100-Day Challenge~

I do my best work when I challenge myself. I’m going to start a 100-day challenge on the 20th of April. 100 days, 100 work-outs and 67lbs!

April 10, 2009 | Filed Under Fun Stuff

Attention Passengers this is your Captain speaking~

Yippie!!! Yeah Baby!

I flew this morning from Colorado to New York on Southwest Airlines! I didn’t need a seat belt extender AND I was able to sit in one seat without difficulty!

for my flight home, I’m flying alone and I feared I’d be seated next to someone who would be unhappy with my size and make my long flight miserable, so I purchased a second ticket. It was cheap and for another’s comfort and mine, I felt it was worth it.

AND the best of all is — ta da — not one flight attendant asked me if I needed a belt extender! I mentioned that to my daughter and she said, “why would they ask that? You look normal!” Me? Normal? Impossible!!!

April 9, 2009 | Filed Under Milestones & NSV's

Band vs Zucchini~ (warning gross topic)

One of the problems with the Lap Band is - if a person doesn’t learn to take smaller bites and chew their food really well, they will have episodes when food gets stuck. When something gets stuck, you have a Productive Burp (PB) event. This is when your body produces large amounts of thick mucous trying to move the food. Fortunately for me, I didn’t have a stuck episode until I was 11 months post op. My first episode happened while I was at work and it was broccoli! I thought I was being really good. Everyone was eating cookies and other goodies and I had my carrots and broccoli. Luckily, I was able to get to the bathroom before I had to spit it out. Eventually with a PB event, you’ll ‘burp’ and up will come the large amount of mucous and often times the food item that caused the problem in the first place.

Well, the other night, I had a little issue with some roasted zucchini. We were out at a restaurant and I was eating roasted veggies. I was really hungry because we had been out shopping all day and hadn’t eaten in about 8 hours. I might add that since getting the band, I am satiated much longer with much smaller portions, however, when I am hungry, I am starved. I am starved almost to the point of being ill. Anyway, I took a bite that was most likely too large and didn’t chew it well and it got stuck. I felt that discomfort and knew I had to get to the bathroom.

Thankfully, I made it to the bathroom in time. And yet another lesson reinforced… slow down, small bites! Slow Down! Small Bites!

The band is a funny thing. Healthy foods must be chewed extremely well. They tend to be more fibrous and just end up giving you problems if you ‘inhale’ them. However, unhealthy foods, like, ice cream, potato chips, cookies, cakes, candy and other ‘junk’ food never gets stuck.

For me there are few negatives to life with the Band - having a very occasional stuck episode brought on by my bad behavior isn’t one of them. I know better! All of us banders do, but it’s the old mentality of inhaling our food that gets us into trouble.

April 7, 2009 | Filed Under My Everyday Life