Yuck...

I've forgotten how awful it is to detox from sugar.  Crushing fatigue, pounding headache, tunnel vision, and diarrhea.  If I hadn't gone through it before I'd think I was dying!  Just goes to show you how awful that stuff must be for you.

Since I'm here, I'll tell you that I choked down the most disgusting salad in the world today for lunch.  It was raw spinach, steamed broccoli, and some black beans...doesn't that just sound gross?  I meant to put salmon in until I realized we didn't have any, so I figured the beans would be a good substitute.  They're not...this I now know.  Oh, and no salad dressing - thought the beans would make it okay without it - which made it extra-hard to consume.  But on the bright side, it was 4 servings of vegetables.

I'm not sure that makes me feel any better.  ;)

By the way, I got on the scale this morning.  Couldn't help it.  I'm down 4 pounds from yesterday morning.  Obviously "water weight", but I still feel victorious!

I'm a Superstar!

...well, at gaining weight, anyway.  ;)

This morning I weighed in at a whopping 240.6  That's a 3-pound gain from last week.  There's no sugar-coating it.  It's just disgusting.

And it's all my fault, by the way.  Pizza for dinner three nights during the week plus two trips out for ice cream PLUS a huge, fried Italian meal with dessert in there...that'll do it.  Oh, and no exercise - the piece de resistance.

So what now?  Well, I have to do better...this falls into the "No Shit" category.  I'll be honest though, I am sick to death of counting calories.  REALLY, really sick to death.  I just can't flipping stand the thought of adding up the components to one more meal.  But hey, I'm doing it anyway, because sometimes we just gotta do shit we don't wanna do.  To combat my complaining, however, is a real action.  I've taken a page out of the book (forgive the pun...you'll see) of a gorgeous friend of mine who has lost nearly 100 pounds, and I've started reading Fit for Life.  I began reading it yesterday morning and am only 40 pages from the end, so I hope to finish it tonight.  I'm not sure exactly how I feel about the science behind the book because I'm not sure it's truly sound, but what I do know is that people have gotten huge results from using the plan.  It's nothing extreme or crazy like Atkins or any of those other nutty plans.  And again, I really don't know if what he proposes makes sense, but it certainly doesn't seem dangerous or unhealthy.  He's not advocating a crash diet or a weird, motor-oil-and-eye-of-newt detox, but rather a diet made up of 70% fruits and vegetables.  He's against dairy entirely...I'm not really one for cutting whole food groups out of my diet, but I'm willing to be no-dairy for a bit to see if I feel better.  Truth be told, the only dairy I really eat is yogurt and cheese, so that stuff is just gonna have to go for a while.  Hubs and I use almond milk for regular purposes and So Delicious Coconut Milk Creamer for our coffee, so we're kind of halfway there as it is.  Plus, Hubs is lactose-intolerant and I'm actually finding that dairy upsets my stomach as well.  I didn't realize this until we started using the coconut milk in our coffee.  (There's not one bit of difference in the taste or the texture, by the way.)

But for now, until I familiarize myself with the plan, I'm counting calories.  I did adopt one important part of his plan already, which is to not eat anything but fruit before 12 PM.  Is it weird?  Yeah, kinda, and I don't know if there's any good reason to do it other than the one he gives (which has to do with elimination - a euphimism for shitting).  Is it unhealthy or dangerous?  Hell no, so why not?  This morning I had a banana, a nectarine, and a V8 Fusion.  Two things with this - he says to stay away from bananas unless you're very hungry and to stick with water-based fruits.  Well, bananas were what we had, so a banana it is.  We'll fix it the next time we go to the store.  LOL  Also, the V8 Fusion is not entirely fruit, as there's some veggie juice in there, but there are no other bizarre ingredients in it.  Still and all, he prefers you drink fresh-squeezed juice if you're going to have it, but for now it's a V8 Fusion.  I was going to make a blueberry-strawberry smoothie this morning but didn't have the time.

