I'm obese!

Which is awesome, since a few days ago I was morbidly obese. Okay, I know it's silly, and just labels, but I have officially dropped into the range for being obese, no longer with that nasty m-word attached. I started at a BMI of 46.1 and as of yesterday, I'm now 39.8. I may not even qualify for the surgery if I applied for it right now. Although I still have considerable weight to lose, that's the basic criteria. I've added a ticker at the top right of my blog so you can see my progress. I had to swallow some pride to put those numbers up there.

Joey asked how I'm feeling, if I'm feeling energetic. I'm feeling slightly more energetic. Since my surgery, my daycare load has more than doubled, so I'm also more busy and darn tired by the end of the day. I have the energy to do what I need to for daycare, so I guess that's where the energy is being spent.

Emotionally, I'm doing great. I feel happy and blessed pretty much all the time these days. It's just exhilarating to step on that scale and see it either staying put or going down. I wasn't a weigher before. Who wants to watch their weight go up and up? I sure didn't. I didn't really know what to do about it. Now I do.

My girls are thrilled that my body is changing. Hannah hugged me the other day and was so excited that her fingers could touch behind me. We tried again later and she can actually clasp her hands behind my back while hugging me. She was trying to express what she was feeling about my changing body. She prefaced it by wondering if it was too rude to say, but then the best way she could get it out was, "Mommy, you didn't look very good when you were fatter." I told her I know and also helped her understand that she could rephrase that into a compliment, instead of being negative.

Our branch held Fast Sunday yesterday and both girls (all on their own) decided to fast. When we discussed what they'd be fasting for, they both said they were fasting to help me continue to lose weight. When I asked Brad, that was on his list as well. Well, that I could continue to have success with my surgery and weight loss. I'm so loved and supported by these wonderful people I get to call my family. How can I not be happy? :) Thanks for all of your love and support as well. I'm truly blessed.

A big milestone

As of this morning, I've lost 40 pounds. 40 POUNDS! It seems ever so much more than 38. I've been trying to go clothes shopping without much luck. I've tried clothes on twice at Wal-mart and ended up just buying a couple new bras. (Sorry if that's TMI.) None of the clothes look very good on me and so I'll just make do with some of the smaller sizes that I have at home. I've retired two pairs of pants that look ridiculous on me. I think I'll be retiring a couple more this week. If I had more options than just Wal-mart, it might be a different story, but for now, we'll just make do. On April 5th or 8th I'll take new progress pictures in the same outfit as the before shots. For now, though, I'll just add a recent picture of me.

Weekly Weight Loss Journal

I sat down and looked at what my weekly weight loss totals have been. I thought you might find them interesting. I will keep updating them.
Week 1 lost 16 lbs
Week 2 lost 8 lbs
Week 3 gained 1 lb
Week 4 lost lost 4 lbs
Week 5 lost 5 lbs
Week 6 lost 2 lbs
Week 7 lost 1 lb
Week 8 lost 6 lbs

I'll never know quite how I managed to lose 16 pounds in a week, or even 8 for that matter. Anyway, this all totals up to 34 pounds lost at this point. (At least that's what the scale says, though adding the numbers up gives me 35, so I'm confused and too tired to figure out where that extra pound comes from.)

My surgeon's goal for me is to be losing 1-2 pounds a week, and as long as I continue doing that, I may not need another fill for a while. Although, the first three months of fills are included in the cost of surgery, so it's cheaper to get them sooner rather than later. What to do, what to do?

Empowerment

I just went grocery shopping. I felt so empowered to be buying good, real, healthy food. After being on the pre and post operative diet, it is an amazing change to be able to eat vegetables again. I filled my cart with more than twice as much produce as I usually do. I got squash, (zucchini, yellow, spaghetti and butternut), green, red and yellow onions, bananas, clementines, apples, mushrooms, and a few other things I'm forgetting. I can't wait to make up some veggie omlettes, have some veggies with the fish I bought. (Talapia, for the first time ever, some pouches of flavored tuna and canned salmon.) I'm still doing okay with not eating sweets. I passed the Easter candy with hardly a thought. That, to me, is a miracle. Empowered is the word that kept coming to me as I shopped. Healthiest shopping trip I've made in years, hands down.

Real food and hunger

Well, I made it. I'm back on solid food for the most part. Last night I had dinner with my family and it went well. I'm still not eating slowly enough. I know because I was the first one finished with my dinner. Even though I was trying to chew thoroughly and eat slower. Guess that tells you how fast I was eating before! We had tostadas. I had one with a shell and then not being full yet, I ate an additional portion without the shell. Just beans, cheese, sour cream (light), lettuce and tomato. It was good. I'm still getting used to not drinking with meals. You're not supposed to drink with your food because either you can get full on the liquid or else it could help the food go through the stoma (stomach opening where the band has narrowed it) quicker and you won't be full for as long.

