You Did What?!?!

So I did this…

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About 18 hours after my surgery. I was blitzed out on the ketamine used for anesthesia and I have no memory of doing it. Here is what I put on Facebook. The left column is before and the right column is after…

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Since I couldn’t put pants on, it’s my guess that I ran in my tank and boy shorts… I guess no one noticed since it was so early in the morning! My daughters had great fun making up the 911 calls… “Um half naked zombie running over the bridges downtown with bloody bandages”.

The good news is that I hit a personal record (PR or PB in running code). LOL, too bad I have no memory of it. What I think is the funniest is that I had the mind set to turn RunKeeper on and off 😀

Ve behaved myself since! No running until next Monday, but I’ve been walking the bridges nearly daily.

How is everyone’s Monday going?

Ciao!

Goodbye Flabby My Old Friend

I can’t believe it’s been 21 days since my arm surgery! I’ve been a very bad blogger 😦 Coming home has been amazing and overwhelming.

The surgery on my arms is called a brachioplasty or arm lift. It removes the excess skin from your upper arms.

I have to say that the pain is less than the liposuction I had in May. It’s different, but not as bad. The first 3.5 days I have NO recall of. The anesthesia used was Valium and Ketamine. The Ketamine causes amnesia and it sure worked for me!

So here is a before and after. This “after pic is Day 12 post op:

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And this is a close up of my left arm. There is still some swelling, but I’m very pleased with the results. My surgeon is Dr. Donato Viggiano. He is awesome and I highly recommend him.

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How is everyone else doing? I promise to get back on track with posts about Dukan, Consolidation, Paleo and running (which I can’t do until next week) 😦

Ciao!

Crazy 3 weeks!

What a crazy 3 weeks! I don’t even feel I’ve been home that long, but on the other hand I feel like its been a whirlwind!
Lots of ups and downs and all arounds!
I got home after midnight on a Friday, surprised by my daughters who both came to pick me up!
I left Saturday morning and drove across the State to Sarasota to pick up BeBe…

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From there I drove north to Tampa for lunch with my friend, Tammy and then another 2 hours north to my mom’s for an overnight.
We left early the next morning for North Carolina. My mom’s best friend Sandy was our first stop and I left her there and went to stay with Sandy’s son Mark and his partner Eric. We had 3 days packed with mountain hikes, shopping, awesome food and hanging out.

So I’ll end this post with a gazillion pics of that trip…

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Gluten-free chocolate torte!!!

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Now rushing out mom’s door to head across State to see friends and then back to Stuart… Waiting to get off the roller coaster… WEEEEEEEE!

Update and Standing while Eating

So, I’m wiped out, as a lot of you have noticed (thanks for the emails) and I’m still healing. My arms hurt, but look awesome… I’m pleased with my decision. I’m still too exhausted between recovery, working my new job and homeschooling my amazing granddaughter Sydnie, to blog. I’m hoping to get a good blog in. I haven’t run since my apparent 13 km run in the middle of the night my first night post-op… I’ll post that story, as well… Sigh.

In the meantime, here’s some interesting info from one of my favorite Paleo blogs… She advocates sitting and eating while thinking about what you eat… I don’t necessarily agree. I KNOW what I’m eating and I stand while I eat. Good food. My last meal was stir fry organic chicken breast, sautéed in coconut oil with squash, mushrooms, onions, peppers and asparagus. That was 5 hours ago and it was delish and colorful and healthy… eaten while standing 🙂 I believe if you are being intentional and aware of what your are eating, standing is good… Burn more calories, lol.
Ciao!

Paleo RD Tip of the Week
By Amy Kubal, MS, RD

Get off your feet when you eat
Quick – what was the last thing you ate? No really – what was the VERY LAST thing you put in your mouth? Most of you are probably envisioning the last meal you ate; the one where you were sitting down and actually aware of the food on your plate and going into your mouth. Now, think about it again; what was the LAST thing that you ate? Were you sitting down?

image credit: guardian.co.uk

These days much of what we eat is actually consumed ‘in motion’ – standing up, running between appointments, on the way to work, you name it. Sometimes we just grab a bite of something, (or a piece of candy from the office candy dish), on the way to or from somewhere. Maybe we have a couple bites of something we’re putting into a meal, or into the kids’ lunches. Don’t forget the grapes you grabbed when you opened the refrigerator or the leftovers you nibbled on while clearing the table. How many meals, snacks, bites and samples have you eaten all while on your feet? Do you even remember all of these ‘foot feasts’? Did you actually taste or even enjoy the standing snacks?

My guess is that we are ALL (yes, even me) guilty of mindlessly putting something into our mouths without really even realizing we did it. One of the rules that I made for myself and my clients (because I’m mean like that), is that if you’re not sitting on your butt you can’t eat it. I don’t care if you are mid-way through a bite – sit down – right there on the floor, until the food is chewed and swallowed. Let me tell you, it makes you think. After having to pick my butt up off the floor about 20 times (I’m a slow learner) I figured it out and I’m betting you will too.
If you want to eat – you must take a seat! Are you sitting down?

