Advice Needed....**Edited x 2**

Thanks to everyone for all your wonderful words of congratulations and encouragement.  I really needed it and it felt great....Thanks.  You guys rock!!!

Ok...I need advice.  Help.  Ideas.  You get the gist.....

The last 2 1/2 days I have been super  tight again and after just Pbing my 1/2 cup of soup (chunky with vegies) now I am a little concerned.  I am having no pain but definately discomfort after eating...you know it just feels like it is sitting there....

Here is what I have eaten:

Sunday:
cup of tea...this gurgles down very noisily
1 egg with milk and cheese (stuck and then pbed up some of another cup of tea)
1/2 cup of soup
2 rice crackers with cheese for dinner
then I had heaps of wine and 1 packet (about 250gm) of rice cake things - I was up till 2am doing an assignment)

Monday:
cup of tea x a few
around 11.30 had some miso soup but very slowly
12.45 full milk cappacino which toook ages to drink
3 pm 1 mini protein bar, 2 cups of cup a soup & rice and cracker (3 pk)
7 pm 2 dim sims (like a big dumpling but about 1/2 the size of an ipod touch or iphone) was very uncomfortable after this
More wine...why is wine no worries????

Today
cup of tea
1/2 cup of milk with protein powder mixed in
1/2 cup of soup...pbed 1/2 and now very uncomfortable

I do usually eat better than this by the way.

I am getting parnoid about what is going on...thinking bad stuff...could I just be tight???  I am not due for my (.) till next Tuesday (Tues today) so I don't think that is it because I usually get very hungry before it then it gets tight during.)

I also have a feeling of something at the base of my throat...weird hey...almost like a sore throat but not quite...although I have been a little winter cold like without full on symptoms this week????  Any ideas are most welcome....

By the way ...have anyone's menstrual cycles changed???  Mine were spot on regular and then last month it came 5 days earlier and towards the end sort of hung on a little...nothing bad and then I got the symptoms...AFTER my (.)...like sore boobs and a heavy feeling.  However my band was spot on with the  actual (.)

Ok enough of that for my 3 male followers who I sincerely apologise for traumatising with my last comparison photos in my undies....didn't think of it until I got a comment from them.  Wonder what DH would say if he knew those were on the net...not as bad as Band Babe showing her 'china'...LOL ...not that you can see it though

Thanks for any advice you have....I want to avoid my Dr as it is a 2.5 hr round trip and with the kids sick, assignments due (yes started the other one) and tests to study for I don't really have the time.

** Work in Progress asked if I though the strange feeling in my throat could be reflux????
I would have said no going on my other experiences of reflux it sort of more feel 'stuck' at the base of my throat where the collar bones come from but on the inside....if that makes sense.  My reflux in the past has always been a burning feeling lower down in my chest.  I suppose it could be???  What does reflux with a band feel like????  Hot drinks go down easier than cold...except the wine of course!!!
Great question.....thanks

****Ok...it feels like heartburn now....what does that mean...freaking out here...I love my band!!!!

Six Months ago.....

...I got my band. Yes on the 14th December and in that time I have lost 24 kg (52.8 lbs). 

I am pretty thrilled with those results ...even though I haven't seen much movement in the last few weeks.  I now feel normal when I am out.  I get to wear nice clothes.  I feel lighter.  I have more energy.  I like myself.

What do I miss????

Eating pizza, not gurgling when I eat and drink, a big bowl of veggies and fruit.....not too bad hey???  Not deal breakers are they????

Even though I have had a really tough week...(.I finally finished my assignment ...57 pages and another 1 to go and then 2 tests....and the kids are still sick)....I feel ok in myself.  I have been eating pretty poorly and have pretty much been bouncing from my lowest  up a kg.  Not too bad...it could have been so much worse considering the things I have been eating...grain waves, magnum's, dim sims, potato gems.....comfort food for the kids.  Oh and me.  But where as before I would eat heaps....all I can manage is 1 dim sim and four potato gems...not bad hey???

The Day of Surgery 14th Dec 2009

Today 14th June 2010

My band has been super wierd yesterday and today.....I can hardly eat.  I got stuck today on tablets and water!!!  I could barely have miso soup or coffee.  I finally ate about 2.30pm...I regular bite of sushi (nori on the inside so much moister)  my bites were about 4 to equal a normal bite.  Then when we got home 2 cups of soup, a mini protein bar and tiny cheese & crackers.  I was feeling a little ill ...sort of weak???

