5 MONTHS POST - OP BPS-DS WEIGHT LOSS SURGERY

Or maybe some sugar free protein ice cream...

I am now at the 5 month mark and have lost so much more weight than I expected in this time frame.  I am down nearly 100 pounds already. I really didn't expect this.  My weight this month has been slower to come off - in fact it bounces up and down a bit but I think I will make it to the 100 pound mark by the end of the month or at most the first week of April.
I am going to the gym 3-4 times a week and have been going on weekend bike rides.  I am walking most weekdays at lunch for 10-20 minutes.  Hurray Spring weather.

I have been bad about logging my food for the last few weeks - but good about my vitamins and water.  The potassium supplement is still awful and I have missed it a few days here and there due to my desire to avoid gagging memory lapses.  I will do my next set of labs in late April.

I am experiencing hair loss.  I noticed about a month ago that the hair loss was creeping up.  I had a hair cut and my stylist confirmed it.  I am lucky that it is pretty evenly distributed and not leaving bald spots.  I take the appropriate supplements and will continue to use Nioxin shampoo - it is just part of the deal for over half of us who have weight loss surgery.

I calculated my BMI and I am very close to moving out of the "obese" category and into the "overweight" one.  I suspect I will never get into the normal range but that's okay with me - the trainer at my gym is borderline "obese" according to BMI and I wouldn't mind looking like her one bit!

THE SLOW DOWN



One of my favorite snacks. Even better than on bread or crackers!!

 My weight loss has really slowed down in the past month.  I went from losing 5 pounds a week, to 3 pounds and now I am at 2 pounds which is pretty much what I managed pre-op on a good diet with lots of exercise.  This brings me to the point where I need to be much more mindful of all of my food choices.

For those who think that weight loss surgery is a magic bullet and you can eat whatever you want afterwards - forget that!!  It is a tool.  A really big, helpful tool, but only that.  The human element still factors in every single day.  (Something my co-worker can't understand because he is always trying to get me to eat stuff like donuts he brings in.  Friday he brought me a croissant thinking that was a better choice than a donut.  Sigh.)

Now I need to stop adding that little spoonful of brown rice to my dinner, and skip the potato in the pot roast, add Splenda to the coleslaw dressing instead of sugar.  The carbs need to be monitored much more closely.  The big plus for me to giving up bread and sugar is that I don't have to be concerned with fat* - so I picked up some brie to add to my lunch and used full fat mayo when I made deviled eggs yesterday!

In fact, a tip I learned onone of the DS forums was to add whipped cream to greek yogurt to cut the aftertaste and up the fat. I find it impossible to find full fat yogurt anywhere and I feel lucky when I find 2% instead of non-fat. 

The thing people don't realize in all their fat fearing frenzy is that the food companies fill in the flavor lost by taking the fat out by adding sugar.  So the non-fat Fage I just bought has 38g of carbs!!  This is simple vanilla yogurt - no fruit added to up the carbs. Sugar is a MUCH bigger problem in our diets than fat and it is added in everywhere, especially where the fat has been reduced out. 


*Actually, I really need the fat to help with my dry skin and hair.

TO TELL OR NOT TO TELL

I have been getting such nice compliments on my weight loss lately from family (they can get their arms all around me when we hug) and acquaintances  (how much more gracefully I am walking and moving around) and co-workers ( how much skinnier am I going to get?)

Each time I am in a situation where someone notices and comments, I have the dilemma many of us who have used weight loss surgery to help our transformation have:  To tell or not to tell.

I did discuss the surgery with most of my family and with my co-workers.  They were the ones who would know I was gone for a week and going through recovery and with whom I wanted to be able to discuss the whole process.  The rest of the world - I don't feel the same obligation to discuss it.  I have lost and gained a lot of weight over the past 30 years and I didn't discuss the specifics - why now?

Of course, when asked point blank, I can't seem to manage a diversion (lie) so I explain the type of surgery I had.  I am not sure if those few people have taken it upon themselves to spill the beans to others.  For instance, I had not planned to tell the book club since I was not attending meetings for the several months during the time I had surgery - so I just returned about 60 pounds lighter. One member knows, I don't know if she told others.

No one in my neighborhood or grocery store or other local haunts has asked and I haven't told.  I think the reality is that most people don't even realize when someone else is losing weight - no matter how quickly.  At some point it registers but they don't have a sense of how long the weight loss has been in progress, so it doesn't seem unusual.  I have lost nearly 100 pounds since August - in 7.5 months.  But people didn't "see" it until just the last couple of months. 

I don't feel embarrassed by what I chose, I just know people can be very judgemental and I am not interested in experiencing that any more than I already have in my life.  I still have major restrictions on what I eat and how I have to support my nutrition, the additional tool I have used to get to this point is my business.

MAKING CHOICES

I had a job interview after work today and Tom offered to take me out to dinner.  I realize from the foods he is craving and wanting to have when we go out that he is missing some of the pasta dishes I used to make!

I ordered an appetizer, which is my new entree these days.  Two nice fat crab cakes arrived.  I ate about 3/4 of one of them and took the other one home to have for lunch tomorrow!  Sometimes I am frustrated by how little I can eat.  That old "mouth hunger" is still there and something I need to be mindful of because as time goes by, my stomach will be able to handle more food.  I am lucky that I had already been well educated about and for the most part living with a high protein/low carb diet.  For many people it is a big learning curve - so different from what they have been taught about the best way to lose weight.

In many ways it is so much easier to make good choices when there are specific limits in place, things that are good and others that are bad.  For me, tracking my foods with limits or levels in mind for my carbs, fats, proteins, etc. gives me that structure to work within. 

Tom and I went to the Farmer's Market the other day and he stopped by a bakery stand to get something and was upset that I wasn't going to get something, too.  But I knew I would be able to find a snack that worked for me and just a few stands away I bought a packet of almonds which I enjoyed. In the past I would have felt let down that I "couldn't have" a yummy pastry, but right now I am happy with the better choice for my health and my goals.