Today I weighed myself and I have lost a total of 51 pounds. This was my first milestone, I had created different milestones for myself. 50 pounds lost, 75, 100 and 150. I must say I do feel good, I feel satisfied. I thought it would feel more amazing being here but I think I am a little bit disappointed because the wrong concept about bariatric surgery is that you lose weight like crazy, like 10 pounds a week! (not true, everybody loses weight at their own pace, the important thing is LOSING!) Today is January 21, therefore it has been about 5 and a half weeks since surgery. That is an average of about 5 pounds lost per week since surgery. Although, this is not all that accurate considering I lost 2 pounds a day for the first week, then it slowed down.
Since my last blog post I have incorporated regular food back into my diet. It is nice to be able to eat real food again but the downside to that is that I am still tempted to eat bad foods. Since I didn't have the gastric bypass I don't experience the negative side effects of dumping that come along with the bypass. Therefore I can still pretty much have anything to eat but I can only eat very little. I have noticed that bread makes me really sick, this I consider a blessing in disguise. Before surgery, carbs were my weakness food. However, just because I can't have bread doesn't mean I can't have things such as cookies or cake. I still have to be careful because my stomach seems to be okay with dense carb foods like cake, cracker, cookies although I wish it wasn't!
Water intake is still so hard! I also struggle with keeping up with everything I have to take in a day, here is my list:
- prescription Vitamin D every week
- multivatiman every day
- hemagenics (fancy word for folate, iron, calcium, and B12) every day
- Hair, skin and nails supplement every day (okay I don't HAVE to drink this but it has collagen in it and I really want my hair to get longer and thicker so this is more of a vanity thing)
- Vitamin D3
- Pepcid, one during the day, one during the night (stupid heartburn)
- My Tums (stupid heartburn, yes again, stupid heartburn)
One big challenge for me is grazing. I have always been a grazer, it's such a purpose defeating habit that I wish I could break! Now that I am able to eat food again I notice that I am grazing again. This is because even though I am full really quickly at meal times, in between meal times I can eat small "slider" foods or foods that have no substantial protein or nutrient value to them. This weekend my brother had friends over to watch the NFC championship game (GO NINERS!!) and I found that even though I was full after I ate my shredded beef as my meal, an hour after that I was able to eat chips and dip! I was eating chips in front of me while we watched the game because even if I can't have a whole plate of chips in one sitting, I can still have 15 chips and dip over the time span of an hour or two. That is NOT good. One thing that really helps with my grazing is chewing gum, I am going to start buying packs of sugarfree gum and leaving them hidden in places where I spend time in. My room, my cubicle, kitchen at home, my car, and the living room at home. This way whenever I feel like reaching for crackers, chips or cookies I will eat simply one cracker to feel like I have tasted it and avoid that feeling deprived feeling and then reach for a piece of gum to keep my mouth occupied.
So right now I am at the point where my focus is protein, water, exercise, repeat.
So I finally directed some energy into doing before and after pictures. I made a couple of collages. Both collages have me before surgery on the left and pictures of me after surgery (today) on the right.
Until next time!
Melissa
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