AnnieD9999

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I cannot wait for pureed. so many adventures. So last week I posted about getting better about exercising. And so far this week i have done that, hopefully not speaking too soon. I have worked out for the past 2 days in a row, and I plan on making it 4 or 5. Its getting easier every couple of days and I hope to do a little bit of jogging with my walking soon. (like 5 minutes total but hey, can only get better) So im pretty stoked to try pureed foods, hopefully wont have any problems. I have my state boards for Barbering at the end of this month, and will be seeing my family, so im excited and nervous about that. By that time I will be back on solid foods so they wont think somethings wrong with me for just eating pudding. Rest of my day will be studying, and taking the puppy out. She was bad earlier and got into the trash. Too Cute to be mad at for long though :)

Down 21 pounds, feeling pretty good. Doing a lot of resting, and getting my walking in 3 to 5 times a week (Need to get better about it though) Only 3 more days until I get to be on pureed and im soooooo excited. Even just to have some refried beans, FLAVOR, and not SWEET. I am over yogurt, pudding, and sweet protein drinks. Im sure ill still have them, but it will be a lot less of them. My husband keeps making these amazing dinners, so healthy, and they smells sooo good. I find that ive been craving healthy things. I want more than anything a Caprese Salad or Bruschetta. Crazy...Im also missing the CRUNCH. Even if i could just have a saltine, id shutup. But no bread for like 6 more months lol. But everything is going well, incisions are healing nicely, i dont even think youll be able to tell in a few months. Hope i keep losing, I need to take some measurments so I can see whats going on with that too.

Had my first post op visit today, Lost 18 pounds in the first week! Happy to announce that im doing very well, no complications. Cant WAIT to be off this liquid diet. Even to be on pureed, cannnnttt waitttt. But ill just sit with my pudding until then. Working on my protein and water intake. doing good on my Vitamins (Thanks to my husband, thats A LOT of thinking! Hes better at thinking than me) Thinking about going to see a Therapist to help me deal with my food greivances. and hopefully going to go to some support groups soon.

So Im one week post op today and I've lost 15 pounds so far. I've been walking around the apartment complex 3 or 4 times a day and yesterday I went to the gym with my husband and walked a mile while he ran and went on the eliptical for about 5 minutes (Whew that thing is hard!) I've been taking all my vitamins daily, working on my protein, and liquids. But i feel great! I'm deffinetly settling in to the new me, and my new life. Can't wait to see what even the next month will hold, hopefully i'll be under 200 soon! I have to say im pretty proud of myself right now :)

Well I made it through my first day of full liquids unscathed. I did have to skip a "feeding" around 2pm because I felt bloated and full. I've been walking around the apartment complex 3 or 4 times a day, and plan on going to the gym with my husband tonight to walk while he runs.

Yesterday I asked him "Is this reversible?".... I already knew the answer, but was hoping he would tell me "Yes, we can go in tomorrow and reverse it and then we can go to Tacobell" ... Obviously I'm still grieving food, but its getting better, its not constantly what I think about during the day. And i'm sure it will take some time for me to get used to not thinking about whats for dinner, while im eating lunch.

Sometimes I can't help but think "You're only 23 years old, you have to live with this thing for the rest of your life, what did you do to yourself!?" I have to remind myself of all the trips when I was younger to get back to school clothes and the tears that were shed because I couldn't wear what I wanted. Or when I went to Cedar Point with my husband a few years ago and couldn't ride on one of the roller coasters because I was too big, and couldn't buckle the seatbelt. Or when I'm walking around in the heat and constantly have to adjust my shorts because I'll get chub rub.... The embarrassment of going to the beach or the pool, the list is endless. And i've been living with these things for my ENTIRE life.

