Getting close....

So, I'm closing in on three years. Amazing. It seems like such a long, long time ago. I can barely believe it. I'm bouncing around in the 240-250 range lately, which is alright. I am still prone to retain water like a mad woman when I don't get my protein in and I know exactly why the scale jumps up when it does. I still struggle with extremes. I often find myself oscillating between being hyper-vigilant and being very lax. Moderation, it seems, is quite elusive for me. It seems as though I just need to find the right balance and fully embrace who I am and what my needs are now AND fully release who I was, my old fears and concerns. I am a work in progress.

I have found, though, that I will NOT be one to take Flagyl on a maintenance level. I tried it for a couple of weeks, and honestly, it was so awesome. I could eat horribly and not have gas or poop problems.....but then, the nightmare began. I'm one of the lucky few who has a delicate gut, meaning I have to have a plethora of intestinal flora or I start having hives, joint pain, fatigue, etc. I had a wicked bout of hives and such severe joint pain in my left elbow, it seriously felt like I broke something. I had to wear a sling for a couple of days, I couldn't move it. Once I ditched the Flagyl and started some serious probiotics, it finally cleared up and I have been hive and pain free since. It took a good two weeks to get things back to normal, but I tell ya, I will never do that again!

Back to the whole moderation/balance thing. What I have been doing lately is staying away from carbs, Monday - Friday and indulging a bit on the weekends. The problem is that the indulging can get a little crazy and I tend to not get all my protein in. Talking to my sister about this she said that I shouldn't look at my weekends like that. It is very reminiscent of my pre-surgery life, where I looked forward to being a carb-induced fog for two days. She said I shouldn't have a deprivation mindset, instead of denying myself all week and gorging on the weekends, I should have that cookie if I want it, or a hamburger with bread, etc if I want it, that way, these little "treats" aren't such a big deal. I won't look at it like all or nothing. I think it makes sense, but it's a little scary to work myself through to that point. Instead of being protein first, I tend to be protein-only, all or nothing!

I am not actively trying to lose any more weight. I could buckle down and lose more, but I'm pretty content where I am. I'm not thrilled, but I'm not disappointed. I lost 285 lbs, that's a lot and what's funny, my excess skin is now started to bother me more and more. Sometimes I see myself and say "man, I have such huge thighs" but I know, most of that is skin. Same thing with my stomach. I honestly, don't have a lot of fat there, I have like a 36 in waist and it would be smaller without the skin. I know when it comes time to seriously start looking into it and working toward it, I will want to lose 25-30 more pounds before I get on the surgery table and that's cool, that makes sense, but I'm not going to be focusing on "weight loss", just maintenance & good health is fine for now.

One of the things that has kept me on a healthy track is that I play a lot of tennis, like 4-5 times a week for as little as an hour to 2.5 hours at a time. I get a good bit of exercise a week AND I also do 45 minutes of an exercise tape 2-4 times a week, especially on days I don't play. I make sure I get my exercise in. I freakin' love tennis, can't get enough of it. I've gotten pretty decent at it, taking lessons and working on things, learning as much as I can. It's so cool to be able to say I play a sport and the coolest thing by far is that my size is an advantage. Finally, being tall works to my benefit!!!

Anyway, I'm slowly working my way back to this blog. I have a couple of things I know I will want to work my way through, one of them being, I am considering therapy with a therapist who is familiar with the issues of post-weight loss surgery folk. I don't feel like I am in a tenuous situation or anything, but I do feel like I need to take some next steps to fully realize the things I want in my life. Right now I feel a little ill-equiped, so I look at it as a good thing!

Alrighty then, time to get to work..

Life Happens....

First, congrats to Tiffany on her engagement! I am thrilled to tears for her! She rocks!

Second, yes, I am still alive. Seems I am liking the living my life thing. I have been happily busy with stuff, from work to family and everything in between. Been playing a lot of tennis lately which has been fun. I actually joined a team (gasp) and our season starts in a couple of weeks so we've been practicing. It feels good to say I play a sport. Who would've thunk it!

Yesterday I bought a size medium unisex t-shirt. How freakin' crazy is that? It is a little snug, but that may just be me being self conscious about it. Incredible. I also bought some size XL unisex athletic pants. Boggles the mind. I'm having to retire my 2XL's which had been baggy, but comfortable, now they are a little too baggy. I'm consistently in 12/14's on top and 16's on the bottom. I can see those 16's slowly transitioning into 14's at some point.

Weight has been steady in the 230's although I think I may tone down the carbs and such and may try to trim down a bit. I've been getting a little frustrated playing tennis when I can't move as fast as I want to. It's funny how tennis is the only thing that makes me want to lose more weight even though I'm pretty content where I am. My motivation is to be a good tennis player and if it means dropping pounds, so be it. I don't have a set weight in mind, I just want to feel agile and lighter on my feet. Not surprisingly, I feel better when I eat better.

My ex-business partner has gone into full on crazy mode. She'd been emailing me regularly since I left and I finally had enough so I basically had to, quite bluntly, shut her down. She did not like it and sent me a crazy email, but I am ignoring her. I can't out manipulate her so my best bet is to ignore at all costs. I next expect her to start trying to get to me through other people, it's just a matter of time. I almost pity her, she's a sad, sad woman. Oh, and get this! She had the nerve to tell me that to truly have nothing to do with her (which I stated emphatically, numerous times) that I should return to her all my shares in the company! Uh....no.

Anyway, besides her, life is pretty awesome. The DS has been a blessing and I just continue to try to find my way through the world.

5' 11 1/2"

Somehow, I've grown a whole inch. I'm not sure when this happened or whether it happened over time, but the last time I was measured in a doctor's office was way back in 1992 and it was part of my medical evaluation in preparation for college. At the time I was 5' 10 1/2" and probably close to 300 lbs. I don't know if this is an after effect of losing 280 lbs or whether I've been this tall for years, but I think it's cool mostly because it changes my BMI, down a full point! Woo-hoo!

Back when I was an inch shorter, reaching my mini-goal of 216.6 lbs (equating to exactly 300 lbs lost) will still make me obese with a BMI of 30.6. Now that I'm taller, :), my BMI will be at that mini-goal will instead be 29.8. Freakin' awesome! In reality, it doesn't really change anything, I will still lose the weight I will lose, it just gives a better perception on BMI points lost.

