My first week after the sleeve

It's been a while. Since I last posted, I've had my surgery and gone through almost a week of recuperation.  I can't believe how fabulous I feel.

Today I attended the 1 week post-op class at my hospital.  They taught us about portions, foods and food triggers.  I have read several books and lots of information on the internet.  I joined several forums so I could learn as much as possible.  What was interesting is that most people wrote about a week of clear liquids, some time with liquids then pureed food before we go to a much more robust diet.  Surprisingly, though, at my class, they put us on 'real' food.  No more liquid diet, and no pureed foods.  We (our teeth) are the blender, pureeing our food.  How could that be?  But I am thrilled to death.

We got a 1/2 cup portion of food (okay, it was hospital food, but it was better than yellow jello) and were taught how to mindfully eat it.  It was the best beans and cottage cheese meal I ever ate.  Yup!  Nasty as it was, it tasted soooo good.

I got the cues for when I was full and stopped when I was supposed to.  I waited my 30 minutes after eating before I picked up the water bottle. 

First day....success!!!

I still need to figure out my protein drink goal since I'm allergic to most of the good protein drinks out there, but I'll wait until tomorrow to figure that out then venture out to the store (the first time driving since surgery!) to wrap that up, too.

All in all it's been a great week.

I'd love to hear from you as to how you dealt with your first week up to the first month.  Please leave comments for me. 

Getting the final medical tests done

It seems like ever since I've been on this path, I've had to have a million tests.  First, I had to have Vitamin D and H Pylori tests (and some others which I can't even remember anymore).  Now I had to get more blood tests, x-rays and EKGs.  I hope they all come out negative, and that they are just a waste of time and money....but you never know.

As with everything else, this is a wait and see process.  Any one of these tests with a bad result can put a hold on my surgery.  I am assuming that everything is okay, though.

Twelve days until my surgery.  I better practice my breathing.

I gotta do what????

Before receiving surgery my doctor requires that we all go through a pre-op class.  The class covered things from nutrition, exercise, what to expect after surgery and even guidance from a therapist.  There is a lot to learn and I have to say I'm glad I have a few weeks to review and practice some of the them.

I have heard the term 30-20-30  before but wasn't quite sure what it meant.  Now I know.  Actually, I sort of figured it out beforehand.  I've been trying to eat for 20 minutes.  I even set a timer to help me, but that is very tough...especially for someone who is used to gobbling my food quicker than Usain  Bolt runs. 

How have you handled the 30-20-30 rule?  I'd like to know.  Comments, please.

Figuring out clothing needs

I started rearranging my closet
like a clean slate.  It's easier to
sort by size this way.

I've been really busy trying to figure out if I have enough clothes to tide me over as weight (hopefully) falls off. 

I have been thinking about all the shopping I will have to do to assure I don't have to walk around naked.  I do not want to spend a lot of money on new clothes that will hopefully only fit for a few weeks, so I looked at other options.  Rather than go shopping, I've decided to take an inventory of the clothing I have, by size, so I know if I'll have enough to tide me over for a while. 

As I go through the closet looking for my smaller 'treasures', I am going to sort things by size so when I'm in a new smaller size, I can easily grab the clothing that will now fit me.

I'm a big computer geek so I've created a spreadsheet to show what I have, by size, and can use that information to grab what I need at the right time.

Then....everything that is too large for me will be washed, logged for tax purposes and given to Goodwill.  I don't want to ever get back into these sizes again and hopefully removing the clothes will make sure I minimize chances to do just that.

I would be interested to hear how you handled the clothing situation?  Did you trade clothes with friends?  Shop at second hand stores, bite the bullet and re-stock your closet each time your size changed?  Something else? 

Please leave your solution or suggestions in a comment so I can consider other options that may work for me.

By the way...I am 15 days out from surgery.  So much to do...so little time.

How will I look in my new size after losing some weight?

This image changes
with the parameters
you enter.

