So guess what I did this morning????  I cleaned the disgusting bathroom here at work.  I couldn't take it anymore.  And if these pigs here don't care about putting their bum on a nasty gross toilet seat and they think I don't care they are poorly mistaken.  I figured I might as well do it because I'll get the benefit out of it too.  Can we all just say ewwww!! (If you're clueless read last night's blog entry).

I had my 8 week post op appointment today with my surgeon.  Let me start by saying that I absolutely made the right choice in surgeons.  Dr. Faulkenberry has the best bedside manner and seems to genuinely care about you.  Ok, back to the visit.  Dr. Faulkenberry wanted to get a list of all the vites I was taking.  He was quite impressed by my list.  Here it is:

2 Multivitamins
3 Calciums
1 Iron Pill
1 B-Complex
1 D3 (liquid)
1 Fish Oil Pill
and of course my birth control and 2 antidepressants

Yowza that's alot of pills for one day!!  The dr also asked me if I was exercising and getting enough protein in.  I told him I was exercising at least 3 days a week and my protein wasn't an issue for me.  I told him that on days that I don't get the recommended amount of water, protein or vitamins the next day I feel horrible.  He said that I was ahead of the game if I was able to really listen to my body this early out.  But honestly it's absolutely true.  The day following a day that I haven't gotten enough water, protein or vitamins I'm usually in physical pain and sooo tired and generally just feel kinda crappy.  I've lost a total of 30 lbs since surgery and 34 lbs total.  He said that I was doing excellent.  Yay!  I'm so glad he's as excited about my progress as I am!

On a different note, a more personal note, I'm totally hating work right now.  I work for a roofing company and while all roofing companies may not be this way, ours is.  Our is ghetto and trashy. LOL.  No joke.  I work with one other lady and the rest are men.  The one bathroom hasn't been cleaned in 3 months.  I REFUSE to clean it.  The last 2 times I cleaned it.  Now there is pee all over the floor and the sink looks like crusty oatmeal is stuck to the sides.  Literally its disgusting.  The other thing is that there is only one other female in the office.  She is a bit ..hmmm, how do I say this... opinionated and nosy.  I am the bookkeeper and she is the office manager.  Well the owner talks to me in confidence about financial related things.  She will immediately come to me and say, "what did he say?"  Uhhh, first of all its confidential and second of all, geeez, nosy!!  I'll even have phone conversations in my office and she will come in immediately after I hang up and say, "so, whats going on??"  or "what did she have to say?"  It's getting quite tiring trying to act like it doesn't bother me anymore.  And honestly I don't know if it didn't use to or if I'm just more annoyed than anything.  Ugh.  I want a new job.  We are so slow at my job that my employer has cut everyone's hours to 4 day work weeks.  That's 20% of my pay!  Yeah, time for a new job I think.

This weekend was great.  I got to take my 2 year old daughter to her first circus in Austin.  It was great.  She loved the elephants and the animals.  She liked the dancing for the most part too.  She did a lot better than I thought she would considering I didn't think her attention span could hold for as long as it did. 

This weekend is also tax-free weekend here in Texas.  That means clothes, shoes, underwear, etc and back to school items are tax free for one weekend only, usually the weekend before school starts.  Anyway, I took my hubbs to Academy.  He got two shirts, shoes, undershirts and Brynn got some shoes too.  On a different note, my hubbs is looking so thin to me! He had to get new clothes already because the old ones he had are literally FALLING OFF. LOL, I can't WAIT till that happens to me.  Anyway, we ended up going to Old Navy (because it's right next to Carters, honestly I wasn't planning on it).  JC mentioned that my clothes looked way too big on me.  He coerced me into Old Navy.  Immediately I saw some cute tops and found the XXL.  He said I definitely needed jeans too, so I picked out a pair in size 20.  We went to the dressing room and I tried on the tops first.  One of them was a little bit tight (my hubby said it wasn't tight but it showed more 'boob' than I was willing to...I DO work with only men after all), the second one I tried on FIT.  IT FIT PERFECTLY.  It was even on the big side!  So then it was time to put on the jeans.  I had one leg in them and thought to myself, omg if these don't fit it'll be like I just set myself up to fail here because then I'll get all depressed and yadda yadda yadda.  Needless to say I didn't even get to finish that thought.  I put my other leg through and pulled them up and they FIT!  OMG, WOWZERS!  I was staring at myself in the Old Navy mirror and started to cry.  I couldn't believe this was happening to me.  I was starting to think that I'm losing at a rate much slower than others, but if I'm losing sizes then who cares, right?  JC told me not to cry and that I deserved it.  Seriously as I type this I get teary eyed.  I never imagined what it would feel like to actually be losing the weight.  I mean I can picture myself small, but these little victories along the way are so worth it.  Even when the scale only says you lost 1 lb this week.  I haven't shopped at Old Navy since I was in junior high or maybe even high school, which was a VERY long time ago. 

I cannot tell you how happy I am today.  I had a NSV of my very own, something that other people have been talking about, but I really haven't felt yet.  Wow, was it worth it.

What a great weekend it was!

It's been awhile since the last time I blogged so I thought it was due for another entry.

Last week was a crazy busy week.  I had taken vacation from work and flown to my sister's wedding which was held at the Basilica of Notre Dame.  It was absolutely breath taking.  So amazing.  I kept getting distracted during the ceremony looking at the walls and the ceiling and taking everything in.  The basilica is breathtakingly gorgeous.  Anyway, I really felt like because we were rushing around the whole weekend, I didn't eat as good as I should or drink all my water.  I tried, I really did, but it was hard not being in a normal routine.  I am definitely going to have to work on that because I might not always be able to be in my little routine and I will still have to make it work and make sure I get all my vitamins in and water and eat enough protein.