I've really been trying to focus on my Calcium lately. I have this growing (irrational?) fear of breaking a bone, especially with my increased activity. I've largely ditched the Upcal-D as it's very sweet and has a lot of sugar which I do not need. I still have a few bottles of the Twinlab Calcium Citrate Chewables, which I like. They're very sweet and candy like and I usually keep them on hand when I want a piece of candy or something or if I am out and about and need to get some calcium in. My primary source is Citricals Calcium Citrate mammoth pills. They suck to take them, but I don't really want to mess around and if it's something I gotta do, well then, I'm gonna do it. The problem with Calcium Citrate is the constipation it causes...an ongoing battle for me. Right now I am following a suggestion that I think I got from Vitalady to take 500mg of Magnesium Oxide with my Calcium in order to move things along. I'm not sure it's working well, I still have a persistent overfull/uncomfortable feeling which can't be good. About once a week I'll have a huge poop and feel much better, and of course the scale will drop accordingly. I may go back to daily stool softeners to see if that helps.

Anywho, since I've left the day-to-day running of my business, I have such a restless mind. It took a little bit to decompress and clear my head of all that bad juju, but now I have a fire to do something else. Right now, at my current gig there are a couple of people who are leaving the group which means that I will be doing a bit of training over the next few weeks on some new technologies specific to the job. I am however, trying to find a learning path that is more along the lines of technologies that interest me more. I'm looking into a few things and luckily don't have to rush into anything. We'll see where that goes.

I'm just past the one month mark working at the new job and I now think that I can tweak my routine in order to get the best benefit healthwise. My walks to and from the bus stop to my office is quite enjoyable -- except when it rains. Each way is about 10-12 minutes with a couple of semi-steep hills. Way back when I used to do Body-for-Life and one of the things that I really liked about it was it's 20 minute cardio routine. I was surprised at what a good workout it was in that short amount of time. The plan is to do that routine every morning AND on nights when I don't have tennis. I'm gonna try to get to at least two tennis drill classes a week. Anyway, that'll give me roughly an hour's worth of cardio, it'll just be spread out over the course of the day. That might actually be better than all at once.

On the food front, I am going to do 2 protein shakes a day, something like this:

M1: Protein shake before I walk out the door in the AM
M2: Light snack mid-morning
M3: Lunch
M4: Light snack mid- afternoon
M5: Protein shake when I get home from work
M6: Dinner, post workout

Previously I had been drinking 50g protein shakes, but these will be more like 35g each. My goal is to get adequate, but not excess, protein in daily while doing what I can to help mitigate constipation issues. I'm getting in about a gallon of water, no problem.

175-180 is the goal by the end of the year, if not sooner. I'm going to do my best to get there. In some respects I feel like I've wasted a good part of my second year, but on the other hand, I feel like I have had the journey I needed to have, everything happened the way it needed to and now I find myself exactly where I needed to. These last 65-70 lbs aren't going to just fall off easily, I know I will have to put some work into it, but thankfully with the DS, it'll be much easier than if I hadn't had the surgery PLUS I know that once the weight is gone, it's gone. The fluctuations I have had over the past few months have all been water weight, easily lost when I get back on track. It's a false comfort, of course, to know it's not fat that I'm constantly gaining and losing, and it doesn't really do anything for me in the short or long term.

According to Dr. Marchesini, I've surpassed my weight loss goal, to him, I'm at 102% EWL. In order to have a normal BMI and get down to a weight where I can best have plastic surgery, have to weigh 178 lbs given my height of 5'11". This morning I weighed in at 245.2 lbs, that gives me a total loss of 271.4 lbs. I need to lose a total of 338.6 lbs. I therefore have 67.2 more lbs to go. This is truly homestretch time. I'm 80% of the way there. It's like the last 1.2 miles of the Peachtree Road Race where it seemed like the race would never end and much of the energy and vigor I had was spent and the only thing that would get me to the finish would be the will to want to finish and the holding on to the notion that I just need to take it one day at a time. I think my problem has been looking at the goal I want to accomplish as one big giant scary thing. I need to not do that and just break it down in manageable steps. Feeling overwhelmed or feeling like this is an impossible task is a quick and fast way for me to get derailed. I think I've probably spent the last 6 months being off track.

I think now that I am away from the toxic environment of working with my business partner and am in a much more satisfying environment, I can go start focusing on my health and weight loss again. So much of my time and energy was spent on dealing with that nightmare situation that I'm actually surprised at how draining it actually was. It's amazing.

Anyway, football season is just a few weeks away and I CAN NOT WAIT. It's been a long hiatus and I'm anxious to see how well my team will perform this year. Unfortunately, it looks like I may not be going up to my alma mater to see a game after all. Sept 1 is the US 10K Classic and I really want to run in it since I did so poorly last time around, plus it'll help get me a good number for the Peachtree Road Race next year. I will most likely be taking at least 1/2 a day off that day. If I were to leave to my alma mater, I'd be leaving on the 5th and I'd rather not have too many days off or miss to many hours since I'm technically a contractor and I really want to make as much money as I can, I need to pad the nest egg and pay off some bills and just raise my standard of living a tad. I will be going to Texas for Thanksgiving so I'll already be losing 2-3 days there so I just want to be careful about time off. There is a big reunion next summer that I might shoot for, I'll be at goal weight by then and hopefully looking into at least the first phase of plastics. We'll see.

Anyway, time to do some laundry and make my lunches for the week. The better prepared I am with good, nutritious food, the less likely I am to want to stray.

Voila!

So I've gone back to my old design, I kinda missed it and I think it better fits my weather and mood. Anyway, I've started like 15 posts over the last week, but haven't actually posted anything. Seems like there is always something popping up to distract me and I'm easily distract-able. I had a doctor's appointment Monday to get labs done, it's been awhile and I'm still trying to figure out why I tend to retain so much water. Monday morning, I weighed in at 270 or so, today it's down to 263. It's frustrating because the day I got back from Texas I weighed in at 253 and that was at night and I'm always 5-6 lbs heavier during the day than when I weigh post-poop in the AM. I have no idea what my true weight is, I'm guessing somewhere in the mid 240's because I first weighed 250-ish way back in early April.

