Feeling better after adding new foods.

I went to my facebook bariatric group and asked about my concerns about my eating being too focused on just protein and water. I was given some good suggestions and after going shopping and buying foods that are good for me, I am feeling much better:

Clearer in mind, less angry, less feeling like being cheated out of life. Calmer. And I dropped 4 pounds over the weekend, which was totally unexpected.

I even had a poo that was normal with no bleeding. Praise the Lord!

I swam today for 20 minutes at a good hard clip, swimming freestyle laps and plan a walk for later. I am going to walk 20 minutes, rather than the 45 minute death march that I had been doing.

I had been so worried that I would mess up my progress that I had forgotten that the main success of the sleeve is that even though we still eat, we eat much less. So I was able to eat a bit of cereal with some unsweetened cashew milk and a sprinkle of stevia and be ok.

I was able to have a Fiber one brownie and be ok.

I think that this increased fiber is why I had a decent experience in the bathroom without bleeding. 

The DIE in DIEt.

Today I am feeling low. My energy is low, I am tired of eating protein. I want candy. I want to shove carbs into my face or at least go out and buy a lot of stuff. Shopping or eating. Either one would do.

And I have the butt bleeds again. I have one persistent hemorrhoid and whenever I eat too much of something (I have not identified it), probably protein, I get a bad case of the butt bleeds. Then it's back to wiping with Tucks and swabbing the deck with Preparation H.

I do have a GI doctor, so it's ok, I have had it checked out, it's an external little bleeder that he says not to provoke by getting constipated.  Will 80 grams of protein constipate you?

Oh yes.

It's the weekend, which is not, to me, the joy that it is to you worker bees. Weekends mean that everyone is here and my stress is through the roof. I had to drive my son into the city to work and pick him up and it is in the twenties here. I am cold, tired and hungry.

I am also tired and forcing myself these past 4 days to use the CPAP even though it's a misery for me. I have another sleep titration set up for mid-April. I am hoping to get through this readjustment without having to keep that appointment.

I feel like I am dying. My hunger is back with a vengeance.  I want a solid food that is not protein. I know what God meant in the bible which talks about when the children of Israel were in the wilderness and they didn't want the Manna from heaven, they wanted meat:

^{Psalm 106: 
7} Our fathers understood not thy wonders in Egypt; they remembered not the multitude of thy mercies; but provoked him at the sea, even at the Red sea.
⁸ Nevertheless he saved them for his name's sake, that he might make his mighty power to be known.
⁹ He rebuked the Red sea also, and it was dried up: so he led them through the depths, as through the wilderness.
¹⁰ And he saved them from the hand of him that hated them, and redeemed them from the hand of the enemy.
¹¹ And the waters covered their enemies: there was not one of them left.
¹² Then believed they his words; they sang his praise.
¹³ They soon forgat his works; they waited not for his counsel:
¹⁴ But lusted exceedingly in the wilderness, and tempted God in the desert.
¹⁵ And he gave them their request; but sent leanness into their soul.

I think they had the butt bleeds. God sent them Quail to eat. I would gladly take the Manna and not grumble.

My eating is out of balance. I need to get some balance. I need to bring some foods other than protein into my diet. Now.

 

Getting off of Coffee

Today is the fifth day that I have not had any coffee. It has been a long weaning process. I used to drink it black and I would usually eat vanilla oreo cookies with it. Or toast with butter. Sometimes eight cookies or four slices of toast.

I wanted to stop the coffee because every time that I didn't have coffee in the morning, I would get a massive headache and since I know that I won't be drinking coffee immediately pre-op, I am stopping to coffee to avoid adding a headache to my list of post op issues.

Here is the funny thing: My carb cravings for bread and cookies has dramatically reduced!

That was unexpected!

I guess it's because eating cookies and toast was so tied to drinking a cup of coffee. Man. I am really happy about that.

I had a headache for three days. Now I am not even thinking about having a cup of coffee.

Here is how I weaned off of it:

1. I went from three cups of full strength coffee to one cup full strength and two cups of Green Mountain Half Caff
2. Then I went to all Half Caff.
3. Then I reduced to one cup of Half Caff and two cups of decaf.
4. Then I would use my kuerig on the small setting to fill a large cup half way. I would dump out a little of the half caff, I would then top off with a small setting of decaf, creating 1/4 caff.
5. A week after that I went to decaf for a week
6. I weaned back to one cup of decaf.
7. This Monday I had my last cup of coffee.

So this has really worked for me. It's like titrating off of medicine.

