Visualize your ideal body

That's what I've been doing every night while falling asleep for the past week. I have these meditation tapes that knock me out into a deep trance within a couple of minutes of putting them on and I've never actually made it all the way through so I have no idea what they're telling me after 5 minutes in (could be anything, cult indoctrination, who knows?) But I'm telling you, they're working!

The book and tapes are from this guy Jon Gabriel who has come up with the aptly named "Gabriel Method" - a new-agey, woo-woo weight loss through visualization type thing. But to be honest, I tried it long before my band and it really did help me start to resolve my underlying issues that were keeping me from losing weight. I started reading his book and listening to the tapes about a year before surgery so I think doing that actually helped me prepare and be mentally ready for the physical challenges. I do recommend the stuff even though *some* of it is pretty fantastical. It's just another tool in my toolkit now and I've started up again listening to the tape religiously before bed. And yes, I have noticed increased weight loss, decreased hunger, and being able to make better food choices. I'm not going to say it's all because of the tapes but they don't hurt. I need to find a picture of someone with my "ideal body" to help me visualize. I have a hard time coming up with that mental picture since I've never seen it and can't recollect back to an image of my own body that I want to attain again.

In other news...

At 196lbs I am completely in new territory. I can consistently wear 14s and even some 12s, larges and most mediums at every store I've tried. I go in to see my band doctor Friday (2 days) for the first time in 10 weeks. I am sure he's going to be happy with my progress (I think I'll have a loss of 15 lbs on his scale from the last number 10 weeks ago.) I am definitely going to ask for another slight fill to my band. I'm hoping he'll give me as little as .25 ccs because I feel very close to being at a sweet spot but losing a good bit of restriction, especially as the day goes on. Nighttime is the worst! By 10pm I am hungry and can anything and everything. But the rest of the day isn't nearly as bad and as long as I stick to eating what I'm supposed to be (i.e. protein) I can get satisfied on very little. Still, I've been tracking my calories and getting in 1500-1600 a day easily (and could eat a good bit more if I let myself) so I'm hoping to get enough restriction back to stay under 1200. Spoke to the nutritionist for the first time in 6 months the other day and she said most people in the "green zone" can eat 1000 calories a day and be satisfied. I'm not there yet but I'm hoping that a slight fill will push me back in that direction.

I am feeling so surprisingly optimistic and despite the fact that I still can't SEE my own weight loss for the most part, shopping has turned into a much more fun activity than it's ever been. I am SO excited about my November/Thanksgiving trip home to Alabama where my dad will be providing me a shopping trip (hopefully all expenses paid) as a combination late Birthday/early Hannukah/huge weight loss gift. I am already making a list of stores I want to shop at. Urban Outfitters, LL Bean, Gap, American Eagle, New York & Co.... places I have had a hard time fitting into or never have but am now finding I can wear anything I want. And even in the women's department! I have always shopped in men's not only cause I'm more comfortable in many of the styles but because they fit. I wonder now if-and-how-much of my preference for male clothing is due to not having the choice to wear women's - or at least not looking good in it. I mean, they make sizes for women much larger than I ever was BUT I'm not going to claim any of those things ever looked fashionable.

I know I've been really pathetic about updating this blog. So it tends to go when people's lives go smoothly. It's not that everything is perfect...sure life is complicated and rough a lot of the time, but this blog is not about all those other things in my life. It's about my lapband and THAT is going well.

I am getting so close to my goal that I am getting more antsy about whether I'll be happy there. My original goal was 180 which I later revised down to 160. Well, I mean my first real goal was to break 200, but my first "GOAL" was 180. Well, now I'm 16 lbs away from that and I can't imagine being anywhere close to satisfied with my size, 16 lbs from now. My belly is still pregnant lady sized and people are starting to tell me that I may need to consider plastic surgery to get rid of it. I am still determined that through exercise and greater weight loss I can get it down to where I don't look pregnant when not desperately sucking in. That would be nice. So, I'm still 36 lbs from my actual goal of 160 and that can be a lot of difference. AND I'm hoping that since my midsection is really the only flabby part left of me that the majority of that 36 will come from there. But I won't know till I get there. And I guess there's just a part of me that is worried that when I get to 160 I will still look the same, still have this huge belly that hangs over my jeans (the size of which keep getting smaller.) How horrible would that be? To be wearing size 8 or 10 jeans but with a belly hanging out over them? Ugh, I'm getting down even thinking about it so I'm not going to.

In other, other news...
Ran my first (outdoor) 5K on 10/2/10 at the AIDS Walk Washington. My official time was 37:46 which gave me a 12:10 mile. I'm very happy with that considering last time I ran 5K on the treadmill I was about 43 minutes total. I was super impressed to beat my treadmill time by so much. But I also learned that I have to buy proper running shoes before my next street race. Foot pain! Yikes.

