Minski

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The loss resumes (2 weeks of stall) finally dropped a kg. I only have myself to blame, in fact I am surprised I dropped 1...a little too many cals in the liquid form.


My problem is that I have noting to say...clearly a universal problem ( mean try to find OH blogs that are in depth 4 months out!)

Here's the thing (for all of you researching)....THERE COMES A TIME WHEN FOOD AND WEIGHT ARE NOT EVERYTHING.

Its hard to believe, I find it hard to type, but I think at this moment its true. I have a tool that works, I have a tool that I can cheat (oh yes dear reader its easy to cheat). I could go faster than I am, but I am happy with my pace, at this rate I will be in a great place in 6 months...I have enjoyed a lot of the benefits already and have ABSOLUTELY no regrets. The fact is this is now who I am and I manage to get along nicely without throwing up or hurting too bad (occasionally get a reminder). I don't deny myself anything, I should but I don't and I am still going in the right direction, perhaps I will get a nasty surprise soon (expected it this morning) but I kinda feel normal now.

I have a lt going n in my life at the moment, helped by my VSG, but it does make it hard to post as regularly. I will try to keep at least a monthly post going but no more promises. I have finished making promises I can't keep.

I disappeared....I said I wouldn't and I did, sorry. But to be honest I just did not know how to describe my ups and downs of late.

So..lets get down to basics....I am lighter today than I was a month ago.....that's good.

My sleeve still works....good.

I don't bother counting Cals/Kjs anymore.....maybe

I snack.....bad

I don't exercise enough....bad.

I don't drink enough water....bad

I haven't vomited in a couple of weeks (a few close calls)....good.

I always eat breakfast, cereal is easy, don't skip meals and stay away from chocolate bars....pretty good.

So whats the secret I am keeping...well nothing really except I am not progressing as fast as I would like (but seriously .75kg - 1kg a week is good), so I wonder if I did the things above I would have better results. But the thing is....I'm kinda happy. I can snack a little, I am hardly ever hungry....denial is a river in Egypt...and I am heading in the right direction. So I guess what I am afraid of is this.....it seems too easy!!!!. When will the other shoe fall.

I feel lighter, fitter and can do things I never remember doing before in my life (like voluntary push-ups). I hardly ever get out of breath and (this s hard to admit...exercise is pretty easy and sometimes fun....why I avoid it is beyond me)

Life is good...but how long will this last. Its been a hell of a couple of months....I think its only just begun.

The saga continues....

Do I look fat in this body?.

Ha I have started to worry I am gaining weight, I am living on 5000 kj's a day and exercising (infrequently) yet I am worried about weight gain!.... am afraid to confront the scales....must wait until weigh-in....will I be able to cope with a gain?.

Sorry for the ramble, but I am sleep deprived as I was up for a lot of the night with the foamies as a result of a badly chewed chicken nugget. I have to say its a love-hate relationship at the moment, I love that at this point in time I am compelled to stay on the program and I have excellent willpower. I hate that a simple eating mistake leaves me in pain for several hours.

I tell myself its part of the learning process, but I fear that what I am learning is that eating ice cream is a good idea and eating meat is a bad one. Not exactly the way I want to go.

I wish I could scroll up and see how I am doing in December this year. The journey is long and arduous. Its also all consuming (its the thing I think about mostly each day). I think I am stuck in a diet mentality and see my long term goals as some sort of end, which it isn't. I guess I am already at the end and am just waiting for the results to come in. Or I am at the beginning of a journey that will never end. Not sure which one is more appealing.

I follow several other peoples journeys on OH and one of them recently posted the following;



Made my person goal today of 85Kg...!
4 days ago
But strangely enough I'm not all that excited.. in fact I go so far as to say feeling outta sorts really.

No idea why, lifes great, family great, work good.. dunno.

Still having trouble adjusting to being "skinny"

Weird I know.

Matt


I think its that Wedding day syndrome when you plan and plan and plan for an event and then it happens and you are left with that now "what do I do feeling".

