Fill...and Praying

So I had my fill yesterday. I was expecting my surgeon, but when they finally brought me back to the fluoro room (an hour late), the nurse practitioner was there, which was great because I love her. She talked to me about how things were going, answered all my questions, even went over a still shot of the fluoro screen with me. It's so nice to feel comfortable asking questions, my surgeon has been getting very dismissive lately when I try to talk to him during fill appointments.

Now I'm up to 10cc in my 14cc band and I'm hoping I finally feel some difference, because I don't have much room left to go. I did weigh myself this morning, which I hadn't gotten around to doing since they weighed me at the office a few weeks ago, when it said 411. I think between my heavy clothes, the big meals I had that day, and not having...went to the bathroom that day, it just blew that number up too much. The scale said about 404 this morning, and I really doubt I lost 7 pounds in 3 weeks, considering how I've been eating lately, so it must have been the other things to account for the difference. I REALLY WANT TO LOSE 5 POUNDS!! Come on, just let me get under 400!

Uhm, Hi

Yeah...disappeared again, so you know what that means. I haven't went walking at all since my last post. I really want to get back into it since it's cooled down outside and my lingering sinus infection is mostly gone now, but I just can't get up the motivation. Walking and exercising wasn't helping me lose weight and I have no idea why.

I have to do something about my eating habits. Why am I so unwilling to diet now that I have the LapBand? I hate dieting and I think part of my brain thought I wouldn't have to diet once I had surgery, I would just eat less of everything. So far that hasn't even happened yet. I've gotten pretty loose the last few weeks, I barely get stuck and I'm hungry all the time. I have a fill scheduled for Thurs. Oct 22, which makes it almost 3 months between fills again.

I knew I needed a fill right after my last one, but I just didn't want to have to argue about it. I wasn't feeling famished, I was still getting stuck here and there, so I thought I was okay without it until I knew I could ask for it without opposition. So what happened? Last week I went to pay my bill at the office and just happened to talk to the nurse practitioner and she got me scheduled for a fill. But...they weighed me while I was there. I hadn't touched a scale since my last post. I was wearing a heavy sweater, heavy pants, and ate quite a bit that day, but that doesn't FULLY explain why I was up to 411. Yes, I gained 9 pounds in those two months. I haven't weighed myself since then (naked, empty bladder and stomach) to get an accurate weight, but I think I'm scared to.

The only time I lose weight anymore is during the week after a fill, and I think that's only from the liquid diet. Why do I have the band if all I have to do is go on a liquid diet to lose weight, and that's the only thing that makes me lose weight? It's ridiculous. I haven't heard of anyone having so much trouble getting restriction over a year after their surgery. I'm still worried that maybe my band is just too big for my stomach or placed incorrectly or something and that I will never get proper restriction. The day where I can only eat 1 cup or less of food seems so hilarious to me because I feel like it could never happen. 8ccs in my band, 1 year and 4 months out of surgery, and I can still eat 2+ cups of food.

I have to stop avoiding posting when I'm not doing what I should be, maybe not losing weight is a better reason to post instead of only when the scale is moving or bitching about fills.

Too Hot!

I haven't posted lately, and hopefully you figured it out by now--nothing going on to report. I HAVE been trying to watch what I eat, but I haven't went walking at all since last Sunday. I would like to have some great reason why not, but during the week I just didn't feel like it, or it was just too damn hot. Even I can admit though that the heat has just been my excuse, if I just took some nice cold water with me, I would have been fine. Hot = 90-95 degrees, and humid. Today it's also supposed to get up to 93 or so, so I just didn't even bring my gym bag. Tomorrow I'm going to try to make it to my support groups, so no walking then either (of course, that entirely depends on if DH and his friend need a ride to their drama rehearsal thing, in which case, my plans don't matter).

I lost the couple pounds I had gained back, but I'm still stuck at 402. Those 3 pounds that would make me very very happy just don't want to come off! Even though when I go walking/running, I bust my ass and sweat like crazy, I honestly have never seen the scale move because of it, even if I went 4 times in a week. When I was actually going to the gym 4-5 days a week, I STILL didn't see any difference on the scale. I think that's why I have no motivation to keep working out. If I saw results, I would be more willing to continue.

I REALLY Want...

