My Lapband Weight Loss Success Story

On the road again…. The familiar tune is playing in my head.  I’m a seasoned traveler, one who traveled a lot after surgery.  I’ve blogged many times about traveling with my lap band, but it’s been a while.  I’m going to be traveling a lot for business again, and that means I need to dust off my own strategies, and have a plan.  I’m going back to reading my old blogs to get ideas, and build my confidence.  I’ve done this before, many times.  Heck, I commuted cross-country for over a year; I traveled to Europe from CA five weeks after surgery; I know how to do this, yet I’m still nervous.  Time to take my own advice…

I know that for me success starts with having a plan so that I don’t get caught without what I need to work my tool.  For me there’s no need to reinvent the wheel, so I’m going back to reading old blogs about traveling to refresh my memory, and get in the right mindset.  Here’s the list of articles and blogs I referred to:

•  Lap Band Tips – Airline Travel With My Lap Band (planning for a long-flight and what to take)
• I Always Have a Plan to Maintain My Weight Loss, Especially When I Travel, 9/27/2009 (protein drinks on airplanes and being assertive instead of being embarrassed)
• Lapbanded on Vacation – Having Fun at an All Inclusive Without Gaining Weight (it’s all about choices and having a plan; tips from an all-inclusive vacation; this will be a really helpful reminder for this trip; going to print out this blog and take it with me!)
• Traveling With My Lap Band – Some Tips For Continued Success (Sandi’s tips for traveling filled with some great ideas; I’m going to print this one too!)

my hotel room staple - ice, water, water bottle, protein powder, fresh fruit, baby carrot

I called the hotel I’m staying it to make sure they have a gym (I didn’t have a choice about where to stay).  The good news is they have a gym and it’s 24 hour access – I don’t need to ask them to open it early for me.  Time to take out those travel size containers, and Ziploc bags.  There are a few new tips I’m adding to my list for air travel:

• Bring an empty water bottle – preferably one with a large mouth for mixing protein drinks; saves a lot of money on bottled water throughout the trip.  I now fill it at a water fountain right after I get through security,
• Take protein powder and any other powders out of luggage and put them in a bin at the security checkpoint – or TSA may need to go through your luggage.

So armed with Ziploc bags, protein powder, my water bottle, workout clothes, baby carrots, workout music and most importantly a plan, here I go, on the road again.

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Here we go again.  We’re deep into the eating season.  Navigating the holidays is actually getting harder for me, now that I’m in my sixth year since lap band surgery.  It’s easier to slack off this far out since WLS so this year I’ve decided that I need to do just the opposite.

I wound up hosting Thanksgiving, which was a gift for me.  Turkey is always a good protein option, but since I was hosting, I was also able to prepare the weight loss friendly sides I like: baked acorn squash (splenda instead of brown sugar on mine), butternut squash (from a WW recipe I found), broccoli with just a little bit of olive oil and tons of garlic.  Feeling in control, it was relatively easy to just taste a spoonful of the other sides that I really wanted to sample:  stuffing, my homemade cranberry sauce which is a family tradition (I think I would be tarred and feathered if I didn’t make it).  I also started online journaling for the first time.  I always journaled with pen and paper, but I tried myfitnesspal.com and I’m hooked. It has an app that’s easy to use on my blackberry after I had all my staple foods in my diary.  So leftover turkey, my husband’s homemade turkey soup and journaling both food and exercise got me through the beginning of the holiday season. (My fitnesspal tracks both calories in and calories out – exercise which motivated me to also step up my cardio too!)

So now I’m on a roll.  I haven’t worked with a trainer in years, so I got my rear in gear, found a good trainer and a good deal, and started training again.  It feels good, yes I’m sore but it’s a good sore.  I want my arms back, and I’m sore in the right places….

Onto a plan for holiday cooking.  I have a lot of control over what I am eating through Chanukah and Christmas Eve (we celebrate both), before we head off to Nana and Pappa’s house on Christmas Day.  That gives me plenty of time to be get into a good holiday groove.  So I’m looking to some of my favorite sources for recipes.

