New Pictures!

Well here it is!  I reached my first goal of 75 lbs. OK, 76 lbs to be exact and as promised here are the before and after pictures:

            SEPT. 2011                                                                     MAR. 2012  76 lbs lost

I am no longer in a plus size!  I don't have to shop in the plus stores anymore!  I'm at the top end of the regular sizes now.  I bought myself a couple of dresses, a fancy one for a St. Pats dance the other night and the other a cute little summer dress and they were both from a regular store, sized XL.   I started out at a size 4XL. 

I bought new underwear in the regular size section and I am back down to one size away from my usual bra size a 36B.   I need to go get myself a couple pairs of jeans and leggings, I think I'll fit into a size 16 jean.  The 18s I have right now slide on and off without me having to undo the button and zipper and I have to hitch them up all the time.  The jeans I started out with were a size 26! 

T-shirts and leggings, I'm guessing an XL will fit but I'm only going to get a couple of things to tide me over until my next goal which is 100lbs.

I will update again with a new picture of me at 100lbs weight loss and I've decided to treat myself to something I've always wanted but was too chicken to get before.  I'm going to get a tattoo of a cross on my ankle once I've reached the 100lb mark. 

After Christmas Weigh-In

Well, I was afraid to get on the scales this morning as usually I gain weight over Christmas but ta-da! since my last weigh-in I've lost 6 more lbs for a total of 61 lbs.

It's been a crazy time for my body though, getting through Christmas.  I am off all my special diets and now on the Food For Life diet, which is basically a high protein diet with veg. coming second, eating 6 small meals a day.  This has been hard to do over Christmas what with the dinners, going to restaurants and get-togethers.  But on the other hand my body just won't let me over eat.  I'm now also gradually trying to ease the "problem' foods back in to see which ones my body can handle and so far so good except for one thing.  I added caffeine the first day I was allowed to, with a half of a cup of proper coffee.  Heaven!  No side affects or discomfort. So I'm back to a cup of coffee once or twice in the mornings, but not every day, unsweetened and using skim milk. 

Over Christmas I did cave, and I tried really hard not to, but I just couldn't stand it, and had a few sweets, but I was only capable of nibbling and taking teeny portions.

My big problem, and I ended up doing it three times before I learnt my lesson was pasta.  This is a troublesome food for many people because it expands once it reaches your stomach and oh man, was I in absolute pain!  The feeling is hard to describe but it feels like a cannonball sitting in your chest and feels like you are going to vomit.  The spit fills your mouth and you're nauseous and moaning and can't keep still because of the agony.  It lasted for hours each time.  So, obviously I can't handle pasta, and have learned my lesson now.   This has prevented me from trying bread yet, too.  Since it is a similar product as pasta.  Just looking at bread reminds me of the pain from pasta, so I'll hold off for a while before I try it.  I'm just happy I can have my coffee!

Oh, and I did have a few alcoholic drinks over the holidays too.  Just one per evening, nursing it all night.  Rye and flat ginger ale.  (I'm not allowed carbonated drinks) It didn't make me drunk or sick, so that was nice to know I don't have to become a teetotaller.  Another problem I ran into when I went to a restaurant was that I ordered water to drink and it was placed in front of me and without thing I started to sip it through the straw.  Then I remembered, I'm not allowed to use straws!  And my stomach started to rumble and I had gas (the burping kind) for about half an hour.  I'll get used to all this and now that life is settling back to normal it will be easier to remember my not alloweds!

On the exercise front, I have a walking partner!  Winter and cold weather have arrived so we won't be going out as much as often now but on nice days ... Plus for Christmas I got the exercise Wii games I wanted "Walk It Out" and "Just Dance 2".  I just saw the new dance one out is Abba, I so want that one!

Until next time!
Keep healthy!

