punk.rock.mama

June 2012 - 400lbs December 2012 - 270lbs! Surgery Date August 9th 2012 TWL 130lbs!!

The worst is hearing people say that I "took the easy way out" I bet if they spent even 24hrs in my shoes they would change their tune!

Start weight 400lbs Current weight 270lbs Total weight loss 130lbs!! Surgiversary 08/09/2012

We could ALL drink more water haha Do you have a system in place for reference? aka a food journal or phone app? I personally use MyFitnessPal on my iPod which has been a tremendous help!

Hi VL! Congrats on your approval and commitment to a new lifestyle! I am almost 6months post op (8/9/12) and am going to try to answer some of your questions based on my own personal experience! When I started this process myself I was 26ish and weighed a staggering 400lbs. I had just been in a car accident in 2009 and several months later was pregnant with my first child, of whom the father left me shortly after conceiving. I was forced to move back to my hometown (across the country) and aside from being on bed rest I also live with fibromyalgia and borderline personality disorder. It was decided by my doctor that to save my life and give my daughter a decent shot at hers I should undergo the screening process, it took me two years and more effort than I have ever put into anything before in my life. I was on Optifast for three weeks and was convinced I was going to die haha The surgery itself was a pretty negative experience for me as I react poorly to anaesthesia and once they were inside it was discovered that I had severe perforated ulcers, so in the end I lost about 5feet of intestine and almost 7inches of bowel. As soon as they bring you to your room from recovery you are encouraged to get up and walk around a bit, this will be the hardest thing you have ever been asked to do, you are full of air and in a considerable amount of pain, but the simple act of walking is the BEST way to reduce this pain, I was hooked up to an iv for fluids for the first day after surgery which made me have to pee like crazy, so EVERY time I had to get up to pee I took that long excruciating walk to the end of my ward and back. As for the first few days, you will be relying on a timer and a medicine cup for all your fluids, you will be more thirsty than a hangover in a desert, and you will have ZERO hunger, luckily all your intake for the first week or so is EXCLUSIVELY clear liquid, I HIGHLY suggest unjury chicken Soup Protein power, it is very tasty and packed with medical grade protein. but you may find yourself going mad with the repetition of sip, walk, rest which will literally take every ounce of energy you have to complete for the first few days home but will ultimately be the best thing you can do to heal/adjust. The next few weeks will be the hardest (in my opinion) as you will be getting bolder as you introduce new foods to your diet one by one, all I can stress on this is to follow your meal plan/introduction guide letter for letter! it may seem impossible to eat baby food for two weeks or to survive on puree for the first few but I decided I was different and I could take a bite or two of chicken and pita in the first couple weeks and I vomited SO violently that I ended up in the emergency room with popped stitches, I was EXTREMELY lucky not to have ruptured my pouch. (there is a section in this forum with a million recipes and meal ideas for each stage) While I am now on all the regular expected foods I still struggle with head hunger/craving, especially as my birthday thanksgiving channukah and christmas are all food celebrated events around this time of year, I have learned lots of little tricks to help me control these craving, my first line of defence is activity, am I bored? Can I walk off the craving (stats say if you can distract yourself for as little as 5mins the craving will pass) and more importantly, am I due for a meal or a snack, and if I am I always try to make sure I eat a protein first, this will satisfy both the actual hunger and keep you feeling fuller longer whereas carbs tend to lead to more frequent/intense events of craving. Another great trick I have come to rely on is TEA! There are many speciality tea shops that carry herbal, non-black (caffeine free-rooibos) teas, I use these to quell my sweet tooth (there are lots of naturally sweet dessert style teas) as well as my HUGE weakness which is chai tea, I have become utterly addicted to cinnamon chai rooibos from david's tea, not only does this help satisfy my sweet tooth but it keeps my hands/mouth busy from wanting other "grazing" foods but also keep same hydrated (extremely important and quite difficult aspect of the surgery aftermath) As for your concern about the comfort, entertainment, fulfilment that food has in your life, there is no simple way to approach it, you simple MUST find alternate coping mechanisms. I tackled it the way I saw it to be, an addiction. I had to cut every form of negative coping I had out before I even had the surgery. I do not smoke, drink, do drugs (marijuana was my only illicit usage before the surgery) nor do I gamble, shop, go to bars or even to social events centred around food (staff parties at restaurants, dinner/lunch dates ect) and as for eating itself I try to stick to schedule, aka three actual meals a day and four micro Snacks a day, here is an example of what a day of food looks like for (again, I am in the full foods now after almost 6m) as soon as I get up I pour a cup of iced tea-250ml (home made, herbal/fruit, sweetened with stevia) breakfast: Protein shake (as I find it difficult to eat in the mornings-also I buy a pre-mixed sugar free shake in a can for convienence to drink on my way to work) when i get to work i fill my Water bottle half way - 500ml to sip on until lunch snack: 1/4c cottage cheese (fat free of course) and 4 cherry tomatoes lunch: 50g grilled chicken, one slice of mango, one slice of avacado and one tbsp quinoa same-fill my water bottle half way - 500ml to sip on until I leave for the day snack: 1 celery stalk, 1tsp reduced fat cheeze whiz (I like to mix my unflavored Protein powder into anything with a strong enough taste to mask it) I fill my water bottle again halfway before I leave work for the commute home dinner:50g grilled turkey, 1tbsp apple sauce, 1 baby red potato (like the mini mini reds) snack:8-10 grapes and 30g cheese (reduced fat of course) and I drink another 250ml about an hour before bed so my water intake is 8c, my protein is 80g and my total calories are 785. Plus whatever is burned during exercise or gained in the calcium/multivitamins ect. I hope this has answered SOME of your questions, if I forgot anything or you want to know more just post again and I will try my best to keep the flow of info going Good Luck!