So that's the deal.  I'll get on the horrible treadmill today because I have to do it...I'm feeling a little out of shape lately.  Not abnormal considering I haven't been on the treadmill since May.  ;)

Happy Monday!

That'll Learn Me!

Okay, folks, I'm (mostly) recovered from my surgery, back to work (boo!), and back on the wagon.  I've been off the wagon now for a good month or so but the party's over now.  Are you dying to know how much I weigh?  Because I'm dying to tell you!

237.4.  Isn't that fabulous?  That's only a nearly 10-pound gain since Christmas.  I mean, really...couldn't have gone any better than that.  [Insert eye-rolling here.]

So what did I learn?  Well, I learned that I'm not as good as I think I am!  I'm not anywhere close to an intuitive eater like I thought I was - I'm more of a donuts-cookies-brownies-ice cream-every-day kind of eater.  I ate a lot of high fat, high calorie foods and don't think I even ate one fruit or vegetable on purpose.

I used my handy little Lose It! app on my iTouch this morning and it said that if I stick to my recommended calories per day to lose 2 pounds a week, I can be done by January.  To think that I'll hit the Christmas season and be 10 pounds within my goal weight is a great incentive to just commit and quit stalling!  I'm tired of dieting and I want to be finished, but I'm not going to finish until I hit my goal of 190 pounds.  I have two vacations, a birthday, Thanksgiving, and Christmas in there, so while I might not reach it exactly by January, I'll give it till February.  I'm having an awesome get-together in the city with friends this spring and I want to look even more amazing than I do now.  ;)

Part of the challenge before I think was my calorie intake.  I usually wasn't allowing myself to have anything over 1300 calories a day...considering that we need 1200 just to be alive, I know I wasn't eating enough.  No wonder I was ravenous and the came home and scarfed food out of the pantry.  My LoseIt! app tells me to eat 1701 a day but I subtracted 200 for a total of 1501 a day.  I think that's reasonable, and so far I don't feel hungry today.  It's amazing what a little extra food can do, eh?

I'm also changing my weigh-in day back to Monday.  As I mentioned here, the Friday weigh-in is a bad idea...yet somehow I still got back to it.  Bad, bad idea.  No more!  I'm going to get back into the exercise game as well, I just have to get the green light from my surgeon.  I meet with him this Wednesday so hopefully he'll have good news.

Hubs and I will still be having one dinner and one breakfast out during the week.  This helps me keep my sanity and doesn't pose a problem for my weight loss.  It only becomes a problem when twice a week out turns into 4 or 5 times a week.  This Friday we have reservations at Rainforest Cafe - love it there!

Happy Monday, folks!

Gallbladder Adventures

Well, I'm alive. I'm alive and having a muffin and coffee for breakfast, so this is good.


Let me tell you something. I am so glad that I only had one gallbladder to remove. And I hope to hell that I never have to have another abdominal surgery, laparascopic or otherwise, because dude, it sucked ass. It feels like I did 5000 sit-ups in one minute. Oh, and you'll never believe how often you need to use your abdominal muscles to move.

My big worry for my surgery was the anesthesia...for some reason, the thought of general anesthesia and intubation just scared the shit out of me. So imagine my relief when I met my (cute) anesthesiologist and found out he graduated only 7 years before me from the same medical school that I did. I said, "Ahhhh, well at least I know you got a good education!" He was funny and comforting and I was so proud of where he and I came from, because that'swhat kind of doctorswe were taught to be. It was awesome. He let me know he'd be giving me Versed before intubating me, and all I could think to say was, "Man, I have control issues. That's going to be so hard." That's the last thing I remember saying.

