Friday Weigh-In Ya'll!

Starting weight: 261 lbs
Surgery day: 234.4 lbs

Last weeks weight: 216.8 lbs
Todays weight: 214.4

-2.4 lb loss 

-20 lb loss since surgery
-46.6 lb loss overall


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ummm.....SAWEET ass loss!!!! I was taken aback by the scale this morning. It's weird...last week I was like "woohoo!" this week, I know it's just 2.4 lbs but it seemed so weird to see 214.4 on the scale. It was kind of emotional... I mean I'm 14.4 lbs away from onederland...ONEDERLAND!!!!! If I keep losing like this I will be there well within my goal of Thanksgiving. 

Speaking of goal setting. On my last post about setting my onederland goal for Thanksgiving, one of my very close blogging pals asked "I don't get why you must set a date to lose those 16 pounds? Just take one day at a time and enjoy that day. Win or lose. Enjoy the day for that day. The lap band is NOT a race to get to a certain point ... it's all about enjoying the ride to Shedville." 
VERY good question and very valid point. I think for a lot of people having a goal keeps them focused. I mean we have a goal...to lose weight. But what I have learned is that by setting small goals it keeps me motivated. When I look at the big picture it gets a little overwhelming. Getting to my goal of 150 seems like such an insurmountable task. But If I make my goal 199 and I only have 14.4 lbs to get there it gives me that little extra UMPH, the pep in my step. A quick goal, where I can feel like I accomplished something, reward myself (maybe a dress...or a new outfit...OO OOOO!! NO, I want a Fitbit!) Then I can set my next goal and so forth and so forth. But Amy I do get your point. I think some people get TOO wrapped up in goals and have HUGE setbacks if they don't reach their goal as quick as they would like. Like you said, enjoy the ride it's not a race. Just personally for me, I like to push myself and see what happens. Setting a goal for me is like a challenge, And if you know me, you know i'm up for a good challenge :)
I think all of our journey's are different and each of us will get to our goals differently. I don't think any of us are right or wrong...just..different. And that's what makes this blogging community so wonderful. Thank you Amy, it's always nice to get feedback. I like it when people tell me what's on their mind instead of just agreeing. I mean if you agree then that's fine but if you don't agree, it's ok to say it! I think I may unoffendable if that makes sense. As long as you are not being mean to me... I enjoy a healthy debate or a friendly disagreement.

Sooooo....I'm pretty sure I double booked myself for tomorrow. I have the suicide prevention walk in the morning in downtown KC. THHHEEENNN me and cupcake are driving all the way to Lawrence for the color run at 4. Someone may just have to carry me home...just sayin'.
I did pick up some KILLER bright pink leggings to wear...It's gonna rock! 

I haven't been feeling good the past couple of days... the hershey squirts have been making the rounds through my house. I'm feeling better now and hopefully I will feel right as rain for my activities tomorrow. I will try and get lots of pics! :)

Weekend Roundup - Shenanigans & BOOBS

What a weekend! My plan was to have a nice, quiet, relaxing weekend...

Not so much! Friday night my P.I.C. (partner in crime) convinced me to go out for dinner, drinks, shenanigans. BTDUBS, we are shenanigators. We instigate shenanigans...

Went to Uh-plee-bee's, shared some spicy nachos. Had a strawberry daquari YUM! Decided to go out to a bar. Had a couple vodka pineapples. Had a couple of this crazy purple vodka delicious nectar made from the gods. The bartender wouldn't tell me what it was, said that was the only bar that made it. I'm calling it the "Purple Nurple" I don't know what it's actually called... Let me just say... it.was.awesome. Left that bar when it closed down at 1:30, went to a 3am bar and closed that puppy down. Went to waffle house, got our 3am grub on and went home.

A little NSV action here guys... I'm pretty sure I got hit on a couple times...BEFORE dudes were falling down drunk! lol No seriously, it's strange...being hit on. Or just complete strangers telling me i'm beautiful. I mean, I get it...they are just trying to get lucky. They aren't going to though...and they know it because I just about immediately tell them I'm married...and have kids. But I will sure stand there and let them compliment me!!! I'm used to 1 of 3 things when I go out....
1. I'm completely ignored...not by my friends but by EVERYONE else...
2.I'm made fun of...called fat...whatever
3.Boob-ooglers  (ya know...a boob-oogler? Stares at my boobs, makes some "damn those are big boobs comment" and gives me a high five)

So this will take some getting used to....

