6 Month Comparison Photos

Hey guys! This is going to be short and sweet. I have lots to blog about and I will get to it all ASAP :) For now, here are my 6 month comparison photos!


This month compared to last month:

This month compared to pre-op:

As a side note, I need a new tank top! I had to tuck it in on whatever side wasn't being photographed so you could even see anything. Need a tighter one!

Six Month Update: Part 1

Despite my best efforts, I am STILL not 100% ready with my complete update. I haven't had a chance to put my comparison photos together. I've just been so busy!!

I do have my video to share!

The Basics:

I lost 5.6 lbs this month and my current weight is 215.4 lbs (no change since the previous week).

I lost 4 inches this month.

I did some kick ass workouts this past week!

I am finally over my sugar kick and keeping my sugar intake very moderate now.

I am still about 5.5 lbs away from hitting my -100 mark... but feeling much more calm about the slower speed now :)

I thought my 6 month mark would feel like a huge deal but it doesn't. I am just happy and living my life and almost don't want to be bothered to do this update LOL... that sounds awful but I guess just how I'm feeling right now.

I will be back soon with my comparison photos and also some food photos to share. I have been keeping very busy between family stuff and my hobbies. Tomorrow is jam packed and then the holidays are here, but I am aiming to get my photos up tomorrow sometime if possible!! I still have sooo many more blog entries I want to write also!

Update Coming Tomorrow

Just for those who are wondering and/or anxious :) My 6 month update will be posted tomorrow. We're doing a lot this weekend and I need time to do my photos, make them into side by side comparisons, measurements, videos, etc. It takes a few hours to put together a monthly update!! I have a BUNCH of blog posts I need to put up, too!!! I'm going try try to do some of them today and get some ready for later in the week to. But just want you to know the 6 month update isn't coming til tomorrow ok!

Week 26 Update

No weight change to report this week. Booooo on sugar. The good news is I have cut WAY down and I am finally starting to feel the sugar cravings go away now that I've been really focusing on it for 3 days. :) I've been focusing on good protein choices, getting my water and cutting out the candy and other sugary items that were creeping in.

My SIX MONTH mark is coming up on Saturday!! So I will be weighing again and MAYBE there will be a change lol but I won't count on it too much. My post may or may not be ON Saturday because we have a really busy weekend planned.

Workouts this Week

Was sick for 4 days out of this week, had 2 workout days, and then really bad hip pain today. So not the best workout week, but at least I can say I worked out on the days I felt well. :)

Tuesday 11/16 - Leslie Sansone 3 Mile Weight Loss Bootcamp DVD (45 mins)
Wednesday 11/17 - Leslie Sansone 5 Day Slim Down DVD - Warm up, 4th Mile - Trim the Tummy, Cool Down (23 mins)

By the way, I will soon be posting a review of these DVDs :)

Hoping to get many more workouts in for this coming week!!


New Foods to Share
This week shall be referred to as "the week I accidentally bought tortillas when I already had a brand new package at home... now what?" :) I had been previously eating "tuna melts" made on these tortillas, and that was delicious, but I decided to try some new combinations this week! The tortillas I use are Mission Carb Balance Whole Wheat Tortillas - Fajita Size (which are the smallest).

Pizza Quesadilla
Hubby invented this. He made his with shredded 2% Italian and shredded 2% Mexican cheese, about 6 slices of Hormel Turkey Pepperoni, and Oregano.

I had a jar of spaghetti sauce in the fridge from when we made pizza burger - so I added some sauce to mine! I heated it up in the microwave first and added it into my quesadilla before folding it over. Messy to eat but DELICIOUS. I also put garlic and a little parmesan in mine.

Turkey Melt
Pretty simple - turkey and cheese! I ripped 3 slices of turkey breast up into several pieces and put them in the skillet first, turning them a couple times til they were warmed up and just slightly browned. Then I added them into my tortilla with some american cheese and grilled it up in the skillet.

As tasty as it looks, it tasted even BETTER. So yummy!!


