LeslieW

So yesterday morning I started the 45 day exercise challenge put forth by my surgeon's office and the support group I go to.(refer to previous post) I went to the gym and did 15 minutes on the Eliptical, 20 on the bike, and 10 minutes on the treadmill. I was having a hard time going longer than that so I would change machines to have a small break walking to the next one. Last night I was so sore! Every muscle I had hurt and I am not even lifting weights! Not allowed to do that until I am past 6 weeks post op. I was in bed by 9:30 which is almost unheard of for me. This morning I woke up on my own at 6:25. Got up, decided I was wide awake, got dressed. I leaned over the bed to kiss my husband and tell him to have a good day before I left. He was confused. He thought I was hitting on him and he got very surprised when I said I was going to the gym. Poor guy. LOL So today was a new day for me. I enjoyed my workout. I raised my time on the eliptical to 35 minutes and then did a 10 minute cool down on the bike. I wanted to go hike Superstition mountain tomorrow but can't find anyone to go with me. I don't want to go on the trail by myself. So I suppose it will be back to the gym in the morning for a good workout. So I have learned this week that all the stuff I told myself before my surgery was just bullshit excuses. The gym is too far. I can't get up that early. I have too much work to do. The kids take up a lot of time. The gym is a half hour from my house. I now enjoy singing at the top of my lungs on my drive. I own my own business and work from the time I get up to when i go to bed. I now MAKE time for myself because I am worth it and I need the peace of not having to deal with anyone but myself for an hour. Same goes for the kids. We all do better if Mom has some alone time. As for my husband wanting me to hit on him. I am flattered he is taking notice and WANTING me to hit on him. The fact that he was disappointed that I am not is saying a whole lot. It means he is paying attention and that is great. I am very excited to just be able to get out of bed without feeling so damn tired all day. My weight loss has slowed as is normal for this stage. I am now on Month two of post op. I am told it slows down for everyone. Even with it being slow.. I have more energy at 280 this time than I did the last time I weighed 280. Must be something to do with the scale moving backwards instead of forwards. Tomorrow is day 3 of my challenge. It is good to have challenge in life. It makes you feel like you can accomplish anything. So here is to great new beginnings and being healthier in mind and body.

I can think of better ways for rapid weight loss! LOl I hope you feel better soon! Thank you for sharing this. My worst fear is throwing up.

Oh my gosh.. I am incredibly glad you asked this and people are answering. I get my first fill next week. I am down 25 in my first month but it has almost come to a screeching halt. I started a 45 day challenge for exercise yesterday with my weight loss support group. I am hoping this helps and the first fill will help some. I was wondering what I was doing wrong but I knew coming into this it would be a slower weight loss. Thank you for asking this question!

Congrats!!!!

Just a suggestion here about the Protein. I had to start drinking the ensure clear Protein drinks because I could not get enough protein and enough fluids in when I was on that stage of the diet. So far I have only been able to find them at Walgreens. I buy the peach one but they also have Raspberry flavored. I am told Boost also has a clear Protein Drink. I have not been able to find that one. I didnt like the drink at first but now it has really grown on me and I find I really like it a lot. It also has a lot of Vitamins in it. I have a hard time chewing vitamins or taking hte liquid ones because of the taste. These help me make sure I am getting enough nutrients also.

Congrats to you!!! That is awesome!

So.. I have signed up to do a 45 day challenge with my weight loss support group from my surgeon's office. The challenge is we have to exercise every day for 45 days. We then have to post a pic or a video of us doing the exercise or being active in some way on the group's facebook forum page. The prize is a chance to win a gift card. So today, I joined a gym. I have a friend who did the RNY surgery today. She goes to the same gym and will be working out with me when she is back on her feet. I don't really care about the gift card. I am excited to be excited about working out. This has never happened to me before. I usually hate the thought of any kind of physical activity. I feel good when i get up and out of the house for a while. I feel great after I dance with my daughter. I might not have dropped a ton of weight yet (who has at 4 weeks?), but I have a ton more energy. I am down 25 lbs so far. I am looking forward to seeing what I will look like and feel like after the 45 day challenge. Once it is over, I will post an album of the daily pictures so we can see the progress. If people want to see it. I thought it might be cool to see what a one and a half month transformation looks like.