Before and Now Pictures

OK here goes!  The changes aren't huge in the photograph but if you study the two you'll see significant changes.  Mostly what one can see from the photos is that I now have better posture.  I can now stand up straight, my arms hang straight down to the sides, my butt doesn't stick out at the back. Look how my body was almost as wide as the door frame in the Before picture, while the Now pic. I'm considerably narrower.  Dh noticed the big change in the size of my arms.  In the Before picture I had to hold my head up so I didn't have a double chin, in the Now picture I can look straight ahead without a double chin showing up.  Next picture will come at 75lbs lost or thereabouts. I'm hoping for a bit of a waist by then :-)

              Before                                                                              Now

September 2011                                                                    53lbs lost - December 2011

Going Smoothly

Things are going good!  I've been back for my one month check-up and they are very happy with my recovery and results.  I'm all healed and have no issues.  At my appointment I saw the nurse and then the nutritionist and it took about 40mins. all together. 

Last week I switched to the "Pured Foods" diet which was actually a nightmare.  I didn't think it would be a problem but when I actually tried to eat baby foods it made me nauseous and gag.  Pureed chicken and veg., it just did not go over well with me at all!  I managed to make it 4 days; I was supposed to do it for a whole week, but I just couldn't so I skipped to the next diet which is "Minced Foods".  Oh, sooooo much better!  The nutritionist said this was ok, that a number of people have trouble with the pureed diet and they are in the midst of re-writing the programs diet stages.  They won't be eliminating pureed but they will be adjusting it.  So he said to make sure I stayed on minced until the appropriate time to go on the next diet.  So that means I'm on this one for just over a week.  On Wednesday, I will move on to the last one week diet "Soft Foods".

My favourite thing to eat right now is 5 pieces of cubed chicken, then cut up into tiny pieces and dipped into a tablespoon of "just peanuts" peanut butter. Yum!  And the nutritionist told me about Greek yogourt, which I'd never heard of before.  It is very high in protein, a cup of it is equal to a third of my days worth of protein!  It's a lot thicker than regular yogourt but I love it.  Just have to be careful of the calories.  But then one individual container is a meal for me!

If you visit the actual blog, you will have noticed that my weight loss ticker has been moving up even though I haven't posted for a few weeks.  I've now lost 53lbs. and feeling great about myself.  I don't have a lot of clothes that fit right now.  This seems to be a size I skipped right over on my journey of weight gain LOL.  But I have a small selection that I barely even remember wearing before. 

I know it's time to put up some pictures ... This is a big step for me.  I'm getting my hair trimmed today and then I'm going to take a photo and compare it to my before picture and if I'm pleased with the comparison I will post the Before and Now pics.  I think that posting pics at every 50lbs would be a good interval anyway.

Oh, and more good news.  Since my last post I went for my yearly with my gyn. and she was very pleased that I'd had the operation and with the results, the weight loss but also the new mobility.  I have a female condition that makes me a candidate for uterine cancer, so I have to take hormone pills to help keep me safe from that.  Of course, I'm checked every year, but she said that once I've lost 120lbs all together we'll try taking me off the pills.  I don't have the condition because I'm overweight, it's just that being overweight exacerbates it.  So I'm off the hypertension pills and have a perfectly normal bp now and the future sees me getting off another pill.  These are part of the health benefits that I first and foremost had the surgery for.

That's all for today.  If you are lurking out there, my stats say there are people out :-), and have any questions you'd like to ask me just leave a comment or email me and I can make your question a topic for a future post.

Time for a Diet Upgrade & Weigh-In

Wed. was the beginning of my new diet, "Full Fluids".  This one will, once again, last two weeks but it is the final 2week diet after this I will go through a series of 1 week diets as I adjust my body to accepting solid foods again.  This diet basically adds just a few new items to what I am already eating but they are big ticket items that make me feel like I'm actually "eating" again.

I can now have hot cereal such as oatmeal or cream of wheat, made very thin; low fat, artificial sweetened yogourt with no chunks in it; and low fat, cream soups made with skim (0%) milk, strained.  I can also have low fat artificial sweetened puddings if I want but I never used to eat them so I don't see the point in eating them now just for the sake of it.  I've also stopped eating the jello, too, now, since I don't like it.  I must continue with the three Boosts a day and of course, the vitamin supplements which are for life.  In case you've forgotten I'm taking Calcium +D, twice a day and a pre-natal supplement once a day (this is because they have twice as many nutrients than a regular one a day multi-vitamin.  Even men who've had the operation take the pre-natal for life.)

