Today is my two year bandiversary

Two years ago today I underwent surgery and I haven't looked back!

I lost my excess weight in 8 months and, since then, I have managed to maintain my loss (give or take a stone).

I am currently heavier than I would like and - post Christmas - I have cut the carbs (I had been eating them since September resulting in a 12lb gain).  I will get back to my preferred weight in a couple of weeks.

I cannot post most of my recent photos here - since my breast op photos of me tend to be topless ones (to chart the healing process).  Here are a couple of recent snaps.

August 2013 - being mock-cross with hubby

At my daughter's graduation in October 2013 - fishy faces in honour of the occasion

I will update with inscision scar photos tomorrow.  I meant to take some earlier but time ran on and natural light is needed to show the scars well on a photo.

Happy New Year everyone.  I hope 2014 is everything you hope it will be.  x

Boobie update :)

Over the past few days I am feeling much more like myself again.

Recovery from phase one of my breast surgery has been much more onerous than I had envisaged.  I had not really recognised (pre op) how major breast uplift with reduction is.  

The suture lines are now knitting together well and the bruising (which was SIGNIFICANT) has almost gone.  PAin / discomfort has lessened too :)

I am required to wear post op bras for a few months yet :(.  I will be relieved to be able to wear lovely lingerie again.  I am also desperate to be able to have a bath (showers only from two weeks post-op and for the foreseeable).

I have a post-op check-up with my surgeon on 7th September (I've seen nurse three time up to this point) and I am anticipating that at that meeting he will let me know when we can go ahead with phase two of my surgery (the augmentation).

BMI of 23!!

An empty band is clearly suiting me.  In the three weeks since I had my band fully aspirated I have lost 12lbs.

For the first time, since I became pregnant with my daughter aged 18, I have a BMI of 23!!

Whoop :D......................

quick 'selfie' taken in mirror earlier today

Scale victory!!!!

Although today is not 'official' weigh-in day I popped on the scale this morning curious to know if the 8lb loss in the week following my band aspiration was an anomaly.


The scales read 10st 13lbs!!!!!!!


I have not weighed 10st something since before I got pregnant with my daughter aged 18.  I am thrilled and stunned.

That means I have lost 10lbs in the 9 days following my full aspiration.  Even though today is not official weigh-in day (that is Sunday) I cannot resist updating my ticker :D........

Awesome weight loss following band aspiration :)!!

I had my band emptied on Monday, weighed myself before I went and I weighed 11st 9lbs.  3lbs heavier than my target weight :(

I weighed myself this morning and I am 11st 1lb :)  Yay-diddily-yay-yay!!!!!!

8lb loss in a week :D  -  WHOOP!!!!!

I have also lost inches (an inch from my hips and and inch and a half around my waist).  I've lost an inch around my bust too (that is more to do with my uplift/reduction surgery than my diet I am sure :)

Vital stats currently read 40 - 27.5 - 40   (giving me a waist-hip ratio of 0.68, the calculator I used rates this as  "excellent" :) )

Ive been eating high protein, low carb diet and am back in ketosis :)

Happy bunny today......

My new titties............

..........are awesome!

I am back from Dolan Park having had phase one (uplift) of my breast surgery yesterday.

Mr Russo - my surgeon - has done an excellent job.  Even this soon after surgery the results are remarkable.  My boob shape and position is unrecognisable to that which I was left with after weight loss.

Getting on with the business for recovery now :)

Empty band!

I am back at Dolan Park tomorrow for my breast uplift surgery - feeling a little anxious!

Yesterday I had my band fully aspirated (a requirement for me to undergo surgery).

I actually needed an aspiration - the hot weather had caused my band to become tight.  Good foods were more and more difficult to eat and I stopped 'fancying' them; I also regurgitated food on 4 occasions in the past month (more than in the rest of my banded life!).

