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What another blah week it's been.  Only made it to the gym and pool again once last week, and looks like I won't make it at all this week.  I have a wicked skin infection, and I have a few huge holes in my stomach right now.  The thought of sweat or chlorine going into them is horrifying, and then there's the possibility of getting a worse infection or sharing mine with others.  I've been keeping active around the house, and with babysitting, but it's not the same.  My back is killing me, I've had cramps for almost a week, and I'm bloated.  My weight is swinging 5-10 lbs in a day...and I'm not weighing to track the weight, I only track on Mondays, but more to see just how much water I can hold LoL I half expect to start growing a camel hump at this time of the month.  

No real loss or gain this week, 285-288 is the usual readout on the scale.  I don't expect to see any kind of loss until my period gets here, then I'll shed a few overnight and then a few more a few days later. 

Man, the weather here has been gorgeous.  We've been having temps in the high 60s-mid 70s.  Today it is supposed to be sunny and 73, and tomorrow even sunnier and 76.  We went to the flea market on Sunday and walked around for a few hours, then took the dogs to the dog park for another hour.  They start to perk up too this time of year, when they get to spend more time outside.  We may have had a mild winter, but it was rainy, so they didn't get much play time. 

I've been sitting here with the windows open since 7am...the birds are chirping, the cats are chirping back, and the dogs are dozing in the sun from the windows.  It's a good day :~)

Gina :~)

So do you guys count it 6 months on 6 calendar page turns or 6 4-week blocks (24 weeks)?  Is post-op dating like pregnancy counting?  LoL

I just need to know how I'm titling next weeks entry.

Anyhow, so this week has been crappy.  Picked up a few babysitting hours, and was pretty worn out, and have had a sinus infection for like a week now.  No anti-inflammatories, no bueno.  Finally made it to the pool today, only went once last week.  Looks like we'll make it twice this week.  BOO.  But, babysitting is good, its funding the future wardrobe fund.

No weight loss, as expected, due to this being PMS and constipation week.  Sometime midweek next week I'll drop a few lbs, and then when I weigh in the following Monday, I should see a loss.  I'm modifying my diet a bit this week, so we'll see if it affects the normal course of my weight loss (3 weeks losing, 1 week holding water).  I'm hoping to up it a bit, I'd REALLY like to see 250 lbs by summer...

The new swimsuit doesn't really fit.  It took my husband and I to get me into it for the pictures last week.  So looks like I'll be swimming in the saggy suit for a while longer.  I'm thinking another 15 lbs.  My measurements put me in 3 different sizes on Junonia's size charts, so I went with the smallest one to get the most time from it.  It goes on, and zips up, but I'm concerned about putting stress  on the seams in the highly chlorinated water.  It's hanging in the closet, waiting for me.  I figure my swimming will speed up since I'm pulling so much extra fabric as drag weight right now LoL

Hope everyone has a great week!

Gina :~)

Wow.  I'm still speechless.  That stall lasted for so long (okay, 4 weeks in the grand scheme of things isn't THAT long, but it sure feels like it when it's dragging on), and than BAM! broken stall.  Down 8 lbs since last week, to 285.  TWO HUNDRED AND EIGHTY FIVE POUNDS!  

I haven't weighed that much (little? LoL) since 2008.  My husband hasn't known me less than 298.  He loved me at 298 though.  He loved me at 380.  He says he doesn't care what I weigh.  He knows I care though.  He also knows that I'm within 20 lbs of weighing less than him!  And how excited I am to weigh less than him.  He is at 268 lbs right now, props to him, too...he's down 40 lbs since I had surgery!  He's so supportive of me and is really on board for both of us to be healthy & happy.  

