Ok, so once a week Troy and I had our daughter take pics of us so we have a paper trail of our efforts. We hadn't done it in over a month, so I thought the results were going to be drastic. Eh. NO. In all honesty, Troy looks better in every pic... Me I look the same. It doesn't help that Daisy never takes the pic from the same location, so they always look way different. But I don't see any drastic or even subtle changes. It sucks. I also weighed myself today and I've gained a pound. I've been fucking with this same 2 pounds for I swear a month. It's not fair. I eat right, I exercise my ass off... well, I try to, and I don't see any fruits of my labor. Now, pictures, I have a lot to lose, so I can understand not seeing anything in a pic. But that FUCKING SCALE!!! Argh. And, I rode my bike up hills and my BMF didn't register any activity. Really? I'm sweating, huffing and puffing and nada? But it didn't seem to catch my earlier efforts either. Either my body is really getting used to this, which would suck balls, or I'm not working as hard as I thought I was. Or my BMF is dirty. Gonna clean it.
Damn.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Sleep and my gastic bypass surgery
Wow! I slept 5 hours and 9 minutes last night!!!! I haven't slept this long since I've had my BodyMedia Fit monitoring it (over a week). I don't know if it's the Lunesta helping me or what? But, I'm not gonna question it. Just relish in the rest that I had last night and hope that I do the same tonight.
Ok... so my gastric bypass.... 2/11/04.
I had researched it for a while. My mother-in-law had it, and had a lot of difficulty, but she already had some health issues. I found one doctor, but I didn't have a rapport with him. Actually, I hated him. He was condescending, and not very caring. So I searched for another doctor. I found Dr. Schuricht through a friend's recommendation and I instantly fell in love with him. Handsome, friendly, and sarcastic like me! A match made in fat girl heaven. I went through all of the tests, including a psychiatric exam.
Let me explain something that people may or may not know... if you want something bad enough, you'll do anything to get it. I told the psychiatrist what she wanted to hear. No, I'm not an emotional eater, I don't eat mindlessly, nope, I don't eat when I'm bored. I don't know how I got this way, yes, I've tried every diet known to man with little to no success. I'm totally ready to do this.
I passed all my tests with flying colors... of course if you lie to the psych, you're an idiot. Hence, I'm an idiot.
Got my surgery, everything went perfectly. To start off my new life, I walked out of the hospital instead of taking the wheelchair. I'm a warrior!!! *insert roar here* One meal I remember when I got back to work a month later (I actually could have gone back to work much sooner, but had time available) was a lunch of 3 small shrimp. It took an hour to eat them. And I was completely full. Like almost uncomfortably full.
I worked out 3 days a week at least. Usually the elliptical or a salsa class at a gym that I kinda hated, but was close to my job. I ate how I was supposed to, when I was supposed to. Over time I was down to 204 lbs. I called my doc and said, listen, I'm not losing weight anymore, I'm at a plateau. So he told me to come in and see the nutritionist. I started working out 4 days a week and saw the nutritionist. Saw my doc who told me that I must not be working out enough and I must be eating wrong. He was pissed. Fuck, I was pissed. I was working my fucking ass off. So...... I got discouraged. I'm thinking, if this fucker doesn't know how I'm busting my ass to get under 200lbs, then fuck it. I gradually started eating good food.... well, bad foods. I still couldn't eat a lot at one sitting, but I would get a meal, eat what I could, and... here's the trick.... eat the rest in an hour! Well, I was tricking myself because I thought that if I split the meal into 2 I wasn't eating as much or something.... I don't know. I'm not right in the head. Had I been honest with myself and the psychiatrist, I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in now.
So this is over the course of a few years. I slowly gained weight. No longer looking at the scale, no longer killing myself at the gym. Just enjoying myself.
In 2008 all hell broke loose. I broke my ankle and severely sprained the other one. My life for a few weeks was: eat, vicodin, sleep. In that order. I couldn't work out if I wanted to (which I didn't, but that's beside the point). Then, July of 08 we were in a horrible car accident. My ankles were finally starting to feel a little better, now I had to contend with whiplash, back pain, post traumatic stress disorder, crazy pain. It was awful. Now my days were: pain, pills, physical therapy, sleep. I did work in between all this. And eat. Yeah, a lot. Then, in August 08 from an MRI my mom and I had of our brains because we both suffered from PTSD, we found out my mom had a brain tumor. Around the same time we found out Troy's mom had breast cancer, and Troy's family dog died. September my mom had surgery to remove the brain tumor, which turned out to be a benign meningioma. Then in November, my cat died suddenly. She was a year and a half old and started having seizures and was in tremendous pain. I held her as we put her to sleep. Yeah, this was all in 2008. I was so depressed, in pain, and hating life. And eating.
