You look great! Did you get your hair cut?

This week I got my hair cut and colored, just shorter and brighter.  This has been a big topic of conversation wherever I go and whoever I see.  I get compliments all day long, "wow your hair looks great"," I love the hair"," that cut really suits you", "where did you get your hair done it looks great", "you look so good, I love the new hair cut". Yes I cut my hair, but don't you think that maybe the real thing you are seeing is the effects of my weight loss?

And then there are the people who say, "have you lost weight?  You look great?" when they saw me two days ago and the only thing that had changed inbetween is that I got my hair cut.

Now I will give you I got a great haircut and really enjoyed my new stylist who did my hair.  I think that I look good and it definately updated my look.  But I am confused how it is I look thinner with a new hair cut.  How is that possible?  What is it about a change in my hair that creates and optical illusion of thinness?

If I had only known I would have cut my hair sooner and not bothered with the whole weight loss thing..NOT but still it's a strange thing for me.

My husbands theory is that people don't really look at you, that they have an image in their head that is their default setting of what you look like.  Like having a pic that pops up on your cell phone when someone calls.  So if you are making gradual changes like weight loss the people who see you regularly don't update their internal pic of you.

However when you do something a little more obvious like change your hair length or color then it forces them to re-set their picture of you in their head and they suddenly notice you look different. 

Thank you everyone for your compliments, I REALLY appreciate it and they go a long way towards me wanting and needing to keep making more improvements to me.  I don't care if you think I am skinnier, taller, have new hair, new teeth or anything else, keep the "you look greats" coming and I will smile and say "Thank you, I feel great".

Cooking weekends

Prior to my weight loss surgery I used to cook all day on Sunday.  Making things that would be in our fridge for the coming week.  That way my family and I would have yummy things to eat that were ready for us when we were ready to eat.  Then I would post on facebook a list and sometimes pictures of what I had cooked over the weekend.

After my surgery I quit cooking.  I just did not find that I had any desire to do it.  I have been mostly eating things like sliced cheese, sliced lunch meat, hummus with cucumber chips, protein drinks, hamburger patties, salmon, yogurt, and various combinations of the above examples for most meals, most days.

Last weekend my brother came to visit and to have lunch with me.  I asked him what he was hungry for that I could make him and he said anything wound be fine. I remembered that I had wanted to try the Chicken Parmigiana recipe that I had read on the Pioneer Woman website and made it for him.


http://thepioneerwoman.com/cooking/2009/10/chicken-parmigiana/

This got me inspired to do some more cooking.  So next I made homemade macaroni and cheese and roasted kielbasa with bbq sauce. Then chicken enchiladas casserole.

This weekend I started thinking about things I could make that I could easily put in my lunch. Since I focus mainly on eating protein and needing things that are easy to eat in small portions of on the go I thought about things that would be party finger food.  I made a high protein guacamole using avacados and fat free greek yogurt.  Next I made unstuffed deviled eggs. I made the filling and put it in a container then put the whites in a separate container so I can fill them as I want them, keeps them from getting spilled in my lunch bag like they would if I pre filled them.

Finally I put chicken cacciatore in the crockpot.

It feels good to be planning food and cooking again. I forgot how much I enjoyed it. Hopefully it will also help me get more variety in my diet, was getting kind of tired of cold cuts and cheese.

Progressing toward 5K goals

I have officially started running/walking/wogging again. About a year or more ago I started a Couch to 5K program to try and get to a point where I could jog a 5K race.  I eventually achieved a VERY slow run combined with some walking and could complete a 5K in right at an hour.  I really had in my head that I wanted to be able to run the whole thing but at in excess of 250lbs it didn't really happen.  My sister coined the term "wogging" as a combination of walking and jogging.  My brother says it was really waddling... Now that I am cleared to do as much as I want physically, I am again pursuing running.  I started with walking and then in recent weeks have added more slow running.  I am trying to walk nearly every day for at least 30 minutes not really worrying about speed or distance.  Then on Saturday for the last 3 weeks I have done a 5K distance (3.2 miles) as fast as I could.  Last week I got under 50 minutes which was a personal best so I am pretty happy calling that progress.

When I was working on this last time I did the Holiday 5K in Portland Oregon with my brother (the same one who made the waddling comment).   He finished at a faster time that me even though I was the one who was training.  Though I put on a happy face at the time,  I was really a little disappointed that I hadn't beaten him.  This weekend is my chance to redeem myself, even if in my own eyes.  He is running in the St. Patrick's day run in Portland.  I will not be there, but plan to start running my own personal run at the same time he is running.  Kind of running along virtually.  I will be using a time and distance application on my phone to see how fast I complete the 5K.  I hope this time my time will be better than his or at least better than my own best.

I will keep you posted. 

If you don't eat it, it must taste bad

I have had the good fortune to have gone out to dinner with two different friends in the last couple of weeks.  Neither of them had been out with me since I had my weight loss surgery in December.  However they were both very aware of this life changing event and very supportive.

