itty bitty portions... and poop

This is my plate from Thanksgiving. When I was serving it up, I was chuckling because I knew my eyes (and the serving spoons) were bigger than my belly... but I was determined to take what I wanted and eat what I could. Now I realise why my friends were all laughing at me.... I thought I'd overdone it and there was really nothing on the plate to start with.... I ate a good amount by eating sloooooowly and chewing well.... but had to share the pic because it makes me laugh out loud!!!

on a completely different topic.... if you've read my blog from the start you know about my bowel issues. well they've gotten far worse post surgery and fill since now i really am eating mostly protein and not getting a lot of fibre in. this weekend i decided it was time for some more smooth move tea.... that stuff really does the job, but i need to find a solution that will work. i can (and certainly should) add more fruits and veggies in by juicing in the mornings... but i know that in juicing i'm stripping out much of the fibre that would help with this particular problem. anyone else suffer in this way? anyone have any ideas????

the best NSVs EVER!!!!

At thanksgiving dinner with a group of friends last night one of the friends told me that tomorrow she has her first appt with a nutritionist and wellness centre (different one in our programme than the one i was assigned to). She said she's been so inspired by my progress that she just has to get on board. I'm not sure if she's a candidate for surgery, but the fact that she's taking control by making the necessary appointments is so fantastic. she said when she called to make the appt, the nutritionist asked if she didn't want to wait until january after the holiday season.... she said no 'jessica advised me to get in now so that i can get through the holidays in a sensible way and not end up with another 10-15lbs to lose in the new year!'

and just got a message from another friend who was there last night. she was banded 3 years ago and was unfilled when she got pregnant. well she's now cleared for a fill and after talking with me about it, she too has decided to go get one BEFORE christmas!

these nsv's outweigh all the compliments and being called 'skinny' that I got last night by far. i'm so happy that i was open about what i'm doing because in addition to it not being a burden of a secret for me, it's inspiring others to make similar changes in their lives!


thanksgiving dinner was great. we had wayyyyyyyy too much food. always happens when you do potluck. i had a little bit of only the things i really wanted to try or things i can't get any time.... i didn't come close to clearing my plate and took ages to eat.

strange thing happened though. I did the same with dessert. we had sooooooo many delicious looking homemade options and i took a tiny bit of a few of them to try. for some reason they all tasted really tinny and fake.... i didn't enjoy them so i stopped and tossed the plate. would never have done that in my past life!

I feel like last night i ate far more than i've been able to since getting my fill and there wasn't a single sensation of being stuck. at all. i realise that this could be because i've learned the hard way that i need to really chew, chew chew and take it sloooooooooooooooowwwwww. so not sure if i'm just learning how to eat and so able to get more in, or if i need a fill. i definitely need to start measuring all my food out so i can get a sense of how much is going in.

mornings are still rough though... it's 9:30 and i've eaten 1/4 banana and can't seem to get any more in!

ahhhhhh life with a band!

turkey for the rest of my life!

had my first thanksgiving dinner last night. please note that we do not officially celebrate Thanksgiving here in The Bahamas but have a national tendency to adopt whatever traditions look good to us :)

it was at my service club's monthly dinner meeting. it's always buffet style, but i went prepared with tupperware containers anyway. i filled up my plate with mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, turkey and LOTS O gravy. ate a little bit of everything and was satisfied. i'd bought two dinner tickets because i'd invited a friend who never showed, so went back and got more turkey to supplement my starch and veggie leftovers and drowned that in LOTS O gravy and now have turkey to last the week.

Perhaps I should mention that a group of friends and I are doing Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow night too and so it doesn't look like i'll be having a meal that doesn't include turkey for a while.

an old flame came online yesterday to tell me that i look awesome. he stopped by our bake stall over the weekend... said he almost didn't recognise me and that he had to tell his wife who i was! love those kinds of compliments.

another close friend told me that a pick of me from earlier this year popped up on the side of her facebook page the other day and she almost died. as she pointed out, when you see someone all the time, you don't realise how big they are. it's only now that i'm a size 14 that she realises how big i was when i was pushing out of a 20!

So so so so glad I got my life on track!!!!!

it's official

i am a size 14 :)

after being told all weekend that my pants were simply too baggy, i braced myself and pulled on a pair of 100% cotton khakis that had no stretch and they fit nicely. even, dare i say, a wee bit loose! so today I pulled another pair of size 14's out of the back of the closet and lo and behold... they FIT! yeeeeeee ha. now only problem is i only have three pairs of 14s....

pretty pictures

a friend just emailed out pics taken at his parents' house last night. and for the first time in a very long time, i didn't cringe when i saw pics of me. in fact, i like them so much i'll share them.

Even from the back.... starting to look like a normal size chick!

The Jollification was this weekend. I baked 5 pumpkin rolls and about 150+ cupcakes for our bake stall. All went. It was a long weekend. I feel broken up after baking for days, spending both saturday and sunday working the booth for most of the day and then being out friday, saturday and sunday nights!

this is one of those weekends when you bump into people you haven't seen in ages and so there were lots of people who haven't seen me since before i started losing the weight. one girl i saw said hi and then came right back to tell me she'd only said hi to be polite, but it wasn't till a few minutes later that she realised who i was! got lots of compliments and was told many times that the jeans i was wearing were too big. today i'm officially wearing a pair of size 14 pants :)

hope you all had a nice weekend and i know most of you have thanksgiving celebrations to prep for. hoping your bands get you through with no major problems!

194

yes. 194. on the heavier scale! and on my home one too. That's 4lbs down since last week Friday. Things are moving. I did hop on the other crazy scale at the doc's office and it showed me at 189.4...... but i'm sticking with my 194.

all of a sudden i look years younger. or so people are telling me now all of a sudden. since i'm pushing 40 i'm all for that.

i'm rapidly growing out of clothes. officially have more pants in my 'to give away' pile than in my closet right now. this is a great problem to have, but i don't go to florida for another 3 weeks so hopefully i have enough to get me through then!

I'm really enjoying being back in the gym. shaundra kicks my butt and i love it!

ok. back to work. gonna be a few days before i get back on here for any length of time.... it's the big bake stall weekend and i've got tons more baking to do tonight and decorating cupcakes tomorrow night then working the stall on the weekend. fun times

Betsy knows best

She KNEW i had no business eating a whole slice of pumpkin roll in order to determine if it tasted good enough to sell at a charity bakesale. so what did she do? rejected it and back up came most of it. along with lots n lots of slime. that was a good hour ago and i still feel as if another trip to the bathroom could be in order. one of these days i'll learn. maybe.

good thing is, yes, it tasted great so tomorrow i'm going to whip up as many as i can be bothered to do. they'll freeze well for next weekend's bake stall. thursday night i'll be up to my ears making rainbow cupcakes. friday night/saturday morning frosting them. both saturday and sunday i'll be there all day from about 8am working the stall. hoping we raise lots of money to fund our group's various charitable endeavours.

this morning i went to our second lapband support group meeting and once again enjoyed it. it's such a diverse group, but because we share something so fundamental to our lives, we enjoy getting to know each other and sharing stories - good and bad.

spending this evening trying to pick out paint colours for the new house. who knew there were so many colours in the world. yikes.... i'm feeling overwhelmed and wishing i could afford an interior designer to do this part!

Ciao for now