101 That's how it's done!!

Well I have hit a milestone! 101 lbs gone by the wayside!!

I am so excited about this. In 10 months I have lost 101 lbs to never be heard from again. This is something I would have never dreamed of a year ago. I owe all of this to my band. THANK YOU LAP BAND!!

I have discovered something about myself which I have mentioned before. I would not be able to do this without the band. I have absolutely no willpower whatsoever. When my band is loose so are my lips as I like to say. Even after 10 months I still fall back into the same habits instantly. In my opinion the band is perfect for someone who has portion control issues. I think my success is due in part to the fact that while I can eat and often choose to healthy foods I eat large quantities of those foods which everyone knows even a lot of a good thing can make it bad. I eat whatever I want and sometimes it is not a good thing but I eat a controlled portion. This is the key to my success. I still try to overeat but my band says "I don't think so" and I pay the price. I hate to admit this but when given the opportunity I will try to overeat again knowing full well the consequences that my band provides. So I DEFINITELY know without this band I will fail. It's a harsh reality but a reality none the less and one I am glad to have.

My life is so much more now. My social phobia is lessened considerably. I still get a little panicked and sometimes I just can't do it but for the most part I am able to overcome the feeling. That is huge for me. I am more outgoing I think and I am certainly more vocal about my surgery. I don't care who knows. I think my letting people know from the beginning was actually a good thing. At times I was hurt and pained by their responses but I think it drove me more to be successful. I wasn't only accountable to myself but in part to the people around me who knew and was watching what I did. I didn't want them to see me fail anymore than I wanted to fail. It was an extra incentive. I wasn't doing this for them so that is not what I am saying but I was doing it for my own satisfaction of knowing they see me succeed despite their at times crude comments. Now those same people are amazed at how far I have come. It feels good for people to come say I have lost weight and then ask me how. I tell them proudly, LAPBAND. Why lie? It's a fact and maybe someone they know or that person themselves may need to hear a success story with the band to help with a decision.

I know there are still those out there that think surgery is a cop out. The easy way out, well I am here to tell you there is nothing easy about lapband. At times it is the hardest thing I have ever done but very rewarding. I see and feel the direct result of the band. The best investment ever made.

I am thankful most to those that have helped me do this. Without each and every one of you I would not be where I am today. THANK YOU FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!!

Dr Update

I went for my mammogram/ultrasound today. I have several very large cysts in both breasts. What she said was odd is that she can't feel them but the ultrasound shows them. She doesn't feel it is anything to be concerned about so I go back in 6 months to check it out again to monitor them. Good news I guess.

I was nervous about today and even after the appointment I got stuck eating. I have had problems all day and ended up getting sick big time. It was rough when it caused my stomach to cramp like it would if I had a stomach bug. Heave- Ho!! It was not pretty.

I am hoping for some good days so eating is not such an ordeal.

I came up with a new recipe that I will be posting soon. It is for Sour Cream Chicken Enchiladas. I LOVE them. Try them and I hope you like it.

More later on...

A beautiful day in the neighborhood

The weather in Kentucky is gorgeous right now! Okay, Monday we had sleet but the past few days 70+ degree weather. Today is cooler at 64 but sunny just the same.

It's weather that makes you want to get out and get moving. Today I promised my daughter she could ride her scooter so we are taking the dogs for a walk a little later on. Then I plan on grilling out and enjoy the day.

Turkey burgers are on the menu tonight. These are the most moist scrumptious burgers. I will just have mine on a bed of lettuce and I will slather on a wedge of laughing cow lite.

Mini Turkey Burgers


Serves 6 (banders) Form into 3 regular patties for normal servings

Prep Time: 5 minutes

Cook time: 10 minutes



Ingredients:

1 lb ground turkey

1/4 c. chunky applesauce

1tbsp poultry seasoning

2 tbsp Maple syrup

1/4 tsp salt

1/2 tsp ground pepper

1/4 c. shredded white cheddar (optional)



Directions:



Mix all ingredients together just until blended. Don't overwork it.

Divide into 6 mini burgers

Spray skillet with cooking spray

Cook burgers about 5 min on each side or until cooked through



Serve immediately without bread for banders, with usual burger toppings or lite mayo. Another option is to mix some cranberry relish with mayo and serve as a sauce.

Stress and the every day

Stress is an important factor in lap band do's and don'ts. Stress for whatever reason causes the band to be tighter and swallowing a chore as much as the eating is. What to do? No matter how careful I am the trials of life creep up and cause the most unlikely foods to cause problems.

