JamieLogical

Just a week ago, I was posting about how I was returning to running after a 5 month hiatus. I did a little "trial run" on my treadmill and surprised myself by running for 10 minutes straight, right out of the gate, then doing some more long intervals that same workout. I had thought I might have to completely restart C25k, but that run put me safely back into week 6. Well, I did Week 6 last week (finished it Monday), and as any of you who have completed C25k know, after Week 6, it's just straight-up long runs, just tacking on a few minutes each week. I had planned all along to try to get back into racing form by April so I could sign up for a 5k. I live in upstate NY, so I refuse to do any races before April, since running outside is torture. So there I was looking at races for April to potentially sign up for and I saw the listing for the Flower City Challenge, which is a half marathon. For some reason the idea of a half appealed to me. I knew I wouldn't be able to run the whole thing, but the course is only open for 3.5 hours, so I couldn't walk the whole thing either. It then became a puzzle for me to solve. How much running would I have to do to make the 3.5 hour cut-off and would I be ABLE to do that amount of running by the 24th of April? I started off with the idea of doing run/walk intervals for the whole thing, thinking that if I could run for 5 minutes then walk for 5 minutes and repeat that enough times, I would be able to run for half the total time. But then I started looking at some run/walk half marathon training schedules. They all seemed to be really walk heavy or run heavy. The walk-heavy ones had you completing the race with intervals of 4 minutes walking and 1 minute running. That clearly wouldn't be fast enough for the 3.5 hour cut-off. The run-heavy ones had you completing the race with intervals of 9 minutes running and 1 minute walking, which is basically just RUNNING a half marathon, as far as I'm concerned! I finally found a 14 week schedule that has you completing the race with intervals of 4 minutes running and 1 minute walking. That's still more running than I am looking to do, but I though I could at least follow THAT schedule through the section that has you do 3 minutes running and 2 minutes walking. That seems like a pretty good balance. And if I really do make it to the 4/1 portion of the schedule, all the better! I'm actually a little less than 14 weeks out from April 24, so I had to start a couple of days into the schedule (missed one day of run/walk and one day of cross training), but I had no trouble with the portion of the schedule I picked up with last night (3/2 run/walk intervals for 35 minutes). Am I crazy for deciding to do this on a whim and thinking I can go from Week 6 of C25k to completing a half marathon in under 14 weeks?!?!

That is awesome news! I think having support back home (even if you don't end up actually needing it) is great for peace of mind. