liquid update

so...i'd say my three days of liquids was a good exercise. i lost 5 pounds (water weight of course), but most of all, i have regained a sense of control. it's not ironclad, but it feels better. as carrie and i discussed the other night, i am going back to counting carbs (no more than 45 net carbs a day, no more than 15 at a time). i think it's really going to help steer me away from trigger foods in the way it did at first. somewhere along the line - and i don't know how or why - i stopped seeing that as a hard and fast rule, and i think that coincided pretty closely with my plateau. not a coincidence at all, i'm guessing...

i ended up eating dinner wednesday night which i wasn't planning (was planning to do the full day wednesday on protein as well), because i found myself starting to really fantasize about eating. i'm assuming it was mainly because i was physically very hungry, but also i think it must have been bringing up feelings of deprivation, which i've learned never go anywhere good. i just knew i wasn't going to feel like i had failed...mitchell was trying to help me consider whether i should just wait until thursday to eat, but i really felt secure in the idea that the exercise started to take a turn that would have hurt me more than it helped, so i ate dinner and that was that.

overall, the protein shake idea was a good one, and one i could see doing again if i needed a reset again at some time in the future.

liquid courage

i decided to go on a liquid protein plan for three days - today, tomorrow and wednesday. i'm doing the same thing i did for the three weeks leading up to my surgery - pure protein shakes which will provide me with plenty of protein that i'm not getting from food. after the three days, i'll reassess...i'm thinking it's possible i might decide to stick with them at night for a little longer since night eating is proving to be one of my biggest challenges.

i'm doing this because i want to tighten up my pouch and the sensation of fullness i get from it. also to jump start weight loss which has been slllooooooow for months for all the reasons detailed here and also, and perhaps most importantly, because i feel like i need a mental cleanse. i've been feeling the same way that i did a few days before my liquid phase started pre-surgery - like i just need a reprieve from thinking about food. that's the part (one of the many) that doesn't go away with the surgery. it's a gastric bypass, not a lobotomy.

i'm sure i'll be hungry and though i hope i won't find myself bargaining and negotiating, i'm sure there's a grave possibility of that too. but i'm doing it. i'll keep you posted.

long time no write

i've been totally absent from writing on this blog because i've been having a really hard time. it's not that i don't want to face the struggles i'm dealing with in the way that writing about them would make me face it - it's more that i am dealing with them so intensely every day that the last thing i want to do is write about them. i'd much rather be writing about gift wrap and little trees of rosemary. i do know the common wisdom that the days you feel least like doing something (exercise, therapy, meditation) are the days you need them the most, so i'm willing to try that approach.

i'm struggling mainly because i'm feeling hungry a lot, and even when i'm not hungry, i'm having trouble with not eating the rest of what's on my plate. i know i've talked about the challenge i face when i'm physically satisfied but there's still more food i'm "allowed" to have...and that's still a daily struggle. i feel like i could stop eating and be satisfied physically, but i don't want to stop eating. and i feel like at the heart of that is a key to so much of this for me - why don't i feel thrilled that 4 ounces of food fills me and feel overjoyed at the idea of leaving the extra 2 ounces on the plate? why do i feel compelled to eat that other 2 ounces? i still don't understand that. i think it's because of what i realized a while ago - that it's not as much about the food for me as it is about the eating...i enjoy the sensation and the comfort of eating and it almost doesn't matter what i'm eating sometimes. and i guess i still -- even with a stomach the size of a walnut -- don't want that feeling of eating, of comfort, of happiness to end. additionally, i feel like while i might get full quickly, i don't seem to stay full. i think that has to do maybe with my speed in eating, which i know should be slower, and that seems to be a challenge too. and i think it all comes back to the same things probably...i think i need to really work on reminding myself that i'll be eating again in another couple hours, and that i can leave food on my plate and come back to it later if i'm hungry, because i think part of eating it all is this primal urge towards scarcity - what if it's not there when i need it? now's my chance...and i think a lot of that probably originated as a kid when i was closet eating. but i'm not a kid anymore, and as my therapist carrie has said, it's time for grown-up carla to change that. 

what the eating problem leads to is the calorie problem. i have myself trying not to exceed 12oo calories a day and i don't know if maybe that's not enough and that's why i find myself going over every day or if it's just that i'm having trouble controlling it...nothing new there. i've started to experiment with raising my intake to around 1400 and see how that goes. maybe if i feel less restricted, i'll feel more in control. to make sure that wasn't too many calories, i checked my basal metabolic rate which is the number of calories one needs to maintain their weight...mine is 1784, so theoretically, anything beneath that amount would be a loss. my nutritionist would say that i should keep that as low as possible to maximize my weight loss, but i'm going to see how 1400 feels.

i'm also struggling with exercise, which is nothing new. at carrie's suggestion, i tried a spin class last weekend. it was so hard, but i promised i'd try and i promised myself i would stay through the whole class. you know how a lot of people have this competitive thing with themselves that they would never let themselves not finish a class, or back out of a planned exercise session, or get off the treadmill after only ten minutes? i'm not one of those people. but i figured as carrie and i talked that i'd be slightly less likely to walk out a well-populated class with a yelling instructor than i would be to just step off the treadmill on my own. so...my butt and crotch hurt for days, and if i had a dollar for every time i thought about walking out, it would have paid my gym membership for the month. but i didn't walk out, and i felt pretty amazing about that. i haven't gone back for another class yet, but i went for a long and intense walk the next day, and i bought a padded seat for the bike so i can go again on saturday and have it hurt less. my goal is to have several different things to do exercise-wise during each week, and this can be one of them. because i did two intense days over the weekend, i didn't feel the crippling guilt this week that i've been feeling, and that's been a step up, but i know i need to still add more days.

