Bariatric Betty's belts, boop oop a doops, and pics from Spring Break

I have returned from an epic Spring Break with my family in Orlando.  We had a wonderful time with less than wonderful weather, and of course - took TONS of pictures.  :)

The first one to show you was on the plane.  I was fortunate that even with a BMI of 43 (morbidly obese) I never had to ask for a seat belt extender on an airplane.  I did, however, probably spill over on to my seatmates, and always needed to use the arm rests.  This was the first time I have flown since surgery and when I sat down I was ASTOUNDED at the room I had in my economy seat.  I expected it to feel less cramped, I didn't imagine it would feel this different.  Being able to put the tray table all the way down without it pressing against my chest, belly, or legs!  When morbidly obese I would have to cross my ankles to keep my legs from spreading out into my seat mate's personal space, and I would wedge my arms against my body to make sure my torso didn't do the same.  Now my only issue is sitting down (with pressure on my tailbone) for the duration of the flight.  I rolled up my coat into a horseshoe shape to sit on, but still had to get up and shift my body several times during the flight from tailbone pain.  So minor an inconvenience!   I tried to think of how to show you how bizarre it felt in a picture and decided on showing you all of the EXCESS belt I didn't need after I fastened the seat belt across my hips....

It's almost as long as my whole arm!

Our first full day was supposed to have scattered thunderstorms and a threat of severe weather, so we chose to go to Universal Islands of Adventure instead of Sea World which had less places to stay dry.  The first couple hours were OK.  We waited in line for 90 minutes to go on the Wizarding World of Harry Potter's "Forbidden Journey" - if you have a family that adores Harry Potter, it's a blast.  Mine think it is OK, but aren't crazy about it, so 90 minutes was a bit much for them.  During your wait you get warned multiple times not to go on the ride if you have a bad back, are pregnant, get motions sickness, etc.  Umm - that motion sickness part?  They mean it.  I do get motion sick, but I figured I HAD to try it.  I mean, it was HARRY POTTER.  And maybe my motion sickness wasn't as bad as it used to be... maybe my surgery might have had a bonus effect..  NOT.  At the end of the ride my kids were scared from the dragon who breathed "hot steam" (water vapor) on them and I had a mouth full of spit and was holding back gagging until I got to the trash can.  Well, I really enjoyed walking through the castle in line, at least! 

During our stroll though Comic Cartoon world, I happened to see Betty Boop, and HAD to get my picture with her.  I always felt that at my lowest weight (starving myself in high school) I was proportioned like her cartoon - freakishly large in the chest and tiny everywhere else.  The funny thing is, now that I'm at a healthy weight, I don't feel like that at all.  And except for the wig, she looked normal, too.  Of course, that is partly because she was a cast member playing a part - not a drawn comic strip - but still I couldn't help thinking 1) "Hey, look at both of us looking kinda normal" and 2) "Is my rack bigger than Betty Boop's?"  OK, the second one wasn't fair - they couldn't put an over-endowed cast member into that tiny outfit at a family park... but it WAS funny.

We actually enjoyed the tame family-oriented rollercoaster "Flight of the Hippogriff" and that was the last ride we went on.  Rain started coming down while we were walking, and while we were debating whether to head back to the hotel or just duck under an overhang to wait it out.  Then the storm started in earnest, with 80 mph winds, thunder and lightening on top of us, and a tornado warning!  We spent the next 1 1/2 hours huddled on the floor of the Dr. Seuss gift shop trying to distract our kids. 

 

Meet my Thing 1 and Thing 2. 

I guess severe weather is good for forcing your family to participate in photo ops!

Back to the hotel we went, and collapsed for the rest of the day.  The next day - and for the rest of the trip - we enjoyed Sea World.  The shows, the underwater viewing areas where you could watch the animals play, the Turtle Trek 360 where you could meet a bunch of rescued animals like Belle - the sea turtle with only half of a shell after a boat hit her and paralyzed her lower half, and the Happy Harbor (aka Captain Kid's World if you're old like me).  It was WONDERFUL.

We still didn't see everything - and we spent 3 1/2 days there!  My now-10 year old son's favorite part was definitely feeding sting rays fish and shrimp.  He spent a good chunk of his birthday money on trays of ray food, and loved how they would come over and "hug" on his arm without even taking the food sometimes.  My favorite part?  OK, get your tissues ready...

