1 year later after bypass surgery

Sep 20, 2009

NO REGRETS!

I am happy to report that it has been a year and a month since my surgery.  I didn't lose all the weight I intended but I have made leaps and bounds from how I was doing a year ago.  I am now at 176lbs and have been at this weight since April of 2009.  I am pleased with my progress and how much energy I feel.  I would say that the main goal now is to get back into a serious workout regiment.  I have done light working out, biking, walking and occasional swimming, but now it is time to hit the weights and step it up a notch.  I think boxing is in order for my new workout program.  

I don't feel the need to lose much more weight but I do feel the need to feel strong and keep my weight were it is.  If I lose more, I will be fine with that...but for me, it is more important to feel energetic, strong and lean. 

I love that I can wear all my old clothes.  I have bought a few new items and it has definitely made me feel good that I can get back into a size 12.  Hmmmm....maybe a size 10 would be good...ha! 

I know this is a crucial time since 1 year has passed and I know a number of people start to gain a little back.  I feel that it is important for me to get back to support groups too.  I know that was key in my progression.  I am comfortable now...but don't want to get "too" comfortable with my change that I slip back into old habits.

I will say this.....my relationship did take a bit of a bump for a month with the changes....but now, I couldn't ask for a better more supportive mate.  I am very lucky for someone to love me at my heaviest and my lightest.  More importantly, it is wonderful that I am loving myself at my heaviest and lightest.  The confidence I feel is wonderful and I feel empowered...more so then "before" because now I am not worried as much and focused only on my body and weight. 

All in all....CHANGE IS GOOD!!!!
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Plateau so soon?

Oct 14, 2008

Well I am in my 9th week out of surgery and I am losing weight at a very slow pace.  I am a bit frustrated but trying to still be grateful.  I have lost a total of 32 lbs but for the last 3 weeks I have been about the same weight.  I know I should not let it get to me, but it seems most of you out there have lost more weight at this point.  I believe I need to eat more little meals through the day.  I am finding it hard to do.  I did great until I plateaued.  Also, I got sick a couple of weeks ago and had barely started working out and had to stop.  I started going back to the gym last week and I am hoping now that I picked up journaling my food intake and working out I can start making a shift again.  I will lose the weight again.  I know I will...really just want to below 200lbs. My mini goal is to be down to 200 by the first week in November.  I will keep you posted.  I WILL DO IT!!!


Baby steps...

Sep 01, 2008

I am 25 days out and I have lost 20 lbs.  I am very grateful for this.  However, I am learning to eat all over again and my brain at times wants to go back to the "old Cristy"...if ya know what I mean.  I am journaling everyday to keep myself in check.  I have been recuperating well however.  My mother flew in and she took care of me for the week and then I flew to Utah.  I actually felt more tired and sore there.  Maybe cause I was pushing myself, mybe the altitude.  I am now home and today I did my first BIG exercise.  I hiked Aliso Peek in Laguna, then I went swimming with my bro, sis and my boyfriend and I am WIPED!  They came for a visit and I have worn myself right out. They were a big help, but tomorrow does start a new day.  I found that I got a bit off my eating program...not to bad...but enough to get me back on track tomorrow.  It is hard traveling and finding things to eat...I am in the mush food state.  Well....I am off to bed....one tired MAMA! Tomorrow is a new day!  YEAH!

 


Band out...bypass in and home a day early!!!

Aug 11, 2008

Surgery 08/08/08

Wow....what an experience!  I feel very blessed to be at home sitting with my laptop writing this and not at the hospital like everyone else that had surgery the same day as me.

To make a long story short.....I have prepared and worked very hard to make sure this was the right decision, like all of us out there.  I was so nervous but was so grateful that Dr. Zane let me take in my Louise Hay positive affirmation CD's and listen to them while I was getting my surgery done.  I woke up and my wonderful boyfriend was there.  He was with me every step of the way. 

Dr. Zane came in later and told me that I was the easiest surgery he ever had and that I was very lucky.  He let me know that my band was around my esophogus...not my stomach!  That is why I was throwing up 20 times a day!  He also told me that I didn't have ANY scar tissue and it made my surgery so easy that taking out my band and having the bypass, took him less time than just doing the bypass on someone.

I was sore and tired...but that was to be expected.  I started drinking liquids right away with no problem and started walking at 3am in the morning cause I couldn't sleep. 

They said I was so much further ahead than most people that they discharged me a day early.  I was in LESS than 48 hours!  I just pray that the rest of my journey goes as smoothly. 

