HELEN:

  Another A+ day :) I went to the rec center and walked a little over three miles this time (trying to add a lap or two every time I go) and then went swimming and swam a little over a mile.  My husband was supposed to go with me, but he wasn't feeling well so he stayed home.  It was for the best though, because that allowed me to take my time while he was home to get our little boy off the school van.

  After I swam laps I went to the leisure pool (which was refreshingly quiet as the kids were back in school) and I walked in the current channel.  It's an area in the big pool set apart that has jets or something to make a really strong current that you can either walk with or against (obviously against being the best workout). I walked against it for quite a while, so all in all I got in at least two and a half hours of exercise today. 

  I got in the hot tub for a bit to relax before getting in the sauna and then the shower.  A lifeguard came and sat on the edge of the hot tub and talked with me for a while as she kept an eye on the people in the leisure pool. She has a weight problem too.  I had struck up a conversation with her before I got in the current channel and was asking her about the resistance in the current channel and where was the best place to get in it at. I told her I couldn't lift over 10 pounds and was hoping the resistance of the water would give me a good resistance workout without lifting anything.  She asked me why I couldn't lift anything, so I told her about my weight loss and my upcoming surgeries.

  Anyway, she sat on the edge of the hot tub and was talking me about how I was losing my weight and we had a really nice conversation. I told her about all of you :)

  When I got to the locker room I started feeling a little woozy. Thank goodness I had packed some of my son's fruit snacks in my bag, so I ate some of those and then felt fine shortly afterwards so I guess my blood sugar had dropped.

  My eating was right on track and I got in all my water and then some! I got in at least 100 ounces today. I'm sure I burned at least 1200 calories at the gym today.

  Once again, when I came home I was SOOO sleepy I fell asleep in the living room chair and my husband woke me up and told me to go take a nap and he'd watch our son (he's been so sweet lately...) I don't know what it is, but every time I swim laps I come home so sleepy I can hardly stay awake.  So I had a nap for an hour and a half or so then got up and had dinner before we watched American Idol.

  Reaching a milestone on the scale the other day really has me pumped and super motivated. I sure hope it continues! ;)  I avoided the scale today in an attempt to not weigh in every single day, but I plan to get on it tomorrow.

  Also, I had really bad pain in my shins still this morning, but made myself walk through the pain.  Right now they're pretty sore still, but not as bad as they were when I came home from walking and swimming on Monday.  I wrapped my lower legs pretty snugly with ace bandages before I walked. I think wrapping them tighter than I was helped support my shins or something.  I'm thinking about going to a foot doctor to see if he can recommend something (perhaps orthotics or compression stockings or something) so when I walk I'm not in such pain that night and the next day.

  Last night before I went to bed I downloaded several podcasts by Jillian Michaels and put them on my PDA. I listened to one of them while walking today and really enjoyed it. At one point a caller called in and asked about excess skin, etc. after losing a lot of weight.  Her main advice was to love and accept your body the way it is because there wasn't a lot you could do about the skin issue other than surgery. Then when she was talking about that, she said if it's really bothering you, TUCK IT BABY :)  It was good to hear she wasn't one of those people who are against any kind of corrective plastic surgeries (notice I said corrective and not cosmetic...there's a huge difference) :)

  Have a great rest of the week everyone!  I'll probably be up most of the night again as my little boy is up running around and not wanting to go back to sleep...sigh..this is getting to be a bad habit of his!

HELEN:

One thing that I forgot to mention about yesterday's workout is that at first, when I was walking on the track at the rec center, I was frustrated because so many people were passing me and I thought I was really moving right along at a great rate. I passed some people, but so many people were passing me.  At first it really bugged me, but then I started noticing that I was on the track a lot longer than the ones who were passing me were.  They'd go around maybe 6-7 times and I went around 36 times (it's 12 laps for a mile) so that made me feel a lot better about it.  I'm in this for endurance, not speed and endurance will get this weight off me where short bursts of speed will burn mainly the carbs that I've eaten and not so much the fat.

