JennaKopanyi

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On my first date with my husband we went to 5 different places and spent 18 hours together. We met on eHarmony, so it was kinda blind, I didn't know much about him other than what we talked about online and what my friend told me from her one date with him.
Regardless, I met him at a place I was comfortable and felt safe, the diner after work on May 30, 2008. We ended up parking on opposite ends of the lot. I was on the phone with my friend trying to keep calm when he walked up to my car. From there he got in my car and I drove us about a half hour away to see a friend's band play. We returned to the diner, decided we liked each other, agreed to continue the date and have "dinner" I think it was 11pm. We stayed there talking until the shift change at 6am. This is HUGE for me, I don't talk to people well, I'm shy and can't carry a conversation until I really get to know you. There were little to no awkward silences.
We left the diner and weren't ready to say goodbye, so I suggested we go to a park nearby, at this time I was comfortable enough with him to get in his car. He drove the 2 miles to the park where we walked around for a bit. At this point I knew I wanted to kiss him and was hoping he'd just take the lead on it. After an hour of walking we sat on a bench and made out. He's a great kisser :D
As we were getting ready to leave there my dad called to tell me a nasty storm was coming and if I wasn't inside or at least under cover I needed to be (hail was involved and lots and lots of rain). Deciding it was breakfast time and we weren't ready to part (still) we went to bob evan's and had breakfast together. i remember the food was disappointing, but I didn't care, I was having a great time. When breakfast was done we decided we should spend a little more time together and I took him to my friend's favorite spot at the river. She and I used to go there a lot to talk, and it's kinda secluded, so off we went. Made out some more, and then fell asleep holding hands. I was woken up my mom calling to ask where I was, my sister had just arrived from Florida.  When I relayed this to Todd it brought an end to our date. He went to a friend's memorial day bbq and i spent the next couple days with my sister and trying to hide his love bites from my family.

On days we want to feel special we go back to the diner for dinner. I can eat a couple things there still even after RNY. So we went last night as it was our 3 year anniversary. Now is it just me, or are some of the overweight/obese waitresses more hostile toward you after you've lost all your excess weight? I ordered my usual and asked to sub cottage cheese instead of the fries. they'd done it for me 3 times in the past. she refused to do it and got a little snotty. for some odd reason they let me sub a salad instead (usually subbing a salad in most restaurants costs more and they prefer you to take cottage cheese or applesauce instead) which was drowned in ranch and the first time it came out it had onion on it even though I specifically asked for it not to (I have an allergy). When I explained the allergy she got nicer and apparently remade the salad cuz it didn't make me ill. I've gone a couple times and they'd just removed it and gave it back. I can always tell.

Other than that dinner was great, DS had their awesome french toast that they make on actual french bread, I kinda miss that food item, but I'll survive without it.

All in all it was a great anniversary, we spent the afternoon at the pool beforehand which was lovely. No kids commented on my belly, so yay!

When I met my husband 3 years ago, I weighed in the 180s, and started losing weight in the early days of our relationship, even got to put away a pair of pants in favor of a smaller pair! Then I got pregnant (June 8th) it all happened very quickly. I gained  a LOT of weight during my pregnancy, I think I might have tipped 250 before I delivered. I only got down to 229 before my WLS consultation. Diabetes was out of control a few weeks into my 3rd trimester, couldn't stabilize it until my pre-op diet due to gastric paresis leaching every molecule of sugar i ingested into my body. I learned a lot in my pre-op diet and understand how to make my body work for me instead of against me. I might have been able to lose a lot of the weight on my own had I stuck with the guidelines they gave me, but I wouldn't be where I am today health and weightwise. And I'd still have a crappy pyloric valve (okay to be fair, I'd have a damage vagus nerve not allowing my pyloric valve to properly function) so I'd probably still be on insulin.
My husband has seen me at all spectrums of the BMI scale and he's loved me and supported me every step of the way. I found the most amazing man in the world, and I do know just how lucky I am, my anniversary just reminds me :)

...half met

Went to the pool twice today. First time was at 11:00am til 2:00pm with my son, he did remarkably well, though the water was freezing. He didn't go in much and since it was cold to me, I didn't force him. Sat around in my day of the dead skullz bikini got some sun (a little too much even with sunscreen) had a fairly good time. While I would not call my mood during this expedition "confident" I wasn't so completely self conscious that it detracted from my day. I say hooray for me.

