Attended surgical weight loss seminar

Last night I went to a surgical weight loss seminar put on by a local bariatric surgeon and his team. The doctor said he doesn't perform lap band surgery anymore because it's not proven effective in the long term. Just a few years ago my mom was trying to talk me into having that surgery with her. She got it, herself. Got down to a healthy weight but then gained it all back again. Whenever I pictured getting that done I thought I'd feel like Ping the Duck, in a childhood story I read, with a ring around his neck that prevented him from swallowing his fishing catch.

One thing the doctor pointed out in the seminar that I didn't know is that if you need to take medications regularly, and have them absorb well, a gastric bypass is not the best option -- you not only have limitations on absorbing nutrients, but on medications as well. The gastric sleeve, which is what my friend had, doesn't do this. But sometimes people get really bad acid reflux after the sleeve and end up having to convert to the bypass (which corrects the reflux).

I gave them my information at the seminar with the thought of starting their process in case my current gung-ho efforts at weight loss through increased protein and decreased carbs doesn't turn my health around enough. If I'm going to move forward in their process (which would take at least 6 months before insurance would approve it, including nutritionist and psychiatrist appointments leading up to the surgery) the next step is to get a referral from my primary care doctor and have him send over my labs etc. My next follow up with my primary care doctor is in 2 weeks, so I'll talk with him about it then.

1.5 pounds down in the last week!

I'm pretty happy with that loss (349.2 to 347.8). I haven't been perfect with my diet this week, but I've been pretty active, and am still feeling very motivated by my fitbit.

I don't have a lot of time to write just at the moment but I wanted to check in at least. I'm going to join a new "challenge" group that will run the day after thanksgiving until I think new years.

Today at work, while I was doing our daily mandatory walk of the grounds to do a safety check, I consciously walked faster to try to get more "very active" minutes logged to my fitbit.

It is thanksgiving this week. I honestly don't think it's going to be that big a blip on my health radar. I don't eat turkey, and I don't really see overdoing it too much on any one item. I'm planning to make a pumpkin pie and some cranberry salad, and my family is going to bring the rest (it's at my house). I do adore pumpkin pie, but I'm only making one, and there will be 4 adults and one child...so there shouldn't be *too* many leftovers.

Tomorrow I'm starting an internship relative to a class I'm taking right now, and I'm going to probably be on my feet for 5 hours straight. I hope I do alright.

Kind of an interesting trend...

Check out these two graphs from my loseit data. The first, below, shows my weight (much smoothed) over the last 6 months:

In case it's hard to see the actual numbers, about 6 months ago I was just under 360 lbs and presently my smoothed weight is showing at around 335.

Now look at this graph, for the same time period, but this time average calories consumed:

Again, in case the numbers are hard to see, I started around 1600 and ended up working my way up to 2750 over the last 6 months.

Add 1150 calories and lose 25 pounds. I like it. And you might be asking, well, did my exercise just increase to compensate (and then some) for all those extra calories? No:

Bronchitis is kicking my a** (2011 Week 8 Update)

So, this week I am down another 2 pounds, going from 337.4 last week to 335.4 this week. Given the way things were going earlier on in the week (I was up to 338 again at one point) I didn't expect that kind of progress, but I think I can mostly credit it to being sick, especially yesterday. I ended up in the ER due to bronchitis/asthma combination and only ate around 1200 calories yesterday.

Today I'm planning on staying home all day, drinking lots of fluids, and hanging out with my kitties. No planned exercise for now! I'm worried because I read online that bronchitis symptoms can last 3-4 weeks. Hopefully I can nip it in the bud earlier than that. My doc prescribed antibiotics but also told me that most cases of bronchitis are viral, so they might not help. Also supposed to take some tylenol to reduce my fever and get lots of rest.

I've been keeping my sugar intake in mind all week and I managed to get my daily average of sugar intake down to around 112g, still higher than what my loseit friends are reporting (40-60g), but much improved over my past values (as high as 250). I am going to keep working at it.

I also did pretty well on protein this week, about 90g on average per day. I tried to have a protein shake with breakfast most days.

I did get myself back to the gym on Friday, for the first time in almost 2 months. Ugh. That's really bad. And because I wasn't feeling well I only walked for about 1/2 hour. But at least it was a step in the right direction.

I am still about a pound behind my gradual yearly goal (which wants me at 334.6 today) but that's fair enough. Life happens, and maybe it's not realistic to lose 2 pounds each and every week. But I will keep striving toward that goal.

A book I've been wanting to read came in at the library, Moose: a memoir of fat camp. It's a very candid look at some of the things that overweight children go through and I'm enjoying reading it.

