Friday, May 28, 2010

BYOC and sheer disgust!

1. If you could be a flower, which one would it be and why?


I would say a hibiscus because they are full of color and life and super tropical looking, which is where I would like to live...somewhere tropical!
 
2. Which Sex and The City Character do you most relate to?
 
I guess Charlotte. I think Miranda is mean as hell and she gets on my nerves so it sure isn't her. Samantha sleeps around too much for my taste and Carrie seems like she never really knows what she wants in life. So that leaves Charlotte who is the more, put together of them all. (shrugs)
 
3. If you had a crystal ball or could know one thing about the future - what would it be?


I would want to know how man children I will have in my lifetime, if any.
 
4. What's your biggest fear in your weight loss journey?


That I will reach my goal and will not be happy with myself still. I am already starting to do the whole "Yeah I know I have gotten smaller but now I am flabbier" crap. Just replacing one problem with another. That and I am afraid that I will make goal and then bounce back to where I started within a year.
 
5. Repeat question: Whose blog or comment spoke to you the most this week and why?


Once again, I didn't get to read that many this week as I have been working on finishing blogs from start to finish but I did happen to see the post that Band Groupie posted with her in her new bathing suit. I thought that was brave showing us the parts of her that she hates the most (which honestly didn't look bad at all, IMO!) Way to go BG!
 
So I have been reading Southern Belle's blog all week trying to finish it (it's a looong one) haha. But so far so good. I am hoping to finish it today so I can start a new one. So I list her for #5 too! I have loved reading her Blog. She posts tons of good pictures!
 
Now on to my sheer disgust! Ok I have conducted this little experiment this week food wise. So on Tuesday for lunch,  I had a grilled shrimp baked potato with butter, cheese, sauteed mushrooms, and jalapenos. CARBS! I had no carbs at dinner though. In fact I didn't eat much at dinner at all. What happened? You guessed it! When I hopped on the scale the next morning I had gained .6lbs! Ok so then Wednesday I had NO CARBS....except for my oatmeal for breakfast and what happens??? Yup, I weighed the next morning and lost .6lbs!!! So I had bought this Palermo ultra thin crust supreme pizza with an all natural crust and ate like 3 small slices for lunch and then ate the other 3 slices for dinner (this pizza is barely medium sized, btw) and that's all I had all day besides my oatmeal for breakfast and guess what???? Yup, that's right! I weighed this morning and gained back the stupid .6lbs!!! WTF??? So it's proven, on the days I ate a good amount of carbs I gain and days that I don't I lose! That is crap! I love carbs, dang it! It's not fair! Carbs just stick to me! :***( poop what to do?
 
Ah well, have a super duper weekend everyone!

Oh I almost forgot to mention that I got Zumba in the mail yesterday at work and one of my friends from work and I looked at the basics to learn some of the moves and it looked very interesting. So when I got home I did the basics all the way through (took a whole HOUR!) and it busted my butt!!! I was pouring sweat at the end and was about to pass out. It wore me out so bad that I actually went to bed at like 7:30 last night when I usually stay awake until 11 or 12midnight. How out of shape am I???? Geesh!

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

3 Month Bandiversary

Yup, that's right! Today makes 3 months since I got banded. Wow, how time flies. When I think about this it is a bit depressing knowing that I have had the band for that long and have only lost 11 pounds with it (the other 13 was from the pre-op diet). I mean seriously, 11lbs in 3 months? That's only roughly .9lbs per week. That just seems crappy to me. I kind of let myself down a little during this period of time because I know that I could have done better than this. I gotta step up my game and bust my butt.

New mini goal:

#1 Get to 176lbs by my birthday (June 13th). That's 7lbs to lose in 18 days. I think that's totally doable if I work really hard! I chose 176 because that will mark my 30lbs loss!

Going to the gym again today...man...I can't wait until my Zumba comes in. I plan on doing that especially on days that I don't go to the gym and probably even on some days that I do go to the gym! :) Excited about that. Figured I'd throw out what I ate today just for the heck of it:

Morning Drink: Hot green tea with 1 splenda
B: Orange Cranberry Muffin oatmeal by Ocean Spray (yummy!!!)
1 bottle of water
L: hamburger patty chopped up and mixed with jalapenos, tomato, and some mayo/mustard. It's like a burger salad but I have not been eating lettuce (I am afeared...yeah I know I spelled it wrong on purpose!)
Also had a couple bites of broccoli and cheese sauce-I only ate half of my burger salad (good restriction)
2 bottles of water
Midday snack: the other 1/2 of my burger salad (only maybe 4 bites)
1 bottle of water with 1/2 packet of green tea peach mango Crystal Light in it.
Post gym snack: 4 jalapeno smokehouse almonds
Dinner: grilled chicken breast and yams (mmmm....)
Dessert: Jello Chocolate Mousse (if I feel like it)

for a grand total of : 863 calories

Not bad huh? That doesn't count what I will burn at the gym either so hopefully I will see at least a tiny loss on the scale in the morning! ;p

Monday, May 24, 2010

Weigh Day, Fish, and Zumba!