So, cut to 2010. Now. I've learned how to eat. I no longer eat fast food. At all. At the very worst I'll have a chicken soft taco from TB. That's if I'm starving and nowhere near anything. I workout as I said before everyday of the week. Usually at the gym... but if I don't get the amount of activity that I set as a goal on my BodyMedia Fit, I work out at home until I get it. I do at least 60 crunches a night. I walk more at work. I try to park further from buildings so I walk more. I just called my insurance and I've been going to the gym since 5/13 and I have 50 visits in. So that just shows how dedicated I am. I'm a different person now.
I get frustrated that I don't lose weight as fast as I did when I had gastric bypass, but I have to understand that my stomach and intestines were altered by surgery so I would lose weight. I had to get surgery to lose weight. Damn. That's kinda bad. Like really bad. Would I do it again? Gastric bypass, no. Lap band, possibly. But I eat right now. So I don't think I would need it. I'm going to lose weight slowly so I know that I deserve every single ounce that I drop. I no longer eat when I'm stressed. I don't eat when I'm not hungry. That was my biggest thing. Eating when I wasn't hungry. Or eating all of my food when I'm full. I'm learning what's healthy. It's a learning process. Lifelong learning. And I'm going to be a damn good student!
Ok... so my gastric bypass.... 2/11/04.
I had researched it for a while. My mother-in-law had it, and had a lot of difficulty, but she already had some health issues. I found one doctor, but I didn't have a rapport with him. Actually, I hated him. He was condescending, and not very caring. So I searched for another doctor. I found Dr. Schuricht through a friend's recommendation and I instantly fell in love with him. Handsome, friendly, and sarcastic like me! A match made in fat girl heaven. I went through all of the tests, including a psychiatric exam.
Let me explain something that people may or may not know... if you want something bad enough, you'll do anything to get it. I told the psychiatrist what she wanted to hear. No, I'm not an emotional eater, I don't eat mindlessly, nope, I don't eat when I'm bored. I don't know how I got this way, yes, I've tried every diet known to man with little to no success. I'm totally ready to do this.
I passed all my tests with flying colors... of course if you lie to the psych, you're an idiot. Hence, I'm an idiot.
Got my surgery, everything went perfectly. To start off my new life, I walked out of the hospital instead of taking the wheelchair. I'm a warrior!!! *insert roar here* One meal I remember when I got back to work a month later (I actually could have gone back to work much sooner, but had time available) was a lunch of 3 small shrimp. It took an hour to eat them. And I was completely full. Like almost uncomfortably full.
I worked out 3 days a week at least. Usually the elliptical or a salsa class at a gym that I kinda hated, but was close to my job. I ate how I was supposed to, when I was supposed to. Over time I was down to 204 lbs. I called my doc and said, listen, I'm not losing weight anymore, I'm at a plateau. So he told me to come in and see the nutritionist. I started working out 4 days a week and saw the nutritionist. Saw my doc who told me that I must not be working out enough and I must be eating wrong. He was pissed. Fuck, I was pissed. I was working my fucking ass off. So...... I got discouraged. I'm thinking, if this fucker doesn't know how I'm busting my ass to get under 200lbs, then fuck it. I gradually started eating good food.... well, bad foods. I still couldn't eat a lot at one sitting, but I would get a meal, eat what I could, and... here's the trick.... eat the rest in an hour! Well, I was tricking myself because I thought that if I split the meal into 2 I wasn't eating as much or something.... I don't know. I'm not right in the head. Had I been honest with myself and the psychiatrist, I wouldn't be in the situation I'm in now.
So this is over the course of a few years. I slowly gained weight. No longer looking at the scale, no longer killing myself at the gym. Just enjoying myself.
