Food Find!!

Okay so I have to have to have to share my latest food find with you!! White Chocolate Macadamia Luna Bar!! Now don't think I'm nuts because I know it doesn't have enough protein in it to be a meal but it is sooo tasty and it's an awesome snack! Here are the nutrition facts, you guys have to try it!! Nutrition Facts
Serving Size 1 bar (48g)
Calories 190
Calories from fat 60

*Percent Daily Values (DV) are based on a 2,000 calorie diet.
Amount/Serving%DV*
Total Fat 7g11%
Sat. Fat 2.5g13%
Trans Fat 0gNone
Cholesterol 0mg0%
Sodium 210mg9%
Potassium 140mg4%

Amount/Serving%DV*
Total Carb. 25g8%
Dietary Fiber 3g12%
Insoluble Fiber 1gNone
Sugars 11gNone
Other Carb. 11gNone
Protein 9g 18%

Vit. A 20% * Vit. C 20% * Calcium 35% * Iron 30% * Vit. E 30% * Vit. K 10% * Thiamin (B1) 10% * Riboflavin (B2) 40% * Niacin (B3) 40%* Vit. B6 75% * Folate 100% * Vit. B12 75% * Vit. D 15% * Biotin25% * Pantothenic Acid 40% * Phosphorus 20% * Iodine 35% * Magnesium 10% * Zinc 35% * Selenium 35% * Copper 10% * Manganese 25% * Chromium 25% * Molybdenum 25%

Slow & Steady

It seems to me that so many people expect everything and anything so instantaneously these days. I'm talking about a broad range of things from growing up, to a promotion, to loosing excess weight; we want everything we want and we want it in the blink of an eye. I'll be the first to raise my hand in admittance that I fall into this category.
Among many other things in life, I want my excess weight off now and yesterday would have been better lol.

In the begining of my Lap Band Journey I had a clear mission, to loose 100lbs within the first year of being banded. It just so happened that this darn thing called "life" took over and got me stuck and caused me to get unfilled which ended up in 2 months of no weight loss. Bummer huh? Well initially I thought the same thing, but I'm not so sure now.

I've been forced to slow down the past couple of months and that has lead me to the belief that perhaps slower is better? I've lost 35lbs in the past 6 months!!!!!!! The last time I lost any weight even close to that amount was when I was 16 years old and back then it was only 30lbs I had lost. So in 6 years I had lost no weight, gained a bunch and in 6 months I lost 35lbs! All I needed to do was slow down and really think about that and I am so thrilled with my results so far. If I lost another 35lbs in the next 6 months, I won't have reached my original goal of 100lbs lost in the 1st year but that is okay! I will get there no matter how long it takes, we all will! I just felt compelled to share this with you all because I know how frustrating trying to loose weight and changing your lifestyle can be but it is possible, just don't give up.

Merry Christmas!!!

I have not noticed a big difference since my last fill. That is to be expected though. Typically it takes me about one week or so to really feel the affects. However, I have noticed a decrease in my appetite, or my head hunger shall I say. Not that, that is keeping me from eating when I am not hungry but it is sure helping to reduce the amount I am eating. I wonder if starting back up on Metformin is having anything to do with that as well? They say that it is possible that once the Metformin starts to work that it can help you to loose weight. All the help I can get at this point is fantastic!!

Speaking of head hunger......back in October before I had my unfill I was feeling like I was on top of the world. My food intake was under control and I thought I had conquered my head hunger! When I had to get unfilled, the first week after I still felt okay but every soon after I began loose my head hunger mind! I would be eating things just to eat things. Sitting there eating wondering why on earth am I eating this but feeling physically unable to stop. Thank Goodness I have not gained any weight considering how "out of control" I have felt. Thank Goodness again that I am finally feeling like I am gaining back control as I get filled up more.

In a way it was eye opening to have the unfill because I realized that my food addiction hadn't been "cured" and it really showed my how much this Band is really helping me and how wonderful of a tool it is! I am so thankful for it!!

Have a Merry Christmas everyone!

