Happy New Year

Hope everyone had a great Christmas. I'm having severe issues with my band. Haven't been able to keep anything except clear liquids down most days (and sometimes not even those) and then I'll have a day where I can eat "band-normal" again. Weird stuff. Not happy about PBing everything though. And not to be too gross with TMI but what's coming up is totally chewed up pieces - often in like a mucussy ball. When I get stuck I'm getting severe pain in my back and under my ribs. NOT FUN. Watson's rooms are closed down till Monday so will call then and see if they can squeeze me in earlier than my Jan 22 appointment. I don't fancy carrying on this way for another 3 weeks. I just don't understand how a few weeks ago I was thinking I'd have to get a bit of fill IN and now I'm going to have to take some out. Too weird. Ugh I just ate a piece of chocolate and now that's stuck. CHOCOLATE!

We're going camping for 3 nights tonight with about 13 friends. None of which know about the band. So I think I'm going to have to basically pretend to eat so I don't have to keep running to the toilet and look bulimic! What great weather for camping too ... NOT. 39, 37, 35C is not the temperatures at which I want to be sleeping in a tent.  But it will be fun I'm sure and the caravan park has a pool at least!

We're going down south over the Australia day weekend to check out wedding venues. We love the wineries so thought it would be very "us" to get married down there. We want a low key cocktail party style wedding. Who knew that that would be just as expensive as a 3 course sit down meal white wedding! Geez! We had decided on April 2010, but then I checked out the weather averages and it's a 1 in 3 chance it will rain so we're looking at moving it to March 2010 now when it only rains 4 times a month. How sad is it that I'm looking at these things! The whole dress thing is freaking me out. I have awful flabby upper arms but there aren't too many (ie none) wedding dresses in the style I want with sleeves!!

Just another thing to add to our plate, and I can't remember if I've already mentioned it but we have to move in a couple of weeks. We bought a townhouse in May and have been renting it out. At the same time we are renting the place we're living in. The owners of ours have decided to sell (they offered it to us at a bargain price but we couldn't afford the two mortgages and we'd lose too much money to sell the other one in this market) and have asked us to be out by January 19th. Our tenant's lease was up on 20th Dec but we gave her till the 12th Jan. We just found out on Monday that the tenant vacated on the 24th. Apparently our property managers emailed me on the 8th of Dec to advise the change of date but I didn't receive it (they had the email address wrong and they apparently didn't get a bounced back email). So now we're stuck with 3 weeks less rent we thought we'd be receiving. Pissed off much! If we'd known, we would have arranged to move earlier too! So I get to look forward to packing and unpacking over the next couple of weeks. I hate moving. Sincerley.

Anyway, goals, resolutions, aspirations for 2009 - here's mine:

• Hit the 87's for 1st Bandiversary on 19th March


• 85kgs for my birthday (1st June)


• 70's for Christmas 2009


• Run for more than 2mins


• Exercise at least 4 times a week


• Restart group classes at gym (combat, pump, rpm)


• Try yoga or pilates at work


• Pay off personal loan


• Save for wedding


• Not buy 300 dvds in Thailand or Bali


• Organise the best wedding ever.

Hope everyone indulges in a glass of bubbly tonight to bring in the new year! I know I will be!

Em :)

Pics of the ring!

Merry Christmas

Just wanted to drop by to say merry christmas and a brilliant new year to anyone reading this. I've got restriction issues again - I had a couple of days last week where I felt ok (no pb-ing) but unfortunately since Saturday night I can't seem to keep much of anything down including my iced coffees if you can believe that! I've got an appointment with Watson in mid January so hopefully that will sort things out. It's just so weird because I was actually thinking I needed a bit more fill and then last week just before TTOM, I was so ridiculously restricted. I thought it would elliviate after TTOM, which it did very briefly but I'm suffering again. Hopefully nothing major is the problem and I just need my fill tweaked.

I also think I'm coming down with the flu. I'm exhausted (which could be due to not being able to keep anything down) and have a killer sore throat. Nice.

Thanks for all the well wishes about our engagement. We're both really excited and are looking towards an April 2010 wedding. Enough time for me to get to goal don't you think? Well I didn't want to put that pressure  on me so you'll see a slightly higher than my final goal as my wedding goal on my Goals page. That was a hell of a lot of the word "goal" in that sentence!

My ring is absolutely stunning and exactly what I would have picked myself - he's done a great job (with some assistance from my sister). I'll post a pic as soon as I can get a good one. It's so shiny that it wont focus properly on the phone camera so will need to use my proper camera!

Anyhoo best wishes to you all for a fab festive season!

Em :)

Announcement

GB and I got engaged last night! YAY!

 

oh and I lost 1.5kgs last week :)

Restriction city

Just a quick note to say I am feeling some major hormonal restriction this week. Yesterday I couldn't keep down iced coffee or milo even! It's the first time I've noticed additional restriction around TTOM but I can't think of any other reason for my PB-ing fest this week. I've also had a headache for about 4 days now. Not fun at all. Still christmas is coming and with that come 3 public holidays! I'm only taking the 2nd of Jan off in addition to the pub hols as we have a bit of leave to take for our holidays in February and April. So I'll be working. Yay. Although, not particularly a fan of Christmas Day itself, I am a fan of getting presents! :)

Happy holidays!

Update: Week 38

Hey ho, I managed to lose 1.2kgs this week after all that grumbling on Monday! It's amazing what you can do when you don't go out during the week! GB was in Bunbury all week on a training course so I didn't have to put any thought into cooking at all and it was great!! I managed to get to the gym on Monday, Wednesday and Thursday doing 30-60mins cardio and threw in a few weights on Monday too. So I'm very close to my Xmas goal! Today's my work christmas lunch which fingers crossed goes down ok, as I'm still having a few probs in that area. Here's the menu:

Entree's (shared)
warm turkish bread with oil, balsamic and dukkah  (Staying away from this for sure)
herb and garlic pizza bread    (I might give a small piece of this a go)
grilled cacciatore sausage      (No way hozay)

Main (choice of)
beetroot risotto, creamy fetta, spinach   (I think this is what I'll go for)
sesame crusted salmon, rice noodles, mango & pickled ginger salad  (Don't like mango or ginger)
peri peri spiced chicken, roast sweet potato, orance scented cous cous, yoghurt dressing   (Don't like spicy food)
black angus scotch fillet, roast baby potatoes, green beens    (I'm not sure how steak will go down)

Dessert (choice of)
caramelised pear & rhubarb strudel, cinnamon anglaise
choc mint brownie, pistachio crumble, vanilla bean icecream      (Hell yeah!)


So it should be fun today. Hopefully the drama that has been happening (bitching women) will subside for lunch at least!

Thanks for all your comments, keep them coming!

Stay well,

Em :)

What the?

How do I put on 700g over a weekend? I know you should only weigh yourself once a week. I KNOW! But after a fill, I kinda feel like the weight should be dropping off at least for a couple of weeks. I was disappointed that last week I only lost 700g, considering the amounts I was eating. Then this weekend - granted I've been eating a bit more but still not as much as before the fill and this morning I was back up to the mid 97's! FARK! I have been having a light iced coffee most mornings, but barely anything to eat for lunch ( a yoghurt mostly). The last 2 nights we've been out to dinner. Friday was a friend's wedding (gorgeous, casual, finger type food). I had a couple of small (bite size) quiches, 2 lamb cutlets (which I promptly PB'd), a bite of wood fired garlic pizza but oh yeah 2 pieces of lemon cheesecake! Saturday, I had an iced coffee in the morning, lunch was about a quarter of a caesar salad from sumo salads, and dinner was out for GB's mum's birthday. I was sensible in that I got the spinach and ricotta canelloni and only ate 1 tube .. .but then had half a small slice of cheesecake... hmmm starting to see the theme.

Yesterday, GB and I were going to do all our xmas shopping (I only managed one present!) and we got a crepe to share. I had nothing because I decided to treat myself to a macca's choc thickshake which some how got stuck (hello it's liquid!) and I PB'd about 6 times. Then had half a lindt reindeer about 2.30pm. Then had 4 olives. Then we went out for dinner and I had linquine pasta with sundried tomatoes (ate about 20% if I was lucky) and then PB'd the last bite back up.

I know the cake and shakes are not good, but I don't have them all the time and given the little else I've been eating I wouldn't have thought it would make TOO much difference. How wrong I am! I might go back onto the calorie king website and start tracking food again. And drinking more water. I drink quite a bit at night (hehe that sounds like I'm an alco! but I mean water... seriously) but not so much during the day. Going to fill up my water bottle right now! and....... done.

GB is off to Bunbury for the week for a training course so it'll be hard to motivate myself to get to the gym but I'm going to try really hard. I do have the added motivation of the pooch because GB won't be here to walk her in the mornings so it'll make her after work walks even more important.

Anyhoo, hope everyone else is plodding along and not crumbling under Xmas pressure!

Em :)

Finally an update!

My apologies to my many loyal readers for not updating in so long, just after I had begged everyone to leave me comments! How rude of me! I have been meaning to for so long but work and life just seemed to get in the way. That and the fact that weight wise, very little is going on - up down up down up down, and I doubt people wanted to hear that every week! But you have all been on my mind and I even downloaded the wordpress app for my iphone so I could post a blog from that and I still couldn't find time to do it!!

So what's been happening? Not a great deal unfortunately. Whilst my lovely GB is going great guns, crossing off his 2008 goals like they were easy as pie, I have been struggling mentally and physically. I could eat almost anything I wanted. Hell, I even got a big mac down for McHappy Day (hey It's for the kids!), even though it took me about 40mins to get through it! But that is not good. I went and saw the new fill doctor who's started at Watson's rooms last Thursday and we decided to put .75mls in. He did the fill a bit differently from Watson - had me lifting my head and my legs at the same time! It was like a horror abs workout! He did a removal and put back in again to see exactly how much and now I have 5mls in there. Immediate restriction which is great. I've had to get back into the habit of small mouthfulls and chew chew chewing, but I'm getting there. I can't tell you how awesome it is not to feel hungry all morning and afternoon!