As a result of my tight band I was eating a lot of slider foods - ice cream, sweets, cereal, deserts etc.  Mostly carb and not at all what I have eaten since my band journey began.  I was also hungry :(.  I have gained a few pounds too :(

I was feeling hungry when I went to my appointment yesterday morning and as soon as the aspiration happened my hunger went away!  I haven't really felt hungry since :) and I have not eaten - or wanted to eat - junk.  I had chicken and bacon salad for my dinner yesterday, a small amount of chicken salad for my lunch today and I've just enjoyed some pate with cucumber and tomato for my dinner.

After my surgery tomorrow I will be back on it - high protein, low carb diet and no more junk.

Going to have band fully aspirated!

A nurse from THG phoned me today to talk through pre-surgery "stuff".   All good as far as my health is concerned and no issues with my having the breast uplift surgery on 24th July :D. I will need my band to be emptied prior to the surgery however.

It is to do with the anaesthetic and possible complications resulting from acid getting stuck above the band in the oesophagus whilst unconscious etc.  Damage to oesophagus is not something I want nor is the possibility of acid making its way into my lungs and causing havoc for my post surgery recovery...

I am curious as to how I will feel with an empty band.  I guess I will learn just how much the band is dimming my hunger.

I am booked in to have the band fully aspirated on 22nd July (two days before my surgery).

I'll let you know how I get on :)



P.S. I paid off the balance for my surgery a couple of days ago - my new titties are definitely going to happen!!!

Photos - walk with dog 2nd June 2013

Hello :)

My gorgeous chocolate lab Dobby 

Dobby has been instrumental in my weight loss -
walk, walk, walk, walk :)

"Hello Muma - I love you"

Breast uplift......!!!!!!!

Yesterday I paid the deposit for another operation with THG (The Hospital Group)...............!

I am very excited to tell you that on 24th July I will be having a breast uplift.  A few weeks later I will be having breast implants.

Having lost the excess weight I was carrying I am relatively fortunate to have been left with little excess skin (I do have a little puckering on my lower abdomen and my inner thighs).  My boobs, however, have not fared well :(

I have always had big breasts and, with weight loss, I am still fairly well endowed (34F bra) but the loss of breast tissue has resulted in boobs that don't look great without a bra :(.  I am therefore going to treat myself to a breast uplift and, 6 weeks later, implants.  Since the uplift will likely result in loss of a cup size the final result should be a perky pair of lovely titties that are a cup size(ish) bigger than I currently have.

Having worked so hard to lose the weight, and to maintain that loss, I hate that my breasts - without the support of a bra - are pendulous and, even worse, that they disappear under my arms when I lie down.

It was bothering me so much I had even deliberately gained 7lbs to see if that would improve their appearance (it didn't!!)  I have now lost the gained weight and I am happily anticipating my operation at the end of July :)

Nudged by bandit friends

Hello :)

I haven't updated my blog in a long while.  The main reason is to do with my being so very busy with my business; but I guess the other, less conscious, influencing factor is that I am wrapped up in living life as a slimmer person and I don't really think about weight or food or band related stuff that often.  Yay me!!

Recently I have been nudged by a few bandit friends.   Bandboy, via this blog, and a couple of others who PM'd me on the forum I used obsessively whilst I was in the losing phase and for the first few months of maintenance.

Most were worried that I was not okay, others were concerned about my mum (you lovely people) and enquiring after my son who was assaulted a little over a year ago.

Apologies to all of you - my 'disappearance' from my own blog and from the forum was not intended to cause concern.

I am maintaining my weight and loving being slimmer and healthier in every area of my life.

My mum is as well as can be expected at this stage and she is busy working her way through her "bucket list" :)  I spend as much time as I am able with her and I will always be grateful for these months.

My son is absolutely fine :)  He has some scarring (externally at least) but has grown through his horrific experience stronger and I couldn't be more proud of him.  Here he is on Christmas day with with darling mum :)

My Darling Mum with her Grandson Christmas 2012

My son the day after he was assaulted with a bottle March 2012
(the first pic is him 7 months on from this photo - notice the buttoned up top to hide his scar) 

I've had some interesting experiences recently with my band tightening.  That warrants a separate post though.  I'll add that to my 'to do' list :)

I'm going out to a gig tonight.  I might see if I can get a photo or two of me there to update my blog with how I am looking these days.

