One week - Soft food!!!!

It's already been a week. I've made it thruogh the liquid diet phase. Woohoo!!!

Sooooo.... here's how I stand from a week ago:

341.6 pounds, down 11.4

Neck 19.25 inches - the same

Chest 57.75 inches - down 1 inch (down 2 inches from when I started this blog)

Waist 58.75 inches - down a quarter inch (down 3/4 inches from when I started this blog)

Hips 49 inches - the same (down 3.5 inches from when I started this blog)

Thigh 31 inches - the same.

I have put the scale up - so I won't know what I weigh now until next thursday when I pull it down again.

Did I mention the liquid diet is over?

Now it's soft foods for 2 weeks. I can have things like yogurt, scrambled eggs, pudding (no sugar of course), tuna. 5-6 small meals (4 ounces) per day. I still need to get in 60 grams of protein but now I can do it with real food rather than protein shakes (which get pretty nasty tasting after awhile).

I had my one week checkup which was more or less weigh me - they say I've lost 20 since pre-op, which was a week before the surgery. I think the pre-op thing was a bit high - but then of course I'd just eaten a fair sized meal right before - it was kind of my last hurrah at a buffet... so there were a few pounds of padding. So maybe based on my weight the morning of preop instead I'm thinking maybe the total would be 15 or 16 instead of 20.... but if they want to insist on 20, I'll take that.

It just dawned on me.... it's now been more than 50 pounds since I started this blog not quite 2 years ago. Wow. Looking forward to when i can say 100!

One day away from soft food.

My instructions actually say soft foods can start today, but I've got my post-op appointment tomorrow as well as soft foods class, so I'm going to hold out one more day to be on the safe side.

I continue to feel good. The shoulder aches off and on but nothing unbearable. If I knew that my shoulder would act weird like this would I have still done the surgery? In a heartbeat. If it must be a trade off, so be it, it's better than all the knee pain and such that I've had in the past year.

I got out for a good walk yesterday - took the 40 mph couch potato (the greyhound) along and went pretty leisurely - let the dog sniff around a lot more than usual while out walking. It felt really, really good. I just noticed that I'm not limping even slightly any more, I feel like I can walk pretty normal, and my knee doesn't catch while climbing steps. All very good, positive signs.

I'm thinking I should have looked more into the options for protein powders and tasted more different kinds. This stuff is some kind of mango flavor or something like that and when I checked it out to begin with it wasn't that bad. I guess it's still not too bad but, let me just say.... I'm going to be really glad when I start getting my protein through food again. The flavor has definitely gotten old on me.

I read somewhere I should hide the scale, only weigh myself every week or two. I'm considering it... okay, I suppose there's value to it. It is exciting though to see the weight dropping daily. I'm down to 346 already, a good 7 pounds from my pre-surgery weight. Sometimes I think I see a difference already in the mirror, but then I wonder if it's because I'm expecting to. Maybe the biggest test of whether there's a visual difference is when I go back to work Friday - people there haven't seen me since Tuesday, so if tehre's a real noticable difference I may hear about it then.

I feel like i'm already ready to get back to work... recuperating around the house gets boring after awhile.

Before I get much further: Before shot!

This is me, night before the surgery. Weight at that time, 353.

One barrier gone

My weight this morning: 349!!! That's a barrier I haven't been through in a few years.

I feel good. I did discover one side effect though: Shoulder pain of all things. My left shoulder was hurting as though I'd sprained it or something. I'd heard something mentioned to someone else while at the hospital about shoulder pain, so I did some research. Turns out that there are nerves in the diaphragm that are connected somehow to nerves in the shoulder. So if the diaphragm is hurting, it's the shoulder that says ouch.

Kinda weird huh?

One thing I read from a few people on forums is that they've used this as an early warning system of sorts. If they're getting to where they've overdone it or are close to doing so, they start to get a little gas right there in the diaphragm and the shoulder starts to ache.

I had just taken a drink of yogurt, possibly a bit too quickly and was feeling kind of full when the shoulder pain flared up, so it all makes sense. I'm okay with that though.... rather have an achy shoulder than be puking my guts out because I overdid it. Of course the key is not to overdo it so much eh?

Wondering how soon I break through to 340. I'm guessing.... a week from Monday? We'll see...

Day 2 - all these liquids

Today is my second full day on the lap band. I feel good.