So far I feel great!  I was walking around a lot today and drinking all my protiens....not chewing yet...just swallowing and having no prob.  Started on my vitamins today too.  Check it out...they are great vitamins: www.Cristy.DiscoverMangosteen.com.  I am really trying to stay on top of that!  I don't want to have hair loss or anemia or any other issue. 

I hope that this helps someone out there!  I will keep you posted on my progress and will take pictures ones a month to show my progress!


Educating, Preparing and on my way.....

Jun 24, 2008

This week I have been committed to learning about all aspects of the bypass.  I give thanks to OH as I have found a diet and nutrition support group and have attended.  Their is so much to know, but having the lapband, I feel like I am a step ahead of the game because the diets aren't that much different with the bypass...just much more strict.  

I snuck into another Weight Loss Surgery Center, even though I am with another Carrier.  It took me a few minutes to explain my story and why I am not back in NY getting my surgery....but all in all, they were very nice and let me attend their group yesterday and the ones in the future.  I thank them.   It was very educational and I thought how many times a day I will have to eat.  My mother will be out here for a week after surgery....so nice to have a loving, supportive mother.

I feel consumed with everything to know.  I think this is my new addiction.  I guess it is better than eating!  HA!  I have been doing a ton of personal deveopment and trying to dig deep as to why I have always been overweight my whole life.  I am not so clear on all of it, but I am learning more about myself, my habits and my emotions...which all play a part in my health.

I have been working out daily and juicing., eating organic, doing colonics and will be starting endomologie tomorrow, to help tighten my skin and get the circulation going through my lymphatic system.  I will have to let you know if it works.  I know that my weight gain is in direct correlation from "starving myself" (not being able to eat) on the band.   Dr. Roslin, in NY told me that once he released the liquid in my band I would put on at least 30 lbs right away...I didn't believe him because I am healthier than I have ever been.  Well...he was right and my body is holding on to all the calories and food since I was starving.  Apparently your body holds onto anything you eat and stores it because it thinks you are going to starve yourself again.  Not eating slows your metabalism way down.  I am looking forward to the weight going down, instead of up. I am in the process of trying my best to change metabalism and way of life forever!  

I feel like I am talking my ear off to my boyfriend Andy.....he is so wonderful and supporting!  I can tell when I talk about the complications that he starts internalizing.  I have truly been blessed with an unconditionally loving partner. We have been eating right and working out together and it truly helps me stay motivated when I am responsible to someone else besides myself.

I am in a good space to prepare as I am not working right now.  I have the summer off to plan and of course play.  I will be going to Grand Cayman & Miami in a couple of weeks, then my best friend from NY is coming at the end of July.  I know it will be hard not to indulge like I am use to....but I am going to do my best.  

I will keep you posted on how it goes....


The Emotional and Physical Roller Coaster Ride of Obesity

Jun 22, 2008

So, here I sit pondering how my life has been as an obese woman.  That is hard to admit.  I never would have been called that accept at the doctors office.  But now that I have admitted this....maybe I can move on.

I grew up in an extremely active household.  I was an Army brat and my father broke a worlds record in Javlin and trained all the cadets at West Point Military Academy.  He was a recreational therapist in sports medicine, a trialthalon coach, and made sure all the cadets were fit.  He implemented  (not invented) the skin fold measurement on the core of cadets.  This is just a short resume of what he did.

I share this not to brag....but to express the demanding expectations he had on his 7 children.  A wonderful father...but a perfectionist like non other.

Needless to say I was always VERY atheletic, but always "thick", "stocky", "chunky", etc...you get the point.  I was the happy fat kid that could keep up. I belonged to soccer, track (broke a record that still stands in shot put), lifeguard, boxed and any physical dare you asked me to do I would!  

It seemed that my weight would go up and down.  Average chunky one year and the next year FAT.  This continued until after college.  Then...I would gain and lose 60-80 lbs every year....and then regain.  I did this for the next 15 years.  

I went on multiple diets,OA, starved, doctor approved percription pills,  that made me WACKED out!!  And I continued to ALWAYS work out....as I loved! But one day my doc did an EKG and told me that I had an irregular heart beat.  He let me know that all the up and down weight was hard on my organs and that if I continued I would have organ failure.  He said it was better to stay at one weight or another but not up and down, and preferable lower weight.  It was harder on my body than just being fat.  He told me I should have bariatric surgery!!!!

