Celebrities who have had weight loss surgery
by Christine on July 27th, 2016
filed under Gastric Banding Surgery, General Information
Here’s a list of celebrities who have had weight loss surgery. Google them to learn more!
- Rosie O’Donnell – Gastric sleeve in 2013
- Sharon Osbourne – Gastric band in 1999
- Randy Jackson – Gastric bypass in 2003
- Roseanne Barr – Gastric bypass in 1998 (some say the sleeve)
- Lisa Lampanelli – Gastric sleeve in 2012
- Chris Christie – Gastric band in 2013
- Star Jones – Gastric bypass in 2006
- Anne Rice – Gastric bypass in 2003
- Al Roker – Gastric bypass in 2002
- Carnie Wilson – Gastric bypass in 1999
- Ann Wilson – Gastric band in 2002
- Ann Wilson – Gastric band in 2002
- Diego Maradona – Gastric bypass in 2005
- Brian Dennehy – Gastric band in the early 2000s
- John Popper – Gastric bypass in 1999
- Ralphie May – Gastric bypass in 2003
- Patti Austrin – Gastric bypass in 2004
- Charlie Weis – Gastric bypass in 2002
- Etta James – Gastric bypass in 2001
- Jesse Jackson Jr. – Duodenal switch in 2004
- Caitlin Van Zandt – Gastric band in 2008
Small Progress?
by Christine on July 25th, 2016
filed under Christine's Life Updates, Diet, Food, Nutrition
I don’t know if I can call this real progress or not…but this past week I did much better eating. I was able to whittle my calories down to 1100 or less almost every day last week. As a result, the scale stopped moving upwards. It has stayed in one place all week. I suppose it’s small progress to stop the RISE of the scale, but I’m EXTREMELY anxious to get the scale moving back down.
I chose healthy snack foods this week, which is good. And I’m eating every few hours, which is good. My portion sizes were also much better. I also did a good job going to the gym and working out–I got my three Ragnar Training Days in this week. I need to continue to work on cutting out the alcohol and continue working on whittling down my calories into the optimal 800-1000 calorie range for me.
7/18: 1390 calories, no exercise << Bad calorie day!
7/19: 1025 calories, jogged a 5K outside
7/20: 1220 calories, gardening 30 minutes << bad calorie day!
7/21: 1190 calories, walking with a friend after work for 1 hour
7/22: 1112 calories, gardening for 30 minutes
7/23: 1044 calories, jogging (4.2 miles total) at the gym, swimming
7/24: 1070 calories, jogging 5K at the gym, swimming
I went to the grocery store yesterday and stocked up on lots of healthy snack foods: almonds, yogurt, veggies, apples, oranges, nectarines, grapes, etc. So I should be fully prepared for healthy snacks and some healthy from-home lunches this week. My evenings look pretty clear, so I may be able to cook some healthy meals at home also.
Untethered Soul and the voice in your head
by Christine on July 22nd, 2016
filed under Christine's Life Updates, Diet, Food, Nutrition, General Information
I recently was given the book “Untethered Soul” by Michael Singer. I’m only a few chapters into it, and I’ll likely talk about it again on this blog. At the very beginning of the book, the author talks about the incessant, chattering voice in your head. The voice in your head that comments on everything—especially on yourself. The voice expresses judgement constantly, and it can change its opinions at the drop of a hat. That voice is utterly unreliable. You’ve caught it blatantly lying. It’s not nice.
That voice is your head narrates the world around you. It says, “wow, that sun is really bright.” Did you really need the voice to tell you that? You looked at the sky and already noticed the bright sun—did the voice need to state the obvious? No. Singer claims that the voice’s attempt to narrate the world is actually your psyche’s attempt to place some control over your environment. Because, fundamentally, humans feel uncomfortable when they aren’t in control of their lives and environments.
Singer says:
“If you want to be happy, you have to let go of the part of you that wants to create melodrama. This is the part that thinks there’s a reason not to be happy. You have to transcend the personal, and as you do, you will naturally awaken to the higher aspects of your being. In the end, enjoying life’s experiences is the only rational thing to do. You’re sitting on a planet spinning around in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Go ahead, take a look at reality. You’re floating in empty space in a universe that goes on forever. If you have to be here, at least be happy and enjoy the experience….There’s always going to be something that can bother you, if you let it.”
