My 5th Thanksgiving With My Lap-Band

My usual tradition on Thanksgiving is to wear the tightest pants I own.

This helps me not overeat.

Weird.

But it works.

Like a charm.

And it worked this year too.

Mostly.

I was able to enjoy tastes and sensible portions of all the foods that I love, but without over-doing it.

But I did have TWO and a HALF pieces of pie.

'Cuz that's how I roll.

If you would like to read all of my past Thanksgiving blog posts, go read THIS.

Here's the 411 on my weight: in case you missed today's weigh-in on Facebook, I weighed-in at 141.0 lbs this morning.

That's right!

Still.

Under.

My.

Goal.

Weight (145 lbs)

In other fun news, the boyfriend treated me to a fun date night in San Francisco the night before the Thanksgiving. He took me to see the musical, "The Book of Mormon."

Completely hilarious!

Here we are getting ready to see the show:

I hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving!

Weigh-in Day...What Did the Scale Reveal?

After cruise weight: Sunday November 17: 149.2 lbs
 

Today's weight: Friday, November 22: 141.8 lbs

I am back under my goal weight of 145 lbs!  I can't believe that I will be at my goal weight for THREE YEARS on December 17 (just a few weeks away).

Now let's get down to the nitty gritty.

The 411.

What did I do to achieve this weight loss this week?  Here's the scoop:

• Limited my calories to 1200 calories per day.
• Made sure I was eating at least 80 proteins per day.
• Drank buckets of water - 100+ oz per day
• Exercised. Daily sessions of Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred workout DVD.
• Took my vitamins: Calcium Citrate Chews, Vitamin D drops, B12 Sublinguals, Multi-Vitamins, etc.

If I do the work, then I get results.

Simple.

As.

That.

How To Gain 9 Pounds in 9 Days With the Lap-Band

It's been a hot minute since I last posted.

Thank you all for your emails checking in with me asking where I've been.

So where have I been?

What has happened since my last post?

I went on a fantabulous Caribbean CRUISE with fellow bandster Stephanie.

Lucky me!

There was sun.

There was fun.

There were fancy dress up nights.

There was wine.

There were bikinis.

There were mojitos.

There were many, many trips through the buffet line.

Yum.

It was also pretty much a giggle-fest of ridiculousness.

We.

Had.

The.

Best.

Time!

In the tradition of always keepin' it real here on my blog, let's review the recent weigh-ins:

Day before cruise: Friday November 8: 140.0 lbs

Day after cruise: Sunday November 17: 149.2 lbs

Seriously.

That's a 9 pound gain.

As I completely expected.

My Lap-Band does not make my food choices for me.

I make each and every one of my food choices.

Chocolate filled croissants for breakfast? Yep!

Waffles with buckets of butter and syrup? Absolutely.

Fettuccine Alfredo? Hell yeah.

47 peanut butter cookies? It happened.

This list could go on and on.

But I'll stop there.

And show you some gratuitous cruise pics of yours truly and the lovely Stephanie! Isn't she super adorable?

Stephanie showed me her favorite exercise 

before we began our cruise: KANGOO!

The first of many, many cocktails we enjoyed on the cruise!

 We worked out almost every day on the cruise!

Here we are in the gym on the ship:

Fancy schmancy!

 Beauties on the beach!

Bahamas

Curacao

Is it too soon to plan our next girls' getaway? I think not.

Stay tuned for Friday's weigh-in to see how many pounds I've lost!

Weigh-in Day & a Halloween Non-Scale Victory!

Goal weight: 145 lbs

Today's weight: 140.8 lbs

But wait a gosh darn minute! That's not the whole story.

What did the scale say the day after I returned home from my trip to Australia (Sunday Oct 27)? 

146.2 lbs.

Damn.  

All that eating out at restaurants while traveling and eating WAY too many butter croissants at Starbucks and eating buckets of chocolate cookies called "TimTams" while I was Down Under had finally caught up with me.  

Yikes.

So this past week, I got back on track with my food choices (high protein, low calorie) and achieved this for today's weigh-in:

Now let's talk about my Halloween Non-Scale Victory (NSV).

I wore my workout clothes to work yesterday as my "Halloween" costume.

Yep.

Totally lame. But sometimes I just want to wear my stretchy pants to work and be comfy, mmkay?

I put my dumbells/weights on my desk.

The illusion of "exercise girl" costume was complete.

If you follow me of Facebook, you have seen MANY pics of yours truly in my workout gear.

While I was sitting at my desk yesterday morning, a coworker stops by and says, "Are you Workout Barbie?"

Yes.

I.

Am.

Thank.

You.

Very.

Much.

NSV alert!

I'll take it.

So I was officially Workout Barbie for the rest of the day.

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...