jazzylady

Send Message

Block

Add Friend

I weighed in this morning and have lost 101lbs!!! I can not believe this, but its true. I am sooo happy right now. I havent seen my current weight since 1999. It is gonna take me awhile to totally wrap my head around this, but so far I am getting it slowly...lol. Life has been good and continues to get better. On to the next goal of 125....here I  come. 

LaDetra  

1	04/14/2009	281.0
2	04/07/2009	287.0
3	03/31/2009	289.0
4	03/24/2009	294.0
5	03/17/2009	295.0
6	03/10/2009	299.0
7	03/09/2009	299.0
8	03/03/2009	303.0
9	02/21/2009	309.0
10	02/15/2009	311.0
11	02/13/2009	312.0
12	02/12/2009	313.0
13	02/10/2009	315.0
14	02/08/2009	316.0
15	02/06/2009	318.0
16	02/05/2009	316.0
17	01/31/2009	318.0
18	01/28/2009	320.0
19	01/23/2009	322.0
20	01/16/2009	325.0
21	01/15/2009	327.0
22	01/08/2009	330.0
23	01/04/2009	332.0
24	12/30/2008	335.0
25	12/27/2008	337.0
26	12/22/2008	338.0
27	12/20/2008	341.0
28	12/06/2008	345.0
29	12/03/2008	347.0
30	12/01/2008	350.0
31	11/17/2008	369.0
32	11/13/2008	375.0

Sometimes I need to look at things to see just what has been done and in this case, how far I have come. I have started back working out as of a couple of months ago, and I feel great. I even jogged yesterday for a couple of minutes, and all I can say is WOW!! Thank you Jesus for allowing me to have this surgery and for keeping your hand upon me during the surgery and during my recovery with no complications. Thank you for the restoration that has begun in my life and to you I owe all of the glory. Thank you for things to come and for loving me sooo much! Thank you for the good plans that you have for me and being my helper, my friend, advocate,strength and my cheerleader. I would not have accopmplished what I have and what I will accomplish it was/is not for you. I thank you that I know where my help come from.

LaDetra 

I feel absolutely great!! This has definately been a blessing for me and I am glad that I had the opportunity to have this surgery. As of today I am 80lbs down and not sure of inches, but I know its alot. I have been a total restoration process of not just physical but mental and spiritual as well. There are things that I notice so far that I can do that couldnt do before like crossing my legs! wow..I did that the other day and just about fell over. I ran today with my kids to the car and wasnt that winded at all(need to buy a better bra though..lol). I was on the treadmill for one hour this week...one hour...how awesome is that? Ok, this is the kicker...I did YOGA today for the very first time in my life. Yes, it was challenging because I was just starting out, but I can see becoming an avid fan of it. I feel bones on places that I hadnt felt in a very long time, especially hip bones and butt bones when I sit. BONES BONES BONES. I have went down in pants sizes...from 30-32 to a 22...a 22!!!! I havent worn a 22 since I was 22..lol...just exaggerating..but it has been over 10 yrs I am sure. I am starting to love working out again as I did when I was in my early 20s so that is a definate plus. I asked the Lord to give me a hunger for working out to strengthen and improve my body and I do believe I got what I asked for...thank You Jesus! Lovin water water water and staying close to getting in my protein. Vitamins are no problem and hopefully I will be off my last blood pressure med this week when I go to my main PCP for my annual physical. She told me that if it still looked good, it would be gone...so I am looking for that to be gone! So far things are good for the most part. Self confidence and self esteem has grown tremendously. I am lovin this and there are sooo many things that are being restored, its unbelievable. Sorry I havent blogged in awhile, but life gets to be a tad crazy and so i will try and do better....cuz it helps me to express in writing what I want to say and express my thoughts. 

LaDetra  

I have reached my first goal since having surgery of......drum roll...50lbs. WOOHOOO!! This is totally awesome...I did the Happy Dance for my kids this morning and had them cracking up. If I am feeling this good now, boy just wait til the summer rollz around. Having this awesome support system here is awesome. Now I am off to reach my second goal of 25lbs. I think I will do something special for my first goal reached, I just need to sit down and plan it out for all the rest of my milestones. I should have done it before now, but I guess there is no time as good as the present.

