Jobber

Tomorrow is surgery day...  I'm not sure if I'm nervous, anxious, excited or a little bit of all three.  I honestly thought I would be freaking out at this point, but I'm much calmer than that.  I suppose the last 7 months of preparation both physically and mentally has brought me some peace.  I say this now, but when I try to sleep tonight, that may be a different story.  

I appreciate everything I've read on this forum that has helped me to prepare as much as possible.  I know this part of my journey may not be the same as someone else's, but having a good frame of reference helps a ton. 

The most exciting and most difficult part of the journey begins tomorrow...

Yesterday I "officially" eclipsed the 100 lb mark.  I'm sure if you're in any other country than the US, the 45.3 kg mark doesn't sound as much of a milestone, but it's very cathartic for me to post that I hit it. 

I recently read back through both my BP status updates and my private journal and hitting this milestone makes all the things I "worried" about seem stupid, but I know they're not stupid because they were very real at the time.  Also, I think if I didn't give these fears my full attention, I may not have been as successful as I have been to date.

I'm about 50 more pounds off my end goal and I know that will not be the end, I will continue to strive for bettering myself in both physical and emotional ways.  I have to hunker down and get this done. 

I'm noticing if I don't exercise every day, the weight loss stalls quite a bit.  I'm not really into the 80/20 theory with diet and exercise, I think there's a genetic modifier that needs to be applied and it's different for everyone, just my opinion... don't hold it against me.

I am on my 7th day post-op.  The surgery went "boring" according to the surgeon, which is his way of saying it went flawlessly.  Maybe he was hoping for something strange and abnormal, but I like my surgeries like i like my airplane flights, boring as hell and uneventful.  Recovery is going well too. 

I'm getting a bit stir crazy being forced to stay home for a week.  They said once I'm off my narcotics, I can drive again, which was 3 days ago, but they still don't want me back to work yet.  Should be next week.

The liquid diet post-op is getting super boring, but I'm sticking to it.  I think I'm averaging 550 kcal per day since surgery day.  Can't wait til purees this week, I've been prepping a bunch then vacuum sealing them in advance.  I have a ton of veggies, low fat meats and fruits blended up and ready.

I cannot wait until I get the go-ahead to exercise, I'm ready to do this.

Going to my 2nd of 6 NUT appointments this week.  I'm worried that I'm losing too much weight too quickly that I might get disqualified from surgery if I keep this pace.  At the same time, I'm using this logic to behave badly with food.  I'm logging all my meals as I'm required to do for the 6 months, but I think I have a lot of new questions for the nutritionist...

I just took another flight for work on a non-american airline (fun fact, their seat belts are shorter) and i had to take a pic I was so proud.  I'm only 4 months post-op and I'm down almost 100lbs from the first surgeon consult later year in September.

The whole trip while away I worked out on the eliptical for a full hour every night.  It felt great to be able to sustain for that long.

Pic attached

Time for a status update:  

Yesterday marked my one year anniversary on Bariatricpal.com.  What a year it has been and I am so grateful for all the people here that have helped me along the way.  I'm also so grateful for @Alex Brecher for creating and maintaining this site for all of us.  I hope that my ongoing purchases of calcium and multivitamin supplements are enough to express my gratitude.  I'm a huge fan of the BariatricPal Multivitamin One 45.

I kept a journal starting in July of last year starting the 2nd day after I was serious about considering bariatric surgery.  Reading all the entries is very therapeutic to me. 

Looking back, I probably wouldn't have changed a thing about how I started and went through this process.  Almost everything has gone well in this journey for me.  Sure I've had my low points, but I seemed to have come out the other side very much in-tact. 

There's still a long road ahead once my real hunger returns, but I'm going to keep on the straight and narrow path of eating well and exercising every day until that happens and then some.

In celebration of my 1 year on this site, I thought I'd share one of my early personal journal entries:

Quote

 

8/7/18 - I signed up to the BariatricPal.com website yesterday to find support from people in the same situation and to see what they are all going through in the process.

Looks like I'll be doing this for months after all before even thinking about surgery.

Sounds like I have to change my habits sooner than later, was not expecting that.

Yesterday I stopped for the large pouch of Baby Bels at Target and this morning I got my two scrapple sandwiches again.  I could not be more disgusted about it.  So over this…

WTF????  I just ate more M&Ms and knowingly did so. 

This has to stop now!!!!  That's it, we're having vegan for dinner tonight.

 

I'm just over 3 months into my 6 month pre-op diet plan and I feel like giving up.  Not because of the food, but because life is hard right now.  

Work has become intolerable due to the amount of stress that I cannot control, but inevitably know will cause major issues for me down the road.  Long story short it's one of those "I tried to tell you this was going to happen things" that nobody reacted to because of budget constraints, but in the end there's going to be a "fall man" for what happens and it will be me, despite my preventative warnings.

My boss is on my side, in theory, but when it comes down to protecting his own hide, I feel like he would sacrifice me to save himself.

