Tuesday, August 29

Welcome, Mike ! Shel... that photo is breathtaking ! Your husband could make a fortune if all of his photos are like that!! It transported me to a peaceful place, in an instant !! Ann... loved your thoughtful insights about transitioning to retirement. Lots of helpful points to consider, and shifts in thought to practice. BB, you are such a wise soul and deep thinker.... truly enjoy your wonderings. Personal stories shared in response, were very inspiring, and can be applied to my 88 year old mother. I need to use the "big deal, little deal" filter I often used with children, when frustrations about repetition and memory arise with my mother. Devon... the puppy pictures are an absolute joy ! Loved seeing them all exhausted, and little Red under the bed.

I woke up feeling really boggy and heavy...I know I have some good bathroom time coming. I immediately began to play the "I've gained five pounds... why do I even try.... I'll never be able to do this" tape. Where did that come from ? The experience was so vivid and automatic... and so uncharacteristic for the new me. I shook it off, and the scale confirmed I am actually down from yesterday, at the lower end of my five pound range. How strong and controlling that self fulfilling prophecy is, especially when it spirals down. So grateful I recognized it, and that it felt foreign to me.

Here's to positive thought spirals pulling us up !!

Good morning! Yes, our mood can definitely be our biggest sabatage. I think weighing daily helps a lot. In your case the weight was down which dispelled your image of being heavy, but even when it is up I think it can act as a motivator: "I'm up 2 pounds, but I can get rid of that on a week or two of clean eating" as opposed to "I'm not going to weigh myself because I bet I'm up 5 pounds and there really isn't any point right now. I'll weigh again in a week or two when I think it will be down". Of course it was never down so I stopped weighing and my weight kept going up.

Ann, thank you for the advice on dealing with Alzheimer's yesterday. I think it was prompted by BB, but it really hit home for me and I copied it to save it.

Today is DH and my 36th Anniversary. We are going sailing this afternoon (in Nantucket) and out for a special dinner tonight. Last night we went to a place we had enjoyed last year. We still liked the place but the food wasn't as good as last year.

Have a tremendous Tuesday!

Here is a picture of the inn where we are staying:

Good morning!

I hoped to get into the 5am exercise class but no one canceled so I have to wait for 6:30. I am not terribly comfortable with the amount of time between getting out at 7:30 and seeing my first appointment at work. I'll just hope for great traffic. Is it wrong to hope that the first patient gets a flat tire?

By the way, besides a monthly fee, if someone signs up for a class and then doesn't cancel in time, they are charged 12 dollars. I find that 12 dollar penalty very motivating at 4am when I am thinking I would rather stay in bed.

Ann, I also found your post very helpful, particularly the part about people are doing the best they can.

BB, DianeS made an excellent point about getting Grandma to the doctor if she hasn't already been.

Thanks for the comments about DH's picture. He has a knack for creating beauty.

Hug your skinny,

Shel

thank you all for all of your thoughtful responses as to both my questions yesterday. I'm definitely guilty of trying to fix it. And "it" is a very good definition because she definitely has some memory loss. Some days it's so mild that I could chalk it up to her personality, or the fact she lives alone. Other days, it seems more frightening and dramatic--only to spring back the next day. The fact of the matter is that she's about to be 87 and in pretty good health for her age. She is still able to take care of herself and dog and live alone (although only 4 blocks from my parents with frequent check-ins). So I suppose I need to focus on the good. I know the majority of the work for me to do is on myself. We're lucky to have had her this long, and I needn't waste any time trying to correct her. That being said, I do like the photo album idea. Maybe I can prod her to put some of her photos into albums? After seeing how that goes, I wonder if she'd be able to identify who is in the picture, and the approximate date--that may be asking too much, but I am sometimes amazed at the very old and obscure memories her mind is capable of drawing up. I had bought her a memory book a couple years ago that I selfishly want her to fill out. It has prompts, etc. But I think she gets frustrated. But I did find that if I make some more tailored suggestions (ie "wasn't your first job at the baby gift shop") she's suddenly a wealth of information. So if I really do want that information, maybe I should lead it more conversationally and fill in, rather than it feeling like a quiz. But if I do that, I'll be careful to leave it if she cannot recall.

Weight 160.6. I've really been craving nostalgic commercial cafeteria foods like the ones my grandparents took me to. I made green jello with cream cheese and coolwhip and crushed pineapple. Let's just say I think I've maxed out my lime jello quota for the year :)

Our floors are being installed and they cut and put down tiles that were supposed to be "nos." DH and I were very stressed and unhappy about it yesterday. This morning I waited for the contractor since DH had an early meeting. Sometimes I forget that people speak differently to women. Wowza. Condescend much??!! ON the one hand, it makes me want to have DH deal with him since he clearly has a better rapport with men. On the other hand, I delight in the opportunity to show you that you cannot talk down to me, and when you do I will call you out on it. Timid little lady, I am not.

Greetings Tuesday Maaintainers

136.5 so some travel weight is going. Hey, its old people tuesday when I can get a discount at the health food store. Just in time to fill up the new refrigerator that arrives this afternoon.

Good job Diane O on shaking off the old mental message. It made me think about how much I used to do that. No more though I do look longingly at frozen pizza.

Liz what a cute little inn. Looks like a fun place. Have a great time.

