Week 9, Post Op

Not much has changed lately, so not much to update. I'm stalled out again at a steady 230 lbs. This has been the same since I last posted. Ugh! Sigh! But I'm hoping that this stall breaks really soon. I hope it doesn't take 4 weeks like the last one. It's kind of funny that when the weight is coming off in leaps and bounds, I'm so excited and I have a great outlook at things. I stop and reflect! I give myself this pep talk about how things weren't so bad. That this is a process and it just takes time. Ha! So true but I don't like the parts of the process were everything comes to a screeching stop. It's just so frustrating! I know the scale will move again....I just don't want to wait!

On another note, I started my physical therapy for my hip yesterday. I didn't think it was so bad. My therapist told me that I was going to be really sore in my hip areas. I left there thinking, naaaaaa....it really wasn't that bad. Oh my goodness, I am so sore today. I really didn't know that I had these particular muscles around my hips. This is amazing! It's a good kind of sore. He sent me home with a few exercises that I have to do twice a day. I will go see him twice a week for the next 4 weeks and if all works out, I won't have to go back after that. What this will do for me is strengthen my muscles around my hips so that I'm not so weak there and so that hopefully the pain I've had for years won't be quite so bad. I will say that the cortisone shot I got about 2 weeks ago is working wonderfully. I have a little bit of break through pain depending on what I'm doing but for the most part the pain is about 95% gone. I think this helped tremendously at physical therapy. It would have been torture if I had not had the shot.

Also, a word of encouragement for all of us sleevers or soon to be sleevers. While I waited for my turn at physical therapy, the lady behind the front desk came out and sat next me. I was kind of shocked at first but then she said that she saw on my paperwork that I had just had the sleeve surgery done. She said that she has a friend that had it done back in February....so it's been about 6 months for her. Her friend has lost over 100 lbs. She needed to lose around 140 lbs. by the time it's all said and done. She pulled her iPhone out and started pulling pictures up of her sleeved friend. Wow! She looked great! There was definitely a huge difference. She almost looked like a totally new person. That made me feel great for her and also for my future. I told her I was in another stall and she said her friend goes through them too but she keeps on losing.

I hope each and everyone of you have a wonderful day!

Excess Weight and Goals AND Am I Really a Slow Loser?

Just so you know, just in case I haven't mentioned it before, I have continually felt as if I wasn't losing near fast enough after surgery. I'm sure that the 4 week stall I went through didn't help me any mentally. Also, when you jump on the forums and you read about all the people that are in about the same time frame you are out from surgery and their weight just seems to melt off...now, that's frustrating! I had got to the point that it was just too depressing to even jump on there and read anything. Okay, with that said, I really think that there's a lot of misconception out there about where we should be at any given point in this sleeve journey. My dietitian gave me a whole new perspective on everything. First of all, everyone is different...okay, we all knew that yet we still manage to compare ourselves to each other. Second, with that said, most of us start out at a higher or lower weight that some and our heights are different. Third, how do we know that all of our bougie sizes are the same....or for that matter, even if they are, some people can tolerate more water, more food at an earlier stage. I believe that the sooner a person is able to eat more normal foods, the faster their body tends to level out (in other words, our body stops freaking out) and we start dropping at a faster rate. So after my nutritional class, I've learned so much and have actually come out of it feeling like I'm right where I'm supposed to be.

So the other day when I went to my nutritional class, we discussed what the meaning of excess weight was. She, my dietitian, said that there's no magical number. It's simply the extra weight that you have to lose to get down to your goal. Your goal is whatever you think you should weigh when it's all said and done. Nothing more to it! So, I already had a goal in mind, 130 pounds. I've been there once before in my mid-twenties and probably could have lost an additional 10 pounds on top of that. Oh and she said that you should count the weight you lost before surgery during pre-op. So 3.5 weeks before surgery when I started my pre-op diet, I weighed 280 lbs. So at that point my excess weight was 150 lbs.

