% (P = .04) at 2 years, and 59.8% versus 77.5% at 3 years (P = .05). CONCLUSION: The results of our study have shown that amount of weight lost after biliopancreatic diversion/duodenal switch is directly related to the proportion of small bowel bypassed in patients with a BMI >60 kg/m(2). Also, the effect increased with the duration of follow-up. In less heavy patients, the BPL/SBL ratio had a minimal effect on long-term weight loss and a more pronounced effect on nutritional parameters.

This is interesting because it appears as though the amount of your small bowel that is bypassed can be an indicator of success for patients with starting BMI's over 60. Turns out it's not all about how long your common channel is. I ran over to the Lab Rat Data to crunch my own numbers and have determined that Dr. Marchesini bypassed around 67% of my small bowel so that bodes well for me. I was also encouraged to see that on average those with a BMI over 60 had lost 60% EWL after the first year, I think I lost around 62%. It took me awhile to accept that I wouldn't be one of those DSers who loses all their weight in their first year, it'll take me 2+ years to get it done, I did start at over 515 lbs after all.

I also did some research on diuretic withdrawal, for lack of a better term, and it seems like I am looking at 2-3 weeks before my body gets back to normal. I checked my overly elaborate (anal) weight tracking chart and it seems I'd been taking them for around 3 1/2 months. Sucks, but I am determined to get through it without going crazy. So far I've "gained" around 15-16 lbs in water weight, I don't know how much real weight I've lost, I gotta believe without all the excess water, I've lost a few lbs. Well, I've been drinking water like crazy, over a gallon a day which isn't as fun nor as hard as it sounds. I also read that I need to cut back on my salt intake. I definitely did not do that yesterday, so starting today, I am going to keep it as low as possible. Anyway, information is power so I'm just going to keep moving forward.

What the hell?!?

It's friggin 67 degrees in Atlanta right now. The high is going to be 76. Eh? This is December, yes? What's going on? All I know is I LOVE it! I'm passing on Walking Away the Pounds today and taking my butt to the park instead at lunch. Might as well take advantage of it.

Here is a picture from our Christmas Party Saturday night: Me & the tipsy folks. Note all the wine glasses and this was still early on in the evening. BTW, BP is in the green dress.

Time will tell...

I hope I am doing the right thing. Several weeks ago I had mentioned that I was getting off the diuretics because I didn't think I needed them anymore, well it only took a few days for me to get back on them because I had gained like 5 lbs. Well, I got back off of them on the 5th and have so far gained close to 15 lbs of water weight. Talk about going crazy! I have been trying not to panic because the hope is that things will normalize in a couple of weeks. I decided to get off them because I just think I need them. I lost fine for several months without them and I just don't feel right taking something I don't need, plus I'm concerned about long term use, potassium deficiency, also edema is a good indicator of protein malnutrition and with taking the diuretics, I'd never know if I was protein deficient. I won't lie and say the weight gain has me stressing out, but I think I am doing the right thing healthwise. It is becoming increasingly more important to me to be healthy, not just thinner. I want to get to a point where the only medication I am on is the Protonix, no BP meds, no diuretics, none of that. Just Protonix and my supplements, that's it. I know I am doing the right thing.

The bad thing about it is I am having conflicting emotions about the water weight. At times I feel like "oh, shit I broke my DS", other times I feel like I just gotta keep my head down and keep on, but many times I just feel like "screw it all, I'm going to eat! This time of year sucks anyway!" I don't want to be that person, but it's HARD, especially with so many get-togethers and parties and stuff. Ugh. I am going to keep trying though, I've spent a good amount of time reading people's true success stories and I am inspired to get my butt in gear. My body is telling me start over in 2008 with everyone else, but my mind is telling me otherwise. Everyday is another day to do the right thing -- this is what I keep telling myself.

I've been thinking a lot about what I want to do with my life, what's important to me, what I want to keep, what I want to get rid of and what I want to change. 2008 is really the last year I will working on a weight loss goal (how awesome is that!!!) and it's becoming more apparent to me that I need to work on other aspects of my life. My best friend has been seeing a therapist for the past 3 years and suggested that is something I might want to look into so I will, I am not going to discount anything, so we'll see.

Anyway, when I was home in late September I brought along with me this gray business suit that my mom had bought me a few years prior for me to wear at my uncle's funeral. It's a nice suit, but it was a size 32 or 34, we bought it at Catherine's in Lafayette, Louisiana. My mom made me put it on and she pinned it in all the right places for the seamstress to hem it and she said she'd have it mailed to me. Well, she finally mailed it to me and I tried it on last night and guess what? Way too big! My mom is so excited about me wearing this suit and I don't have the heart to tell her it doesn't fit. I'm either going to have to get it altered again or just give it up to someone who can really use it. My mom is funny, for some reason she can't wrap her head around the idea that I am still losing weight and that I am still getting smaller, she can't understand why I haven't bought a whole new wardrobe yet, I keep telling her, she doesn't believe me. She can't believe any daughter of hers doesn't want to go shopping! That's me, the anomaly! :) Did I ever mention I have 7 sisters? Two have passed away, one about 12 years ago, another in 2006, but yeah, 7 sisters and I'm the youngest of them all. You can only imagine what that's like growing up!