Saturday night we had our annual fish fry at a cousins house. Pretty sure there were like 150+ people there. Not only were there fish...but there was everything else under the sun because my family knows how to do a potluck. There was literally EVERYTHING there. It was delicious. Yours truly even tried a turkey fry... what is turkey fries you ask? Well you are obviously not a redneck #1... #2 they are balls...nuts...testicles whatever you call them...I ate them. And you know what? It was good...I'm not afraid to admit it. I ate balls and I liked it!!! lol It was fun, ALOT of fun. The kiddos had a good time, had some wine, had some good conversation. Afterwards my lovely cousin invited me to a bonfire..which was nice and relaxing :)
I missed BOOBs this weekend in Chicago... And it must have been fun and people must still be recovering because I see no posts yet!! Geeze people, I need pictures... I need to see what I missed and be jealous!! So get to it!!! :)

Yesterday was a not-so-great day in the food life of a bandster. Not really terrible...just...ok...kinda terrbile.
I had a whole bag of specialty chocolates with toffee (OMFG they were good) Yeah, you read that WHOLE BAG part right. 300+ calories ...ouch! So I did like a good little bandster and ate really good for dinner right? Oh for sure...I ate 3 peices of frozen pizza and a chocolate snack cake. Gotta keep it classy
OH well, today is a new day... with new food choices and so far i'm doing good! Chicken breast, cottage cheese with tomato cucumber salad over it for lunch CHYEAH!

Ok my little cupcakes I have to get back to work now.... lunch is over :(
But I better start seeing some BOOBs ladies! ;)

Friday Weigh-In - Why herrow restriction...

Starting weight: 261 lbs
Surgery day: 234.4 lbs

Todays weight: 216.8 lbs


-2.8 lb loss

-17.6 lb loss since surgery
-44.2 lb loss overall


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Umm....can I get a HELLS YEAH?!?!?!  I am just chugging right along...droppin those EL-BEES! Slow and steady wins the race.   I only have 16.9 lbs to lose until I officially hit Onederland!  I blame this pick up in weight loss on my new found restriction. It's SOOO nice to feel full..a feeling I haven't felt in a long, long time.  

Speaking of Onederland...let's talk about goal setting. I haven't actually set any goals yet. I guess it's time to start!I'm trying to think of a time frame as a goal to get to onederland. I was thinking Halloween...but that's only a month away... not sure 16.9 lb loss in a month is doable. So, how does Thanksgiving sound? about 2 months to lose 16.9 lbs.
Do you think that's TOO long?
TOO short?
Just right?

I'm terrible at this lol in my mind i'm like "Oh yeah I can get there by Halloween, no prob...it's far away..." Umm...then I'm like "Ok dumby mcdumbster, mayor of dumbville...that's only like 33 days or some shit"

 So should I make that my official goal? Onederland by Thanksgiving?  Whaddya think? Huh? huh?

 (Can you tell I SUCK at decision making?)  

Sooo....There have been lots of things I've been wanting to snap pictures of to show you guys...and...the camera on my phone has kicked the bucket. Sucks. Bad. Now that it's gone, I want to use it All.the.time. Like for instance...just found out that Monster makes a low cal, low carb PROTEIN energy drink. Yup. It's called Rehab ProTEAn + Energy it has 100 cals in the whole can-15 protein. All I can say is "Yes please!" I was gonna snap a pic to include here but alas... nothing.   Hmmm...I bet I could find a pic on the ole' interwebs... hmmm

Ain't I smart? :)

Oh btw... this is NOT any kind of endorsement..I'm not getting paid a single penny. Just my little old opinion :)  I wish I was getting paid for it... hmmm... let's make that happen capt'n!
I have to admit it kinda tastes weird at first... it is tea... so it's strange..then it has the weird feeling on your tongue i'm assuming because of the protein... I probably won't get it very often but It's not bad.

