What's on your (PHOTO FRIDAY) Menu, Valentines?

Morning, Beauties! Happy Valentine's Day! I hope you all have a day filled with love and happiness (...and chocolate, if you are in to that sort of thing, lol)!.

I am heading into work really early again, and leaving by 3pm so that I have time to come home, get cute, and have a date night :) We are going to a nice farm to table steakhouse that we haven't been to, yet. Then... who knows? Last year we went bowling which was a blast, or if I am awake enough, we might go to one of the Valentine's Day movies playing. I think we have choice between Casablanca or When Harry Met Sally.

I woke up to make coffee and saw this, so I already know I am in for a lovely day. I need to hold off and eat the chocolate after weigh-in tomorrow, though because it is already going to be a tough one! I picture myself tearing into it in the parking lot after the meeting ;)

Accountability: Good again. I am not eating as much as I bring with me for lunch & snacks, so that's good. But I think I am just having one of those random small pouch weeks. I really don't think I am going to see anything budge at weigh in, though, unless I go in naked (I might). Frustrating because I think I ate a lot less this week than last. But I'm trying to remind myself that stalls are normal...

QOTD: What is your Non-Alcoholic drink of choice? This is my problem--since surgery I just can't find a drink that I like and tolerate besides coffee! For some reason, plain water does not sit too well with me (something about surface tension that Grim has explained to me) and I am so bored with favored waters. Grim drinks Diet Coke but the bubbles bother me, too. I really just like coffee... hot coffee, iced coffee, plain or fancy. But I wish I could find something else that made me want to hydrate!

TBH, I don't really know if this is an honest menu. There is a team breakfast at work today which I hope to avoid since it is usually a carb fest, but if they have decent stuff I might substitute some of my snacks for that... AND a chili & cookie cook-off later in the day that I really hope to skip completely, but I might be peer pressured into going... Plus I am not 10000% sure that I will choose the steak for dinner tonight... But otherwise, looks accurate, right? Hahaha.

Good Friday way to early morning.

pain has me up early today but I'm hoping to go back to sleep soon-ish. I saw my surgeon yesterday and I felt reassured that I can turn things around. He is just awesome and understanding. He is going to try and get them to switch the gabapentin to lyrica and he is going to try and get me into seeing a new counselor. My old one kept pushing to cancel future appointments in case I had surgery. Second time she had pushed for it so I just had enough. Either way he is really wanting to help me and is calling my neurosurgeon to let him know how my back is affecting my life right now. I have hope!

qotd:I use the root beer flavored water mix and dilute it more so than they say too. I also have an issue with just plain water. I also occasionally will drink Coke Zero. I drink more decaf coffee than regular coffee but I don't have it every day.

B:boiled egg, Greek yogurt with raspberries

S:pork rinds

l:chicken thigh and cauliflower

d:egg salad on a low carb tortilla

s:pp shake and more raspberries

photos are of an octopus plushie a friend got me for my birthday and some quotes I like.

I'm glad your surgeon is supporting you and advocating for you! I also love your quotes. Hang in there, maybe this is the start to a turnaround for you!

Yes I am hoping it's the turnaround I've been hoping for! Thanks!

I love your plushie & your quotes! I am really sorry to hear about your ongoing pain, as someone who suffers with chronic migraines I am all too familiar with chronic daily pain.

I just wanted to give you my two cents on Lyrica, although a great drug for pain management, it has a lot of side effects and is quite addictive. Both my sister and Dad take it and my sister ended up having manic episodes and had to go off it for a while, the pain was too intense so she went back on it and it now more aware of how it affect her, and my Dad gets the dizziness/vertigo and fatigue. So just keep an eye on how it affects you. I do wish you pain free days ahead!

have a lovely weekend & happy valentines day!

Thanks for the info! It's not a guarantee I'll be able to switch but I so appreciate your sharing of this. My surgeon said gabapentin really really hinders weight loss so that's his reasoning. Plus it isn't really helping with the nerve pain either. Between the med changes, steroid shot and not so great eating I've gained 7 pounds in a month. Exercising not being very possible isn't helping either.

sorry for all that lol thanks again and I will definitely keep that info in mind.

Actually my sister was on gabapentin for years and switched to Lyrica. I know my Dad uses the Lyrica for his nerve pain, it helps for sure. What he found was that he needed a pretty high dose of the lyrica to get rid of the nerve pain BUT the side effects were too severe for him so he is on a low dose and it helps but not 100% but he just was not comfortable with all his side effects.

I do want to say you need to be kind to yourself right now. Dealing with chronic pain is debilitating and life altering (not in a good way). And although I am sure you are upset about the weight gain I want you to focus on getting well and pain free. You have had WLS and its for sure one of the best tools to have against obesity so what I am trying to say is, take it one day at at time, one problem at a time. Your WLS tool will always be there and if you have some gain you can always work hard once you are feeling better and in a better place to get the gain off. I hope that makes sense, I know its hard sometimes to convey feelings in a online message.

Be well

I am so glad that you have someone in your corner.

Happy Valentine's JB and to all menu friends! Hope you and Grim have a fun date night!

Today is my 2nd anniversary of WLS, the day I chose to love myself enough to make a big change! (Also the date the hospital randomly assigned me, lol, but I choose to give it meaning!)

i had my two year follow up and am considered "successful", up 3 lbs on their scale from my scale over the year but they didn't think that was a big deal - late in the day weighing, etc. Said they would have given me a silver Star if it was 5lbs higher and bronze if it was 6-8 so it was a gold star for me; all labs were good and trending up and then I went stand by on a two hour earlier flight so it was gold star day all around!

thank you all so much - I have learned so much from this group and I so appreciate the place to come and chat about all the ins and outs and ups and downs!

I did get a bit of a lecture on the whole ER visit last October - not the going and all that but apparently, I should have given him a call once I was able. Hopefully I won't have to but I will in the future. My bari nurse was not worried about the exercise related blood sugar drops - said to move my meals a bit closer and/or have an ounce of milk when I stop exercising, if I'm a bit shakey. I'm going to try to eat a bit closer first. She also said I could add a bit more salt/coffee since I'm still having the orthostatic BP issues if not super hydrated.

my photos today are my favorite pre op photo of me, a picture of me at the eclipse the month I started my WLS program and a nice picture from my December trip. Although I never considered myself lacking confidence or holding myself back due to my weight, I can see a change there too, not just the physical change.

qotd - outside of my coffee obsession, I love my hot teas!

menu today will be

carbmaster cottage cheese

last slice of cheese crust pizza

something from the RGF selections in my freezer

frozen L&F greek

Sorry about the novel today!

have a fantastic day and weekend everyone!

Happy surgiversary!