Yesterday and today have been days of trial for me. I have had a lot of problems swallowing and I know it is because of the stress. Yesterday we found out my husband has an enlarged heart/aortic aneurysm. It's not surgery worthy at this point so that is the good news but I am still very worried none the less. Today I get a phone call from my GYN about my test results from my mammogram last week. She said that I have an area of density in the right one and several nodules with asymmetry in both. I have to go have a diagnostic mammogram and ultrasound done on Tuesday. As I am talking to the doctor's office my husband brings in the mail with a letter from them telling me this as well and also his labs that show he has high cholesterol which does not help his enlarged heart. Good news anyone?? Because of all of this I wasn't able to eat a meal. It kept getting stuck. I just need some good news so maybe I can eat today. I don't want to resort to liquids. I tried all my tricks for swallowing and still couldn't get anything to go down.

What's a person to do? You can't help what stress brings you? You can do what you can but in the end no matter what you do you can't help the stress.

I will follow up after my test on Tuesday. I am supposed to get the results on Tuesday. Wish me luck!!

Eating is driving me crazy

So Tuesday nothing would stay down. It would get stuck and up it came. I had eggs for breakfast and up it came. After my doctor's appointment I was starving so I stopped at Taco Bell for a bean burrito. Two bites, up it came and came and came. I tried hot cider and up that came. I gave up for a while. I went shopping at Walmart and my stomach screamed with hunger pangs. I bought some rice pudding there and when I got home I ate that with no problems. I then went on to eat nacho casserole for dinner. No problems. Today I get up and eat my eggs, without issue. I get to work and my boss bought me breakfast from our fundraiser so I had pancakes, bacon and juice. I couldn't not eat it because she was thinking of me. I had one pancake, a couple strips of bacon, no problem. Dang that was a good pancake. There were three but I put the other two up. I figured one was plenty. Not a good sign. I ate all of this of between 8:15 am and 10 am. I ate white chili for lunch around 1:30 and even though my stomach was clearly full after half of it, I ate it all. I was full but not prairie dogging. Meaning my food would be close to popping back up. I then ate rice pudding about 3 hours later. I ate nothing for dinner because I was not hungry. I am not looking forward to seeing the scale for this one.

Back to my doctor appointment, I went in for my annual and for my 1st mammogram since I am now 40. Generally, when you lose a lot of weight your periods slow or stop all together according to my GYN. Not so in my case. I am looking at 2-4 a month and they have gotten worse since the surgery. I had the ablation in 2009 and it didn't work. I have a blood clotting disorder called APS and because of this I can't take any birth control or estrogen to try and regulate it. The only option left is a hysterectomy but that would be elective since it is not necessary. It basically boils down to what I can tolerate. Once the multiple periods a month cause me to not be able to function in life normally then it would be a necessity. Right now it is just a royal pain! I have had issues with PMS and she gave me a prescription for that to take as needed when I feel the symptoms coming on. Other than that, all is good as far as I know. I haven't gotten the results yet.

Well, it is truly is a crapshoot as to whether or not I get stuck. Yesterday, no problems. I ate reasonably. I had eggs for breakfast, yes I have them everyday. I had a chicken wing, I saved the breast, and carrot souffle for lunch. I ate rice pudding, my new addiction, for a light snack. I had my leftover chicken breast on a salad for dinner. That was the extent of my meals yesterday. Nothing got stuck. I didn't overeat. Go figure.

The scale is still sitting the same. No loss, no gain.

I haven't done the Zumba Wii since Sunday. I miss it. I work each night until 8pm and when I get home it is time to spend with my kids before they go to bed. Right now I can only do this on the weekends it seems. Hey, that is better than nothing. I am off today so I plan do the Wii once my son goes to work. I just can't do that with someone around.  The game scores points on how well you keep up with the moves and energy levels. I plan to beat my score today!!

Here's a weird thing.  I can now feel my port under my skin. Not that I am skinny there it's just now more prominent and I am paranoid about damaging it. Before it was safe under the layers of fat now not so much. I also don't do any abdominal exercises because it causes discomfort there and again I am paranoid. I paid cash for my surgery so if anything goes wrong I have to pay out of pocket to fix it so naturally I don't over do it and maybe that is why I hardly do anything at all because I am scared I will mess something up with my band. Any thoughts on that?

Have a great one!

To eat or not to eat...

Well, since my last fill, I have had my share of ups and downs, literally. It seems every day I am tight when I eat. Some days, if I wait it out, it goes down. Others, it comes up. This happens at every single meal. I could be eating something like mashed potatoes and there is a 50/50 chance it will be tight.

