3 little Miracles

3 little Miracles

Friday, March 15, 2013

Show Us Your Life - Favorite Vacation Spot


Our favorite vacation spot as a family is Myrtle Beach, South Caroline.
Our main reason we love it is because it is only 5 hours from our home and we can usually find some great deals and make a quick long weekend trip when we want to get away for a little bit.  PLUS there are so many things to do, including shopping at outlets :-)

One of our favorite points of interest is Broadway at the Beach where we ALWAYS go to the Ripley's Aquarium.

One of our NEW favorite shows to take in is the Pirates Voyage, we went this past Christmas season for my birthday with the whole family including my parents.  This is such an amazing show and a very tasty dinner!!
BUT what makes Myrtle Beach for us is our favorite resort Dunes Village.  We LOVE LOVE LOVE this place because they are right on the beach and they have two indoor swim parks as well as plenty of outdoor swim and play fun.  This for us equals a wonderful time away no matter what, because if we don't feel like leaving the hotel, than we can stay right there and play in the pool and eat in our room OR down at one of the resort restaurants.  The resort has so many options on room types, so that if we are just traveling as our family we can get a two room condo OR if traveling with the whole family for a special occasion we can get a 4 bedroom condo that sleep 14-15 people with each unit having a fully equipped kitchen and washer/dryer.


So I hope if your heading for the east coast, that you might consider a vacation in wonderful
Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.

Go to Kelly's Korner and share your favorite vacation spot.

Thursday, March 7, 2013

Journey to a NEW me part 3

If there is anyone out there that thinks Gastric Bypass surgery is the EASY way out for loosing weight . . . . . THEY ARE WRONG!!

After my second post-op appointment on the 4th of March, I was released to start a soft food diet (YEAH normal food here I come . . . . no more pureed food), I was also released to start picking up my little girl who at 2 1/2 years old is just over 20lb.  When my appointment was over I went to the "protein" store at the doctors office to buy some supplements for between meals to help me keep my protein level for each day at the desired level of 60 protein per day.  I picked up some protein bars and protein potato chips for snacking on between meals and in the days that followed, with the help of these new snacks, I started to find a rhythm to my meals and actually reaching my goal levels for each day (60 protein + 60 oz of liquid).  Only problem was I was having a very hard and painful time eating soft meats that I was supposed to be able to eat.

Four days later I had my follow-up with my Nutritionist.  First things First, she put me on her magic scale that tells me EVERYTHING about my body.  I was actually excited at the number that came up, 215.4  . . . . . YEAH!!  I haven't weighed this in almost 12 years since the day I married my husband on June 30,2001.  I had reached one of my personal goals!!  But alas my excitement was soon squashed :-(

Jaime, my nutritionist was not as thrilled with my weight loss.  Although Jaime was happy for me reaching one of my personal goals, she said that I actually should have blown past that goal and lost 18-20 pounds since I had seen her 2 weeks prior . . . . . which quickly deflated my thrill. This means I SHOULD have weighed around 203 lb walking into her office.

So into her office we went to study my food diary and talk about my physical activity, which I will admit is not where it should be because I HATE the cold and can't afford a gym membership, so I am not going out for my walks OR bike ride right now.  I SHOULD be exercising 6 days a week right now but really only doing 3 days including a 20 minute Wii Zumba workout for days I can't go out and walk because of rain OR cold.

BUT the biggest disappointment to my visit was when she looked at my food journal, and the wonderful success I thought I had found in finally balancing my day and reaching my food goals . . . . . she blew out of the water.  According to her, I shouldn't have picked up any of the supplements at the doctors office because they were not the right KIND of protein and didn't include Whey in the ingredients and so therefor they didn't count toward my protein count for the day.  In addition, she was not happy with the carb level that I ended up with for the day.

I just started crying, because I am STRUGGLING to eat even 2 ounces of food as it is and throwing up ALL meat because it gets caught on what I believe is a restriction from scar tissue (more on that later).  NOW she was taking away the very things I thought was OK because I bought them at the doctors food store. I was so frustrated with the two different opinions on what I should be eating, the nutritionist was saying one thing and the DOCTOR who did my gastric bypass surgery was saying something else.

Jaime worked with me for over an hour and a half, giving me advice and direction and also asking me to keep a 6 day food Excel sheet and email it to her so she could analyze my progress prior to our next appointment in April.  This time I not only needed to track my protein and liquid intake, but she wanted me to keep track of the carbs.  Her professional advice was that my carb for the day should NOT go over what my required protein was for the day (60g).  IN addition, when reading labels I shouldn't just look at the nutrition facts, but also the actual ingredients, looking specifically to see if the ingredients included WHEY within the first 4 ingredients.

So the battle to a new me continues to go on, although my progress is slower than anyone would like (including ME) I am loosing and happy that I reached one of my personal goals . . . . . my wedding weight 12 years ago.  My next goal is getting under 200!

Stats:  
Highest weight 1 year ago:  262
Weight at just before surgery:  239.5
Weight at last check in:  221
Current weight: 215.4
Total weight loss since surgery:  24.1
Total weight loss over all:  46.6

Weight Loss Journey previous post