mind your business

i'm getting really irritated with everyone being so involved in what i'm eating and my progress. i don't feel that way all the time, but i'm feeling that way right now. and i feel like it's my own doing by being so open about the whole process, and mainly, i'm glad i am. but i just feel very on display right now (shout out to melissa gorga fans). 

it's mostly at work, in the kitchen as i'm assembling my meals. "what's that?" or "that smells good, what is it?" or ..."so you can eat stuff like that?" or "so what is it, a high protein diet you're on?" sometimes there's "you always have such colorful looking meals" or "so how many pounds down is it now?" i know everyone means well, but sometimes i just feel like STOP LOOKING AT ME. STOP COMMENTING ON MY FOOD. you'd think people would realize that someone with massive food issues might not want to be watched all the time.  

i guess i generally feel it most when i'm not the proudest of what i'm eating, if it's something i feel is a little processed like turkey bacon or these awesome green giant vegetables. i just feel this pressure to be perfect about all this and i feel it even more, and like i'm being even more imperfect, when everyone's watching me.

TGFS (thank god for stretch)

alright so remember the great advice from my nutritionist about stretchy black pants? they're totally necessary when shrinking sizes quickly without an unlimited shopping budget. so thank god for target's gilligan and o'malley ones. i think they're actually pajama or lounge pants, but they work perfectly for me for a wide variety of settings, including work. these are the pants i call my "tall pants" because i swear, they make me look taller.

a couple months ago, i bought them in a large (and was THRILLED that a normal size large fit me!!) but in the last month or so, they've become so large and droopy and messy that they no longer work. i think they've gotten longer too, pooling around the ankles. totally not okay. so this weekend, i went back and got the same pants in a size medium. what is WITH their sizing? not that i'm complaining...

well i'd like to think i would have figured out the stretchy black pants tip on my own, but i'm just so thankful it was suggested to me because it's made getting dressed an easier (though still not easy) feat than it would have been.

pain in the butt

my behind hurts all the time. well, that's not fair to say. there are periods of time where it doesn't hurt, but mostly any time i sit, or when i get up from sitting it hurts. the obvious explanation is that there's less padding, and that is partially the case, but there are some other factors too.

aPPARently...this is a common complaint for people that spent many years being very overweight and then lost weight. it's not just the lack of padding, but also that all the years of having so much extra fat around the tailbone made it protrude, and now that there is no longer all that tissue, the bone is still protruding and there's no tissue to surround it, so it's exposed. something like that. and that's about what it feels like.

in the car, we have a wedge pillow like this that seems to, for the most part, make it pretty painless but it doesn't work on my home seats. it sinks or something. i have to look into some other options...apparently me and many others, this website would have me believe. so at home, i end up sitting on my hip or one butt cheek to avoid the pressure on my butt. and at work, it's never really been a problem until more recently, so now i use a cheerful little pillow to sit on. overall, it pretty much sucks. i used to love sitting upright on my bed on a weekend afternoon catching up on TV and it just doesn't have the same luster when i have to watch said TV on one butt cheek to avoid searing pain. but the most aggravating part of the discomfort is the one i feel - intense but short - when i stand up...i guess from all the compression and then the subsequent release.

the other factor that i have to say definitely has an impact is the loose skin in that area. when i'm seated, so much extra skin bunches up between my lower back and my butt and that also presses down on the top of my tailbone...can you picture this? would you want to?

i'm told by my surgeon's office that although there is no cure for this problem, nor does the tailbone ever go back in from its protrusion, people only seem to complain about it while they're still in transition and not once they're done losing weight. i guess it could be they just adapt and stop complaining, or maybe they learn to only sit in ways that take the pressure off. 

can you believe this problem?

(don't) eat your wheat(ies)

alright, so last week, with the help of my nutritionist adrienne, i decided to eliminate the following from my diet: yeast, wheat, gluten, flour. seems extreme, i know. 

over the last several months, i'd started to experiment with whole grain breads. then as i got more comfortable with trying them (even outside my own home!), i moved to whole wheat breads occasionally, when whole grain wasn't available. i found a "no white" bagel and test drove that. and i can not tell a lie... there were a few stray times when i tried white bread. like, challah roll on the table at the diner bread. you can see where this is going... i also tried pizza. true, there was also the whole wheat pizza from skinny pizza, a wonderful improvement to takeout, for sure. but here's the problem. every time i drove by that wonderful improvement, i wanted pizza. not so wonderful.

i noticed a similar phenomenon when i flew down to florida to be with my mother in law for a procedure she was having (she's fine). in the amazing terminal 5 at jfk, i needed to pick something up to bring on the plane. (no blue potato chips for this girl). i chose a hearty looking turkey sandwich on multi-grain bread. i ate it in three different sittings, and it was highly satisfying and delicious each time. i felt like i had hit the jackpot - here i was, sitting on plane in ONE seat, between strangers, armrests down, tray table down, out of my mind on xanax...okay, i digress...but the point was, i was being a NORMAL person, eating a sandwich and wrapping up the rest for later. who IS this person?

this person is ME. the same one who weighed almost 400 pounds a year ago. because the problem is that that night when it was time for dinner, i ordered another turkey sandwich, this time on whole wheat bread, and i ate the whole thing. did it weigh more than 6 ounces? probably not. but the fact of eating an entire turkey sandwich in one sitting scared me. when i woke up the next day, all i wanted was bread. it's that thing about carbs...we learn and relearn the same lessons over and over, don't we?

at the airport coming home, waiting for my delayed flight in the rain, anxious and tired, i ordered tortilla chips and spinach dip as my dinner. BAD SCENE. i knew right then, with every delicious bite, that i had gone down a bad road;  i had been on a bad jag and that it needed to end. almost the way you might look at confession, i saw adrienne and i told her everything. and here's what she said. she said "this is a whole banquet room you don't need to go into, you just don't need to go there. this is a dark and dangerous road." she also said "if you know something about yourself, just accept it."

that struck me. on one hand, i think she's so right. i agonized for the first couple post-op months trying to understand why some weight loss surgery patients swore off carbs and others thought it was okay...i needed to be told what to do, and there was so much guidance out there that it netted out at nothing in a way, making me feel really lost and on my own. what i arrived at eventually was that the people who swore carbs off generally felt they slowed their weight loss, but also that they were trigger foods and that they were, habitually, too close to what made them fat in the first place. i figured as long as i could monitor that, i should go forth and eat carbs responsibly. why? two reasons really, and maybe they're not that different.

1. i like carbs and wanted to eat them.

2. i fear extremity - i think i am afraid to say "i don't eat carbs" (though i know that's an oversimplification, as vegetables are carbs, etc) because if i say that, then it seems like a gimmick, like something with an inevitable failure date, like a diet that just begs you to cheat.

so while adrienne's directive to know myself and accept it feels good and simple on one hand, there's this other part of me that fights it...i want to be able to be moderate. i don't want to have to say that i don't or can't eat certain things...i want to believe i have enough control over myself to live in the gray area, or that at least i can work towards that as a goal.

then, i continued the discussion with carrie, my therapist. she shed an even different light on it...she said "how could you go through this process and not try pizza? you have to give yourself that experience, so now you did it and you're done." she also shared her own experience about eliminating bread in her own life because it makes her feel better, and it makes her lose weight. it's a choice. it's not that she CAN'T eat bread, it's that she's choosing not to. in some ways, THAT is the moderation...it's knowing that while you COULD eat something, for whatever reasons, you're not going to. 

although i've never experienced a "honeymoon period" in this process the way many people report, i guess in some ways, the honeymoon is over when fear doesn't stop you from eating certain things anymore. at first, i never would have dreamed of eating bread (especially white flour bread!) because i'd be afraid it would make me sick. when you know it won't, that's when the real work comes in. it can't be about fear anymore, now it has to be about strength. 

so for today, my strength is coming in the form of the decision NOT to eat my wheat(ies). and it's an evolution, as all of this is. as my old weight watchers leader said, "i don't know about tomorrow. i'm not there yet." but i have to say, today, it feels kind of awesome to walk by the bread aisle at the grocery store and just know that there's nothing for my there - that's not my aisle. it's freeing not to read every label, hoping to see a magical permutation of numbers that would allow me to have a piece of something...fiber, net carbs, sugars, etc. i just don't eat those things right now. period, the end. and on a side note, i haven't been feeling particularly hungry, i've been having a true sense of fullness almost all the time and i've lost 5 pounds in the last week.

another side note...i love how a trifecta of very strong women - nutritionist, therapist and weight watchers leader - are helping me to navigate these waters. if i were having a bat mitzvah again, i'd definitely be calling them up for a special candle :)

changing my mind

part of my problem with food and eating has been scarcity mentality, which leads very obviously to binging. it's the feeling that "i might not always have access to this food so i better eat it now while i do." and that meant whether or not i was hungry, whether or not i wanted to be eating, whether or not i even liked what i was eating. i think in many ways it started as a kid because my mother was always concerned about my weight, so i felt watched...when she'd leave the house, it was time to eat! anything, everything, in large, sickening quantities, and fast because i never knew when she'd be back. sometimes, she'd be back much sooner than i expected to get something she forgot, and then the jig was up. i don't blame her...she was concerned, and with good reason. i know she often looks back and wonders what she did wrong, and although it's easy for everyone to play monday morning quarterback, she did what she thought was right, she did it out of love, and i don't blame her. (you hear that momma?)

but long after my mother was watching what i ate, it was the way i behaved. when i got my license, my main source of joy was not that i could cruise around with friends and be free (which i did, and i was), but that i'd have the shameless ability to get myself food - a lot of it. i could drive to a fast food restaurant and up to the drive-thru, not even having to get out of the car to order. i'd order so much that i'd pretend i was ordering it for a crew of people - pretending to the muffled voice on the other end of the speaker, pretending to myself. and then i'd go to another drive-thru and do the same. you don't get to be almost 400 lbs without habits like that...it's not just a sweet tooth that gets you there.

so even now, even when i can no longer physically binge because i've taken away that option, i have to be mindful of the behaviors that drove my binging, and the thought processes that were behind those behaviors - i had a gastric bypass, not a lobotomy. i have to watch the tendency to graze, which i've come to see as a long, slow binge. i have to watch my tendency to want to eat just for eating's sake, which i thought would fade away but hasn't yet...that moment when i know it's enough, but it's still hard to let go of that one ounce that i know could be mine...and i have to be mindful of my mind's ability to play tricks on me...that a whole bag of popcorn could be only 3 or 4 ounces, which i'm allowed to eat, volume-wise, but that that doesn't mean that i should eat the whole bag of popcorn, behavior-wise.