When I was 6 or 7 there was a Sea World in the Cleveland area.  My family would go at least once a year, and I loved it.  My favorite part was the Pearl Divers - cute college age girls who would dress up in "traditional pearl diver costumes" and "dive" down in a tank where cultured oysters waited for them.  You could purchase the oyster of your choice and they would open it right there to show you your pearl (which of course, they would be happy to mount on the jewelry of your choice - also available for purchase).  At that age, my dream was to grow up and be a Sea World pearl diver!  How cool were they?!?  I told my boys the story on our first day there and took them to see the pearl divers.  They thought it was cool and encouraged me to buy an oyster.  "Nah.  It's too much money, and then it costs money to get the jewelry, and I would probably want two to get earrings, so that's more money..."  On our third day there, we told the boys that we wanted to treat each of them to a souvenir.  They were responsible for our meal and souvenir budget, and hadn't spent a dime unnecessarily yet (they got to keep the surplus at the end of the trip).  So we told them "We would like to get you each a little something to remember from Sea World, not from the budget - a snow globe, t-shirt, stuffed animal, etc."  They got excited, and then my 12 year old son said "Mom, could we get an oyster with a pearl?"  "Ummm, yeah.  If you want to have a pearl, OK."  I didn't know why they would want a pearl, but whatever floated their boats... "So, Mom, could we each get an oyster with a pearl, and then give you the pearls and then you could get them put into earrings for you?" 

Wow.  Yeah, my boys did that for me.  They used their "free" gift to get me the most amazing/ valuable earrings I will ever own.  I bawled when they said that, bawled when they gave me the pearls, bawled when I put the earrings on... get the picture?  One of the pearls was white, and the other black, so I have a set of earrings that are different colors, which looks very cool.  Here's a close up showing one...

Eating on vacation worked out pretty well.  The Embassy Suites we stayed at had a made-to-order breakfast for free every morning, so I started every day with an egg white omelet.  The rest of my meals consisted of Quest bars, Veggie Burgers (without the bun) that were available at Universal and Sea World, and eating the cheese/ sauce toppings off of pizza.  I actually didn't have a single pouch problem with my food - no throwing up or food getting stuck.  My only problem happened when I drank some crystal light too fast in a taxi.  I got a surface tension bubble in my stoma - the liquid couldn't drain, which caused some pain for a couple minutes.  But, as soon as I could get out of the cab and walked around, the bubbles popped (I belched about 10 times) and I felt all better.  I was a pound lighter than the day we left when I got back.  It probably helped that we were walking all day at the parks!

Some blog-specific news!  I got my first check from AdSense when we got back, and am donating $50 (1/2 of the total) to Caring Bridge - a wonderful organization that has helped several of my friends who have fought cancer and other serious illnesses (all survivors, too!).  Thank you to everyone who has clicked on my AdSense links.

Next up - my first mini-triathalon is this weekend.  Sunday morning at our Community Rec Center, I will join others in a reverse triathalon.  Instead of seeing how fast I can complete a course, they track how far you swim, bike and run/ walk in 15, 20 and 20 minutes.  The people who go the farthest win.  It should be really fun - and exhausting.  I haven't been training for it, so I imagine that whatever my total is this year I can plan on beating it next year :)  I'll make sure to have my hubby take pics to share on the next blog.  Happy Spring to everyone!

Bariatric Betty's Batwings and Blessings

 

A reality of bariatric weight loss (or any huge weight loss) is loose skin.  Our bodies and skin have had to stretch to accommodate too much excess body mass, and the skin can simply not snap back.  It is beyond stretch marks.  It is flaps of skin that must be managed.  For appearances, we learn to stand certain ways (for example, arms are usually down, or at least close to our sides), some enjoy body shapers like Spanx to compress the excess skin around our abdomen, and some have to deal with skin infections that we become prone to with the folded skin.  Think about the care that owners of Sharpei dogs have to put into cleaning the folds of skin on their dogs.  Now imagine that the dogs wear clothing over their folded skin, which traps the dead skin cells, sweat, and bacteria in the folds.  I have been very lucky to have only minor problems with my "skrinkles" as we call them.  No infections.  But still, it has a psychological effect on me.  Every morning I see my flaps around my arms, abdomen, butt, and legs.  Most of the time I find it amusing.  Sometimes I find it awesome -"Wow - that all used to be filled with fat!".  Sometimes I am surprised - "Huh, there's a new fold there!".  Yes, muscle-building and weight training helps give the rest of my body a better shape, but to fill up all the excess skin I have now, I would need to bulk up like a world champion weight lifter/ Popeye. 

I took some pictures of my bicep to give an example.  This is what my arms look like when I'm wearing a bathing suit and my arms are down.

 

 

Pretty normal, right?  And this is what my bicep looks like when I hold it out...

 

I lost about 6 inches around my bicep.  So, I now have 6 extra inches of skin hanging down.  Well, I guess it's three inches folded.  I have the same kind of flaps around my waist that give me a totally different version of a "muffin top".  And then there are the folds under my non-existent butt.  It's so flat it's practically concave now, but has these lovely little folds right under where your underwear stops.  Hee-hee, under where your underwear...  Anyway - those actually give me the most trouble.  They are the smallest flaps of skin I have, but they rub against each other the most when I'm sitting down, squatting, etc - and I get patches of dry skin/ eczema there now.  Oh, and you won't be seeing pictures of any of those flaps ;)

 

I also have trouble sitting down on soft chairs or bucket seats, because the padding that I used to have on my behind is pretty much gone.  My tailbone is now very prominent, and gets very sore.  In a soft seat it is pressed on immediately - I literally can't stand driving in my car for over a 1/2 hour now.  On a hard chair that is flat, I can lean forward a bit and keep the pressure off.  I ended up buying a firm chair pad with a space cut out for your coccyx/ tailbone that I used sitting at our table now, and for longer car rides.  Mostly, I try to think of it as a blessing, because it makes me not want to sit around on my A** that much, so I stay more active!

 

Speaking of blessings, I am happy to say that I have now signed up for a mini-triathalon and 2 5ks in April!  The mini-tri is at our local rec center on April 7th.  Instead of seeing how fast you can run/ bike/ or swim, they time you and you see how FAR you can go in the set time.  15 minutes for the swim, 20 for the bike (on spinning bikes) and 20 for the run/ jog.  It's all indoors, which is a good thing for Cleveland in the spring.  The two 5ks are the 14th and the 27th.  The first is the Cleveland Clinic Health and Wellness Run/Walk here in Solon.  The second is The Color Run in Akron.  I can't believe how my life has changed since bariatric surgery.  I didn't used to be able to run or jog at all, and now I realize I can handle racing two weekends in a row. 

 

I haven't been jogging as much due mostly to bad weather.  A couple of days I have taken advantage of dry ice-free sidewalks and jogged 2 miles, and found that I don't even break a sweat!  Weird, but cool.  We have an excellent rec center with an indoor track that I can jog at, but recently I've been making other choices.  I started doing some upper body weight training, but mostly when I'm there with my kids, I have had to start staying with them in the gym.  My 12 year old pictures himself as a b-baller who can play with the high school boys, and tries to.  Sometimes it works out, sometimes it doesn't.  There have been a couple incidents of bullying, so now when my boys want to play basketball at the rec we sit there and watch like a hawk.  There was one older kid who threatened to whip my son with his jump rope when his basketball rolled over and interrupted his rope skipping.  And there was the high school student who threw the ball into my sons head three times in a couple minutes.  The rest of the time it's great, and we're there just in case we see something out of line and then we can let the rec admin know.  Playing street rules (instead of rec league rules) with people 4-6 years older than you means you WILL be knocked down.  He doesn't quite get that yet, so we're working encouraging him to play with kids his own age. 

 

Luckily, I'm still getting plenty of steps in with walking daily (my job helps with that), and my weight is stable, shifting +/- 2 pounds.  Looking forward to Spring Break, and our first trips to Universal Studios and Sea World!



Bariatric Betty finds fitbit sale!... and other news

OK, this is not my normal post, but my love of my fitbit Zip as a motivator and tool in exercise in weight loss is borderline obsessive.  This morning my mailbox had the new week's sales at Target and I saw that they are selling the Zip for $49!  That's $10 off, people!

If you are looking for a pedometer or just something to motivate you to be more active, I LOVE THE FITBITS!  They wirelessly upload your steps and other information every time you are within 20 feet of your computer (or in the case of the Zip and the Fitbit one, you can also set your smartphone to sync with them via bluetooth).  The Ultra and Fitbit One are souped up versions of the Zip where they also do sleep tracking and counting flights of stairs.  I love the Zip because 1) it's $40 cheaper 2) comes in bright colors so it's easier to find if you set it down and 3) the grip of the holder is much better - I have yet to have it fall off my clothing, unlike it's predecessors!  They all calculate steps, intensity, distance traveled  and calories burned, and all work with a fabulous website that calculates your metabolic rate and lets you log exercise not easily tracked (biking, swimming, weight training).  Best of all, in my opinion, is that the Fitbit site has partnered with www.myfitnesspal.com so that your activity is automatically uploaded in to my favorite food logging/ diary site.