Hugz,
LaDetra(feeling like a real jazzylady today)

Well....I have to say that these past two weeks of soft foods have been very interesting. I have been pretty much sticking to the same foods that I know that I like and not really venturing out. I am not a cottage cheese person so I found out, so that is not really an option. I think I have bean and cheesed myself these past two weeks...lol. I have also noticed that since being on the mushies, that my weight loss has stalled. I weighed last week and today I weigh the exact amount I did last Monday....UGH. I think that this has been the hardest thing to deal with over eating soft foods. I went from losing pretty good during the other weeks to being at a standstill. Everyone has assured me, it is normal and I will of course start losing again, that its just my body taking a quick rest and trying to figure out what the  heck is goin on here....I mean...my body must be SCREAMING LOUD AND PITCHING A FIT..cuz its not moving a bit. I can tell that I am losing weight especially in my face I can tell, but I know that I havent lost 32lbs in my face alone.....it is comin off at other places, but I am not seein it quite yet. Ift anything that I have learned while being on the WLS path for the past 8 months, is that I have gotten patience worked out of me, and so I will be patient til the truck starts moving again. I start eating regular foods tomorrow along with going back to work. I am a bit anxious on what my co workers will think when they see me...but not necessarily getting hung up on what they think though..but it will be interesting. So far God has blessed me with an uneventful surgery and almost non exitence of problems afterward...this I am truly thankful for. My recovery has been good, and I am looking forward to the new year and a new me. With God, all things are possible  

Will I Still Be Hungry?
By: Warren Huberman, Ph.D


Of all of the concerns weight loss surgery patients have, this is perhaps the one that causes the greatest anxiety. For many patients, the primary reason for ursuing weight loss surgery is to gain control over their eating behavior. So that is the answer to this crucial question?

