Monday....

Ok, I guess I did over do it this weekend and the scale reminded me of it. Today is my weigh in day, but I don't even want to post my weight. I'm up 2 pounds. I'm going to post my weight and then if I go down throughout the week, I'm going to post a mid week post. I went up 2 pounds. I think all my brunch is still digesting and I made popcorn last night for the family while we enjoyed a movie. Latley, I'm finding popcorn goes down perfectly and I'm not feeling full quickly anymore like I used to. I can eat lots of it and I did. I had a super light dinner, and then gorged on popcorn. I did go on a long bike ride with my family yesterday. We take this great little trail near a river bottom. There is no traffic, so we can ride for miles with the kids and not worry about cars and stuff. We ride to a park and the kids played and ate ice cream and then we rode back. Probably 6 miles total. I feel good about that and I'm not too worried about my weight gain because I'm convinced it won't stick and hopefully will be down a bit tomorrow. I am, however, going to make it to the gym today. Need to get in that exercise and I want to get committed again and exercise regularly. I have been a total slacker the last few weeks.

I'm also really feeling restriction and when I pay attention to my stomach and not my head, I do get full rather quickly. It's also confusing because certain times I get full quick and other times it takes a little while. I guess that is just common for the band. I really need to get to know my limits and stop when it seems I should be full. I still think I need about .5 cc in my band and still plan to do it, but I can't help but wonder if I am close to the sweet spot or at the sweet spot and just expected it to be different than it is. I have had a few times where things get stuck and I run to the sick and kind of cough and make myself burp and it fixes it. Only one or two instances where it kind of comes up, but not violent vomit or anything. Nothing that would seem to make my band slip and it doesn't last long. I'm not the type of person who throws up often, not even when I drink too much. Others are puking when they drink too much, not me, I am just sick the next day and in bed all day with a headache. So, my point is, maybe I'm just not going to be the type of person who gets sick all the time and has to PB when I eat wrong. I get a little pain when I don't chew enough and after the first bite with pain, I usually am reminded to slow down and chew more, and I usually get full pretty quickly when I feel that pain.

Sorry for going on. These are just some random thoughts that have been going through my mind with the band and all. Maybe I am where I need to be, but just expected it to be different. Maybe I'm comparing my experience with others too much. All I know is I need to get serious with my eating and exercising and quit wasting time yo yoing back and forth with the same 27 pounds. I want to get to 30, then 35, then 40 and so on. I havn't come close to my goals yet. I was thinking I'd have lost 40 pounds by june, but I don't think that is going to happen. I need to get serious.

Great weekend :)

Had a great weekend. Me and my hubby went to a UB40 concert. We have always loved that band and they were playing at the casino close to our house, so we went and had the best time. The kids stayed overnight at my parents and we were able to go to breakfast together in the morning before picking up the kids.

I felt pretty good about my eating this weekend. I was trying to stop when I felt full and wasn't eating very much. I'm happy that I'm feeling my restriction. I've been avoiding most breads and carbs and such because they seem to be uncomfortable when I eat them. I do find though, that they do give me that full feeling quite quickly. Before the concert, we went to grab a drink and have some appetizers instead of a big dinner. We got hot wings and onion rings. I know, not so good, but I had my glass of wine before eating and then only ate two wings and about 4 onion rings and I was quite full, so I decided to stop. So, I don't think that was so bad. Before the band, I would have eaten like 8 wings and 15-20 onion rings and still probably be able to eat more. I had several drinks that evening, but we were at a concert and having so much fun. This morning at brunch, I was a little concerned as to how it would go, but I feel pretty good about it. I did over eat, but that is what you do at a brunch. We went to El Torrito (a Mexican resturant chain in California) and I love their salads, so I started with a small salad, a small piece of salmon. Then went back for a little more salad, a sausage, and a small taco (only ate the meat). I ended with a plate of select desserts (carrot cake, churro, rice pudding, bannana crepe) I took about a bite of each of them and was done. Not too bad, right? I ate like 4 hours ago and I'm still stuffed. I think I'll eat a very light dinner tonight and tomorrow is my weekly weigh in day. I hope I've lost.