GB and I have finally got back into some semblance of an exercise routine too. Went to the gym Monday - Thursday last week after work which has been fantastic. I bought GB a Nintendo Wii for his birthday at the end of October and we bought a Wii Fit a couple of weeks ago. It's quite fun but I was not impressed when it turned my little Wii Mii (your own likeness) into a big fatty poombah! Oh and the little "ouch" sound every time you stand on the board - NOT FUNNY JAN! But you can certainly work up a sweat doing some of the programs - especially the hula hoop one!

On another tangent, I had can't remember if I said that I had to apply for the job I'd been acting in since October 07. They held off interviews till I got back from holidays which was great. And my appointment was confirmed a few weeks ago so I'm officially permanent at my job which is a great feeling.

I went to a friend's wedding last weekend. Wore a dress. Yes, a dress. Felt a bit like a goose actually and had such a tight behinder binder on that I swear my port was sticking out my back!!! But it was totally worth it because the bride's cousin told my sister that I was totally hot. Ha HA!!!

Caught up on most people's blogs last week and was sorry to hear that many of you out there have been going through some tough times and some have taken breaks from blogging. So I'm sending out good vibes and wishes to Myf, LapbandGirl, Cat, Bridget and everyone else who's been struggling of late.

Anyway, I'll seriously try to not be so long between posts, if you all promise to keep checking in!

Check you all soon,

Em :)

Update Week 31

Hello all.. is there anybody out there?

This week I lost 1.1kgs which I'm stoked about... although my lovely monthly ladies appeared a week earlier than scheduled (what's with that?) so I'm sure that would have helped!

Last Sunday I did the John Hughes Big Walk around the Swan River - 17kms (allegedly - I actually think it was about 15). My aim was to do it in around 3hrs so I was stoked to complete it in 2 hrs 32mins.

Other than that my exercise this week has been pretty ordinary. My back was really sore on Monday and Tuesday so didn't do anything. Played squash with GB on Wednesday - finally won one game! I was a squash superstar! Yesterday had a hair dressers appointment after work so no exercise and tonight none either. Got a mad weekend...actually the next week and a half is mad! GB's birthday is on Thursday so we have lots of festivities happening. Me guessing me weigh in not going to be good next week!

Oh well that's all... PLEASE COMMENT!

Weigh In: Week 30

Well lost 900g which isn't bad I guess.  I just feel like I'm stagnating.  I have an appt with Watson's new Dr Fill at the end of November (wanted mid November but he's on leave). I'm still hungry in the mornings and eating too much and it's taking all my will power not to stuff my face!

Just came out of my job interview. I've been acting in the position for over 12 months and the applications were due in early July but because I was off in Europe they delayed interviewing till now. As always, you kick yourself when you leave because you think of other things you should of said but overall I think it was ok. I only got questions on one of the questions which I guess I didn't answer that well but ugh I hate those things especially when the panel are all people you know so you have to restrict the level of BS. Oh well all out of my hands now.

OMG the best thing happened to me this week. I got an iphone! I can't recall if I said before but my blackberry phone met an unfortunate end in London so have been waiting for the Travel insurance dudes to assess it all. I thought they'd just buy me another blackberry but they decided to send a cheque instead so I'm paying out my blackberry contract and am now one with the iphone. It's the best thing ever. Yeah ok it doesn't do MMS and typing texts with touchpad is a learning experience but I LOVE IT.

Hope everyone else is well,

Em

1hr 6min 28sec

That's the time I walked the 7km JDRF walk. My best time yet! Before that I think the best I'd ever walked that route was about 1hr 10mins. So I'm super stoked about that time. This morning when I woke up though my lower back was quite sore. Still I decided to walk to work as this week is supposed to be lovely weather. Last year when I was walking to work the quickest I did it was 33mins. Today was just over 37mins but I know I can walk faster, but my back was sore so it was slowing me down. Plus my ipod earphones were only working in one ear and you know what kind of effect one-sided music can have on a person!

Weight wise.. ugh... last week I put on 300g. Poop. I'm just eating too much I know I am. Anyway will see how I go this week. I have to get my mind set back into not eating for the hell of it. Still have had a few big dodgy and painful PB's lately so not sure if I want more fill in.

Anyhoo, please keep commenting - I like to know who's out there reading!

Em :)

Pics!

[caption id="attachment_96" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Me on train to Paris from Amsterdam"][/caption]

 

[caption id="attachment_98" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="Me climbing the Arc D'Triomphe"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_99" align="aligncenter" width="300" caption="Eating Haggis Neeps & Tatties in Edinburgh"][/caption]

[caption id="attachment_100" align="aligncenter" width="225" caption="After a hot day in Venice I asked for a large coke and got 1Ltr!"][/caption]

Weigh In - Week 28

Hello again, twice in one week look at that!

I have changed my weigh in days to Fridays to weigh in with GB and frankly so that the wine intake over the weekend doesn't cane me! Happy to report that I somehow managed to lose 1.8kgs this week. TTOM so I have to assume that was a factor seeing as I have done zero exercise and have still been eating and drinking like I was through Europe. We have decided to get back on the exercise train on Monday and get back into our after work routine. On the 12th I've got the JDRF walk around the Burswood bridges (7kms) and on the 19th we are thinking about doing the John Hughes BIG walk - you can choose 10kms or 17kms. Haven't decided which yet.

Oh and I am stopping drinking alcohol during the week... after today.. which is really part of the weekend anyway, right!

Have a tops weekend gals, I'll be helping out the kids by answering phones at Telethon between 9.30pm - 12.30am Saturday night. Donate Donate Donate!

Em :)

I'm baaacckkk

Is anyone still there???

So we had our big trip and I'm back at work. Poo-ey. The trip was fantastic. Well it started a bit dodgily. As you may have read I was horrendously sick before we left. Barely eating for 2 weeks. When I did start to eat I was PBing everything. Got to Scotland and could barely keep 2 mouthfuls of soup down. Not good at all. I was drained and exhausted. After a few days GB phoned Watson's rooms and they started to try to track down a doctor who could remove fill in Scotland. I hopped on the net and found a forum and got a few names. GB called a few of them (he can understand that crazy accent) but kept getting stuffed around, they were on leave apparently. We decided to go to a hospital and just force them to do something. He wanted to go to a private hospital but I thought the public hospital would be the best bet. So when we got back to Glasgow (We'd been travelling through the highlands and everywhere) we lobbed up at the Royal Infirmary emergency room. I explained the probs to the reception chick and the triage nurse and neither seemed too phased by it. I started feeling relief. Went through to the emergency rooms and was seen by a doctor. She got me to pee into a cup (pregnancy test as I found out later - negative thank god!) and her sidekick learner doctor butchered my arm to get blood out for tests. I explained that I was sure I just needed fill removed. She admitted she wasn't familiar with the surgery and so decided to get the on-call surgeon to come down. At this stage I told GB if it looked like they were going to cut me open I was outta there. The on-call dude came down and had a blank face when I explained the issue and the solution and then the whole gastric banding procedure to him. Jeepers. He then went off to a computer where I'm sure he was googling it to see if I was making it up. Finally he came back to say he had found a bariatric surgeon and she was going to go search the hospital for the correct needle and come and see me. Thank god! A while later she came down and I went through the problem again and she totally got what I was saying!! YAY!! She was concerned though that from all the vomitting the band may have slipped. We decided to take out 2mls - better safe than sorry. I felt immediate relief. She gave me her pager number and told me to call her on the Monday (it was a Friday when this happened) if there were still issues and she'd do an xray etc. But no probs at all. In fact I could eat just about anything. Even bread (gives a cheer). Which was good and bad. Hell I was on holidays.

GB had 1ml removed before we left as he was struggling too, so although he still couldn't eat bread he could eat most other things.

So we lived the PHAT life through Europe. Eating drinking and just having the time of our lives. GB was sure he'd put on 10kgs and I thought about 5kgs. When we got home we weighed in. I'm not sure what I got down to after 1 week in Scotland, but based on my last official weigh in at home, I'd put on 3kg and GB put on 2.8kg. Not bad considering. We were doing a heap of walking though so I think that helped. In the last two weeks since we got home though I put on another 900g and GB another 2kgs! Still eating but no walking. Oh dear.

We saw Watson last week, GB had 0.3mls in and I had 1ml in. I don't think its enough. It's restricting some food types and helped my hunger but I think my portions are still too big and I'm still hungry in the mornings (although I'm ignoring it!). But I'll give it a go for a month and see how I go. After this week we'll get back into the gym and that will help no end I'm sure. I gotta get back into drinking water instead of wine for a start!

Anyway, that's enough of me, how's everyone else doing?

Goal attained!

Not really the way I wanted to do it but certainly being sick has helped me easily reach my Europe goal (and 20kg lost since band). Still not well but feel like I'm turning the corner - but I'm still really weak.

Hope everyone else is well. This will likely be my last post till after I get back from Europe in 6 weeks. Hope you all check back then.

Em :)

Late Update - warning! may be TMI contained within

Sorry for my absence. Last week it was work keeping me super busy, working nights and weekends. Then Saturday came and started feeling a bit woozy and tired. Had to work on my job application too. Sunday - dodgier, really sore neck, finishing job application. Sunday night raging fever, sweats, chills, body aches and pains. Luckily I was able to postpone my monday workshop and thought I'd work from home. Except that I couldn't get out of bed. GB took me to the docs - couldnt get into my regular one so went to one up the road. Of course I had to fill out a billion forms. He said I likely had a flu virus but my glands were up so wanted to do a blood test for glandular fever and a full body picture and my iron levels. He put me on antibiotics and bed rest.

Tuesday I dragged myself to work (GB had to drive) and conducted a full day budget workshop in 2 hours and GB picked me up and brought me home and stayed with me. I kept taking soluable panadol rapid which makes me want to barf and felt like poo. My mum and sister were going to come out for dinner with us because my mum is off to melbourne and wont be back before we leave for Europe. We changed it to chinese takeaway. I had 3 mouthfuls of rice and half a piece of lemon chicken and was done. No appetite at all. Cannot get enough water though.

