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Back up one pound.  Damn.
 

Still counting calories and protein intake daily.  I’m giving serious thought to (*gag!*) starting protein drinks.  I hate that thought, though.  I have yet to find one that’s palatable.  When I started out, I was using Optimum Nutrition Double Chocolate.  I still have a boatload of that stuff left, and I should use it up.  One scoop has 120 calories and 24 grams of protein.  If I add that to strong coffee, maybe I can choke it down.

I’m now down 70 pounds exactly.  I have been writing down exactly what I’ve been eating all day, the calorie count, and the protein grams.  I’ve been getting in about 1200 to 1400 calories a day.  I prefer to keep it around 1200 or less if possible, but I also want to ensure that I get sufficient protein so that I don’t lose my hair. 

I’m still going to support group meetings, and I suspect that I will do so for years to come.  It is helpful and important. 

On other fronts, I’ve been dating someone.  Sometimes, he’s the guy who just takes my breath away because he says and does the right thing.  More often, though, he’s a prick who has been mean and nasty for no apparent reason.  While I try to overlook the negative in him, I often ask myself if this is a man I’d introduce to my parents.  And the answer is always a resounding no, because I won’t risk him being rude or nasty to them. 

Silly me, I keep hoping he’ll change when I know full well that a leopard cannot change his spots.  I’ve thought about how he’ll go days without calling me or sending me a message of some sort and how most of the time it is me who will initiate contact.  I’ve also thought about how it feels when I do initiate contact and he’s seemingly blasé about it. 

That’s when all the self-doubt rears its ugly head.  That’s when I start pondering:

Perhaps I’ve been too demanding.

Perhaps I am not understanding of his complexities.

Perhaps I have unreasonable expectations of a relationship. 

Then I kick myself in the proverbial ass and remind myself that I’ve not asked him for much of anything except consideration, kindness and sweetness.  And I remind myself that I’ve been mindful of his needs in his career and given him lots of space and flexibility with his schedule.  And I tell myself that my expectations of a relationship are not unreasonable:  seeing each other once or twice a week at least, some form of communication on other days, and pleasantness. 

That’s when I come to my senses. 

Back in the 60’s and 70’s, we used to say:

Men.  Can’t live with ‘em, can’t live without ‘em. 

In the 80’s and 90’s, it changed to:

Men.  Can’t live with ‘em, can’t shoot ‘em. 

Well now it’s the new millennium, and I’ve been divorced twice.  My new motto is:

Men.  Can’t live with ‘em, don’t have to.

I’ve gained three pounds.  At one point this week, I was up five.  I attribute it to several things.  First, I haven’t been to the gym in nearly two weeks because I’ve been working on a publishing deadline.  Second, while I’ve been home working on the chapter that was due, I ate way too much.  I didn’t realize how bad it had gotten until I got on the scale and saw a 5 pound jump.  It was then that I sat down and actually wrote down what I ate and drank all day long, the calorie intake and the protein intake.  Waaaay too much.  So yesterday I started writing it all down.  I lost about two pounds in retained water. 

I met my monthly publishing deadline, but it took a very palpable toll on me.  I don’t feel very well either.  I have an appointment with my surgeon for a checkup in a couple of weeks.  In the meantime, it’s back to doing what I should be:  measuring, timing, and counting, counting, counting.

I’m down 69 pounds.  It’s going, but it’s sure taking its sweet time about it.  I want it all gone NOW, dammit, and I’m frustrated that I’m not already a size 7.  I’m still about a size 16. 

Don’t get me wrong.  It’s awesome that I’m a size 16 instead of a size 28.  I just look at some of the other people who’ve had this surgery, and how thin they’ve become, and I want that, too.  It’s been six months since the surgery.  Other people have lost more in the same amount of time.  One gal at my support meeting, who had her surgery just two weeks earlier, has lost 76 pounds.  Another, who had her surgery 4 weeks before me, is down 112! (Granted, she started out at 390, and she had a helluva lot more to lose than me, but DAMN! She’s lost 112 pounds in 7 months!) 

People tell me it’s a good thing that the weight is coming off slowly.  Whenever somebody says that, though, I feel like the loser at a game show receiving a year’s supply of Gravy Train as a consolation prize. 

Yet everybody still tells me I’m looking thinner and thinner.  I wish the scale bore that out. 

On other fronts, on the exact six month anniversary of my surgery, I had the Zoom tooth whitening done.  I will NEVER do that again.  It hurt like hell.  The pain I experienced (and am still experiencing!) is just as bad as the pain of my surgery.  But this pain was not ameliorated by prescription pain killers.  YEOW!!!! 

Yes, my teeth look nice.  But the pain was excruciating.  If I ever need a touchup, I am going to insist on massive doses of Novocain first.

I’m down to 190.2, which is 67.5 pounds gone.  It's been nearly six months since my RNY surgery.  The strangest thing happened to me recently, though....

I was asleep.  Out of the blue, a pain hit me.  Hard.  Right in the Lean Pocket.  The pain was intense, and it felt like I was going to explode.  The only thing I can compare it to is a gall bladder attack, but I had my gall bladder out years ago.  

The pain lasted about 12-15 minutes.  It was intense.  I called the surgeon's office, and spoke with the doc on call that night (Dr. Chin).  He didn't seem the least bit concerned.  He said that I should call my regular general practitioner or if it is severe enough, to go to the ER.  Gratefully, the pain has not returned. 

I'm not crazy.  I KNOW this is related to the surgery. 

I’m wondering whether it was a piece of food that wasn’t chewed well enough (because of all the recent dental work I’ve had, my teeth hurt a lot), and perhaps a piece lodged in the exit tube???  I recall that gall bladder attacks happened when a stone lodged in the bile duct, so maybe something similar happened with a piece of food….

It’s been a few weeks since I’ve updated.  I was having some pain and it was stress based.  It turns out that my students were the cause of my stress and that if I didn’t come to grips with the fact that some of them are in need of special education services and simply will not pass the first grade because they are so very mentally deficient that all the love and private tutoring in the world will not help them learn, that I would soon develop an ulcer.  And an ulcer is the very last thing a gastric bypass patient should have.  So I have decided that although I have a stellar reputation of getting almost every child in my care to succeed, I forgive myself in advance for not being able to do the same thing this year. 

So to improve things, I put myself on a very bland diet for a few weeks—milk, cheese, and soup, for the most part.  It helped immensely.  My weight eventually dropped, too, and at one point I was down 67 pounds.  I’ve put three back on since I went off my bland diet (I went away for a weekend and ate way too much). 

But while I was away for the weekend, I discovered that I can eat salad.  That’s unusual, as many bypass patients report having terrible difficulty with lettuce.  I discovered that I can tolerate lettuce while at Benihana’s—I simply cannot resist that salad dressing!—and I’ve since allowed myself to have Caesar salads because the dressing is not sugary. 

On other fronts, I’m scheduled for sinus surgery in October, which is when my next vacation comes.  I’m not looking forward to this surgery, unlike the last one.  But my hope is that I will be rid of the ongoing respiratory infections once and for all. 

As of this morning, I’m down 62 lbs.  I broke down and bought a sleeveless top, but I haven’t had the guts to wear it in public yet.  I went swimming in the new bathing suit this week, and it was the first time in years I’ve been in a pool. 

I’m over the cold, but no change in my weight.  I bought a bathing suit, size 16.  It’s very snug, but probably because it’s a regular size 16, not a 16W.  Still, I am confident that in a matter of a month or two, it’ll be comfortable.

Well, I’m back down again, now to 196.6.  That’s 61 pounds in all.  My dad finally came home from the hospital after three and a half months, the cat’s doing much better, I was presented with a new writing opportunity that I’m excited about, and overall, life is pretty good with the exceptions that my mom may now need to go to the hospital, and their dog died.  The stress never ends. 

On top of it all, I’m now as sick as a dog.  I am prone to chronic sinus infections that quickly lead to bronchitis and pneumonia, and I recently was told by an ENT doctor that I will need surgery due to the severity of the problem; I’ve tried various antibiotics in hellacious doses, but they simply don’t help me.  I was trying to hold off on the surgery for a few months, until my next vacation, but as lousy as I feel right now, I don’t know that that will be possible.  My chest is rattling and wheezy, my ears are clicking and itching and popping, I’m congested, my throat is sore, and I feel like crap.

I’m back up three pounds.  I guess I’m now officially on a plateau, since I’ve been fluctuating up and down by three or four pounds for the past several weeks.  I think the key will be getting back to the gym (I haven’t been to the gym in over a week because I’ve been taking care of my sick cat who had emergency surgery last Saturday.).  He now seems to have turned a corner, and perhaps I won’t feel so guilty about not being home immediately after school.  So I am renewing my commitment to a 45 to 60 minute workout four times a week.