a lot of times, the old behavior comes from a good place, from wanting to do the right thing. it has always come from a good place - it was to make myself happy, comfortable and soothed. if we had a way to give that to ourselves or anyone else we loved, wouldn't we want to? it's the kind of love that hurts on the back-end.

here's an example of today's good intentions leading to yesterday's behavior... i want desperately to be off of artificial sweeteners, but i can't have sugar and i want to be able to eat sweet things once in a while. last week on my lovely farmers market outing, i discovered a fresh apple muffin that had no sugar ... it was sweetened only with apples and had oats and whole wheat flour, and was utterly delicious. upon realizing how much i liked it, and how it could totally replace junky snacks like this and this, my immediate thought was "so i should stock up on these every wednesday at the farmers market." 

as i thought through the plan, i realized quickly that part of what was so good about the muffin was that it was really soft and fresh, and that by the next day when i went to have the other half, it had already lost that, so two days or three days after buying it would be even less fresh...of course i explored that i could freeze them, refrigerate them, etc. but then it hit me - i should buy one on wednesday and have half of it and then save the other half in the fridge or freezer or give it to someone else to enjoy. and that's it. i don't have to eat it EVERY day. i don't have to STOCK UP. it can be something i have once in a while. and i can get to a place where my mind can change, and where that type of scarcity will be okay with me.

the weigh it is

i always remember in weight watchers people saying how important it was to weigh and measure all the time for a few reasons...even when eating at home, eating the same bowl of cereal or cottage cheese or whatever every day, that portion can grow from day to day if you're not keeping it in check by measuring it regularly. i remember my leader suggesting that even if it wasn't practical to weigh every meal and snack every day, to be sure and measure each of your staples at least once a week to keep the visual fresh in your mind of what an ounce or a cup looks and feels like. the other great reason for measuring when at home is that it makes you that much better at estimating when you're not at home.when weight watchers worked for me (and it did work for me), i was very diligent about weighing and measuring and just submitted to it as a way of life.

for me, even though it's not as much about the calories at this point as someone on a "diet," per se, it's just as important to weigh and measure. although my stomach's small size will stop me from eating too much in one sitting in any significant way, it would not stop me from eating an ounce or two or even three over the 4-6 ounces i'm supposed to stick to, especially if it's a food that goes down easier which tend to be the highest calorie and fat foods, lucky me. if i eat more than 4-6 ounces in one sitting often, and certainly with any kind of regularity, my pouch will stretch and small amounts of food will no longer fill me -- pouch stretchage is one of the main reasons for weight regain in WLS patients. so my solution is to weigh whenever i can - i have a scale at home, and i'm not afraid to admit i have one at work too. 

today's lunch* weighed in at exactly 6 ounces, which tells me i was probably a little on the hungry side when i was preparing it. the bowl felt heavy to me, and i was a little nervous to weigh it. why? because if it were over 6 ounces, i would have had to put some back, and that moment is still amazingly hard for me. it's MINE and i don't like when it's taken away. i pay close attention how i'm feeling anytime i eat and force myself to stop if i'm feeling full, but i am particularly mindful of that potential when i'm eating an amount that's at the top of my range, like today. today's lunch felt perfectly filling, and i think incidentally, the warmth was a nice touch. LOL. i find that different temperature foods make my pouch and my satiety levels feel different, and these past few days, hot food has been working.

*the strangely unappetizing looking meal you see here was actually quite delicious and was as follows: 2 trader joe's turkey meatballs, about 1/3 cup quinoa with roasted vegetables and 2 tbsp shredded parmesan cheese, all melted together.

the long, slow binge

one of the reasons why gastric bypass surgery was so right for me is that binging has always been at the core of my problem, and the surgery makes it literally impossible to binge. i am totally certain every day that my ability to binge needed to be removed so that i could heal and recover from what is most certainly an addiction, a disorder, an illness. i often liken it to a drug addict who needs to be forcibly removed from drugs in order to withdraw and participate in any kind of meaningful therapy or healing or recovery. it's the exact same thing with binging for me. although the obvious metaphor for the drug is food, it's not so for me. my drug was never food, it was binging. i realized in the road leading to my surgery as i explored why it was so hard to let go of food in that way, that i was not addicted to food...i was addicting to eating -- to the sheer, merciful, numbing act of eating. binging was the ultimate form of eating...stuffing myself so full and often so fast that it was a total paralysis...in the best, and worst, of ways. so when people ask if i miss food...i don't. there isn't a single food i truly, truly miss. pizza smells good sometimes, bagels sound delicious. but it's not temptation, and there's no sadness. what i do miss is the way the food made me feel and what it did for me. clearly it did a lot of things that weren't so great too, but it worked. i don't think i would have done it for so long that way if it hadn't.

so i can't binge. and thank god. as grandmothers everywhere would say...kenahara. AND HOW. 

what i can do, though, is graze which is basically a long, slow binge. one of the cardinal rules of weight loss surgery success (and probably with any weight loss success, period) is not to  graze. several small meals a day, yes. snacking throughout the day, NO. i'm learning i have to be careful not to do this, because the few times i have found myself eating a little here and there, i've found that it's a way to numb myself just a little here and there. it's in no way the way it was before, and definitely doesn't achieve the same wonderful, horrible effect, but it does it's own kind of work, and i've learned quickly to be mindful of it. 