The weather in Cincinnati has been damn near springlike this year, and we're both looking forward to the outdoor opportunities available to us.  We both love going to the gym, but we're excited to get some exercise outside.  Yesterday we took the dogs to the dog park.  Our springlike winter meant lots of rain, so it was closed most of the last few months due to flooding.  Boy were they excited!  We had a good time, and I was able to run with our dogs and play and be goofy with them, and not be worried about being a sweaty mess after a little jog, or worrying about what I looked like huffing and puffing and wobbling along.  No more wobbling, no more half run...we actually wore the dogs out!  Today we're going bike riding on my "new" bike!  It's supposed to be near 60 here and sunny.  Hubby is a cyclist, and I know he's been wanting to bike ride with me for so long, and I can finally be comfortable on a bike again.  We rode for a bit in Florida, but the hotel bikes were kinda crappy and so we only did that once.  When we got home, we got me an old beach cruiser to fix up, and the couple we bought it from gave us a practically never used 24 speed as well, so when I'm up for longer rides, I won't have to use the fixed gear cruiser.  I think it's another 30 or so pounds before I'll be comfortable on the smaller seat and skinnier tires, but I'm thinking by summer I'll be ready.  The cruiser is ready to ride after he tuned it up, and so am I!  

My new swimsuit (!!!!) should be here today or tomorrow, so I'm going to wait until I get it to take pictures.  It's a compression aquatard from Junonia...been saving for months, and got the money just in time, as I'm LITERALLY falling out of my swimsuit when I'm swimming, boobs falling out after flip turns and the suit hangs halfway down my thighs when I get out of the pool. It's a well loved suit, and has seen me through a nearly 100 lb (O...M...G...!) weight loss.  I will be sending it to SeattleMaui so it can get someone else in the water.  I'm excited to see where it takes others :~)

Hopefully next week I'll be reporting a 100 lb loss (or more!), as I'm only 5 lbs away from that mile marker. 

Have a great week friends!

Gina :~)

Well, let's start with the good...my stall appears to have broken!  I weighed in yesterday, and it finally went down to 295 lbs.  Woot woot!  Holler! 

The bad...constipation is a bitch.  I missed every single day at the gym last week, it took 5 days to get things moving.  It sapped all the energy out of me, and I couldn't stand to be away from my bathroom for fear the moment would come and I wouldn't be near a bathroom.  I did do a lot of walking though once the first couple days passed, and I needed to do something but being in the pool did not sound good to me.  I dunno what finally got things moving again, but I hope not to experience that again.  I've added a Dulcolax to my bedtime vitamins in hopes of preventing it from happening.  

I should make it to the pool at least 3 days this week, my aim is 5 though, I just don't see it happening with other appointments and obligations.  Thankfully, Friday is going to be spent shopping with my best friend, so there will be plenty of walking to make up for one of the pool days at least. 

Have a good week!

Gina :~)

Well, not much has changed since last week.  I'm not weighing myself this week.  My period is due any day now, I'm bloated, bitchy, and now I'm also constipated.  If the scale has moved, it surely isn't in a direction I need to see right now.  It's been nearly a month since I last lost any weight, and I just keep waiting for it to happen.  I surely can't be stuck at 300 forever.  Still eating right, and exercising, although today spent the day going back and forth between bed and bathroom...eventually this too shall pass!  

Hope everyone has a great week.

Gina :~)

