bernerbelle

Send Message

Block

Add Friend

It has been a year since my surgery, and it was the best decision I ever made. When I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes, I said screw this.. I will not be THAT person.

Though at times I felt that it was taking forever, the last year went by so fast and the weight just dropped off. I officially lost 100 lbs! The change in myself and the change in others around me has been eye opening and exciting too. People that I see all the time still do not recognize me at first glance. Others whom I saw everyday but didnt seem to see me, now pay attention. This can be an ego boost but with a tinge of irritation. I remember the times you didnt see me, so why should i see you now?? I still have a hard time seeing myself as others do. I still see the girl who wore a 14/16/18/20, not the girl who wears a size 0. Everyday when i pull out my pants I think these will never fit..and they do! My shopping addiction has shifted from shoes (because you can always find shoes to fit) to clothes. I love being able to walk into any store with out worry that I cant find something.

Though the way I look is a great boost, the way I feel is even better. I do not get winded going up stairs or walking any distance. I find that working out is so much easier, who knew crunches didnt have to hurt after only 5! I love that my family discussions, and conversations no longer revolve around my weight and when I will lose it. My life is no longer about my size! Living 27 years of this, it is hard to adjust.

I now make better choices food wise, though I do find I have a hard time actually eating much at all. I have heard of good pouch days and bad ones, small pouch days and normal pouch days. I seem to have small pouch days and closed off pouch days. Which I am totally fine with. The first year is filled with the excitement of loosing and the fear of putting it back on. I have seen my fair share of those who have had the surgery and who have put the weight right back on.. How? I think to myself because I feel it would be impossible. I had a small croissant with egg and cheese for the day after xmas breakfast.. the whole thing was the size of the palm of my hand, and after I thought my stomach would explode with how much i had eaten. For others I have seen who eat half a slab of ribs baked potato and salad and a roll, i cannot imagine being able to do that. Saying NO to food is so much easier..I no longer feel that need to indulge at work or parties. I find it easier to stick to my plan.. simply because the plan is eat what i like to eat, but portion it to what I am able to eat. I no longer live to eat, but eat to live. Which is awesome.

I am looking forward to this new year and continuing to love my new life and new me!!

My wieght loss has been pretty slow in my opinion. I am 5'7 and currently 168lbs. Ever since I came out of the 180s I have dropped sizes like crazy. Before I had surgery I would have said being a size 8 would be AWESOME, UNBELIEVABLE!! Last week I went home to see my family for my Nana's bday. While my sister was out I snuck into her room and tried on a pair of her pants. Now, I see my sisters as TINY. One is 5'4 and maybe 110lbs.. the other is closer to my height 5'6 and probably around 130ish lbs (totally guessing). I snuck in and found a pair of her size 4 jeans and thought well I'll see if I can wriggle into these.. and they FIT!!! Now I had just bought a couple pairs of size 6 so I was not going to go out and buy new jeans, when the 6s were just fine. Yesterday I couldnt help myself. I wanted to see if I could find a pair of 4s that fit and looked nice. So after work off to the store I went. I grabbed a pair of 4s and just for fun (and because they were on clearance) I grabbed a size 2 as well. Well I skipped the 4s and bought the 2s!! I was so excited. I have NEVER in my entire life been a 2... unless you count a 2T maybe. And I probably skipped that too.

So here is the dillema. When i was bigger I didnt see myself as looking bad or even big. My mom would say when she was younger she would look in the mirror and think she was so fat, when she was maybe 100 lbs soaking wet in her 20s. I did NOT have that. I had the opposite. I looked in the mirror and thought on most days I looked pretty good. I did not see the almost 255 lbs in the mirror. So now that I am down to 168, why do I look in the mirror and see some one sooo large??? I look at my sisters who wear a size 2-4 and they are so incredibly thin to me.. and while one sisters body type is seriously different the other's is close to mine. So why cant I see in myself what I see in her? I am not sure if my brain is not up to the point of seeing it.. or maybe I really just am not as thin as I would think I would be at a size 2. Maybe I should take more pictures so I can see the difference. Because I seriously do not see it in the mirror.. even if I have gone from a size 18-20 to a size 2.

