GO BRONCOS!!

What a game!

 

Been a busy few days. I have been working out. Today was my first rest day since I started working out again this past Thursday. YAY Me! It feels good being active again. Friday I went to the gym and burned somewhere in the neighborhood of 500 calories and yesterday a friend and I went to the gym and I burned somewhere around 850 calories. I have to start bringing my phone with me so I can take pictures. I usually have my ipod and it doesn't take pictures :-{ I do have this one from Saturday. We did elliptical for 32 minutes, C25K Day 2 (30 min), and did the 30  minute workout at Bally's. 

 

SO my Fitbit accidentally got washed a few weeks ago. I was so sad. So I emailed Fitbit support. I do have to say they have great customer service. They replaced it for me at no charge! Even better. And they sent me a pretty burgundy color one :) Which I actually like better then the black one that got washed. I had over 14,000 steps Saturday!

 

When my brother was here he made tortellini soup! It is so spicy! But so good.

I made Cappelletti's. He'd hadn't had them in a decades. It as fun cooking with him.



 

One thing I absolutely love that I have been trying to perfect is Sticky rice with fruit of some kind. I think I may finally have it. This makes a nice snack or dessert occasionally. And it is only 195 calories with 4 grams of protein. This one has mango.

OK Time for bed. I am already tired!

I hope everyone is had a great weekend!

~Chris~

Crazy week...

My brother was in town this past week. He came up from Texas to help me get the other house in order. We have been renting our old home out but had to evict our tenants. They left all kinds of stuff and lots of trash.

I don't think I could ever leave a place in the condition these people did. At any rate, my brother came up to help get it in order. He is the handy man type. Thank goodness he did, in a week we got it almost completely finished.

While he was here I didn't get to the gym, or any other kind of workout at all aside from the work at the house. My weight is pretty much the same. Right around 219 -220. That's ok. We had a good visit! It was worth the break. The girls and him played lots of practical jokes on each other. Such fun! Meet Lilith and Ruby!

These two had quite the journey this past week. They visited several parts of the house hoping to scare the poop out of someone. They were found hanging and sitting and starring. FREAKY!

 

They threw flour and water at each other too.

The only weigh in I have is from 1/7/14. Here it is :) 219 lbs. a loss of .4. LOL A loss is a loss. I'm not concerned.

Lastly, I have been logging my food with Myfitness pal. Look me up! auroradream

 

Today, I went to the gym mid afternoon. Was great! Worked out about 2 hours burned 810 calories! YAY ME!!

 

OK I am fading super fast. Time for bed! WOW It's 10:48 and I am going to bed! That's a miracle! ANYWHO!!

 

Have a great night and sleep well! More tomorrow :)

 

Thanks for stopping by!
~Chris~



 

Commiting to starting again!

I am on a roll, this I my 4th blog entry in 5 days!! YAY!! I have so missed blogging and the accountability that comes with it.

So yesterday I was supposed to meet with a personal trainer at Bally's. The trainer called me Friday night to confirm. Well it snowed here in Colorado. It was very wintery! I left the house early so I could make it there on time. I was a little stressed because there was a semi truck that created a back up on the street I needed to take. So I had to reroute to get around it which made me a couple of minutes late for my session.

So when I get to Bally's and tell them I have an appointment with a trainer they tell me "Oh yeah, we have to cancel that. He didn't come in because of the weather." Well that would have been nice to know before I left the house. So I had to reschedule. But I had to reschedule out to the 22nd. Hmmmmmm....Had I known I might have chosen to use the elliptical and treadmill at home instead of driving to the gym.

Oh well, I decided to stay at the gym and workout anyway. This was actually a better choice. I ended up doing more at the gym then I would have done had I just used to home equipment. According to my HRM, I ended up burning about 976 calories yesterday! I did 35 minutes on the elliptical, 30 minutes on the treadmill (I started the C25K program for the second time), swam freestyle 500 yards in the pool, and did the 30 minute strength training circuit. I felt great!!! Good workout!

Today I was going to make it a rest day. I am really sore from yesterday. But my daughter wanted to go to the gym so I went with her. I did a light workout. I did a 32 minute weight loss workout on the elliptical and swam 500 yards in the pool. According to the HRM I burned about 434 calories. Good deal!!

Food has been ok. I am working on getting even better. We had company yesterday, and now the ice cream is finally gone.

