So, wow... it's been a long, long time since I updated. It was the end of September and I was at 205. It's now the beginning of November and I have finally gotten under 200...

197!

These days the weight loss is slow but sure. While I was away on a business trip for the past two weeks is when I lost those three pounds and got under 200. I felt like I was eating way too much while away, but apparently not.

So not only have I joined The Century Club by losing 100 pounds, I've gotten under one of my personal milestones. I remember getting to 198 in around 1991 after a bunch of personal turmoil occurred in my life. I lost a lot of weight and was just on the upward swing of making things better. Unfortunately, I also gained all the weight back.

This time, though, that's simply not going to happen. My life is good - has been for quite some time - and the weight loss continues.

Minus 104 pounds.

A thank-you to Johanna for providing me with official "before photos" from April. You can now see the progression from pre-surgery to almost current at the webpage... :)

So, there was a request for a photo with more form-fitting clothes...

Just to show the difference that clothes can make... this photo is only 5 pounds lighter than the previous. But because the clothes fit better there's a dramatic difference in my appearance. Whoah! :)



And thank you goes to Jeri Lynn for the loan of a pair of jeans that actually fit!

Current weight: 205.

I'm beginning to feel a bit better about how I look. :)

I've in-grown all my pants, again. I'd gotten a few pairs from a support group clothing swap, but they're too big now, as well. That's wonderful, of course, but it does make it difficult to find something to wear every day.

My friend Shirley delights in pointing out that I have a waist again. *grin*

Yesterday I got on the scale and it had dropped *another* 2 pounds to 207! And this morning, another half-pound. So for whatever reason, my body decided in the last week that it wanted to start letting go of the weight it hoarded for a month or so... that's fine with me. We'll see how long it lasts. :)

I got my hair cut today - I had to, it's so thin and brittle. Parts of it are damaged, even with as careful as I'm being, and I needed to get it all evened out.

I came home with a product my hairdresser recommended: Nioxin. I got a starter kit with the Bionutient Actives Cleanser, Treatment, and Scalp Therapy. I dunno how much, or if any, it will help... but I can try and and see. Yesterday I asked another friend who went through WLS several years ago how long her hair loss lasted, and she said about 6 months. Ugh. So I've got to take care of what I've got.

Today's weight: 209.

I'm 5 months out and I don't drink carbonated beverages. They stretch my pouch, I don't like the way they feel, and my surgeon recommends not drinking them. So I don't. :)

I have to admit missing them, however. But I've discovered something I can drink. I take a plastic bottle of Diet Dr Pepper and shake it up, then carefully release the fizzy without letting it foam out. I do that several times until it's mostly uncarbonated, and then I can drink it.

No, it's not the same as before, but it still tastes pretty good. :) And Dr Pepper has less carbonation than Diet Coke and such, so it works well.

The scale is in some ways my lover, in some my enemy. It had barely budged in recent days, but a couple of days ago had slipped down two wonderful notches. This morning I got on in it, expecting to see the non-move that I've become accustomed to... after all, day before yesterday must've been a fluke.

And it went down two more pounds. I have, as of today, lost 90 friggin' pounds since April 7th. Holy crap. It's hard to believe. I started at 301 and I'm now at 211. In only 12 more, I'LL BE UNDER 200.

The last time I weighed anywhere near this was in 1991, right after my divorce. I was depressed as hell, couldn't afford to buy much food and was using food banks, making $5 an hour at a temp job, and had to walk many city blocks uphill downtown at 5am every morning to get to that same job that I felt lucky to have. I lost a lot of weight. I remember that I started at around 235 and got down to 198, but no lower.

This time I'm far from depressed, have resources to purchase food but dont need much, have a job that's flexible and pays well when I'm working, and am happily married to a wonderful guy who is perfect for me. And I'll be going much lower than 198.

Life is very, very good. :)

So... the weeks go by, and life goes on. :) A friend took a good picture of me yesterday and so I've made it into my newest icon. Looking at the three icons I have right now - my before pic, at 18 weeks, and now... frankly, I think the pic at 18 weeks looks as if I weigh less than I do now. *shrug*

I had another stall for a couple of weeks. Yesterday I'd finally lost another pound, so now I'm down to 214 lbs. That's... let's see... 87 pounds down. It's an accomplishment, but I'm still fat. I'm used to the way I look now - but to be honest I don't really like it. I don't think I'll be happier with the way I look until I get down around 180 or 170.

