2 Month Update

I finally feel like I have the time to sit down and write a proper update! The last month or so has been really busy for me and I have barely had time for me and doing the things I want to do, much less writing down an update.

So here are my current stats:

Total weight down - 39.1 pounds from my highest
Since surgery - 22.6 pounds since surgery
Percent body weight lost - 13.8%
Total inches lost - 20.825 inches!!!

I had a follow-up with my surgeon and his PA on 11/1. They are really happy with my progress and how I’m doing overall. They have no concerns that they can see. I’ve not had any issues with eating or nausea still. I don’t have to go back until the end of January. If I need them they are there though. I have been cleared to add beef and pork back into my diet as of 11/12. I have had some here and there, but not a lot. I’ve mostly been eating chicken, turkey, cheese, and eggs for my protein.

The one funny part of the appointment was when she checked my incisions. She had to double-check when I had my surgery. She said they were healing exceptionally well and looked like they were 12 weeks and not 8-week incisions! I’ve always been a fast healer, but that made me feel really good.

Overall I’m really pleased with how I’m doing. I’m having an easier time meeting my food and water goals. I struggled a lot for a few weeks getting my water in especially, but it has gotten a lot better.

I’ve also been cleared to start strength training again! I am so excited about getting back into a routine. It’s been so busy at work that I’ve been lucky to make it downstairs at lunch 1-2 times a week to workout. I will say I’m so over walking on the treadmill and biking at the moment. I am going to start looking for a new gym soon. I really want to find a gym where I can swim too.

I’ve had to start shopping in my closet too! I don’t know how long it will last that I can wear the clothes in my closet, but I’m not arguing with getting to wear clothes I haven’t been able to in a long time. I’ve gotten some good leads on some nice thrift stores in my area as well.

Things I’ve noticed:

My tastes are changing. There are foods I wasn’t fond of or hadn’t liked that much before surgery. The big ones so far are:

• Kale
• Tomatoes (i used to only eat them on sandwiches or cooked into things, never just eaten)
• Dill pickles

I’m having an easier time keeping up with my husband when we’re out walking around.

My back, hips, and knees are feeling better. I’m having less pain overall.

I’m finding bones I haven’t seen/felt in a while. My collar bones are the most noticeable, but I’m noticing it in my knees, ankles, and hips too.

I’ve been handling social situations fairly well. It’s not been too hard for me to stay on track overall. I do treat myself and indulge a little bit here and there. We were at a fancy dinner last night for a friend’s organization. I did have a tiny bit of the chocolate cake served. It was delicious but super-rich and sweet. It was nice to enjoy a bite or two and be done. It’s just hard to waste so much food that comes with most portions. If we eat out I usually try and order something off the appetizer menu if I can. Most times I can.

The bad (so far):

The one side effect I wasn’t looking forward to has started a month earlier than I thought it would. Typically at about 3-6 months after surgery, most patients lose some of their hair. I’ve been shedding a LOT more than normal the last week. I cleaned out my brush before I started styling my hair one morning and by the time I was done, it looked like I hadn’t cleaned my brush out at all. It looks worse than it probably is since my hair is fairly long right now. It’s still disconcerting though. This should only last a couple of months and then my hair will start growing back. It’s still just a pain. I lost my hair after the crappy diet I did before my wedding. It took me a while to figure out the reason why and it took years for my hair to get to where it felt healthy again. I just hope I don’t lose that much total.

With that, if you made it through here are some pics for your enjoyment.

Aug 2017

image1024×1024 237 KB

November 2019

image1024×1024 195 KB

Day before surgery

image850×1134 217 KB

Halloween as Velma (I did cheat with spanx on this one)

image714×960 181 KB

2 1/2 Weeks Post-Op - Struggles & Updates

My two weeks off from work to recover flew by honestly. My recovery went really well, thankfully. I did much better than I expected too. I've been able to drink fairly easily without any nausea or vomiting, which is awesome. Overall I have felt really good physically.

Mentally, this has been rough. It's been especially rough the last few days. It all came to a head yesterday. It's been a combination of things. Diet, lack of progress, and my hormones being out of whack have all contributed to it. I'll get into the rough stuff below, then into the better stuff from today.

