Second Fill/Adjustment

On Thursday I had my second fill. I was a lot less nervous about going in this time. I was a little worried about my weight loss because I have been steady at the 30 pound loss for a few weeks now. I jumped on the scale as usual and the nurse was pleasantly surprised by my weight loss which was a relief to me. I was beginning to think that I was losing at a slower rate then I should be. Blood pressure was fine so that was good, not that I was worried about it this time. She asked me how things have been going and I proudly let her know that I have had NO issues with eating, seriously not one. I have had no PB’s……
*** side note*** I finally found out what a PB is: it stands for “Productive Burp” I guess they call it that because that is exactly what happens… you burp and it produces what you just ate… YUCK!
My nurse still seemed surprise that this hasn’t happened yet and again reminded me that the tighter the band gets the more common it will happen. I am still on my mission to prove her wrong! Unfortunately I forgot my food diary on the counter so I didn’t have it with me. The nurse seemed more concerned about it then the Dr did. She let me know that as long as I was losing it could slide this time but to be sure to bring it next time. I think to myself “why so the Dr can flip through it not even reading it?” But I will do as I am told. I was really curious about if I was on track as far as weight loss goes so I asked my nurse if I was where they wanted me to be in regards to what I have lost so far. She told me that I was exactly what they would hope for. The goal is to lose between 4-8 pounds a month and I am exactly in that range. She also told me that she was surprised I lost anything after the first fill because a lot of people do plateau on the first one. I can relate since I have been at the same weight for a few weeks now but luckily I lost enough up front to make up for the recent lag. I have to admit that I am sure I could have lost more but my workouts have seemed to be dying off. I just haven’t been able to get back into a good routine yet. I tried doing more stuff outside and at home so I wouldn’t be stuck in the gym on nice days but I have found that I am not very good at staying consistent with that. So I guess it is back to the gym for me. The Dr came in next and shot me up full of saline. I felt that crazy gurgling feeling again… so weird; I don’t think I will get used to this. He then gave me some very sad news. He is moving to Portland at the end of August. At first I was happy for him because it sounded like a great deal for him but then it hit me… Wait a second; I get all my appointments free for the first year. I asked him if the new doctor I will need to go to will honor that and he said I don’t think so you will have to pay for your adjustments. What the *@#%!!! He played it off that he was doing “the right thing” by not making his patients pay for the first year but when we all know that he has to include that money in the price we pay up front. I left the office thoroughly annoyed that I will now have to come up with more money and find another doctor. It is definitely worth all the trouble to be able to lead a healthy life but seriously come on! At least I have one more free appointment with him before he moves. And with any luck this next fill will be perfect where I will only need to eat three small meals a day and not feel hungry between meals. If I get to that “sweet spot” as I have heard so many people call it, I won’t have to go in for another fill so quickly. I can really feel a difference this time with the band it definitely feels tighter then the last time

The first fill

Ok so yesterday was the big “first fill”. I was so nervous going in I thought for sure my blood pressure would be through the roof. Once I got to the Dr Office I followed normal procedure and stood on the scale and then inside to get my blood pressure taken. Luckily everything was fine with my blood pressure and it was completely normal. The nurse started explaining to me what was going to happen and asked if I had any questions. I told her I was very nervous and she told me not to worry that it didn’t hurt at all. I told her that I wasn’t afraid of the pain but having it too tight and throwing up. She began to explain to me that Dr Cahn normally starts out slow and then progresses into more tightness later on so not to worry now but it could happen in the future. Ummm thanks? She then proceeded to tell me that everyone “BP’s” (I have no idea what this stands for but it is what everyone refers to when they throw back up their food) that has a lap band and that I would get used to it after a while. I am thinking to myself this sounds crazy who wants to get used to that and then say it is completely normal??? Not me! I have a goal to not be a part of the norm; we will see how that goes. I asked the nurse if I would know something was stuck and I was going to “BP” and she said normally you have some warning; pain in your chest the feeling that you have to keep swallowing and nothing goes down. But then she said sometimes there is no warning; you could bend over to get something and ooops your food is back in your mouth...... GROSS!!! This is not ok with me. I was done for my education in this particular topic for the day so I just stopped asking questions and she told me the Dr would be in shortly.