When I woke up I wasn't crying or swearing like I was when I came out of twilight anesthesia after getting my wisdom teeth removed. I was grateful and as gracious as possible because I wanted these folks to take good care of me. I think I said "thank you" twenty times, even if it wasn't warranted. "Nicole, you're all finished, honey." "Thank you." "You did great." "Thank you." We're going to get you back to your room now." "Thank you." I think they probably felt very appreciated. LOL

My surgeon was surprised when I told him before my surgery that I kicked Hubs out of the hospital. The guilt I would have harbored knowing that he just sat in the waiting room for hours would have been insurmountable. Hubs reluctantly agreed to leave and get some things done while I was in surgery even though he thought it would be better to stay in the waiting room. I appealed to him by saying, "Why? It's not like you can help, right?" LOL So we agreed that the surgeon would call him when I was finished and in the recovery room, and wouldn't you know when I returned to my same-day surgery room, there was Hubs, waiting expectantly. He sat and held my hand while I slept for another 90 minutes and then we came home.

I came home to a gift bag full of good stuff - magazines (Us Weekly, Maxim, Women's Health, Food), 3 boxes of gourmet chocolate, a bag of chocolate-covered pretzels, a card, monkey stickers, and a bracelet. That's Hubs for you. :) He catered to me all day and all night, and this morning when he left for work he tied a rope to the footboard of our bed so that I could get in and out with leverage. LOL Seriously, how awesome is that? And I did use it, too. But now I'm safely planted in our sunroom with my laptop, a book, and more magazines than I can read in a day. Oh, and a muffin and coffee.

If any of you ever have surgery, let me know. You can borrow Hubs, because I promise you'll never be better looked after.

Don't Eat Healthy

Let me make the back story as short as possible. Since December of 2009 I've had four wicked episodes of abdominal pain, one that sent me to the emergency room in January and one that would have sent me there this past Monday night had I not known for sure what it was. Right upper quadrant pain that goes around to my back and up to my right shoulder - this here is textbook biliary colic (pain from gallstones). I had it once in December, once in January, and once this past Monday. I was fine with it, even though it was excruciating on Monday night, because I knew what it was and it didn't freak me out. I just took two heavy duty painkillers that I was prescribed during my ER visit, which I had NEVER taken before Monday night, and went to sleep. I woke up very sweaty and tired but feeling much better on Tuesday morning, and I told myself that if this horrible pain only happened once or twice or three times a year, I could take it. I've also had some random abdominal pains in that general area since last year, but whatever...nothing to write home about.

I didn't think anything else of it until it happened again on Thursday night, just four days later. Then I woke up Friday morning and almost barfed in the shower, and I dealt with abdominal/back pain all day at work. That's when I knew something wasn't good. Cue me calling a general surgeon for an appointment.

Interesting aside: I was talking about my predicament on Friday morning with one of the doctors I work with, who has been out of his residency for a few years now. When I told him that this pain landed me in the ER back in January and that they didn't even do an ultrasound while I was there, he said, "Did you let them know you were a doctor?" I told him of course I didn't, it's not something I broadcast just for shits and giggles. He said, "It's okay to announce it. You'll get better treatment, which is unfair, but it's still true." Isn't that horrible? I mean, HE wasn't being horrible...he was stating what is a truth. But it's still a shame.

So now go back to me calling the general surgeon. The surgeon's secretary said, "He's not in the office today, he's only on call. You'll have to come to the emergency room." And I said, almost apologetically, "Ugh, I just feel so stupid. I'm a doctor...I don't know why I let it go this long!" So smooth, right? Well, I'll tell you what...that surgeon's door opened for me. The secretary actually said, "Oh, you're a doctor? Hmmm...let me see...you know, I can probably get him to come see you later today." He came in to see me that afternoon, PLUS set me up for an ultrasound and pre-admission bloodwork after hours. That doctor thing works sometimes.

So there I am getting my ultrasound. The ultrasound tech is super nice, and I'm looking at all of my organs on the little monitor. Then I see my gallbladder...full of gallstones. I go, "Holy shit, look at that!" She said, "I'm not a doctor, I'm not allowed to say anything about your images!" I said, "It's okay, I'm a doctor, and those are gallstones." She calls the surgeon and puts me on the phone with him, and the first thing I say is, verbatim, "Dude, my gallbladder has like a bazillion stones in it." Very intelligent.

