Haircut

I kind of hate getting my hair cut and coloured because I have never been able to find a good hairdresser that I have liked enough to want to trust with my hair and my $250 (any Melbourne hairdresser reccomendations appreciated!). So I have started to buy those group deal vouchers for haircuts seeing as I don't have a regular hairdresser and it saves me about $200. Obviously it doesn't always work out for the best and I have had a couple of bad experiences, but my inner tight-arse keeps me going back for more.

I had my hair done on Saturday with one of these deals and the jury is out on whether I will go back. The place was ok, the hair cut was ok and it is close to home, so it may be a winner for that last reason. Anyway, talking about my hair is not terribly interesting, but the reason I am posting this on my blog is because the hairdresser took a before and after photo of me and posted it to their facebook page. He seemed genuinely shocked by hair and used the word 'unflattering' at least three times so I knew he was going to hack it off.

Note that I made a rookie mistake and wore my gym clothes and no make-up to the hairdressers because I was going to the gym after. This meant I had to stare at my pasty skin and enlarged pores in an oversized mirror for two and a half hours and shudder with horror. I honestly don't know what I was thinking...

Here are the photos, it may not look like it, but he chopped off a lot of hair. He kept telling me I should weigh myself when I got home because he reckons he took off half a kilo of hair! If only weight loss was always this easy...

What do you think? I am still a bit unsure... Should I get it cut short short next time?

BEFORE

AFTER

Baked Banana Oatmeal

It's getting chilly now that autumn is upon us here in Melbourne, so it is rather unfortunate that I am too fat for my winter jacket at the moment. I am spending every morning and evening shivering at the tram stop and kicking myself for eating chocolate like it was going out of fashion for the last 4 months. Aside from this little problem, autumn is my absolute favourite time of year and, like most things I love, it is mostly about the food.

As soon as it cools down I add oatmeal back into regular rotation for breakfast. Before I had the lap band I thought oatmeal was just slodge for health freaks and now I am totally addicted. It is funny how much your tastes can change after surgery, but it is mostly about seeking out foods that are easy to get down-- especially at breakfast time.

I normally keep sachets of instant oats at work for a quick breakfast, but my other favourite way to eat oats is baking them. In fact, it's almost like eating cake for breakfast... almost. I like to make a big dish of baked banana oatmeal and I have my healthy breakfasts ready for the week. Then I just warm up a piece in the microwave and serve it with a dollop of Greek yoghurt and a drizzle of honey and I am in heaven!

The finished product

Served with Greek yoghurt and honey

BAKED BANANA OATMEAL adapted from Kath Eats Real Food

Ingredients

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp salt
• 1 egg
• 3 bananas
• 1.5 cups skim milk
• 1 tsp vanilla
• 1/4 cups of toasted walnuts
• 1/2 tsp cinnamon

Method

1. Slice two bananas and set aside 
2. Toast ¼ cup of chopped walnuts and set aside
3. Combine the following dry ingredients:

• 2 cups rolled oats
• 1 tsp baking powder
• 1/4 tsp kosher salt
• ½ tsp of cinnamon

4. Combine the following wet ingredients:

• 1 egg, beat
• 1 mashed banana
• 1.5 cups skim milk
• 1 tsp vanilla

5. Pour the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients and mix well

6. Spray an 8 inch dish with oil or line with baking paper
7. Pour half the batter into dish and then top with banana slices
8. Pour the remaining batter on top of banana slices and top with toasted walnuts
9. Bake in an oven at 190 for about 30 minutes

Let It All Out

God I have been really gloomy on this blog lately. I haven't lost weight in a very long time and I haven't taken care of my mind or body. I have struggled with negative thoughts and feeling helpless about a lot of situations in my life. I am sick of feeling this way and I am sure everyone is very sick of hearing about it!

Last week in particular I was feeling overwhelmed by feelings of anger and resentment. I can honestly say I have never felt like this in my life because I have never allowed myself to be angry. I tend to try to keep things nice, not make a fuss or upset anyone. I have never raised my voice or had an argument with anyone in my life. God forbid I feel any real emotions.