HELEN:

I get a big fat A+ for yesterday! AND I had a terrific weigh-in on the scale this morning. I'm at the exact weight my surgeon had wanted me to be at at my appointment with him about two weeks ago. Yesterday when I got on the scale I was up a little but this morning (after a super intense workout at the gym yesterday) I'm down 3 pounds since yesterday. I about did back flips off the scale when I saw the number LOL. I shouted "thank you Jesus!!" lol  The holiday gain is gone and it took a friend with it ;)

  Yesterday I went to the gym and listened to my playlist on my pda while walking on the walking track and walked 3 miles for one hour then got in the pool and swam one mile in exactly one hour. The last time I swam a mile it took an hour and fifteen minutes, so I beat by time by fifteen minutes. My heart rate monitor showed I'd burned just a tad under 600 calories with my walking and since I can't wear my heart rate monitor in the pool and I worked as hard in the pool as I did walking for the same amount of time, I'm estimating I burned at least a thousand calories in exercise yesterday.

  Also, I did wrap my calves for compression again before I walked (to try to stop any water retention) but I forgot to wear the abdominal binder that I wore the last time I walked five miles.  So with my weight down this morning so well, I'm assuming I won't have to worry about the abdominal binder and just keep wrapping my calves, which is great because I don't mind the calves,but the abdominal binder is annoying. I'll be wearing one of those long enough after my hernia repair/abdominoplasty, so I'm glad I don't have to wear one till then :)

  Yesterday was a super busy day, as my Mondays always are and for some reason every time I swim I get SO sleepy early on at night, so I went to bed before my husband did last night.

  I think getting in the pool and having my legs kinda elevated as I swam after that walk helped keep the water retention at bay too.  Then after the swim I got in the hot tub and soaked for a bit before getting in the shower and going home. I think the bubbling hot water helped the circulation some. My shins and my feet are really sore from the walking, but I think if I do that every other day that by the morning of the day I'm about to walk again, it should be bearable.

  Also, an NSV is that the rec center was PACKED with kids yesterday since they were out of school for Martin Luther King day. I swim laps in the competition pool and there's usually only adults there unless there's no schooll that day (I go during the day when they're in school) but there's a diving board there, so when there's no school the kids like to dive off the board. I had a lane to myself, but the splash of the water from the diving made my workout a little more intense, but it turned out to be a good thing because I pushed myself to not let it stop me.  Also, the hot tub is next to the leisure pool in a big room apart from the one the competition pool is in and there were TONS of kids and their parents in the leisure pool.  I remember when I would have avoided the leisure pool like the plague in a situation like that, but I walked in, took my towel off and got in the hot tub and decided I didn't care if the kids saw me or not.

  So all in all, huge progress yesterday :)

KELLEY:

January 18, 2008
Glorious Creation
            On the way to lunch today, I heard the song by the David Crowder Band entitled Everything Glorious.   It has always been a favorite but I think for the first time I really heard the lyrics today - You make everything glorious, and I am yours what does that make me?
            That really made me think especially since I was a little down this morning.   I weighed 222.1 on Monday and had 6 workouts planned for the week Monday - Sunday.   I have been eating between 1500 – 1700 calories a day and burning at least 400 during each workout session. Today will be my 3 rd session of the week so I am going to fall one short but 5 is still excellent.
My weight Tuesday - yesterday was fluctuating between 222.5 – 223.7, still never back down to the 222.1.   My sodium intake has been a little over 1500 mg a day but not much.  1 teaspoon of salt is 2000 mg so I am trying to figure where the weight is coming from.   If it is water weight how?  I know some carbohydrates cause your body to hold water but I haven't eaten any more than usual.   The final straw hit this morning on the scale 225.6 and I know my salt was in a good range for yesterday.  I am drinking more water than usual today and eating potassium rich foods to try to see positive results at weight watchers in the morning.   I would rather not go to the meeting than see a negative result at that scale tomorrow.  But I will go and face the music even if my scale doesn't cooperate before the meeting tomorrow.
Then, I started thinking is my body trying to kick itself into starvation mode because of the exercise burning so many calories.   Counting this past Sunday, I have already worked out 3 times in 5 days.  I am going to make an effort to eat a little more when I burn so many calories working out to keep that from happening.
All that said to get to this point; I was gloriously made by God who had a plan and purpose for me.   My body is the temple of God but for many years I used it as a garbage dump.   I am working toward making my body what He wants it to be but until that final masterpiece is created I am a work in progress.
If I don't see the results I want on the scale and know in my heart I have done all I could and given it 150 percent from my getting up to my laying down, that is all I can do.   Instead of beating myself up wondering why or what if be proud of the strides I have made towards being the person God wants and getting as healthy as possible.
Kelley

