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.

2 week Post Op–on the right track!

Today was my first follow-up appointment with my surgeon and nutritionist.  Stepping on the scale for the first time was both scary and exciting!  I am down 14 pounds since surgery day!  I was blown away!  I did not expect to see that kind of number on the scale today!  The doc said everything looked good and he would see me in 3 months!  I can start exercising in a couple more weeks.

I met with my nutritionist as well and my protein intake is right on target!  I need to keep it between 57-78g daily.  I have been averaging around 67 daily so that is perfect.  She said I need to increase my calories a little bit if possible until I get to the next food phase.  I may have to switch out some of the real low-fat options I have for normal options right now such as the low-fat string cheese and such and just go with regular versions that are a little higher in calories while in this phase.  She said this will keep my body from going into the starvation mode.

I went over some of the mild issues I have noticed such as the shakes/weakness in the morning and being cold all the time.  She said that this is probably because I am not getting enough calories in and my blood sugar is maybe dropping a bit low in the mornings.  I need to try to eat or drink some protein first thing in the morning to get that spike up a little.  It is just going to be a matter of altering my normal routine some from what I am used to.  Eat first, then shower!

I go back in 2 weeks for another follow-up to see how I am progressing on the new diet.  By then I will be on the next diet phase and hopefully able to swallow pills again and started exercising again on my treadmill.  Only 33 lbs to go until I hit UNDERLAND as they call it and it has been close to 20 years since I have seen it so that is going to be a day to celebrate!  Perhaps with a new outfit, shoes, car…who knows haha!

Real Food!

1/2 of a scrambled egg with shredded cheese and a 1/4th of a banana!  Oh Yeah!  My first “REAL” food since surgery!  I was very careful to take small bites and chew chew chew!  CHEWING!  What a novel idea after 2 weeks of sipping on everything!  You have no idea though how much you miss the simple act of biting and chewing your food until it is taken away from you!  So many new things have been added to my menu options today I am beyond excited!

I get to add fat free refried beans, peanut butter, apple sauce, cottage cheese (one of my favorites and super high in protein), tuna fish, canned chicken, mashed potatoes, scrambled egg, cheeses.  So many more flavors to my menu I actually look forward to my next meal now instead of dreading that next meal of strained soup and jell-o once again!  This phase is where I weed out the liquids in my meals and turn to solid foods only. It seems odd to not have anything to drink with my meal but you can’t spare that room when you need to fill it with protein!

My focus is on taking in higher protein foods as much as possible so I can drink less of those shakes between meals!  I can only seem to tolerate the Nectar Chocolate and Vanilla ones and they are starting to make me ill with the smell of them so can’t wait to be able to incorporate higher protein food in my meals so I can drink less of those!  I currently only seem to have to take about 12 ounces of the shakes now in order to meet my 60-70 grams of protein a day between my food, milk and shakes. Hoping to get that down further so that I can no longer have to do the protein powder and just maybe the milk between meals.

Tomorrow I head back to work and just hope to make it through the 2 days I have to work before I am off for another 5 days for the holiday!  9 hr work day is gonna be really tough so I will have to just pace myself and really take it easy and just do what I can and not overdo.  Luckily I have a desk job, although a stressful position, I don’t have a physical one, so that certainly helps me a great deal!

I am anxious to visit the doctor on Tuesday to see how I am doing.  I don’t own a scale, I have never believed in them, but I think I will probably have to break down and purchase a decent one soon.  I will be curious if I have lost any weight over the past 2 weeks.  Surely you would think I would have lost a few pounds considering the very small amount of calories being taken in each day but I also have not been super active during recovery.  I am giving myself a couple more weeks for incisions to finish healing and such before I hop back on the treadmill and start building back up to my walking regimen. I know this is going to be key to my success in the long run but I also do not want to push myself too fast too early and cause problems with my healing.

Have a great Sunday everyone! I will be enjoying my last day of vacation!

Today is a new day!

While this is the first official blog entry on this adventure, this journey began many months ago.  I started my transformation in March of 2014.  I had visited my doctor with elevated blood pressure, on the verge of a stroke, barely able to walk due to my knees hurting so bad all of the time.  I topped the scales at 300 lbs that day.  I know it wasn’t the heaviest I had ever weighed in at but it was close!  I knew it was time I did something for myself once and for all to take my health back and get things under control.  I made an appointment that day with Genesis Center for Weight Management.

That is the day my journey officially started.  I have been through battle after battle with losing weight over the past 20 years and have not been able to beat this horrible disease called obesity.  I knew it was going to take more than just a diet to regain my health once and for all.  I started following a dr. monitored 1200 calorie restricted diet, exercise program as well as the strict nutritional program through the center for several months.  Test after test, dr. after dr. but I was finally approved for my Roux En Y surgery in October 2014.

I had my surgery on December 15, 2014 laproscopic.  I weighed in the day of surgery at 243 which was a 57 lb weight loss!  I am very proud of that accomplishment!  Surgery went very well with no complications and very little pain to speak of.  I stayed in the hospital for 2 days and went home on December 17th that morning.  Other than being tired quite a bit and just slightly sore where my incisions were, I have had no other signs that I even had surgery to speak of!  I will say you get very sick of chicken broth very quickly and orange jell-o after eating it 3 times a day every day for a week!  I was very excited to make the switch to creamed soups and pudding!  Who would of thought!

The first week or so, I really never felt hunger.  All I did was concentrate on getting all of my protein in and try to get my liquids in.  That is a challenge as you have to decide between sleep and getting your fluids in sometimes.  After about a week, it did get easier to take in fluids and once I switched to cream soups, I could add my unflavored and chicken flavored protein powder to the soups to up my intake and not have to drink as much in shake form.  One can only drink so many of them before the smell starts to get to you. I make sure to keep my protein always about 60 g every day one way or another.  The recommended amount is 60-70 g daily.

I must admit I am really looking forward to the weekend when I move on to the next food phase and can start adding eggs, cheese, tuna, cottage cheese, mashed potatoes, apple sauce and such into my meals.  It will give me several new options to incorporate into my meals and not have to eat the same 3 things every day for a week straight.  This phase will last at least 2 weeks so I will have to get creative with the meal plans on this one until the next phase starts.  I am looking forward to the day I eat actual food again and can try to eat with the family somewhat again.  It is hard watching them eat some of the foods I love while I sip on strained soup and am craving the ability to just chew something!  I know it is mind over matter at this point and with time that will get easier.

I go to my first 2 week follow up appointment on Tuesday next week.  I am going back to work on Monday for the first time since surgery.  Hoping I can make it through the 9 hour day and not pay too dearly for it!   I get tired very easily as I do not take in hardly any calories at this point and just do not have my strength back yet from surgery.  I think that will come with time.

I hope this blog will help others as they consider this journey.  The choice I made to have the Roux En Y surgery was not made easily and should be considered carefully as it is a permanent choice that comes with great risk and many possible complications.  I chose this option as it was my best chance for long term success for permanent weight loss as well as resolving the many health issues I have that simple weight loss was not clearing up.  Every step of the way has been closely monitored by my numerous doctors.