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BigDaddyJoe
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Blog Entries posted by BigDaddyJoe
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OK, I guess I jumped the gun a week ago when I said I was no longer obese because I weighed 227 and my BMI was 29.9. Ever since then, I've been fluctuating between 227 and 229. Guess I'm in some sort of a stall. Oh well, I'm not really stressing over it. I know I'm still doing all the right things and it will move when it wants to.
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First day of pre-op diet done
Well, I've done a day on the pre-op diet, and realized I probably didn't need to start until today. I don't know what I was thinking, probably that I'd be doing it from Thursday - Thursday and then have surgery on Friday. But Thursday to Thursday is actually 8 days. Oh well, what's one more day! It actually wasn't that bad. I had no problem getting enough fluids in. I drank 4 protein shakes which is a total of 32 oz, at least 5 8oz cups of water, a V8 juice. Total fluids were 84 oz, well more than the 64 they want. I definitely didn't eat enough though. The diet says that on top of the protein shakes, to eat 6-10 servings of items off of a very small list. I had 3.
Here's how my day went:
8:30 am - had a chocolate protein shake. I then mixed up 16 oz of strawberry protein shake to bring to work with me.
11:30 am - I was starving, so had a Dannon Light n Fit yogurt
12 pm - Drank the first 8 oz of the strawberry protein shake
1 pm - Drank a V8 juice
2:30 pm - Drank the rest of the strawberry shake, then left work to go to my nutritionist visit (more on that below)
6:30 pm - Had a vanilla protein shake, and a packet of cream of wheat.
That was it for the day. I really wasn't hungry for more. Sure, there was a slice of leftover pizza that the kids ate staring me in the face, and cookies in the cupboard. But I wasn't tempted. Even at work, where we celebrate all of the birthdays in a month on a given day, and that day happened to be yesterday. There were bagels, muffins, cupcakes. I just walked past them to get to my shake in the fridge, no problem.
Nutritionist visit
My doctor does group nutritionist visits, so you are there with other people you don't know. This was my second visit, and it was a very quick visit (about 20 minutes). Pretty much a waste, she does nothing more than go over what is written in the packet they gave at the first visit, concentrating on the pre-op and one week post-op diets. She says that she will be at our visit with the doctor one week post-op to go over the next phase of the diet. One interesting thing however - when my wife and I arrived for the visit, the nutritionist took us in to weigh us. Somehow we both weighed exactly 6 lbs MORE than we did at our first visit a month and a half ago. Yet, I weigh the same on the home scale now as I did then. I'm not sure what to think about that. So, now I supposedly weigh 280 lbs, and 274 at home.
Sleep apnea
After the nutritionist visit, my wife and I had an appointment with our pulmonologist, who is also our primary doctor. He had given us a machine to do an at-home sleep study. I had already known I had sleep apnea, I had done a study 5-6 years ago. I just cannot sleep with that damned machine! Anyway, we got the results back yesterday. He gave my wife her results first. She had 20 incidents an hour, which is pretty bad. But he said that because she is going for the surgery soon, he will not make her do the machine. He said once she loses 20 lbs, it should go away. Me, on the other hand, had 52 incidents an hour, with my oxygen level dropping down to 83 at some point. He said that I was the second worst he has seen in his office, one person had 62. He says that even though I am going for the surgery, it will probably take at least 50 lbs of weight loss before I see any relief in that, so I need to be on a machine. He ordered me a new machine, that automatically adjusts to what level you need. The problem I had with the old one is that I think they set it too high, and it would wake me up. Not to mention the mask irritates my nose and forehead. I'm willing to give it a chance again, I don't want to die in my sleep. We'll see how it goes.
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It has been a while since I posted anything. I guess that is because there hasn't been too much to report. I just looked at my last post, and it was May 31, and I weighed 214. As of this morning, I weigh 199! I haven't been under 200 in at least 15 years. I'm only 9 lbs away from my doctor's goal of 190, and 19 lbs away from my goal of 180. I've lost a total of 75 lbs now. I thought I was losing quickly, but now that I think about it, 15 lbs in a month and a half isn't that quick. I want to be at or below my doctor's goal by my 6 month follow up. Guess I need to step it up! - Read more...
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After dropping 20 lbs in total from the pre op diet and first few days after surgery, I've weighed exactly 254.7 for the past 3 days. A stall during the first week post op? A bit discouraging. I spent a couple hours last night reading these forums about people's stalls. I guess I need to not obsess about the scale, and let things happen in their own time. I believe it's physically impossible not to lose weight with the small amount of calories I've been taking in.
I am very moody and irritable today, even getting annoyed if my kids try to talk to me. I'm not sure what that's about, that's not my normal. I guess I'll attribute it to the diet.
I've progressed to the stage 2 of the the post op diet, mushy or puréed foods. I went to the grocery store to pick up some things that sounded good from the list - low fat cream soups, instant grits. I also went to GNC and picked up a case of the Isopure bottles. Expensive, but I like them better than the powdered shakes which seem too sickeningly sweet to me now. 40 g of Protein and 20 oz of liquid simultaneously? Win-win. I got the Alpine Punch flavor, really only because it was the only one there was a full case of, and it's not bad. There are some other flavors I'd like to try also. My first mushy food was the instant grits. I only was able to eat 4 spoonfuls, and I put the rest into a container for another time. I will probably try a soup at dinner time. I'm finding it very difficult to eat and drink enough, especially since I can't drink for 15 minutes before, or 45 minutes after eating something. That takes 3 hours out of the day where I can't drink anything. I was more thirsty than hungry at lunchtime, even after taking a couple hours to drink the 20 oz Isopure. So I drank instead of eating.