it could be a simple as a stall ( i just had my first 3week stall after almost 5m of 5lb a week weight loss!) or it could be an issue with metabolism...how is your water intake?

Haha thanks, I am far more intelligent than I look (or so I have been told) plus if I "tocked lyke dis" I would probably have to have myself euthanized Also, I have a kid to be a role model for, and I adore language skills, not just english. My daughter has already been exposed to french, hebrew, spanish and sign language.

sometimes if i have a CRAZY bad craving i will mix 1/2 and 1/2 water & perrier water and a few drop of mia, isually two or three sips is enough to quell the craving and keep from upsetting my tummy too bad...

I also was a soda pop drinker, and while I have tried a few sips since having surgery the agony that I experience was enough to keep me from even wanting it (most days lol) the carbonation does a number on your stomach lining and even the sugar free crap is filled to the brim with junk couter-productive to a healthy tummy...

I find I am the same, but opposite, Breakfast is torture, I almost always rely solely on a Protein shake. lunch however is my most agreeable meal, while by dinner I have zero appetite and almost always feel nauseated afterwards. I also find that dinner is a stressful time for me as I have rushed from work to my daughter's daycare to home where I have to deal with a hungry/tired/cranky toddler WHILE I make dinner and by the time we sit down I am completely frazzled, whereas when I sit down for lunch at work, I have had time to relax (data entry/office work) and am quite calm and looking forward to whatever goodies I have packed that day (my fave being celery and low fat cheeze whiz!)

Well I am about 4.5 months post surgery and have lost an astonishing 125lbs! I did however experience my first stall last month when I went THREE weeks without losing a single ounce! I knew it would happen sooner or later but after almost four months of steadily losing approx. 5lbs a week it was a stark reality check. I find that even this soon after the surgery it is easy to let diligence slide and slip back into naughty habits. I have since reminded myself what unholy hell the entire process was to get here and that serves as effective motivation to keep my protien up and my fat/carbds down. Luckily I have had very little temptation with some of my trigger foods (soda pop, pizza, sweets ect) however, I did slip up on my birthday and allow myself to eat a small peice of raspberry ice cream cake and a few bites of chinese food, and while it has been MONTHS since i have touched alcohol and YEARS since a birthday bender I nonetheless spent the night over the toilet and in excruciating pain...lesson learned! To avoid stalls i have also begun to increase my exercise bi-weekly (an extra 15m session on the treadmill here, an extra half hour of aquafitness there) and my weight loss had returned to it's former glory

Thanks for the positive feed back, yes I am VERY dedicated to this new lifestyle as a whole, I am far more in tune with my emotional triggers (which affect not only my eating habits/cravings but also my motivation) One of the (oddly enough) benefits of being SO heavy when I started is that the more weight you have too lose the faster you lose in the beginning, the downside of course is that when the progress slows (as it should) it can become somewhat discouraging, luckily the results thus far have made an undeniable impact on my quality of life (living on disability with a toddler and a part time volunteer job) so I have hit a stall only in scale victory, being able to wrap a towel the WHOLE way around me for the first time since college, being able to take my daughter out for errands WITHOUT relying on a stroller for her safety/my endurance and of course being able to give back to my community via my volunteer position (with the mental health commission of canada) has been mind numbingly AMAZING! As for the liquid jump start, I don't feel it would be beneficial for me as I find I tend to struggle with meal/snack routine as it is. Although I do know where and when to cut back empty calories (little treats like cranberry sauce on my turkey, and real fruit juices)

I agree with the alcohol thing, I think it is deplorable that the government not only allows but makes a horrifying mockery of the damage it causes (illness, death, violence, destruction, addictions, abuse, motor vehicle accidents ect ect ect) but I digress, your question was about thc and I simply MUST reiterate that while it as a substance has it's own pros and cons, in conjunction with the surgery I do not believe it will assist your success by any measurable degree...

I thought so too, but in all honesty I don't miss it at all! I thought I would miss all that junk food too, but I am SO much happier without all that crap dragging me down "It works if you work it, so work it you're worth it!!"