Logging food and exercise is very important in weight loss, but let's face it, it's not fun.  Anything that reduces the effort involved is golden to me. 

OK, this ends my unsponsored ad for Fitbit.  I received no compensation for this - it was just a combo of my love of deals and this nifty gadget that made me want to post it for my readers.  Back to regular programming.
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The last couple weeks have been good.  I'm considering joining a WLS friend for an event in Cleveland called Tackle the Tower.  It's a fundraiser for Ronald McDonald House held at a local upscale mall that is attached to an office tower.  Instead of running a 5k, you run the 38 flights of stairs in the tower.  My concern is my knees, which have always been week and used to pop/ dislocate occasionally in my teens.  They were part of the reason I never jogged/ ran (other than my weight, obviously).  But, as I've seen - things change.  Now I can jog without knee pain as long as I don't run to hard/ fast or too far.  So, I went to our rec center to try the Stair Climber dinosaur machines that look like escalators on steroids. 

Wow.  That kicked my butt.  I've never loved climbing stairs, and my muscles recognized that fact as I completed the 10th "flight".  I started to sweat!  No reactive hypoglycemia this time - I've been back on my regular super-high protein super-low carbs so THAT doesn't happen again.  No, it was a matter of using muscles that I'm not used to using!  I finished climbing 38 flights and stopped, feeling a little achey in my hips and knees.  I waited a few days and did it again, this time doing 40 flights without pain.  I'm still not sure I'm going to Tackle the Tower - climbing up is the hard part, but then you still have to climb back down, and I'm worried that might be too much for my joints...  I'll try it again this week and see how it goes.

My bra size changed again - my whole life I have thought that a "C" cup would be perfect, and imagine my surprise to find that I now fit in (some) "C" cups!  I never wore them before - as a teen I wore a B (skipped A entirely), then went straight to D and then DD.  At my heaviest I was 44DD.  Now I'm a 36C.  Most of my actual breast tissue is gone (it happens in rare circumstances to WLS patients during weight loss), so it's more like I have deflated skin that I stuff in to fill up my bra cups, but hey - once I'm dressed nobody sees those particular battle scars. I'm also hopeful that it reduces my risk of breast cancer, and assume that mammograms will be MUCH easier now.  :)  It's funny, because when I was starving myself to lose weight in high school and was 30 pounds less than I am now it never came off my chest - I stayed a DD.  I didn't have much hope that my cup size would go down.  Now it has.  It has literally lifted a weight off my chest - my back doesn't hurt as much as it used to.  What a blessing!

Next week our family is going to Kalahari - one of the largest indoor waterparks in the world - for our annual weekend visit.  Our school district has a fundraiser that makes the cost reasonable, and allows us to stay in a suite with a full kitchen, which makes eating a LOT easier for me.  I took my "before" bathing suit pictures there last year, and even though I've already posted some "after" ones I look forward to getting new pictures with the family (even if I'm in a swimsuit).

 We're also starting to plan a family trip to Florida - we've been twice before in the past 7 years, and both times we went to Disneyworld and once went to the Kennedy Space Center.  This time we're going to Sea World and Universal Islands of Adventure - one of my sons is into everything water and sea life, and the other loves rides and Harry Potter (almost as much as me).  I found out that Embassy Suites not only had some great deals, but your stay comes with a complimentary cooked-to-order breakfast including eggs and omlettes, so I'll have a bariatric-friendly breakfast each morning.  I'm not as nervous having taken the trip with our extended family to Williamsburg this last summer.  While we won't have the luxury of a kitchen on this trip, I feel confident that I can make do with a bag full of Quest bars - but I'm NOT touching any fruit salad unless I can verify it hasn't been sweetened this time!

I had my first negative experience with straws today.  Many post-ops are warned off drinking with straws because if we swallow too much air it can become very uncomfortable in our pouches.  I've tried it a few times without problem, but for the most part sip out of water bottles.  Today I finished my drink and was still 1/2 hour from home (and a refill) so I got a Light Lemonade at McDonalds.  At first I was fine, but less than a mile from my house I started feeling uncomfortable.  By the time I was pulling into our driveway my pouch was hurting bad enough I was almost crying.  Luckily, just walking around the house dislodged the air bubbles and the pain went away, but it took a few more minutes to figure out what had happened.  Ouch!  But, no damage and another lesson learned. 

A couple of weeks ago I entered a contest with www.tout.com and Zappos where we were supposed to talk about what inspires us - and I talked about my Weight Loss Surgery Support Group.  The contest has ended, and they will be announcing a winner in a couple of weeks, keep your fingers crossed for me!