Affordability

Again, I am on the cost thing, how are we going to pay for it? I am extreme couponing for my large family. It is awesome how after a few months of it, you can really start saving money. This week I purchased ten boxes of pasta for 44 cents each, two containers of mouthwash for my kids 99 cents (normally $5). I of course will not eat the pasta, but my family can add the protein and veggies to it and eat up! My lean meats for the next two weeks cost me $30. It would be less but I had a coupon for bacon wrapped shrimp and couldn't resist it. I purchased $60 worth of groceries total for the next week and estimate I will need to pay about another $30 to finish off our groceries for the next weeks. I make my own "hamburger helper" to go with the pasta. These supplies I purchase by the bulk at Sam's.

Before my lap band, I was not couponing. only bought the store brand foods, sale items or Sam's club foods. Our monthly groceries was over $800, which was not to bad for a family of seven. However, way to much! It is wonderful event that my kids are sharing in the process as well.

loosing self-control...please oh please fills start helping!

First and the most important:

Friday July 27, 2012 marked knowing my husband for twenty-one years. We met in Sunday school class the Sunday after his birthday in 1991. I went back to check the date on the calender. We started dating sometime after my birthday in August of 1991 and broke up six weeks later with Jon giving the old "I just wanna be friends" line...Do you remember that commercial?

Okay so onto the issues, this week was Jon's birthday. I ate one piece of cake, three servings of ice cream, on Thursday we ended up at McDonald's (where I ate chicken nuggets) on Friday we went to Weinerschental and I ate two hot dogs ( no buns). So...no weight loss this week. My own doing. Soon the fills will start helping my portion sizes. Until then....I must behave!

This fill has helped to have a slight difference.  I am not as hungry as I have been, but my cravings are high this week. This most likely do to my poor choices of food the last few days. I also have not had much exercises this week or tracked my foods. I just didn't want to. So...thankful I have not gained weight, but vacation is over time to get back on track.

I measured today and as usual when I don't loose weight I notice an improvement with my measurements.

In the past month my calves have not changed. My thighs are 5 inches smaller, my neck is two inches smaller, my biceps are 2 inches smaller, my hips are almost two inches smaller and my waist is an inch smaller. My waist still has swelling from my last fill so the measurement may not be accurate.

The amazing part of this is, I lost weight with old nothing but protein shakes three years ago.  As soon as I started eating I gained most of the weight back I had lost. I have been eating real food and in the same amount of months I am almost back into the jeans I purchased after loosing that weight.

Birthday=Cake, ice cream and nice dinner right?

WRONG! Well at least not for me! For the time in my life it is ten pm and I am not hungry. In my freezer I have a half a tube of yummy cookie dough ice cream and 3/4 of a double layer Red Velvet cake left over from my husbands birthday. Mentally they are calling my name..but my tummy is not interested in it what so over! What? No cake and ice cream? But it is 10pm, it is my time to snack and relax. That is always what I do at 10pm. This is just to end the night...here is the rest of day;

Muscle milk for breakfast, 3/4 cup of rotisserie chicken that I saved from Boston Market last week and 1/8th cup of cottage cheese for lunch. For dinner...well, I did have a scoop full of cookie dough ice cream, three bites of cake (the cake wanted to get stuck, so I didn't try anymore)...then we went to Chili's. I was bad and ate cheesy fries and one chicken strip. All and all...not that much food. And....not hungry tonight!

It has been five days since my last fill. Two more days of still feeling full and I am going to say 7ccs in my band is my sweet spot for now.

Mentally I want to get that ice cream. Physically I don't feel like I can. This is a very strange and yet comforting feeling.
Unfortunately I ate way to much greasy foods today and the ice cream. But, I ate a fourth of what I usually do on holidays so I am not going to beat myself up. Tomorrow, I will be getting on my cross trainer for an hour to make up for it..maybe some other fun calorie burning as well (after it is my hubby's birthday).

Six weeks Post-op--hate being stereotyped

I can't believe it has been six weeks since my surgery! I had an appt this week. They filled my band to 7cc's. My band holds 14cc's.  I have lost three pounds a week since my last appointment. As of today, I have lost 40 pounds since May 1st, 2012! I am praying that they stay off this time! The clinic told me that my weight loss has been my own doing because there is no way the band is working, there is not enough silicone in my band to make it work and I am hungry all the time. It is just the way I am eating, more like not eating.