Hello all, it's Monday...yay, NOT! I don't have much time because I just now got the chance to do my post and I get off of work in a just a lil bit so I thought I would just drop in momentarily since it's weigh day and all!

So....I am down to 183lbs. I am kinda perterbed (spelling?) that I have only lost 2 lbs in the last week. I know any loss should be appreciated but damn! Seriously? It's like I will lose 3 or 4 lbs after a fill and then I stall there for a month! I know I have great restriction right now. I am hardly ever hungry so I try and only eat when I am REALLY hungry, like when my stomach starts growling and I can feel the hunger. I have been watching my calories and keeping it under 1200 at least and trying to watch my carb intake and keeping it under 70g a day (I read that that is the max number of carbs you should have a day if you're trying to lose weight). That's not so hard to do because it's just enough to satisfy my carb tooth. hehe But then the nurse told me at my last fill that I should cut out carbs completely to get past my plateaus and that the weight would melt off of me. It's hard to cut out EVERYTHING though. I am just dangling by the 170's and I am stuck as usual AGAIN!

Flounder: Some of you may remember a while back I said that I don't like fish but that I want to get myself used to eating it. Well, I finally tried grilled flounder for the first time at lunch today from a local seafood restaurant and it was.......DELICIOUS!!! I absolutely loved it! I can honestly say I liked it better than most meats I try like pork chops and stuff. I could only eat my 5 tiny bites of it and I saved the rest. Now that I have overcome my fear of fish I would like to try mahi mahi and tilapia, which I plan on doing the next time we go out to eat somewhere. :) YAY FOR ME!

Zumba: I keep seeing infomercials on Zumba and after seeing them and hearing the stories about it from all of you ladies I have decided to order the DVD set today. It looks like loads of fun and I love the claim that it can burn up to 1,000 per hour! What a workout huh? Can't wait to get it in and try it out. Maybe it can help kick my ass into the 170's!

Tata everyone!

Friday, May 21, 2010

BYOC Friday...woop woop

Let's get it started in here...woo hooo....

1. If you had 3 wishes what would they be and why?

First I would wish to be at my goal weight right now! Second, I would wish for a nice big house of our own. Third, I would wish to be able to eat whatever I want in abundant amounts and not gain any weight ever again! :) Haha, no j/k on that one. I would probably wish for lifelong health for myself and friends and family.

2. If you had all the money in the world and perfect circumstances - how many children would you have and what sex?

I would have 2 kids. One girl, one boy.

3. Have you ever faked it? (Because I need to laugh...feel free to skip this one if it's too personal.)


haha good one! Nope, I have never faked it. He always told me not to do that to him because it's cruel in his eyes. So I haven't and luckily I really don't need to (wink wink)
 
4. What movie character do you think you look like?



Well, I don't know about movie characters but sometimes I resemble Kelly Clarkson. haha!!!
 
5. Repeat question. Which blog or comment spoke to you or stuck with you this week and why?


This week I have been reading one blog at a time from beginning to end. So I will note which ones I have completed so far this week:
 
Joey  @Volume Control and LD Swims @ A Journey to Embrace. Both had some excellent posts that were very inspiring. Thanks ladies!
Comments: All the congrats I got for getting to an all time low on lbs so far! :) Thanks everyone!
 
Oh and here's a couple NSV's for the week. I bought 2 shirts from Wally World and they were both size smalls and they fit! Also, I bought a grey and blue pinstripe slacks like 3 years ago and they are size 10's. Well I couldn't fit in them when I bought them, not even close. The zipper and button is on the hip instead of in the front and I have tried them on several times and have never even been able to zip them. But I kept them just in case one day I decided to get off of my ass and lose weight. So I tried them on today and....they zipped and buttoned!!!! They are still a little too tight for my taste but soon they will be wearable! :) yay yay yay!
 
Have a good weekend everyone!

Wednesday, May 19, 2010

Some New Pics and a lil food porn again!



Hola everyone! Thanks to all of your congrats from my post from yesterday! ;) I am excited about the fill size this time. I think it might do wonders for me. I am on day 3 of liquids so tomorrow softies will begin. I think softies will be fine too because some of the soups I eat during this phase are aren't too thin and so far so good. Also!!!!!! The most exciting news of the day for me....I weighed this morning and OH MY GOSH! I am at 183.6lbs!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! aHhhhhhhhhhahahahaHHHHaaahhhh I am soooo excited. I just skipped right past 184 and into 183! I am hoping I can keep this trend up and not gain back these pounds like I did after the last fill. The 170's are right around the corner and I couldn't be more thrilled to hit that soon.We shall see!!!