X

What do you think...........?

I've stepped up my exercise again.............

I have been a bit lax with exercising since the summer. I can really feel the impact of that on my muscle tone and my general fitness. I am committing myself to doing more exercise this year. Primarily I intend to use my vibration platform on a regular basis. I will also endeavour to use the physical fitness games on x-box kinect.  I don't know why I haven't used it much in he past - whenever I do I enjoy myself and I definitely feel that I have engaged in a serious workout!

In order to make myself more accountable I intend to update the post with many dedicated exercise I engage in over the next few weeks.

Exercise log:

13/01/13:  30mins vibration plate; 90mins kinect.
15/01/13:  30mins vibration plate; 60mins kinect.
19/01/13:  60mins vibration plate.

Another non-scale victory: I gave blood today :)............

Today I gave blood for the first time .  I have wanted to do it for years; somehow, however, I never got around to it. 

The real reason I never went was to do with my weight. Part of me was afraid they would reject me for being unfit/overweight - I had no evidence they would but that was my irrational fear. I also knew finding a vein would be difficult when I was bigger.  I tended to avoid medics when I was obese, somehow I felt more 'visible' when in a medical setting (infact one of my motivations for doing the Cambridge Diet in late 2008 was because I knew my mirena coil was due to be changed and I couldn't bring myself to go to my doctor as big as I was!)

Just home from donating blood for the first time :)

Giving blood was fine. The challenge was refusing the carbs they try to insist you eat afterwards.  The lovely refreshments lady was like a "pusher" with her biscuits and bags of crisps.  I was a little surprised that the NHS was trying to insist doners ate such unhealthy rubbish after their donation.  I understand their wanting to ensure people don't become weak or faint and the general consensus is that carbs are the best way to provide quick energy (what happens after the sugar spike has abated is another matter of course) but why not offer fruit?  Fruit is packed with fructose (if sugar is what they want to get into folk) and generally accepted to be much more healthy than crisps or biscuits (the crisps were Seebrooks - totally yummy but - very, very high in calories, fat and salt when compared to most other brands). 

I managed to politely refuse the numerous offers of biscuits, crisps and sugary squash.  Yes I was sure that water and sugarless tea was sufficient thank-you.  The woman sitting next to me ate her way through 4 packets of biscuits (with 3 biscuits in each pack) saying she felt so weak she couldn't open the packets (I did that for her!)

Bx

Laparoscopic surgery scars one year on......

Scars 12 months post-op

Looking through old photos last night - warning bells.........

I was looking at old photos last night, searching for pictures of me when I was bigger; they are few and far between because I was adept at hiding from cameras and I deleted most photos that were taken.  The photos that survived my "culling" I have included in the "before and after" section of this blog.

It was a bitter-sweet experience looking through the snaps and especially poignant after writing the post below.  As I searched through the pictures I recognised the fact that part of my ongoing difficulty with perceiving myself as a slimmer person is that part of me feels like this is a dream.  It was a dream for so long after-all.

The trouble with dreams (good dreams I mean) is that when you wake up from them everything is as it was before the dream occurred.  The photo of myself after I lost weight in 2009 is especially upsetting for me to look at.  I lost a lot of weight but, I now realise, my brain never perceived my new size and shape accurately.  I still felt fat and it is therefore no surprise that I ate my way back to meet that perception.

Anyone who has ever read anything about weight loss, listened to an "I can make you slim" type hypnotism CD, or been to a fat fighters club (and if you are reading my blog I imagine you have) knows that it is important to focus on imagery of yourself as slim and healthy if that is how you want to be.

In short, unless I get it sorted, my messed up self perception could be the undoing of me - AGAIN!!