Filling my fill......

I forgot to mention....I felt my fill again yesterday at lunch and dinner. I don't know if it takes me a week or so for my fill to kick in or what. Does that happen to anyone else??? it seems like the last two fills took a while before I started feeling them. I know we are on liquids and mushies for a while and maybe I'm just unconciously continuing to eat slider foods without thinking and not feeling the fill. I don't think I do that because I can't wait to get off mushies and actually start before I'm supposed to, but just can't stand the liquid thing. I'm never sure where I stand on my fill immediatly after and then after I start eating solids I'm always dissappointed and then a week later, when I'm really dissappointed, my band (Tina as Amy would say) rears it's wonderful little head and reminds me that it is there (I think we should all name our bands). Also, another thing was when I had my too tight fill, I was on the rag and I keep hearing on Lap band talk that we are tighter during our period. My next fill is scheduled at around the same time, which dissappoints me. I was hoping to get in this Tues, but his schedule is full. I'm on the waiting list, but I'm not holding my breath. I have to wait until the 12th of May, which will be right around my period again. I hope it doesn't effect my fill.

Gotta run the kids to school.

Fun Night...Bad eating

So last night was so fun just spending time with some of my friends from high school and childhood and my mom and her friends too. As far as the game goes, the younger crowd (we are in our late 30's, but the mom's are in their 60's, so we are the younger crowd) never really played and the older crowd hadn't played in so long, that we kind of had trouble remembering the rules and how to actually play the game. It was like the blind leading the blind. Anyway, this was like a leaning game since we were keeping score all wrong and all, but next month we will have it all together. It was still lots of fun.

As far as eating goes, I didn't do so well. I don't have any will power and get me in a room with wine, food and friends and I go wild. Needless to say, I'm not weighing in today. I'm going to put it out there and tell you all the bad stuff I ate and let it go:

B: Protein Drink

L: cottage cheese, protein drink, chicken roll up (2/3)

Snack: carrots

Dinner: 1 soft pork taco

Bunco: Drumroll.............
small pastrami sandwich (small rolls not too much)
some bread with spinach dip
small piece of strawberry pie
2 chocolate chip cookies
1 glass wine

So, I did great all day and went wild at Bunco. If this is going to be a monthly thing, I'm going to have to get a strategy down. Like maybe, on that night, eat a good dinner before I go and I will be allowed 1 and only 1 dessert as a treat and maybe a glass of wine or two. That would be a nice treat once a month huh??

Anyway, I wore my size 14 jeans and one of my new size XL bouses and my hubby said I looked really good. He's so good with the compliments and he makes me feel good too!!

BTW, just an update on my dad. He went home from the hospital the day after his surgery. We are still waiting on the results from pathology to see if they got everything, but the Surgeon felt very confident that they did. My dad always is very good at recovery whenever he has surgery. I mean, when he had the gastric bypass surgery (8 or so years ago), he lost so much weight so fast, that the Dr. used him as a poster example and he is on their brochures and is even on a commercial as well as their website. Anyway, thanks for all your thoughts and well wishes for my dad. He's doing great!!!

A much better day.

Every morning when I wake up, I touch my tummy area to see if it feels slimmer or not. My weight is the first thing I think about when I wake up and the last thing I usually think about when I go to bed. This morning, I woke up not feeling particularly slimmer and deciding wheather to weigh myself or not. I decided to do it and hope for it to be the same as yesterday and to not have gained, especially after my sad day yesterday. Well, low and behold, I lost like 1.5 pounds. Go figure, I can't figure this weight thing out for the life of me. And remember how I was complaining about not feeling restriction? Well, I still think I need a slight fill, but yesterday, I made myself a chicken roll up and could only eat half of it as I was feeling quite full and had to chew better because I was feeling it. Then, I was eating some raw carrots and felt those too. Maybe I just need to blog about it and then the problem gets solved.

