little update

Just a quickie...

My pharmacology midterm was yesterday. It went pretty well, I think. I have another one in A&P on Monday and I've been procrastinating on studying for about an hour, so I gotta get back to it soon.

My weight is the same, no changes for about 2 weeks. I weigh daily, so it gets to feeling like I've plateaued for a month, but when I look back at Fitday, it hasn't been nearly that long. Anyway, I didn't exercise as much as usual while hubby was here, but now I'm back to every day. Last night I ran for 14 minutes in 3 blocks, so I'm getting much better. I had to get another pair of running shoes to keep at the hospital. I ran in bad shoes there the other day and that was a mistake. I think especially with my weight and my high arches, I really need good support to run. Yesterday during Principles class I took my resting heart rate and it was below 80! That's a first in many, many years. Usually when I check it's 84, though. I do notice that my heartrate recovers much more quickly now than it used to. Yesterday my max rate was 174 right after running for 4 minutes. In 60 seconds it had dropped to the low 150s and was down to 140 another minute later. Also, it's much harder to get my heartrate up to 130 when I start than it used to be. So I think my general fitness has improved a great deal in the last couple of months, since I started getting more serious with my cardio and restarted lifting weights.

I need to make an appointment with the new band doc to have my upper GI scope and make sure everything is going okay in my stomach. I don't think I need a fill. Maybe I do. But it seems like I just need to stop eating sooner, and make better choices about what I eat. I think the band is doing its job in keeping my hunger at bay. I really, really do NOT want to have it adjusted any tighter than absolutely necessary. So many people have late complications, 3, 4 years after being banded, and I do not want that. I think people get surprised by the fact that the band is as complex as it is and requires so much upkeep and vigilence. But any time you restrict a vital organ like the stomach, one that is so dynamic and moves so much, you run the risk of slippage, strangulation of blood vessels, and erosion, to name a few. Having a lap band is not a natural, normal thing, and we have to treat it with respect and do our best to baby it and keep our stomachs happy. And it seems like one of the surest ways to have late complications is to maintain too tight a restriction level, and challenge it often by overeating. I'm trying to avoid that so I can keep my band until I am old and gray and no longer need it.

Off to study....