so much of the appeal of the binge was the anticipation...the looking forward to it, the mental rehearsing, the blissful moments right before, and then the moments of actual consumption...of course afterwards it was all downhill, but that didn't seem to matter. so if you look at those components..the anticipation, the mental rehearsing, the moments of actual consumption...they all exist in grazing, and can exist every hour on the hour since i can only eat a little at a time. i could see how a binger could become a grazer...it's like beating the system and it's not okay for a few reasons...first, because you could easily consume enough calories to GAIN weight rather than lose, even with a stomach the size of an egg. and second, and most importantly, because it's not a behavior and a need i want to allow forever. 

i need to learn to make choices...if i'm in the mood for a pb&j and also a shrimp and veggie salad, i have to be okay with choosing only one, not choosing instead to have the shrimp salad now and have a taste of peanut butter later. even if it's calorically okay for me, it's not behaviorally okay. 

it's a long fucking road.

let's talk about summer salads.

image

gym update, part 2

i have been terrible about updating with my gym progress, but not terrible about going to the gym, so there's that! i went another 2 times after i wrote last and did the whole circuit again, with the exception of three machines that mitchell thinks i should skip. they were abs (he says i don't want to build that part up right now while i'm still losing a lot in that area, and that the other workouts i'm doing are working out my abs too), back extension and lateral raise (easy to hurt yourself if the form isn't totally perfect and best to do with a trainer or spotter until i am a pro at it). and ps, the back extension one hurt my tailbone so much with the way i had to sit and the movement it required that i'm not too sad to see it go.

so here's what i did on the circuit the first time, subsequent times and what i'm building from for the future.

--leg press - 50 lbs 20 reps 
--leg extension - 50 lbs 15 reps (increased to 20 reps)

--seated leg curl - 50 lbs 10 ..reps* (increased to 21 reps)
--glute - 50 lbs 10 reps each leg (increased to 12 reps)
--calf - 50 lbs 20 reps (increased to 80 lbs, 21 reps)
--back extension - 50 lbs 20 reps - eliminated
--chest press - 30 lbs 10 reps* (increased to 13 reps)
--overheard press - 30 lbs 10 reps*
--lateral raise - 50 lbs 15 reps - eliminated
--pulldown - 45 lbs 20 reps 

--row - 50 lbs 12 reps (increased to 15 reps)
--arm extension 40 lbs 10 reps*
--arm curl 10 lbs 15 reps (for some reason, could not do this the second and third times around - did 20 reps with no weight just to get used to the motion)
--abdominal - 50 lbs 10 reps - eliminated

* particularly hard 

just as i was getting into the groove, my 7 day free trial ended.  so i'm exploring a month-to-month membership since we're planning on moving after the summer.  

overall, even though i hated going to the gym, it was really great having it so close by, and i really did feel amazing afterwards and generally about the fact that i had done it. i think the circuit also makes it feel doable - it's one of those "tell me what to do and i'll do it" things that i tend to like, especially when something is new. of course the most valuable things are the things we learn on our own, but i know for me, i find that notion overwhelming when i'm at the beginning of something, so the presence of some guidance and direction goes a long way for me.

smart reader aimee pointed out that the feeling of being at the beginning of something is often what makes it feel so bad, and that without a regular gym routine, you're kind of always at the beginning of it. that thought hooks on to my feeling that i wasn't sticking with any one thing consistently enough to really get into the routine, and most really good gym people swear by routine.

gym update

okay, so...as i said i would, i am checking in about my gym progress. 

saturday

i dragged myself there saturday morning, valet parked, got my free trial validated, took a tour of the large, impressive gym and did 15 minutes on the treadmill. the idea is that i'm easing (but quickly) into doing 25.

sunday

realllllly didn't want to go. if i hadn't told you i'd report about my progress, i probably wouldn't have gone. it was guilt that dragged me there, 100 percent. my plan was to go and do weights (they have a very large circuit) and then go for a powerwalk outside once i got home. i needed to think i wouldn't have to do cardio there too, otherwise i wouldn't have gone. as my mom said "this is the hard work." and hard it is. it depressed me all day that i had to go. i know one solution is to go first thing in the morning but i couldn't bring myself to leave the house if that's where i was going first. i don't think i realized quite how much i hated it until yeserday.

i went, i did the whole circuit, writing down all my weights and number of reps so i have something to build on. it wasn't so bad. then i figured i was there already so i got on the treadmill and did 17 minutes, continuing to work up to 25. i felt really good leaving.

monday

went for a 25 minute powerwalk outside this morning at 5:45. everything aches with soreness, but i feel really good about it.

packmule mondays

mondays always find me with at least two heavy bags, one on each shoulder, as i make my way through the morning commute. it's because on mondays, i bring in all the breakfast, lunch, snacks and shakes i need for the week ahead (most of which i prepare on sundays).

although it makes for an annoying commute for sure, it means that i'm not leaving things up to chance, a lesson my therapist carrie taught me a long time ago when the plan of choice was weight watchers and it was about having zero points snacks on hand for when the dreaded (and fantasized about) cupcakes ended up in the kitchen at my office. these days, not leaving it to chance means i need to know i have what i know i need...high protein foods, foods i know i tolerate well and foods i know the calorie count on. by getting it all together on sunday, i know i have things properly portioned and weighed so that my meals and snacks are no-brainers during the week. it's a worthy trade-off for the time on sunday and the heavy commute on monday.

