05/02/18 Wednesday

!!!!

Well, I am glad they corrected the error.

Darn it.

Argh. I'm sorry it wasn't the terrific news you thought it was. Darn residents. They need to learn sometime, but it sucks when the lesson is on you.

Not quite as good, but mild and moderate don't sound too bad I hope?

Diane O, was it a true physical stenosis of the aortic valve or a stenosis of the artery caused by plaque build up? I can't imagine a tissue stenosis self correcting, but if the stenosis was caused by plaque build up, that I'd get. Either way, it's absolutely wonderful news!!!!!

Weight was up another pound today. Written with furrowed brows, tightly pursed lips, and an overall general grimace.

I thought it would be interesting to log my packed food today to see where it landed macro wise. So, while not a horrifying outcome, it seems to me to be so much more than what you all eat. Just for breakfast, lunch and snacks my numbers are as follows:

Calories: 1070 Protein: 104 Carbs: 81 Fats: 36 Sugar: 26

That leaves me with just about 500 calories for the day, if I am trying to be in WL mode. I am trying to NOT be in WL mode. Though, I dreamt last night that I needed to be in WL mode. The dream was insistent, too. It was hard core. I felt pressured to lose weight. Some part of my subconscious psyche coming out in my sleep I suppose.

Two questions I need to explore: 1. Why does going into WL mode trigger fear in me? and 2. From where does the sense of "not being good enough" come?

These questions are core to my personal place in the world. I don't like these questions. The answers are not easy and require a level of introspection over time that I have avoided for a lifetime. I always come back to those two questions. I wish I had one of you to sit with over coffee to chat about these aspects of my personality.

Not me! But at 6 ft and not small, I think I can eat more like a man than a petite woman 8" shorter than me. Your macros look great to me. I eat about 1700 calories a day to lose and 1800-1900 to maintain.

500 to lose? I only need to be under 800 to lose - about 1400+/-50 to maintain. I'm pretty small right now and not super active (just walking and the like).

no, no, no.... I was saying if I was in weight loss mode given what I had logged in for the day, that would leave me only 500 more calories for the day, which before lunch was not a whole lot in my mind. So that 500 calorie figure was for evening meal and evening snack.... Make sense?

Oh! Yes, I understand now. I do that too - look at my calories as of mid-afternoon and have angst over how little is left for the rest of the day...

What comes next is probably more info that you care to read....but I want to echo what Cecily said. That doesn't look like "too much" compared to what I eat. I weigh about 130lbs and am a girl ;) for some context.

I now follow the my gym's head trainer's advise when I want weight to drift down with (hopefully) minimal muscle mass loss. She isn't a nutritionist and doesn't pretend to be. She does have a background in body building and is a self professed nutrition nerd that "just loves talking" about this kind of stuff.

She suggested that I keep calories up at 1500-1550 (thought to be my TDEE) and macros to 60% protein, 20% fat, 20% carbs.

I found it pretty much impossible to be THAT protein forward for any length of time which surprised me -- I ate like zero carbs during all of weight loss.

My weight does reliably drift down on that amount of calories. I had never tried to lose weight before with such high calories and is so much easier than my usual militant approach.

Otherwise, in regular maintenance, my calories are 1700-1900, depending on what I have going on for activity.

My macros are usually split into 1/3'rds. That's just what I drift to, it isn't necessarily intentional. If one is going to be more than 1/3rd then it is usually protein or fat.

My diet is varied. I literally like lots of color, the more the better. Very little in the way of processed foods. The processed foods I do buy (like Killer Dave's bread) usually have a minimal ingredient list tho I certainly will make exceptions. (Keep in mind that besides VSG, I have a cancer history which comes with its own food quirks)

I eat more veggie's than fruits tho I don't avoid fruits. My veggies tend to be non-starchy but I don't mind picking up a sweet potato (for example) on occasion.

I don't eat out on a regular basis because of processed food/unknown non-whole food ingredients. That's largely driven by my cancer diagnosis but certainly helpful for a weight maintenance perspective, too.

I avoid added sugars in foods but don't worry about what naturally comes with them. Avoiding added sugars is a common theme for those of us with past cancer history, particularly when it was hormone positive, like mine. But again, avoiding added sugars is also helpful for maintenance as well as general health.

I make lots of exceptions, of course. Homemade foods made by people I love don't have to fit the usual macros.

Any, GL with trying not to be in WL mode. It is funny how when we deliberately start tracking, we auto-click into Must Lose Weight mode or feel less-than. (my own neurosis, perhaps)

Thanks! Not at all too much info. It helps me to see how I eat in a more logical perspective. I really have not eaten in a healthy manner for a number of months. It is going to be a bit of a bear to eat less sugar I think. I was hoping that eating more protein would be enough to quell the urge for sugary foods, but it's not going to be. I'm going to have to put in a few days of difficult, white knuckling I believe for the sugar cravings to subside. I want to avoid that tactic, but I think it may be inevitable. I just have to be okay with it. Like I have said, I have an irrational fear about not being able to eat what I want when I want it. The funny thing is I will often eat something I think I MUST have and I still feel terribly unsatisfied. I know more and more that for me this whole weight thing is emotion based and steeped in coping mechanisms and disfunction.

When I stopped drinking and stopped smoking it was done in one fell swoop. Just BOOM! Done. I had assumed in some crevice of my psyche that WLS would be the same BOOM!, but it wasn't. I really didn't think with VSG it would be possible to get fat again. LOL! Really? Yes, really. Part of my "little kid" thought surgery cured me. After all, it was a bit of a miracle cure for my obesity. I truly didn't understand the long term commitment. Once I was thin, I was off the diet and back to "living". Weight loss was a temporary state. Weight management was not really an issue because there was that childish, young, bedazzled part of my brain that still believed I was given the magical gift of forever thinness! Oh, JOY! (Well, clearly, it was OH, DELIRIUM!)