Actually, Little Green is a reference to a Joni Mitchell song, NOT a comment on my size - but I thought the title might be funny

So I'm 2 weeks away from surgery and just started my liquid diet. I thought I'd officially start one of these "tell your story" posts so that I have a place to keep track of all my stats and thoughts.

My highest weight is 381.25 and that was 6/14/14. After that I lost down to around 300-ish in about 18 months doing calorie-counting on MFP, but regained nearly all of it after my husband became disabled in a motorcycle accident. About a year after the accident - last March - I visited the bariatric surgeon for my first consult and I weighed 367 pounds. I've gone up and down since then but I started my liquid diet (today!) at 350.2.

I am a classic story of overweight-since-childhood along with a rapid weight gain starting in my late 'teens after getting a job and my driver's license, giving me full access to fast food morning, noon, and night. I'm not sure of all my milestones throughout the years but I know I weighed 180 pounds in 7th grade at age 12, and more than 220 when I graduated high school. I'm 5'8 so BMI 25 is 164 pounds and my goal weight is 150.

About six weeks ago I decided to go vegan and I've been transitioning into that diet ever since. I'm relying on plant-based protein supplements during the liquid phase but I hope to move to getting protein from whole food as soon as possible. My post-op diet will definitely be a lot higher in carbs than most people on this board are used to, but I'm confident in my choices and really excited about the health benefits in addition to weight loss.

I am going to try my darnedest to weigh myself only once per month after surgery. I did the obsessive daily "don't drink anything, have a bowel movement, get naked, and weigh myself" routine during my MFP days and it was really harmful to me mentally. I'm also logging my food in a physical journal and I won't be weighing anything or measuring beyond the standard 1/4 cup, 1/2 cup, etc. meal sizes for post-op guidelines. Measuring food definitely works and I think many people can benefit from it. But again, it ended up being bad for my mental health. My ultimate life goal is to eat and enjoy an abundant amount of healthy plant-based whole foods without weighing or measuring portions. I know it will be awhile before I get there, but that's where I'm going and how I'm positioning myself for long-term success.

So that's a little about me! I'm going to post random crap in this thread, like musings on diet stuff, numbers, feelings (I have a lot of them), my appointments, etc. Thanks for reading!

My appointment today went well! My surgeon seemed really pleased with my progress and how everything is healing up. The dietitian wasn't there so I didn't get to chat with her about food, but the surgeon said she would have her call me on Monday. I asked about why I haven't lost any weight in over a week and she said to wait another week and evaluate after that. She mentioned I could be eating too many calories but we both agreed that was extremely unlikely. I don't see how that's even possible unless I have some sort of freak metabolic issue post-op. Most days this week I could barely choke down a 160-cal PP shake plus maybe half a cup of soup. I'm not worried about the food, to be totally honest. I just need to get walking and keep hydrating.

Today was probably my best food day yet although I admit I didn't eat anything until 2pm-- but after that, I had Panera broccoli cheddar soup (in two sittings), a strawberry banana Greek yogurt smoothie (over the course of 3 hours), and about a half ounce of feta cheese (allowed to melt down in my mouth before swallowing of course). I'm SO happy about the smoothie; I was really worried about dumping from high amounts of natural sugars but I had no problems and it tasted absolutely phenomenal. I got some bananas at the store tonight and I'm eagerly waiting for them to ripen!

I went to the store on my own tonight and shopped for about 40 minutes. I was definitely shaky toward the end but I just sipped my water and took it easy. If we can manage to get up and out of the house before 8, tomorrow morning will be a good one for trail walking... but I don't have much faith in us getting up, haha. I need to go to Whole Foods soon to see if I can find soy-based products like yogurt that I couldn't find at Wally World or my grocery store, so that can be another indoor walk for me. Slowly but surely I will get there!

Oh, also! My blood pressure today was 109/75!

Nice BP-goes with a nice and starting to heal up lady. Keep up the good work!

5 minutes ago, Frustr8 said:

Nice BP-goes with a nice and starting to heal up lady. Keep up the good work!

Thank you, sweet friend!

So this is what my 3 week post-op day of eating looked like today:

The fiber number is very poor and can definitely be improved, but I chose grits for breakfast and snacked on cheese today (see above post regarding cheese cravings LOL). Doing oatmeal with peanut butter instead and switching cheese for potatoes would get fiber up to 15g or so without compromising protein. I can't wait to add steamed veggies soon!

I'm honestly pretty happy about this - I plugged it into MyFitnessPal mostly out of curiosity. I haven't been focusing on food very much, not really measuring precise 1/4 cup servings or whatever, and I wondered if I was overeating. 750 calories seems reasonable to me?

