Tofu, Exercise, and Trying on Pants

Anne Taintor

I had a fill last week and after two days on liquids and two days on soft I only lost two pounds. I know two pounds are two pounds, but I really hoped for a five pound head start. Unfortunately I also had a little hormonal interruption that always bloats me and makes me weigh a little more. I felt like that threw me off too. I'm starting to track my weight in writing.

I decided that even though I still need to weigh myself daily I should really concentrate on my clothes size. I pulled out some pants that I was able to wear a year ago that don't quite close now and I hung them outside my closet.

The thing is this. I was thinking about those pants the other day and how they are a size 14. I haven't worn a size 14 in YEARS, I mean since early college. When I was wearing those pants a year ago I feel like I took it for granted. I didn't think about how they were only a size or size and a half away from my size in high school. That seems crazy considering I hadn't worn that size in so long. It's funny how quickly we forget. Now they don't close. How did I let that happen? So now they are hanging outside of my closet and I'm going to try them on every day as a reminder of where I need to go. Once I'm back in them for a while I can concentrate on getting into a size 12.

I've talked about our new relationship with soy. We are still doing that and I've been eating a lot of Morning Star. When I track my food on livestrong.com I can see the difference in my calorie intake when I eat the soy/tofu products. I still need to learn how to cook tofu. I need to get my friend Jena to give me lessons.

So here's the plan. Work out regularly, eat tofu, drink a lot of water, track my food, weigh daily and try on my pants weekly.

I Basically Can't Have Anything At All

Design by Anne Taintor

So much for transferring my food addiction to alcohol. I get e-mails periodically from livestrong.com and I received a link to this wonderful article.

Seriously, yes I know that drinking alcohol is not great for weight loss and when I'm tracking my calories on The Daily Plate (a tool on livestrong.com) I always track the calories from alcohol too. I also know that alcohol is full of empty carbs. But when you give up bread, tortillas, rice, pasta, hamburgers, hot dogs, pancakes and big breakfasts forever, a girl's got to have a little indulgence. Not so... Not only is alcohol bad for me for all the reasons above, apparently it also slows down weight gain. Yes my friend, it does.

This reminded me of an article I read a couple of years back about women who don't eat so they can drink. I tried to find that article, but instead I came across this article. Interesting and how confusing. The article even says that women have been receiving conflicting messages about alcohol.

So basically from the two articles I've read I've come to this conclusion: if you're overweight like I am, yes alcohol will slow down weight loss. But if you're already in your ideal weight range chances are you won't be as prone to gain weight if you drink a drink or two per day. Other factors should also be taken into account. For example, a diabetic shouldn't really drink because of how high the carbs are in liquor. Carbs spike sugar in the body, etc.

So the safest bet for me is to cut down on my drinking. Something I've known for a while but... I have given up so much already. Or I can look at it this way. I've already given up so much already, what is one more thing? Yeah, sure that makes me feel better.

Lunch Time Liquid Blog

Design by Anne Taintor

Since I 'm blogging during lunch it's only appropriate that I talk about what I'm eating and that I bring you up to speed on my lap band and life in general.

First of all, it has been close to impossible to make a lap band appointment. Their clientele has grown so much! It seems like so many people are getting the lap band. Why not? It's the perfect way to control how much you can eat without completely restricting you like gastric bypass surgery.

So I finally got an appointment, but it was two weeks out, which was yesterday. The nurse x-rayed me first and she saw the white x-ray liquid go right down with no problem. I didn't think I needed a big fill, just a tiny tweak, so she put in .5 ccs (I think it's ccs) of liquid into the lap band. She x-rayed again and it looked OK and she gave me my bottle of water to drink in the waiting room while I waited to see how I felt. Well, a few minutes later I was right back in the fill room. Then I had to excuse myself to spit up the water that was stuck. She ended up pulling out .3 and I only ended up with a .2 fill. I was kind of disappointed because I wanted a little bit more restriction. I hope that .2 is enough and just the right mix, not too tight but not too loose. That is always my goal.

So what does that mean when I get a fill? That means that the nurse sticks a needle in the port under my skin on my midsection. This port is the top of the tube that goes all the way to my lap band and the liquid travels through that tube to the lap band to tighten it up. Yes, the port and the tube are in my body and they lead to the lap band and yes you can feel the port under my skin. It's very interesting. I don't feel it unless I press down and if I don't, I forget it's there.

After a fill I can only have liquids for two days and then soft food for two days. Two days of liquids technically goes through lunch time on Thursday and I can move to soft food at dinner continue soft foods through lunch on Saturday. If I can pull it off I’m going to try to extend the liquids through the end of the day on Thursday and then go to soft starting Friday to give myself an extra kick in the butt that I so desperately need. Today is a liquid day so I just had tomato basil soup and a liquid yogurt.

I could not believe that it had been six months since I had a fill! Unbelievable and very bad. Going in to the lap band clinic at least every 2 months is maintenance and I need that. I need to go and weigh in and I need to be accountable. That is something that I need to do in order to break this food addiction.

I read back on many of my posts here and I they encourage me to move on. I’ve done so well working out and I need to stick to that. It will all come together in the end.