…Heart On Her Sleeve…

Hi, I’m a terrible blogstress. Here is an update!
It’s been 4.5 months since my surgery, and I’m doing fantastically well. Life is busy and fun.

Since surgery, I have:
-as of today, lost 85 lbs.
-lost 10 dress sizes.
-blood sugar is normal, without medication.
-blood pressure is normal, without medication.

I feel amazing. My energy levels are through the roof.

What am I eating? I eat 3 meals and 3 snacks a day. My meals are protein heavy. I often eat meat for breakfast. I still can’t stand protein shakes, no matter what kind, and refuse to gag them down, so I get my minimum required 78gm of protein/day through real food. I can eat 2.5-3 oz of dense protein at one time, depending on what I’m eating. Generally closer to 3 oz if it’s fish. Less if it’s steak. I don’t enjoy eating chicken breast, or any other meats that are prone to drying out. I do best with moist or fatty cuts. My cholesterol levels are great, and I’ve never been a huge believer in super low fat eating anyhow.

I watch my carbs, in that I very rarely eat bread, pasta, rice or potatoes. If I really want some, I have a little bit, but my meals focus on protein and then veggies. I snack on things like nuts, fruit, cheese, beef jerky, edamame. I try to keep my processed foods to a minimum and focus on whole real foods. When I want a treat I’ll have some frozen yogurt, and every so often I treat myself to some popcorn (when I go to the movies) or a small dipped cone from dairy queen.

What’s different about how I eat post-op, is that I don’t feel like I’m fighting with myself every time I put a bite of food in my mouth. It is WORLDS easier to make good choices. Much easier to ignore the carb-monster whispering in my ear. I am not craving shit food all the time. I am not insatiably hungry all the time. Actually, I’m barely ever hungry at all. If I do make a poor choice (like yesterday when I was at the CNE and ate a soft serve icecream cone AND a box of popcorn) it does not send me into a downward spiral of shitty eating for a month before I can pull myself out of it. I wake up the next day and get back on the horse without issue. And btw, I woke up this morning having lost a pound after my carbfest yesterday. Could be because we walked around for 10 hours yesterday. Which is something else I can do much more easily now

I am so very thankful that I researched the hell out of the surgery choices available to me and found out about the VSG. I’m glad I found a supportive doctor and the courage within myself to rally for what I knew to be the best choice for me. It has given me a new lease on life. I feel and look like a new person. I don’t feel like a freak around other people when I’m eating, and can enjoy a huge variety of foods. I have more confidence in myself. Life is so good, I can hardly stand it sometimes

Also, I have such supportive people in my life, I am eternally indebted to them. I have so much love in my life, I often wonder how I got to be so lucky.

Here are some progress pics. You can see that I have lost the most from my face and belly. I still have a luscious jelly roll around my middle, but I hope that in time it’ll be gone.

Can’t wait to see what another 4.5 months from now will look like

sorry for having not posted in a while, life’s been really busy! i moved in with my boyfriend, and finally feel settled in the new place.  i’ve really been enjoying the new house.  have a veggie garden out back about to pop with tomatoes and zucchini.  i’ve already harvested a couple zucchini, but the tomatoes are still green.

life post-op has been great.  no more pain from eating.  i have to still think about eating slowly, but it’s become more of a habit now.  i love the summer and all the delicious fruit. cherries are my favourite. i eat them almost every day.  getting my protein in seems effortless these days.  i’m able to eat about 2.5-3 oz of dense protein at any given time.  i avoid chicken breast, because it tends to be dry, but i really enjoy chicken thighs, pork, beef, lamb, fish.. i’ve always been a voracious carnivore.  with my meat i’ll have a bit of salad or veggies.  sometimes i’ll have a couple bites of starch of some kind, but i try to focus on the meat and veggies.  i snack on things like deviled eggs, babybell cheeses, hummus and carrots, and in the evenings i’ll often have some delicious frozen yogurt.

i started working out with a personal trainer.  she kicks my ass for an hour twice a week.  she and i are going to run the toronto marathon 5k on october 18th.  she’s VERY inspirational, and i’ve been really enjoying our workouts.

i have loads more energy these days.  i wasn’t an unhappy person before, but i’ve been feeling so pleased in general lately.  it’s funny, but some people in my life are JUST starting to notice now that i’ve lost some weight.  others know that something’s different but can’t quite seem to place what exactly has changed.  they’ll ask me if i’ve done something different to my hair.  no, i’ve lost 74 lbs!