My Fill & PCP Visit

Soooo I had my fill and it went wonderfully! I got .5cc which makes me now at 5.5! I am really expecting to start seeing my numbers dropping again! Thank you Jesus!! lol. I couldn't get another fill appointment until the end of January though! They are really busy at Hospital! I am going to try and call every now and then and try to get a cancellation!

I also had a Physical Appointment and everything went great there too. My doc was super happy about my 35lbs loss! She started me back up on metformin. For anyone who doesn't know what metformin is.......it's a diabetic drug. What I'm diabetic?? Nope I'm not....sike lol.....one of the side effects of metformin is that it helps PCOS (polycystic ovary syndrome). Last year she tried me on 500mg once daily for 3 months to see how I would react to it. Everything went fine so she doubled my dose and wrote me a prescription for the year so I am very happy with that! I found this website that explains metformin and what it does for pcos if anyone out there is interested!!

5cc

So my last fill brought me up to 5cc and that was almost 2 weeks ago now. I did not feel much of a difference the week following the adjustment, but starting week 2 the fill really started to kick in! For example today I ate a really large salad, like one whole head of romaine and 3oz of chicken and the fixins, you know. I am so full and that was nearly 4 hours ago that I ate that! I am finally starting to feel hope"full".

I have to take a moment to "confess" lol I have been eating poorly the past few weeks! Not just choosing some of the wrong foods but more like eating a bit too much and not planning my meals which ends up in poor food choices and too much food! I've been noticing that I feel really bloated lately and I don't feel good!! I'd like to use the Holidays as my excuse to do bad things lol but honestly, enough of that excuse......the reason I am doing bad is because I am allowing myself to. You know it's a BIG life lesson to learn that you are the choices you make and I am fat because I am doing really bad things that are keeping me that way! *sigh* with that said...how is everyone else doing??? hehe

I am super excited to have a fill tomorrow!

Snow Snow Snow......OH NO!

I live in Massachusetts for anyone who might not have known, right on the southern NH border. I am about a 2 minute drive to Nashua, NH (which is the birth place of Mandy Moore - - haha just thought I'd throw that out there!!) So the other day we got like maybe 2 or 3 inches of snow and although I wasn't happy I feel like I dealt with it well! Come on now you wouldn't believe how much snow we are experiencing today!!! They say it will range from 5-10 inches and 1 foot possible in some areas! Can I just tell you this is like my worst nightmare! lol

I know plenty of people like snow...and I like it too, for about the first 5 minutes and then I can't stand it! I feel closed in and unable to move, it really creates a debilitating feeling for me. I have a feeling a lot of people get this feeling in the winter and that is why so many people gain weight during the cold months. Thank you Jesus for my treadmill, at least I have that going for me!! However, the outside blanket makes it hard to keep myself motivated! Gotta keep that goal in mind!

What's it like in your neck of the woods????

Happy =)

I am so excited! I went to get a fill today and told Corrine how I told feel anything at all when I what, I can eat whatever and as much as I want. So she said that she wanted to give me a whole cc bringing me up to 5! I was really happy that she wanted to do that because even at 5 I didn't feel much the first time around but I do recall feeling more satisfied at 5cc. I just want to start feeling something because it's felt like I have no band at all for over one month now!

I am still running...I ran for 5 whole consecutive minutes yesterday! lol I am SOOOO sore today lol but it was so worth it. I really feel like running might be my niche. I don't think next month or anything I'll be able to run a whole mile yet but I think if I keep at it I might actually become really good at it so I am excited! It doesn't seem to be something I dread to do...I actually enjoy it! I am also excited because my hubby seems to be jumping on the healthy band wagon. We actually bought a scale today that he could weight himself on... so he found out what he weighed for the first time in about 5 years. Thank God it was what he thought. To me it's scary not to know what you weigh because then you can just ignore the pounds that you pack on......that is what I was doing in the past! I think as I change my life he really wants to as well, at least I hope!

Do you have an overweight spouse or close relative??