I'm almost 5 weeks into my liquid diet. I am so over it. Beyond over it. I want to actually chew something. For those who know me, I have a massive sweet tooth. I can't stand anything sweet at the moment. Also, my tastes are changing. Protein shakes and water enhancers I loved before surgery I can't stand now. It's not just that though. It started Wednesday and got really bad yesterday, but I don't like the taste of anything at the moment. Plain water, water with flavor, any of my protein shakes, the protein soup mix, jello, none of it. It all tastes bad. I can't describe the flavor and I really don't want to. I have to drink 3 shakes and get 50-60 ounces of liquids in a day, and I don't want any of it. So I'm literally choking down stuff to make sure I don't get dehydrated. To top it all off, I found out my lactose intolerance is back. Lucky me.

All of the food issues would be bearable if I was seeing some sort of progress, but I'm not. The scale hasn't moved the last week. It's basically a nice flat line on a graph within a 1lb. range. I'm also looking at my clothes and not seeing any changes there. This is beyond frustrating given all the work and pain I've gone through these last months.

One of the other fun side effects of surgery is it plays havoc with your hormones. First off, by removing 80% of the stomach, you are removing a lot of the area that produces and secretes the hunger hormone ghrelin. The stress of surgery puts all of your other hormones out of whack, including all of the lady hormones. It can cause your period to start early and make the mood swings worse. So this week has been a bit of hell for me. It hasn't been all that fun for my husband either.

Yes, I know I'm only 2 1/2 weeks out. Yes, I know it takes time. These are logical thoughts and great ones. I was telling them to myself last night in an effort to get out of my funk. My emotions did a big old "Screw you!" and ignored all scientific fact and logic.

All of this built up in my head over the last couple days and the dam broke last night. I was absolutely regretting the surgery last night. I know most everyone has seen this picture:



I didn't feel like I was carving my way out of this body. I felt more trapped than ever. I felt like I was trapped in this horrid cage of a body and clawing madly with no way out. It was not a good night.

I woke up feeling a little better today thankfully. I also had follow-ups with my surgeon and dietitian since I start solid foods next week.

I talked to Dr. Greene about everything. It's all normal. Because of my starting weight and how long I've been on the liquid diet, stalls at 2-3 weeks out are exceptionally common in his patients. He was expecting it. Since I'm starting on solid foods next week, I should start seeing the scale move soon.

It's also normal for tastes to change. I knew from research and talking to Dr. Greene that my tastes would change. I thought it was just what I would and wouldn't like, but it's not. It's even how food tastes in general. They aren't sure what causes the tastes to change. The current theory is that between removing a lot of the hunger hormones and the changes in the bacterial biome in your gut, your tastes change. He apologized for it being so rough, but it happens to almost everyone.

Overall he is very happy with my recovery. I have no hernias at my incision sites. I'm almost done with my blood thinner shots. Thank heaven. They cause the worst bruising. If anyone needs some ideas for a color palette for zombie makeup, I can send pictures for your Pinterest board. I'm calling my belly a zombie dalmatian.

The dietitian is pleased with my progress too. We went over what I can and can't have the next couple of weeks. I'll get into that in another post.

So yeah. I'm doing better than I thought I would be. In some ways, this is harder than I thought, and I knew it would be a struggle going in. Thankfully no one has told me I took the easy way out by doing this. The way I feel at the moment I would bitch them out until kingdom come if they did. There is nothing easy about this. Worth it (from all I've been told), but far from easy.

On the road to recovery

Right about a year ago I started struggling more and more with the scale. It seemed like no matter what I did, I couldn't get it to budge. Eat more, eat less, lift more, lift less, number of reps, how much cardio, all of it. Talking with Dr. Hendrick we were both at a loss of what to do next. The other solutions he uses are ways to jumpstart the weight loss, not for long term use. So I decided to look into bariatric surgery.

This is not something I have ever wanted or considered doing before. It was not up for discussion. So for me to finally start researching it says a lot for those who know me best. By the end of 2018, I decided to start talking with surgeons. To find a doctor I liked I had to go to Denver.

My insurance at the time wouldn't cover it so I was looking at around $13000 out of pocket. The upside to paying for it myself is that I didn't have as many hoops to jump through. So by the end of March, I was ready to schedule the surgery.

