Molasses

Slow as. Molasses. Oy. So, this week I barely lost 1/2 pound. Seems my body is fighting every ounce, which is super frustrating! That said, the yoga is building muscle without a doubt - and I look different and my clothes fit differently...so really, I ought not to complain. Jill says, "Do you want to have a strong, healthy body or be skinny like a waif with no strength?" Uh, honestly: Both. I would like both...to be skinny and strong! However, it seems to be going slowly - and if you have a lap-band and this scares you, well, I won't say, "It should" but I will say this is proof positive that you do not get it for free. It's still work, and if your body is like mine, it can go pretty slowly when you get down to that last 10-20 pounds. I'm staying with it, and this week, aiming to actually eat a little more. Though it's always felt like a bit of an oxymoron, I wonder if all the exercise and very few calories is causing a "famine" response in my body (as they say) where by it's holding onto every last fat cell. So, I figure what's the worst that will happen if I eat just a bit more?? I'm thinking of scheduling an appointment with my nutritionist too, just to get some advice.

Here's the ticker - not impressive, but, the one good thing is that it continues to go down, ever so slowly, but has yet to go up! That, I will take :) And, my naked-in-the-morning weights are more around 174.? and continue to creep down. Perhaps it will take a long time to get to 155...but hey, I've got time.

You Will Be Able To Eat Good Stuff With Your Lap-Band

So, I've been on a kick of trying to eat closer to home, and more traditional foods. This tends to spit in the face of a lot of modern nutritional advice, as well as (or, in particular) diet advice. Whole natural foods (not genetically engineered...), no chemicals (nutrasweet, splenda...) and full-fat (raw, whole milk).... Every Sunday I've been heading to the Ballard Sunday Market - our year-round farmer's market. Jill is off this week so she was able to come along! We got:

- A 2.2 pound, grass-fed boneless organic chuck roast
- 1 pound of mixed organic potatoes
- A bunch of organic carrots
- 5 pounds King Apples (an old, heirloom apple that winters well; great cooked - it was my first time hearing of them, but my 90-year-old neighbor's grandparents had them)
- Raw milk
- A Kombucha squash
- Some ornamental gourds
- Tall Grass Bakery Coconut and Almond Granola

For dinner tonight, I made a roast. It's a rainy Sunday and somehow, a roast sounded perfect! Our friend Steve was over for dinner, so before yoga, I prepped the roast so it could cook the 2 hours +; beforehand though, I made the squash into puree (it was so dry! I had no idea, but added enough water to make it into peanut butter consistency - I made Squash/Apple soup for tomorrow, and have puree for two pies for later in the season), and 1/2 the apples into applesauce (pure - just apples and a little water). So, what I ate was...

- 4 oz roast
- 1/2 cup potatoes/carrots
- 1/3 cup applesauce (soft food...)
- 1/4 cup leftover potato puree from last week (sinful soft food!)
- A little pan gravy that I made from the stock and a little flour

It was totally kickass...and I did not feel the least bit deprived, and had about 1 cup of solid food, and about a cup of soft food...a little bit of an egregious meal, but I only had breakfast today with a snack for lunch prior to yoga - so the numbers are likely good.

Today was Day 12 of yoga - I've decided now that I am gunning for the 30-day challenge - I'm almost 1/2 way! I also am reading Bikram's book, and he says basically to do 60 days straight and then you can go to 2-3 times/week and get all the health benefits forever more... We'll see. Still for now, I'm losing weight (albeit slowly - about 1 pound/week) but holy shape batman! My body is looking soooo different. Yay! And I feel like a tough girl to boot.

Weigh in tomorrow; I'm not expected anything too drastic since I weigh daily, it seems 1/2 to 1 pound/week is all I'm gonna get...but I'll take it. Eventually, I'll get there!

7 Days In-a-Row!

Today marked 7 days straight of Bikram Yoga - Jill said, "huh, maybe you will be able to do 30! You're 1/4th of the way there!" - let's not get too excited. Still, I can't believe how much easier it's gotten already. I honestly hardly notice the heat, whereas before it was debilitating. I don't feel like my heart is going to fly out of my chest constantly (with a few exceptions). My postures are getting better, but that's not really my objective - my objective is to show up, work hard (i.e., burn calories) and ideally, not lay down (which, I haven't yet!).

Foodwise, I'm still aiming for my 24 WW points (1200 calories) despite being "allowed" to have more - I may have a few days of more just so my body doesn't get too used to a routine and settle in here.

Though unofficial, my naked-in-the-morning weight is more around 174.4 - and before I started WW my worst was 183.4 - so though the WW is only showing a 5-ish pound loss, it's really coming up on 10 pounds and it's showing. I feel sooooo much skinnier, which lends to feeling much happier and better in my skin. My massage therapist told me today - after about a 6 weeks since she last saw me - that "it's like you have a totally different body." Between the yoga and weight loss, she said 'everything feels much better'. Also, she said it seems like my body continues its healing from the plastics - that my skin seems more healthy, and my scars less lumpy. Always good to be less lumpy. :)

Anyhow, I'm plugging away and trying not to obsess. Jill has gotten off sugar too now - which is a big help! We eat a little dark chocolate at night, but have cut way back on alcohol, nixed anything sugary in the house and overall have been eating out less/at home more. I've been cooking a lot too which has been fun! Even when I can only eat a small amount, I still have so much fun creating and crafting dinners.

