2 YEAR BANDIVERSARY

This time two years ago, I was sitting on the couch recovery from lap band surgery. In reflection, I am no where near where I wanted to be at this time. I thought at two years I would be at my ideal weight. I started off strong and then fizzled out. The forward momentum I had went by the wayside in December when I got the unfill and I have never regained my success since.

Do I regret surgery? Um...let's see, I am 100 lbs lighter so the answer is emphatically NO!!! I have kept off 100 lbs for more than a year. I lost that weight in about a year or less, a year ago. I really thought I would be down about 180 lbs now. So I have at least another 80 lbs to lose. It is heartbreaking to see I haven't lost any weight. I weight the same I did a year ago. The 25 or so lbs I lost between last year this time and December I have gained back. I have been sitting back at 100lb weight loss since December. So I have held that weight for 5 months with no gain back beyond that 25 lbs. Interesting. Silver lining maybe?

Today is my NEW YEAR. Time to make resolutions. Resolve to kick start my system. I will not accept that I have lost all the weight I am going to lose. I want to get to ideal weight so I can have surgery to remove this excess skin on my abdomen and arms. I would be so much more happy if I didn't have this huge stomach apron and very heavy hanging skin on my arms. What should my new resolution be? Get more active? At this point that is probably the best I can promise. I hate exercise to the point I will find any reason not to do it or a reason to give up after I have started. I know that I am not getting enough food or the right amounts of food. I need to get that situated out.

My eating for the past two weeks has been weird. I find that I am not hungry in the mornings at breakfast. So, I will have a smoothie or a cappuccino. Sometime between getting up at 5am and noon for lunch I will have a banana and some popcorn. Lunch I eat about 3/4 of whatever I have. I then eat some more popcorn (individual pre-popped bags) between lunch and going home at 5pm. I fix dinner between 5:30 and 6. I eat for about 5 minutes then BAM!! Stuck tight. So tight it has not choice but to come up due to the sliming. So for two weeks I have not been able to eat dinner foods. I can't  understand it. I end up eating a bowl of cereal. That I can eat but cannot eat any solid proteins at dinner only.

Oddly enough yesterday and today was a different story. Yesterday no breakfast but ate most of my burger, no bun, with avocado for lunch. Dinner we ate at a restaurant on our way out of town. No problems eating. Breakfast today was a bacon, sausage, cheese, spinach omelet at the hotel. I ate 3/4 of this HUGE omelet. Had some hot chocolate and apple juice a little later. Did lots of activities then ate lunch at Mitchell's Fish Market. I had fish and chips. The fried fish was a very light cornmeal batter that melted in your mouth. The cod was flaky. Nothing greasy. We had 3 small pieces of fish on our platters. I ate 2 1/2 pieces of fish ad would have eaten it all but I was full so full that I could feel the food at the top back of my throat.  No problems.More activities and walking.  Dinner was another restaurant where I had two chicken wings and loaded potato soup. Again no problems. As you can guess we were out of town. So after not being able to eat dinners and not eating breakfast for about 2 weeks, suddenly food was not an issue today. We went without the kids so maybe that is the reason.No stress. Dinner may be too stressful for me to eat. I eat lunch at work and no problems.

Well, time to re-evaluate where I am and where I want to be.

Nearly a Month

Wow, it has been nearly a month since I last wrote. What words could describe the last month?
Frustrated, depressed, inadequate, lonely...the list could go on. I think the biggest word would be failure.

Yes I feel like a failure. At some things, not everything. My weight has been at a standstill. My set back in December has really set me back big time. I weight exactly what I did a year ago. I lost additional weight by December then gained it back but am sitting at the same weight. No more gaining but not losing either. It is depressing. I don't want a fill because I can't eat much. Here is my typical day;

Breakfast: eggs w/laughing cow or a bowl of cereal
Lunch: 3/4 of a burger, no bun or 3/4 chicken nachos, no chips
Dinner: a small grilled pork chop or 1/2 chicken breast and 1/4 c green beans
Snacks: 1/4c trail mix, wheat thin chips or individual bag of popcorn

I only drink Vitamin Water Zero. So my thoughts are that maybe I am not getting enough calories. I know a person needs a certain amount of calories just for your body to function. I just don't know anymore.

I have still lost 100 lbs total after the weight gain in December. That is still  a huge accomplishment but I want more. I want to lose more.

What to do?
Exercise? I don't know. I have a big problem with hip pain. My hip locks up / catches in the middle of the night. It is extremely painful. It isn't because I am laying on the hip either. If I am laying on my left side then my right hip will lock up. It makes no sense. I did some research on the Internet and I may have a labral tear in my hip. I need to find time to get to the doctor and get this checked out. It is prohibiting me from getting around. I find myself sitting around a lot now rather than getting up and moving around. That concerns me.

More of a concern to me is my daughter. She is 8 years old and weighs 93 lbs. Her weight keeps going up and up. Poor thing. She eats way too much and when we cut her off, she gets very hostile. She will scream at us that she is hungry. I am concerned for her. I am getting her brother to help in the efforts. My 13 yr old son is a twig. Unlike the rest of us he can eat whatever he wants as much as he wants and he stays thin. He is 5'9" and weighs 140.5 lbs. He likes to tease her about her weight. I have put a stop to that explaining what he does to her when he does that. There is a competition between them. Whenever there is food, there is an argument on how much they get and who gets to eat the rest of it. For example, pizza. We order pizza. It comes and they immediately start arguing over how many slices they get and actually will take the slices and stack them on a plate so the other one can't get them. She will eat them all. He on the other hand stops eating after one or two slices. If there is a bag of chips. They will ask if they can have the rest and it might be a full bag. I say no then they get mad and refuse to eat any. Okay no skin off back. Don't eat it. I have stopped buying chips, even though my husband wants them. He also wants ice cream sandwiches which my daughter loves and will eat because her Dad allows it. I refuse to buy them. If they want sweets, I buy fruit Popsicle only.

We need help. Desperately. I need help to lose more weight. It is getting hard for me to get around again.