Progress Thus Far...

I'm down 35 lbs and 7 weeks out from my surgery. I just went thru a 16 day stall that I thought I'd never get out of : / But sure enough, I came out of it and dropped almost 7 lbs in a matter of 2 days. So I'm at 164 as of now. Still have 50 more lbs to go but I'm making progress. I'm almost halfway to my goal and I'm only 7 weeks out lol. I realize it won't be coming off as fast now as it did preop and thru the liquid diet after surgery, but still, hopefully it'll come off rather fast :)

I'm doing well on my diet. I haven't had any vomit spells yet. I've overeaten at times and been really full, but not thrown up yet or had the foamies. I've come to realize that chocolate makes my stomach hurt, not really hurt as in pain, but just feels yucky...which is a good thing, makes me not eat it as much. I think I've tried just about everything that I ate before surgery and nothings seemed to set wrong with me, so that's comforting. I just can't eat as much of it. I can eat about 2-3 oz. now and I'm surprisingly doing well with my eating/drinking together. I sometimes eat right after I drink. I don't see why you aren't supposed to do that, so I've tried it and it doesn't seem to bother me in a negative way. But I don't drink after I eat. Don't want to experience the dumping syndrome lol

Hallelujah for Pepcid AC!!!!!

So I've been doing really good on eating. The only issue I have is acid reflux. I've been taking tums and its not really working, but decided to try some off brand chewable Pepcid AC. And OMG, it works pretty instantly! Gotta be careful with that stuff or it could become addictive lol. But hey, it works! So excited about that.  I'm still in the soft foods stage, and I'm eating things I'm probably not supposed to be eating like pork, and there's probably other things too. It started as an accident but now that I'm finding it doesn't affect me or hurt me, I'm tempted to keep on it. Now I'm not an idiot. I'm not gonna go out and eat hard chewy stuff like steak or cashews or popcorn. But shredded pork, yes. Spam, yes. Cracker, yes.

We went to a festival this morning and you know festivals have all the fried stuff; fried pickles, oreos, snickers, you name it, its fried. And they have just about everything edible you can think of. Well, it smelled so stinkin good. I told my mom if I didn't have my sleeve, I'd be going to get me something (anything) right now because it just smells so good...and I'm not even hungry. Goes to show that we as ordinary individuals just like to EAT. We can smell it and just eat without being hungry, and that's how our population is so overweight. But with the sleeve, I'm not hungry and I'm still full from my 3 bites or pulled pork 3 hours ago (lol), and I know if I were to put anything else in my mouth, I would absolutely puke : / So....I'm very thankful for my sleeve :D

More weight loss!!

Yay for more weight loss, something I should probably get used to, huh? lol ...Well I had stayed at 178 for a couple days there thinking I'd hit a stall, but apparently not. Dropped to 174 this morning. Yay!!! I didn't think I'd even make it to the 160's by the end of October, and its only the beginning. So maybe I will. I'm a couple days in on soft foods. I've done very well I think. Not gotten sick. I have however decided that I'm trying to eat too much. Two ounces is probably the max I can take. I get very bloated and yucky feeling. Like I ate some chicken and cheese off my husbands nacho plate at the mexican restaurant at 11am this morning. And I've felt bloated all day; didn't eat dinner. Snacked a little on some pork roast my husband cooked only because I couldn't keep my hands off of it. Not because I was hungry or even felt the least bit empty. Now I just feel even worse. Live and learn. Tomorrow will be better.

But on a lighter note, side pains have somewhat subsided, fingers crossed. Didn't really have any today, very slightly, but too minor to count. I can move a lot easier without any pain. I'm really crossing my fingers, toes, legs and arms hoping that its going away for good. If ya got a minute, cross something for me for extra power lol

Eating today

I did okay today. I upped my calories a little which I could say is progress; I was kinda proud. But I still stayed under my carb limit of 40g. The soups I've been eating have been bothering me a little bit with my side pain, but again I'm thinking it could just be eating too fast. Well I tried Chicken Corn Chowder by Progresso this evening. And omg, its delicious and I've had no pain. I've actually eaten more than 4 bites and been done. I'm probably on spoon #15 with no pain yet. I'm pretty durn excited :)

Looking forward to trying soft foods this weekend. I know I've said that more than once, but I am very excited. Going to try only 1 soft food per day so if I get sick I know which food is the culpret lol

What I'm eating...

I've had several people to ask what I'm eating because of my increasing weight loss. I honestly think its just because of the liquid diet and I'm not really eating a lot at meal time. Even though the soups and things like that should pass thru just as good as water does (no limit), maybe its just a head thing. I only end up eating a couple of tablespoons at each meal. That could be a contributing factor. But my days look similar to this:

Breakfast - protein shake
Lunch - strained soup
Dinner - strained soup
Snacks (I rarely do these) - jello, pudding, yogurt drink, ice pop
And drinking as much liquids throughout the day to stay away from dehydration; already had a scare a few days ago.