...a cookie. Horrible, overwhelming, must-have craving. I've gotten into a bad habit with eating something sweet after lunch and now it's really hard to ignore it. The only thing stopping me from getting one of the delicious, chewy, mouth-watering...ahem. The only thing stopping me from getting a cookie from the cafeteria is that I don't have any cash on me, and I would feel too weird paying with nickels and dimes (thank god they don't accept debit/credit cards).

The scale said I actually gained 2 pounds since I weighed myself the other day, which I don't understand how when I've been busting my booty on my run/walks. I hate hate hate that I lose nice amounts of weight right after a fill, then gain it back soon after. I'm tired of this cycle but I don't know how to break it. I'm eating less food than ever and I'm still not losing the weight like I should be. I'm determined to get under 400. Thus, no cookie.

Sigh.

Exhausted...

I decided to add just a bit more running to my usual routine. Once I do my full 30 seconds, I keep going until I get to the next landmark--usually trees that stand out, etc.--that I picked out yesterday. This adds anywhere from 5-15 seconds on my intervals. It doesn't seem like much, but I can feel the difference. I think it also breaks my body's awareness of the 30 seconds so it has to work just a bit harder to keep going. I was getting hungry during my walk yesterday, since I hadn't eaten anything since I woke up, so today I tried eating a few turkey sausages about half an hour beforehand. That didn't go over so well. I read somewhere that you shouldn't eat protein before exercising because it takes more energy to digest, which leaves less for your body to use for exercise. I'm not sure if that's the case or having anything in my stomach just didn't feel right. I also got tired much faster today, even though I drank the same amount of water, and I don't know if that was because of my exercise yesterday or because I ate those sausages.

I also have a weird little pain behind my right knee today, I have never felt that before, so I'm a little nervous about that.

I love...running?

I often get the feeling that once my body can handle it, I'm going to love running. I did my two mile walk today and I ran more than I ever have so far. I did my usual 1/4 mile intervals, but the last one, I just kept running for as long as I could until my body just had to stop. I didn't count it, but it was well over a minute. I also did an extra run at the very end, and this was longer than 30 seconds as well, I made myself keep going until I got to the gate by the parking lot. That was probably a minute or more as well. I was panting and the world was rocking a little bit, but I did it and felt good. I wasn't even feeling any exhaustion during my walk/run until I already did 1.5 miles. Sometimes though I want to run before I even get to my next marker, I think my body is itching to be more active. It's a good feeling :)

It's strange for me to read about people who are 300-400+ pounds that can't even walk around their house without getting tired. I don't know if it's because I'm young or if I was just always more active than most obese people (I was even in dance classes at 300 pounds and I was pretty good!), but sometimes I think about how much I can do with my body and it's crazy. I don't know any other 400-pound people that can walk 2 miles, much less two miles without resting, and even less people who can do any sort of jogging at all. Sometimes I also think it is a bad thing though, because that means my body is used to being somewhat active, and it takes much more exercise to make a difference.

I wish I had someone to talk science with, because I have a feeling that my base metabolism--how many calories I burn from doing daily activities--is much lower than most people my weight. Most websites say that my body, by weight, burns anywhere from 3200-4000 calories in a day without any activity at all, just performing basic body functions. This also means that if I eat less than that, I should lose weight. I can tell you right now that I haven't eaten that many calories probably since I got my band, and the weight isn't coming off. I think my body uses less calories to do these basic things, so that I have to eat even less to be able to lose any weight. As I said though, I wish I had someone who really understood this subject to talk to about it.

I am going to try to get another walk in tomorrow though!

No More Bread? :(

I find myself double-posting between here and LBT or here and Facebook, but I like having this record for myself and hopefully I have more readers than my 1 faithful commenter :) that don't see the other posts.

This restriction thing is killing me. I'm in a bit of denial that I just can't eat certain foods anymore--just a few minutes ago, actually, I discovered that bread seems to be the common denominator. I ate half of a panini last night and sat there for about 10 minutes to keep from it coming right back up (I was in Barnes & Noble and didn't want to cough it up in a public bathroom). I even told DH last night that I didn't think I could get that specific sandwich again because of the bread. So what did I do today? I nuked it and thought that the bread being softer would make it better. Nope--two or three bites in and I was in the bathroom. DH woke up from hearing me and took the rest of the sandwich away, since he knew I would have tried again.

Some possible good news is that I might have found a snack food that fills me up (my biggest conundrum for the past few months). I'm not 100% sure yet, but preliminary tests indicate that pretzels may just do the trick. They never filled me up before, but since my last fill, they really top me off. We'll see though!