We did have deserts yesterday as we entertained. The last Christmas celebration. We are done now! Thank goodness!!

I am lacking in pictures today. But I have few.

As I said earlier, we are having weather. Snow to be exact. And it is definitely cold!!

I think it is supposed to warm up a little as the week progresses.

 

For dinner today we had stuffed Ham Artichokes. I LOVE artichokes. And they are pretty low cal and healthy.

This is pretty simple really. Breadcrumbs, ham, onion, margarine and artichokes. Nothing major. But one of these bad boys has only about 321 calories and 10 gram of protein. Not too bad!

 

I think I will be sleeping pretty well tonight. It's not even 10 PM and I am falling asleep a bit as I type. LOL.

 

At least I am not he only one! The furbabies are sleepy too!

Tomorrow is another work day. I might make it a rest day. I know I am definitely going to be sore. It's not a bad sore though. However, tomorrow is also supposed to be a run day. So I may just go in and run and then do the 30 minute circuit. This morning I could barely lift my arms.

 

Oh yeah, so for the last 3 days I have gotten headaches a few hours after working out. Friday morning I woke up with the worst headache. Yesterday and today It was at a minimum of a gallon of water every day. Yesterday and today I am over that. Anyone have experience with that?

 

My brother is coming out this week to help us clean up our rental property. So this week will be busy. And we have basketball games to go to! :)

 

OK Anyway, I am going to call it a night and go take a shower and go to bed. I am looking forward to a good night sleep.

 

Thanks for stopping by!

~Chris~

 

 



Hello, Please meet Eliza!

Hello, Hello, Hello again! Welcome back!

So everyone has gotten to know me over the last year, yes I have been blogging for a year. Roughly 14 months. I began blogging on 11/2/2012. Now I say a year because I was MIA for 2 months. So 12 months, 14 months either way, its around a year.

Over the last year we've laughed, we've cried, we've celebrated, and we have experienced a few setbacks. But, we continue! And as far as I am concerned, that in itself is an accomplishment.

As I was saying, you've gotten to know me, and I've gotten to know you. My reasons for banding, my struggles, my victories. And getting to know all of you has been a fantabulous (my new word for a while) experience. I am so thankful for the friends I have met here in blog land.

Today I want to introduce you to a very close, dear, and special friend of mine. Her name is Eliza! Here she is!

We have known each other for  about 15 months. She came into my life when I was in a dark place. I really needed help and she was there. We are inseparable! We have been together every day since 10/15/2012! She keeps tabs on me too. She yells at me when I eat too much, and growls at me when I don't eat enough. She keeps me in check during times of stress, and loosens up a bit if I treat her right.

 

Even though we have been together everyday for over a year, she has been very difficult to get to know. As a matter of fact, Eliza and I have really made major breakthroughs over the last 2 months. Maybe that's why I was gone for so long. I was so focused on getting to know her. She deserves my respect and I need to keep her happy.

 

Some basics about Eliza, she is a translucent white kind of color, made out of silicone and her home is around the upper portion of my stomach. She has tail or port attached to my abdominal wall, and she can be felt on the surface of my belly. She even sometimes has a noticeable appearance in my belly. Her tail allows the saline solution to travel to her home around my stomach and she tights up to help me eat less. Oh yeah, and she holds 10cc's of saline solution.

 

One of the most intriguing things I find about Eliza is that she is a Libra. How appropriate for her to be of the scale sign?!!



She has been teaching me balance over the last 15 months. And I have tried to ignore her in the past, but she has made her presence known. And she hasn't been nice about it. Eliza and I have been on the endless quest to find the "green zone". And maybe it's my sensory issues, but it took us a long time to get there and realize we were there. We have visited this place together twice. The first time was back in July, but then something happened and she had to release some solution. Well in October we put that solution back and that's where we have been for the last 3 months.  Eliza currently has 7.3cc's of saline solution inside her silicone bubble.

 

What does the "green zone" feel like for me? This has been a major struggle for me. (Sensory issues, I'm telling ya) But paying such close attention to Eliza over the past 2 months has helped me figure this out. For me, the "green zone" is that place where I only feel hungry every 4-5 hours. And when I am hungry 3/4 - 1 cup of food will hold me for about 5 hours. A place where I don't have a lot of stuck episodes, however I have to cut my food to about 1/2 the size of a since dice and chew that to mush to avoid feeling stuck. A place where I can drink the right amount of water, but not chug the bottle. If I chug, I feel stuck. A place here drinking 16 oz of water makes me feel full for a brief amount of time.

