Cleanin' Out My Closet, as Eminem Once Said

This morning I had 10 minutes spare while small boy was having an early lunch with Granny and hubby, so I tried on all the skirts in my wardrobe, of which there are nine. Four of those no longer fit, because they are

TOO BIG!!

This is well and truly a momentous occasion. When else have I ever had clothes that have gotten too big? When else have I ever had clothes that don't need to be packed away "just in case"? What a wonderful feeling to know that these skirts are too big, and will ALWAYS be too big. They are in fact too big to the point that I can take them off without having to undo the buttons/zips; clearly it would be dangerous to wear such an item of clothing for fear that the hem might get caught in something or trodden on by someone, and lo and behold, slip right off, leaving me displaying my undergarments to all and sundry. Not a pretty sight.

The other five skirts fit nicely (for the time being!) having previously been somewhere on the scale of snug to tight.

Next time I have a few minutes to spare, I'll be trying on my tops. Watch this space...

FINALLY!

I lost another pound, at long last, making a total of 21lbs (or one-and-a-half stone.) Jeepers, it's taken two weeks! I think it came off at a rate of an ounce a day! Still, it's gone and good riddance.

17st 3lb - 241lbs - BMI 40.1 (just 1lb standing between me and 'Obese Class II'!)

This morning I had my second appointment with the dietitian; she seems pleased with my progress with the mushy to soft foods. Now it's time for me to progress from soft to normal foods, just in time for my first fill next Friday, at which point I have to regress to the purees for a few days, then mushies, then softies, then normal food. Admittedly this will be condensed into the space of a week, rather than the 5-6 weeks it's taken to get from liquids to normal food post-surgery, but it hardly seems worth me getting used to the taste/texture of 'real' food again this week only for it to be snatched away on Friday!

A question for those of you who have had fills - do you have to be nil-by-mouth for a certain length of time prior to the fill? My appointment is 10am - should I skip breakfast and my usual morning coffee, or is it ok to eat and drink as normal?

I'm hoping that the fill plus the return to purees for a few days will kick start the weightloss again. My aim is to be to be "16 stone something" by 19th March as we are having some professional family photos taken that day; it's the day before small boy's 1st birthday and I want to look as "slender" as possible. I've avoided having my photo taken with him as much as I can, which is a shame, so I really want to look my best in these shots - if they're professional perhaps the photographer can airbrush out my lumps and bumps and make me into a yummy mummy!

All Quiet on the Diet Front

Nothing to report. Nada. Zip. Niet. Zero. With 'zero' being the operative word, as that pretty much sums up my weightloss for the last two weeks. Gahh! But I have still lost 20lbs and (with a little bit of up and down here and there) not put anything on. And it is only nine more days til my first fill...

Clearly, though, I do need that fill to kick-start the weightloss again. My appetite has come back, and I imagine I can now eat pretty much anything. I say 'imagine' as I don't want to push things, so I've still been sticking to softer foods - mashed potato, soup, soft bread, tuna, Ready Brek, chips, chocolate, sponge cakes... - oops, did I say chips, chocolate and cake? See, that's why I need the fill!

I have an appointment with the dietitian on Friday so I'm going to see whether I can move to 'normal' foods for the final week before my first fill. I really fancy some Chinese food and would love to be able to eat some and enjoy it!

Wow! I got a blog award!

Warning: My, oh my, this is a loooooooooooong post. Read it at your peril.

This blog about my journey with the lap band is actually my third blog; one of those blogs is now defunct since it chronicled the trip hubby and I took in 2008 ; the other blog which runs alongside this one, is about all things non-banded. Despite having blogged now for quite some time, and in various guises, this is the first time I have ever been nominated for an award, so a big shout out and 'thank you' to Tina who was kind enough to think of me.

So, this is what I have to do:

• Thank the person who nominated you for this award (Check)
• Copy the award and post it in your blog (Check)
• Link to the blog of the person who nominated you (Check)
• Tell seven interesting things about yourself (Check - took a while!)
• Nominate seven bloggers (Check)
• Post links to the blogs of your nominees (Check)

Seven interesting things about me? Hmm, let me think... Seven? Really? I'm not sure there are that many...

