Two month pictures

So, as I am getting ready to do my THREE month pictures, I am finally posting my TWO month pictures. I just don't know where my time goes these days. My kids, my husband, ME. When you start demanding to have more ME time, time really does get away from you.

I have started a water aerobics course. Fun. Not really hard for me though. I love the water, I grew up in the water. It's just not that difficult for me. So, I continue to do my cardio on the eliptical and treadmill. Lots of people say to me "Isn't it just falling off!?!?" Meaning the weight of course. My answer: NO. I am working so hard at what I am doing. I am trying to be healthy and fit as well as lose the weight. It makes a difference. So I feel like I have deserved the 46-odd pounds that I have lost. I am 4 weeks out from my 4 month visit with my doctor. We shall see then how I am really doing!

Day Zero, ~30 days, and ~60 days Day zero, ~30 days, and ~60 days

MIA?

No, I haven't really been MIA for the last two weeks. But I haven't really felt like I could share my issues. Not because I couldn't type it out, more because it's so easy to share my successes, but sharing my struggles almost feels humiliating. Maybe that's why I got to where I was to begin with? I keep everything I can inside. I have no desire any more to share my pain with others because of such a sad struggle with friends that occurred in college. That's why I have been absent. But I am back. And I plan to share some of my struggles too.

The last two weeks have just been hard. I am transitioning to "normal" food. But I have this incredible guilt that has come with eating regular food. I am trying very hard to overcome this. I am terrified that people will look at me and think "she had surgery because she was so fat, and here she is, eating regular food." But here's the thing, I am eating normal food for NORMAL people. I am no longer eating with these crazy awful habits that got me where I was. I have eaten out with my husband MAYBE 4 times in the last 7 weeks. Lord have mercy, before I had days that it wasn't uncommon to eat out 4 times in one day! And the choices, they have changed tremendously. The bread that comes with almost every meal when you are eating at a restaurant, I don't touch it. Fried foods? Yea right. It's fish for me. I have tried chicken. I have tried shredded beef, but ended up eating a potato more, and taking it home to put in a blender. So anyways, where am I going with this? Ah yes. It's all in my head. No one is looking at me, no one is thinking anything about me. NO ONE IS JUDGING ME.

Now that said, these two weeks have been so hard on me. I haven't seen the scale move hardly at all. I know, I know, GET OFF THE SCALE! A tool of the devil, that damn thing is. So what's gone wrong? Nothing. Absolutely nothing. I dropped 30 pounds in 5 weeks and my body just said "ENOUGH!" It needed a little time to relax. Those 2 weeks or so were still so demoralizing. I was so close to giving up. How do you give up though? YOU CAN'T EAT! So I got back up on the horse. I have signed up for a water aerobics course. I am diligently getting on my elliptical every day that I possibly can. I am making that effort. Which is what I have to do. Up until about a week ago, I allowed this pain in my stomach rule me. Yes, I still have some pain. No need to be medicated (or at least nearly never) but I move the wrong way while I am sleeping and I am done for 24 hours. I can't bend over. I can't pick my kids up. It's just awful. But it's finally getting better. Those events are fewer and farther between. So, I am pushing myself harder. Even with Seth home, I make sure that I work out. These were just two of my conversations just today with my little man:

Me: "Have mercy Seth! Your mom should NOT be running!"

Seth: "Why mom?"

Me: "Because I am just a little too chunky to be running. I am just no good at it!"

Seth: "Would you like me to show you how mom?"

I just had to laugh out loud at him. And PS, he did show me how later in the day! And then there was this one while I was exercising:

Seth: "Mom, are you almost done?"

Me: Panting and sweating like mad... "Yes Seth, 5 more minutes."

Seth: "And then what?"

Me: "And then...I might just pass out on the couch."

Seth: "Oh OK. Don't worry mom, I'll be OK!"

Really? I'm not worried about YOU! I'm not sure I am gonna make it to the couch! Now, that said, I work hard when I am with my kids exercising to explain to them WHY I need to exercise. I desperately want them to know WHY it's so important to exercise. I am not just doing this for me. I am also doing this so that I can learn how to raise my beautiful babies even better.