With Chef Dave at the 2011 NorthWest Weight Loss Conference

My first stop is Chef Dave.  I’ve been fortunate to meet Chef Dave twice during my WLS journey.  He’s is a long-term successful WLS patient and a classically trained Chef.  His books are filled with great, tasty easy to prepare recipes that everyone in my family can love.  We will soon be featuring his recipes on BandedLiving and WeightLossSurgeryLiving.  I am planning on using his advice to how to perfectly prepare beef or pork tenderloin from his December newsletter.

Next stop is Hungry Girl.  I thank hungry girl for putting pasta back in my life with recipes for tofu shirataki noodles.  Low calorie pasta dishes are a go-to meal for me now when I’m trying to put together a satisfying low-cal meal.  The only problem is that my 12 year old daughter has now decided that she likes everything I make for MYSELF when I prepare them.  I recently posted HG Salutes: the World’s Best Pasta Swap on our LapbandedLiving facebook page .  I’m also going to paying close attention to the HG’s Holiday Survival Guide.

It I don’t find everything I’m looking for, I’d be off to CookingLight and Weight Watcher’s for more ideas.

So there’s my plan:

• Get through Thanksgiving without falling off the wagon (check)
• Find a trainer (check)
• Journal through January 8, at least
• Try some new WLS friendly recipes
• Manage stress by doing as much holiday shopping as I can online (thank you amazon)
• Cook at home as much as possible, and make it fun!
• Plan to go shopping for clothes the week after December 26 Enjoy!

What’s your plan to get through the rest of the holidays?

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I’m in my sixth year since my lap band surgery.  It’s late October; here in New England the Spookfests and haunted hayrides abound, the leaves are turning a full array of beautiful hues, the days are getting shorter, there is a new chill in the air and that means the holiday eating season is upon us.  In years past, I’ve blogged about Halloween challenges including the emotional turmoil of being an obese child in a Halloween costume.  This year as Halloween approaches, I realize that it is less of a big deal for me.  The key for me is planning.  For the first time that I can remember, we didn’t wait until the last minute to get the kid’s costumes.  The only thing that I’ve put off to the last minute is buying Halloween candy.

Planning is my theme for kicking off the holiday season this year.  There is a reason Sandi and I focused on planning as one of the Lessons of Successful Lap Band patients.  Planning keeps me on track and gives me a sense of comfort, calm and control.  Planning helps keep my hand out of the candy bowl!

This week I scoured the internet for tips to stay on track during Halloween.  I found a few articles with great tips and treat ideas.  Here are a few that really rang true to me:

• 10 Tricks to Avoid the Halloween Treats from Sparkpeople
• 10 Tips to Avoid Halloween Candy Temptations from WebMD
• Halloween Eats: No Tricks, Just Treats from eDiets
• The Diet Detective: 10 Halloween Tricks and Treats

Some of my favorite tips from these articles can work well for me throughout the holiday season:

• Wait until the last minute to buy treats
• Donate, or giveaway the treats after the holiday (AKA, get as much as possible out of the house)
• Don’t go trick-or-treating hungry (or to a party, or…)
• Chew gum (not appropriate for some WLS patients)
• Substitute health(ier) and low(er) calorie choices (good for me and helps teach my kids about choices)
• Celebrate with activities that are not just about eating – carve a pumpkin, decorate, sing, get physical!
• Decide what to splurge on and make it conscious
• One day, or one meal, or one treat doesn’t have to start a bad cycle. 

Just taking the time to write the blog is part of my planning, and part of being accountable.  What’s your plan to get through the holiday season?  Please share your tips and treats.

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My daughter and I were flipping channels and ended up watching a girl’s movie (AKA chick flick) on the Lifetime Movie Network.  It turns out that this movie was the story of three friends struggling with their weight, their self-esteem and a whole host of issues familiar to those of us who’ve struggled with obesity. I was surprised when my daughter put down her book to watch with me. As the story unfolds, the women made a pact to support each other on a journey to weight loss.  One of the women was gaining struggling as the other two were losing weight.  She started researching weigh loss surgery,  considered gastric bypass surgery, then decided on lap band surgery – much to my surprise.  To keep this in context the story about her lap band surgery was just a tiny part of this movie, but it did get my daughter and I talking about my surgery.