HELEN: 

I have an NSV (non-scale victory) to report :)

  I've gotten in such a habit over the years that when I go swimming, I wear a pareo around my waist (a cover-up wrap) till I get to the water's edge then pull it off and get in the pool really quickly.  The bath towel never covered me up well enough and it's just become a habit along with wearing a removable swim skirt till I get in the pool at least.

  Today, I got out of the pool and was about to put the pareo back on and decided to dry off first. I dried off and had the towel around my waist and it completley went around my waist and covered everything up without a gap :)  That's BIG STUFF for me! lol It's HUGE :)

  So now I'm planning to forget about the swim skirt or the pareo (unless I'm just wading in the leisure pool with Evan or something) and just wear the towel to the edge and get in the pool and put the towel back around me when I'm done till I get to the shower.

  It feels great just to be covered by a normal towel for a change LOL (granted, a bath sized towel, but a normal one lol)

  Oh, and I say normal because I have this huge "towel" that I concocted when I was swimming at the Y before my stomach surgery that's two bath size towels sewn together to cover me up. Not sure where that is, but I need to find it now and unsew it and use it as two towels now!

HELEN: 

  My family and I have gotten on a kick of going to the library once a week or so here lately.  Last week I checked out Richard Simmons' autobiography, "Still Hungry After All These Years".  I've been riveted to it and am about two thirds of the way through it. I love working out to Richard Simmons' Sweatin' series of workout videos.  A lot of people make fun of Richard, but I think he's awesome.

  I can so relate to a lot of what he shared in regards to his dad and being made fun of in school.  He shares how his dad was very critical of him growing up and that he felt he could never do anything that made his dad happy no matter what he did or how successful he was. His dad had a terrible temper and his mother tried to comfort him through it all.  Also, Richard's grandfather (his father's dad who he had never met) was a Christian minister, as was my grandfather (both grandfathers in fact).  Richard's mother's family was Jewish and there's a family legend on my mom's side of the family that her mother's family had a Jewish heritage (which I'd love to find out if it's true or not but I can't seem to get to the bottom of it after much research). He discussed being made fun of and harassed so terribly in high school by a boy (among others) he called Moose.

  But anyway...reading his book has brought up so many memories of growing up with my dad and feeling the same way as well as the issues in high school (in my situation I wasn't made fun of by a boy named  Moose, but rather made fun of being called Moose by another chubby kid).  My dad was a very large man and I think it was his attempt to try to get me to not turn out the way he did, but his method of discipline was through shame.  Instead of encouraging me in a positive way to try to eat more healthy and get more exercise, he'd shame me and tell me things like I'd never amount to anything as long as I stayed big and that I had "such a pretty face if only..." (boy don't we all know that line...) He'd tell me I'd never get married or have a good life as long as I stayed so fat, yada yada.  He was very controlling and had a very serious problem with his temper. My mother always tried to make peace between us and she was caught in the middle way too many times.

  BUT he loved me.  I knew that. I just always wished he'd love me consistently and not tell me in one breath "You'll never amount to anything" and "You can do anything you want to do if you just put your mind to it."  He'd be very loving one minute and the next I could do nothing right and he'd be talking about me to other people like I was the worst person on the planet and how disappointed he was in me.  I grew up in a very small house and I remember many nights when I was in bed, listening to my dad talk to my mom in their bedroom about how disappointed he was in me and I'd cry myself to sleep.  But, with the mixed message staying consistent, other nights I'd hear him praying to God to reach me so I wouldn't go through what he did.

