Year Two

Wow. I can't believe it's been that long. Year 1 was all about "wow, so many changes" and year 2, as it turns out, was all about really coming into my own. Although, I've gone on and on about what's on the scale, but what the scale said turned out to be secondary or even tertiary to the growth and development I've gone through. I left a job I hated, ditched some toxic people out of my life, ran two 10Ks, started playing tennis (which I love), went to the Caribbean, bought clothes at regular stores and gained a lot of confidence.

I truly feel that I've had the journey I've needed to have and have no real regrets, I know I've could have been more strict and diligent along the way, but that's with anything. The idea is keep moving forward, the only time you ever fail is when you stop trying and stop working at it. This -- health and wellness -- is a lifelong endeavor and so I don't think there will ever be a time when I will say "I'm done". I will always have to put my body's needs first and that's a good thing. Seeing a specific number on the scale is a good and honest goal for me, but what is most important and critical for long term success (and happiness) is to maintain being a healthy, vibrant and as enthusiastic about life as I can. I can say, unequivocally, that the Duodenal Switch with Dr. Joao Marchesini has given me that and I am eternally grateful and humbled.

My starting weight was 516.6 lbs, my weight this morning, a new low of 239.8 lbs for a total loss of 276.8 lbs in two years. That's pretty awesome!

I'm happy. Knowing what I need daily in regards to nutrition, hydration, supplementation and exercise, I'm confident I can lose down to goal, just takes a little dedication and some consistency, but I will get there. I'll be there at the end of the year.

I have so many people to thank, but I won't list them all as I'm bound to leave someone off, y'all know who y'all are! I'll say a heartfelt thank you to all of you, it's like they say, no one gets there alone!

I don't have any big celebratory plans today. I'm fixin' to head out to the tennis courts for a bit, then I'm going to go try to find a new tennis bag, some more of those energy beans and then it's a full day of college football! I may run out today to go pick up my race number or may leave that til Sunday. Tomorrow I'm hanging out with a friend that I haven't seen in awhile and then I'll figure out some carb-loading dinner plans. I'm thinking pasta of some kind.

I don't know what Year 3 will be like, but it will be interesting, I know that much!

Woo-hooo!!!!!!!

Slowly....

Weight this morning 244.8 lbs. Crazy day today. Almost got attacked by some kind of squirrel or raccoon ... or like a badger or something, I don't know, but it was scary as hell. In retrospect, it was hilarious, I'll fill ya in when I have more time, it's a good story, I promise.

Got my order of alma mater gear in the mail today, so excited it's ridiculous. Most important thing -- all the shirts are L's, no X's in sight! Woo-hoo!

Alrighty then, time for food!

Looking & feeling good!

First, congrats to Kim on celebrating her 3 year surgiversary! Woo-hoo! Kim, you are my role model and you kicketh much ass! Love ya girl!

Second, allow me a moment of vanity.... sometimes I just have to celebrate stuff like this because I hardly ever, EVER felt this way pre-surgery, but, y'all, I totally looked cute today! I had a cute outfit on, my hair didn't rebel against me and most importantly, I felt fantastic. Not having to deal with BP and her madness is doing wonders for me. See:This is me at my contract gig. I am wearing a blouse I bought on sale from Lane Bryant, it's a freakin' 14/16 AND it's a little baggy round the midsection! The pants I was wearing were 18's. Boggles the mind.... If I had enough sense I would have taken a full body photo. I also had the hair going right for a change, awesomeness! It was just a great day overall.

Tomorrow, I am ditching work (they knew ahead of time) and heading to Six Flags with some folks from my Duodenal Switch Support Group! I am both scared and excited! I'm looking forward to scratching this off my list of "stuff I want to do when I lose the weight" and what makes this especially cool is that I'll be there with my fellow WLS folk. I can't think of a better group to do this with. I know they will be having many, if not all, of the same feelings I will having tomorrow. I can't wait!

GOOOOAAALLLLLLL!!!!

