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4me4them's Blog

A blog by 4me4them in General

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About this blog

One woman's journey to a healthier tomorrow

Entries in this blog

Rough Start but Finding My Stride

So it has been 2 months since my surgery. I took an extended break from this blog and the site because I was getting crazy. I was crazy obsessed with every ounce that didn't come off when I thought it should, with every bite that went into my mouth (or didn't). For me, I couldn't read about the great weight loss that others were experiencing because it caused the same bad feelings I used to get when looking at fashion websites....and I knew for me that wasn't a good sign.   Today is the fir

My Surgery...

So....this is a long story but I'm going to put the point right up front. Be prepared to be your own advocate after your surgery! I had my sleeve surgery on 03 December. 04 was a bit rough but that night I was finally making peace with my sleeve when at about 0130 in the morning I slipped into atrial fibrillation...which means the heart is not beating correctly. The atria, which squeeze the blood away from the heart were fluttering and my heart rate was fluctuating between 120-200...normal i

Heading to the losers bench :)

So this is my last post before surgery. Tonight we are going to a hotel in the city where the hospital is. Tomorrow at 0900 my surgery will happen. I've been more nervous today, I think it is as much anticipation and the unknown as anything. I have a great support system, did not cheat once on the preop diet and am ready to face what comes the next few months.   I thought about leaving a bunch of "If you are reading this bad things happened...." notes for my kids and husband but decided aga

Final Appt with Surgeon and I wonder if my butt will look good and damn, that chicken smell good

So you can probably tell from the title that my mind is all over the place today! Less than 48 hours to go and I'm getting more nervous by the hour...lol. I'm glad it didn't start till this late in the game.   Had the final appointment with the surgeon today. Very short. His resident asked if I had any questions which I did:   1. How do you manage pain? IV injections and then liquid pain meds...no pump   2. How long do you anticipate the surgery will be? About 2 hrs   3. Will I h

Time Out

So I put my 50 year old self in time out last night. I really deserved it. I totally went berserk over a string of Christmas lights that wouldn't light. Of course I was tired, feeling head hungry, frustrated that my day to day plan before surgery was getting disrupted, anxious to get the tree done, melancholy about surgery Wednesday....and probably a bunch more. The line Ron Weasley utters when Hermione tells them about what Cho is feeling comes to mind...."No one can feel all that or they w

Day Five Prepop Liquid Diet...or how I'm coping in a house of foodies

So this morning marks the start of the 5th day of my liquid pre-op diet. Here's what I'm taking in every day: 3 protein shakes 1 8oz plain/vanilla yogurt 1/2 cup low fat cottage cheese 4 oz apple juice 11 0z low sodium v8 juice Broth/sugar free jello/popsicles within reason   So it isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be. I posted on the forum about my meltdown day one...went grocery shopping and was totally unprepared for the rush of sadness...got through it without going off pla

Endoscopy, Insurance and irrational self talk

So I survived vacation with only gaining 2 pounds, which came off in 2 days! Yay me. We (hubby helped a lot) did very good the first week at my moms. Shakes for breakfast and lunch, reasonable dinner. Even went to my favorite Italian restaurant and ordered meatballs, no appetizer and only had 1 bite of their signature almond cake. The beach was not as good. I'm not sure why...might have been because I had not told my in-laws about the surgery. Anyway it's over and I don't currently have ano

Catching Up and Going on Vacation

So it's been awhile! Did you miss me? I have been so busy lately...The two day a week liquid diet had some interesting challenges. The first couple of weeks I found myself way overeating on the other 5 days. So at week three I started doing the liquid thing for bfast and lunch on the 3rd day and eating dinner. I've also played with liquid for bfast and dinner and eating lunch.   The reason for the experimentation is that hubby and I are going to visit our parents for the next two weeks a

Trial run at liquid pre-op diet

So I had my final NUT appointment on Monday. She has put me on a two consecutive days a week liquid diet...like the one that I will have to do prior to surgery. The other 5 days I am eating my surgeon's "Stage 4" diet, which is basically back to whatever foods you can tolerate.   I did my two days yesterday and today. Here is my doctor's/NUTs schedule 0600 (I go to work early) Protein Shake. no more than 130 calories, no more than 13 Carbs and at least 20g protein 0900 4oz apple or cranb

Better Sleep (part 2)

So I'm a believer in the night time routine I learned about at Miraval Spa. I've been using it for the past week and my sleep is deeper, and I can get back to sleep quicker. Some pre-stuff before the routine: 1. Make your room as dark as possible. We moved our phone chargers, turned the clock so that it was not facing the bed, and stopped leaving a light on in the main living area...we now use a night light out there. 2. Create a cozy place to do your routine. If your spouse is on board, th

Better Sleep (or what I learned at Miraval Health and Wellness Resort this weekend)

So my husband of almost 29 years booked us a long weekend at Miraval Health and Wellness Resort this weekend...a place I have wanted to go to since moving to AZ over 20 years ago. Why didn't we go before you might be asking...2 main reasons...1. It is kind of expensive and 2. I always thought I'd go when I was skinny (not healthy mind you but skinny). He is supportive of my weight loss surgery and he booked it as a 50th birthday celebration, and as a way to learn some tools that might help thr

Yeah...not so much

So this entry is an "OK news" bad news one. I wasn't able to pull it together last week. The stress kicked my butt and the result was a 3 pound gain on the scales. Now I'm under the gun because the only thing my NUT said on 07 August was....don't gain! Ugh. So I have two weeks to get down 4 pounds so that I can go in at least one pound lighter on 08 Sept.   It was a very humbling experience. I thought I had this. I thought I had turned a corner on my relationship with food...but yeah....

