I'm not on a diet.....

When people who are having weight loss surgery ask me if I tell people I had surgery, I tell them YES!  For one, I can't lie.  I don't know how and I am really not good at it.  My father said I could never be a politician and that is so true.  I am a very honest, too honest person who believes that nothing good comes from a lie.  And.....I am a very confident girl.  Even when I was at my heaviest,  I was confident in who I was.  I knew that being overweight meant nothing in regard to the person I really am. I am really pretty fabulous.  See, I cannot tell a lie! 

In all seriousness I say all this because it comes with a warning.  IF you are going to be open about your surgery, then you need to be prepared for people to say things that are a bit annoying.  Sometimes hurt your feelings. You just need to go ahead and put on your Big Girl Panties (smaller ones for sure) and paint yourself with confidence. 

1.  People ask me all the time about my "diet" or say "I can't believe you can eat that, is it on your diet".  Ummmmmm.....I didn't have WLS surgery to be on a diet. Clearly if I could lose the weight and be healthy on a diet, then that would have worked for me 1000 times before.  For ME, I had weight loss surgery to basically force myself to live healthier.  So, I am NOT on a diet.  I just eat healthier, live healthier and will live longer and better because of it.  In my personal opinion, if you go into this new lifestyle thinking you will be on a diet the rest of your life then you are almost setting yourself up for frustration and failure.  I took the perspective that I wanted to live the MAJORITY of my life healthy but that I was still going to enjoy life, have fun and not obsess about being on a "diet".  Dr. Rod (my surgeon for my Gastric sleeve) told me, "If you want a hamburger, eat a hamburger".  "You will not eat the whole thing anyway".  "Just don't eat one all the time".  So.....if I want a burger, I have one.  However, I haven't wanted one yet.  I can really eat whatever I want to now though.  Anything!  So, my goal (lifelong) is to make the mass majority of my intake healthy and workout when I can.  That way when I do want to enjoy something special, it really isn't a big deal. 

2.  People will see me and say, "Oh my gosh, you look great, what is your secret or what did you do to lose so much weight"?  As soon as I confidently say "weight loss surgery" they say "oooohhhhhhhhh".  Like a disappointed "oooohhhhhh".  So I say to myself, "oh well".  If anyone wants to ask me intelligent questions, I love to answer and educate and inspire others about surgery.  However,  it seems the MOST overweight, unhealthy people feel the need to "try" to educate me on the dangers of WLS, risk of gaining weight back, say you should just eat right and exercise... blah blah BLAH.  I need a ballcap I wear that says, "Research Nerd" so they understand the FACT that I am not an idiot who just thought I'd run by the surgeons office one day and have 80% of my stomach removed and I may have done just a few minutes (A YEAR to be exact) of research on all my weight loss surgery options.  Again, you must be confident and tough.  And just FYI for anyone reading this who doesn't know, sadly WLS does not make you lose weight.  It is simply a tool to help with the process.  I am over the top dedicated, committed and obsessed with being a healthy person now.  I have to make choices everyday to eat right, exercise and live better.  Or I can choose not to.  Ohhhhhhhhhhhh......yup!!

3.  People will still say things like "you are so pretty or you are such a great girl, I hate that you think you needed to do this" or "you would have found someone to love you".  Yall, that isn't flattering or supportive.  Just go ahead and jot that down in the "Things Not to Say to People" notebook.  It can go next to "are you pregnant (but you are not)" or "cute little boy (but it is a girl)" comments.  Oh and the "I can really tell you have lost weight in your FACE" doesn't work either. 

I'm not bitching.....def don't want to come across that way.  Just making light of the reality of what you may face post-op if you choose to share with the world.  My family and close friends would tell you that they wouldn't expect anything less from me than to tell everyone I had surgery and tell about about it on this blog.  I am open, honest, about as REAL as it comes and.....did I mention I am pretty fabulous???

Check out my pantry.....

Here are some of my new FAVS in the pantry and fridge......