Life

So I am stuck....no not like fluid stuck...I mean like 217lbs stuck! I have been 217lbs since I had my unfill which was the end of October! Can we say frustrated!!!! Boy o boy am I frustrated. Honestly though, I am frustrated with nothing else other than my darn self! I have recently figured out that the only thing stopping me is me. I think I've been waiting for like this miracle band to suck all he fat out of my body haha but when in reality it's really just this tool of a band waiting for me to get moving!! I feel like I've taken a step forward in just realizing this alone, which feels really really good.

Thank the Lord I have another fill this Friday, because I could eat a house if I wanted to right now. I have absolutely no restriction at all. I plan to get .5cc my doc and I talked last time I was there and sort of came up with a fill schedule.....this Friday .5cc and the time after that .5cc and then .25cc every fill after that. Of course that will change if need be as usual. As much as I want restriction like yesterday haha I really really want to go nice and slow with this.

Anyone else out there with fill / restriction frustration??

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hey Everyone!!

Not too much to report here, but I wanted to wish everyone a Happy Thanksgiving! My family is coming over my house today for dinner and I am super excited! For those of you who don't live in the United States, then I wish you a good ole Thursday lol. =)


You remember how in the past when I said I was going to start that program, Couch to 5k? Well at the time I attempted it and half way through the first session on the first day I gave up because honestly I was so flipping scared! I thought that there was no way this was attainable for me. Well I am thrilled to report that yesterday I decided to give it another try. I have been watching the Biggest Loser a lot lately and was really inspired by Amanda my age. (on the website it says she is 19, but on the show she said she was 22, so I don't know what is going on there.) So as I was running on the tredmill wanting to give up I kept telling myself "If Amanda can do it, I can do it!" I can't believe that it worked for me, but it did. I actually completed to the first session and feel so good about it! I now see running as a serious possibility for my future!!!

Getting Back on Track

So I've been struggling lately, ever since I had an unfill. Eating too much has been my primary issue. I've been going up and down between 217lbs and 220lbs but this past week I really gave myself a kick in the butt to get back on track and today I am back at 217lbs which feels great! I found out that in April I am going to Florida so that helped to really get me focused and knock off the nonsense. I would really love to lose 50lbs by then if at all possible!! It's nice to have a goal in mind. I really want to feel good in a bathing suit!

Diet Tribe

Throughout all the community boards I am on I never find anyone talking about this show, Diet Tribe! This is its second season. It's always a goup of 5 woman who are friends and are trying to create happier healthier lives for themselves. This season their goal was to each loose 50lbs in 120 days. Next Friday November 20th is the season final on Lifetime. Lanessa (all the way to the right of the picture) has already lost 51lbs, and the rest of the woman are pretty darn close. I can't wait to see if they make it next week!

As I watch this show I get really inspired to challenge myself to loose 50lbs in 120 days....wouldnt that be amazing??? If I started today Nov. 15th....day 120 would be March 14th. I watch these woman make a real commitment to changing their eating habits and really sticking to a gym schedule. Now I have made some serious changes compared to what I was doing pre-band....but there is always a part of me that is saying I could try harder.

Anyone else ever feel like they can try harder than they are???

Venting

I just wanted to take this opportunity to vent my frustration with the scale! I have been a very very good girl and have been working out daily. Occasionaly I take a day off to let my body rest....also I have been really good eating wise, I have been staying around 1300 cailories daily. I think I feel my body perhaps "firming" up a little bit but the darn scale isn't budging in numbers...... I think I am going to lengthen the time of my cardio workout and see if that helps. Any advice????

Virtual Model Makeover

If you have never played around with any of the virtual model makeovers...you should give it a try it's a lot of fun! Here is the site that I did it at...... Prevention

"First Fill"

I got my first fill yesterday since my ER Unfill Extravaganza. She put 1.5cc's in bringing me to 2.5cc's. I feel no difference which I knew would be the case but that is just fine with me! I am going back in 2 weeks. I did manage to loose 2lbs since the last time I saw her though which was only 2 weeks. So 1lb per week with nothing in the band is not too shabby in my opinion. However, that does leave me at a 217 that I feel like I have been at forever!!! lol o Well it will come off sooner or later.

