Stay Tuned for a Return of Hips 'n Salsa!

Coming back very soon with musings on life, trying to eat healthy and the challenges of exercising.

The bike that I love and that I fell on and it crushed my foot. When that was finally healed my back started to go out. I'm a 40+ year old mess!

Going on a Break

The time has come to be totally honest with myself and with you, my few readers. I need to take a break from blogging. If I could write full time I'm sure that keeping three blogs wouldn't be such a challenge but the truth is that I work full time and I'm a wife and mother too.

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So the honest truth is that I must take a break. I'm not taking the blog down all together because who knows, maybe one day soon something amazing will happen to me and I'll be able to write full time. If that happens then I will blog here too. And I'm not taking it down because I will still update periodically. I will still keep you up to date on my weight loss progress.

Meanwhile, come by and visit me at www.shoegirlcorner.blogspot.com or http://skirt.com/user/2201/view.

Argh!!!! And a Double Quadruple Argh!!!!

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This is not going to be a pretty, positive, flowery blog entry today. I warn you. This is going to be one of the ugly truth kind of blogs. Yesterday I was so super angry and frustrated. It all started when I went to get a fill in my lap band. I was hoping for a tiny .2 or .3 cc fill that would help give me a little more restriction.  WELL, the nurse decided that she needed to pull out all the fluid to see how much there really was in there. On one hand I could understand the thought behind it. My lap band can only hold 10 ccs and since I'm getting really close to the maximum amount that it can hold it's important that they know how much is really in there. I'm guessing something bad can happen to the band if you go over the 10 ccs.

The problem is this. A year into having my band I got a bad stomach virus and I threw up for a whole day. I was so sick that I had to go in to have some fluid taken out. I went back and started having it put back in but ever since that time I stopped losing weight and I have never been able to get back on track. So yesterday was a big deal.

I couldn't believe she had to take out all the fluid to measure it. When she she started putting the fluid back in I knew all of it wouldn't go in and I was right. I was super tight and she had to keep taking more out until she could get me to a point where I wasn't too tight. (When you are tight you feel like you are going to throw up water.) Apparently I have a very sensitive stomach that can't take too drastic a change. So instead of getting a fill I left there with 4 ccs less than when I went in.

I was livid! I felt like I took 3 steps back instead of a step forward. I felt frustrated and angry. I'm better today but I'm hungry. After having them mess with the lap band that much, and especially because of my reaction, I have to stay on liquids for 4 days and then soft food for two days. I'm on Day 2 and I'm starving. I hope I can hang in there for two more days.

So that's the story. We'll see how this all works out. Hopefully the 4 days of liquids will give me a kick start.

In Search of Chewable Vitamins

Ever since I got the lap band I have been in search of better tasting chewable vitamins. One of the challenges of having a lap band is that you can no longer swallow big pills, so I've had to take chewable vitamins. (and yes, I've had to break up big antibiotic pills) I must confess I do not take vitamins as regularly as I should because I just hate the chalky taste!

I really enjoy the taste of my kids' gummy bear vitamins when I tasted them, but of course I would have to take around 5 to get the dosage I need. I found these online on Amazon.com and they look just like the kids' gummy vitamins, except that they have an adult dosage, and they aren't shaped like bears. I have two bottles of unfinished chewable vitamins in my cupboard. I hope that if I buy these gummy ones they taste as good as I hope they do.  

Living Strong

Bracelet from livestrong.com

This week I have really been sticking to logging my food on The Daily Plate of livestrong.com. Three things that I believe help in weight loss, besides eating less and exercising: log what you eat every single day, weigh yourself every morning, and try on smaller clothes every week.

These are three things I'm trying to make a habit. I want to get to the paint where I log on to livestrong.com every morning, without having to think about it twice. Same thing with weighing myself. If I can stick to these three things I will also eat better and exercise. Seriously. Because logging what you eat every day on livestrong.com makes you aware of everything you are putting in your mouth. It's amazing.

Let's say for example, that you just get the urge to eat two breakfast taquitos from Whataburger one morning. Your daily calorie intake goal is 1,700. You buy the two bacon, egg, and cheese breakfast taquitos on the way to work. But before you eat both of them you decide to look up the calories on My Daily Plate and you find out that each taquito has 420 calories. So if you eat both of them you will have eaten 840 calories, half of ALL your calories for the day and it's barely breakfast. So unless you're planning on skipping lunch, eating both those taquitos may not be such a good idea.

The other great feature is the pie chart to the right of your daily log. It shows you how much protein, carbs, and fat you are eating. Something tells me the Whataburger taquito will be high on the fat side.

So I keep on with my challenge. To eat better and to exercise more. I'm not always successful, but I keep on working at it to make it a way of life and not just a passing fad. The Daily Plate has helped me keep up with that this week.

The Challenges of Eating & Not Eating

Design by Anne Taintor

I was on the phone with my husband today, right after warming up some soup for lunch. I told him I was about to eat lunch and while we were talking my stomach growled really loud. It was so loud he actually heard it through the phone line and he laughed. I told him I felt like I was starving so I hung up with him and started to eat. Well, either I started eating too fast (which I didn't feel like I did) or something just got stuck. I had to stop eating abruptly and now I feel like something is lodged in my chest and it's taking away my appetite, simply because I can't eat a thing now. So now I'm getting the sensation of being full, but really I'm still hungry. That my friends is a lap band experience sometimes.

Then there is the opposite of this kind of experience. Wednesday night I went out to eat with some friends and I was able to eat eight nachos with beef fajita on them. EIGHT! That's insane and shouldn't even be possible, but somehow on Wednesday I was able to do that. Then today I'm starving and this... 

The lap band is so finicky. On the day that I needed a fill I had to have some liquid taken out after the nurse filled me, because I was too tight. Yet after doing the liquids and the soft food days I could eat like I did before getting the fill. What happened that day that I went in for the fill I don't know. My body and stomach just decided that they didn't like that little bit of liquid tightening up the lap band so they decided to rebel. That and my hormones were starting to act up too, so the combination did it. That's the only explanation I can think of.

Yes, having a lap band is a challenge and yes I may not have lost all the weight I was hoping  and yes, sometimes I can eat a lot, but in the end I will never eat as much as I did in my past life. And that is what keeps me motivated.

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.