Then my awesome husband came home from work and decided me should go back to the pool. By this time my sunburn was really making itself known and I was hesitant. So I put on my turquoise sand dollar bikini anyway and accompany him and our minion to the pool. I brave taking the towel from my tender shoulders and jump in the pool to play with my guys. Well, I slide in anyway and stand against the wall watching my guys frolic. Then a little girl around 6-7 years old comes up to me. Guess where this is going? The brutal unabashed honesty of children....
"Why is your baby screaming, can't he swim?" -strange little girl
"He's cold, he'll stop in a minute"-me
"What's wrong with your stomach?"- strange little girl
"I had a baby"-me
"Does that happen to everyone when they have a baby?" -strange little girl
"not everyone but some." -me
"I feel really bad for you." -strange little girl
"uh, thanks" -me

wow. pity from a strange little girl, my life is complete. sigh.

so my confidence is not where it should be, and therefore i cannot mark off that goal as met, yet. I'll get there. got a great start on my summer tan, all my burns turn to tan, I'm fortunate that way, yay for having a Spanish grandfather. i usually burn the first time i go out to the pool and the rest of the summer is all tans.

little one has a little bit of a burn too and his tan is already better than mine. we both used his baby SPF 50 lotion. go figure. overcast day

also saw a small silver/grey frog on the ladder, i thought it was cool, Trevor thought smacking it off into the water would be cooler. luckily the frog was smarter and suctioned itself to the wall instead. then some moronic teen-aged girls started screeching at it and splashing it. i told them to stop but i left before knowing if they'd listen.

and how was YOUR day?

So, all of a sudden everyone I know wants to give me clothes. I love it. I now have a closet full of clothes that actually fit me. not "oh one day" or clothes that are too big and i can't part with. my whole closet filled with lovely clothes. i smashed them together adn took a picture for you guys.
and this is my new favorite top, got it from a co-worker today along with 2 bags full of clothes. in all fairness, one bag was for me and a fuller bag is for my friends, because yeah, people are generous these days.
Now tell me how pretty I am cuz my evil neighbor is making my home life hell. At least I assume it's her. Oh well. Back to me being pretty? and most people in this world being awesome?

Oh hell, how many times do I have to repeat it until I believe it? I thought I was doing so well, and yet I get weighed and measured at Curve's this morning and want to curl up into a ball and cry.

For the first time since surgery I have not only not lost weight for my monthly weight check, I've freaking gained. Four pounds. As if that weren't bad enough, I've also gained inches. One might say, hey at least you lost in your belly and you waist remained the same, weren't you bitching about that area and saying that as long as they went down the rest don't matter? Sure, why not. I'd love a flatter belly, but not at the expense of everything else!
Others might argue hey, it's probably muscle! Good for you! Build that muscle girly, it's what you wanted. Uh huh, and then we get to my body fat percentage. It went up. only .1% but if my gain were purely muscle, would my fat body fat percent have really increased? Shouldn't it have come down? Or at least remained the same?
Maybe one could argue that it's water weight, is it my TOM? Hell if I know, I never thought I would say it, but not having a period is kinda annoying. I don't know when my body starts hoarding water. But again with that freaking body fat percentage.
Another arguement could be that someone else did my weight and measurements this time, different people might hold the measuring tape a little different? Measure in a fractionally thicker area? 

Are these reasons or are they excuses? If they are valid reasons then hooray, but if they are excuses, I don't want to hide behind them and let things get worse because I'm too blind to see what I'm doing to myself.

I don't even know if anyone can give me the answers I seek, I just need to vent so I don't explode and I'm already very very close to the edge.

I don't get it, I really don't. I look at pictures of me and I see me in the mirror and I wonder if I'm starting to look anorexic and then I get on the scale or get these measurements done and feel like a freaking heifer. I thought I was past this.

