Lose 20 pounds before surgery.

I finally made it to Onederland (at 199.0) when I weighed in at the Racquet and Fitness Center last Saturday, November 8.  And it's the first time since the Great Weight Gain of 1984...that's half my lifetime ago!

I had an appointment with Dr. Coster last Wednesday, and after taking off my coat, sweater and shoes, I weighed in there at 199.6....boy I was happy about that.  And Dr. Coster seemed happy, if a little surprised.  Apparently, I'm a fast loser.  Such is the life of the high compliant personality.

Today was weigh-in day...every Saturday after aqua class at the Racquet and Fitness Center.  And the scale said 207.  That's 5 pounds less than last Saturday, and 100 POUNDS LESS than the highest weight I ever saw on the scale there.  Amazing!  I set my Halloween mini-goal for 215, since I had been charting my loss based on the OH weight loss estimator, set at 80% of excess weight.  That's what Dr. Coster said I could expect to lose.  And since it said 216 at 4 months out, I thought 215 sounded like a reasonable goal for Halloween.  Dare I dream of Onederland by my four month surgiversary?

Speaking of Dr. Coster, I was in Grinnell last Wednesday and had an appointment with Stephanie the PA.  Nothing new to report to her, but she is very pleased with my progress, and suggested that I should have no problems getting to a normal weight based on the results over the last three months.  I also had to stop at the hospital for the blood draws for my first vitamin panels.  And when I go to Grinnell again on November 12, I'll meet with Dr. Coster.

Clothing is an issue.  I'm struggling a bit to find things that actually fit me.  A woman came up to me in church on Sunday and good-heartedly suggested I needed to buy smaller clothes.  But I've got a few things of Lyn's from the garage sale that fit me now, and I bought a size 12/14 pair of black knit pants from Wal-Mart that fit.  The size 20s, 22s, 24s, 2Xs and 3Xs are headed out the door!

This continues to be a surreal journey.  I can no longer judge whether I'm losing weight, and I figured out it's because THESE AREN'T MY CLOTHES!  They're Marissa's sweaters, or Betty's slacks or the pants from Montana or the Salvation Army, and I just won't have them long enough to know how they fit, so I really can't judge how they fit compared to the last time I wore them.  I felt myself slipping into some old thinking this week, wondering if the containers of left over crockpot roast with onion and carrot were really too much food at a time.  I put them in the 6 oz Fage yogurt containers.  Six ounces, too much?  Good grief.  Seymour seems full and satisfied but not overly full when I eat that much. 

My eating schedule has been:
   8:00 am     Protein shake
   9:30 am     Breakfast (e.g. 3 oz Fage yogurt or cottage cheese & pear)
 12:00 pm     Lunch (e.g. deli meat & cheese, or tortilla w/beef & cheese)
   4:30 pm     Snack (e.g. string cheese & soy crisps)
   8:00 pm     Dinner (e.g. crockpot roast & veg)
 11:00 pm     Unjury chicken soup protein

I stick to this pretty closely Mon-Fri, and make a few modifications on the weekends.

So is it too much?  Well, I lost 6 pounds this week, so I say that's a no.

My birthday and Labor Day coincided this year, and what a day it was!  I told the Margarita Committee that all I really wanted for my birthday was to have the brush cleared from my backyard, and if they could do that, I'd make them a lavish breakfast.  So Al and the trailer and 7 others showed up at 9 am to haul the brush to the Brooks's burn pile and help with breakfast.  They got the job done in just over an hour, and I made a great breakfast of marinated London Broils on the grill, scrambled eggs (thanks to Betty and Lyn for helping), San Francisco hash browns, fruit salad, toast, orange juice and coffee.  Amazing how I can be present at a big meal like that and not care one whit about eating.

After breakfast and once everyone had left, I decided to try a London Broil...I didn't want to eat it while everyone was there and risk being sick.  I had used a sesame ginger marinade, so thought it might have too much sugar, although as a whole there wasn't much marinade on the meat.  It is a tenderized cut, so not very dense, and it was moist.  And Seymour was very happy with it, so I ate half of the 8 oz piece at lunchtime and the other half later in the day.  It is wrapped in bacon, so I left most of that, but did have a tiny piece of the bacon each time.

Being up and about so much had been hard on my knees and feet, so I spent much of the middle of the day with my feet up, although I did get out and put away tools and things from the mad brush bashings.  Lyn, who was working at the aquatic center in Marshalltown, called and said I should come over and workout at about 5 pm (since all the usual pools I go to in Ames were closed for the holiday).  So I got there about 4:45 pm, got a good hour's workout, and then helped her deflate innertubes with the rest of the pool staff after closing, as it was the last day of the pool season.

Later Lyn, her daughter Meagan, and I went out to El Portal, and I decided I should take another big step in the introduction of foods and try to eat at a restaurant.  Taking the advice of many here on OH, I thought I would try some soup, so I ordered the chili with beans.  Not only was this the first time since starting the pre-op diet that I had eaten something where I didn't know the exact fat and sugar content, but also the first time something had been presented in a "regular" portion.  So it was a little scary, as I knew the fat content would be higher than what I had been eating.  But, it tasted good, everything went down (and stayed down) just fine, and Seymour let me know when he was satisfied, so I was full, but not overstuffed.  And I think I probably ate about 1/2 cup.  After supper, I hung around at Lyn's for about a 1/2 hour just to make sure I was OK.  And while it did feel a little different, I wasn't sick or uncomfortable at all, so headed out on the 45 minute drive home.  And I have just now remembered that Lyn wanted me to call her when I got home to let her know I got there OK.  Whoops!

I went to Grinnell for my six-week checkup on Thursday, August 14.  I could report that everything is going just fine.  The official scale showed that I had lost 31 pounds since the surgery.  I am doing an aqua aerobics class or water walking every single day, and following all the eating guidelines.  Our binder said that during weeks 3 to 5 "when your surgeon has given the OK to go to soft foods," well, I was into week 6, hadn't seen the doctor since one week out, so I had progressed to cottage cheese, string cheese, refried bean, soy "meat" crumbles.  Nothing has cause any problems. 

With the good report, Stephanie the PA said to go ahead and start trying foods, and to start with the calcium pills.  Haven't been too adventuresome yet, but I have had some deli ham with a slice of low fat cheese, with a bit of low-fat mayo and mustard.  The calcium pills are big, and I need to take 6 a day, so I have been cuttng them in half.

Otherwise, nothing out the the ordinary to report.  Woooohoooo!