26 weeks out (6 months!)

Jan 25, 2011

Weight: 268
1/25/11

Today I am exactly 6 months out (26 weeks) from my VSG.  I've lost 92 pounds since surgery which is an average of a little more than 3.5 pounds a week.  Combined with my pre-op weight loss I've lost a total of 120 pounds (nice round number) and exactly 20 points from my BMI and I'm more than halfway to my goal!

I'm excited to see what the next 6 months bring..I need to get some new photos too!  I've gone from probably a size 36 or 5x (I only wore stretchy stuff so I'm not really sure) to a size 20.  I know a lot of people started at the same weight that I am now, but the perspective from here is that it is SOOO much better.

I'm much more active and have taken up rollerblading again which is exciting.  I go to the gym regularly and even run  a little bit now, when before I couldn't stand for more than 5 minutes at a time; what a difference!

I recently went out to a club and went dancing with a fellow OH member and had a great time.. something I hadn't done in years.  I am so grateful for this surgery and the opportunity it has given me to hope and have help, and in return I am helping my tool all that I can.

I was always a volume eater... for years I have followed low carb pretty faithfully, but it didn't matter much because I could sit down and literally eat 2 pounds of steak in a sitting.  I always felt like a bottomless pit.

Now post-op I still feel the urge to keep eating and eating, but then I physically can't.  I'm 6 months out today and I find I'm still adjusting to the new amounts I can eat.  To some degree my desire to overeat has morphed to the urge to eat frequently.. so as soon as my stomach is empty I want to eat more just so I can spend more time tasting my food.

Also even though I follow low carb, there are certain high calorie low carb foods I crave and tend to want to overeat on, and I can somewhat with the VSG because they are not dense foods.  These are high calorie nuts, full fat cheese and sugar free chocolate.

I allow myself to have these so that I can have some variety in my diet, but for me sometimes they amounts are harder to control because they are so yummy.  When a food is yummy to me it becomes exciting, like a party in my mouth, and then I want to keep having the party.

So to deal with that, I only keep the lesser exciting things in my house.  For example I keep sugar free hershey's chocolate in my house, and NOT the sugar free almond roccas or the russell stover coconut bars.  Because I like the hershey's the least, but I WILL eat it if I really need chocolate.

I can NOT keep cashews in the house, but I do keep pistachios and almonds in the house, and I WILL eat those if I'm really wanting nuts.  But I will try to stuff as much cashews in my sleeve as I can if I start eating those.

I also keep low fat string cheese and weight watchers swiss in the house, because I will eat those normally, but I can't keep full fat goat cheese mozzarella in the house (my favorite) so if I buy it I have to portion off what I will eat and throw the rest out.

I do not dance with the carbs at all, and I maintain abstinence from those and that really helps me.  I do say that I just don't do carby foods, and if I fall off the wagon I will just try to get right back on it again.

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