I Can Actually Run? Amazing!

Design by Dolly Mama

I've been delinquent in reporting. I did half okay on the food journal on livestrong.com but I did pretty good working out. I dove right in!

Tuesday and Wednesday I made it to the gym and I walked for 10 minutes and then walked and ran for 20 more minutes. I followed a routine that my friend Kimmi the runner taught me. She got it from a running website that takes you from couch potato to runner. It works amazingly! I warm up by walking and then I run for 60 seconds and then I walk 90 seconds. I continue doing that until the end of the 30 minute session, and then I do the cool down.

What is amazing about this is that I, me, the total non-runner, can run. You don't understand how amazing this is. I have NEVER been a runner. NEVER!

I will never forget this (and never is a very strong word). In first grade my class was choosing people to run in the relay race for Field Day. When the teacher asked about me the whole class said, almost in unison, "NO!" I remember looking at my very good friend Carl, who also lived across the street and was a really good runner. even then at age 7, and not even he defended me. I felt devastated and angry. I was only 7 years old, I had just turned 7 in February, because I remember it was that Spring. I also remember feeling so ashamed that no one thought I could run. Even though I wasn't chosen to run the relay race we all still had to practice relay running in P.E.

Our P.E. teacher was Ms. Washington and she was tough! She was so athletic and I realized this, even at such a young age. Her arms were well defined. (funny, the things you remember as a child) She always wore a track suit and she had a short afro. I think she wore either small stud earrings or small hoops and she was mean. Not mean in an evil way, more like mean in a strict way.

Ms. Washington had us practicing the relay race that same day that no one chose me and when it was my turn to run I decided that I was going to run harder than I had ever run before. I put my all into it and surprising to all, even me, I won my heat. It was hilarious. I shocked everyone. I remember feeling smug and very, "Ha!"

Ms. Washington just laughed and shook her head. (It was rare to see her laugh.) I'm sure she guessed what had happened. She knew the kids had said I couldn't run and that I was mad that I wasn't chosen to run. The funny thing is that I don't think it was so much that I wasn't chosen to run. It was the fact that they all said I was a "bad" runner that made me mad. I was determined to prove them wrong. WOW! I can't believe I was that way at that age already. I haven't changed much in that aspect.

After that day, even though I won my turn, I actually believed that I couldn't run. I never ran again. The only athletic things I ever did after that was throw the shot put in middle school. Yes, I did the shot put. I was also on the swim team, but I was terrible. Terrible! I got more out of being on the swim team than I gave. Being on the swim team taught me the different swim strokes and how to swim to compete. It was a good experience. And even though I threw the shot put and I was on the track team, I didn't run. I never really ran again. I think I may have given it a bit of a try in my late teens when I used to do aerobics every day.

So for me to start running now in my very very late 30s is very amazing. I can not believe how well that 60/90 technique works. The goal is to start walking less and to start running more. I will do 60/90 for a while until I can change to 90 seconds of running and 60 seconds of walking. It makes it doable! Then eventually one day I will run long periods of time. I would recommend it to anyone. It makes me feel like a runner for the first time in my life! If it can do that to me, the non-runner, it definitely works. It's worth trying!

The Two Year Lap Band Adventure

In December of 2007 I decided to have lap band surgery. It was a huge decision that I really thought about. The main reason for my decision had to do with the history of diabetes in my family. Not only did my mom die of complications from diabetes, so did my aunt and my grandmother. There are also several family member's on my mother's side who have or had Type 2 diabetes. I knew that at the rate that I was going I was well on my way to follow in the family tradition.

Another reason I decided that this was the best option was the fact that both times that I lost weight I had to place myself in a radical situation. Both times that I lost thirty pounds I was pregnant and I had gestational diabetes. I had to be strict because my baby was counting on me.

The lap band was a lot like that. It placed me in a drastic situation that forced me to stop eating certain things and to control my portion size. Since I've had the lap band I haven't had a carbonated drink. Carbonation is really bad for the band because of the gas that expands in your stomach. It can cause the band to stretch and complications can arise. I also haven't had bread because bread also swells and can get stuck in the band. I haven't had breakfast in almost two years because I'm always tight in the morning. I can only have coffee and a protein shake for breakfast.

If you don't understand how the lap band works look at the illustration above. The band goes around my stomach, causing the opening to tighten. Because of this I can't eat things like bread that get backed up at the opening and cause me to stop eating everything. Instead I have to eat small bites and I have to chew them really well so that the food can go through. I've learned to eat less, to eat slower, and to really chew my food well. I've also learned to NOT eat certain food and I never thought that could happen. I've also learned not to drink when I eat. Drinking with my food can cause two things. Either my food will get backed up with all the fluid or it will push the food through causing me to eat more. Sometimes I can feel tight from hormonal changes. In the morning I'm very tight and I loosen up as the days progresses.

I lost the majority of the forty pounds in the first year. This year I've only lost and gained around ten pounds and I am completely responsible for that. I didn't read my body in order to make the right decisions regarding when to go in to the lap band clinic to have the lap band tightened or loosened.