Of course, I'm in heaven with the new food!  I love cream of wheat and am glad to have real fibre back in my diet.  Yogourt is one of my favourite foods and the cream soups are a hot meal, finally!  Suitable ones I can eat are hard to find though.  Tomato soup is fine.  But others even when they say low fat often have the milk products already added, in the canned versions. So I can't have these since they are made with cream (not skim milk).  So far we've only found Knorr packaged soups which you add your own milk to and only in Cream of Broccoli.  But we'll keep looking around and try some health food stores too because this is definitely a food I want to eat for life.

Other good news!  I did a weigh in on Tuesday in preparation for the new diet and have now lost 43lbs but more important than the numbers I have also gone down 2 clothes sizes.  Clothes I was wearing before I started the Opti-Fast (Oct. 8) are all too big for me now!  I'm reaching to the back (well middle) of my closet and wearing clothes I haven't worn in years.  I'm losing it all in my abdomen and my friend says you can see it in my face.  I can see my toes when I look down!  That's a new sensation.  But even more importantly my mobility has improved exponentially.  I can bend over, touch the ground, tie my shoes, put on my pants, generally move around with so much ease now where before I started this program I had serious mobility issues that were just getting worse.  I feel healthier.

As far as surgery recuperation: all my incisions are now exposed and healing nicely.  Some have little scabs, a few are already healed.  I'm still tender on the outside and a somewhat sore on the inside.  Sleeping is still an issue but nowhere near as painful as before.  I can sleep on my side now, once I slowly get into position but still wake a few times a night.  But as I said it is nowhere near as bad so I'm just grateful it is improving and figure another week should do it.

Walking is going fine.  I'm back to going to Daily Mass, so I walk to church and back every morning plus I walk downtown whenever I need to.  I'm walking wherever I have to go, if possible and we are parking at the back of parking lots, trying to just make life naturally more active.  Plus several times a week, I'm going out for a walk around the neighbourhood going a little further when I feel I can.  I feel I'm doing fine at this stage.  I'm still slow because my insides are sore but I can walk, just not fast.

Be back again either in 2 weeks when the diet changes to "Pureed Foods" or after Dec. 6, my one month check up at the clinic, whichever comes first.  You do the math, too early in the morning for me and I have to go get ready for church.

First Visit to the Clinic After Surgery

So today marks the one week point after I got out of the hospital and the day of my first follow up appointment at the Bariatric Clinic.  I saw a nurse and the appointment was about 20 mins. long.  Everything is going well.  My blood pressure is normal.  Yeah!  My sutures have healed nicely, some of the steri-strips have fallen off by themselves and she told me I could start working them off in the shower now as long as I wasn't tugging.  I'm still very tender on the inside but each day I feel better than before.  I'm finished with the injections, thankfully.  I really did not like giving them to myself but I did what I had to.  I have so much energy now, it is unbelievable, I just wish I felt 100%, but as the nurse said each day, I'll feel better and better.  I'm supposed to start a walking routine now, just small to start with and take it at an easy pace until I'm walking about 1/2 an hour 3-4 times a week.  So I went out to the corner and back today and felt great but very sore! 

I did a weigh-in today and have lost another 6 pounds (or the first 6 pounds post-op).  The nurse said this weigh-in isn't very correct though because we are pumped full of so much liquid during the operation that it will take the first month to fully pee it out and walk off the air also pumped into our system.  Though I am not having a bad time with gas.  She said the first month weigh-in will show us a more reliable figure and that's when my next appointment is, on Dec. 6. 

I have one more week to go on this current diet that I described in the last post, then I will get to add more items to my diet as I move onto the next diet called Full Liquids for another two weeks. I'll post about that when I start it but I'm really looking forward to adding cream soups!

Annoying things:  it's hard to sleep since I sleep on my side, it feels like everything is pulling on my stitches and I try to stay on my back but keep waking up every few hours as I toss and turn; my mouth always tastes yucky, as if I haven't brushed my teeth in a few days.  I think this is because of the lack of solid foods which help to naturally brush your teeth and keep them clean.  So I've started sucking mints since I'm already a bit OCD about brushing my teeth.  That's it really to the downside.  I'm not enjoying this diet much and really can't wait till next Wed. for the change.  The Boost's are not exactly the most delicious things in the world, either.

