Dumping Syndrome and other side effects

 Friday night my husband and I went out to eat, I was hungry for enchiladas...and I'm happy to report that is something I can eat without issues....1 to 1 and 1/2 then I'm full.  Well, there was a sign saying Feb 22 was national margarita day, so I thought I'd celebrate a few days early since I'm in a Mexican restaurant anyway, so I order a skinny margarita.  I can also do one of those without issue, margarita came, I drank it and by the time my dinner came I'm full blown dumping.  Either the server forgot to say skinny, or the bartender didn't know skinny means without sugar. Our food order was wrong too, but I felt too bad to eat...sweating profusely, according to my fitbit my pulse was in the 120's (normal resting is in the 60's), dizzy, held it together until we got home and puked...it was not good. I never complain at restaurants because I worked as a waitress many times in my younger years...but after this incident I decided I need to stand up for myself a little better.  It's one thing to be a picky negative customer who complains about everything...and complaining because someone's mistake caused real physiological problems.  

Now lets talk poop; another problem that I don't remember being warned about is the changes in your poop. Not that poop or gas ever smells good, but now it is especially foul smelling.  I found this product:

 and it seems to work pretty good, I like chewables.  I've heard they sell it at Walmart but I ordered mine online, directly from them. Some people that I've talked to about this problem say it is because of the high protein in our diet but I'm thinking the different chemistry and how our food in general is broken down is partly to blame.  Needless to say I was really happy to find this pills.

I have my 8 month follow up tomorrow, 85 lbs lost...I'm happy with how it is going and I'm pretty sure my Dr. will be too.

Valentine's Post

Happy Valentine's...I know some people don't 

get into it and feel like it's a holiday to force "love" but I enjoy it.  

I got my Michael Kors handbag, so I am tickled with that as well as a Valentine Pandora bead. Bill got a 6 pack of Shiner Bock, 2 packages of his backwood cigars and snicker bars...none of it good for his health but all things he likes.  We exchanged gifts on Friday the 13th because on actual Valentines day we went to Houston for Kaylee's 1st birthday.

 I got this tu- tu outfit for her from Etsy...I know I'm biased but she was beyond cute in it.  I'm worn out from going to Houston Saturday and back today, but it was so totally worth it.

 I lost a few more pounds this week...and that was even with slacking for most of the week.  My weight is 145.1, that is almost a 85 lb loss since June 17.  If you are reading this because you are thinking about surgery...I'm not going to lie and say it's easy...it is not but it has absolutely given me the tools I needed to make some serious changes in my life. My trainer resigned...so I have a new one; we could not get schedules jived until Friday...One evening I wanted to wear my new super cute exercise outfit...so I was going to do treadmill, crunches...a few things I know how to do correctly now...but the batteries in my headset were dead...there is absolutely no way without music...so I took some #gymselfies I was nervous that medium would be too small...but they fit perfect.  I love the back detail too.  
This week should be better in the exercise department, I'm scheduled for 3 days with trainer.

Keep Austin Weird!

I spent last week in Austin, TX for a Educator conference.  Sort of the city motto is keep Austin Weird, hence the title of this post.

 Three of us managed to get to the hotel gym once, my goal was three times.  But there are often evening events as well as sessions pretty late...our schedule did not allow for much gym time.  However, between the size of the convention center and the fact that we walked almost everywhere...I still was fairly active. So even though, I didn't reach my fitness goal..I think it was a successful week.

This was a typical evening, dinner and drinks (yes, the adult kind!) The adult beverages probably explains the picture quality...my tolerance is not what it used to be. The weird thing is I still lost .8 lbs from Sunday to Saturday without even trying; you would think that would be good news...but it makes me nervous...will I stop losing when I need to?

Here is the last picture for this post, Friday before we left I tried to chop off my left index finger with an immersion blender. I ended up with 11 stitches, my fingernail will probably be jacked up, but other than that it seems to be healing fine.  I can't wait for the nerves to re-connect but the end of my finger feels fake right now.

Current weight: 147.9, that is 81.1 lbs lost in not quite 7 months.  I'm on week 6 of the C25K program, that is going well so I'm still feeling pretty confident about the color run.

Last week was CRAZY!

The week started with a last minute trip (just for the day) to Austin. It was a school administrator's conference and we learned how to build courses in iTunes U.  The training was great, my my eating was not....way more carbs than I'm used to and even when I got home, it was like a carb switch was flipped and instead of making a good protein choice for dinner I made the choice to eat Chex Mix??? Then I had the dry heaves :-(  some people...apparently me...just have to learn the hard way.

So this one day trip should have been a great day to chalk up lots of steps on the FitBit, but I realized when I got to the airport at 5am that it had not charged the night before.  I had a bad charger and replaced it...but since I could not find the other charger, I'm guessing I accidentally threw away the good charger and kept the bad one.  I had been thinking about upgrading to the Charge HR anyway...the main thing that was holding me back was the ugly strap...but I went ahead and took the plunge.

So I'm just figuring out the data...it only counts the stairs going up...not going down...but going down counts as steps.  Then the heart rate thing...since I really just need to tighten up...I'm thinking that monitoring the heart rate for being in that fat burning zone will help.

Shorts came in for the color run, I think this is 

funny....I would not have dared to wear anything with words across my butt a year ago! And this week I ran (jogged) 20 minutes without stopping...week 5 of the C25K program.

Now for the biggest, craziest event of the week.  I was making a cheese dip for a work party using my immersion blender, I was cleaning around the blade with my left index finger and holding it in my right hand...I accidentally hit the on button and hacked up my finger pretty good or bad dependly on how you look at it.  As a former medic I found it pretty interesting...but some of my teacher friends were grossed out.

before stitches 

dressed all pretty

11 stitches later