In 2008 all hell broke loose. I broke my ankle and severely sprained the other one. My life for a few weeks was: eat, vicodin, sleep. In that order. I couldn't work out if I wanted to (which I didn't, but that's beside the point). Then, July of 08 we were in a horrible car accident. My ankles were finally starting to feel a little better, now I had to contend with whiplash, back pain, post traumatic stress disorder, crazy pain. It was awful. Now my days were: pain, pills, physical therapy, sleep. I did work in between all this. And eat. Yeah, a lot. Then, in August 08 from an MRI my mom and I had of our brains because we both suffered from PTSD, we found out my mom had a brain tumor. Around the same time we found out Troy's mom had breast cancer, and Troy's family dog died. September my mom had surgery to remove the brain tumor, which turned out to be a benign meningioma. Then in November, my cat died suddenly. She was a year and a half old and started having seizures and was in tremendous pain. I held her as we put her to sleep. Yeah, this was all in 2008. I was so depressed, in pain, and hating life. And eating.
So, cut to 2010. Now. I've learned how to eat. I no longer eat fast food. At all. At the very worst I'll have a chicken soft taco from TB. That's if I'm starving and nowhere near anything. I workout as I said before everyday of the week. Usually at the gym... but if I don't get the amount of activity that I set as a goal on my BodyMedia Fit, I work out at home until I get it. I do at least 60 crunches a night. I walk more at work. I try to park further from buildings so I walk more. I just called my insurance and I've been going to the gym since 5/13 and I have 50 visits in. So that just shows how dedicated I am. I'm a different person now.
I get frustrated that I don't lose weight as fast as I did when I had gastric bypass, but I have to understand that my stomach and intestines were altered by surgery so I would lose weight. I had to get surgery to lose weight. Damn. That's kinda bad. Like really bad. Would I do it again? Gastric bypass, no. Lap band, possibly. But I eat right now. So I don't think I would need it. I'm going to lose weight slowly so I know that I deserve every single ounce that I drop. I no longer eat when I'm stressed. I don't eat when I'm not hungry. That was my biggest thing. Eating when I wasn't hungry. Or eating all of my food when I'm full. I'm learning what's healthy. It's a learning process. Lifelong learning. And I'm going to be a damn good student!
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
GoWear Fit, Body Buggs and Heart Monitors, oh my!!!
I've been on my weight loss "journey" for almost 3 months now. I hate the term journey. It sounds so 60's hippy trippy to me. How's about adventure? I dunno about that either. I'll think of something.
I didn't weigh myself in the beginning, but I'm just going by pics and stuff from when I was at my heaviest and I'm sure I was there or past it. I wasn't going to say my height and weight, but Skinny Emmie says hers, so what the hell. I am currently 347 lbs and 5'8". At my known heaviest weight I was 375. So when I started this excursion I estimate that I was 375. Or more. But that's a safe weight to have myself start from. I know, holy shit! 375lbs? Who does that?
So now, I am hellbent on losing weight. I went from eating everything and anything to being so determined and active. It's crazy. BUT.... I'm losing weight soooo slowly. Not the typical 2 lbs a week. Like, 2 lbs every month. I'm exaggerating, but it's what it feels like. So I went from already going to the gym 6 days a week (3 days of cardio and 3 days of yoga) to almost everyday and cardio and weight training in addition to yoga. Meaning I'm in the gym around 2 hours a day almost 7 days a week. And still not losing weight that quickly. I think having gastric bypass previously really fucked up my way of thinking when it comes to sensible weight loss. So I'm kinda pissed about it.
So, I went on my ipod and found Lose It! an AWESOME app to tracking your food and weight loss and activity. Love it! And I had it linked to my facebook account, so whatever I did would show up in my status and rat me out.
But, I still felt that I wasn't successfully losing weight. So I got a heart rate monitor. I bought a New Balance Heart Rate Monitor watch. . Very basic functionality as you can't upload your weight and height, which definitely changes your calories burned count. Also, it was supposed to have a pedometer setting, but I could never access it... so it didn't really work out for me. But it was waterproof and I appreciated knowing approximately how much I burned while "swimming".
Still not losing weight at the 2lbs a week level, so I got another calorie counter that you can input your weight. I just used it for activities, never fully utilizing it because I had my eye on the prize....
