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!