I LOVE the sugar free flavored syrups. I have only used the Vanilla, Caramel and Hazelnut up until I ordered these 6 sweet babies last week.  Arrived today and yes......I opened each one and stuck my finger in (they are MINE thank you) and tasted each syrup.  Soooooo yummy!!  There is so much you can do with these.  I recently mixed the SF caramel syrup in some greek yogurt with some cinnamon and Splenda.  Was a delicious "caramel apple dip".  I cannot wait to make yummies with these new flavors.  I ordered these directly from the Torani website.  In case you didn't know, you can buy the big sugar free bottles of syrup from Starbucks as well.  They usually only have SF vanilla and caramel to sell but for about $7 including the pump, not a bad deal. 

If you do not already LOVE and follow Eggface, you need to!!  She is the BEST post-op bariatric lady out there in my opinion. She uses SF Torani all the time and was my inspiration for buying the new flavors. 

My other new fav find are these fabulous protein packed lentils!  I have been wanting to add Lentils to my diet.  Sooooo yummy and a big PUNCH of lean protein for your diet.  The idea of cooking dried beans kept me far away from trying this since I am short on time on week nites.  I found this "Melissa's Lentils" at Walmart in the produce section.  Delish, already cooked and just need to be warmed to eat.  Fabulosity yall!!

Since one of my besties is a vegetarian I decided to make my first Lentil meal for us on Sunday.  I made Easy Lentil Feta Wraps. (Click for recipe). Was like a Medeterrian Burrito.  High protein, low carb and delish.  I used the Low carb wraps and regular onion instead of shallots.  My veggie bestie LOVED them.  I let him take home the leftovers and I made some more tonight.  I just warmed up the lentils tonight and put fresh red onion on top instead of cooking the onion.  Was just as good.  Sooooooo excited about this Lentil find. 

Ironically, Eggface posted Lentil burgers on her page this week.  Will have to try those. 

Here is my lunch box for the week (we had a short week at school since Monday was a holiday).  All of this usually lasts me about 3 days.  I make these on Sunday and take to work for my fridge there.  I will eat something off the salad bar or the hot bar if it is on my "healthy" list. 

This week I made a BLT lettuce wrap.  Large lettuce leaves, bacon and diced tomato.  You can add a little lite mayo to the tomatos if needed but I didn't this week.  Also fresh strawberries with Splenda.  Pic 2 has fresh blueberries, cottage cheese, hummus and veggie stix.  Yummo!!

 

Exactly 20 days ago......

You ever have those moments or memories in life where you know exactly what you were doing when something happened?  Like I remember every single moment of my day on 9/11/01. Can tell you the reaction of a co-worker who's husband was a pilot, the weather outside that day and the dead calm that came across my city that evening.  Well, I can tell you exactly what happened to make me not blog about ME for the past 20 days.  Exactly 20 days ago.......

I thought it would be a grand idea, and it really was, to take the offer to teach a college course this semester.  This is on top of teaching young children with severe disabilities all day, finishing my PhD this semester and taking care of ME.  This is really a great opportunity for me since I haven't taught college in a few years but ......I am seriously slammed. The course is online but wasn't set up online and I wasn't able to get online to get it set up until AFTER the class started.  Uggghhhh!  Super busy and I have managed to keep all this upper respiratory crud like the rest of the world has right now.  Cough cough cough sniffle snort! Been a busy 20 days!! I have so much to show and share and post and tell. 

Good news is I am still maintaining all the weight I lost.  65 pounds (give or take a few at times).  7.5 months post op. Amazing to me since I have been sick (not eating at all or eating lots of crackers) and so super busy and not working out as much as I want to be.  I am eating healthy but I have NOT been tracking/monitoring my protein intake like I promised I would.  Just moved the Calorie Counter app to the first page on the phone.  Bad news....I have not been able to workout like I want to.  Maintenence is great.  Weight loss is better but maintence is fine by me too.  

I think I am totally fine because......

1. I started my journey pushing a size 20/XXL/1x in pants and wearing xl/xxl/1x in tops.  I had really cute big girl clothes by the way!  I have posted many times on here about my love loss of my cute big girl clothes.  However,  I had to buy size 14 MISSES jeans last week.  Not only do they fit but they are little loose.  Rock on!  I am wearing a medium/large in tops.  Really pushing hard into the mediums.  Rock on rockstar!!

