Chicken Burgers, Dead Birds, and the Aftermath of Kami’s 1st Shot

Eva (00:00):
Hi, Kami.

Kami (00:01):
Hey, how's it going?

Eva (00:03):
Good. Except I got a chicken burger from P Terry's, and at the last minute I was like, can you add a cookie? And I ate the chicken burger and I was fine. And then I ate the cookie and I got sick.

Kami (00:14):
Oh, no. Yeah, I woke up at three o'clock in the morning, couldn't sleep. Finally ended up getting back to sleep at 5:30, which I normally have my alarm set for six because I got to get my kid on the bus, but I was like, screw this. We're just going to sleep in. I'll drive her to school. Right? No big deal, because the school's like three miles from here. So I am groggy and not just dragging ass. And I come in here to my office and I wake up the birds. Well, one of the birds is dead, so I just start off my morning with a dead bird. So I'm trying to think through what all the steps that need to happen. Plus I'm so exhausted and I have to get my kid ready, and she's upset. She doesn't want to go to school. I'm like, this is not the morning for a dead pet.

(01:18):
This is not okay. But I dealt with it anyways, and I was like, okay. So I get her, so I was like, okay, the bird's been dead for a hot minute. It can sit in there for another 30 minutes. It's fine. So I go, I get myself dressed, I get her ready. I was like, Hey, you want to sit on the couch and maybe watch videos on mom's phone while I you know. Okay, mom. Great. So I sit her down. She's doing that. I'm like, okay. So I have to just discretely come back upstairs, get the dead bird, wrap it in a paper towel, put it in a plastic baggie, put it outside. That's what I had to do. And so I was like, still had to get her on the bus to school, because then I had to go to a meeting with these agents and I was starting this business. So I'm like, okay. So I'm texting my husband, I'm like, sorry, the bird's dead. So there's two parakeets. We only have one now. So I run through Starbucks and I'm like, you know what? I'm just going to get Starbucks. I'll get the egg bites, because that's okay-ish, right? You just think the two little things.

Eva (02:21):
It's great. Yeah.

Kami (02:23):
And they were pretty good. I mean, I think it was like 370 calories for the two of 'em, which I don't know. I think is fine.

Eva (02:32):
You got the bacon ones?

Kami (02:33):
Yeah, the bacon and gruyere. Yeah. So I'm sure there's another one that has spinach that is supposed to make you feel like a goddess.

Eva (02:42):
Yeah. The egg white ones are like 160 or 150 or something like that.

Kami (02:46):
Yeah. If you just egg whites, you're just taking out the delicious part is the yolk. Why bother at that point? I don't even know. You're just taking out, you're just like, okay, well, I'm going to have the eggs and I'm going to remove all the flavor, and then I'm going to eat that. Why? Anyways, go to the meeting, do whatever. And then I'm like, yeah, I'm going to do other adulty things. I need to get a new driver's license cuz I live in a different state. Go over there and because of the,

Eva (03:18):
Haven't you lived there for a while?

Kami (03:19):
I have, but I told them I was a new resident. They don't know. I've been new since for three years. So I newly moved here three years ago. It's a possible story. So I go in there and I'm like, have all my ducks in a row, because that's really difficult. And I mean, this is classic ADHD shit. So I go in there and I'm like, okay. I get all the documents. In fact, I get extra documents because I think, well, what if they can't take a certain verification of my address, blah, blah, blah. So go in there. They're like, oh, well, the name on your birth certificate's different than your driver's license. I was like, well, I got married. Oh, well, we're going to need your marriage license. I'm like, I have a Social Security card that says that I already told Social Security office that I'm married.

(04:19):
I thought that that would be okay. It's not okay. So now I've opened up this whole ball of wax because I have a biological father that was on my original birth certificate. I have a father that has adopted me when I was an adult, but before he adopted me, I got married, so I have a different name. And then I got divorced, and I still had my ex-husband's name when I got married to my current husband, and we got married in another country, so it was Pandora's box. Anyways, so she's like, well, and then she's like, well, if you have your passport, I'm like, I have so much ADHD. Do you think I know where my passport is, lady? Come on. So then I was like, okay, well, I'm going to have to apply for a lost passport and change the name, so if I have the married new name, then I can go there. I'm like, this is, I called my mom and I was like, I had an easier time getting a Maryland driver's license two years after 9/11 than I did today. I'm like, this is bonkers. I spent all these hours trying to be an adult, and it was a total epic failure.