My hair is still falling out. It's very thin and fine (it's always been fine, actually) and I have to be careful when combing it. So much so that I use conditioner after shampooing (which I've never had to do) - otherwise there's twice as much hair left on the comb. I'm still taking biotin and BioSil (which tastes nasty), and it seems to help a little. Dr. S said that it'll grow back in, eventually, thank goodness. I don't know when that will happen, though.

And I now have the hereditary waddle and jowls that run on my mother's side. Saggy skin under my neck and beside my mouth that is not at all attractive. Yuck.

Hope you all are doing well! Sorry I haven't been posting, lately.

Tonight's dinner:

sauteed spinach w/ korma sauce
sauteed tofu

The spinach was a no-brainer. :) Saute spinach, open a jar of my favorite korma sauce and pour some on.

The tofu, though, was a different matter. On the advice of some folks in the vegrecipes community, I decided to try dusting tofu with nutritional yeast and then fry it. I mixed nutritional yeast, garlic powder, Johnny's seasoning salt, and dulse granules, then coated the tofu pieces and sauteed them. Both Mike and I liked it, so it looks like it's a keeper!

Why nutritional yeast? Well, someone else mentioned that - having gone vegetarian - I might not be getting enough vitamin B12. Nutritional yeast is high in B12, and it's easy to cook with and tastes pretty good, so I might as well use it. I've been told that this recipe makes a very tasty "cheese" sauce - not that I need to worry about using real cheese, but I might as well try it. :)

I know it won't be that helpful for those of you who are allergic to soy, but...

Today I found something at Fred Meyer's I hadn't seen before: "sugar free" soy milk. It was from West Soy, and called "Soy Slender." There were two flavors - vanilla and chocolate, sweetened with sucralose (Splenda). The vanilla has 4 carbs w/ 3 grams fiber (1 net carb) for 8 oz, and the chocolate has 5 carbs w/ 4 grams fiber (1 net carb).

I got one of each, brought them home and put them in the fridge to chill, and just brought some out to taste.

For someone who has mourned the loss of drinking milk when I began eating lowcarb four years ago, this is heaven. Yes, it's a bit too sweet to taste like I'm truly drinking milk, but I can overlook that. All I know is that now I have something I can drink that tastes sort of like milk and doesn't taste like I'm sucking down chalk like in protein drinks.

It's good. I'll be buying it fairly often.

It occurred to me that I should probably keep track of what I'm eating. Perhaps some of it might be helpful for other WLS folks. I think I'll link to some of the recipes I've been posting in the vegerecipes community, too, and backdate them. I haven't made them all, but they look good.

Tonight's dinner: Zucchini Pizza. First you make the crust...

Zucchini Pizza Crust

4 cups grated zucchini
2 eggs (or egg substitute), slightly beaten
1 cup grated Cheddar cheese
1 cup grated mozzarella cheese

Squeeze out excess moisture from the zucchini. Combine all ingredients. Press into a 15 x 10-inch greased jellyroll pan. Bake 10 minutes at 400 degrees F. Add your favorite pizza sauce and toppings. Bake 30 minutes more at 400 degrees F.

I'm going to top it with green tomato slices, a few slices of red tomato (there weren't very many ripe ones in the garden today), marinara sauce, and cheese. And probably add in salami slices here and there for Mike. And I'll half the recipe, as well.

I was a bad girl last night - I drank. And too much, to boot. I stuck with liquor that's low in carbs, but still, I hope it doesn't stall my weight loss. I mixed vodka with Diet V8 Splash and a little sugar-free raspberry syrup, grabbed a book and a towel and lounged in the hottub for a long while. It was enjoyable, but the alcohol went to my head *really* fast. I know I had at least one more of those drinks, and maybe a third. Ugh. No hangover this morning, but I don't want to do that again.

I've been losing about a half-pound a day for the last few days. I'm now down to 218 pounds, an 83 pound loss.

I need to get a new icon up soon...

