Finally!

This morning the scale finally put me at 240 (well, to be honest, 240.3#, but that's close enough!).  It feels like I hardly eat and yet my weight stubbornly refused to move for almost a week.  Now it is going down again and I feel very encouraged.  I'm not fitting into any new clothes but my current clothes are fitting much better (some are even too big).
The really amazing thing is that my weight is now a public thing.  My entire family knows what I weigh.  Most of the people at work know what I weigh.  I've just put away the embarrassment over the whole thing.  I can hardly wait until I no longer think about what I weigh all the time...that will be really growing up.  Until then, it's one day at a time.  The under 200 for my birthday still looks very realistic. :)

HUNGRY!!

Wow, today hunger hit with both barrels.  I ate a huge dinner (huge by the standards of the last month - I probably put away a cup of food - 80% of which was yummy meatloaf.  So far no problem with vomiting or regurgitation.   The constipation is still a problem and I really don't feel like the band is doing anything.  Guess I'm just discouraged because my weight is sitting unchanged and I'm still being forced to diet.
I'm sure it will be better tomorrow!

Lost at the Grocery Store...

Well, work was soooo busy - I really was exhausted by the time the day was finished but no rest for me!  When I got to the doctor appointment today I was 242# (hooray!) and he looked at my incisions and then declared I had five rules to follow from now until goal weight:
1)  Only eat when you're hungry.
2)  Stop eating when you're full.
3)  No liquids with calories.  None, never, nada.
4)  Focus on protein - minimal carbs, lower fat.  But they should be finely ground or soft.
5)  Never drink with or three hours after a meal.
This seems like so much less restriction than I hear from other bandsters!  No mushies, no transitional foods - just right to the diet.   Doesn't that seem strange?  That said, I managed to find a lunch (a few finely diced crab sticks and some mayonnaise) that was nicely filling.  The trouble came when I got to the grocery store.
It felt so strange to have to walk past the beautiful produce.  I know that pasta, bread and rice are no longer on my to eating list but it was still odd to sail past another entire section with an empty cart.  Got to the meat department and then just stared.  What was easy to digest but low fat and could pass through the stoma?  I picked up some marinated shrimp and a little package of lump crab.  Then I found lean ground chicken.  I was on a roll!  But then I hit the diary products - what was OK?  Yogurt and ice cream and milk pass through too easily.  The only thing I could think of was cottage cheese.  Two tubs of low fat.  Three inner aisles yielded almost nothing except two 8 ounce can of nuts and three cans of crystal light mix.  I was looking at this little tiny pile of food to meet my needs for the next four or five days.  That's when I realized how much my life has changed - this is a completely new looking grocery cart.  Still feeling lost...

Back to work

It is one week after surgery (my one week "bandiversary" I believe Polly called it).  That means back to work for me.  I have a full eight hour day (did I mention I am TIRED) and a recheck appointment at my doctor's office to squeeze in over my lunch hour.  Ugh.

Of course work is very busy (I guess my clients missed me - I have lots of special requests to fit in and calls to return - I feel the love but it still makes me tired).  We'll see how the day goes and what the doc says.

Tired, so very, very tired...

I think the low calories do start to get to you after a while.  I had a very busy day (got up at 5:40 to drive to Oak Park for a church meeting and never slowed down), had a potluck in the evening, and also managed to squeeze in 20 minutes on the elliptical trainer.  With only three small, low fat meals during the day I get so tired!  Hopefully tomorrow I will find out I can eat a little more.  Today I made a yummy carrot soup for the potluck which was a big hit but it also was enough that I can have the leftovers for lunch tomorrow. 
Tomorrow is my first post-op follow up - very interested to hear where I go from here.  This morning I was down to 243.8#.  Don't think I'll make <240 by Tuesday, but who knows?  It is coming off faster than I dared hope.  For now I'm off to the bath...

Pea Soup for dinner

Hunger has again reared its ugly head.  The boys made blueberry waffles and bacon for breakfast, making my pumpkin smoothie seem pretty lame.  So I decided to make something that felt more substantial - split pea soup (doesn't hurt that I have a big ham bone in the freezer).
So I put some onions and butter in the Dutch oven and cooked until the onions were golden.  I then added water and soaked split peas and the frozen ham bone and simmered the whole thing for two hours.  I added a couple of cups of frozen peas about 30 minutes before I finished.  Took the bone out and blended the whole thing.  The I took part and passed it through a strainer to produce  this ultra smooth pea and ham soup.  Yummy!  I added ham and carrots to the remaining unstrained soup for the rest of the family.
It was great to be "eating" the food that everyone else was eating (sort of) instead of smelling great smells and eating my smoothie or broth.  As an added benefit, it drove the smell of bacon out of the house!

Just a little gross...

It has been five days since surgery and I finally pooped!  I realize that's a little gross, but it is such a relief (literally)!  I had started to get concerned Wednesday night and yesterday afternoon I was wise enough to express my concerns to my nurse husband.  Next thing I know he has talked to a pharmacy and run out to the same and came back with two innocent looking amber bottles.  The first one, liquid Senna Leaf Syrup, is stimulant type of laxative.  It has a super thick, sweet almost licorice-like flavor.  After the bitterness of the Lortab, this is almost tasty.  Then he gives me 2 teaspoons of DSS liquid, a stool softener.  This stuff is completely nasty!  It tastes like cherry flavored soap.  And the soap tastes grabs your mouth and hangs on - lasted for over an hour!  Luckily it worked, or I don't think I could have taken another dose of that stuff this morning!  Now he suggests I take 1 teaspoon of each twice a day unless I develop diarrhea.
On the positive side, my weight this morning (after the blessed poop!) was 245.2 - hooray!!  Hopefully the cramping from the Senna Leaf will decrease with this smaller dose.  Here's to only three more days of liquid diet!