UPDATE From the Post Op Me: I ended up going back onto coffee full bore pre-op. I was afraid it would screw me up post op, but maybe it was the morphine or something...I have had no headaches and no withdrawals and it is nearly three weeks post op and I have not had any coffee. Why bother? I can't drink with meals anymore anyway. 

Food Holidays

Who benefits from these massive binge holidays? From Halloween candy to Easter Bunnies. From getting drunk at St. Patrick's Day to stuffing yourself like the Christmas Goose?

The marketers and the stores get the benefit.

Every month there is another holiday. Throw in birthday parties and anniversaries and you have a lot of days which are only "normal" if they are highly caloric.

I want to stop this cycle. What prompted me?

I was in the card store buying some thank you cards for after Christmas and I saw a whole rack of Happy New Year cards.

Huh?

Isn't that covered on our Christmas cards? Maybe they are for people who don't celebrate Christmas. But more than likely someone just said, 'hey, what OTHER days can we sell people cards on?"

It's like that with food and drink holidays.

When do they put out the candy for Halloween? They do it well before Labor Day. That is so that you will buy early, eat it all before Halloween and then have to buy it again.

Now, I could say that I want 2015 to be the year of no-food holidays, but I am dragging the family with me and that is going to be an uphill battle. But I can decide that instead of a quarter sheet cake for each family birthday, to buy a little 6 inch round cake. Or better yet,  make a cake. That way NO ONE would touch it.

And you know, most of these holidays really irk me. Santa and the Easter Bunny usurp Christ's place in His own days of recognition. I hate making Easter baskets. Yeah, you can turn it around to put some sort of religious slant onto it, but it's still a holiday that has nothing to do with Christ.

More toast. Because carbs are so good for us, right?

Ah. Way off track here. What I wanted to say is that I am  buying a two slice toaster today. Why? Because I don't want to eat four slices of toast every time I decide I want toast.

Yeah, I could put in two pieces, but those two empty slots taunt me. I always grab four pieces of bread. With a two-seater, I would be forced to choose between quelling my impatience to wait for the toaster to brown two more slices and my hunger to eat the toast that is ready and waiting for me.

My actual arms. Yes, I am proud of my guns!

I am not going to obsess about the once a month food holidays and concentrate, instead, on the daily small things that I can do to make my food intake better. Like eating less bread with butter.

The bread is just a vehicle for more butter.

Baby steps.

Hey, it's only 356 days until Christmas!

Shoot me now.

Post Christmas Blues

I have issues with Christmas. I don't much like the buildup, the finances just terrify me and the kids are off for three weeks. Then there is the fact that our house is tiny and the tree consumes the living room.

So today I evicted the tree.

I have two or three decorations still up on the walls, but the rest is gone. Now I just wish I could get back on track with my swimming and my eating.

I pretty much carbed out this morning on buttered toast, vanilla oreos and coffee. I am having this really rebellious feeling that I just want to EAT.

I feel that my surgery date is too far away, my final weighin is about the only thing that is holding me back from majorly strapping on the feed bag.

I'm stressed and depressed.

I am trying really hard to stay steady here. I am going to go get my ass into the pool, peeps.

UPDATE: I am down another pound to 262.5!!

Holy cow! I think that makes a huge difference in my mindset. I totally have got this!

12 Weeks to VSG

I think the last time that I counted weeks toward surgery I was at eighteen weeks away. Last week I was surprise to find myself at thirteen weeks.

And I stepped on the scale this afternoon and I am up two more pounds. Gosh, I am having a terrible time with this. 274 pounds today.

I can say that, other than when I was on prescription diet pills, this is the longest that I have ever lasted journalling every day. 97 days so far on My Fitness Pal. But I am so hungry all the time.

I can't imagine making it another DAY, let alone another WEEK, let alone TWELVE weeks.

Help!

I am going to jump over to Superherofitnesstv on youtube and do her kick ass chair workout. That should help me feel better.

UPDATE: DID it and don't I feel better already? Team LaShae!

By the way, I am newly in love with Hot Mess Princess! Check out her blog!

Weekends and Holidays are the Hardest. And some good news.

I am still in the five month pre-op diet phase with about 12 and a half weeks to go until my surgery date in February. Daily, I log my foods and exercise on My Fitness Pal (username:imawaterbender) and I also keep a written log to turn into the Lifestyle Classes at Magee Women's Hospital monthly.

The week days I have a set routine:

Get up
Get the kids off to school
Go swimming (the pool is usually empty)
Eat breakfast
Clean stuff/laundry
Eat lunch
Go out for a while, oil paint, do some exercise - basically ME time
Get the kids to do their homework after school
Make dinner
Listen to my husband's diatribe about how work went (usually an hour or so)
Eat
Get ready for bed.

