Thank You, My Friend

A few months ago, I commented that I didn't know if anyone was really reading my TALO blog. My philosophy was mostly that I wanted to hold myself accountable and if anybody else got something from it, that would be gratifying.

I got a Facebook message yesterday from a dear friend and former colleague who moved out-of-state a couple of years ago. She's also married to a tall, lanky drink-of-water kind of guy, whom I suspect has the same kind of hollow legs as my 6'2" hubby.

"I know as a writer you don't always know that you have been an inspiration or help to someone. You even commented you didn't know if anyone was reading one of your blogs. Well, I'm writing to say thank you and let you know you've been a big inspiration to me for the last several months," she wrote.

With a couple of 'Alien' street performers in Barcelona in late July 2012.

She dieted for about six months for insurance reasons before Roux N-Y surgery mid-summer. And she has many of the same co-morbidities that I've struggled with — sleep apnea, high blood pressure, bad knees, etc. 

My friend is probably a little younger than I am, but we're both in about the same place lifestyle-wise. And I have a feeling we're both lucky women in that our hubbies love us no matter whether we're lean and mean or maybe not so much.

Here's a bit more of what she wrote:


"In January, I was looking for a blog from someone who had been through it. Imagine how excited I was to find one from a person I know and respect!! (I need you to write more, by the way.) So, I've been following it and you!

"It was great because we also do the wine on the patio thing and travel and just flat love to eat. ... I lost 15 pounds before and 16 so far since. So thank you for the times I wasn't sure I would be able to go through with it. And for lately. I've been looking back through to see how you handled what and when. This is crazy stuff but I think it's all going to be well worth it. (Oh, I had the Roux-N-Y). I so want a glass of wine! We are going on a cruise in September ... maybe then."

I was so touched and her message made me all teary and it's still having that effect. I'm not going to use her name for privacy reasons, but I know she'll be reading this and I wanted her to know how much her message meant to me. Thank you for that, dear friend.

I wrote back what a great tool that my gastric sleeve has been, and one thing I know for sure is that a person still has to do the hard work of staying on the weight-loss program. There's nothing like making a permanent lifestyle change and not giving yourself an out on it.

I've had some challenges: extended weight-loss stalls, hair loss, occasional nausea when I eat out with friends and sometimes slip into old habits of eating too fast.

The most obvious victory is my about 75-pound weight loss and how much better I feel, especially my knees, feet and back. 

And I've had lots of NSVs, also known as non-sleeve victories. I'm off all meds except for one — a blood-pressure med. My sleep apnea is lots better, and I'm hopeful that one day I'll be able to go without the Hannibal Lecter look-a-like CPAP mask. And forgive the indelicacy of it, but even my stress incontinence is much better. My new size 14 jeans purchased for the Barcelona trip are already getting loose. I think just by looking at the look on my face in the picture above, you can tell how much happier I am.

My hubby is amazed at how much better I'm feeling.  He tried hard to talk me out of having the surgery, but now is enjoying my increased energy and general improvement in my healthy well-being and comments on it frequently. I think he's come around.

Probably my biggest complaint is my whine about wine, or the lack thereof, to get off the weight. Can't have it often and lose weight. Plus, I just don't enjoy it as much. It kind of bothers my stomach some. I'm also finding the times I've had what I'd call a Carol Cosmo — vodka mixed with some Fuze low-cal fruit drink — I can't metabolize the alcohol very well and it hits me like the proverbial ton-of-bricks. Pretty much knocks me off my rocker. Not a good thing.

There are bumps, but they are getting smaller and the NSVs are getting more and larger. I'm going to stay after it.

Thanks, my friend, for the encouragement. Sometimes you get it when you least expect it. I'll be rooting for you and stay in touch!

Onward,
Carol




 

The Good, the Bad and the Not So Ugly

I've been having some issues with my sleeve playing bad head games on me. The psychologist at my surgeon's office suggested that I don't go off my daily 30 mg dose of Cymbalta and I'm glad I didn't. I've been stalled for about six weeks now, going back and forth from 207 to 210. The stall is getting SO DISCOURAGING. My highest weight was 273 and I'm feeling a lot better, but I'm still so far away from my goal of 135-140 pounds. I'm about five-and-a-half months out.

