Guys I have so much to update you on it is beyond ridiculous. Don't get too excited, I haven't instantaneously dropped the remaining 80lbs or fallen in love, but I have been away from blogging for a bit of time, and woah, life happens!

About ten days ago I got my fourth fill, luckily with the nurse at my clinic who I've seen the most and most prefer visiting, Sue. She's just really sweet, and I feel like she remembers me each time, etc. We put in just a bit more, and I had lost I think three more pounds by their scale. Wow, I can't believe I don't remember. Fill went fine, was actually shockingly ravenous that night and ate half a cow's worth of meatloaf. Err. A quarter of a cow and half a turkey, actually.

The next morning my friends Steve and Emily arrived from NYC where they had been before, but they're from Australia and I haven't seen them in a year, since I left there. It was so so fun to have them, I don't have time to tell all the millions of stories and adventures, so I'll just leave you with the very first. We decided to go shopping and for lunch I took them to a chain restaurant here in Canada called Jack Astor's. It's kind of like Chili's or TGIFridays style, pretty good, and like super American/cheesy which Steve totally loves. And I was an idiot. Not even considering I was less than 24 hours post-fill, I somehow consented to us ordering garlicy cheese bread and to sharing a burger. WTF was I thinking? One bite of fresh-baked doughy goodness in and I'm more stuck than I ever would have believed possible. And the worst thing? I hadn't told these friends yet about the band. I was in and out of our booth to the restroom at least 7 times that meal - I told them after the second trip because it was so bad that it was SO obvious something was up. Often when I'm really stuck /TMI ALERT/ I do sort of make myself gag leaning over the toilet, and stuff comes up. But this time stuff was totally coming up on it's own, my eyes were tearing, slime, the works. It was AWFUL. And so embarassing/awkward. Like these are good friends and they know me well, but this is the first time I've seen them in a year. I'm an idiot. Luckily things did get better, and really that was just a reminder for me that I can't be an idiot, and I need to eat slow and conscienscously. Which isn't to say there weren't more runs to the bathroom as I've adjusted to this fill - the first one where I've really had to make a change. I'm still not sure if I'm at the optimal level of restriction, but I do feel like I might be- I didn't gain anything the week my friends were here, and that was a week of intense junk-food. Ice-creams, pizza, french fries, the works. Between making as many healthy choices as I could and my band laying down the law when I didn't, I somehow survived.

I've still got a ton more to update you all on - yesterday was my clinic's anual lap-band symposium and I learned a lot of different things and techniques I'm def going to discuss here, but I've gotta get changed and ready for my hip-hop class!

More soon. In the mean time check out this book trailer that was shown to us at the conference. It's by Dr. Michelle May, who wrote a bunch of books about how to like discern real hunger from head hunger etc. Here's the video
And here is an awesome awesome quote -