Just a side note about brands.  If you want to feel good about your weightloss there are stores who have clothes that will ensure you feel like Fatty McFattie forever.  Target!!  I love Target and can now wear all their Junior size clothing as well as normal sizes in the misses but let me tell you that Target clothes have and will forever run small.  So don't start there.  Important to note ladies!  Love me some Target though!!

2. Last week I met one of my best friends for dinner.  When we walked in, some former interns from my school were sitting at the table next to us.  I haven't seen some of them since last semester.  I said HI and they didn't respond.  There were some glances between us all throughout the nite but never a conversation.  I just figured they didn't remember me.  NO....NO NO NO....they didn't recognize me because I had lost so much weight!  They messaged me later that nite and asked if that was me at the restaurant and I was like Oh YES, Yes it was little old me!  This is the third time someone hasn't recognized me.  Best day!

3.  I bought new bathing suits.  Real misses sized bathing suits.  Size 14 thank you.  I have been wearing an XL MATERNITY tankini for 3 years.  An ugly black A-line top that I had CUT around the bottom so it wasn't so big.  My new suits are so stinkin cute.  Still a tankini but I am 41 years old.  I bought one pair of bottoms (looks like shorts) and 2 different tops.  Can't wait to wear a cute suit this spring and summer.  Heck, I may even bathe in it at this point because it is so cute and small and fun!

Friends who follow, my point here is to not get hung up on that scale.  I have done it so many times.  I weigh daily and do make a "gggrrrrr" sound as a step off of it....almost daily.  Then I see my cute little 14 jeans and sassy little short dresses and I change my gggrrrrrrrr to a ppppuuurrrrrrrr!! 

On the mend.....

Today I feel soooooo much better.  Yesterday I just thought I did.  The steroid shot I got at the doc on Tuesday was still kicking for about 20 hours straight and I thought I was superman.  Then......it wore off.  So I crashed hard yesterday but much better today and itching to work out....hard.  But per doc orders I will wait.....just not as long as the doc said.  I will wait until Monday to go back to bootcamp.  Will do some Kettle Bell this weekend if I am still feeling fine. 

I cannot wait to use all my new exercise stuff.  My pink boxing gloves have arrived,  the new kettlebell workout DVD and.....I bought 2 new Zumba workouts for my Wii.  Zumba 2 and Zumba Core.  Have the jumrope to master. So no excuses anywhere. 

I am soooooo stinkin bored being at home right now.  I feel like I need to stay in the house (and I really do) so I did.  I am bored!! Blah!!

Happy "Flu" Year

I have the flu.  Not the way I wanted to start my new year.  Especially because I was so excited to start my new year-post holiday season working even harder at bootcamp, getting new recipes cooked, and just a new better me that was better than yesterday.  But I am on detour for a few days.

Fortunately, I don't really have an appetite.  Usually when I am sick I want heavy comfort food with a lot of carbs. Either the new me doesn't crave those things anymore or I am just not that hungry.  I am craving Sour Patch Kids and that is my confession.  Other than that I am on a lite apple juice, unsweet tea and chicken soup (no noodle) diet.  Sour Patch Kids cure anything AND....they were in my bag for the roadtrip to Miami to go to the National Championship game this weekend that I am no longer going to.  I think I am eating them out of pure sadness of missing this big game. But, do not need to miss that much work and have to prioritize.  I am off the rest of this week in Quarantine and we have been off for Christmas break for almost 3 weeks.  So, I need to be at work.  

This is off the subject but related because I am concerned.  Even though I have the flu I also have a bad sinus/upper respiratory infection.  The doc today gave me a steroid shot, a new stronger antibiotic than what the doc called in yesterday (because I thought I only had sinus crud) and Tamiflu of course.  The pharmacist told me today that I cannot workout/exercise for about 2 weeks after coming off of the antibiotic because it can cause kidney failure. Levaquin.  I was like WHAT?  Not even stressed about the kidney failure....I'm stressed about not being able to work out.  I have evoloved.  Maybe too much! I'll have to research this.  I need my bootcamp badly!!