Dr. Marchesini's goal, that is! Yeah, baby, yeah! 250 is the number Dr. M. told me I'd lose to and that I'd be a success. I have officially met and exceeded that goal! This morning, I hit an all-time low, 249.6 lbs! Yea! That's a loss of 2.4 lbs since yesterday, 20.4 lbs in 12 days (mostly water) and a grand total of 267 lbs loss. Woo-hoo! I feel like I've broken through a barrier. It seems like I've been on the brink since early April when I got down to 251.2 lbs, but then I went home on vacation, came back and was sick for like 2+ weeks, then my dad had his accident & surgery and I wasn't eating like I should, etc, etc. and I gained like 20+ lbs of freakin' water. Once I got my mind right and back on track -- getting my protein in -- the water weight really started to drop. I mean, 20.4 lbs in 12 days is craziness and to think I had been lugging that around. It's a little scary too to think that my body is that sensitive to protein deficiencies and it wasn't like I was getting no protein in, I was probably in the 70-100g range, which isn't great, but not horrible, but it wasn't enough. I think for me, I maybe absorb more like 35-40% of the protein I eat versus the 50% or so that is often mentioned in Duodenal Switch circles. I have a short common channel (65 cm) and I think a good bit of my small bowel bypassed (over 45%) so I most likely tend toward needing much more protein than the average DSer. I easily get in over 100g before noon. That will be my life, I just have to accept it and let me tell you, it's a heckuva lot easier to accept choking down protein shakes everyday for the rest of my life than living a much shorter life being 500 lbs.

I sort of indirectly mentioned it yesterday, but I am officially changing my goal weight to 216.6 lb as far as pre-plastics are concerned. I want to lose as much fat as I can PLUS I want to add some muscle so I figure I can do that much more safely in the 210's than sub 200. I'm just worried that losing down to 199, I would be losing fat AND muscle which would not be good since my muscle tone sucks right now anyway. I'd rather be fit, strong and healthy at 216 than weak, skinny and sickly at 199.

Happy Father's Day to all the dad's out there. I will be calling mine today. He is doing so much better, he's back to driving and getting out on his own and he's back to cracking jokes about mom so I know he's almost back to normal. I'm hoping to get down there sometime in late Summer, but I do have a trip to my alma mater in early September so we'll see. The trip back to my alma mater is important because I have to go thank my mentor and tell her what a positive influence she's been to me, the football game, etc. is secondary to that.

No tennis clinic today, that starts next week so I am going to go practice my serve and backhands, then it's off to BP's house to setup for a couple of new employees we have starting on Monday.

Twinkle, Twinkle

It's amazing what a little (ok, a lot) of protein can do. Weight this morning, 257.6 lbs, down around 13 lbs in a week. Geez. I've been getting in 250+ grams of protein for the past 6 days and will maintain that level for the month. My pipe dream is to be in the mid-230's by the end of the month, but that might be too ambitious. My suspicion is that my normal protein level is around 180-200 once I lose the rest of this water weight. My problem is that I was letting it go sub 125 or so, or at least that's what I am thinking. When I was home in Texas, I maybe was eating protein 2-3 times a day instead of my usual 5-7 times a day. It wasn't until my last couple of days there that that changed.

Went to practice tennis this afternoon when I should have been running or something. Ugh. I am sooo not looking forward to the 10K I gotta do in a month. Not at all. I'd rather not be bothered, but I made a commitment and will do it. Running is DEFINITELY not for me, part of the reason why I think that is because I do believe I am still too heavy, that, or too awkward. My excess skin between my thighs is just too much in the way. I'm thinking/considering picking up another activity, something in a different arena, maybe a martial art or something. I haven't decided yet.

I'm on cloud nine right now, my grand-niece just sang "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" to me on the phone....the kid couldn't be cuter.

Awesomeness!

I finally found a beginner's tennis clinic close to my house, it starts April 20th, the Sunday after I get back from Texas. It sounds perfect, one hour group lessons, every Sunday for 5 weeks for only $65 AND I get a t-shirt. It covers all the basics, everything I need to know to be well on my way to being a decent tennis player. Coolness. The lessons are at a very cool tennis center and I will be able to attend a separate weekly drills class for like $10 for an hour and 1/2 of drills. Sweet. The only downside is that I don't have any proper tennis clothes so that will be something I need to rectify. All I do know is that I ain't wearing those short little tennis skirts and dresses. I'm sooooo not there yet, don't know if I ever will be. My thighs are thunderous! Anyway, I hope to learn a lot and meet some cool people!

On second thought...

...I will be calling my doctor on Monday about the blood pressure meds. The last day or so I've been getting that dizzy sensation when I get up from a seated position or when like I am picking things up off the floor and stand straight. The room starts spinning a little bit and I hear that faint buzzing noise, yeah, that can't be good. It happened a couple of times in the past couple of days, but I chocked it up to not having eaten recently, but I just had the feeling a few minutes ago and I just ate and I had a protein shake an hour before that!