The NSVs are definitely a tradeoff with the negatives.

NSVs (Non-Sleeve Victories) include going off one of two blood pressure meds, going off an anti-inflammatory med, knees and feet feel a lot better. I'm about out of another pair of too-big jeans. My stress incontinence is about over, and my cheekbones are starting to emerge. My husband says my sleep apnea is waning and I'm not snoring nearly so much if I nap or fall asleep without my CPAP.

On the negative side, I am definitely grieving food, although I believe you can still eat beautiful, fabulous food prepared well -- just not as much of it and definitely not some things. My face looks like a red-dotted road map with zits and I've been having hair loss, although I think I may be turning the corner on that. The nausea that hits if I eat too quickly is a little disconcerting, but I'm dealing with it.

But all in all, I'm glad I did it. I feel much better and have lots more energy.

Onward,
Carol

Garden Goodness

Basil, lemon and regular thyme, curly and flat parsley, yellow cherry tomatoes. Yum!

Want to take your culinary offerings up a whole bunch? Amp them up with herbs, Herb.

My two square-foot gardens debuted this year with herbs and veggies. They're about two-feet high, three- wide-by-eight feet long and built with cedar posts and chicken wire on the bottom that I'm hoping to keep the moles from coming up and dining on the roots.

I used discarded mini-blinds to make my squares and just cut them to length and hammered them into the cedar posts with nails.

I used about a bag of compost added to the top soil in each garden, but that's all the soil amendments I did for this year.

And now I have several kinds of garlic I'm about to harvest, red and yellow cherry tomatoes, Cherokee Purple heirloom tomatoes and Beefeater tomatoes. Plus there's lemon basil, radishes (although they're almost gone,) chives, marigolds, several kinds of lettuce still, arugula, rainbow Swiss chard, quinoa, red okra, celosia and marigolds for color, and other stuff I've forgotten.

Radishes -- adds punch to salads or a fun side dish sauteéd.

You can add fresh herbs to just about anything and it helps the flavor. I added fresh thyme and oregano to my Lemon Baked Chicken last night and freshly picked parsley, arugula, lettuce and radishes to my tossed salad. Fresh herbs went into my vinaigrette too.

As far as my weight loss goes, I'm just stuck, stuck, stuck between 207 and 210 -- 66 pounds off. When hubby goes back out-of-country for work tomorrow, I'm going to clamp down and see if I can't get to Onederland in the next couple of weeks (getting below 200.) No glasses of vino. No giving into a cracker craving occasionally. I've gone to too much trouble not to continue to get and keep the weight off.

I'm still losing hair, but that's slowing down thankfully. I've always had quite a thick mane so it hasn't been noticeable. From everything I've read, it's just the body adjusting to lower calorie intake -- not a big deal and it stops and grows back after awhile.

Onward,
Carol 

Desperately Seeking Savory ... Kale Chips

I'm still in search of some kind of crunchy, maybe salty or spicy chip type of thing.

I've made homemade kale chips using a vegetable spray and kosher salt. It was sorta OK, and the calorie count was right on mine (low.)

I was in the organic food store today and spotted these versions of kale chips, so I decided to do a taste test.

The Rhythm Superfoods Kale Chips, Bombay Curry flavor, had a little bit of kick, a sweet curry taste and some good crunch. But they just didn't quite offer what I was hoping for. The other issue is that they have a surprisingly high number of calories. One 2-oz. bag of chips has two servings and each serving has a whopping 210 calories, 9 g fat, 16 g carbs, with it's biggest redeeming quality of 5 g of dietary fiber. The bag says instead of being fried, they're "air-crisped" at a low temperature. My take is that they're too many calories for what you get.

The Kale Chips from Kaia Foods on the right with sesame seeds had sort of a bitter taste to them, and didn't have enough body to stand up to any kind of topping, which would probably be one of the main reasons to try them.