Par-tay!

So I didn't go to see Obama today, but for a good reason, I didn't get in til the wee hours of the morning. Yeah, I had a pretty interesting night. We had our company Christmas Party and the par-tay was on! We met at BP's house at 6:30 PM for pre-dinner festivities, passed out the Xmas bonuses, exchanged gifts, etc. We then moved to this restaurant for dinner at 8:30PM. We had a table of 8 (a couple of people were out of town or could not otherwise make it). The food was great! I had a few calamari for an appetizer and for dinner I had probably the best scallops I've ever had. They were delicious! The booze was flowing, but I didn't have any of it. I know my colleagues and they like to drink, I actually only had water, believe it or not, not even a diet drink, just nice cold water, which, by the way, was tough because every five minutes someone was trying to push wine on me. Blech. Anyway, we were done with dinner around 10:30 or so. The first floor of the restaurant is like a bar with a live band so there's me and a bunch of well-dressed drunk people hitting the dance floor for the next few hours. Needless to say, the drunk people got more drunk and I just took it all in ... and took lots of pictures. :) By the time I got everyone home, made it home myself and got to bed, it was pushing 4 AM. The odds of me getting up in 4 hours to catch a ride to South Carolina at 10 AM were nil.

Anyway, I had fun, once I go through the pics, I will post a couple. In the meantime, I'm taking a nap!

Crazy Thought Processes

Let me let you in on the crazy thought process I have employed most of life when confronted with something exciting and fun that I want to do.

1. Realization of interest: Just got an email that there is going to be a huge Barack Obama/Opray Winfrey rally in nearby SC. Totally cool! I think to myself "I am totally there!"

2. Information gathering: I know the who, so now to find out the what, when, where and why. This Sunday, University of SC, at 2:30PM. There are several groups of Georgian's making the road trip, cost is nothing, don't bring any bags, camera's should be fine. Everything checks out, technically I can make the trip.

3. Spread the word: I forward my sister the email about it, tell her that I'm totally there, I eventually call her, all excited, and of course, she says go do it! I do this to have a 2nd party validate my interest. I don't know why I do this.

4. The "f" word: Uh, oh, here comes doubt. I start thinking "should I go?" and "do I really want to go", "I shouldn't go". I start thinking about "fitting" again, in seats, on a bus, in a car, etc. Fear rears it's nasty head and I can't even put my finger on any specific thing as to why.

5. Epiphany: "Why is it again that I can't/shouldn't go?" I ask myself. I've realized that there is foolishness in being afraid and try to figure out why I had that reaction and whether or not I should actually go. Going is what I want to do, it's my initial gut reaction. Not going is a contrivance, no meat to it, just fear winning.

6. Decision-time: This is where I am at right now. There is no reason for me not to go. I can't think of one, but I have this uneasiness about going, even though I want to. In the past that would have been enough for me to not go and just live with the regret, but it's hard grasping the idea that I can decide to go and just go without all this other crap to deal with.

So, this is what I deal with when it comes to making decisions about going outside my circle of comfort. Crazy, ain't it?

Happy, fun time!

I have had a really great day. Really great! Why? I went to lunch with two good friends and had an absolutely wonderful time. Nothing spectacular happened, we didn't collectively discover the meaning of life, we had a good meal at a good restaurant on brisk winter's day in midtown Atlanta. God, I didn't realize how much I missed doing that kind of thing. It was soul enriching. I miss those guys and from what I can tell, we all miss each other and the fun we used to have hanging out. Also, it's funny how because I was feeling so uplifted, that it was so much easier to make good food choices. For lunch I had fish, garlic green beans and a couple of spoonfuls of some mediocre mac & cheese. I also had a Diet Coke and a glass of water. The fish was fantastic, y'know it's funny, I can probably tell you how many times I've voluntarily chosen fish in my adult life pre-surgery....zero. I never, ever had it. Never. Shrimp I would do occasionally, but fish never, ever, ever. Now, it seems like one out of every 3-5 restaurant meals I have is some kind of fish.

Anyway, I feel great! That sounds hokey, but it's true! We have tentative plans to get together for dinner next week to include their spouses and kids. Can't wait. BTW, I totally looked cute today. I love days like this, when the clothes and the hair (and the mood) come together in like this perfect storm of cuteness. I was and am quite happy about it. I didn't dress up or anything, I wore a pair of jeans, my pink t-shirt and my new red Old Navy Performance Fleece half-zip pullover. Nothing fancy, but I felt like just another young 30-something in midtown Atlanta. I didn't feel like I stood out at all. Awesome!

Being social is good for me...