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So, this morning I started my pre-op diet. I had an 8 oz. chocolate protein shake this morning, and mixed 16 oz. of a strawberry one to bring to work with me. I am trying all of the brands to see which ones I like best. So far, I've tried the vanilla from Costco, and the chocolate and strawberry are 2 different brands my wife picked up at Walgreens, I believe. I am doing the powdered protein, following the nutritionist's recommendations that it be made from whey isolate protein, and 3g or less of carbs. I liked the vanilla, and the chocolate this morning was pretty good too. I will be drinking the strawberry throughout the day today, but have yet to start that. My wife went out to the grocery store to pick up some other things for the diet (not that there are a lot of things to choose from!). I also brought a dannon light yogurt and a V8 juice with me to work. My wife said she picked me up some other 'surprises' at the grocery store for the start of my journey, but I've yet to see what those are.
This afternoon, I have to go to my final nutritionist appointment, and to my primary/pulmonary doctor for my final pre-op test - a pulmonary stress test. Then that should be it for my pre-op clearances! Thank God my job is understanding about me leaving early or coming in late, and taking days off. I only plan on being out for 6 days (my surgery is on a Friday, plus the entire next week). Hopefully that will be enough. I do have the option of working from home if I'm still having issues when I'm due to go back.
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Ugh!
By BigDaddyJoe,
So, my wife today again used the "S" word to describe me - Sickly. She says I'm getting too thin, and need to put on more weight. I don't know how to stop. I think I may be leveling off - I was 178 a few days ago, 180 yesterday, and 181 this morning. I don't want to start going in the wrong direction, but she doesn't understand that. I've told her several times that it hurts me when she says that, and that it isn't helpful, but she won't stop. Come to think of it, she's never really been very supportive of me, post-op. She had the surgery also, so you would think she would understand. But when I would be excited about the weight loss, or breaking a stall, I would get little or no reaction from her. I'm not quite sure what her issue is, but it is maddening to me. Maybe it's because I'm thinner than I've ever been in the 17 years we've known each other. Maybe it's because some of my clothes don't exactly fit me too well, and my neck looks tiny in the too-big neck holes of my tshirts. Who knows? Oh well, everyone else tells me I look great, and I feel great, so I'm going to try to not let it get to me.
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I decided to try to remove my wedding ring last night, something I haven't done in years, because they say no jewelry is allowed for the surgery. I used to be able to slide it up and down my finger with not much of a problem. Wow, was it a pain to get off! First, I tried something called surgi-lube, which is a lubrication that my wife's hospital uses for different things. No luck. Then, my wife tried something that they try in the hospital, which is wrapping an Ace bandage tightly around the finger for a few minutes, removing it quickly and THEN trying the surgi-lube. No luck. Couldn't get it past the first knuckle. Finally, I went to the kitchen sink to wash off all the lube, and just kept twisting and pulling, twisting and pulling. My finger still hurts from the whole thing, but at least I don't have to worry about doing it tonight now. I was thinking I was going to have to get it cut off.
In the possible TMI (Too Much Information) category - I woke up around 4 am feeling like I had to do diarrhea, which isn't an unusual thing to happen to me in the middle of the night. Well, turns out I was a bit constipated, followed by diarrhea. It took me about 10 minutes to be able to go, but then once the flood gates opened...ok, this is getting into TMI.
I will probably be making a second, very short post this afternoon, after I find out my surgery time. They said to call between 3:30 and 4 today to get the time.
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My wife is scheduled to be sleeved in April, so she is a month behind me. She seems convinced that our marriage is going to be affected by our weight loss. We've seen people's personalities change as a result of weight loss surgery, and we've even seen it destroy a couple marriages. In each of those cases, it was only one person who had the surgery, and their newfound confidence from their new bodies led to them going out with friends more often, and tore the marriages apart.
My wife and I have been married for almost 13 years now, and together for 17. We have three amazing children. We've endured some crap in those 17 years, and nothing has torn us apart to this point. I don't see it being an issue, and was surprised when she would keep bringing it up. But I'm afraid that she is so convinced of it, and is looking for any tiny change in my personality as proof, that it will become a self fulfilling prophecy.
We were both skinny when we met, right around our goal weights we'd like to achieve now. She was always insecure back then, even though she is a gorgeous woman and I'm the one who had reasons to be insecure. In a way, I was relieved to be heavy, because no one would want me, so her insecurity and jealousy basically went away.
She has already pointed to a couple of things since surgery (just 8 days ago!) that she says are evidence of me 'changing'. The first is that she said that she "didn't feel the love" when she was there for me in the hospital. I'm not sure what she was expecting - the first day I felt like I was going to die, and wanted nothing but to sleep. The second thing is that I've said (apparently too many times) that she'll "understand soon". It is just that it is hard for me to verbalize all the things I'm going through, and I meant that she will understand it when she has her surgery. I meant it as a positive thing, that we would have shared experiences and be able to discuss them. I guess I didn't articulate it how it sounded in my head, and it just ended up annoying her and pissing her off. So I've been careful to avoid saying anything like that again. Also compounding things is the fact that I was more comfortable sleeping sitting up on the couch with my feet up on the ottoman. I have yet to make it a full night in our bed. I tell her it's not her, I just find it easier to sleep that way for now. Also compounding things is my lack of energy and irritability from the extremely low caloric intake.
I hope that her negativity doesn't doom us. If I'm only 8 days out and we're having issues like this already, are we in trouble? Only time will tell, I suppose. But I sure hope not. I love her more than anything, and wouldn't ever want our children to suffer.
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