And now, ladies and gentlemen, I am scheduled to have surgery on August 10th. Balls.

What's with the eating healthy thing? Well, I'll tell you. Most people think it's fat people that get gallstones. Most people think you have to have a crappy diet to get them. Au contraire, mon frere. The surgeon said my gallstones most likely formed when I drastically changed my diet a little over a year ago. I stopped eating processed, nasty foods and instead filled my diet with mostly whole foods, a lot of fruits and vegetables, and a lot of plant sources. Because my gallbladder didn't have to squeeze out bile as much anymore to emulsify a bunch of fat, the bile just chilled out in my gallbladder, stagnating and finally forming little stones. (My surgeon friend asked me last night, "Is it one or two big stones?" I said, "No, it's a bunch of pebbles." He said, "Oh man, they're the worst kind." Thanks.)

Oh, and the people who say fried, fatty foods bring on gallbladder attacks? True enough...just not entirely. On Monday night, which was by far the worst pain I've ever experienced, I had eaten steamed broccoli, steamed brown rice, and tofu for dinner. And on Thursday night, the attack that carried through until yesterday, I had spaghetti squash with organic marinara sauce and a piece of whole wheat bread with less than a teaspoon of butter. I mean, really. And interestingly enough, Hubs and I went out for dinner last night and I had no symptoms at all. And I did NOT have a healthy dinner. But that's the way it's gone for me - my attacks were all after healthy meals, and when I'm on vacation or something and am not eating healthy at all, I have no problem with it. Maybe so much bile is squeezing out that it's just pushing the stones right out of the way. ;) Maybe I need that action in my gallbladder. It may not just be a joke actually, because they did see one stone stuck in the top of my gallbladder during the ultrasound, and I'd hardly eaten anything yesterday until dinner.

Funny story: The ultrasound tech said, "Have you eaten anything today?" I said, "Yes, I had a peach at 12 PM." (It was 4 PM.) She said, "Oh, we really like you to be fasting..." And I said, "Well, it was a peach....4 hours ago....I think it's gone by now."   LOL

I also think it's funny when people say that having their gallbladder out made them gain weight. No...you gained weight because now that your gallbladder is out you can eat all the fried, disgusting, fatty shit that you want.

So now you know The Adventures of My Gallbladder. Think goods thoughts for me on the 10th. General anesthesia scares the shit out of me!

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By the way, 230.8 yesterday.  That's down 2.8 since the Friday after vacation (last Friday) from 233.6.  My metabolism did its job on our vacation and held me pretty steady, though I definitely did gain a bit.  That's okay, I'd rather gain a pound or two than get off track completely. 

Happy weekend!  :)

Linen Pants

Folks, I'm back from vacation...perhaps not exactly skinnier than before, but definitely back.  We had an awesome time at the beach, and I consumed enough calories to power a small village for at least a week.  I didn't have any majorly disgusting binges or anything, just a lot of eating here and there, grazing on high-calorie, high-fat, processed crap.  I'm actually feeling good about getting back on the wagon, if you can believe that!  I'm sure that feeling will last all of a week or so.  ;)

Here's the good news though:  My linen pants, which I'm not sure if I've referenced in the past, still fit.  Quick linen pants back story for you...I bought a pair of these gorgeous, off-white pants about 5 years ago.  Linen, no stretch, very pricey.  That last fact was unfortunate though, because the pants never fit me.  But of course I never took them back - instead, I always told myself that I would lose a few pounds to fit into them and that they would be my motivation...

...hahahaha!!!  Oh, that's hysterical.  Oh God, ouch...I think my side actually hurts from laughing.  Too funny.  But that's actually what happened.