If I weren't retaining so much water right now, I'd probably be 95% happy with my weight loss to be totally honest. Losing 265+ lbs is no small feat, so I feel like a success in that regard, but with water weight and feeling it in my legs and abdomen, it makes me feel fat, which is something I do not want to feel. I know it's a protein problem and it's a difficult one to manage. Subconsciously I haven't accepted the fact that I do need to drink 2-3 protein shakes a day, I just can't get by on food alone. Sucks, but I just have to accept it, which is a difficult, I can be hard-headed at times. The goal is still sub-200 lbs. I've become a bit comfortable lately and have lost a bit of the fire I had, that happens when you're close to 2 years out. I know my DS still works, my poop tells me so, so it's just a matter of getting the fire back again and making better decisions. I have this little placard on the wall in my office that reads "CHOOSE BETTER - 199.0". I've been ignoring it lately, but need to drill it in my brain. I'm drinking my three 50+ gram shakes a day and eating three small meals averaging around 250+ grams of protein a day. I'm also making my way through a gallon of water and trying to keep my carbs below 50.

At my Dr.'s appointment, she agreed with me and reduced my BP meds and I feel so much better. No more lightheadedness when I stand up. When they checked it was 100/60 which is around what I had gotten when I checked myself a couple weeks ago, the lowest was 92/54. I'm hoping to be off the meds completely at some point this year. It's the one thing that I'm a little bit disappointed in because I hear about so many people getting of their blood pressure medication soon after surgery, for me, such was not the case, but I know it'll happen in due time.

I have two pairs of size 16 Medium pants that I acquired from a clothes exchange after one of my support group meetings. I can barely get them on but can not zip nor button them. What a freakin' trip. It just boggles the mind that I will soon be wearing a size 16! Craziness. It doesn't even seem real. The crazy part is that my thunder thighs actually fit in the pants, they were tight, but they fit. I wonder how they'll fit after I get rid of the water weight, hopefully by the end of the month.

Today, I have the last lesson of my tennis clinic, but do not fear, the second clinic, I believe, starts immediately afterwards. It's supposed to be 96° today. I'm loving it since I'm usually freezing.

Jules asked about a typical food day for me before surgery and I'm assuming a typical day before I ever thought about surgery and here it goes. I was a big eater and I loved to eat. Okay, typical day...one of my favorite things for breakfast were bacon, egg and cheese burritos. I would fry up 4 slices of thick sliced bacon and put it aside, then I would scramble 3 eggs in the bacon grease and put that aside, I would then heat up two large flour tortillas in any residual bacon grease or additional butter and then assemble two burritos each with 2 slices of bacon, 1/2 of the scrambled eggs and 2 slices of cheese. For lunch, I might have a super-sized fast food meal, like a double quarter pounder with cheese - super-sized or some similar variation. For dinner, I loved pasta and rice and lots of it so it was usually some variation of that. Sometimes, I would just repeat breakfast. Of course there were snacks, I may have a candy bar or two throughout the day, chips, cookies from the vending machine, etc. I have long given up soft drinks with sugar so that wasn't something I gained weight on.

What really did me in was what I would do on the weekends. Weekends for me were times where I spend them on the coach in a carb-induced coma. After work on Fridays, I would go to the grocery store and buy a varying array of crap, a couple of dozen Krispy Kremes, a pie, two 1/2 gallon of ice cream or something like that. I would then spend Friday night to Sunday night on my couch watching TV, this was especially the case during lonelier times. I can still remember, quite vividly, what the carb-fog felt like, almost like semi-consciousness, being awake, but not. I definitely know why I got fat, not a mystery at all. The problem was exacerbated by my chronic anemia which I was not vigilant about keeping in check. I frankly did not have the energy to do anything besides what I needed to do. Those two things were near deadly for me, but still in the first 7 years I had been in Atlanta, I gained maybe 50-60 lbs to around 450 or so. It wasn't until I started by business that the weight piled on big time. When I started at a startup company, with two years, I gained to like 485, but by the time I started my own company I had gotten down to maybe 440 or so and that was in March 2005, by the time I had my DS in Aug 2006, I had gained almost 80 lbs from spending almost every waking hour at my computer grazing and snacking all day long. Horrible. That got me to over 500+ lbs. The scary thing is that without my DS, I'm afraid to even think what kind of condition I would be in. God only knows. I never thought I was near death when I weighed 500 lbs, but I saw myself as being on the brink of being homebound, unable to do for myself. I could easily be a 600+ lb diabetic by now, instead I'm sitting here in a size large t-shirt and a pair of size 18 shorts anxiously awaiting the time for me to run out the door for my tennis lesson!

I'm so, so very grateful I was able to have my surgery. I know I am an extremely atypical weight loss surgery patient. Not too many of us get that big, in fact I'm currently just 10-20 lbs below where most people seem to start off! I just went another giant pile of clothes yesterday to take to Goodwill and was reminded of just how big I was, I won't sit here and say I had forgotten how big, but it's becoming less and less familiar to me. It's only when I am confronted with remnants of my old self (pictures, clothes, etc.) that I am reminded just how far I've come. Just 60-70 more lbs and I'll be done!

On the supplements front, I'd recently ordered some Upcal-D. I love this stuff and it's much less expensive than going through 4-5 bottles of the Twinlab chewables a month. I drop a scoop in my protein shakes and or sugar-free drink and I'm good to go! The only problem is that it seems to not have the amount of elemental calcium it is purported to have. Sucks! I can go back to the Chewables, but maybe I'll just rotate the two.

Anyway, enough rambling for now for me, once I get started, it's hard to stop...especially when I haven't posted in awhile.

Buyer Beware

I've been totally bummed out at this sad news. I've never said a word to Kelly K, but I kept up on her progress almost everyday and it's just so sad to know that she is gone. It's just another reminder that this surgery is serious stuff and it requires careful consideration before anyone makes the decision to sign on the dotted line. I was completely committed to having this surgery until less than two weeks before when my older brother died from a massive heart attack, he was only 54 years old, but in poor health - diabetes, high blood pressure, morbidly obese, etc. That shook me to the core and I was pretty convinced that I was gonna die, but was able to get my head straight, talk to my parents & family and decide to go ahead and go to Brazil. I held on to the belief that this was my one and only chance to turn it all around for myself and I knew my brother would want me to go, so I did. Any pre-ops out there need to know that this is a big decision and that you are best served by looking at this surgery and it's risks as objectively as possible.

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.

:)

Friend: Knock, knock.
Me: Whose there?
Friend: Interrupting cow.
Me: Interrup---
Friend: Moooooooooooooooooo!
Me: hahaha (...for the next two days)

I don't know why that cracks me up, but it does ... I am so easily amused, it's sad.

