I’m sorry i didn’t blog this soon but with everything going on my mind has been other places. I got my approval letter on a Saturday when I was out of town My husband emailed it to me as a surprise. So Monday the first thing I did I called to see when we could schedule my surgery not thinking my surgeon is only in office on Thursday and Friday. But that Tuesday night at 8:30 the nurse called and said “I’m going on vacation for two weeks you want to schedule this surgery now?” of course I do!! So April 14th is the big day and it’s coming soon and coming fast and I’m so excited!! I’m excited to get my health back and I’m ready for the help get the rest of this weight off forever and know more yo-yoing.
UNDERLAND!!!!
Today is the day FINALLY! I hit the 100’s for the first time in nearly 20 years! What a sweet feeling that is! I have not seen the scale show a 1 at the beginning of my weight since shortly after my youngest was born nearly 20 years ago! What a great feeling it is.
Tomorrow is my 1 year anniversary and I set a goal a year ago to lose 100 lbs in the year. On Wednesday of this past week, I made that goal!!! 100 lbs in 1 year. It almost seems impossible to imagine. That is like losing an entire person!
I am really starting to get my energy back now. I am about 3 months out from my surgery now and things are going great. I am walking at least 4-5 times a week and sticking to my program watching everything I eat, monitoring my protein very closely ( I want to keep my hair) trying to get my 64 oz of water in a day and so on.
The biggest changes I have seen are in my skin. I don’t have the oily skin like I did before, at least not to the extreme it was. I used to have to buy products to mattify before putting make up on and then even with that, I would look like I was melting after a few hours. Now, after the end of a work day, I barely have a shine. I am cold all the time, no matter what. My upper back hurts all the time. My research has found that this is common with rapid weight loss because the body is trying to find a new center of gravity and the muscles and such are over compensating. I am trying to work through this with my massage therapist and chiro but it is going to take a long time until my body adjusts I think.
Adjusting to a new body image is a whole different set of issues. My mind is slowing starting to catch up to the change and I can see the new me in the mirror finally. I shop at the thrift stores every few weeks to buy clothes that fit as they become baggy so quickly. I bagged up all the old clothes and have sold many of them off as I never plan to put them on again. I don’t want that reminder in my house. I have set my mind to follow this new life and stick to it and never turn back. I see others around me making changes in their lives after seeing the success I have found and it feels good to be able to inspire people to make positive, healthy changes and see them succeed as well. It brings me such joy to see them excited and tell me about their success on the scale or tell me about an accomplishment they made and their willingness to share it with me. I love being their biggest cheerleader! I would have never thought that by making the decision to take this journey to save my health, I would actually be saving others.
I am planning on taking 1 year anniversary pictures tomorrow in celebration of my long journey so far. I might even dig out my “fat” outfit I kept and try it on just to get a sense of how far I really have come! I encourage anyone who goes down this path to keep one outfit as a reminder to look back on some day and say….wow…look at me now and look how much I have accomplished!
May the next year of this journey be just as awesome and successful!
Tae Bo kicking my butt!
Ok folks…it has been a good 15-16 years since this girl has tried to keep up with the Tae Bo videos..no lie! So what on earth would make me think that I could do it in my mid 40’s? NO CLUE! But I picked up a copy of the fat burner video DVD and had a complete loss of all reason and popped that sucker into the DVD player tonight! 55 minutes later, 2 bottles of water, 3 gallons of sweat, 2 knee surgeries, pulled muscles and Lord only knows what else later, I FINISHED that darn work out! Now I may never get out of bed again once I get in it tonight, but by gosh I finished it! My kicks were lame and the knees could not handle some of the moves at all so I marched in place for part of it, but I didn’t give up once! I smell like a skunk now as the sweat drips off of me but I am proud of myself for not quitting and finishing that death work out! Will I be doing it daily…HELL NO! Maybe once or twice a week…in between my treadmill walking to change it up. I ordered a different work out of his that is 10 minute target sessions that are bit more realistic for me right now that I can build up my stamina and fitness level. WHAT WAS I THINKING?? My hope is to help target some areas that the treadmill just won’t help with such as my bat wing arms!! Wish me luck!
Putting things into perspective!
My brain has not caught up yet to my weigh loss. When I look in the mirror every day, I still see the old me looking back. I talked to my weight loss center about this and they advised the best way to get me to see the changes is to take photos and compare them to photos of the old me. Today is the first time I have done this since I started this journey a year ago. While I have taken photos along the way, I have never compared them to me at my heaviest until today. The photo above is a photo taken of me on the left at me on my heaviest that I can remember and me yesterday on Valentines day 2015.
