tinkertas
I don't remember ever being a "normal" weight. My Mom swears that I was skinny as a child... I must have been too young to remember. So I'll I've known is being heavy. I remember being teased throughout so much of my life.
Despite my weight issues, I was always very flexible and simi-active. I never really participated in true athletic type activities. I avoided gym and any "running" type activities like the plague. However, I LOVED to dance, skip rope, and I enjoyed gymnastics. Despite my love for those things, my weight kept growing out of control.
In the year 2000... I was convinced to get the lap band. Worse decision of my life and I still regret going that route vs. the full bypass. I was successful for the first 6 months or so and I think I lost about 70 lbs. However, I then fell down the stairs at work and heard a loud "POP". A few days later I was rushed to the hospital for emergency surgery. The tubing had come undone and had wrapped around my spleen and diaphragm *yay*. They had to re-position the port somewhere else, and after that happened... the weightloss just stopped. I kept going in to get the band filled or deflated and nothing I did made it work. The port flipped, so I had to get surgery again to fix that... and then the last draw was when the tubing came undone AGAIN and was extending down INTO my pelvis. I was in horrific pain and when given the choice to remove the band or repair it... I opted to remove it and be done with it for good. I'm so glad that I made that choice.
The flip side... as soon as the band came out, I started gaining even more weight. My heaviest that I "know" of was 379 lbs.
After lots of discussion, research, and emotional debate... I finally decided to have the DS surgery and on June 3, 2015 I took the leap.
The surgery went pretty good. I had a small bowl obstruction while still in the hospital (couldn't even keep a sip of water down) and that was miserable. However, it cleared itself out naturally... and I was able to go home after about 5 days in the hospital.
Overall, I feel I recovered fairly quickly. I started eating "real" food a little quicker than I probably should have. I've never had a problem with any food so far. I made myself sick twice by eating too much (both times it was a large baked potato). Otherwise, I haven't had any problems.
I do however wonder if I'm eating too much. I keep thinking that I should only be able to eat like 1 egg or half a turkey burger (patty only - not bread), or just a few bites of steak... etc. That's not quite the case. I can literally eat an entire turkey burger (no bun), I can eat an entire 8oz steak, I can eat a TON of fresh veggies, cheese, etc. Healthy Choice Cafe Steamers have become my lunch standard (the "Simply" kind which is low carb)... and although I don't feel like I'm overeating, my head tells me I might be. I am consistently at about 1200 calories per day give/take a little. I'm staying away from the sugar as much as possible and focusing on low-carb, HIGH protein. I know I'm not getting all the water in that I should... but that's a work in progress (and really hard to do when you technically can't drink 30 mins before/after a meal). I'm not drinking anything except water or the occasional protein shake... however it's still been really difficult to get all that fluid in each day.
I just got bloodwork done to find out how my nutrient levels are... and will know the results next week at my 3 month check-in. So far, I've lost 57 lbs.
I've also started exercising a lot. 5 out of 7 days I'm getting my sweat on and sometimes multiple times in a day. I've got water aerobics, multiple MixxedFit classes and Zumba classes... plus I've been walking and dancing with my hubby. I feel like I'm doing great with the exercising... but I'm still not sure about the food portions. I'm eating healthier 90% of the time with only a few hiccups here and there.
Would just like some reassurance that I'm on track. My mind tends to feel like I'm failing even though everyone around me see's the weight loss and is amazed at the changes.