I HAVE NEVER BEEN SO INSULTED IN MY LIFE!!!!!!!!!! I cursed him out and told him I could do it on my own and that I have.  He gently reminded me that society got to me.  The he had never met anyone with more self discipline and that this was not about being able to lose the weight but to keep it off and that surgery was a tool.  He told me about the different body types and how some peoples bodies were genetically made this way.  He sent me to a bariatric surgeon, one of the best in the nation, Dr. Mitchell Roslin, that helped get the band FDA approved.  I had no idea what the band was at that time.  

I went to Dr. Roslins seminar and learned about both surgeries and my PCP comments kept ringing in my hear about organ failure and this being a tool...so I went with the LapBand on August 31, 2004, because it was reversable.  

It served me well the first 2 years.  I lost weight slower than ever before but it stayed off.  I would lose about 4 lbs every 6 weeks...PERFECT!  I became extremely involved in boxing...I LOVED IT!  I ate smaller portions but still healthy (I was never one to be a junk food junkie).  I finally seemed balanced and really enjoying every minute of it.  

In Decemeber 2004 my father was diagnosed with ALS, Lou Gerhigs Disease.  I went to Utah, where he retired from NY, for a visit.  I decided to take a leave of absence in the summer of 2005.  I did and that is where all my health issues started.....

It was a year after my band was put in, July-Aug 2005.  I was healthy and strong and at a low weight of 175lbs from 242lbs.  When in Utah I noticed that I was having a hard time with my food being caught.  I only had 2 cc's and never had this problem.  Then I started to throw up occassionally.  When returning to NY, I spoke to my doctor and they did an upper GI.  I was fine...then I felt good again.  

In November in 2005, I decided to move to Utah to help my father.  I had no complications with the band..until I moved to Utah.  This is where I began to throw up 10,15 and sometims 20 times a day.  I couldn't keep a bite of food down or I would be, for sure, throwing up.  I couldn't even eat blended vegtable soup.  I began to eat a pint or more of ice cream at night.  This would be the only thing that would stay down.  I thought I was going crazy.  I was starving and my mother thought I was going to die.

My father passed in December of 2005 and my mother got sick soon after.  My life was not my own, but I felt that it was ok because I was doing the right thing by helping take care of my family as they have taken care of me.  I went on living (or dying) my life like this till a year later in December 2006.  My mother got better and I decided to start taking care of myself again.  I had now put on 25 lbs by just eating ice cream to survive.  

I went to NY and had another Upper GI series again.  The band looked fine.  However, my doctor told me it could be the balloon affect.  I got the band at sea level but I had moved to Utah where the altitude was very high and that band could have expanded  like a balloon would do as it rises.  We decided to take all the liquid out.  I was now able to eat a little more...what  a relief.  He told me that the weight would come back on.  I was in starvation mode and my body was for sure going to hold onto all the food I ate.  

I met a wonderful man, Andreas, that loved me for the chunky I was. I moved to California in May of 2007 at the weight of 200 lbs.  I continued to gain weight but still throw up.  Now, not having health insurance, my boyfriend was so worried that I was dying.  I was much better than I was in Utah, but non the less I was still not able to eat healthy food...though now, I could eat a wider range of food.  Andreas helped me find health insurance.  And my weight still kept rising....

I got Kaiser and when I told my new doctor about all this she immediately sent me to get and endoscopy and upper gi...and guess what.  NOW....my band had slipped and I had a heital hernia from it.  I was sent to Dr. Zane, bariatric surgeon.  He discussed that I needed to either have it fixed or get it out.  I opted to get it out.  Now tipping the scale at 225 lbs.  

I scheduled my surgery for Aug. 8. 2008, almost 4 years to the date of my LabBand surgery.  I have the choice to have the bypass.  I have been researching and going to support groups to find out if I want to do it.  I was so excited I decided to push my surgery date to June 13, 2008 and then freaked myself out.  I started thinking that this is permanent and it is major surgery.  I have heard mostly good experiences but I am still concerened about making a permanent change.  I switched my surgery back to August 8, 2008.

I have realized that my mentality of the "strong girl that can do it one her own" is still very present.  I am now in the process of educating myself on the bypass and becoming emotionally responsible to my decision.  It is my battle....and my time has come.




About Me
CA
Location
30.8
BMI
Surgery
08/08/2008
Surgery Date
May 12, 2008
Member Since

Friends 40

Latest Blog 6
Plateau so soon?
Baby steps...
Band out...bypass in and home a day early!!!
Educating, Preparing and on my way.....
The Emotional and Physical Roller Coaster Ride of Obesity

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