I will say, when I did this, I was in tears. I don’t recognize the faces staring back at me in either picture. I don’t remember that heavy person even though it has only been a year on this journey and the new face staring back at me has changed so much, it is barely recognizable. So many people have said this to me, that they wouldn’t recognize me today if it were not for who I happen to be with when they saw me. My own parents have even said this when they saw my new photo that if they saw me in person, they may not recognize me.
It feels good to look at this, knowing I have lost almost 100 lbs in the last year. My 1 year anniversary will be in only about 4 weeks that I started this weight loss journey with my family doctor and when I weighed myself a few days ago, I was 9 lbs away from losing 100 lbs!! This is my big milestone I really wanted to hit by 1 year so I am pretty confident I will hit it.
I am still battling this virus I last posted about, I am on round 4 of my antibiotics and been to 3 doctors now. I have finally turned the corner though I think and starting to feel a little better. I keep pushing forward to get past this virus and back on a healthy track so I can get on an exercise routine and really start trying to get more weight off and start toning up. I would love to hit my goal weight by end of summer. I know it is a lofty goal but I think it is also doable if I work hard, follow my program and stick to the exercise.
So Excited!!
I had my last appointment with the nutritionist today. I’m down 32 lbs and now just waiting on insurance to give me the go ahead. Did all my blood work and all the pre op questions. After insurance says OK, I will have one last doctor visit with the surgeon to go over any last-minute details and/or questions. I’m so close I could cry. I can’t wait for this part to be over. At times it has been a little stressful for me wanting it so bad and thinking I was going to fail like I have failed so many things in the past. But I have a great support system behind me. My Sister in law has kept me in check so many times and don’t even know it. I can say I have never felt like giving up though. I don’t think I have ever wanted anything as much as I have wanted my health and my life back. I want to walk up stairs without feeling like I’m going to have a heart attack. I want to see my boys grow up and get married. I can’t wait to go shopping with my Sister in law to the mall to any store we want to and laugh and have fun and not have to sit down cause my back hurts or my knees are killing me cause I’ve been walking for 20 minutes. I want my life back. I want to be me again!!!!
No More Insulin!!
Went to see my Endocrinologist on Monday and after checking my feet and talking a little about how close I was coming to have my surgery, he was looking over the download of my glucose levels for the last 4 month and he says ” Oh you got your A1C down to a 5.5- way to go!” I was so excited I didn’t think the news could get any better than that. Then he turns and says ” How would you like to stop taking your insulin and MetFormin? I was in shock, of course I would love to stop my insulin. I really thought I would never hear those words so fast into my journey but he said you still have to take this new pill until next visit in 4 months or until surgery. I have lost 30 lbs a little hard work and it’s paid off in good ways already. I’m so glad that I finally decided to take my life back and stop letting food and stress eating control me. My last Appointment with my surgeon and nutritionist is Friday Feb 6th and I would love to lose 10 more pounds. So i need to hit the treadmill and the stairs and get this going.
Flu bug #1 Post OP
I have been battling my first flu/virus/head cold since surgery and it has been miserable! I can’t take my go-to meds that usually work. I always took Delsym cough syrup that worked like a charm, but it is not safe anymore. I have been miserable all week with sinus and cough!
I have been taking the recommended Tylenol Cold meds which quite honestly do NOTHING! I have never been a fan of Tylenol anything, but it appears this is one of the only drugs that is now safe for me to take. I have been trying to keep my fluids up as always but this thing is seriously kicking my butt and not getting any better! It started coming on Tuesday and has gotten worse each day. I am on day 5 and feel worse today than all the days before combined. If I am not feeling any improvement tomorrow, I am heading to the clinic to see if there is anything they can do because I can’t miss another day of work because of this.
Send some prayers my way everyone that this goes away quickly!
On the positive note–my 4 week check up last week went well and I am down 75 lbs total weight loss since this journey began. 22lbs since surgery. On the right track there!
First Battle since surgery—GAS!
Ok, I am going to give everyone fair warning that this post is going to be a TMI one but I must share because hopefully it will help someone else in the future who might be going through this!
I have had little to no side effects so far since surgery! NONE! Everyone I talk to seems really surprised by this. They ask, no nausea, vomiting? I tell them, no nothing yet. This ALL changed last week for me. Phase 3 consists of cheese, beans, tuna, cheese, beans, tuna, did I mention CHEESE? Well, we all know what happens when you eat too many beans and too much cheese! It leads to GAS and no go! I warned you!
I started having sharp pains in my lower abdomen every time I would stand up. My tummy would gurgle all the time no matter if I was eating, drinking or sleeping. I could only “go” every other day and little at that. I was getting pretty uncomfortable and the pain I was having was worrying me as I know having this surgery puts you at risk for hernia. I called the surgeon and he suggested I take something for gas and constipation to see if that could be the issue and if it got worse, to go to the ER.
