Back to Colorado!

Hi all,
I had a really great trip back home to Texas… I ended up swimming 4 days out of the 6 I was there which is much better than I have been doing in previous weeks. I worked up to 45 minutes and plan on moving up to 55 min next week. I was even able to swim a full lap of butterfly which my Dad got on video :) (YES, even big girls can butterfly!!)

I am also really proud of myself and the food choices I made while in Texas… although I was NOT planning on eating out again with my Uncle and cousin, I did end up eating at the restaurant because I was a dummy and did not pack myself enough food for the day. BUT I choose a light choice option which was under 600 calories (and delicious!) and did not even finish it all… grilled chicken with some pasta. I still ended up being at around 1200 calories for the day which is awesome. I did end up getting some tex mex (which is a must for me when I am at home at some point) but only ate one taco and was totally satisfied (sans lap band I could easily kill 4 and queso and margaritas etc…). I have been abstaining from alcohol for now because it is just empty, unnecessary calories. Not to say this will be forever, but for the time being I feel it is necessary to get back on track. I weighed myself in TX last monday and had lost 4.5 pounds since my fill which made me really happy. I will weigh myself again tuesday morning.

I got back to Colorado on thursday night, and then my fiancé's aunt and uncle arrived from Plano, TX to visit for the weekend. We got a cabin up in estes park and have been having a total blast. Today we took them to Rocky Mountain National Park and did the Alberta Falls hike and some other little stuff that added up to about 2 miles total. Gorgeous hike and great workout!

Alberta Falls hike

We barbecued last night and made bison burgers (totally delicious and very lean) so I did that without the bun and some grilled corn on the cob. I really am feeling better every day I make good food choices and look forward to weighing myself again on tuesday to see the results. I hope you all are having a great weekend!

Warmly
Caroline

Back to Solids… Woohoo!

I flew home to Texas yesterday to visit my family and been having a great trip so far. I swam laps with my Dad and the pool was perfect temp (I usually visit later in the summer when the pool is way too hot). I swam for 40 minutes and completed my swim with a 3/4 lap of butterfly! Felt great and it was really nice to have company… My Dad swam with me even though he had already cycled 100 miles that day LOL no big deal :) I have been on liquids and then semi-solids the last 3 days since I had my fill on Thursday and was eager to get back to solids today. My first solid meal was at a great BBQ place my Uncle took me to today called Hard 8 BBQ. I had probably the best beef brisket I have ever had and it was neat because at this place you choose how much of everything you want, so I was able to get just about a fistfull of chopped brisket with no bun. Perfectly delicious and perfect portion. I ate it with no problem (chewing more than usual to be careful since first day back to solids) and felt full and sated afterwards.

Here is some delicious TX BBQ food porn for y'all :)

I know that I said I was not going to go out to eat often while I am here, so I think this will probably be the first/last/only time I eat out here. I am meeting my Uncle again tomorrow so I can see my little cousin and it is around dinner time so we are meeting at Macaroni Grill, but I am going to eat beforehand at my parents house and sit with them and enjoy some ice tea while they eat out. Of course I would rather eat out and I LOVE Italian food, but it is eating out so frequently that got me to where I needed the lap band in the first place. It's just not worth it in the end. Will power must conquer!! Still journaling again which is helping.

I am going to swim again with my Dad this afternoon and will up my swim to 45 minutes today. I hope you all have a great day and happy father's day to all the Dad's out there.

Warmly
Caroline

Starting from Scratch

It is amazing what a difference 2 and a half cc of saline makes in a lap band… Now that I am filled back up I am on liquids/soft foods until sat night, but I can already feel a huge difference in my band. I have been drinking GNC leanshakes (which are INCREDIBLE for those who have lap band because they have only 170 calories and 25 grams of whey protein) and I made some matzo ball soup last night. When I make matzo ball soup I typically have at least 3-4 matzo balls, but today as I jumped up for another serving after eating 2 small ones, I was already full. I can't tell you how great that feels after being able to eat so much for so long because my band was not tight!

 I started writing in my journal again too. In my journal, I log what I eat, how many grams of protein and calories in the food, how much liquid I drink, exercise for the day, vitamin supplements, calcium, and my overall feelings for the day. This journal is what held me super accountable for two months after surgery, and I am going to use it everyday again. I have not been great about taking vitamins and calcium supplements over the past few months, so I am going to stop at GNC and grab some later today because I have been out for quite some time. Another short term goal is to stop drinking liquid while I eat which is a horrible habit.

I am going to visit my parents in Texas for a week tomorrow and it will be a little rough with this new fill. My favorite food in the whole world is tex-mex and when I go home to Texas, I usually eat out multiple times visiting various friends and family. I need to limit the amount of times I go out to eat next week, as well as realize that I need to be VERY careful and limit the amount of food I now put in my body. It really is like starting over… I have to train my body to live with lap band again. As I mentioned yesterday though, I am excited to swim laps with my Dad. For those of you who do not know, my Dad is an avid cyclist and triathlete and in excellent shape. He (and my mother who is less athletic, but very healthy/slim/watchful of what she puts in her body) are excellent influences on me when I am at home and have always been very encouraging of my weight loss journey (through good times and bad). I hope you all have a nice start to your weekend!