These both came out great and now I am thinking of lots of possibilities. Ham or chicken would both be great, changing the variety of cheese and adding other things into it. I also thought of doing breakfast versions, like say, ham, egg beater and cheese. So maybe I will have more to share next week :)


Adventures in Shopping

Went back to Savers last weekend and picked out a couple of dresses. I don't have pics of both of them yet, but here is one. It is a light robin's egg blue with very dark chocolate brown. I originally bought a brown belt to go with it and help break up the pattern, but the belt broke... so I'm holding it up in these pics. I am headless because I still had a towel on my head and no makeup :)

Not bad for a $12 dress huh?

Since the belt broke and I didn't really want to try to find another one, I got creative hunting through my closet. I decided that this dark brown piece I had looked great with the dress!

Now I just needed shoes!!! (The silver ones in the first photo are cheapies I bought in desperation once and they are supremely uncomfortable!)

This week I've shopped at many shoe stores and have discovered I USUALLY fit into a MEDIUM WIDTH shoe now. This is ridiculous to me, having come from EXTRA EXTRA WIDE WIDTHS. Not all, but most medium widths fit me in a 9, 9.5, or 10. I still have many issues like the bone spur on my left heel and the fact one foot is bigger than the other, so it is still hard to find something but at least i stand a CHANCE now! Today I found one pair of brown strappy shoes for $5, and a pair of chocolate brown boots for $30.

The photo quality is CRAPPY because I took this at night with a dim overhead light in our room and tried to lighten the pic. I'll be sure to get better pics later :)

This is my FIRST EVER PAIR OF KNEE HIGH BOOTS. EVER!!! They are VERY VERY stretchy in the calf which is the only reason they fit. None of the other ones I tried on fit, although some came close. A couple more inches off my calves and I should be able to wear any boot I want... and I can't wait because man, I like boots!!!

That's it for this week. Hope to be back with my 6 month update over the weekend!!

This Month's Therapy Session

I had my monthly appointment with my therapist yesterday. For those who don't know, I've been seeing her for about a year now working on Intuitive Eating and all my food issues, and just getting my life together in general.

Some of the things I talked to her about this session are...

- How happy I am that my fitness level is where it's at. I missed exercise for a whole week because of getting sick and yesterday I got back to it and got through my workout just fine. I felt GREAT.
- How happy I am that I actually MISS working out when I don't get to, and I look forward to getting back into it. I woke up so excited because I felt better today and knew I felt good enough to work out. The old me would have felt like "oh man, I'm better now guess I have to try to work out again." Instead, the new me is like "yes!!! I feel good enough to work out!! whoo hoo!!" :)
- How the weight loss has slowed quite a lot but I am still feeling so great and so happy about everything.
- How I am focusing on how far I've come instead of how far I have left to go.
- How I am celebrating where I am and who I am right now. I am working to not criticize my body and to enjoy it the way it is.
- My biggest challenge right now - sugar. Been letting too much of it into my life. Going to try and "sugar detox" again so I can nix the cravings. The past week has been very... sugary. LOL! Yesterday was great, no candy, just a coffee drink (and I only get those 1-2x per week). The candy has been the problem. Gotta get back to where I only have it occasionally, not several times a day.

That's most of the health/fitness stuff I talked to her about. We also talked quite a bit about my father in law and how hubby and I are dealing with that. It was a really good session.

Some other news....

I felt like I had a good body image today. I caught myself in some negative self talk this morning and I completely reversed it. I had put on my workout clothes and looked down and thought -geez, after all this, I see my tummy sticking out when I look down. If I don't suck it in, there it is. SIGH. What's wrong with me? But then I thought, let's really LOOK at this. So I turned sideways and looked at the side view of me in the full length mirror. I let my tummy completely relax and hang out. I then tried to REALLY SEE what I looked like without any slanted viewpoint. And you know what I thought? NOT BAD!!!! Even when I let it alllllll hang out... it's not that bad. Especially compared to where I came from. So I told myself, way to go! What an accomplishment! And I felt better about my tummy all day :)

Update

Well I wrote a long blog post last night, and made sure it was saved... but today, it's not here! :( So I will save most of the weight-related stuff for my weekly update post tomorrow.

For now I'd just like to say THANK YOU for all the wonderful comments and for keeping my family in your thoughts and prayers.