Summer Tomato Salad with Fried Cheese

I'm trying to swing a deal with myself. Mike records a couple of television shows for me during the week because I'm at meetings and such. I'm going to try to only watch the tapes while I'm on the treadmill. That way I make sure to get in my treadmill time, which I haven't been doing nearly enough of.

This morning, though, knowing that I really need to start building up muscle I've lost over the years, I got on the treadmill and watched last night's tape of (yes, I know) Big Brother. Fifty six minutes later, I've done two miles.

Gotta go shower...

But it feels good. I'm tired, my muscles are twitching, but I feel good. :) And I was down another pound (to 219! I'm a teen-pounder! That's 82 lbs down.) this morning, which is a nice bonus. Matthew and I went on a long walk at the Ballard Locks yesterday and that probably helped.

(Back after the shower...)

Today I'm wearing purple paisley jeans. *laughing* They remind me of Llyra. :) I'm surprised they fit me, since I tried them on right after the swap on the 23rd and I couldn't button them then. Huh. *grin* Cool.

Oh, and the other thing that's happening - as predicted and experienced by most other WLS patients, my hair is beginning to fall out. It really started the week of my appointment with Dr. Simonowitz a couple of weeks ago, and he asked me if it had begun. When I said that yes, it just had, he suggested that I take zinc. Most other WLS patients have said taking a supplement with biotin works well, so I went to the store and got a couple different products. I got some 5mg capsules of biotin to take, and the folks at the store suggested a product called BioSil. I just began taking it a couple days ago - I'll let you know how it works. I think I'll probably go ahead on zinc, too.

Chickpea Sandwich Salad

Today I can offically go on the bungee-trampoline ride at the Family Fun Center. *grin* Rafe said the weight limit is 220, and I got there today.

Yay!!!

I'm really enjoying having the fresh veggies straight out of our tiny garden. I'm so glad we planted it! I'm still in the process of perfecting how I like my fried green tomatoes... I don't want to have to put batter on them, but getting them mostly soft on the insides with a slight crispiness on the outside is proving to be a learning experience. Working on it. Today I picked one of the large yellow tomatoes because I noticed it had a large brown soft spot on the bottom (I've been told it's "blossom end rot" darnit) - I'm going to cook a slice of it to see how it tastes (without the brown bits, of course).

A report on that zucchini bread I made the other night: it is *really* good. Last night Shirley, John, and I (who are all lowcarbers) figured it out and we think there might be 1 or 2 carbs per slice. The whole loaf sliced up into about 12 pieces, and it's very tasty. It's also *very* filling... only a half of slice and I feel full.

On Tuesday I marinated a flank steak for Mike in some soy sauce, a bit of toasted sesame oil, onion, garlic, some unseasoned nonsalt Adolph's, and a bit of Worchestershire. He said it came out very tender and flavorful... in fact, a bit too flavorful because he's very sensitive to salt these days. So we took the uncooked bits out of the mariade and put it in the fridge for him to cook for dinner tonight. I just cut a quarter sized piece off and sauteed it to cook for myself - I haven't eaten meat in a few weeks, but I have to admit that it really was very tender and tasted wonderful.

spinach tamale questions...

Lowcarb Zucchini Nut Bread

Based on another recipe I found online somewhere...

1 cup (scant ) Atkins Bake Mix
1 cup (scant) finely ground almonds
1 1/2 cups granular sugar substitute (Splenda)
3 teaspoons cinnamon
1/4 teaspoon cardamom
1/4 teaspoon nutmeg
2 teaspoons powdered Butter Buds
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon baking powder
1/2 cup canola oil
4 eggs
1 medium zucchini, coarsely grated
1 1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 tablespoons sherry

Heat oven to 350? F. Grease an 8x 4 loaf pan; set aside. In a large bowl whisk together Bake Mix, ground almonds, sugar substitute, cinnamon, cardamom, nutmeg, Butter Buds, salt, baking soda, and baking powder. In a medium bowl, mix vegetable oil, eggs, zucchini, vanilla extract, and sherry.

Pour zucchini mixture into bake mix mixture. Mix well. Pour batter into prepared pan. Bake 1 hour until golden brown, and a cake tester inserted in center comes out clean. Cool on wire rack before cutting into thin slices.

Eggplant Fritters

Smoked Eggplant Salad