Well...I have more to talk about. I've been gone for two weeks. But this is getting long and Biggest Loser is getting good! So...I work ALL DAY tomorrow but I will return later in the week. I want to discuss my protein with y'all. I know there are other things I want to discuss too. And my goodness, there are pictures coming soon too! So, until later!

One Month Pictures

I know I know, these are a little late coming. I apologize. Honestly, I wasn't thrilled to take these pictures. It's really hard to look at these pictures and even see weight loss anyways. It's been thirty pounds but it's hard to see that when the long term is eighty more. I'm not feeling the happiest in general today. I am sorry for the negativity. I'll stop here and shoot for happier tomorrow!

I notice it mostly in my face...I'm sure more will come!

30 Days Post-Op

Today, 5/4/11, is officially my 30 day mark. I followed up with the ever so handsome Dr Chris Evanson today. It should be outlawed to have a bariatric surgeon with his good looks. The man walks into my room with these white pants on with a light green long sleeved shirt. He has a slightly unkempt look to him that is just HOT. Seriously, this dude has seen me naked. I really find this unfair. But anyways, he tells me that officially I have lost TWENTY-SIX pounds!! HALLELUJAH! How exciting is this! I couldn't believe it. He also tells me that he thinks I look great and he can already see a difference. He looks forward to seeing me again and that by my next appointment (in 3 months) I should be below 200 pounds. Just in awe of this man. I left on cloud 9 completely forgetting to ask all the questions I had.

He did answer one question for me that I didn't even ask. I have been having problems tolerating my new food plan. Basically it just means that I am not tolerating solid foods very well. He told me today that he makes all of his pouches extra small. This means that while the food plans say that with each meal I am to eat TWO ounces of food, I have to cut that number in half from here on out. WOW. THAT EXPLAINS A LOT! No wonder I was having so much pain when I was done eating! So now that I know this, I expect that this will be so much easier! Dr Evanson said he does this because it actually lead to better success in the long term. The pouch will only stretch to 4 ounces or so versus the 7 ounces a slightly bigger pouch will stretch to. I can deal. I am still so super happy about my success to date. I am thrilled with my choice of doctors and I love all the support I've surrounded myself with. I plan to get a picture tonight so I have my official 30 post op pic. I will post it soon too!

My latest discovery.

I know, only been a few days, but a lot can happen in those few days! I'm still hovering around that 15ish pounds lost mark. But feel GREAT!! I am having loads of fun and learning a thing or two along the way. I've had a couple people reach out to me privately about their own struggles and debates with weight loss surgery. I am so happy you've shared your own struggles with me. I hope through my journey, I can help others who are also struggling. Weight struggles can determine everything about your daily life and routine and it's unbelievable. It consumes your life. I want to help in any way I can and maybe even follow friends who are considering surgery on their own weight loss journey!

I attended my 3rd support group on Monday. What a great group of people. I really enjoy these meetings. I have sat with the same couple every week I have gone. This week they walked in, saw me and immediately asked how I was doing and how everything was going. I couldn't have felt better. Here are these people who have met me twice and yet I really feel like they care. We have been through the same thing. It's so easy to talk those that have been there, done that. It was nice. It was a productive meeting. Lots of newbies and lots of good conversation. I was super happy walking away from group that night.

Tuesday, well now, there was another day. I had a rough one. Now I am sure this happens to many at some point, but I was so upset with myself... Molly and I were shopping at BuyBuy Baby and I always let her stand in the cart. I am always next to her. Many times with a hand on her or through a belt loop or something. I really am super conscious about how dangerous this is. But I turned a corner and something caught my eye:

I reached for it,turned to put it in the cart and she was already over the front of the cart. SLLOOOWWW motion as I can't grab her and she flips onto her head and fall on to her back and just wails. For those of you that have heard that wail, now think deeper. She actually had a deep screaming quality to this cry. She was petrified. I snatched her up and we went to the glider rocker section and rocked for more than twenty minutes. Talk about feeling awful. So further my day, I had a really nasty night at work, between customers and WWIII at work it was just miserable. For the first time in a long time, I came home and vented to my darling husband. He tried to make me feel better. But here's what I saw: My husband standing in front of me, eating dessert breadstix from Donatos, a half of a large pizza still sitting on the stove and regular breadstix next to that. I was OK. Until I was done venting. Then it was just like my world crashed in around me. I wanted ALL that food and I wanted it NOW. I spun on my husband and was just so upset. "ARE YOU DONE WITH THIS PIZZA? IF YOU'RE DONE IT NEEDS TO BE OFF THIS COUNTER OR I WILL TAKE IT OFF THIS COUNTER! " It was ugly to say the least. I realized then that I am a stress eater. Holy cow. I didn't realize how much of a stress eater I was until all of that came over me. It was bad. But now I know. I mean I REALLY know and hope that I can take this lesson forward and make it work for me instead of against me as it has for so many years. :)

