Perth bound!

Okay – I had an incident last week. As a result of some medications that I have been taking, I had to get an emergency appointment to see the wonderful fill doctor, Caroline! All of a sudden, I started to get toxic heartburn and I was unable to eat anything nor drink very much. We have been having a pretty big heat wave here over the past week or so with record temperatures for this time of year so the dehydration was horrifying!

I ended up having .4 taken out of the band and even then it took another 36 hours to be able to really eat anything other than liquids. I am still not able to eat a great deal but I have been able to have lots of liquids, thankfully because the heat has continued unabated all weekend.

I have to say, I get nervous getting fluid out of the band – it takes this kind of situation to realize just how much I rely and trust it which is a good thing – my resolution in the new year is going to get that level of trust and reliance on myself – then I would be unbeatable right?!!? I am very glad that I got the fluid removed though, it would have been a disaster if I hadn’t of with how hot it’s been over this weekend!

I have been ultra, ultra busy at work with a big project coming in to land over the next couple of weeks but the biggest news this week is that I am heading West people – heading over to Perth with the husband for his cousin’s 30th birthday. I am really looking forward to it because I have never been there before (apart from a 4 hour wait when I was on the way to Africa!). It will be nice to be right on the beach and have some serious relaxing – I can’t wait!!

Two weeks after that, we are off to Thailand and we don’t get back until Christmas eve – I am so excited for the Thailand trip, we had our honeymoon there and absolutely LOVE the place! I think I will have to get more fluid out for the trip – the last thing I want to happen is not to be able to eat there or to get something stuck – not the place for that!!

Anyway, will chat to you after Perth!!

It's your journey

Jen and I had an interesting conversation this week about taking responsibility for your own journey and I have been thinking about it ever since. As we all know, the band is only a tool to help us on our weight loss journey, we have to work with it for it to work. Of course, one of our basic philosophies at Lap Band for the Mind is that you need to change your behaviours to have success and taking responsibility for your own journey is a huge part of that.

So what does this mean ‘taking responsibility for your journey’? Well it is all about understanding that you know your body better than anyone else better than the doctors, nurses etc that you see along the way and questioning things if they don’t seem quite right. I am constantly asking myself – do I have enough fill in the band, do I have too much, am I eating more than usual or less? Sometimes, we all fall into the trap that someone else knows better. I know that I went for a fill one time and they put in .5 when I was thinking that .2 would be probably the amount that would be best though I didn’t speak up and – you guessed it – I was overfilled. No one likes that feeling I’m sure and I experienced quite a bit of panic at not even being able to drink water but I was able to get in to see a fill doctor pretty quickly to get the situation rectified. I really could have seen this as a negative experience but instead, I saw this as a positive situation as I now knew what my maximum limit is.

This incident has really served as a reminder to me that:

a) speak up if you don’t agree with what the nurse or doctor says
b) Knowledge is power – if you don’t understand something, always ask
c) Doctors see many people every day, it is up to me to remember the details of my own situation

This taking responsibility for your own journey really does make a difference to your success with the band. Sometimes I expect to lose weight with the band even though I am eating unhealthy food items and I have to pull myself back and say ‘What foods do I need to eat to lose weight?’ – or even ‘are my expectations realistic’. It is all about the questions that we ask ourselves after all.

Hope you are all going well and remember – it’s your journey and you’ll succeed if you want to!

Till next time.

Cheers,

Jodie