My Easter Challenge

I really need a Challenge... an aggressive one! Those challenges always lift my spirit and get me motivated.

So I decided to set an aggressive goal for Easter:

I want to be at 225 on Easter Sunday... that's 13 pounds to lose during the next 4 weeks and 2 days!

Did anyone of you guys set an Easter Goal? Let me know so I can watch your progress!

Okay, I have no time to waste ;-) I am off to the gym! After that I will cook my favorite salmon, lemon, tomatoes and onions oven dish, will order in a chick-flick (poor hubby) and drink gallons of Moroccan Mint Tea.

It's really coldish in L.A. and even tough I enjoy the comfort of the inside I can't wait for the baking hot temperatures to arrive!

Have a great weekend and Happy Losing!

This is sick - Unbelievable how far some greedy Surgeons go and put lap-band patients in danger

Lap-band promoters' troubled history - latimes.com

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Bye bye 240s - Hello 230s... have not seen you in a while

Glad to see you again 230s.... have not seen you in a couple of years :-) And when I met you last time you left way too quickly ;-) Hopefully you won't stay too long neither but this time you'll be replaced with the 220s not with the 240s! Yeah!

Guys, you have NO IDEA how thankful I am for my great restriction. My surgeon put my right back to my sweet spot and I am back in the weight-losing-mode. 2 more pounds to go and I will reach the 60 pounds mark :-)))

It feels good to have a real restriction because it not only restricts me from eating too much but it also removes craving for certain foods. Food is the last thing on my mind, yesterday I realized at 3 pm that I did not eat anything all day... not good and will not happen again, I promise! At 3 pm I ate some high-fiber Kashi Cereal with low fat greek yoghurt (actually breakfast) and for Dinner I had filet of sole and some spinach. I am drinking a lot of water and also had a bottle of Isopure to make sure I get enough protein and of course took my vitamins. I take 1000mg of Vitamin C (normally take 500mg), a Multi Vitamin, B-100s and Omega Gummy Bears.

On a different note;
Today my seeds arrived and I cannot wait to get my vegetable garden started. I've decided I want to try out gardening and to harvest my own veggies (hopefully). I ordered organic seeds from an online store and will try my luck with tomatoes, eggplants, peppers (hot and sweet), zucchini, broccoli, melons, potatoes and all kinds of herbs and mint. Not so sure if I have a green thumb... but time will tell ;-) To be on the save side I also ordered a book about square foot gardening and a book that explains everything in detail. Cannot wait to get it started.  Will keep you updated on my little gardening project.

Thanks for your warm welcome-back messages. I am soooo glad to be back and really need my blog and you guys through this journey.

***Hugs****

Infection healed, Port back, happy and healthy again :-)

Hi @all,

Did you miss me? ;-) I surly missed you guys :-)
I am truly sorry for not blogging in such a long time. Unfortunately I was/am so busy with work that blogging was just not possible. At any rate... I am back :-) and I am happy to be back :-)

Here are the news:
Due to an infection I had my port removed on 11/20/2009 and I am happy to say that my infection has healed and I no longer have any problems or pain. It took a little while to get an appointment at Cedars Sinai to get my port back. From what I have learned December is a very busy month and I only got my port back on January 15th 2010. It felt like I was waiting for forever to get a surgery date. This was the best surgery out of all 3, everything went very well and even though they had to put me under general anesthesia I did not get sick, had no gas pain and no other pain at all *knockonwood*

When I got the port back I lost all my restriction :-( This was very bad and I have done some very bad things. Nor sure if I should tell you a little food porn but the worst thing was when I ate an entire Costco bag (those bags are HUGE, meant for 5 families or so) of potato chips on a weekend.

Am I bad or what? :-D But I am glad it happened, not the infection of course, but my mega-5-families-super-sized-bag-of-potato-chips-experience because I came to realize that I am sick, sick when it comes to food and that I have no will power to say "no" or to stop eating when I actually should not be eating. Lap-band surgery was the best thing I have ever done for myself.

I did not gain any weight though because other than a couple of moments of weakness I did okay, even without restriction. However, I was stuck at 246 for many weeks. Once I lost my "sweet spot"it got more and more difficult. "You only know what you had when you lose it" is soo true!

On February 2nd I got my first fill since I got the port back and the restriction only lasted a couple of days. On Tuesday, February 23rd I went for another fill and I am feeling GREAT! My restriction is right there where it was before I got the infection and I am very motivated again. I hope it stays there if not I will get another fill. At this point I have no more time to waste ;-)

When it comes to my weight loss:
9/11-09   Starting Weight 295
11/20/09 Port Removal Surgery Weight 259 (lost 36 pounds)
1/15/10   Port-back Surgery Weight 246 (lost 49 pounds)
Today:    240 pounds (total loss of 55 pounds)

Yes, the infection was a little set-back for me. I had to work much harder to still lose weight because the restriction I had (without the port) was not sweet-spot-restriction but I am still happy that I continued to lose weight and most of all did not gain any.

I am also glad that this all lays behind me. I tried to avoid thinking about it too much and that was probably also a reason why I avoided lapbandtalk and blogger.

Hopefully by tomorrow I can say FINALLY good-bye to the 240s and my goal for March is to say my final good-byes to the 230s.

I am happy, healthy and I loooooooooove my lap-band :-)

Now that the infection and recovery from it lays behind me... I would still do it again! Even with the infection and all... the lap-band is sooooo worth it.

I hope all of you are doing great and I can't wait to read your blogs and let them inspire me.

