Again tomorrow! I always have this feeling late Sunday where I start wondering what exactly happened to the weekend. It never ever seems to be long enough. Alas, that's the way the world turns right?
I know I haven't been as diligent on here as I was promising and wanted myself to be but I figure the sporadic update is better than none at all. I had a fill on... ok it was like two weeks ago on a Tuesday and I don't have a calendar in front of me, the 14th or the 15th maybe? I was disappointed yet again to see the number on the scale go up, up and away. I always feel really confident when I go in that this month I have gone done. I need to step back for a second though cause I did go down from my August fill, just not as much as I would have hoped for or expected. So in the 5 weeks between my August and September fills I lost.. drum roll please... 2 pounds. I felt bad for the nurse cause I was sitting there really upset almost in tears I just don't understand! I really need to start journaling my food. I think that my solution lies there. So starting tomorrow morning. Food journal comes back out and I'm gonna get another appointment with the dietitian to go over it. I just read a recent blog entry of Amy's and while I whole heartedly agree with what she was saying about not comparing your weight loss to others I'm struggling with that right now. My surgery date was March 7, its been nearly SEVEN months and I have only lost a whopping 7 pounds since before the pre-op diet. I keep going up and down and up and down. I knew this wasn't going to be easy, but I thought it would help me out a bit more.
On top of making a deal with myself to keep a food journal, I've got to increase my exercise. The easiest way I can think of to do that right now is to get on my Wii Fit EVERY morning for a half hour before work. I know that if I leave it for the afternoon I won't do it.
So those are my two short term goals right now: food journal, and exercise. I'll try to update everyone soon.
~Les

I'll write more in detail soon.
I've been feeling much better restriction these days but still feel as though at the next appointment a little top up would be nice.
As for the housing sitch, I've pretty much decided to buy my own place. I've gone to the bank, met a realtor and even looked at a few places. Now I just have to find the right place in my price range. It might not be in time for when I'm booted out of my current abode but I figure that if I need to wait until next fall I can rent a place close to work for pretty decent and still save some more to get the perfect place. I work right beside a teaching hospital so there are always the Res. rooms there or plenty of little old houses that rent out rooms.
Went out to a stagette last night. Had a few Sangria but not sooo many that I was feeling ill. Actually I did kind of feel shitty in the cab on the way home but when you haven't had anything to drink in quite a while I guess 3 could be a little much. I had a blast though. We went for dinner at the local ball diamond where you can sit on the patio, eat, drink, and watch the game. Then we were off for a cruise on the paddle wheel queen down the river. That boat was pretty quiet but the crowd that was there was tons of fun. I wasn't expecting the "bubble" machines. Not the cute ones that blow bubbles into the air though, ones that filled the entire dance floor with bubble bath-esque foam. It sure made for an interesting night. I think the 3 hours of dancing burned off any calories I may have over indulged in during the dinner and the drinks.
Well this isn't as short as I intended, so much for the quick update, I guess you're getting the whole thing now.
Did a quick weigh in at home this morning. I'm down! Yippee! I've really been trying to stay off the scale as I was finding that I was obsessing over the number, not how I felt.
Les