I wish you all warmth and wellness!

Sugar problem?

Over the last couple days I've become both curious about and horrified by my sugar intake.

Today so far: 70g
2/20: 150g
2/19: 201g
2/18: 132g
2/17: 229g
2/16: 231g

Eeek! So that sounds like a lot to me, but grams aren't really that meaningful... so I converted to Cups.

Last week on average I ate 182g of sugar per day, (conversion factor 1 C = 196g), which is equal to 9/10 of a cup of sugar. Yuck!

I also wanted to compare this with what other people are generally eating... google gave me lots of estimates of what americans are eating vs what they should be eating in terms of added sugar, but not total dietary sugar (the numbers above are a combination of fruits, dairy, and also processed foods).

So I put the question to my loseit buddies, and lo and behold, even these other folks who have self-selected as having a weight problem they need to fix are only eating 40-60ish g of sugar per day. Shame on me!

Obviously sugary foods are a part of the problem, for sure. I have always had a sweet tooth. As I type this I'm eating a piece of my dad's leftover homemade birthday cake, 19g of sugar plus an unknown amount in the frosting/glaze I made out of, you guessed it, powdered sugar.

But another culprit, and one that I wasn't as aware of until now, cow milk. I grew up in a household where I was encouraged to drink nonfat milk all day, every day, even in the place of water, as a cheap source of animal protein. Most foods taste much better to me with milk as a chaser. Currently, nonfat milk is at the top of my "favorite foods" list on loseit, with 35 times that I've logged it in the last 4 weeks. And that doesn't even mean 35 cups, because usually I drink 1 1/2 to 2 cups at one sitting.

One cup of milk has 9 grams of protein and 12 grams of sugar. The sugar is lactase, and some people will tell you that because you are ingesting it along with some protein, it isn't as bad as eating just plain sugar.

There are *a lot* of websites about milk out there to try and dig through for accurate information. The dairy council pushes hard that cow milk is good for you and even aids in weight loss. Other sites make this out to be almost a conspiracy situation, pointing out that the purpose of milk is to make baby cows *grow* quickly, and no other animal on the planet drinks milk past early childhood.

I started researching other options. When I've tried soy milk in the past, it has tasted *too* sweet to me, which is saying something given my addiction to sweets. It does have less sugar than cow milk it looks like, about 5-8 g per cup. It seems strange to me that soy milk would taste so much sweeter to me but have less sugar than cow milk. Hmmm.

Unsweetened almond milk has ZERO sugar, but it also only has about 2 g of protein per cup, depending on the brand. Maybe a good approach, since I'm doing the whey protein mixes lately, would be to mix the whey powder with almond milk instead of cow milk.

And do my damndest to wean myself off the stuff as a drink. I have been trying to aim for herbal teas lately, which is doable in the chilly winter. And plain water, or water with a wedge of lemon.

Also, I need to be very careful when I'm shopping to check nutrition labels on salad dressings, jams, yogurts, pasta sauces, etc. Keep the sugar confined to just desserts. I really can't stand artificial sweeteners, and have a hunch that they give me headaches (and a suspicion that they are really bad for the body). So I'm going to try to reduce my sugar by actually cutting down on the amount of sweet, instead of substituting a chemical sweet.

It might be worth it to do a little exploring around stevia as well. Wikipedia says its extracts have 300x the sweetness of sugar but negligible effects on blood glucose. Sounds good to me.

I think this might be a good key toward my weight recovery, if I can get it under control.

Looking Up (2011 Week 7 Update)

It has been slow-going this week, weight-loss wise. The first day of the week I was up a pound, but I've been steadily and slowly going downwards from there and I'm now 2.6 pounds lighter than my last week's weigh-in, coming in at 337.4.

I hit this same weight, 337.4 about 3 weeks ago but my weight bounced right back up again. This time I think I'm going to keep trending downward. Just have to hang in there and hang tough. Once I hit below 330, I can start using my wii balance board, yay! I am still about 1 pound behind my gradual year long goal, but I am hopeful that I can catch up.

Yesterday my eating got a little out of control. On the way home from the post office I stopped at a donut shop. I've *never* in my life stopped at that donut shop. I bought 3 donuts and a thai iced tea, and by the time I was home and finished eating the loot, about 1000 calories later, I felt physically horrible. I didn't feel like eating the rest of the day.

I moved about a month ago, and I've been slowly unpacking all of my stuff, including clothes that I haven't seen in about 6 months. I was happy to find that this morning when I tried on a pair of pants I bought over a year ago that never fit me (I bought them online and was reluctant to return them at the time), now fit! I bet that's true of a few other things in my closet now that I'm about 45 pounds lighter.