That's it for the moment. Hope all is well!

Disappointing Results

So for a week, I eat less than my 24 points a day (1200 calories), do Bikram Yoga 5 times, plus a couple lake walks and for what? One stinkin' pound. Now then, I know, one pound is good. It's a healthy rate of weight loss, blah blah...but, in the moment I wanted to cry. Seems when you work this hard, you should get a bigger payoff. But, it will come. Sometimes your body just has to move at its own pace.

Either way, I'm happy with my exercise and my eating...and, with my body. So there's the upside!

Camel

Ok, I'm trying not to obsess or become cult-like in my practice of Bikram Yoga, but oddly, it's kind of, well, addictive. Anyhow, the deal is you do 26 poses, twice each, in a 105 degree room. It takes 90 minutes and is said to cure all ills, basically. For me, as you all know, I'm chugging away at it in my weight loss efforts (hence my blathering on about it here).

Today, during the pose Camel - (you're up on your knees, put your hands on your back as if you were going to put your hands in your back pocket. Then, you lean back, ultimately placing your hands on your heels and doing a pretty deep back bend. Push your hips forward, pull your chest up to the ceiling. Oy, it's one of the two "crowning" poses of the series....see photo) Robert, the instructor, said, "If you're an introvert, this pose is...um, good for you." Not being an introvert, I still perked up to hear why as I'm semi-obsessed with introvert/extrovert dynamics, mainly because I'm a banner extrovert (I know, shocking!). He went on, "This pose forces you to extrovert - it makes you lean back into an unknown you can't see and put yourself out there...and that requires a lot of trust." Huh.

Well, this extrovert is here to say at that moment, the whole posture made more sense to me too! What's funny is I LOVED Camel before my plastic surgery; since, I've hardly been able to let myself do it. Fear. Afraid I can't, or that I will crack in half, or some other excuse... On the second set (he made this comment after the first), I just let myself trust it.

My stomach will not tear in half.
I will not fall backwards.
I will not blackout (completely, anyhow)
I am super flexible.
I used to be able to do this really well.
I can hold it.
I can get back up.

And you know what, I did.

I think my point is that being in touch with your body, and connecting it to what is going on for you emotionally, is a challenge whether introvert or extrovert I think - the difference is where that processing occurs. Yoga - and Bikram in particular - is proving to become serious practice for me working out so much shit in my life, because somehow it makes you think about the bigger picture, even though all you really have to do is lean back and grab your heels; it really is a much bigger thing than that - if you're not afraid of it and let it happen. How much in your life does that apply to? I can list about 20 right here, right now...

That's what I'll be working on for the next bit. Eventually, I want weight loss/maintenance to be the by-product of doing Bikram, not my driving force getting me there. It'll be interesting to see where it takes me once I get to that point. Meanwhile, the weight loss drive is getting me there - and whatever works, I'm going with it!

p.s. No, that is not me in the photo. Good Lord, my thighs will never be that skinny. And I'm not a blonde :)

Plugging Along

Things are going well - I'm trying to really focus on losing weight without losing my mind. So far, so good for the most part. The big things I'm aiming for are to stick on the low end of my WW points and not eat the weekly freebies (an extra 250 calories or so per day) and I'm back onto Bikram Yoga. In fact, ck kept bugging me to go as many days as I could in a row, so I finally spent the dough and signed up for the 30-day unlimited. Well, tomorrow is day 4 in a row...while that may not sound impressive to you, if you'd done Bikram, you know it is.

The best thing to report is that it's working. Bikram burns about 1200 calories in 90 minutes, something I could never do any other way - unless I spent 4 hours at the gym, or run full speed for about 90 minutes, I'd never get that kind of burn. Since I'm only eating 1200 calories or so per day, the rest of the day is my body feeding off the fat on my hips. I hope. Either way, I'm only tracking my official weigh-ins here, but I do weigh every day in the morning, and things are moving in the right direction. Hopefully I'll have good news to report on Monday!

It's nice to see that hard work will pay off, thank goodness for my band - even though I will admit to being hungry a bit now and then, when I do want to eat a bunch, it slows me down and limits me. And that is good. All hail the lapband! :)

Weekly Report, a Little Late...

Well, last week wasn't exactly a banner week...it just seemed everything got ahead of me...that said, I still managed to drop a little and weighed in at 177.2. I know, slow, slow, slow...but still going in the right direction!

I ate ok, didn't exercise as well as I'd like (i.e., some lazier workouts, not enough Bikram...) and I did eat a little off-plan (we went to Portland for a couple days over the weekend). Ok, enough of the excuses! This week has been good so far! Gym, lake walk, Bikram. And staying in the points...Anyhow, charging ahead!

2.2.

All that work last week lost me 2.2 pounds. That's 10 sticks of butter. I'll take it!