Foods that fill you up!

Having fill taken out has really changed my way of thinking with food. Before, when I was super restricted, I could rely on the band more to make me stop when I'd only had a couple of mouthfuls. Now that I can eat more because I've got less restriction, I'm trying to choose foods that fill me up. I love the fact that I can eat more veges and fruit, including things like celery, apples, grapes and all that other good stuff. So I've filled my lunchbox with all things good. Today I'm having a can of tuna mixed in with some mayo, onion and tomato on vita wheat for lunch, breakky will be a celebrity slim with extra berries (for some antioxidate action), morning tea is 3 celery sticks with philly and afternoon tea is an apple and some low fat yoghurt. Tonight I'm having potato and leek soup, which I make from scratch so I can control the fat content, although I am lacking a bit on the protein side for dinner I might have to add some chicken as well.

I must also tell you that my exercise since having fill out over 1 month ago has been superb. I have been to the gym 5 days per week for the past 5 weeks, something I said I was going to do while my fill level was reduced. Today was no exception, and I did a hardcore spin class at 6:15am!! Go Me!

I can't wait to have my fill put back in.. Bring on 22nd October!!!... 15 days to go!!

Happy Tuesday peoples!

LBG xx

Just a quickie today..

Sooooo freaking busy with work these days, I barely have time to have a look at all my favourite blogs! I am popping in and having a quick read in the morning, but haven't had time to do alot of commenting. But I am still around.

Stress combined with TTOM = a massive binge day for me yesterday afternoon. I ate a whole packet of vanilla wafters... yes peoples, a whole packet! 600 cals later!! I was mortified when I figured out how many cals it was. Luckily I'd already burnt 450 cals at the gym earlier in the day, and I ended up eating just rice crackers for dinner cos I really wasn't all that hungry. It's 2:30pm and I'm looking round for something to nibble on. I've already had an apple this afternoon. I have a yoghurt in my bag, so I might eat that... or I might have a couple of vita wheat.. I HATE being hungry!!! I need my fill back.

Tonight I'm going to make a fritatta with asparagus and pumpkin. YUM. Gawd, I'm already thinking about what's for dinner... when I was filled properly I didn't care what was on the menu!!

Thats all for now.

LBG xx

TGIF!

Nothing much to report at the moment. It's been pretty quiet on the lap band front. All is well with the restriction - confusing at times. Sometimes I can eat heaps, other times I'm just as restricted. Like last night I had Rice Noodles and was only able to eat around half a cup, where as yesterday afternoon I was starving and searching for food cos I couldn't get full! Weird!

Went shopping yesterday evening. I wanted to get some sucking-in underwear cos I'm getting "floppy" in my mid-drift area and want to "tighten" up the whole look. I have one pair, but need more at the moment and they're on special at Target at the moment. Ended up trying on some tops and pants in Size 14's. The tops fit perfectly, and they looked great, and flattering. The pants were a little tight around the waist hips (muffin top and camel toe action happening... not pretty) ... so I think I'm half way between a 16/14 in bottoms and a 14 in tops... which is still pretty cool!

I didn't end up buying anything cos I didn't have the money... but it was nice to try on some "normal" sized stuff. Heart was still racing a little as I was slipping on the clothes, but they fit!

Just maintaining my weight at the moment, which is a little frustrating. I'm 86kg and stable. Due for TTOM next week, so that could be a reason why my weight hasn't changed. I was at the gym 4 times this week, and going tomorrow morning as well... food intake has been so so... I've had a few temptations this week which I just haven't been able to look past - namely the cream filled biscuits in the tin at work - thank goodness only the plain ones are left now!!! Water intake has been good - I've found a great Diet Rite Cordial in Peach iced tea flavour. I love iced tea and now I can have it in a cordial with no calories! Sweet!

Looking forward to seeing my wonderful fill doctor next month to get re-filled again. I miss the restriction and the control that the band gave me... even after 1.5 years, I'm still not there yet!