Then it got postponed, but for the best reason. I have been job hunting hard for several years, but I've been picky. Very picky. For the first time, I had the luxury of looking for a job I wanted, and not just working for an organization for a paycheck. The time, frustration, and patience paid off in spades. I pretty much got my dream job at a company I have wanted to work at for a very long time. I moved out to Maryland at the end of May to start my job. Then I went back to Colorado in mid-June to get Marshall, pack our stuff, and hit the road.

While I was out in Maryland by myself I started researching surgeons out here and found an office I liked the looks of. I went to a class sponsored by one of the surgeons and set up an appointment with her. Things seemed to go well, and she said she could use my visits from Dr. Hendrick and the surgeon in Colorado to submit to insurance. I just had a laundry list of paperwork to bring in. The day before my next appointment, when I got the reminder call I was told she had left the practice and they had moved me to Dr. Joseph Greene. I decided to see if I liked this new surgeon and go from there. Luckily I did, and I think it turned out to be the better choice in the long run.

I turned up with all of my papers and was told that I was the most prepared patient he's ever had. I just wanted everything to go smoothly. After some running around with phone calls and signing waivers, all the paperwork got sent to Dr. Greene. Well, everything except my psych evaluation. We found that out the morning of surgery. Luckily we were able to get the right people on the phone and get it faxed over. Before Dr. Greene could start talking to me about surgery though, I had to sign the waiver from the psychiatrist. I was in pre-op when all of this happened.

The surgery went really well. It took longer than planned because of some surprise scar tissue, but I'm glad he took the time to make sure he worked around it. They have a really good pain management plan and I've been doing really well. I took some of "the good stuff" to sleep last night, but I've only had Tylenol today. I'm up and moving around pretty good. The only thing that really hurts is my throat from the breathing tube.

So there's what I had surgery for. I had a vertical sleeve gastrectomy. They sliced off about 80% of my stomach. Because of where hormone receptors are I won't feel hunger anymore, or not as much. Considering I've been on a liquid diet the last 3 weeks, it has been a godsend. I still have 3 more weeks of liquids before I move back to solid foods.

I kept this very quiet because I had enough doubts in my head. I had all the thoughts of "if only I had more willpower" or "If I just tried one last time". But after all these years of trying, if I could have done it on my own, I would have.

Feel free to ask me anything.

Trials and Errors

My summer up through the first part of July was busy. To be honest, I've just enjoyed having quiet time to myself the last month and a half.

As an update from my last entry, I'm feeling a lot better mentally. I still have moments of doubt and all, but it feels like "normal" doubt. Not the depression monster in my head. I've gotten back into a groove with my working out, but eating has been a real struggle. I saw my pulmonologist and we've gotten the pressures figured out. He had to lower them a bit for me. Part of my struggle now is sinus issues due to allergies and the smoke from wildfires. I feel like I am permanently congested and sneezing.

The last 4-6 weeks have been a challenge. I emailed Dr. Hendrick to ask about the other weight loss meds he was thinking of having me try. At our last appointment, we started talking more about it again. He wanted to kick start my weight loss again. I was wanting information from him to do some more research. He was honest with me and let me know which ones he was thinking of, but that the good information is hard to find. There's a lot of less than reputable sites that give half the facts. He said he would give me all the information I could need at our next appointment in mid-September. 

I felt like I just wasn't making progress. I have been lifting back at full weights and upping my weights week to week. It even got to the point that I was looking at weight loss surgery again. Even going so far as to see which of the three different types of procedures I thought would work best. It made me sad to think I needed to do that, even if the surgery is just another tool for me to use. It is not the easy way out.

I don't really remember how it came about, but I started doing more research on intermittent fasting. I don't know if it was a news article, something I saw on Facebook, or what. It is something Dr. Hendrick has been wanting me to try for a while. I was reading up on the science and theory behind it for fat loss. I decided what the heck. At the time I started it, I had a month before my next appointment. I might as well treat myself as a science experiment and see if it works. On a random Tuesday morning, I decided to try it. It has been two weeks, and so far, so good. There are several different ways to do intermittent fasting, but I have been fasting for 16 hours and have an 8-hour window to eat.

The theory is that after you finish eating for the night, your body is in a digestion phase anywhere from 8-12 hours. Anything after the 12-hour mark your body is fasting and will start using fat as fuel. Eating more lean protein does help the body using fat instead of muscle as fuel. 