So in comes the Dr and he asks me what I have been eating this last week. I was so proud that I had been keeping track of everything so I jumped up and handed him my notebook of food entries. He in turn flipped through the pages so fast I don’t know how he read anything and says “looks great keep going” Seriously that was it? All my time I put into writing down everything and all he does is scan it..... I just don’t get it. He asks me to lay down and puts a pillow under my back so my head and feet are down farther than my belly. He asks me to pretend I am doing crunches so he can find my port. Once he found it I could barely feel the needle stick in; it was a lot like getting blood drawn just a little prick and then nothing. He explained to me that he would have to push the saline in and then draw it back a few times to get rid of all the air bubbles. It was a little uncomfortable because he was pressing down pretty hard on my stomach where the port is. All of a sudden I feel this gurgling sensation in my throat..... Weirdest thing I have ever felt. I told him I could feel the saline going in and out and he said yeah that sometimes happens. Imagine the sound you hear when there are air bubbles in a hose or straw; that is what I was actually feeling in my body... creepy! Within minutes he was done. Immediately after he makes you drink a cup of water in one gulp to make sure it isn’t too tight. So he hands me the cup and I just stare it for a moment and ask him if I really had to drink it all in one gulp.... he said yup it is just like taking a shot..... I closed my eyes and chugged it down praying that nothing would come back up. Immediately he asked how I felt I said I think fine but maybe I needed to wait a minute. He assured me that if it was coming back it would already be here. So I guess things are good. Next appointment is in 30 days. I am sure I will need to post something before then so until next time...

Hello Solids

Finally some real food! Well as you may have guessed I have made it through to eating real food just in time for my first fill this Thursday…yikes. Things are going much smoother now. It is nice to be able to actually chew my food instead of just swallowing it. I am still having some trouble gauging my portion sizes. My mind definitely thinks that I can eat more than my stomach does. Even when I am starving I will grab a normal (well my normal) portion of food and end up only eating a few bites then I am done. I think it is really going to take some time for my mind to catch up with my stomach. I have experimented with bread and luckily, or unluckily depending on how you look at it, I have not had any issues. I almost hoped that I would be one of those people that couldn’t eat bread without throwing it back up because that would keep me away from it. But no, for right now I have no issues not even a little pain or discomfort; that all may very well change when I get my first fill so we will see. I have started exercising again and that has been nice. For as much as I wanted to go back to the gym I am having a hard time staying motivated every day to go. I am thinking that it is just like when I first started working out… hard for the first few weeks then gets easier.

My weight is bouncing back between a pound every day it seems like. This was to be expected and I haven’t let it bother me too much. I am really trying not to focus so much on the scale as I do other things like how my clothes fit. Speaking of my clothes I am now officially able to take off my “jeans right out of the dryer” without unbuttoning them!!! They are getting pretty baggy and after one wear I have to wash and dry again because otherwise I look a little silly with baggy bottoms. I am not complaining one bit but I am also not ready to go out and buy new clothes yet. I don’t want to spend a lot of money just to wear something for a while and then have to buy new again(I am thinking positive here) So until these jeans literally fall off my body with no help I am just going to have to deal with baggy pants. I have received a lot of compliments from people that I work with about how they can see a difference already so that is encouraging as well.

I am getting a little scared for my first fill on Friday. It is such a guessing game as to how much to fill it and the worst that can happen is they fill too much and I end up throwing up. I do not take this lightly because as you may have been able to tell I HATE throwing up. To help my doctor understand how much he needs to put in I have had to write down everything I have been eating, my exercise amount and my weight everyday for a week before my fill. I am not taking any chances so I am writing EVERYTHING down. I have just a few more days of solids before I have to go back to liquids for a short time so I am enjoying it while I can. Lots of chicken and vegetables in my diet but it is not so bad when you haven’t had it for a long time. I will update more after my appointment on Thursday to let you all know how it goes.

Bring on the mushies!

I just had my three week post op appointment on Thursday and everything is great. The best news of all is I have graduated to mushies and soft foods!!!!! I get to eat more things of substance like cottage cheese, eggs, and fish. I can’t tell you how excited I am to start getting back to eating somewhat normal. After two weeks I can start introducing “real” foods one by one for about 4 days and then I get my first fill. My doctor asked me to write everything down that I eat a week before I have my first fill so he knows how much saline to put in. I guess this makes sense because if I am able to eat a lot then he would put more saline in to make it tighter to help me eat less. I am getting a little nervous for that first fill because I have successfully gone this long without throwing up and I hear when you get your first fill it takes a little bit to get adjusted to how much will actually fit in there. But, I have a few more weeks until that time. I told my doctor it is a little unfair to finally get to eating real foods and then immediately have to go back to liquids… you see once you have your fill you have to go back on liquids for 48 hours. I think it is a little bit of a tease but oh well.

