Updating

Well, I am stuck in this rut, which is why I haven't had anything to post. I'm very discouraged. I have been at the same weight essentially since Dec 2010.

I have tried several things in the past year and a half, but it seems like nothing is going to really help until I can exercise more regularly, and I just can't do anything regularly right now, between my job and my toddler. I was actually ready to give up on the band entirely and look into having a revision to something else.

I joined Weight Watchers again, mainly because my employer requires one of four "health improvement" options to keep benefits premiums down (you can elect not to do any of them, and pay a higher premium the following year-5 or 10% more). I find that I don't journal my food regularly and once a week weighing isn't great for me--I'm better with daily weighing, so I can't cherry-pick which weight I want to record. But it's free, and it does help me keep track when I can remember to journal.

I had my last fill in January, and they recommended I have metabolic testing done. They have a bariatric endocrinologist at the office now, and he sees patients whose metabolism turns out to be low enough for treatment. Mine was 88% of predicted, which turns out to be not that bad, but not great either. He didn't recommend medical treatment (i.e. ephedrine). He looked at my fill history and noticed that my current level is much lower than when I was losing weight, and they have only been doing tiny fills every 3 months, so he was going to talk to them about being more aggressive with adjustments. He said my lean body mass is quite low. I'm guessing I have had a series of events that have caused me to burn muscle--including stress (grad school, personal issues), significant weight loss, running, pregnancy, and breastfeeding. He recommended I do NOT run right now--he felt it's okay for maintaining weight loss but while losing weight will not allow me to rebuild lean muscle--I should do resistance training and walk (use a pedometer, 10,000 steps a day goal). According to my testing I need to eat about 300 calories a day fewer than I am, and to do that I will need more restriction.

So I feel a little more hopeful that the band can still work for me. I did get a pedometer and find that I generally walk about 10,000 steps (or more) at work, but not so much on my days off, so I am working on that now. I took Lucy for a long walk this morning after breakfast and already have taken almost 7500 today.

We'll see. I hope that getting back up to a better restriction level will help me out. It sucks being at this weight--I'm still 35 pounds less than when I had surgery, but 40 pounds from my goal. Even losing 20 would make me feel a whole lot better.