Jim Capuano

Hi,
 
My name is Jim, and although my handle on this site is cappaj1, I still prefer Jim! I'm a 61 year old married male with two daughters, 32 and 31, one a nurse practitioner and one a registered nurse.  My wife and I are both of Italian descent and grew up with all kinds of delicous foods and pastries from Mom's who really knew how to cook, and a Grandmother right from Italy who made the best sauce I've tasted to this day! Sauce in my family was an "every Sunday" tradition I've kept my whole life! I or my wife have used my Grandmother's recipe for half a century!  But now, I haven't had a dish of pasta with meatballs and pork, etc. for a couple months, and may not ever again.
 
My poor wife is moderately overweight and should be a vibrant and healthy women for her age of 61. She weighed 98 pounds when we were married.  Today, she looks 50 at most. BUT, unfortunately due to bad back surgery, she is now and will be for the rest of her life, needing a walker or wheel chair to get around due to bad back surgery. She went in with a little curvature and numbness and came out, a few years later, almost a cripple! I feel so bad for her, we were Romeo and Juliet when we got married at age 19 and people still tell us that today. She is in constant pain, and on sleeping pills, pain and depression meds and will be forever - AND I can't do much for her at all!  She is so much support to me, even in her condition! I'd never be even half the man I am today (no pun intended) without her. Although she's lost feeling permanently to much of her lower body, at about 160 pounds, I feel she could improve the quality of her life as well if she were to lose 30, 40 or 50 pounds. Being married to me probably contributed to her weight gain, but hopefully, with my new life, that will help her as well. Maybe she'll have gastric bypass some day too, but right now she refuses to even consider it. She says all she has to lose is 40 pounds. Easier said than done but I think I can finally help her on my new voyage and plan to do so.
 
I have four youger brothers, no sisters. Three are slightly overweight. The second oldest, Lou, was overweight as well, and weighed probably 250 or so at his highest. He joined a group called Food Addicts years ago, and lost all of his weight and has kept it off for at least a year or two now. I tried it for a few months at his request, but decided it wasn't for me. Have to give up all sugar and all flour for the rest of your life, meet three times a week, call a sponsor every morning, and call three other people in the group every day.  To me, I lost weight, but it was too much to give up and the quality of my life would not bear it so I gave up after losing maybe forty pounds at most. Think of that - no sugar or flour - pasta, donuts, cake, pastries, soft warm italian bread, and on and on.
 
I've been on many other diets, Weight Watchers many times, NutriSystem, Atkins, etc. They all work if you stick to them, but I always seemed to reach a plataue and gave up, each time gaining all the weight loss back and more. I was down to 320 on weight watchers once.  I'm sure this is a familiar story with many of you.
 
I just had gastric bypass surgery on December 3rd, and a few weeks before that I weighed about 412 pounds! When I went into surgery I was 395.  It's been a couple weeks now and today I weigh about 371. I have a long way to go to reach my goal of 190 or 195, and I really feel I will need a lot of support to get there. Today, as I drove to grocery shop, I saw one restaurant after another and really missed the food that used to give me so much comfort. I thought, how am I going to make it, with these temptations bombarding me every few minutes? Do I have to give up all the foods I love for the rest of my life?  Is this worth it? I'm smart enough to know, of course it is - I have a grandchild, wife and kids to live for, and so much more to accompIish in life! But I love food! I drove by a Pizza place and started to drool. One after another I passed them by, donuts, chinese, sushi, tacos, burgers, seafood, a steakhouse - it was almost unbearable! Last night as I drank my protien shake I had to watch one of my favorite shows on tv as it was the finale - Master Chef junior. My God, some of the food those kids made were heavenly. Even though I plan to drastically reduce my time on the sofa and keep active, I'll always watch tv, and as I do, I see one delicious food commercial after another, and all those food channels as I flip through on the remote.
 
Don't get me wrong, I am determined, I walked a mile my second and final day in the hostpital (was encouraged to make laps around the floor to hit a mile). I then came home and have been doing well but somehow about five days in, I developed a heavy leak where my drainage tube was removed and that continued for four or five days, and really scared me. I was told not to worry. Tha finally stopped and It's been three days now, thank God, and I'm taking it easy physically to keep things that way.
 
I've been married since the age of 19, (hard to believe it's been 42 years since then), and at age 19, I weighed about 185. I slowly added 3, 4 or 5 pounds a year until by my 40's, I was up around 350.
 
I have a terrible memory but luckily, I am a radio control enthusiast, flying remote control airplanes, and I started a journal on a rc site years ago, so I can read through that now and get an idea of where I was in the last decade or so as to my weight and health, as I made mention of it often.
 
I feel I've wasted my 40's and 50's, as I was in bad enough health to not enjoy the things I think I normally would have during that time. Right now I have diabetes, sleep apnea, hi blood pressure, hi cholestorol, a fatty liver, spondylolthesis(bad back), depression, neuropathy of my feet, edema - severly swollen feet and legs, congestive heart failure and more! Before surgery I could barely walk from my handicap parking spot to my desk at work, less than a few hundred feet, without being out of breath so bad I'd almost lose conscieousness with almost unbearable back pain. I had to sit at my desk with my shoes off due to the numbness and pain in my feet.My favorite thing in life was to be able to finally sit after one of my walks. I had to use a motorized cart in the grocery store to get around. I felt so out of place and handicapped wherever I went. I felt helpless to change on my own. I found it difficult to make it to family events. My life became very sad.
 
I'd always thought I would get gastric bypass but put if off as I thought I could do it myself and didn't want the physical change inside it that it entailed. But, a year or so ago, I went to a bariatric seminar and started the ball rolling to get to where I am today.
 
On the bright side, genetically I am lucky to not have heart or cancer problems in the family, and have had, through all of the above, or course with mediation, good blood pressure and cholesterol levels and have never had a heart attack.
 
I go back to work after Xmas and plan on retiring early at 62, but will continue to work to keep active and to help with the bills.
 
Already I have gone from 120 units of Lantis insulin and 60-100 units of Novalog insulin a day to 20 units of Lantis alone! I've not taken my two daily water pills any longer but since surgery I continue with metformin twice a day as before. I'm taking all the meds and vitamins recommded by my gastric bypass doctor, and I'm hoping to slowly eliminate the list (except of course the recommended vitamins etc) and replace them with better food and excercise. I just hope I haven't done too much damage to my body to get what I'd consider 'fit' some day in the future.
 
Anyway, sorry for the long intro, hello to all of you, and Happy Holidays! I will try to stay active on this site and will need it for support and will also offer support to others when and if I am able to. 
 
I will post a couple starting pics shortly, maybe one of me looking rolly polly at the flying field, another when I got married so many years ago!

Thank you for your time in reading this, and thanks for the site!
 
Jim