Thanks for all your support and last but not least I would like to wish everyone a Happy 2010 ;-)

I want my port back :-(

I have not posted for a while because I have been extremely busy with work and all the Holiday stuff. During the last couple of weeks my Christmas packages from friends and family in Europe arrived and they were all stuffed to the brim with cookies, marzipan and gingerbread (and books and DVDs and gifts for Christmas). Very bad! This is really the stuff that gets to me because it is not just candy... it's what childhood memories taste like. I have been hiding it all around the house and so far have been doing good.

Unfortunately I do not have much of a restriction left and have to rely on willpower. All those European Christmas Goodies around the house do not make it any easier. I normally do not buy those foods because if I do not have them at home I do not eat them nor crave them.

Yesterday we had friends over and had a wonderful BBQ... after Dinner I served a lot of the European Goodies with Tea and I am glad that everyone really liked it and ate a lot :-)

I have no idea when my port will be put back... this year? next year? It seems to be difficult for my surgeon's office to get an appointment from the hospital. We actually planned on flying to NYC next week to spend the holidays with my in-laws and I have no idea if I should cancel the flights or not. Nobody can give me any answers which frustrates me even more. I really need a fill soon and I am getting more and more frustrated with all of this. This is the wrong time of the year to be without a restriction and it saddens me that the entire infection-issue has somewhat killed my motivation...

Last week I said good-bye to the 250 and the scale displayed 249 (46 pounds lost), which made me very happy... however it wasn't a final good bye because today the scale showed 251 again :-(

I WANT MY PORT BACK!!! I WANT A FILL!!! AND I WANT MY MOTIVATION BACK!!! HELP!!!

Yeah... met my Thanksgiving Goal! :-)

Let's forget about the infection for a moment. Even though I am in pain since the port removal surgery, especially since they closed the hole... Today is all about celebrating because today is the biggest day for me since moving to Lap-Band-Land!

• I met my first mini-goal
• I have lost a total of 40 pounds
• I am no longer morbidly obese
• My new BMI is 39.9
• I have "only" 100 pounds to go (instead of 140) to reach my goal weight of 155 pounds.
• I set an aggressive goal and reached that goal!
• The scale shows 255 instead of 295
• It was not that difficult to lose the 40 pounds
• I got rid of the diet-mentality 
• I am feeling so much better and happier.

Update on the Infection front:

I had the port removal surgery last Friday, my surgeon did not close the hole and it was very weird to live with a hole by the belly button. It bothered me a great deal because I had to change the dressing 3 times a day and even though I enjoyed playing "Doctor" as a child I am not really into that any longer. On Tuesday I went to my surgeon's office, I cannot remember that I ever experienced something so painful. He cleaned the hole and then closed it with stitches. I felt like I could not take the pain and cried and screamed. The area is very sensitive, not the wound itself but the surrounding area, it feels like some "nerves" are very upset. It looks like it is healing okay. Today the pain got a little better but I still need painkillers throughout the day and night. On Tuesday I will see my surgeon again but I have no idea when the port will be put back. Since I still have strong restriction I do not care that much, right now I just want to be without pain and start working out again.

Happy Thanksgiving to all my US-based bandster friends! I will definitely reward myself with a delicious piece of Pecan pie :-)

Port removal - It's done - Living without a port!

It's done... my port has been removed on Friday morning. My surgery was scheduled for 7:15 am and I had to be there at 5:15 am, way too early for me... but this way I could not worry too much.

When we arrived at the hospital I had to follow the same procedure as for the initial lap-band surgery except that it took place on a different floor. Everybody was extremely nice, caring and professional. After I changed into the "sexy" surgery outfit they took my weight and the hospital scale displayed 254.5 lbs which made me extremely happy... but since I do not go by the hospital scale it does not mean that my scale at home will display the same weight. At any rate... it made me happy because in that very moment I was not an morbidly obese person :-)

I mentioned it already in my earlier postings that I have a severe needle-into-my-veins-phobia and during the last couple of days I had some horrible experiences. For the pre-surgery blood test I was sent to one of those diagnostics centers on Wednesday and met the rudest nurse EVER. She did not care, yelled at me and even insulted me because of my accent. No idea what her problem was. I surely hope that she does not have any children. Then on Friday at the hospital an anesthesiologist student was trying to put the IV needle in but couldn't do it. He tried 4 times at different locations but did not hit the vein. After that I was so frustrated that I asked for a "real" anesthesiologist to put in the IV because I couldn't take this try and miss the vein any longer. He put it in with the first try and it was not painful at all. However, my arms and wrists are all blue and green from all the trials.

Then everything went very fast, my surgeon arrived, my doctor arrived (no idea why he was there), my husband was called in and I tried to convince everyone that I do not need/want general anesthesia... the last time I felt so horrible that I did not want to go through all of it again. So they gave me propofol  instead and I knocked out and cannot remember much.

My surgeon took my port out... AND he managed for me to keep my restriction! YEAH!!!! So now I do not care how long this healing process will take because I still have my restriction.

Even though I wish that I had never gotten this infection in the first place, it was important for me that my surgeon found out what kind of an infection I have and since it is a staph infection (staphylococcus aureus) it was also important for me to have the port removed. Unfortunately the antibiotics will not work on the port (or any implant for that matter) and some surgeons believe that there is a  strong connection between infections and that they (if not treated 100%) may later lead to erosion of the band. This is not a chance I want to take.

Sorry, TMI... my surgeon did not close up the port area, so I am living with a hole at my belly button area until Tuesday. It is stuffed with gauze and I have to remove it 3 times a day and have to keep it wet with Saline. Not something that is very pleasant to do. But this way most part of the infection can leak out. It is not that bad especially since it is so much less painful than when the port was still inside.

I am feeling good, have no pain and most importantly I still have a restriction. No idea when the port will be put back in... but will definitely keep you informed.

Thank you very much for your positive words, motivation, encouragement... you are the best cheering squad anyone can have... you guys are the BEST!