Glimpses of My Past Help Me Stay Motivated in the Present

As I was looking through the back of my closet, I came across a treasure.

A relic from 1997.

Let's flashback to the days of of Ally McBeal, the movie Titanic, Beanie Babies, and Hypercolor T-shirts.

What did I find?

My prom dress.

Size 26W.

Yep. Gotta love formal gowns and how they usually size up.

I totally forgot that I still had this lovely memory of a dress.

And for your viewing pleasure, here is my prom dress hanging next to one of my current dresses (size 6):

Banded for Four Years!

Yes.  The blog has been super quiet lately.

Can you guess why?

I've been traveling.

...8 days. 

...5 flights. 

...17,386 miles. 

...34 hours flying time

I've been to Australia and now I'm back in the good ol' USA.

Coincidentally I was 'Down Under' traveling on business during my official Bandiversary on October 20, 2013.

In case you missed it, you can find my previous Bandiversary blog posts here:

One Year Bandiversary post

Two Year Bandiversary: I wrote a letter to my former fatty self.

Three Year Bandiversary post

And now here we are...

Banded for FOUR years!

And what did I do to celebrate these amazing four years?

I did something that I never would have or could have done when I was 258lbs.

I climbed up to the top of the Sydney Harbour Bridge!

See those people up there (upper left side of the pic)? We climbed all the way up to the flags!

Happy Bandiversary to ME!

I wonder what this upcoming year has in store for me and my Lap-Band?

Friday Weigh-in Day!

Oh snap!

It's not Friday today.

Did I trick ya?

It's Thursday.

But since I will be away from my scale tomorrow on my official weigh-in day, today is weigh-in day for this week.

Goal weight: 145 lbs

Last week's weight: 141.4 lbs

Today's weight: 140.4 lbs

I can't believe that Sunday is my four year bandiversary.

Banded for FOUR years now!

And let me tell ya, I have some EPIC plans for myself on Sunday to celebrate.

Check back here on Sunday to see what happens! 

Weigh-in Day & How I Lost 3+ Pounds in 5 Days

I weigh myself pretty much every morning. Every day of the week.

I am and have always been someone who can GAIN and LOSE weight pretty fast.

Therefore, when I weighed myself on Monday morning (5 days ago), the scale was up to 144.8 lbs.

AND my pants were tight.

Yikes.  I got off track with my food choices.  I also really need to fit in a workout during my weekends.

So what did I do?

I got back to basics.

Writing down my food choices.

Exercising each day this week.

I've been updating my Facebook with my food journals and back to basic posts.


I stepped on the scale this morning and it revealed: 141.4 lbs.

That's a loss of 3.4 lbs.

And the pants aren't nearly as tight today.

Phew!

What does this prove to me?

That if I do the work, then I get the results that I want and deserve.

Weigh-in Day & Why Blogs End

This is my 959th blog post since I began my blog back in October of 2009.

This is my 218th weekly Friday weigh-in since I began my surgeon's pre-op diet to get my body ready for surgery.

Yep, this journey began 4 years, 2 months, and 4 days ago.

Today's weight: 141.4 lbs

Still below goal.

I'm kinda surprised that you all still stop by to check on me in my little corner of the interwebs here.

I'm not sure what more there is to tell you or blog about.

Weight maintenance is super boring.

There is no "done."

There are no exciting weight loss numbers to announce every week.

Almost all of the boxes have been checked on the to-do list of getting healthy and fit.

I also learned this morning that some blogs do come to an end.

Today's example? Emily, who I've been following since 2010, blogged at "The Bright Side: Breast Cancer at 31".  She just passed away. I didn't know Emily personally, but reading about her over the years, I kinda feel like I did.

So that brings me to a few questions for you:

Are there any specific topics that you would like for me to blog about? 

Any questions that I haven't already answered?

Non-Scale Victory Alert!

To get into the driver's seat, sometimes I have to climb that big scary ladder.

Let me explain.

My job has a few perks.

One of those perks is the occasional neato cheeto fantastico field trip.

Yesterday's field trip was to the ocean port.

Ya know... that place where they load up really big boats with cargo containers and ship them off to all corners of the world.

Time to climb up that ladder to get up onto the boat.  Amazingly steep. Yet I made it to the top! Non-scale victory!

I couldn't miss a photo-op with the captain.  He's been at sea for fifty years! A cool tour guide too:

Where would you like to go? I'll take you there...

Weigh-in Day & What Will I Do For My Four Year Bandiversary?

Goal weight: 145 lbs

Today's weight: 142.0 lbs

Still.  Below. Goal.