I haven't posted pictures in while so:


Me at Joe's Crabshack on Mother's Day and sister Julie's bday. If you look closely you can see the little shark attached to my class. This mixed drink was called the Shark Bite and the little shark came with a shot of grenadine so when you pour it into the blue drink it looks like blood in ocean water! Get it??? Shark Bite??? hehe it was good but I gave most of it to my sister to save calories! :) hehe

My sister Lori and me at Joe's Crabshack. She is only 18! Everyone says she looks older than me but I am 5 years older than her!

This was taken last Saturday at a Hibatchi Japanese Restaurant. It was the first time any of us had been to the Hibatchi. From left to right: Rickey(Ryan's Bestie) Kitti (Rickey's wife), Mary, James(Rickey's cousin), and my hubby, Ryan.

My sister Amber, me, and my sister Julie at the Hibatchi. This picture does not flatter my features at all!!! My face looks huge in it, I promise it's not that big in person! My sisters look cute though! :)

Here the Hibatchi chef is cooking up some super yummy food! I mean it was absolutely fantastic and he did all kinds of trick with the food and put on a great show. The lemon shrimp were delish and it was really neat watching him make the chicken fried rice!


Here is my plate: I ordered the Hibatchi steak with bean sprouts, onions, and sesame zucchini. I ate several bites of the chicken fried rice but stopped myself. It was hard because it was spectacular and yes, I know how to use chopsticks decently. :) The leftovers are still in the fridge and I am on liquids!!! Boo hoo!


Tuesday, May 18, 2010

Weigh Day and 3rd Fill update

Sorry I didn't get to post all of this yesterday but I had to leave work to go to my appt and didn't have time to get anything out here. So first off, yesterday was weigh day....dun dun duh...185.0!!! So here I sit at my all time low (I have been here before recently but only briefly). This number seems to be my plateau weight because it is the lowest I have gotten throughout the whole process and every time I get to it, it lasts only a day and then I pop back up to 186 or 187! Hopefully now that I got a fill yesterday that number will only go down from now on. I can't imagine getting to the 170's. I haven't been there since I was like 19 and I was only there for maybe 2 months and then gained!

The fill: I let Connie, the nurse, know that I felt that I could eat way too much so she they took a barium x-ray to see if there was any pouch stretching (as I requested) and she said everything looked "wonderful", no stretching at all and she definitely agreed that I needed a good fill because that chalky liquid they give you to drink to do the x-ray just flew straight through. So she said since I have been doing well with the .5cc fills she was going to go up to a .8cc fill and see how that works. So she did it and then they took another x-ray and she said that she would like to put more because my stomach didn't look irritated from the fill at all. So she gave me another .5cc and did another x-ray and she said if it was ok with me she would like to put another .5cc in and I was like sure and she did and she stopped there. No problem! So that was a fill of 1.8cc for a grand total of 7.5cc in my band! I am hoping that this will make a huge difference.

I haven't had a problem yet but I am STARVING!!!!! I am sooo very hungry! My stomach will not stop growling and the consultant told me that since I had such a large fill this time that I should do an extra day of liquids. That means 3 days of liquids and one day of soft foods! Do wha???? That sucks. She also told me not to have any creamy soups during this time and I am going to have to ignore that because that's how I survive during these liquid days, broccoli cheese or baked potato soup! I am trying to stay away from the potato though. They warned me again about eating carbs so much and said that it's most likely the cause of my weight loss stall/plateau. Hopefully these liquid days go by fast!

Friday, May 14, 2010

BYOC Friday...Better Late than Never!

Hola peeps! Here we go again:

1. If you could be a cartoon character – who would you be and why?


I would be Ariel from the Little Mermaid because who wouldn't love to be a mermaid for one and for two she is super hott with her long red hair and she can sing so lovely! And she gets a super hot prince at the end and is friends with all kinds of animals. My kinda gal!
 
2. Who was your teenage heart throb?
 
Jay Hernandez from Crazy Beautiful!!! Oh my gosh I thought I was in love with him. And he is still super hott so yeah! I was sooo stalker that even implanted myself in pictures with him on my computer. Oh yeah, we rode rollercoasters together and went to the movies!!! hahaha lmao those were the days!
 
3.Do you believe being overweight is about a mental obstacle or do you believe it’s simply about overeating/food?
 
