5 Month update

Dec 16, 2009

OK, exactly 5 months ago I was waking up from surgery.  Things have changed a bit since then.

Although my retirement savings is 12k lighter, My body is over 90 pounds lighter than where I began my preop program, and 70 pounds since surgery.  Moving my body is so much different with so much weight gone. I don't have to plan how to lever myself out of a chair. I don't even think about walking up and down the hills on my property for my daily exercise.  I am also off one Blood pressure drug, and on a fraction of the others I was 6 months ago.  My sleep apnea is much better, and I have had my CPAP lowered to an 8 setting from 11. I may be able to eliminate it entirely next year.

My surgery was as easy as anyone could possibly hope for. I was well prepared for it by studying everything and really working on the preop diet and exercise program. I have stuck with the surgeon's meal progression to the letter, and have done well up until solid foods.  I was drinking water and my protein drinks with no problems within 3 days of surgery. I still get in over a hundred ounces of water a day via decaff iced tea.  I take all my vitamins and supplements every day, and have worked out a good system to remember and record them. I do journal what I eat everyday, but not the exact amounts (which is getting me into some trouble recently).  I have been able to get used to NOT drinking until an hour after meals, although that was one of the harder things to learn.  I do hike up and down my path through my 24 acres of hillside woods for 45 minutes to an hour every day. My dog is really insistent on going for our walk so I have not missed more than a day or two in months.

Loosing the weight was definitely easier in the first 3 months.  My weight loss has dramatically slowed down over the last few weeks. My biggest problem is wanting to snack between meals. I eat about every 3 or 4 hours through the day. My meals are usually appropriate protein first and then some good carbs. I can probably eat a bit more than some, but it is still tiny compared to what I ate preop. I want a snack about midways between meals, and have not been tracking this "little" snack, and I have been sabotaging myself.  The last 4 pounds lost have been harder than the first 40!  I have taken some steps to stop the grazing, and hopefully this will help.  Loosing is so easy in the beginning, it is a difficult thing to go through when you stall out. All of those "Rules" we are given are each an important piece of the puzzle to get up through this journey.  I found the hard way that those little "healthy" snacks can really add up to nearly doubling my daily calories.

Summing up, this is the best thing I have ever done for myself. I have been slowly gaining weight for nearly my entire adult life, and feeling like a failure over this most of that time.  This is the first effective thing I have ever experience in this. I am definitely fighting the stalls now, but I still have a fighting chance, and even if I never lost another ounce it would have been well worth it.

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