Eva (05:33):
Oh, man. Okay. We're going to start every episode with our current stats. So my starting weight was 280. My current weight is 215. My goal weight, I have decided in the last week is 185.

Kami (05:48):
Oh, nice. Okay. Starting weight for me was 250. I am actually down to 245

Eva (05:55):
Already?

Kami (05:59):
But I think the major contributor to losing that was just the fact that I've been drinking a lot more water just in the last two weeks. So it might be a little bit of a stretch, but I think I'm going to go of 150.

Eva (06:15):
150?

Kami (06:16):
Yeah.

Eva (06:18):
What's your first goal weight, not your last goal weight?

Kami (06:23):
What do you mean?

Eva (06:23):
Well, my first one was I would like to weigh what I weighed. It's so long ago now, I'm trying to remember what the first one was. It was like when we moved to Austin. So I was at 280 and I wanted to be at what I weighed when we moved here, which was 235. So how much, that was my first milestone was like, okay, I rewound my life back to when we got here. And then the next one was when I got married, and I have passed that one, and now I'm onto, when I went to Mexico, when we took these pictures, and actually when we went to Mexico on this trip that I'm thinking of, I was the fattest person on the trip, but now I look at the pictures and I'm like, wow, I looked so good.

Kami (07:21):
I know. So there's a photo I have of me, and I want to say I was like 165, and I remember thinking, man, if I could shave 10 pounds off, I would probably be doing good. So I was like, I'm just going to shoot for a goal of a hundred pound weight loss, and that'll take me from 250 to 150. So I'm shooting for the stars. We'll see how I do. It's really, really going to depend on what my lab results are. I'm like, okay, is my thyroid getting better? Is my A1C looking good? And those kinds of things.

Eva (08:04):
I had mine too. And I was just going to say, it's so fun when you go back for the second round of labs to see how much it changed. I think it's even more fun than measurements because it's.

Kami (08:15):
Oh, I definitely put a lot more stock in those numbers as opposed to, oh, I lost an inch in my waist. Who cares? What's your cholesterol? What's your blood sugar doing? So it's been five days. I have not had any side effects at all. None. What I have noticed is, of course, huge diminished appetite. Definitely a diminished sugar cravings, are like nil, because normally I would be like, oh, what can I snack on? And candy and ice cream. And so that's been huge.

Eva (08:55):
I remember getting horrible acid reflux in the beginning.

Kami (09:00):
Oh, yes, absolutely. I was going to say I did have, and I think it was because I ate some pasta and some tomato sauce, like spaghetti sauce, but it was the made from scratch stuff. It wasn't just out of the jar, and I didn't have a huge portion of it. I'm talking, I put it in because we have these large coffee mugs that you put chili that you would just serve chili in or whatever. So I put it in that, not even a bowl. And I did notice that it gave me some heartburn, but I've had really bad heartburn before. So as far as heartburn goes, it wasn't even really that bad.

Eva (09:44):
Has anyone in your house started treating you differently or looking at you differently or thinking less of you?

Kami (09:53):
No. No. I mean, I live with my husband who, bless his heart, thinks that I'm sexy no matter what. And my daughter that adores me and tells me how beautiful I'm all the time, so no.

Eva (10:05):
Oh my gosh. Six year olds are the best thing for your self-esteem ever.

Kami (10:09):
Oh my gosh. She's like, mommy, you're the best mommy in all the world.

Eva (10:14):
No, I am.

Kami (10:15):
And she says it like, I was like, oh, okay. That's nice. I'll take it. No problem.

Eva (10:23):
I would've had kids a long time ago if I knew how nice they were going to be to me.

Kami (10:26):
Ask me in 10 years when she's 16, and we'll see how that conversation is, but we'll save that for another time.

Eva (10:37):
Yeah, I know. We'll be doing it at the same time. I hope she never hates me. I hope she never does to me what I did to my mother.