For me, it's mostly overeating and loving food more than emotions. Some people eat when they are down/upset/mad etc. but I eat for every emotion good or bad. But I eat because I LOVE food. I love the tastes, the textures, the smells, everything!!! Food excites me more than almost anything. (sad but true)
 
4. What’s your all-time favorite song?



Man, I have so many favorites. I guess I would have to say right now it's Purple Rain. I have been on a Purple Rain kick for a while now and just recently saw the movie all the way through and I absolutely loved it and it made me love the song even more!

5. Whose blog or comment spoke to you/stuck with you this week and why? This is our “you get to be famous for a moment” without having to follow all the rules of an official blog award question.


Well, dang! Honestly I haven't been able to catch up on all my blogs this week. I have been trying a new method and have been going down my list of those I follow from the dashboard and reading their blogs from beginning to end so that I can get to know people better and read all the things I missed before I started following them. So I will say I have finished T. Michelle's blog and I am glad I read from the beginning. It was very inspiring to read about her journey and the great things she has done so far.  Way to go girl!
 
Have a great weekend everybody!

Thursday, May 13, 2010

Baked Potato FRENZY!!! Food Porn Warning!

I have been craving this soooo badly! This is the only decent pic I could find on the internet of a stuffed potato but down here in Texas (everything really is bigger...even the people usually) BBQ is the food of choice. There is this tiny lil restaurant where I live called Pappy's BBQ and lemme tell ya...they have the best giant stuffed baked potatos ever! It comes with butter, sour cream, cheese, chives, onions, jalapenos, chopped beef BBQ, and bacon bits! I get mine sans onions but it is DELICIOUS! I have always been a potato addict. A couple of years ago I ate a baked potato for lunch every day for about a month. Literally. Yeah I made myself sick of them but the craving is back! DANG!

Thanks for all your comments on my post from yesterday. And I didn't mention it but I do weight training also when I exercise. I do a couple of body parts at a time and cardio with it. I have been working on my legs every other day and then arms, back, etc on other days. I worked out again yesterday and I swear I feel like it's doing no good. I don't feel any different. Not to mention when I got on the scale this morning I gained another pound! WTH??? What am I doing that is soooo awful that this yo yo weight thing keeps happening? Also, remember the whole protein story from yesterday about the girl and the doc told her she was eating too much protein? Well I plugged in all the food I ate yesterday into my niftly lil calorie counter app on my i-phone and guess what?????????? It said I had something like 126g of protein yesterday!!!! Ok....if I'm not mistakened our doctors instructions said that we are to have 60g of protein a day and that's it. OH MY GOSH! Am I overdosing on protein now? See I have never been a big "meat eater" (sounds dirty I know...haha) anyhoo....In fact I was vegetarian for over a year a couple of years ago. But, ironically, I wasn't getting enough protein so I started eating meat again. And even then I lived off of carbs and might have eaten meat like once a day. Now I finally up my protein and it's double what it's supposed to be? FIGURES!

Then I think about the whole eating 1 cup of food a meal thing (which I don't usually follow). I eat until I am full and honestly it takes more than a cup to do it except when I first get a fill but within a couple of days I am back to eating more than a cup otherwise I would be hungry all the time. But I have thought about this before and 1 cup is not much and you are expected to eat your protein first and then what's left if you can. How do you get the nutrients you need to be healthy that way? It doesn't seem like eating mainly protein and very little vegetables would suffice your body. BTW, I am not arguing with the method at all, I am just trying to understand it. On the preop diet I was only consuming like 500-700 calories a day and lost 13lbs in less than 2 weeks. That's the most weight I have lost through this whole process. I lost all but 6 of my 20 lbs on the pre op diet. Apparently I need to cut my calories back down to that? But then I have always read/heard that eating that few calories is unhealthy and is poor nutrition. WELL WHICH IS IT????? It's like for every article that tells you why "so and so way of eating" is the best, there is always another article saying that same way of eating is the worst! I am confused.....can ya tell? HA! Well I bet the sunkist I just opened will help me understand! NOT!

OH well hopefully my fill on Monday will shine some light on the matter and give me more motivation.

Animal of the day: a baby snow seal


Wednesday, May 12, 2010

Negative Noodle...wait, what?

I haven't posted in several days, as all of you faithful followers have probably noticed. Reason being, I have been down a bit and I am sick and tired of having mostly negative posts. So I thought ok, I will just wait til I have something good to say and I waited and waited and.....nothing! I did a weigh in on Monday and I am up by 1.4 lbs. Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee (that's me hissing like a cat). I just don't get it. It's like ok, when I was at 190 and got my fill a few weeks ago within a couple days I dropped like 4 lbs and was eating right and started exercising and felt good about this all again and then I get stuck at 186 and no matter what I do it doesn't go down. So when this happens I feel like it's hopeless and I start eating crappy again, snacking more often, snacking on cookies and chips and who knows what else. I snack more but not enough to gain a bunch of weight back. I thought with exercising it would boost my weight loss tremendously but I feel like it's not doing much good at all. Crap, crappety, crap!