that’s right, 74.  i’ve lost 8 dress sizes (getting closer to 10) and am sitting at the lowest weight i’ve been in my adult life.  while i do plan out my meals and make sure i’m getting in my protein, i eat delicious food that i enjoy and do not feel like i’m deprived or have sacrificed anything for this weight loss.  i LOVE my weight loss surgery :D  when the day arrives that i get under 200 lbs, you’ll hear my hooting and hollering from wherever it is you are

one day, i’m gonna run out of rhymes for these titles…   one day.

i’ve been a terrible poster.  my life is a bit upside down right now as i’m moving at the end of the week.. but things on the weight loss front are still going full steam ahead!  i’ve been feeling great, full of energy, getting out and about, playing softball, riding my bike.  life is good!  once i’m in my new digs and all settled in, i will focus more on taking pictures and posting recipes and all that fun stuff.  i promise!

in the mean time, here are my 8 week pictures.  i lost 12 lbs in the last 4 weeks.  not as dramatic a loss as in the first four weeks, but hey.. i’m not complaining!  as long as the scale is moving, i’m a happy camper.

not so great with the photoshop skills, but there you go!  what i’m most excited about this month is the introduction of a waist!

well i am VERY happy to report that the stall i was worried about last week has been broken!  i lost another 5 lbs this week! hurraaaaaaaaaaay!

i didn’t really change anything, just making extra special sure that i was getting all my protein and water.

i’ve been making sure to eat at least a serving of fruit and veggies per day.  i haven’t tried really crunchy or citrus fruit yet, but i’m enjoying berries, watermelon, nectarines, and cherries.  they add some fibre to the ole’ diet too, which comes in handy.  i’ve been making sure to eat slowly and stop at the first sign of fullness.  very happy with the results.  i’ve been feeling GREAT!

i’m down 6 sizes since surgery.  i’m swimming in some of the shirts i used to wear.  it’s so nice to slip into a pair of pants you haven’t worn in years and button them up no problem.  i am officially 9 lbs away from being the lowest weight i’ve been since.. well.. i don’t even know. at least 10 years.  i LOVE my sleeve

well, i hit my first “stall” in that the scale did not move this week.  i weigh in on wed’s, and the scale blinked the same 252 at me as it did last week.  i squinted my eyes and asked the scale if it was sure about that, and it said yes, now get off me.

i’ve been reading the obesity help ontario forum religiously for months and months, and from what i’ve read, many people experience a small stall around the 3 week mark.  just your body catching up with the huge shock of surgery and rapid weight loss.  understandable.  but still, frustrating because i am an instant gratification junkie and want GREAT RESULTS EVERY WEEK GODDAMNIT.  sure, this is totally unreasonable, but so am i, dear readers.

i will wait till next week and see what the scale says before i think about changing anything i’ve been doing.  i do eat carbs, though i do try to keep them below 50-70 gm/day.  i figure i like them, and i can eat them without binging thanks to my new tiny banana-shaped tummy, so if i can continue losing, they stay.  if i see that they’re causing the scale to stop moving, i’ll cut them down.  i hope i don’t have to though, cause i loves them.   fwiw, i try to keep my carbs in the “good” or complex category with fruits and whole grains, but i have been known to respond to frozen yogurt’s sweet siren song from time to time

during week 5 i was given some clarity. it would seem that this reflux i thought i had was actually pain associated from me introducing too many foods too fast and actually eating too fast. durrr. i guess i’m a little slow on the uptake, and never made the connection. the symptoms, i guess, are similar. pain, burning and tight feeling behind the sternum. lots of pain and burning.

i’ve always always been a fast eater. like so fast that i barely tasted my food before it was gone. so fast that my stomach hadn’t even registered that it was full of food before i was finished scarfing. i suppose that’s part of what got me to where i was, weight wise.  eating fast has been a really hard habit to break.  i felt like i was eating more slowly, but i guess it wasn’t slow enough.  i have to constantly remind myself to take small tiny bites, chew 4293143929 times and eat SLOWLY or suffer hot sleevey wrath.

be the turtle, jude. slow and steady wins the race. i’m hoping it will one day just become second nature.

i have a very good friend who also had weight loss surgery (the duodenal switch, which means we had the same things done to our tummies, but they also did surgery on her intestines) she also happens to be a surgeon.  she also happens to always be right.  anyhow, while i was in all that pain, she suggested that i take it back to soft foods for a couple days and let things settle down.  once things were feeling better, i should introduce new foods carefully and focus on chewing very well and eating very slowly.  of course, she was right and it worked like a charm.  my tummy is feeling so much better, and the pain is about 95% gone.  things aren’t feeling 100% normal, but pretty close to.  i’m much happier this week