Here's an update for you. Neil started his treatments yesterday. He had radiation at 8 am, then had to go to a different hospital for chemotherapy. He ended up having to be there from 10 am to 4 pm. They didn't tell him it would be such a long day... they had to put in a pic line and do a bunch of other things, and the chemo itself was 3 or 4 hours. My mother in law Shirley went out to get lunch and her car broke down! So my hubby went to go help her out. It was just a long exhausting day for all.

Overall though it went well. Neil called us last night and said he was feeling pretty well. He went home with a continuing chemo treatment, some kind of bag thing, that will keep treating him until Saturday. He didn't feel sick yet, but he didn't have much appetite. He has radition every weekday for 5 weeks, and he will have chemo again in a few weeks.

I put together something for him - a Recipe Book. They said the radiation will make his throat really sore and he won't really feel like eating solid foods. Well, having been through weight loss surgery and going through all the post-op phases of eating, I knew some great resources for liquid and soft food recipes. I got many things from Eggface's Blog, and from a few diabetic and weight loss surgery cookbooks. Since he is also diabetic, all the sugar free gastric-bypass recipes are perfect for him. I have a great book put together of Protein Shakes, Protein Ice Cream, Pureed Foods and Soft Foods. I'm going out today to pick up some protein powders, sugar free syrups and an ice cream maker so they will have everything they need to be able to use the recipe book. I really hope it will be helpful for him to keep getting proper nutrition when he isn't feeling well through his treatments.

That's all for now, back with more soon!

Finally Sharing the News

Friends and Family,

I have some news I would like to share with you. We had been waiting to get more specifics before we could share with everyone.

A few weeks ago, we found out that my father-in-law, Neil, has Esophageal Cancer. He had been having trouble swallowing food ever since his hospital stay in 2007 with Pneumonia. It was expected that there was scar tissue from the tube he had in his throat while in an induced coma for 18 days. In the past months this problem had been getting worse. He went in for a procedure to have his esophagus stretched, and they ended up finding the cancer.

At first we were told they caught it early, and so we had a very positive outlook.

Unfortunately, as they performed further scans, tests and evaluations, we received the news that he is actually in Stage 4.

Esophageal Cancer is very slow-growing, no one knows how long he may have been developing it. Because of the slow speed of growth he has not experienced any symptoms other than what he thought was caused by his previous hospital stay. We are lucky that he even went in to have this procedure, or we still wouldn't know.

The cancer has gone through all the layers of his esophagus and is affecting at least 12 lymph nodes. There are no surgical options at this point.

We have known about Stage 4 for a couple of weeks but we waited to share the news until we heard what his treatment plan would be. They were still unsure of his severity and if it has reached Stage 4B they would not have even treated him, just made him comfortable.

Thank God we have found out he is Stage 4A and they WILL be treating him. This coming Tuesday he will be beginning Radiation and Chemotherapy treatments.

His first round of treatments will last for 5 weeks. He will have Chemo and Radiation this Tuesday. He will have Radiation every weekday at the same time for 5 weeks straight. There will be a 2nd round of Chemotherapy during the 5th week.

After this initial 5 week course of treatment they will reevaluate and decide what to do next.

With this type of cancer, they haven given him a 15-20% chance of survival. If the treatments do not get the cancer under control, they are saying he would have around 9-14 months to live. Even if he beats this with treatment, they say to expect about a 5 year life span. We are hoping for better of course and we want him to beat the odds, but the family is preparing ourselves in case the worst does happen.

We are grateful we at least have time to prepare, spend time together, and possibly say goodbye. When he had his Pneumonia 3 years ago, it was a sudden shock and there would have been no time for any of this. We are choosing to be grateful for the time we will have in this case. We are preparing for the worst, but hoping for the very best.

Thank you in advance for your sweet comments, your thoughts and your prayers. Right now nothing needs to be done. Within the family we are taking care of anything that is needed such as transportation to treatments, food, and anything else that is needed. We know you are all out there and we will definitely ask if we need any help. The best thing you can do is pray that everything goes as well as it possibly can. Thanks everybody.