Overall it hasn't been too bad. It's been great having one less meal to plan, and I don't feel as rushed in the mornings. I do still get coffee in the morning, I just have to limit the flavored creamer so the fast doesn't get broken early. Aside from a few days where I felt very run down and had a headache I have felt great and have had more energy. On the days I have felt like crap, I have broken my fast early and eaten a protein bar or a piece of fruit. I felt better shortly afterward. As always, listening to my body is key.

As for breaking my fast, I break it around lunchtime after I have my workout. I have a little bit more than I normally would at lunch and dinner, but not by that much. When all is said and done I've been averaging around 1800 calories per day with a range of 1500-2100 calories. It depends on how hard I worked out and how hungry I feel. It has also helped me face my fear of hunger and get over it. Well, for the most part. Having a growling stomach in meetings is not the best thing!

Other things from the last couple of weeks:

• I've dropped between 4-5 pounds. It depends on the day you look at my scale
• Huge difference in how my clothes fit. I have 2 pairs of pants that I dare not wear outside the house
• Pair of leggings purchased a year ago now fit. At the time I bought them they wouldn't go past mid-thigh
• Better attitude
• More focused at work
• I'm eating less at meals and feeling satiated sooner

So right now I'm feeling hopeful and finding some success. Right now I just want to get back under 300 pounds, and I am so freaking close. This week or next and I should be there. 

I have also found that I do best when weighing myself every day or every other day. I need the data points to keep me accountable. By keeping my food logs I can go back and see what caused a spike in my weight. Anything from eating, to that time of the month, to too many carbs can cause my weight to spike as much as 4 to 5 pounds in a single day. It helps to see the trend of it going down though and knowing that the weight will come back down. I've been using an app called Libra to help me with this. They have trending weight, average loss, and projected weight loss. It's handy and I like it.

The Depression Monster

I've been quiet for because I've been struggling, but not sure how to vocalize it. Some days are better than others. I've been really resentful of the process. Exercising, eating, my schedule, all of it. This weekend was especially awful.

I've dealt with depression for years, but I have never been officially diagnosed. All weekend I was feeling kind of down, and by Sunday night I was retreating from the world and hiding. I sat and wrote in my journal for a good while and my husband kept coming to check on me. He knew some of what i had been dealing with and thinking, but not the extent of it.

I have been super frustrated with my weight loss or lack there of. I've been maintaining in the same 5 pound range since November. In the last 2 weeks I've crept back over 300 pounds a couple of days. There's been a lot of reasons for all of this, that logically I know. But there comes a point when logic doesn't matter. Here's what's been going on the last couple months:

• Finishing up physical therapy for my knee. I had pulled back from weight lifting so I didn't hurt myself more. I love weight lifting and can't stand cardio. Where I could only really do cardio, I didn't want to go to the gym.

• I haven't been sleeping well. Even with my CPAP I've been restless at night. I finally figured out the pressures were too high and needed to call my pulmonologist.

• My self worth was in the septic tank. I had a record going over and over in my head that I was worthless. There's no point in keeping trying as I have failed before and I was stupid to think that I could do it this time. And on and on and on. 

• Continuing on from 3, flashbacks of being bullied and the horrible things I was called as a pre-teen and teen.

I had Marshall read my journal entry. All he did when he finished reading it was hug me tight and said he was never letting me go. No matter how much I wanted to pull away. Then we sat and talked.

He brought up a good point and that was my depression symptoms have gotten worse since I've gone off of the Contrave pill I was using. My obesity doctor and I decided I should go off it because it didn't seem to be helping much. I wasn't struggling with cravings or the like so I went off of it. Well, one of the reasons my doc chose that med is that one of the active ingredients is also a mild antidepressant. We had talked a bit about my personal history and he thought it would be good for me to be on one. Nothing major. Marshall pointed out other times this has happened, including times family members do it. So there's every chance this is a bit genetic as well. I felt so much better after talking with Marshall about it all. I had an appointment with Dr. Hendrick on Tuesday. I was originally going to reschedule it. I've finally been getting back to the gym and strength training again. I wanted to even have a week to say "This is where I'm at!" But in the discussion about depression I decided I needed to keep the appointment. If I'm starting to struggle this badly with depressive symptoms I need help. I can't put it off. So I went.