I was getting a little frustrated that I am still holding steady at the 20 pound weight loss but when I talked to my nurse she said that most people don’t even lose weight for the first 6 weeks it is more about healing the body then losing the weight. She also told me that once I got my first fill I should start seeing the pounds come off more steadily so that is encouraging. I also got the ok to start working out again YAY! I think that I should start seeing some decrease in weight come back when I start going to the gym after work again.


The hardest thing now is understanding portion control. I still have it in my mind that I can eat a lot more then I actually can. I thought for sure the other night that I could eat a small can of soup with no problem because I was starving. Halfway through I couldn’t eat another bite. It just amazes me because before surgery I could have eaten a whole large can of soup all by myself with crackers and cheese and not be stuffed. It is such a mental thing to get around. But going back to the whole throwing up thing I am being very careful not to overdue. I need to make my grocery list because a lot of stuff that I can eat these next two weeks I don’t have. My fridge looks pretty bare since all I was able to eat before was pudding, jello, and yogurt. I don’t think I will be having pudding for some time now I can’t even think about it anymore. I will keep you all posted on how the mushies are coming along and how my first week back to the gym goes! Wish me luck

Two Weeks Post Op

Two weeks post op and 20 pounds down! I am feeling almost 100% back to normal. I have two issues….. I thought this whole shoulder pain after surgery only was supposed to happen within the first week after surgery but I was WAY wrong. I didn’t have any shoulder pain from the gas they blow up your stomach with before surgery during the first week and I thought I was one of the lucky ones that didn’t have to experience it. Week two comes around and BAM crazy shoulder pain in my left shoulder. It seems to be the worst when I get up from laying or sitting down. Walking is supposed to help get it all out faster but I will tell you what walking makes the pain more intense. The second issue I have is that after sitting for a long period of time when I stand up I feel like it is the day after I did a major stomach crunch workout. All of my muscles in my stomach cramp up and feel all tight. There is really no way to get around this one. I sit almost all day for my job on conference calls so I do my best to try and stand up every once in awhile.
The only sore spot I have is where my port is located. It is not an unbearable soreness just kind of a throbbing pain sometimes. I am told that this pain takes a little longer to go away. The liquid diet sucks! I am craving every type of food especially red meat. I am even craving stuff I don’t even like which is really weird. The other day someone brought Mexican food into my office area and I literally thought I was going to start crying at my desk. I had a moment on Mother’s Day where I had a few wheat thin crackers with spinach dip and a small piece of cheesecake. I was very careful to chew everything to a liquefied stage before swallowing and I didn’t have any problems. I get very frustrated that just like the pre-op diet the post-op diet varies by doctor. I should just stop reading blogs and websites because I just get so frustrated that there is such a difference. My Dr says that you are on liquids for the first three weeks. These liquids can be anything you can get through a straw so water, protein drinks, sugar free jello, sugar free pudding, sugar free popsicles, yogurt, and broth soup. When you get to the second phase you get to eat pureed foods like mashed potatoes, soft cooked eggs, anything you can put into a blender, applesauce. This stage is two weeks and then you can transition into soft foods and eventually regular foods. Most people look at the liquid diet and think great it is like getting your tonsils out. People this is NOT FUN. One can only have so much pudding and yogurt in a day before you just can’t take it anymore. The mental part of this is really difficult. I just keep taking it one day at a time. I have learned from other diets the more you deprive yourself of the things you want the worse off you are because I end up binging on those foods. I know that I need to stick to what the Dr says and for the most part I am but I also know that I would be worse off denying myself a small bite of something and binging on a bunch stuff later. I am so ready to get back into the gym and workout. I never thought that I would say that but I really do miss it. I meet with the Dr next Thursday so hopefully he will give me the go ahead to start working out again.

3 days post op

So it is now 3 days post op and I am still a little loopy so I will try to you all up on what’s been happening the last few days……
Thursday was surgery day! I got to the hospital right at 6:00am as instructed and they immediately escorted me to pre-op. I had to go by back myself to get dressed in the robe and get my IV put in. I had this really crazy nurse that just had eye surgery and kept singing “Layla”(I assure you I was not on any drugs yet at this time). My anesthesiologist walked in and gave me the run down but as soon as he said his name I immediately recognized him. I asked him if he also gave epidurals for women having babies and he said yes. I told him that he was there when my daughter was born… so weird but somewhat comforting. They gave me the happy juice through my IV and the world started getting hazy but I still think I was pretty coherent. I remember talking to my mom how the feeling was like being perfect drunk; where your legs just start get tingle and you know you should stop but you never do. I remember being wheeled down the hall and listening to the nurse say “I hope this doesn’t take too long the baby is sitting on my bladder” to the other nurse. The last thing I remember is the anesthesiologist saying to breath deep a few times and think of my favorite vacation spot…. Then I was out.
I woke up in recovery with this terrible nurse trying to already get me out of bed (I am sure I was in there already for a little while but seriously I didn’t even have my eyes open yet) I remember telling her no and that the other nurse said I could stay 5 hours and my mom laughing. That nurse finally gave up and left. I was in and out a lot and finally I got my eyes to stay open for 10 min but the new nurse never came so I gave up again. I don’t know how much time passed but I was finally able to get up and use the restroom so I got to go home. I don’t remember much of the first nice other then my mom pumping me full of pain medicine. Friday I felt a little better so I attempted to drink some apple juice…. Bad idea…. As soon as I took my pain medicine I threw up. And this was not the kind you hear about where it doesn’t come from your stomach; oh no this was full on stomach and man did it hurt bad. I finally got home from my parents on Sat. I felt awful that whole day because I didn’t want to try my pain medicine in fear that I would throw up. I finally gave in at 9pm and fell right to sleep. Today I felt a little better. I was able to take a shower but that took a lot out of me. I am not able to sit up for very long without feeling like I have a brick in my stomach. I have a lot of back pain and I am sick of lying down. I am supposed to go back to work on Wed but I am really not sure if I will be up for it yet. I still have two days to think about it. I am on an all liquid diet that doesn’t seem to be too hard yet for the next three weeks. Well I can’t stand to type anymore I will try to write more in a few days.

Here I go....

Well I am less than 12 hours away from my surgery! I went to the Dr yesterday for the dreaded weigh in and let me tell you it was quit anticlimactic. First of all as soon as I got in the nurse headed for the scale as usual and she asked how things were going. I told her that I knew where I was as far as weight loss so I wouldn’t be surprised by the number. She looked at the scale and said “10 pounds good job.” That was it nothing about how I didn’t make the 15 pound goal that was asked of me just “good job.” After she took my vitals she said the Dr would be in soon and asked if everything else was going ok. I told her that I was worried about not meeting my 15 pound goal and she said “oh don’t worry about that you still have a couple of days before surgery.” In my head I am thinking there is no way that I will be able to lose 5 pounds in 2 days. And then she continued saying “you still lost 10 so that is good.” The Dr came in and took one look at my chart and said “looks like you lost 10 pounds good job.” It appears that everything went good with the diet.” Again, nothing in regards to the fact that I didn’t make the number that was expected. I was too busy thinking to myself about why they were not making a bigger deal about this then I thought that they would I didn’t get a chance to even ask why they gave me that number in the first place.
After my 10 minute appointment I was sent upstairs to get pre-registered. I have not gone through this process before so I had no idea what I was even going there to do. Basically they do all the prep work that usually happens in the hospital before surgery. They took all my vitals, went over my medical history, went over the million things that they have to cover, and then I was done. The whole process took about a little over an hour. Doing this beforehand allows me to walk in tomorrow and get my little wrist band and head straight to pre-op which is pretty nice not to have to wait around for a few hours before surgery. So the plan for tomorrow is I have to be the hospital at 6am…ugh surgery time is at 730am(first surgery of the day YAY) I do get to shower beforehand but I can’t wear any lotion, deodorant, hair products, or makeup. I am going to be one hot tired mess in the morning. Luckily the plan is to just sleep the rest of the day so I am not too worried. I probably won’t be functioning too much until Sat so I will post about my experience as soon as I can. Wish me luck!

4 Days until weigh in

Well I have 4 more days until my weigh in and I am getting a little nervous. I am down 9 pounds which I am super excited about but I still am supposed to lose 6 more in the next 4 days which I really don’t think is possible. I am just going to keep working hard these next few days so I can get as close as I can to the target weight. I had one weak moment this week where I ate a whole wheat Eggo waffle for dinner. I was really craving carbs that day and it was either eat the Eggo or down the whole bag of leftover Easter candy that my daughter has so I picked the lesser of the two evils. I was happy to see that the one Eggo didn’t really have any impact because I still lost another pound since that day. I am hardly feeling that hungry anymore which is nice. I am still pretty moody though. I cry at anything and I can be totally happy one minute and then yelling the next. I am sure that my family and friends don’t appreciate this but I hope that they understand. My workouts have become a lot easier this last week. I found myself actually wanting to go to the gym every day. It may have helped that I had a workout friend this week on some of the days. It is always good to have someone to work out with you to help the time go by faster. I did have one major accomplishment for myself this week; I did 45 min on the elliptical and got to 3 miles. I know that 45 min doesn’t seem like a lot but for me this was huge because before I could barely make it to 15 min without wanting to die. The most surprising thing was when I hit the 45 min mark I felt like I could go even longer and if it hadn’t been for having to go get my daughter I think I would have stayed on to see how long I really could go. I also didn’t want to push myself too much because I still wanted to be able to walk the next day!
I have so much to do this weekend that will help me get through this last long stretch. I never realized how much my weekends used to revolve around food. I don’t know why the vegetables are so easy to eat during the week but when the time the weekend gets here I don’t even want to taste a vegetable. Keeping busy is going to be the key. I will keep you updated as it gets closer to Tuesday.

Two weeks down

So week number two is almost complete and I have to say it wasn’t as hard as week one was however, I am just at the weekend mark where I had the most trouble last week but I am hopeful. I don’t know if I just kept myself busier this past week or if my body is somewhat adjusting to the lack of food I am eating but I didn’t have the cravings like I did last week. I did feel a little hunger throughout the week but overall it wasn’t that bad. I remember feeling a lot more hungry when I used to eat all the time. I would have these huge hunger pains that would not go away until I put something in my tummy. Now I still get hungry but it is a dulled hunger; there is no pain and no crazy feeling that I must eat something or the pain will never go away. It is really hard to explain and even harder to experience. It just doesn’t make sense to me how I feel less hungry when I am eating next to nothing. The only other problem I experienced this last week was I had a real hard time sleeping. I would be dead tired by around 9pm so I would head to bed and then toss and turn for hours finally fall asleep only to wake up three hours later wide awake. This happened two nights in a row and I found it extremely difficult to force myself to the gym on those days because I was basically a walking zombie. I am sleeping better now so I hope that was just a quick phase that will not return.
The good news is I am down 6 pounds! Woo Hoo. The bad news is I am still supposed to lose 9 more before my weigh in on the 28th. I am excited that I am finally seeing results but at the same time I am scared that I won’t meet the 15 pound goal and my surgery will have to be rescheduled. I decided to look up some message boards and blogs on the pre op diet hoping to find some answers to my own fears about what happens if you don’t meet your goal weight only to find myself more frustrated. If you are going through this process I would caution you to go out and search for information on message boards because what I have found is that nothing is consistent. The pre op diet discussions I have found range from people not having to do anything before surgery (what the crap why do they not have to lose weight and suffer through the “crazy diet”) to some people being on only liquids (at least I can have vegetables) all the way to being on a strict Adkins style diet for 6 months (no way no how). I really don’t understand why there is such an extreme between the diets that lap band patients are asked to do before the surgery. The other frustrating part was that many people said that they cheated on their diets all the time and were still able to have the surgery. I am just not willing to take that risk. I would be devastated to go in on the 28th only to find out that my surgery would be canceled.
I did call my nurse earlier in the week when I had only lost 3 pounds and was super concerned that the weight wasn’t coming off faster. We played phone tag for the afternoon because I was on conference calls all day. I finally asked the receptionist if there was any way I could talk to the nurse because I was leaving for the day and really needed some reassurance that what I was doing was right. The receptionist told me that my nurse was still with patients but maybe she could answer my questions. I told her my concern of only losing three pounds and already being on the crazy diet for a week and half. She asked me to list what I had been eating and told me that those vegetables sounded fine but saw the nurse walking by and would check with her. She came back on the phone and said the nurse said all those vegetables were fine and to just keep doing what I am doing (umm thanks a lot for nothing). Needless to say I did not feel any better after that conversation then I did before I called. I was really looking for some encouragement of “you’re doing great don’t worry you will get there” or “the goal we set is just a goal if you lose anything you can still have your surgery” but I got nothing. So now I just keep trucking along. My goal this weekend is to keep myself busy. I have a lot of stuff I can do around the house which will keep my mind off food. It is also the first nice weather weekend we have had so I plan to go on walks with my dogs and daughter to get some more exercise in. One week to go think good thoughts!

One week down

So I made it through one week on this crazy diet with only one day of adding in something extra (I had to have an egg one day I was dying for something besides vegetables). I have worked out every day after work now for two weeks straight! That is pretty exciting. I am only down three pounds right now so I have twelve more to go before the big weigh in on the 28th of this month. If I don’t lose 15 pounds before the 28th they are not going to let me have the surgery which is really scary to me right now. I am getting really frustrated and I am having bad cravings… I mean really, all I want is a piece of bread!
This morning I was driving my daughter to an Easter egg hunt and I swear I had to pass every fast food chain that there is getting down to the park. I can’t begin to describe passing these fast food restaurants and having the feeling that they are daunting me saying “you know you want to eat something here, come on just one little thing won’t hurt” I then was going to take to my daughter to McDonalds for being so good today but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to go through the drive through without ordering something for myself so I had to skip that today. So instead we came home and I had a big bowl zucchini and squash; as much as you want to believe it is, it is NOT the same as french fries and a burger (torture me now).
The thing I can’t understand is that you have to be put on this crazy hard diet before you have the surgery but the reason why you are having the surgery is because no diet has every worked for you before….. Hello! Does this make any sense to anybody else? I think that the weekend is going to be very difficult to get through because this is the time I usually eat out a lot and snack on unhealthy foods all day. I just have to keep focusing on the prize at the end of this which is a healthy life. I may have to vent more tomorrow we will have to see how the rest of the weekend goes. I am off to dream about all the things I can’t eat now :(

Day 1 on "crazy diet"

Today was the first day that I began what I will now call the “crazy diet.” I was very prepared to start today but I have to admit it didn’t go as well as I hoped. I began my day with my protein drink which I was only able to get about half down before I almost threw up in the kitchen sink. It had the worst after taste ever it was so bitter I don’t know how I am going to get it down in the future. I will be looking at different brands and flavors I think. I guess what I did get down worked because I really didn’t start feeling hungry until about three hours later. I had a handful of carrots as a snack and they held me over for another hour and half until lunch. I wasn’t starving like I thought I would be but I was definitely hungry. I heated up my one zucchini and half a squash and broke open my first slim fast. I decided on vanilla flavor because that is what most people told me they like the best. I took my first big drink and thought to myself this isn’t so bad…. But then I took the second drink and it wasn’t that great…. The more I drank the more gross it started tasting. I have a big issue with consistencies with food and drinks and these slim fast drinks are very thick. I was only able to make it through half of that slim fast before I just couldn’t drink anymore. By about 2pm I was getting really hungry so I decided that I would try my second slim fast. This time I chose strawberry. Again at the start it tasted good but the more I drank the yuckier it tasted. I was actually able to get through most of this can and I called it good. I had a few more carrots as a snack and then I was off to work out.
The workout was the same as last week even though I had very little to eat. I didn’t get that tired so I hope that continues through the week. I may have found a contributing factor into my 1 pound weight gain. My monthly friend came early well actually within a week of the last visit so I do believe that had something to do with the extra weight. I weighed myself before I worked out today on the gym scale and I was down 2 pounds from where I was last week so that is encouraging but the scale at the gym is about 4-5 pounds more than my scale at home says. I really need to not focus on weighing myself every day. I have decided that I will only allow myself to weigh twice a week. Once at the start and once at the end of the week. I have also decided that I can’t look at this crazy diet as 3 whole weeks or I will fail. So I will be looking at it one week at a time. I just have to get through this week and then I will focus on next week.
So I guess so far so good seeing how it is only the first day. We will see how the rest of the week goes.

5 days in

So I managed to make it through 5 consecutive days of working out after work this week and let me tell you it was not easy. Today was the worst day out of all of them. I don’t know why but my body was just not into it today. I think part of it is because when I weighed myself this morning I had a gained a pound! Yup you heard right 1 pound in the wrong direction. The trainer that set up my workout program warned me that this may happen and I have experienced it before when I first started working out in the past but for some reason I thought that this time may be different boy was I wrong. So after a week of only having a small diet soda with lunch, drinking TONS of water, and going a week straight without my beloved Moxie Milky Way and apple crumb muffin I am 1 pound in the negative.
In a panic I called my nurse to let her know I was worried about meeting my 15 pound goal by the 28th. She started off addressing my concerns and then quickly asked if I had started my required diet yet. Now I am more panicked because I was told not to start this diet until 2 weeks before surgery. She assured me that it should be started 3-4 weeks before surgery to make sure that I lose the weight required. The good news is I already was planning on starting the diet next week and she said that I should be fine if I do that. You may be wondering what this diet is all about let me explain…… Every day this is all I am allowed to have starting on Monday for the next three weeks:
1 eight ounce glass of non fat milk with 2 scoops of protein powder
3 slim fast drinks
All the vegetables I can eat (minus potatoes, corn, and white beans)
At least 60 ounces of water

Yup that’s right people that is all I am allowed. The purpose of this extreme diet is to make you lose weight quickly. You see, when you have this surgery they have to lift up your liver to get to the place they put the band. I guess that when you lose weight real fast the fat comes off your liver first. They want this to happen because if you have too much fat on your liver it can actually collapse on itself when they lift it (pretty scary and motivating)
There is a much more to this diet once the surgery is completed that I will go into more detail later as I get closer. So for now I am going to prepare for the beginning of my mainly liquid diet. Luckily I already bought the slim fast. I think the lady at the cash register thought I was crazy with my 11 cases of slim fast and my huge tub of protein powder. That is about it for today. Next week should be interesting and I am sure that I will have a lot to say or rather vent at that time. Until next time…

30 days and counting

I have decided to start blogging about my experience leading up to my surgery date and then my progress afterward and what better way to start than 30 days before hand. Up until this point I have had to cross a lot of bridges and now I feel like I am in the home stretch but also the hardest part. Let me explain a little about what I have had to do just to get to this point....

I have been thinking about lap band surgery for awhile now but beginning in November of 2008 I decided to take those thoughts more seriously and attended a seminar about lap band surgery. I was really impressed with what I heard and hearing the success stories of people there that had already gone through the surgery was the last bit of motivation I needed. My first step was to visit my doctor and get blood tests, an EKG, chest x-rays, and a letter of recommendation for the surgery from my primary physician. After that appointment I had to have a sleep study. Luckily my regular doctor did not think that I had sleep apnea so he allowed me to take a sleep test that could be conducted at my home rather than going into the actual sleep study office; this not only saved me time but also money! Now it was on to the psychological test. Let me tell you that this was the most intimidating part of the whole process. You have to fill out a packet of about 30 pages and then when you get to your appointment, which is usually 4 weeks out, you have to fill out even more paperwork. In the end my actual discussion with the doctor took a total of about 30 minutes. I spent more time doing paperwork than anything else. Thankfully I was given the all clear that I was sane enough to have the surgery, not that I had any doubtsJ Next it was time to meet with the nutritionist. This appointment was the most emotional out of all of them and I am not sure why. I ended up crying to the poor girl about how much I just wanted my life to change but she was very nice about the whole thing explaining that this was a very emotional process. The very last step was to finally see the surgeon..whoo hoo. Basically this appointment consisted of going over what I had already done and then discussing some next steps which included knowing if insurance would cover it. Luckily I didn’t have to wait too long I got the call from my nurse while I was out to lunch with my work group (go figure) My final step was to pick a surgery date! I had to think hard about this one because I had a lot of projects coming up at work that I didn’t want to interfere with so to be mentally ready I scheduled it for the end of April.

Now we are back to the present day. One thing to note is that before you have the surgery you have to lose a certain amount of weight. My weight loss goal before the surgery is 15 pounds. To prepare I have cut out most of my soda intake (I am still having a small diet soda at lunch this week to try and avoid the massive headaches I know will come) and my twice weekly coffee and muffin run. I have supplemented with water and getting myself used to drinking that much water again… and I might add going to the bathroom more than once during the workday. I have also begun my workout routine which I have set up with my fitness trainer at work.

That is a very big overview of what it has taken me to get to where I am today. I will be writing much more as I get closer to my surgery date as I know these next 30 days will be the toughest I have gone through in a long time.