Now that I have restriction I'm finding it EXTREMELY hard to eat enough calories...anyone else have that problem? I'm trying to eat healthy obviously but since I can't eat very much, i'm not taking in a lot of calories. I don't want to "fill" in my calories by eating high calorie junk... like getting a hot fudge sundae because I have enough calories left. Any suggestions?

Have a great weekend my little cupcakes! I really don't have any plans except a Froyo date with a friend. Hopefully there will be some exercising AND some much needed relaxation. :)

I shall leave you with pics of my last cupcake escapade for a litle boys 1st bday. I forgot to show you guys OOPS!



This is what must be done after a long night of baking...

Triple-T Time Baby!

Ten Things Thursday brought to you by the hilarious and always lovely Laura Belle from Beer, Dogs, and Getting Healthier. Have you checked her out yet? I tell you every week! ;)

1.I'm super jelly... why? Because all my blogger babes are meeting up this weekend for BOOBS! I want to wish everyone safe travels and please...PLEASE, have a super awesome fantastico great time! Oh, and have a cocktail for me, k? Thanks! 
(for those of you wondering why i'm talking about boobs, please visit Band Of Outrageous Babes...get it? BOOBS? )

2. Next year I WILL be at BOOBS. I will...

3. Tuesday was me and The Hubs 8th wedding anniversary...wowza...8 YEARS! Seems like yesterday. I din't get to see him at all on our actually anniversary, he didn't get home from work until about 1 am :(
But my mom and g-ma agreed to watch the girls last night so we could go out and celebrate. Which leads into #4

4. I wore a dress I haven't been able to wear in a long time... and actually for the first time ever it fit the way it was supposed to. Total NSV for sure. I looked at myself in every mirror I could...twirled around a bit, smiled wide. It was awesome! I would have taken a pic but the camera on my phone doesn't work and our DSLR was on the fritz last night. Just take my word, I looked delish lol. We went and saw The Possession and it was actually a lot better than I thought it was going to be. Nothing crazy special but the acting was good, the story line was good, good visuals. It was good! Dinner...oh dinner... geeze it was good. We went to a restaraunt at Lake Lotawana called Marina Grog and Galley. Pricey..but oooohhh so good! The Hubs ordered a dry aged 8 oz filet mignon and I ordered the Hawaiian Snapper... Oh-Em-Gee...it was soo good I didn't want to stop eating..but I did, like a good little bandster :) I only ate about 1/3 of it. But i'm munching on it right now for lunch and it tastes just as delicious!

This was mine, the Hawaiian Snapper, it really did look just like this..mmmm..

5.My restriction is lasting much longer this time! I think i'm finally feeling what a bandster is supposed to feel! I'm learning how to START my meal much slower. My mistake is my first couple of bites it's almost like I forget I have the lap-band and just take a normal bite, chew it a little and swallow. Um...OUCH MUCH? Yeah, I don't think it's a "stuck" I think it's more of a "woah nelly...slow down" warning. I get a pain in my shoulder and it feels like it's taking it's sweet ass time going down. I stop... breathe... give it a few minutes and then continue...taking LITTLE bites...and CHEWING a million times. The rest of the meal is always a success! I just have to keep reminding myself..."little bites, chew chew chew!!" Each meal is getting better :)

6.I'm a-scared of tomorrow monring... a-scared of the scale. I've been eating well, much smaller portions but each morning the scale isn't really moving. I'm hoping and praying I lose SOMETHING this week. We shall see...I PROMISE I will post my weigh in this week since I missed last week. 

7.We bought The Avengers on tuesday... can't wait to watch it! Probably best movie of the year... loved it (well, Batman was flippin awesome too..mmm...i'm torn) Hopefully I can take a break from The Lorax tonight since it's been on loop in my house since we bought it!

8.I'm doing The Color Run in Lawrence on 10/6. Have I started training? Negative. Am I going to finish it even if I collapse and die? Yup. I'm gonna do it.. I'm gonna jog when I can, walk when I can't, and puke whenever I need to. It looks like so much fun, I can't wait!

