Weighty life

My update is...the same. I am still bouncing around the 20 lb weight loss. I'm trying to do a few things to get moving again:
1. Drink all my water--this will always be a challenge for me
2. Change my workouts--I do an hour of cardio 5 days a week, but I'll do different things
3. Eat out less. This is a real challenge, as hubby and I both enjoy eating out.
4. Worry less.

I got my third fill, and I do have some decent restriction, and stay full for 4-5 hours. I still eat about 1200 cal a day, try to keep it closer to 1000 but that is hard to do still. I don't chart this daily, more like once or twice a week, just to "check in". Tonight we did go out--it was a beautiful, 70 degree June night in Portland, and we went to a favorite Cuban restaurant, Pambiche, to eat outside on their sidewalk. I had part of a sangria and he had a mojito, and we split an appetizer platter of 1 leek and cheese empanada and some yam fritters, and split a pan pescado, Cuban style fish sandwich with snapper and avocado. I ate mine open-face and left the top part of the bread on the plate (ok, I nibbled the edge a bit). And I experienced my "soft stop", a cross between a sigh and almost a burp. But we did split a dessert too. It was probably more calories than I needed, but it was lovely.

While I'm not experiencing a lot of scale victories currently, I do have oodles more energy than I did before surgery. I'm eating healthfully, getting lots of exercise, and looking trimmer. My mood is better overall as is my ability to withstand stress. I'd have to say I am on the right track. Hopefully the scale complies soon!

Beady life

A couple of weekends ago I had the great pleasure of taking an intermediate beadmaking class from the famous Val Cox, lampworker extraordinaire and purveyor of COE 96 glass frits (what's that?). The class was held at the Eugene Glass School, a relatively new school teaching all levels of flameworking, hot shop and other glass arts. The class was loads of fun, just 9 students, most of whom had more experience than I in beadmaking (I have been doing it for 5 years, although not "seriously" until 6 months ago). We learned tons of techniques and theory and got lots of torch time. The beads I made were not great, but I've been working on technique and shaping a bit since then and have gotten better, I think. Eugene is about 1 1/2 hours south of Portland. Hubby and I stayed at the Eugene Whiteaker Hostel, where we enjoyed the hippy vibe and friendly people, if not the squishy, squeaky bed. It was a really nice weekend, spent partly with my college age sister-in-law and her friend.

Val's website (above link) sells some of her furnace glass frit and is home to her lovely, photo-heavy blog (she has a beautiful country home and is a talented photographer). Her sister's website sells the majority of her glass frit: http://www.valcoxfrit.com/ . But, in addition to Val's blog, where you really should turn your attention (unless you have an interest in COE 96 glass frit, which you might) is her sister's blog. Her sister Sabrina is also a great photographer and offers an equally lovely vision of rural American life. Check 'em out, and don't ever say I didn't do anything nice for y'all.

(Val Cox beads, photos by Val Cox, and fiddlehead ferns, photo by Sabrina)

Slow down, ya move too fast...

I guess that time has come in my WLS blog where my posts start to slow down dramatically. There isn't much to report, really. I'm down 21 lbs in 14 weeks, or -1.3 lbs/week. That is perfect, according to the experts, but it feels very slow. There has been a lot going on in the last few weeks for me, a bit of stress, so I guess I'm happy to still be losing. This week I felt like I was eating everything, despite my fill on Monday (#3, for a total of 2.7cc in my 4cc band). We had going away potlucks at work, tons of sugar, and my husband and I have been eating out a lot lately. There is only one mantra that has helped me to avoid snacking on food that is out for general consumption at work: I tell myself, I can eat when I am hungry. If I'm hungry, go ahead and have some of that food, but if I'm not hungry, I try not to eat. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.

Actually, according to the current science, we all are hardwired to obsess about food, as is nicely summed up in this Time magazine article from last week. Some of us do it more than others. I guess it was only a matter of time in the course of human civilization that the combination of food obsession and industrialization eventually produced an environment where we can pour high calorie, low nutrient foods down our throats all day while sitting on our ever-widening backsides.

Speaking of wide backsides, I went to a support group meeting last week for lap band people, and I doubt I'll ever go back. I brought hubby this time so he could see what it was about. While this one was worse than most, they all are pretty banal, actually, and not very useful. When you have a support group with pre op and post op people of widely varying experience, you end up with a lot of time that is not useful to most people in the room. There were two women there who pretty much dominated the conversation--one with her helpful tips on what protein shake is best, along with other gems of dubious usefulness, and the other who is pre op but repeatedly reminds everyone that "I have a food and nutrition degree" and talks about her time in "nurse's training" which almost always means either, a.) she is a nursing assistant or b.) she got kicked out of nursing school and had to settle for the nutrition degree. I'm guessing (b) in this case. About the time that the back part of the table got completely derailed from the main conversation and kibbitzed about the best protein shakes for 15 minutes, we decided to walk out, and had sushi down the street instead. I think I get much more support and useful info from OH.com than I do from those "support group" meetings.