Anyway, why is it that the more I eat, the hungrier I seem to be? So far today I have had the following:

M1: Isopure Protein RTD
M2: 2 chicken drumsticks
M3: IDS protein shake
M4: Chicken drumstick
M5: 1/2 turkey/salami wrap
M6: Chicken thigh
M7: Chicken thigh

Right, I am hungry and I JUST ate... Sigh...

This cold I have kinda sucks. It's a lot of nasal drip, a little sore throat and I feel cold all the time. I can't sleep because I just get clogged up and can't breathe. Ugh. I can drink lots of warm, comforting beverages though, so that's nice.

When I was in Barbados, not once did I lament the fact that I could not weigh myself. Not once. I could not have cared less. The unbelievable is happening y'all, I am seriously thinking about not weighing every day. It is such a pain in the ass and I just don't want to, but it's kinda like something I have been doing for what seems like forever. The problem is that I am torn between wanting to lose the last 100 or lbs and just living a freakin' normal life and eating as normal as possible. It is much, much harder than I thought. Crazy thing is that even when I do eat like total crap, the weight still is coming off, granted, not very fast, but it is. Even though I'm clocking it at 288.4 lbs (as of this morning....grrr) my clothes are loser than a couple of weeks ago. I don't know, I am hoping that I can snap myself back on track -- permanently and not have to deal with all this back and forth crap. I want to be done already, I just got get my head right which is soooooo hard sometimes. Times like these I really miss support group....

Eh?

I've been outed. I was on a conference call with my business partner and a young woman we just hired to start working for our company. She's the former colleague who inquired about a position with us several weeks ago. BP tells the girl that she should see me now! That I had the "gastric bypass" (I can't tell you how many times I told her it was not a gastric bypass) and am so skinny, blah blah blah. At first I was like, WTF? I didn't say anything and it's not like I am trying to keep a secret, but I am unsure if the girl is going to start telling our mutual acquaintances. I'm reserving my right to be annoyed.

Well, I definitely figured out the cause of my sour mood the past few days. In college I had this really great, great friend. He was a junior my freshman year and he basically befriended me and took me under his wing. I won't go into all the details but was just a wonderful, genuine person and unfortunately, I didn't realize it at the time and didn't try very hard to keep in touch after he graduated. I was a weird kid in college, just a lot of emotional issues and I didn't have the skills to handle a lot of things in my life. Over the years, however, I really matured and came into my own, but it did take awhile. Around this time, I started thinking about my friend, what he might be up to, I had heard a few things here and there but most of my attempts to find him came up short. Fast forward to last week. I was reviewing our orders for the day for my business and I see his last name which is pretty unique, but not completely unheard of. I thought to myself "no way, it can't be!", but sure enough, it was -- confirming for me that there are no coincidences and things happen for a reason. Anyway, I wasn't 100% sure so I emailed a somewhat formal email to the address on file and hoped I had the right guy and waited ... and waited ... and waited. After several days, I was so disappointed, I guess moreso than I thought. I started thinking that maybe he wanted nothing to do with me, that maybe I was weirder back in school than I thought, etc. I told myself that reaching out should be enough and if he didn't want to connect with me that would be fine. I was bummed all the way up until yesterday when he emailed me back and was happy to hear from me! Talk about making my day! My mood now is like a total 180 degrees. I still am frustrated and annoyed by the other stuff, but I am so happy to be back in touch with my friend.

Anyway, I went to the grocery store, actually two, yesterday and spent like an hour and a half trying to find new stuff to eat. I bought some scallops, Dreamfield's pasta (macaroni and linguini), alfredo & cheddar sauces, ground turkey, a pot roast, some deli meats, low carb wraps (15g of carbs, 8g fiber), cheese (real cheese not processed) and a variety of other things. I am reintroducing cheese in moderation, maybe a slice a day in my lunch wraps. I made a super beefy "cheesy" mac & cheese. I used 2 1/2 lbs of beef, an onion, 1/2 a box of Dreamfields, unGodly amounts of butter (for creamy and deliciousness) and a jar of the cheddar sauce. I divided it into 8 servings which, in retrospect, are a tad big, but I can probably just split a serving into two. Anyway, each serving has 30g protein, 49 grams of fat (yum) and 5g of effective carbs. Freakin' delicious! I am going to make the pot roast with onions and green beans this weekend and divvy it up into portions. This way, at least I will have some quick choices. Fact of the matter is, I am tired of the same old stuff, but I guess I just have to work at it a little more. Pain in the ass, but oh well.

So, I told myself I would find a gym after the 10K on Labor Day and I have yet to make any kind of decision. I think I will just continue walking/jogging til I get back from visiting my parents and then do something then. I am going to Barbados in mid-October for a week, but I should be able to pick right up afterwards.

So I'm browsing the Land's End website, well, because I can :) and I pull up their size chart and I'm eyeballing some things for fall and winter. It's still relatively warm here in Georgia, but I'm always freezing. Anyway, my business partner has this fleece vest that I have always liked and so I see one on the site and pull up the size chart for it and my head immediately hurts. This is why shopping drives me crazy. Please explain to me, somebody - anybody - the seeming disparity between the X-large and 1X. I don't get it. Is it me or does the XL seem to be "bigger" than the 1X? How does that work? What am I missing? Yeah well, the upside is that I can even stress about XL's at all.

I think I mentioned this in my rant the other day, but you know what's tripping me out lately? Bones. My bones, my body, my skeletal structure. It's so weird to feel all these bones emerging. It's the weirdest thing because it's like I never had any tactile experience of them and now I do. I touch my shoulders and can feel the bones and muscles and how they fit and work together, it's amazing. Same thing with my hips and legs, I can feel my hips and my diminishing butt and get a sense of the structure of my pelvis. I can pinch my collarbone. Wow. I feel human.

In one of her posts, Ann mentioned having a hard time dealing with compliments. When I read it I nearly jumped up and yelled "Amen, sister!" Man, they are coming fast and furious which I am not sure I like so much. BP keeps calling me skinny. I hate that. People I see at least weekly keep saying "wow" at the most random times, usually catching me off guard. At times I feel more self-conscious than I ever did when I was 500 lbs. In fact, I feel more unease about compliments now than I did, say, 3 or 4 months ago.

Yeah well, time for food!

