Old Habits Die Hard

I've noticed that a few of my old habits are trying very diligently to sneak back into my life. Since surgery, it's physically impossible to eat more than about 3/4 of a cup of food at a time. If I even try (which I have occasionally), I'm in a LOT of pain until the food starts to digest and move out of my teensy tummy. I've also allowed too many carbs to sneak back in. So I went over to one of my favorite sites, Bariatric Eating and downloaded their nifty food journal. I'm planning on making good use of it for the rest of March and make sure I'm back on track. I've allowed myself to eat without measuring too often, so I'm bringing the measuring cups back out. I've also not brought my own food from home and that is the WORST thing a post-op bariatric patient can do. In fact, I don't recommend it for anyone. If you leave too much of your food to chance, you're sometimes left with having to make a choice between the lesser of two evils. It may be lesser, but it's still evil. :-) This weekend, I'm going to plan out my meals and I'm going to go to the supermarket and get the makings of those meals. I'm going to write down what I eat, and I AM getting back on track. I'm still averaging about 3#/week since surgery, but that's on the very low end of where I should be right now, almost 11 weeks out. I'm losing inches, and I'm excited about that, too, but I need to buckle down and rock my Sleeve!

I made a comment on a group of which I'm a part on FaceBook that the wellness journey is not a race, it's a revolution. It's so true! There really is NO finish line. I have a goal weight and several mini-goals like "be out of the 250s by the end of January", "be down at least 30# since surgery by the end of February"; goals which I have met, by the way. I'm not really sure what my March goal is, yet. I should probably set that, huh? I think that it'll be "start and maintain an exercise program". I've already started one, but it's not really regimented. I also need to add weights ASAP because weight lifting will help build the connective tissue that will help me not look like a sharpei when I've banished all my weight. :-) I do have class two nights/week, but I have the routine that my sis sent me that I can actually do while I'm in class since it's online. ;-) So long as I'm not required to participate in a discussion, I can huff and puff and move my body while I'm listening to my instructor or professor. So there. I'd thought about waiting until class was over on two of the nights (I'm shooting for MWF), but class isn't over until 9PM and if I work out too close to bedtime, I won't sleep.

Okay. So "start and maintain an exercise program, including resistance training" shall be my goal for March. I think it's probably a better goal than any sort of scale-related goal because I actually have control over what I make my body do. The scale? As adversarial as our relationship tends to be... I don't want my goal to fall short simply because the scale hates me that day.

DH & my anniversary is on April 13, which is a little over a month from now. I'm currently wearing a 22W pants and 18/20 or L-XL top. Do you think it's realistic to set a goal of being in an 18W pants by then? The last time I wore an 18W, I weighed about 220#, for reference (I weighed right at 240 this AM). That's my tenative goal, in any case. I honestly believe that if I buckle down and get back with my eating plan AND exercise most days of the week including resistance 3X/week, that 20 pounds is on the low end of what I can drop in almost a month and a half. I guess we'll see. :-)