My last prescription pain med was at midnight last night. At 10 I took some liquid ibuprofen and haven't had anything since and still have managed to feel pretty decent. So I think that I'm recovering pretty well on this.

Probably the biggest challenge on this is just keeping up with all the liquid stuff. My vitamins are all liquid. My fish oil is liquid -- yep, good ol cod liver oil. My protein is liquid. I'm having an easy time so far getting liquids down and can drink in 1-2 ounce amounts pretty well. It's just a challenge getting all this stuff down, especially when the liquid vitamins are not so tasty. The liquit protein shake gets old pretty quick as well.

I am glad the liquid diet phase is not a long one. Especially when everyone's getting to enjoy my wife's cooking but me. I have been able to branch into drinkable yogurt, a little milk, and even a sugar free popsicle.

Something very interesting about all this is that the day of surgery I got home and weighed about 6 pounds more than when I left. I may have mentioned that. But today with starting to get into a routine including the protein and such, that's allowing me to start getting the metabolism going. As of tonight I'm back to where I was the morning of surgery. I'm half way expecting to see myself break through the 350 mark by tomorrow. From there on, who knows eh?

I know, pretty boring post. Nice thing about this surgery recovery thing is I'm able to stay at home and not go in to work, meaing I can sit around and watch some football. That's always a good thing, yes?

Even though the protein and vitamin stuff are a bit awful tasting, I will have to admit that the whole liquid diet is not as bad as I first expected. That said, I'm looking forward to being able to get into soft foods in another few days.

Lapband - 1 day... and counting

So here it is day one, life with a lapband.

Nothing exciting to report, which is a good thing. I still feel pretty good all things considered. There's still that dull ache where everything was done, but nothing that is difficult to live with.

I wish I'd grown accustomed in the past to sleeping on my back. I'm not too accustomed to it and right now that's about the only way I can sleep - If I try to lay on my side gravity goes to work and that causes some hurt.

I've gone up and down the steps a lot, such as using hte restroom etc. I'm surprised how easy it is to do so. I guess it's like a lot of things, just... surprised how well it's gone.

Okay, so far I've probably gained a pound since yesterday morning. I think from the IV bag and all the fluids and so far very little or no metabolism since I had pretty much nothing yesterday until after surgery. Walking around and getting my protein in will get that going here shortly.

Mixing liquid vitamins into a glass of water is a bad idea when you can only drink the water an ounce at a time. Nasty stuff I'm telling you.

So far I think I"m doing pretty good on the drinking as well as the protein. We'll see by the end of day.

Life is.... very different right now. In a good way. And a different way.

In and Out

So here I am tonight, sitting up at my dining room table with a somewhat clear head typing about the surgery. I can't get over how quickly they can do these things.

I feel good. I really had no idea what to expect having never had any surgery of any kind. But it all happened pretty quick - they put me under and next thing I know I wake up in post-op. In fact I don't even remember being put under.

I do remember waking up and wondering if they had done the surgery. First thing I notice is I'm not in the operating room. But then the next thing I remember is feeling like there was a clamp around my stomach... (I wonder why!). There was a fair bit of discomfort but not any kind of severe pain - the toughest part was that what pain there was would come when I breathe ... so there's no way to avoid that pain.

Let me say, Rose medical center in Denver has a fantastic staff. I'm duly impressed. They just treat you so well.

The biggest challenge right after surgery is drinking enough water. You have to drink in one ounce increments, at least right to begin with, and somehow you have to drink at least 40 ounces and preferably 64 or more. When you're kind of swollen up there's not a lot of room for water to get through, and it's kind of a weird sensation feeling it seep down. Probably the worst thing is that the first thing you do is take a sip of berium, a really nasty substance, so they can take pictures of my guts to see if everything looks okay.

Gone are the days of laying your guts open. I have 4 tiny little incisions where they did everything laproscopically.. they stick tubes inside me and use tiny little cameras to see where it all is and work through those. It's pretty amazing stuff really. And the fact that the doctor can do 9 of these surgeries by early afternoon is pretty impressive as well.

So there never was a lot of pain, just... discomfort afterwords. Now I'm sure some of that can be attributed to good drugs. But so far I feel pretty pretty good. Okay, my wife has noticed some typos here so maybe i'm not as clear headed as i think. I don't feel the kind of high some people talk about from their pain meds, I feel pretty normal for the most part. But I think driving's probably not a good idea right now. I think I mentioned I didn't really know what to expect, I was surprised how nervous I wasn't, though there were definitely some times I wondered what I was getting into. And other than that moment that I woke up, had that quick realization that I felt this clamp around my stomach and asked 'what was I thinking???' - It has not been that bad an experience.