Well, I've been bouncing between 299-300 since January 18th...AND I AM DAMN SICK OF IT.  I know I'm not alone, two of my OH friends who had surgery the day after me have been dealing with this BS, too.  I have all kinds of nice, encouraging things to say to them...however, they don't apply to me apparently because I just can't get out of this funk.  Clothes are fitting nicer, I'm developing some kind of a figure, I'm still measuring & keeping track of my food, and also exercising 5 days a week at minimum...I know I'm not doing anything wrong, but I think that makes it so much harder actually.  I bumped up my workouts last week, adding 10 pounds to all of the weight machines, and an extra 12 laps to my swim.  I was hoping that would push me out of my stall.  I started doing yoga 3 times a week...albeit only for 10 minutes, but that's all my knees & wrists can take at 300 pounds.  I find reasons to go up and down the stairs more.  We park far away from store entrances.  I think the reason it's harder when you know you're doing everything right is b/c up until the 18th, everything right was showing me everything I wanted to see on the scale.  Now I'm just a hostage of my body, waiting for it to give up and let the fat go.  I've been in a piss poor mood all day long, starting bright and early to the gym 2 hours earlier than usual b/c we had things to do today.  So my swim was short, and so was my temper.  Then I fell down our hill going to the car (other than a bruised ego, having done this in front of the gas & electric construction crew parked in front of our house, I'm fine from this one), then when we got where we were going, I fell getting out of the car, over the curb.  Busted my knee up pretty good, as well as my pinky and hand.  FANTASTIC!  Then the appointment we were at was not what we were expecting, and so now hubby is in a bad mood.  Oy vey.  Relax.  Relax.  Relax.  Breathe.

Onto the good!  I'm getting my new swimsuit next week!  Which means I will have two for Brenda (SeattleMaui) to pass along to someone in need of a suit.  I'm finally getting my Junonia aquatard!  I'm so excited, as the skin on my legs needs those compression shorts in a bad way!  And even better news...very shortly, I will become Auntie G to yet another beautiful little niece to love and spoil...Mia Louise will be making her debut any minute now!  We're heading to the hospital when I finish this post.  

Finished!  

Gina :~)

Well, let's just start with going on vacation and not gaining weight...fabulous!  Left at 299, weighed in yesterday at 300...I'm gonna call that water weight.  Or wine weight as the case may be.  Was I hoping to lose weight on vacation?  Sure.  Am I happy to have maintained?  Definitely!  The biggest food splurge was the homemade ice cream place next to the hotel, which serves a no sugar added organic strawberry ice cream...the kiddy scoop was perfect for a sunset treat on my birthday.  

We had a great time in Florida.  We walked a lot, lounged on the beach, went to bed late and got up early.  We had great hotel neighbors, a guy from Amsterdam and an older couple from DC, we spent every evening drinking and talking until the wee hours...okay, the wee hours for me these days is 10 or 11pm, but whatever!  We went and visited my best friend who moved to Port Charlotte over the summer, and then they came out on Saturday for a big beach day with their kids. 

I wish I had brought my lap suit and gear, because I was envious of the people I saw out in the ocean swimming in the waves.  I honestly didn't think (because I was told) the water would be warm enough to swim.  Next time, I'll know better, and be out there swimming along the waves!  Oh, and I went for a nice bike ride with my hubby, too!  I've been looking forward to being able to bike with him, as he's a cyclist.  I was worried that the bike wouldn't hold me, and I'd sit on it and the tires would bust or the frame would bend under my weight, but nope!  It was so much fun to be riding a bike again, I felt that freedom that I felt as a kid all over again.  Taxes are done, and when the refund comes, we're buying an old beach cruiser for me and we're going to repair and rebuild it together.  I'm excited about this, but I think my hubby is even more excited than I am!  We'll be riding the bike trails this spring and summer together, adding one more thing to the list of fun things to do together that also are good for us.  

Yesterday marked 18 weeks, and I can't complain about losing 80 pounds over 18 weeks....comes out to over 4 pounds a week lost.  Today my husband wants me to start meal planning him along with my meal planning.  He's down 25 pounds since I had surgery, with 50 more to go.  He still tends to do the "I won't eat until I'm starving" bit, and then of course he eats more than a serving because he's let himself go 5 or 6 hours without food.  Now I have two diets to manage and count and plan for, but it's okay, I'm looking forward to it.  He did so much for me before and after this surgery, and during those first months when I was just exhausted all the time, he took care of me and the house and all our pets (we have 8 of them!).  I'll report the first weeks progress next week when I blog.

Now it's off to the menu planning board, then we are headed to the YMCA.  Yay for being back at the gym!  