When I saw him for my fill, Dr. Melniczek asked about my hunger. I told him I hadn't really been feeling a lot of hunger. He told my regular physician who was there, that during the surgery he pulls part of the stomach up and over the band. That part of the stomach contains hunger sensors, that react to hunger hormones. Okay, I'm probably totally botching this explanation, but basically, he has a style of installing the band that he believes helps to pretty much eradicate the hunger sensation by moving the portion of the stomach. Since then I have been paying attention and I'll be darned if I really am not experiencing what I would call hunger. I find that I get interested in food about the right time during the day when I should be eating, but out and out hunger I am not experiencing. I know that the journey with the band is ever changing and I'm not taking this lack of hunger for granted. I know things can change from day to day, but for now I am so thankful for this respite from the monster of hunger that has plagued me so much of my life. It makes it so much easier to make good decisions about what is going into my mouth.

I've been sick with a sore throat and cold symptoms, and after my worst sick day the scale showed a 34 pound loss, total. I asked my sister if that's sick to enjoy seeing weight loss when you're sick. Her wise response? That's one of the few things to enjoy about sickness, is the accompanying weight loss. So I'm really about 32 pounds down as of yesterday. Adding solid foods back in might slow this weight loss down. Time will tell!

I went walking for 20 minutes this afternoon. That's all I can handle for now. I'm going to go more often. I haven't been doing enough.

Back from my first fill appointment

I got my fill done this afternoon. It was much worse than I had imagined it would be. He couldn't get the right angle or something and must have stuck me about 10 times. After the first few times, he gave me a shot of lidocaine. That helped, but it was still very uncomfortable. Finally he got it and ended up putting 3 ccs of saline in my 10 cc band. So far I don't feel any different, but all I have consumed is water.

30 pounds and a fill

Well, this morning, the scale read that I've dropped 30 pounds. In just about exactly a month. Wow. I am constantly amazed and grateful.

I'm going in to get my first band adjustment today. They're called fills. It's because the band is filled slightly with saline. A needle is inserted through the skin into the port that is attached to the band. As saline is injected, the band becomes tighter. Dr. Melniczek will be in Goodland and my regular doctor, Dr. Daise, will also be in attendance. He's going to learn how to do an emergency unfill in case I'm ever in need of such. After the fill I am probably going to be on liquids again for a few days and then moving on to more solid foods. It'll be interesting to see how this fill goes. Some people get restriction with one fill, and many more people need several fills to achieve that sweet spot where you're restricted just the right amount.

I'm a loser!

And this time I'm not talking about weight. I woke up yesterday morning, only to realize my wedding ring was not on my hand. I never take it off, except for things like childbirth and surgery, so I knew I hadn't left it somewhere. It had fallen off. When, I didn't know.

We took my bed apart, piece by piece looking for it. Not there. I looked all around the house, to no avail. We had gone to an event at the elementary school the night before, so I made a mental note to call them and have their custodian keep an eye out. I looked in the car, on the floor of the drivers side. At this point I really started to get sad. I was so very sad! I don't think I've felt that sad since my sister was whisked away on an airplane from Goodland to Denver. (Pregnancy complications while visiting me.)

As I do whenever I'm looking for something, I sat down and prayed. I prayed so fervently. This is such a tiny object, but I know that the Lord is mindful of me and knows how important my ring is to me. As I sat in the same spot, after my prayer, Brad came running in from the car. He had found it in Adam's car seat. It must have come off when I put him in there as we were leaving the school. I cried tears of relief. It was truly a dramatic morning. All of this happened in less than an hour. It took me a little while to calm down inside after the whole ordeal was over. I'm so grateful!

My ring is now safely tucked away in my jewelery box. I'm wearing a $10 Walmart ring to keep that place on my finger from being empty. I thought I was jumping the gun to say my ring was too big, but apparently not.

Exercise

We've been trying to go for walks as a family. Yesterday we walked the entire L of our subdivision. It's really the equivalent of walking four blocks. So we're probably up to about 1/2 mile. The girls ride their bikes nearby and Adam's in the stroller. It's fun. I enjoy being out with the family. We need to increase how far we walk. I'm the determining factor in the length of the walk, I guess I should say that I need to increase how far I walk.

I'm down 27 pounds. Thing is, I can't tell much difference. I'm not surprised. I knew it would take a significant amount of weight before I could tell a difference. On the 8th of February I'll take one-month progress pictures. Maybe I'll be able to tell some difference from those. We'll see.

It's supposed to snow today. Yesterday was a record high of 79 degrees and today snow. Crazy weather.