One Month Post Op!

Aug 18, 2012

Surgery was exactly one month ago today.  I've done quite well I think.  I've managed to lose a total of 43 lbs (as of this morning).  27 lbs were lost during the 3 week Optifast diet and 16 lbs since surgery.  I've moved on to Soft Solids in my diet now.  That means that I am slowly trying things like wraps, pita bread, bread, rice, pasta.  I was only allowed melba toast and crackers before and couldn't understand why we couldn't have the others.  I was at a 1 month dietician's class this past week and she explained this way.  Bread, rice and pasta have a tendency to expand once they are in the stomach and of course that could be dangerous and painful.  I decided to try my pasta first with vegetable soup.  You know the kind that has the pasta alphabet letters in it.  I figured it has already expanded since sitting in the can for however long  and I figured it would be a good way to test if I could keep it down.  Success!  I had a piece of toast this morning with some apple butter on it.  Taking tiny bites of that crunch was a wonderful sensation in my mouth since eating mushy pureed food.  I have yet to try rice.  Perhaps I'll try the chicken with rice soup...same principles as the vegetable soup. 

So far I've pretty much tolerated every new food that I've tried although strangely one day they go down without incident and another day give me some grief.  I made beef stew one day and threw in potatoes, carrots, peas and onions.  I cooked it all day in the crockpot so that the meat would be fall apart tender.  That first day I ate about 2 tbsps of it and it tasted oh so good.  Didn't bother me at all.  I had enough left that I froze some and yesterday thought I would have it for my dinner.  I had 2 tiny little tips off my fork of the stew and I could tell it wasn't sitting right in my stomach.  So I backed off and decided to give my stomach (pouch) a rest and try something a little later.  About 30 minutes later it had started to calm down so I had a few sips of my Crystal light and felt that feeling all over again.  Scrambled eggs make me feel very full on tiny amounts and I have to make sure to add milk when I'm cooking them so they are not too dry.  Cooked chicken breast hasn't bothered me to my relief because we eat a lot of chicken.  I did however get deli meat one day that was a roast chicken.  One day it agreed with me and another day it didn't. 

So the whole food process has been trial and error and I suspect it will be for some time.  I'm feeling good other than the pain that insists on staying with me in my knees and back.  I've gone off a whole pile of my meds and plenty of them were for pain so I guess that's why.  I'm still hoping that with more weight loss they won't hurt as bad or go away totally. 

Weight the morning of beginning the Optifast:  351 lbs.
Weight this morning:  307 lbs. 

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