I made my husband throw away the rest of the feta after I snacked on it AGAIN just now. I neglected to say this in my earlier post but whether I'm not tolerating it period or just the amounts of it, it's not agreeing with me and gives me cramping nausea feelings. And yet despite that I haven't been able to stop snacking on it since last night when I bought it... whether it's the creaminess, the saltiness, the funkiness, whatever it is-- it's too much for my pleasure-starved brain AND for my poor little RNY. That's the only thing I've eaten in the last 22 days that's given me an upset stomach. So... bingeing (not really sure if "bingeing" is the right term) on feta cheese is a mistake. I'm glad I've learned that. I wish I didn't have to feel like garbage to have learned it, though. Trying to sip my water and deep-breathe through the bad tummy feelings.

It just goes to show that WLS is NOT brain surgery... the desire to keep mindlessly eating something for the taste alone is still up there in the ol' noggin... d*mn you, dopamine!!!

Hopefully this does not set me back in the eating department the way the hummus did. Crossing my fingers that after a good night's sleep I'll be ready for some more wholesome and less addictive food choices.

No more feta, no more upset stomach. I miss it, though... SO GOOD. I wonder if I can have olives starting on my soft food week? (Which starts Friday!) That might satisfy the salty craving.

Cravings for bad food continue. Today it was pizza and a Wendy's burger I wanted. I'm almost four weeks post-op, plus three weeks pre-op diet... Almost two months without access to my fast food fixes and I'm obviously going through withdrawal. It sucks but I know I can get through this. *positive thoughts*

I also really want bread and tortillas, although I don't consider that a bad food craving. For example, I was going to eat tuna today but I just could not stop thinking about putting the tuna into a whole wheat pita. We don't have any pitas at the moment but we do have tortillas (used for Mr. Green's lunches) and I had to physically restrain myself from opening the cabinet where they are LOL so I just skipped the tuna altogether. Hopefully in another 2-4 weeks my stomach will be ready for that????

My weight has literally not moved at all in over 10 days. I kind of want to scream. I'm scared to stop weighing myself because what if I resist getting on the scale and I wait until the 17th and it STILL hasn't moved???? I don't really know what variable to change except I know that my sleep habits are a wreck right now.

24 days post-op... those are my rambles!

Four weeks post-op! I can hardly believe it! I'm going to slowly start introducing more types of food over the next few days. Technically I've already been eating "soft foods" since I decided not to puree some of my soups and such, but now I can add in certain whole fruits and steamed veggies along with beans that aren't pureed.

The scale finally moved a bit! Down two pounds for a total loss of 21 pounds in the first four weeks. To keep it simple I'll go by the date for a true monthly weigh-in, so that'll be on this Sunday the 17th.

Our pool should be ready for swimming soon and that will really help me get in more activity since walking longer than 15-20 minutes is still difficult for me. I still need to get a handle on my sleep and that might also help ramp up the weight loss - I've been sleeping 3-4 hours a night recently and I use the term "night" loosely since sometimes I can't sleep until after Mr. Green leaves for work! I know that's got my hormones all out of whack so hopefully that will improve very soon as well.

I've been feeling great lately! Very happy and satisfied with my food and my stomach.

May 17th through June 17th update! I weighed 320 this morning - surgery morning I weighed 342. That brings my total loss for my first month to 22 pounds!

It's still crazy to think I lost 19 pounds in the first 14 days and then took another 2.5 weeks to lose the next three pounds, lol... but since the scale is finally moving again, I ain't gonna question it!

Going to try and wait until 6 weeks post-op to weigh in again, so that will be June 28. That seems kinda close so maybe if I can resist it I'll wait until July 5th.

Random updates 33 days post-op...

I started a bonafide period yesterday. I had been spotting on and off since the 2nd week of the pre-op diet but this is my first real period in years! Seems like a weird thing to be happy about, and of course I enjoyed not having periods pretty much ever, but it's really nice to know that regardless of weight loss, a return to hormonal health is underway!

My energy level is still total crap. I get so shaky so quickly it's almost infuriating at this point. I feel so lazy and useless. I tried to go to a festival on Saturday and I made it maybe 25-30 minutes in before I needed to find a seat in the shade immediately or else have my legs give out. This was despite having a 30-ounce yeti cup full of ice water. Mr. Green is going to test our pool water again when he gets home and hopefully I'll be able to get in. If the water isn't ready soon I'm going to have to join the expensive gym with a pool because not being able to exercise is driving me crazy. I only have to lose 21 pounds to be under 300 for the first time since 2009 so I want to give it all I've got! Hopefully will get there by 2 months post-op!