Have a great Friday!

LBG xx

Getting into a Groove

I'm really enjoying being able to eat more at the moment. It's a liberating feeling being able to choose anything to eat and knowing that you can eat it AND have some restriction there as well!!

I am having the most amazing salads for lunch at the moment - Pumpkin, Pecans, Fetta, Rocket, Cucumber, tomato and smoked salmon is my fave. I'm eating around 1-1.5cups, but it takes me a good 20-30 mins and I'm soooooooo full afterwards. I am getting the munchies alot earlier I'm finding after I eat, so I have a handful of nuts or a fruit cup handy to keep the hunger at bay.

I'm looking forward to going out for a Thai Meal on Saturday, knowing that I won't be limited to the soups or the juice of curries. That I can have one of their amazing king prawns.. YUM!

Tonight I'm having a rissole with salad, and tomorrow night will be Nachos (although I grate carrot, zucchini, tomato and capsicum to make it a little healthier!!).

Exercise is going really well this week. I've managed to get to the gym before work every single day so far. I plan on going tomorrow and Saturday as well. Which will make it 6 times this week.

OK, thats all from me for today... Happy Thursday!

LBG xx

You've got to do it for yourself!

I have an awesome gym buddy, who happens to be one of my besties and also happens to be a bandit. Actually, she's one of the reasons why I got a band myself (cos I saw that it was doable and real!).. And we confirmed yesterday that we were going to hit the gym at 6am for a spin session. Now, as some of you may be aware... spin classes are one of the hardest sweatiest classes to do... they never get any better and they never get any easier. Knowing that someone else is doing it just as tough as you kinda almost makes the class a little more bareable...

So, I turned up at Spin this morning... gym buddy didn't! Turned out she had a conference call at work early in the morning so will be doing the afternoon class instead. This was all in a text message to me on my phone last night, but I didn't check my phone until after I got back from the gym this morning!!

So no gym buddy... OK, I got on with it and did the class, no worries... except that I didn't set my HR Monitor correctly and it only captured around 20 mins of my workout!!! You might think, why such a big deal... but one of the goals I have for myself is to reach my target on my HR monitor so that each monday I get a little trophy that is the wall paper on my HRM for the rest of the week. It also then confirms that I have done at least 4 classes and have burnt over 2000 cals during the week (which is approx 250g of fat). So while I know I've burnt over 600cal this morning, my HRM only says 300cals!!! Noooooooo!!

Anyhoo, the point of this blog is to say that you can't rely on anyone else to get your butt exercising.. Sure it helps, it really does.. but at the end of the day, you have to do it for yourself! I'm glad I went this morning :)

Happy exercising everyone!

LBG xx

A brand new week!

Starting a new week for anyone who has been dieting knows that you can almost wash the sins of the past few days (ie the weekend) away and start afresh. Well, I didn't do too badly, other than popcorn and a frozen coke at the movies, I did manage to hit the gym on Sunday for an hour for a massive sweat-a-thon. But today, being Monday, is the start of a new week, and the start of new food and exercise goals. So this week is going to be a week of getting back to basics. My goals include (but are not limted to):

4-5 Gym Sessions this week (1 down already!)
Yoghurt and Frozen berries for breakfast every morning
2 bottles of water drunk at work every day
Fruit or Nuts for a Snack
Low Carbs at night
Protein with Lunch and Dinner

If I think of any more, I'll post them up.

Have a happy Monday!

LBG xx

Size 14 pants!

A momentous NSV for me today. I went to the shops to run a few errands and Husband and I were walking through target (in my size 18 target jeans mind you). We passed the women's clothes section and I saw these cute cargo army style pants. Husband suggested I try a pair on (he's into military stuff and has the same type of pants). So I instinctively reach for the size 16 (only cos there were no size 18 pants on the rack). Husband put is arm out to stop me and took the size 14 off the shelf. I immediately cringed at the thought of trying to squeeze my big butt into a 14, knowing that it would be too tight. I tried to take both the 16 and the 14 in, but Husband convinced me otherwise and I toddled off to the change rooms to try these pants on, with the sinking feeling in my heart that they weren't going to fit.