Went to bed and was freezing except I wasn't. To touch me I was on fire, but I couldn't stop shivering. Went to bed in uggboots. Then I started to feel hot. Took my temp -39.4 - not good according to google. Had a wet towel which heated up in about 10 seconds of touching me. At some stage during the night I sat in the shower, wondering if i would be able to get up. As it turns out not so much. Laid in a towel on the bathmatt for about half an hour before puttin on a tshirt and crawling back to bed. Temp still 39.4. Contempated waking up GB and asking him to take me to Emergency but didn't want to risk any oe telling me I wouldn't be able to fly next week. Didn't sleep all night and the fever finally broke around 6am. I was going to try to get to work but GB cracked it and said no way,had no energy to argue. He then lovingly informed me that I smelled like a rotting corpse. Well that's what happens when you sweat the night away!

 Scribbled some notes for the Finance & Admin Coordinator so she could run the workshop and had GB drop in my laptop.

Dozed in bed for the morning. GB called and had made me another Doc appt to get my blood test resuts. Went and sat back in the shower and managed to wash my hair (sort of). Getting dressed took everything out of me. The doc says that the bloodtests show that I have had glandular fever at some stage because antibodies were present but I don't have the infection at the moment. Some other thing was elevated but said that was normal given the virus I was fighting and my iron count was low - 5 but iron stores was normal. Basically a good result. Wish I felt better.

To add to feeling like death, back in January I bought GB a voucher for a cooking class for our anniversery. They're so popular, it took us 6 months to get a spot in a Tapas class (should be band friendly - our reasoning. It's tonight. I'm absolutely devastated. If there was any possible way I thought I could get up for 2 hrs I would, god knows I would. But given that I almost passed out gettig the laptop from the study and bringing to bed, plus the fact its taken me an hour to write this, I just know I can't make it. I don't want to ruin it fr GB - he was so looking forward to it, so now he's going with another of our friends. Oh and I've developed a lovely asthma cough. Plus we've got a funeral to go to tomorrow, so I just have to be well enough for that.

The very small positive to come out of this is that I lost 2.4kgs this week. That's what not eating will do for you! I didn't lose anything last week so it made up for my disappointment and puts me in reach of my Europe Goal - lose another 800g in a week. Fingers crossed!

Hope everyone is going well, I hope to catch up with your blogs soon.

 

Em

x

Food Glorious Food

Geez. We have eaten out every night since last Thursday. Very hard to lose weight. I've tried to make sensible choices but a sneak peak at the scales this morning had me 200g up from last Wednesday. Coupled with the fact we've had no time for exercise since Thursday's PT session and I'm an unhappy camper. Here's what we've done/eaten:

Thursday night: GB's sister in law's bday at pub -
GB and I share grilled fish and chips. I ate small amount of fish and a few chips. There was a salad bar so I had a small saucer size plate of a few not very healthy salads.

Friday night: Dinner with friends at The Pony Club -
Tapas restaurant, so small shared servings. If you ever go - order the marron - it's to die for! We ordered 4 tapas to start with 4 serves on each, so we each got a taste. Then ordered one main (a seafood risotto) and 2 more tapas. Dessert - shared churros (like donuts but sticks not circles with choc dipping sauce) between the 4 of us. One cocktail for me (aptly called a Mood Adjuster with Vodka, Baileys and espresso) and a couple of glasses of wine. Didn't feel like I ate too much so that was good.

Saturday - 10 of us were to take part in an Iron Chef Cook Off Challenge. The boys to cook, girls to judge. 3 ingredients chosen which had to be used in all the dishes. I was busy with work stuff so I didn't make the lunch time offering but went for dinner. GB and I shared - 3 asparagus stalks in lemon juice with parmesan cheese, mushroom, white wine risotto, some baked (whole) fish, tiramasu. One glass of champagne for me.

Sunday: GB's folks are off to Scotland on Wednesday so went out for lunch -
GB and I order the grilled fish and a greek salad. I had a small piece of fish and about a quarter of the salad.

Sunday Night: Dinner with my mum & sisters -
GB and I order the grilled fish (again!) and a caesar salad. I had a small piece of fish (again!) and about a half of the caesar which wasn't very big to begin with. About 4 wedges and a bowl of gelato vanilla icecream.

So I think I'm starting to be able to eat more than I should. I said I would review my fill after about 6 weeks because we're not booked in again to see Doc Watson till mid September when we return from Europe as he didn't want to put more fill in just before we left. I'm still dealing with PB's a few times a week. I get a little bit hungry in the mornings but not too bad. I don't think a fill this close to going to Europe would be a good idea so I'm just going to have to use some of that self control thing I've been hearing so much about.

Anyhoo, no plans for the next couple of nights so I'm going to buckle down and try to NOT put on weight this week!

Em :)

Pride

Well GB smashed through his Europe goal this week, losing 1.7kgs and dropping to 98.8kgs, freaking amazing. He's lost over 27kgs and 82cm since starting Optifast, two weeks before banding. His personal goal is 90kgs - well within his sight. I'm so proud of him, he's worked so hard.

Week 14 Review

Hey-ho, sorry about the sporadic posts - just ridiculously busy at work. I've even worked at home the last couple of days because I can't get interruption free time in the office. Grrr

So I didn't think I was going that well this week, then TTOM reared its ugly head. In the opposite way to convention, I tend to lose more weight not less at TTOM. So it was a 1.8kg loss this week - yeehaaa. That takes my 14 week total to 15.7kgs since receiving the band. Also on track to reach my weight goal for Europe (just over 4 weeks to go!) - I need to lose 3.9kgs.

GB was 500g off his Europe goal last week. He was really disappointed but he's done SO well. I mean he's 4 weeks ahead of his goal! He'll definately get there this week.

Exercise wise this week wasn't TOO bad. I think I went to the gym last Thursday, then nothing much Fri/Sat, then we walked to Gloria Jeans and back on Sunday (about 20mins each way). Monday was the PT again and yesterday we walked the Burswood/Causeway bridges in about 1hr 15mins. It was a tough walk due to some heavy head wind and we did try to jog for bits of it. Tonight it's Squash Mk 2. We've bought new balls and new grips for the rackets so I'm sure I will play a lot better this time around!

You may notice some dodgy looking pics in my flickr photo bar to the right. We had a bogan party on Saturday! It was awesome fun. I surprised GB coming out with a big preggers belly, cigarette, high pony, teased fringe, blue eyeshadow, wife beater, flannel shirt, trackies and pink uggies. Yep I was attractive. Have a look at the staged fight photos between me and GB - very amusing.

I've started taking iron tablets this week. I've always struggled with my iron levels and floated into anaemia territory on more than 1 occassion mostly due to lack of red meat and vegies in my diet. Well the other day I noticed my left leg is covered in massive big bruises and I have no recollection of banging into anything. This happened a couple of years ago when I lost a bunch of weight and I thought I had cancer or something - had a shit load of blood tests and the doc decided that I am just "prone to bruising". But I thought it might be low iron so will give a course of ferretin a go and if I'm still bruising will go to the docs.

Anyway, better get stuck into some work.

Hope everyone is going well - I will try to stop by your blogs this week! And thanks for all your comments everyone!

Brrrrrrr

Holy moly I'm freezing. Due to the gas shortage and as I work for a government department, we were instructed yesterday to reduce our aircondititioning to 20C. As that was even colder than outside I decided to turn ours off all together. Worked yesterday as the day warmed up but this morning my office is 16.3C. And I'm in a massive coat and contemplating getting my scarf out of the car. But I keep telling myself - better to be cold than one of those people losing their jobs.

PT was an absolute bastard last night. I literally thought I might die. Pullups, pushups, crunches, skipping, running up and down stairs, jumping lunges, calf raises........ arrrggghhhhhh. I could barely see through the sweat running down my eyes!

Anyway, have to go for a walk and get my blood pumping before it freezes.

Em :)

Measurements Updated

Hey All,

I've updated my measurements on the appropriately titled "Measurements" page. Another 19cm gone this month. I'm pretty happy with that. That brings the total to 54cm since being banded.

Squash was fun. I totally won. I had a bit of trouble serving. And backhands on the full. And backhands with a bounce. And overhead shots. But aside from all that I was awesome. It was a bit difficult to keep score but when we had 1 minute to go on our session I said that who ever wins that rally, wins the game. I won after GB hit the ball over the back screen and across the basketball courts. We're going to try and keep doing it on wednesdays as a bit of a break from the gym and walking. You can definately work up a sweat even if you don't know what you're doing!

Em :)

Week 13 Update

Well, I was pleasantly surprised this morning on my weigh in. I lost 1.2kgs this week! So I'm stoked. I'll do my June meaurements tonight and post tomorrow. Starting to get a few comments about my weightloss (as you would  think so after 13.9kgs!) so hopefully the measurements will show some good cm losses.

GB is still going great guns (his weigh ins are Fridays) and is getting better with his running. He reached a personal goal of his to run around a park near us (which is bloody huge I might add), this morning so he was stoked. I'm so proud of him. On Sunday we went to Garden City shops (as it was open for some reason) and I convinced him to buy some new jeans. He wanted to wait till just before we go away to buy new clothes but his stuff is looking ridulous! (losing 25kgs will do that!). He hasn't been able to fit into surfy jeans or shorts in ages and ages so he was super excited to find that he fit into a 38 surf-brand jeans. And his butt looked goooooood. Of course then he needed a new top to go with his spanky new jeans. No more XXL for him, he easily fit into an L. Then as a bit of a goof, I told him to try on a scarf. He looked like a model! So he bought the scarf too. His friends gave him shit but he looked awesome! I took a pic on my phone but he's not keen on pics being posted on the my blog so I'll just leave it to your imaginations!

GB's back is getting better but he's still taking pain meds and is going to go back to the doctor this week. The physio said he only needs one more session because his back is loosening up well but it will just take natural time to heal.

My leg/back pain has subsided thank goodness! Although the last couple of days I've had super sore hammies from PT on Monday. We had to do these things (I like to call them Death Drops) where you hold a bar bell (one hand up, one down), then keeping your back perfectly straight, bend at the hips and run the barbell about an inch away, down your legs. Owchy Wowchy. I like our PT guy - even though he calls me "young lady" which I hate coz I'm like 10 years older than him! We do something different in every session and alternates between outside stuff and inside the gym. He's definately keeping us on our toes!

