Monthly Archives June 2012

‘The Girls’ at beautiful Butchart Gardens

What a week this has been! I finished up another wonderful ‘Girl’s Trip’ by going to Victoria, on Vancouver Island in Canada. We visited the famous Butchart Gardens and we were just blown away by the beauty of this place…..a must see if you are in the area.

SIZE 6 JEANS!!!!

One fun moment was when I fit into my friend Kate’s size 6 jeans!!!!!! OMG, I about fell on the floor in shock! Now the honest truth is that I really had to suck it in to get them zipped but it was still a moment that I never thought would happen in my lifetime!!!

MY WORST EATING DAY SINCE SURGERY HAPPENED HERE: We had a little breakfast on the ferry over from Seattle, the usual suspects: CARBS…..muffins, cereal and thankfully they had yogurt. I had the yogurt and a little cereal and of course my beloved coffee…..Protein count: 7. Pretty pathetic. At the gardens we had coffee and a cookie……my eating day was going downhill…. By the time we got back to Victoria and checked into the hotel, we were all really hungry. But there was shopping to do before the stores closed so we waited.

We went to a popular pub – good choice when you want healthy food…..(sure). The four of us then went brain dead and ordered: margaritas, onion rings, French fries, a hamburger, corn dogs, and battered fried fish!!!! Can you believe this?????? No, we didn’t know what we were thinking……and even though I only ate a couple of bites of each thing, needless to say I dirtied the pristine avenues of the city of Victoria with my barf. No other way to say it……I chucked it all up! And boy was I happy I did…..my friends on the other hand just proceeded to beat themselves up for eating such crappy stuff. We had been fairly good up to that point……just goes to show you; keep protein bars with you at all times and DON’T let yourself get that hungry. Oh, and staying away from pubs is probably a good idea too……

The Space Needle is lit up for the 50th Anniversary of the 1962 World’s Fair

Left for my annual Girl’s Trip last Wednesday and on my layover in Honolulu I realized that there was really nothing I could eat at the airport, mainly because everything is so expensive and I refused to pay $10.00 for something I would eat 3 bites of. This is when I realized I packed some protein bars but they were in my luggage, not my carry-on bag. Still learning how all this works even after 8 months. So I opted for a Starbucks and a half a cookie……not a great start for my healthy eating week! On the plane, I took the ham and cheese out of the sandwich they gave us and it was good! The bun they gave you was HUGE! So I’m down one more lb. and happy to report that the scale said 147 this morning.

Gorgeous day at Pike Place Market!

I feel good, have lots of energy and of course, being with my 3 closest friends is the best. This is our 18th annual trip and every one is a GGT (Guaranteed Good Time). We laugh constantly, have long meaningful talks, and lots of silly ones that only we ‘get’. We get our exercise in every day, we drink wine and play a lot of cribbage! Our first full day in Seattle was one of those picture perfect, blue sky sunny days…..(not always the case here). We took the ferry from West Seattle to downtown, walked all around Pike Place Market, had lunch at an outdoor cafe, and even managed to get a bit of shopping in. I can finally shop in the same section of the store they do so that part was much more fun than in the past.

I’m ‘out of the closet’ with these 3 friends, but one of the things I love about them is that they are curious, supportive, interested, but we never focus on any one of us for too long. On the surgery and weight loss, they find it just one more interesting thing about our collective journey as a group of friends. As strong as I feel about my decision not to tell most people about my surgery, I can’t imagine NOT telling these dear friends something so important in my life. They are supportive and complimentary but I also can count on them to tell me if I am veering down the wrong path and none of us are shy about giving each other advice. Once again, I feel like the luckiest person in the world to have these women in my life, AND an amazing husband and marriage.

We had a great time on Maui and now we are back in Hilo, but not for long! I leave Wednesday for 2-1/2 weeks to the mainland.

San Francisco, Hawaii, Napa Valley, LA, Las Vegas, NYC, National Parks, France, Vancouver; these are just a few of the places I have gone on my annual ‘GIRL’S TRIP!’ For the last 18 years, my 3 girlfriends and I have planned an annual getaway to different places. No husbands, no boyfriends, and since none of us has kids, we didn’t have to worry about that. We started a GIRL’S ACCOUNT many years ago where we put money in each month (for us, we do $50). Then when we go on our trip, we use the kitty to pay for our accommodations, car, meals, entertainment; so we don’t have to keep track and no one is picking up the tab one night and then someone else the other night. It’s a great system!

2004 in Paris; not at my highest weight but still 50 lbs heavier than my friends!

This is the first year that I will be in striking distance of the same size as my best friends. We are all short: 5’4″ and under. But they are all very petite and athletic, so you can imagine how I always felt when they were going out for a run or  swapping clothes, and I was always the odd one in the group of four…..so this year will be a little more equal….yea! Not that they ever, ever made me feel the least bit bad about my weight…..and they are among the few that I have told about my surgery. They’ve been fabulously supportive throughout the process. This year, we’re spending a week in Seattle and a day in Victoria so next week I’ll have some photos of four petite women!

FEATURE CREEP! So an interesting development is happening as I lose weight, and the best analogy I can come up with is FEATURE CREEP, originally a software development term that we started using when we were doing a lot of house remodeling.

Beautiful Kamaole II Beach on Maui

MAUI NO KA OI! This means Maui is the Best! We love all of the islands and we love that they are all different from each other, but we have to admit, Maui has been beautiful this past week. Our condo here has a 180-degree view overlooking the ocean in South Kihei, and the skies and ocean have been about as blue and sparkling in the sun as I can ever remember. The trade winds are warm and the sunsets each night are magical. I even laid out by the pool a couple of times (very unusual for me!) but so relaxing.

I’m not this tall, or this thin, but I am a shadow of my former self!

I just borrowed a scale from a neighbor and for the first time since high school I am under 150 lbs, weighing in at 148.7! I’m happy about this because I’ve had a few mai tais and that could have been the wild card this week. I’m noticing a shift in my eating which is interesting: the first 6 months after surgery, I paid attention to getting my protein in (the best I could, anyway-I’ve never been great at that), but beyond that, I didn’t say no to anything even if it was fattening, because I knew I would only eat a very small portion and my calorie intake was always around 800-1200 a day. Now I’m finding, I need to be a little more conscientious and say no to certain things (like any normal thin person would) because I know I could eat it and if I did, it would bump my daily intake up and I want to keep losing. The cool thing about this is it’s getting to be automatic; I don’t obsess over it and I don’t record my food anymore. If I stop losing weight though, I will immediately go back to logging what I eat every day. The point being, I think I’m starting to think like a normal person does, which is a good thing! It’s also nice to eat in mixed company without someone commenting on my eating so little; it’s barely noticeable. And I never, ever feel deprived, something I often felt when I was on a traditional diet.