Thankfully, most weight loss patients find that their hunger is greatly
diminished following surgery. However, this question is far more complex than it may seem. The difficulty in answering this question is in distinguishing hunger from cravings. Hunger is a complex phenomenon, but in general, hunger is a physiological state of deprivation. It is your body saying, “Feed me.” Hunger is not particularly concerned with what specific foods are eaten to be satisfied.  Enter cravings. A craving is a desire to eat, often for a specific food. Cravings are learned. Cravings say, “Feed me Chinese food” or “I want M&M’s.”  The real difficulty in recognizing and controlling cravings is that they often occur outside of your awareness. You suddenly want to eat but you’re not sure why. Under these circumstances, we may become confused and attribute this
wanting of food to hunger. Further adding to the complication is the fact that hunger and cravings influence each other. Have you ever had the experience of standing in the food court of a large mall contemplating what to have for lunch? You’re clearly hungry, but you rapidly change from wanting Chinese food, to a hot dog, to pizza, to a burrito, to a Greek salad, inside of a few seconds! Behold the power of cravings. You’ve heard the advice to, “never go food shopping when you’re hungry.” The basis for this suggestion is that hunger will encourage you to buy food; cravings will encourage you to buy everything that looks or feels good. Despite your intention to leave the market with only a few items, you may come home with a cartful. Understanding the distinction between hunger and cravings is crucial for the surgical weight loss patient’s success.
We “learn” to eat based upon a number of factors. As infants, we cry when we are hungry. Infants certainly have some rudimentary preferences (such as strained peaches over strained asparagus!), but the business of eating is fairly simple. Through childhood it rapidly becomes complicated. Our parents encourage us to eat certain foods and discourage us from eating others. We are told to eat because it is a specific time or because we are in a certain place. We may be given food for good grades and for cleaning our room. We are comforted from emotional pain with chicken soup and chocolate chip cookies. Our culture begins to strongly influence our food choices. What we eat also depends on whether we are Spanish, Italian, Jewish, Irish or African-American. Add to this, that by the time we are five years old, we have probably viewed thousands of television commercials encouraging us to eat high-fat goodies, 48-ounce sugary sodas and super-sized greasy burgers and French fries. In only a short while, the business of eating has become quite complicated. All of these situations and ircumstances become triggers for eating, which we call cravings. Cravings often continue following weight loss surgery. As my colleague, Dr. Christine Ren of the NYU Program for Surgical Weight Loss often says, “I’m doing
surgery on the stomach, not the brain!” This is why weight loss surgery is best viewed as a tool, rather than a cure, to treat obesity. There is often still the need to make a number of behavior changes to maximize the effect of the surgery and to better ensure positive long term results. Here is an example of cravings at work: One patient told me that she continued to crave peanuts following surgery, but only when she watched television at night in her den. She explained that she had been eating peanuts in front of the television on most nights for over 20 years. A gastric band doesn’t undo 20 years of learned behavior. So how do cravings develop and get so strong? As I mentioned earlier, cravings are learned or “conditioned.” Cravings develop through a process called Classical Conditioning and are maintained primarily through another process called Operant Conditioning. In Classical conditioning, two situations, behaviors or emotions become linked with each other so that the presence of one creates the desire for the other. In a series of famous
experiments, Ivan Pavlov discovered that by repeatedly pairing the ringing of a bell with the presentation of food, a dog eventually began to salivate to the sound of the bell, even when there was no food. The ringing of the bell quickly became the signal to prepare for eating. In the example described above, “watching television in the den in the evening,” was paired with “eating peanuts,” on thousands of occasions, until eventually watching television in the den, triggered a craving for peanuts. The roducers of television commercials are aware of the power of classical conditioning, which is why they make commercials showing beautiful people having a great time while enjoying their products. This is also why they package toys with their children’s meals. We come to associate beauty and having fun with eating a greasy burger and french fries, with little or no regard for the burger and fries’ poor nutritional content. In Operant Conditioning, the performance of a specific behavior becomes
strengthened due to its pleasant consequences or weakened because of its unpleasant consequences. We eat chocolate because it tastes delicious (a positive consequence) and don’t eat brussel sprouts because they don’t taste very good (at least not to me!). Sometimes we eat because eating helps us escape from an unpleasant situation, such as loneliness or stress (a pleasant outcome). Like classical conditioning, operant conditioning situations occur hundreds of time every day. Comfort foods provide an example of both types of onditioning
at work. We are classically conditioned to associate certain foods with certain people (grandma) or happy times (childhood). These foods tend to be delicious foods (positive consequences). After eating comfort foods thousands of times, we learn to crave these foods during times when we need an emotional pick-me up or comfort. The comfort foods we individually crave are hardly a coincidence. They’re almost always happy, fatty, delicious foods. Learning to control cravings is important to maximize your outcome from weight loss surgery. The best way to “unlearn” old cravings is by learning new ways of thinking and behaving, instead of eating, when the old craving trigger is pulled. Think of conditioning as a chain with numerous links. One link could be
a mood, another link a place, another link a time, and another link a specific food. When several links line up, we have a craving. For example: when I’m in a bad mood, alone in my den at night, I eat nacho chips. Defeating cravings involves breaking links in the chain. Here are some suggestions:
Keep a craving diary. Document when and where you had the craving and what food you craved. See if you can identify specific causes for your cravings. Sometimes just recognizing that you are experiencing a craving rather than true hunger is effective in giving you control to resist the urge to eat. Practice resisting cravings or eating healthier alternative foods to prove to yourself that it is possible to do so. Remind yourself that you “want” to eat, but don’t “need” to eat. The craving diary may also teach you that specific people, places, emotions or situations trigger your cravings. Now you need to decide how to best handle these specific circumstances in the future. If loneliness triggers cravings, explore opportunities for increased social activity…go online, call a friend, go
to the mall, etc. If nighttime television watching is the trigger, discover
other activities aside from television, especially if they are incompatible with eating… like exercising. If boredom triggers cravings, get active! If anxiety or depression are triggers, seek out treatment for these problems. The goal is to weaken the cravings by diminishing the associations between specific triggers and the behavior of eating.

WOW!!! I can not believe its been two weeks since I had surgery...this is so unreal. I feel great. I made up my mind everyday since surgery to speak positive words over me for everyday after that I am better and no weapon formed against me shall prosper. My recovery has been awesome...with the exception on the slight nausea and gas I experienced days home from surgery. The gas has gotten alot better.. and the nausea is not around since I called the doctor and got some phenergan gel called in....only had to use it once. I am getting my energy back and it feels good to not feel extremely tired or the feeling of wanting to nap half my day away...and no heavy feelings of the carb overload that I was experiencing. I have noticed that I am looking at myself more in the mirror lately and thinking of cute ways to fix my hair and trying on different lipsticks. The Lord has truly blessed me in soo many ways with one being that he allowed me to have this surgery and start the process of my life being restored. Also, his hand covering over me during the surgery itself..keeping me protected and waking me up from the anesthesia. I am looking forward to continuing this ride with him as the driver. I truly feel like the catepillar that is about to turn into a butterfly.....all things have become new..the former things have passed away. Not to mention that I have lost 25 pounds thus far. I have also managed to make it through two weeks of clear liquids...that is good in itself. I start soft foods tomorrow(Monday) I am ready Freddy. Yes, I have been truly blessed and I know the blessings will keep on coming.   