OH is great, it was an invaluable tool when I was originally researching and I quickly got a sense of comradeship on the forum. Post surgery I felt a little strange about it, like I wanted to contribute, but I had nothing to say.....DAY 17...didn't eat much. I expect that will get worse as I go further on. Clearly lots of people drop out down the track as other aspects of their lives move more to the forefront. I have often followed someones path that ended abruptly and left me with a feeling of "what happened next", Blogs need closure.

Mattman's entry above delivered closure, maybe I would like to know what happened to him in 3 years, but I saw his journey, shared some feelings and know how it worked out. That last entry has a end of series "Soprano's" feeling now that I think about it. Lots of room for speculation, but you kinda know what happened.

Well that's enough for this stream of semi consciousness. Despite my uncertainty, my melancholy and my sleep deprivation , I still have no regrets. This is the journey I signed up for and this is the one that I wanted and I am a willing participant despite chicken nuggets.

My experiment is leading to mixed results,

1) the scale is still going down (not as fast as I'd like)
2) I am bothering people a lot less with my food obsessions.
3) I am definitely eating more.
4) The extra eating is motivating me to exercise more.
5) I am worried that I am eating too much (lots of grazing)

So the bottom line is that I am still losing and have adopted an eating style that actually works for me and I can easily imagine maintaining for life. But I think I could easily fall onto the dark side of the line and gain.

On top of that this is week 4, which is traditionally a stall period for most people it seems. I have decided that I want to get below 100kg by my Birthday. Thats in 17 weeks. I have 17.5kg to lose to get there. So I need to sustain about 1kg a week.

That seems almost impossible but considering I am 27kg down over 10 weeks, its not too unrealistic. Unless I keep snacking.

Now I have started to learn how much of what I can have of a certain type of food to avoid the foamies. BUT and its a big but, I have also noticed that when I push myself a little bit beyond the foamies, then I have absolutely no desire to eat for at least 4 hours. If I avoid the foamies by easting less then I want more in about 2 hours. It is kind of making me want to push the envelop a bit, is more less? Should I suffer for my goals? Am I substituting one set of bad eating habits for another? Am I drinking too much diet soda?

Ok resolution time:
I will track protein....and get my 60g a day
I will switch away from diet soda and to water.
I will give myself until Feb 3 to get down to 115kg, or its back to counting.
I will eat more solid foods to get to the full stage without going beyond.
Exercise Exercise Exercise.

I am now in day 4 of my latest experiment...working without a rope. Since getting the all clear to move onto more solid foods, I have been experimenting with different types of food to varying amounts of success. I have also stopped obsessively counting every calorie, and just keep a sorta pseudo count in the back of my mind.

On the food front, I am still having problems getting portion size right, but I think I can get that under control (ie stop eating before its to late) if I follow. 2 basic rules.

Pause between mouthfuls
There is no requirement for a clean plate

4 days, thrown up 4 times....just the excess and lots of foam....eventually my brain will work it out, but it has a lot of unlearning to do first.

I have a 6 year old daughter and I was always worried she would pick up bad eating habits from me, so I taught her the opposite of what my parents taught me and she understands that the amount on your plate has nothing to do with the amount you should eat. She often stands up in the middle of a meal to gauge if she is full enough yet. I need to learn from her. I wonder how many of us were schooled in the you don't leave the table until the plate is clean school of thought? My parents actively taught me to ignore my body and eat everything on my plate or else....great message...no wonder we have an obesity epidemic.

I have told myself I need to embrace this lifestyle and that means not dieting anymore, thats' why I have stopped calorie counting. I figure I want to learn to naturally gauge the proper amount to eat and keep each food in its proper perspective (good bad etc). At first it was hard, but it is a lot easier now, I do have occasional panic that I have blown my intake for the day (like when I scoff down a fruit mince pie...mmmmm) but a quick mental calculation sets me right....I just need to keep the occasional snacking to a minimum.

I will do the cal counting thing once a week for a month or so so I can check I am not getting the math wrong but aside from that I want to work without all the counting. It seems to me that the skinnies don't have a clue about calories, but have a good ear for what their bodies want and need.