 

Over the last 2 months, I have learned that Eliza:

 

7.3cc's is our "green zone".

 

Likes her food small, portions about 1/2 cm X 1/2 cm squares.

 

She is really tight in the morning, to the point where I can only really have a protein shake for breakfast and I am good for about 4 - 5 hours.

 

She loves warm fluids, they relax her.

 

Neither of us really like ice cold water. If I don't feed her at least 48 oz of water everyday she is even tighter and I get stuck on virtually everything.

 

When I exercise, she is ecstatic! She loves it when I sweat and when I give her a gallon of water a day. She s nice and relaxed the next day and lets me eat easily.

 

When I am stressed or angry, she shuts down and she prefers only liquids.

 

She does however, allow me to overindulge and then she will punish me later with a stuck episode (slime fest galore)  or a PB (productive burp). We wont go into either of those in detail (TMI)...but EWWW!

 

She prefers it when I don't eat after 8 PM.

 

She favors me going to bed before 11 PM (Which doesn't happen often)

 

If we do have a stuck episode, breathing through it really does help both of us,

 

So Eliza and I are still working on things. The eating and workouts is our current project.

 

We are making progress. Tomorrow morning (Saturday at 9 am) we have an appointment at the gym with a personal trainer. Really hoping to get  workout schedule and some new exercise ideas.

We also have some stressful times coming up in the next few weeks and we are going to figure out how to get through them together.

 

There you have it. That is Eliza! She's pretty cool huh!?!?!

 

Call me crazy, I named my band. I think we have officially bonded.

 

Today I did intend to workout, but kept getting distracted at work and I ran out of time today, So tomorrow I start again! I attempted to log today too. Tomorrow I intend on getting serious again and really getting control of my eating.

 

My weigh in days I think are going to be Tuesdays. Mainly because that is the last time I weighed at a normal time of day. We will see what next Tuesday brings. At this point I am not expecting good results, but I hope I am wrong.

 

Anyway, I will leave you with this.... Lets do this!!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

~Chris~

See you tomorrow :)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 



Happy Janurary 2nd!

Thank you for your wonderful feedback on my last post. I have many things to work on. And I started today! No better time then the present!

I did decide to join a gym. After a week of thinking and comparing and looking into classes, including the local rec center, It turns out that Bally's was the cheapest. If I go to the rec center 4 times a month, that is the same as the gym membership. And with the membership I can go as much as I want and they have tons of classes for me to choose from.

I also get a free personal training session. So I scheduled that for this Saturday at 9 AM.

Here is my new plan, I am going to workout midday. Basically early afternoon. I can be gone from the shop a couple of hours everyday and still be there to open and close. This should be workable. I have a friend that also wants to start going to the gym with me but she can't go until after 4:30 PM. So I am thinking of going with her 1-2 days a week and one weekend day.

I am also going too look into Zumba, I like doing the Zumba on the Wii and have always wanted to take a class. I am just afraid I wont be able to keep up with a class. But I am going to give it a try.

The gym also has a lap pool. I absolutely love swimming, so this is a good thing.

Next I need to stop overeating. No amount of exercise is going to make a difference if I don't refocus my eating habits. I need to internalize as Marion has pointed out. I don't understand why this is so hard. Earlier in the year I was on a roll. I had the eating under control and was working out and doing great. Now, when I look at something, I feel like I am going to miss out if I don't eat some of it. Then I overload. Like tonight, BIG bowl of ice cream...Kind of canceled out the whole workout from today with that.

But....

I did go to the gym and worked out for the first time in over a month. So I am putting a mark in the "good job" column for today. Tomorrow I work on the food issue again!

Time was tight today so I was only able to workout for 55 minutes.

25 minutes on the Elliptical

 

And 30 minutes on the treadmill... 

And I started the C25K program again!

Day 1week 1 in the books!

 

Tomorrow will be a busy day but no more excuses. I need to start logging my food again too. It's not going to help the mental part of it, but maybe it will help to see it.

 

OK Time for bed. Tired I am!

 

Thanks for stopping by!

~Chris~

 



PS: Tomorrow I have to tell you about the bonding my band and I have done over the last 2 months. I have learned so much. I spent the last couple of months slacking off exercise and eating, but I learned so much about me and my band. More to come tomorrow!!