Have a great week everyone!

Gina :~)

Had to pop in to say...

I AM UNDER 300 POUNDS TODAY!

299 to be exact.

Gina :~)

Today marks 4 months since surgery.  The time has flown since week 5 and all my complications started going away, and now life is feeling almost normal.  Well, aside from the alarm on my phone going off all day long and that I carry a bag of food with me nearly everywhere now.  The fatter me never carried food around...my how things change.  As of this morning, I'm down from 380 lbs to 306 lbs...I don't know if I'll hit my goal to be down to 297 lbs when we leave on vacation next Sunday, but I'll be damn close, and I'm okay with that.  I slide into my 2X pants easily now (and they're starting to slide off of me now, too), and actually tried on a few 1X skirts that I have, and looks like I'll be taking one to Florida with me, cuz a 1X fits!  I still moan and groan over this damn belly though, cuz 74 lbs certainly didn't leave my gut!  I have legs and arms and face that are getting smaller, which makes my belly appear to be getting bigger LoL  I am only down 1 size in shirts, from a 30/32 to a 26/28.  I was very chesty prior to being overweight and obese, so I think the girls are mostly sticking around.  I've started losing side and back boobs, but the front boobs appear to be the same.  

Last week was back to the gym, and we made it 3 of 5 days.  The two days I took off I cleaned house and played the Kinect, so I still got a good bit of physical activity.  We're getting ready to start the gym week here soon, and I'm hoping to make it every day.  I think it took 2 weeks to get to the point I could go every day, so if I miss only 1 day this week I think I'll not beat myself up too bad.  Next week we'll be in Florida though, and we haven't decided if we're going to find a YMCA to drive to to work out, or if we'll just walk the beach every day.  I'm hoping for beach walks every day with my hubby, duh.  It'll be too cold to ocean swim, or so they say...before this surgery I was never cold and loved swimming in cold water, so maybe I'll take a dip and find out.  I'd love to "swim laps" in the ocean.  

No blog next week, as we're going laptop-free for vacation, but when I get back I'll be back on here.

Have a good couple weeks, everyone!  Keep being losers!

Gina :~)

Finally, after 15 weeks, I have found a food regime that works.  And it keeps me very busy eating, which has been a hard concept for me to grasp, after years of trying to starve myself skinny.  For anyone out there who might be wondering what it takes to keep me on track, here's a day in the life of my pouch:

8am: GNC Total Lean Shake
9am: vitamins & a nonfat yogurt
10am: fruit of some kind (I'm loving the prepackaged snack bags of grapes & apples right now)
12pm: M-F protein bar after gym, S-S a piece of lunchmeat & a piece of cheese (need the carbs of protein bar after gym)
1pm: 1 cup of soup and 1 piece of Trader Joe's California Style Protein bread toasted with a slice of cheese
3pm: GNC Total Lean Shake, and if I've got head hunger going on (this is the time of day I get it) a SF Jell-O or pudding cup
5pm: 2-3 oz of meat, 2-3 ounces of cooked veggies (I miss raw veggies...they don't do well still)
7pm: 1/2 cup of cottage cheese or 1 oz of jerky
9pm: vitamins & SF popsicle