I'm so excited, almost to the point of tears, I'm going to the Mary J. Blige concert this week! I love me some Mary J. Her music is a major part of the soundtrack of my life! No More Drama changed my life:



Every ounce of emotion you see in that performance is 100% real and honest and true. Don't believe me?

When my sister, Monica, passed away in 2006, my sister S. and I took on the responsibility of handling all of her affairs and moving out her stuff from her apartment. Monica was a HUGE Mary fan and her music was what we listened to the entire time, especially, Be Without You. I know many people hate Mary, they say she's not a sophisticated singer, that she's a little too rough around the edges. Whatever. Mary's all heart and soul and that's what I love about her. This woman has been through the shit and back again and finally emerged clean and the kick ass part of it is that she pulled herself out of it. I dig that about her!

Yeah, baby, yeah!!!

Big congratulations to Tiffany over at Change is Good, she's in ONDERLAND!!! WOO-HOO!!!! Save a seat for me, girl, I'll be there soon enough!!!!

Oops...

Raise your hand if you forgot Daylight Saving Time... Yeah, me too.

I feel a little unsettled. How did I completely forget DST? Not even a clue, usually I overhear something on the news or a friend or my parents will remind me or mention it in conversation. It sucks because I got up what I thought was 6:30 AM in order to get a few things done early as I have a busy day today, but turns out, it was a full hour later. Dangit. So I had to rearrange some things and my day will probably run longer than I had planned. Oh well.

How about some Sunday morning irony? After years and years of constipation due to my iron supplements, I was rejoicing in discovering an iron supplement that didn't clog me up only to discover the Calcium supplements are taking it's place in that realm. Sigh. Now I either have to take stool softeners or greatly increase my magnesium. One of these days I will find the right balance.

Weight this morning was an even 258.0 lbs. This was after I stayed at 259.2 for a day, then went up to 260.0 yesterday. The poop gods smiled upon me this morning. Ugh, I hate constipation, it's such an annoyance. Anyway, total loss so far is ... 258.6 lbs! Wait. Holy crap, I just realized I've lost 1/2 my body weight! Woo-hoo!!! I'm doing a happy jig!!!

I love my DS!!!!

Later!

Lots of running around today. I have a staff meeting at noon which means I have to be out of here around 11 AM in order to be there with enough time for prep. We are meeting one of our vendor reps, our favorite vendor in fact, and they are going to do a demo/walk-through of sorts of some new technology they've implemented. Then it's down to the nitty-gritty business related stuff and that'll take a couple of hours. After that, I am going to try to sneak in a nap, for some strange reason fatigue hit me like a ton of bricks, along with a headache, around nine o'clock last night so I took a couple of Tylenol's and went to bed. By 4:30 this morning, I was wide awake and have been working since then. After my nap, I have to train an employee on some new functionality I built (woo-hoo!) and hopefully roll it out late this afternoon. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that I can sneak in an hour of tennis before dinner, then I have a quick conference call with the company's shareholders and hopefully it won't take forever 'cause Lost will be on promptly at 9 PM.

One thing I don't think I have mentioned before about my company is that it is almost entirely comprised of women. We've had exactly 3 men work for us in the history of the business (and only one currently) which I think is kinda cool. It wasn't intentional, it just turned out that way. It's something I am proud of though, a technology company almost completely run by women. Many of our investors and advisers are men, but for the most part we are a mostly-female crew. We have our moments, for sure, but that has been the case for every company I've ever worked for.

I don't know if it because I got up earlier than normal today and thus had more time to clear the plumbing, but my final weight this morning was 259.2 lbs! Holy Mother! Pretty awesome! I think I must have been stalled or maybe I'm shedding pounds as I shed the stress of the last few weeks. At this point, I don't care, every lb loss is one lb closer to goal aka The Promised Land. Buh-bye 260's! Nice knowing ya!

Times like these remind me of a poem a friend sent to me once (in old Black Southern vernacular):

Good Lawd sends me troubles
And I gots to work 'em out
Then I luk around an see
Theres troubles all abouts
An when I se my troubles
I jes luk up an grin
To think of all the troubles
Dat I aint in!

The Big 3-4!

