Week 21 and New Blogger Alert!

First and foremost, we've got a new blogger alert! Stop on by and say hello to Jennxaz over at Tales from an Arizona LapBander. She's going through her insurance company's requirements for approval right now and could use some BOOBs love :)

Now, on to other things. I hope you all had a lovely Christmas. I've enjoyed seeing the pictures you've all been posting and I'm sorry I've done the same. I'm just lousy at photo ops, as are the rest of my family members. However, I've got a picture of Ben and me from when we were down at his brother's for graduation. Hopefully it'll hold you over and I'll get some pics for New Year's.



 So, there's that. And, now on to the band front. I went for my appointment with the PA last week and she didn't give me a fill. Said she thinks I'm doing well and wants to see if I can keep up the progress. I feel ok about that. When I got there it was 2pm and that morning on my scale I weighed 223.something. Upon weighing on their scale (mind you they don't allow you to get naked at the office I go to and I had on soaking wet pants because I'm a whopping 5'2" and my pants were dragging through the puddles) my weight had changed to 228 lbs! I was so upset about this even though I knew it was because of my clothes and such. I didn't want them to think I wasn't doing well. the 228 would have only been a loss of 6ish pounds since my last visit in October. But, she was still happy with the loss. She always has me set a goal to achieve by the next visit I have with her and this time it's to be out of the 220's. I've kind of been plateaued for about 3 weeks or so, but this week brings something wonderful.

Remember how I said I was skipping week 20? Well, in writing, I did. But, I still weighed myself. And it was still 223.something. I just didn't want to post it because I was afraid of putting it into writing because it would make me feel more like a failure. But, today's weigh in has broken the plateau, which I'm really surprised and pleased about since it's the first weigh in after Christmas. I'll take it though. Today, the wonderful scale said 221.4 lbs! Oh I was ecstatic. Since I can't remember what my weight was last week, I'll have to go with week 19 for mathematical purposes. It's a 1.8 lb loss from week 19, 43 lbs since date of surgery, and 56.6 lbs from my highest back in summer 2010. I'm so happy about this loss.

I hope everyone's doing well and if anyone had a gain over Christmas, don't let it get you down. For a lot of us, this is our first Christmas with the band. It's easy to get back into our old habits, and I'm saying that from experience. Let me tell you, the day after Christmas, the scale was definitely up from 223.2. But, with the band comes a lifestyle change. Being amongst the younger of the banded bloggers, I only know how hard it is to change habits after 23 years' worth of Christmases. It's not easy; we can't expect things to change over night. It took us years to develop the habits that we have, and it's going to take time to change them. Be patient and persevere and I'll be there with you trying to tell myself to do the same. But, I don't always listen to myself and that's when it really helps to have all of your encouragement and support.

I'd like to congratulate those of you who did behave like good bandsters over the holidays and those who lost weight, too. I may have lost weight, but I attribute that to the exercise I got this week and certainly not to my food choices.

That about wraps it up for this entry, but stay tuned for my pick for my 2012 word of the year!

Have a wonderful day, everyone!

xoxo