What's on your menu today, RNYers?

Today, I finally reached the third in my triad of milestones for this "decade" of weight - at 191 I am now officially just plain "overweight," no longer obese - yippee! Last week felt like the longest week ever with barely any scale movement. This week I'm not doing anything differently, but the scale has been moving nicely. It's another good reminder that my body is in charge of this journey, I can't simply will myself to lose, though it does take a lot of will to stay on track. 

I've been noticing for the last week or so that I'm very tired and it has finally occurred to me that this might have something to do with my post-WLS body. Perhaps I'm deficient in some vitamin? I need to get lab work done the week after next for my 6 month followup, so perhaps that will show something. I'm also wondering if it's time for a small bump in calories? Taking more in does make me nervous, but, I think next week I'm going to go up to 900 calories/day. I had been thinking I would go to 900 at 5 months out, but I guess I'll give it a try a week early.

Big plans for the weekend anyone? It sure has been a quiet week here on the menu post. I hope in the fall some of the regulars return, or we get some new regulars! As I always say, I don't know what I would do without y'all! I'm spending the weekend lazily, seeing a few friends, getting my hair cut (which is a big production because I schlep into the city to my formerly cool life and get it done), and getting ready for my vacation next week. I'm headed downtheshore (as we say in Philly, yes, all one word) for Monday-Friday and I'm very excited! I need to get laundry done, etc. Although, I can't lie, I'm considering packing dirty laundry and doing it there where it is not $1.50 to wash and $1.50 to dry LOL.

Time since surgery: 22 weeks

B: Loaded Greek Yogurt

S: Lemon Tea protein shake, Honey Roasted Almonds (yummmmmmm) and 1oz Boar's Head Black Forest Ham

L: Turkey Sloppy Joes, 1oz Fiber Gourmet Nacho Thinables

S before gym: SkinnyPop and a cheese stick

D: Omelet with turkey sausage crumbles and blue cheese

S: Cool Whip FroYo and probably a popsicle post-workout

TOTALS: Calories 846, Protein 90, Carbs 58, Fat 36

V/W: Started

E: to the gym tonight, I overslept and didn't walk with my colleague this morning, oops

Have a great day all!

Good morning everyone. Another beautiful day here in Illinois! Lily and I have done our 3.75  miles already and when done with my coffee I will do level 2 of thirty day shred. Then I will have exercise out of the way early. Hooray! Congratulations on being only overweight Anny! And all in less than 6 months. You have done great because of your hard work and positive attitude. Before you know it you will be at your goal. So on to today. I am on track with vitamins and fluids for the day. Here's my food:B 1/2 c steel cut oats with nuts and half a banana with peanut butter L 1 c ham and beans S blueberries and cheese cubes D 31/2 oz pork chop and 1/2 c green beans S Greek yogurt with nuts. Hope everyone has a great Friday and enjoys their weekend. 

Thanks so much Karen! It does feel pretty awesome to have accomplished so much in less than FIVE MONTHS! When I look at my ticker and see 36 pounds to go, I actually feel like I can do it and that's amazing! Maybe, like you, I'll even be able to go lower, but we'll see.

Dayum girl!  You just hit Onederland and look at you now!  Congrats on being overweight!  (this is the only place in the world we would happily celebrate this ha ha).  I went out for Maryland crabs last night for a work dinner...I swear you have to work for that little bit of meat!...but today I am retaining water from the Old Bay like a mofo!  So I am not logging today's weight ha ha.  I will weigh tomorrow which is my 8 month surgiversary.

I am pretty proud of myself because after dinner I went to the gym at 10 pm for 45 minutes on the Cybex Arc Trainer and then went back today for 40 minutes on the same machine plus 25 minutes of personal training.  I also talked to a girl at the gym who commented how skinny I am getting (she is obese or maybe morbidly obese) and I told her about my surgery and all the work I am doing and she asked for my number so we can talk - she wants inspiration and hopes I can help her and is scared of having WLS but has thought about it.  So hopefully we can get together and even just be workout buddies if nothing else!

Time Since Surgery: 8 months tomorrow

B: Chike!

S: 100 calorie Skinny Pop

L: One andouille chicken sausage from Trader Joe's and 6 sweet potato fries

S: Strawberry Light & Fit yogurt with 1/2 tbsp of chia seeds and sliced almonds

D: TBD

Totals without dinner are 750 calories, 63 g protein, 59 g carbs. 

I leave for a week tomorrow as well - off to my hometown of Detroit and I will be working from there and meeting up with old friends and I am catching the Eminem/Rihanna concert on my birthday!  So I am pretty stoked.  I am just anxious about not having access to my gym.  But I packed crunchy chickpeas, Chike powder, chia seeds, a tuna packet, etc.  Since I am bouncing from house to house, I can't really stock up on groceries but I am with one friend 3 different nights so I will get some greek yogurt and deli turkey and stuff to keep there.  Way too many dinners out however!  Sigh...