So I am tired and not very inspirational at the moments but thought I would post some of my fav snacks that I can carry in my bag or make up in a dash.....(not Cara!!!!  LOL)

3 rice crackers and cheese...easy for the handbag or lunch!!

A great nutritious snack

Bega Cheese Stringers...they go down easy

Well Naturally...mini protein bars...about 10gms of protein

I hate this protein shake but mix it with vanilla and coffee and have it on my work days or if hungry in the morning....about 30 gm of protein

Fava Nuts...great for a snack in the handbag

Tuna and cup of soups...nice for flavour.

I really need to concentrate on my protein as I don't feel excellent this week with the bad eating. 

I am so glad I got this done.....it has changed my life for the better.....

Me today....I am wearing a dress, leggings, boots and a long cardigan.  I am having a fat day which is so funny when you look at my old fat days!!!!  When I come to Chicago I want someone to take a nice shot of me.....I hate every shot of me.  LOL

Talk soon,

Flowers...

he sent us all flowers.  Gosh he is gorgeous....the girls got flowers and a card hoping they felt better soon.  Me...Love you always...Me :)

I  miss him

Feelings....

I am crap at them.   As a child I was told not to show them...you know always put on a good face.  So even when I want to tell you guys what you mean to me and what I felt as a child...I don't say it well.  So many of you do......

Take Drazil's post Hide and Seek well I am just sitting here crying for the little girl that was ignored by her father, ridiculed by her peers and not allowed to drive because she might get murdered??? (WTF???) and her line when she says about someone holding her hand just made me cry.

I do not cry often or in front of people except my family.  I hold my feelings in check.  I YELL....I do that well.  I just had a fight with my husband who is in Amsterdam because I have to be strong...I don't feel it....the kids are sick, I am average and I have a massive assignment and he just doesn't get it.  I don't want to fight with him....I MISS him.  He did the same thing the day he left.  I want to pass my studies and put up with his 3 years on Uni and I am hurt.  I am hurt that he can't just talk to me without telling me to talk softer, without yawning, without really listening...and I close up to protect myself.

So, I am crying for all of us....for the people who hurt us as children, for the people who saw things kids should never see, for the love and acceptance we didn't get and so on....for Draz, and Lara, and Roo and Jenny and Inspiration and Zara and Joey and Jenny and .....where does it stop.  We can change it for our kids...that has to be our legacy...doesn't it????  (Sorry if I have left someone off the list...I am crying too much)

And I am crying for my mum....and a good cry feels good doesn't it.

You are all amazing

Bouncing...

Yep....I see my new low and then it dissappears again....this morning I was 2 kg (4.4 lbs) up for no good reason except that I maybe needed to do a big poo ...but come on a 2 kg poo????  Is it even possible????  Have you ever weighed one????

Frustrating.......but then I have had pretty good weight loss so why should I complain....except that I am with Draz and am over my muffin top...sure it is smaller than it was but it is still there...where....well you know ...THERE!!!!....above my waist line.

And we have this advertisement here in Australia about how a larger waist measurement can put stress on your body and lead to heart disease, type 2 diabetes, obesity etc...the Measure Up campaign suggests that a waist measurement of over 80 cm (31 1/2 ") puts you at risk and 88cm (34 1/2 ") puts you at an increased risk...this is for females.  Well after losing over 52 lbs my waist meaurement is 99 cm or (39 ")...sure I am down  20 cm (8") (and I so wish I had of taken a measurement of my area between the boobies and waist....) but 80 cm...I am still off by 20 cm to be at no risk for those diseases....weird hey???

I still have good restriction and need to vlog my gurgling because whenever I eat or drink...you can so hear it that it is embarrassing and people comment or think I have burped.  One person said to me 'better in than out'...the shame.  I can eat more than a few weeks ago but I am not eating bad...maybe I am stabilising???  Excersise has been hard due to DH travelling, rain, studying and assignments and today both my kids are really sick.

Talk about feeling about as big as a freckle.....whilst in Melbourne with my mum my youngest cried herself to sleep missing both her parents and then my eldest was sick yesterday but didn't tell anyone because both her parents were away.  I felt so bad....I was sick yesterday from who knows what but had awful motion sickness on the drive to the airport and was looking for the barf bag on the flight home...very bumpy and then all the way home in the car I had my head hanging out the window like a dog.  Made myself throw up when we got to mum's...but didn't feel great.  ( Besides all this was glad I went as mum was really not well yesterday and I could look after her...so depressing that she still has 6 months of this!!!...she looks so unwell already)

Couldn't go to sleep last night...who put the ice cubes in the bed????....it was so cold!!!  Finally drifted off at around 11.30 pm only to wake up at 3.30 am and not be able to go back to sleep....Emma was in bed with me she was on fire with a temperature.  Then Kate woke up and was crying because she wanted to throw up....so that has been our day.

