Coming back down

So after two days of careful eating, three of the four pounds are gone again. Phew. I'm amazed at how forgiving my body is when I go back to better eating.

I saw my surgeon today for the last time. He's leaving to move to Pittsburg. I'm okay with it since we'll be moving before too long, we hope. According to his records, I've lost 8 pounds in the last month. I'd prefer 10 a month, but I'm okay with 8.

Ugh!

Well, in the last two days, my weight has jumped up four pounds. Three the first day and another one today. Made me do a double take. Jumps are rare for me, and a second day of a trend is not a good sign.

Now, this could be menstrual cycle related. It could be due to lack of bowel regularity. It could be water retention. But honestly I'll admit, the last three days have been a bit sloppy as far as eating goes. I've started eating too late, like not until 11 a.m., and then haven't stuck to trying to get my food in at the meal instead of all through the afternoon. I find that I'm still eating way later than is reasonable, right up till I go to bed. And my biggest problem--cookies!

We had some friends coming by to stay the night on Saturday. They're a big group, 8 of them, so I figured it would be nice to have some homemade cookies for them. I seldom bake goodies anymore, so whenever there's a chance for me to do so, share them, and only have a little bit left over, it's a good chance to do it.

I did okay on the first day, but we had them around for three days. The group wasn't Harrisons (in our younger years) or Elliotts (with all the boys), so there were cookies left over. ;)

It's not that cookies are inherently evil. If I'm eating well and want to enjoy a cookie or two after eating a good meal, that's not a problem for me. Somehow, having already eaten more cookies than I should have, put me in a lazy frame of mind and the rest of the day was sloppy eating as well. So now the cookies are gone and I'm starting over fresh this morning with logging my food intake and making smart choices. I haven't been logging my food intake at all since getting back from vacation. I use thedailyplate.com. It helps me be accountable for what is going in my mouth. If I know I'm going to log it, I'm less likely to make a bad choice.

I try to stick to these eating guidelines: Less than 100 g carbs, less than 20 g fat, though I'm happy with under 30 honestly, and 60-80 g of protein. This all totals around 1200 calories. I don't know how I'm doing on the guidelines if I'm not logging. Today is going really well.

So what have I learned from these last couple of days? I need to eat early in the day, not just let breakfast go until lunchtime. I need to get my water intake. Part of sloppy eating is also not getting enough water in.

Also, I need to better regulate my environment. I should have sent all the cookies with our friends, save 1 or 2 for each of us. I tried putting them in the freezer, but it was futile, because on a hot day, do you know how good a frozen chocolate chip cookie tastes? Yummy.

My surgeon recommends that we weigh ourselves every day for the rest of our lives. Because a course correction is much easier if you've only gained 5 pounds, verses 30 or 40, or even 100. I agree totally with this as of today. I know that some people, my mother included, have (or had) a hard time with the psychological game of weighing every day and it's hard for them to handle. If I ever get to the point that it's ruling my thoughts, or controlling what kind of day I'm having, I may consider backing off and weighing less often, like once a week. But for now, it's good.

Lots to ponder and learn from.

The miracle of the band continues!

As of this morning I have lost a whopping 80 pounds. Such an awesome number. 80. I've surpassed Rachel's weight by a couple of pounds. I'm so grateful to have been able to have this surgery and the help that the band gives me. I'm making better choices, but I'm still not perfect, so I know it's a huge part of my success. Yay!

Another two pounds

I'm in awe that the scale is moving so well right now. You know, on the lapband message boards, several people posted that when they are on a plateau, they eat poorly for a day or two, then go back to healthy eating and then the scale will move. Maybe I had some sort of phenomenon like that happen? Whatever the case, I'm very happy about it.

Recovering from vacation eating

I was worried that I wouldn't be able to get back to normal healthy eating after my vacation. I'll admit, it's been hard. I'm having to use more willpower than normal to try to stop eating in between meals, and making healthier choices. But it's doable and it's working. My weight is going down again.

The net results of the trip are that at 3 days home, my weight is down 2 pounds from the day we left. So maybe all that exercise of the activities we did on the trip helped me not gain, and even continue on a downward trend. In any case, I'm so grateful to realize that I didn't ruin everything over the course of our vacation.

We are back!

We had such a nice trip. We got home on Friday morning after Brad pulling an all-nighter driving straight through. I'll post more about the trip on my journal-type blog. About my weight: it's been bouncing around a bit since being home, so I'm not sure exactly what the results of the trip were on my weight. Saturday, it appeared that I was the same weight as I was when I left, then yesterday, up three pounds then today back down two. That's weird for me since my weight is usually pretty stable day to day and I don't usually see big random fluctuations. So, somewhere between zero and three pounds is the result of our trip. I'm thinking there's some fluid retention playing a role in this. It'll even out after a couple of days, I'm sure.

On our last day of vacation, I hiked up a mountain! Totally not realizing what I was getting into, I agreed to hike the Timpanogos Cave trail with my family and Ladd and Kristine. Well, it was a doozie. Here's the illustration of the trail, found at the trailhead:

It was only about 1.2 miles, but we increased over 1000 feet of altitude during that time. First of all, the altitude made it harder to breathe, and second of all, I haven't gotten very fit yet, so it was like tackling a huge mountain (hee hee) out of the blue. Overall, I'm glad we did it and it was a very beautiful hike. I can hardly believe that I made it up that mountain. Last year that would not have been possible with the extra weight I had on me. That's our group in the first photo, minus Kristine who was behind the camera.

I did it!

Unbelievable! This morning the scale shows that I've lost 75 pounds. I reached my goal of being there by the trip. It may only be a fleeting moment for now, since usually when I drop weight, it goes down a couple of pounds and then back up one. But the scale really did read 228 this morning. Brad says I only weigh 40 pounds more than he does. That is so cool. Yay!