The BodyMedia Fit/Go Wear Fit (by the same people that make the Body Bugg) . I bought it a week ago and I LOVE IT!!!! It's an armband that works with their website that monitors your steps taken, activity level, calories burned, calories consumed, sleep duration and efficacy. I also bought the display watch because I am a gadget girl and I need to SEE at any given time how much I've burned, how many steps I've taken. It's a little pricy, but so worth it! (They're not paying me for this). As soon as I ordered it, I got the bigger armband because I knew I would need it, and I got a skin to change the appearance of it, because I'm that kinda girl. It's comfortable enough...at night when I know I'm just going to shower then veg out, I take it off for an hour or so to rest my arm. It's soooo hot here in Philly, and it's not irritating to me. I sync it to my computer in the morning to see how badly I slept (insomnia=3 hours of sleep). I knew I was tired throughout the day, I knew it took forever to fall asleep, but I didn't know how restless I really was. It's a good thing to know.
I can see a graph that tells me that I eat more carbs than anything, I see how much of the 45 minutes that I set for activity I've accomplished, I see that I am going to eventually make my goal of being healthier.
I started my expedition doing as I said before, yoga 3 times a week and the elliptical 3 times a week. Now that I have my BMF, I do as follows:
Mondays: yoga and then a Cardio Sculpt class at my gym.
Tuesdays: Zumba and then yoga
Wednesdays: yoga the kickboxing
Thursdays: Zumba step and then yoga
Fridays: yoga and elliptical
Saturdays: elliptical and weight training
Sundays: swimming and weight training
What I've noticed is I don't burn that many calories during yoga, but I love it so I'm going to continue (my goal is eventually be a yoga instructor). I aim for 45 minutes of moderate and vigorous activities during the day. Usually I can't get them just from the classes I take (which is very surprising to me because you would think an hour of Zumba would be an hour of activity, but if you count the warm up, cool down and my numerous water breaks, it only amounts to about 30 minutes. So when I get home and get settled, I look at my display and see that I need to do 10 minutes more of activity, so I go to youtube and watch a video by sparkpeople.com and get in the rest of my workout. So now, I do at least 45 minutes of real activity, burn no less than 3500 calories a day, eat about 1800 calories a day, and I have more energy than I've had in a long time. I also do at least 50 crunches a night. I'm REALLY trying to lose weight, can you tell?
My fat scrubs are now kinda swimming on me and my "shrunken" scrubs fit great now. It's a good thing. I might not see the numbers on the scale go down as much as I wanted to, but I can now run up the steps to my house without getting winded. That's amazing!!!
*no one is paying me for my statements, but they could if they wanted to*
I didn't weigh myself in the beginning, but I'm just going by pics and stuff from when I was at my heaviest and I'm sure I was there or past it. I wasn't going to say my height and weight, but Skinny Emmie says hers, so what the hell. I am currently 347 lbs and 5'8". At my known heaviest weight I was 375. So when I started this excursion I estimate that I was 375. Or more. But that's a safe weight to have myself start from. I know, holy shit! 375lbs? Who does that?
So now, I am hellbent on losing weight. I went from eating everything and anything to being so determined and active. It's crazy. BUT.... I'm losing weight soooo slowly. Not the typical 2 lbs a week. Like, 2 lbs every month. I'm exaggerating, but it's what it feels like. So I went from already going to the gym 6 days a week (3 days of cardio and 3 days of yoga) to almost everyday and cardio and weight training in addition to yoga. Meaning I'm in the gym around 2 hours a day almost 7 days a week. And still not losing weight that quickly. I think having gastric bypass previously really fucked up my way of thinking when it comes to sensible weight loss. So I'm kinda pissed about it.
So, I went on my ipod and found Lose It! an AWESOME app to tracking your food and weight loss and activity. Love it! And I had it linked to my facebook account, so whatever I did would show up in my status and rat me out.
But, I still felt that I wasn't successfully losing weight. So I got a heart rate monitor. I bought a New Balance Heart Rate Monitor watch. . Very basic functionality as you can't upload your weight and height, which definitely changes your calories burned count. Also, it was supposed to have a pedometer setting, but I could never access it... so it didn't really work out for me. But it was waterproof and I appreciated knowing approximately how much I burned while "swimming".