I have no idea why this is. I don't need fluid taken because it isn't that kind of tightness. Sometimes I can walk around and gravity helps it go down but sometimes the walking around makes it come up. I just go with the flow and I keep trying to eat until something stays down. No matter what I still choose foods that are good for me rather than copping out and eating something soft and sinful just because it goes down easy. Nothing in life is every easy so why should I give in to this?

I eat something, feel tightness, and I wait it out. I get up walk around or I sit there and relax. Sometimes it works, most times it doesn't on the first try. The key is I try and continue to try until it goes down. Otherwise I sit there with my stomach growling. Today I am trying something different. I tend to not eat anything for hours and hours. I may need to eat a light snack to keep my throat from tightening up or maybe a hot liquid.  I am going to see if that helps at all.

All in all, it's all good. I am still very happy with my decision to have this surgery. Each day reminds me how lucky I am to have it. I am not the least bit sorry even when I am stuck and heaving it up. It is what it is. It is my life now. My oldest daughter thinks I have an eating disorder since I throw up at times. I told her it's not that kind of throwing up. I don't throw up my food just slime, usually the food stays there other than what is stuck. She thinks the band has caused an eating disorder. I guess I can see how that might be misconstrued as that. I am not throwing up to get rid of what I ate but what is stuck. I will continue to eat until it is kept down. That is the difference I think.

My sizes are going down, down, down. I am down to a size 20 from a tight 28/30 in pants. Shirts I wear a 22/2x down from a 32 or 5x and that is because my arms are still so big due to skin and also my midsection, due to skin. I have gone through all of my small clothes and now shop regularly. There is a JCPenney outlet here and I go there once a week to check out what they have. They carry all sorts of overstocks from stores other than JCP. I find Lane Bryant there a lot for pennies compared to the store, which I don't shop at anylonger. I shop at Old Navy and JCP outlet pretty much. It's nice to buy a shirt for $6.99 versus the same shirt at Lane Bryant for $34.50. Talk about a markup!!

I went out and bought Zumba for the Wii on Friday. WOW!! Can I just say it kicked my ass? It isn't like a DVD, its more like animation shadows. As you move it turns green showing you are keeping up with the level of activity. I really don't think I looked like anything zumba-ish but things moved and jiggled the whole time. I was only able to do about 5 minutes of the 1st 20 minute beginner one. I was really sore within an hour after that. That night I hurt in places I didn't think I could. Can you get charlie horses in your butt cheeks? Just sayin, it was a real possibility cause they were hurting BAD!! I skipped yesterday. I didn't want to tempt fate again. I am going to do it today. Wish me luck! I think I am either taking some ibuprofen before I start or right after. When I did aerobics I took it before and it helped with the soreness.

It's 7:46am here so I am getting ready to eat breakfast, I always do within an hour or so of getting up. Sometime mid-morning I have a date with the Wii....Be gentle my Zumba friend.

HOLY MOLY

Wow! It is amazing what .3cc in my band can do. Wednesday, when I had the fill, I didn't notice a big difference other than gurgling. I ate respectively given the new fill. I had a chocolate banana protein shake, sausage potato soup for lunch and dinner.

Thursday I ate just fine. I had 1 egg for breakfast with laughing cow cheese. I had gotten lunch ordered in. Chicken breast, chicken wing, salad, carrot souffle. I only ate the little meat off the wing, about 3 tiny bites of the breast and all of the carrot souffle. It took me 2 hours to finish that. I took the meat left off the chicken breast and shredded it on top of my salad and put that away in the fridge. I ended up eating that for dinner. I didn't get stuck but it was tight after a few bites which made it slow going.

Today has been a WHOLE different story. I tried to eat eggs this morning. Keyword, tried. It wasn't that is was really stuck as it was like my chest/throat tightened up. It was painful after about 4 bites so that was all I ate. A few hours later I tried to go to lunch with my husband and ended up getting "tight" after about 4 bites. I ended up eating 2 bites of refried beans and 2 bites of chimichanga, mostly the meat before I got tight. I brought home almost all of the chimi, refried beans, all of the rice, and the guacamole.  I spit up a little but I didn't throw up. My chest/throat still feels tight and that was 5 hours ago. Atleast I know what I am having for dinner. I am chalking up the tightness to some swelling from the fill. It has been 2 months since my last one so it is like new all over again.

Since having the fill two days ago, I have lost a half pound. It is truly a good feeling to see myself back on track. Once again, I KNOW beyond a shadow of a doubt that without this surgery I would have continued to gain weight because when the band is loose, so are my lips. I go right back to shoveling the food in without a second thought. So much for learning new habits. The only new habit I have kept is no soft drinks. I ocassionally think about a soft drink, even seem to taste it in my mouth when thinking about it, but I have not had a single since my last intake visit March 25, 2010, almost a year now.