So, needless to say, I think today is going to be a great day.

I have this terrible habbit of eating while I'm driving. I go about my day running errands and such then find myself starving and then I make terrible choices such as going through a drive thru or something. So, I like to try to pack something to take with me for when I get hungry. I've started taking a little baggy of carrots and it works great. I can throw them in my purse and when I'm feeling hungry, I just pop them in my mouth and chew well and all is good. I curb my hunger and get a veggie in at the same time. I especially like to eat something while I'm driving, it used to be chips and french frys, so carrots work.

I don't know if I mentioned, but my mom and my good childhood friends have started a Bunco group and tonight is our first game. I'm very excited. There will be good food and maybe wine, so I'm going to try to be really good today so that I can have a little bit tonight.

BTW, Thanks Amy for all your great adivce and for listening to me and responding so quickly. I did call to schedule a small fill, but they can't get me in for another month. Bummer, by then I might need a full cc, but I hope I don't go throught this whole too tight, unfill thing again. I asked them to put me on a waiting list for a cancellation for next week. We'll see :)

Back from shopping and feeling better.....

Hi all, I'm back from my shopping trip and feeling so much better. I've mentioned before that I'm kind of a bargain shopper. I love the clearance racks and especially so when I'm buying clothes that, hopefully, won't fit me for very long. So, sometimes, I just shop to try on things and see what size I am and what fits. When I started this journey, I was a solid size 18 and today, I was trying on size 14's and they all fit. Not too tight, not too big, just perfect size 14 on the bottom. Yeah!!! Talk about a boost to my depressing mood. I didn't buy any bottoms, nothing on sale, so I'll wait and maybe I'll be an 11 by then. I have like 3 pairs of shorts that fit me good right now. I did go to Ross and bought 2 blouses. I love Ross. Not sure if it's all over the country, but here in Southern CA, its a great store. They have all sizes in one store and great prices. Anyway, I'm a size XL on top, so that means I've finally crossed over that threshold from plus sizes to regular sizes. When I started that journey, that was a major reason I wanted to loose weight and I said I'd be happy just to be able to shoppe in normal stores and wear normal size clothes. So, when I'm upset that the scale isn't moving for me, I'm going to remember that I have accomplished quite a bit and 27 pounds is pretty damn good!!

BTW, off the subject of the band, remember how I got a small job doing some transcription work from home?? well, another job just landed in my lap doing customer service from home. I've been training for the job for the past 3 days and it seems pretty good. Not one of those work from home scams where you have to pay them to work for them. This is a legitimate work from home job. So, I will be making a little extra cash to help pay for this lap band.

Feeling Down...

Hi all, I'm feeling a little down and frustrated today. This whole band thing is getting a little frustrating for me. I had surgery back in Jan (3 months ago). First fill, no restriction, 2nd fill a slight difference, but not enough, 3rd fill too much, painful, so I had 1cc taken out and now I'm feeling hardly any restriction again. Can this thing really be this touchy?? or am I just doing it all wrong?? I read everyone's posts and how they ate this and it got stuck, and how they could only take a few bites of this and I can not relate at all. I mean, when I was too full, I finally felt restriction, but it was just too painful and a little scary to not be able to drink water during certain times of the day. I keep thinking to give it a little time and maybe the restriction will kick in, but it hasn't. Do I call the Dr. and schedule another fill?? He's going to think I'm nuts. I go in for a fill a week ago, call a few days later complaining it too tight and then call again for a fill. WTF!! I'm gaining weight daily it seems. Also, I'm at 8cc in my band. Everyone else seems to find restriction with much less and I feel like my band is reaching full capacity. Am I going to be the only person in bandland to be at full capacity and still eat anything I want??

Sorry for this depressing blog....maybe I'll go out shopping, that always makes me feel better.