Tonight after work, GB and I are going to attempt to play Squash. I've never played before and have no idea what to do. My aim will be to get through the game without a squashball to the face injury. Should be fun!

Hope everyone else is going well.

Em :)

Tidbits

Hi all, have been quite atrocious with food choices this week. Lots of Iced Coffees and cakes and party pies and sausage rolls and not a great deal of exercise unfortunately. Still, I've got a couple of days to be good and hopefully post a loss this week on Wednesday.

GB today said he wants to get a tattoo to cover his scars on his tummy. I hope he was kidding. He doesn't want them to be so obvious. I tried to explain that they fade over time and that his scars are actually pretty good - all straight lines and so will go away to next to nothing. I don't want to get home and find him with a Ben Cousin's "Such Is Life" tattoo across his torso. Heads will roll.

Friday and Saturday I was struggling from a killer sore leg/hip/back. My mum seemed to think that it was related to my sciatic nerve (not sure on that spelling!). It was really hard to go up and down stairs and getting into the car. While moving around I was ok but if I sat for any time it was like my leg froze up. Not fun at all. Of course it could also be related to the quadrillion lunges we did with the PT on Thursday. That boy needs to get laid because he just about killed us on Thursday! Our session went for over 45 mins instead of 30, GB was about to pass out and I was about to cry! It was full on. Fingers crossed he got a bit over the weekend and tonight's session will be a bit easier. I'm actually hoping for rain so that we have to stick to inside the gym!

Thanks for everyone's comments re GB's back. It's still not great unfortunately. He went to the physio about 3 times last week. He's got another appointment tomorrow. It is better than it was though so finger's crossed it's 100% before we jet off to Europe in 6 WEEKS! WOOO HOOO!

Bye :)

Week 12 update

Sorry for the lack of posts lately - I have been SOOO ridiculously busy at work this past week or so and it doesn't look like it's going to get much better.. stupid end of financial year.

This week I lost 1.4kg - loving that. I haven't been hungry at all really which is good. Was better with PB-ing over the last week too and feeling full after about 3 bites of food.

Exercise has been pretty average (read: non-existent) this week. Although did go to PT on Monday and will again tomorrow. GB and I were going to try out squash this week but his physio has said it's a no-go until his back is better.

Nothing much else to report today.

Hope everyone else is going well.

Em :)

PS - I went to the loo yesterday and I realised I pulled my jeans down without undoing the buttons and fly! YAY!

Birthday Week

Hi All,

Thanks for all your comments - I really appreciate it. Have had a MASSIVE Week! GB had organised lunch for me on friday so I came home and had decided to take the afternoon off work so we could enjoy a vino with lunch. GB asked me to go upstairs and grab the camera and as I got upstairs I noticed on the bed a red rose, a note and a bag. The note said I had 10mins to pack for 3 nights and it was the beginning of my birthday weekend! So I quickly  packed and we got in the car with Westie and headed south. I tried to guess where we were going but GB wouldn't say. We finally ended up at some chalets just out of Pemberton (about 4.5hrs from Perth). We stopped at the office and GB went and spoke to the owner and hopped back in the car and said we were in Chalet 1. As we got there I said - "this can't be ours, there's someone's car already there. Chalet 1 must be at the other end". Then I looked properly at the car and realised it belonged to one of our friends, who poked her head out of the door at that minute! Turns out GB had organised a weekend away with all our friends! Slowly people started showing up including my sisters till there was 15 of us! He had  booked out all 4 chalets so we had the place to ourselves. It was fantastic. We basically had a 3 day party, hanging out, playing games, going to wineries. GB had organised all the food and everything! You can see some photos on my flickr album to the right.

So food wise I was actually pretty good - not eating too much. But I did drink my body weight in champagne. On Friday morning I weighed myself and was already 1kg down from Wednesday's weigh in. Yesterday I weighed myself and had only put on 500g so still 500g down for the week. Not too bad. I didn't weigh in this morning though. We went to Gold Class movies to see Indiana Jones yesterday and pigged out on more champers, wedges, cheese and an icecream sundae! THen went out for dinner! Back into the healthy stuff today though!

All in all, have had a terrific birthday week - I'm completely rooted today though. Poor GB is still struggling with his back. The chiro doesn't seem to be working so he went to the doc today and is going for xrays. Poor love.

Anyhoo, best get back to work!

Hope everyone else is going well.

Em :)

Let me hear you say WOOOAAAHHHH HEEEEYYYYY

Is anybody out there? Lordy Bigordy! Where is everyone? I miss you guys! Please leave me a comment! I've said it before and I'll say it again - "I'm fat - I need constant reassurance dammit!

 

PS. I'm officially a homeowner now. EEK!

10 Weeks down

Hiya,

Good weightloss for me this week - 1.3kgs - so very happy with that. It also meant that after 10 weeks banded I have kicked over 10kgs to the curb! Almost 11kgs. So although I may not be doing as well as others banded at the same time as me (I read on the Yahoo message board that some had lost about 15kgs), this is good steady weightloss for me and considering I didn't do Optifast very well (lost less than a kg) I'm happy with this result so far.

This has left me with 8.8kgs to lose before heading off to Europe in 8 weeks. Tough but do-able. Another tough aspect is that it's my birthday on Sunday which means this week will probably have numerous meals out and a touch of the alcohol. At least the band will stop me from eating the portions I would normally eat! Still, will try to up the exercising this week to compensate for the extra calories.

I get the feeling today is going to be a tough day. GB couldn't sleep this morning so got up ridiculously early for his walk with Westie. Then decided to go have coffee with his mum (who works as a cleaner) before going to work ridiculously early. Then of course I couldn't get back to sleep so decided I would go to work a bit early. Get to work and realise I've left my laptop at home. Grrrr. So had to go back home and get it. I mean we only live 8min drive away from work but still!!! And now people are annoying me. Bastards.

That's all from me today,

Em :)

Buggered

Yep. Got absolutely caned in our PT session last night. Here's a reccap for anyone interested:

• Run across half the oval kicking to our bums


• Run across half the oval high knee running


• Sprint across half the oval


• Walking lunges (turning to each side) half the oval


• laying under a bar and then holding yourself up for as long as possible (for me about 5 seconds!)


• crab walk about 10m x 2


• 20 stomach crunches


• 10 push ups


• 10 pushups bringing knees to elbows alternating sides


• high plank for 30seconds


• running up and down a set of stairs 10 times


• using elastic straps, doing bicep curls, chest presses, and like a seated row but not seated.


• sitting at right angles against a wall and holding


• laying on matt, legs crossed in the air and crunches reaching up to ankles

Then we did it all again! Fark I was stuffed. I had sweat literally dripping off me and I felt nauseaus.

My sister and her boyfriend are moving in with us tonight until we get back from Europe. Should be interesting times ahead. I wonder if I'll kill them!

Em :)

Chocolate is Evil

I love chocolate. And as chance would have it, it's about the only thing that I can eat without having any discomfort whatsoever. Bastards. And of course we have a chocolate fridge here at work. I am trying to be strong and stay away but sometimes when I get a bit peckish - the call from the fridge is too strong! I have gone from having a full bar to one of those snack size ones so that's good isn't it?

Well our weekend was good. On Saturday we spent the day at my mum's paving and replanting her plants in her little back courtyard. We were in bed by 9pm... on a saturday night. What exciting lives we lead! On Sunday we went to the movies and saw "What happens in Vegas". It has Cameron Diaz and Ashton Kutcher in it. Was ok. GB thought it was great. Then we went to our new place we're buying so GB could tidy up the reticulation cords that were hanging out. Settlement is on Thursday - SCARY! After that we went home and I had a nap :). Later in the afternoon, we went to the Balmoral for a couple of beverages as it was our friend's birthday. A nice and relaxing day all up. Except for PB-ing the wedges from the pub. Which serves me right for eating some wedges.

Back into the PT sessions this week. GB's back is getting better so we're getting back on the exercise train this week. I'm actually looking forward to it but I bet he absolutely canes us today.

Anyhoo, that's it for today.

Em :)

4 kgs

Four farking kilos. That is how much GB lost this week. And that is without his usual exercise regime because he hurt his back last week. Four farking kilos! He has struggled to keep any food down since the fill so I guess that explains it, but still. Four farking kilos! I'm proud of him I swear, but jealous as all hell!

Because GB hasn't been doing the gym, I haven't been going either and we've been busy organising our house settlement etc. But I have, twice now, done 30mins on my cross trainer which I'm feeling pretty bloody proud of myself about!

Anyway, that's all I have to report.

 

4 farking kilos.....

9 Weeks Down

Well what a difference a fill makes! I almost went under that elusive 110kg mark... SO CLOSE! Nevertheless a 1.8kg drop this week is great. No hunger at all really which is good. Haven't been able to eat breakfast which I guess is ok. Differing opinions on that. "They" usually say how important breakfast is blah blah blah. However I'm reading Paul O'Brien's new lapbanding book and he pretty much says if you're not hungry - don't eat. Been eating salad for lunch which is going down ok. We bought half a cheesecake the other day and that was a bad move. Last night's dinner: cheesecake. Yum. I'm finding that if I take too big a gulp of water that it kind of gets stuck - but not to the extent of PBing. Weird - it's just water.

Doc Watson said on Friday that he doesn't need to see us for another couple of months. Given that that would bring us right up to when we fly out to Europe he said it was best to just make an appointment for when we come back in mid September.  Which is 4 months away! He doesn't want us too restricted going away which is good I guess. I'm going to see how I go in 6 weeks and if I feel like I'm eating too much or getting hungry I might try to get a fill. That way there's another 3-4weeks to settle before we go away.

I did 30mins on the cross trainer at home last night! Apparently all that dust on it doesn't affect it's capacity to work you silly! Then did about 10mins of sit ups, leg lifts and pushups.

