I'm attaching a picture of the amount of food I can typically eat at 8 months out from surgery.
I eat at restaurants very frequently for business and socially so I thought this might be helpful for some of you that have recently had surgery or are considering plication.
I ordered a BBQ chicken sandwich, baked potato and the restaurant serves biscuits. I ate 2 bites of the biscuit before my meal came, about 3-4 bites of the potato and about 3/4 of 1/2 the sandwich. I normally don't eat the bread on top of the sandwich, but I hadn't eaten breakfast and was pretty hungry! I also had 2 bites of banana pudding and 1 vanilla wafer cookie. I was very full and now I have dinner for tonight! :)
I will be posting another entry about my life now at 8 months out later.
Take care,
Jenn
I've had a few people ask about our business.
We design and manufacture plus size clothing. We specialize in 1940s and 1950s vintage inspired clothing. We have dresses, skirts, blouses and are getting ready to launch our bathing suit line.
Most of clothing starts in sizes 12 and goes to size 22/24.
Here is our website, we also sell on Ebay.
http://www.goodrockin-daddy.com/
From April 8, 2011
Yesterday was my 2 month anniversary since surgery and I've lost 30 pounds. The first month I lost pretty quickly and was down about 20 pounds the first 3 weeks. I stalled from Feb. 28 until Mar. 15 and finally lost 1 pound. Over the next 2 weeks, I lost another 3 pounds. So my weight loss definitely slowed down. These past couple of weeks I increased my water intake and my activity level. I have exercised pretty much every day since about mid-March. Even if I go on a quick 20 minute walk with my dog, I do some form of exercise every day. I am usually at the gym for at least 1 hour. My workout routine looks like this: Mon - Zumba (1 hr.) Tues - Walk/Jog (40 min. or 2 milesish) Wed - Zumba (1 hr.) Thurs - Walk/Jog (40 min. or 2 milesish) plus I take a dance class with my husband at night. Fri - Walk/Jog (40 min. or 2 milesish) or Zumba (1 hr.) If I miss the gym I will do a walking or dancing video at home.
I'm very happy and proud of my results. I feel like I've worked hard for my results. I exercise now with purpose. Before surgery (even with my band) I felt like exercise was almost worthless because no matter how much I worked out, I almost couldn't compensate for all the food I was consuming! Now I eat anywhere from 900-1200 calories a day. Somedays I eat more, especially if I eat out (which I do quite a bit for my business) but if I eat out I add in extra activity to try to make up for the extra calories.
I had this surgery to feel "normal" which I didn't with my band. I had difficulty eating healthy food with the band and now I don't. I do eat protein first, I drink Isopure and a lot of water and try to keep my carbs down.
Hope this helps anyone who is struggling or considering WLS.
Take care of you!!
From April 21, 2011
I weighed 250 this morning! I started at 283 about 2 1/2 months ago. Woo Hoo!! I actually decreased the amount I'm working out but I did increase the intensity of my workouts. Because of this I have actually been eating a bit more. I'm in Las Vegas for business so I can't update my ticker as I'm using my phone so it'll have to wait till I return.
I wont be officially working out while in Vegas and I'm going to be eating out a couple times a day so I'll see what happens with my weight when I get home. I'm a daily weigher so it's going to be weird for me not to weigh for like 5 days!! I'll be walking a lot and maybe dancing too so that'll have to count for my workout!
Take care all!! 
From March 30, 2011
I was pretty much stuck most of the month of March. When I went from liquids to mushies I figured I was going to stall for a bit but I increased my exercise to make up for the additional calories that I was getting. During the liquid phase I was probably eating/drinking around 400-500 calories. Once I got to the mushie phase I was eating/drinking about 600-800 calories and now that I'm on pretty much regular food I eat anywhere from 800-1200 calories, depending on the day and my activity level. I was stuck at 260 from the end of February until March 15. However, I stuck with everything that I was doing with my eating plan. I followed my doctor's plan about 95% of the time which includes eating 2-3 oz. of dense protein first, 2-3 bites of potatoes or mushy veg and eating every 3 hours. I kept my exercise level consistent except for 1-2 days per week when I increased my time at the gym by about 10 minutes. I've lost 2 pounds in 2 days this week and I didn't go to the gym at all this week yet! I've been taking 15 minute walks with my dog at night, I did a Zumba DVD in the morning and yesterday I took my son to the museum and we walked around and played for about 2 hours. I was too tired last night to do an exercise video and somehow, I dropped another pound!
So I think the thing about stalls is to remain consistent. If there is something in your diet that needs tweaking, like maybe getting too many carbs or not enough carbs, go ahead and tweak it but following the doctor's plan does seem to work for most people. Of course, I was banded for almost 10 years so I think that has helped me with certain eating rules like chewing food really well and slowing down to eat. The biggest rule that I have a hard time with is not drinking while eating as I get pretty thirsty when I'm eating.
The thing I learned while being banded is that it doesn't really matter how long it took me to lose weight, what mattered was that I had a difficult time keeping the weight off once I lost it. I am more concerned with long-term diet and exercise changes than losing weight quickly. When I lose it, I want it to stay lost!!
Good luck to those of you struggling~
I ran my first 5K today!
I am a slow jogger and can usually run/walk 1 mile in about 17 minutes so I was hoping to finish the 5K in under 50 minutes. I actually finished in 52 minutes but that was mainly because my husband and my children saw me on the sidelines and my 4 y.o. son wanted to run the last mile with me. He ran about 200 yards and then decided to stroll the rest of the way! Then the last 1/3 of a mile he wanted me to carry him! So I ended up carrying a 44 pound 4 year old for 1/3 of a mile - so needless to say I'm very happy with my results!!
The other thing that I kept thinking of when I was holding my son was that he is almost equivalent to the weight I've lost and it was exhausting carrying around that extra 44 pounds!!!
Overall, I had a great day and am super happy that I completed my first 5K.
I'm going to start training for another 5K in a few weeks, then a 10K in the Summer followed by the Long Beach, CA 1/2 marathon in October. 
Starting weight: 284
Current weight: 247
From March 15, 2011
I've been stalled since the end of February and this morning I finally lost another pound!!
I was stuck at 260 and really wanted to be in the 250s but my body wasn't having any of it. I increased my exercise, water intake and protein and that seemed to do the trick! I officially weighed in at 259.0 this morning. Yeah!!
I'm going to Las Vegas in about 5 1/2 weeks and I'd really like to lose another 15-18 pounds by then so I'm going to focus on increasing my exercise slowly over the next month or so. My goal for April 7 is to be 250 but I'm going to try to surpass that.
At the gym I'm currently doing a 10 minute warm-up on the bike, 20 minutes on the elliptical (an increase from 15), and 30 minutes on the treadmill (an increase from 20). I will increase my time on the elliptical and treadmill next week by about 5 minutes. Hopefully, this will help boost my weight loss. I also do walking or dancing exercise videos at home if I don't make it to the gym. I had to take a look at what I was eating also and realized that I was eating a bit too many carbs. My dr. doesn't have a prescribed amount of carbs that I should eat but he does emphasize eating protein first, then any veggies (which I really can't have yet), then unprocessed carbs. I am going to be cutting back a bit on carbs and see if that will help.