Last night I had my official birthday festivities. We started the night off at a steakhouse restaurant in Roswell called Stoney River. I had driven past there a ton of times and a friend of mine had been raving about it for two years so we finally went. It was great! I went with two friends and I had crab cakes with lemon caper sauce as an appetizer, but I have to ask, what is with crab cakes that are all crab and no cake? I mean, I appreciate seeing nice sized lumps of crab, but I don't understand it if there's no "cake". Yes, I guess it's filler to a certain extent, but I like a little layer of something to hold my crab cakes together. It was nevertheless delicious. For my entree, I ordered a 12 oz prime rib (smallest size), with sauteed green beans and caramelized onion mashed potatoes. Dinner comes served with these small, Munchin-sized dinner rolls with cinnamon butter. Now, I love me some prime rib and the mashed potatoes were wonderful, but the rolls and the cinnamon butter were to die for. They tasted like donuts. Oh my goodness, if I could have eaten a whole basket, I would have. Man, oh man, my mouth is salivating just thinking about them. I'm typically not a big bread-eater, but these rolls were divine! The butter was light (must have been whipped) and had just the right amount of sweetness. Yum!

After dinner we went back to my friend's house and lo and behold, a living room fully decorated and around 10 or so folks exclaiming "Happy Birthday" when I walked in. Very cool. I can't actually remember the last time I have a real birthday party and not just a dinner thing. It was fun! There was some drinking involved. I've said this God only knows how many times, but I'm not much of a drinker, but I was forced to take a shot of tequila. Mind you, this was a somewhat younger crowd and they like to get their drink on. So I took a shot, immediately regretted it and spent the next hour in a daze. Yeah, me and alcohol will never be close friends. That was it for me. The others continued to drink and after lots of hanging out, cracking jokes, more shots/beers/wine/etc. by them we decided to play this game called Apples to Apples. Soooo much fun! I know a lot of people think board/party games are lame, but this game was great. The link fully explains how to play it and we played a good two hours or so. I like it much better than Deal or No Deal. If you're looking for a good game that works with a good crowd, this one is a winner. I had a couple of bites of my birthday cake for good luck and ended up getting to bed around 2 AM. I had a great time. Tonight, I got invited to go out to Karaoke at a friend of a friend's bar. I suspect I got invited to be the designated driver, but that's okay. This group of friends is kinda cool and in the past I would have brushed them off and just stayed home, I think I might actually go. I have to ask myself "why not?" Sure, it's not my first choice of places to hang out, but really, what do I know? I spent a good chunk of my adulthood being too ashamed to venture out so why not just go out and try to have some fun?!?

Mmmmmm

Let me rave about some DS-friendly yumminess:

Angus burgers....freakin' delicious! Where have they been all my life? I bought a couple of packs of 1/3 lb Angus burgers at Walmart last week. Mine have vidalia onions minced in which provide great flavor. My favorite thing to do is fry me up a burger and serve with sliced dill pickle and mustard. Yum. Each patty has 19g of protein and a very awesome 30g of fat -- translation deliciousness!

Roasted & Salted Sunflower Kernels. They are a great protein/fat snack and highly portable. I usually keep a container in my office, one in my tennis bag, another in my day-to-day bag and one in my car. Whenever I feel like mindless snacking, I snack on these as they certainly satisfy my off and on desire for salty crunchy snacks. Each 1 oz serving as 6g of protein, 15g of fat and 5g of carbs, 4g of which are fiber. Perfect and inexpensive. Each 7.25 oz container costs like $1.15 at Kroger.

Butter. I love butter. If I had to pick my favorite DS friendly food, it would be butter, hands down. Why? Butter goes with anything. I'm a lucky DS-er in that copious amounts of fat in my diet don't hurt me at all, no explosive diarrhea from fat, no oil slicks, none of that. In fact, if I don't eat enough of it I have problems, so slather on the butter is my motto. Not joking, I can easily go through a stick of butter a day without batting an eye. I cook eggs in tablespoons of butter. I put butter in my soups and chili, I fry hamburgers in butter. I cook veggies in butter. I love butter more than Paula Deen and my cholesterol is a stunning 122. One of my favorite dishes is sauteeing freshly minced garlic in butter and then cooking shrimp in it to perfect tenderness. YUM.

Okay, enough food talk, I just had an Angus and am coming off a beef high.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that I hear back from the Dr.'s office tomorrow at least about the X-Rays. I am hoping it is what I think it is so that we can treat it. I am more than anxious to fix the problem and hopefully getting back on a normal (for me) weight loss track. I am anxious to be done with all my excess weight and I am excited at the prospect of it being doable. I feel like I've been through so many emotions within the last 24 hours, very hard to explain. It could be the residual effects of the hormones I was taking, but I've been cultivating a certain level of frustration and disappointment for some time now and have been reluctant to let it out fully on this site because I didn't want to seem like a completely negative person which I am not. I just didn't have the answers and now I feel like I just might and I just want to get going already. Tomorrow hopefully will bring some news, tonight I will certainly try to get in the sleep that I missed last night. My brain is just racing and I can't stop thinking about it so y'all will have to allow me to indulge in this temporary obsession, it's a big one though!