BB maybe you could jump start the photo thing by getting a couple of albums and telling grandma you would like to do this so you could know who all these people are and create a memory book for you. Might be a fun thing to do together. Sounds like grandma is really doing quite well. My grandma lived on her own until age 89 and then lived to be 94.

Its cloudy and still here today but the sun may pop out later. Had a good exercise class yesterday and we even did some line dancing. Boy am I a klutz.

Take care of your skinny all. Diane S

208.2. My body fluctuates like crazy, but I gotta get the flux range down at least a decade. Which reminds me of fluxcapacitor and Back to the Future... When I prepare or stock healthy options for myself, I thank my past self for helping me like how the future Marty went back to help past Marty succeed. I could not share this with other people because it is super weird, but you guys would understand.

I just cut up some romaine lettuce from my stash, a tomato that finally turned red and added 1/2 can of tuna with ginger dressing, I thanked my past self for helping me avoid the unexpectedly huge retirement party goody table laden with bagels and all kinds of pastries, cookies and cakes. Thank you Joey from the past!

Not only do I understand, I am going to try to use! I'm super weird, too.

I love this reference!

Weight: 133.4
Macros: Cals - 1,337 , Carbs - 136, Fat - 35, Protein - 87, Fiber - 21
Veggies/Fruits: 3
Sleep: 7 hours
Exercise: None

SO much good stuff from everyone lately. Thank you! Thoughts, cultural references, pix, questions. Love it all!

My weight's still dropping after our Vancouver trip, which reinforces my theory that staying pretty much the same weight for nearly 2 years now has produced a new set point for me.

Hubby and I have more than normal stuff going on here with us. Today we've had beaucoups errands and appointments, and now the DISH guy is here installing the new equipment and doing his thing, which means hubby and I have new technology to learn. And to think we both used to know everything there was to know about technology. Boy, has that changed!

Yesterday's third annual follow-up visit to my VSG surgeon's office was a great event for me. Sadly, the doc wasn't there (he's on vacation), but I spent 45 minutes with his nurse practitioner and her nurse, who are both super. They gave me lots of gold stars and told me I'm doing wonderfully. I think I am, too (Ann said self-congratulatorily)!

First, I weighed in on the doc's scales at 4 pounds less than I weighed at last year's annual follow-up. But that's probably because I refused to drink / eat anything prior to the 11:00 am weigh-in except a single cup of coffee before I left home. I also stripped down to tights, a bra and a blouse for the weigh-in. I felt like a wrestler trying to make her weight class. ;) But I still felt like a champeen when I weighed 134.8 on the doc's scales. :)

Here are some things the NP shared with me yesterday that she's been observing this past year in longer-term patients and learned from educational bariatric seminars about evolving best practices from surgeons' perspectives and the latest research.

* She said she personally sees a lot of WLS patients (both sleevers and RnYs) struggling with regain in Year Two. (I told her I'd read a lot online about Year Four being the big challenge time.)

* She says most WLS patients don't track their food intake at all and, consequently, don't know how much food they're eating, calorially or macro-nutrient-wise. So it's difficult for them to self-correct without that information. It's also difficult for her to counsel them without that info.

* Longer-term, she sees their practice's RnY patients having better maintenance results than sleevers because (she thinks) RnY patients stay more connected to the surgeon's office because they're more concerned about and focused on ameliorating their permanent malabsorption challenges (an isesue sleevers don't have to deal with -- at least not like RnY patients do). She stressed that staying connected with your bariatric practice is a factor correlated with good long-term success. (That didn't sound like a marketing ploy.)

* She's seeing a greater incidence of iron shortages among sleevers as their tenure advances. My own recent iron blood test did show me in the normal range, but very close to the bottom of it. So going forward I'll be taking an iron supplement (once a day). She said I should see a resurgence in energy, and I said I can't imagine having any more energy than I have already! Oh well, I'm prepared to be surprised and to bounce off the walls. :)

* This next bit is very interesting: She says that the bariatric medical community has become concerned about all the WLS patients who are living long-term on very high protein and very low carb diets. The medicos are seeing long-term kidney issues, low energy levels, and vitamin/mineral issues from insufficient supplementation. They're also seeing these high-protein patients yo-yo dieting, in that they are craving more carbs than they're getting, so they carb-binge, then go back to protein-binging, then swing back to carb-binging, etc. She says there's now a greater emphasis on having WLS patients eat a lot of fruits and vegetables and whole grains, with a lower emphasis on protein-protein-protein, during both the weight-loss and the weight-maintenance phases. (For the record, I'm not about to get into a fistfight here at OH with the long-time vets who live on meat, but I do want to share this here with y'all.)

* She stressed the importance of continuing to eat "healthy fats" (vegetable oils like olive, coconut, etc. and nuts and seeds) and said that the recent negative news about the value of coconut oil is a lobbying / marketing effort by the canola oil industry that sees its revenue threatened by coconut oil sales. Because I have a very high opinion of this particular NP, I trust that she's not saying this because she's been marketed to by the coconut oil industry. But I don't have any independent information on this issue. If you have any relevant info, please do share it with us, along with your info sources, etc.

I think that's it.

Mike (Duffman), once again, welcome to our little group. Don't feel you have to type nearly as much as this ^^^^. This was a lotta keystrokes, even for me. :)

Ann

Interesting and thought-provoking information. Thanks Ann!