In exactly 23 days, it will be October 20th.

On October 20th, 2009, I had my Lap-Band surgery.

It's theeee official "bandiversary" -- as us bandsters like to call it.

And I have some seriously EPIC plans for this bandiversary.

I will be doing something that I don't think that I would have tried to achieve or complete when I weighed 258 lbs.

It's something that involves some serious fitness.

And there will be lots of climbing.

Ladders.

Stairs.

...lots and lots and lots of climbing involved.

Hopefully there will be lots of amazing photos to share with you too.

Stay tuned for my upcoming post on October 20th where I will post a photo of me showing you what I did to celebrate my Bandiversary!

Does That Dress Come With A Pole?

Did you know that mirrors are big, damn liars?

They lie to me.

Mirrors show me a body shape and figure that I do not see when I take photos.

While we are on the topic of liars, did you know that my brain also lies to me all the damn time on what my body shape really looks like?

Speaking of dams, here's a dam picture of yours truly at 166 lbs:

July 2010

This is how I picture myself and my body image currently in my head.

About 166 lbs-ish. 

Size 12 shorts.

This is also how I see my shape when I look in the mirror.

Kinda a no-waist kinda figure.

That shape is awesome.

And healthy.

I remember that blue shirt.  It was a size Large.

I was no longer shopping in the plus size section of the store! Sweet.

I am waiting on my brain to catch up to what I look like now. Size 6. 140-ish lbs.

And what about those mirrors too?

They need to catch up to what I look like now.

But let me tell ya....

How do I know what my shape really looks like now?

PHOTOS!

Photos tell a completely different story.

Here is a photo from this past weekend in San Francisco.

Girls Night Out!

What have I learned?

I learned to take buckets of photos as I was losing weight.

And I take lots of photos at my "now" weight.

This has helped me to realize what my figure currently looks like.

It helps me to not believe what I see when I look in the mirror.

Take photos.

Take photos.

Take photos.

Did you hear me?

Take.

Those.

Photos.

Weigh-in Day & Roll Call Alert!

Goal Weight: 145 lbs

Today's Weight: 141.4 lbs

Still below goal.

Yay.

Maintenance.

********************

Did you see what we're up to this morning on Facebook?

We are doing a roll call and finding out what state here in the USA we are all from (or what country of the world!)

Here's your chance to represent your home state!  Go comment on the roll call post.

So far there are lots of you from Texas and Tennessee.

Where are you from?

Loose Skin & Vegemite Sandwich-Eating Koala Bears

This is a two-for-one post today.

Lucky you.

And you didn't even need a coupon for this deal.

#1:

I posted this pic on Facebook the other night.

Why?

I still struggle with being comfortable with my loose skin.

Especially the belly skin.

WTF.

Don't get me wrong though.

I love that I have lost weight.

I love that I am strong and have muscles.

I love that I have improved my health ten fold.

Go me.

I know.

But have been thinking about so many recent rockstar examples of ladies of all sizes in my life who have rocked their rolls, belly skin, tight tummies and not so tight tummies at the beach and pool this summer. They are confident! Awesome-sauce.

No matter the size, shape, wobbly bit, I've seen these ladies rockin' their bikinis, tanks, and swimsuits.  They look GREAT!

And all the while when I see these lovely ladies, I am silently thinking in my head "I wish that I could be that comfortable with my jiggly bits. Sigh."

Welcome to Crazytown. Population: 1.

Maybe because I always covered up my jiggle-jaggle belly bits for so long (about 20+ years), that it's a little bit awkward to now show the belly?

So I have officially started "Operation: Let It All Hang Out" 

What does this stealth not-so-military operation involve?

 All kinds of tricks so that I get more comfortable with my extra skin and wobbly bits:

• Posting random pics of the loose skin on Facebook or here on the blog.

• I've also been wearing the bikini occasionally around the house.  

• Whether I'm sitting on the couch with Pemberley watching TV or cleaning the house, it's bare-that-belly time lately.  

• You should have seen me vacuum in my bikini on Monday night.

 Stay tuned on how "Operation Let It All Hang Out" goes.

#2:

Do you live in the land of koala bears? 

Do you live Down Under?

I'm headed your way in October.  

Sydney and Melbourne to be super specific. 

Would you like to meet up?

I have already received lots of positive feedback from all you Aussies when I announced my upcoming trip on Facebook. 

If you're interested in a meetup: email me at lapbandgal at yahoo dot com.

We could eat Vegemite sandwiches together and pet each others ports.

Good times.