OK so you’re here to see numbers, right?  i lost another 3 lbs in week 5, which puts my total weight lost since surgery at 34 lbs, and 54 since my consult.  i’m very pleased! i’m feeling very energized and happy. i joined a gym and am feeling good enough to commence with the sweating.

my darling boyfriend and i will be celebrating our 2nd anniversary shortly, and as an anniversary gift, he got me a wii fit!  i’d heard such great things about it, and was really interested to see what it’s like and now i have one.  we fooled around with it last night, and it is so much fun!!  i haven’t done a full work out on it yet, but the games were awful fun.  a very thoughtful gift.  he’s been very supportive through all this, what a doll

ON TO WEEK 6!

i love to cook. i actually used to cook for a living.  the restaurant industry threatened to murder my soul, so i had to get out,  but my love of cooking never died.

now that i’m out of the liquids/pureed stage (which are extremely boring, btw), i’m having fun introducing new foods and being able to cook again. here’s what i had for lunch today:

Going to Hell in a Ham Basket

1 large egg
1 slice deli ham (i use the president’s choice vermont with maple syrup)

set oven to broil, and place the rack 6 inches or so from the element. Take a muffin tin and give it a spritz with non-stick food spray type stuff. use your ham slice to line one of the cups so it forms a hammy receptacle in which for you to crack your egg. once you’ve cracked your egg, put it in the oven. i like my yolk plenty runny, so it took only 8 minutes in the oven before the egg white was solid enough. season with salt and/or pepper to your taste. i served mine with 4 trader joe’s mini multiseed soy sauce rice crackers.

i used a mini muffin tin in the above photo, but it was too small and my egg white runnethed over. i lost about 1/3 of the white. a normal sized muffin tin might be a better idea.

next time i will also try lining the muffin tin with the ham slice and putting that under the broiler on it’s own for a couple minutes so the edges crisp up a bit first.

this was really a perfect little wls lunch.  i had a little cup of mandarin segments afterward, (packed in juice) and felt very satisfied! if i were further along, i would serve this up with a little salad on the side, but my tummy isn’t quite there yet.

i am a day late and/or a dollar short.  my 1 month surgiversary was yesterday.  i can’t believe it’s gone by so fast! just like every wednesday, i weighed myself, and this week i lost another 6 lbs, making it 31 lbs since surgery!  add the 20 that i lost pre-op and we’re at 51 lbs since my consult in february.  i am pleased!  if you look at the top of the page, i am keeping tabs on my weight loss under the tab “weight loss tracker”.

i took photos the day before my surgery with the intention of taking the same shots once a month so i could see how i was losing month to month.  the good news is, i actually followed through!

front view

side view

back view

as you can see in the side view, most of the weight came directly off my belly. which is just fine with me!  i anticipate taking these pictures every month to see how my progress is going!

so monday night, my mom and i hopped in the car and drove to ypsi for a recheck with dr pop on tuesday afternoon.  the reflux i was having was scaring me pretty badly, with the chest pains and the thinking i was dying and stuff.  it occured to me that the reflux happened after i ate a tomato-y soup/chili type thing, and maybe i should stop with the acidic foods.  once i blanded up my diet again, the pain and burn seemed to go away.

when i got in to see dr pop, he advised me to stop any and all acidic foods for another month and then slowly try to reintroduce.  the last two days i have hardly had any reflux at all, so i’m very VERY happy about that.

i’ve introduced cheese strings, very moist meats and hummus into my diet, so yay for variety.

my energy is back to about 90%.  big yay!

and finally, today is weigh day!  i dropped another 7.5 lbs this week!  thrilled about this!

for those keeping track, that’s 45 down since february (first consult at barix) and 25 down since my surgery on april 22nd.  can’t beat that with a stick!

i’ve been having some vicious acid reflux, which has been giving me some pretty alarming chest pain.  the chest pain itself freaks the shit out of me and gives me some bigtime anxiety.  i’m heading back to ypsi on tuesday for a recheck and to see what dr pop thinks about the matter.  perhaps i need some adjusting of my meds, right now i’m on zantac 150 twice a day.  otherwise i feel pretty good.  incision pain is muchly improved.  but i gotta get this reflux issue handled, because it’s very very very annoying and painful.