Now I don't want to be an angry person, but I think that allowing myself to feel angry last week really helped. I acknowledged that life isn't fair sometimes and I have the right to feel angry at the way I have been treated and the situations I have been put in. I felt angry about things that have happened last week, things that happened last year, things that happened ten years ago and things that are going to happen in the future. I came on this little blog and had a rant and I felt the relief that comes with sharing your problems and letting your anger out.

I don't want to harp on the negative or wallow in my anger and self-pity because I know that won't help either. I'll keep trying to work on my attitude to get back to a place where I have a will to succeed and be happy again. I have gone almost a week without a binge now and I even went back to the gym for the first times in months over the weekend. I am still quite some way from feeling like my old self, but if I can just take it bit-by-bit, I am hoping I will get there eventually... Meanwhile I am watching The Voice and it's almost making me cry so maybe I am going too far with this touchy feely emotional stuff!

If You Can Pinch More Than An Inch...

I can't seem to get back into losing weight mode. Aactually, at this point I would just be happy to stop gaining weight. I am severely lacking will power and motivation... as well as feeling exhausted, depressed and over it. I seem to have lost the ability to toughen up and just fucking do it, which is how I lost 50 kilos in the first place.

I have a lot more fill in my lap band now than I did when I first lost weight, but because I am not putting in the effort to restrict myself I am gaining weight like crazy. I wish I could go back in time to the frame of mind I had when I was losing weight and bottle it. I am eating full sized meals and immediately wanting more food as soon as I finish eating. Yesterday I ate a massive piece of lasagne the size of a large dinner plate for lunch and then ate a bag of mini Easter eggs and didn't even feel full. Boy oh boy, that is not good.

Obviously I need to see my doctor and get a fill in my lap band but I realllllllllllllllllllllllllly don't want to go. I have never found a supportive follow-up lap band doctor and I just feel like a big fat failure every time I go for a fill. They seem to think fat people are just stupid and that I could not possibly be aware that ice cream and chocolate will make me gain weight so I have to suffer through that condescending lecture every time. Then when I ask for help in terms of emotional eating problems or finding the right level of fill for my band I just get blank stares. Not helpful at all.

My life is generally not great right now and I think that finding out that I need over $20,000 for my body lift surgery just put me over the edge. There is no financially viable option for me to get the money for the surgery and there won't be for quite a few years. I am beyond crushed and I can't even put into words how important having this surgery is to me. I felt like it was the one thing I could control in my life and the one thing I was counting on to go right this year. So I seem to have taken that disappointment and channeled it into binge eating and self pity. Also not helpful at all.

Things won't get better until I can find a way to adjust my attitude, but I am finding that extremely difficult right now. My plan today is to pinch the massive spare tyre of fat that has developed between my boobs and belly every time I want to eat chocolate. Example below:

Now or Never

What a year. And not in a good way!

Life has been more than a little difficult lately and this was topped off on Monday when my 50-year old mum suffered a heart attack. Luckily she got to the hospital in time and they successfully put a stent in her heart and she is doing much better now. Phew.

So it didn't turn out to be the best week to get focused on eating healthy again, but I have managed to get through so far without too much damage to the diet. I really didn't feel like I had any choice but to stick to the diet because pretty much nothing in my wardrobe is fitting me right now. I also saw a pretty shocking photo of me taken at a friend's wedding on the weekend that keeps flashing before my eyes every time I contemplate that tub of ice cream. I would post the horrible photo for your amusement but I haven't downloaded it from the camera yet and I haven't located the cord since I moved house a few weeks ago. That is my excuse and I am sticking to it.

This year has really just been one big binge and my weight is now the most out of control it has been since I originally lost 50 kilos. I don't actually know what I weigh, because that would be too scary, but it can't be good. I have let stress get the better of me and have not even tried to control my eating this year. I honestly wish I knew how some people can cope with stress without eating, but knowing that I had that block of chocolate or pizza (or both!) to come home to after a bad day was really the only thing that kept me going.