Well the townhouse we bought a couple of months ago is finally settling next week! Because it is brand new we had to wait for the titles to be released. So we have our final inspection today and we're looking around for a property manager. I've had shit ones having been renting for quite some time so I'm keen to find someone who'll do a good job by us as well as whomever rents from us.

I thought I'd post a few photos:

Me & GB on Mother's Day:

Skinny GB at the Million Paws walk

The two of us in a corporate box at the Rugby last friday (the fill meant we couldn't eat much of anything on offer though!)

Us at Kings Park on Mother's Day

No PT this week

I have posted this month's measurements on the measurements page if anyone wants to have a gander!

No PT this week unfortunately, had to cancel. GB has hurt his back either at PT last thursday or cleaning up my workshop at work on Saturday (I dragged him in to help!), so the poor love is only allowed to walk this week. He was pretty miserable yesterday, in pain and also not able to keep much food down at all. I've told him to stick to liquids today and see how he goes. He managed to drink an optifast shake this morning and a cup a soup for lunch. The week after the fill was pretty awful for him last time so I'm hoping it does get better for him. I also appear to be coming down with the flu thanks to the half a dozen people coughing, sneezing and spluttering at the training last week. Bastards.

Nothing else happening really, so enjoy a pic of our pooch Westie taken yesterday in her new "Spoilt Bitch" jumper I bought for her at the Million Paws walk.

Quick Update - 2 months banded

Sorry I haven't updated in a while. Been busy with work and life - you get that! Was running a training course all last week so wasn't in the office on my computer at all! What's been going on?

Weight: put on a bit last week due to having a phat time of life! Eating too much... definately time for a fill!

Measurements: Took monthly measurements and have lost 22cm all over which is more than I lost the month before which is terrific. Will post as soon as I can.

2nd Fill: GB and I went for our second fill on Friday. Doc Watson was very happy with our progress and the exercise we're putting in. He gave us both 1ml taking us to 5ml in 10ml bands.

Eating post fill: Difficult. We had corporate box tix to the Rugby on Friday night after our fill. Couldn't really eat much of anything. GB again had a big task of keeping anything at all down (same as last time). I struggled but was ok. Saturday - didn't eat much of anything - wasn't hungry at all. Had an iced coffee at the shops then nibbled on ham and cheese at GB's parents house that night. And a bit of popcorn at the movies that night - that's it. Sunday, GB made us scrambled eggs for breakfast - neither of us could eat it. It seems we have joined those bandsters who can't eat breakfast. Shame. Did the million paws walk with friends and then went to The Balmoral for lunch and bevvies. I ate a greek salad - had a PB - stupid lettuce leaves. GB didn't eat much of anything. I also shared a small piece of cheesecake with a friend - went down an absolute treat!!! Haven't eaten anything today yet - GB tried an apple - no luck there either.

Anyhoo, that's all I've got to say about that! Hope everyone else's journey is progressing well. I hope to catch up on your blogs this week!

Em :)

The aftermath

Ok, I'm feeling slightly better this morning. The pain from Monday in the quads (I think) is no worse which is good. I have however strained my groin I think. I did feel a bit of a twinge last night when I did one of the side lunges so that's causing a few issues this morning but a lot better than last night when I thought I may be a parapalegic!

GB said this morning that he had the best night's sleep in months last night primarily because I couldn't move! Lovely!

Anyway, must get back to work. Busy busy busy. I'm in a working group that has put together 1 week's training next week for clerical and admin officers and I have to present 2 of the topics. I still have to write up the presentations!!!

Cheerio

Em

PT 3: The pain continues

I wanted to post this whilst the pain is still fresh. Let this be a lesson to everyone. Never admit to your personal trainer that you are still really sore from the previous session. 1st exercise. Legs either side of a step and jumping up on top of it into a squat. The pain was extreme. Then he moved onto arms stuff with the weight machines and dumbells and I literally thought they were going to explode. Then we had to do walking lunges. Again my legs screamed. To finish off - knee high running on the spot and then kicking bum running on the spot for 60 seconds each. I finished 1 second early and had to do 20 seconds more. Bastard.

As a result of all this I find myself literally unable to get off the couch. Not because I don't want to. Because I cannot put any weight on my knees.

Lordy bigordy.

:(

Still hurting....

Decided not to go to the gym after work last night because my legs were still so sore. GB and I walked Westie for about half an hour though (not at any great speed) and I ran...jogged..shuffled 2 x 1.5laps of our park. Then we did some medicine ball situps together (sans medicine ball). So still did some exercise just not as intense. The muscles above my knees are still sore today if you can believe that and we have another PT session tonight!

Thanks for your advice Myf about Yoga. Not sure how I'd go with that. I did a body balance class last year when I was quite a bit lighter and which combines yoga, pilates, tai chi and I vowed never to go back coz I was so crap! But the gym does have yoga classes so maybe I'll think about it.

I made a lovely cannelloni last night. I know we're trying not to have carbs for dinner blah blah but we felt like something really tasty and I think it was my best ever! Of course I made a whole tray of it so we'll be eating it all week!! haha

The last few nights I've noticed (and so has GB) that my stomach is making all sorts of gurgling noises. It's kind of like hunger grumbles but I'm not hungry. What's that all about? It's really loud!!!

Anyhoo, best be off

Em :)

7 weeks on...

It's been 7 weeks since the banding - wow how time flies! A bit disappointed with only a 600g loss this week considering the exercise I'm putting in, but my diet hasn't been the best so I guess that's fair. Will retake measurements next Wednesday and will hopefully see some change there.

My scars are mostly healing nicely. The small one on the right is now finally starting to dry up and heal after a week of putting betadine on it. And the end of the big scar is starting to heal too. Not sure why these two have been a bit of a pain in the arse but we're getting there. I do still get a bit itchy around them.

I'm still sore!!! I am still struggling to bend my legs to sit down and get up which is frustrating! And our next PT session is tomorrow! So hopefully will be semi better by then!

Food yesterday:

Breakfast: 1 weetbix & skim milk

Lunch: Greek salad

Dinner: satay chicken and steamed vegies

Dessert: Banana split (1 scoop light icecream)

Snacks: 300ml Light Iced coffee

Well better get back to work. Blah. I need a day off.

PT 2: Electric Boogaloo

Ouchy Wouchy. I can barely walk. We had our second personal training session last night and it was another toughy. We did kickboxing and as a result my legs no longer like to leave the ground. Or bend. Which makes going to the toilet and sitting down quite the awkward task. In between kicking the trainer we had to do dips and pushups against the little wall (my hands are sooo sore!) and throw a tyre back and forth. We also had to do medicine ball situps without the ball which killed! And a bit of running around and jumping through the tyre. Finished off with 5mins on the cycle on fatburner level 10! (12 for GB) We were shattered by the end of it. Poor GB had to ride home on his pushbike after all that too!

When we got home we took Westie for a walk for about 45mins too. Slow and steady to get the bloody circulating again!

Food was pretty good yesterday:

Breakfast: 1 weetbix & skim milk

Lunch: Greek salad no dressing

Dinner: Chicken stirfry

Snacks: nestle no fat yoghurt

Anyhoo, that's it for today. If anyone has any suggestions as to what they'd like to seem me talk more or less about on this blog, just leave me a comment. Thanks to Myf for all her awesome comments! At least I know 1 person is reading this! haha

Em :)

Monday-itis

So the weekend was good. I'm PB-ing a lot more that I want to be. I'm pretty sure I can put this down to being gutsy. Especially when you're talking to someone and just not thinking about what is going on in your mouth. It's a big learning curve - el-banderino. GB and I went out for dinner on Friday night for our fortnightly splurge. We went to the Must wine bar in Highgate. There was already a bit of a crowd around the bar and when we walked in we were asked if we wanted to go up to the Champagne Lounge. So off we troddle, through the locked door (seriously you need a code to get in) and up some stairs to this lovely, quiet lounge. The bartender up there told us they had one of the biggest selections of champagne in Australia and had 5 that you could buy by the glass. But if we wanted spirits or wine that was ok too. He went through them the champagnes by the glass one by one, with me nearly balking at the upward of $20 price per glass. They also had Dom Perignon by the glass at $50 each. Holy Schmoly. GB says to me, "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" And just as I'm about to say "Yeah the second one for $24 sounds nice", he says "It has to be the Dom!" WHAT THE??? I told him he was paying if that's the case! So we had a glass each and it was truly spectacular. If you have an opportunity to try it (without the $400 per bottle price tag), I highly recommend it. Dinner was downstairs in the dining area opposite the main bar. The meal was nice (if not slightly overpriced particularly when we're only eating half of what's on our plates!), but we found it too noisy for an intimate dinner for two.

Saturday GB went over to a friends place to help with more flooring stuff. I had a day to myself. Went to the gym for about an hour which was good. Then did some washing and had a shower and went to Garden City for a change. Decided I deserved a pedicure so off I toddled to Professionnail. Not very impressed. I love after a pedicure when you feel like you're walking on air and all tingly. Well this didn't happen. Didn't even get a very good foot massage. Oh well, my toenails look pretty. Then I went and did some grocery shopping and headed home. After hanging the washing on the line I headed to GB's friends place to catch up with the lads. His friend's girlfriend brought over the Wii she had just got and we played bowling (4 strikes in a row thank you very much!), tennis and golf. You actually have to make the movements! It was great fun that Wii thingamajig! This morning I saw on Sunrise, the gadget guy was showing a Wii game that had a step thingy and you could do exercises - it was like a personal trainer! hahaha technology today. At least these kids stuck in front of the tv all day are getting a bit of exercise now.

Sunday we had a family meeting/intervention at my mum's which is way to long a diatribe and stressfull to go into here but it had to be done. Afterwards we met the boys at the Gate pub and my sister and I shared a piece of cheesecake. And it was tasteless. Dammit, if I'm going to eat crap it should at least be tasty!!!

Well tonight we're off to the PT again. GB actually road his bike to work today. Not sure how bright an idea that was given that he's going to have to ride home after the PT session!!! Got a bit asthma-y last time so have my puffer with me for today.

I've been reading everyone's blogs that are on my sidebar and what a bloody inspiration you lot are! Sorry if I don't comment every time, but know that I am reading your blogs!