Week 25 Update

A bit late this week but here is my week 25 post-op update. Firstly here is my video for this week:

Here is the link I mention in the video if you want to read about the donating food for pounds lost idea :) http://www.vsggoodlife.com/2010/11/100-pounds-lost.html

So, my weight this week is:

215.4 lbs! That's a loss of 1.8 lbs this week. Definitely staying on the slower side, but I'm very happy it continues to go down instead of not doing anything. I doubt I'll lose 5 more lbs by the 20th when I hit my 6 month mark, so probably won't make 100 lbs lost by then, but I'm getting close and will definitely hit it DURING my 6th month so I will take that :)

Here is the hair product I mentioned in my video also:

I feel that it really helps my hair to look fuller. I got it from my salon for $10. Hubby is using it also and it makes his hair look fuller on top as well. Definitely a good product and it's not heavy like moose, it's a spray that feels more like a leave-in conditioner.


Workouts this Week:
Thurs 11/4 - 3.32 mile walk : 1 Hour
Friday 11/5 - 1.65 mile walk : 32 mins
Sunday 11/7 - 25 min walk plus Leslie Sansone 5 day Slim down (35 mins) warm up + mile 1 + mile 2 + cool down
Monday 11/8 - 50 Mins of Leslie Sansone 5 Day Slim Down - Warm up+ mile 3 + mile 4 + mile 5 + cool down


Food this Week:
Most things were same old same old this week, but I did cook another recipe. This one wasn't new to me, we used to make it before surgery but we would have it with mashed potatoes or rice plus a veggie. Now we eat just the meatballs.


Sour Cream Meatballs

You will need:
2 lbs lean ground beef (I use 93/7)
3 cans campbells soups, you choose combo (I used 1 can cream of mushroom, 1 can cream of chicken, 1 can cream of chicken with herbs, cuz that's what I had)
2 eggs (or egg beaters)
2 packets (1 box) Dry Onion Soup Mix
1 cup Sour Cream (I use Daisy Light)
Water

Directions:

1. Preheat oven to 350. In large bowl combine ground beef, eggs, dry onion soup mix, sour cream. 

2. Mix well and form into meatballs, whatever size you prefer. Place meatballs into 13x9 baking pan.

3. Brown meatballs uncovered in oven for 30 minutes.

4. In separate bowl combine 3 soups plus 1 1/2 soup cans of water. Remove meatballs from oven, cover with soup mixture. Cover baking dish with tin foil and bake for 30 more minutes.

5. Check to make sure meatballs are cooked through. You're ready to eat! We are able to eat 1 - 2 meatballs with some soup mixture. Very filling!

That's it for this week's update. Back with more soon!

Savers!!

My update for this week will be a little late because I've had a BUSY day! Today was my weigh-in (will report tomorrow) and then I had to leave home fairly early to pick up my sister-in-law and take her to get an xray. She had called me yesterday evening and said she fell at work and sprained her ankle pretty severely. So I picked her up to go get an Xray... then grabbed some coffee and took her to Redbox so she'd have movies to watch while she stayed home and rested her ankle. Poor thing.

Then I set off on an all-day adventure, although I had no idea it was going to be all day. I had heard about this store called Savers which is a thrift store similar to Goodwill. I looked up their website last night and it just so happened that Thursday was a 50% off sale for Veterans Day! I decided that made it a really good time to go check it out. I had been wanting to do some thrift store shopping anyway while we are going through various sizes so that we don't spend too much money on clothes.

All of their locations are somewhat far from me. First I went north up to their Boulder location (19 miles from home)... found 3 tops for myself and picked up a bunch of things for my husband to try. Then I went from Boulder all the way down to Aurora (37 miles!!) only to find that location had been closed down! (Or so I thought - I just found out it MOVED. Argh.) Thanks for the heads up, website :-P Then I went to Littleton (another 15 miles) - oh my gosh this location ROCKED. It was huge. I was in there for 3 hours or more and didn't even see everything I wanted to see. I got tons of great stuff for both myself and my husband. Then I drove home, another 24 miles.

Savers in Littleton, CO. Photo from yelp.com

SO... my little day of shopping fun somehow covered more than 6 hours and nearly 100 miles of driving... LOL!!!!!! Good thing I had packed my lunch box with 3 meals in it, and two water bottles. It's like I KNEW. :)

Here are just a couple of the pieces I bought, I didn't take pics of everything I tried on.