1) As per Tina's request, here's a little bit about our chickens. We have two chooks living in an Eglu at the bottom of the garden - Gail and Sarah-luv (names after characters from mine and hubby's favourite TV show, Coronation Street.) We did have three chooks, but had to give Audrey back when 'she' turned out to be a 'he'. These are the second lot of chooks we've owned; we had to re-home the first lot (Rita, Mavis, Deirdre and Blanche) when we went travelling. Which leads me neatly on to interesting point no.2

2) I love, love, love to travel (although I don't really like flying) and have so far visited 59 countries. In January 2008 hubby and I set off on a seven-month trip (if you've got too much time on your hands you can read all about it here) which took us to North and Central America. We had a month in California/Arizona/Nevada, then flew to Mexico City and travelled overland through Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Honduras, Belize, back to Mexico then flew to New York where we rented an apartment for a month before driving through New England and into Canada to stay with my aunt. Then we flew back to England (at which point I discovered I was pregnant) and then drove through Europe for three weeks.

3) I love, love, love NYC! I've been there 14 times so far. Hubby & I got married there (in Tavern on the Green) on 10 December 2005. We had the most wonderful time. We took the small boy on his first ever overseas trip to NYC last December; hopefully he'll grow to love the city as much as we do.

4) I work for a publishing company, indexing the business news section of The Times newspaper. Luckily I work part-time, extremely flexible hours and from home, which means I get to spend lots of time with the small boy.

5) The house we live in now is the house I owned when hubby and I first met back in 2003. I sold it in 2005 when hubby and I bought a house together, but when we came back from travelling and knew there was going to be another addition to the W family, we realised the house we were living in was going to be too small (it's not that it was a small house, it's just that we [mainly me] own a lot of 'stuff'.) So we started looking for somewhere new to buy, and it just so happened that my old house was on the market, so we bought it back.

6) I studied Ancient History at university and have an MA in Ancient Social and Cultural History, specialising in Roman architecture. I really wanted to do a PhD, but couldn't get the funding. Who knows, maybe one day...

7) I love, love, love to read. I hate to go anywhere without a book in my bag, even if it means my handbag weighs half a ton with all the other 'stuff' that I seem to keep in there. I'm starting to remind myself of an old teacher of mine who amazed us all by once pulling a screwdriver out of her handbag, but I digress... There are 128 unread books on my bookshelves (I've just got up and counted them especially) but I still find it hard not to go into a secondhand bookshop when I see one (I find it hard to pay full price for a book as most paperbacks seem to retail for at least £6.99 (and more often that not, £7.99) these days.)

And now for seven bloggers to nominate for this award. Just seven? From the gazillions that I read? Ouch, this is a tall order. Luckily, quite a few of you have already received the award, so I'm going to find seven bloggers who haven't. As Tina said, we should all get the award eventually!

1) Dawn who, like me, was very recently banded. Hers was the first blog I ever commented on. She lives in Reading, like me. Although her Reading is in the USA, while mine is in the UK. She's plateauing at the moment and needs our support!

2) Athena. Another recent bandster, banded just one day before me and she's already lost 30lbs!
3) Sandy Lee Just banded a couple of weeks ago and doing brilliantly - a big shout out to Sandy Lee!

4) Bianca Banded the week before me - can you see a theme developing here?

5) Jess Banded two days after me...

6) Pie Despite the name, Pie is not someone who needs to lose weight, nor is she someone who blogs about life with the gastric band. She is someone I met while hubby and I were on our travels in Maine; she discovered my travel blog, emailed me over our shared love of Agatha Raisin and we got the chance to meet up. How cool is that?

7) Steph And on a totally different note; Steph is not a bandster but she has a lovely blog with photos of the English countryside, vintage finds, etc, etc.

Slowly. Softly.

Slowly = my weightloss at the moment. Actually, it's worse than slow, it's ground to a halt. However, I'm not going to worry about it too much because I know it's just a temporary thing for a number of reasons:

1) that old devil TOTM is just around the corner and we all know what effect those hormones can have on the scales
2) I'm definitely eating more than I was in the first couple of weeks post-op (although nowhere near as much as a normal day pre-op), and I'm not necessarily eating 'good' stuff, so how on earth can I expect to lose weight? I'm guessing this is Bandster Hell.
3) it's still another 2 weeks and 2 days (who's counting?!) til I get my first fill

And, looking on the very positive side, I'm still 20lbs lighter than I was 5.5 weeks ago; the last time I had such a dramatic weightloss was the day I gave birth to my 8lb 11oz darling boy!