So, a random thought here, my surgeon's office said they did a lot of layoffs recently. I am a little concerned with that. This office is usually bustling with people both patients and office workers. It was very quiet and no one was in the waiting room which has never happened before. I sure hope they don't close this office. They have one in a nearby town but it isn't that nearby.

I am eating right now, my leftover lunch, and it is tight going down. It's not a stuck feeling so much as a tightness. It isn't really painful but it feels like to could be at any moment. I am just typing and eating slow, enjoying my meal.

I hope this finds everyone doing well! Check out my updated recipes.

Fill up

I went in today for a fill. I am officially down 95 lbs. I haven't had a fill since December but since this weekend I knew I must get a fill. I was talking to the nurse practioner about it and she said it was good that I came in right away rather than waiting and continue to eat all that food.

Because I haven't had a fill since December, Laura didn't want me to be too tight or uncomfortable with swelling so I got .3cc in my band today.

I had a chocolate banana protein shake for breakfast, sausage potato soup for lunch and dinner. I don't see much difference right now. I remember the last time I got a fill, I was fine for a week then all of a sudden I was tight big time. She told me to give it a few weeks to see how it does.

I simply couldn't be happier. This again was the best decision I ever made and would do again in a heartbeat. If I had it to do over again I wouldn't have waited so long.

Fill 'er up

Well, I think now it is time for a fill. I have PIGGED out today. I had eggs for breakfast, a sandwich for lunch(I haven't eaten bread in 3 months, no problem at all today) and 2 chicken breast patties with marinara and fettucini//alfredo. My belly is very uncomfortable and rightly so. I have not been able to eat like that in forever. I will be calling Monday to make an appointment.

I don't know why all of a sudden I can eat everything. Just yesterday things were getting stuck. This makes no sense to me. I will be really confused if tomorrow I am back to being stuck.

This is a short post today. Nothing much going on lately so will be back soon...

The things I ponder...female issues

This has been a quiet week. I have had nothing major going on food or otherwise. I am now down 95 lbs. The weight loss has been slow going lately and I am okay with that. I am not gaining which is part of the goal.

I am eating three meals a day, mostly protein. I have upped my roughage intake lately because of constipation issues. It took a few days but finally it kicked in and I feel so much better. It was touch and go there for a while and though I would never have any relief. Such is the side effects of having mostly protein everyday.

My day usually begins with 2 eggs, 2 wedges of laughing cow lite cheese at 8:30 am. I have an orange or clementine for snack. I eat lunch around 1 or 1:30pm. Yesterday I didn't eat lunch until 3pm. It's mainly when I am hungry. I had a bowl of white chili with cheese, lite sour cream and fritos. Dinner was around 8pm. I had about a cup of crockpot chicken and stuffing(I have updated my recipe). I also had a bowl of rice crispies cereal with milk for a snack. That was all I ate yesterday. I had 3 bottles of Vitamin Water Zero.

 My newest health issue so to speak is my periods. Not the best subject but one I am concerned about. In July 2009 I had the ablation surgery. My periods did not go away. BUMMER!! I have APS, antiphosophilid Antibody Syndrome. It is a blood clotting disorder that we feel is responsible for my miscarriage many many years ago, post-partum hemorrhage, and TIA to name a few. This may also be the reason why the ablation did not cause my periods to stop. Just a theory. Anyway, my periods became irregular after the surgery. The hot flashes were horrendous. They were so intense it felt like I had the flu where I was sweating profusely and shivering. They would last non stop for hours, then I would start my period and they would subside. After a few months of this bliss, my periods became even more erratic. The hot flashes eased up and the periods were slightly normal for about a month or two, then I started having more than one period a month. It was mostly spotting for a few days at a time a few times a month. This month 4 full fledged periods. I am thinking what the HECK!! Last night or should I say about 2 this morning I woke up in a pure sweat. I went the bathroom and there my period was full force. REALLY???? That would be number 4 since January 19th. I haven't had my annual exam since 2009. Yeah I know...not a good thing. So I had made my appointment last week for March to get my exam and the dreaded 1st mammogram.

My question to my doctor will be could my lapband be causing this or is it the weightloss? Either way....FIX IT!! I had tubal ligation in 2004 so having more children is not an issue just fix it. What are your issues since being banded? I know that weightloss itself can cause issues with periods but I wonder if the band plays any role?

Still not ready for a fill. I am eating a little more at each sitting but I still get stuck daily on something even soft foods so I feel a fill is not the best choice right now. If I start to gain then definitely will rethink that.