Teal top $2, brown vneck sweater $3, brown button up sweater $3.50

So I have to say I am now a HUGE Savers fan. I think I'll be doing all of my shopping there for a while. Wow it was so great! In the end I have some things to return that didn't work for hubby, and a couple I decided not to keep after all... but here is what we ended up with:

IAN'S HAUL: 3 long sleeve shirts, 3 short sleeve shirts, 1 pair jeans & 1 pair athletic shorts (minus the athletic shorts, because he's wearing them) = $13.50

MY HAUL: 4 long sleeve shirts, 4 sweaters, 3 short sleeve shirts, 1 jacket, 1 hoodie, 1 scarf, 1 pair pj pants = $41.50

Love it!!! ALL of this for $55!!

Tomorrow is going to be busy too. I have to take my SIL to the doctor to go over her Xrays, do the grocery shopping I didn't do today because I was busy with Savers lol,  and do a few loads of laundry. But when I get to the laundry part, and catching up on my TV shows from this week, I will do my weekly update video and blog post :) So stay tuned!

Ian's Leather Jacket

Just wanted to quickly share this photo. My hubby Ian found this old leather jacket of his at his parents' house the other day. He wore this jacket a lot not too long after high school. He was absolutely THRILLED that it fits him again. He is 5 months post op and down 70 lbs.

I put the comparison together for a blog post I just wrote on the blog he and I share. Many of our readers of that blog don't read my blog, or have facebook, or really ever get a chance to see updates so I put together sort of a summary post of what we've gone through so far and the progress we've made. As a regular reader to my blog you wouldn't find any of the info to be new but definitely have a read if you'd like, and check out the blog we have going over there :) Here's the post.

24 Week Update & Hubby's Progress

Hey everybody. Firstly, I'm sorry my update is late, and that also there is no video this week. My family is going through a difficult time and we got some bad news last night. I will elaborate eventually, but I can't just yet. If you are the praying type, I would ask for your prayers for my family. Thank you and I will provide more information soon.

Also thank you for all the kind comments on the last post. I wasn't upset or angry or sad, just kind of perplexed and didn't understand why he would do that :) All is well.


As for this week's update, there have been some pros and some cons.


Cons:

- my lower back and hip pain have been especially bad this week. Possibly due to getting new athletic shoes. When your back is this weak, the simplest changes can throw everything off.

-On Monday night I tried to work out at the gym, but my body was NOT having it. I did the treadmill for 5 mins and gave up because the pain was intolerable. I switched to the ARC trainer and managed 10 mins, but then had to stop. My hip was just killing me and no amount of stretching was helping at ALL.

- Halloween candy is still around, and I'm still eating quite a bit of it. I've kind of had my fill and we are getting rid of it this weekend. Don't need any more.



Pros:

- Even though I couldn't work out as much as I would have liked, I still got some activity - a couple workouts plus a whole day of shopping.

- I cooked real recipes twice this week (actually twice in the same day!) and we ate off those for a few days this week.

- Had a decent loss this week, despite the cons mentioned above.



My weight yesterday was:

217.2 - that's a loss of 2.2 lbs this week. Still not as fast as I had been used to, but I will take it over a plateau any day :) I may not make my -100 lbs mark by the 20th like I wanted to, but I am super pleased things are moving again.



Workouts this Week:

Friday 10/29 - Swimming laps, 23 mins
Monday 11/1 - 5 mins treadmill, 10 mins ARC trainer, stretching (bad pain day)

I worked out Thurs and Fri, but those technically count toward next week's weigh in. At least I am getting a bit better now and able to work out more again. Stupid pain.. leave me alone please.



Some New Foods This Week:

I picked these up because I haven't had a muffin since before surgery. I LOVE muffins, ESPECIALLY with cream cheese. One of these is just the right size for my tummy right now. It's basically just the top of the muffin. They are frozen, so they will keep even if I don't eat them too often. You zap it in the micro for 18 seconds and it's ready to go. (Or you can thaw at room temp for 30 mins.) I put an individual pack of light cream cheese on top of it and YUM! Since it's higher carb and lower protein, I wouldn't do this every day, but it tastes GREAT for once in a while.