I am also coming to the realization that "bread" foods are going to be a difficulty....the thought of a sandwich scares me, yet I have been hanging out for a veggie delite from subway (6 inch of course). it will have to wait for a while I think as a pita wrap caused me an afternoon of discomfort (twice...who can throw away a half eaten $6 sandwich?)

I am officially 4 weeks out and can't tell you what my loss is because I have also sworn off the scales except for a single weekly weigh in. I would hate to get to Sunday and find I weigh an extra kilo, but it would certainly be catalyst for significant re-examination of my lifestyle (again).

On a more flippant note, my ass hurts....I have lost so much padding in my bottom that it constantly hurts to sit down. Nobody told me about this. Is this the great secret of the skinny? does it hurt to sit so they keep moving and burning more calories?. Is it because I have lost a disproportionate amount of weight from my bottom and have become a fat guy sitting on a skinny guys bottom? I needed that padding (except for car seats, plane seats and movie theatre chairs).

The other great tragedy is that the clothes I purchased 2 weeks ago are starting to look baggy on me....I think I am going to start buying clothes at an op shop and then discard after one usage...its ridiculous...oh to have such problems as me.

Had my 3 weekly follow up with the Surgeon and Dietitian today. I went in armed with a load of questions and a breakdown of how I have been eating for the last couple of weeks.

The Dietitian (Laura) was great (and I don't like Dietitians!) she explain what my calorie intake should be (1200 - 1500) per day (more than I am managing now), with about 75g or protein in it. She wasn't that concerned with me counting every calorie and seemed to think I was doing ok. She told me to move on to more sold foods at my own pace now (and I could have a glass of wine if I wanted). This was great news.

My surgeon was also happy with my progress and seemed to think I would get to a realistic goal in 6 months. And he says I can go back to the gym..yay!

I asked why I was hungry one day and not the next and he told me he didn't really know...it happens. I asked why I was able to eat a whole can of rice cream but had foamies over a single egg. He said that because I was quite tall and of a naturally larger build I had a long stomach, so while its a lot smaller (narrower) its still long, so I have a fair volume capacity for foods that are slippery or liquid like, anything with some substance fills the top quickly and takes its time emptying out. This made perfect sense to me, and the good news is there is no correlation between the overall capacity and potential weightloss. I just have to be careful about those liquid calories.

His final words were he was happy as long as I was, which was good news to me.

I celebrated with a bowl of pasta which I managed about one third of before that FULL feeling loomed. An hour later I am still very satisfied. I am now seeing how this is going to work for me, and I think its going to go work. I know that I am going to slip occasionally, but I figure the majority of time its going to work well.

Yesterday was my first day at work and it was exhausting...I went home and collapsed for a two hour nap...and I really wasn't that busy. I am shocked at how tired I get, a little voice in the back of me head tells me I need jelly beans but I think it is lying.

Speaking of work, only one person noted my weight loss...how disappointing...I was hoping for a bit of a buzz from my co-workers...but nada....same story with my mother, hasn't mentioned a thing....its all very strange. My wife notices, and so does my daughter. My daughter's (6) afraid I won't be so cuddly in the future. I told her its much better that I am around to be a grandad to her kids.

On Monday night, I flirted with solids a bit, made a scrambled egg, my wife then made a scrambled egg properly. I was hungry and wolfed it down (it seemed so little), and then had a few bites of my abortive attempt. OMG 10 minutes later it hit me, I started foaming and gagging and dribbling and I thought I was going to split. My stomach was telling me I had accidentally eaten 3 Christmas dinners, my brain was confused and felt sure it had something to do with the abortive egg.

I suffered for near on 2 hours before I could lie down. And the funny thing is I could not have been happier. It was the first solid proof that my sleeve works. It also reminded me that everything I have been eating to date (ice cream, yoghurt's, protein drinks) just slide on through...so everything I have lost to date (over 25kg) has been done the old fashioned way by just restricting what I put in my mouth. I am yet to experience the proper VSG eating limitations. It is all very optimistic.

I want to tell you all, life is great, I am losing heaps and feel wonderful. But its not true.