Anyway...as I read all your blogs I get so excited about Chicago...it will be a blast.  WORD!!!

Hope you are all having a good day and are over the F Day....mine was yesterday!!!

Oh and how is this for a photo....my sister sent it me to put on my mum's digital photo frame (WTF??? ) that we gave her for Mothers Day.  It is of her holding her friends baby...I am not sure why mum would want that....but anyway...look who is behind her????  Yep ...me...with my quadruple chins and looking very stunning....NOT.  This was taken the day after my surgery when I went to my kid's end of year concert.  I look zonked out plus was in the boot and on crutches....gosh I have come a long way....

Ok  Bye.....

Ironing and Collarbones

Thanks for all your wonderfully supportive comments on my therapy post.  I do not feel like I put it out there in a very artistic way but I needed to say it.  I wish I wrote as beautifully as some of you....sigh...more comparing going on here....

Anyway, my mum started her 6 months of chemo today and when about a month ago she told me she needed the chemo again and that she was booked on a flight to Melbourne for our niece's graduation ceremony...she just finshed her degree in nursing.  When I heard about the chemo and this event I asked Wayne to book me on the same flight and being the most adorable man in the world (yep I am coming to Chicago!!!! so he is!!!) he did.

This is a big deal to me because :

1. I just felt I needed to be with my mum and my family
2. Wayne is Overseas and my kids would need to be minded ( which I hate to do...they love!!)
3. My cousin will reallly appreciate the family support

Well, mum started chemo today and said to me on the weekend that she would have cancelled the trip if I wasn;t coming.  I feel so great to have now made the effort to go for my cousin/ neice and for putting my very fabulous friends out (they are minding the girls for me)

So, back to the title of this post....Wayne is away and we are talking to him on Skype which is  video calling system and we are chatting away and I see my collarbones on the screen and they are there....how aweome...I always loved my collarbones....way back when I could see them.

And tonight I was catching up on the ironing and ironing some of my stuff and I just got thinking that my clothes were normal looking...you know not huge and of a normal size and I felt great knowing that tomorrow they would fit me....big change!!

Hope you are all travelling well

Therapy

I am inspired by Band Babe's most recent post (and a few glasses of wine!!!!) to share some of my therapy experiences and break throughs....by the way Band Babe if Drazil can bear her soul to the world can we at least get your name???  Or an inital???  We have seen your China..... LOL.....

Anyways...back to my post....I have done lots and lots of therapy to do with my weight loss issues or should I say more accurately my lack of weight loss and self hate issues.   Do not get me wrong...I had an excellent childhood in terms of many others...I was loved, well fed (obviously), my parents always were there for me and I never really wanted for much...typical I would say middle class and my parents are still married but I do have a few childhood traumas.  You may find it interesting to see what affected me the most:

1. Being sexually abused at about 6-8 yrs old
2. Being put on a diet at 8 yrs old
3. Moving interstate at the age of about 12 (2 terms into high school)

Well what do you think was the most traumatic in later years..........??????


It was no 2 followed by 3....does that mean no. 1 hasn't affected my life????  Of course not but for 20 odd years I thought it was a dream so I can not blame my weight issues on that alone.  Is it telling that it happened around the time of being put on a diet????   YES.....  Is it telling that it happened when my aunt and uncle had to live with us....YES  (My mum is 15 yrs older than her twin siblings and they came to live with us when my grandma was hospitalised with MS).  If I was ok with it all why would of I had a packed bag by the window in case of emergency such as fire or kidnapping.....

I often read the horror stories of some people's youth and my heart bleed's....I have suffered nothing compared to some of you...so feel no pity.  My abuse was not penetration....a neighbour had me over and I vividly remember being in his front room and having to expose myself and a few other thigns but to me this always felt like a dream.  It was only in therapy a few years back that I had the courage to bring up my so called 'dreams' and ask her what she thought???  She said that it was based on fact and not imagination...too vivid for that.  And so now I know it was true....that is something.....

After a long time in counselling and with a few breakthroughs like I was dependent on my mum and she on me...a cycle that I broke (you guys all know how much I love my mum...but she enabled some very poor behaviours on my part though).  That was hard as she and I get along very well but it was done so that I could be an adult and not the 'child' all the time.  She relied on me telling her everything and at times I could not cope with stuff without having here around.