And the nice thing is I get home and everyone treats me really good. Well, except for my wife's proof reading -- something about being a community college instructer I guess.... but all in all... not a bad day.

And the time has come

Alright so I haven't said much about feelings leading up to the surgery. Probably because there haven't been a lot? I mean there's some looking forward to what life will be like, some apprehension about what life will be like, some apprehension just because it's my first surgery, but I don't find myself scared or anything.

Tuseday night we had cookies at our team meeting and I commented that may be the last bit of solid food I get until sometime in October. That is looking like that will be the case. All day yesterday was clear liquid diet - no food whatsoever. If you can't see through it you can't drink it. I was able to have an Isopure protein drink which was okay, and some apple juice. But other than that all water baby! I guess that's to clean the system out so there's no food in there to try to puke up when they do the surgery. And then of course today... nada. No water, no nothing.

Anyway, heading out the door... guess we'll see how it goes eh?

Another day on the rollercoaster

So after resigning myself to starting all over again with new doctor new insurance new everything, I get the phone call that my surgery was approved through the previous insurance. After some phone calls I find that I can still continue my old insurance as it hasn't been 30 days yet.

And so the dilemma becomes, do I pay extra for the old insurance for another month, or start anew? With all the tests and preliminaries I had done in the past, on the old insurance I won't have any more out of pocket, not even any copays. New insurance, different story. So, while a month's premium for family insurance is not really cheap, in the long run it's going to save money...

So, my surgery is scheduled the 16th of this month. I went in yesterday for my pre-op visit where they sucked some blood out of me, let me pee in a cup, all that fun stuff, got some instructions, and now it's a matter of getting ready for something completely different... life changes so quickly in a week.

Exciting news... and scary. Now it's for real, or at least it's about to be.

And Slim Just Left the Building

You know, slim and none.... though I wasn't really thinking about the double meaning until after I typed the headline....

Well at least under this insurance it's not looking real positive. There's still a shot at a last minute verdict coming through from insurance but it's not looking too good. What it's coming down to is my insurance covers the procedure but it also requires a six month medically monitored diet, which I've been doing, but when it comes right down to it, between my doctor's office and myself we just didn't get a total grasp of what all that means. Now this is all according to the surgeon's office but from their experience there's not a real good chance the insurance company will accept this as a qualified plan....

so in some regards it's back to square one. With my insurance change it will also require a change of doctors since it's an HMO I'm going to, so.... just what they will expect and recommend and require, I don't really know yet. They may pick up where the others left off, or they may be more inclined to say diet and exercise are needed, or they may see all the tests and the sleep apnea and diabetes and all and say let's move forward. Who knows?

In some ways I'm a bit intimidated by an HMO, but there's an advantage to one in that all sides tend to work together more? At least I hope so. What I mean is, if they have a requirement for a period of dieting I have to think they have a better idea of just what that entails and there won't be the miscommunication.

And hey, the other insurance hasn't said no yet, right?

But while it's been a frustrating period, I'm not worried. Mostly because the positive stuff from walking more and eating less and all that is playing together well. I got down to 352 -- first time I've been there in 4-5 years, so that's really positive and I'm holding fairly steady. It's just slowly inching downwards, and that's good.

So yeah, clock still ticks a wee bit... but... that's okay.

The clock is ticking.

Ticking ever so slowly for one thing, considering it's taken more than a year to get back down to where I was before. FINALLY back to the 353 I was at before I stalled out spring of last year. That took long enough.

Ticking not quite as slowly at least when you look at progress the past few months -- about 20 pounds lost going back to what... March? Not quite a pound a week, though for the most part that's not from any kind of real diet, more like having been more active and restricting my access to junk. But hey, it's 20 pounds and I'll gladly leave that off.

Ever carry a 20 pound backpack?

I guess that explains why walking gets easier all the time. Dang... if I ever lose all this weight I'm thinking I could start to jump pretty high, considering these poor legs have been used to lugging around so much weight... they won't know what to do without it all, except party.

Though when and how long... depends. Another clock ticking thing.

September 1 my insurance changes. My new insurance is with Kaiser, an HMO. The Doctor I'm doing the surgery with isn't with Kaiser, so if I"m doing the surgery with him it has to happen in 8 days. At this point it's not even scheduled.