One leg went in, fit well around the thigh... other leg slid in and managed to pull the pants up over my hips... second hurdle crossed with success. Then came doing up the buttons!.. Low and behold there was enough material there to do up the pants! They are snug... but I can still sit down in them, and they are not that stretchy jean material either. I ran out of the change room to show hubby, who was equally as pleased for me. I took off the pants and looked at the waist band, thinking that the size 16 had been accidentally put on a size 14 hanger... not so! I was well and truely wearing a size 14.

A HUGE occassion especially because I have a very vivid memory of me going into target and not even being able to fit into a stretch size 18 pair of jeans and having to cross over to the plus size section to buy jeans with elastic in the waist.

You could have left me at the shopping centre all day and I would have been more than happy walking from shop to shop trying things on!! *lol*

Here is a photo of my first size 14 pants (and at $23, they were a bargain too!).

Love LBG xx

Support.. and a question..

You guys are amazing! Thanks to Diz, Nola, Cat, Bridget, MYF, Christa, Suzie, Tracey and the rest of you amazing bandits (or soon to be bandits!!!) for providing wonderful support to someone you've never met!! :) *hugs* go out to all of you!!

I don't think Anon was ever personally attacking me.. I agree that he/she has the right to her own opinion.. however, I have asked her/him not to comment on my blog if she is going to comment negative nasty things, and it has been continuing (as you know). He/She left yet another comment, which I've decided not to put on here...

Question: Do you think that losing 56kg in 8 months is healthy? that would be around 7kg/month or just under 1.5kg/week. Anon seems to think that losing that much weight that quickly is the way it should be done if you have a lapband... He/She said she read it in another blog. While I'm in awe that people can lose weight that quickly, I am a bit concerned by the fact that this person is losing so quick!
1. Surely this person is not getting all the vitamin and minerals necessary and would be feeling quite lethargic and ill?
2. The quicker you take the weight off, the quicker you can put it back on...
3. This person might have their band way to tight and just can't eat anything?
3. This person is 200kg and has lost about as much weight as would be expected for someone of their size in that amount of time... MYF would you agree here?

One thing that was different about me when I got my lapband was that I already had a fairly high exercise level. I wasn't exercising to the same intensity as I do now, because I carry around less weight, but I was still working hard. When I went to my Physiotherapy session after getting my lapband, the point of the session was to "start" teaching people how to move with alot of weight to carry so that they didn't injur themselves. The physio asked me what exercises I did... I told her, and she basically had nothing to teach me that I didn't already know!! So I sat there while morbidly obese people around me learnt how to do sit-ups and star jumps!! I was also quite a "small" obese person. My BMI was around 39 which puts me up there, but not as high as some..

I've been having a think about my current food intake and since it's slowly coming up to summer, I've decided I'm going to shake it up a little. Instead of having smaller portions of foods that I normally eat, I'm going to start to eat whole and minimally processed foods.

For example:
Breakfast, instead of having cereal and milk or a protein shake, I will have fruit and yoghurt (I want to look into getting a flaxseed nut/museli mix that I can sprinkle over to get some extra protein and good fats)
For lunch, instead of having canned soup or leftovers or half a sandwhich, I'm going to have salads with BBQ chicken, or cottage cheese and tabouleh and whole grain vita wheat, or vege sticks with tzatsiki
snacks will be the whole fruit, rather than the diced fruit in the cups - especially with the summer fruits coming back in season this should be easy to do!! Or some raw nuts (they reaaaaaaally fill me up and I only need a few grams!), or vege sticks with a home made Hommus or Guacamole
Dinner will be alot more fresh fish, chicken and steamed vege without the carbs like rice and potato (which at the moment I can still eat - pasta and bread are still out).
I'm also trying to have more green tea which I am getting back in to, and trying to cut back on the coffee which I'm finding difficult.