Ciao for now!

em :)

Men v Women

I was just reading an article on news.com.au about Sam winning The Biggest Loser and these paragraphs pipped my interest:

"Fortunately for males and unfortunately for females they (males) have the hormone testosterone, which is a hormone that allows you to build lean muscle tissue and cut fat at the same time," he says.

"It's the way God, or who ever discovered this world, built us.

" Females were built to survive in evolution, they need to be able to hold weight in times of famine and carry a baby, feed kids and things like that. That's why the human race has survived and why women will hold weight on a bit. The more testosterone you have on a chemical level the more weight you will lose."

So does this mean I should be shovelling testosterone down my throat? Will I grow "man bits"? Hmmmm

GB did his official weekly weigh in today and was disappointed to have only lost 400g. I think that's awesome considering we've made a few dodgy food choices this week (*cough*chinese*cough). Plus that's like almost a tub of magarine of weight he's lost. He's on the last hole on his belt. The same belt I might add that he bought about a week before our surgery and could only just get it done up on the first hole. He's gone from a size 47 to 42 in pants and shirts and all this in 6 weeks. People are saying they didn't recognise him walking past. I'm uber proud of him.

Back to Sam. It was terrific to see him win last night and looking great and happy. 71.7kg lost in 6 months! I'd be happy if that's what I weighed! And he didn't look sickly thin like last year's winner who admitted after that he was planning to put back on about 15-20kgs after the show as he was too thin! I couldn't help feel a twinge of sadness for Alison after losing by just 1%. And how unrecognizable was Sean! Oh my god. Thanks goodness that pony tail got the chop too! Kristen looked like she'd gone for some muscle definition which would have reduced her chances but she looked terrific.  My personal faves were Sheriden and Nicola. I thought they looked mint and what I aspire to.

Dinner

I forgot that I took a pic of the dinner I cooked for us a few nights ago. It was out of one of the weight watchers cookbooks I have. It was a small veal steak with salsa, avocado and cheese on top. I made some potato dish to go with it.. I know not very healthy but I did use extra light cream! And that is a side plate not a dinner plate to give you an idea on size. It was yummo too!!

Just spoke with our PT and confirmed our next session for next Monday after work. We're going to do it Monday and Thursdays which gives us a good break in between.

Work is giving me the poops today. Why do people have to be so annoying?? Grrrr

6 weeks on...

Yes I'm alive... arms very sore though.

First an official weight reccap: 7.5kgs in 6 weeks. Not too bad, not as much as I would have liked but still, not too bad.

Now for what you've all been waiting for..... how was our PT session? In a word - TOUGH! Holy moly! GB and I did a 10 min walk on the treadmill (me at 6.3k/h) as a warmup. So far so good. Then our trainer came up to us. He said we were going outside to train. He grabbed matts and boxing paraphenalia and off we troddled out to the back of the building. He started us jogging on the spot when a friendly homeless indigenous australian decided to have a chat. He'd spotted the boxing stuff and wanted to know our trainer's boxing experience as apparently he was a golden glove. I guess this means he was good, or somewhere in the depths of his mentalness he thinks he's Rocky... which ever it was it was annoying. We did our best to bumble along.

After our jogging on the spot I was already tired. Then he explained that we'd go through a circuit together and then one of us would box with him while the other did the circuit. The circuit started off with pullups (or chinups) on this side rail. And here's about when it came unstuck for me. I have ZERO upper body strength. So my body barely moved when I pulled on the bar! Anyway we had to do 10 of those. Next we leant onto the rail and did pushups. That was tough too - 10 of those. We then moved to the stairs (about 10) and had to run down and then bolt up them, counting the number as we got to the top. 10 of those.  After that I could barely breathe! I hobbled over to the other rail and we had to do like scissor jump lunges. 50 of those and I was literally about to die. We then moved over to the window ledge and had to put one leg up behind us and do like a squat on the other leg. Shit. Then switch legs. Next we held onto a pole and did calf raises where we went up and down on our toes. Then we got to have a drink!

After that we did about a million different crunches. THen GB got to go off on the circuit and I got to box for the first time ever. It was great fun but I couldn't believe how much my heart was racing and sore my arms got. left punch, right punch, left hook, right hook, left uppercut, right uppercut. Over and over and over. My arms are stinging now just thinking about it! The only downer was the dude crapping on about what we were doing wrong - grrrr. When GB finished his circuit we swapped and I nearly died all over again doing my circuit! When he was finished we did some pushups (sort off - I couldn't really bend my elbows with my arse flat like that!). Then we moved back into the gym for 5 mins of intervals on the bikes. FARK! Trainer dude asked us throughout how we felt between 1 and 10 - we were at 9's and then after the bike - 10!

It may have been the lack of oxygen to our brains but we signed up for another 10 sessions each. We discussed it with trainer guy and he agreed that we probably wouldn't be able to manage an hour long session (that one was just half an hour) so we're going to do 30min session twice a week. I was literally shattered last night. A bit asthma-y too so will have to remember to take my puffer with me to future sessions. GB was pretty impressed with it too - he felt like he was going to throw up!

Anyhoo, must be on my way....

em :)

PT update

I finally managed to get time to call the membership chick at the gym and put to her my request of doing one session and if we don't like it we'll pay for the single session and if we do continue it will come off our 10 pack. She went off to ask someone. That someone turned out to be my ex-trainer who is the head trainer in charge of the gym and who encouraged me to give this new guy a try in the first place. She hops on the phone and says that we can have a freebie session to see how we like Damien! So after all that fluffing about we're getting a free one after all! He gave me a call a bit later to make an appointment so now we have our first session tonight at 5.15pm! Looking forward to it!

I meant to go to the gym last night, was all kitted up but got stuck back at work. Gave GB a call and he suggested we meet at home and go for a long walk. We ended up doing about an hour long walk, good pace and then I finished off by jogging a lap and a half of the park and then our street home.

GB made a really nice chicken and rice dish for dinner last night too.

Weighed this morning and down 700g from last week. Will do an official weekly weigh in tomorrow.

Weekend fun

How was everyone's long weekend? We had a terrific one. On friday we organised a picnic with a bunch of our friends on the East Perth foreshore. Took the volleyball net and played on and off for a couple of hours. We all had an awesome time and managed to catch some sun! I have a nice sunglass line on my face now! About 5pm most of us headed back to our place where we played games and singstar till later in the night.

On Saturday, we headed over at about lunchtime to our friend's place to help him finish his floorboards off. I was put in charge of countersinking the nails (something I had never heard of before!) while the boys finished laying the boards. For about half an hour I struggled to counter sink anything! Then I got a groove on for a while and worked out if I gave the punch a good wack to start with, with the hammer then I could tap them in further. After about 3 hours of this, another friend showed up with a mini-mallet that made my life a lot easier! I was steaming through them. We had to leave just after 4.30pm so I didn't completely finish. I did end up with a whopping great blister though! Let me see if I can post a pic of it in here.

ewwwwwww... Saturday night we went to a friend's place for dinner (she made pasta with vegetables - very nice, I managed to eat half a bowl, GB had issues with the pasta again but I firmly believe it's due to the amount he's putting into his gob!!!) and we played more games. By then my back started to freeze up from being bent over hammering all afternoon. 

Sunday morning and I could barely move! My arms, wrists, back, knees were hurting so bad! We actually managed to sleep in till 10am (pretty unheard of in our house, GB is an early riser!). We veged out for the rest of the morning and then went to the movies to see Untraceable (not a bad flick but fairly graphic). The rest of the afternoon and night we just veged out in front of the tube. Good times.

Update on the PT saga. I spoke to GB and we thought if we could do one lesson - if we want to continue it could come off our 10 session package and if not we'll just pay the $35. Missed the chick's call on Thursday afternoon as I had a half day to go get my hair done (new colour - have gone dark after about 4 years as a mostly blonde - big shock to GB!), so I have to call her back today.

Exercise wise, went for a couple of long walks over the weekend plus volleyball fun on Friday afternoon. Back to the gym this week though. Get back into that routine.

Weight - As of yesterday I'm still the same - not bad considering we've been doing a lot of socialising this week which has meant lots of cheese & dips! GB is going really well and has lost about 14kgs all up I believe. He's starting to look like a kid wearing his dad's clothes!

5 weeks on

At the gym the other day I ran into my old Personal Trainer that I did about 6 weeks with this time last year. I was horrified that I've put on so much weight since then so had been trying to avoid her but no luck. She talked me into talking to their new personal trainer and to see if GB wanted to start PT too. We're saving for Europe so trying to reduce extra $$ but she's a hard person to say no too. Also she said if we each pay for 30mins we can train together for an hour.

Yesterday I went and talked to the guy. He said he'd love to train us and asked about our goals etc and said he'd get us to improve our fitness doing a bit of boxing, sprints, step ups etc (sounds scary but fun!). So I talked to GB and he said he'd do it if I wanted to. The cost decreases dramatically if you purchase 10 you get one free and it works out as $27 for 30mins rather than $35 if you pay one at a time. Obviously I want to make sure we like this guy etc before committing to 10 sessionsso when the membership chick phoned to find out our decision this morning I said that to her. I can't believe the beeyotch wouldn't throw in a complimentary session to see if we like it!!! She said we'd have to just buy 1 at $35. I told her I'd talk to GB about it and she'll call me back tomorrow. Rude cow. I don't think I'm being unreasonable! I mean when I said that we didn't want to commit to 10 in case we didn't like it etc she said "well you could buy 5 sessions"!! That's not exactly what I meant silly f-tard!

There was a gecko in our bathroom this morning. I hate things that crawl. I hope Westie eats it before I get home today.

Poor GB had an awful PB experience yesterday. He had a meeting in the city where they provided lunch. He tried to be sensible and took a small ham & salad sandwich. Got through half of it and then started to feel the pain. Unfortunately to get to the toilets you need an electronic pass which the guy presenting had in his pocket. So he ran to the kitchen and had to PB into a serviette. How awful is that!

Terrible weather in Perth today. Hoping it clears up as we've organised a picnic with friends on Friday!

