My Baltic Sea Vacation!
by Christine on June 21st, 2012
filed under Christine's Life Updates, Diet, Food, Nutrition, Gastric Banding Surgery, General Information
Hi everyone! I’m back from my vacation, and wow! What a vacation it was! I’ll give you the lowdown, but because this is I suppose technically a weight loss-ish blog, I’ll let you know what the food situation was at each place.
I took a mother/daughter cruise through the Baltics. It was me and my mom, my mom’s best friend, and her daughter. Four of us total. We started the cruise in Copenhagen and went to Germany, Estonia, Russia, Finland, and Sweden. I also got to check out a little bit of Iceland on my return trip home. It was a fantastic vacation, and I’d highly recommend it!!! Because it was a cruise, we mostly ate on the ship (Norwegian cruise lines, and the “free food” — not the pay restaurants — was just mediocre). However, we ate lunch at the ports when we could.
My band was exceptionally tight throughout the whole trip. I had called my surgeon to get it loosened before I left, but he couldn’t get me in for a whole month, so I just had to suffer. I barfed a LOT of my food up due to band tightness. However, the ship had soups on the menu often, and I discovered that the pastries went down pretty well, so I didn’t starve!
Weight & Exercise:
Started at 128.0 pounds.
Returned home at 126.5 pounds.
Lots and Lots and Lots of walking in each port! I took a yoga class on the ship one day, too.
DENMARK
Food: Day 1: Lunch was a salad with smelly prawns, hard boiled egg, avocado, and some creamy dill dressing (not my favorite). Lots of “Danishes” — the little pastries, which were fantastic! My friend and I stopped at Wagamamas (one of my favorite restaurants) for dinner, and I had some Beef Miso Ramen soup.
Day 2: Breakfast included a Danish and some apple juice. Late lunch/dinner on Day 2 was at a pub and included some nachos with cheese/guac/sour cream and a beer.
GERMANY
Food: Breakfast: 2 pieces of bacon, 1 scrambled egg, and some yogurt. We stopped for lunch at a little restaurant, and I had Tuborg beer, tomato soup, and a warm apple streudel. I had a cappucino that was so strong I had to put 4 packets of sugar in it! Yikes! The soup was a little odd tasting, but the desert was great! Back on the ship I had a steak and some cauliflower soup, and vanilla ice cream for desert. I had 2 cosmos during the kick-off of the ship’s sailing!
ESTONIA
Food: Breakfast involved some yogurt and orange juice. We did so much walking that we kind of forgot to eat. We stopped for a quite bite of some pastry that looks like a croissant but was filled with goat cheese. Warmed up, it was delicious! And I had a Fanta. Back on the boat I had grilled chicken and fried mushrooms which were delicious! I had a espresso martini for dessert.
RUSSIA
Food: Day 1 breakfast included some fresh watermelon, 2 slices of bacon, 1 scrambled egg. Lunch involved chicken stroganoff, a side salad, a jelly roll, and some red wine for lunch. Dinner involved Chicken Kiev and soup.
Food on Day 2: Breakfast was yogurt and orange juice. Lunch involved beef stroganoff, cabbage soup (which was amazing!!), a baked apple, and white wine for lunch. Dinner was teriyaki chicken and rice, with soup and some lime sorbet.
FINLAND
Food: Breakfast included a danish pastry and orange juice. We were walking so much we kind of accidentally skipped lunch. We stopped for a danish in the afternoon. In the evening I had some orange roughy and mushroom risotto, soup, and lemon sorbet.
SWEDEN
Food: Again, we walked so much we forgot about lunch! But this wasn’t good because we were very crabby about missing lunch. Dinner was some chicken dish, tomato soup, and sorbet. This was a rather stressful day due to everyone being incredibly cranky, and it involved into the only drink-a-thon of the drip: 2 Blue Moon beers and about 4 shots of tequila.
ICELAND
Food: We had breakfast before we got off the ship: watermelon and yogurt and orange juice for me. I stopped at a grocery store in Copenhagen in the morning and had tabouleh salad, cheese and crackers, Fanta, and some cookies. When I got to Copenhagen I stopped at Quiznos for a turkey sub for dinner and another Fanta.