Dr. Hendrick was very supportive and helpful as usual. He wouldn't prescribe an anti-depressant for me. He wants me to work with my primary care physician on that. The ultimate goal is for me to get the weight off, be good at maintenance, and not see him anymore. So there's that. So here's the run down of my meeting with him.

• I've been doing great at maintaining. He thinks that when i get down to a good weight my body is happy at, I should be able to maintain it with minimal struggles. With a caveat of what I already know. Maintaining is harder than losing in some respects. But he said I'm already showing skills to do well at maintaining my weight in stressful situations, so there is that. 

• My eating habits are doing really well. He's really happy with the progress I've made on that front. With what I'm eating and when. What I do when confronted with unhealthy food situations. My job is a landmine of cookies, brownies, and sweets. It's awful. As he put it, it's borderline abuse. 

• He wanted me to follow up with my primary doc about getting on a med and talk about other treatment options. He warned me to be careful of talk therapy. It means digging up messy emotions that could trigger emotional binge eating, which we don't need. 

• I also needed to get my cpap pressures changed so I can get good sleep at night. 

• He's very hopeful for me and was very happy I came in and asked for help. He also said I'm really fragile right now. 

So I saw my primary doc today and we had a good chat. She put me on the same med as in contrave, but at a lower dose to get started. Luckily the med I'm on is one of the few that doesn't usually cause weight gain. I go back in 3 weeks for a follow-up and see if I need to see a counselor. She was very empathetic and understanding. She also agreed with Dr. Hendrick about going into counseling with caution.

I also called my pulmonologist. I will say my CPAP is awesome. He was able to remotely adjust the settings so I didn't need to go in and see him. He did have his nurse ask me if I had lost more weight since I was in for my 6 month visit in October. I'm down maybe another 5-10 pounds. Turns out he has the pressures set pretty much as low as they can go. I have a follow up in 3 weeks to see him too. I'm hoping that this is good news and I may be getting off my cpap. We'll see though!

I don't have an official diagnosis of depression, but I'm on a low-dose antidepressant. I hope this helps. I have felt so crappy and apathetic the last few weeks and I'm over it. The last few days have been better. Not perfect, but better. It helps I've been able to get back into strength training. I've been taking it really easy so I don't overdo it and hurt myself again. So I started back at squatting 65 pounds last week and I'm already up to 85 pounds this week. I'm hoping by the end of the month to be close to where I was. 150-ish pound squats, 65 pound bench press. Those are the two I remember for certain.

I will say this though. If you are having frequent bouts of self-doubt, lethargy, apathy or other depressive symptoms. See your doctor. It doesn't matter if it's weight related or not. They can help. Your mental health and well being is far too important to ignore.

Back on track and feeling hopeful

I haven't posted in a long long time it feels like. The holidays got in the way initially, then I felt like I didn't really have anything to say, and then I didn't know how to articulate what I wanted to say. I know I needed help, but I didn't know what I needed help with or how to ask for it. Silly I know. The last 4 months or so I have been maintaining my weight. I have yet to figure out if I took a true maintenance break or if it was a plateau. At least I wasn't regaining weight.

I have slacked off on my workouts lately too. I've been battling a head cold and sinus infection the last couple weeks. Part of it is dealing with a knee injury. The irony is the non-runner has runner's knee. I've only had two PT appointments though and my knee is almost completely better! The other part of it was February and March blahs brought on by just getting tired of winter and deep in hibernation mode. All that means is I was feeling exceptionally anti-social due to seasonal depression. I'm not one to be out in the sun a lot, but damn I miss it when it disappears for a few days. On the upside I have been trying to go swimming a couple days a week with a friend, so that's been a lot of fun. It's been great girl time.

This last week I finally feel like I've gotten back on track with my eating. I bought a lot of easy foods for healthy and fast meals last week. Breakfast has been eggs, toast, and coffee. Lunch was low-carb wraps, with a variety of fresh veggies, fruit, and some cheese. Dinner has been a variety of things. I immediately started feeling good again and having more energy.  I also noticed that my craving for sweets diminished quite a bit too. I ended up having a great loss at TOPS this week as well. It was 2.25 pound if I remember right.

Friday I had a follow up with Dr. H. I am down 3 pounds from the last visit. Again we had a great discussion. He was concerned because it looked like my weight loss had slowed down quite a bit. So he brought up if I thought the Contrave was still working, and maybe changing it out with a different one. He was also concerned about costs for me, which I appreciate. In the discussion about other possible meds to try we went on to discussing changing up my eating habits. We talked about three different options.