Anway, I did 2 courses that changed my life...a communication course and an inner child course.  The communication course was done over 3 or 4 months and showed me what a low opinion I had of myself and that others viewed me much differently than I did myself.  It was a major breakthorugh. 

The other course I did was about my Inner Child...honouring what my child self wanted.  This was so interesting because we had to visit ourselves through meditation and give our child self what they needed and were not getting.  This is the course that really made me realise what being put on a diet meant to my child self.  Throughout this cousre I had some weird reactions like rebelling against everyone.  This was my teenager standing up for my 8 year old self.  I realised that being put on a diet at 8 yrs old was like being told I wasn't good enough and I had to change.  This is echoed throughout my teenage and 20 yrs when whenever I felt fat I would back out of an event feeling that people would just judge me on my looks and weight.

Think back to a young age such as 8 (I think about my 7 yr old constantly in this scenario).  You think you are great and so what and then your mother tells you you need to go on a diet.....hey????  What is wrong with the way I am says your inner self???  So you are denied foods that your slender sister can have (by the way she rubs your nose in it whenever she can) and you are only allowed diet soft drink and lollies on lolly night (Sat)

We move to Sydney and the neighbours like my sister better than me,  my grandma tells me the same thing....hmmmm perhaps I am getting a message....fat = not good enough.  If you saw me as a child you would not think I was fat...puppy fat.  By the way my mum is awesome and was only trying to save me from a childhood of teasing etc...because she suffered as an overweight teen....funny thing....look at her photos...NOT FAT EITHER!!!!

It was only about 10 years ago that I let myself buy chocolate bars and just eat them...I realised that I could!!!!  No one was controlling me and I felt like the biggest rebel and loved it.  My sister used to tease me when she had a treat and say stuff like "Nah nah na nah I have a chocolate and you don't!!!"  She and my mother don't remember this but I DO.  By being denied food it became such a forbidden thing for me.

My mum can still be controlling about food and wine...if I was in a binge mode and would ask for a second serve of something....she would give me the look....you know the one ...'do you really need that?' ...or once when I asked for a glass of wine it went like this:

Me:   Can I have another glass of wine??
Mum:  Why not have some soda??
Me:  But I would like a wine
Mum:  Have some soda (by soda I mean soda water...not soft drink)
Me:   But I feel like another wine...
Mum:  Have a soda...
Me:  Mum....I haven't had a drink in months and I feel like another wine.   Wayne can you get me a wine???
Mum:  I'll get it.

Argghhhhh....all this because I had lost over 20kg and she thoguht I shouldn't have more wine.....do you get this???  I was about 35 yrs old.  It just gets a little old doesn't it???  I mean even as an adult she still trys to let me know what is approved of and what isn't...and it used to really get me down.

So I was in all this therapy and one day I had the shits and just said to the therapist.....'what is wrong with me...it can't just be because I was put on a diet at 8?  She replied:  'Why not???'  and yes WHY NOT indeed.  I lived my whole life comparing myself to others...not thin enough, not pretty enough, not rich enough ...blah blah blah.  Nothing will change for us until we love ourselves....nothing.  My mum didn't deliberately want to make me feel bad but she will admit it was the worst thing she ever did for me putting me on a diet so young....it just me up to think I was fat...even when I thought I wasn't.  I will never put my daughter on a diet...we talk about healthy eating and exercise.  I want to be a role model.  I don't want her to have the self loathing that I had...still would have from being overweight.  Some of my self talk was disgraceful...I would look at myself and tell myself I was disgusting, such a failure, a blob....I wouldn't want to socialise and wanted to stay at home and eat.  Last year I wanted to commit suidide...I couldn't do it anymore.  I was so sick of hating and loathing myself.  I was in pain.

Having the band has helped me lose the weight but finding a new career has saved me and taught me that I am worthwhile and mean something to others.  I have value.  I am needed.  I am talking about that love of yourself that comes from being driven at something.  Sure I am a wife and mother...but surely I am more than that???  And yes I am now...a wife and mother, a vet nurse, a student, a friend, daughter, sister etc....I am finding value in me....so the years of therapy have made me realise why i hated my self and the band is the tool that means I never have to diet again.

I hope you got through that...there was a bit of rambling...sorry about that.

Today DH has left for over 2 weeks in Europe...I will miss him so much.  He is so supportive of me and loves us all so much....

I am also in the 70's today!!!  79.8 kg (175.5 lbs).  Total lost: 24.6 kg (54.12 lbs).  I am so thrilled.

Hope you are all well...it is a miserable day here...rain rain and more rain.

Have a great weekend