Month 12

August was on many fronts a freaking disaster. I went up as high as 319.4 lbs and eventually am ending the month at 301.0 lbs, but since yesterday, for me, was the end month 12, I technically lost only 3.8 lbs. Sigh. What is to be learned here for me? It's simple ... stick to the flippin' plan! There's no way to sugarcoat it, I was derailed for much of the month, but was able to pull it together at the end. Part of it was frustration with the whole ulcer thing and just wanted to be "normal" and frankly I just got tired of the amount of effort I was putting toward everything that I eat/drink. When we were down in Savannah, last day there, Jamie bought us ice cream from this roadside shop. Intellectually I know I have problems with ice cream, I know this, but still, it tastes so darn good and so I had some. I paid dearly for it later, of course. I've sworn off ice cream and all kinds of stuff before, but I wonder if I have the wrong attitude about food.

Obviously, there are choices that I make in accordance to whatever goals I want to achieve, but is anything "bad" or is that my diet mentality speaking? I'm not sure, but for me, I feel better if I can categorize certain things as "evil". It makes it easier to avoid them. As I start Year Two, I have different challenges from Year One, most of the work is mental. I could potentially take it easy from here on out and be good, maybe dropping the 40-60 lbs I need to lose over the next year. That would put me at my doc's goal by this time next year. That would be a success, especially considering where I started. I could also probably get plastic surgery at that point and have a decent result, maybe end up around 225 or so. The problem with that is, what happens 3-5 years later when/if I regain? I will have to start dieting to lose the weight again and I hate dieting. My other option is to really push hard for the next 6-12 months to lose the 100-120 lbs (or more) that I want to lose and be done with it. I would love to get to the point where I can say, I don't need or want to lose any more weight. I'm not sure where that point is, but I'd rather have that opportunity than to not have it.

Talking to some of my family and friends, some are happy to see me where I am and think I could probably stop now, others think, maybe a few more pounds and I'd be good to go, so far, I'm reluctant to really divulge to them that I want to lose another 100 lbs. They can't wrap their heads around this. The only people who fully understand this are my fellow DSers. They feel me on this issue. I remember telling my sister that I wanted to wear a size 10 some day, she was like "Nooooo, that's too skinny!" and when I voiced my doubts about ever wearing a size 10 with my friends at support group, they were like "Girl please! You can totally do it!" Ugh.

I have to remember to just focus on the day-to-day. Looking too far in the future is just too problematic for me. I need to stop obsessing about this because it is just causing me unwanted anxiety. Me thinks it's because I'm close to breaking into the 200's ... freaking me out a little bit. One day at a time, Tia, one day at a time!

I do, however, think there was some good to gleaned from August. I certainly learned a good bit about my personal behaviors and attitudes about food and goal setting so all was not lost. I am hoping to be real about this whole process as I can. I don't want to have gone through all this only to be poorly prepared for the long-term post-op life.

Anywho, Monday is my 10K and I'm so nervous and excited. Truth be told, I am more amped up about this than I was about my one year surgiversary! I'm kinda concerned about getting an empty tank at some point. I'm thinking about getting a fanny pack of some sort so that I can carry a couple of protein bars with me. There will be water all along the way so I'm not too worried about that, I just need to drink often. Tomorrow they have like a family festival type thingy going on for the race so I will go pick up my number and maybe hang out there awhile and possibly get some tips. Who knows? I don't have any fancy race gear, but am wearing a pair of gym shorts and a favorite t-shirt plus my trusty tennis shoes. I followed advice and didn't purchase anything new that hadn't been broken in. I wish I had a smaller camera, so I could take a picture at the finish, maybe I will just have to purchase a disposable one. We'll see. I do plan to dance the jig though, THAT I won't neglect to do!

Dang

I had a long conversation with a friend about a mutual friend of ours who is going through one hell of a time. This mutual friend is in a very destructive relationship with her husband. They have three kids and she finds herself in a situation where she is emotionally at her lowest point and is finding it difficult to do what she needs to do - save her herself and her kids and leave her asshole husband. I don't know the dude too well, but I have seen this jerk in action. He is a piece of work, a lazy no-job having piece of poop. He's an arrogant, illiterate, racist, sexist psychopath rat bastard who wants only to skateboard all day long and tell her what to do and how to do it while she is the sole bread winner. Asshole does not have a job AND he does zero housework or support the family in any way. I could understand if he was a stay at home dad and took care of the kids and home, y'know, got the kids ready for school, went grocery shopping, anything. This moron does NOTHING. My friend is just worn down and is struggling to muster the strength to leave him. She doesn't think she can do it, but my friend has assured her that all she has to do is give the sign and she'll have a swarm of supportive people there to help her get away. God this pisses me off to no end. I seriously want to kick his ass.

This whole thing reminds me of my best friend in high school, B. B was an awesome person, kind, considerate but she had an asshole boyfriend, P. He was an only child from a rich family who was overly indulged, she came from a modest background and had 5 or 6 younger siblings. He was such a jerk to her, frequently calling her names and degrading her. He was an emotional manipulator to the nth degree and put her through hell. It didn't take long for things to get physical. I first saw her bruises during a fire drill and I asked her about it, she said it was nothing and that he didn't mean it. Yeah, right. I didn't really the guy that much before then, but now he was really on my shit list. She assured me it wouldn't happen again, she wouldn't let it. No surprise, when more bruises mysteriously showed up a couple of weeks later, I knew I had to do something. I still don't know if it was the smartest thing I ever did, but one day after school in one of the side hallways of the bandroom, I pulled P aside and had a little talk with him. In short, I told him he better not hit her again or else. I probably never said two words to him before that day but I let him know in the most menacing and threatening persona I could muster. One of the few times being taller and bigger than most of my peers paid off. He never touched her again and I spent the rest of the year making sure whenever I saw him I gave him my most evilest eye. I'm convinced that there is an especially dark and miserable hole in hell reserved for people like that.

Shit like this makes me feel like a jerk whining about my weight when people I care about are going through a heckuva lot more than gaining 10 lbs of water weight. I feel like an idiot and I wanted to post this (even though I could not have) to remind myself that I don't have it so bad, in fact, I'm pretty blessed. Nothing like a glimpse into someone else's life to give you a little perspective.

I HEART support group!