I have only gotten rid of a few things that were too big so far. Not sure if I should save that one pair of "fat pants" for the photo op at the end of my weight loss, you know the one where I stand in them and hold out the waist line to show how far I've come, or fit both legs in one pants leg.

I did better on my protein goals this week:
Feb 14 119.8g
Feb 15 122.4g
Feb 16 90.8 g
Feb 17 59.2 g
Feb 18 121.3g
Feb 19 114.5g
Feb 20 tbd

There were those 2 days, again days where I was on campus all day, when I didn't make the mark, but overall much better.

I have an appointment with a podiatrist to try a cortisone injection for my plantar fascitis. It's in a couple weeks.

Competition between friends?

Yesterday I got a facebook message from a good friend of mine in town who I go on walks or hikes with about once a week. She and another friend of ours are thinking about doing a 3 month long "biggest loser" style weight loss contest, and wondered if I would like to join. Everyone would put $50 in the pot and whoever lost the highest percentage of body weight at the end of 3 months would get the total in the form of a gift card for massage or spa type treats.

I had mixed feelings about joining in. I've told that friend what I weigh before, so I don't think that's the issue really. It's more a reluctance to be in a competition with friends, and over something so personal. And, $50 is a lot of money to commit to anything non-necessary for me right now. On the other hand, maybe it would be a good motivation toward my goal and provide more incentive when I'm making the little daily decisions to make the right decision.

Anyway, I wrote back, said I "might" be interested and asked her when they were planning on starting. I would guess at the beginning of next month. I'm heavier than both of them by quite a bit...which could be both a blessing an a curse. If I lose 2 pounds per week for the whole time, that would only be about 7% weight loss, but if they lose 2 pounds per week for the whole time, that would be more like 9% for one and 12% for the other. On the other hand, it is supposed to be easier to lose larger amounts of weight the further you are from your goal. Like the 1% rule; for the average person 2 pounds per week is the maximum rate of loss you want to have to lose it healthfully, but for me right now, 3 or 3.5 pounds per week would be alright because that's only 1% of my current weight. But I don't often lose 3.5 pounds in one week.

Another thing that troubles me is my own instant temptation when money is at stake, even a relatively small amount between friends, to cheat somehow. I doubt I really would... but it bothers me that it would even occur to me. Like overdoing on salt before the first weigh-in to bloat myself. What a thought! Ugh.

If I do this, I'm going to do it the right way and be completely honest with myself and them. Do my best, but not go overboard. Just use it as incentive to step up my workouts and dietary decisions.

Frustrated, hormonal and sad (2010 Week 6 Update)

My weekly weigh-in this morning was 340 lbs. That's only up 0.2 pounds from last Sunday at this time, so basically I held constant. and I'm now 1.5 pounds *behind* my gradual 2011 year goal, which is frustrating the heck out of me. But, I have to remind myself that it is that time of the month and I bet this week the numbers will start behaving again. Also, I did really well by going on that hike last week (even if I was in agony afterward due to my foot). And I did well with staying under my calorie budget generally... by the end of the week loseit said a had a 1370 calorie deficit.

I really felt like crap most of yesterday. Slept in late, did some painting (home repair type, not artistic type), a little gardening, watched some t.v. At night I drove over to the pet store to buy a deshedding tool for my cats (I'm hoping it will help prevent mats). Then went over to my parents' house because I was feeling lonely and blah but I didn't have the attention span for the movie my dad was watching. I went to the drugstore then and made retail therapy impulse buys of new makeup and some hair products, and wandered around for a bit more considering buying random crap I didn't need... among them, a counter top herb garden. I really don't need that if I have an outdoor garden, dammit. I didn't succumb, thankfully.

Oh, by the way, I didn't meet my 100g protein daily goal this week either:

Feb 7: 116.8 g
Feb 8: 89.5 g
Feb 9: 90.5 g
Feb 10: 74.5 g
Feb 11: 105.8 g
Feb 12: 76.8 g
Feb 13: t.b.d.

So looking at that, the two days I got over 100g were days that I had a very flexible schedule and was mostly at home. I can have a protein smoothie for breakfast (I generally didn't though...) but it's hard to bring one to campus for lunch.

I'm still kind of dragging, mood-wise. Hopefully this week it will turn around again.

The Woes of Chairs and Mirrors (2011 Week 3 Update)

I lost an amazing 5.8 pounds this week, going from 344.6 to 338.8. It was pretty surprising, because I was well over my loseit calorie budget almost every day of the week -- but, as I've been hearing on fat2fit radio, I am supposed to be eating 1.2 x my bmr, which currently would be putting me around 2800 calories if I am being lightly active (up to about 3200 if I am moderately active, exercising 3-5 times per week). My loseit calorie budget is only 2300 calories. So, maybe, I accidentally found out a calorie range where my body is happier right now.