Now, when I hit 3 months post op, I should have lost 30-35% of my excess weight. So, 35% of 150 lbs. (excess weight) would be 52.5 lbs. So let's say that there are 4 weeks in a month...we all know that this can vary....so I'm guess-ta-mating (Ha!) that somewhere around 12 weeks out, I should be at my first goal of losing 52.5 lbs. That would be around Sept. 15. That leaves me with about 3 weeks to lose an additional 7.5 lbs. to hit that goal. How exciting is that? I couldn't believe it when she went over all of this with us. Here I was thinking that I was a slow loser and I was afraid that my surgeon would be very disappointed in me when I go for my 3 month check up. Ha! Not so!

Other goals later down the line....6 months, I should lose 50% of my excess weight and at a year, it should be 75%.

I think part of the problem is that when you're going through the process from the beginning until whenever they finally start talking about goals, you're just kind of out there floating around and trying to figure things out on your own. You don't really know where you're supposed to be at whatever that given point is in your journey. I think they should talk about this before you ever have surgery so that your mind and your emotions aren't all bent out of shape. It would have saved me a lot of grief. Oh well! Hopefully this post will lift someone elses spirits.

48 Days Post Op (Freedom)

Hi! Today I had my 6 week post op nutritional class and weigh in. I've lost a total of 45 lbs. since pre-op started. 

So the break down:

• 280 lbs. the day I started my pre op diet
• 255 lbs. the day of surgery (3.5 weeks of pre-op diet)
• 245 lbs. two weeks after surgery
• Stalled for almost 4 weeks (Ugh! Wanted to scream!)
• 235 lbs. as of this morning (I lost 10 lbs. in one week. YaY!)

Does this surgery work? Sure it does but not without hard work on my part. And let me tell you, it hasn't been easy. Before surgery, I couldn't wait until I didn't feel hungry anymore. Well, I never thought that would be hard. Now, I have to remind myself to eat and then it's a game of "what do I want to eat that I've already had one hundred times in the last 2 weeks AND that I'm not really hungry for anyways." Ha! Now, I'm not complaining! It's just a huge adjustment.

The good news....freedom! Freedom to eat whatever I want! In my nutritional class today, I was told that there's not much that's off limits except for carbonated drinks, high calorie and sugar foods (in moderation of course), and celery. Mentally, this changes things for me! I'm thinking that maybe if I can have an open variety of foods that maybe my interest will pick up again. I'm hoping to enjoy food again soon. Not like I used to, of course, but instead, not dread my next meal. I think that my biggest problem is that I'm sick of the same old foods over and over again. That's hard! I was so excited when I was told today that life will start to get back to normal and I would still continue to lose weight. YaY again!

Exercise! Well, little has been happening here. I really want to but I have had a really bad hip since 1997 after an injury and it has only gotten worse over the years. I had an appointment with an orthopedic surgeon this morning. And no, I don't have to have surgery yet! Thank you Lord! But he did take some x-rays and discovered that I have osteoarthritis. He is sending me to physical therapy for 4-6 weeks to help strengthen my muscles in my hips and to help with my weight loss. Of course, he feels that if I continue to lose weight, the pressure of all that extra weight will no longer be present and will help a good bit with some of the pain. He also prescribed Celebrex which was on my list of medications that a sleeved person could tolerate. When I presented that to my sleeve surgeon today, he said absolutely not! Huh!?!? He said that it would tear up my stomach and that it's not safe to take until I'm at least 6 months post op. He suggested I call my orthopedic doctor back and have him give me a shot of something that starts with a "T"....lol....I wrote it down but can't remember. Go figure! After speaking with my ortho-doc, the shot that was suggested will only last a day. Well, that's not going to work! Ha! So, I'm scheduled to go in on Wednesday for a cortosone (sp?) shot in the hip. Hopefully this will help. If you've ever had to have this done, will you tell me your experience? Thanks in advance.

Oh, and my 25 lb. weight restriction has been lifted and I'm free to do whatever exercise I please....if I can do something with this hip. Sigh!