As usual, support group was awesome. I love my support group, totally kick ass and such a necessity for me, I always get such an emotional and spiritual lift that it's become an integral part of this journey. I talked to the nutritionist about my issues as of late, specifically about the ulcer and protein requirements. She doesn't seem to think that I would need to do anything drastic. I was too afraid to tell her how many grams of protein I had been eating because last time she was close to reading me the riot act. My weight has been ridiculous this whole month, wavering between 309.2 all the way up to 314.6 lbs. Today I weighed in at 312.2 lbs. Sigh. Totally sucks, but I have to admit to not being very good or consistent about my diet and water. In fact, there have been days where I've flat out sucked which is honestly pretty rare for me, I'm typically pretty good and if I do indulge it's usually one thing and I'm done, but such has not been the case as of late, really since the beginning of the month. Ugh, I confess, I've been a poor DSer. Sometimes best intentions don't translate into best actions.

Having said all that, the last two days have been good. My only issues are trying to determine how much protein/calories I need to be getting...driving me crazy. I don't like having to eat 2800+ calories and 200-220 grams of protein, it sucks and it's hard and my gut tells me it's unnecessary. I am anxiously awaiting my lab results to tell me otherwise. I am still retaining water OR it could just be that I am finally well hydrated. Regardless, the next few days will be hard to stay on track seeing as how I hear there is a lot of good food in Savannah, but I am going to do it and hopefully by the time I get back, I will be on the track to losing weight again. I still have a good 60 to as many as 110-120 lbs to go and I want to be done by this time next year. I want to be normal, not "normal for someone who started off at 516 lbs" but normal "normal". I want to lose as much excess fat as possible. I want to surpass Dr. Marchesini's goal for me (250lbs). When I walk into my first plastic surgery consult, I want the doctor to say "well done, you've lost all the excess weight and you are in the best possible shape for plastic surgery." I need to like plaster my house with giant plaques that read "STAY THE COURSE" so that I won't be tempted to stray. Like I mentioned before, this is the hard section of this journey, the boring, tedious middle. Must find more ways to self-motivate!

Anyway, I have to pick up a few things before I hit the road so off I go!

The Good, The Bad and the Ugly

The Good:

Support Group meeting last night was awesome, as usual and I guess the word is getting out as the Thursday night meetings are getting fuller and fuller which is great! This meeting we have several of our success stories, including m'girl Kim, give short talks about their own personal stories and journeys. It was really good, especially for people like me, newbies and pre-ops because we get to see what the end of the tunnel looks like. I will probably start going to the Tuesday or Saturday morning one as well. I weighed in this morning at 313.8 lbs. Woo-hoo!

The whole lunch thing with my business partner and the girl from the other company was much ado about nothing. She wants to leave her company and join ours. She has to be at least the 7th or 8th person from that company that has attempted to do so.

Kim, Nick and I are committed to running a 10K race on Labor Day and I'm going tomorrow to find someplace to get some good running/walking shoes and at least a couple pairs of good exercise shorts. I am pretty sure I can walk the whole thing and I may entertain thought of breaking out into small short jogs every now and again...downhill. I'm pretty excited about that and I am going to do my research today and see if I can come up with a strategy for training for the next 6 weeks.

The Bad:

Usually after the support group meeting a lot of us hang around and chit chat until the building security kicks us out and we move our socializing to the parking lot. So we're out there talking, people are slowly leaving and it's just me and Kim and our friend Nick. We are usually the last ones to leave. So we're standing out there by Kim's car and we're talking and I start feeling a little warm and start getting a little woozy so I know that I need to cut things short. I tell them I gotta go and I start walking to my car and I am feeling like I can barely make it! I get to my car and I start looking for my keys and at some point, I feel the darkness come on and I just hold on to my car. Luckily Nick and Kim see this and next thing I know, I'm sitting in Kim's car eating a protein bar and drinking water. I hear them speaking to me and in my mind I feel like I am thinking rationally, but I can't get the words out. After 10-15 minutes, 8 oz of water and 2 protein bars, I feel back to normal and am okay to go home with a promise to pick up some food on the way home and to call Kim to let her know I made it back in one piece.

The Ugly:

So after assuring them both, I stand up out of her car and that's when I realize I will be needing to take a long hot shower and do a load of laundry when I get home. I guess at some point, the poop came out. That's so freakin' gross, but it happened. I read a few tales about the exact same thing happening to a few other DSers and I guess it was my turn. Luckily I only pooped my undergarments and not my car or Kim's car. I have never passed out before in my life (or ever gotten close) and I am left feeling a little worried, a little embarassed, a bit scared and completely fascinated by the whole experience. I couldn't even sleep all that great last night and it preoccupies my thoughts this morning.

Lessons Learned:

I kept thinking about all things that transpired that day that contributed to this episode and of course, like the overanalytica maniac that I have come up with the following things that did or did not happen and signs that I ignored or didn't give them their just due.

1. I said this a few times before but one of my biggest challenges is trying to keep up with nutrition/supplements/water when I have to go outside of my daily routine. Lately I have been eating 7-9 times a day every hour and a half or so. I knew that I'd be home at around 5:00 so I had planned to get home, eat a bowl of chili and take 2 protein bars with me since odds were that I would not be home til after 9:00 PM. So I did that, I ate my bowl of chili and took the bars with me, what I didn't do was eat the dang things during the meeting. I usually sit in the back but the meeting was so crowded, I sat in the front and felt subconscious about eating so I didn't.

I should have eaten both bars and not worried about it, in fact, I should have brought more substantial nutrition.

2. At one point toward the end of the meeting, I got that familiar gurgling in my stomach signaling that I need to probably poop. I ignored it because I was caught up in conversation with a couple of folks and figured I could hold it til I got home.

I should have pooped when I first got the hint to.

3. Since I do typically sit in the back, I'm pretty close to the cooler so I usually drink one bottle of Crystal Light and a water. Since I was in the front, I only had a small 8 oz bottle of water and I had only drank four ounces. It was also unusually warm in there, I typically have to wear a sweater, it's so cold, but not tonight. I was dehydrated and hadn't had enough fluid.

I should have drank more, in fact, I should have brought my 32 oz water bottle with me and I should from now on.

I had the Biliopancreatic Diversion with Duodenal Switch and I weigh 200 lbs lighter. Despite what I may sometimes think, I am not the same person I was 11 months ago and need to be more mindful of that. It was made abundantly clear to me yesterday that I am more "fragile" (although I don't like that description), if you will, than my previous self. I have to be compliant and vigilant not just because I want to lose weight faster, but because my health and well-being require it.

