Tuesday, April 29, 2008

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.

Monday, April 28, 2008

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!

Wednesday, April 23, 2008

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 :)

Tuesday, April 22, 2008

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

Monday, April 21, 2008

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

Friday, April 18, 2008

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.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

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.

Monday, April 14, 2008

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 :)

Friday, April 11, 2008

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.

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

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!!!

Monday, April 7, 2008

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 :)

Friday, April 4, 2008

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 :)

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

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 :)