As I am at home tonight on a lonely Friday nite, I have been doing a lot of thinking and feeling several different feelings. I have realized that my crutch is gone....gone. Just knowing that I could go out and get whatever I wanted to eat to satisfy is now just a memory. I feel very lonely right now and feel like a very good friend of mine who has been an important part of my life is gone. Yea, he may come but leaves quickly and the visit is no longer the same. I have relied on food to comfort me for at least 25 years. As a child I loved to eat and found great comfort and solace in food and at times got down right obsessive over it, saying that I just had to have it. I guess this comes from living in a household where my father was the same way. We built food around all of our different emotions. Happy occassions was a great time to go out to an ALL YOU CAN EAT. A sad occassion, seemed to follow going out to eat. I leaned very hard into the comfort of my friend because my father was not the loving father that he should have been. He was verbally abusive to me and put me down and made me feel as if I not special or important. Then there was bouts of physical abuse. Therre was nothing else for me to look forward to but to look forward to food. It relieved me(or so I thought) from the thing(s) that were bothering me. I used it as a medicine that eventually turned into an addiction later. Food is not meant to be used this way, but I used that way. All of my insecurities were shoved into my mouth and eventually showed on the way that I looked. I didnt like the way that I looked, but I felt powerless and so the cycle started all over again. I tried to so hard as young girl to get my father to love me, I was starving for love, but somehow my mind got tricked into thinking that I was starving for food. I wanted that space filled so bad in my life, that I needed relief, satisfaction, comfort anyway that I could get it. I thought that it made things better, but really in the end, it did more harm than good...didnt help one bit. Then you have the progression of this awful cycle running into teen years where everything is about how you look. Pressure came on plus the issues at home, so the cycle continued. Everything that was missing in my life, I turned to food to make it better and to comfort me. It had become a crutch for me and by my teen years and early twenties, I didnt even know it. It wasnt really until I started researching weight loss surgery, that I began to want to know why I was eating the way that I was. The Lord revealed it to me and I cried. Even after giving my life to him, I still ran to food for my comfort, my shelter, my everything....it had become another God...and the Lord will not take second place to another something pretending to be God. Now I am seeing that I want running to the shelter of God like I needed had, but that I let something else have almost total control of me. For this I have asked for forgiveness and repented. Being here tonight made me realize that He can be everything to us, if we want him to be. He has started healing these areas in my life and that I am so thankful for, but He doesnt want me serving another God and that is what food had become to me. I am turning to him more this week to help me with different emotions and help with strength to find comfort and shelter in Him now. He has brought me to this point for a reason.....restoration as I have said earlier.It was just time and enough was enough. Will the road be easy....no....but I know as long as I stand on his Word and continue to build my relationship with him, I will become so full of Him, that I will become satisfied.

Since I got home on Tuesday evening, I have had the awful acquaintance with major gas pains in my abdoment...OUCH! I was not happy and Wednesday nite was not good. I felt miserable. I started taking gas x and mom and I was feeling better Wednesday. Thursday, the same thing...once again was feeling better. I was able to get up and walk more and for more length of time. Friday, felt better in the gas dept than on Thursday, so I am definately on the right track. The abdominal pain has been not too bad. I have cut back on my pain med waaaaay much and today really did ok with tylenol. On liquids, I have been doing great on that also. I have been religiously trying to get 64oz of liquids in and my protein shakes. I have done it few of the days and one, I got pretty close. I just cant believe the good change from Monday evening to tonight. I can lay on my right side now pretty much with ease and the help of a pillow. The left side still needs a little help, but even that is coming around. I refuse to think negative and want to stay hurting....so I walk...then I walk....and walk some more and do that incentive spirometer thing to help my lungs out. I know with each day, my body is getting stronger and normalcy will return,  slightly changed though. I am just so used to getting up and doing what i want and going where I want, that to lay around.....I feel lazy...LOL, but its been nice to be waited on a bit. I am looking forward to how I will feel this time next week and see if the scale will move a bit.

I got home from the hospital on Tuesday evening...WOW. Everything went good, nothin unusual happened during surgery, I came through it just fine. The only thing now that is bothering me, is the gas pain and abdominal pain...gosh! I am so far able to hold down my liquids including my protein shake..so I think I am doing pretty darn good. I have been walking walking walking trying to get rid of this gas..OUCH! The nurses and staff at the hospital were really nice and very helpful. I am very determined to start feeling better and getting back to some kind of normalcy..lol. Sleeping in the bed has been a chore, I have to prop pillows up behind me and sit straight up to get any kind of rest. So, far everything is going good...and did I mention, its my birthday today?? Yepper, so I had two birthdays this week...
LaDetra