Listen to the Band!

Today at lunch it is quite obvious that I am still dealing with some of the aftermath of yesterday's poor choices and major stuck episode. I planned to eat my leftovers for lunch, and managed to get about half of it down before I felt a "soft stop" feeling. Of course I took one more bite and now I am sliming. When will I learn that I cannot continue to cram food down. If your band says your full right now, then dammit listen! If you are still  hungry later you can have a snack. But don't try to pile more food on top of a full band...duh, it doesn't work and you know it. Why are you having trouble with this theory after a year and a half of banded-ness? Seriously are you a slow learner or what? Sigh...one of these days I will catch on.

Just for the record, the scale said 203 today. I guess I am destined to fluctuate on the same 5 pounds that hover around onederland. I guess I can live with that. 

Painful Stuck Episode...Duh! You Deserved It!

I just had the most painful stuck episode...EVER. In all my year and a half with a lapband, I have never felt such pain. Thankfully it passed after about 20 minutes. But in those 20 minutes I thought I was gonna pass out from the pain. All I could do was breath deeply and try to find a comfortable position...standing, walking stretching out, anything to find a bit of relief. I also broke out into a full fledged sweat. Ugh! Not a nice experience.

Now before you go feeling sorry for me, hold up! It was soooooo self inflicted. I am so embarrassed by what I ate today that I am NOT gonna write it down here. (Oh the shame!)  I have been feeling rather footloose and fancy free since I had my port revision, because they removed .4 cc's from my band. So I have been eating foods that have been on my no-no list for quite a while. But since the old band feels wide open, I have been indulging in things that I shouldn't be. I hope I remember the pain from today, cause I know I should be treating my band better than I am.

Thank goodness I am getting a fill soon. I am scheduled to go back to the docs to tweak things on September 8. In the mean time I need to be a little nicer to my band! 

Recovering From Surgery

Well, I am back home recovering from my one-day surgery to fix my flipped port. I am hurting a little but, but I have some good pain meds. My surgeon opened me up using the old scar, added some mesh behind the port and stitched me back up. While he was in there he also took out .4 CC's of saline out of my band. So I will be quite a bit looser. He doesn't want me to make another band adjustment until I am healed up. So I have an appointment in about 4 weeks to go back in a refill my band to a new level. So I am really going to have to behave myself as I know I will have lessened restriction. I weighed 201.4 on the doctor's scale, with clothes on. It's a bit different from my home scale, but still good.

I took today off to recuperate and I was glad I did. I hurt more and was much more tired than I thought I would be following surgery. But I am back to work tomorrow. It will just sitting in the office, so I should be OK. So that's the report from me. Hope my band doesn't give me anymore trouble for a while!

I Saw Onederland Again!

Well, it certainly took a long time, but this morning I finally saw onederland again. The old scale gave me 199 this morning. That feels good. I am hoping that this week helps too, as I am on just liquids tomorrow for my pre-surgery preparation and then I won't eat much, if anything on surgery day. That's gotta help right? LOL. I am so ready to get my band loosened. It has been an awful month. I hope I can get on the right track again. Gotta do some laundry and pack  my bag for tomorrow as I am headed to my sister's. She will be driving me to and from the hospital. Hope things go smoothly and my port revision is fixed for good.

Angry Band!

My band is very angry at me right now. I didn't do breakfast, except for coffee with cream because I figured it wouldn't go down anyway. I did soup for lunch, but that left me so hungry later in the day. SO I tried the only thing around my office, a peanut butter chocolate chip cookie. I tolerated it just barely. Tonight I was so hungry and I tried to eat something healthy rather than succumb to the easy stuff like ice cream. So I tried a little salad with lettuce, smoked turkey and cheese. I did a very small portion, and it got tight. I may try a little more later and see how it goes down. Or if all else fails I may have a bowl of ice cream. Ugh, can't wait until next week. I am so miserable.

Gurgling Like the Office Water Cooler

Ugh, I am so ready to be untightened next week. My port revision surgery is next Tuesday and I am hoping that I will finally get some relief. This being too tight thing sucks. Last night I had to work late and ended up eating rather late, right before bed. I sooooo choose the wrong thing, some spicy meat and it sat in my stomach all night and irritated my band. So this morning I am sipping water trying to get things to move along and soothe things. Every sip I take a gurgle like the office water cooler. The water is going down, but it is quite obvious that things are irritated and tight to the point of barely letting anything through. I am definitely going to need to take it easy on food today and perhaps may give myself self imposed liquids/mushies and see how things go. In the future I will definitely get an unfill when I feel too tight, it is not a productive use of your band and will likely lead to more problems that are more serious. Hoping and praying I get back to a comfortable, easy sweet spot next week. Gotta take care of my band better.

Thank You Scale!

Wow, I don't know what happened over night,  but the scale said 200 this morning! What the heck. I will never understand the amount of change the human body can go through in such a short amount of time. Anyway, I will take the new number and hope it sticks. It helps motivate me to eat right and exercise, cause I don't want to undo the movement downward. Here's to sticking to the right things.

202 and Holding

Well, the scale is finally headed downward, not by much but a little as it is back down to 202. Not sure when I will see onederland again, but I hope it will come around again. I have been trying to walk a little more, but I am still struggling a bit with my calorie intake. I know I could do better. This week my downfall was several meals out with Hottie in a Uniform and cake and ice cream in the break room at work. Ugh! So many pitfalls. My pants feel tight, so I know I need to do something to kick my weigh loss in gear again. If I could just get my life a little more normal I would be able to concentrate on it a little better. Same struggle...different day.