Also, I just had to cancel my holiday vacation due to staffing issues in my department, so now my personal life is going to be affected by my work issues.

At this point, I'm just venting.  I realize that there are people out there much less fortunate than myself, but it sucks all the same.  I feel like everytime I get close to being happy with life, it comes and gives me a boot in the ass for a reality check.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Feel like it's time for a status update, I haven't been on here regularly in a while and I need to keep my mindset focused on my goals.

I haven't weighed myself in ~ 3 weeks.  I think I'm becoming the opposite of "obsessive" about tracking my progress and it could cause me some issues.  The good thing is that there have still been quite a number of NSV's happening that is telling me that I'm still progressing without knowing what the scale says.

First one is that a belt I bought about 5 weeks ago because all my other belts were too big is also on the last hole so I'll have to buy yet another belt again.  second, I bought new jeans about a month ago and I have a lot more slack in the waist than I did when I purchased them.  I also boarded a plane and had about 8 inches of slack in the belt.  Finally, I hit my goal last week of being able to ride go-carts with my kids.  The last time I tried about 4 years ago, I had to leave because I couldn't fit in the harness.  This was sweet victory and I showed those two how it was done on the race course!!  😈

I received my surgery date today.  I could not be more happy about it, the stars are seeming to align with all the obstacles I've had over the last 6 months to get to this point.  It's a much greater feeling than i expected.  Now comes nerves, doubt, and all the other things in advance of any kind of surgery, but I know I have this. 

Going to my 3rd of 6 NUT appointments tomorrow.  Between appt 1 and appt 2, I lost about 14 pounds, but I'm pretty sure that tomorrow I'm going to weigh in at either no change or will have gained weight.  I haven't worked hard at all this last month and in some regards feel like I'm regressing. 

My INS requires a 5% weight loss in 6 months, so it's not impossible to get back on track, just need to focus more.  The only difference between last month and this month is that I've not been getting as much sleep at night and I think it's been contributing to my extra issues with snacking at night and general misbehavior.

Post-Vacation Status Update:  Back to work now that my vacation is over.  Somehow, I managed to not gain any weight over the last 14 days that I've been doing the all-inclusive thing on vacation.  I drank plenty and I skipped my protein shake regiment as well due to a lack of easy to attain shakes in the Caribbean.  The good thing is that about 10 out of the 14 days I did my elliptical workout in their fitness center.  I did still manage to avoid complex carbs, just had a bunch of simple ones in the "drinks of the day" cocktails.  I think this can count as a "proud" moment.  I truly thought i was going to gain weight after coming back.  I didn't weigh myself until this morning.

I went to my 4th NUT appointment this week and I was absolutely surprised that I had actually lost 9 pounds from my last appointment.  I can get a bit obsessive when it comes to scale use so I've decided to only do pre-op weigh-ins at my monthly appointments.  It saves me a lot of anxiety, I think. 

I actually was prepared to go to the appointment with excuses on why i gained, so this was a big win.  I didn't actually add much activity to my routine, the only thing I changed was having protein shakes every morning instead of just weekdays.  I really thought my extracuricular snacking activities were going to cause an issue, but I'm not going to let that make feel like it's ok to snack late or keep eating cheese non-stop.   Also probably helps that I had the stomach bug a couple days last week.  I think my organs liquified and came out....yuck...

Status update for myself for the new year.  I've been away from this site for a few months now.  I have a new job (so I can't log in as often) and I've stopped being obsessed with the weight loss.  I haven't weighed myself in 2 months because I know that I'm not losing any weight.  My belt is on the same hole and so is my watch.  

Most of my eating habits are still pretty good but the holidays (sweets) have not been good to me.  Fortunately, I don't feel my clothes fitting any tighter, but i know I haven't lost any weight either.  I might get up the courage soon to try and get on the scale to see.  I do still work out about 3 to 4 times a week when time permits, so I really think I'm in maintenance mode; no gain, but also no loss. 

I think if I can get over the hump and get all these horribly good treats out of the house I can get the needle moving again.  I think i have about 40 lbs until I'm at a weight where I'm satisfied and can officially move into maintenance mode.

Until the next update...

p.s.-Happy New Year to anyone reading this.

Finished my 6th and final NUT appointment yesterday.  Everything is done except the psych eval and submittal to insurance.  I did everything required of me including the 100 pages plus of food tracking, I lost 5% of my total weight, and I went to every NUT appointment.  

Hoping for the best, things seem to be lining up well for me and in the end, I think I will be able to fully have my wife on board with this whole thing.  She says she is, but I know she doesn't think I should do it.  Just like I replied to another post earlier, i'm doing this either way, it's my decision at this point and I know I can get her to come around at some point and maybe even convince her to look into it as well.

Also, I just started with an APAP machine a couple weeks ago and "holy sh*t" has my quality of life improved greatly so far.  I wish I had looked into this years ago.  I didn't think I had apnea until I had the study done and i stopped breathing an average of 12 times an hour.  That's nuts...