Still not losing weight at the 2lbs a week level, so I got another calorie counter that you can input your weight. I just used it for activities, never fully utilizing it because I had my eye on the prize....
The BodyMedia Fit/Go Wear Fit (by the same people that make the Body Bugg) . I bought it a week ago and I LOVE IT!!!! It's an armband that works with their website that monitors your steps taken, activity level, calories burned, calories consumed, sleep duration and efficacy. I also bought the display watch because I am a gadget girl and I need to SEE at any given time how much I've burned, how many steps I've taken. It's a little pricy, but so worth it! (They're not paying me for this). As soon as I ordered it, I got the bigger armband because I knew I would need it, and I got a skin to change the appearance of it, because I'm that kinda girl. It's comfortable enough...at night when I know I'm just going to shower then veg out, I take it off for an hour or so to rest my arm. It's soooo hot here in Philly, and it's not irritating to me. I sync it to my computer in the morning to see how badly I slept (insomnia=3 hours of sleep). I knew I was tired throughout the day, I knew it took forever to fall asleep, but I didn't know how restless I really was. It's a good thing to know.
I can see a graph that tells me that I eat more carbs than anything, I see how much of the 45 minutes that I set for activity I've accomplished, I see that I am going to eventually make my goal of being healthier.
I started my expedition doing as I said before, yoga 3 times a week and the elliptical 3 times a week. Now that I have my BMF, I do as follows:
Mondays: yoga and then a Cardio Sculpt class at my gym.
Tuesdays: Zumba and then yoga
Wednesdays: yoga the kickboxing
Thursdays: Zumba step and then yoga
Fridays: yoga and elliptical
Saturdays: elliptical and weight training
Sundays: swimming and weight training
What I've noticed is I don't burn that many calories during yoga, but I love it so I'm going to continue (my goal is eventually be a yoga instructor). I aim for 45 minutes of moderate and vigorous activities during the day. Usually I can't get them just from the classes I take (which is very surprising to me because you would think an hour of Zumba would be an hour of activity, but if you count the warm up, cool down and my numerous water breaks, it only amounts to about 30 minutes. So when I get home and get settled, I look at my display and see that I need to do 10 minutes more of activity, so I go to youtube and watch a video by sparkpeople.com and get in the rest of my workout. So now, I do at least 45 minutes of real activity, burn no less than 3500 calories a day, eat about 1800 calories a day, and I have more energy than I've had in a long time. I also do at least 50 crunches a night. I'm REALLY trying to lose weight, can you tell?
My fat scrubs are now kinda swimming on me and my "shrunken" scrubs fit great now. It's a good thing. I might not see the numbers on the scale go down as much as I wanted to, but I can now run up the steps to my house without getting winded. That's amazing!!!
*no one is paying me for my statements, but they could if they wanted to*
when taking pics from above stops working....
Ok... so this might be long. I will preface this by saying: I'm not politically correct, I'm outspoken, I'm honest and I'm fat.
I know that everyone has a blog, and more than half are people kvetching about their weight. I'm adding to the madness because I have things to say and, you never know, someone might be able to relate to me. I'm 32, live in the city, and had gastric bypass 6 years ago. Yep, you heard it right, I figured I'd just put that out there now so you wouldn't be surprised. I'll detail it more later. But just know, I'm fat again. I gained it all back. Plus. Yeah.
I used to take self pics (a la facebook and myspace profile pics) with my arm extended as long as I could, and as high as I could. It makes your chins vanish. Trust me. I have a bazillion pics of me, birdseye view, head slightly tilted looking up. Stretch the neck. There you go. Chins be gone! Do you know how hard it is to try to get a 6'3" or taller person to take pics for us when we're doing family pics?
Well, I noticed a few months ago that my nifty little trick wasn't working anymore. Wha???? Why are there still chins? Actually, when I would try to do the head tilt and neck stretch, my face looked fatter. WTF?!?!?! This was my favorite technique. What does this mean? Hmmmm. Maybe I'm not extending the neck enough, maybe my arm got shorter? Ok... let's try this again. Nope, still looks fat. Weird. Oh well, maybe it's the camera setting. I'll figure it out later.
