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Blog 57499

A blog by bfrancis in General

  • Entries

    23

  • Comments

    120

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    4938

About this blog

A weight loss surgery blog by bfrancis on BariatricPal. 23 entries on surgery, recovery and progress.

Entries in this blog

Yes I Can

I’m suffering. I’m rubbish. I’m a failure. I can’t do it.   I didn’t think I should write about this on a weight loss surgery blog as it doesn’t entirely have relevance. Especially as I signed out almost two months ago saying I wouldn’t be writing any more. Ah, but how the slow winter nights of insomnia have a way of thrusting the urge to splurge upon one’s frame.   So, why am I suffering? Why am I rubbish? A failure? And what exactly can’t I do? All will be revealed in the next excitin

Goodbye

I recently received some distressing news that has meant that I will be bringing this blog to a close for the foreseeable future. The news from my doctor was sudden and very sharp.   Having been basking in the speedy weight loss glory that the Lap Band enabled me to have has been nothing short of amazing for me. But it was over the last couple of months that I noticed a change in my eating habits and frame reduction. I have been eating less, feeling unwell and not losing any weight at all. T

Shh...don't tell anyone!

Today’s exciting instalment does not revolve around me. In fact, it’s not exciting either. And indeed, I wrote it yesterday. So it’s not actually today’s…let’s move on.   Of late, I have had several people contact me from the gastric band communes across the globe commenting about our shared experiences. One good thing about this procedure is that it is encourages people to seek out fellow bandibulars to discuss what we are going through or are likely to go through and in doing so, encourages

Proof is in the Low Fat Pudding

Well, didn’t I get a shock yesterday!   My first venture into on-screen acting arrived in a neatly packaged DVD. Regular readers may well remember that I discussed the filming of this back in a post in February, “Killing With Kindness“. Seeing myself on screen five stone heavier was a bit of an eye-opener.   It’s not as if I was blind when I was that heavy – but when you are actually behind all that weight, there is a certain amount of self-preservation that must go on in one’s mind whe

Shout to the Top!

I figured the time was nigh to write a overview and summary on my thoughts so far on this whole gastric band thing. In doing so, I will try to avoid my usual rapier wit and innuendo to get my message across!   I was a bit concerned to have feedback on my last blog entry suggesting that my words had managed to put her in a position of thinking again about going through the operation. I was concerned because it seems that in my attempt to be as open and honest about the things I have experienced

What's on the Inside?

For those few and far between people who actually read this blog, you may have noticed I am slowing down on my initial spurt and outpouring of psychological literary sticking plasters. This is not because I am getting bored with the process of scribing my thoughts down or that I am filling my time with more fulfilling activities. It is simply because I seem to be getting used to this whole new world of eating to live and not living to eat. The “new experiences” are now relatively few and far be

Born Again...and Bloody Irritating

I've gone and done it. I have become a hugely annoying member of the Reformed Church of Eating. And, I'm really aggravated with myself for becoming so.   One of my primal vexations in life is the irksome need some people have to spread the word on their own beliefs and religions. Don't get me wrong - if you believe in a god on high or a holy mushroom that sits at the bottom of your garden, I am fine with that and wish you well in your quest for finding a meaning to life - but please, for the

The Itch is Back

It is with much regret that I announce that I have been a very bad boy.   Over the last 8 or so days I have, what is commonly known here in the UK, been on a bender. That is not to say that I urinated on someone of a less than heterosexual persuasion, but I have overdone it on the booze. Every day I have frequented my old stomping ground, Froggies, and have drank myself to a stupor. The itch of needing to drink heavily came back with a vengeance and I scratched that itch very hard indeed. I

What They Didn't Tell You - Part 1

Having been in this game for only about 2 months now, I feel somewhat reticent to write on the subject of slimming down - but having dropped over 50lbs in eight weeks, I am perhaps able to see the results more clearly than had I lost weight more slowly. A large drop in a small timescale has left my memories of Billy Bunterdom less hazy that most. For all those sending me cyber-daggers as they read about the initial success, please relax in the knowledge that my primary sprint has turned into a

Help Me Help You

I am writing this article based on a suggestion by my dear friend and confidant, James Lucas. Or, as I affectionately know him, Jumbo Jim. He’s not a fat man. Just, like most people, slightly overweight. Now, thinking about it, I’m not entirely sure what exactly I am referring to when I proclaim his Jumbo-ness. Perhaps I should stop. Jimmy it will be from here on.     We were discussing exercise machines of all things the other day. Having invested in an elliptical trainer last month, he

Dragon Slayers

When I first learned that my initial band adjustment was going to be four weeks after a whale’s wake of hunger that had kicked in, I was a little disturbed. I was in fact terrified that the substantial weight that I had kicked off over the previous weeks would come flooding back with a vengeance and all would be lost (or indeed gained). Then, that fear was replaced with a certain feeling that a challenge had been set - a challenge for me to have one more attempt to combat and defeat the beast