The next day, on my way home I had some nuts at the airport, 2 beers on the plane. Stopped for lunch on the 2 hour drive to my home and had 2 chicken fingers and some tomato soup. Hubby cooked dinner: steak, rice, and skim milk.
Leaving for Europe!
by Christine on June 5th, 2012
filed under Christine's Life Updates, General Information
Good morning Revolutionists!
Weight check-in: 128 pounds. Right where I want to be.
Band status: A little problematic
Exercise status: Doing well! Picking it up a bit!
Exciting news! Tomorrow I leave for a 10-day trip in Europe! Well, factoring in travel time, it will be a 14 day trip. I’m very excited and can’t wait to embark on this adventure! My itinerary is as follows:
* Fly to Copenhagen and spend 2 days with a friend there.
* Board a cruise ship. Head to Berlin, Germany.
* Tallinn, Estonia
* 2 days in St. Petersburg, Russia
* Helsinki, Finland
* Stockholm, Sweden
* Back to Copenhagen
* 1 day layover in Iceland on the way home
I’ve been to Europe many times (I lived over there for a year, actually) and have been fortunate to do a lot of traveling, but I have never been to any of these countries before! I am very excited to explore new places and to see my dear friend in Copenhagen!
Even more importantly, I get to see where my family comes from. I am half Danish and half Russian (I’m actually first-generation American on my mother’s side), and getting to see where my people come from will be pretty awesome. Actually, getting to experience Russia with my mother will be a really momentous occasion. (Read more about why by reading this old post.) I’m looking for to it, for sure.
On the other hand, there are some things I’m really nervous about. For starters, I think any mother/daughter trip can be nervewracking. Why is it that mothers and daughters have the most complex relationships, involving so much baggage and competitiveness? It’s very odd. I think any woman would be stressed to spend 10 days stuck on a ship with her mom, but considering that my mother and I don’t have a history of getting along well, it’s particularly anxiety-producing for me. I’m working hard at not dwelling on this negative associated with the trip (after all, where would dwelling on it get me, except to be over-sensitive?) but I feel my nerves tightening with each impending hour.
I’m also nervous for lots of gastric-band related reasons: What if I can’t find any food that I eat? What if I have to barf and I can’t find a bathroom? Will I overeat on the cruise and gain weight?
At any rate, it will be an interesting, epic trip! I can’t wait to start it!
As for my band, not all is well in paradise. For starters, it is way, way too tight. I can’t keep going at this rate, even though it’s been this tight for about 6 months now. If I retain even a little bit of water, it’s so tight that even milk won’t go down. No bueno. I called my doctor’s office to get an un-fill, but the soonest they can get me in is a month from now (holy shit!) so I am stuck with a too-tight band for this vacation. I’m disheartened that my doctor’s office was not more flexible for me.
Secondly: I’ve been coughing at night a lot. Every night, actually. I wake up in the middle of the night with the feeling that something is caught in my throat. Cough-cough-cough. And, it sometimes escalates until (eeek, sorry this really TMI) I accidentally barf on myself in bed.
I don’t know what’s going on exactly–I haven’t talked to my surgeon about this. But I have a theory. I believe my upper stomach has either expanded or my band has slipped. So my upper stomach has a bulge or a pooch…and food gets stuck in the bulge and irritates me at night. I don’t know what the fix for this would be. I’m hoping that merely loosening my band will solve this problem, but I’m worried that the solution will be a surgery to fix the placement of the band. That’s why I have been too chicken to make an appointment with my doctor. I’m not up for another surgery. I’m worried about what he says the problem is, and I’m worried about his solution for fixing the problem. Not to mention I don’t want to go through all the testing, the awful barium drink, the x-rays, etc. No, I’ll just get an un-fill and see if that fixes the problem first.
I’ll keep you posted, of course, about what’s happening in my band-land.
Thanks for reading, and check back in 2 weeks for pics of my vacation!
Bean soup recipe
by Christine on February 6th, 2012
filed under General Information
I made the yummiest soup yesterday! So good! So here’s my recipe:
- 1 can of red/pink beans (360 calories)
- 1/2 an onion (23 calories)
- I used ham stock, but you can use chicken or beef stock, maybe 1 can or so? (60)
- Garlic, maybe 2 cloves worth (9 calories)
- 3 plum tomatoes, diced (33 calories)
- Random spices: 2 packets of Sazon Seasoning, cilantro, pepper, chili powder, basil
- 2 dashes of lime juice
Combine everything in a pan on the stove. Top with some light sour cream (136).