OMG seriously?  Yes, I eat ALL. THE.  TIME.  This plan nets me 110-140 g of protein though, and keeps me between 1100-1300 calories (the dietician wants me at minimum 1200 on gym/swim days).  It's A LOT of planning.  I track everything still on my calorie counting app, I usually input everything the night before when I'm having my popsicle.  The only problem I'm having is I think that the 11 hours between the popsicle and my morning shake are a bit of a stretch, but I can't stay up later than 9-10pm usually, and am stuffed.  Keep in mind, I have yet to feel hunger at this point, so every single meal I'm basically forcefeeding myself...and I have no "full" warning until "too full" AKA "hey, I can see that piece of food in the back of your throat dude..." so it's so important that everything is planned and measured.  I try to mix it up a few times a week, like today my hubby and I went to Chipotle after the gym and errand running.  Get this...we SHARED a bowl, and had to throw some away.  how's that for odd, huh?  Going to Chipotle is probably my favorite place to go post-op, since I can see it all and tell them exactly how I want it.  I get...a chicken bowl with double chicken, NO RICE, black beans, hot & mild salsa, 1/2 sour cream, extra cheese.  If it's just for me, I can usually eat 4-6 meals off one bowl, and have them put everything in separate containers except the chicken and beans.  I also have a few tortilla chips...I mean, who the hell can resist the yummy salty limey Chipotle chips, for real people.  Anyhow, this crazy eating schedule...is worth it.  Now that I know how and what I need to eat, and I know that I'm giving my body what it needs to keep going, it changes things a bit.  "Eating to live, not living to eat" finally means something and isn't just a cliche line you see 10 times a day on here; having been basically starving at times since surgery, and feeling my body ache for food that I physically couldn't feed it for days and weeks at a time, with every bite I eat I think about where the food is going and what it is going to do for my body and in turn for my life.  It's a powerful feeling.  I was a healthy eater before surgery, but what the food and it's nutrients did for my body after leaving my mouth never mattered before.  I do long for the day I will again be eating my 5 a day of fruits & veggies...oh I miss them so.  There's just no room for them...what was once considered a healthy staple has now become a protein-lacking filler.  Sigh.

So...big news here...I'm only 10 pounds away from being under 300!  I haven't been under 300 since I met my husband in January 2010; I weighed 298 then.  We are going to Anna Maria Island, FL, on January 22nd to celebrate a multitude of things...us meeting, my 30th birthday, and it will be our first vacation just the two of us.  We got married in Aruba, but no "honeymoon" as we had friends and family staying with us the whole time.  I also flew to Dallas last spring for a few days while he was at a work training, but really that was just dinner together a few nights in a different city as he was working and they kept him pretty busy.  This is a big deal real vacation...we aren't even bringing our laptops with us!  GASP!  Yes my friends, you will go one week without hearing from me on here, but my weekly weigh in pictures will have the ocean in the background, so you and I both know we can handle it.  My mini-goal is to be at 297 when we leave...so I'll be smaller than I was when we met.

Now that my weight is getting lower, and I'm feeling better and better each day, we can finally really do some planning and dreaming for our future. Having a baby is first on that list.  Hey, calm down, don't panic, trust me, we're not talking anytime soon.  Obviously the doctors and surgeons say at least 1 year post op, but I have my own guidelines set, as I want a happy, healthy, active, uncomplicated and as non-invasive as possible pregnancy and hopefully a serene, unmedicated labor and delivery.  I know that my body will need to be in top physical condition, so we are waiting at least 18 months (February 2013) and be at goal weight (175).  Adequate levels of B12, D, and protein...and still working out 5 days a week.  At 5'7'' and 175 pounds, I shouldn't need to gain more than 10-15 pounds to have a healthy pregnancy, so my eating and activity level need to still be my top priority.  It's so exciting to think about it all, and it's only a little over a year away until the first of the list can be checked off...lots to do in that year though!  


Do you reward yourself for losing weight? This is what I've got planned...

At 300 pounds, buy a new swimsuit (!!!!!).
At 100 pounds lost (280), get my first massage.
At 250 pounds, start practicing on Sundays with the Cincinnati Masters swimming team (this IS a reward, for me at least...)
At 225 pounds, go with my best friends to one of those inflatable playgrounds...I'm VERY excited about this!
At 200 pounds, have a shopping day with the besties.
At 200 pounds lost (180), a weekend trip with my hubby.
At 175 pounds, THROW A HUGE FREAKING PARTY CUZ I GOT TO GOAL!  

Hope everyone has a great week!

Gina :~)