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

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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

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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.

Eating Better with Soy

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Not really. I'm not really one frozen entree away from a nervous breakdown but this was funny. We decided that we needed to make changes again. We had really strayed away from eating better. Back in September my husband started a vegetarian diet that he held on to until Thanksgiving when he received a free ham at work. After that we fell right back into our bad habits half the time. The other half of the time we tried to work on our diet by eating more soy products, like Morning Star Farms. Now we are trying to get back on that track. This morning I made soy bacon and sausage with eggs. This evening when we went to Target I bought some more soy "chicken" strips and I'm going to experiment with them tomorrow in an enchilada recipe. I'm going to substitute the soy chicken for the turkey.

The taste of these products is really impressive. My kids eat the chicken nuggets and enjoy them just as much as they enjoy those processed chicken Tyson kind. They have never blinked an eye since I changed us over to several Morning Star Farms products. They fully enjoyed the bacon and sausage this morning with their eggs and even asked for more. I even tested the chicken nuggets on my friends' kids the other night and they too ate them without a question or complaint about the taste.

I'm not getting paid by Morning Star Farms to talk about their products. I've tried them and I like them. I'd like to graduate to the point where I learn how to cook tofu myself but until then Morning Star Farms is my helping hand.

The best thing that has happened lately, besides my daughter getting straight As and my son finally getting it that good behavior = rewards, is that my son finally found a vegetable that he likes. Edamame! Hilarious, everything he likes is soy or tofu related. I'm so happy to finally see him eating something green!!

It's time for a fill. I still haven't had one. I don't know why. I know that I canceled that one a couple of months ago because I had too many activities scheduled that week, but I never went back. I asked my lap band buddy (my friend who was banded the same day) why she thinks I'm avoiding a fill. She said that it was probably for the same reason that she hasn't gone. It's that we want to learn, we need to learn, how to do it on our own. We don't want to always live a life of tightness in order to eat less. We also need to learn control and to eat the right foods on our own.

The truth is that we will never eat like we did before. I will never eat a hamburger again. I will never eat anything heavy or too much for lunch. I will never eat bread and rice again. Even at this level of tightness that's a fact. However I know that I can eat more, later in the day, and I do that. There. I said it. I know I need to stop doing that. I know I need to eat less chips and less liquid calories. If I can do that I can keep my weight down. But I still need to go in for a check-up and to have them tighten me up a notch for an extra kick in the butt.

Also, I need to stay committed to the gym. I need to keep going, even now that the kids are out of school. It used to be so convenient because it was down the street from my kids' after school care. Now that they aren't going there I don't drive right by that gym. So we just joined a newer 24 Hr Fitness gym closer to our house, so that should help make it more convenient. I'm committed to keep up the working out.
I continue on my journey of and goal to do what I should and not what I shouldn't. And I thank you for following me on this quest.

My Wonderful Food Allergy

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I haven't written here about my allergy. Yes, I have a food allergy. Imagine that! I am severely allergic to shellfish.

I first found out that I was allergic when I was eighteen. I won't bore you with all the details, but be assured that when I found out there was no doubt at all what it was. First there was the tiny reaction after eating shrimp in lobster sauce then the second medium reaction to crab on my prom night. Of all nights! Then finally the mother of all reactions! (all three in the same year) I transformed into a monster from head to toe. The whites of my eyes became swollen and red. My face was transformed into a monster's and the hives covered my entire body. I itched from my head down to my toes. I have never known such a horrible desperate feeling.

Fast forward twenty-two years. I had never been to an allergist and I just simply stayed away from shellfish. It was never really a problem, until recently...

In the past month I have had more shellfish incidents than I had in twenty-two years. In twenty-two years!!

First, my husband ordered calamari, which I can eat, and when I went to take some from his plate I discovered that they had mixed some mini-shrimp in with his order. Thank goodness some of the batter chipped off of one piece and I spied the pink tint of the shrimp or we may have had a disaster.

Second, a couple of weeks later I was at dinner with my family and a good friend. My friend offered me a vegetable that had been cooked with shrimp without even thinking about it. I spit it out but not before swallowing a bit of it. Within half an hour my legs were itching and my lip started to swell. We rushed home and I took some Benadryl immediately and the itching and swelling stopped.

