Life goes on

So I've just been plugging along. Doing well with the eating and exercising some days, not as well the others. Still working on it.

Cheating

Hi from Charleston! I just got here (around 10 pm) so I won't get to see that sweet baby until morning. I can't wait!

I totally cheated tonight. On the way here, I did something I haven't done in a long time - stopped at McDonalds for dinner. I haven't had McDs in 6 weeks since I started all of the special diets. Also - I got a Diet Coke! I haven't had one since I gave them up 2 months ago. And guess what? It was gross. Hated it. All of it - even the coke. I couldn't even eat it. Before I would eat it when I wasn't even hungry.

So I guess I really am changing, which is a good thing. I know I have to be careful so I don't change back. But it makes me feel like I really can do this thing. I've been worried because one of the benefits of the RNY surgery is that you get sick when you eat things you shouldn't. In the past, that hasn't exactly stopped me from eating them. But tonight I learned that it can. And it will.

Happy long weekend!

Total meltdown

I completely melted down today. I'm so tired from running, running, running all the time and trying to think about what I'm eating and getting my exercise in and all the other 1,000,000 things that go along with preparing for this surgery in addition to the job and being in a new city and all. Of course, I had less than 5 minutes for my meltdown. So I don't know if that really counts or not.

Here's what prompted the meltdown - I fell in the shower. I had about 20 minutes to shower and get ready to go back out (cards with the girls!) and I got in and fell down. *Side note - I've been feeling very off-balance lately. I've almost fallen several times. Hmmmm* I wasn't hurt, but it shook me up. You know how falling can do that? And I did grab the shower curtain on the way back down and it pulled the rod out of the wall a little bit so now I have to call and get them to fix that.

Here's what I melted about - I went to work out with Bryan today and it was fine. He weighed me and I've lost 5 pounds since last week. Which is great. I know it is. I'm excited about it. It means that, since the liver shrinking diet, I've lost a total of 20 pounds (some of those pounds I've lost twice - put them back on and lost them again :) ) Which I am happy about. But here's the thing - I still don't look any different. I don't feel any different. And even my clothes aren't fitting me any better. There are two things I do notice - I fit into my jeans straight out of the dryer. (But once they're on, they feel the same as they did before once I had worn them a little bit) And I have to work harder to get my heart rate up. Which I know is a good sign, but all it really means is I'm working out really hard and my heart rate is like "*yawn* whatever. I'll just stay here in this mediocre range" Shouldn't I at least feel better or have more energy or something? Or my clothes feel a little loose? Generally, losing 20 pounds will take you down a whole size! Maybe my clothes were just really tight before...

Getting my butt kicked by 10 year olds

I have such a hard time with taking things slowly - I've been working out with Bryan for about 2 months now, so I am convinced that I should be able to do anything at all! Um, that is definitely not true. Remember how Zumba kicked my butt last week? So, ask me what I did. Go ahead. (And no, I didn't go back to Zumba)

I tried a different class. Basic Step. An introductory class. Advertised as "family friendly". There were three 10 year olds there - fresh from field day, no less! They kicked my butt. Totally kicked it. I'm not even going to mention their perfectly-clad high-energy jumping around mothers. I had to stop several times "for water". And I did some of the exercises on the floor instead of using the step. DANG it was hard work. Of course my heart rate was way too high, so that was another reason I took some water breaks. Live and learn. I'm pretty good and the living part - it's the "learning" I'm having trouble with. Remind me not to go back and do that again, ok?

My new water bottle came yesterday! On Dawn's recommendation, I ordered a Sigg water bottle. Mine looks like this:

I'm super excited about it and had fun carrying it around today. I'll admit, I like it because it's pretty :) But it's a good water bottle, too and we all know how important water is! I need to order the thing that goes around it with a caribiner attached, though, to make it easier to carry.
I also ordered an awesome lunch bag since I have to take my lunch now. Although you can see it's awesomeness from the picture, when I tell you that it has a zipper, you'll be even more wowed by it. Ready? It has a zipper. A red one.Clearly, I still need to work on short posts. Oh, well. It is about 8:15 on a Friday night and I'm about to head off to bed. It has been a busy, busy week.