The last time I saw these two guys, was around 50-60 lbs ago and when I got to the restaurant, I happened to be facing away and my friend remarked that he didn't recognize me from behind, he said I am 1/2 the person I used to be! Can I just say that I beamed inside! The other friend, when he saw me was like "Heyyyy, woooowwww!" Pretty darn cool.

So then, like I usually do I go to the DS Board on ObesityHelp.com just to see what's going on ... big mistake, so I quickly got out of there! Yeah, someone tell me when all is normal.

Flip flop

How is it that "Walking Away The Pounds" is kicking my ass? Craziness! It's no joke and I have to admit to totally underestimating it's effectiveness and I'm still on one-mile! It's good though because I definitely need to build strength in my legs and thighs. I'm still trying to do around 25 minutes on my bike afterwards just to boost my cardio for the day and that's working out fine, so I am happy for now. I grabbed some 10 lb weights the other day and couldn't do 10 bicep curls. Geez, I remember when I would have thought that 10 lbs was lame.

I got my Old Navy fleece pullovers yesterday, finally! They fit great, a little loose, but fine with layers. I am wearing one right now and I love it! I'm trying not to run the heat 24/7 in my house so I am wearing a t-shirt and my pullover over it and feel nice and toasty.

I think I figured out what it is about eggs that sometimes makes me nauseous, it's the yolks. I usually scramble my eggs, but the last three mornings I have been frying them in butter with a sprinkle of salt & pepper. The whites are yummy, the yolks, not so much. I think I'm gonna maybe start eating 4 egg whites and ditch the yolks. Gross. It's weird because I go through these phases with eggs...one minute I could eat them all day long, the next, they make me gag...weird.

Tomorrow, I am meeting two good friends of mine for lunch at this really cool restaurant in midtown Atlanta. I emailed them on a whim yesterday and made plans. I've known them for a good 8 or 9 years and love their company. I saw them last in July, about 50-60 lbs ago. That should be fun and we'll probably do a dinner later next week with the rest of their families. Cool.

I've come to terms with how I am looking at "goal". It's twofold. One, it's 199 lbs which is my post-surgery weight loss goal. Hopefully, by the end of year 2, I will hit this mark. The second is 175 lbs which is my post-plastics weight loss goal. Hitting 199 means I am done and that I succeeded and beat all expectations. When it's time to work toward plastics, I may or may not lose weight in anticipation of it, I'm not sure. Dr. Marchesini told me I should consider plastics when I hit 250 lbs, I don't think so...I want to be in the best shape possible. Anyway, that's what I've decided. I am at piece with that decision. No more flip-flopping....at least I will try not to. :)

Some number crunching

Starting Weight: 516.6 lbs.
Surgery Weight: 510 lbs.
Current Weight: 272 lbs.
Total Weight Loss: 244.6 lbs
% Body Weight Loss: 47.3%
% EWL (Surgeon's Goal @ 250 lbs): 91.8%
% EWL (Rational Goal @ 199 lbs): 77.0%
% EWL (Crazy Ambitious Goal @ 175 lbs): 71.6%
Starting BMI: 71.1
Current BMI: 37.9

Time to crank up the exercise! A few years ago when I thought I could diet & exercise (yet, again) my way to health, I bought the "Walk Away the Pounds" DVDs and a Windsor Pilates DVD set. I think I did them once like four years ago. I ran across them this weekend and decided that instead of going out to walk in the frigid weather, I'd do the Walk Away the Pounds DVD and ride my stationary bike for 1/2 an hour each day. My daytime hours are a little tight and I don't have the luxury of being gone for two hours from work during the day to get dressed, drive, workout, drive home, relax and then get back right now, end of the year is always crazy. I did the first WATP DVD, one mile, and boy, it was tough. I could really feel it in my thighs. Good grief. I had decided to go ahead and join a gym close to my house, but I figured I'd wait til the New Year when I know they'll have discounts and specials, no need to pay full price now, plus I don't really have the time. Anyway, the plan is to keep up with the DVD's til I can comfortably do the 3-mile one, keep riding the bike and maybe mix in some Pilates until sometime next year. Healthy, strong and lean, that's the goal.

This Saturday is our company's Christmas party. I have to dress up, crap, I have to go shopping. Well, actually, maybe not. I have that size 16 skirt my mom gave me that I can wear, and I have a cream colored sweater that matches, so maybe I will just do that. THEN, I have a family Christmas party the following Saturday. I've got mixed emotions about this one. They haven't seen me in a year, I was maybe down 100 lbs then, I can't remember. I may do some shopping for this one because I want to make sure I look good for it. We'll see.

Much love goes out to Lisa, I know she's getting switched tomorrow! I know you'll do fine and can't wait to see you at support group!!!

Month 15

Oh, what a month! Got through the holiday okay and ended the month at 272.0 lbs for a loss of 6.0 lbs for the month and grand total loss of 244.6 lbs. Not bad.

Just 73 lbs til goal!