Kami (10:47):
Oh God.

Eva (10:49):
I'm sure she will do some of that.

Kami (10:51):
I think they all will. You just kind of got to be prepared for it. Have you ever met with a nutritionist?

Eva (10:59):
No. That is one of the few things I never did.

Kami (11:04):
So I met with a nutritionist, not recently, but in the course of my weight loss journey, and not that I'm not knocking nutritionists, I'm not really, I think that there's probably some really good ones out there that have a lot of valuable information that they can pass on. I don't think that this particular person was one of those people, but she's talking about like, oh, what's your normal routine? And I was like, oh, I do coffee in the morning. She's like, okay, great. Well, I really just want to start everything off really slow. And I'm like, okay. I was like, I've got a boatload of ADHD. I don't do slow. What? So she's like, I just want you to, you know what? I just want you to change, it's just the little things that you just can change the little things, and that's just what's going to help you. And I'm like, okay, I don't believe that, but all right. And then she says to me, if you just change your coffee creamer to powdered creamer, you'll really cut back on some of those calories.

Eva (12:12):
Okay.

Kami (12:12):
And i'm like, and she's like, yes. And it's so creamy and delicious. I was like, we're never talking again. There's no way that I'm going to powdered creamer and defile my coffee. Are you kidding?

Eva (12:27):
Right?

Kami (12:28):
No.

Eva (12:29):
I would've been so offended by that. And plus, okay, number two, I haven't drank a calorie in 20 years because I'm not a dumbass. This reminds me of when my husband had a small blood pressure incident one time that ended up in the ER, and the doctor was so unwilling to listen to anything he had to say and kept coming and going from his hospital room, and all he kept saying to my husband was, no more Cokes. No more Cokes. Do not drink any more Cokes. My husband's like, I don't drink Cokes. I don't drink any pop, sugar. I don't drink sugar. The guy just assumed that he was drinking two liter bottles of Coca-Cola every day.

Kami (13:21):
That's terrible. Yeah. I never booked that second appointment.

Eva (13:26):
I don't blame you. Powdered creamer.

Kami (13:30):
Yeah. I was like, you mean that crap that you get in the lobby of the tire stop store? No. Oh my God.

Eva (13:40):
By the way, eat some artificial food that's processed. Excuse me?

Kami (13:47):
Yeah, she just thought that was going to be what was going to do it for me.

Eva (13:50):
Have you ever looked at how many calories are in a tablespoon of half and half?

Kami (13:56):
I don't think it's a lot. Or is it?

Eva (13:58):
No, it's not. It's like 25 or something. It's super insignificant. So let's say you ate, had four cups of coffee with a tablespoon of half and half. That's still only a hundred. A hundred calories a day is not going to make or break you.

Kami (14:17):
And I told her, I said I'd rather just not have any. Oh, okay, well. I'm like, Bye-Bye.

Eva (14:23):
See you. We're done. Yeah.

Kami (14:25):
We are done.

Eva (14:26):
I'm with you. Good call. Have you had any weird memories of yourself and food in the last couple of weeks? Have you written anything down that popped in your head, like me binge eating candy in the Target bathroom?

Kami (14:45):
I never did that. Not necessarily a specific memory, but I have been kind of thinking a lot about how I use food as a reward. And this reward system is very broad.

Eva (15:06):
Yes, it is.

Kami (15:08):
There's no, and it, it's very, very liberal. So if I have a bad day, you deserve the extra whatever. If I have a really great day, oh my God, yes, let's celebrate. Let's go to blah, blah, blah restaurant, and order all this food and 14 drinks. And so it doesn't matter what happened to you that day, if it was good or bad, you got to reward yourself because either A, you got through it or B, you accomplished something. So I've really been conscious of trying to figure out other ways to reward myself that's not that. And I don't want to teach my kid that either. So that's part of it is I don't want to be like, well, you got an A plus on your homework, so you deserve a cookie. No, I'm not doing that. So that's been something I've really been mindful of lately.

Eva (16:09):
I've just been doing it all the time. If you guys can get out the door for gymnastics on time, we'll go get a donut after.

