How does WLS affect gardening activities?

HI all... don't see much activity here but it'd be great to see some discussions, with spring here and all. The last official sprout of spring - the dinnerplate (hardy) hibiscus are greening up. Summer arrived here in W. central Arkansas last week - temps in the low 90s. That happens sometimes, and it doesn't always mean a hot summer. But April and May were both well under average rain amts - and that is NOT a good sign. Well, not for anybody but the water company. As for me, I'm Denise, 44 and was gung ho for WLS, but since joining this board I've gotten scared that it's just another temporary reprieve and a year out I'll still be in the diet failure trenches. New ins takes effect June 1, so every bit is in limbo till then. Since apparently it's common for ins co's to require a period of time on a diet that the dr has been watching, I guess I'll just start that anyway and get some help from Meridia for as long as it works, then when I inevitably regain, start in again with the wls. Perhaps by then something will have given way and I'll be able to have DS, which is my preferred surgery. But I have a couple of burning questions regarding WLS and its effect on our ability to garden that nobody else seems to have been able to answer. If you guys could give me some input, it'd be great. The first concerns water. When it's hot and I'm in a manic phase (working on a project obessively in every spare minute) I can go through two or three gallons of water/iced tea in an afternoon. What makes this significant is that I also never once go back inside and pee- it's all sweated out. Must be, because I have a bladder the size of a walnut. So how does this need for large volumes of water work with reduced stomach size? Does the water pretty much flush through as quickly as you drink it? I've been so thirsty I've downed 2 in a row of the big Love's cups, which probably hold about 32oz. How do you balance thirst with volume when you are in the middle of a hot, hardworking project? The second question is about stomach muscle recovery and lifting. I'm forever and always moving rocks around. They're heavy but I'm strong. I lost 90 lbs once, mostly in one summer, on fen-phen and worked like an animal on our new landscape, much of it doing rock work. It's probably what helped me rebuild the muscle I was losing along with the weight that was falling off, so I'd like to move in that vein again but don't know how long it is before that kind of heavy work is possible. Denise

Hi Denise - I am also an avid gardener so I thought I would take a stab at your questions. I had my surgery 8 months ago and have lost about 100 lbs. I too drank a lot of water before surgery but find that I have trouble getting my requirement in since surgery. I do make sure that I have water with me all the time but have to force myself now to drink. I find that if I make up some Crystal Light I will drink it faster and before surgery water was always my drink of preference. As far as lifting the rocks I would stay this may cause you some problems, especially as far as hernias are concerned. It is my understanding that after surgery we are more susceptible to hernias and I know that since my surgery I seem to be having more problems lifting my 50 lb bags of potting soil as those muscles just don't feel as secure as they used to. I am used to lifting the bags of dirt and heavy objects but since surgery they seem to be heavier for some reason. When I think that I've lost two of them it blows my mind to figure how I dealt with carrying it around all the time. Also my surgery was open so this may make my stomach muscles less secure. If your surgery is lap you may not have this problem. Good luck and happy planting.

Thanks for the response - I was beginning to thing that this board was abandoned! I'd heard several people talk about how their taste changed and they couldn't bear to drink/eat the same things they'd had before, and a lot of people like that CL lemonade. I can't stand it now; maybe I'll be able to do so later. Your letter gives me some needful information; I hadn't considered the possibility of herniating or factored my lifestyle into the surgery choices. Just as I am absolutely positively certain that I don't want RNY and DO want DS, I am now also as certain that exactly what I will want is lap DS for this very reason. I have some suggestions as to why you don't feel as strong - you're not. With that kind of weight loss, our bodies are consuming their muscle tissue in nearly equal amounts as their fat ( unfortunately.) In all the research I've done lately, I've come to believe that muscle-building exercises post WLS are probably more important than aerobic exercise - so that we replace the lost muscle tissue weight. Not to say I think aerobic excercise is unimportant, but it does seem like most people concentrate on that. It also makes sense that if you build metabolic mass, that will increase metabolism in a longer-term sense than aerobics will. Do you suppose that the use of some kind of hernia support while doing the lifting would help? I know, I know... it'd probably be sooo hot and get dirt and grit under it and chafe. Chafing- that's probably a big issue too, isn't it? What with the skin fold troubles I have now, 100lbs from now it would probably be twice as bad. Denise