It doesn't help my snacking demon within me when I am fighting with my husband either. When he and I are not getting along it's my first instinct to grab food to munch on. There I go burying my problems with food! Classic! Not to mention I need a fill for sure! I can eat ALOT! I am going to make them double check this time around and make sure I haven't stretched my pouch because I don't understand how I am at 5.8cc in this thing and can still eat like this. I mean I am fairly smaller than other people who have found good restriction at 6cc. Mary has even gotten stuck a couple of times with her last fill and she has like over 1 cc less than I do. WTH is up with that???? I am not saying I want to PB or anything but at least if I did I would know I have real restriction.

On another note, I am excited about going shopping later today for some new gym clothes and a gym bag. I literally have only like 2 pairs of gym pants and one of them was at one point pajama bottoms (I think). Yeah that's how old they are! haha

I also have decided to start having oatmeal for breakfast again. I used to eat it religiously every single morning but then I went through my anti-carb phase (for the 100th time) and cut it out of my diet, only to turn around and eat chips, pasta, and rice by the end of the day. So that was pointless (I am referring to pre-band times!) I hardly ever eat pasta or rice now.

A girl I work with just interrupted my writing and we were talking about (surprise, surprise) my weight loss and I told her how the pounds just won't come off and she knows I have been working out and she asked if I eat alot of protein. I told her that I try to because we are supposed to have like 60g of protein a day and she said that she heard from a friend that a doctor told her that if you consume too much protein it can hinder your weight loss and that unless you are trying to build extreme amounts of muscle you should consume a small amount of protein daily. She said the friend followed his advice and started losing the pounds. This sound backwards to me!  Is this true??? What do you all think?

Well this is what I have eaten today so far:
Breakfast: cinnamon apple oatmeal (added 1 scoop of protein powder), hot green tea
Lunch: Grilled chicken salad on romaine with tomato, cucumber, jalapeno, and like 2 tablespoons ranch dressing
Snack (for later): Greek yogurt with blueberries
Post workout: Whey protein shot
Dinner: Ranch style beans with sliced turkey sausage.

Exercise: 15min on the elliptical, 20 minutes on the treadmill (interval speeds), and 5 min on the stationary bike

Does this sound decent? Happy hump day everyone!

Friday, May 7, 2010

Attention all Calorie Counters!!!

Hey all,

I have random questions to ask all you hard core calorie counters out there:

What is your daily calorie goal that keeps you losing weight?
Do you watch your carb intake too or just calories?


I know I have said I am going low carb a million times but I have tried and failed at that for years because I just love carbs too damn much. I am still trying to keep my carb count under like 75g a day (still high according to my surgeon) but if I can just try this calorie counting thing like alot of you do I am hoping I can have success and not have to give up all my carbs all the time. I am just curious what works for you!

Thanks!

P.S. I hate that asparagus makes your pee smell weird!

BYOC...yee haw!!!

TGIF peeps!!! Time for some BYOC (thanks Draz, for giving us all something to do on Fridays)

1. Do you have any nicknames?

Yup, some friends call me Jess, Jessi, J. My husband almost always calls me baby (unless he is mad...then I am....JESSICA). My mother calls me J-Rae, my Granny called me Muffin, my PawPaw called me Puddin', and on 3fatchicksonadiet.com I am known as fluffygirl! :)

2. What was your “last straw”? The incident/situation that made you decide to get a lap band or commit to losing weight via any plan this time?


Last October, I realized that even my biggest slacks/jeans were getting tight and my bra fat on my back was getting bigger every day. Then I had to face my ladybits doctor after the scale said like 208. Every year she scolds me for not losing weight because of my PCOS. She tells me if I don't lose the weight my chance of getting pregnant just decreases every year. They did blood work and I found out that I have high cholesterol and high testosterone (from the PCOS) and my numbers just didn't look so hot. I knew that I had to do something before I just blew up like a balloon. I could end up weighing 400lbs easily. So I went and searched on the internet "weight loss surgery", found the lap band AGAIN (have considered it many times but never followed through with it before) and was serious this time. I told Mary about it and she thought I was just running my mouth as usual and that it wasn't going anywhere. And then I made the first step and scheduled both us for a seminar in Houston. That was when I knew it was happening no matter what. I was determined!