I've also recently come to fear my next pregnancy. Not only for the changes it will bring to my figure, but because of what happened last time. In my last 2 months of pregnancy my blood sugar spiralled out of control and didn't get back to under 300 under WLS. I won't have another WLS after another baby, what if my blood sugar goes insane and I can't get back to this? I love being insulin free, I love not being tethered to a glucometer. I'm scared of myself and I'm scared for myself. I don't know what to do right now.

I'm giving in to my feelings today and just rolling along with them.

I woke up this morning and wanted curly hair. As you can see by my new avie, I have curly hair for today

I wanted compression so for the first time in months I'm wearing compressionwear today

I wanted to have pretty make up, so now I do (I love blue/green eyeshadow and it loves me, who freaking knew?)

I wanted to get eat something between my am shake and my breakfast (I just wanted to chew something) so I ate my stringcheese I had scheduled to go with my lunch.

I wanted to mend fences with the friend who hurt me half my life ago, we talked a bit this morning.

I wanted to write at lunch (because I always want to write after I talk with that friend) but I IMed my husband instead.

I wanted a pina colada to drink when I realized my pineapple and coconut davinci syrups just came in. It's amazing.

Guess what? All these impulses, all this giving in? Which was the worst thing I did to myself? Surprisingly it was NOT eating out of schedule, doing that allowed me to not think about food again until I was back on schedule, so I think that was a healthy decision. The "worst" thing I did was not write at lunch. Not because talking to my hubby is so terrible (cuz i't snot) but now I want to work on my story and have to get my work done. No more giving in, time for some discipline. Sigh. After I finish this entry. Computer writing I can get away with but my story I hand write first, try to get everything down in a nonstructured creative fashion and not worry about typos. I can spell, I just can't type as quickly as I think, so I make mistakes, and I get caught up in those if I'm not careful. Later I'll take my new chapter and type it all up changing some words with teh handy thesaurus adding more detail, dropping some "that"'s (I overuse them for some reason) and generally tweak it until I am pleased. Then I will print it out, put it in the binder with prologue through three adn not let myself look at it again until I'm done with the book. No more editing.

I am wondering if my distractability at work is coming from me not working out in the mornings anymore. I do it after work because I burn 2x the amount of calories that way. Tomorrow I'm going in the morning, it's weight and measurements day and I always do those in the AM, so I'll have to see what my distraction level is tomorrow. Next week I shift back to AM at Curves until the pool closes. I hope it helps with my focus.

So me and my pina colada are going to finish up these reports, place a few orders, and make some phone calls. Then we'll do a couple more reports and head out to Zumba. Then comes the night of potty training. My 2 year old is in potty training boot camp. The home day care he belongs to is run by 2 sisters. They have like 8 kids aged 2-3 all in diapers. They want to have an active summer with our young ones without the stress of diaper changing. So this week they are going all hardcore training on the kids. DH and I are doing our best to keep up with the rigorous schedule in the evenings as well. He'll still sleep in an overnight diaper, and swim in little swimmers, but other than that it's underwear and nudity. Summer should be really nice, lots of pool time, and maybe he'll even get out every now and then to pee. We shall see. So far he's the only kid in the group who is accident free (at the daycare) and goes pretty frequently. They are very proud of him, as am I.

Mood= Good 

Some of you may have noticed the nickname for the group calling up McKenna's Kidz...

I just want to say that there are many reasons for this and not one of them is to mean that anyone here thinks anyone else here is childish. It's not meant as disrespect, nor is it meant to stomp on anyone's feelings. I came up with the name, and yes, I am probably the youngest in the group at 29. I have a 2 year old, I am not a child.

But the name is cute. Wanna know why I picked it? I did have it seconded before I proceeded, by the way.

I'm a writer, I like alliteration, McKenna's Kidz just flows and sounds right together.

We are all coming together like a family and why is that? Did we have anything in common before we met Dr McKenna? Would you have talked to me anywhere else? Would I have talked back to you? He brought us to together and now we are finding we have more in common than just bariatric surgery.

Some people view WLS as a sort of rebirth, not religious of course, but after having had our procedures we have a new lease on life, the sky's the limit, anything is possible. It's a new chance, given to us by our surgeon who watches our progress and supports us when he need him (though not through this group online because this is patient run). Sounds kinda fatherly to me.