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I guess in some ways you could call it a lost sale for their office though if it doesn't happen. This coming from a guy who spent too many years in sales, so that kind of messes up perspective huh? There's more than a little frustration with Dr. Snyder's back office. I've tried contacting them several times and said okay, where are we, is there any information you still need? If there is ever any response to communication, it takes close to a week.

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So then finally, the beginning of August I contact them and say hey, we need to get this scheduled in August if at all possible. My insurance runs out and we've already paid out so much in deductibles and for other expenses in the family that at this point my out of pocket maximum on insurance is met, so this needs to happen. A week later I have to contact them again to say hey, I haven't heard back yet.

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Finally, I get an email that everything is in dictation and being sent to insurance.

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And now, on the 23rd, I have yet to hear anything.

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Is it safe to say I'm ticked? This guy is among the best in the country at this procedure and I like him personally, but the responsiveness of his office leaves much to be desired.

But... the month's not over yet.

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3 Days of the Fullbar - or is it the Snickers diet?

Wow. I got my first commercial comment. Does this mean I'm hitting the big time? Of course it's gone now. Trusty little trash can icon!!! If you want to advertise on my site please check with me first or send me some money.

Okay, so I've done the Full Bar 3 days. This morning I weighed in at 355. Four pounds in 3 days. And I'm not really doing the all out routine for this thing because from what I remember it was recommended for using before two meals a day, and I'm only using it before my lunch.

My daily routine has been, breakfast is usually a bowl of cereal, usually about 8 AM. Then off to work, which starts at 10. At about noon I get my break, and I'll have a snack, usually either a granola bar or some peanuts or almonds. Then at lunch at about 2, I eat my fullbar and drink a glass of water. Then I'll typically go for a walk for about 10-15 minutes, wander back, get my lunch, and then go to the lunch room. Lunch these past 3 days has been really small portions, usually a leftover from the night's supper before. A single piece of chicken one day. A small serving of casserole, something like that. And that's it. The serving size is half of what I'd normally have, if not less, and there's nothing else, where typically in the past I'd have some yogurt and a salad and a piece of fruit to go with it. In fact I've been asked if that's all I'm eating by my co-workers and i give them the big sad puppy dog eye look and nod my head like a martyr.

Okay, I don't do the martyr routine. I just nonchalantly say yep, that's it. Granted, I don't think that I've demonstrated at work any of the eating habits that have gotten me to where I need to lose the weight in the first place. After all, in the first 4 weeks there I've lost about 12 pounds. That success is due to a number of things -- the biggest being not carrying cash. That means no stopping for fast food along the way, no raiding the vending machines. I'm forced to eat what I bring for lunch. It's been a reasonable meal, never anything lavish but never anything spartan (until this week of course). So I'm eating decently, not starving myself but the key is not overeating. And the fact I'm usually walking 2 miles a day just getting to and from bus and train stops plays a hand as well.

Okay, so back to routine and all. What I've found so far is the Full bar does what's advertised so far. I do not feel hungry after such a small meal. And the part that's actually kind of surprised me a little is that I don't feel really starved in a couple hours. At break at 5 I'll have another snack similar to my 12 oclock break and I feel just fine. Then I get home usually after 8 and, this is the part where I depart from Fullbar advice as I don't have a bar before supper. But here's the amazing thing.... I'm not super hungry. In fact for supper I find myself full much more easily than before. That's been a pleasant surprise.

As to what I'm eating, the classes I've been to for weight loss surgery have stressed making sure there's enough protein. A lot of things can be taken care of by multivitamins but when portions are low you do want to make sure you're getting enough protein. This isn't like what people tend to relate to protein diets where you eat far more protein than you normally would without any carbs, but it's more like, since your overall food quantities are really low you do want to make sure that you're getting enough protein, and then take enough vitamins to keep healthy. But as it is I'm still not eating as little as I would with surgery, but still...

So should this be a replacement for the idea of surgery? Probably not, just because I know myself. This will work for awhile.... the day will come when the full bar will get really old and when it's really easy to fall back into old habits. I have many years of yo yo life to back that up.

But in wrapping it up... I wonder if I should call it the Snickers diet. The last couple days I've had a snickers bar as an extra snack. So, is it the Fullbar? Or the Snickers?

Fullbar

Has anyone had any experience with the Fullbar? Or even heard of it?