Holiday Eating Season

Happy November everyone!! I just love November, not only because Thanksgiving is my favorite Holiday but because my Birthday is this month also!!! Every few years my Birthday actually falls right on Thanksgiving and as a child that was always so much fun because we got to have a big cake after
dinner!

I do have some concerns as we enter the holiday season however. Holidays means you eat more than normal and combine the 2 and your extended family is always around and my family knows NOTHING about me having the lap band. I'm actually pretty thankful that I had to get my band unfilled, hopefully this will make it a little less obvious that I can't eat as much as all of them. If you don't know, my mom, dad, and husband are the only one's who know that I have the band. I have not told anyone else because I don't want to be under a microscope and I know so many of them would be like "why did you do that?" They wouldn't get it. I assume one day I will tell them, but that is one day very far away from now!

Can some of you veterans out there give me some tips/advice or any comments that might help me out this holiday eating season??

BMR

basal metabolic rate
Function: noun
:the rate at which heat is given off by an organism at complete rest

When I started my journey I weighed 252lbs and my BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) was 1,953. Which means I could eat 1,953 calories per day and maintain my weight of 252lbs. 1lb equals 3,500 calories so as an example if I wanted to loose 1lb per week just by cutting calories than I would have needed to only consume 1,453 calories per day. This would have cut 500 calories from my diet each day resulting in cutting 3,500 calories per week and that equals 1lb lost. Sounds easy right?

I was watching a Dr. OZ episode where he was talking about weight loss plateaus and your BMR which made me think to check my own. Up until this point I had been loosing weight, and been going about my daily life with the assumption that my BMR was still 1,953. When in all actuality when I plugged my new numbers into the BMR Calculator I found out that my new BMR is now 1,800! That is a difference of 153 calories. So in other words, if I was still eating 1,453 calories per day I was no longer burning 3,500 calories or 1lb per week. Instead I was burning only 2,429 calories which would have caused me to loose less than 1lb per week. So I would have needed to adjust my food consumption to 1,300 calories per day so I could maintain my goal of 1lb lost per week. Does this make sense?

I share this only because if I didn't know that ones BMR can change, I imagine that other people out there don't know this either and can't understand why they can't get past the plateau they have reached. I hope that this helps someone out there and that even if you already knew this that you might take the time to pass it on to someone else that you think might benefit from knowing it!

CLICK HERE TO CALCULATE YOUR BMR

35lbs Lost!!!

I've been at 35lbs lost for about a week or so now and I thought it was time to actually get a decent pic on here to share with you all!

Follow Up w/ Corinne

So I spoke with Corinne yesterday (my nurse practitioner who does my fils), she was so sweet and very concerned about my ER endeavor this past weekend. She said that when things like this happen, she prefers to see her patients every 2-3 weeks rather than every 4-6 weeks. That way it doesn't take as long to fill up. I am totally up for that but I will definetly be getting less fills. Like I said in previous posts, I think I was way too agressive which I of coruse wouldn't admit then. Much like others, I thought the bigger the fill the better but now I know that is just not the case because look what happened =(. Of course Corinne would have to think these amounts would be okay but I was thinking 1.5cc, 1.5cc, 1c, and than just .5cc from there on out as far as the fill schdule would go. I have appointments on Nov. 4th, Nov. 20th, and Dec. 4th so far. After the Dec. 4th appointment that should leave me at 5cc and then I was thinking to get .5cc before christmas. I don't know I am just thinking outloud at this point lol like I said Corinne would have to be cool with all this.

Does anyone else out there feel like maybe they have been too agressive with fills or anything like that?? Oh and I wanted to say thanks to everyone for all your suport during my ordeal! Ya'll rock!

