6 months with pics!
before: size 24 bottoms, 2x top
6 months
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last weekend was when I took these pics - that was my 6 month point :) I have lost about 11 inches around my hips :) and several other areas lots of inches lost. I do not have a gym membership so I get my workouts @ home with videos and walking. I recently started to walk with little sprints of jogging, too. I don't know that I'm exactly trying to get to where I jog around versus walking, I enjoy walking a lot, but the little jog sprints here and there keep my heart rate up and I think it is a good thing.
My issues before surgery: very consisitent pain in my feet (plantar fasciatis - spelling?), knee pain, ankle pain, BMI of 47!
I had gotten so large and developed so much joint pain that working out felt IMPOSSIBLE. I would get shin splints just getting down the driveway trying to walk. It was just pain pain pain and very unmotiviating. I think at some point I just went into denial about my body, decided to accept being a bigger girl and be happy with who I was as a person. Well... it's just not that simple. But I was given several wake up calls along the way to this journey. Both of my grandmothers in and out if the hopsital the past couple of years b/c of heart attacks. Just a slap in the face. I was suddenly always thinking that was the way I was probably going to go too. Watching my grandfathers take care of my grandmothers made me actually picture this being myself and my hunny. Just thinking of putting him through that broke my heart, too. On top of being terrified of a heart attack, I took a trip with some friends summer before last to kingsdominion. I could only ride about a handful or less of the rides. I was mortified, but I held it together - on the outside - for the sake of my friends. I didnt want to ruin the trip. It didn't occur to me going there that I was too big for the rides! Being in my young 20's I just could not believe this was my reality. It wasn't too long before I started researching surgeries. I tried watching what I ate and excercing (what little I could get through) but It just proved too little too late. I'm not wealthy. I can't afford a personal trainer and I had a gym membership before but at that time my work called for me to be in different towns throughout the weeks and it just turned out to be a waste of money. I do better at home. Especially after surgery.
I had my surgery in Greenville, NC - Dr Kenneth McDonald Jr was my surgeon. He is not the kind of man to come in the room and console you or crack jokes and carry on random convo. He is very straight to the point and a lot of ppl dont like that. But I appreciate his skills. My surgery was August 16, 2013. I had no complications. I stayed 2 nights in the hopital and took 2 weeks off of work. Every day I walked a little and little further every day. There was a lot of pain but I did not feel the need to take my pain med after a couple days home because it made me very sleepy and I couldn't sleep laying down so I was just OVER IT. Dr McDonald was highly recommended by 2 other ppl I knew that had the surgery. He also teaches this procedure and has been doing it for several years. I would recommend him to anyone.
Being a 24 year old looking to have this surgery was probably the biggest concern anyone had. Having to maintain for the ret of my life is going to be a challenge, but I am going to face that challenge everyday but I can never go back to my old life. Just being 6 months out and having lost so much weight already is really freaking me out, making me excited, and scaring the crap out of me all at once! I can now wear a size L top, and my size 18 jeans are getting loose on me so I should probably move down to a 16. I've never been so happy to see size large and 18's EVER. I'm so motivated to keep up my progress and continue to move down in sizes. My dad is starting to freak some. Some family members are already saying that I need to stop losing weight now. I'm not ready to stop, and I know that they don't understand that I can't stop right now anyways. I do understand that I'm still in the honeymoon phase of the weight loss. It's scary. My worst fear is that another 6 months goes by and then all of a suuden I gain back weight, even with the good habbits I have now. I know logically that doesn't make a lot of sense, but I'm scared of how hard it will be to maintain once I plateau.