This and the picture above are my latest tools in my journey. The little carrying case I had around my house. I used it to carry bottles and jars of food from place to place when Molly was just a little one. It just happened to be sitting in the corner of my kitchen, caught my eye, and I thought DUH! What an easy way to keep my food and shakes cool when I am in transit. Then I bought the little pods because they are reusable and easy to put in said carrying container. :) The round once don't fit as nicely. They all work, don't get me wrong. I am sure I will find more uses for this stuff in the future anyways!

I am super happy as I sit here typing this out. Why? I am eating a hard boiled egg. Ahhh. Heaven. My first in a long time and it's delicious. Seriously it's amazing how much you actually TASTE when you can only eat an ounce or two!! So long for now folks! Hope the weekend treats you right!

Resurrection of the Bella Band

So it's the beginning of week FOUR! Wow. I can't believe that exactly 3 weeks ago I had this surgery and that I have lost over 14 pounds already. My true goal is to make it to twenty pounds lost by my 1 month doctor appointment (5/4/11). I have felt generally successful these last few days. I have ventured just a little out of my required diet: I had a meatball at small group the other night. Yes, ONE meatball. It still took me twenty minutes to eat the one meatball but I loved it and in general, I think I did great with it!

So with the loss of these almost 15ish pounds, I have a pair of pants that I love that are only gonna last MAYBE another two weeks. I don't think that I can continue to put them on after that. I did however have an ingenious idea yesterday before Easter with the fam. I pulled out my Bella Band. Now, any of you that have been pregnant in the last five years know exactly what a Bella Band does for the burgeoning figure of a pregnant woman. You are able to make your "skinny" jeans last a few weeks longer and it smooths out all those unsightly bulges (OK that's why I wore it anyways). It allows you to wear your jeans unbuttoned until you just can't put them on any longer. And they still stay up! SOOO....I pulled out my Bella Band in hopes that it would work in the reverse order also. I have my jeans buttoned, but boy do they sag! So it helped to keep my jeans that aren't gonna make it much longer stay up the entire afternoon. I didn't have to worry about them at all. It was heaven. Now I just need to find my regular Bella Bands instead of my plus sized ones. I can only imagine how much those will help!

Thanks again for everyone that has reached out giving me support. You have no idea how much that means to me. I love hearing from people that I haven't seen for a while and know that you are rooting for me too! Until next time! Have a great day!

Another Peak

This will be more about pictures I suppose than anything else. I am two weeks post surgery as of today 4/18/11. YAY!! Super excited to be here. I did call my doctor today though. I was concerned about some pain that I am still having in 1 (of 6) incision sites. I couldn't sit up in bed if my life depended on it. Well maybe if my life depended on it, but you get the idea; it HURTS! Since the other 5 incisions have all but healed I just couldn't believe that this was a good thing. Turns out, it's normal. I know that this incision site is where all the work was done and it just depends on how much prodding and maneuvering that was done as to how much pain is felt. They said to stay on my pain meds (SWEET) and to relax! OK doc. You're the boss.

I have lost a little over ten pounds to date. Not bad. I'm sure that two weeks post op my body is still healing and reeling from everything that has happened to date. I can't wait to see more fall off. I am already feeling great.

4/4/11 Morning of surgery

I have two more weeks of "pudding like" food. This just means that anything I eat must be the consistency of pudding. It's not too bad. I prepare everything in advance so I can just pull what I need for the day out of the fridge. I eat two ounces (4 tablespoonsful) of food at each meal. I rarely ever feel hunger of any kind. It's strange but nice. I have to remind myself to eat every meal.