Speaking of which! I mentioned that fact to someone at work this week. The persons response back to me was, "Good, you are finally learning to eat properly." This made me mad, boy did I have a few words to say to her! Instead I just nicely said this isn't the first time I have lost the weight and left it at that. If she cared enough to want the whole story she would have asked. I SOO hate being stereotyped for overeating by people that don't know me! If my weight was do to eating to much, I guarantee that I would have not became this size to begin with! I also would NEVER have had surgery if I could just loose it and keep it off without help. You have any idea how hard it is to have a lapband? The fact that we have to $266 a month for the next three years to pay off my surgery! I would have much rather to have done this without the lapband. I just have to keep in mind that people at work are mostly just colleagues, not true friends. They are not people that know me and in the two years I have lived here, only one person from work has invited me to do anything with them. It still made me mad. I know I know, she has no idea, but it still made me mad.

I have no problem not eating to loose weight. However I don't entirely agree with the person that said I have lost me weight on my own. I know that band is still loose, but it is helping with the PCOS carb cravings! I still want to taste my chocolate. But instead of eating an entire candy bar once a day (and leaving out other nutrients to make up for the calories) I have been eating one piece of my Hershey's a day as needed. I suck it on it until it has completely dissolved in my mouth, never chewing it. We have had three bags of chips in the house this past week. I only ate a handful while we were camping last weekend.

This all leads me to my disclaimer:

Lapband is not for everyone! It is the absolute last choice anyone should make for weight loss. If you are only overweight due to your own selfishness, you have the ability to loose the weight and no regain it on your own. Then get off your butt, change your diet and start working out!

So I am down 40 pounds...and all i have to say is:

I am sexy and I know it!

frustrated with the scales!

You would think two days of running around at the lake chasing 3 dogs, 4 kids and a mom I would have lost something! But, no nothing zilch. All I have ate is protein shake, turkey hot dogs, turkey bologna, two hand full of chips, a fiber one bar....very irritating!

In two days it as been six weeks without caffeine or pop. I will be celebrating this day with my second fill!

I still have two small holes that have not healed from my surgery. I am thinking the one needs packed so it will close. I will see what they say on Wednesday!

I did not take pictures the entire time I was at the lake, so sorry no pictures.

I work out, I am ...

I have worked out one to two hours a day everyday this past week. My knees are in extreme pain! I can't believe how bad they hurt, oh wait they have been this way for twenty years. I should be use to it right? WRONG! It freakin hurts! I was told when I was in high school that I didn't have enough cartlidge in my eyes. Your body does not regrow cartlidge on its own. However I know some of the new stuff for joints does seem to help the pain control. Nothing stops the swelling. My crosstrainer and eliptical are all suppose to be easy on my knees, but they don't seem to be. I am very proud that I can complete 30 minutes on my crosstrainer on the higher levels. At one point this week I did 6.5 miles in that 30 minutes.

Measured this week. I have lost 4 inches off my stomach and nothing off my scale. I know that I have built a ton of muscle in my legs this week, so I am not so worried about the scale the reading!

Tomorrow and for the next three days I am going camping with my kids and mom. I plan on doing some serious hiking these days and go on scavenger hunts with my kids. We will be close to the gold mine area's so who knows what all we will find! I want to go swimming, but my inscision still has a small whole. I won't be able to this summer at all. I HATE that! I do have some water proof bandaids and neosporin that I will be using in case I have to pull my kids out of the river. I will have pictures to add when I return.

On Wednesday I go for anothe fill in my lapband and nutrition training. I think I am all good that one.

My husband won't get to come with us, that makes me sad. But, work comes first in this economy! So...love you honey, see on Tuesday!

My husband, my rock

My husband has supported no matter what size I am. He supported the nightly Reeces and constant drinking of pop, he has supported the Atkins diet, the dr. assisted diets. When I quit drinking pop last month so did he (for the most part). He helps me figure out what I can eat and helps me keep my portions in check. While he does make me think about my food choices, he does not criticize me for choices.

I was reading a blog last night about how many married couples get a divorce because of the lap band surgeries. I guess some can become rather pain in the ass while loosing the weight. Some become to over confident with their new found selves.

This is one of the times in life I am blessed to have married my best friend. The one person that listens to everything and has been there for me since I was fourteen. I know we will do what we always do. Yell, scream, chill, pray, talk, and make up.  In that order! I know Jon will be excited for me as I loose the weight and maybe even more attentive to me.

The divorce rate is high, but we already married young, on rebound shortly after our first divorces, we have lost two homes, three vehicles, temporarily lost one kid. I think we got this thick and thin, up and down stuff figured out. Besides before we ever kissed, we decided we would be married and that separating was never an option. That is the key to how we make it work!

First post op visit

It has been a month since my surgery. I am very happy with the way things are going. I had my first follow up visit two days ago. They took my twenty staples out of my stomach and filled my lap band with 1.5cc more of silicon. They put in 4cc’s during my surgery. I found out my band holds 16cc’s. I am lucky enough to have the large band because of my body shape and where everything is placed in side of me. (In other words because the PCOS has caused me to carry 150 pounds on the front of my tummy) The fill was not that bad.

