Learning to Believe
OK, the good news first…I’ve just guillotined another head! That’s right, 40 pounds gone! It’s coming off slowly, but I knew it would. I’ve lost at least 1 pound a week since surgery, which is great! I really expected to have some ‘gain’ weeks by now (probably just jinxed myself, didn’t I?).
I’m pretty sure I have a tiny bit of restriction now after that first fill (3cc’s in total). I don’t get that ‘hard stop’ (hurt feeling in your chest) that I had immediately post-op, but I definitely have a very ‘full’ feeling after eating about 1C-1.5C. It’s a little delayed, so I’m still figuring things out. I eat within the 20-25 min. like I’m supposed to and then sometimes almost 15 min. later I get that ‘whoa…Thanksgiving full’ feeling…almost nausea, like when you just binged on everything good in the fridge. I just got that after eating 2 scrambled eggs with a few bacon bits for breakfast. I’ve only been on solids for a day so I’m going to start measuring closely today and see where I’m at. It’s hard with the delayed reaction to know when you’re full, and I’m supposed to stop eating after 20-25 min. so with eating time I might not know. I think I’ll try just 1C of food for lunch and see how it goes. If this stays for awhile, it will be great! I’m thankful for any help I get.
DS1’s Graduation was perfect. It was a beautiful evening outside in the stadium. I wore my sunglasses to hide all my tears and had my tissues handy. DS1 was so happy. We got lots of pics with him and all his friends…what a great group of kids they are (a bunch of well rounded smart kids with great futures). We went out as a family afterward for a late dinner at DS1’s work place (fancy Italian restaurant) and it was a lovely end to the day. The place is huge and packed, but so many co-workers came over to offer their congratulations and tell us what a great kid/worker he is.
By the time we got to dinner I was starving. I drank a bottle of water on the way there, but it didn’t help. We had drinks at the bar while we were waiting for DS1 and DD to arrive (separate car, they stayed later to get a few more pics). When we got to the table we ordered an appetizer and the bread came; it’s the best warm herb bread they bring with a plate of herb infused olive oil…I think I had 3 small slices of the bread and then 3 fried ravioli with a marinara dip appetizer…really bad carb choices…I’m blaming it on the glass of wine…it weakened my willpower…like I had any to begin with. When my dinner came I couldn’t eat it…seriously! I was disappointed, and mad at myself that I couldn’t eat because it was a beautiful, delicious meal. I made myself eat about 3 tiny bites and pushed around the food so it would look like I ate more (tilapia with crab topping, roasted veggies and mashed potatoes) and that’s it!!!! Surprised the heck out of me!!! OK, time to start realizing that I have to make the 1C of food I’m going to eat count, no matter how hungry I am. A bite or two before dinner would have curbed the hunger and allowed me to eat more of the dinner/protein. Old habits are going to be slow to die.
Now here’s the hard part. I realized that I now weigh exactly what I did last May when I dieted and exercised down for our family trip to Paris. I realized that even at this same weight that’s where I had my ‘moment’ where I decided to start looking at the Lap Band surgery. How sad is that?! Of course, as usual, I put all the weight back on over the summer, without wanting to, as I waited for my PCP check-up appointment in Sept. Gaining it back just reinforced my wanting the LB. I’ve lost 40-50 lbs. so many times and 20-30 pounds more times than you can count. I can recite to you which years I was down big weight, heck 9 years ago when we moved here I'd dieted down to 160 for my youngest sister's wedding (I think I was that weight for a day)...that's a mere 12 pounds above my goal weight!!! Depressing. The longest I’ve stayed the same weight in the last 20 years is when I was on my 6 month ‘diet’ for insurance LOL. It’s a little depressing to think I was right here about a year ago. I can’t tell you how many times this has happened…starving myself to get the same weight off that I’d lost the year before. Of course that’s why no one is noticing my weight loss, although another neighbor and one of my best friends here noticed the other day.
It’s so much harder for someone like me who’s seen these numbers so many times before not to feel like I’ll be back up again. Others are reveling in the fact that they haven’t seen their numbers since their teens, or at least since the first time they passed it years ago…what a great feeling that must be to see a number again for the first time. I’ll tell you that I’ve been very cautious about lopping off my 10 pound heads. I’ve been waiting a few days to a week before I’ll take them off just to be sure I don’t start gaining. This time, I weighed in Friday and I’m changing my ticker this morning. I need to start believing that this is the LAST time I will see these numbers.
First posted at my daily blog (link below).
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