10/12/10: Today is a big day

So after my picture post of two days ago it might seem I've been a little quiet.  It's on purpose.  A blog will be coming tonight.

But in the meantime, I can blog about this other stuff.

Happy 6-monthiversary to me!

In the six months since I've been banded I've lost 36 pounds.  In the year that I've been working on this process, this journey, I've lost 58 pounds.  I am 2 pounds away from my halfway point and because of my news, I'm no longer working on any of it, per se.  More to come on that.  But suffice it to say, weightloss is temporarily not a daily goal.

I've lost a total of 40 inches and, according to my estimations, that means I have about 25 inches left to lose (around various "parts").

I have regained control of my eating and not only are my portion sizes "normal", but I am also now far more health conscious than I've ever been.  I turn to chicken and fish, predominantly, and very rarely beef or pork.  I eat predominantly real foods and I make a conscious choice to eat "American cheese", as opposed to cheddar, only on rare occasions.  There are no diet foods in my repertoire, no light foods, no reduced calorie, nothing twisted to make a strange fat free concoction, and no fake or unnatural sugars.

I eat what I want and generally when I want it. 

If I want chocolate chip cookies, I budget them into my daily allotment and I enjoy the bejesus out of them.  I purposefully make smaller cookies so that the calories, carbs and fat are controlled, but they are all real with my good ol' family recipe that my great-grandmother, grandmother, mother and I have all eaten.  (None of the previous three generations ever had weight problems.) 

If I want ice cream, I eat it.  I budget it in and I eat it.

If I want fried chicken wings, I eat them.  I budget them in and I eat them.

And I enjoy it all.

If I want grilled chicken or baked fish with fresh veggies, I eat it.  If I want beef stew or Italian Wedding Soup, I eat it.

And I enjoy it all.

I have less restriction than I probably "should" because I'd rather learn to trust myself.  It seems, in my case, to actually have been "enough" to just have surgery.  Now, I ask myself, "Really?"  And then I listen to the answer.  And sometimes I say yeah, I want fried chicken wings.  But I can't budget it and, if that's the case, then I say no.

I am learning to trust myself, to pay attention to what my body is asking for.  When I do, when I listen to my general well-being, I'll know if I need more veggies or more protein.  As a matter of course, I log everything at the end of the day and I generally see protein counts in the 60-70's, carb counts between 80-100, and calorie counts between 1000-1300.  (That's all gonna change, though, don't worry, is already changing, actually.)  I no longer feel the need to plan to figure out how best to do it, but rather, I do it, and then verify at the end of the day that I was "ok".  I'm sure this will eventually fade, too.

My life is so different than it was this time last year, when I started this process.  Last year, I was unable to do half of what I loved and unwilling to do about a quarter of the rest of it.  I made excuses up the ylang ylang for why I wasn't doing things, why I wasn't fixing myself.  In making the decision to see about the band, I started to rediscover myself.  And six months ago today, I was finally banded.  As much as I thought I'd fixed pre-band, I still had a lot to learn - and I still do.  I will learn through every day of this journey, a journey that will last a lifetime.  But I am no longer making excuses, I am no longer saying "tomorrow", I am no longer waiting.  I am doing what I want when I want and the only regret I have is waiting as long as I did, sticking my head in the sand, so to speak, and not owning my problem.

My husband looks at me now and drools.  My friends are back to wanting to play dress up with me.  And it's only going to get better from here.  My blood pressure, which was very within the normal range pre-band, is now back to being very low.  I am confident that if blood is drawn tomorrow, that things will check out better than ever.

Could I be a better bandster?  I'm sure I could.  I have no interest in being perfect, though.  I want to be real.  And I am living a very real life with very real desires and very real tendencies and this realness is something I know I can sustain forever.  I like the forever associated with this.  I feel like I can do it. I feel like I can do it because I am doing it.

And that's my six months.

Now...Drazil says y'all want a story on how I told my hubby.  So I'll post that either tonight after I have my appt this afternoon or maybe tomorrow, depending on how tonight unfolds.  But I will share all when I am done with this appt.

Happy 6-monthiversary to me!