So all together now, since I've been apart of the program, just over 1 week after surgery, I am 40 lbs lighter than when I first went in to get weighed at the orientation meeting!  So far, so good!

Last Day In & Coming Home

Wed. was to be my last day scheduled in the hospital and they were ready to get me out of there, unless anything went majorly wrong.  They started off the day by changing my pain meds from morphine injections in the thigh to liquid Tylenol 3 with codeine.  This was not an equivalent exchange so I had to start dealing with the pain more.  Everyone started talking to me about possibly going home that day.  A resident, "David", who'd done most of the talking with me told me that I could go home if I managed to drink my three meals today.  Because today was also the start of the next eating phase!  Modified Fluids!  Yeah!  Now my diet includes drinking three Diabetic Boosts a day, I per meal, and to the liquids I already am drinking I have been allowed to add any artificially sweetened drink as long as it is not carbonated; (carbonated drinks will be a no-no for life) 1/2 cup real fruit juice a day and sweet, glorious milk, skim milk, but milk, oh how I've missed thee.

I also was given some new meds since I'd been in the hospital.  One being a tiny antacid to melt in my mouth each morning early before breakfast and second the anti-coagulant injections in the abdomen started right after the operation as well.  So this day went well, one thing that had not happened yet was that I had not had a bowel movement nor had I passed gas.  This was what they were waiting for.  When they operate on your abdomen laproscopically like this they fill your intestines full of air to assist with the surgery and, of course, afterwards, you must pass this gas out through the end.  The antacids are to stop you from getting acid reflux and burping, making the other end the only option.  I hadn't had so much as a toot or fluff but listening to my stomach they heard bowel sounds, "which was good".  By the afternoon, I was having gas pains and felt the rumbling and gurgling in my bowels as the gas moved around down there.  This is painful.  But still nothing happened. 

Results from that morning's blood tests came back and I was low on potassium so they had sent up two little packets for me to drink of pure potassium.  Vile, vile, wicked, horrible stuff!  Yuck!  I was officially told I could go home around 2pm and dh came and got me about 4pm.  We went down to the lobby where we got a scrip filled for the antacid, Tylenol3/codeine and 7 needles which I'd been taught to inject myself with.  My health care covered the Tylenol, so I had another bill for over $200 for meds.  Now the rumbling in my stomach was acute and while waiting for the meds I went to the bathroom where I first passed the gas.  I don't mean to be gross but there were two sonic booms that released a lot of pressure, I'll tell you!

Now I've been home recuperating since Wed. night.  I'm very sore, in pain at times, especially at night.  It is hard to sleep without moving as it really hurts when I roll onto my side. I had one very bad afternoon on Thurs. where I spent about 40mins. on the toilet and came out absolutely exhausted.  I started off walking like Tim Conway in those old man sketches on the Carol Burnett show but am now walking upright albeit still slowly and carefully.  I'm moving around the house now, going up and down stairs and getting more mobile each day, though the pain of sleepless nights is keeping me slow.

I get full very easy.  In fact I'm always full.  At this point my main focus is to make sure I keep myself hydrated.  I have a chart to fill out and must make sure I drink 2L of fluids a day.  I am managing to get by but it is taking all my effort as half a cup of apple juice while taking me regular morning pills plus vitamin (cut in half now because my stomach opening is too small for a whole vitamin to fit through) leaves me stuffed.  So breakfast takes me from 8-11 and lunch from 12-3/4 and so on.  I am always eating or drinking! 

So where does this leave me know?  I'm on the modified fluids diet for two weeks total, leaving just over a week to go, and I have a follow up in one week after discharge, meaning this Wed.  As you may have noticed I have not had a weigh-in yet since before my surgery.  I didn't want to weight myself while I was till full of the gas as I knew the number would probably go up a bit first so I decided to just wait for my first post-op dr. visit where I will get my first official weigh-in. 

See ya then!