3. What’s your favorite joke or funny story?

There was a family that had a parrot that was always embarrassing them by cussing and other stuff like that.
So one day the boy took the parrot and stuck him in the freezer.Two hours later the squawking stopped.
The kid checked the freezer and the parrot said, "Okay I'll stop cussing, but I have one question".
The boy said, "What"?
The Parrot asks, "What did the turkey do"???
 
4. If you could be a TV dinner – what flavor would you be?


Drazil stole my idea!!! Oh well, I will just have to come up with another...hmm...let's see. I would be 2 cheese enchiladas with beans and rice and a sopapilla that comes with a little tub of honey! Yeah!!!

5. The question we do every week so everyone can be a little famous without having to do an official blog award….what blog or comment stuck with you or spoke to you the most this week and why?

I must say Jennifer's post about her grandmother passing away. It was very touching to me how she told her grandmother's story and about how much she struggled and how much she overcame. It's always hard to lose someone but it's the memory they leave us with that means the world and Jennifer incompassed that. I applaud that.

Comment: I will say Sandy Lee's comment on my Digging Deep post stuck with me the most this week. I have thought of it several times. I felt understood while I was reading it. And when she said I still miss my grandmother tears just started pouring. At that moment I felt close to her somehow. Thanks for that Sandy! It meant alot. As did everyone else's response. Greatly appreciated.

Hope everyone has a great Mother's Day Weekend!

Thursday, May 6, 2010

R.I.P. Booger the Oscar 5-5-10

Today is a somewhat sad day. My 2 1/2 year old oscar fish, Booger, died yesterday. He was a tiger cichlid and was bigger than my hand. When we got him he was no more than a couple of inches long. He was a very good fishy. We will miss him.

My hopelessness is just ridiculous! Why the hell is it so hard for me to stick to stuff? Why? What is wrong with my head that it is just damn near impossible for me? Gosh, sometimes I just wanna throw my hands up and say phooey, I'm done! I have already scheduled my next fill for May 17th. I can't wait, I need one badly. Sweet spot!!! Oh sweet spot!!! Where art thou?????

On a another note, as I have mentioned before I have always loved to sing and would totally consider my self and apiring artist. I have also always loved the piano. I can play a few things. I taught myself, the ass-backwards way. I can't read, read music easily. I mean I can read it but not well enough to play fluently. I have always had to get the sheet music and then label each note with it's corresponding letters (cdefgab) and sharps and flats. Anways that works if I practice and practice and basically memorize the song! But I want to learn the right way! I am a really fast learner and no one around here gives piano lessons. So do any of you have any tips or tricks to learn it right and make it easy? I am thinking about ordering a lesson DVD to watch at home. I have a keyboard. It's not full lenth but it's a longer one compared to others I have seen. But if I got good enough I would eventually buy a full length keyboard. Whatdya think? Any info could help.....who knows maybe by next year I could really go on American Idol and strut my stuff!

Toodle-oo!

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

9 Weeks Post Op

Hi all! Thanks to those of you who responded to my post from yesterday. I am sure it wasn't easy reading all that and trying to figure out what to say to someone who sounds like they have a screw loose! ha! I know I would have had trouble, hell, I don't know what to tell myself. Yes I have thought about the whole professional help thing many times. I know that alot of people go for help when they have phobias and they are able to overcome their fears. Unfortunately my phobia is something that can't be overcome because it can't be beaten. Death is inevitable for us all. We die a little every day and that is what is hard for me to cope with. The finality of it all. That one day it will all be over and I feel like that is unfair. I know it's just life and how it works but if I could live forever I would. I know what you meant when you said you just have to stop thinking about it or put it out of your head. I have mastered that skill over the years. Sometimes it's harder than others to do that. And it's those times that I allow it to break me a little bit. It will be ok and this doesn't affect my every day life to the point that I am weird or anything. People would never know about this without me telling them. It's just one of those deep dark secrets, haha!

Potato? That sounds delish right now!