I'm feeling a little frustrated with food. Most of what I'm eating right now is food that I personally consider unhealthy, with a lot of meats and cheeses. I really want to get refocused on plant foods and I have some recipes I want to try, but I have no energy for or interest in cooking at the moment. Hopefully once I get the exercise worked out........ We've gone out several times recently and the food has all been delicious but obviously I take home a ton of leftovers. Once I eat the leftovers once, I'm not interested in them anymore and can't make myself eat them again even though there's a guaranteed 2-4 meals left (stupid restaurant portions). Maybe another form of food aversion? Anyway, it's wasting a ton of food and it's really irritating. Not sure why all this random mental stuff is popping up - of course I assumed there would be emotions and adjustments but these things don't seem like any sort of logical response.

I was at an all-time low with insomnia last week, and I've been focusing on that since this past weekend. I started taking a small dose of a sleep drug and so far it's helped. I've slept about 6 hours every night, which is basically double what I was sleeping last week. I'm still napping each day but thanks to getting more sleep at night, they're more of the rejuvenating kind instead of the basic survival kind, lol. Hoping to hit an average of 6.5 hours soon and be able to stop napping so much!

Hang in there with the energy, I felt a huge shift around week 6 where I felt like my energy levels went from the worst I’d ever experienced to better than I had experienced before surgery.

I totally get the restaurant thing—I can’t eat leftovers more than once or twice. I also had the same experience re: feeling unhealthy with the meat and cheese, a lot changes in the next few weeks. For three weeks (week 3-6) I alternated between refried black beans w/ cheese and chicken salad every meal, and when I could finally handle more and more interesting food (like vegetables!!) everything felt so much better.

Ive been following your story for a while and I’m so proud of you and the work you’re doing, and know that you’ve got this!

On 6/19/2018 at 10:25 PM, timshel said:

Hang in there with the energy, I felt a huge shift around week 6 where I felt like my energy levels went from the worst I’d ever experienced to better than I had experienced before surgery.

I totally get the restaurant thing—I can’t eat leftovers more than once or twice. I also had the same experience re: feeling unhealthy with the meat and cheese, a lot changes in the next few weeks. For three weeks (week 3-6) I alternated between refried black Beans w/ cheese and chicken salad every meal, and when I could finally handle more and more interesting food (like vegetables!!) everything felt so much better.

Ive been following your story for a while and I’m so proud of you and the work you’re doing, and know that you’ve got this!

Thank you so much for your encouraging comment!

40 days post-op.

Well, I'm doing really well, weight-wise. I've lost 10 pounds in the last week! 32 total since surgery. Only 11 pounds to go until 299! However, I'm not sure I'm eating enough because I am still really weak. I really want to resist tracking because it's not good for me mentally but maybe I could just do a day or two to see where I am and where I need to make adjustments.

Things that I've been eating since starting soft foods almost two weeks ago - bananas, meatloaf, cottage pie, meatballs over rice, pita with hummus, a Taco Bell bean burrito. The quantity of soft food I'm able to eat is very small compared to eating things like mashed potatoes and grits. 1/5 of a small pita with 1 tbsp of hummus, 1/4 of the burrito, 3/4 of one meatball with a spoonful or two of rice. I can only eat half a small banana in a sitting. (I am not finding that the carbs give me any trouble at all.) So maybe I am just not eating often enough to compensate for the small quantity. I still have almost no hunger signals so I can definitely forget to eat for long periods of time. I'm no longer having cravings for fried or fatty foods - maybe because I've incorporated meat into my diet at this point which is giving me a higher fat intake, or maybe things are in a better place mentally.

I'm starting to notice a difference in my body, particularly my belly. I've always been pretty flexible and could touch my toes even 60, 70 pounds ago, but now I can hang down low and let my hands drag on the ground. I'm SUPER excited about that because I'm taking a yoga class at school this fall and I'm happy to know I'll be able to do more of the poses by then. I don't know whether the fat has really gone yet or if it's just transforming into squishier fat first instead of the more solid tissue and that's why I notice the increase in flexibility. Either way, cool stuff happening!!!!

On 02/03/2018 at 08:55, TexasGal40 said:

I’m sorry that yesterday was tough. I hope today is a bit easier. On a side note, I think you are an excellent writer. You crack me up!
Another person recommended a book and I just started it. It is very insightful and offers some good tips. You should read it. If nothing else, it’s a good destruction and reinforces the positive changes you are making during this Pre Op phase.
Keep up the good work!

Omg I read this book this Saturday and it was life changing for me. It was so motivational. As soon as I was done with the exercise chapter I was motivated to exercise. I’ve been getting up and moving the last four days and it feels so great. Amazing book, highly recommend.

On 02/04/2018 at 00:03, Little Green said:

Thank you, for the compliment and the book recommendation! I know I checked this one out of the Kindle library but can't remember if I read it or not. I will go and download it again for sure!

Read it! It’s amazing!