The reason I kind of let myself go higher on the calories last week is because I lost my new job. I was sad about it, and doing some emotional eating, letting myself have a little more ice cream because it was comforting, etc. So it really was a nice surprise that all that weight came off instead of the scale going the other direction. Another thing to note is, yesterday for the first time all week I hit under my loseit budget again and this morning my weight had held constant. So... maybe I need to be aiming toward that higher range with my calorie budget and just make sure what I'm eating is more nutritious.

I had kind of a self esteem hit last week. It was the first week of classes for me. With some exceptions, I am usually able to fit into the normal sized student desks. I do always have to ask for a seatbelt extender on the airplane, but in the classroom I have typically been alright. However, my psychology class was in an old building with very old fashioned student desks and there was just no way it was going to work out. I had to go ask the teacher if it would be alright for me to take a separate chair from the front of the room to sit in. It was embarrassing, but I think I handled the situation a lot better than I would have a couple years ago. By the end of the night I was glad to be sitting in the comfy padded chair instead of the hard plastic student chairs.

I bought a new over the door style mirror today. My current mirror has just been messing with my head. Maybe you know what I mean. It makes me look much thinner than every other reflective surface I see... extremely so, and it only leads to let-down later on in the day. I just want to see the real me.

I'll update my weight loss graph below. I am currently 5 pounds ahead of where I need to be for my 100 lbs lost in 2011 goal. That's good, I should be getting ahead of myself now because I know as I get smaller the loss rate will probably slow down.

Quiznos: A Disaster of a Meal (2011 Week 2 Update)

In the last week, I've lost another 3.8 pounds, which I am really excited about. My current weight is 344.6.

This week I again did not make it to the gym. I did a half hour walk on a work break one day and an hour walk today after my weigh in, but otherwise no work-outs. However, it was my second week working my new job that has me on my feet and running around all the time, so essentially I am getting 8+ hours of cardio and occasional weight lifting every day. I'm not logging that exercise to my loseit account, so I expected some additional weight loss surprises beyond what I was budgeting for, and 3.8 pounds down in one week is a pretty good surprise.

I was good on food; brought my lunch to work every day but one. I did by a couple of snacks at a convenience store but I stuck to things like juice and power bars, and didn't go over my calorie limit. My one lunch out was at Quiznos, and when I logged it at the end of the day I found out their regular tuna melt sub has over 1200 calories, plus I had a regular dr. pepper, so that was a disaster of a meal but didn't end up setting me back too much in the end.

I have been seriously stressed out this week, mostly due to stuff going on at work. My body doesn't respond well to stress, in very obvious ways; during my last year of grad school I had chronic unexplained vomiting issues (not intentional purging), and I often get migraines or other GI issues that come up when I am super stressed out. This month although I'm on b.c. pills which usually regulate my cycles pretty well, my period was 8 days late. I am hoping that the various sources of work stress will calm down over the next couple of weeks but in the mean time I need to be really conscious of taking care of myself and getting enough sleep to get through it.

I've updated my weight graph at the bottom of the screen. Feeling good, felt a little stronger when I went for a walk with my friend this morning (though I really need to remember to bring water!). I'm considering canceling my gym membership if I continue to feel like I'm getting all the cardio I need at work. I feel like the weight training aspect is something I'm more likely to do at home with just pushups, crunches, etc. I am going to give it a while before I make that decision though and see how it goes once I feel more in control of things with the new job, new semester starting, etc.

So I'm 37.6 total pounds down from my highest weight. I think when I hit 50 I'll take another comparison picture.

Fat Girl on Her Feet All Day (2011 Week 1 Update)

I just weighed myself this morning and I'm at 348.6, a perfect 2 pound loss since January 1st. At the end of today I will only be about 1500 calories under my loseit calorie budge for the week, but I haven't been logging all the new extra calories I've been burning at work due to running around all day. I actually would have expected a greater weekly loss after all that @work exercise change but I'll take what I can get, and 2 pounds is right on target.

With all the routine change of weird shift work and the exhaustion of starting a new job (excuses, excuses), I did not go to the gym or exercise at home all week. In the coming week I'm going to be working mornings instead of nights, so I think I can change that pattern around and head to the gym for some weight lifting right after work.

I have been doing a good job on my meals, though, and mostly due to pre-planning. Last weekend I made up a big batch of vegetarian chili and it was all stacked up in the fridge ready to bring to work in my lunch. I also had bananas and apples for snacks, and tortilla chips as a treat to sprinkle on top of the chili.

