OMG! Did You Hear?

Pretty.

Much.

The.

Most.

Useful.

Thing.

I.

Have.

Ever.

Heard. 

It was the most wisely spent 60+ minutes of my day in a long, long time.

I just listened to this podcast.

It's an interview with one of the all-knowing  GODS  experts on the Lap-Band: Dr John Dixon.

My favorite part of the podcast?

When Dr. Dixon talks about (at length) about what proper fill level is for a Lap-Band.

My second favorite part?

When he talks about what the expected life span (expiration date) is for a Lap-Band.

Go check it out HERE.

You won't be sorry.

Why Is Today Such A Big Day For Me?

In my mind, today is kinda a bigger deal than my actual surgery date.

What is today?

Exactly three years ago today on December 17, 2010:

I stepped on the scale and I had reached my goal weight of 145 lbs.

Finally!  After 14 months of lots of hard work.

You can read about that fateful day HERE.

It was an AWESOME-SAUCE of a day.

And then can you believe it? I maintained my goal weight for one whole year on December 17, 2011. Read that post HERE.

And THEN I maintained my goal weight for two whole years on December 17, 2012. Read that post HERE.

Now, I have achieved three whole years of maintaining my goal weight today on December 17, 2013.

Do I still have the fear that I will GAIN ALL 115+ lbs back?

Absolutely.

Pretty much each and every day freakin' day.

That fear is still very present in my life.

Sigh.

How will I celebrate my GOALiversary this year?

I can tell you how I will NOT celebrate it.

I will not eat to celebrate.

Maybe I'll go buy myself a new fantastic skinny girl outfit.

Because let me tell ya...

I.

deserve.

It.

It's A Fashion Show & The World Is My Runway

I remember how my Prom dress was pretty tight when I zipped it up in the dressing room that afternoon.

But it covered me.

And I guess it looked OK.

So I bought it.

That was back in 1997.

A size 26W.

Now let's fast forward to this past Saturday.

It was fashion show time at my weight loss surgery support group.

The once a year event where we bring a piece of clothing from before our surgery.

An item that we wore before we lost weight.

One lady wore her size 32W acid washed jeans.  She could fit her whole body into one of the legs.

One guy wore his size 5X button-up shirt.

And I wore that Prom dress.

How loose that dress is on me now.

It easily fit over my current size 6 frame.

I felt like I was wearing a big navy blue polyester blanket.

While I stood there wearing that dress, I decided that I didn't need to bring the dress home with me.

I no longer need that dress.

I donated it to the support group clothing exchange.

That dress isn't me anymore.

Weigh-in Day

Just in case you missed it... I posted this morning's weigh-in over on Facebook:

Goal weight: 145 lbs

Today's weight: 141.4 lbs

Happy Friday!

Weigh-in Day & Eating Out At Restaurants

Let's get the weigh-in over and done with:

Goal weight: 145 lbs

Today's weight: 142.2 lbs

Still below goal.   Yay.

Now let's talk about eating out at restaurants.

One of the main ways that I make good food choices: I do not eat out at restaurants that often.

I usually prepare and eat food at home.

And these foods are usually foods that I know the calories and proteins totals for already.

This past week, I have had three dinners and two lunches out (work and non-work related).

Yikes.

A rarity.

I usually don't choose the restaurants, I ask my friends/coworkers choose where they would like to eat.

Why?

I have learned that for me, the food is not the reason I eat out anymore.

It is the people who are seated across the table from me that are important.

The conversations.  The company.  The time together.

This was a HUGE lesson for me to learn after being banded.

I can remember in the not too distant fatty past, all of the planning of having a meal at a restaurant would be about what I would eat. Not who I would be eating with.

Here's how it usually would go down in my fatty head:

"Should I order the fried fish & chips or the cheeseburger? Don't those taquitos look yummy? What would I get for dessert? Oooh! Doesn't that chocolate cake on the online menu look good?  Let's be sure to order that!"

This pre-planning of what we would all eat became the conversation.

I was obsessed.

And then we would get to the restaurant and all we would talk about is the food.

Now?

I don't really care where I go out to eat.

I usually don't look at the online menu before I leave the house.

I walk into most restaurants never knowing what will be on the menu:  I did this five times this week at five different restaurants.

But I do know that there will usually be a food option that I can choose.

So now it's your turn, how do you handle eating out at restaurants?

A Secret To My Success

I don't think that I did anything special or particularly unique to lose 115+ lbs in 14 months.

What I do to maintain my 115+ lbs weight loss is not really too complicated.

But a secret to my success has just been pointed out to me.

My coworker said to me this morning:

"You're CONSISTENT."

Sometimes I need the people around me to state the obvious to me.

I need a big ol' hit over the head occasionally to make me realize something.

And here's today's not-so-obvious-to-me learning lesson that I needed to learn.

My light bulb moment.

Examples of my consistency were rambled off to me this morning by this same coworker. I guess that I have never really thought about it before:

• She sees me workout almost every day - at the same time - Can you believe that I've been doing the Jillian Michael's 30 Day Shred DVD for almost a year now?
• She sees me eating my vitamins at my desk each morning
• She sees me drinking my water and refilling it at the water cooler - a lot.
• She sees me eating small-portion, sensible food choices
• She never sees me lurking near the office snacks, donuts, muffins, candy dishes, etc.

These are all habits that I had to LEARN. 

Did it take me years to learn some of these habits? Absolutely.

And let me tell ya, there was no magic button where all of these habits were all of a sudden easy for me.

It.

Took.

Time.

And does my Lap-Band help me with all of these daily habits?

No.

Not really.

It's pretty much me.

And only me.

My Lap-Band does NOT send me a psychic signal telling me to "Go drink water."

My Lap-Band does NOT send me a text message that says, "Go exercise."

And my Lap-Band certainly does NOT send me any emails that tell me to what to eat. I've never heard my Lap-Band say, "Eat that shrimp salad, not that delicious Fettuccine Alfredo and Garlic Bread"


It is...

Up. 

To. 

Me.

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.