today i brought:

-three 1 oz portions of jarslberg

-three 1 oz portions of asiago

-container of seedless grapes

-five 3 oz portions of scrambled eggs and egg whites

-one package of turkey bacon which i cooked yesterday (shadybrook farms reheats very nicely, i find)

-one package of sliced turkey breast

-lightly salted corn thin cakes

-three ready to drink protein shakes

-one bag of sliced cucumbers

-one bag of grape tomatoes

-container of low fat sour cream onion dip

yes, it was all really heavy, but now i don't have to worry about it for the rest of the week. the only thing that could improve matters would be a town car to bring me and my luggage in on monday mornings.

at a scalemate

for the first time in this process, i'm frustrated with the scale. it hasn't moved in about 2 weeks. on some level, i know my body has to catch up with a 125 pound weight loss in 8 months, and on another level, i know that my 2 week exercise hiatus is over. over. done. later. goodbye. i think it started as a "i have a crazy week and i need to take it easy because my body is tired" and then just turned into a bad habit. like they've always said, they fix your stomach but they don't touch your mind.

to mix things up, i'm going to try a 7 day free trial at this gym. god i hate exercising. i want to be one of those people who falls in love with it...positive addiction. mitchell and tried to do the poor man's p90x but it was honestly too intense for me. it made me dread working out, so i've been trying to do my own cocktail of cardio and weights but it's not working. which is to say, i'm not doing it enough. 

i don't have to like it, i just have to do it. i know, without a doubt, that it's the true key to long term success - for everyone, but especially for WLS patients.  to ensure that i make this a true habit (which, i realize, without doing that, i'll never even have the chance to get addicted to it), i'm going to check in here EVERY DAY with what exercise i've done. accountability. oy. 

HIATUS IS OVER.

sunday in the kitchen

i've been cooking for a couple hours most sundays recently (i wear a fun apron!), and it's really become a nice ritual. it helps to center me for the week in terms of what i'll be eating, because it's a built in way of planning ahead, measuring and putting things in perfect portion sizes. although it usually takes two or three hours in all, it means that for the rest of the week, i only need to spend a few minutes each day. i've been experimenting with different recipes and ideas, and in the process i often make mitchell eggs or a sandwich which i really enjoy too (i'm becoming kind of a food pusher, which i have to manage carefully).

i always use a garbage bowl, above, which makes everything cleaner and easier. so yesterday, i made scrambled eggs with cheese (good for quick weekday breakfasts alone or in a trader joe's whole wheat tortilla), chicken tandoori (from this recipe...it came out okay, will be better with the yogurt sauce and i might put it in some bibb lettuce leaves from my container garden) and i boiled a dozen eggs which i always do since i have hardboiled egg whites almost every day for a snack. i also cut up a huuuuuge hothouse cucumber which i eat throughout the week on its own, with hummus, or with some light dressing.

i had forgotten to defrost some ground turkey which i also would have made since i've been enjoying that for dinner some nights with sour cream, scallions and spicy beans. i took it out and will do that one night this week since all i do is saute the meat and add some reduced sodium taco seasoning.

i also whipped some sugar free frosting to keep in a tupperware in the refrigerator. i don't feel great about this, but i think i've finally found a sweet treat i can keep in the house that isn't a trigger. it's SO sweet that i just have a little spoonful of it after dinner (some nights, not every) and i don't even want anymore. so that's working right now. i just have to be like a hawk about it and if it stops working...in that i find myself wanting more of it or eating it instead of wholesome foods...then it goes and it doesn't come back.

do you cook one day over the weekend for the whole week?

a day in the life

one of the things i wondered about most when i was pre-op was what my day would look like in terms of food. one on hand, i felt embarrassed by the idea that i was having weight loss surgery, about to change my life so drastically forever, and yet what i was thinking about was the food. but that's the reality for so many people considering the surgery - in some ways, it's the mentality that got us here, and it's not easy to break just because you've made the decision to have the surgery. if we were able to overhaul that way of thinking, we wouldn't need the surgery...and the cycle continues.

i was afraid to ask people online, in my support group, even my nutritionist what a post-op day of food looked like because of that shame, so i wanted to share it with you. i figure i'll do it once a week or so, so you can see the variety of foods i eat, the amounts, the times and what my feelings/thoughts are about each meal and snack. i know it would have been helpful to me beforehand, in fact one of the best message board threads i came across on this site was about what foods you were afraid you'd miss once you had the surgery and how you feel about it now. it was such a relief to me to see that other people had food fears and thoughts beforehand and that i wasn't alone. so i hope these posts can offer some comfort to people who need to know what their new life will look like. 

in broad strokes...

• between 80g and 100g of protein daily is non-negotiable. 
• i try to stay between 1000-1200 calories a day, closer to 1000 if it's not a day i'm working out. also, if i am working out, the extra 200 calories should be mainly protein. 
• carbs should be around 45 net carbs daily or less; nothing white, must be WHOLE grains
• sugars are minimal...i never eat more than 9g sugar at once, and i try to stay lower. 
• i use the website sparkpeople to track all of the above everyday

okay here we go...and as you can see, it's always a work in progress and a learning experience.