As the date gets closer and closer, I can't help but wonder how I will look.  I remember when I was much younger and worked out like a crazy lady.  I was lean and buff. But I'm not quite that young anymore so I do not expect to look the same as I did back then.



This looks more
like me

I started to search the internet to see if I could get some idea of what I'm going to look like as I start to lose weight.  I found this wonderful website called Model My Diet.  You enter your height and weight along with goals if you want.  It changes the model on the page to show how you will look at various weights.

It even lets you put in your hairstyle, eye type, approximate age, various types of clothing, etc., so the model will look more like you do.  Obviously it's not an exact science, but I loved seeing her shrink down as I entered different weights.

The software is free so it will just cost you a few minutes of your time and if you are like me, you will enjoy watching the changes before they happen.

Stop the craziness!!!

I recently received my surgery date.  I am so excited.  But over the last few days, I've been thinking 'this is the last time I will be able to eat XYZ' and after over six months of watching every bite I put in  my mouth, I ate things I know I shouldn't.  I had a sandwich, tasted a piece of cheesecake, (but did not eat a piece, thank goodness), drank caffeinated beverages...all the things I know I shouldn't be doing. 

I guess it was good to do this now, because I have to say, the scale showed my digressions.  Reward and punishment, I guess.  So now that I have this out of my system, I can go back to behaving.

I am 17 days away from surgery and am hoping like crazy that the flu that hit everyone misses me.  I need to get on with my life.

I have been reading everything I can find on the topic.  I am pretty comfortable with the surgery, but am learning about life afterwards.  People say 'I ate a few spoons of pasta and got sick'.  Yikes!!!  But it is a great reminder that the surgery (and the 6 month effort beforehand) is just the beginning.  I am happy to learn new ways of doing things, and eating will be just one of those things.

So for the super bowl, a usual eating-frenzy day, I'm making a recipe with cauliflower and Canadian bacon.  Both are pretty healthy, but I'm sure will be out of reach for me for several months.  It could be worse.  I could be chowing down on pizza and wings, and chips. 

Enjoy the game (and for me, the commercials) and get past this teeny, tiny bump in the road.  Tomorrow will be a perfect food day.

Why oh why are they making me do this stuff??

It took me a long time to decide to actually have the surgery done.  I went to several bariatric surgery overview sessions.  The first time I went thinking I wanted to do the lap band, but after hearing the doctor talk, I didn't think it was for me.  Since I was going to have actual surgery, I put the whole thing on the back burner again for almost a year.

Then the 'pants too small' incident happened, (see previous blog entry for this incident) and I made up my mind to go ahead with it.

I called my insurance company to see if I even qualified.  They told me about a ton of 'hoops' I had to jump thru before I was eligible for surgery.  I was not happy, but I started jumping.

One thing they wanted was 6 months of doctor supervised weight loss visits.  They didn't cover an actual medical diet plan, which I thought was really silly.  I had just changed doctors and my  new doctor was about 12 years old (or so it seemed to me).  I wondered what she could bring to the table since this wasn't her specialty.

I got the paperwork that my insurance required and gave it to my doctor.  She willingly helped me along this journey and even though it was not her specialty, I have to say, she helped a lot.  She suggested things to me that I never even considered.  When I was done with the 6 months, I was so pleased I wrote her a thank you note for her guidance and support.

I also met with a nutritionist and exercise physiologist to get started on new good habits.  The nutritionist told me to clean up my diet.  I never met a slice of bread or a potato I didn't like and white stuff such as these were not allowed.  I swallowed hard, cried just a bit, and got them out of my diet.  Surprisingly, I didn't miss either of them very much. 

Along this six month effort, I learned quite a few things.  By cutting out bad carbs and junk, I could lose some weight and it was not really difficult.  Most of the time, when I get on a diet, I can't stay on it for any length of time.  But this time, it was not a diet, it was a lifestyle change.  This change is one I am able to keep up so that was definitely worth the effort.

I'll write more on this as I get a chance.  Right now, I have quite a few appointments that I need to keep so I stay on track with this journey.