The whole thing about the sleeve taking away "hungry" has really messed me up. I pretty much have to make myself eat. I've never really been a muncher, just the person that doesn't make wise choices as to what I put in my mouth at meal time and pretty much overeating when I do eat. So it will be rather challenging to keep food in, I imagine, when moving to solids. I start soft foods this weekend, that is, if I feel like risking the stop of the rapid weight loss. I think something else that's going to be challenging is not eating and drinking at the same time when I get to solids. Not looking forward to messing up there : /

Weight Dropping

I am currently still on the liquid diet so I'm pretty much consuming a lot of strained SOUPS. Wondering if I should stay on soups instead of moving to soft foods this weekend, because of the steady weight loss I'm experiencing. I was 178 lbs this morning. I'm loving it so much, it's kinda worth just staying on liquids lol.

The gas pain in my side is still irritating me today. One girl on the forums said hers didn't go away until week 5; not cool. Another said her's went away week 2; that sounds better. I'm 9 days out. I'd appreciate if it'd go away any day now :) cause it is definitely not welcome here. Trying to walk as much as I can, but I feel like I may be overdoing it sometimes so I have to be real careful. I think I'm also eating to fast, because the side pain becomes very sharp after I eat sometimes. I really think I'm just eating too much, too fast. My mom says that, and I believe she is right on it.

1 Week Post Op

Okay, so I'm bad at keeping this updated. Maybe I will get better. Pre Op diet went well. I only cheated once. I ate taco salad, hehe, 3 days before surgery. I think that's good for having to drink mainly protein shakes for all meals for 2 weeks. The surgery went well. Hospital was great; doctor was phenomenal. Great guy!! The first 48 hours after surgery was horrid lol. But I have a very low pain tolerance, so I don't do pain very well. Had a lot of gas pain in my side; still have it in my side a week out. Can't wait till it goes AWAY!!! My wounds are healing pretty nicely. I've already lost 8 lbs since surgery day. I'm now at 181 as of this morning. I'm getting better at walking without hurting (from the gas).

I woke up yesterday morning rather late (11:30am). Started getting dehydrated (dizzy, hot flashes, etc.). Yeah....won't do that again. This morning, I was up at 7:30 and on TOP of that protein shake lol. I officially shaved my legs by myself this morning and wore jeans today for the first time since surgery. Pretty proud of those efforts :)

I have 1 week left of eating liquids. Then I move to soft foods for 2 weeks. Pretty excited about that. But I'm doing very well on liquids. Good thing I love soup, cause I'm enjoying them for meals everyday, strained of course. And I love my protein shakes. I think those will be a part of my mornings from here on out no matter what phase I'm in.

Week before my 2-Week Pre Op Diet

So I'm starting my pre op diet tomorrow but its been crazy this past week. I've been eating normal, although conscious of the new eating habits that are about to occur in my world. But I've not been watching what I eat this week, just been preparing myself mentally for whats about to happen. And been working my butt off at the gym, in which we just joined. And I've lost 7 lbs. Like...uhh...what in the world? lol No complaints here, but still. 7 lbs is a lot! Of course I'm contributing it to the fact that my nerves were(are) messed up due to the fact that I was 3 weeks out from surgery (now 2 weeks). But I shall get used to the diahrrea visits to the ladies room, or maybe that will soon be up-chuck visits to the ladies room lol. Regardless, lots of ladies room visits haha

So I was at 194 this morning :)

So here we go!

Let me give a little history about my weigh loss journey up until now. My highest weight was 240. I was working in a cubicle in an office building sitting for the majority of the day, not to mention sitting next to the bakery department who brought in samples for merchandisers almost everyday. I worked in a regional grocery chain's corporate office. So anyhow, I decided back in May of 2010 to start a low carb diet just because you drop weight anytime you lower your carb intake. I've stuck with it for the majority in the last year and a half, but I climaxed in January at 50 lbs. lost, weighing 190. It is now September 2011 (9 months later) and I've managed not to be able to lose any more weight, although I've still been following the low carb diet.

My mom actually had the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy at the same time I started my diet in 2010, and the diet was also an effort to somewhat compete with her weight loss. She won, of course. She's now at her goal of 140 and I'm still around 200. So in the last couple of weeks I've been talking to mom about having the procedure done myself. And after much reseach about the surgery and doctors, I've decided to go through with it. My surgery is on September 19, 2011. I'm 15 days away today. And I'm...well...nervous as crap lol.

I start my pre op diet tomorrow. Protein shakes for breakfast/lunch and salad with chicken for dinner this week. Next week I am strictly on protein shakes. Then the 3 days prior to surgery, I am strictly on clear liquids. This shall be fun :) But really, the benefits I will reap will make all the pain and suffering worth it lol. I may be living off my fiber chews so at least I fill full, but I will make it. No one ever starved from 2 weeks of minimal food, right? lol I'm only kidding. I'm not really stressing it. I'm actually very, very excited!!!

So here's my pic at 240.

Here's more of a recent pic about 200 lbs.

 

My goal is 115. From observing others who have had the surgery who started around my weight, they reached their goals in roughly 9 months. So we're looking at a good bikini summer next year, woohoo!!! I will be journaling pretty often hopefully as my mother encourages me to do so. And posting pics along my journey. Wish me luck!!