$40 later at the drugstore, I had GasX, Miralax, Colace in hand. I already had a bottle of Milk of Magnesia so that was first as we needed to get things moving along and then the Miralax to keep it regular. GasX has been my saving grace the past few days and the pain in my abdomen is now gone.
It turns out that this is very common post bypass surgery and is something that I very well could have to deal with from now on because of my restricted diet. It is harder for me to get regular fiber and enough of it in my food to keep things “normal” so I will probably have to supplement with fiber and these meds to keep myself from getting miserable.
Tomorrow I start my vitamin/supplement regimen as I am 4 weeks out and can start on pills again! No more crushing them in orange juice! Can’t wait to not have to taste that terrible bitter stuff again! Onto new challenges as I am terrible with pills, but phase 4 of my food starts so this opens up new food choices, fruit, lunchmeat, and more! Another checkup on Wednesday this week! We shall see what the scale says!
4th visit with the nutritionist
So Friday was my fourth visit with the nutritionist. So to recap, my first meeting with Doc, surgeon and nutritionist was Oct 24, 2014. I weighed 355. The second time I met with nutritionist was three weeks later on Nov 7th, 2014 and I had lost 7 lbs weighing 348 lbs. I’m not making excuses but obesity is a disease and a struggle with one’s self I ended up gaining 5 pounds. Very upset with myself even though I knew what I did wrong. It was my son’s Birthday and I told myself it was fine to have that piece of Better than sex cake. Then before I went to bed I have one more small piece. But when we came home and I weighed myself and I knew I didn’t want to ever feel that way again. I didn’t want the guilt. I felt defeated and this was no longer going to defeat me. So I got back on track and worked hard because I had to get those 5 lbs back off plus more before my third visit with nutritionist was on Dec 12, 2014. I lost 5 lbs weighing 343. BOO but at least I lost and they were happy with me so they set my last two appts up with nutritionist. Jan 9th they wanted me to lose 7 lbs. I’m Happy to say I lost 11 lbs for a total of 23 lbs which I was trying so hard for 25 but just didn’t pull it off this time. So this means my last appt is Feb 6 and I have to lose 7 lbs to prove that I can and want this surgery. But I myself want to lose 15-20 so I am going to up my exercise and I believe this can and will be done. I have to say with having the support of my sister and having her here along with me on this journey has got to be the best feeling ever. I mean I have a pretty good support team but no one understands the way she does. love ya sis!!
My Journey
In January 2014 I was checking my sugar cause I had been hot, sweating and moody all day and to my surprise it was 497. Before this, I had never had one over 175 (was put on MetFormin 2 yrs prior) called Doctor and went to ER three different times to two different hospitals and finally had to be put on insulin. This was very emotional and mentally draining on me. I had already been in a deep depression after losing my father in Oct 2013 this just was the icing on the cake. I stopped leaving the house and cooking for my family, I would just sit for hours doing nothing but watching TV, playing on the internet, eating, crying or sleep all day. I missed my Dad so much I felt like my world had come crashing down on me and my health was getting worse. My Back hurt so bad I didn’t want to move then my knee started hurting more and more. I felt like what else could go wrong or why me? Then my Husband said to me one day what are you doing? This isn’t you and your dad would be so mad at you for just giving up. That hit me like a bolt of lighting. He was right, my dad would be mad I wasn’t taking care of my health and I knew I had put on some weight (on an already obese body) he would be very upset and disappointed in me for that. So I called the Doctor, told them I thought maybe my depression meds need to be changed and I need to talk to someone. When I got to the doctor that day I was so embarrassed when I got on the scale I had gained 75 pounds in 7 months from the time my dad had passed until May 2014. I tipped the scale at my all time highest 360. I cried the whole way home and couldn’t believe I had done this to myself. What was I thinking gaining more weight after already having to start insulin. I was never going to be able to get rid of the insulin the way I was going,I was headed to my own death. I have two teenage boys, a husband and myself to think about. I hit the internet researching and new diets were out of the question because I was tired of the yo-yoing. I needed a life style change. I need to be healthy, it was never about being thin. I need to be healthy. I have now met with my surgeon and my nutritionist and we decided on the Reux-En-Y because it is the best for people with diabetes. That was Oct 21, 2014 and I weighted at that time 355. At my first check in with the nutritionist 2 weeks in I was down 7 pounds, 2nd weigh in was down a total of 13 pounds. I now have my next apt. with nutritionist on the 9th and I’m down a total of 20 pounds hoping to lose 5 more by Friday. I’m excited about my healthier life style can’t wait until they tell me I’m good to go for surgery because with the surgery we are hoping that within 3 months I will be off insulin and maybe even MetFormin which is what I want more than anything.
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