Weight Loss Surgery

So far I've only done a few video blogs but I'm gonna start doing more since I've been planning for weight loss surgery. I've been stalking several of the weight loss vloggers and it looks like it would be an awesome tool for me to use to keep up my accountability. They have ALL been successful. I've got several ideas to keep my accountability in check and to replace my bad eating habits. I've written it all out on paper but will post it here before I go in for surgery cause I know I'll lose the paper eventually. The insurance company requires certain things for me to do before I have surgery and Dr. Sloan also requires certain things for me to do. The doctor wants me to go to a seminar, get my annual pap and mammogram, do his optifast diet for 5-7 weeks. That's to shrink the liver so it doesn't get nicked during laproscopic surgery. I went to the seminar last month and also got pap and mammogram last week. I can't do his optifast until I get insurance approval. The insurance really just wants a letter of necessity from my family doc and to show that I've done 3 months of a doctor approved diet plan. I went to my first doctor visit on Nov 14th and my next is in a few weeks. I should have that completed by the end of February 2014. Then I will wait to see about my insurance approval then I'll be able to start the optifast diet that Dr. Sloan requires. Dr. Beitzel knows exactly what we have to do for the insurance company so I'm optimistic that I will be able to have my surgery by my next birthday. I know it seems far away but it's gonna give me time to work on my bad eating habits and save money for the optifast diet which is $400 and any co-pays I will have to pay. I'm just truely blessed that I'm going to have the opportunity to have this surgery. It was a difficult decision for me because I was the one who looked at people as failures for having weight loss surgery. I've had to face my previous poor judgements of others before in my life and this is another one of those times. It shows me once again that I shouldn't judge people. I'm not doing that anymore or I stop myself when I think I'm going to. When I tested in for fatty liver on top of all the other health issues that I have I knew I had to do something. The liver can heal itself but if it gets beat up too much it will turn into cirrhosis. That isn't the road that I'm looking to go down. Nothing can be done about that except a transplant and that's after dialysis and if I'm even a candidate with all of my other health issues. I wouldn't want to take a liver from someone else who needed it that had actually taken care of themselves. To make matters worse every time I diet I gain more weight back than I lost. My doctor had some term for this but basically said I was at a place where it was kind of a vicious circle since I'm unable to exercise because of the pain in my back and joints because of the weight. Anyway it's the best excuse that I can come up with. But really I want my quality of life back and would like to repair the damage that has been done....sleep apnea, high cholesterol, high blood pressure, depression, back pain, shortness of breath, metabolic syndrome and I'm getting an ultra sound in a few weeks to see if I test positive for poly cystic ovary syndrome. I might be forgetting something but I know that I'll be able to stop taking a lot of medicine and I'm looking forward to that.

~~Show Faith, Always Dream, Share With Everyone, Hope hope HOPE and Love Ridiculously & Unselfishly and Be the Person you Dream and Hope to be remembered for~~

CHER

May 17, 2012

 It was so beautiful out today.  69 but sunny with no wind. I could live like this everyday.  It's going to be in the mid eighties tomorrow and the next day.  I think I might sneak down to the beach and stick my toes in the water.
We picked up Rylie today for "my week-end".  Bill just carried him up to bed, he's been sleeping on the couch since we got home 2 hours ago.  I hope he doesn't get up too early tomorrow, at least not before us especially since we had to return the dead-bolts because I got the wrong kind. We need the kind that takes keys for both sides. So now there are empty holes in the doors with tissue stuck in it. How hillbilly is that lol. I just don't want him to go outside without me. I guess I'll be shopping for those dead-bolts tomorrow.
Me and Bill went to see his mom today.  They took her back to the nursing home last night and her urinary tract infection is pretty muc gone.  Her face is a little swolen but not near as bad as it was in the hospital and she kinda looks good that way.
We played a few games of yahtzee.  Then Mary came to make sure they changed her back to real food instead of that thickener stuff that she wouldn't eat.  I wouldn't want to eat it either.  I mean if you know you're gonna go you should be able to enjoy the time you have left. And food is a big part of that.  We stopped and got her a chocolate shake at Stake N Shake. She was loving that. A little bit before we left Suzie and her son showed up.  I was glad to see Bills mom in her wheelchair and sitting in the break room.  She could talk well but still can't hear and Mary doesn't think the hearing aid is necessary now. I hope Bill goes to see her more often.  Oh ya, they started her on morphine today and took her off of her psyc meds.  She's on the lowest doese of morphine and I think she was pretty alert for being on it, I was a bit worried about that.

I can't remember if I posted since Mother's Day or not. But, me, Bill, mom, Jayme, the kids and Derick all went out to the Old Country Buffet or something like that. For some reason I don't think that's the one, but the other one just like it. Ugh, I hate my memory.  Wade was able to call me on Mother's Day.  He is starting to get ansy and we figured he is coming up on a year now.  Actually I think it's been a year now.  It seems longer and will really seem long by the time he gets out.  He's going to a 16 wk counseling type of course and I think it's helping him.  He also gets a time cut from it. I hope he gets lots out of it cause he needs to do things totally different when he gets out and that's really hard to do.  I think he will remember who has been there for him and who hasn't. He has lots of time to think while he's in there and all his "so called family and friends" can't seem to break down and write a ten minute letter.  It's not even that so much that I worry about, it's who he hangs around.  I don't want him breaking his parole and ending up spending the rest of his sentence in there.

What a bummer post. Good things are happening too.  I've started my new website www.sharing-it-forward.com and it will be along the line of a self-help website but with my twist added in there.
The rocks were removed from our back yard thanks to Jon. And we planted grass that has already had to be mowed twice.  It's beautiful but we still have some bald spots that I'm going to fix by getting another bag of grass.  I'm also going to get the crab grass killer and fix the grass in the front and in the back--then plant some nice grass there too.  I still haven't found a place in the yard worthy of a vege garden except the hill area--thats the only place that gets a fair amount of sun.  I have sprouts of tomatoes, brocolli, carrots and radishes and nowhere to put them.

Well I'm off to put a little time into my new website.

PS
I've still been dieting even though I don't bother with dieting on Sundays when we have our family dinners.  People are noticing my weight loss and commenting.  It's great.  I feel lots better too!

~~Show Faith, Always Dream, Share With Everyone, Hope hope HOPE and Love Ridiculously & Unselfishly and Be the Person you Dream and Hope to be remembered for~~

CHER

Meditation for Weight Loss

Meditation for Weight Loss

I will be trying this out.  Ever since yoga left the Y, I've been missing a part of my mind body and soul and it gives me inspiration to know that meditation will help with weight loss which is just a bonus since meditation does so many other things for you.

This website also has a link right there at the top that will link you to an article telling you how to meditate in case you weren't sure.  Which I'm not.  I have some ideas but I like to do everything to the best of my ability and will be reading this article.

Thanks to positivelybeautiful.net


~~Show Faith, Always Dream, Share With Everyone, Hope hope HOPE and Love Ridiculously & Unselfishly and Be the Person you Dream and Hope to be remembered for~~

CHER

Related articles

• More on meditation (weightmaven.org)
• Meditation: 10 Minutes A Day Changes Brain (aurablog.org)

Its a fun day. This is my little doodle. Just playing with a new application on my tablet.

I went to Curves today and signed up. I'm not real happy with my weight...its even 3 lbs higher than it was at the doctors office last week if that's possible.

She took my measurements and I was happy for that because when I take my own measurements I can pretty much make them whatever I want within reason. Its like if I feel like being nice to myself that day then I just squeeze the tape a little harder. Its funny but I didn't even look to see what they were.

We went over some goals. She said that my goals couldn't include for health reasons or to look better...hmmm. That was kinda hard. Eventually I came up with 2 pretty good ones.

1) I would like to wear more bathing suits and look good in them this summer (and many summers to come!!).
2) I would like to go shopping for new clothes.

Both of those are true, so there we go. As far as weight goes I said I'd like to lose 20 lbs in a month and she said that was unrealistic. She said I should go with something like ten lbs in a month. Of course I'm still gonna shoot for the stars. I told her that I do an hour of water aerobics everyday too, so that combined with my new workout at Curves should add up.

She put me on a 1200 calorie a day diet. I'm really not sure how much food that entails since I've never counted calories. The thought of it doesn't appeal to me at all either but nothing that I've done on my own had worked, so I don't wanna be dumb. I will listen to her. I told her that she was really gonna have to break this down for me. So she did. She says if I get up at 7am that I should eat breakfast then and then dinner at 7pm.  Then that makes lunch at 1pm with snacks at 10am and 4pm. I should get most of my calories at lunch and snacks should stay around 100 calories. For dinner I should eat a salad. She says to go ahead and figure out what I'm going to have for breakfast and dinner and snacks then eat the remaining calories for lunch.

Here's what my plan boils down to...protein shake for breakfast. This is because I still want to make sure I get my 30 grams of protein in within 30 minutes of getting up and I have 2 huge things of whey protein shakes in the back room, both chocolate and strawberry. This is gonna be about 200 calories with 8 oz of skim milk. Then off to an hour of water aerobics, then off to 30 minutes of Curves workout.

I will have to bring a snack with me to eat in between so i'm going to get those big rice cakes and put some peanut butter on it...this will snag another 100 calories. Also 12 almonds will equal about 100 calories.  Come to think of it, I will take the almonds with me to eat as a snack and then eat the rice cakes at home.

For lunch I'm going to go for the 6 inch sub from subway. No cheese, or have them use only shredded. So I'll buy a 12 inch then I'm set for 2 days or I guess I could share with bill:) My sub of choice (after researching the subway site) is the oven roasted chicken with roasted garlic bread, natural cheddar cheese, light mayonnaise.  This will suck up another 320 calories. I think I might need more calories for my lunch because just by doing a little basic math I've only eaten 620 calories for breakfast, lunch and both snacks. I will add a protein shake for lunch too.  So that will give me 520 calories for lunch.  Then I will have 820 calories under my belt, leaving me with 380 calories for dinner.  That should be pretty easy to do with a salad.  Especially since she said all veges are free, so is coffee.  As with any diet I have to drink my 64 ounces of water a day and that's really easy for me to do.

My dinners will always be a salad she says.  So I want to have grilled chicken available at all times for my salads. I will make them with lettuce, red onions, avocados, radishes and chicken with 2 tbls of ranch dressing.  I have to keep it as simple as possible.  She said that I could have a dab of low fat shredded cheese and I just prefer to forget it altogether.  I'm not into low fat and if I'm gonna have cheese...I'M GONNA HAVE CHEESE!!

All of this comes down to a pretty basic and easy shopping list! For me anyways...

lettuce (3 heads)
red onions (2)
avocados (2)
ranch dressing
radishes (1 large baggie)
chicken breast in strips (1 bag)
skim milk (2 gallons)
peanut butter (1 jar)
cardboard cracker thingys (1 package large)
almonds (1 bag)

WOW, really?   That's all?  This is gonna be so much cheaper than low carb.  I'm gonna have to talk to Bill about making his own meals because that will be my downfall...making my salad and then having to turn around and making him a meal.  He is also gonna have to keep his hands off my salad stuff or I will have to go shopping every few days and that will get to be a drag.

Of course I'll have to double check all of these calories because I don't want to get off track and I can do that pretty easily at Sparkpeople.

She also wants me to get a step meter thingy so that I can track my steps everyday and all the exercising I do doesn't count.  She wants me to take 550 steps a day beside my exercise.  I think that's gonna be hard to do but I will try. I will have to get off my ass more often during the day.  In this small house I will have to walk around in circles to get that many steps.

Working those muscles hard

Today was pilates and then water aerobics. Ann, our pilates instructor was ready working us hard today and water aerobics was a blessing!I was glad  to see that Lee and Elaine showed up today and I think they enjoyed themselves although I know it was hard on them.

Getting in shape

Minding my body with yoga, pilates, water aerobics and some cardio toning, which the later I haven't done yet. It's so very hard on me.  I hope I can keep up with it.  I'm so out of shape that even when I think I'm taking it easy on myself I end up in terrible pain. Things will get better and I'm looking forward to that

~~Show Faith, Always Dream, Share With Everyone, Hope hope HOPE and Love Ridiculously & Unselfishly and Be the Person you Dream and Hope to be remembered for~~

CHER

Mold

That's what I'm allergic to. As far as I know anyway. My husband and I made a link between the high mold counts and my need for the inhaler. Ugh, the mold count today is in the red!

What am I allergic to?

I had a trip to the emergency room last Sunday (a week ago) because I couldn't catch my breath and my mid left back was killing me whenever I tried to breathe. What a terrible feeling.  They ran lots of tests specifically testing my heart, and EKG (boy those are allot faster than they used to be), x-ray(no broken bones and lungs look good), lots of blood test. Everything turned out fine.  I was real glad about that but now I'm just in pain and confused.
So I go to follow up with Dr. Beitzel on Wednesday and he says that I have a wheezing in my chest and bronchial tubes and that I'm not asthmatic or have allergies but I'm allergic to something.  Not real sure what that means but he sent me home with an inhaler and scheduled an ECO for this Wednesday just to follow up.
  The inhaler was working like a charm until last night. Man it's back and it's bad.  The inhaler isn't doing much of anything so I've taken a benedryl.  I called Dr. Beitzel's office and he is on vacation this week so they directed me to the other Dr. and there is nothing available for today but that I can go to the after hours clinic which starts at 5:45. "But be there early..first come, first serve" I just don't feel like I can drive an hour there, wait for help then drive an hour home just for someone to tell me to take an extra hit of my inhaler.  So I've taken an extra hit of my inhaler.  No relief yet.  I have to watch the BB's tomorrow for Jayme so maybe when I'm at the hospital on Wednesday getting my ECO I will see if I can get some help....Ugh
~~Show Faith, Always Dream, Share With Everyone, Hope hope HOPE and Love Ridiculously & Unselfishly and Be the Person you Dream and Hope to be remembered for~~
CHER