I rode Helo last night and realized for the first time (it just hit me...) how easy some parts of riding have become. Like posting. Wow, I used to huff and puff and tire out but I think I could post forever now. Sometimes I marvel at how different the whole world feels 75lb lighter and then I think "duh... of course it does." But, you know, sometimes I think I denied that anything would have been better or easier if I lost weight. I was very stubborn and liked to believe that there was no handicap in being large. But the truth is, it held me back from being my best and I am so happy I'm moving in the opposite direction.

Um...is this what they were talking about?

Major update time, folks. Sorry for not posting lately (I say as if anyone is sitting around with baited breathe, anxiously awaiting my next entry!) Life has been really busy, and good. Great really.

In the band realm, the past month has been hard because since my appointment on July 2nd at which I told Dr. A that I thought I was good without a fill, I've been regretting that and feeling like more than anything I did need one. I wasn't supposed to go back till 8/13 but I called in mid-July and got bumped up to 8/5. He put in a whole CC which means I have either 4.5 or 5 depending on whose math is correct. I believe I only have 4.5 cause he took out .5 of the initial 3.5 he gave me back in May. But he told me I have 5 now so I'll go with that. 5 is definitely around the point where I should be feeling it (my band only holds 10ccs so from here onward it's more full than empty.) And man, am I feeling it!

I have only ever felt this tight immediately after surgery and never even close to this after my first 2 fills. Well, 3rd one's a charm - I can only hope. But what a sudden change! For the past month I've been able to eat whatever and however much of it I could want. Not that I have been, but I know I could. I have not been satisfied on solid protein and vegetables the way I had been previously and I started experimenting with pizza, pasta, and bread again in my last week before the fill. I didn't gain any weight, in fact my own scale had me at 211.6 the morning of my appointment, but that was due to my own diligence in limiting myself even while I felt I could, in theory, have eaten my way back to 273 most days. Then there were the few, very few, odd days where the extreme heat and humidity did something weird and took away my desire and ability to eat. Those days I drank protein shakes and enjoyed the wonderful new feeling of not being hungry. But most days I felt as though my band had fallen off, disappeared, or just vaporized. Maybe it was absorbed into my body or something? Ohhhhh no it didn't! It's still there. Took another CC of fluid to prove it but it's definitely live and kicking.

I got the adjustment on Thursday at 4pm. My doctor is always impressed with my loss but this month I was being down on myself cause I only registered has having lost 5.5 lbs. The first thing that happened sort of lightened the mood a bit. Dr. A walked into the room holding the printout from the computer with all my numbers and said "I think they messed these up." I immediately figured he was referring to my small loss of 5 lbs this month and said, "No, I just had a hard month." He shook his head no and said something wasn't right and they (the nurses who take weight and enter it into the computer) had done something wrong. Turns out they had. They'd entered me at 288 somehow instead of my actual reading. So, about 75lbs more than I actually am, if my math is correct (it's probably not.) Anyway, that was funny and got me a bit more relaxed. I told him I thought he was making fun of me for not losing more this month and he said something along the lines of "I tell you every time, you're at where we expect people 3 years out" which I don't believe but ok. And then he said he wished 50% of his patients were as successful as me and that made me feel very good.

So, on to what happened next, I got another CC bringing me to 5 by his count. I drank the glass of water slowly with no trouble. I left. Come to find out that anything more than water is a different story. For the past 2 days I have been walking around perpetually drifting between extremely hungry and 2 sips later - OMG gonna puke. I got STUCK on a couple of bites of liquidy instant oatmeal and after a few minutes had to hack it up cause it was just too painful to keep trying to keep it down. I have never experienced tightness like this, at least not since the first few days after surgery, so I've been going back and forth since Thursday night between loving it and wondering if I'm too tight.

It's been well over 48 hours now and finally I can drink water at a normal pace without feeling icky. I had what I approximate to be 1 tablespoon of guacamole for dinner along with a bite of cottage cheese and a teaspoon of diced up tomato/onion "pico de gallo." The really delicious protein smoothie I made for myself this morning is still in the fridge cause 2 spoonfulls of it is enough to satisfy me for hours. I know this will change as the swelling goes down but this is amazing! I have no idea how long it'll last and I'm hoping at least for 2 weeks of this kind of restriction even if I have to eat softer foods for a bit. It would just be so nice. I take one bite and I have no interest in the food anymore and I've already learned that it's not worth it to take an extra bite just to see (that ends badly.) Fingers crossed...

But anyway, I'm enjoying it for now. Despite being a little bit frustrating to really want to enjoy even a few bites of something and really not being able to. I don't care! This is what I asked for after all, this tool to help me. And right now it feels like a power tool. Industrial strength.