Anyhoo....enough of the darkness. Time for some light. Today is my 9 week bandiversary. I can't believe that! It seems like I just had surgery like yesterday (minus the pain and lack of breath). This is a bittersweet thought. On one hand I am like wow I had surgery 9 weeks ago and have lost a total of 20 lbs in 10 weeks! Then on the other hand I am like wow I had surgery 9 weeks ago and have lost a total of  20lbs in 10 weeks??? I know that technically that's good since it's like 2lbs per week but the fact of the matter is, I lost 16 of those lbs during the pre op diet and first week of surgery. So WTH has my body been doing in the last 8 weeks???? Come on!!! Dang. I know it's my own fault. I got so discouraged yesterday. I was starving by the time I got home and frustrated that I was so hungry and that I think I already need a fill AGAIN! Can't have one for another 2 weeks per the nurse that does the fills. So I.....binged a little. Yup I did....I could kick myself hard but part of me is in that "whatever" mood. I started out eating a South Beach diet cereal bar, cinnamon raison, I think, in the car on the way home. Then I had several kettle cooked jalapeno chips (leftover from fishing on Sunday) and dipped them in french onion dip. Then I moved onto a french bread pizza. I did only have the 1 instead of both that come in the box like I usually would but that was more my worry that I would fill up on it and not be able to cram more food down my throat. So I finished that and then had a few bites of black eyed peas and yams ( I made them for the hubby). I took a break at this point because I was pretty much stuffed! Then around 9pm I decided it was dessert time. I poured myself a glass of full Vitamin D milk (ha) and then proceeded to allow about 6 double stuft oreo cookies to melt away in the milk as I ate every bite with a spoon. Yup! Lexi (my band) loved every bite too! That beotch! I am so tired of her only working for a couple of weeks at a time and then taking time off without even asking!!! Crapola!

So today I tried to be extra good and had a protein shot and some hot green tea for breakfast. For lunch, I had grilled shrimp and scallops (I took the batter off of the scallops) with a tiny serving of coleslaw and pinto beans. The platter also came with a heap of fries but I didn't eat not one of them!!! (so proud) It was my first time trying scallops and I must say they are not bad at all! I think I would have liked them better if they had come grilled with spices but that's ok. At least now I know I can order them at other places and enjoy them. Next up on my "must try" list is FISH! I thought about having some flounder today but they only had it fried. So I will try to get it somewhere else.

Also, I got this nifty lil App on my i-phone the other day called My Net Diary. It has all these neato things for weight loss. Anyhoo I entered in all the food I have eaten today to calculate my calories and then you enter your exercise and stuff and it calculates the facts. Well it told me that I am undereating today! haha UNDEREATING? And it said that if I continue this trend I will lost approx 3.9lbs per week! Sounds good to me! I am starving right now though, so who knows what I will eat for dinner.

Ok. I am stopping....right NOW!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Digging deep...

Fair warning, today's post is a more serious one. Sorry no laughs today. I just thought I would share this and maybe someone else who has ever felt this will no they aren't alone.
I have never discussed this in any of my posts. It's a very serious subject for me. Very upsetting topic but that's ok. I know the average person has a fear of death at some point in life, it's human instinct/survival to want to be alive and ticking but for me it's more serious than this. I have a literal phobia of death and aging. To explain where as the average joe thinks about these things every once in a while, I have constant streaming thoughts regarding my fears. I have been  plagued by them since I was a child.

My first memory of my phobia affecting my life is when I was about 8 years old. I used to sleep with my grandmother every night. I wasn't afraid of my room or anything but her and I would stay up watching movies together and I just stayed in there. I remember I would lay awake at night next to her in the dark and I would cry for hours and hours (sometimes all night) at the thought of losing her. I would make myself sick playing different scenarios in my head from finding her dead or her dying in the hospital or in an accident to having to say goodbye at the funeral. This was a regular thing. It got to the point where I would regularly break down behind closed doors just by looking at her because my fears would suffocate me. I have delt with this routine phobic thinking ever since. When I met my husband and we first started dating seriously I would lay on his chest and watch TV and here come my thoughts of losing him and I would be soooo overwhelmed that I would just break down and tears would pour out all over his shirt. It scared the hell out of him. Nothing consoles the feeling. I just live with it in constant fear. It happens with everything. I have had thoughts about Mary, my mother and siblings, my husband, my pets. It never stops. It happens alot with my dog, Fancy. I know some people don't attach to animals like I do and to me she is family, she is like my child. Sometimes I will play with her and then the thoughts break in through my happy moment and ruin it and I will burst into tears at the thought that one day I will come home from work and she won't be there anymore. It may be years to come or tomorrow but I can't shake the feeling. I think will she die at home of old age? Will she get sick? Will I have to take her to the vet and have her put down? And then it all boils down to I will lose her some day. I can hardly allow myself to focus on these thoughts about my husband now because I get so upset that I will become majorly depressed for days. I just have to cut it off midstream and stop. But the hurt I feel still sits in my chest. I just have to ignore it until I forget about it for a little while.