Softly = today, according to my dietician, I can officially move on to 'soft' foods, instead of purees. I say 'officially' because I've actually been eating some soft/mushy foods for the past ten days or so, but it's mostly been in the form of mashed potato, swede, carrot and other soft veggies. Now I can start to re-introduce pasta and rice to my diet, which I'm definitely looking forward to as I do love me some pasta.

Today is exactly four weeks since I was banded and I can honestly say I've not had a single regret (so far; except when the painkillers wore off the first few hours post-surgery!) All is going well; long may it continue.

Today is also the start of Lent when it's traditional to give something up for the next forty days. Hubby is giving up cheese; I've not decided what to give up yet - overeating, perhaps?!

Thou Shall Not Covet...

The small boy and I popped over to Henley on Thursday morning for a quick doctor's appointment, a not-so-quick look round the shops, and a not-very-quick-at-all stopp off in Maison Blanc for a delicious mocha (I had the mocha, he had some pieces of toast leftover from his breakfast.)

While we were on our not-so-quick look around the shops, we popped in to Laura Ashley. Now, Laura Ashley stock lovely clothes in the 'English country casual' sort of style, but I never bother to look at them as the largest size they go up to is a UK 20, and I'm a UK 22 (and sometimes it's a bit of a squeeze even to get into a 22 depending on the cut/store). I suppose at some point in the not too distant future I will be a size 20, but I'm not sure I want to buy too many/any new clothes in that size because I'm guessing I'll be moving on down to an 18 a little while later. Anyway, I digress. The point of all this was that as we walked in to the shop I spied this gorgeous pair of pony skin (not real, I hasten to add) shoes:

I don't wear heels, ever. Well, I used to wear a pair of boots with a 3 inch chunky heel until I fell over one night about six years ago when very drunk and broke my ankle in them. That was pretty much the last time I've worn heels of any kind; the closest I get to it now is standing on tiptoe to reach something from a high shelf.

But, for these little beauties, perhaps I could make an exception... Trouble is, they're an eye-watering £125 which is more than I ever ever paid for a pair of shoes in my life (I did pay more than that for the boots which broke my ankle, and look where that got me.) And, putting aside the price, if I do buy a pair, I wonder if by the time I get up the courage/ability to wear them, might my feet have lost weight like the rest of me, and shrunk?!

Twenty!!!

(all credit to Catherine for the photo idea)

After last week's little game of taunting me with "ping pong pounds", this week the scales are mostly being my BFF. Another 1lb loss this morning, bringing my total since I started the pre-op diet on 10th January to 20lbs. That's 20lbs in just under five weeks, which I think is absolutely amazing. Not in a boastful 'look at me, aren't I amazing' kind of way, but in a 'wow, I can't believe I've lost this much weight, this band is amazing' kind of way.

17st 4lb - 242lbs - BMI 40.3 (just 2lbs standing between me and 'Obese Class II'!)

On Wednesday afternoon I had my first proper post-op consultation with the dietician. She told me I've moved onto the mushies too quickly - apparently I should still be on purees for another week. So, I've tried (and will continue to try until next Weds) to rein in the mushies a little, but it's hard once you've tasted the goodness of food that hasn't been near a blender! She was also a little concerned that I wasn't getting quite enough nutrients and suggested I drink another glass of milk (she said I could make it into hot chocolate if I liked - yes, I like!) to try and get me up to a pint a day. Do/did all you other bandsters think you get/got all the nutrients you need/needed during this mushy stage? I am taking my multivitamin tablet each day and I thought that with the hummus I eat most days, plus the veggies I tend to have at dinner (mashed swede [that's rutabaga in the USA] and carrot being my favourite), the soup at lunch (usually a veg or chicken variety) and the cereal with milk for breakfast, I wasn't doing too badly on the whole. Ho hum.