6:30 AM

before my shower, i went downstairs and had a kashi trail mix bar even though i wasn't particularly hungry...i ate it anyway because for the past two days, i didn't eat in the morning because i wasn't hungry and i had a bloated, gassy feeling all day which i think was from taking vitamins on an empty stomach.(you can read more about my up and down hunger here). i thought about adding a light mini-babybel cheese for some protein but really couldn't eat more.

140 cals, 5g fat, 4g fiber, 6g protein, 6g sugar, 16 net carbs

after my shower (having waited the recommended 30 minutes since eating), i had iced coffee with skim milk (a few of them, if i'm honest, which totals one cup of skim milk for the day).

86 calories, 8g protein, 12 carbs  

-these carbs are milk sugars, and don't really factor in heavily in terms of carbs...sort of abstract but my nutritionist and i have it down

12:40 PM

for lunch, i had five ounces of the tofu peanut stirfry i made over the weekend. it's a mixture of tofu (which didn't turn out as firm as i hoped, any suggestions?), edamame, mushrooms, scallions, crushed ginger, peanut butter, broccoli, cauliflower and soy sauce. oh and some rice vinegar and sherry (i've made it without those two ingredients and it tastes exactly the same). i also throw in some cumin, curry powder and chili powder. it's good - better than it looks, and sort of hits that chinese food spot. i've made it with chicken too. 

so this i measured out into 5 ounce portions after making it, and i was feeling like although it was physically comfortable to eat all 5 ounces, it was starting to look like a lot to me, portion-wise. and this is a tricky thing...there's one school of thought that says never to eat more than 4 - 6 ounces at once, and then there's another that says you have to find the limits of your "pouch" so that you're satisfied...i do a combination, while never eating more than 6 ounces if that makes sense, and some foods (like chicken) are denser and fill me on less than others (like nuts and cheese and sugar free desserts...go figure). i ran into a friend in the kitchen at work while i was reheating the tofu who was shocked at what a small portion it was. that made me feel pretty good.

approx 268 calories, 13 carbs, 19g fat, 17g protein

-this is a little high in fat, i think i have to find a way to go lighter on the peanut butter, but overall it's okay, just have to balance it later in the day

1:35 PM

another iced coffee as mentioned and accounted for above, but i added a scoop of pure protein powder to bulk up my protein intake for the day since my breakfast was a little light in that department.

50 calories, 12g protein (milk in coffee counted above)

3:40PM

2 hard boiled egg whites, 1/2 oz gorgonzola cheese, 7 small black olives, 7 grape tomatoes (no reason for the 7's, just coincidence)

i love snacks like this...it's a good mix of textures and tastes, and it all feels healthy and whole. i'm a little uneasy because i didn't weigh it, but i think it's about 5 ounces all together...egg whites are heavy. i need to get a scale for my office.

approx. 140 calories, 4 carbs, 8g fat, 13g protein

4:06 PM
hungrier than before i had my snack, just waiting to drink some water which might help. this still happens, this hunger. some people have the experience of never being hungry, but i'm not having that experience. sometimes i feel like it would be a lot easier if that happened for me. but my nutritionist asked me "do you want that experience?" and i guess i don't. that doesn't seem like a healthy relationship with food either. 

6:25 PM

on the train home and needed a snack...had 2 mini sugar free reese's pb cups...these are somehow not a trigger for me, and work well as a pretty low calorie (considering) sweet bite when i need one. admittedly a little crappy as food goes, but i'm okay with it if it's not all the time.


68 calories, 5g fat, less than 1g net carb, 1g protein

worked out at around 7:30 and actually wasn't really hungry afterwards for a while. that's unusual for me, usually i'm starving after working out. so i drank some iced tea and waited until i felt a little hungrier. i think somehow the reese's really filled/satisfied me.

8:45 PM

had 2 ounces of ground turkey with taco seasoning, 2 tablespoons of an herbed sour cream i made (scallions and chives, and i like to call it "herb crema" cause i'm fancy), 1/4 cup of cajun black beans, some chopped scallions and 1 ounce of smart puffs. that's the part i feel not so great about. but they're really tasty, pretty healthy and surprisingly, not a trigger for me. i buy them in the individual bags and they take a while to eat and i really enjoy them. it's another "as long as they don't replace real food" situations.

307 calories, about 20g net carbs, 14g fat, 18g protein

DAILY TOTAL: 1,059 calories, about 50g net carbs, 51g fat, 74g protein

ASSESSMENT: OKAY. 

calories - i could have had some more calories since i worked out, but didn't want to have snackfoods (like a granola bar or more smart puffs which i definitely wanted)...i would have had to have more meat or cheese and that would have increased the ounces of my dinner. if i had waited a while and eaten more after dinner, it would have been too close to bed. 

i could have... had another ounce of turkey with dinner and skipped the beans, or added some more protein powder to my coffees, or had a more protein-heavy snack on the train.

carbs - a little high on the carbs...the granola bar for breakfast didn't help. better to stick with things like eggs and cheese and turkey/chicken for breakfast. also, the smart puffs are high in carbs. i think a granola/protein bar are an either/or situation with the same day.

i could have...had a better, more protein-focused breakfast

fat - also a little high...peanut butter needs to be reduced in that tofu recipe, but i'm over that recipe for a while now anyway. 

protein - almost! it's hard to keep the calories down and the protein up, which is where the shakes do come in handy...

i could have...if i had added another scoop of protein, would have been fine. or i should have made sure that my snack in the afternoon had more protein.