How many of you refer to yourselves by how far out from surgery you are? Remember talking about your kids in terms of months? And now we talk about ourselves that way. It's normal. Everything is  so different now.

Well, that's all the rationalization I've got for this morning, I need to get some work done. I hope everyone has a wonderful day and I was very happy to see so many people last night.

Going out to dinner tonight cuz I've got support group and that's what I do before (I get off at 4:30, go to the gym, eat dinner, get to group by 7-7:30)
I don't feel like having crab legs tonight which is my usual.

Recently I learned that Outback has a great kid's portion Chicken on the Barbie with seasonal mixed veggies for 5 bucks (312 calories, 14g fat, 10g carbs, 3.7g fiber, 35g protein)

I also learned very recently that I LOVE the cranberry apple salad at Denny's (370 calories, 10g fat, 22g carbs, 3g fiber, 36g protein)

Either would be well within my calorie/fat/carb/protein guidelines when added to my menu for today. I just don't know which to go with. Keep in mind that each of these options have the nutrition break down for the entire meal, which I will no way get all the way through in one sitting. If by some freakish accident I did, those are worst case scenario ingesitble nutrition facts.

Pros:
Outback meal: very filling, nutritious, tasty, costs $5, lower carb
Denny's meal: it's a salad! amazing flavors with amazing sweetness and tartness, can eat all the chicken off even if I can't finish the rest of it, so higher protein no matter what

Cons:
Outback meal: higher fat, less flavorful
Denny's meal: costs $8 bucks, has higher carbs due to cranberries and apples and cinnamon roasted nuts (but they taste soooo good and i can restain from eating all of them)

So cast your vote for my dinner tonight! And if you are attending the Frederick Bariatric Support Group tonight and want to join me for dinner, you sooooo should, eating alone is lame.

 I knew I cut in new bangs recently (okay about a month or so ago) and I realized there was a shadow under them, I just figured I needed to dye my hair.
Today I lift up the longer bangs and I see another set of bangs about an inch and a half long. I know for a fact I did not create them with scissors. So you you have any idea what this means?


I HAVE NEW HAIR GROWTH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! SQEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
My hair is growing back in!!!! Oh happy dance!!!!!!!!!!!

Just wanted to share this awesomeness with people who get it

On the flip side (hehe, you'll get that one in a moment) today is a bad butt day :( Even my super awesome exercise ball chair offers no relief. Some days my tailbone just wants to dig into my poor non-existent butt and make my life hard. I don't understand why it's only some days. Oh well. Just wanted to share some more ups and downs in the life of this surgically altered freak.

So 10 months ago at this time I was prepping for gastric bypass surgery. I was all suited up, IVed and walking back to the operating room. That's right, they made me walk. I was a total bundle of nerves and it seemed to take forever to get put to sleep. But I did.

Day of surgery, I weighed 211 pounds. Today I weight 131, I've lost 80
Day of surgery, I was off of insulin, Today, the same is true
Day of surgery, I wore a size 18, today I wear a 2
Day of surgery I spent with my husband, we're going on a date in a few minutes today

Some things have changed, and everything is as it should be. I hope you all have a wonderful day, my beautiful friends, I know I will.

  Altered my Tuna Patty Recipe last night, I think it's the best yet. It's less creamy but very very tasty.

3 cans chunk light tuna, drained
3 TB plain Greek Yogurt
9 TB egg whites
3 TB Parmesan Cheese
6 TB Ground FlaxSeeds
3 tsp spicy brown mustard
Old bay seasoning

Mix all ingredients together. Let sit in fridge for 5-10 minutes. Spray baking pan. Form 9 patties and put in pan. Broil on HIGH for 10 minutes, flip, continue to broil for 5 minutes or until golden. Serve and eat.

Nutrition (GV tuna, yoplait yogurt, GV egg whites, kraft parm, golden falx seeds, french's mustard)
Per Patty: 83.8 calories, 2gm fat, 2.6gm carbs (2.2 net), 15.1gm protein

Original recipe used mayo instead of greek yogurt, doubled the parm, and included green onions (blech) and I think I pulled it off of the 5 day pouch test website. Dinner last night was served with crisp french cut green beans and I used A1 with my patties. Hubby used the Wegmans Jerk BBQ sauce :)