Posted this to the ds group early this morning:

Today is really hard. In 12 months, I lost 181 pounds. Today is the 13th pound and now I've lost 180 - I'm UP one pound from last month... UGH. This is NOT the right direction! On around the 1st or 2nd, I was 4 pounds up from my anniversary on the 10th last month. Last month, I lost 15 pounds. I guess a stall could be partly to be expected since I lost so much last month and I'm further out, but this is my first gain month, so it's very difficult for me, even though it's only a pound. I have heard from lots of DS folks who posted recently about stalls - that had a stall for 4-6 weeks or more then started losing again, so I haven't lost my determination and faith that the DS works but it's excrutiatingly painful to see a gain when I still have a hundred pounds to lose.

I had been so discouraged when after watching my intake and exercising a lot (5-6 days per week), my weight wasn't going down, but it was even going up a little. About the 27th or so, I really bottomed out as far as even keeping track of things. My first year, I fitday'ed for about 357 out of 365 days... so far, my second year, I've already missed about 10-12 days. I guess I'm tired of watching every bite. I had varied from eating 1200-1400 calories to 1700-1800 to 2200-2400 all in the attempt to jostle my body out of this plateau to no avail. It has been going down again the past few days (with little attempts on my part) so, I guess the body does just whatever it wants to do, and it seemed to want a rest this month!

I had a particularly emotional time right around the 1st when Ray died as many of us have. I know more than one of us posted about doing some emotional eating around this event -- we had prayed so hard for him (and swung chickens or did whatever they do) and it was heartbreaking to lose Ray and so hard to think of his family's loss. I have been playing with sugar more than usual, of late....but not to the extent that I should be GAINING, so go figure.

I spoke with Dina who strongly felt I've been focusing on the wrong things - rather than looking at carbs so much, it might be better to look at fiber and water and make sure I'm getting enough of both. Of course keeping protein up goes without saying.

I also need to get back on the 5 days a week exercising, as I'm back down to about 3 days a week.

Sorry about the long post - just wanted to tell you guys where I was and let pre-ops know that it definitely isn't just down down down on the weight loss. I also use weight commander (google it) as a tool to keep track and weigh daily, and my weigh the whole time has zigzag'd up and down, but just usually not up without going down again for the month! Just for reference, here's my weight loss chart:

440 high weight 3/7/05

435 on surgery date 3/10/05

1 month April 10 395 –45!!

2 month May 10 387 -8

3 month June 10 375 –12

4 month July 10 354 -21!!!!

5 month Aug 10 344 –10

6 month Sept 10 329 –15

7 month Oct 10 311 –18

8 month Nov 10 300 –11

9 month Dec 10 292 – 8

10 month Jan 10 283 – 9

11 month Feb 10 274 – 9

12 month Mar 10 259 –15 (-181 in one year!)

13 month Apr 10 260 + 1 :(

I guess, as Forest Gump would say, "That's all I have to say about that", at least for the moment. I have been through playing out every scenario I could think of so more queries in that regard probably aren't too helpful, i.e. too much sugar, too little food, too much food, too little exercise, too much exercise, etc, etc, etc. Encouragement is always appreciated as I am feeling rather fragile today. I'm disappointed, to say the least even though I know I've come a tremendous way already.

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I posted the above earlier today. Turns out, I had another few bathroom trips and I'm actually not UP one pound, I'm just about exactly the same as I was one month ago. So at least I can still say that I'm down 181 pounds.

It has been a frustrating month, to say the least. I will be getting measured and pictures taken on Wednesday, so hopefully that will be different enough that it makes up for not losing a single pound this last month!

I'm in the midst of trying to get a teaching job, have a job fair next week and I've been working on cover letters, getting letters of recommendation, and my resume. I've had some great people offer to help, so that's cool.

Tonight I have homework for my class tomorrow night,and tomorrow is going to be busy - I'm subbing two different jobs in the same day - one from 8:35-12:05 and one from 12:05-3:35 - fortunately, they both are at the same school.

Take care, all.

Jill
www.picturetrail.com/kilaani