I am really fortunate. My doctor had the band himself so he is huge on the support group aspect. Every month our nutritionist posts a monthly challenge. This is the first one I have been able to do since I am still recovering in my first 6 weeks post op. I am excited to do it. The group also gets together at least once or twice a month on Saturdays and walks through some of the parks and I think hikes the mountains around here. I wonder if there are any other groups in your area? I definitely think having people hold me accountable and help talk me through hard times is really working wonders with me. Before I wouldn't go to the gym because well, I am fat and who wants to watch that jiggle? But now I really don't care who sees me. It is like my whole attitude has changed. I am dancing around being silly with my kids and wanting to go make my fat jiggle so it can jiggle its way on out of here. I made it through the first day of the challenge. I did 15 minutes eliptical, 20 on bike, and 10 on treadmill. Got the crazy pic to show it. Uggh.. here's to the end of March! =)

Congrats on being banded! I have now gone down two shoe sizes but I am still in the same pants! Go figure! lol

Today I went to my post op visit. I am 12 days post op and down 20lbs from start weight on Pre Op diet!!! I am so excited! The scale has NEVER moved backwards 20lbs. I was never one to gain and lose weight. I just steadily gained. My doctor said I was doing very well and being very compliant. He did tell me he did the plication pretty snug so to make sure I take it slow when eating. They also told me to speed up my walking a bit and go a bit further. He wants me to walk for a half an hour for exercise 5 times a week. They changed my diet today. For the rest of today and tomorrow I am on full liquids. Starting Friday I can have mushy food. YAY refried beans here I come! So my clothes are not looser on me. However, my hands and feet are losing or at least lost swelling from water weight. My shoes are loose and I am now able to turn my rings on fingers without it hurting. My daughter says she can see the weight loss in my face but I cannot see it anywhere yet. I am encouraged and very happy right now. At this time I am going to start weighing only once a week. I am sure like most I have been a little obsessed with that and weighing every day. Hopefully, with hard work, the scale will continue to move backwards.

So I am 4 weeks post op. I am still losing weight although I had my first week where I did not. I had the dreaded TOM and everything stopped for a week. Thankfully, this week I am down 3 more lbs. Total lost so far is 24lbs. This week I have also discovered what people mean when they say stress tightens the band. Boy does it ever. I had a rotten experience where I had to defend my son from some pretty nasty accusations this week. (no worries, eventually turned out in his favor) As soon as I arrived back home I felt for the first time almost as if someone had their hand around my stomach. It was the first time I felt like I wanted to throw up. I did not, thank goodness. I did full liquids for the rest of the day and half of the next day and things seemed to calm down. This week my husband and I have also decided to start saving to have ground broken on our new house. Dealing with banks, finances, mortgages and all of that has been stressful as well. I am learning how to incorporate the band into daily life and am very grateful it is here. We have even been able to go out to eat and I am doing well making better choices. Before, with all this stress I would be eating everything not nailed down. I am a stress eater and there is stress galore in my life. However, my fear of throwing up or getting anything stuck has really worked in my favor. I have not been eating out of control. If anything now I have to make myself get enough calories for the minimum I am required to have. i am still super excited to be banded. I think with all the stress of my life changes this is still going to be the best year of my life. I am becoming healthier. I have started to love to exercise where I hated it before. I love to dance and ride bikes. I am excited about life right now. For the first time in 20 years.. I feel like I can accomplish anything. That is really saying something when you are only 34. To have all of your younger years be miserable and suddenly find happiness is a blessing. I will forever be grateful to my surgeon and my wonderful family. They are the best support group I could ever ask for. Being part of this group is also wonderful. Being able to search for topics whenever I have a question has been very helpful. I hope everyone continues to post their progress.

So .. I am 3 weeks post op (almost). My 14 yr old borrowed Just Dance 3 from a friend of mine. She talked me into doing some with her. We did 5 dances before I had to stop. About a half hour for me because I took small breaks to breathe between. I hate exercise.. or thought I did. I had a blast. We danced and giggled. She is going to dance with me every night for exercise. I didnt think I would have that much fun but I did. I know it was working because I was sweating like crazy. Maybe all I needed to do was find something fun. I think I can do this now. We need to find more fun stuff to do. On a funny little note.. I kicked her butt 4 out of 5 dances! lol. I had to stop after that. Felt like I was getting a little icky. We are going to work our way up though.

LOL yes I thought so too! I had so much fun with her though. It is hard to get your teenager to do anything with you anyways so she asked this morning before school if we were going to dance again tonight and I said yes. We are going to try the zumba once I start feeling like I can breathe a bit better. LOL baby steps!

I have plication with band but I am getting a fill on Feb 22. It is my first fill date.

I jsut started mine and the first day was uggh. With you being so close to when you had your surgery I bet you are really feeling iccky. I hope next month will be easier for us. The only thing I did notice.. is usually i gain five pounds ever time i start. I lose it right back after I am done. I did not gain anything this month.

I am going to Cheesecake factory tonight with a group of friends. My girl friend is having her "last meal" tonight lol. Whatever.. she is funny. So I am going to try a baked fish. My question is do they ever reheat or should i just forget about that right off? I dont want it to be gross if I take it home and I will probably only eat about 3-4 ounces of it.

Ok so I am on my mushie stage of the post op diet. I have permission to start working my way up the food line slowly. I am scared to get too adventurous but I am getting sick of scrambled eggs, refriend Beans, and cottage cheese. I have been trying to google soft food recipes but everything that I CANT eat is popping up. Any advice? What did you eat on your soft food/transition stage? I am really interested in the Proteins at this stage. I need to make sure I always eat my Protein first.