was this helpful for anyone? it was for me! it was really interesting to me to see how much my hunger fluctuated throughout the day. i always think that some days i'm hungry and some days i'm not, but by writing it all out, i see that actually that happens several times within a day.

does it look like more or less than you expected?

the hunger games

my hunger has been up and down lately. some days, i feel totally ravenous and like i could eat constantly. and then other days, i feel like eating is something i can't even fathom, and this is the first time i've felt that. while i don't feel that way all day, i feel it for usually the first half of the day. protein shakes come in handy those days so i know i'm getting the protein i need. some people have that feeling from the beginning of their post-op period but i have not had that experience at all. it doesn't worry me - i get that a lot is going on in my body right now and i will go through changes and ebbs and flows, and i'm okay with that. 

so my strategy will be to just accept what i feel and go with it - if i'm not feeling hungry one day, i'll respect that that's what my body is telling me and i'll just drink protein so i make sure i get enough calories and protein (1000 and 80 to 100 grams, respectively).

i have noticed that there is some rhyme or reason, sometimes. the week before i get my period, i'm starving. and last week, when my allergies were horrible, i wasn't hungry at all. i also notice that when i cook a lot (which i often do on sundays), i feel less hungry generally. partially, i think i taste as i go so i never get truly hungry and partially because, as my friend and chef kelly tells me, the sense of smell that is stimulated when you cook can often trick your mind into being satiated in ways that normally only eating accomplishes. interesting.

don't know

last night was a doozy...i ate my healthy chicken dinner and then i was having a hard time waiting for dessert which was a sugar free chocolate muffin (see the lesson i thought i learned here about sugar free treats).

i decided that even though it had been less than an hour since dinner, i would have dessert. eating less than three hours apart is considered grazing and i'm not supposed to do it. while grazing won't stretch my pouch the way overeating in one sitting will, it’s a bad habit and it makes it easy to take in too many calories throughout the day. the small size of my pouch only stops me from eating a lot in one sitting - it wouldn't stop me from eating a little every hour on the hour and we all know that's not good news for weight loss. but i digress...

so imagine having the thanksgiving dinner feeling but all in your esophagus/throat. that's what i had last night after a couple bites of that muffin. thank god i stopped when i did - not because another 20 or 30 calories would have killed me but because of how sick i would have felt if i had. as it was, i was utterly miserable for an hour or so until i guess i digested a little. i threw up a little which helped (sorry if that grosses you out, though it’s important to note here that for most weight loss surgery patients, throwing up is not what you imagine since we have no stomach acid so its not as gross). i also took a sublingual B12 which i find helps speed digestion sometimes and I need to take it every other day anyway (two birds with one stone).

so as i recovered, sitting very still with my cat, i thought about a lot:

-it’s crazy that so little food created that feeling. reminds me of how much i was physically altered that 3 or 4 oz of chicken and a couple bites of a muffin an hour later would fill me to the brim and beyond. and that makes me think about the damage i would have done without my restriction - about what i would have eaten (and did eat) to bring me to that point of sick fullness pre-surgery time and time again - pounds of pasta, whole pizzas, chinese food to feed a family...

-it made me think about why i brought that kind of food into the house again after i thought i learned the trick of sweet foods for me. 

-it also made me think about why i needed that muffin so badly? i wasn't hungry. i knew it would be there in the morning, so why? people say "nothing tastes as good as thin feels" and i am experiencing every day how good thin(ner) feels, but the weird, sad, confusing reality is that although nothing does taste as good as thin feels, it doesn’t always stop a food addict from eating.

why? i don't know.

have a seat

chairs have always been a big deal for me...will i fit? will they be comfortable? will i have to make a scene getting in or our of an ill-fitting chair or one that's too close to the table? i would regularly arrive at gatherings early to scope out the chair situation, if i didn't call ahead or scour the restaurant's website for pictures of the dining room so i'd be forewarned. i became comfortable asking for a table over a booth (generally speaking, booths have been out of the question for years) or asking for a chair without arms (chairs with arms, pretty much a never).

so recently when my boss wanted to take a few of us out to lunch, i went through the usual mental process...where can we go that i'll be comfortable? should i plan to meet them there or take the chance of being embarrassed in front of them all? i think i was forgetting how my body has changed. even though i know, i don't always KNOW.

we decided where we'd go, and luckily, i walk by that restaurant every day when i walk to work from penn station. one day, i got up the nerve to try to sit in one of the chairs...i didn't want to make a scene in the early morning traffic, but i desperately wanted - needed - to know if we'd be able to sit outside in one of them on one of the first glorious days of spring. the chairs still looked small, and the armrests still looked punishing and restrictive. i told myself that if i didn't fit yet it was okay, that i had made such strides already and it would only be a matter of time before this milestone was under my belt too.

I FIT! comfortably, with space on either side! i was smiling from ear to ear and didn't care if i was making a scene at that moment. it felt good. the cold metal felt inviting and congratulatory, not punishing and insulting as it had for so long.

when we went to lunch that day, much to my dismay, it was decided that we'd eat inside instead of outside, which meant that the chairs were not to be. instead, i felt a familiar sense of dread rising in me as we were led to a tight-looking booth. A BOOTH?!?! that i hadn't accounted for. i hadn't done a test-drive. i should have come earlier and assessed...or called ahead...oh god.

i fit. 

i'll tell you, it wasn't entirely comfortable - my breasts were almost touching the strangely-high table. i'll get there though, and like i was prepared to tell myself before, that milestone will be under my belt before long.