When I started this journey I had two numbers in my head. My weight and my pant size. I wanted to be between 140-150, closer to 140. This would put me in a norm bmi range and thought the number sounded good. Ok lets be honest.. 125 sounded awesome, yet unrealistic. The other number was my pant size, I had not been below a size 10 since, maybe, 6th grade. So my goal was to get to a single digit pant size. An 8 was ok but I thought a 6 would be great.

Now I have reached one of the goals, I wear a size 6. Though my brain has not caught up, people tell me that I look good and are very excited and happy for me. When I look in the mirror I still see a size 14-16. The problem I am having is though I am at the pant size I wanted, the number on the scale still haunts me. I WANT to loose another 25-30 or so lbs. This morning I finally broke through the 170s and weighed in at 169. Now for my worry, which is a silly one to have and one I wouldnt have had 7 short months ago, If I am in a 6 now when I loose another 30 lbs what will I be then?? Will I look "bad"? Will I not care because for some reason that weight/scale number rules us for one reason or another. Or will I ever be able to say screw the scale and be happy with where I am ? Why does that number mean so much to us?

Things I ponder, and yet I know. I will not be satisfied until that scale reads 140. Wish this wasnt true, but deep down I know it is.

I am on OH almost everyday reading posts and using it as a way to keep myself in check and to motivate myself. I have been a slow loser so far. Since surgery I have lost 54lbs, but its been 7 months since surgery. I thought I would have been at goal by now. But another 20 lbs or so and Ill be happy with that.

But everything is not based on a number on the scale! I started out at my heaviest being an 18/20 pant size and wearing 2xl tops. When I had surgery I was in a 14/16 and still 1xl/2xl tops. Now 7 months later, I found out yesterday, that I am a size 6 (loose) jeans and a size medium top! I have not been below a size 10 since maybe 6th grade. Im 28 years old now.

I have alot of support and questions from friends and family. One friend is still baffled by what I eat and how much.. she says she could not imagine not having a carb loaded diet! Also starting to get alot of the standard you should not lose any more weight or you will look too skinny comments. But I know that I can still lose about 30 lbs and not look sickly. I try to just take it as a complement that I am looking better now than I did before.

So far I could not be happier that I made this decision. Finally took control of what I wanted/needed and made this choice for me and my future. Every time I attempted weight loss before I was stuck in trying to better myself for someone else. That is why this is going to work for me for my whole life, because Im finally doing it just for me! Everyone else can just enjoy the show!

Because if it is..I do not EVER want to experience this again!!! Pre-op I had experience hunger..passed just the grumbling tummy, the actual queasy and sometimes empty painful hunger...but..

My usual eating routine is wake up have breakfast, go to work 4 hours later have a protein shake, 2 hours later have a small snack/meal, 3 hours later have a protein shake 3 hours later have another snack/meal. I eat every few hours and never get hungry, which is fine with me. Today however, was a day from work hell!! I was overwhelmed doing 3 jobs at once while my coworker struggled with the simplest tasks. I was soon asked to help him out because he wasnt able to keep up. I ate once in the morning and then not again until 615pm. I never had a chance to fit in food thru the day. By 430 pm i had a shooting pain in my abs. Doubled over tears in my eyes someone get my mommy PAIN !!!! I thought omg what is this now..ive been super stressed for a while now, could it be an ulcer?? I hoped not. The pain was getting so bad I had to do something.. I had a protein bar and was afraid to eat it, but the pain couldnt get worse. So I took a bite..and like a switch...my tummy stopped hurting. It vanished liked that!! So if this is hunger, thanks, but Ill pass!!

FINALLY!!! I have been waiting for the last 10 days for this. I have been floating between 202 and 200 for days. Last night I hopped on the scale and it was 197! I couldnt have been more excited. I have not seen under 200 in atleast 8 years. Feel like I've finally broken through my own barrier and cannot wait for the rest to come off now!!