I tell ya, I learned my freaking lesson(s). I don't want to go through that again. This morning I feel fine and you bet your butt, I am not going to let anything interfere with me getting my food & water in again.

Twoterville...not too far away.

So I got my music going in the background and I start daydreaming while I'm sorting and folding mounds of clothes I haven't seen in two years and it occurs to me that I'm 19.8 lbs away from being under 300 lbs and I kid you not, I had a moment of panic. Does that make any kind of sense? I think ....*think* I was under 300 when I left for college in 1992, but I am not sure...I vaguely remember seeing 257 at the doctor's office the summer before I left for school. I don't know, it's just hard to imagine. I've been thinking a lot about goal weight (NOT when I hit goal weight, but the actual weight whenever that happens) and it's all very abstract to me. I say I want to be under 200 lbs but the reality of that is something I can't get my head around. I am having a difficult time accepting that I might actually be able to say I lost 200 lbs at some point in the (near?) future. I keep thinking about how I tell my mom when it actually happens "Guess what, mom? I LOST 200 POUNDS!!!" I don't feel like I lost nearly 200 lbs. My business partner is prone to ask me if I "feel better". I don't know...sometimes I want to choke her for asking me that all the time, but honestly, I feel about the same as I have the past 100 lbs. It's all incremental changes from here on out. I'm slowly shrinking and the only real reminder is the freakin scale and my clothes. It's difficult to step back three months and say X, Y and Z are so much more better/easier/more pleasant.

Let me just say, that I am ecstatic to be closing in on the number. No doubt. I came across the pictures I took with Dr. Marchesini and Kevin, my switch buddy, on the day of our post-surgery followup. I must have stared at that picture for five full minutes. I have a folder on my computer titled "Untold Horror" with the few, and I mean few, pictures of me taken during the past 3-4 years. There is one in particular that really pushed me over the edge. Anyway, the journey just trips me out sometimes and other times I forget that I look helluva lot different than I used to.

Here is my food for the day:

M1: Isopure (40g)
M2: 2 eggs, one sausage and 1 TB butter, scrambled (31g)
M3: Atkins granola bar (17g)
M4: Oscar Meyer Natural Beef Hot Dogs (24g)
M5: Atkins Double Crunch bar (11g)
M6: Smoked Ham (26g)
M7: Isopure RTD (40g)
M8: Homemade Chili (35g)

Grand Totals: 2816 cals, 184g fat, 69g carbs, 224g protein. I ditched the chicken, can't do it.

Gonna take my evening vits and watch Babel.

Sunday Randomness

6/30 - 325.2
7/1 - 326.2
7/2 - 328.8
7/3 - 328.2
7/4 - 328.4
7/5 - 329.4
7/6 - 328.8
7/7 - 327.8
7/8 - 327.6

Obviously, not too happy about that right now. I find myself feeling like I'm really tired of all the "dieting". Been doing it for over 10 months and how I wish I could be normal and not sweat it. The non-weight loss is not helping to squash those feelings and actually are probably the root cause of them. I don't know. My appt with gastroenterologist is a good two weeks away. Lately, I've had the opposite of constipation which is a significant change for me. I'm going several times in the morning and then maybe 2-3 times the rest of the day. Things seem to be going through me pretty fast, within 12-24 hours versus 4-5 days. I think it's probably due to me stopping the probiotics. I've ordered a couple of bottles of less potent pills.

As if I haven't agonized over and over-analyzed this enough lately (and I'm sure y'all love reading all about it), I think my problem (outside of something going wrong with my internal plumbing) is twofold and therefore that presents me two opportunities to change my approach. The first is something that I know Deluzy has mentioned this to me twice and for some reason it wasn't sticking enough -- eat more. I've been through months and months of my Fitday food logs and have noticed that when I eat over 2000+ calories and over 140+ grams of protein, the weight comes off, when I eat in the 1100-1300 calorie range for a few days, inevitably the weight loss stalls out. This was during the time I started a new job back in late February through mid May. I lost 45 lbs in those 3 months BUT I wasn't exercising much at all (no extra calories burned). I abandoned walking every day because I had to be at work early in the morning and wasn't doing much of anything afterwards. In short, I am going to be consuming more.

Since I started the new new job, my hours have been insane. Since I live in suburbia, I have to get up at 4:30 AM to catch a 6:15 bus to get me in town by 7:15 AM. I have a 15 min walk to my place of work. At 4:00 PM, I leave work and take 15-20 min walk to the bus stop and then have an hour ride to the Park & Ride lot near my house. WIth 1/2 way decent traffic, I am home by 5:30 PM and try to get to bed by 10:30 PM. Now, my first meal of the day is after I get to work around 8:00 AM. I have a mid morning snack at 10:30, lunch around 12:30, another mid-afternoon snack and I don't have dinner til round 7:00 PM. Anyway, I have noticed that since I started this job, I am eating a lot more solid food than I did before and I haven't been consistently eating more protein/calories to account for the increase in physical activity (walking to and from the bus stop). I also have been averaging like 1300-1400 calories and between 90-110 grams of protein, mostly all food and not shakes. My perception is that I am eating a lot more, but in reality I really wasn't. I used to start my day off with a 46 gram protein shake before I even left the house or within a 1/2 hour of getting to work, but now, my first meal of the day is solid food and I rarely have shakes anymore. I think the increase in solid food was a shock to my system which caused a lot of the problems I have been having with constipation, yellow poop, etc. In short, I am going to back off on eating so much solid food and go back to 1-2 protein shakes a day like I had done for months. I placed an order online for two containers of good old Nectar Roadside Lemonade. So, that is what I am going to do. I'm fairly confident that I have found the issue. We'll see. I know it seems like I am manic about this, but it drives me nuts to not know what the real issue is. I'm all about routine so if I can just nail down the right routine I need to follow, my mind will be at ease and I can't stop obsessing about this.

Yeah well, enough of that crap. I went to the bookstore (actually two) 4th of July and couldn't help myself and bought a slew of books and Moleskines. I took advantage of bargain tables and a couple "Buy X and get 1 free" promotions. You don't want to know how much I spent, but it was a good bit, not so much on the books, but on the Moleskines. I freakin' love those things. I highly, HIGHLY recommend them to anyone who is into journaling or anyone who is in search of a good notebook. They are a little pricey, but the large notebooks last me several months. I have one for notes for work, one for a personal journal, small ones for tracking to-do lists and for keeping favorite quotes, poems, favorite words, etc. I'm one of those types that are very particular about my writing materials so once I nail down something that works for me, I am all about it!

