The Working Out has Begun!

I have given myself a good month to heal from surgery and just "get the hang of things" before I jumped into exercising. My surgeon gave me the go ahead, but said he wanted me to avoid anything really straining on my stomach (so no Abs of Steel videos for me I guess!)

So yesterday I hit the gym. I went to Bally's and did the elliptical machine for ten minutes and then did the bike for ten minutes. Then I went back later and did an hour long kickboxing class. It was tough but I made it through the whole thing. I'll admit...it wasn't much fun to watch myself in the giant mirror and see under arm flabbage flying and feeling everything bounce up and down during jumping jacks. Let's just say I will buying some major heavy duty sports bras!

But at the same time...I could see how much smaller I've become just from 23 pounds lost. So despite feeling like I've got a long way to go, I can see the progress I've made and it really motivates me. Tonight I'm going to an hour long resistance training class and then an hour long yoga class.

I won't be able to exercise this much when I go back to work in a few weeks, but I figure I can bust my booty for a few weeks to jump start my exercise routine.

On the day of my surgery I weighed 244, and now I weigh 221. Not too shabby for the first month!

One month banded...22 pounds down!

I'm coming out...I want the world to know...that I'm...banded! Yes, I had weight loss surgery and I'm sharing it with anyone who wants to know about it. I'm going to chronicle my journey - my ups, my downs, my whatevers - with the lapband.

The first thing I want to make clear is that getting weight loss surgery is definitely NOT an easy way out for losing weight. It took me a full YEAR to jump through all the insurance hoops required to be approved for lapband surgery. Then I got approved-surprisingly very quickly and without any sort of battle-for the lapband and on May 18th, 2009 I had the surgery. I had my surgery at Sky Ridge Hospital in Lone Tree, Colorado with Dr. Chae.

Surgery was not that bad, honestly. I hurt a lot right afterwards, and for several days afterwards, but I took pain meds when needed and just rested as much as I could. I had pictures of my "battle wounds" after surgery, but my wonderful darling husband accidentally deleted them before I got them off the camera. He also deleted my official "before" pictures I took before we left for the hospital. SO - I will just post some pictures of me that I think will make good befores and post some now that I am down 22 pounds. And yes...I have lost 22 pounds since surgery. I haven't even had to put that much effort into it yet, the band has just kept me from eating that much and the weight started falling off. But I am now starting to adjust my diet more and will start exercising to fully utilize my band. I have not had any saline injected into my band yet...my surgeon said he'll wait to do that when I start feeling like I can eat a lot more than I do now. The saline is injected through a little port that is stitched to my abdominal wall and he can access it with a needle to inject saline to make the band tighter.

If you want to know more about how the band works, click here for more info!


Here are some before pics of me:




































































Here a few new ones of me...now 22 pounds lighter!








I'll admit...even though I've lost a decent chunk of weight...I still have a looong way to go. I want to lose about 100 pounds total. My short term goal right now is to lose another 10-20 pounds in the next two months. I think I can easily achieve this healthily by making sure I lay off the carb-loaded foods and exercise faithfully. Check back soon for updates!