Big Sweaty Walk

Went for a big sweaty walk in the hot weather today. Felt good to sweat. I am trying hard to squeeze in more exercise, but it is so hard to get motivated. Scale said 204 this morning. I so want to be back in onederland, but I just can't seem to find it again. Eating is still a bit of a chore, takes about 45 minutes to get down the bare minimum. Still trying to eat normal foods versus going to soft stuff. If I am careful I can still tolerate it. Hope this month goes quickly and and can get back to normal after my port revision.

Sliming At Every Meal

I am sliming at nearly every meal! Ugh, this is gonna be a long month. Getting an adjustment before my port revision surgery is just not feasible. I can avoid the sliming by going super, super slow, but I am having trouble with that. I am trying to eat good foods, instead of relying on smooth sliders, but I am to the point that I may have to switch to things like soup and avoid solid all together. I am afraid I am going to irritate my band area so much that will cause additional trouble. This sucks, but there is not much else I can do except wait it out because of my personal circumstances. Hope the month goes by quickly!

Acid Reflux Sucks!

Yep, I'm way too tight and suffering from crappy acid reflux every time I eat. My surgeon's office suggested that I could get an adjustment before my port revision surgery. But I said I would wait. I didn't want an extra 500 mile round trip this month. So now I have to deal with it, but it's not going to be pleasant. I might have to find some acid reducer meds to tide me over for a while. I had been doing so good for so long with my lapband, now all the sudden there are these minor little hiccups that need taking care of. I still think that lapband is the best thing that I ever did for myself, I suppose a few of these issues are just part of the lifetime of maintenance that I will have to take care of once in a while.

Port Revision Surgery Scheduled

Well, I got the word back from my surgeon's office that my insurance was approved and I could schedule my port revision to fix my flipped port. First time I could get in was August 9. It's a same day surgery, so hopefully it will be quick and easy. The nurse said that they use a new technique, adding mesh underneath the port and they attach it all together. That is supposed to prevent flips from happening, or at least being less likely to happen. Hope things go well. In talking to the nurse, Aurie, we also determined that I might be too tight. I have been having to eat super slow, I have sliming and stuck episodes at nearly every meal, eating has become a chore and I am having some major acid reflux. So we tweaked a little too far. I said I could handle it for a month, and we would make the adjustment when I came down for surgery. Scale says 203, that's down a pound. Hope this supper tightness equals more pounds lost--I'm not holding my breath though. The pounds are sticking to me like glue.

Take Advantage of the Tightness!

OK, people it's time to get serious here. Since I am tighter than tight, this is an opportune time to kick things into gear again. I need a total mental overhaul when it comes to losing weight. After 6 months with no adjustments and restriction that was slowly starting to disappear, added to a tumultuous time in my life I totally got off track with weight loss. I got comfortable, I took a break and that was ok...for a while. I think it was ok to test the waters of living "normally", without giving much thought to my band. That would be all fine and good except for the fact that I really haven't met my all time goals for myself. I want to lose more and get comfortably below 200 pounds.

Here are some lessons learned:

1. If you don't PAY ATTENTION to what you put in your mouth, you will gain weight.
2. EXERCISE is a huge key to losing weight. Eating habits are a good start but exercise is the one-two punch.
3. I still have EMOTIONAL EATING issues. They may never go away.
4. The band only works when  it is tuned in to feeling the RESTRICTION, a little discomfort is a good thing.
5. I need to get BACK TO BASICS; proteins first, measuring food portions if needed, chew-chew-chew, using a food diary if I need to, and moving my body.

So while I can feel my lapband, I need to add in the other elements that I know lead to successful weight loss. One of them that I have been really lax at has included blogging. Cause you know that blogging means accountability, and I was avoiding that lately. This isn't the first time and it won't be the last time...let's start over again.

So today, thanks to my band I ate a small portion of food and I stopped eating when I felt the fullness. I went for a 1/2 hour walk at lunchtime and I hope to go for a walk tonight. You go girl! Let's see that scale move in the right direction.

July Progress Picture

Thought it was time for another one of these. Not much for visible change, but here it is for posterity's sake. This me at 204 pounds.

Holy Restriction Batman!

My, oh my, am I tight. I am finding that I am having to relearn EVERYTHING about my band again. Today I piled on a plate of 4th of July fixins; brat (minus the bun of course), potato salad, potato chips and dip and watermelon. I ended up being able to eat two spoons full of potato salad, about 2/3 of the brat, about 15 potato chips and 3 bites of watermelon. That took me 40 minutes to eat and I threw away so much food and it left me aching. I need to retrain my brain again as to what volume of food I can handle.

My first inclination is to say I am WAY TOO tight, but I think my bariatric docs would say..."um that's exactly how the band is supposed to be working!" It's like learning to walk again. I had been slowly adding more and more food and now all the sudden I am back to feeling like I am newly banded. So when is that going to translate into pounds off the scale??? Soon I hope!

I haven't checked in for quite a while, the scale this morning says 204. I have gained back a little weight, after hitting a low of 197. So I need to battle back and get rid of those 7 pounds. But in the big picture of things, life is good. Hottie in a uniform and I are still progressing slowly. That is certainly a bright spot in my life right now. I am mostly settled into my temporary "studio apartment" at my brother's house and I think I have my work situation sorta figured out. So life is getting a little better all the time. Still not perfectly settled, but for now things are starting to feel "normal" again.