Em :)

Day 34

We had a win last night. GB kept his meal down. We shared a chicken breast. Cut it in half length ways and then I bashed it with the meat basher to tenderise it. Marinated it in some honey and wholegrain mustard and grilled it. Very tasty. Had it with a small amount of potato bake. We both managed to eat it all and keep it down which was fantastic. GB is a bit disappointed that one of his favourite meals - pasta - may now be off the menu for him. Still it's early days yet and you never know how the body might change later in the piece.

Disappointingly this morning, I was actually hungry about 10am which hasn't happened since before the fill. So I'm tucking into a diet yogurt.

Thanks for all your comments, they're great!

Em

First PB

Well it happened. GB and I went to the shops for lunch and shared a greek salad (and some *cough*chips*cough*) and I got the chest pain and the urgent need to burp and rushed off the loo to PB up a piece of cucumber. GB was very pleased to see it finally happen to me as he was starting to thing he had more fill than me! Such a supportive partner I have! As karma would have it, not long after he had to visit the loo himself... haha sucked in!

First Fill weekend

Well what an interesting weekend. We definately felt band power! On Friday we didn't eat anything all day after our fill. Then we caught up with some friends at the pub after work and wedges were ordered. We managed to get a few of those down ok. After that my hunger was gone again. However then our friends suggested grabbing italian across the road for dinner (about 9pm). We couldn't really say no so we went. I ordered canneloni which was 2 tubes and a big salad. GB ordered tortellini. I was feeling pretty full after just 1/2 a tube but managed to get through one whole one, leaving a tube and the salad on my plate! GB struggled with his tortellini - didn't chew enough and had to make a trip to the toilet to PB. Poor love, this turned out to happen quite often over the weekend. He ended up eating about 1/3rd of his bowl of pasta.

Saturday morning GB made us scrambled eggs on toast. We both struggled with the toast (GB having a PB) so just ate the eggs. Again I wasn't hungry for lunch at all. GB was helping a mate lay some floor  boards and was given some mini quiches for lunch which apparently didn't go down well and he was back in PB land! Saturday night GB decided he wanted to go to Duende (our favourite restaurant) for tapas for dinner. On such short notice we could only get a seat at the bar but it was really romantic. We started with some olives and the sweetcorn and manchego frittas. Lovely! Then we had some fish carpaccio (raw fish). Next we chose some chicken with yoghurt skewers and some kipfler potatoes with quail eggs. All delicious. The best thing about tapas is you just get really small serves to share and order till your done! We were feeling pretty satisfied after that but I really wanted to try churros. They are long donut king of sticks that you dip in a chocolate sauce. SO DELICIOUS. SO RICH. Afterwards feeling very full indeed! We also managed 2 bottles of wine ... so not so healthy but we ate and drank over about 2.5hrs and was such a lovely night. I recommend Duende for anyone!

On Sunday GB went to do floorboards again and having had issues with bread I decided to try an english muffin. Had to chew chew chew chew chew but got down about one and a half. Then my sisters and my cousin and his girlfriend who were over from Sydney came over for lunch. I served up some olives and cheese and crackers and dip (which i ate some of!) and then we headed to the Balmoral for lunch. I ordered a greek salad (who puts lettuce into a greek salad?) and managed to eat about half of it. GB ordered pasta and again struggled and had to PB.

I wasn't hungry for dinner but I made GB a salad to see if he could keep that down which he did. I feel terrible that he's having a hard time. My recovery period was 10 times more difficult than his but now it seems we've switched. I'm getting good restriction without PBing and he's struggling to keep anything down.

On a positive note, I took his measurements and he's done terrifically, losing 3.5cm off his neck, 10cm from his chest, 10.5cm from his waist and 11cm from his hips! Also a couple of cms from arms and legs. Sensational results!

Anyhoo, best get some work done.

Em

First Fill

Just got back to work from my first ever fill. No dramas at all. We got weighed first off. According to his scales I've lost 5kgs (blah) and GB has lost about 12kgs. Then I hoped on the bed, he asked me to lift my head and look at my toes so he could find the port. Next he cleaned the skin with a wipe. Then he got the local anaesthetic which he warned me would sting briefly which it did. He waited a minute while he prepared the saline then I had to lift my head and look at my toes again and he stabbed me about 3 times (not that I felt anything at all) and injected the saline. All done!

Apparently I have a 10ml band and there is already 2mls in it naturally. He injects everyone with another 2mls on their first visit taking it to 4mls in total. The next fill (in a month) he'll inject another 1ml and then after that it depends on how we're going and finding the restriction.

Funnily I commented to GB before we went in, "I wish we didn't have an appointment at lunchtime, I'm starving!" Then after the fill, nothing, no hunger at all!

Anyhoo, lets hope things go well this weekend. It will be our first real test of living with the band. Must get some work done now, ciao!

Em :)

PS I've updated my measurements... 6weeks from last ones (4weeks from band). Not a bad start. Check the Measurements page for info.

1 Month Bandiversery

Well this month has just flown by! On the poop side, I have put on 2kgs in the past 2 weeks. Just making silly choices food wise. I think in the back of our mind it's like we know we're getting a fill on Friday so we better eat what we can now. Stupid, stupid way of looking at things. On the plus side, we're exercising MACHINES! Have done at least 30mins (usually an hour) of exercise for 9 out of the past 10 days. I even got up at 6.15am this morning to walk for 45mins with GB and westie. Early mornings are crap. Also, even though we're not making great food choices, we are definately not eating anywhere near as much.

Have a little bit of pain where I assume my port is when I twist suddenly. So note to self - don't twist suddenly.

I'm addicted to Biggest Loser. Did anyone watch last night's show? How good did Sheriden and Sean look? Considering they have been in the 'real world' presumably holding jobs and not having all day to train, their results are phenomenal!

Anyhoo, I'm going to redo the measurements tonight and see how I've progressed.

Minus 5 days till Fill Day!

Oh how I need that fill. Eating is terrible! Can't wait till normal foods on Wednesday too. I'm hanging out for a ham & salad sandwich! We've been pretty average with food choices this past week. But have had the most glorious weekend.

Friday night went out with a bunch of our mates to the Kardinya Tavern for some karaoke. Great fun. I was skipper so no alcohol for me - stuck to water. Ordered a bowl of wedges (poop!) to share. Then for mains I ordered the grilled snapper (forgot to ask for sauce onside) and GB ordered the tandoori chicken. The chicken was dry so GB only ate a bite. The snapper was 2 pieces, which I managed to eat one and about 3 chips. I can't believe I managed to leave chips on the plate! A minor miracle indeed! Was feeling VERY full though which is good. Sang a few tunes... good times.

Saturday we went for a BIKE RIDE! Bit of background to this - I bought GB a bike for his birthday last year and he used to ride to work quite a bit. So I thought I'd get a bike and do the same. So I bought one and rode to work one day, having not ridden a bike for about 15 years. Let me tell you - it's not just like riding a bike! I was like a total spazz! And as it turns out, there are quite a few hills between our place and work! So the bike was left in the garage for the past 4 months or so. But I decided to give it another go on Saturday. So we put the bikes on the car and drove down to the river (which is mostly flat). It's a 7km trip around and off we tottled. My butt was sore after about 2 and a half minutes. And yes I have a gel seat. The part I struggled with was the hill up to the Graham Farmer Fwy bridge. Had to hop off the bike about a quarter of the way up! Then it was fairly smooth sailing (well with a lovely grimace on my face) for the next few kms. Got towards Trinity College and started to feel a bit nauseas (think it was a mistake to have a juice box before the ride) so had to have a few minutes rest. Then got back on and made it up the hill to the Causeway bridge (very proud of myself!). My butt was pretty numb by then! The last kilometre just about killed. It was flat but my legs just didn't want to turn anymore. But I did it and didn't die so thats good. We're going to do it every saturday so I know I'll get better at it!

Went out for tapas on Saturday night in Northbridge. Shared 4 dishes. They're very small - smaller than entree size - so that's good for us. Managed to leave before we over did it. We had olives and fetta, grilled sausage and fetta, lamb kebabs and salt & pepper squid. A bit more "pub-style" tapas than the fancier ones we've been to lately. They loved their fetta!!! Still it tasted lovely and the chef even happily removed the tenticle parts from the squid dish for me. Shared a bottle of wine too (yum!). Had a lovely evening.

Sunday we went back to the river, this time with Westie in tow and walked the 7kms. Last Sunday we did it in 1hr 20mins; this week did it in 1hr 15mins which is great. Unfortunately it was pretty warm and the poor pooch was BUGGERED! She pretty much slept the whole rest of the day! Then GB and I went and played a couple of games of 10 pin bowling. I suck. GB had his best game ever on the 2nd game with 149 including 5 strikes and a spare - very impressive! After that we caught up with a friend at the pub. Glass of wine for me and a few kilkenny's for the boys. Then we just veged out for the remainder of the night.

So - very scared to weigh in on Wednesday. Even though we have exercised every day except for Friday since last weekend, our eating has been deplorable (although still better than pre-band!). GB has been walking the dog for 30mins in the morning, then going to the gym for 30-45mins after work doing cardio and weights, then doing about 20-30mins in the pool each day. I've been going to the gym after work and doing 30-45 mins on the treadmill and bike. Going to start adding a weights circuit this week to take the exercise up to 60mins. We also walk Westie again after the gym, but with no great pace.

Anyway, hope everyone is well!

Em :)

Calorie King

Am I the last person in the world to know about Calorie King? It's free to join and you can track everything you're eating (food diary) and it calculates the calories and how much protein, carbs, fats etc you're eating. It will even develop a daily menu for you. It has nutritional information for just about every food you can imagine too!

I think it's going to be a very useful tool.

Week 4

Oh dear, weighed myself for the first time since starting to eat food (and not good food either)... Have put on 1.5kgs in a week! POOP! On the plus side (haha geddit.. PLUS side!), have exercised each day since Sunday, and once we're off soft foods and I can eat more healthily I'm sure the weight will drop off again. We've been having pasta just about every day in the past week for either lunch or dinner and that is just too much carbs clearly! Going to start having fish for dinner.. went to buy some the other day - GEEZ! How expeno is Fish! Like $50kg for snapper!!! Holy moly! We bought some salmon portions instead :). Looking forward to the first fill on Friday 18th April, as I'm really struggling with hunger.