Visit to the ER

Around 1 o'clock yesterday I decided to eat some soybeans in between breakfast and lunch. I was feeling hungry but it was not time to eat lunch just yet. I was really excited because I ate half of one serving which was only about 1/8 of a cup and felt really satisfied. About 10-15 minutes after I had ate them, I started feeling weird. I didn't have any painful feelings, it was just severe discomfort. Immediately I thought that I had perhaps ate too fast and so I was ready to endure the discomfort for the next hour.

After one hour I still felt the same. I kept having to spit because it was like there was not enough room in my stomach for me to even swallow it! Then I kept throwing up. My stomach kept creating that "slim" to try and help through whatever was stuck but of course that was not helping because it was creating less and less room in my stomach. No word of a lie this went on for 6 hours!

Finally around 6pm I called Lahey Clinic to make sure that if I went there, there would be someone to help. They assured me there was a doctor on call. So I went to the ER at Lahey, checked in and it took about 2.5hours until someone could see me. I spent almost all that time waiting in the bathroom spitting and trying to throw up. I felt so sick. I felt like I had a golf ball stuck in my throat.

Finally this man came out, come to find out he was my surgeons Sr. Surgical Resident. He was so nice. He didn't seem very confident in himself of being able to find my port though but at that point I didn't care how many time he had to poke me I just wanted it out! He found my port very quickly and extracted 6cc's of saline and left 1cc in. I am not kidding when I say that I had immediate relief! The doctor almost didn't believe me. He said "are you serious?" and when I said "oh yes" he said "well that was gratifying!" That made me giggle.

So then he took me for an xray to make sure the band was still in the right spot. Since I had been throwing up so much you just don't know. The xrays came back and he said everything looked perfect. He sent me home and now I just have to call Corinne (my nurse practitioner) on Monday and let her know what happened. In a way I am kind of happy I had almost all the fluid taken out because I feel I might have been to aggressive with the fills thinking "the faster the better" so I would much prefer to go back and start filling up much more slowly now.

Sigh...so that's it....I am on liquids today and softs tomorrow. Thanks for listening!

5th Fill

So I got to Lahey Clinic around 11am this morning for my fill at 11:30am. They were really busy today so I ended up waiting until almost noon before they took me in. My nurse practitioner, Corinne who gives me my fills is so nice, I just love her. I swear we talk more about personal things rather than lap band related things lol.

Before todays fill I was at 6.5cc's and I had been feeling a big difference for the first time. I went to Lahey today with the intent of getting just one half of a cc and Corinne thought that was a great idea because she thought I was getting really close to "my sweet spot". I totally agreed with her. So I am on liquids today so I don't really know if the .5 has made a difference yet, we will see. I have a really good feeling that it will. Typically I have been getting fills every 3-4 weeks but I shceduled my 6th fill for Dec. 4th (6 weeks) because I feel at 7cc I should be set for a while. Of course, you know I'll change it to sooner if I feel like I need it.

Keeping my fingers crossed that I'll loose 4 1/2 pounds this week like I did after my last fill! That would be cool lol. Where are you all at with fills????

New Year, New You Challenge

So I started this new challenge on Lap Band Talk called "New Year, New You" (NYNY).....for anyone familiar with the Turkey Day Challenge it is the exact same thing. I created this challenge to overlap the Turkey Day because I didn't want to be left with no Challenge come the day after Thanksgiving! So the NYNY Challenge will run from Nov. 1st to Jan. 1st.

Basically what it is, for anyone who doesn't know......I created a google speadsheet and you just go to the spreadsheet and fill out the info it asks for (start weight, goal weight, ect) and it will automatically calculate the lbs you need to loose by the end of the challenge.

If you are not a member on Lap Band Talk, you can just make a name for yourself where it asks for your User Name. If you aren't part of the Turkey Day Challenge and you want to start this New Challenge right now, just put todays date in the column that asks for the date you started this challenge.

To recap my own goals......I wanted to hit Onederland (199lbs) by Thanksgiving.....if that actually happens then my goal will be 175lbs by Jan. 1st. I might be able to hit the 199lbs seeing I do get another fill tomorrow. We will see!