My daughter is now 12, but she was only 6 when I had surgery.  I asked her if she remembered me before surgery.  She said that she remembered me being bigger, that she remembered seeing me exercising one day and had that image of me “bigger”. Leave it to my daughter, to use the least offensive term she could find – “bigger”.  I asked if she remembered that she took my before picture, the morning of August 16, 2006, the morning of my weight loss surgery.  She said she knows she took that picture because I always remind her, but doesn’t really remember taking it.  She didn’t understand about the surgery at the time.  She thinks it’s kind of cool that the picture she took is all over the bandedliving.com, and in my book, and on my blog, and that if you google me and lap band surgery, that picture that she took will probably come up.

I didn’t explain my surgery to my children back in 2006.  They were too young and I didn’t want to scare them; I also didn’t want them talking about my surgery, my well-guarded secret at the time, to their friends. But, since Sandi and I decided to go public with our stories, write a book, and build the bandedliving.com community, my public lap band journey is part of who we are. 

I talk a lot about my lap band support team, who to tell, and who not to tell.  I’m reminded that my support team continues to change and evolve over time.  I’m learning, once again, that support comes in many forms – friends, family, my on-line family and bandedliving.com, and even a TV movie!

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“Mom, will you go running with me?” is the question my daughter asked me.

This week marks 5 years and one month since I first had lap band surgery.  My 11 year old daughter just started middle school and chose cross-country as her fall sport.  Unlike me, she has legs like a gazelle and is built for running.  She came home excited and invigorated from her first practice. This weekend my daughter gave me what felt like the mother of all NSV’s, she didn’t think twice about asking if I’d start running with her; she sees me as a fit mom, someone who prioritizes exercise, who takes care of her health, someone she wouldn’t be embarrassed to run with.  Who? Me? Run with you?

OMG!  Her simple request shocked me back to reality like a bucket of ice water pouring over my head.  My daughter gave me an amazing, much needed gift: “Mom, will you go running with me?”  The last year of my banded living journey has been hard.  I’m struggling to get my weight firmly back in my target range; there are lots of reasons for the struggle, some hormonal (to borrow a phrase from a member of our bandedliving community who periodically writes a column about food and recipes – I now have the metabolism of a “lobotomized tree slug”), some in my head, some in my choices about how hard I work my tool.  My daughter yanked me back to reality. If I hadn’t chosen to have lap band surgery 61 months ago, I think the chances of my daughter asking me to run with her would have been about zero.  It’s highly unlikely that I’d be struggling with 10 or 15 pounds; it would be more like 100 or 150, or even more.  I need to remember that this journey is not a straight line; it probably never will be for me.  It’s a journey to grow from, savor, struggle with, and learn from.  It’s about my health and my quality of life, so much more than it is about the number on the scale.

My Daughter

Alexis asked if I would run with her while were sitting in my car getting gas, on a beautiful Saturday morning on the way home from buying her new running shoes.  I took her to be fitted in a local store in our town center.  We have a great store; the people working there are pros; they are runners.  Shopping for good running shoes proved to be one of those “mommy moments,” one that I will relish forever.  My daughter truly appreciated the expertise, the passion, the time they spent with her to find the right pair of shoes, and the camaraderie of the sport.  I loved observing her take in the experience through all her senses.  I also couldn’t help thinking about how I fit in the store, amongst the athletes, that a few months ago I had bought shoes and a cardio monitor there for myself, that I wasn’t embarrassed by my size, that I was treated with respect.

Will I run with my daughter?  I’ve never been a runner, but I will try.  I told my daughter I‘d give it a shot. I have great cardio endurance, but I’m not sure my joints can handle it.  She knows that we are built differently; I am more flexible; it drives her nuts that at 50 I can still do a split and her long limbs aren’t as flexible as mine, and probably never will be.  Her response, “…if you can’t run, will you bike with me while I run?”  What a great idea, yes, my precious daughter, I’ll be out there with you; if running hurts, I will bike the trails with you while you run cross-country.

61 months (but who’s counting) after lap band surgery, at the age of 50, I have a strong, fit, healthy body; I can participate in life with my daughter.  We share a lifestyle that includes a passion for fitness.  That’s a measure of my long-term lap band success that can’t be measured on a scale.  Once again, I’m reminded why we call it Banded LIVING.

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