The second incident was enough to prompt me to finally visit an allergist and I’m so glad I did. The doctor was so patient and knowledgeable. She reminds me of a college professor when she is explaining something. She explained that instead of Benadryl capsules I should carry Benadryl and Zyrtec in liquid form because if I really had a serious incident my throat would start to close and it would be difficult to swallow pills. She also prescribed an epipen, which I now carry in my purse at all times. An epipen is for a severe reaction and it’s actually an injection of medication.

A few days after my doctor’s appointment with the allergist I was eating at a popular Vietnamese restaurant and I ordered seaweed soup. The menu only says seaweed and I asked the waiter to be on the safe side. He said it didn’t have any fish. Well it turns out the waiter didn’t really speak English. I figured this out after eating around 4 tablespoons of soup with crab meat!

Thankfully I found out later that week, when I found myself back at the allergist and I had an allergy test, that I have the least reaction to crab, but a reaction none-the-less. I have a greater reaction to shellfish in general (which includes crawfish), shrimp and lobster. I am especially allergic to the crustacean family. The best part of the whole allergy test was that I showed the least reaction to the mollusca family, which includes clams, oysters and scallops. You do not know how excited I am to eat those three types of fish. Now all I have to do is go back for a final blood test.

There have been many times in the past when I have thought about my food allergy and I’ve wondered what it would be like if I had the same type of reaction to carbs and fat that I have to shellfish. Wouldn’t that be interesting? Maybe then I would stop eating from these two categories. But then I know that I need to eat right on my own. All these restrictions will not suffice. I have to set some boundaries and restrictions to myself and I need to realize that these other foods, the fat and the carbohydrates, can also kill me, just a lot slower.

Cut Hair & Working Out Goals

Kind of small, but you get the idea. I cut my hair! I've always been self-conscious of not going too short because of my round face, but this is a cut that always works for me. This time the woman went a little too short. Hair stylists never realize how much my hair will curl up when it’s dry. But I figure it will grow. My hair grows pretty fast.

If I work out today it will be very ambitious of me. I always try to work out on Friday, but I’m always lured away by other things, like margaritas. But today I am going to make it a point to go for at least one hour after I pick up the kids. So I’m putting it out here to make myself accountable.

I’m looking forward to this weekend. I have a lot of writing to do and I’m writing a piece on Girl in a Coma and their new cover album, Adventures in Coverland. If all goes as planned I’ll be hearing them sing those songs Saturday night too.

Working Out and Not Blogging

Here is an updated photo of me, up close & personal.

I haven't been blogging but I have been working out. One week, week before last to be exact, I worked out four times in one week. That's a record!

I took this picture and used it as an updated profile photo on FB, instead of that six year old picture I was still using, and I got a lot of positive feedback. Friends said my face looked smaller. Last weekend I saw some girlfriends who said I looked like I'd lost more weight. I didn't think so but it was nice to hear that.

Maybe the working out is making a difference! I hope so. The bad thing about working out so much is that I blog even less. I know this is the longest I've gone without blogging on here. Almost 3 weeks! That never happens and I apologize!

Onward march!

What else is new? I was gong to blog about how challenging it is sometimes to decide whether or not to have a fill. I never did.

The story is this. I was planning on getting a fill on a Monday but I kept debating if I should because I was going to a big luncheon on Thursday for an organization and both my VPs were going to be there. Whenever I have a fill I have to follow it up with 2 days of liquids and 2 days of soft food. The luncheon was going to fall on one of my soft food days, which means that the only thing I could have on the plate would be the mashed potatoes IF they even served mashed potatoes. That makes a luncheon kind of an awkward situation.

So I was debating back and forth when I received an invitation to another luncheon with all the consulates of the Spanish speaking countries for Tuesday. That did it. I went ahead and rescheduled the fill for another day. Not something I wanted to do, but there was no possible way I was going to pull off two luncheons on the same week that I had a fill.

I thought that this would make an interesting topic for this blog, especially for other lap band patients who could relate. I wonder how they cope with this challenge and I’d love to hear some feedback. But only positive feedback please. I don’t want anyone saying that I didn’t get a fill so I could just eat more. Because technically yes, I guess that’s the reason. I didn’t want to choke on my food in front of hundreds of people. LOL!

My goal this week? Eat better, drink more water, and keep working out and blog more often.