Make new friends, but keep the old...

one is silver, and the other gold! (can you hear me singing it?!?! I hope I sound better in your head than I do in real life)

One great thing about getting ready to have this surgery is that I'm meeting some really great new people. Tonight I met some girls from the OH board to plan some social events for the Richmond area. It was a lot of fun. I will admit to being overwhelmed - we were loud, and all talking at once about 15 different things. But I met some great new people, and I look forward to getting to know them better. When Theresa sends me the pictures, I'll post one :)

I met with the doctor today - I've been to the "the Center" 3 days in a row this week to meet with Lisa the nutritionist (Mon), Sgt. Bryan (Tue), and Dr. Powell (Wed). They've all been very encouraging and told me that I'm doing well. I know that I'm not doing as well as I could (or maybe even should!) be, but it's good to know that they are happy with the progress I'm making. I'm working hard at it, but there's always one more thing to do...I guess life is like that.

Speaking of, Sue (the "life coach" - the only one I didn't officially see this week, although we did chat when I ran into her in the office) thinks I should try hypnosis to see if I can get past gagging on nasty foods. Hmmmm.... She gave me the card of a hypnotist that she recommends. Still thinking on that one.

Alas, I broke the watch

Ok, I didn't BREAK the watch, but I did mess it up a little bit. It turns out that I did something that messed up the calorie counting (I have no idea what I did. Don't ask.) So I didn't ACTUALLY burn 1630 calories at Zumba. Oh, well. I enjoyed the thought while it lasted. I did work hard, though :) Off to Game Club!

Forgiveness follows failure

So it's Friday and I am STILL a bit sore from Tuesday's workout with Bryan. Wow. Maybe I need to learn not to work out until it stops hurting. But I have to work out at least 4 times between visits and if I wait two days to heal up then I absolutely have to do every day until then. See what I'm saying? I did a new water aerobics class yesterday - it was ok. Then, brilliant as I am, I decided that I was ready to try a class not in the water. So I went to Zumba tonight. There was some belly dancing, some salsa dancing, and a whole lot of shimmying and hip shaking. It was actually kind of fun, but it kicked my butt. Clearly, I'm not ready for that yet. My heart rate monitor is supposed to keep me in my "moderate" zone, but I spent the entire class well into the "high" zone tonight. Don't know how the sgt. is going to feel about that, but I didn't want to quit. And I didn't - I finished the class! And, on the "good news" front, I burned 1630 calories in just over an hour!

Today was the end of Teacher Appreciation Week (I have been very much appreciated all week - the parents have been wonderful) and my kids all brought in gifts today. The PTA sent out a survey waaaaay back (as in before "Boot Camp" started) asking us about our favorite things. So for my favorite morning drink, I put Diet Cherry Coke. Which it is. I love it. But I can't have it anymore. I got two 12-packs and a 20-oz bottle today. Also got a bunch of caramels, which I love but can't have. And mucho gift certificates to Bill's Barbeque, which I love but probably is not high in Nutripoints. But that's ok. They were really sweet to do it, and except for one caramel on the way home (ok, two caramels - but that was IT) I've been ok with resisting it so far. I'm giving away the coke and the candy and taking my friends out to Bill's - because it would be ok for me to eat there once. Just not $40 worth of times. :) I also got several nice gift certificates to other places, which will be fun to spend.

Sgt. Bryan strikes again!

OH. MY. GOODNESS. I worked out with Bryan yesterday and I am sooooooooo sore today. My abs, butt and thighs are mucho painful. I don't know if it's because I didn't go last week due to being sick, or just because of something extra we did. He said he almost made me do 3 sets of lunges. If we had done that, I don't know that I would have been able to walk today :)

Didn't do as good a job today with the Nutripoints system, but I'm determined that tomorrow will be a better day. It was still better than a day before I was on it, so that's something I suppose.

Nutripoints Day 1

So Nutripoints was not bad at all today - it was actually one of those days when I would have rather not eaten at all. Cooking is such a pain. No wonder I ate at drive-throughs so often. When you go all day and get home at 8, who wants to cook? But I took a sandwich, an OJ, and some broccoli for lunch today. The goal is to get in 6 servings of veggies, 4 of fruits, 3 of grains, 4 of legumes and/or meats, and 2 of milk/dairy in a day. I end up drinking most of my fruits and veggies which is fine. There is also a point assigned to each food - the higher the points, the better the food is for you (more nutrition per calorie). You are also supposed to hit a certain number of points per day, but right now my goal is to get in all the right servings, while eating only foods with a positive point value. Now potatoes in several forms - including frozen french fries - are on my approved veggie list, but I am trying to get no more than 2 of my veggie servings from potatoes. I know that my "points" are nowhere near where they're supposed to be because I'm mainly eating from the low end of the spectrum - I probably get 50 points a day where you're supposed to get 150. But it's a big change for me anyway. I'll keep working on it.