Anyway, a couple of the books I picked up I am really looking forward to reading. Unfortunately this past trip to the bookstore was unplanned so I didn't have any specific books in mind so I just browsed around and picked up a few that I had heard about in passing. I got "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy which I've already finished. Great book, very depressing (and nightmare inducing), but well worth the read. I plan on picking up McCarthy's other books as soon as I finish my current batch. I also picked up "Middlesex" by Jeffrey Eugenides who also wrote "The Virgin Suicides". I have seen the movie, but now want to read the book. I just started this book. Next in line are "The Tenth Circle" by Jodi Picoult and "The Memory of Running" by Ron McLarty. Before "The Road" I had been reading "Getting Things Done" by David Allen, a book I most certainly needed to read. I don't think I have ever mentioned this here before, but I was diagnosed with ADD back in my college years and was actually prescribed Ritalin, I stopped taking it within a couple of months, I didn't like how it made me feel (rapid heart rate) however I loved how it seemed to bring my life into focus. Ever since then, it's been a constant struggle to find strategies that I can employ in my life that help me stay focused. That's why I like writing/journaling so much and why I am a copious note-taker. My mind can wander within seconds, but if I wrote the shit down, I won't forget where I was before my mind wandered onto a totally different subject. Anyway, I think I may have found some gems in this book.

I love reading and it's something I picked up from my mom, she is a big reader and my youngest brother and I picked up on that a good bit, actually, I think many of my siblings have, now that I think about it. Mom reads close to a book a day. I am nowhere near that. I went to Oprah's website and printed out a list of all her Book Club books and I have read around 10 or so already. I am going to try to get through that list and then I'll try to find another to work off of. BTW, I am open to any recommendations.

It occurred to me this week that I have been writing this blog for over a year. Geez, it's hard to believe it's been that long. How times flies...

You know what my favorite days are? Grocery shopping day! Lame, I know, but I love the feeling of looking at a stocked refrigerator filled with with DS goodness, especially when there are a few new/different things. Yesterday I went grocery shopping and took my time for a change. I usually have a list that I work off of, but yesterday I went there and walked down every single aisle except for the obvious crap ones (cookies, cereal, etc.). I spent maybe $70 which is right on par for me which should last a good week and a half.

Well, today promises to be a laid back one, I picked up a couple of movies last night and am going to veg out and enjoy spending the day on my couch splitting my time between a movie or two and my books. Last couple of weeks have been crazy and I need to take it down a notch for at least a day.

Month 10

Oh what a month it has been. As has been well documented here, I have been having a time of it this month, which in retrospect seems to be the direct opposite of month 9 where it seemed I could do no wrong. Month 10 was a struggle on several levels and I don't hesitate to say, one of my more difficult months, mostly for emotional reasons. I would like to think that going through these types of things that I learned something and I think I did. I learned I need to listen to my body more. I learned that crap in, even in small amounts, usually equals "crap" out in seemingly larger amounts. I learned that I need to trust the surgery and trust that it is working even when the scale doesn't show it. I should trust how I feel, how my clothes fit as signs of progress. Most importantly though, I learned I have some truly great friends out there, Kim, Ann and Deluzy, I have to send my heartfelt thanks for really supporting me and keeping me up. You are all amazing women and I am thankful that you are in my life. Y'all rock!!!

I had contemplated doing a whole pipe cleansing routine this weekend, but have decided not to. I have been taking fiber supplements and Colace every night and that seems to have regulated things a little bit and the scale has been moving at a good clip as of late. I started the month at 335.4 lbs. I hit 341.6 lbs on the 20th and as late as the 22nd, I weighed higher than what I started the month. This morning I weighed in at 325.2 lbs for a total loss for the month of 10.2 lbs for a grand total loss of 191.4 lbs. Honey, I will take it! Buh-bye 330's!

I am really going to take Ann's advice and stop thinking about goals in such strict parameters -- losing X lbs by Y date. I don't think it helps and I don't think it's healthy, plus it totally bums me out when things go "wrong." I am going to try to focus on the numbers that really matter: grams of protein and ounces of water.

Since it is the end of the quarter, I have a ton of work to do for my company so I'll be spending the weekend indoors, but I do plan on making a trip to the bookstore for a little R&R tomorrow. I haven't been in awhile and it'll be nice to get out to a place I love going to.

Hope y'all have a great weekend!

Reality check....again.

I've been doing a lot of thinking and (over)analyzing my nutrition over the last 2-3 weeks and I think I have pinpointed my problem. Stop me if you've heard this one before -- not enough protein. Here's how I came to this conclusion. I started working the new job May 21. This is not a physical job, but my entire day includes two hilly walks and a few trips up and down a flight of stairs. Much more exercise than I had been getting at my previous job. I think this increased activity warranted an increase in protein, not a lot, but I should have paid attention to this fact. Second, I stopped being anal about (1) what I eat and (2) tracking it. I had been eating breakfast at work (eggs & sausage) with my usual snacks (protein bar) and lunch and dinner without really ensuring that the numbers are where they should be. I've been eyeballing it for weeks and I shouldn't. I think -- no, I know -- my protein has been slipping and other crap had been finding it's way in. Then I went on vacation and although I was eating a lot, I wasn't in familiar territory and wasn't nearly eating as often and so when I started to really think about what I was eating during those 5 days, I was maybe getting in 60 or 70 grams of protein although at the time I thought I was doing okay. Big mistake, tack on all the late nights, more activity and voila!

I've been screwing up and I think a lot of that was the anxiety I was feeling about going home and seeing my family and just being in this weird "middle" space of my weight loss. Seeing the scale move up really messed with my brain and it's scary to feel those old feelings of being a failure and thinking this is as good as it gets. I am back on track and sitting here, I still find myself afraid that I broke my DS and I won't lose any more weight. It scares me that I had strayed so far from the path, y'know, and I found myself rationalizing it. I don't like it and it's something I need to work on and probably will need to work on for a very long time.

You'd think after 9 1/2 months I would know better, maybe I am hard headed, I don't know, but I am keeping my fingers crossed that this isn't it for me and that doing what I know to do will get the scale moving in the right direction. I seriously was not going to write this post, but I think it's important for everyone to see my mistakes as well as my successes. I am really, REALLY looking forward to my support group meeting Thursday, I need to go and need the reinforcement from my DS peeps.