Starting Measurements

I decided to take some advice and do measurements as an additional way to track my progress.







8/16/10

Underarms/Chest: 44
Bicep: 17
Breasts: 51
Ribcage: 46
"Top Roll": 53 (this is where my waist is supposed to be)
Hips: 56
Thigh: 30


Edited to add starting photos: These are about 10lbs over the date of the measurements, but close enough.

An Evolving To Do List

1. Find diet sheet from surgeon.
2. New pair of training shoes.
3. Alleviate plantar faciitis symptoms w/stretching.
4. Research exercise equipment: elliptical or treadmill? Answer: treadmill
5. Buy things: food scale, liquid tylenol, chewable multivitamin, chewable calcium, biotin, B12 sublinguals
6. Buy treadmill. It has a nice new home in my basement
7. Set realistic exercise goal and get started (you can cross it off after two weeks of doing it)
8. Shop for liquid diet: broth, sugar free popsicles, sugar free jello

Obsession

Now that I've got a date, I seem to be obsessed with gathering information on message boards and in books. It's been so long since my nutrition consult last fall that I really don't remember a lot of it so I'm particularly worried about my post-op diet (liquids, purees, oh my!). Today I requested our county library system to send me 2 weight loss surgery recipe books and a general WLS book so I can look them over before buying.

Yay for good libraries! Everyone should have access to one.

The protein powder/protein shake thing is overwhelming me. I know I'm going to be using them a lot, probably for the rest of my life, and there are so many freaking brands. They are too expensive to just try haphazardly, so I'm trying to condense info. I keep hearing about Isopure and Unjury so I guess that's a place to start.

Today I broke the 270 mark at 269.8. About 9 lbs in one week on low carb pre-op-- not too bad.

So I've been doing low carb this week to begin to prep for my September surgery.

Day 2 or 3 for me on low carb is Dooms Day, where Godzilla bursts forth from my stomach to hulksmash the world into submission. The first time I did low carb, I started crying hysterically on day 3 when I realized the seasoning I put on my chicken had 4g of carbs in a serving. This is only significant because I'm not a big crier. My husband had to use his suicidal-man-on-the-roof voice to talk me down. This time, I found myself shoveling the biggest steak I have ever eaten into my mouth and still feeling like my stomach was a gaping maw of soulless emptiness (you know, how many women feel about their mother-in-laws).

I think that was my low point for carb-craving this time around. I think I should probably pray for that poor masticated cow that was sacrificed to the sugar gods.

I have a date!

My lap-band procedure is scheduled for September 17th. I pushed it out a month so that I could lose as much weight pre-surgery as possible and since I tend to stop losing once I've hit a month, that should about do it.

One month out: 278.8 lbs, BMI = 45

Today is the highest BMI I will have for the rest of my life!

And A Year Goes By. . .

The true story of a fat person's weight loss efforts-- doing great, then a year goes by.

:)

So, I did do great. Between April and November of last year I lost and kept off about 25 lbs. Enough that people noticed, especially because my face looked thinner, but not enough that I had to buy a new wardrobe.

I also found out that my particular insurance didn't cover surgery, because my employer excluded it. So I was pretty bummed. I had to put things off while I switched insurance and waited for it to go into effect, but now I'm back on track! Insurance approved the surgery today and I schedule it next week.

I'm hoping to schedule in about a month. I want some time to get myself back in the right mindset on give myself a head start on weight loss. But yay!

Hanging in there. . .

I can measure my progress in a number of ways, the most important of which are psychological. First, my dedication to change hasn't waned in the past month and in fact, I'm learning things about myself everyday. For instance, work is a food trigger for me (uh-oh). Luckily, it's not the stress but rather the schedule I think. When I'm teaching, I often get caught up in prep and class and meetings, etc. and I skip breakfast and lunch. Then when I'm finished for the day, I'm starved and my habit has been to drive through somewhere on the way home for a late-afternoon lunch. I realized this pattern when my summer session class started and I fell right back into my skipping-meal habit. But because I'm still dedicated, I drove home and had some leftover vegetables and a little protein instead of a burger and onion rings.

Not that the burger and onion rings didn't sound better, because they did, but then I expect that temptation to always be there to some degree. Whomever invented processed food was an evil genius.

I'm on an on-again/off-again low carb diet. On-again means super low carbs (absolutely no starches, sugars, white flour, etc.) and off-again means moderate low carbs (pasta once a week, potato about the same, maybe desert once a week). My body seems to responding well to this. I feel energetic, I don't have as many sugar/pasta cravings and NO bread cravings, and I'm down 21 lbs from my starting weight a month ago. I'm off-again/on-again because I have to be careful not to lose too fast-- stupid insurance rules for bariatric surgery eligibility. On the one hand, it's frustrating, because now that I'm really in the right mind-frame I want to go full tilt. On the other hand, the whole moderation thing is really a better habit to develop in the long term, because the likelihood that I'd be able to go the rest of my life on no sugar/no starch/no white flour is absolutely zero. I just have to keep reminding myself of that.

So, to recap, as of today, I'm down 21 lbs and though I'm in my same clothes, they feel roomier and less roll-highlighting. Yay for me.