Large

Went to Walmart to pick up some Earl Campbell sausages (they were out - boooo!). I browsed through the store and ended up picking up two henley style long sleeve shirts for $5 a piece, size Large. No more X's for me on top! I remember trying to lose enough weight several years ago in order in fit into 4X's. Wow. Do I dare dream of mediums?

The 2X athletic bottoms (sort of like basketball pants) I bought are too big, could have gone with the XL, but I'm not as comfortable with the snugness on bottom as I am on top. I also bought another arch support for my left foot as it's starting to get tender a little more nowadays, probably from running.

Sometimes my body freaks me out. At times, I can't believe I have the hands that I do. When I wrap my hand around my wrists, at times it feels so feminine and almost delicate. I can't believe that's me. I actually have a well-defined waist and do I dare say narrow shoulders?!? My thighs, by the way, are slimming down, slowly but surely, they certainly are not as grotesque as before. The next 65-75 lbs should do wonders for my figure.... and probably freak me out more.

What a miracle the DS is?

Drive-by post

I'm off to my tennis lesson in the freezing cold! Woo-hoo! That's not sarcasm, well, not a lot. I am excited about tennis, but I'm not excited about the weather.

Still holding steady at 264.0 lbs. Hoping to drop a couple of lbs before my surgiversary.

After tennis, it's a Lost marathon with a friend as the new season begins next week. Very excited about that as well! Anywho, off I go!

Yeah, baby, yeah!!!

Start Weight: 516.6 lbs
Surgery Weight: 510.0 lbs
Current Weight: 266.4 lbs
Goal Weight: 199.8 lbs

TOTAL LOSS: 250.2 lbs!

Woo-hoo!!!! The light at the end of the tunnel gets brighter and brighter. 66.6 lbs to goal.

Yes, I am a happy camper this morning, needless to say!

So, I have an appointment with my PCP this morning so I have to keep this post short. Keep your fingers crossed that she will give me the okay to get off the blood pressure meds for good! I checked it three times this weekend and it ranged from 83/64 to 107/78. I'm also going to get labs done as well.

Par-tay!

Weighed in this morning at 268.0 lbs, a loss of 2.0 lbs overnight. Finally broke the 270 barrier, woo-hoo! Buh-bye 270's!!! Happy happy, joy joy! Yesterday, I had a whopping 244 grams of protein, most of it coming from protein shakes which is a good and bad thing. Those shakes definitely give me crazy gas and I have no idea why, it just doesn't make much sense because I have tried plenty of shakes and not a one has ever given me gas like that. Y'know what does give me gas like that? Dairy. Milk, cream, not so much cheese, but liquid dairy products. Dairy also gives me diarrhea and right now I have the opposite problem. Anyway, the mix is whey based, but so are the other two brands that I drink (IDS & Nectar). It kind of sucks because, by far, it's the best tasting protein drink I've ever had, but the gas is a big no-no. I'm certainly not going to waste it, I will just reserve it for days when I know I'm not going to be around people. :) Today ain't one of those days! Luckily, the protein I ordered online should be coming in this afternoon.

Today is a good friend's birthday so we are taking her on the town tonight. Actually, she arranged the whole thing and I going to serve as the Designated Driver since I won't be drinking and will be responsible for making sure no one gets themselves arrested. Good times. I'm actually a little nervous about this because I just need to make sure I have a supply of water & protein snacks with me, the last thing I want is to get dehydrated or get too hungry and feel weak on a night like tonight. I'm also nervous because I am soooo not a club person, but I'm trying to be open minded about it and just have fun. Who knows, maybe I might meet "the one", my very own cute, intelligent, funny and tall drink of water.

Anyway, got a full day ahead of me. We have a big staff meeting with all our intown staff and are conferencing everyone else, that's going to eat about 2 hours of my day. Then we have a management meeting immediately afterwards THEN it's tennis time! Woo-hoo! After tennis, I come home to get some work done, then I will definitely need to take a nap before going out tonight. Busy, busy, busy!

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!

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!

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!

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!