There was one day last week that I packed up my lunch all carefully before leaving for work and then somehow left it at home. I had a hard day, and it was difficult to go get something elsewhere during a 1/2 hour "lunch" break at 7:30pm.

I think using those 10 minute breaks twice a day at work to get in a nutritious snack is going to be key, because otherwise I end up desperately foggy in my head and starving at the end of the day. I actually stole someone's half a donut that was left in the office at night --- wtf? Not the food I want to be putting in my body and not the impression I want to give during my first week at a new job. Eeep.

Anyway, on target with weight loss and getting by in most respects.

Looking backwards, and forwards...

I am starting this bog on January 1st, 2011, but before I get started with my plan from here I want to review what's been before. These pictures shows me at close to my heaviest weight of all time (left, 382.2) and my current weight as of today (350.6), a weight loss of 31.6 pounds over about a year and a half's time. At my heaviest I was a size 30 pants, had bad back pain when I would try to walk for more than 5 minutes, and felt terrible all around.

I have tried many times to lose weight in the past, but had trouble sticking with any exercise plan for long enough to make a big difference, and my diet, well, it's an area I struggled with too. I'm vegetarian but I wasn't doing a good job of eating a balanced diet with natural foods and keeping my calories under control. Plus, I struggle with emotional eating & depression, and when I would go through low periods I'd hit the ice cream harder than I care to admit. But the evidence was all over my body.

Here's a graph of my weight record from about age 22 to 30.

I've kept notes on my weight over time, sometimes with more frequent measurements than others. Always hoping that I would start seeing the numbers go down. When I got above about 300, the scale I had at the time wouldn't work anymore so I would only have an occasional data point when I went to the gym at school and used their electronic scale or something. Watching the numbers go up and up over these years I've felt alternating desperation and resignation.

I think I was first told I needed to slim down when I was about 9 or 10. Looking at pictures of myself then, I don't see a chubby child. In my eyes I am lean and athletic looking until around that time, and then when I started developing I got a little chubbier. Nothing extreme though. When I graduated high school I was about 180. Somewhere I have a record of all of those numbers too, because I was always self conscious about my body.

But this blog isn't going to be about looking backwards, it's going to be about looking forwards. I'm about 30 pounds down from my heaviest, so I'm moving in the right direction, but that came off over about a year and a half, and I really want to kick the rate up a few notches now that I feel like I'm on the right track.

I don't believe in weight loss pills or surgeries or any quick fixes. What has been working for me so far, and what I intend to keep doing more of, is increasing my exercise and making healthier food choices that I can live with for the rest of my life. I'm not on a diet, I'm changing my lifestyle.

So, on this blog, if anyone ends up reading this, I'm not going to try to sell anybody anything, or convince you that one method is the best. Nothing like that. This blog is going to help me with keeping my motivation up and accountability. And if someone can pick up on something that's working for me, and it works for them too, great.

Here are some tools I've been using so far:

- Group aqua-aerobics classes (especially at the beginning when walking was very painful)
- LoseIt! iphone/ipod app to track my diet and exercise, and their online community for social support
- Fat2FitRadio, a podcast I've been listening to that has very healthy and reasonable philosophies about losing weight gradually and permanently
- Exploring new recipes online. I learned to bake growing up, but didn't really know what healthy cooking looked like until the last few years.
- The Gym - I got a low-income discounted membership at the YMCA. I mostly walk on the treadmill and sometimes lift weights there. I'm trying to increase the amount of weight-lifting.

And here is my plan for the coming year:

What & When:
1 year goal: to 250 lbs by this time next year (that's a 100 lbs weight loss over 1 year)
that's almost 2 lbs per week
3 month goal: 325 by 4/1/11
6 month goal: 300 by 7/1/11
9 month goal: 275 by 10/1/11
non-scale goals: more energy, clothes fitting better & smaller sizes, more confidence

Weekly goals:
no more than 1 meal "out" per week
increase protein to at least 20% of calories, then re-evaluate
cardio - 3 times per week, weights - 2 times per week MINIMUM

Why (Things that will happen if I don't lose weight and get in shape):
Continuing shame about my body
Diseases associated with weight like diabetes and arthritis
Decreased lifespan
I may never have children
It will be hard to find a partner

How
Weight Training - 2x per week no matter what
Cardio - at least 3x per week
listen to Fat2Fit radio consistently whenever they come out
preparing most of my meals in advance
eating more "negative calorie foods"
eating a lean protein with every meal
keep going with loseit or other support group
Update this blog regularly with my progress