Warmly
Caroline

I'm BACK! Let's catch up and get real for a minute...

Hi friends, family, loved ones, and kind people on blogger.. *sigh* I am SO sorry I left for a while. To be honest, I was not progressing with my lap band and felt like I was a failure. It was hard to swallow and even more hard to want to post that I had no news and was not losing any more weight :( Why you ask? Life can get in the way… Here is a brief catch up and then we will move on to lap band talk:

I am still in graduate school for clinical mental health counseling and I LOVE LOVE LOVE IT. I am proud to announce that I have maintained a 4.0 GPA for my entire time there thus far (a year and a half) and am an officer (one appointed to appoint new members and plan social events) in Chi Sigma Iota-Beta Alpha Omega Chapter (the internationally recognized counseling honor society). I am halfway through the program and will graduate in December 2015 and become a clinical licensed psychotherapist.

(Picture is of this past semester's grades woot woot)

I got engaged to the love of my life, Stephen Scott (who I have been with for almost 9 years now) in November and could not be happier :) We are planning on getting married September of 2015 and have started looking at wedding venues recently which is exciting.

I moved to Denver in January of this year because I was tired of commuting so far to school, and had to leave both families I was nannying for in Longmont… I miss both kiddos a lot but make it a point to keep in touch as well as visit. I currently nanny for an adorable 9 month old baby here in the Denver area part time.

OK… Now that we are caught up, lets talk about my lap band situation. Today I had my first lap band appointment/fill in almost A YEAR AND HALF. Whoops. The reasoning for this was rather stupid on my part, but now I know better. I did not go back to my doctor for so long because the last time I saw him he made me feel really bad about my progress with my band… he had said I was his poster child for so long and then because I plateauted, he said he was disappointed in me and felt like I could have lost a lot more by that time. This utterly crushed me for many reasons, especially since he was chastising me for the VERY REASON I got lap band in the first place. I knew my lap band was not working because I slowly was able to eat more and more, but kept convincing myself that I could get back on track on my own before going back so he wouldn't make me feel like crap again.

Anyway, that was certainly a mistake, because today when I went in he discovered that almost 2.5 cc of saline had evaporated and therefore my band had not been working properly for a long time now. I have unfortunately put on a little over 20 pounds which is a major bummer, however I am trying to be positive about this whole situation and realize that if I had NOT had lap band, I probably would have been up by a whole lot more than 20 pounds. My doctor was actually very nice today and did not make me feel bad at all. We had a long talk and while we are both pretty confident that now my band has been filled I can get back on track, he gave me another option which is interesting. He said that a lot of patients who only have semi-success while lap band do much better with the gastric sleeve. Apparently, medicaid (which I am now on because I turned 26 and could no longer stay on my parent's insurance) will cover the switch from the band to the sleeve as long as I attend nutritional classes for 6 months (like I did with lap band). While this is definitely a worst case scenario, I am going to start attending the nutritional classes once a month while I work on getting my weight loss back on track now that my band has been filled. Hopefully I won't need that option, but if I decide after a few months this still is not working it is a really good option to have.

Another issue that was hindering my progress recently was my lack of medication. As I mentioned above, I had to switch from my parent's insurance to medicaid because I turned 26 and it has been a total pain in the ass. The medicaid office had my address wrong so they needed documents from me which I never sent (because I did not receive mail from them) and so I just finally actually got actively covered from medicaid about 2 weeks ago. I have hypersomnia (excessive daytime sleepiness) that developed when I first became obese, and I have been taking 54mg of concerta since 2010 which is typically prescribed to patients with ADD, but is prescribed to me to regulate my sleep and allow me to wake up at a normal hour and go to bed at a normal hour without feeling like I need to nap all day long. I have not had the meds for almost 2 months, so wanting to exercise or being motivated to do so was difficult because all I have wanted to do was nap in my free time. I got the meds again as of last week however so things are back to normal.

I have been swimming a lot and adding time each time I swim. I started at laps for 30 min a week and a half ago and have progressed to 40 min. I love swimming, especially outside in summer, and look forward to swimming with my Dad when I go home to TX to visit my parents in a few days. While I am super hopeful I will get back on track now that roadblocks have been removed, there is one element that I need to address ASAP to truly be successful: my food addiction. It is a sucky thing to admit, but I am literally addicted to food and use it to cope with stress. With my busy schedule, I have not been making time to cook for myself and make good food choices (often eating on the go wherever I can and waiting until I am super hungry and end up eating fast food). As my nutritionist told me today, I KNOW what I need to do… I have had multiple nutritional classes and advice and was an athlete for years, it is a matter of mentally overcoming the urge to make poor choices and setting myself up for failure. Having said that, I plan on seeking out a therapist who specializes in food related issues/disorders to help me conquer the mental part of this.

My band feels tight again and I am determined to get back on track, and I think posting here regularly again will help me a lot. I am also going to begin journaling my food everyday again. I am on a liquid diet for the next few days due to the adjustment but just bought a new flavor of lean shakes from GNC (banana cream) so I don't feel too deprived :) I am once again so sorry for disappearing for so long, but I am a great example of how life is a tango… sometimes we back peddle a bit and that is OK… it is all about the journey and I am ready to get back in the saddle again. I hope you all are well and I look forward to speaking with you all more often again.

Warmly
Caroline