And the total lost is . . .

43!



 Yep, that's right, weighed in during my 2 month post-op appt today with Dr. Cirangle (I've been boycotting my scale due to a recent plateau, so I was happy to see the number finally drop) and the total lost is . . . 43lbs so far.

**Doin' the happy dance, doin' the happy dance, doin' the happy dance!!**

But I'm getting ahead of myself, that didn't happen til noon. You haven't even heard about my morning yet. Let's start where most stories do, at the beginning.

January 31, 2011

Breakfast: The shake I had Sunday morning was so wonderful, that I decided to have the same thing today -- still wonderful! You may be seeing this option a lot!! It was nice to get my morning off to a good start. Unknown to me at the time, I was gonna need it.

I got Kana to school and spoke to his teacher about a couple things I needed to let her know. 1: Due to my Dr appt, I had to back out of volunteering in his class today -- and -- 2: We are going to be leaving on the 9th for Hawaii and would be gone until the 20th so I would need his work for the 9th, 10th, and 11th. That's when she asked, "And the following week?" I said, "No, that's President's Week." Come to find out, no it's not -- President's Week is the week after we get home. OOPS!!! To my credit, there was a teacher at the school who also made the same mistake as I did and had to cancel everything she planned. The thing is, the holiday is a week later than normal for some reason this year. Britton's birthday has always fallen in that week off, and this year he would have been in school.

So . . . Panic!!!! I went straight home and called Hawaiian Airlines to see if there was any way to change my dates.  After an hour and a half on the phone, turns out that, no there isn't. For some crazy reason, all the people who wanted to visit Hawaii on the REAL President's Week have already booked all the miles flights available. I know . . . rude huh?

I decided to forgive myself and move on. I went and spoke to the school and ended up working everything out so that the kids will be on independent study while we're gone and all will be well and as it should be. Now you see where the good start to my day helped out -- I needed the protein and nutrition to handle that little stress out moment.

After that craziness, I met with my Surgeon today. (For those of you who, like me have ADOS -- which is an acronym for:  Attention . . . Deficit . . . Ooh, Shiny -- this is where we started!) He is impressed with my progress, even if done out of, as he called it "brute force". I told him I have had no restriction with my band yet. So, he fixed it by adding 3cc's of fluid to my band (for a total of 7cc's now). He also removed the air (which was good as Hawaii is a 5 1/2 hour flight in a pressurized cabin -- so air would have made my flight uncomfortable at the least).

Then it was on to lunch. With the band tightened, I am taking it slow and again figuring out what I can eat and how much at a sitting. So lunch was pretty lite and boring:

1 oz Turkey Lunch Meat
1 slice Swiss Cheese

Went down easy enough, but I will continue with caution for the next few days. I did get hungry before dinner due to the small lunch size, so today I had a snack:

1/2 TBSP Peanut Butter

Here's a tip from my friend Denise: Place your pre-measured peanut butter in the freezer for a bit. When you eat it, it lasts a little longer (doesn't melt in your mouth so quickly) and kinda makes you think you're having a piece of candy, but psych! . . . it's just a healthy protein rich snack!!! Thanks Denise.

Still cautious at dinner time, so I was thinking sushi. (Protein that goes down easy.) There  are no sushi restaurants in Ferndale anymore, nor in Fortuna -- have to drive to Eureka for good sushi -- but no time for that, so my only option was Safeway deli sushi. I bought a six piece Red Tuna sushimi bento box, brought it home, took the fish off of the rice beds they were on, threw the rice away, cut the fish pieces up small, added 1/2 avocado, and a wasabi-soy sauce dressing and voila! Sorta like Poke. Just gearing up for my upcoming trip. Because, even though I am going to look for healthy choices while we're on the island -- I am preparing to have different styles poke as a mainstay.

I ate 1/2 of what was there (about 1/2 cup), and am planning on having the rest for lunch tomorrow.

I know I am just a little short on my protein today, but I am giving myself time to adjust to the new tightness. I'd rather miss out on some of my target protein, than end up getting sick by over-filling my pouch or having food get stuck in my stoma. And tomorrow is another day!

Exercise? Absolutely!! Set the StairMaster treadmill at a full incline (15%) and a pace of 20 mins/mile for 25 mins and started to hike -- after my workout and a 2 minute cool down of zero incline and a 30mins/mile pace, the total calories burned: 425! I also did some shoulder exercises with the bands.