I have been getting pretty profound DUH moments.

Like when I thought my gosh I am eating sooo much, how could this be. When in fact I was eating very little several times a day, all adding up to less than 500 cals a day. That realization made me laugh out loud at myself for second guessing what I had been doing. Now I am working on trying to get that up to atleast 900, though I am still avg about 600.

Or when I felt like why wasn't I losing weight FAST enough. Then remembered that Ive lost 20 lbs in little over a month, HELLO, thats no small feat.

And in the most recent, I bought a scale, because the waiting 3 weeks between my last apt weigh in and the next is about ready to kill me. Getting on in the morning im 202..or sometimes 205..or sometimes 206. I have to stop and tell my self that I feel good, I know I look better and the numbers will move and I shouldn't stress so much about it. But we all stress, and obsess..

I have realized also how much I loved to EAT. I loved to sit down with good food, sometimes not even good food (nothing to do with nutrition either) and I would love to eat. Now I hate to eat. Eating has become a chore. Cooking small amts for one person becomes a hassle. Probably why my cal intake is where it is. But breaking free from the live to eat mentality and mode is one of the best things that has happened! I no longer see food in the same way as I did before. It is no longer the comfort or boredom go to.

Since my surgery I have found that I was so attached to food, the amt of cals in and out and the numbers on the scale. Now after my surgery,  I still see that I have my head to rewire some. But it is starting with these realizations, slowly, but forever and I am happy about that!!

I am now just over 2 weeks out and things are looking good. Im still in some pain, but it now feels like someone has punched me in the gut, instead of taking kickboxing lessons on my abs. Every day gets a little bit better.

Very anxious to start eating "normal" foods. I did not realize how badly I would miss chewing! I have what I call memory hunger, where Ill see or think of something I used to love, but when i sit down to really "eat" I have no interest in putting anything in my mouth, which I guess is a good thing.

Still adjusting but already seeing the differences in my clothes and the reactions of people I have seen hundreds of times over. Had a bit of a HA HA moment when a guy at work jogged to catch up to me to ask me who I was. I work in the same area as he has for the last year and passed by him several times..but now he had to catch up to me. I giggled to myself and admitted that yes it did feel nice to get noticed...

Excitedly waiting more changes and whats instore for me in the future!!

I am only 2 days away from having my fresh start to a new life!

My surgery is scheduled for Monday Dec 13th at 930am. I am still in disbelief that it is happening. I have waited for so long for this and now I am finally going to get the chance to start fresh. There are so many things I cannot wait to experience and be rid of. I am very happy that health wise I will be a new person and be able to live a long and healthy life. I am also happy that for the first time in my life I will start to "fit in" physically with my family, whom all are skinny/athletic, and my friends.

The last 2 weeks of my liquid diet have been torturous, not because I was hungry, but because it opened the door to people at work about why I was not eating. It also was hard to smell the foods everyday that people brought in. At one point I got so frustrated that when a supervisor offered me McDonalds I shook my protein shake at him and said NOPE I'M ALL GOOD!! Right now people at work only know that I will be having surgery, but not what kind. I'm sure once i start shrinking they will be able to put 2 and 2 together.

I'm ready to start turning heads.

So after making my apt with the Kane Center I had to go through the entire process again. Had to go to the seminar, visit the nutritionist, the nut doctor and all the waiting that goes into it. I met with the exact same people I had before, and only one remembered that I had done this all before. This time it paid off, I received my approval letter and was so excited I was shaking!

I contacted the Dr office and told them I was approved, and now I am completing the "next step" appointments. Including 2 classes psych and diet, an ultra sound and a visit with the pulmonologist. My excitement level went down a bit after finding that all my appointments will not be completed until the end of November, and I will not get a date until I have completed all of these. So it will probably be Jan or Feb before I can get a date. At this point and the time and effort, ups and downs, time is flying by and I am determined to get through this leg of the race no matter what!!

I can see the starting line now, and Im ready to go!!