Not technically NEW for me, but I haven't shown a photo before. This is a protein smoothie from my gym - this one has strawberries, pineapple, 27g whey protein, skim milk and nonfat yogurt. Delicious. The one in the background is Ian's with all the same stuff but blueberries instead of pineapple. We order the kids size, but with the full amount of protein.

Double Bean Quesadilla. I made this up this week. It has refried beans, seasoned black beans (pre packaged), and cheese. Tasted good, but SO MESSY because of the sauce the black beans come in. Probably won't make it again. It did keep me full for like a gazillion years though.

Turkey Club from the food court at Super Target. I was grocery shopping and needed to eat (had been out a while already) before I did my shopping... was feeling weak. It was tasty but I had no interest in the bread and it had WAY too much bacon. I pushed most of the bacon off and ate about 2/3 of the turkey and cheese... threw the rest away. Tasty, decent price ($3) and got the job done in a pinch... but not something I'd go out of my way to plan to order.

Taco Chicken Tenders - one of my recipes this week! Chicken tenderloins (1 lb) rinsed and patted dry. Add as much taco seasoning as you like, patting it onto both sides of the chicken so it sticks. Cook it in a skillet over medium-high heat, flipping every 2 minutes til cooked through. (It took like 5-6 mins). Remove from skillet, squeeze half a lime over it all, and serve with some light sour cream. These were very tasty and very moist. A great all-protein meal. From the 4 Ingredient Diabetic Cookbook.

Pizza Burgers - another all-protein recipe I cooked this week. It's from the Biggest Loser Family Cookbook. One major tweak - we didn't bother with hamburger buns. I also purchased premade patties. What I did was sprinkle the seasonings across them all and then take each patty, roll it into a ball and reshape it. I felt it worked well and then they all come out the same size in the end :) Doesn't need to be done, but I had bought these already so I tried it, and I actually liked doing it that way. I will have to post the full recipe later - I used my own concoction of seasonings in my own amount so I didn't really follow it. I used oregano, garlic chips, garlic powder, garlic pepper, a ground pepper blend (instead of red pepper flakes), salt and some Mrs Dash onion & herb seasoning. We grilled up the burgers on the George Foreman grill, adding sliced mozzarella on top and melting it. Topped with some Classico Tomato & Basil marinara sauce and then a dash of parmesan. Delicious!!!!!!! We really enjoyed this meal. We each can eat 1 patty, so we had it two nights in a row.



Some other Tidbits...

A quick little Calcium supplement review. These are both from Celebrate. The one on the left is the chewable calcium supplement. The one on the right is the liquid supplement which includes both multivitamin AND calcium.

The chewables are pretty hard to deal with, we feel. My friend hated them so gave them to us, and we pretty much hate them too. Today I tried the liquid - not so bad! The liquid includes multivitamin AND calcium, so I could stop taking my gummy vitamins if I am taking this. You have to take it twice a day though. It tasted totally decent, kind of like a koolaid. You empty the packet into 8 oz of cold water and shake to mix. I poured it in a glass after shaking it in a bottle. Might be ordering these to try for a while as I think it will be a good way to get everything in. But at $45 per 30 day supply, and the fact we BOTH need it, that's pretty pricey. So we'll see.


My hair is still thinning a LOT... Ovation isn't really helping. I decided to get my hair cut a bit shorter to help it look fuller. I am also using a protein spray I got from my stylist, makes your hair appear a bit fuller also. Here is me and my stylist Tarah :)

And FINALLY.... My husband Ian's 5 month progress photos from Nov 3rd. He has lost 70 lbs and is feeling great!


5 Months all in a row, front view:

5 Months all in a row, side view:

Start vs. 5 Months, Front View:

Start vs 5 Months, Side View:

Start vs 5 Months, Back View:

So proud of him!! He has gone from tight 2X shirts to loose 1X shirts, ready to start getting into some larges. His pants size has gone from 54 to 44!

That's it for this week - sorry so long. I probably won't have a chance to post again until next week's update. I'm expecting a bit of a tough and taxing week. I'm trying to still take good care of myself and keep on my path, but definitely have some bigger fish to fry at the moment. Have a great week everyone.