The good: I have exceeded their goal for me by 6 pounds. I have lost 3.5 inches off my waist, 1.5 off the hips and six off the….well lets just say…WHY do they have to go first? I never measured my arms and legs, but yes they have lost muscle and fat over the last month as well.

 The bad: I have not lost any weight this week. Most likely due to the bag of M and M’s I ate during the movie “TED”. If you have not seen it, go watch it!  I have however lost a half inch, which is more important.

Next goal: loose ten pounds by August 8. They makes us loose the weight very slowly.

So…staples are out it is time to start fully working out. I spent most of today cleaning and trimming up the flower beds, now it is time to work out, shower and go to bed.

Oh, and I found a healthy way to deal with my chocolate and peanut butter fix! My grandma use to fix nestle cocoa and dip her peanut butter sandwiches in the cocoa. We just call it cocoa. As an adult I have tried to stay away from it, instead I would eat Reece’s peanut butter cups. Now, I will try something new. It is called PB2 with chocolate. My dr. said she eats now once a day for her fix. It is only 45 cals and most of it is protein cals! She said to buy it on Amazon.com

Again, thanks for reading! Feel free to comment. The blogging helps me to wrap my mind around things. It is even better when I hear that it is encouraging others that read my posts.

This is where the healing begins...

I was saving this post for later, but I have decided to write it now and publish it.

It has been two years in August since I knew I had to leave my loved home of Wichtia, Kansas. I had tried for three years to get back into the school district there. I sub taught as I could, networked with teachers and administrators to no evail. Deep down, I knew we had to leave. I set in August of 2010 for two interviews. One in Lawarence and one near Kansas City.

This trip took me through quite the little journey of healing. I totally bombed my interviews due to the healing. I had not returned to the area by myself since Novemeber 30, 1997. People say you need to deal with your past. Something I had no intention of ever doing.

I was married to a man that I knew loved and trusted. He was not a christian. He did claim to be catholic, but never attended. He knew very little about his faith. He was a drunk. Yeah, I knew that when we got married. I also knew that while he was a drunk he could go long periods of not drinking. I never thought he would try to hurt me. For nine months after our wedding all I heard was how "fat" I was becoming. He said I was a looser, and many other explicitives that I won't put on here. One night he was drunk when I came home from work his pulse was 24. He wouldn't respond to me, he was hardly breathing. He had told me before that if ever drank that much to not call an amblunce. Once he did repsond he threw everything he possibly could at me, glass plates, cactus plants, books, even the book case. Shortly before Thanksgiving he rapped me in the worst kind of way. He then planned on admitting to the hospital because of my depression. Instead I had a great plan to kill myself and no I am talking about cutting my wrist. It involved bleach, gas and fire. Two years ago on this journey I heard this song on the radio, while driving to the town we had lived in. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BFUHrXfuNU4  My interview in Lansing was accross the street from a friends house, this friend took me in for night during the mess of a marriage. I went into that interview crying and knowing I could never live back in that area.

This is where the healing began. Two weeks after that interview I managed the courage to send a resume to a school district far far away from home. It was time for a clean break from it all. In October 2010 we moved to a small town in Arizona. The healing has continued since then.

Last month as we drove up to the surgery center the song was again running through my mind. It is what I was singing when they gave me my sleepy medicene. It is the song I woke up singing.

An old friend unknowingly recently reminded me of the spunk that I had before 1997 happened. The mental healing finished in 2010, they day I drove away from Kansas with my husband and four children. Now is the time for the physical healing. It is time Stella got her groove her back.

Last week was the first time since 1997 I was able to pray in tongues. That in itself will greatly help the physical healing that his to happen. In church today I was told by 7 people that I looked very pretty. Most of them I don't recall ever speaking to before and I don't think they know about my surgery.

Tuesday is my follow up appt. I will finally get these staples removed and hopefully get thing filled. Then it is time to DANCE!

Here are the words to the song, thanks for reading my long post!

Tenth Avenue North
Healing Begins lyrics

Send "Healing Begins" Ringtone to your Cell

Songwriters: INGRAM, JASON / DONEHEY, MIKE / OWEN, JEFF

So you thought you had to keep this up
All the work that you do
So we think that you're good
And you can't believe it's not enough
All the walls you built up
Are just glass on the outside

So let 'em fall down
There's freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground
We're here now

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark

Afraid to let your secrets out
Everything that you hide
Can come crashing through the door now
But too scared to face all your fear
So you hide but you find
That the shame won't disappear
So let it fall down
There's freedom waiting in the sound
When you let your walls fall to the ground
We're here now
We're here now, oh
This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark

Sparks will fly as grace collides
With the dark inside of us
So please don't fight
This coming light
Let this blood come cover us
His blood can cover us

This is where the healing begins, oh
This is where the healing starts
When you come to where you're broken within
The light meets the dark
The light meets the dark