Offtopic - If you haven't already, do yourself a favour and go to You Tube and search for "I'm F*cking Matt Damon" (you don't have to censor it though!). To give you the background story, in the US there is a late night talk show (like Letterman or Jay Leno) hosted by Jimmy Kimmel. About a year ago he ran out of time to interview Matt Damon and at the end of the show signed off "My apologies to Matt Damon, we ran out of time". This became a running joke and how he ended every show. Then a few months back he actually had Matt Damon on and in a skit he went on this abusive and expletive ridden tirade at Jimmy Kimmel - funny stuff. Well now JK's girlfriend, comedienne Sarah Silverman has put together this music video announcing that she is f*cking matt damon. It's freaking hysterical and I defy anyone not to have the song in their head afterwards! After you watch that one you should be able to see a link for "I'm f*cking Ben Affleck" which is Jimmy Kimmel's retaliation music video and contains about 20 celebs! Good fun!!!

Day 19 - Naughty Weekend!

So I can eat... just about everything. As has been evidenced by this weekend. It started on Friday when GB said he really wanted to take me out to celebrate the surgery and buying the house. So he surprised me with a trip to the "The Pony Club" which is a Tapas restaurant. We thought tapas would be good because it's basically small serves of everything. We tried to be sensible, ordering light seafood dishes. We shared about 4 tapas plates. I felt like I could probably eat something else so we ordered the fish as a main to share and then a side of "greens" and "potata grandes" The fish was lovely, the greens turned out to be brocolinis. The potatos were this BIG bowl of small halved baked potatoes with rosemary maybe and a yummy aoli. It was so big though - it could have been shared with 4 people. Anyway, GB took a bite of the brocollini and proceeded to get terrible pain. It took him 3 trips to the bathroom to PB it back up, the poor thing was not well. I hit the wall too but without the pain - just feeling like a massive whale and kind of like an elephant was sitting on my chest. Really uncomfortable.

On Saturday we had a few friends around to watch the derby (go the dockers!). So we had to pick up some nibblies. Potato chips (which I managed to stay away from) and party pies & sausage rolls... which I didn't manage to stay away from :(

Sunday my sister had a skincare product party where I spent WAY too much money and helped myself to chocolate and cheese and dip! AARRGGHH I deliberately didn't eat any lunch knowing that I would still indulge. The afternoon continued to our friends house that night for some games where we continued to chomp down on dip and cheese! arrggh.

Hopefully all that indulgence was offset by the fact that on sunday morning we did the 7km walk along the river in 1hr 20mins. Kept a pretty good pace so was happy with that. Also, going to start going to the gym after work again.

I had a weetbix with skim milk this morning for breakfast and I'm STARVING! Usually I bring my berocca with me and have a glass mid morning which staves off the hunger but I forgot this morning dammit. Plus I have a headache and it's overcast and horrible and I'd rather be watching movies in bed! Oh well, back to the water!

Thanks for all the comments guys, I really love to read them!

Em :)

Day 16

Where is everyone? Don't you people realise that fat folk need constant reinforcement of how wonderful we are? Post some comments! I kid.. I kid.. But seriously, I like to hear what people are thinking, how they're going, if they have any questions... so bring them on!

I'm feeling splendiferous. Pain is a zero. I'm eating food (soft food, but food none the less). And it's Friday!

Insert amusing anecdote here:

I cooked pototo bake last night. Cut up the potatoes really small, used low fat cream and put it in the oven. I usually let it cook for about an hour. GB and I decide to take Westie for a walk while that's cooking. When we go for a walk, and because we use the door to the garage more than our front door we normally just take the garage remote with us. So off we trot. Walk around the big block and play in the park with Westie for a bit (silly dog - she will only retrieve balls in one particular park - nowhere else!). We head back home and as we approach our place, GB says do I have the remote? No I don't have the remote, I never have the remote. He says, "well I don't have it". For a few minutes we both thing the other is taking shit out of the other. But no, neither of us have it. I say, "did you drop it". GB: "I don't remember ever having it". So I say that in that case the garage door must still be open. We look down the driveway and nope, garage door is closed. The buttmonkey must have opened the garage door, and then closed it and put the remote back on the wall and ducked out as the door was closing! So we were locked out, with no spare keys anyway outside out house. In a cruel twist, we had even locked the back sliding doors which we sometimes leave open if we're just walking the dog. So it got darker, and colder and I was getting bitten by midgies! Luckily GB deals with locksmiths at his work and we had at least brought his phone with us so he called him to come out. Poor guy had just cracked a red wine for the night! So half an hour later he comes, and starts trying to unlock the front door.  After a few minutes, GB pipes up with "Is it going to be a problem if the key is in the lock on the otherside?" Seriously. So we go around the back and attempt the sliding doors. He finally manages to unlock the laundry one and we're in! By now the potatoes had been cooking for about an hour and 40mins!!! The top was nice and crispy! Still tasted awesome though and it was nice and soft underneath!!

It's very hard to keep this from our friends. We're a really social bunch, but basically this surgery has meant we haven't been able to go out to eat with them at all for a month! We have told them we're on strict meal replacement diet till mid April and they're being supportive which is good but it's still hard! I feel like we're fobbing them off at every turn. But it will all be worth it and who knows, maybe in a year we'll come clean.

Both our weight loss has stagnated as expected now that we're eating more. Have to be careful, because sometimes I feel like I could just keep eating. Not feeling full at all. I have to get my brain to remember: Eat until you're not hungry, Not until you feel full. There is a big difference.

That'll do for nowsies,

Have a great weekend!

Em :)

Week 3: MUSHIES!

Oh yes, bye bye soups!!! Last night we got a head start on the mushie stage because we were both in dire need for some proper food. I decided to make canneloni and while technically probably not a traditional "mushie" food, it is pretty soft. And it was AWESOME. Ate about half what I normally would and was totally full. This morning I was awoken with scrambled eggs in bed. Too good. Could only eat about half so Westie got a nice breakfast too!

 Of course now that we are starting to eat food again I fully expect to put on a couple of kilos. We're going to try and increase our exercise to compensate for the extra calories though so hopefully it won't be too bad. I've still got a bit of port pain when I twist but I really want to get back on the exercise horse so to speak. I'm going to try to do 5-10mins on the cross trainer each night to begin with and build up from there. We're also going to increase our nightly walk and build up some speed.

I've never noticed so many food adverts on TV as I have in the past week and a half off work. Seriously. Even stuff I would never normally eat (Hot chicken roll from Chicken Treat), I've seen advertised and thought - mmm that would go down well! I'm sure these thoughts will diminish now I'm off the liquid stage and actually able to eat some food!

Em :)

Recovery Day 12

Hey kids,

Back at work today - bummer! This past 10 days off work, even though I've been sore and grumpy at times has been a really terrific break. GB and I just hanging out together, watching tv and movies, playing with Westie, going for walks, relaxing it's been really great.

So it took me most of this morning to go through all my emails! It's weird, the past week or so I could go from having my morning Optifast shake for breakfast around 8.30am and go through till 3pm before I started getting hungry. Today though I had my shake at 7am, was hungry by 10am so I had a Multi-V juice box; had a cup a soup for lunch at just after 12 and here it is, 2.15pm and I'm hungry AGAIN!!! What's that about?

My scars are healing nicely, mostly. The larger ones are anyway. The small one on the right is still weeping where the glue has come off and although I'm keeping it covered with one of those waterproof dressings, my skin around it is becoming irritated and red so I might go to the chemist after work and look for something else to cover it with. The others are drying up all good though.

GB is cracking on fantastically. I think he's up to about 12kgs lost. Everyone has been noticing (especially today at work). We've only told our immediate family about the surgery. We told everyone else that we went away for Easter and are on a super strict diet for at least a month (to cover invites out while we're on the fluid and mushie stages). GB did crack a kilkenny or two last night though to celebrate our purchase as we had a couple of friends over. Anyway he's looking fabulous, he's tummy is flattening and his face is so thin! I'll see if he'll let me take a pic and post it tonight. I'm so proud of him!

My weight loss has slowed down as expected - I'm at 6.7kg lost which I'm happy with. I'd like to be around 7-10kgs lost by the 1 month mark and our fill appointment.

We've both got a goal for July 26th as that's when we're off to Europe for 6 weeks. I want to lose 20kgs by then and GB wants to be around 100kg mark. I think he'll have no problems doing that at all.

Day 11 Recovery

I'm freaking out. We just put in an offer to buy a townhouse and it was accepted! Holy moly! We bought it as an investment but it is truly gorgeous - I love it. Lucky we won't be eating much anymore coz we are going to have to tighten our spending!!

Just wanted to share. I'm excited.

Recovery wise - I'm itchy! Have a bit of pain where the port is but it could be just my stomach churning with this development today!

Recovery Day 9

Felt as good as I have since last Wednesday today. No shoulder pain, very little abdo pain - it was awesome. Unfortunately my incision on the RHS started weeping. Hadn't got an email back from Watson so called the surgery this morning and explained the situation and asked whether Watson wants to see me or if I should go to my GP. The reception chick said she'd ask him in between consults and get back to me. Meanwhile, I go get my nails done. 3 hrs later I ring them back and explain in more detail, colour etc, and she says yep come in at 5.15pm. Spewing as I was in the area and now I'd have to go all the way back a couple hours later. But I sucked it up. He had a look at the pussy one and said it's looking better compared to the photos I'd sent. The one that was weeping he said was fine, it was just where the glue was coming off and to keep it covered for a couple of days. He gave me a prescription for antibiotics but said to leave it till after the weekend and only fill it if I think the pussy one is getting worse. He seemed not too concerned so maybe I shouldn't be either.

He also gave me a copy of Paul O'Brien's new lapband book. Will give it a read and let you guys know what I think.

Anyhoo gotta go, our media centre won't play HD and GB is about to have a fit.

Em :)