The whole thing is 621calories, and I ate about 1/3 of it, for just over 200 calories. Delicious!
Did everyone have fun watching the superbowl? We had about 15 friends come over to watch the game, and everyone brought food to share. I skipped all the cheesy/beany/sour creamy dips, chips, pizza, wings and instead had a few fresh veggie slices, a little bit of my homemade soup, and a cupcake. My weight is up today, no doubt due to the salt in the Sazon seasoning…it’ll go back down soon, I’m sure!
Clothing sizes – This blew my mind!
by Christine on December 13th, 2011
filed under Christine's Life Updates, General Information
I’ve had something bother me all week.
We do trivia at a local bar every week. And one of the trivia questions last week was something to the effect of, “A US Size 10 in women’s clothing equates to how big of a waist, in inches?”
I thought, man, that’s an easy question! I had JUST measured my waist the night before! I have a measuring tape hanging on my bathroom door, which I used once a week during my journey to skinny. It had been a while since I measured, so I busted that baby out.
- I have a 28 inch waist.
- I’m 5’2. So I’m a petite.
- I wear a size 4 pant comfortably. (Sometimes a size 2, depending on the brand.)
(sidenote: That’s approx. 2 inches more than reaching my “low/goal weight” a year ago, when I measured in at 26.5 inches. Same weight, bigger waist = clear indication that I’m not exercising.)
So keeping that in mind, and the fact that women’s clothing sizes go up every 2 sizes, I figured that a Size 10 would be something like a 34 or 36 inch waist, right? I guessed 36 inches.
Got the answer wrong.
WRONG!
Guess how big of a waist is a US Size 10? 28 inches!!
But wait! That’s what size MY waist is, and I wear a Size 4!!
According to the charts, a Size 4 should have about a 24 inch waist. 24 inches? Seriously? Who is that teeny? (According to some reports, Megan Fox and Kelly Ripa…)
So either this information is totally F-ed up, or my body is totally out of wack. I don’t know. How does that logic work on you ladies?
Here’s some stats to back up the trivia leader’s answer.
https://www.wmsclothing.com/sizing.html
http://www.rodcollins.com/wordpress/what-dress-size-or-waist-size-am-i-really
http://www.orvis.com/intro.aspx?subject=850#women_size
http://www.overstock.com/sizing.html
That’s F-ed up. No wonder women go insane when they shop for clothes. The shit doesn’t make a single bit of sense!
Just for some other fun celebrity info….Marilyn Monroe had a 22 inch waist, Audrey Hepburn had a 20 inch waist, Princess Di had a 27 inch waist at the highest, Kate Winslet has a 29 inch waist… This is a fun website to check out….
Thank you for your comments and feedback!
by Christine on December 9th, 2011
filed under Christine's Life Updates, General Information
I’ve gotten a couple of interesting comments on my blog lately. Most of them have been very constructive and sweet! Curiously, a lot of the comments are from my older posts, such as Compassion and Understanding in an Overweight World and Climbing Mt. Fuji.
I love all my comments, even when they aren’t always full of praise and glowy words. Sometimes the hard words make you stop to think and re-evaluate. There’s good in them, too.
So really, from the bottom of my heart…thank you for stopping by, reading this little blog, and for giving me feedback. I really do appreciate it. Very much so!
(And remember to link me up to your own blogs so I can visit you, too!)
As for me, there’s nothing much going on with me that’s really worthy of writing. It’s more of the same…same food, same problems, same weight, same daily grind, blahblahblah. Sometimes I feel like a broken record on here.
This weekend I’m going on a little wine tour! I’m looking forward to the outing. I’ll be sure to post pictures on Monday.
The holidays are starting to kick up here at work, which means taking clients out to dinner to say “thank you” for the work over the course of the year. I have three work outings scheduled so far, and probably more to come. These are tricky, not only to eat within your calorie budget (especially when you’re dining on work money) but will also prove to be interesting with the gastric band. I’m quite used to excusing myself from the table to go remove “blockage,” but it still feels…rude.
How do you guys deal with “blockage” problems when you’re in a formal restaurant setting? Have any tricks or suggestions you can share?
I hope you all have a good weekend