9.Monster Rehab Orangeade is delicious. I keep them to a minimum like 1 every month or so. Today I wanted a break from coffee so I got one. Mmmm... yum and only 20 cals for the whole can.

10. Did I mention I'm jealous of all you going to BOOBS? Oh I did? My bad! I can't wait to see all the posts from you guys. I'm living vicariously through you while I do just about nothing this weekend :)

Wowzas! What a weekend!!

Ok, I have a lot of ground to cover so let's get to it!

READY? BREAK!

(sorry, I guess that's the football player in me coming out!)

First of all... Guess what?

I HAVE RESTRICTION!!!

Oh em gee... this is exciting!

My fill on Thursday went really well. She went aggressive and pumped me up to 7.1 cc's. She was ready to get me feeling some restriction. And oh baby I'm feeling it! I'm now learning how important the bandster rules really are. I never really had to worry about chewing well (eventhough I tried, I forgot alot of times) I could basically eat what I wanted. NOT NOW! My band violently gently reminds me that I need to make sure I chew my food to applesauce. That I need to pay attention while I eat and not take big bites. THIS is what it's supposed to feel like... I get it now. My portions are MUCH smaller and I'm hoping this was the push I needed to really get my weight loss into gear! :)

I had slowly worked bread back into my diet and now i'm abruptly working it out of my diet thanks to my tighter band! I really don't miss it. But i've tried about 3 times in the past 2 days to eat bread and it's a NO GO! It was sandwiches. I found if I took the top peice off and just ate the bottom peice really to use to hold it all together I was fine. I now know why bandsters have to stop...walk around... I've had to do that 3 times lol. I will get the hang of this.

Friday was a rather normal day. Me and The Hubs decided to watch our newest purchase of Titanic on Blu-Ray. I haven't watched it in years... for good reason. To not upset any readers who know about this I will keep it short. Basically when I was younger (like early middle school) my best friends little sister died. It was devastating, she was like the little sister I never had. They played "My Heart Will Go On" by Celine Dion at her funeral. I have not been able to watch Titanic nor listen to that song since. I went to the store, got me a bottle of sweet red wine and settled in to watch the movie. I drank the.whole.thing. Yup. It helped though. I only had to leave the room once because I felt a wave of emotion heading my way. We didn't get to finish it that night. We finished it last night...no wine. I cried... quite a bit. More so afterwards as my mind was left to wander. I did have a wonderful conversation with said friend about it. I miss her. Alot. But I'm making it a point to email/text/talk to her more.

Saturday was Ah-may-zing! Seriously. Where do I begin?
Doots was in the city parade in the morning. Up bright and early and at the park by 8:20. Parade started at 9. Parents to walk beside the float (good thing I wore my yogas and tennies!) WOW, that ended up being like a 3 mile or more walk. It was awesome!

Afterwards me and my momma dropped Shoogs off with my MIL for a g-ma/baby slumber party and went to Platos Closet. Found me a BRAND new pair of Baby Phat boots with the fur lol for $20...SCORE! Also a brand new jean jacket that ALMOST fits for $10. A pearl necklace for $2 and a black pearl bracelet for $1. Successful trip I think! :) As I'm shopping Cupcake calls me and tells me that a local airport is giving kiddos FREE airplane rides if I could scoot down by 3 (it was 2 and I was kinda far away)
Sweet jesus we made it! Doots was so stinkin excited she could barely contain it. After waiting in line for what seems like 2 hours we got to go up in a single engine plane for about 15 minutes. It was so cool. I'm so glad we had that spontaneous moment for our kiddos! :)

Can't you tell she's excited?!?

Finally getting buckled in!!

Seriously though, this was the best thing of the day :)

I had to add one more becuase it was just too cute!

What a view!



She wanted to go again!



After the plane ride we had to book it to a Tastefully Simple party. Have you ever been to one? UMMMM DELISH!!! I loved it so much I'm having my own party in November! :)

Afterwards we went back to Cupcakes house for some much needed girl talk while the kids played. Then we decided to go to Halfway (a restaurant) and have some Hot Beef! Me and Cupcake shared an order which was just enough! Went home and instead of enjoying a kid free night I PASSED OUT, which I guess is still enjoying a kid free night lol

Sunday was relaxing, went to MIL house to pick up Shoogs, have some lunch and watch the Chiefs game. Wow, if you didn't watch it...it was a nail biter FOR SURE! But our boys in red won finally lol Played with the girls outside then headed home to family dinner at Gee's (MY g-ma's) house. Afterwards chased Doots around the yard.