Tomorrow it's back to see Sgt. Bryan for my workout and meeting with Sue the Life Coach. I was so bad last week (although I legitimately was sick and missed my apt. with Bryan), I'm embarrassed to go back, but I will. It's not going to get any easier!

Happy Cuatro de Mayo!

I'm ready to give the Nutripoints system a try starting tomorrow. It really wouldn't be fair of me to criticize it so much without giving it a try. So hopefully I will start to see some positive results - and, after all, I am committed to some major lifestyle changes here.

I think I've realized the piece that's been missing in my WLS journey - God. How can I do this without him? That's big *duh* that's been smacking me in the face these past couple of days. So I'm really going to work on seeking His guidance and leaning on Him for making this work.

LSD thoughts

Well, I've been off the dreaded Liver Shrinking Diet for 3 days now, which is awesome! Getting ready to get started with the next phase of my nutrition plan - the Nutripoints system. I'm sooooo not psyched about this. It doesn't work well with what I like to eat (which I know is not healthy things, but still) and involves a lot of cooking, which I rarely do. I'm not happy with my nutritionist, because she doesn't seem terribly willing to be flexible and help me figure out a way to make it work for me. Her two comments were, "Maybe you're not ready for the surgery yet" and "Well, this is the program we do here so this is it". It's not a program that I can do post-op, so I'm feeling pretty negative about it and trying to get past that for right now.

But back to the ever-exciting LSD. Since it was a new idea to have patients do it this far out from surgery to "jump start weight loss and get them motivated", I've been collecting my thoughts. Not that anyone has asked. But I may share them anyway.

Positives:

• I lost 16 pounds in 2 weeks.
• I didn't die. Which is to say that I learned that I can live through it - and that, while I was cranky, I could have fun even when it wasn't centered around food.

Negatives:

• I was very cranky and irritable the entire two weeks, although not really hungry.
• It was inconvenient - I couldn't go out to eat with friends, had to be sure I had my special foods with me wherever I went.
• This far out from surgery I'm not sure I'm comfortable telling everyone, and it makes it hard not to. I didn't really want to just tell half-truths - "It's part of a new diet program I'm doing" or make up stores - "I'm not feeling well", but I did both some. I did end up telling some people that I wasn't ready to tell (co-workers).
• I didn't get to have my surgery at the end of it, and went a little wild food-wise the day after it was over.
• It was hard to be motivated to do it, since jump-starting my weight loss did not seem like a good enough reason to me to be put through this. It did not make me feel motivated. I can understand having to do it to shrink the liver for surgery, but this didn't make much sense to me which made it much more difficult.
• I felt like I was secretly being tested to see if I could do it.
• My nutritionist, who put me on the program, didn't have a complete understanding of what the diet was supposed to be, so for the first week I had to eat that nasty sandwich every night.

So, overall, despite the fact that my jeans are a little bit looser, this was a very negative, discouraging experience for me. And people telling me that other people had harder diets (I don't believe it for a minute - NO ONE else I have ever heard of has to do this for four weeks. And people who have to do all liquids usually only do it for a day or two) or that this was a good thing to get me prepared for surgery only made me more irritated. I'm having a really hard time with the whole thing right now and questioning everything. It's hard planning for something which is so far away. My surgeon's support group meets once a month and I've been to two already and will go to one more before my surgery. Then there's one the day after I have my surgery (I'll still be in the hospital, so won't go) It's hard seeing everyone else losing so much weight when I'm so far out and not really being able to relate to much of what they're saying. On my online message board I see people come in new and have their surgery quickly while I don't get to do that.

So, I'm sorry - I feel like a lot of my posts about this are negative. I've been trying to make all these changes - exercising 5 days a week, giving up diet soda, giving up FOOD for two weeks, now this Nutripoints thing - most of which have been very, very hard and I'm just not feeling better because of it. It's been about 6 weeks since I first started exercising and 4 since I gave up soda and I have yet to feel better. In fact, I feel worse. I'm very much an instant gratification junkie and this is hard. I'm going to try and post positive things next time :)