Meanwhile, why does Troy (the bf/fiance) keep putting my scrubs in the dryer and shrinking them? Dammit.. I told him to line dry them only. I guess I'll go and get more scrubs but in the next bigger size so that when he shrinks them it won't be so tight. I'm so smart! Wth??? Damn these cheap companies are making their clothes smaller to save on fabric and screwing with the sizing. The larger scrubs fit perfectly. So now Troy still can't dry them in the dryer.
Now I know by this point, you all are like, this chick is a little slow. I'm not, I was just in complete and utter denial. See, when I look in the mirror I see a hot chick. Not Hooters girl hot (if that's your definition of hot), but just average size, average looks. Ok so hot= average. Whatever. I just had no idea that I had gained all my weight back. Plus. I think I had an inkling, but I just ignored it.
Troy and I are both heavy. So is our daughter, not like us but big enough. My mom isn't. Lucky her. So we're just like a big happy family. BIG. There were a chain of events that occurred that made Troy realize he'd gotten bigger too. He didn't have gastric bypass, btw. So he said, I'm going to lose some weight, my ass is getting too big. I'm happy for him for noticing that he'd gained weight. So, as encouragement, said that I would cut out a few bad things from my diet. See, still in denial. Well Troy went full hog and stopped drinking soda (his worst thing) and stopped eating ice cream. I stopped getting fries with my mcdonald's. A couple days later, as I rested from walking up a flight of steps, I realized that I too, had gotten crazy fat. Fine. I said it. I told Troy so I couldn't back out. And so began my journey to be able to takes pics from above to hide the chins again.... just until there's only one chin.
I know that everyone has a blog, and more than half are people kvetching about their weight. I'm adding to the madness because I have things to say and, you never know, someone might be able to relate to me. I'm 32, live in the city, and had gastric bypass 6 years ago. Yep, you heard it right, I figured I'd just put that out there now so you wouldn't be surprised. I'll detail it more later. But just know, I'm fat again. I gained it all back. Plus. Yeah.
I used to take self pics (a la facebook and myspace profile pics) with my arm extended as long as I could, and as high as I could. It makes your chins vanish. Trust me. I have a bazillion pics of me, birdseye view, head slightly tilted looking up. Stretch the neck. There you go. Chins be gone! Do you know how hard it is to try to get a 6'3" or taller person to take pics for us when we're doing family pics?
Well, I noticed a few months ago that my nifty little trick wasn't working anymore. Wha???? Why are there still chins? Actually, when I would try to do the head tilt and neck stretch, my face looked fatter. WTF?!?!?! This was my favorite technique. What does this mean? Hmmmm. Maybe I'm not extending the neck enough, maybe my arm got shorter? Ok... let's try this again. Nope, still looks fat. Weird. Oh well, maybe it's the camera setting. I'll figure it out later.
Meanwhile, why does Troy (the bf/fiance) keep putting my scrubs in the dryer and shrinking them? Dammit.. I told him to line dry them only. I guess I'll go and get more scrubs but in the next bigger size so that when he shrinks them it won't be so tight. I'm so smart! Wth??? Damn these cheap companies are making their clothes smaller to save on fabric and screwing with the sizing. The larger scrubs fit perfectly. So now Troy still can't dry them in the dryer.
Now I know by this point, you all are like, this chick is a little slow. I'm not, I was just in complete and utter denial. See, when I look in the mirror I see a hot chick. Not Hooters girl hot (if that's your definition of hot), but just average size, average looks. Ok so hot= average. Whatever. I just had no idea that I had gained all my weight back. Plus. I think I had an inkling, but I just ignored it.
Troy and I are both heavy. So is our daughter, not like us but big enough. My mom isn't. Lucky her. So we're just like a big happy family. BIG. There were a chain of events that occurred that made Troy realize he'd gotten bigger too. He didn't have gastric bypass, btw. So he said, I'm going to lose some weight, my ass is getting too big. I'm happy for him for noticing that he'd gained weight. So, as encouragement, said that I would cut out a few bad things from my diet. See, still in denial. Well Troy went full hog and stopped drinking soda (his worst thing) and stopped eating ice cream. I stopped getting fries with my mcdonald's. A couple days later, as I rested from walking up a flight of steps, I realized that I too, had gotten crazy fat. Fine. I said it. I told Troy so I couldn't back out. And so began my journey to be able to takes pics from above to hide the chins again.... just until there's only one chin.
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