The best of the three was the Rhythm Superfoods Kale Chips, Kool Ranch flavor. It's the only one of the three that I want to try again. No bitterness. Good crunch. Nice flavor. But again, high calories for only half of the 2-oz. bag. I was looking for more.

Not enough bang -- or taste -- for the calories in any of these chips. My pursuit continues.

And today, still on the stall at 211.2 pounds. Sigh.

Onward,
Carol

Cornish Hens with Garlic and Sweet Vermouth

Cornish Hens with Garlic and Sweet Vermouth

I made this super healthy Cornish Hen with Garlic and Sweet Vermouth recipe and my darlin' daughter dropped in and shared it with me a few nights ago (I was so lucky to have halved the recipe, but still had enough for two.)

I'd love to take full credit for it, but I found this yumminess on Epicurious.com, one of my favorite recipe sources. I'll probably up the garlic when I make it again, because I love poached garlic and that's a lot of the flavor in this dish.

I have been stuck, stuck, stuck, at about 210, 211, 210, 212, 210 pounds, etc. for a couple of weeks now. Just driving me nuts when I get on the scales in the morning. Tuesday was Weigh Day and wasn't eventful.

I've been having a terrible week on a completely unrelated business front that I unfortunately can't discuss with more than a tiny handful of people. Formerly I would have reacted with some bad behavior, probably drinking alcohol and grazing. Then you have guilt. Then you have more stress. Rinse and repeat. Not going there this time.

Bountiful Blue Blueberry, vaccinium corymbosum

This morning I realized was a huge bundle of nerves. So I went to the gym and blasted 30 minutes of intervals on the stationary bicycle, then another 30 minutes of leg strength training. Felt SO GOOD when I was done.

My blueberry bushes have a ton of berries on them and I'm just about to harvest the first one. Will be looking at concocting some blueberry recipes.

I also harvested my first yellow cherry tomato today and it was like a veggie explosion in my mouth. I rarely eat tomatoes until the real ones start coming in during spring and summer, because those darn weird, sawdust-tasting tomatoes they sell in the grocery stores in the wintertime are the poorest excuse for any kind of decent vegetables. Occasionally you can find decent ones in the organic stores.

I also had a revelation at the gym. This is a total lifestyle change, not a race. I'm saving my life, day by day, as I lose weight and get in better shape.

Onward,
Carol

60 Pounds Gone and I've Been Busy

Just when I was getting down about hitting yet another plateau, I hit the scale dry and unpainted this morning for Tuesday Weigh Day, and found I'd crossed the 60-pound loss mark. While I'm happy to have peeled off a couple more pounds, I'm so grateful for life and my loved ones.

The remnants of two mobile homes pulverized in Woodward.

I've been busy the past few days and it's not going to let up this week. Sunday morning, I got a call from a major New York newspaper asking if I'd string for them in Woodward, Okla., where they had severe tornado damage overnight. It was about a three-hour drive, and I was out the door in about 45 minutes -- laptop, iPad, iPhone, tape recorder and notepad in hand.

Here's a pic I snapped with my iPhone of some of the worst damage at Woodward's Hideaway Mobile Home Park. (I did have a professional photographer with me, and his pictures are more riveting than this.) This is the pulverized remnants of two mobile homes, and I'm posting it for my friends who live in mobile homes. Please, PLEASE don't ever try to shelter during a tornado warning in a mobile home. It just isn't worth it. As you can see, there is a heap where one home was. The other one is on top of another heap two homes to the left of my snapshot. All six fatalities occurred in this park, where the sirens didn't go off because apparently the tornado had already knocked out the power. I'd also urge my friends to go out and get a battery-operated weather radio, which might have saved some of these lives.

There are also many stories of survival in this mobile home park, set on top of a beautiful hill looking out over verdant (for now) green pastures. An 18-year-old girl, eight-months pregnant, was found under the rubble of another home, rushed to the hospital and now she and her baby are doing fine.

