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Big step, long road

Entries in this blog

 

Step one....again

Well, hello all. I suppose this will be where I will share the journey of my future sleeve. I'll start off all formal.   My name is Eric. I am a 28 year old oil field mechanic working for one of the largest well services companies in the world. I love my job, always have. I have been in south Texas for roughly 3 years now, last 2 I have spent in a supervisor role managing equipment repairs in our maintenance department. The first 4 years of my career I spent as a field mechanic living out of an F-550 service truck. Spending that much time on the road, in hotels and sleeping in a truck really kills any good intentions of eating well. in the last few years, I put on about 70-80 lbs. But enough about work. I currently weigh in at 376 lbs with a BMI of 52 I believe, seeing this number hurt. I don’t "feel" 376 lbs. I stay very active at work, walking close to 5 miles a day just around the facility, so I suppose staying up and on my feet doesn’t allow the weight to take its toll on me the way a sedentary person would, i guess. You could say that I am on the healthier side of morbid obesity (lol) as in, I take no medications, my BP is spot on, blood work has always been good. I have no bad number but my weight. So maybe that’s why I don’t "feel" 376. Maybe someone with a similar feeling can give me their take on that.   I am lucky to be married to an awesome girl, who herself had the lap band put in about 4 years ago or so and dropped close to 100 lbs. Watching her struggle was tough, but we got through it together and I think I put on all the weight she lost. She is behind me 100% and I know for a fact this will be very important in the months to come.   About 6 months ago, I had my first consultation with a clinic in San Antonio only to find out a month later that the hospital they use for the surgery wasn’t "approved" by my insurance as a facility to perform the procedure; obviously, this was a progress killer. I became kind of bummed about it and let it go. Here we are in June, (bite me, I'm a few days late ) and decided that I wanted to try another stab at it. So I found an approved hospital, and then tracked down a doctor that used it; backwards i Know, but had to be done. So last Thursday I had another consultation, awesome doc, nice staff and has totally re-lit the fire that I had 6 months ago. I the six months that passed between consultations, I had only gained 3 lbs, not bad i guess considering my bad habits.   So thats me in a nutshell. I'm here, ready to do this. Started my 3 months of supervised weight loss per insurance regs, and I am going to take it seriously. I'm tired of being the big guy. I put a few before pics on here from my wife and I's diving vacation in the caribbean from last August, I think I will use these as my before pics, because the Caribbean has been our best dive trip so far, so good memory with a fat picture, haha.     Later,   Eric
easye256

easye256

3
 

Labor day...

Happy Labor Day everybody! I'm doing exactly that, laboring. We don’t get holidays in the oil and gas business, so I am stuck here for 4 more hours trying like hell to keep things going in a positive direction. Had my second visit about a month ago, managed to lose about 4 lbs., which is good, I guess. I haven’t really changed much in my overall diet; just stopped eating so much crap and cut out the sodas almost entirely. Scheduled to have my 3rd and final visit tomorrow, we'll see how that goes. I know I will not get my packet submitted until I get my psych evaluation and find a doctor to give me a surgery release; just haven"t had much time to get these done. Moving around make it really difficult to have an established GP, you know? But anyways, hoping I can stick around home for a month or so, I slept in my own bed a total of maybe 4 days last month, starting to wonder if I should pursue a new career path, I'm tired of always being on the move.
easye256

easye256

2
 

How Fast Things Change

Man, I cant seem to keep up with these as much as I had hoped too. I am now almost 3 weeks post op, feeling great, pain free and losing poundage on a regular basis. I still havent bought a scale, but clothes are fitting better and better everyday. I got lucky, I suppose, I went home the day after surgery and didnt have to take any pain meds after leaving the hospital, quite happy about that actually. So far its been really easy. Water goes down without a problem, food intake is simple, small, but simple. With my surgeon, we are able to move to a more normal diet in week 3, it's been a blessing for sure. Hoping that things progress as as easy as it has from here on out. Down 28 lbs, lots to go!
easye256

easye256

0
 

2 years just flown by

So here I am, just a little over 2 years out. To save you reader some time, I started out at 376 glorious pounds of depression and misery. I'm a very "outdoors" minded person. Love to dive, ride motorcycles, lake trips, you name it. Being almost 400 pounds, it took a huge toll on my ability to enjoy what I enjoyed (even if that statement sounds kind of stupid). I'll tell you, if you're considering this surgery as an option, quit considering it and DO IT! It has allowed me to have a life again. And to the people who will tell you "it’s the easy way out," they're so far out if line it’s not even funny. I cannot tell you how many times in the first year I said screw the rules and ate something I shouldn’t have, drank while eating and all the things they tell you not to do, and then spent a half hour or so in absolute misery as my "banana" stomach tried to cope with the crap that I stuffed in it. It ain't easy. The first 6 months is definitely the honeymoon stage. The weight will just fall off no matter what you do. After the first year, it becomes more difficult as the new stomach does stretch a little and it easier to begin to overeat again. My low weight was just about 200 pounds. Unfortunately, I have a very large frame and I looked ridiculous with the flabby skin crap everywhere. Now, this is unavoidable to some extent, and I'm cool with it. Better be healthier with some loose skin and unhealthy with it packed full of fat, right? So, for better or worse, I turned from food addict, to a gym rat. I've put just about 30 pound back on, most all had been muscle since my arms, chest and legs have filled out, but with definition. Now the stomach? Lost cause, lol. Unless I do corrective surgery to remove it, it’s just my baggage I'll carry around in punishment for letting myself become an unhealthy person for the majority of my life. I just did my 2 year follow up, and my surgeon isn’t happy with my current weight, never mind that my BMI is down 25 freakin points. For the record, I hate BMI, I think it is a stupid algorithm made up for some reason I cannot figure out. They say I should be 175 pounds to be in a normal BMI, ppfft on that. To get there I'd have to starve myself. I suppose he's not happy because I imagine, they plug in all of the patients information to see how effective the surgery was, by my numbers, I didn’t do well. I couldn’t be happier with my results, so screw their charts.   I seem to be rambling.......     Anyway, if anyone is still here, thank you for taking time out of your day to read this, hopefully you get some entertainment, insight, or just a few minutes wasted from whatever you're supposed to be doing at work,   Sleeve on people!
easye256

easye256

0
 

Just A Waiting Game...

Well hello there blogs! It's been a while. Anywho, final appointment went well, packet submitted, got denied for some dumb stuff, then approved. I figured short and sweet was the way to go with that. I'm kind of glad the blogs have been down as I havent had much nice to say lately. Surgery scheduled for Nov 20th, a mere 11 days away and I start pre op diet next Tuesday. Let me tell you, looking forward to that (HA! yeah right). But it will be ok. Somehow I talked my boss into giving me 2 weeks off, how? I haven't quite figured that out yet, guess he was in a good mood that day. Obviously nervous about the procedure as a whole, but it seems as though most are doing or have done alright with it, I just hate hospitals.
easye256

easye256

0
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