  I don't share this to put my father down. He was a good father in that he took care of me for a lot of years, put food on the table, clothes on my back, took care of my physical needs and at times told me he loved me.  The mixed signals were very difficult to grow up with.  It took me into my early thirties, just before he died, to make peace with him in my mind and realize that my dad was a victim and had his own person demons of morbid obesity he was dealing with.  He had a LOT of pride and it just killed him to be home-bound in the last 15 or so years of his life due to his weight and health issues resulting from him not taking care of himself. 

  I've come to feel sorry for what he went through with his own struggles with his size and to recognize that he didn't want me to go through what he did and his shame tactics were his attempts to get me to not go down the same path he did.  How badly I wish my dad could have realized that his plan was seriously backfiring.  Instead of making me inspired to not follow his example, the shaming made me seek comfort and the shortest route to a place of comfort often is the kitchen, as was my case.  That continues to me my biggest struggle with food to this day.  I can resist it well when things are going well or are at least stable. But when things go to pot, to food I turn for comfort.

The rest of this blog entry is a copy and paste from a post I had on my old blog site and I thought I'd share it here for a little background info in case anyone is interested for whatever reason :)

Paste from my June 27, 2007 blog post:

So I watched a show tonight on the TLC channel called "The World's Heaviest Man" about a man who weighed over 1200 pounds and at the end of the show he'd gotten down to 840 pounds or so using "The Zone" diet. The creator of the diet visited him a few times and covered his expenses for it all. It was so sad to see what his eating habits has gotten him to. The worst part was these two huge growths of lymphedema on his legs that kept him from walking once he got to 840. His skin was stretched and black (he was a latin man, so his skin wasn't supposed to be black) and it was seeping and infected and scaly and just nasty. It was basically enormous fat deposits and its a wonder he didn't develop a bigger infection than what he had from it!
My dad died of septic shock after a big growth he had under his stomach that hung between his legs (that was a lot like what the guy on the show had on each of his legs) burst.  Infection set in and took over his body and killed him at the age of 64 in 1998, and he wasn't half the size of the man on that show (my dad was a little over 500 at his highest weight I think).
My dad died without seeing me get married, build our own home and become a mommy to my baby boy. If he'd taken better care of himself and lost enough weight to safely remove that growth (or better yet had it removed before it grew t the size it had), he'd be here with us now to enjoy his youngest child's (me) family and he could have walked me down the aisle when I got married instead of my brother.
I've learned a huge lesson from my dad's mistakes and I'm wanting to be alive for a very long time for my family.
Anyway....the show brought back a lot of memories of what my dad dealt with and showed me even more why I need to stay on track so I don't put my family through what he did his by neglecting himself so badly.
_____________________________________________________
The most cruel name I was called in high school was "moose". This chubby red-headed kid with a ton of freckles named Chuck M. started that lovely nickname...sigh. He'd stand at one end of the hall and in between classes when the halls were full of students, he'd wait till I walked by and when I got to the other end of the hall he'd start yelling "mmmmmmmmMOOSE!!" and a lot of other teenagers would be standing around with him and laughing their heads off...
I told myself that if I ever saw him alone by himself once I already had my diploma that I was going to punch him in the face as hard as I could. Ironically...the day we graduated, I was in the hall going to my locker to get my stuff and the hallway was empty...all but Chuck. I was SO tempted. Then his dad (I assumed it was his dad anyway) came around the corner to get him and they were standing there together at his locker. I wanted so badly to at least go up to his dad and tell him something like "you should be so proud of your son, listen to the living hell he made my high school years" and explain what he'd done to me. But I just stood there for a minute and looked at him and he just looked back at me and didnt' say a word, but had this look of fear on his face like he was nervous that I was going to get him into trouble with his dad. At first I wanted to tell his dad all about it and then punch Chuck in the face as hard as I could and run away in glee, but something (perhaps some One) held me back and I suddenly just felt very sorry for him. So I just looked him in the eye and turned and walked away and rejoined my family outside to go home to my little graduation party.
I think I realized that for someone to dedicate themselves so much to making my life a living hell for 3 years, someone who'd never done anything to him and never brought this on myself, he had to have been a very insecure and troubled kid who put me down to try to cover up his own inadequacies. I think I grew up a lot that day :)
I often wonder if Chuck ever did and hope he stopped putting people through the hell he did me.

HELEN:

  The surgeon who's going to be doing my ventral hernia repair in April (my new bariatric surgeon who's following up with me now) has a great program and he encourages his patients to also have regular appointments with the rest of his team, being a nutritionist (whom I've seen three or four times now) and a psychologist who helps the pre-op patients be sure they know what they're getting into and us post-op patients adjust to all the changes weight loss brings to us.

  So anyway...I had my first visit with the psychologist today.  He's a super nice guy and it was easy for me to dump all my baggage into his lap.  He said I was incredibly well-adjusted for someone who had been through as much as I have. We talked for a long time and I really enjoyed it.  Ok, well the baggage dumping was a little nerve-racking, but I guess even that felt cleansing somehow.  I'll be visiting with him or his assistant from time to time.

  One thing I'd like to share here from that visit is an analogy he used that really hit home with me today. I LOVE the new gym I've started going to but have been worried about spending the money for it and feeling guilty for wanting to pay for a year's membership when we have so many bills to worry about with my husband's medical bills.  The psychologist asked me if I'd ever flown in an airplane before.  I told him yes, after I'd lost a hundred pounds from my gastric bypass surgery in 2001 I flew for the first time.  He asked me if I remembered what the flight attendants told us about the oxygen use in case of an emergency.  He said "What do they tell you to do if you have a young child with you or someone who can't care for themselves?"  I couldn't remember so I just said "well you tend to them first get them safe and then you take care of yourself".  He said, "no, that's not right."  He said "They tell you to put the oxygen mask on YOURSELF first then you're able to breath easily enough to put the oxygen mask on the other person."

  He went on to describe how weight loss and exercise and taking care of yourself is the same way.  He said in my position of being a care-taker of my husband and our little boy that I'm putting them first, which most of us is taught is the way it should be.  But if you consider the analogy of the airplane oxygen mask, it's a great illustration of how we take the best care of our loved ones when we take care of ourselves first so we're able to care for them better. 

  Needless to say, it was a wake-up call to me and somehow I am going to get that yearly membership to the rec center. I hope those of you who may be reading this have the same wake-up call. 

  Looking back over all the people in my life I've known who have had serious weight problems, a great many of them have been care takers and put themselves last.  I want to be the best wife and mommy I can be, so I'm going to stop feeling guilty for doing what I need to to take better care of myself. At the very least, I'm sure going to start working more on trying to feel less guilty about me :)

HELEN:

Hi Kelley :)

  Those are some great insights about the mind set in your blog!  Ya know, when I was doing really well a few years ago losing weight, a friend of mine who had started trying to lose with me (an online friend) and got off track accused me of being "obsessed", like you mentioned.  I was offended and got to thinking about it and answered back that I was not obsessed, I was FOCUSED.  You HAVE to be focused when you're in a fight to save your life!  If someone has cancer and has to go for various treatments and medical procedures, they get themselves in a place where they make that a priority and it's at the front of their priorities in their life. It's their FOCUS. You would never say that person is obsessed with wanting to beat cancer, would you? No rational person would EVER say that to a cancer patient.  Obesity is an epidemic in America and growing (no pun intended) rampantly. It takes a heck of a lot of focus to beat obesity and it's often a life threatening condition too. So people should really rethink things when they accuse something who is trying to lose weight and get healthy as being obsessed.

  We HAVE to be focused to win this battle. If they want to call it obsession, that just shows either their ignorance of just how serious a disease this is or they are in denial themselves and trying to justify their own lack of efforts.

  If taking my health seriously at last is being obsessed then bring it on :) But at least it's a HEALTHY obsession :)

Hmm...I think I'll post this to the blog LOL

  I'll try to get our measurements up on the site tomorrow. I'm going to the gym earlier than usual tomorrow to swim as we have a loaner car (our car is in the shop) and I have to play chauffeur tomorrow for the family before we can go trade cars and get our car back and get the loaner car back to Enterprise before the time limit is up.

  Keep up the great work!

Hugs

Helen

KELLEY:

January 15:

Visualization and Weight Loss
Weight loss is a mental game and once your mindset is right and you are onboard 100 percent you will succeed.   Visualization plays a large part of that.  You have to be able to envision yourself at your ideal weight.  If you can't visualize yourself at your goal weight you are sending yourself a negative message that it can't be accomplished.    With visualization your mental image of yourself at your goal weight is transferred to your subconscious which begins working on making your body match that mental image.
            Your subconscious mind looks after your vital functions, is the cause of your good and bad habits, controls your muscles, and is responsible for your body fat composition.   My being overweight is a result of years of bad eating habits.  Habits that are the result of many varying factors some I am sure I am not aware of.   By mentally preparing myself to lose weight, I can enlist my subconscious mind in breaking those bad habits.  As an example, I haven't had a diet soda in 24 days.   I have been drinking water 99 percent of the time but also red and green tea along with milk and light juices.  I had at least a 60 ounce a day diet soda habit that I quit cold turkey on Christmas Eve.   My subconscious helped me conquer that as I have had no withdrawal symptoms and not one relapse.  I knew to be the healthiest I could be that had to go and it went with no regrets.
            We need to practice mental imagery everyday. See ourselves at our ideal weight and make the images as real as possible.   Visualize yourself receiving compliments from friends and coworkers or laying on a beach somewhere in that bikini.
            Some would say I obsess too much on the weight, losing it, and always wanting to make the healthiest choices not splurging even during the holidays.   I say that I am doing what is right for me and using my mind to guide me to my final destination.  Once reached it will be a lifetime of continuing my good eating habits and exercise regimen to stay there.
            Weight loss is not a direct route from A to B but in reality a winding path.   Not sure who said this but we need to remember," Life is not a spelling bee where one mistake wipes out all we have done right."

KELLEY:

January 14

I started my workouts back today.  I listened to Jillian's podcasts at work today.   In one of them she said don't say before your workout you are going to have a tough time in the gym today instead stay I'm going to have a KICKASS workout today.
So before I went into Curves today I said I am going to have a KICKASS workout today and I did!   I normally burn 370 calories in 30 minutes but today I burned 450 in the same amount of time.  I really made an extra effort and gave it 110 percent throughout.   I will do the same tomorrow.  I have my workout clothes packed ready to go!
I have been trying new recipes every evening but I have got to be more conscious of my sodium for the day.   I had been staying below 1500 milligrams a day but the last 2 days I have almost doubled that.  Tonight I had pork with sauerkraut and apples along with low fat low calorie biscuits but didn't take into account the salt when planning.   I am sure the scale will probably show a weight gain from water retention in the morning.
I am going to have to be very, very, very, conscious in the future of the sodium.  Tomorrow evening, I am having chili and had a lower fat version of cornbread planned.  I will still make the cornbread but for my other family members, who aren't watching salt, and I will have some low salt crackers instead. Chili has about 450 mg of salt per cup alone and I think that will be a good alternative.   From history, I know that salt really affects my weight day to day because of water retention.  I am drinking over 100 ounces of water a day but even that doesn't help if my sodium isn't kept below 1500 mg.
Water retention just bums me out every time.  I guess I just want smooth sailing from point A to point B without any little blips on the screen.   I have been at this now for 8 months and will continue this lifestyle for the rest of my life. So much has been accomplished in a short time.   I have got to continue to be proud of my accomplishments and realize this is a journey not a destination! Just because the scale is up as a result of water retention, when my eating and exercise have been on the money, it is not the end of the world and it will be gone in no time!

KELLEY:

January 13

   I had a very productive Sunday.  I preplanned all my evening meals and then went to the grocery store and purchased the items that I didn't already have in the pantry.   I didn't preplan my breakfast and lunch as I eat those meals at work. We have a small refrigerator in the office that I keep stocked with essentials and a shelf under my desk with cereals and boxed snack items.
   I started working out again after getting over TOM.  I did a Leslie Sansone Weight Loss Walk DVD.  It is a walk aerobics workout that really gets the heart rate pumping.  I burned 557 calories in 54 minutes according to my heart rate monitor.
I will be going to Curves tomorrow after work.  Beginning this week, Curves will be a 4 workouts a week routine.   I will be going every afternoon except for Thursday, which is TOPS meeting night.  I am contest coordinator so I have to be one of the first ones there so I can get results as people get off the scale.   I am going to make that my off day.
   Saturday is my Weight Watchers meeting and then off to work for 4 or 5 hours.  I am going to make a point of doing a workout video or one of Jillian's circuit workouts when I get home.  Sunday I am going to work out in the morning and afternoon, Jillian's circuit workout and one of my workout DVDs.I do have a Leslie Sansone Evening 1 Mile Walk and Legs workout and if I feel up to it some nights after Curves I will put that in.
   For dinner, I made a new recipe, Vegetable Coleslaw.  I have a new recipe planned every evening this week as I was working on having as many ingredients on hand already to work on reducing the grocery bill some this week.   It is just really outrageous what food costs these days and to eat healthier and cleaner is even more expensive.  If any recipes are just really awesome I will share them.

VEGETABLE COLESLAW
1 cup broccoli florets, shredded
1 cup cabbage, shredded
1 cup red cabbage, shredded
1 cup carrot, shredded
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons relish, sweetened
½ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon dill
¼ teaspoon pepper
¼ teaspoon celery seed
¼ teaspoon dry mustard
¾ cup fat-free mayonnaise
In a large bowl, combine all vegetables and toss.
In a small bowl combine all dressing ingredients.   Toss with vegetables in the large bowl.

   At the Weight Watchers meeting on Saturday, I was up a pound which I attributed to TOM.  Even though I didn't exercise the past week I did stay within my points so I know it was water weight.  That pound was gone this morning and I am sure there is probably still some water weight lingering.   From history I usually have a pretty awesome weight loss the week after so we will see Saturday.
I will end with a motivational quote: The person who gets the farthest is generally the one who is willing to do and dare.   The sure-thing boat never gets far from shore.  Dale Carnegie

HELEN:

When I left the gym this morning after swimming, I went to Walmart to try to find a new gym bag. On my way there, my cell phone rang and it was the plastic surgeon's office calling to schedule me for an appointment a few days before my surgery for the doctor to draw lines on my body where he's going to do the abdominoplasty.  I told her I didn't know the surgeries were even scheduled yet and she said yes, it was scheduled for April 16th, on a Wednesday, and the surgeon wants me in a few days earlier to draw on me :) 

  She said the bariatric surgeon would be doing the hernia repair and when he was done, the plastic surgeon would take over and do the abdominoplasty.  She said they were feeling pretty positive my insurance company would eventually pay for the abdominoplasty because the doctor had deemed it "medically necessary". I asked "is that due to the hernia?" and she said she wasn't sure, just that the doctor had assured us that it was medically necessary.

  So...now that I have a firm date I'm feeling REALLY nervous!  In a good way, but nervous. I'm excited to be getting it all done, but nervous about the length of the surgery and the recovery time as I've heard it's a very painful recovery period.  The scheduler told me on the phone that the surgery would last four hours. Ugh. That made me nervous.  I guess since my dad died of Septic Shock, being in surgery that long scares me a little. But I survived the gastric bypass surgery, which is much MUCH more invasive, and it lasted about that long, so I should be fine.

  That and the whole thing with Kanye West's mom dying from complications of a tummy tuck didn't help matters either :)

  But, I have three months now to try to whittle away as much of this fat as possible so it will be a much more successful surgery, so watch out :)  I'm gonna need all the support I can get! :)