Starting my Journey!

Monday I had my first appointment with the nutritionist and got myself set up with there program. They gave me a lot of paper work to fill out which I almost have completed. I need to get some blood work done and get an EKG. I started my food journal today and so my journey begins.

I have been doing a lot of reading about the bypass. I am right now 383, and I have a goal of 15. But according to the BMI Calculator my goal  should be for around 140 to 130 for my height. I am wondering if this is a realistic goal. I haven't been under 200 lbs. since my grade school years. I am soo scared of failure! I don't want to go through doing major changes to myself only to wind up gaining everything back.

I am tired of not being able to walk around. I walk twenty feet and my knee and back start hurting. While walking through the nutritional center I was out of breath and wanted to sit down. I am concerned about what type of exercise they will have me do. Walking right now doesn't seem like an option. I was thinking maybe doing an exercise bike and building myself up to a tread mill. I know once I start losing some of this pre surgery weight I will be able to move more.

Truth is I'm scared! I'm scared though if I don't have this surgery done also. So I pray for God to be with me on this journey and let me be blessed by those of you who can help support me and allow me to be a blessing in return.

 I got six months to lose five percent on my weight before I get my surgery date. So as Confucius says, "The beginning of a thousand mile journey begins with one step"! Ok...... I've taken that first step!

Congratulations on making the best decision you will ever make for yourself.  You will be fine, stay focused on your goal and visit this site daily.  There are a lot of very knowledgeable people here who are willing to help you along the way.

best of luck

That's just it. You've taken those first steps.Congratulations!!  Don't worry about the BMI calculator for now. Focus on your steps whatever your nutritionist will have you do. They are going to be baby steps to get you ready for surgery. Listen to them and be proactive in your choices. If can only walk 20 feet before you have to sit, do so. Then get up and do a little more when it subsides. 

Can't wait to have you on the losers bench with us. :)

Kala is right,

you are taking on a long term project. It's good to have goals, but it's not helpful to focus only on that. I think your job for now is focusing on that 19lbs you need to lose in 6 months. 

If you can only walk 10 minutes a day, that's fine. Your goal is 11 minutes. Then 12. 

my start weight in January was 378. When I had my surgery on sept 8, it was 346. I cannot tell you the difference those 32lbs made in my energy. 

Your focus should be on making incremental improvements, you can't change everything at once. Focus on cutting one unhealthy food or habit from your diet or focus on getting consistently healthy supper and then building on it. 

If you have access to a behaviourist, they can be a great resource. If not Google behaviour change, and try some techniques that apply to you.

and check in here daily, you don't have to post, but just logging in, seeing what people are doing, is so helpful and motivating. No on here changed over night, neither will you, but you will see change everyday!

Good luck!

Congratulations you can do well.  Be gentle on yourself - do small steps.  Keep a log of your progress.  Add a little bit everyday and that will make such a difference.

Good luck. 

150 lbs sound realistic, but it is not imposible to get to normal BMI. 

But - as some of us finding out -when we are MO - not only we have more skin but our bones can be thicker - stronger.    

Extra skin can be anything from 2-3 lbs to 10 lbs - depends on a person. 

My personal goal was to be able to wear size 12 or below ...and relatively low body fat %. 

I met and passed my goal with my BMI at 30... And I kept losing...

I am currently maintaining with BMI between 25-26, size 6-8 , body fat app 20-23%...- rather low for my age. 

Sometimes you need to look at the whole picture... Your body frame, your shape, your NSV - non scale victory goal. 

Btw- when I was journaling my food - I found that MFP - my fitness pall - was a great tool. They have apps you can put on a cell phone. The app has a barcode reader -and you can use that to add foods to your daily menu. Scan the barcode - the program finds it in the data base - you just enter your portion. So simple. Initially I used a small notebook (tiny) and a pen...and every few days I would enter that in my MFP. 

Watch for chewable vitamins and minerals - the calories and sugar in those can add up. Also the condiments- we often underestimate how much ketchup, dressing, mayo we use... All adds up. Even packs of artificial sweeteners have dextrose (form of sugar) and 1 packet may be negligible- but if you use 20 of them in a recipe -you may be surprised to find out that the 20 serving may have 10-15 gr of carbs...  Same with coffee creamer...1TBS is not critical but if someone gets 2-4 in one serving and get a few coffees per day - that adds up

Hi I'm new to this also. Just went to a seminar last night. Excited & Nervous! Good luck to both of us.

I am pre-op also, and since I'm in Canada, I am not sure yet how much longer I have to wait.  I have my last appointment before meeting the surgeon on Wednesday but it can still take anohter 6 months.... so while I'm hoping mine will be much sooner than that, we could be surgery buddies!  

I have spent a lot of time on this forum and as Karen said there are a lot of knowledgeable people here.  From what I've seen, the people who post on here at least a couple of times a week if not daily are the ones who are successful.  Not only that, but they are awesomely honest so if you ever need to know why you're not losing, or what you're doing wrong- they will tell you- and they'll be your biggest cheerleaders too. 

As others have said, I wouldn't worry too much about the final goal number.  Just focus on getting your head in the game and making the steps now to get to where you need to be to have the surgery. 

Yay! Congratulation on getting started! I had my surgery two weeks ago, and I was close to your weight. My highest weight, 1 week pre-op, was 375. My goal is 160. But I am tall. I'm down 30 pounds today (my ticker down there is off a little, I can't figure out how to fix it). Exercise...they won't want you to do anything that will injure yourself. They just want you to start, to get that habit started, and keep moving. I got a combo recumbent bike/elliptical at walmart. Before surgery I could do one mile on the elliptical. Which is not much. A mile on the elliptical is not the same as walking a mile. It just takes a few minutes, lol. I didn't worry too much about not being able to do more because I figured it would get easier as I got lighter. I have my post op appointment today and will hopefully get clearance to start exercising again. But they just want you to do whatever it takes to make you break a sweat and work up from there. Exercise doesn't do much to help you lose weight. It is good for lots of other reasons, but it doesn't do much for weight loss. 

20 feet, then 50 feet, then 100 feet... soon you'll be walking 30 minutes each day. It will seem like forever in the moment, but looking back it will feel like a minute. I will be 4 months post op on Friday. I don't know how those 4 months have passed so quickly, but during that blink of an eye I've lost over 70lbs. Don't get caught up in the end, take each small  goal and celebrate it!

Being scared it so normal. But think about how much it hurts to walk those 20 feet. Take a breath, and have faith that your doctor will take care of you and his capable hands will get you through the surgery and so much further!

Congratulations!! the 19lbs will come off easier than you think! And remember... they will not reappear the next month!