Now of course, if I fear losing those around me, I fear dying or even aging myself. I think about myself dying alot too. For instance, almost every day (unless I am distracted by the radio) when I drive I think of awful things that could happen. I imagine wrecks down to the very detail. Especially going over a bridge I almost always imagine going over the side and getting killed and how awful it would be. I imagine how I would feel if I went over. Would time slow down? Would I not no what hit me? Would I cry? Would I regret anything? What would Ryan do without me? Would Mary be alright? and this pattern just repeats over and over and over again in different situations. Sounds crazy, I know. Believe I hate that I can't stop thinking about it. It makes me not want to have children because I am terrified that my phobias will ruin my parenting. I will be too afraid to let my kid out of my sight. If I can get depressed over my pets then what how the hell would I survive this with my child running through my head every moment??? I imagine myself getting older. Getting feeble and unable to care for myself, having health issues, and finally I imagine how I might die. I have thought of all different ways but mostly I think about the "moment" that I am dying. The last few second of my life. I can't describe it really. I feel desperation, fear, disappointment that it's over. Here I am 23 years old and I am driving myself bonkers. These patterns have only gotten worse since my grandmother passed away in February. Mainly because she had been wanting to go to heaven every since her my great grandmother passed away 10 years ago. They were very close and when my Nanny died, my Granny wanted to go with her. So my mom and I would always joke and say that because my Granny wanted to go so badly that it would be her luck to be the last. So deep down I thought even through all of her sickness that she would be around for a years to come. And it didn't happen. It failed me and now one of my biggest fears has come true. She's gone. Losing her has only made my fears become that much more real to me. So my thoughts have intensified because I use the pain I feel from her being gone and it personifies the thoughts I have about everyone else in my life dying.

I am sure you are wondering what is the point of all this rambling? Where there is a point I promise. Have you ever felt like it's too late to get thin? (I don't mean do you allow it to hinder your weight loss) Just have you ever felt it? It's hard for me to explain this because it's all in my head but sometimes I feel like I have wasted so many years being overweight that it's too late. I feel like I have ruined my entire life because I didn't "start out" right. It's probably my OCD speaking but as I have said before I am a perfectionist at most things and an "all or nothing" type of person. Like if I don't start my day eating right then I most likely won't eat right for the rest of the day because that day is shot since I started out bad. So in a bigger picture, like my life, I feel the same sometimes. Like because I messed up the last 15 years of my life by being fat that it will never be as good as it could have been had I started out skinny and just stayed skinny this whole time. I think about all the things that would have been different if I had been skinny. All the things I wouldn't do because I felt fat and insecure I could have done if I were thin back then. It messes with my head alot. Does that make sense??? Please don't let my rambling discourage anyone. I know that some of you ladies are older than me and I don't want you to think that I am saying "hey, it's too late, give up!" Because I am not saying that at all. I would firmly love to believe for myself that it's never too late. It's just my journey has this issue because it's in my head. Will I ever get there?

Anyway I have pretty much written a small novel here. Thanks if you are still reading this. I promise my next post won't be so heavy.

Monday, May 3, 2010

The Gym...Finally!!!


Well, today is Weigh day but I am skipping it this week. I did weigh, of course and the scale has barely budged from last week AGAIN!!! It's 186.4 so a gain of .4lbs! Boy oh boy, am I sick of that number. I want it to go down already!!! Damnit! But hopefully that will happen after today. We are joining the gym today after work and getting our first work out in too. (I can just see me huffing and puffing now!) I am just dreading the dreaded gain I usually have when I start working out from my muscle building up. I can tell ya now, I never thought I could be so durn flabby. I can feel my batman wings flapping even as I am typing this. I am ready to give up my wings and my kangaroo pouch....and trade in my watermelon of an ass for a couple cantaloupes. Yeah...that would be groovy!

So here's my questions for the ones of you who work out:
1. How many days a week do you hit the gym?
2. How long do you work out each day?
3. Do you have a workout routine?
4. Do you mix cardio and weights together or seperate? (i.e. cardio one day, weights the next)
5. What's your favorite pre/post workout snacks?

Thanks in advance for those who answer my lil questions. I am just curious what works for everyone else. Time to burn some calories!!! yipee!!!

On a final note: I can't tell for sure yet, but I think my hunger monster is coming back already!!! I ate horribly over the weekend (not too bad, but bad enough) and even though I still get full pretty fast, I start getting hungry again within a couple of hours and my cravings are getting stronger again. Dang this trial and error crap! I have been good today because I know I am going to the gym but I just want something. I don't know what though. Chinese sounds great! hehe (bad Jessica!!!) I know I am going to be starving after I work out and that's when I usually get tempted the most to eat bad because I'm like "oh well I just worked out and burned those calories, so this giant isalnd sized mass of food I consume won't hurt, right?" ha

Also, I went fishing yesterday with the hubby and my brother-in-law and niece. We didn't catch much but I got a cute pic of me and my niece, Kaitlyn on the boat. I get sunburned very easily so I brought my hot pink umbrella and bought a new cap and we hid in the shade together. She is adorable: