Laurie Unblocked: My Bariatric Journey

  My skin has been a mess for the past month or so. I sought out the help of a dermatologist at the beginning of April because my skin was red, blotchy and I was waking up with tiny white heads every morning. So fun!  It turns out I have rosacea. I have spent the last month slathering on a treatment gel in the morning, a treatment lotion before bed, and added a weekly heavy duty acne wash to my normal Cetaphil face washes. My skin is a little less red, but its still super blotchy and I have more acne now then I did at 16.  In addition to my face being out of control, my skin is sooooooo dry! I slather my hands in heavy duty dry hand lotion at least 4 times a day. It seems to help my hands overall, but the skin by my nails is still extremely dry and full of hangnails. I added an oil body wash to my shower routine and follow up with a healthy slathering of body butter with added oil. That has helped some of the dry itchiness.  I'm also starting to notice that I have so...

I will admit, I am better about tracking my food after surgery than I was before. It seems immensely more important now to make sure I hit those protein and water goals when I can only eat a little at a time. I also notice how much more exhausted I am if I don't hit those goals.  I tried tracking apps and I just couldn't find one that felt right. Currently, the only goals I am tracking are protein and water. I can't each more than 3 to 4 ounces at a time and it's all protein and fiber, so there isn't much else to worry about. Most of the apps want way more information than that and it felt very overwhelming.  Then I looked at paper trackers that you could buy. I found printable ones online that could go into a planner or journal. I found entire books. None of those seemed right for me either. Some were too busy, some were not organized in a way that made sense to me. It was a bit disappointing, but led me to where I needed to be.  I used to really love scrapbooking,...

  I have never been a big one for plain water. It was my biggest concern going into this surgery. I had to give up all of my seltzers and replace them with boring, flavorless water? Would I be able to keep up with the daily water goals forever?  At the beginning of my journey, while making my pre-op changes, I tried to down bottle after bottle of plain water. I got bored very quickly and was tempted to grab something else. I really missed flavored seltzers. Adding fruit to my water helped, but it wasn't always very flavorful. I needed a better option.  Introducing.... WaterTok and all of the amazing water flavor ideas. I already had some Jordan's Skinny Mixes that I used with my seltzer and coffee. With disbelief, I saw these same flavor mixes being used in plain water ! Why did this never occur to me? In my stubborn brain mixing with seltzer = drink, but mixing with water = watering down. Boy was I wrong! WaterTok introduced me to sugar free water flavor packets and conc...