So I wont lie, at some moments I wish more than anything that i had never gotten this surgery, and i could just go to Starbucks 3 times a day, and eat out every single meal, and go back to my life. My life that revolved around food. When always in the back of my head I was wondering what I was going to have next, what delicious thing was I going to put in my mouth after this. It's ridiculous, how addicted to food I was/am. I realized theres a difference between being addicted to food and having a passion for it. My husband has a passion for food...he absolutely loves to cook, he loves to see the joy that his food brings to other people, and it does. Every time we go to visit someone be it my parents or his, they ask him to cook while hes there. Yes he has a passion for food, but also enjoys life, and doesn't plan his day, his life, around food. I on the other hand am addicted to food, yes I love to cook but the main objective for me was always what was going to be on my plate at the end of it. Even at Christmas, when I would make baked  goods and candy, I really set out to make these things for myself to eat, and then would make extra to give away. (Shouldn't that be the other way around?) When my husband and I would go out to eat I always chose the restaurant because I had to fill this void within me, this craving for whatever it was. I wouldn't even give him a chance to pick somewhere he wanted to go, because if it wasn't where I wanted to go I would throw a fit. Yes, I am addicted...to food.

I like to think that an addiction to food is much better than an addiction to cocaine or heroine...but its not, its worse. Food is everywhere, available to you around the clock, no matter where you are in the country or in the world its always there, in your face, just begging you to eat it. And you can sit in your car and eat a Big Mac and Fries with a large Coke every single day of the week and no one will really think twice about that. You can't get arrested for being addicted to food like you can those other drugs, or even alcohol. Yes, food is a safe addiction. Until you realize that you're slowly killing yourself day in and day out, saying your going to change but never do. You still go to Starbucks and get Venti Frappuccino's, you still go to McDonalds for breakfast and get an extra hashbrown, you still beg your husband to take you to Japanese Steakhouse and spend 70$ on a single meal. And you still load an ungodly amount of horrible things into your grocery cart at the store every week just because it looked so delicious in its little box. I dont want to die because of my addiction to food. So I chose to change, as hard as it is.

I want to live a healthy life, I want to be here for a really long time with my husband, my puppy, and hopefully in a few years a human child of our own. I want to run and play and not get out of breath after 2 minutes (or 30 seconds more like it) and I just want to be happy. I can ask for that right?

Obviously I have a long way to go and a lot of things to fix...but im excited for this journey that I chose, and hopefully in a year I'll look back at this and think I was ridiculous for ever doubting this decision.

So im embarrassed to say I had a little bit of a mental breakdown yesterday. After drinking nothing but broth for the past five days I was over it! My husband sat down beside me to eat with Chefboyardee Pizza,(He keeps saying he feels bad eating infront of me when I can't, but It doesn't usually bother me, I know I can't eat it anyway) It.Smelled.Amazing. and I lost it. I started crying and saying how much I regretted getting surgery because all I wanted to do was eat. I wanted to go to Japanese Steakhouse and get soup, salad, double fried rice, vegetables, cabbage, shrimp, filet, and sherbert!! .... Now that I've had a nights rest and started full liquids this morning I have a new perspective. YES, I want to eat real food, and it will come in time...but when I look at how MUCH food I used to eat I am somewhat ashamed of myself. I mean really? That's enough food for 3 people. I am quickly starting to realize that my addiction to food was in fact serious, and I could not have done it by myself. I kept having all these thoughts in my head like "Well I could have just done it myself and then been able to eat sweets still" ...yeah, that worked the whole 10 million other times I tried it. So i have to say that each day Im healing im feeling better and better about my decision, and I havent even seen a considerable loss yet. I can't imagine how wonderful I will feel in a year!

Well, I officially made it to the other side. Since I have never made a post before I'll start off from the beginning.