I will definitely try that. I think it will just take a minute for me to get used to eating it in a healthy way. I used to eat fried fish but I never could get past the smell of the baked ones. I will look for the Swai. Thank you for your help!!

Ok thank you all! I just emailed my nutritionist to ask for a break down of what i am supposed to be getting in a day in regards to nutrients and calories. I can't tell if I am eating too much or not enough. My husband thinks I have lost my mind because of course I am not eating hardly anything. This is just a strange stage for me. I get hungry but then get full really fast. I will look into your suggestions! Thank you! I guess I better develop a taste for fish.

Absolutely make sure you get your water. I was also on clear liquids for a week after. It is normal to not want to eat right now. I was not allowed to go home until I could prove to them I would drink. Just sip as much as possible the clear liquid. I drank the Ensure Clear Peach flavored drink to make sure I was getting some vitamins and protein. If the flavor is too sweet you can always cut it with water. Dehydration is a bad bad thing. You will start getting hungry just a little bit in the second week. At first I confused being hungry with pain. I found that the more I sipped sometimes the less I hurt.

Go with your instinct and do some more research. If the nurse had been there when a doctor put in a band upside down and she did not say anything she is just a liable as he is. I would not trust any of that. I dont think they can be put in upside down. If the port was placed upside down it would cause pain but that by itself would not cause death. I think you may have some mixed up info from gossipers. However, you should never enter into this lightly and if you are scared most definitely cancel and do more research. Change doctors or go "interview" other doctors. I did tons of research on my Dr. He is one of the top doctors in Arizona and has been featured in tons of medical magazines. If your dr is a leader in the field you should be able to find record of that. Is he part of a Bariatric Center of Excellence? Definitely dont do it if not. Find one that is.

So I am currently on the mushy stage of my diet. Basically I can eat whatever I can mush up or thick liquids. If it can be pureed or mushied it can be eaten right now. I have a rather large combined family and one of my biggest fears is it would be really hard not to want to eat the things the kids can have but I cannot. So subtly, over the last few grocery trips I have been making small changes that add up. I bought spaghetti sauce with less sugar in it. I bought turkey meatballs and I changed their pasta to whole wheat. (I dont eat the pasta and probably never will again). So when I made dinner.. The kids never said a word about the new taste of the meal. They loved it! They never knew the difference in the meatballs because I never said anything like "Hey this is really different.. try it". I just cooked like normal but with better ingredients. The family had their pasta dinner and I had two mushed up tiny meatballs and a little bit of sauce. Family dinner was a success. Then last night's dinner was Mexican food night. Now.. I LOVE Mexican food. There is a little hole in the wall place here in the town I live in that I visited at least 4 times a week pre surgery. Yeah.. I admit it.. its my favorite and a weakness. I made the taco meat with ground turkey and just seasoned it like normal. The seasoning turned it the orange color and gave it the same flavor. The kids never knew the difference. Used lower fat cheese and for the fajitas we did grilled chicken. I had fat free refried beans with a little salsa on top. Lunch today was tomato soup with skim milk. They love tomato soup so that was never a fear. I was so scared I would want to eat junk food. In all reality I am improving the health of my kids and they don't even know the difference. I am not making a huge deal out of EVERYTHING HAS TO CHANGE!!! If I do that.. they will shut down and not want anything new. I bought this HUGE box of sugar free popsicles and the kids love them for treats. I wanted to write this blog to let other people know if you are worried about how the kids will react to the diet changes, just change it. Just make stuff and set it on the table. The rule in my house is if you are hungry enough you will eat. Try to make small little changes to favorites that make them healthier without changing everything they love. Another thing we have always done is there is never ever tv on during dinner. It is our time as a family to talk about the day. I think this kind of distracts them a little bit. It is so important for me to keep that time as a special family time. Where food was always the center of family get togethers, I think it in some ways still can be. We just have to make healthier decisions. So far even right down to the 6 year old, I have gotten great support from my kiddos. I am so happy my major change can also be a healthy change for them without negatively impacting them. The last thing I want is to find any of my daughters obsessing over a scale before school. I want this to be an easy transition for everyone. While I am still learning what I can eat, I am having fun experimenting and looking at new things to cook for everyone. I am sure I can come up with healthy treats and things kids love without gaining weight back. I am just going to have to make the effort and be excited and say things like Oh my gosh you guys.. this is so yummy. If I have something yummy, most of the time they want to try it. I still have my days where the smell of bacon wants me to know over my grandma for a plate of food.. but I think this journey is going to be a lot less hard than I thought as long as I just do it. My imagination is so much worse than reality. Don't pysche yourself out. You got this.

I LOVE spinach. I can't wait to be able to eat that again lol.

I had the same problem with the one at the top of the post but I can see the one right above here. You have had and amazing journey! Congratulations! What an inspiration to everyone!

aww Thank you!