Amy Kubal is a Registered “Paleo” Dietitian and the ring leader of Robb’s RD consulting team. She works with a wide range of clients from competitive athletes to those dealing with complex health problems. Check out her bio and consulting options, and her blog Fuel As Rx to get your Paleo nutrition fix.

And to finish things off, this is my new baby… BeBe. She’ll be 5 October 21. She’s a cat poo eater, so now she’s mine. I’m so glad her former mom and dad picked me 🙂

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Arm Reduction

So this one will be brief… Monday I had brachioplasty. Basically I have had these lovely tone arms from yoga and exercise, then the flappy stuff underneath. It’s gone. I feel like yuck, recovering, did too much 24 hours out and paying for it this morning with swollen hands, headache and a fever 😦
So will update the blog this weekend when feeling better!
Ciao!

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Goal – 150 km in September – MET

I set a goal at the start of the month to walk, run and hike 150 kms the month of September, and I met that goal… More than met it AND 7 miles (11.26 km) aren’t on here from my mountain hikes in NC last week. So here are the results…

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160 kms + 11 = 171 kms!!

I’m very pleased with meeting this goal. Goal for October 165 km with a minimum of 60 kms of running 🙂

Ciao!

Dukan – High School Skinny

I found this in my email tonight…

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A high school friend pointed out on Facebook the other day that I weigh less now than high school… Not only is that a cool thing to say, but after thinking about it, it’s true 😀 When I became pregnant with my son at 17 I weighed 155, I was 146 this morning. I didn’t do it, however, with magic coffee beans, hormone shots or diet pills. I ate lots of good, wholesome food and never counted a single calorie 🙂 Good food and exercise… The key to successful weight loss and keeping it off 🙂

Ciao!

Home

Well, I’m home! Met by both daughters at the airport and so happy to be on home ground!

Its now 530 a.m. And I’ve been up for an hour… Readjusting back to U.S. time can be rough, but worth it!

My first day back was full of hugs and cuddles and phone calls and text messages and love. It feels awesome to know that I’m not getting back on a plane in a couple of weeks… I’m home 🙂

Travel – So long, China

I’m sitting at the airport in Shanghai writing my last blog post from here. My next one will be from the U.S… Some random thoughts…
I can’t believe I’m really moving home! I’ve lived abroad 6 weeks shy of 4 years!
I can’t wait to give my daughter Jenni a hug at the airport! I love being picked up!
I can’t wait to give Tiffany and the grandkids a hug… Lots of hugging!!
I can’t wait to give my mom a hug… That’ll wait until Sunday 🙂
I can’t wait to start homeschooling my granddaughter Sydnie!

I am going to miss a lot of people in Hangzhou… Saying goodbye was tough! To Jerry, my amazing driver, thank you for knowing me so well that you were spot on picking me up this morning on time and delivering me to the airport 3 hours ahead of time. You are AWESOME!

I am so fortunate that I have a part time job waiting for me at home AND will be starting my own business! So excited!!

I have a chihuahua waiting for me… Bebe! I’ll be picking her up on Saturday morning and I’m so excited!!!

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And in 4 days I’ll be hiking in the Appalachian mountains for a few days!!

Life is good! Boarding in 10 minutes so up, up and away!!!!

Ciao!

Dukan – My Last Walk to Work

Today marks the end of my contract here in Hangzhou, China AND my last day of work. I fly home to the U.S. tomorrow and I am more than ready and SO excited!

I took the east sidewalk today… I would say that 80% of the time I take the west side. It depends a lot on the traffic lights 🙂 The darker tile is the Blind Person walkway, it is on every sidewalk in China that I’ve walked on. And the lane next to the sidewalk is the bicycle, e-bike, scooter lane. They have their own lane separated from the car traffic.

Last year I walked on my first day of work. I was a month into the Dukan Diet and I weighed 236 lbs/107.5 kgs. I was walking every day in Abu Dhabi for the prescribed 30 minutes. On that walk to work which is 1.5 kms/0.92 miles I decided that I was going to walk to and from work EVERY SINGLE DAY for the whole year of my contract. AND DAMMIT… I DID! I walked every single day to work for 12 months. My estimate (taking into consideration vacations and trips to work in other cities, where I also walked to work) is that here in Hangzhou I walked to work approximately 200 times. That’s 200 miles! Woot!

I have to admit that there were days that I was SO tempted to hail a cab or take the bus (it’s a .35 km walk to the bus stop, then it’s just one bus stop up)… there were 7 weeks in February and March where EVERY SINGLE DAY it was 41F and raining and it sucked… but I walked, because you set goals and you reach them and you feel like I do right this minute! 😀

I also walked home 90% of those days. The only days I didn’t was days that I was going into the city for groceries or dinner and caught a cab or bus. So my best guess is that I probably walked to and from work about 380+ miles over the course of this past year.

Did you get in your 30 minutes of movement today???

Ciao!