04/26/10: Odd sorts!!!

Woohoo!

NSV's!  My firsts!  And one is scale related but it's a so-not scale victory!  It's odd!

First.  A shirt I got from Kinzie about a month ago...I'm wearing it right now.  It's the pink one.  It was snug around the hips when I posted the photo of me in it.  IT'S SO NOT NOW!!!!  Woohoo!!!!!

Second.  And this one happened first so I shoulda said it first but I'm a nut like that.  I got on the scale yesterday.  I think I have a weird take on the scale.  And since you know me and all - I can't just get right to the point, I gotta give the background and the buildup before I tell you the good news.

I have a spreadsheet - I shared it previously and will again when it has more to tell.  In my spreadsheet I am tracking my weight, chest, waist, hips, thighs, calves, biceps and forearms.  I have my little columns with my little mathematical cells telling me how many inches lost altogether and then in this week, as well as weight lost altogether.  And there are conditional formatting rules applied so that when certain magic numbers are reach, the cell highlights with my fave color.  In case I forget, ya know.  :)

So the scale.  I weigh myself every day.  And I do so for comedy.  It's hilarious to me, really.  I can not eat anything at all for an entire day and I'll gain 2 pounds.  Next day, I'll eat an entire cow and I'll lose 6 pounds.  What do you do with news like that besides laugh?  So I laugh!  It does tell me, in general, that on my being good days, I was good and on my being bad days, I was bad.  It does give me feedback that I have learned to decipher through the comedy.  I honestly don't get down on myself when the scale goes up a pound or two because I have learned through the years with scales some of the why's and I can generally pinpoint what I did or did not do - like TOM issues vs. bad eating days.

Anywho.  It's comedy.  I weigh everyday.  I love a good morning laugh!  And it appears I am developing a weigh-in day - which appears to be Sundays.  And that is developing because Sundays are the days that I take my measurements.  Every week.  Week in week out.  Through the insurance requirements when not much was happening it was more of a monthly thing but since starting the pre-op diet and forward to now, it's been a weekly thing.

So now the measurements are getting interesting, too.  Like put a smile on my face kind of interesting!

And so here's the NSV related to a scale...

I got on the scale on Sunday...first thing in the morning...for my daily comedy routine...and it was down 1 pound for the week but up two since the previous Sunday.  So I will record it as up two.  I gained two pounds for the week.  Not bad considering I am eating normally and all that...I expected a more than 2 pound gain, really.

And then I take all my measurements.  In the week when I gained two pounds - I lost four inches!!!!

And even more significantly, while I lost a half inch around the waist - significance there - the previous Sunday, I was up a half inch, presumed sweeling, from the Sunday before.  So I lost what I consider the half inche from swelling - not to say the swelling is gone...

But other than that, the inches came off the hips, thighs and biceps!  Areas not related to surgery!  Real loss type areas.

In other news...we worked outside almost all weekend.  We cleaned the teak furniture and got it all re-oiled.  It looks absolutely gorgeous when it's clean and freshly oiled!  I did very little moving and predominantly sat on my duff just rubbing on the oil.  By very little moving, I mean when I was working on a chair, I would move it around to get to the bottom and the sides.  But I was sliding it on grass...

When we were done Saturday night, we jumped in the pool, quickly, as it's still chilly at 80 degrees.  Who am I? that I'm calling 80 degree water chilly.  I'm from California, where at the height of summer in late August pool water is barely 80!  Now, it's APRIL and the water is 80 on it's way up to 92 friggin degrees and I'm calling 80 chilly!  What happened to me?

But not being able to tolerate 80 for very long, and knowing that, we started the hot tub heating and crawled into that when it got to 92.  Vegged and felt great for awhile.  Then grilled shrimps and potatoes and pearl onions and cooked some jalapeno poppers in the oven.  Our poppers - best you'll ever have.  Got the recipe from a neighbor.  Get a jalapeno, cut the top off, slice the pepper in half.  We clean the bejesus out of them - all seeds, all membrane - so they are not even remotely spicy.  The filling is one thing of cream cheese, 1 thing of Jimmy Dean Maple sausage and one small can of mild green chilis.  Mix that all together and stuff the jalapeno.  Then, if that's not enough, wrap in a half a slice of bacon and stick a toothpick in.  Cook in the oven at 375 for about 35-40 minutes - until bacon is cooked to your liking, basically.

We had a friend over helping us with all the work we did on the furniture.  He asked for these - and because of his work, we couldn't say no.  They are so good and such a treat...but they are quite a bit of work to make because of the cleaning involved.  If you make these - WEAR GLOVES!!!  We wear two on each hand of a disposable nitrile glove.

After dinner was cooked, eaten and cleaned, we sat down on the couch and watched "The Informant".  Good movie.  Funny.  Whacky.  Twisted!

Sunday, we did the second coat of teak oil on the furniture.  Looks soooo good!  Got the yard cleaned up and everything put back in it's rightful place.  I went to a support group meeting of people in my area that have found each other through LBT.  It was a great meeting that lasted a lot longer than I had anticipated.  Four really amazing women with great stories and great success!  1 lady - 1 year and 1 month out - has lost 130 pounds and is 13 pounds from goal weight.  Is working right now for insurance approval for a tummy tuck.  2 ladies - 9 months out - 1 has lost 94 pounds, 1 has lost 62 pounds.  Had surgery within two days of each other with the same surgeon and have been friends through this entire process.  And finally, 1 lady - 6 months out - has lost 65 pounds.  Great women, great stories - and I learned a lot from them yesterday!  The hostess made it fun and she cooked two of her favorite high protein meals - meatballs (she adds extra protein to these) and a feta and artichoke crustless quiche; unfortunately, I didn't try either of these as I was not hungry at all.  She also bought a sampling of protein bars so that we could try a bite and see what we liked before we waisted money on bars we might not like; in this case, I tried one, but I just don't see myself getting into protein bars for a variety of reasons.  We also tried a protein smoothie which I didn't care for, two people were "eh" about it, and one person liked.  The fifth didn't try it.  It was a good meeting and I'm happy to know these ladies!  And the house where we met - a whopping 2.4 miles from me!  Who can say no to that?

Then I ran home and we went out to dinner with our friend/neighbor and her daughter.  Had a fantabulous dinner and time and it was nice to catch up.  We always have shared a Sunday meal with this friend/neighbor and with all the pre-op and then even post-op stuff, we haven't had dinner together for months.  It will be nice to get this going again!  In the past, I cooked Sunday dinner and then she would reciprocate with a Thurs dinner.  I want evenings at home during the week so that workouts/swims can happen so I don't know that we'll go back to Thurs dinners...but it would be nice to get Sunday going again and maybe we can alternate or something.

And that was my weekend.  A fantabulous weekend in which only 2 Tylenol were taken (Sat evening after all that work and heat).

And the last thing I'll say - I know my goal for this week is to get water water water.  I have not been getting nearly enough water since surgery and I suspect it's actually the core reason for some of how I'm still feeling.  I am definitely getting back to normal - 1-2 BM's every day since Thurs...so things are moving again - woohoo.  But I know that I need water water water.  So we'll see how this week goes!

Have a great week, y'all!