Eating (and over-eating) really makes me happy and I enjoy every delicious morsel of it. I love being able to catch up with friends and have wine and cheese or dinner with family without having to worry about my diet. I love having cake at morning tea at work or lunch out with colleagues or a 3pm sweet fix to get me through the work day. I love brunch on weekends, popcorn at the movies, hot doughnuts at the market, fancy restaurant meals, greasy take aways and a box of choccies while I watch my favourite TV shows.

I guess I just have to remember what it feels like to look like this...

And what it feels like to look like this...

I feel like I have reached that crucial point where I know that if I continue what I am doing now I will wake up and be 130 kilos again... or I can make a change now. No matter how hard it is, I am determined to make that change before it is too late.

Non Scale Fail

Before I went on holidays I did my usual panicked last minute shopping trip to find some clothes that actually fit me. I dragged AJ along to carry my bags and stop me from having a tantrum in the fitting rooms. Turns out he was not the ideal shopping partner...

Me trying on a top and having a size small fit me (only because it is intended to be worn very, very loose)
ME: This is what us weight-loss bloggers call a NSV
AJ: What???
ME: It's a non-scale victory
AJ: You bloggers are strange

5 minutes later I tried on a size 18 shirt that didn't come close to buttoning up
ME: Damn it, stupid freaking shirt doesn't fit
AJ: Is this what weight-loss bloggers call a NSF?
ME: What???
AJ: A non-scale fail
ME: Get fucked

Woe, Is Me

Do you ever feel like it is hard to catch a break? I am having one of those weeks...

• On Monday I returned to my old job where I have to take a $20,000 pay cut.
• Tomorrow I have to move house because my landlord sold my apartment. I am moving into another apartment in my block that is not as nice as mine (goodbye walk-in-robe and double shower) and costs more in rent. This involves taking all of my stuff up and down 3 flights of stairs.
• Yesterday I suddenly couldn't walk because of the strain from my plantar fasciitis, I have been limping so bad for the past 6 months that I gave myself a stress fracture and have thrown my hip out of alignment. I now need very expensive orthotics that my healthcare does not cover and I can barely walk.
• My family home is in that little town that Australians may be seeing all over the news right now as being badly flooded. We are outside of the levee system that was built and cannot get access to the property to see what the damage is because we were all away in Byron Bay when they blocked all the roads.
• It is a public holiday here on Monday and I work for a university so we do not get the day off and we do not get paid extra to work.

Woe, is me.

I am a firm believer that happiness does not just come to you, you have to work for it. So I am not going to dwell on these things and instead try and focus on how great it is to be back working with my old team, how moving is a great opportunity to get organised and that soon my foot will be fixed and I can walk pain-free again. Oh and my sister-in-law (see below) just bought me a delicious 'get well limpy' present from koko black.

So while I spend the next few days packing boxes and eating pizza on the floor, here is a photo of me and the bride to keep you entertained.

HOME!

I'm finally home again after a 40 hour return trip to Byron Bay for my brother's wedding. It was a pretty crazy trip with lots of driving, storms, humidity, family drama and wedding preparations.

I'm now in my happy place on the couch with my doonah, listening to the rain fall outside and catching up on all the shows I taped while I was gone (Extreme Couponing, Tori and Dean, Sister Wives, Kourtney and Kim). Not to mention a healthy dose of chocolate to keep me nourished. Bliss.

I will bore you to death with photos soon, but for now, here is a photo of me in my bridesmaid dress showing off the amazing tan marks I got to compliment my one-shouldered dress. You know me, I just love to stand out...

The Saggy Bridesmaid

I went with the other two bridesmaids to have our dresses altered last Thursday night, hoping we would have enough time to get them fixed before we all this leave for Byron Bay this weekend. Turns out the alterations were going to be slightly more complicated for me than I had hoped. A reminder that this is how the dress currently looks...

You can see that it is way too big at the top, but it is also about an inch too big around my middle as well. This is what happens when you order your dress from China and you have a strange body shape. The other bridesmaids dresses fit them perfectly (they just wanted to get them taken up a little). We had great difficulty taking my measurements to send to the China manufacturer and so the dress came out a little wonky on me.