I've been blue for a couple of days and can't really explain why, I feel like things are moving slowly and that I am going to fail. I have absolutely no reason for believing these things, my weight is down, I don't get anywhere near as much hunger as I used to am I am very motivated. I guess I just want it all to happen faster. I need to get busy.

I unilaterally decided to move from liquid to mushies today, because I was tiring of the same old protein drinks and soup and sundaes, as well as my 2 weeks being up. I knew I was up to more substantial food, so I figured what the heck lets give it a try. Its been successful, but I have been surprised by the amount I can eat. For lunch I managed a whole can (420g) of rice cream. It kind of scared me because I thought that if I could eat this amount what is going to hold me back in the future. I also miscalculated the kj's and had a lot more than I expected, but I am still mostly on target for my 4400kj a day budget. But I am down on my protein.

I have no idea what I should be aiming for as I haven't seen the dietitian yet and just about everything I read online is aimed at the US market (slightly different implementation) and for women. I suppose all will be revealed next Friday and all I can do in the meantime is my best.

I start back at work on Tuesday so I am looking forward to getting 'noticed' for what I have lost so far, hopefully that should keep me motivated until Friday.

Heres to better days.

When I first discussed WLS with my surgeon I was convinced I wanted the band, because it was "safer" and "reversible". My surgeon pointed out that in the long run the VSG was in fact safer and most of the risks would occur in the first 2 weeks. The idea of compressing all the risk up front was appealing as I knew I couldn't afford to be taken out with a complication in 6 months time. It was sort of like eating your vegetables before the steak (get the worst out of the way early). As far as reversible goes I would only want to reverse in the event of some sort of complication, given that any complications would be dealt with early and comprehensively it didn't seem that important to be able to go back.

So I opted for the VSG and today is my 2 week anniversary. So the the "risk" is largely behind me yay!.

I am getting itchy to get into the gym, not that I am a gym junkie or anything, its just that I am so motivated at the moment and it seems a waste to be sitting back in recuperation mode for 6 weeks. I went walking yesterday, but its not the same as getting a good sweat up on the cross trainer.

That goes to the nub of my feelings at the moment, nobody wants to wish their life away, but I feel a lot like I am in a long waiting period, waiting to be able to exercise, waiting to be able to eat solids, waiting to lose more weight. I want to fast forward 6 months and see how it all works out. Or better yet given I am asking for wishes, could I have had my surgery a year earlier, imagine what I would be like now. Alas dear reader this is a journey that must be taken step by step, my true wish has already been granted and I have a tool to slay my life long nemesis . Perhaps the journey will be as interesting as the destination.

Read on!

This afternoon I was talking to my wife about my progress and she said the following;

   "Perhaps you should really be trying to eat more, have you considered full fat ice-cream"

Now thats in the category of "Things I never expected to hear".

When I first went to see my Surgeon in September (late Sept) I weighed in at a whopping 145kg, the scary thing is I was pleased with this because I was expecting it to be 150kg (I'd convert this to pounds for my American friends but its about time you joined the rest of the world in metric, just multiply by 2.2). Today I weighed in at an amazing 121.4kg.  Thats down 6.4 since the surgery and an amazing 24 all up.  I have never done so much in so little time (managed 19kg last year in 12 weeks, but also managed to regain 24 again after).

The truly scary thing is I seem to be living on ice cream, custard and choc shakes. AND I AM NEVER REALLY HUNGRY. I don't crave carbs, pure sugar still gets me in a frenzy, but my body quickly tells me off if I do that. I only watch out for my protein and the rest sorts itself out.

I don't feel deprived, I just feel optimistic. Now obviously when I am off the liquids, I am going to need to watch the nutrients a bit more carefully, but I found a really cool site calorieking.com.au that makes tracking my food a breeze.

On Friday I decided to cull my closet and say goodbye to some of my larger clothes forever (I have never had the courage to do that before and consequently have about 5 different sizes on my shelves. By the time I was done about half my clothes were in the "Don't fit anymore" category, and at the rate I am going I will have to consider nudism soon. It was a great feeling.

I am looking forward to finding my normal diet post liquid/mushies, but the prospect of eating this little in the future no longer frightens me at all.