Starting Weight: 347 lbs.
Total Pounds Lost: 144

January 2007     12.5 lbs.      Wt.: 334.5
February 2007     5.5 lbs.      Wt: 329
March 2007          10 lbs.      Wt: 319
April 2007              4 lbs.      Wt: 315
May 2007              15 lbs. (Surgery date May 31st - Wt 300)
June 2007             23 lbs.       Wt: 277
July 2007              13 lbs.       Wt: 264
August 2007          17 lbs.       Wt: 247  (100 lbs. off in < 8 months)
September 2007   10 lbs.     Wt. 237
October 2007       12 lbs.     Current Weight: 224 (227 = no more obese)
November 2007     4 lbs.      Wt. 220
December 2007     5 lbs.      Wt. 215
January 2008        9 lbs        Wt. 206
February 2008       1 lb         Wt. 205 
March 2008           7 lbs        Wt. 198
April 2008             0 lbs        Wt. 198
May 2008              1 lb         Wt. 197
June 2008             2 lbs        Wt. 195
July 2008              0 lbs        Wt. 195
August 2008         0 lbs        Wt. 195

(Note: weekly weight detail in my story at the very bottom of this page)
===============================================

I finally did it. I made my own slide program and set it to music.

Enjoy... http://www.onetruemedia.com/my_shared?z=2c1be716ead98555a27ea2&utm_source=otm&utm_medium=text_url

Thank you for your interest.

John

Where does the time go. This postop life seems to be moving on a conveyor belt that keeps speeding up. I'm involved in more things and enjoying life like never before. The most exciting thing happened this weekend; Christine was approved for her RNY weight loss surgery. She has a date of June 19th and that is when her new life will begin. She will be in Onderland within the first month or two, so this should really be great for her. She is nervous like all of us were when facing the surgery. Things were at such a standstill for such a long time and when her paperwork finally got submitted it was less than 5 days later that she was approved. We are so blessed to have Blue Cross Anthem (formerly Blue Cross of California until last year). Now we can begin planning for our summer and making our plans. Christine was on the edge of whether or not she could have the surgery. She was right at the 40 BMI or just slightly below. 

I am also taking my shot at coaching intramural basketball. I have my son's team and some other decent players. We had six games scheduled for the league and we will play the last game this evening. I met my objective to win at least half of the games. This really is more of a mind and strategy game than I thought. We have lost one game and won the other four. The game tonight will be a toss-up. We have a good chance of winning if we play like we have the last two games. I'm pushing my son to pass it off to the other players since they have put their focus on covering him. In the 8th grade he is 6 feet 1 inch tall. I think I could get into this coaching thing. It was most amazing to me to see how difficult it was to coach for the first three games. Once we had that loss (3rd game) the boys started listening a bit more and staying more focused.

School has gone very well this year. I've had a good bunch of students and now that I have them where I am successful with then, I have to hand them off. It takes weeks to get a new group into shape. We will start it all over again in September.

I'm walking again and enjoying those 5 am two mile walks. I really don't like the winters here since I can't walk. Now that I am exercising again, I feel like things are heading in the right direction. When I had my March appointment with Dr. Steward and he said that I was a success with the surgery. I just couldn't seem to get things moving on the scale again after that. The situation with Christine trying to get approved was more stressful than I thought it would be. Now that she has been approved, I feel that a major burden has been lifted. She was stressed, so she ate, and when she ate, I ate. It was a bad cycle that I'm getting a handle on. I can't believe that I didn't gain more than I did with all of the food I was eating. I HATE carbs. They just have too much control over me once I let them into my life. If I just stay away from them, I enjoy my life so much more. I'm starting to understand why people who had lost their weight said that it was far harder to keep the weight off than to lose it. I have to agree. The early weight losses seemed so easy. It is so easy to trick your mind into thinking that those early weight losses and your motivation would always be like that.

I will try to do a better job of updating. I know that several of you have been wondering what has been going on, so I decided to give a short update. I know how frustrating it was for me being a new WLS patient and then seeing people's profiles just suddenly stop. The reality was that they were just moving on with their life and just had not really needed Obesity Help as much anymore. I had made a commitment to try to do a better job than that. We must keep our profiles current to help those that come after us. I'll try to be better...but I have a REAL life now...so it really is harder.

Thanks for checking in.

John 

Starting Weight: 347 lbs.
Total Pounds Lost: 144

January 2007     12.5 lbs.      Wt.: 334.5
February 2007     5.5 lbs.      Wt: 329
March 2007          10 lbs.      Wt: 319
April 2007              4 lbs.      Wt: 315
May 2007              15 lbs. (Surgery date May 31st - Wt 300)
June 2007             23 lbs.       Wt: 277
July 2007              13 lbs.       Wt: 264
August 2007          17 lbs.       Wt: 247  (100 lbs. off in < 8 months)
September 2007   10 lbs.     Wt. 237
October 2007       12 lbs.     Current Weight: 224 (227 = no more obese)
November 2007     4 lbs.      Wt. 220
December 2007     5 lbs.      Wt. 215
January 2008        9 lbs        Wt. 206
February 2008       1 lb         Wt. 205 
March 2008           7 lbs        Wt. 198 (Total lost = 149 pounds)
April 2008             0 lbs        Wt. 198
May 2008              1 lb         Wt. 197

(Note: weekly weight detail in my story at the very bottom of this page)
===============================================

I recently saw a post about someone who was trying to anticipate what after WLS would be like, so this post is really more for the newbies. When getting ready for WLS, I encourage you to avoid thinking and acting on the last supper syndrome type of eating. You will eventually get those foods back that you REALLY want. Maybe some will disagree, but many of the foods I loved pre-op are no longer interesting to me. I also find that the more I stay away from carbs, the better I feel in general.