I've always been a big girl, even when I was younger and involved in competitive swimming, I have never been small by any means. I grew up knowing this, and had some tough times. In middle school I attempted to have a couple of eating disorders, which ultimately failed because of my ever-growing love affair with food. Those Chicken Patty Sandwiches they served at lunch? Ummmm still have cravings for them today. I was depressed, and when my mother found out that I had tried to kill myself I denied it and pretended to magically get better. Highschool was so-so. I had a period around 9th and 10th grade that I started eating less/ a little bit healthier and lost some weight. It was then that I met my amazing wonderful handsome husband. (On Myspace believe it or not! He was a friend of a friend, and lived 4 hours away so I knew he was a real person) I now had a reason to live. I graduated highschool and we moved to VA Beach for him to go to ODU and me to attend Cosmetology School. This was the first time in my life that I was actually GOOD at school. I loved it. But I was made fun of....which was weird because that was the first time to my knowledge that I had ever been made fun or for my weight. I would have thought that all that would have been over with in Highschool. Anyway I graduated as one of the top students in my class and didn't let them get in my way. When my Husband Commissioned and Graduated we moved to Ohio where his family lives, we moved in with his Dad and Stepmom and he almost immediatley went to Arizona for 4 months, then came home for a few short months and deployed to Afghanistan for a year.

THIS. Was the hardest year of my life. My husband is my best friend. and it took me a long time to settle into life with him a million miles away. I moved back to VA to live with my Mom while he was away and started working at a local Barbershop, it was here that I fell in LOVE with Barbering and Men's Hair. I took classes at the local community college for Small Business Ownership and worked part time. Long story short my husband got home from Afghanistan in late February of 2012 and we now live in GA.

When we first got to GA is when I started seriously considering WLS. We knew it would be covered by our Insurance if we were to get approved so I went to the Dr and started doing all my pre-op testing and what not. Turns out that other than my weight I am a completely healthy 22 year old and I was a great candidate for Gastric Bypass. A few short months later here I am, 5 days post op. And I never thought that I would actually be here.

I'm one of those people that when I look at myself in the mirror I think I look pretty darn cute. And then when I see a picture of myself I am disgusted and think "How and When Did I ever get this big?"

I had a lot of doubts before surgery and I guess I still do, I keep thinking to myself "Could I have done it on my own?" "Is this just a cop-out" I have to remind myself of the countless times before that I had tried and failed on WW, and so many other diets. I'm sure that once I see the weight coming off and settle in to my new life I will feel much better about my decision. I think that my only reservations now are still coming from my food addiction (Man, I cant eat Reese's Cups anymore!?) But at the same time I am excited about finding healthy ways to make the things I used to make. I love to bake, and I am obviously terrified of dumping, so i've been researching the Sugar Substitutes and different baking techniques that Gastric By-pass patients have mastered. I dont want to feel like im on a diet for the rest of my life, who does? Obviously baking will be an occasional thing now, instead of Chocolate Chip Cookies and Milk every night for dessert.

My long-term goal is to complete the Tough Mudder Course with my husband in a year or two, until then I plan on getting my exercise on and really taking advantage of this tool I have. I want to find fun ways to exercise that build up my muscles and leave me wanting to go back and do it again. Before when I started to exercise I just got so bored with it that I would give up. So I plan on doing several different fun things a week, and then going on walks with my Husband and Puppy :)

Did I mention that I have the best husband in the entire world? Not only is he handsome and my best friend, but he took the most incredible care of me after surgery. He brought me flowers and an unbelievable card with such a heartfelt note it makes me cry everytime I read it. Yes, I love him unconditionally every single day of my life but it was amazing to see how much he truely loved me, and would always be there for me.

So I start my full liquid diet for 3 weeks tomorrow and I am excited and nervous to add more things to my diet. I never want to eat chicken broth ever again. Even when I see it in a recipe I think about how much I hate it. Jello has been an iffy thing for me so far. I handle it okay but I think it gives me a headache, who knows. But im hopeful that I will not have any complications with moving to more substantial meals. I need to work harder on getting all my water in because I dont want to be dehydrated.

Hopefully I will keep up with this, and document my journey along the way. I certainly enjoy seeing everyones before and after pictures and reading the forums, they are deffinetly Inspirational!