Off to master gardener class for me, but life is good and we are all lucky to have this day.

Onward,
Carol





 

Eight Week Weigh-In

Today, I notched my eight week "anniversary" since my Dec. 27 gastric sleeve surgery and there's good and bad news.

It's Tuesday Weigh Day and I'm stuck, stuck, stuck. I remind myself that I've lost 29 pounds since my surgery weight of 256, and 46 pounds total since June when I first attended a bariatric seminar. That's the good news.

But trouble is that last Tuesday, I was at 227. The week before, I was at 228. Here 's how it 's been going:
Dec. 27: 256
Jan. 2: 251
Jan. 7: 244
Jan. 14: 238
Jan. 28: 235
Feb. 1: 233
Feb. 7: 228
Feb. 14: 227
Feb. 21: 227

I know it's typical to hit a stall when you start "real" foods at four weeks. I'd lost 21 pounds in the first month -- understandable with the liquid diet for two weeks and then soft foods for two weeks -- and then it's been eight pounds in the four weeks since then.

I know two pounds a week average is a healthy pace, but only one pound in two weeks is a tad discouraging. Rationally, I know I'm not eating all that much so the weight loss will resume. Giving myself a pep talk.

Part of it is in my head, because I was almost in free fall the first three weeks. It will get better I know, because I'm trying so hard to do the right things including diet choices and exercise.

For example, yesterday evening, the cast of a stage show I'm performing with had dinner before the show prepared by one of the cast members: a pasta dish with salad and garlicky buttery bread (which always smells fantastic.) I brought boiled eggs to nosh on and a couple of low-cal drinks. That worked just fine. Tonight, the cast dinner is enchiladas and I think I'll just eat before I go to the theatre.

I think I'll make that low-carb Shepherd's Pie recipe for tonight's supper that super-dietician Steph gave me. I may doctor the recipe a little bit. We'll see. If it's good, I'll post it in the next day or two.

Onward,
Carol

Measuring progress

After I swore to myself I'd only weigh once a week, on Tuesdays, I'm busted. But I lost a pound this morning, so who knows if the Big Stall is over. I'm really not going to weigh again until Tuesday, which is the four-week anniversary of my Dec. 27, 2011, gastric sleeve surgery.

I was thinking about how my friends get over weight loss stalls, and I did some research on techniques that have been effective for others.

• Keep on keeping on. If you keep on eating and drinking the right things, you'll keep losing.

• Move more. Make sure you get in 20 or 30 minutes of cardio daily, like walking the dog. If it's really cold where you are maybe try a stationary bicycle, treadmill or as one of my good friends calls it — the "ellipti-hell." In most places, there are still malls where you can do walking as well to get out of the cold.

• Get in your 64 oz. of water or liquid under 15 calories per 8 ounce serving. I like to drink the ones with electrolytes and other replenishing minerals or vitamins, so I'm a big fan of PowerAde Zero, SmartWater and Propel. The best low-cal fruit drink out there is Diet V-8 Splash. I love to get the huge 32 oz. size of PowerAde Zero and sip one before breakfast and then I've already gotten in half of my liquids.

Remember if you think you're hungry, you might really be dehydrated. To determine if you are dehydrated, pinch the skin on the top of your hand and if it doesn't spring right back, you may be.

• Measure yourself. You may be losing inches instead of pounds. The body is so interesting this way — your losses might be showing up with your tape measure instead of the scale. I sadly neglected to take my measurements before I started my weight loss adventure, so I'm recording them now and plan to do it on the first of every month or after I've stalled for a week or two, whichever comes first. I know I've already lost inches because my largest fat jeans are falling down, so I have them pinned up with safety pins. Hooray for that. I plan to keep doing that until they're just too embarrassing.

Here there are (taking large breath):
Bust w/bar: 43"
Waist: 43" (makes me wonder if I'm a tree trunk ... I think getting a waist back will be sublime!)
Hips: 50.5"
Neck: 16.25"
Upper right arm: 16"
Thigh: 30.25"
Right Calf: 17.75"

Onward!
Carol