Have a great weekend, everyone!  Karen, you keep me so motivated with your 4 mile daily walks, plus your exercise DVDs, plus your volunteer work, plus your maintenance at 120 lbs!!!!  Have fun at the shore Anny though we will of course be in touch like 100 times lol.  Angela, I hope your trip to Cali is going well, and DodgerGirl, I hope you avoided your dad's pasta!  Susan, hope you enjoyed the elk!  Have a good one all!

EMILY! I'm super impressed you went to the gym last night! I didn't and I was done with m tutoring WAY earlier than you were done at dinner. Go you! I was just so tired and I gave myself 1,000 excuses.

I have just started hearing about Chia seeds. Can you tell me what they taste like and what you put them on or do you just eat them by themselves?

Chia seeds totally are hip right now, that's for sure! I use them in my greek yogurt basically every morning. They have no real taste, they just bulk things up a bit. I like that they're a good source of fiber, which I definitely am always trying to get more of. 

I know a lot of people like chia pudding, but I haven't tried it. Also people seem to incorporate them into smoothies pretty often - again, not something I've tried.

Good Morning Everyone!

Congrats on the WL Anny, I think you nailed it by saying you can't will your body to lose the weight, but you can will yourself to stick to plan in order to put yourself in the best situation possible.  I'm FINALLY seeing some scale movement as well this week (literally 16 days of the same 2 lbs gained and lost was starting to drive me insane).  I think it's my mini morning workouts :)  I'm only getting 15 -20 min in, but I think it starts my day off right and maybe kicks my metabolism into gear (Karen you've inspired me).  That's what I"m telling myself at least so I continue to drag my butt out of bed each morning.

I hope everyone has fun on their vacations.  I'm going to central CA this weekend for a bachelor party.  My cousin invited me, and I won't lie, I'm nervous.  Being in a house with 16 drunk guys could go a lot of different ways :)  I bailed on the first night (tonight) so I could avoid the heavy drinking and then tomorrow it's just a bunch of outdoorsy stuff.  Should be fun...but could also be weird.  I feel like I"m getting to peek behind the current of a very secret male ritual, and I'm not sure if I"m mentally prepared to see it :)  

Time since surgery: 6 mo. 3 weeks

B - Omelet with avocado and some cheese (about 1/4 of it) for a work breakfast

S - Chike w/ PB2 (OMG, this is so amazing, I can't even get over how good this taste to me)... I mean WAAAY better than anything at starbucks.  This is a home run for me!

L - Premier Protein

D - Premier Protein (I'm trying to be super low carb today since I have no idea and not a lot of control over my food options tomorrow.  I'm going to bring some snacks and I think there will be hamburgers and hot dogs, but I dont' know for sure.  So I'm trying to be proactive today).  And yes DC, last night I was able to just have some of my dad's sauce, he even threw in a ton of veggies into it to try and make it more WLS friendly!  This was incredibly unexpected since he hasn't been overly supportive, but he said he sees how hard I'm working and wanted to help out.  It was kind of it's own mini NSV.

W/V - On track

E - 20 min spinning in, I'm not sure if I'll get much more in today

PS.  Anny, I went threw a period where I was getting really tired as well (I think like mo. 4 for me).  Anyways I upped my iron and it made all the difference in the world.  May be worth a try (seriously I was in bed by 7:30/8 every night for 2 weeks, and I'm normally a total night owl...I knew something was up).  Good luck, have a great weekend everyone!

Did you up an iron supplement? I haven't been taking Iron...can you remind me what I'm supposed to look for in an iron supplement?

I think every DR. is different.  My NUT advised us to take a multi with iron in it, but my DR. said that all woman under the age of 55 should take an additional iron supplement.  What the exact dosage is, I couldn't tell you, but I just take one of these every day:

http://smile.amazon.com/Feosol-Natural-Release-Vitamins-Count/dp/B0085JNY3I/ref=sr_1_sc_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1408121940&sr=8-1-spell&keywords=fesol+carbonyl+iron

One thing I will say (and I got all this information here on OH) is take carbonyl iron no matter what you do.  I wasn't to start and I was so backed up and in so much pain there were a couple different times where I seriously considered a trip to the ER.  Once I made the switch to carbonyl (I didn't realize that's what was backing me up until I came on here and read a bunch of post....I guess iron is notorious for that).  Anyways, by taking one of those a day my labs for my 6 mo check up were good....let me know if I can answer anything else, I hope that helps!