1) Go down to two meals per day. I wouldn't be cutting out any calories, just the number of meals. I'm not sure how feasible this is during the work week for me, but on the weekends this usually ends up being the case anyways.

2) Change up my calorie distribution - make breakfast my biggest meal of the day, and dinner the smallest. Easy enough change to make.

3) Intermittent fasting - Going 24 hours without eating. He would like me try it one day a week and see how it goes. If I'm feeling up to trying a science experiment. Damn him speaking my language! haha

All 3 options have had a variety of studies done and have been shown to promote weight loss. Those who participate in intermittent fasting usually do it 3 days week (every other day) but it has been shown to be helpful with even one day a week.

The biggest part of our discussion surrounded option 2. There was a study published this last week that had very positive and amazing results. It was looking at type 2 diabetics and what happened if they had 6 small even sized meals versus 3 meals with breakfast being the largest and dinner the smallest. Both groups at the same amount of calories. The group that ate the 6 small meals ended up gaining 2kg over the 3 month study and using 2 units of insulin more per day. The group that ate the small dinner ended up LOSING 5kg and using 20 units LESS of insulin per day. That's a huge difference! Dr. H said they weren't sure if it's the large breakfast, the small dinner, or a combo of the two that helps with weight loss. While I don't have to worry about insulin use, I will definitely be giving this a try.

Towards the end of our meeting I went back to the earlier discussion about changing up the med. He said he wasn't going to for two reasons. The first is I didn't seem particularly excited about it. The second is that given some comments I made about eating mindfully and the like, the contrave is working. He said he thinks he was just making a mountain out of a mole-hill. The slight gain I had was over the holidays. We'll see how things go this next month and go from there.

I'm so happy I started seeing him. He seems to know exactly what I need to feel like I'm getting back on track and get me moving in the right direction again.

In other news I was a division winner in my TOPS chapter this last year. Each division is broken up by how much you weigh at the start of the year. I lost 26 pounds last year.

 

 So far things are looking up. I really want to try and do more blogging this year. I enjoy the writing as an outlet. Hopefully I can keep this going.

The Best Christmas Gift

I have given myself the best Christmas gift imaginable this year.

In April when I started with Dr. Hendrick he ran all of my blood work. There were some not so good numbers in there, but the one that concerned me the most was my A1C. It came back at 5.7%, which is pre-diabetic. Just barely, but it was official. I was disappointed, frustrated, and not surprised.

Other issues were

• borderline high blood pressure
• fasting blood sugar at 99
• my vitamin D was incredibly low.

I had my annual physical this week. The nurse practitioner was really happy with the progress I have made and told me to keep doing what I was doing. Yesterday I had my blood work done. By early afternoon all of my results were available through the online portal. Except my A1C. The doctor's office said it would be today or Friday. This has driven me nuts all damn day.

About 15 minutes ago I got an email saying the online portal had been updated with new test results.

My A1C results were in.

I took a deep breath and logged in. It was the moment of truth.

Have the last 8 months of hard work paid off? Truly paid off? This is the valuable stuff. Not the scale, not the clothes, but my health.

Here's the rundown.

Blood Pressure

April: 150/96
December: 112/70

Fasting Blood Sugar

April: 99
December: 87

Vitamin D

April: 13.7
December: 44

A1C

April: 5.7%

*drum roll*

December: 5.2%!!!!!!

I dropped my A1C 0.5% in 8 months!

I have no idea how this stacks up with others and what is normally expected, but I am ecstatic. The diagnosis isn't official yet, but I am no longer in the pre-diabetic range.

I cheered. I bawled. My husband hugged me tight.

More than anything it has made all of the struggles and the moments of "I don't wanna" worth it. It's also making me more determined to get back on track as soon as possible. I'm even rearranging some of what I was going to make for Christmas dinner to make a small start.

There's times I have trouble seeing my progress, and other times it is so clear. One of those times is from my Christmas last year vs. this year. These are photo booth pics and aren't the best. You can see it easier in other pictures, but I'll upload those some other time.

With that, I'm going to go relax and read. If I don't post before, may your holidays be blessed with love, laughter, and joy.