These meals out brought up a couple of new things for me.

First it turns out now matter how you explain to friends or others that you can only eat 1/4 to 1/2 cup of food at a time, they don't really understand what that looks like until you are eating a meal with them.  The first night out I ordered a roasted chicken dinner, it was half a chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans.  I asked the waiter to bring the potatoes in a to go box because I knew I wasn't going to eat them and that others in my family would enjoy the left overs.  Then I ate about a third of the chicken breast from the chicken, three green beans and set my plate aside.  At first my friend thought I was kidding when I said I was finished, but really I was full and finished.  I joked and told him thanks for buying me a weeks worth of food...

The other thing that happened was that the waiter returned to our table several times, asking if everything was ok with my food once I stopped eating.  He even at one point asked me if he could bring me something else instead.  Each time I told him my food was just fine and that I was just someone who ate a small amount at a time.  He seemed very disbelieving of these statements.  Later I thought, hey really I know I ate a small amount but who really should eat an entire half a chicken, plus mashed potatoes plus green beans...I know that's the serving they were putting out but really should we eat that much?

In the second case we had breakfast for dinner, I ordered a veggie omelet.  The waitress asked me what kind of potatoes I wanted with it, I declined then she said would you like a fruit bowl with that instead.  I told her she could bring me the fruit in a to go container. Then she said would you like toast, muffin or biscuit.  I again declined and she looked at me with frustration.....I said really just bring me the omelet.  After eating a third of my omelet I set aside and was again asked if I had liked my food and if they could replace it with something I liked better....I said no thank you that it had been very good and could I please have a to go box with for the rest of my food.

Really world,  no wonder we over eat, no only are the portions huge but if we don't eat them, then somehow that means it tasted bad or was a food we didn't like.....I swear I love food and only order food I like, I don't have to eat it all to prove it.

Middle number progress

This week after what seemed like a never ending stalemate with the scale the middle number on my weight changed. And by changed I mean went down.  I have seen it go up a multitude of times over my life but this time it went down. 

I was extremely happy to see it go down because last week in spite of all my efforts to be careful about what I was eating, increasing my exercise and staying focused there was no movement.

I don't know what it is about my impatience with this process but it is at times all consuming and overwhelming.  I have worked to lose weight before and I have ignored my weight gains and losses too.  It's like because I made this big physical and financial commitment it can't happen fast enough to keep me satisfied.  In regular dieting I always had this "I need to diet until" mentality.  Like until these pants fit or until my weight is down 20lbs or until I reach a certain middle number on the scale. But this time it's forever, there will be no going back the change is physical and permanent, so once the weight is gone it's gone.  And I WANT it gone now....

Ode To Diet Coke

When I was young my mom bought me Tab
and I thought the pink can was fab.
It wasn't any fun to be the chubby girl is school,
and drinking diet drinks were considered uncool.

Then Diet Coke arrived on the scene
it came with a great marketing scheme.
Skinny people were drinking it
 and famous people were slurping it

I was hooked on this bubbly drink and so it seems was everyone
It went well with pizza and I rarely had only one.
Then I started drinking it with breakfast
while others drank coffee to get the morning started fast.
Five or six a day of these silver cans with diet Coke in red
One even next to my head,  when I went to bed

In November I decided to change everything forever
I would have weight loss surgery on this I wouldn't waiver.
Now all my eating has changed as my stomach is small
It holds hardly anything at all
But this biggest change, the hardest one
Is that diet Coke and I are done.

Am I shrinking before your eyes?

I am quite aware of how many pounds the scale says I have lost since I had my weight loss surgery in December. I am also quite aware of what my highs and lows have been in my weight over my adult life. What is interesting to me is other people's perspective of my weight loss since they became aware I have had surgery.

I have heard the following comments in the last week.
" I can't believe how skinny you are getting"
" you must have lost 50lbs by now"
" your shrinking before our eyes"
" I bet you feel so much better now that your thinner"

I smile and say Thank You. If the conversation persists I tell people I am focusing on my health goals, which is true. But I think it's an interesting thing that people believe they are seeing these dramatic changes, that are not there, just based on the knowledge I have had this surgery.

The reality is, my blood pressure, blood sugars related to my pre surgery diabetes and my standing heart rate are all improved without the assistance of medications I took pre-surgery. My BMI is now .4 away from moving me out of the "morbidly obese" category and into the "obese category"

But all that said, I haven't lost as many pounds as I would have liked by now, I haven't even lost the amount my Surgeon and nutritionist expected I would in the first month. This has been frustrating to me and challenged my belief in my own ability to be successful in this process. I have said to myself, how can I have taken this most extreme step to address my weight issues, and still not succeed.

In the end I know in a logical way that this is a process, that everybody has their own path and mine is in front of me and I will walk it with the challenges that it presents me. Success is attainable and only I can define success for me.