To me, this has a direct relationship to the voice in my head that narrates what I think about my body. “You’re fat. You’re ugly,” the voice in my head tells me a hundred times a day. “You WANT to swim on a hot day, but you better not get in a bathing suit in public. You’ll make someone sick. If you want to swim, you should find a private place to go instead of the water park.” My voice also says, “You fatty, if you eat THIS instead of THAT, you’ll lose weight.” Or it will say, “If you weren’t so weak-willed, you never would have gotten fat in the first place.” And so on.
I have a very active inner voice, and it’s never nice to me.
I haven’t quite gotten far enough in the book to figure out how Singer thinks you can ignore that voice in your head or transform its voice. He does assert that learning to turn it off, to embrace the present moment, and learn to bear reality as it really is—our actual experience of life right now, not just our narrated version—is crucial to finding happiness. This is a very Buddhist way of thinking, of course, to embrace the present moment. He cautions not to let your inner voice define who you are, since we have already decided that your inner voice is a lying, manipulative, awful voice.
“To attain true inner freedom, you must be able to objectively watch your problems instead of being lost in them… Once you’ve made the commitment to free yourself of the scared person inside, you will notice that there is a clear decision point at which your growth takes place.”
Wow, I’m eating wayyyy too much.
by Christine on July 21st, 2016
filed under Christine's Life Updates, Diet, Food, Nutrition
Okay, I’ve been faithfully tracking my food intake (journaling) for the past week….and the results aren’t pretty. Boy, I should have started to do this a long time ago so I could have been aware that my eating is out of control.
Day 1: 1816 calories consumed, no exercise.
Day 2: 1471 calories consumed, no exercise
Day 3: 1652 calories consumed: ran a 5K at the gym (45 minutes)
Day 4: 2196 calories consumed: golfed for 6 hours at a golf outing
Day 5: 2615 calories consumed: hiking for 7 hours up two mountains
Day 6: 1390 calories consumed: No exercise
Wow, did you see that? Every single day I am eating well over my goal of 800-1000 calories per day, and two days I ate over 2,000 calories worth of food! Holy moses!!! No wonder I’m packing on the pounds!
If I look at the information further, I see some general trends:
- I eat a lot more on days when I exercise. I’m hungry.
- I’m doing ok eating every few hours, but my portion sizes are much too big. I need to start whittling these down.
- I’m drinking too many calories. Alcohol. That needs to stop. Over 2,000 of the calories those six days came from alcohol. That’s just silly.
- My food choices have largely been pretty healthy. Lots of fruits and veggies and healthy protein.
- I did spectacularly drinking water while at work (and hiking). Less spectacular at home. Noted: drinking lots of water isn’t doing shit to curb my appetite.
- I did well planning out snacks and meals every few hours. The problem is that those snacks or meals were too high in calories/too large in size.
So: Smaller portion sizes is going to be key here, as well as cutting way back (preferably stopping) the alcohol consumption. This means breaking out the scale and measuring cups, and making sure that my mini-meals are of a reasonable size. That’s my task for Week 2. I am going to try to start photographing my meals also, for additional accountability. I don’t think I’m going to be able to whittle my calories down to 800 calories by next week, but if I can get them in the area of 1000-1100 calories, that will be some progress.
Tips for myself for cutting back on food/hunger:
- Quit the alcohol.
- Quit the sugar. (I really did better with this, this past week though)
- Eat protein shakes as snacks.
- Measure and weigh food.
- Keep some fresh veggies on hand for snacks. (carrots are mostly lower cal than fruits)
- Leave food on your plate, or cut part of your food off to throw away.
- Cut back on high-calorie fatty foods. I’m a sucker for caprese salads. The tomato is awesome, but cut back on the mozzarella. More tomato, less cheese. (But…not “no cheese.”)
Adirondack Hiking Weekend
by Christine on July 20th, 2016
filed under General Information
This past weekend I went for a hike with a friend. We did two peaks (the one was only 0.6 miles in addition to what we were already doing): Porter and Cascade Mountains. They are 4,059 and 4,098 feet tall, respectively. In total, I think the hike was about 6.2 miles and we took 7 hours to do it. (That includes plenty of time at the top of each peak to relax, eat lunch, take pictures, etc.) Today, my quads are very sore. It was a killer workout but wow, do I love hiking!
I know I “burned” a billion calories while hiking, but afterwards I was sooooo hungry and I ate way more than I should have. (And, drank more wine than I should have, too.) I need to get the eating under control.