My food guidlines after surgery: 1st 2 weeks were liquids. 2nd 2weeks were puree, after that it was a "soft" diet up until my 6 month point - which means I could have chicken and beef but they had to be fork tender and of course cooked in a healthy manner. Nothing fried (forever). No rice, pasta, uncooked veggies, steak, or fresh fruit, or breads. My diet has been super boring but it hasn't bothered me too bad except I missed salads so much! Now that I have hit my 6 month point this past weekend - all week I was introducing fresh veggies. With no complications :D yay! I'm suppose to eat 6 small meals a day. Most busy days I get 4-5 meals in but I always eat my protein first. My NUT said that from 6 months unto forever I should stay at about 1cup of food or less. I measure at home and still have not gotten to the 8oz portions and I am in NO HURRY to get there. I was doing 3-4 oz for a long time before I moved up to about 5-6oz. I don't want to pu**** and I don't want to stretch my pouch. I don't dump. Good and bad thing I suppose. The times I have overate I felt pain and like I could just lean over and the food would come up. But it didnt and I was just like screw doing that again. I definitley dont try to do that but the times I did it was just the difference of a couple extra bites. Ew, bad feeling. I've decided that bread and pastas are better left alone. Since last weekend I had a couple of bites of bread and I just think it's not worth it. Will I have bites in the future? Yea, sure. But I have gotten so use to not having it all in the last 6 months that I could care less. Doesnt tempt me. Yay.
Today for lunch I had about 2.5 oz of baked chicken with a salad that covered half the side of a dessert plate with only tomatoes and a few banana peppers w/ maybe 2 tsp of homeade italian dressing. I was full. I hope that is normal for 6 months out. But it went down great, I felt like it was healthy and just enough food.
Dang I could go on and on. I'm just feeling so blessed with my success. I'm feeling like I never want this to end. (Not the weight loss, I know that at some point I'll have to face the scale not moving much) but this feeling of happiness and loving life a little more now.
I have had very little complications. I had a stomach ulcer about 3 months out. Treated with Carafate for a month and then a second round of Nexium for 3 months and it's a non issue. The only things I tend to avoid now that I thought I would be able to eat are eggs and milk. Eggs, because they just don't taste good anymore... weird! And milk because it started to upset my stomach and I just assumed after about 4 nights of having a glass of milk that haing an upset stomach that maybe I was becoming intolerant to milk. Who knows, I havnt tried it in forever.
Your welcome! & I love reading the "book" posts lol. One thing I'd like to ask you about was your stomach ulcer, I'm so scared of getting one of those cause I've heard bad horror stories about ulcers and hernias. How did you know you had one? Was it easy for your doctor to catch and treat? I really hope I have such success like you have and I can't wait to have that feeling of never wanting it to be over and just loving life again. I can't wait for my surgery. :)
After surgery I was put on a 3 month script for Nexium. 1 month I took it faithfully every day, 2nd month I did great half way through I started taking it every other day until I finished the bottle. After the end of that bottle I started to notice a constant, light burning sensation in my stomach. I waited about 2 days then I called the doc. I was honest and told the nurse over the phone what I had done (how I didn't take the 2nd months of Nexium right) and she advised me to get the 3rd months filled and start taking it daily again and call back if the problem persisted. Well, I got the 3rd months worth and started taking it and the burning stopped. BUT Only a couple of weeks went by before the burning came back. They got me in asap for a upper endoscopy, it was marginal non bleeding ulcers. He told me they were in very early stages and prescribed me another 3 month round of Nexium and a month script for carafate. I finished the carafate and I'm on my last bottle of Nexium. No problems so far :) if I had to guess I'm sure I screwed myself by not taking the Nexium correctly to begin with! But I think as long as you catch these things early it's much easier to deal with. And I'm one of those people that call the doctor for anything because I get freaked out easy!
Oh wow. I'm the same way, I freak out over everything. I know my doctor is going to get tired of me lol. But, it wasn't life threatening, right? My biggest fear are the life threatening complications. I did hear though it was easy to get ulcers and hernias after surgery, I'm hoping I don't. Fingers crossed! Hope you continue to do good! I just can't wait to be on the other side of this surgery, it's so hard being on this side.
No my ulcer situation wasnt like those really bad stories you hear/read. I didn't have nausea or vomiting and I was able to eat and drink. But I knew immediately some thing wasn't right when I had the burning sensation. I think if I would have let it drag out any further than a couple of days things would have more than likely escalated. It did take them about 6 days to get me on the schedule for an endoscopy. I was a little freaked out about that but I got through the few days okay, just a little uncomfortable to feel your stomach burning! But my surgeon didn't seem overly worried. In fact like you said, he said it was pretty easy and common to get them early on. Just take your meds right the first time around and hopefully that will be good enough!