Now when I go out to dinner for an evening out, I enjoy visiting with my wife way more than I did before. It used to be the food and then her company, and now it is about the relationship with the food coming secondary. I still enjoy the first bite and I still enjoy that feeling of being full when I am finished. I just don't need to eat that other 80% to get to that point of being full...and I REALLY don't miss that extra volume like I thought I would. Since I still DO enjoy the food, when I go out to dinner, I may even sip a bit more water so that I can enjoy a bit more of that food. If it is food that I REALLY enjoy, I know how to work past the tool "just for the evening". I'm not so crazy as to work past my tool each day; that would defeat why I went through this in the first place. I get back on track the day after and I find that success again.

So, for those of you who might be feeling that you must give everything up, I say that it is temporary as you can have your foods back....just not in your current portions.

Now I look back to the days of Mid-May of 2007 when I had planned my final meal before I went on the 10 day liquid diet. I had gone out to dinner with Christine the night before the night of our actual planned "last supper" meal. I had planned to take my her out again the next night for the real last supper....if that makes sense. Well, we were on our way home and I just became overwhelmed with emotions and tears began to roll down my cheeks. For weeks I had planned this meal out with Christine for this final meal to our favorite restaurant. Then, it occurred to me that if this was really going to be the "last supper" meal, I wanted it to be with both my wife and kids. All of a sudden I was feeling so selfish for not including them in this meal. That was the only time I really got emotional over this surgery as I was completely calm on the actual day of surgery.

Well, we ended up having steak and shrimp and all kinds of good stuff...all of the stuff that we rarely can afford to feed five kids. It was one of the most memorable meals of my life. This surgery process plays tricks on your mind. If you are just starting the process, I say just enjoy the moment. It is such a magical time and you will likely look back on it with fond memories. The reason is that you will begin to see that it was at that period in time that you begin to get your life back.

Thanks for stopping by and checking in.

John

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I do not have the study that it came out of but it was on MSN, so I believe that it was reliable. The point that I pulled out wasn't actually the key point that the article's author was trying to make, but buried in the text. It was a key piece of information that I wish that I had found prior to surgery.

In a nutshell, the study actually said that the mortality rate for morbidly obese people is the same for people who have the surgery as those who don't. The statistical line crosses at almost exactly the one year mark. For those who have surgery, the mortality rate is higher for that first month or so and then gradually goes down at a very steady decline. For those who elect not to have the surgery, the mortality rate stays relatively constant and is the same at about the one year mark. Those who are morbidly obese STILL have about a 1 in 200 chance of dying at that point. The difference is that after the first year, the post-op WLS patient continues to see a major decline in the mortality rate, while the non-surgery person stays at that statistical rate. I'm guessing that as age goes up, the mortality rate gradually and obviously goes up too.

As a somewhat funny sideline to this the study, they also found that a side effect of post-op life is that they are more likely to suffer a sudden death than those who do not have the surgery. Well, let's think about that. Doesn't it make sense that now that we are actually living life and going places all of the time instead of being stuck in the house all the time that the likelihood of a car accident or something might increase? Of course it does. Does it mean that the risk is anymore than for a person who lives a normal life? Absolutely not. Statistics are a funny thing...sometimes we need to stop and think in a logical manner why something might be occurring.

Here is a real-life story to support this. When I was in the main chat room during my pre-op days I was talking about how I had been approved for surgery and had elected to wait until school was out (late May) instead of March 2nd for my original approval date. One of the men in the chat room virtually began to chastise me for waiting the extra 3 months. I began to quiz him about why he was taking on such a strong opinion regarding this. It turned out that years before his mom was scheduled for surgery and when she was AT THE HOSPITAL about to get the surgery, she backed out. Just nine months later she died from obesity related causes. 

I don't include this to scare anyone, but this is a very sad real-life story. In my mind, I could visualize this man with tears running down his face having to tell me why he felt so strongly about that. It hit me pretty hard at the time. Even though I had good reasons for waiting until May, it did make me rethink my position on waiting.

I was off the computer for most of December as we spent the school Christmas break in Florida. It was so nice this year as we had many days in the middle 80's this time. I did not go hog wild, but I did enjoy what I wanted in moderation. It did catch up with me since instead of losing I gained a pound. I'm back on track again over the past few days.

I did celebrate my wedding anniversary by going out to a fancy seafood spread. I was amazed at what I could eat. I ate slowly and tried a bit of this and a bit of that. It was one night and when it was over I was not feeling guilty at all for eating. I really enjoyed the crab legs and had plenty of time to get the meat out of there. Pre-op I was too impatient to spend the time cracking all of those legs and would move on to other things so I could get in the volume. I really enjoyed the quality.

It is so good to be back on track. I want to get to goal so now it is time to really work the tool. It gets easy to eat more than I should since I've been feeling so great and most people think that I'm at goal anyway. I still want to drop 35 more pounds and most just gasp when I say that, so I guess the best thing to do is to keep working at it quietly. While I want to lose 35 pounds, I want to gain 5-10 of it back and use that as my cushion. When the dust settles at the end of the year, I'd be happy to be 185 or 190 pounds.

I'm back exercising this morning. I even dusted off the treadmill. I'm already anxious for the weather to get warmer in March so I can do my early-morning walks.

Thanks for checking in with me.

John