This is a picture of my meals. These are 2 ounce containers. I fill them with 1 ounce (2 tablespoonsful) of food and choose two for each meal. This will be enough for me to eat 25 meals or for at least 8 days. That's if I choose to eat these for every meal. Some things I make on the spot (oatmeal mainly). These containers have refried beans, two kinds of potatoes, chocolate and vanilla pudding, applesauce, yogurt, and jell-o in them. I am getting used to my new way of eating. And amazingly enough, everything tastes wonderful. I guess it's because I eat so little! In two weeks, I move on to pureed food. Looking forward to that because then I can start back up on meat. Right now my primary source of protein comes from a protein shake of some kind. I mainly use a product called Unjury. It's unflavored so I can mix it with almost anything. I have to have at least 4 scoops of that per day though.

Hmm...I guess that's all for now. I will keep updating though! OK so I guess it was more than just pictures! ;)

A Look into My new Life

So I suppose I owe some of you an explanation. You're seeing things here and on facebook but haven't really been told what I did. So...here goes... On Monday April 4th I had gastric bypass surgery. Specifically I had the Roux-En-Y (RNY) procedure. Click here for a before and after of what the stomach would look like. I have struggled with my weight for YEARS (like since I was in 3rd grade) and never have I been able to get off enough weight to NOT be considered overweight or obese. I chose to NOT talk to many people about this surgery because it is absolutely astounding how many people feel it necessary to describe their father's sister-in-law's horrendous complications or even make comments to me about how I should just exercise and eat healthier. If I could exercise and eat healthier, don't you think I would weigh less than 252 pounds?! Good grief.

Many think I have chosen the "easy way" to lose weight. If you've never taken the journey with a person who has had weight loss surgery then please don't say this. I had pulmonary testing, EKGs, barium swallows, x-rays, blood work, and hours of classroom education before this surgery to prepare my mind and body for what was to come. I chose to allow my surgeon to operate on me in a very high risk scenario in order to save my life. I only spent 48 hours in the hospital. Those 48 hours were spent getting up every 2 hours around the clock to walk and prevent blood clots. Every hour I was breathing into a machine to verify that I wasn't leaking stomach contents into my abdomen or that I hadn't gotten pneumonia. I wear a tight fitting binder around my abdomen to keep the six incisions from straining and getting infected. I shouldn't pick up my kids for the next for weeks. I give myself shots to thin my blood and prevent blood clots. I eat with a baby spoon and drink from a sippy cup. My stomach now holds 2 ounces (60ml). I have to eat 2 ounces of food over 30 minutes to prevent nausea and vomiting. I drink protein shakes all day every day. I will lose my hair. I take 7 different medicines throughout the day to prevent ulcers and vitamin deficiencies. I am NOT complaining. I have been given a second chance at life. I am actually finding that I enjoy some things (oatmeal) way more than I thought possible. But it's not easy. I still make dinner for my family every night. I still order pizza for them when I don't want to cook. My husband still brings home my favorite breakfast. THEIR lives haven't changed (much). I can't imagine any one thinking that I took the easy way out. I am so excited for the months to come and to see how my life will continue to change.

I'm asking for support, not stories of failure or negative opinions.

Lesson Learned

I am only 3 days post op but my husband and I shared a moment when I realized I was measuring all of my food wrong. I had measured all of my food into 1/2 ounce servings instead of 1 ounce servings. I didn't even realize that I had done this until after dinner when I was chatting with my neighbors about it. It just hit me that I wasn't eating enough and it was my own fault!! I told my husband about my error and he replied that he thought the servings seemed a little small...I was so mad at myself. I was getting so frustrated because I still had all this hunger. I went through this surgery and I still have this crazy hunger?!?!? I was so relieved when I realized what I had done. I went inside and immediately ate some more mashed potatoes....MMMM better now. I fixed my servings this morning and wow do I feel better. Lesson learned, wait for the drug fog to clear before preparing anything for yourself!

My Brand New Life

Tomorrow is the first day of MY brand new life. I can only compare it to the day before my scheduled induction of my first born. Nerves, excitement, giddiness. Wow. I chose to work today. I figured a full eight hours of work would keep my mind out of the pantry. Tonight my husband and I will do my before pictures, back my bags, and finish preparing my kitchen. My vitamins are waiting for me and my new beverage bottle is waiting to be used. I think I'm prepared. But again, just like the birth of your first child, you can't ever truly be prepared! What an amazing journey this will be and I am so excited to start! So long for now!