6 month surgiversary

Aug 01, 2017

6 months out today, Aug 1st.  (from Feb 1st)

Still losing, albeit slowly -- but that's all on me to curb my food intake.

Scale is at 200.0, where it drops to 198 and then back up -- so in the next couple days I'll be in Onederland!

It's time for new jeans and underwear again.  I bought my last ones 35 lbs ago I think -- they are starting to be too loose and saggy.  Not a great look or feel.  My original underwear from pre-surgery is ridiculously baggy and slides off!!

My hair continues to fall out by the handful.  Here's hoping it stops before I'm totally bald, especially in the front!  I am not sure I can pull off wearing a wig, but I might try if it gets worse.  First step will be a short, spiky cut though.

Had my physical about a month or so back with my PCP.  My numbers were all NORMAL!!  hA1C was the big one I was after -- that was a 5, down from 8.something, back in Dec.  (8.3 or 8.4, will have to go dig that up).  My cholesterol and blood pressure were also back down to normal.  Iron levels normal (they were very low back in Dec).  

It's time for me to have a new sleep study though -- my pressure on the bi-pap is 24 and that's just too high now.  I feel like I'm trying to breathe in a hurricane.  I'm tired all the time.  Probably my depression; that's something I need to see a psych for to get my meds adjusted as my PCP would prefer that route.   

I think the hardest part for me, that I'll be working on over the next month or two, is the constant nausea.  I feel fine when I'm eating, but starting about 20 min or so after -- nausea.  That will continue for at least a couple hours, sometimes longer.  Sometimes I just feel nauseated all the time.  Mostly it's low-grade, but in the evening it sometimes is enough to make me dry heave.  I need to work on finding what foods are 'safe' and what foods tend to make me feel that way more.  I suspect it's also a matter of amount, since a single egg in the morning doesn't generally make me sick, but then I'm hungry in 2 hrs.

Dairy remains off the menu for me.  Stinky, awful gas & diarrhea.  Whew.  Lactaid gets me mostly through when I just have to have something with cheese. But mostly I just avoid.

It's not difficult to stay away from sugar and things like bread or rice.  They make me feel just awful.  Not what others describe as dumping, but rather bone-numbing fatigue that leaves me no choice but to lie down.  I just totally avoid those things now, remembering how it makes me feel is enough!

Aspartame unfortunately tends to give me stomach cramps for some reason.  Swigging a cold Diet Snapple on a hot day *sounds* good, and I'll often go for it and then be sorry.  I'm starting to find alternatives that just don't have sweetener at all.  McD's thankfully has giant unsweetened iced tea for a buck, so that's handy if we are out and about in hot weather and I need something cold.  Otherwise, ice water is really my favorite these days, and that's something for sure.  I can't say I never look longingly at a Coke Zero, but I don't even want to know what carbonation will feel like, so haven't tried one.

My surgeon wants us to have no alcohol for the whole first year and then only a small amount once or twice a year on a special occasion.  I haven't had trouble with avoiding alcohol, although the wish for red wine crossed my mind recently when I was really stressed out and watching a show where they were drinking it.  I have a feeling I would not feel well afterwards, just like with rice or sugar!  I had a sip of beer while camping last weekend.  Yuck.  But then I've never been a beer drinker anyway.

Enough for now -- just wanted to jot down some thoughts about where I'm at on my 6 month.   I'm nowhere near perfect on what I choose to eat, so I'm super thankful that my post-surgery body is helping me figure it out!  

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