I got thrown off of my path close to a year ago when I got sick. I won't get into all the boring details of what happened, but I learned a lesson. For six months I was super tight. I could hardly eat during the day so I was eating too much at the end of the day. My body probably thought it was starving during the day so it started just hanging on to the food I was eating. On top of that I'm sure I was over-eating in the evening or eating things that were bad for me, like chips. For some odd reason I can eat chips really well. There's something about crunchy things that makes the texture a lot easier to digest.

I got sick a couple of months ago and I had to have the band loosened. That was the second time that happened to me in one year. Then I went in a couple of weeks ago to have the bad tightened a bit, but I wanted to ease into it so I only had them tighten it a little less than half of what it was loosened last time. Apparently that was not enough. Now I have to go in to have it tightened a tiny tiny bit, but enough to give me some restriction. I haven't found exactly the right restriction since I was thrown off of my original schedule.

So this is where my blog will pick up. I've gained and lost ten pounds with the back and forth and not having very much restriction. On top of all this I had abdominal surgery for a umbilical hernia back in August and I couldn't exercise for around 8-12 weeks. It has been VERY hard to get back on track, but now almost 16 weeks later I have got to get back into the gym and on to the track walking/running.

This blog will be very instrumental in keeping me on track and keeping me honest. I invite you to join me on my adventure as I work on losing forty more pounds in another year. My goal is one pound a week!

The tools? 1. Tracking my food on livestrong.com, yes as in Lance Armstrong. It is one of the best places to track your food and it's FREE for basic services. 2. I'm also weighing myself every day, because studies have shown that people who weigh themselves on a regular basis are more likely to lose weight and to keep weight down. 3. And finally... finally I am going to put my gym fees to good use. I am going to make it a point to work out for at least 30 minutes every day.

There. Are you ready? Join me and let's see how much we can accomplish doing these three things.

So the Introduction Continues

When my mother died I had been married for two and half years. I was putting off having a baby for many of the same reasons that some women do. I wanted to be settled in a new career and I wanted to wait until my husband and I had been married for a good period of time. My mom told me to have a baby before it was too late because she feared that there was a chance that I wouldn’t be able to have children like two of my older sisters.

Shortly after she passed away I had a great desire to become a mother. I wanted to replace that same relationship that I’d lost. Seven months later I found out I was pregnant and twenty weeks into my pregnancy, when everything happens at the same time, I found out that I was having a little girl and that I was gestational diabetic.

I instantly thought of my mother and how she was gestational diabetic when she was pregnant with me when she was thirty-nine. I was only thirty, so naturally I worried. I did the math. My mother was thirty-nine when she had me and thirteen years later when she was 52 she was diagnosed with Type 2 Diabetes. So if I was thirty and diabetic I could very well be diagnosed with Type 2 by the time I was forty-three.

I was very strict with my diet and I walked on a regular basis. The results were that I was able to control my blood sugar with the diet and exercise and I had a healthy baby girl. I even lost thirty pounds in the process after the baby’s birth and breast feeding. Sadly, the weight came right back.

Four years later I became pregnant again and the same thing happened. Only this time I couldn’t control the sugar with diet or exercise. The endocrinologist put me on insulin injections almost immediately. I was devastated, but the gestational diabetes had come back a lot stronger this time and that’s all that I could do.

I continued to keep a strict diet and to check my sugar daily. But now in addition to all that I had to give myself insulin injections three times a day.

So did I learn? No. After I had my baby boy I lost the same thirty pounds and two years or so later I gained them all back.

The interesting thing about telling this story is that it was not that I didn’t know the simple rules of weight loss. Eat right and exercise. It was that I chose not do them. I knew from past dieting experiences that when I made the right food choices and worked out that I lost weight.

Both of my pregnancies I met with a dietician as soon as I was diagnosed and I learned all about the right way of eating. I actually learned new things with them that I had never learned before in my thirty years.

So when people assume that I gained weight because I didn’t know how to lose weight or when they offer advice it cracks me up. Of course I know how to lose weight. It’s not about not knowing. It’s about not wanting to do it. Very simple. I’m not saying that’s right but it’s true. That’s basically the reason many of us gain weight. We don’t feel like working out. We don’t feel like eating right. I knew that I was in danger of becoming a diabetic like my mother. Yet I still continued to eat the wrong things.

Three years after having my little boy and gaining back all my weight I was listening to npr one day. There was a report about weight loss surgery, like lap band and gastric bypass. The segment discussed a new study by The Journal of the American Medical Association. This study found that people who had some type of weight loss surgery were most likely to control their diabetes or get rid of it.

I thought back to the two times when I had the most weight loss. Each time I lost weight I did so because I was forced to do well. I had a living being inside of me and I was the main person responsible for their health. I had to be good. The thing is, I should have been doing it for myself too and I didn't. I thought about all this and I also realized that both times I had to be put myself into a radical situation in order to lose weight. Maybe I had to do that again.

That’s when I really started thinking about lap band surgery. Next I’ll discuss my two year adventure with the lap band.