Hanging my head in shame....

Because I have not posted on here since December 7th.  DECEMBER 7th!!!   Really!!???  Good grief.  I knew I was bad, but that bad!??  See, told you I'd neglect it – like homework.  

Well, first off, let me get out of the way the weight loss issue.  I am now officially down 51 pounds!  Whoo hoo!!!  I hit my goal of 265 on December 15, two weeks earlier than my goal date of December 31 (my baby boy's 3rd birthday).  Then I hit the milestone of 50 pounds lost on February 6th, while my mom and 91 year old Grandma were visiting from Canada.  That was nice, to be able to share that accomplishment.  So the stats are:

First month - 19 pounds lost

Second month - 12 pounds lost

Third month - 7 pounds lost

Fourth month – Another 7 pounds

My clothes are smaller, but not overly so for losing 50 lbs.  I carry most of weight in my tummy, and that has been the slowest to shrink.  I've only lost about 6 inches or so from my waist (sounds like a lot, but not when you have a 58” waist!!!).  Have lost a lot in my thighs, face, butt, but those places weren't that bad to begin with.  People are starting to notice more now, but I only work with about four people on a regular basis, so I don't get to hear a lot of 'oh my gosh, you're shrinking' comments.  I used to not be able to fit into size 26W pants at my favorite store, I just went and bought 24W's last week.  My shirts have gone from a 4x to a 3x, or sometimes a 2x, depending.  Just one size for the most part.  I keep hearing the smaller I get, the faster I will notice clothing size changes, so we will see.  Can't wait to not have to shop in plus size stores/sections anymore!!!

My weight loss has really slowed down the last couple of months.  But, I really, really have to admit, I am not taking advantage of this surgery like I should be.  I am eating things (bad things) just because I CAN….like chips, cookies, etc.  Not all the time, certainly, but I have to admit, I have practiced no restraint in my food choices at all.  I eat whatever I want, whenever I want.  Which, because of my sleevie wonder, is not much, and I still have lost copious amounts of weight, but I really, really need to take this opportunity and change my eating habits and make better choices.  The first year is the ‘honeymoon period’ where you lose the most weight, then I’ve hear it really slows down as your body adjusts to it’s new ‘normal” and weight loss starts to even out and plateau.  I need to get off the mindset that I have complete freedom with food because my tummy is so much smaller.  There is so much more to it than that, and I have been lucky, since I’ve lost so much weight, but if I don’t really work my sleeve, it won’t work in the long run! 

I also keep hitting stalls.  Lots of them.  My body does this one step forward thing, two steps back.  SOOOO annoying. It’s been that way almost from the beginning.  So, for instance, when I want to hit a goal, like 255, or some round number…my scale will say 255 finally one morning and drop about two or three to get there, then I’ll shoot back up to 257 or 258 for a couple weeks, till it gets back down to 255!!! It’s like my body gets there, then scares itself and hangs on desperately for a few weeks till it decides to drop another couple of pounds.  Like this last time.  I hit 50 lbs down on the 6^th (stated above) which was 252.  I was SOOOO excited to get below 250, to 249 and have been waiting and waiting, and waiting, and waiting and IT STILL hasn’t happened.  I wanted it to happen on my four month surgiversary, which was yesterday, but it didn’t.  I got down to 250 a couple of time since the 6^th, but then it goes back up to 251, 252, hovers at 250. Argh…..!

To be honest, aside from the eating, which really isn’t horrible- I just need a little more discipline- I honestly think my problem is water intake.  You are supposed to drink a ton of water when you lose weight.  And I thought I understood why – the whole kidney thing, process fat breakdown, etc, but I was missing a key piece!!  I read an article last week that stated the main reason for drinking water during weight loss like ours was for our LIVER!  I read that when you are losing large amounts of weight, your liver is the organ that process the fats and breaks them down for your body to release.  But you know what?  If you’re not getting enough water for your kidneys to properly filter your blood, your liver takes over since your kidneys don’t have enough fluid to process waste and byproducts like it should.  THEN guess what happens? That’s right….since your liver is busy doing Kidney’s job, it can’t do its own by breaking down and metabolizing fat.  So your fat loss slows down. Less water,  less weight loss.

So, needless to say, a light bulb went off. Big time.  I need to confess first that I probably only drink, at the most, maybe one or two 8 oz glasses of water a day. Often less, and often more in coffee!  And, we need like 90-100 oz a day depending on our size.  So, there is a huge deficit.  Starting today, I am going to drink three large Tervis tumblers of water a  day….that’s about 75 oz.  That’s a big step for me.  I doubt I’ll ever get up to 100…pshaw, don’t even think we need that much, but 75 should enable my kidney’s to quit shirking their duties and passing off the work to my poor liver, who should be disposing off all my thousands of little fat cells with eager and efficient haste. 

The other issue is protein.  I really need to take in more protein.  Average for me per day is only about 40 grams and I should be getting 90.  Hmmmmm….protein shakes, anyone?  Has both water AND protein…kill two birds, so they say.  I will be drinking one protein shake daily starting today, too. 

As an experiment, I will see what happens by next Tuesday.  If I drop a ton of weight or anything.  The water thing will be hard, because I hate peeing every five minutes, and it really drops my temperature and makes me cold, but they say after a couple of weeks, your kidneys get used to the increased water intake and the urination slows down.  It takes a couple of weeks for your body to stabilize, too, and finally feel hydrated enough to work as it should and not be traumatized and afraid it will never get water again J  Poor little kidneys.  My husband says they are like two little shriveled up raisins, desperately trying to gather up every little drop of fluid (I’ve always had a water drinking issue, thanks Mom and Grandma for passing that down!)

Finally, my other realization is that I DO need to take my vitamins.  I was having issues with mouth sores and a sore, swollen red tongue and cracks at the corners of my mouth that wouldn’t heal.  Oh, and swollen, tender gums that were bleeding when I brushed my teeth (that’s NEVER happened to me before).  So, after some research, it is most likely a B deficiency or a lack of adequate protein.  So I started taking my sublingual B vits, along with a multivitamin again, and all is healing now.  I took my vits religiously after the surgery for about six weeks, but I kept reading that we’re really not in danger of malabsorption as our surgery isn’t like RnY and my doctor even said it’s rare, but when I started my vits again, it started to clear up.  We’ll see.  I had my three month labs drawn last week (a month late J) and go in on Friday to discuss with my surgeon for my first follow up appt.  I am wondering if I did have a deficiency if it would even show up as I started taking the vits about four days before the lab draw, but we’ll see. 

Well, that’s enough for now.  I am going to come back later this week, or early next, and post some before and afters.  I now have more time to devote to my blog.  Had a lot of family over the holidays, got a big promotion at work, more responsibility, etc, and haven’t even been on VST like I used to.  But I’m back now, and  ready to really work this sleeve!  My goal is to get to 235 by March 31.  I have to break these stalls somehow!!!  More water, more protein, less crap food, and my vits and I’ll be good to go!

Will keep you posted, all!