On the weekends and when the kids are off for these long holidays, everything is mish-mashed. I don't really like to take my kids swimming with me, but I can't leave Charlie and Rachel at home and there is no sitter.

When kids are in the pool, they keep coming into my lane when I am swimming laps. There are no lane ropes and it's irritating. That means that I either don't swim or I swim when hotel guests tend to be in the pool and they irritate me, too. Same reason, no respect for a swimming doing laps.

 

Disclaimer: Not my actual kid.

Everyone makes such a mess that it's harder to keep things decent. And by decent, I mean, my house is usually not that tidy and they make it look like a tornado hit. Then, when I go to clean things up, it's disheartening to see that nothing lasts. I sweep the floor and minutes later there are chewed up paper towels and paper from the dog getting stuff that the kids have dropped.

I just get pissed off. That makes me want to eat junk. Plus they all eat junk. Don't say get the junk out of the house, because I have done that and my husband just buys more. It's like they love throwing it in my face.

So I usually end up breaking down and eating crap.

Yeah, Not me, either.

Yesterday I nuked taquitos from a box. I had no idea how caloric they were. They are so SMALL! I was still hungry, so I had more. When I journalled them I had to do a double-take. I ate 880 calories of them before I had journalled them, putting me over 1800 calories for the day. I decided that I was done eating for the day, problem was, it was just 1:00 PM.

I told myself that if I needed to eat, it had to be green beans because they are low in calories.

That was hard because I had promised them that we could go see a movie. We went and I only had water, but I was ticked off. Mad at myself for eating that crap and made at them because NONE  of them are having to be constantly on a diet like I am. I went to bed early to keep from eating at night.

God I hate struggling. But I guess I am learning. No more taquitos for me and have on hand foods that are good for me AND satisfying.

But let me end this on a positive. I went coat shopping on Friday and was looking at the 3X coats, wondering if I would fit into one. The last coat I bought was 5X. For some reason I tried on a 2X and it fit really well. I looked down the aisle and was astonished at how many more options I before me, because I fit that size. There were so many more 2X than 3X.

But realistically, just shopping at a store that sells regular sized clothes is a novelty for me. I had been ordering all of my clothes online. This opens up a whole new world to me. And it's just the beginning.

I do feel upset and jealous that others in my circle of life don't feel that they need to control what they eat. They don't have diverticulitis and can eat nuts, seeds, pecan pie and they don't care. Their waists enlarge and it doesn't seem to bother them. I fight it and they mock me with their food.

I am not fucking giving up. 

Vaccinating with Carbs

Last night I had to go pick up dog food at the store, I was grumpy and cranky from having said NO to myself too many times. I was really hungry.

As I was shopping, I felt like buying the whole store, but I kept reminding myself that I have food at home. I even felt like going out for take out fast food just so that I could eat it in the car.

Why?

Well, when I am deprived, I tend to want to eat alone so that no one will see me, this is guilt and it is a sense of having to "succeed" in front of people, but to eat on my own alone.

I went home and had a decent meal. This morning I had a good breakfast.

When I get into "the zone" of dieting, when I am eating way too little for my body, I get nuts and rebound. I need to remind myself to be moderate.

This is so important. Moderation. I can have the bread.I just need to stop before I eat eight pieces. Carbs are not the devil if taken in moderation.

I think that eating some carbs is like vaccinating. You get some of what can kill you, but it's a little bit, rather than the full virus.

Remember that carbs are the only food your brain eats.

Finishing Breakfast

Today Charlie, my 14 year old son who has autism, was sick with strep throat. This comes on the heels of our 10 year old getting Scarlet Fever. Same bug. Group A Strep.

After running around to get his doctor to prescribe some antibiotics (it would be nearly worth going to medical school just to be able to get meds when needed), I stopped at McDonalds to get some food. I was starving and again -- I did not bring food with me.

I need to make a point to do this EVERY day.

Anyway, I ordered the mcmuffin with egg only, but at the last second ordered a side of hotcakes -- 600 calories of hot cakes.

After eating the sandwich in the car, I was more able to deal with the pancakes in a more logical manner. There were three hot cakes. I ate one and I was prepping the other two to be devoured, when my hand grabbed the salt container and went a little nuts:

Hotcakes Rendered Inert!

I do this from time to time, when my hunger very nearly exceeds my capacity for rational thought. I just do what I call "rendering food intert".

It works. And for the record, the one pancake that I ate was horribly tasteless, but I still might have eaten the others anyway, I was that hungry.