My first problem was that when we were taking the measurements we couldn't find my waist. It is supposed to be the smallest part of your torso, but I have absolutely no waist and we couldn't find a place where my body curved in at all. So we then had to google different ways to find the placement of the waist and settled on something about a certain number of inches above the belly button and below breasts or something confusing like that.

Next problem... breasts. We all took our breast measurements (isn't girl time fun...) and then compared the numbers to make sure they all seemed correct. My fellow bridesmaids are a rather chesty bunch and they all screwed their faces up and said 'wha..?' how come your chest measurements are the biggest, when you have the smallest boobs out of all of us? So then I had the pleasure of explaining what back and side fat is to them... More joy.

So, despite my best efforts to send accurate measurements, my dress still needs some major revision. I spoke with the tailor on Thursday night and she kept screwing up her face and couldn't work out what was wrong with it. She said take it in she would have to re-make the entire dress and it would be too costly. Sigh. She put some pins in and said she would do the best she could, but that it would still be too big.

Next the other girls tried their dresses on and it was like the tailor had a light bulb flash up on her face. She asked me to put my dress back on and showed me the problem... Basically the people making the dress had used the same pattern to make all the dresses, but had not made amendments to my dress even though "it is twice as big as the other dresses". So they have essentially made the dress in a size 10 and then added some inches of fabric to the sides and that is why it sits so strangely.

Once again, there is not much she can do about it, but she did take pity on me and added some more pins and promised she would do her best to make it look like the other dresses. So unfortunately my dress is going to look like a bit of a sack on me. I think it would improve if I had a cute little belt to bring me in and give the appearance of a waist (like the pictures below), but the other bridesmaids were not feeling this idea.

The good news is that I now feel absolutely no need to diet because the dress is going to be too big for me anyway... hello carbs, oh how I missed you! Work is a much nicer place with some sugar in the afternoons.

The Band and Anxiety

I have had a terrible time getting food through my band since Christmas when my anxiety levels seemed to increase. I have had bad days where a sip of water takes a couple of minutes to go down and the occasional good day where I will be able to eat my dinner in a reasonable time (1 hour). It has been a bit of a nightmare and left me feeling very hungry and frustrated a lot so I admitted defeat and went to see my doctor for an un-fill last Tuesday afternoon.

Given how tight I was I really wanted 0.4 - 0.5mls out, but my doctor was reluctant to give me too much out so I settled on 0.3mls, which now gives me 5.6mls in a 10ml band. So far it seems to be helping and I have been able to get more food down, it is still a bit of a struggle, but hopefully it will settle down soon. I know all of this fill level stuff isn't very interesting, but I mostly blog it so I have a record because otherwise I will forget.

Mt doctor is a bit 'wham, bam, thank you mam' and normally shuffles me out the door pretty quickly, but I made a point to ask him if he had any suggestions on how I could try and get to the 'green zone' where I would be satisfied by small meals, not getting stuck on food and losing weight (wouldn't that be nice!). I told him that I had been banded for almost 3 years and have never felt like I was in the green zone and it was a constant struggle. I was wondering if I was doing something wrong or if I was just confused about what being full felt like anymore.

Unfortunately he didn't really have any answers, he just said that the band works for some people and not for others. He did mention that he thought my ongoing anxiety problems could be causing the band to tighten a lot throughout the day and could be why I have trouble getting food down, but not feeling full. I do have quite bad anxiety issues and the smallest things can set me off into such a spin that I know to not even try and eat for a few hours. I guess these issues may have been affecting my band even more than I realised. There really isn't too much I can do about it, but maybe I can try and stop beating myself up so much for not being able to get my band to a level that helps with my over-eating.

I am trying to address my anxiety problems, but it hasn't been an easy road. My doctor tried me on 3 different types of anti-anxiety medication last year over a 6 month period and I had SEVERE side effects on all of them. The only other thing they could suggest was to set me up with a psychiatrist who could try a cocktail of medications that might work for me, but by this point I was so sick from the side effects that I had nothing left in me to try anything else. I am still picking up the pieces, so I am not sure I'll ever try medication again... maybe when I am feeling stronger-- of course this is not to say that my views or experiences should influence anyone else!

Does anyone feel like their anxiety/depression messes with their band???