So anyway, I've been trying these pants on periodically throughout my weight loss.  At one point I couldn't get them higher than my knees.  A few months ago I could pull them up over my ass but it looked like I was trying to cram 10 pounds of meat into a 5 pound sack.  They zipped and buttoned but I still looked gross.  Then about a month or two ago I tried them on again - the number on the scale has essentially been the same since Christmas, mind you - and they buttoned, zipped, AND looked amazing.  And so to celebrate the fact that they still fit, I'm wearing them today.  :)  Comfortable as ever.

I'm back on track today, but it sucks a big one.  I'm hungry, I'm low on energy, and the fact that these pants still fit makes me want to go out and have a salty, fatty dinner with Hubs.  (I guess so I can eventually make them NOT fit again?)  Damn linen pants!  They're a double-edged sword.

Official weigh-in this Friday.  Stay tuned!

Long Time, No Weigh!

Get it?  Instead of "long time, no see"?  I'm so clever!  It must be all the glucose feeding my brain.

Okay, seriously now.  I haven't weighed myself since June 18th, and I have no plans to do so until Friday of this week, and even then I may not.  Why?  Well, because I feel fat.  Do I think I'm actually fatter?  No, not at all.  Everything that fit before still fits, everything that was loose is still just as loose.  It's clearly psychological - I know that I haven't been following my healthy eating plan as strictly as usual, so I automatically feel as if my face looks fat and I have puffy fingers.  It's just the way it is.

I'd been doing fairly well up until the holiday weekend.  I'd been getting in my 5-9 fruits and vegetables every day, all of my water, and staying in a reasonable calorie range.  Reasonable meaning I'd eat about 800 throughout the day and then just eat dinner without counting.  Dinner was never anything like a bucket of fat smeared with butter, so I wasn't worried.  But see, then the holiday weekend happened, and holiday weekends are baaaaad.  Think beer, mixed drinks, wine, desserts, chips, and ice cream.  Nothing in gigantic proportions, but still more than I should have consumed.  What can I say?  If I get a taste of it I miss it.  And I really gave myself license to eat this weekend (up to and including Monday!).

Still though...am I worried?  No, I'm not.  Am I deluding myself?  No, I'm not.  I'm not going to gain weight by eating like a "normal" person.  "Normal" people allow themselves to indulge and don't worry about packing on 10 pounds in one sitting.  "Normal" people know better, and I have to remember that.  They know that the give-and-take will be what matters - indulge today, eat healthier tomorrow.  Even Steven (Seinfeld reference!).  It's all about a give and take, but for us dieters, give and take almost seems like a sin.  Clearly we will gain weight if we don't stick to 1200 calories a day that come from only fruits, vegetables, complex carbs, and a touch of protein.  Obviously we will beef up to critical mass if we miss a day of exercise or don't drink all of our water or even - *GASP* - eat dessert more than once a week.  This will derail us completely and we will gain back all 5, 10, 20, 50+ pounds we lost.  We're so unlucky.

Does anyone else find this extreme black-and-white thinking horrifying?  Gosh, how much more punitive can we get than when we are chastising ourselves for not being perfect eaters?  And look, I'm not saying this to give us all carte blanche to just eat through our pantries or refrigerators or cupboards of shame.  I'm not talking about either extreme here - neither the perfect nor the wretched.  I'm talking about sometimes relaxing and finding the middle.  And let's face it, the middle doesn't always help us lose weight, right?  But the middle is what helps us maintain, and maintaining is a valuable lesson in and of itself.

Voltaire said, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good."  Voltaire was awesome for that, and that's become a quote that I apply to many areas of my life.

And before I forget, the lovely Lauren over at Piece of the Pie commented on my last post and wanted to know how dinner was.  Truth is, Lauren, I don't remember!  LOL  It's been so long since I've posted that I can't recall a damn thing.  But when I have a fabulous dinner sometime this week I'll give a full report.  :)

Happy Tuesday!!!