Went home and decided it was time to try on every peice of clothing I owned and clear out my closet.

Ummm.... WOW is all I have to say. I had clothes I was hanging on to that were too tight that now fit perfectly. And others that are already too big! I purged and now have all my big clothes bagged up and ready to give to a friend that has no money to buy new clothes since she has gained weight. I love her and want her to be comfortable at any size, I know it sucks, i've been there. But now she'll have some cute stuff to rock out until she goes back down! Here is what my closet looks like now...

My closet was FULL, I mean jam packed...



This, coupled with feeling restriction has lifted my spirits and given me great motivation! I think my "funk" is over. I'm feeling like my normal, chipper, positive self again. I'm ready for onederland... I'm so close.

P.S. I know I missed my weigh in Friday. Nothing exciting. I basically stayed exactly the same. Hopefully this Friday I will have a good weigh in and the TIME to post! :)

Ten Things Thursday

A big shout out to Laura Belle at Beer, Dogs, and Getting Healthier for providing us with the ever theraputic Ten Things Thursday. Join in! Just write 10 things...any things...random things...crazy things...just 10 things!

1. I go for my 3rd fill today! Super excited. I felt restriction for about a week...now I barely feel it. It's not completely gone like last time...but almost. Hoping I feel some major restriction with this fill! :)  I'm currently sitting at 6.3 cc's I know she won't give me a ton...but i'm hoping we are getting somewhere close to the green zone!

2. Doots, my 4 year old had quite the night last night. Daddy forgot to put a pull up on her before bed (her urge to pee does not wake her up...we take her potty before bed and don't let her have drinks before bed)
Well suprise suprise she peed in her bed...all over it... until it woke her up. So she came into our bed. Layed down next to The Hubs and peed...again...wide awake... like ALL over him AND our bed. When he opened his eyes she was staring at him and said "sorry daddy". He went from asleep to PISSED (ha, didn't mean to be punny) in about .2 seconds. She layed there with her eyes wide open and pissed our bed. She cried because daddy got mad (not raging mad just said "Daddy is SOOO disappointed in you!!"  He went and slept on the couch and she stood at my head sobbing and rubbing my hair. Finally I told her "you need to go back to bed" and off she ran...just like nothing happened. I swear that kid pees more than anyone i've ever met! I don't know what the deal is, all I can say is I can't wait until we don't have to buy another pack of pull ups!!

3. I know you just read #2 thinking the whole time "WTF is a Doots?!?"  Well...it's her nickname lol. She's had a quite a few in her short 4 years. When she was a baby we had this little swaddle blanket that had the word "kidapotamus" or something like that embroidered on it. One day The Hubs said "More like Kenziepotamus.." and so began the nicknames... Started with Kenziepotamus...then Kenziepoddamus (notice we changed the spelling? we are sooo dorks...) That one stuck for a while...even had it on her birthday cake!



Then we just started calling her "Poddamus" Then just "Pod" . So what does this have to do with Doots? Well I'm getting there... lol  when changing her diaper I would take baby talk to her so she would be entertained and lay still. I would say "OOOWEEE!! Look at that DOODY DIDEY!"  Then we started calling her "Doody" "Ford F150 Super Doody" then it evolved down to just "Doots". We called her all of these things at the same time... poor kid probably didn't know her real name until she was 3! (i'm exaggerating of course!) It's funny we ask her "What are you?" and she says "A Doots!" it's super ridiculously cute. I wallow in it because I know soon it will not be cool anymore and we won't get away with calling her that!