The rehearsal dinner had lasagna, some kind of pasta with Italian sausage, and artichoke and cheese stuffed chicken breasts, bread sticks, and 2 different types of yummy salads.  I had a little bit of salad and a few bites of the Italian sausage and about half of the chicken breast.  They also had these amazing little tiny desserts.  I had 2 bites of one and that was it.  I left feeling really guilty about what I'd eaten but all in all I'd have to say after writing it all down, it wasn't that bad.  I made the best decision I could given the circumstance.  The only thing I could have done better on was not to drink with my meal. 

That night I was craving something sweet (probably because I'd had 2 bites of the dessert and wanted MORE).  We went to Walgreen's and got some sugar-free candies.  I didn't have that many but DAMN was my stomach hurting.  I had cramps and started to sweat a little bit.  Luckily it was bedtime anyway, so I quickly went to bed. 

The wedding seemed a little easier for me to make better choices.  (Although I pretty much ate the same.)  I had a salad with chicken breast.  I had a few bites of wedding cake.  That's it.  Oh yeah, then I danced and danced with my little two year old.  She was getting down!!  It was so cute!  Mommy would get tired but she'd be out on the dance floor by herself just boogeying down! So cute!  I wish she could stay this size forever!!

On Tuesday it was my weekly weigh in day.  I fully expected to not lose anything since I wasn't into my whole routine and eating as I normally would.  I got on the scale and lost 1.8 lbs.  I was really excited about that!  As the hubbs says, a loss is a loss.

This week I went to the gym 3 times.  I did weights twice.  I notice the next day after doing weights that I'm INCREDIBLY sore.  More sore than I used to be before WLS.  I made a point to work really hard this week as far as exercise and eating goes to help make up for last week.  Hopefully next Tuesday it will pay off!

Have a great weekend!

Here's a pic of my sister and brother in law.  WOW!!

Today was my 6 week weigh in.  Let me start off by saying I was in a stall for 3 weeks.  I was doing everything right, getting in all my water and protein.  I couldn't figure out for the life of me what I was doing wrong.  I posted here on OH to get some advice and feedback.  I received the best response anyone could have given me.  It really did CHANGE it ALL for me.  It really helped to put it in perspective on how/what my body was actually doing.  Here’s the original post:

 

"At last month's support group meeting, I only spoke for a half an hour to intro the group and do the "round robin" around the room. But I let something slip that got a lot of reaction in the room. I can't even remember WHY I said it but it was like an "a-ha" moment across the room. It slipped out for the tiniest reason but hit home with a lot of the newbies in the room.

I keep forgetting that so many people go into surgery not knowing as much as I did when I went into surgery. I need to remember this and remind the members of things that they might not know in the future.

When I was going through surgery, I was ready for and expecting the inevitable 3rd to 7th week stall. I often forget that some newbies don't know to expect it. They should. You should be expecting it when it happens so you know that it is coming and you are mentally prepared for that period when the scale doesn't budge early out.

(and don't forget to take your measurements every week early out too so that you have something else to measure yourself by other than the scale).

When your body first goes into surgery, it knows shortly afterward that it is starving. It needs food but you are taking in such little nutrition after surgery that it tries to sneak your glycogen stores. Glycogen stores are the "quick energy" stores that allow you for instance to run out quickly if a mouse is on the floor. It's your "instant energy" in your body.

So your body thinks "hmmm...it's just a little hurdle, I'll get my energy from the glygogen stores".

Well after a few weeks of this, your body realizes that this is not a short term thing anymore. It realizes that using energy from your glycogen stores isn't very efficient and very long term. So it has to THINK a bit.

(This is where the stall comes in).

Then it says "A-hah!!!!". It realizes that it has a lot of fuel on your body - your fat stores, so it's going to start burning some energy from there and shrink those fat cells.

Then the body will resume into full burning mode and guess what? The scale will start moving again.

This is a GREAT things when it happens. Although it sucks that the scale doesn't move, it means that is going to start burning the stored fat you have (especially the stuff in your butt! LOL!).

So be happy about that inevitable stall - it's fat burnin' season!

Dawn"

 

WooooooW!!!!  Am I the only one who now is WANTING to stall??  Dawn’s post was absolutely amazing to me! I’ve read over people’s posts about stalling and I felt the necessity to re-post Dawn’s original message since it had such an impact on my journey!  And let me tell you, it is completely true! Today I am now 6 weeks out and passed my 3 week long stall!  I lost a total of 7 lbs this week. ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE! I’m finally out of my stall and continuing on with my weight loss journey.  I’ve heard some people talk about the ups and downs of WLS.  So far I have not experienced many of the downs.  (Ask me again in 6 months and I’ll let you know ;))

As far as my eating is concerned, I am still very strict about what I put into my mouth.  I always follow the rules as far as getting the water and protein I need.  The days I don’t get enough water and protein I can feel it HARD the next day.  For me not enough water means serious leg cramps the next day. NO THANKS!  Not getting enough protein means serious fatigue and exhaustion the next day.  It’s awful.  So I always try REALLY HARD to get in all my water and protein.  I have only ‘cheated’ one time.  And technically I don’t really consider it cheating.  At my sister’s bridal shower I had 1 sugar cookie.  Whooptie do.  I have been trying my very hardest to maintain a healthier life (read diet) for me and my family.  And so far, it is working!!