Kami (16:18):
No, not doing that.

Eva (16:19):
Constantly. Yeah, I know. I have to catch myself and not do it. This is why we have 150 Barbies, by the way, because I'm trying not to use food as rewards. So I've replaced it with Barbies.

Kami (16:34):
Right. And that's what I'm trying to do. So I'm trying to figure out what the alternatives are. Right? I'm like, what else can I do? Not only for myself, but for her too.

Eva (16:46):
It's interesting how that behavior starts to change because of the medication, because you don't want the food anymore. So then you're sort of left with a vacuum. What should the reward be like you're saying right now? I don't know. And I really have to spend some more time thinking about that too, because just because I'm not eating their rewards doesn't mean the behavior's not still there with the kids. Even though I have been trying not to do it, my husband does it too. He takes them.

Kami (17:21):
I still take her to do those things, but it's never in conjunction with a behavior. It's like, you know what? It's 1:30 in the afternoon on a Saturday. You want to go get some ice cream? Yeah, let's go. Okay. It's not because you were good you get it.

Eva (17:35):
Right.

Kami (17:40):
Right? And the other thing I don't do with her is I don't restrict a lot of stuff.

Eva (17:47):
Yeah, I don't either.

Kami (17:48):
She just pretty much just eats whatever she wants and whatever portions that she wants to. And I see all these people, they're like, oh my God, you let your kid have Oreos after eight o'clock? So because I don't, you can't have the cookie and you can't, you can't, you can't. Right? She self regulates very well. A lot of times she'll want an ice cream sandwich and she'll eat half of it, and she's like, I'm done. Okay. She doesn't binge eat. She doesn't, because

Eva (18:21):
She doesn't hoard it.

Kami (18:22):
She can just have whatever, right, she just has whatever she wants, whenever she wants it.

Eva (18:27):
Yeah, you just reminded me of another one, which was I have a younger sister, which you do too, don't you?

Kami (18:34):
Yeah.

Eva (18:34):
Yeah. And we're about two years apart. And so every week when we were on our way to our violin lessons, we would get McDonald's on the way. And it was a long drive for us. I mean, when you're a kid, 30, 40 minutes is a really long time in the car.

Kami (18:50):
Like an eternity. Oh, yeah.

Eva (18:51):
And the McDonald's was about halfway there. So we would go through the drive through and then we would go the rest of the way downtown Minneapolis, and mom would get one bag of fries for us to share, except I would eat one, give her one and put one in the door of the car. So effectively,

Kami (19:11):
That's so gross.

Eva (19:12):
I would squirrel one third of the fries into the door pocket, that little handle of the door. And so I would always get two thirds of the fries and she would only get one third. But why didn't she just buy us each our own stupid fries?

Kami (19:32):
Right. Because I think that the heart's in the right place and oh, I don't want my kids to overeat, but you got to let them self-regulate or they'll binge later on. You know what I'm saying? So that's what I am trying to do.

Eva (19:50):
Yep, me too.

Kami (19:52):
And sometimes she'll, like I'll be hand her three Hershey kisses and she's like, oh, I just want one. I'll save the rest for later. Okay, honey. And then she goes and puts 'em on the shelf and she knows that she wants one. She can just go get it. So I'm like, okay, well at least I'm doing that part of parenting, correct.

Eva (20:15):
Yeah, you are. You're killing it for the most part. So far so good, Kami. Okay, well I think that's a pretty good update for week number one. I'm very proud of you. I'm very excited for you to see where this is going to go.

Kami (20:29):
Yeah, yeah. I am too. Definitely.

Eva (20:32):
Okay, have a good week.

Kami (20:35):
Alright, you too, honey. I'll let you know, I'll keep you posted.

Eva (20:37):
Follow us on Instagram at Less of You podcast. Are you confronting the same challenges and have a story to tell? I'd love to hear your story on our Skinny Shot Stories podcast. Contact me for more details at skinnyshotstories.com. If you're a doctor and would like to learn more about sponsoring this or any of our cosmetic surgery and weight loss podcasts, go to lessofyou.com. Less of You is a production of The Axis, theaxis.io.