4. While we are on the kids/names/nicknames topic I'm officially going to start referring to my baby as "Shoogs" cuz that's what we call her! lol  As an infant for some reason I always called her "Sugar" and "Sugar booger" "Shoogies" "Shoogster" and "Shoogs"  I also called her "Puddin" "Puddin'pop" "Pumpkin" "Punkie" "Punkiepie" "Punkers" (I thik we are certifiably insane!) We call them "Shoogs" and "Doots" most often..sooooo...that is what they shall be named! :)

5. Doots started gymnastics this week. Can't.believe.it. It's crazy. I have a child...like a real life child..not a baby...A little person... It still freaks me out almost daily.

6.I think this is officially the slowest day ever. September is almost over and it's still balls to the wall here at work. I'm starting to think busy season will never be over. I can't believe I still have 2 hours left before I leave for my fill...it feels like i've been for 8 hours already!! Doesn't help i'm tired...

7.Anybody watch X-Factor last night? Tate Stevens is from Belton, Mo. The next town up from me. The place where we go and call it "the city" because that's where the nearest ANYTHING is. It's about 10 miles from my house to Belton. Anywhoozle, I am not a fan of country music and neither is The Hubs but we both got goosebumps when he sang. It was awesome.

8. My momma's kitty is gonna die. Poor thing has a tumor in his sinuses and it's just sad. His face looks all deformed. Not sure how long he will make it. This will be DEVASTATING to Doots. She was raised around Dusty aka "Duss'a'muss" since birth. The other day when we found out we told her. I thought since this is her first time dealing with death we would break it to her gently.

"Kenz, you know how Duss'a'muss has been really sick?"

"Yeah"

"well, the dr. said he will probably get real sick and die and go to heaven soon"

"Can you get another cat???!??!" (smiling...)

hmmm.... that didn't go like planned.

"Maybe sweetheart, but not yet. We are just going to cuddle with Dusty and love him as much as we can until he dies"

You could see the wheels turning...

"When is he going to die?"

"We don't know sweetie. We will just see how he is everyday and love him everyday."

*silence*

Then, you saw it... Her upbeat look quickly faded into despair... she finally REALIZED what we were talking about... Then came the waterworks. She was devastated. But kept insisting she must get a new kitty.

We'll see how it goes when the time comes to put him down.



Poor lil guy-this picture doesn't do any kind of justice

It looks MUCH worse :(

9.It's FINALLY a reasonable temperature outside consistently. I was starting to become homicidal with all this heat. It was nice to be able to take the girls to the park last night and not feel like I was going to sweat my skin off.

10.Thank bajeebus it's almost time to go... Took me all day to write this! I leave for my fill in 45 minutes! :) 

2 Months Post-Op Progress!

Starting weight: 261 lbs
Surgery day: 234.4 lbs

Todays weight: 219.6 lbs

-4.2 lb loss since MONDAY!

-14.8 lb loss since surgery
-41.4 lb loss overall

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


                7/11/12      8/13/12      9/13/12     Loss

Neck.............15"............15" .........14.5"-------.5"

R bicep..........17.5 .........16"..........16"---------1.5" 

L bicep..........17"...........15" ..........15.5"-------1.5" 

R forearm.......12.5"........12"...........12"--------.5"

L forearm.......12"...........12"............12"--------0"

Wrist...............7.5".........7.5"...........7.25"-----.25"

Bust................50"...........49"............45"-------5"

W...................46.5"........45"............44.5------2"

Hips................53"...........49.5".........49"-------4"

R thigh............24.5"........22.75"........23.25"---1.25"

L thigh............24.25".......23"............23.5"-----.75"

                             TOTAL LOSS----17.25"

234.4 lbs 7/11/12 night before surgery --- 225.2 lbs 8/13/12 1 mth      --    219.6 lbs 9/13/12 2 mths  

 234.4 lbs 7/11/12 night before surgery --- 225.2 lbs 8/13/12 1 mth      --    219.6 lbs 9/13/12 2 mths  

 234.4 lbs 7/11/12 night before surgery --- 225.2 lbs 8/13/12 1 mth      --    219.6 lbs 9/13/12 2 mths  

 234.4 lbs 7/11/12 night before surgery --- 225.2 lbs 8/13/12 1 mth      --    219.6 lbs 9/13/12 2 mths  

234.4 lbs 7/11/12 night before surgery --- 225.2 lbs 8/13/12 1 mth      --    219.6 lbs 9/13/12 2 mths