Guess Who Came to Stay

"I can resist anything except temptation." A typically wonderful quote from Oscar Wilde. A quote that rang trough my head yesterday as I succumbed to the lessening powers of The Band over Mothering Sunday lunch.   As I sat in my favourite restaurant and bar (La Place in Winchester - highly recommended!) I finished off the whole plate of Steak Haché et Frites (hamburger and chips for us lesser mortals). I had sinned and needed to birch myself severely. The reprimand I deserved could not wait

The Law of Sod

It’s Sod’s Law that the one person that I expected to support me in this procedure has been the only one person that hasn’t. Damn that Sod and his bloody law making!   Without wanting to sound like an angry young (ahem!) man and post my second negative post, I thought I would try and do it in a defensive way rather than go in with guns a-blazing. The gloves were originally taken off as I pressed the “new post” button - but they have duly been put back on. In fact, I have retired to the chang

Deal With It

Stepping on the scales a few days ago to realise that I had cast aside the title of "morbidly obese" was almost as thrilling at when I first discovered Sicilian lemon pudding. Almost.     As I left the bathroom, adorned with my new proud banner of "obese", I was mentally working out when my next heavy-weight title adjustment to "overweight" would be. Perhaps I wasn't savouring my obese label with as much pureed relish as I should have been. What it took to lose my "morbid" moniker!   Th

Rage Against the Fat Gene

This is one blog article I started to write before I went into hospital. I decided to postpone it until afterwards, because I didn't want my final cyber-words to be ones of negativity if things did go wrong. The surgery was a success and now I feel able to voice my thoughts on the subject that has been very much a part of my life since I can remember. Belly bashers!   Growing up in a relatively privileged way, my early years of verbal abuse were pretty much limited to the playground, as most a

The Awakening

Following a very strict liver-reduction diet and five days of post-operative mush, I am a quarter of the way to my ideal weight. At this rate, I will be at my target of 14 stone (196 lbs or 89kgs) in about two months. Now, obviously I am not stupid enough to think that this is a) possible or :w00t: entirely healthy. But it makes me determined that this thing is going to work.   I have another 24 days left of the puree diet (yes, I am counting the days) and I think I may well burst into tear

Sliced and Diced

So, here I am a day after surgery. Guess what! I made it through in tact. With a few scars, a little less hair and a lot of learning to do.   The day went as planned. I arrived at seven thirty as instructed and was in my gown, support stockings and rather fetching paper knickers by eight. The formalities were taken care of - a couple of signatures were needed on well-guarded legal papers ensuring I wasn't able to claim for damages in the unlikely event of me failing the post operative "alivene

Time for a Change

Well, the time has come for me to right my final blog as an unaided dieter. I will hopefully be signing back in soon after the operation at the weekend to update the few and far between people that read this that I made it through to the other side (well, not that other side...this side of that side!).   I don't have much to talk about myself in this "instalment" - instead, I would like to focus on others.   With the operation being so close, I have had to disclose details to a couple of ve

Addicted to Happy

Before I lose the ability to eat fourteen rhino ribs and a bath full of potatoes in one sitting, I figured it was probably the best time to do what I do and analyze myself once more and explore one of my most confusing behaviours. To find out why eating so much makes me so damn happy, whilst knowing that the result of eating so much makes me so utterly miserable.   I suppose the first thing to do would be to pin-point any psychological anomalies that could be ear-marked as a place to start hun

Morbid Morbidity

From the outset of my decision for surgery has been the nagging fear that everyone has when they commit themselves lay bare-chested in front of a man (or woman) with a big scalpel who would rather be on the golf course with Cecil Snr and Farquah the Third. The nagging fear of...am I going to die?!   For people having this surgery who listen to their surgeons before-hand and do some research on the fact, the figures for death caused as a direct result of laproscopic procedure to fit a gastric b

Pre-assessed and Pre-approved

Being woken at 3am to the sound and feel of my daughter throwing up into my excessive chest hair started my day in a less than pleasurable way.   It was the day of my pre-assessment meeting with the hospital, before my surgery next week. This is where the nurse checks to see if a) it is likely that I would suffer a slight death under anaesthesia and :confused: if I did, what blood type would they need to try and pump through my tightened arteries in order to try and revive me from aforesaid in

Killing with Kindness

Whilst sitting in the "green room" waiting to be called on set (actually, the name was quite apt as we were sat in a stuffy snooker room in the back of an old gentleman's club...baize green everywhere!) I had another moment of diving into people's psyche concerning us fatties (for those of a sensitive nature, scrub that and read "bariatrically challenged" or "those of a less than slender approach").   The moment that sparked my grey cells was when, as usual, I preempted the jokes and jibes tha

My New Hobby

Whilst laying awake last night, I started to do a bit of self-analysis (keep those gutter minds out of the sewers please!) and examine my psyche a little bit. It's amazing how overworked my mind becomes when I go to bed ("hit the sack" for all you States-side peeps out there).   Amongst many other world-changing theories and famine-busting mental dissertations, I stumbled across my new hobby - which I believe will be a good enough one to serve as my emotional crutch when my "eat the food, eat

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