TakingABreak

Alright. No more adulting. Burned my nose, broke my espresso maker (officially), stubbed my toe, and cracked my phone screen all before 8am.

Going back to bed.

Saw the surgeon yesterday. He is very pleased with my loss thus far. I am averaging about 10 lbs a month. Turns out my nutritionist and my surgeon have vastly differing ideas on how many calories I should be eating right now. Nut put me on 1K a day. Surgeon said nope, they are wrong, go to 800/day. Too bad I have been following what the Nut advised. I could have lost more weight already. Oh well, I will do it now! I am also going to add another day of working out to help break this stall I have been in since 8/28. I am very happy as this week I was able to get into a size XL shirt and I am wavering on pants sizes, but I am wearing a lot of size 18 that are too big or are getting too big. The inches are still dropping off nicely. I saw my parents for the first time after a long time this past weekend (they live out of state) and my Dad who never says anything gave me some super nice compliments. My sister also did...her words as we were trekking through the airport on a long upward ramp were along the lines of "Before the mind was willing but the body wasn't. Now your mind and body are in sync. Before we would have had to have stopped at least once and now you aren't even phased by this." What a great thing to have someone recognize. 

Saw the surgeon yesterday. He is very pleased with my loss thus far. I am averaging about 10 lbs a month. Turns out my nutritionist and my surgeon have vastly differing ideas on how many calories I should be eating right now. Nut put me on 1K a day. Surgeon said nope, they are wrong, go to 800/day. Too bad I have been following what the Nut advised. I could have lost more weight already. Oh well, I will do it now! I am also going to add another day of working out to help break this stall I have been in since 8/28. I am very happy as this week I was able to get into a size XL shirt and I am wavering on pants sizes, but I am wearing a lot of size 18 that are too big or are getting too big. The inches are still dropping off nicely. I saw my parents for the first time after a long time this past weekend (they live out of state) and my Dad who never says anything gave me some super nice compliments. My sister also did...her words as we were trekking through the airport on a long upward ramp were along the lines of "Before the mind was willing but the body wasn't. Now your mind and body are in sync. Before we would have had to have stopped at least once and now you aren't even phased by this." What a great thing to have someone recognize. 

Surgery went well and I'm so far able to tolerate drinking water and eating SF jello. I think I'm finally out of the fog of anesthesia drugs. The pain is less than I was expecting, compared to what I remember of the surgeries last year.

Four hours until surgery and I cannot sleep... I'm actually a bit nervous...

I'm all packed and ready to head out when I wake up in the morning. I'll be traveling to Salt Lake City from my home in Idaho tomorrow for my surgery on Thursday. 

I now officially have less than 150 pounds to lose to meet my goal! Woot!!

I weigh less than 350# for the first time in over a year (naked, on my unofficial scale at home)! I am using the medical office scale at work as my interim official scale (until I get back to my surgeon's office) and I weighed 351# this morning. This is a big milestone for me, since I was stalled for a while in the pre-op phase at 352#.

Today I hit 216 and officially weigh less than my husband. That hasn't happened ever in our relationship and I am celebrating this exciting first! Small victories like this keep me going. 

Correction on my surgery date: it is September 6th, not 4th. I'm currently doing the 4-week pre-op diet, limited to less than 800 calories with greater than 90g protein. I've got this!

Correction on my surgery date: it is September 6th, not 4th. I'm currently doing the 4-week pre-op diet, limited to less than 800 calories with greater than 90g protein. I've got this!

Correction on my surgery date: it is September 6th, not 4th. I'm currently doing the 4-week pre-op diet, limited to less than 800 calories with greater than 90g protein. I've got this!

I have been told unofficially that my surgery date is September 4, 2018. I have my official pre-op appointment today at 11:30. Updates and my full story (that I have promised) once my surgery date is official. That should be at my appointment today. 

Today I am officially halfway to the goal weight that I have set for myself. I have lost a total of 84 lbs and I have 84 more to lose to get to my goal. Trying to celebrate the small wins. 

I am struggling right now.  I am working out 4.5 hours a week and it hasn't felt good for the last 2 weeks.  Feels more like a chore and I don't know why.  I am still going but it has been a fight. Corresponding to this I have also been wanting to eat - eat everything we aren't supposed to eat. I have held back for the most part but I have splurged - full sugar vanilla pudding cup, I had a chocolate chip cookie and tortillas. I even stopped tracking my food. I am back on track, but I feel really down right now. I am already seeing someone, and it helps, but wow I am not feeling like myself. I am hoping this is a passing phase. I don't want these feelings to continue. Sigh... 

So how's everyone doing? Hope all is well. It's good to be finally back to work. Once I became healthy enough to go back to work, it was a bit challenging to find a job that wouldn't require me being away from home for a week or two at a time. I landed something temporary moving cars between Carmax dealerships. It keeps me so busy that I sometimes forget to eat because I am not hungry. Now that I am not quite so bored, I don't reach mindlessly for food to fill up time. LOL! Hoping to maybe get 7 pounds more off by August 4th for my brother's wedding. Matty has his eye on a bride's maid .... LOL! At least the scale is starting to move again. I think if I lose another 7 pounds, my size 48 loose fit jeans won't even stay up with a cinched belt anymore.