A Bad (Unhelpful) Weekend

So my Progresso soup victory (see previous post) was very short lived. My stress overwhelmed me the past few days and well...lets just say I resorted right back to unhealthful eating habits. I'm not even going to try to put a positive spin on it. After 2 weeks clean eating...no flour products...bread, pasta...I have binged to the point of feeling woozy on carbs. Bread in particular...lots of bread.   I work in the education field...I've taught high school math and science and now work for

Progresso Soup Saved my butt...

So I'm still in the supervised diet phase before surgery and I've been doing pretty good (insert back pat here). But MONDAY was a MONDAY all day. I went to work with a long list of things I need to get done before our big accreditation team visit next week. Of course, life had other plans and by 1130 I had done exactly NOTHING on my list. I was stressed to the maximum....   And then it was lunch time.   And the 3oz can of tuna, lettuce and low fat dressing just didn't appeal to my emotio

A movie without popcorn

So I love movie theater popcorn...I don't get the butter, but I can put away a really big tub...or I should say I used to put away a really big tub of popcorn. I'm still in my preop, but even so I know that movie theater popcorn is not exactly a health food. We don't go to the movies very often, but I couldn't imagine a movie without popcorn.   My office was meeting at the theater today to see Guardians of the Galaxy (totally worth your consideration) and I wanted to go AND I wanted to stay

Second NUT, EKG, Upper GI, Cardiac....all in one visit!

So since I live about 1.5 hrs away from the doctor/hospital, I tried to cram as much into today as I could. I'm glad I did with one minor exception which I will get to.   First up was the nutritionist. Good news, I lost 12 pounds since last visit 4 weeks ago. Bad news, I have to cut 200 more calories from my daily intake. Sigh. I knew that I couldn't stay at 1500 and I have had many days below that...but I thought with what I lost it might only go down 100. Not sure why this is freaking

My Psych Eval

So I had my psych eval this afternoon. I found myself wondering on the drive there what kinds of questions they would ask. I really didn't worry about it but I was curious.   Since I wasn't a patient, I had to fill out all the new patient stuff...but it was kind of cool because it was all on a tablet and went pretty quickly. The Dr. was able to see my responses as I entered them and since I was the last patient of the afternoon I actually went in about 10 minutes early.   I'll try to lis

My Work Food Curse

So I work for a government training organization and there are many hails and farewells (welcoming and saying good bye), monthly observances, formal balls....you get the idea. I am responsible for two organizations, that are not collocated and while their missions are complimentary, there really isn't a lot of joint events between the two. All of this is to set the stage for the food gauntlet I had to face at work this week.   1. Wed. Farewell for the senior protocol officer....formal lunche

Magical Monday

So I'm only two weeks into my 3 months supervised diet and things were going good. Then this past Sunday I slipped off the health bandwagon....big time...it was a quick slide back into the old smorgasbord habit. It was a carb laden, coma inducing 2hr fest of bread, peanut butter, popcorn, some appetizer thingys hiding in the back of the freezer and fat free milk.....and then I had dinner . Times like this before would very likely have resulted in a week(s) of beating myself up, eating poorly

Telling my Parents (Part 3)

"Oh My" "Well" "Oh My" Those were my moms first three comments, in order. Mom is a total worrier and I expected to hear..."I just don't know..." which is what she kept repeating after my current husband of 29 years and I told her we were getting married.   Then came the "are you sure?", "are you really ready". Then came the stories of the people who she knew (or thought) had had the surgery....all from the late 1980s...lol.   Once we got over the initial shock of it, she came around in

Telling my Parents (Part 2)

So I'm half way there...lol. I did call my folks last night...but my mom was already sleeping so I just talked to my dad. He was very supportive and told me he thought I was making a good decision and that I will be heading off lots of problems in 20 years. I felt so bad. Here I am doing something that if he had done 20 years ago would have made such a difference in his current state of health/happiness. I almost feel guilty....how messed up is that? I've now identified another "opportunity

Telling my Parents (Part 1)

So I'm going to tell my parents about my WLS. I'm almost 50 (in August) and my parents are in their early 70s and yet I’ve had a hard time deciding whether to tell them. See both are morbidly obese, both have weight related problems, and neither is having the retirement they dreamed of. They are, in some ways why I decided to pursue surgery. Worse than that, they have both become glass half empty kind of folks…not at all like the parents I remember from my childhood. I know they will worry.

My new Saturday

So I have an active husband. He used to be a runner but now he is a cyclist. He goes on these really long Saturday morning rides, sometimes he can be gone 5+ hours. I'd gotten into a bad habit of having a big unhealthy breakfast on my own, playing on the computer, snacking all morning and then fixing another big unhealthy breakfast when he got home and of course sharing it with him.   What a difference 1 week makes.   As I said last time, I had my first NUT appointment on last Monday. 1

First Nutrition Appointment

So yesterday I had my first nutrition appointment and my initial consult with the surgeon (Dr. Galvani). I thought I was going to have to do 3 months supervised diet, but apparently I wouldn't have to (because of my BMI). However I want to do my surgery in early December (good time to be off work) and so I'll do 4 months with the NUT. Dr. seemed agreeable to my timeline, and the insurance coordinator was not concerned about my approval.   The NUT was a hoot...enough energy for all of us! M

Yay Me!

So my 19 month old granddaughter has been here since 30 July. She is awesome, fearless and a perpetual ball of motion. I tried to keep up and with granny naps I did pretty good. One thing my daughter wanted to do was take her swimming for the first time. This posed a huge problem for me in that I haven't worn a bathing suit in public in many many years. I had resigned myself to sitting in the chairs watching and consoled myself with the thoughts that "NEXT year (after surgery and losing weig

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