So up until recently I've been blissfully and ignorantly living at home with my parents. I know what you're saying "You're 24 you should be out on your own already." I totally agree. Thing is I've got this dog I can't bear to be separated from so while I'm living at home I've been saving away my money so that when I find the right place I can by myself a house. But life never quite goes according to plan now does it. A few months ago my mother was laid off due to "restructuring" so she has happily taken a bit of an early retirement. My father will be six next fall and in fall 2010 they plan on fulfilling their lifelong dream of retiring at the cabin. My mom has a job lined up at the local community college just 20 minutes from the cabin to supplement her income since she will not be of age to collect a government pension by that time so things seem to be happening just fine for them.
Where does that leave me though? While I'm happy for them and that they are going to do something they always wanted. I have by no means saved enough money for a down payment on a house. The housing market here is still ridiculously high compared to the trends realty has taken in other parts of the country. A house you could buy in Windsor for say $80,000 is going to cost you more like $140-160,000 here in Winnipeg. So I don't qualify for a mortgage. Another thing about Winnipeg, good luck finding a place to rent if you have pets!! Probably the worst place in the country for this. It's flat out refusal for pets of any sort, unless were talking a goldfish or something. Sometimes they might, just might allow a cat. Other cities realize that this is unreasonable and allow most renters to pay a larger damage deposit in exchange for pets in the space. No problem, I would totally do this in an instant. I'd put one months rent down as a damage deposit in order to get a place but they just flat out refuse any dogs. Now, I technically don't have to be out of the house until March or April when they will be listing but lets face it, I'm better off looking while there isn't 6 feet of snow on the ground making moving a less than easy affair. Also there are more places coming up right now due to university starting up soon and such. I can't afford to rent a house on my own either I've learned now so I'm trying desperately to find a room mate, and its not going so well. As in the one person I knew who was looking to move out and once mentioned that we should rent together has in the mean time mentioned the same thing to two other friends and now feels obligated to them somehow. Whatever.
Basically I'm just really lost, confused, nervous, scared and all those other stress related feelings right now. This undoubtedly is greatly impacted by the fact that I'm totally PMSing right now and I am literally crying every time I try to even think about finding a place.
How has this effected my weight loss. I don't even know anymore. I just got back from 2 weeks of vacation where the weather was terrible forcing me inside to laze about for 90% of the time, and I'm PMSing. I had a fill done this Tuesday (I managed to get in a couple weeks earlier than they originally booked me so yipee for that). I got 0.5 mL more put in, bringing me upto 4.75 mL total. I'm actually feeling the restriction quite a bit now. I noticed a difference the next day between 4.25 and 4.75 as opposed to the two weeks it took last time so thats awesome. However, when I weighed in at my fill appt it was a shock to find out that I was up 2 pounds from the previous month. I honestly thought that I'd maintained, if not dropped atleast 1 pound. I'm just not sure anymore what I'm doing wrong. I guess its back to the food journal for me again. I also don't even know if maybe those 2 pounds are just from my looming monthly visit or what.
All around, I'm just a confused mess. This is probably the most depressing post in the history of blogging as far as I'm concerned but I need to put it down somewhere or I feel like I'm going to explode.
That's it, that's all. For now atleast.

I'm headed out to the lake in a few hours so it will be a while before I post again. Well I could technically try since we've got a laptop and dial-up out there but in the time it takes to load a page... well it just takes forever and so isn't worth it.
My middle brother flies into the city about 5:30 and we're picking him up at the airport and heading straight out there. It's the first time he's been back to the 'Peg in four years. Craziness! I saw him last year for a few days I took a little vacay to spend some time in Canmore and Banff. I love it there but just my luck it rained the entire four and a half days I was there. I was so disappointed. I knew that there were supposed to be mountains out there but for the life of me do you think the clouds and fog would part so I could see them? Nope!

So it was a couple days back that this happened already I've just been a little busy, not a good start for getting back into the blogging thing I know.
Ok so here's the deal. I was house/puppy sitting for my neighbours for a few days. While I was there friday evening I poured myself a glass of water sat down and had a few sips. No more than 2 or 4 sips later I was overcome with an extreme wave a naseua. Now whether this had anything to do with having something to drink... I have no idea. The last time I'd eaten was about 4 hours earlier and I don't think it could've been a over eating/sticking issue. Where my issue and the panicing started was "Oh my god, what happens if I puke?" I know they say immediately after surgery there's worry about vomiting with band slippage and stuff, I'm almost five months out now though and the band should be all held in place with scar tissue and all by now right? I did have a slight puking episode the day after surgery and it hurt like hell, would it still hurt that much? So I ended up going home and lying down for a bit and it went away. But in the aftermath I was astounded at the level of anxiety this brought me. I was almost in tears on the phone with a girlfriend trying to talk myself down out of the panic. Does/has anyone else experienced this kind of panic related to feeling as though you will be sick while having the band? Will it hurt now that I'm healed or will it still be painful? I'm worried cause lets face it people get the flu or mild food poisoning all the time I'm kind of freaking out cause I don't know what to expect.
On another topic. I'm starting to feel some restriction! YAY! It's been two weeks since I had my fill and assumed that I was just going to have to wait until the next one to start feeling a difference. This weekend out of no where it was like "Oh, hey I only ate about 1.5 cups of food and I'm full." Ideally I would like to be eating around 1 cup per meal which is what I think is recommend so maybe I'll just need a small fill next time around. I'm going to start doing some reading and see what I can find out about other peoples experiences cause I'm surprised that after two weeks I'm just now starting to feel a difference. Strange, or maybe its different for everyone, I don't know.
Well back to doing laundry for me. I hope everyone enjoys what remains of their weekends.

So I thought I should get back on this wagon called blogging.
Life has been well life. If things went smoothly I'd be concerned that something was about to happen to throw a hitch in it.
Band wise things have totally been sucking ass to say the least. I've been recently starting to regret my decision to do this. About 2 weeks after my first fill I started experiencing some extreme back pain. Just to be sure it wasn't band related the good Doc's took out all but 1 mL of my saline. Well turns it wasn't related and it went away just as mysteriously as it started. So I'm now trying to work my way back up to that same level I was at before the un-fill. I was at 4.5 mL, down to 1 mL and now I'm at 4.25 mL. When I was at 4.5 mL I was doing great. Happy with my decision, losing weight, gaining back some confidence. I even hit onderland I was sitting at 195. Now... I'm back upto 205 and not feeling any restriction at 4.25 mL. I'm frustrated, angry, and just freaking pissed off. I have been religously tracking my food and eating high protein meals as advised. I just don't know what else to do. My next fill isn't until August 25 and it just seems so far away. It has now been 4 months and 15 days since my banding and I can honestly say that I have not really lost any significant amount of weight. I'm maintaining my pre-surgery weight but that isn't what I've done this for.
I guess I'm just going to have to start bumping up the exercise more and try to get in for another fill sooner if I can cause I'm totally fed up.
Sorry for those that might actually read this. Not exactly a nice and cheery "I'm Back!" I guess I needed to vent somehow and don't know where else to do it.

Well not really a valid excuse for being a bad blogger (not posting) but I had a wicked cold last week... yes I do realize that this week is almost over.
Things are going really well food wise. My portion sizes I would guess are anywhere from 2/3 to half of what they were pre-banding which is no doubt an improvement.
Work has been really good too, I've had the chance to learn some new applications whereby were using a type of bacteria that we've altered to make a specific protein for us. We can then purify this protein and eventually will use it in a study where we will feed it to rats and measure changes in stuff like total body fat a blood pressure.
Easter is well on its way so I thought I'd give a try at making Paska for the first time. Usually my Babcia (grandma, we're Polish) would make it but it is too much for her now. In case you don't know what Paska is it's a bread traditionally served at easter. It's kind of a sweet bread that has more eggs than a standard yeast bread, it also has raisins and is infused with Saffron. I love Saffron! Everything about that spice is heavenly to me, its scent, colour, taste, everything! A co-worker of mine is from Iran and when she last went to visit brought back a huge bag of Saffron for me ridiculously cheap. If I'm ever kind of feeling a little low I just open up that bag and smell and I'm instantly transported to another world. Anyways, this Paska is rising, again and I hope that I'll be finished baking it by midnight. Totally one of those times where I should've read the entire recipe before starting then I would've noticed the nearly 6 hours of rising time and 16 cups of flour!
I hope that you all have a wonderful Easter and are able to spend time with your loved ones. I know that I'm looking forward to a four day weekend and some possible trips to the dog parks and greenhouse!
Lots of Love - Les