I saw an article not that long ago in the paper about it because it was developed by someone locally. So I read a bit into it. Turns out the one who developed it is the surgeon who will be performing my lap band surgery. Well, maybe, insurance depending of course. That's a whole nother post.

Anyway, I guess this thing is distributed all over the place now. It's billed as the only solution based on the principles of weight loss surgery. The concept is a lot like how weight loss surgery works in that the reason the lap band and others are successful is they eliminate the cravings. It's not so much about limiting the quantity of food you can eat as it is limiting the desires for food. The reason the band on the stomach is placed where it is in a lapband surgery is that the sensors in your stomach that tell you you're full are, naturally, towards the top, and what the lapband does is keep the food at the top for a little while before it drops into the rest of the stomach. So, you're feeling full and satisfied with a lot less food.

So anyway, the way the Fullbar works is that you eat this bar about 20 minutes before you eat. It's made up of foods that expand inside your stomach, thus filling a lot of your stomach. This allows you to eat a much, much smaller portion of food than you normally would, and feel quite satisfied.

I'm going to try it out today for lunch. I have a simple piece of chicken with me. Okay, I also have a cup of yogurt and some almonds for snack times. But that's not a heck of a lot of food.

I think the thing that's an interesting question to me is, yeah, it may head off the physical cravings. What about the psychological cravings? You know, the ones that look at that little piece of chicken and say, no way in heck that's going to be enough. And even if it really IS a satisfying amount, which really it would be.... will there still be cravings that say I still want more, if for no other reason than habit?

I'll let you know how it goes...

What if I Stumble?

Great song many years ago by DC Talk: What if I stumble, what if I fall? What if I lose my step and I make fools of us all? Will the love continue when the walk becomes a crawl? What if I stumble, what if I fall?

I loved that album.

Okay, so this isn't totally what they were thinking about with this song, but... it is a question that comes up a lot with dieting. What if I stumble? What if I really blow it? Is there a point of no return?

What brings this whole question up is the dreaded Pot Luck dinner. Our team at work had a pot luck Saturday, and ohhhhhh was the food good! I worked forever on making lasagna for it and oh did it taste great! Someone brought some egg rolls to die for. There was some killer spaghetti, some amazing enchiladas, fried chicken and some great deserts, fruit salad... for a team of 17 people we had food for 50, easily.

I had joked that I'd lost 12 pounds since starting work there 5 weeks ago and I probably gained them all back in one day. Okay, I ate enough that I'm not totally sure I was joking, at least in my mind. On top of that I didn't walk nearly as much because when you're taking a piping hot pan of lasagna to work, walking to the bus, riding the light rail and walking in to work just doesn't work.

I think the interesting thing is that the two days since the pot luck, I didn't go overboard trying to make up for it all. I didn't go try to walk 10 miles. I didn't starve myself crazy. I just got back to normal, walked my normal amounts (if not a bit less?) and this morning? 359 pounds. I didn't lose any weight this past week, but I didn't gain.

So... stumbling isn't the end of the world I guess, eh?

34 or 54?

August started on a happy note. My morning weigh in had a 5 in it, and it wasn't the last digit. I broke out of the 360's and am sitting nicely at 359. 359 point zero I should add, since it does weigh in tenths of a pound. This is the first time in the 350's since a year ago maybe?

So depending on how you look at it, I've now lost 34 pounds, or I've lost 54. I'm sure 34 is the appropriate one to state since I'm 34 pounds lighter than when I started this whole blog last year. But having lost 40 originally, then gaining 20 back, and then losing 14 of that again... it's pretty much like losing 54.

Though if I wanted to go that route, I've probably lost a total of 300 - 400 pounds in the past decade.

Okay, that's just depressing to think in those terms.

The key to my latest success? Probably pretty simply not carrying cash (or a check card). I pack a lunch to take in to work with me, usually have a couple miles a day walking to bus stops etc, and if I don't have cash I can't break down and buy junk food. I don't know that I'd say my diet itself is anything too structured lately.

So, as to a surgery update, I'm asking the bariatric center to submit for preapproval to see if I can get scheduled for August. I'm not sure if I've met all the requirements with insurance as far as the 6 month medically supervised structured diet goes, but considering that my current insurance expires the end of August and new insurance kicks in then, I've already met all my deductibles and such for the year under the current insurance, so it will save a ton of money if it can be done under the existing insurance. So, we'll see how that goes.

Maybe I can be to the 340's by the time it happens?