Okay, so that is where I need to place my energy.  2013 is the year that I intend to become better at perceiving myself accurately in terms of size and shape.  Exercise will form part of that (to get me into my body and out of my head) and I need to indulge in the vanity stuff of looking in mirrors even more than I am already!!!!

Just to get me started, here is a pic I took of myself this morning in the dress I bought from Mistral yesterday.

Dobby says he likes my new dress :)

Self concept catching up with body size/shape......

A thread on the Gastric Surgery Friends Forum this evening has got me thinking about my perception of myself and the fact that I really struggled with my head recognising my new body size/shape as I was losing weight (and to some extent now I am at target). 

I was shrinking but my perception of my size, the amount of space I took up and my body shape remained that of a much larger woman. 

My Ah-ha moment came when I saw myself on video (working out on my vibration plate). I was genuinely of the opinion that my thighs were huge (and I mean truly enormous). Looking at the video I was totally stunned - I could see on the video what I couldn't see in still photos and/or in the mirror - my thighs were entirely in proportion to the rest of me. 

I very much recommend anyone who is struggling with seeing themselves as they actually are to video themselves moving around and to watch it back. 

Since my bedroom revamp one wall is now almost entirely mirror. I spend a lot of time looking at myself in those mirrors (so vain) and moving around infront of them. Partly it is vanity (I worked hard to shed that weight) but largely it is about identity and giving myself visual feedback to 'update' my self-concept.  The mirrored area is so large it allows me a similar perspective to watching myself on video.

Moving images seem to translate so much better into updated self concept.

I can only relate the delay in my self-concept catching up with my body shape/size to occasions when I've had a drastic new hair-cut or colour. I know I have had it done but for weeks it is a bit of a surprise when I have looked in a mirror or caught an unexpected glimpse of myself in some reflective surface.

---------------

I went into Chichester today to return a FatFace gilet that I'd ordered online but which turned out to be too large (it was size 12). Whilst I was there I popped into a lovely clothes shop (Mistral) as they were having a sale (and everybody knows it is the height of bad manners to walk past a favoured clothes boutique when they have a sale on). 

It is only as I sit typing this post that I realise my behaviour in the changing room must mean my self-perception is getting better. I, for the first time since I was a teen, did not screw my eyes shut and mumble "please, please, please" as I pulled the dress over my head. It is something I've always done when trying on clothes. So familiar had I become with clothes being tight, looking awful and/or the claustrophobic terror that I might get stuck half in/half out of a garment that I have spent my life offering up a kind of silent prayer from various stiflingly-tiny changing rooms.. 

Today, as I was browsing, an assistant approached me and asked if she could put the things I had already selected into the changing cubical for me to try on when I was ready (oh how clothes shop assistants treat me differently now I am slimmer - or maybe I give off a more approachable vibe now I am actually enjoying the experience of clothes shopping).  

I went into the cubicle and (I didn't realise this at the time) I kept my eyes open and did not offer up the "please, please, please" prayer.  Then instead of surveying myself in the mirror and finding myself wanting, I looked at the clothes I was trying on and I assessed the quality, style, value and likability of each garment.  Wow - that is quite a revelation. YAY ME!!!!!!!!!

BeBea xxx

Happy New Year

Hello :)

I hope you all had a good New Years' Eve?  Mine was fab'.  I had a dinner party and indulged in one of my passions: cooking and entertaining.  I resisted the carbs though; with some difficulty as the roast potatoes looked scrummy, and I made a syrup sponge and some custard for desert and they smelt and looked delicious. 

Today in have been pottering around my home doing odd jobs and enjoying one of my other passions: fish keeping (today was water change day - no easy task on my 600 litre planted aquarium).  I've just realised, until now, I have not mentioned my geeky hobby on my blog.

My planted aquarium

I have kept this planted aquarium for years. It is 6' x 2' x 2'.  Here's a couple of close-ups:

Fishes enjoying the fresh water

Tiger Barbs shoaling

Happy New Year :).

BeBea xxxx