I also want to get out of the post-dinner sweet funk that I'm currently in. I keep fun size chocolates in the freezer for when I feel like something sweet, but I want to get out of the habit of wanting something sweet around 1 hour after I eat dinner. I think it's a matter of going cold turkey..

OK, enough from me again today! What a lot of reading..

Night night!!

LBG xx

Care Factor..

I'm going to start moderating my comments so that I can delete the comments left by Anon..

My care factor is zero... If anything, it is sad to think that someone feels they have to dampen down the energy and happiness that one trys to portray when they blog to the world their thoughts and feelings. I'm not sure if it makes you feel better Anon, blurting out facts about some scientist somewhere shrinking a stomach to the size of a tomato, or that a 700lb man died of malnutrition.... I figure that you have either NEVER had a weight problem and therefore are ignorant of everything to do with the mental, emotional and physical sides of weight loss... or you've had a lap band and you have failed to lose the weight on it and are all bitter and twisted about the whole experience.. or you are overweight yourself and don't have the guts to really make the change and lose the weight. Either way.. it really does suck to be you!!

So enough about that... on to more exciting things...

Tomorrow will be my 6 year anniversary with my Husband from the day that we first started dating. Hubby and I met off the internet (interestingly enough when I was 86kg!!). Who would of thought that after 6 years we would have been married and bought our own home! I am so excited about our future together now... We're talking about buying a second property (a house!!) so that in the not so distant future, we can grow our family. We will be celebrating by going to our favourite restaraunt (we went there alot when we were dating).. and then on Sunday we plan on seeing WALL-E the movie.

Yesterday I managed to drag my butt to the gym after work.. I knew I had to get there and just "do it". I'm so glad I did. Once I got on the treadmill an hour passed by real quick and I could have stayed for longer. I felt tops! I'm looking forward to going again tonight. Dinner last night was a home made vegetable soup and a crumpet. The soup went down fine, it was nice and thick and filling. The crumpet I had to work on, but with small bites and lots of chewing, I managed to get it down.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!!!

LBG xx

P.S. Anon - Just so I can put my weight loss in perspective for you.... I've now lost 27% if me... relatively speaking.. I'd say I was pretty much on track.

30kg lost says I've learnt a thing or two!!!

Yeah Cat.. I totally agree with you about Anonymous and his/her comment. He/She comes back occasionally to post his/her comments... He/She has obviously never had a weight problem.. and yeah, they never like to leave a name.. I'm used to it. Quite frankly it amuses me! There are so many amazing people who read my blog, and I get such positive feedback. So when Anon leaves me nasty comments, I enjoy reading them... because it just affirms how ignorant some people are about weight loss, gastric banding surgery and all that other stuff.

So to respond to Anonymous....

I will always love food, not just fatty foods, but all types of foods. And I know that I will always need help, and I know I will never be free of dieting. I accept that. My band is my tool, my help and will be with me forever. I will constantly be struggling with my weight for the rest of my life.

I must have learnt something over the past 1.5 years... - I have lost over 30kg !!! From going to a morbidly obese couch potato that was on the boarder of diabetes, in a size 24, at the ripe old age of 27, to being 30kg lighter, happily married to a wonderful man, jogging on the treadmill and on the street for over 20 mins and in a size 14... I think something has definitely changed don't you??

And just so you know Anonymous, I don't care what other people think of me, and I always had a full and enriched life, regardless of my weight.. so while I know that there are some people out there who don't judge overweight people... the majority do..

So Anonymous, unless you have never made a mistake, never put a foot wrong, never given into a craving, never had junk food because you felt like it, never eaten a little too much at christmas dinner... I suggest you shut the fuck up and stop leaving your pointless and nasty comments on my blog.

To all my other readers who "get" what's happening with me and my band... Thank you for stopping by!!!

Love love

LBG xx