LOL! I've lost so much weight that I can feel the muscles at the base of my neck. Fat no longer covers that area. Whodathunkit!?

I've noticed that another bad behavior has crept back into my life. I've started not giving a full half hour between food and drink. Today I put the kibosh on that. It's back to waiting the appropriate amount of time. On the other hand, I've been really good about getting a minimum of 64oz of liquid in per day. Often, I am above the minimum. Post-op food lifestyle is a constant balancing act and the trick is catching things when they start to go out of balance.

First day of puree diet!  I blended together four small pre-cooked meatballs with a couple tablespoons of marinara sauce and some Italian seasoning, and it was better than I expected.  I also mashed some canned carrots, but I could only eat about six or seven bites of the meatballs before I could feel myself getting full.

Staying in the hospital stinks. Was there for some unidentified intestinal issue. I was miserable.  Couldn't eat or drinks.  Was on fluids and 2 broad spectrum antibiotics. Had to speak with the infectious disease doctor twice while I was there. When I was released from the hospital we still had no answers and I was up 7 lbs due to all the fluids. Within a couple of days I was back to my starting weight. Whew! I took the whole week off of work. I was wiped out. Still feel that way today but can't afford any more time off right now. I missed the forums, but everything was an effort so I didn't open my laptop once last week! I see my doctors on Thursday so we shall see when I can work out again. I want to tell everyone how fast you can become dehydrated post-surgery. Drink, drink, drink!

Uh oh! Something happened to Matty this week. I was in a local Wawa (think east coast convenience store) and a gorgeous girl ran smack into me while I was grabbing a grape Propel - just couldn't deal with anymore water today. She was texting and walking ... okay, yeah, this missed me as Gen X'er. Well she looked up at me and flashed me one helluva smile. I was feeling pretty good that day so it was time to bring out some game, "So you know I can't let a gorgeous girl who crashes into me go without getting her phone number." LOL! She turned beet red, asked for my phone and sent herself a text message from mine. She said, "Because you men never call ..." I don't know quite what I was thinking but figured it would be one heck of a ride. What is it with me and short girls? I seem to attract them and I don't honestly care about height. She's all of 5'4". I knew she was young but it didn't occur to me how young. What did I just get myself into?

I told myself no dating until the scale reads 190 but this new me is feeling sexually driven like I have never been before. Well, she's right I wasn't really planning on calling her so she called me. So I told her my age (41) and was shocked to hear that she generally goes for men older than 35. We must've talked on the phone close to 3 hours. You're going to think I am lying when I tell you she's a 3rd year med student and is interested in training to be a bariatric surgeon. The stars might've just aligned but I want to go slow and told her that I had weight loss surgery. She's totally my type - the professional, highly educated, and ambitious woman. That's what frightens me, because in the past, this has lead to unhealthy relationships. Well, I've got a date lined up for Saturday and I just want to have some fun. I needed money in order to make this happen so I sold a bunch of old computer equipment and managed to raise some capital for this adventure. I know I won't be drinking alcohol but that's okay.

I just completed my first 30 minute work out with a trainer. We did whole body weights and the trainer pushed me in a good way. I am heading back to the fitness center later to get my cardio on as I had a conference call to run to, but I feel so accomplished. I was able to do all the exercises, albeit some were really tough. I could actually pull my knee to my chest! Can we talk high and low planks? WOW! Takes a lot of core strength which I definitely need to improve upon. So I signed up with this trainer to meet 2x/week to help keep me accountable. Here is the other thing...I was worried about breaking wind while I was doing all this exercising but thankfully it didn't happen. I am so gassy these days and I feel like I can't control it. I wonder if I am alone with this issue...

I am down from a size 28 to a solid 20. I can even fit into some 18/20s. The motivation I feel when I see myself in these smaller clothes is incredible. I almost don't recognize myself because the transformation is pretty drastic. I met with a personal trainer yesterday that they offer at my office's fitness center and got some basic info. He is going to give me 2 free "trial" sessions if I sign up for at least 2 additional sessions. I am pretty sure I am going to sign up. I am making this the summer of SleeveinIL! I can't be the mother, wife, caregiver and anything else I want/need to be unless I am healthy. Food is fuel! I see the scale moving again and that is also very motivating for me as well. NSV this week...taking a bath (first since before surgery) and my behind and thighs weren't mashed up against the sides of the tub not allowing the water to flow between the front and the back of the tub. The water was able to move around and nothing of me touched the sides of the tub unless I physically moved my legs there. This surgery is giving me some confidence back for sure. I even updated my photo at work because I don't look like that anymore!   

Thank you @Frustr8, @Creekimp13, and @FluffyChix for all the concern and well-wishes. Here is the update. I have a stomach ulcer infected with H. Pylori. This isn't good news because it needs to get treated with a pretty serious course of antibiotics. The upshot is we know what's going on. The downside is that I am looking at 6-8 weeks of antibiotics to fight this little b*stard off. I will also need another endoscopy in a month to make certain that the course of antibiotics is working. H. Pylori is a nasty little phucker ... it has been known to cause stomach cancer according to the Mayo Clinic. It's going to take a bazooka to kill me though. LOL!

Dropped below 250! I’m light enough to skydive now...if I do it naked! Ha!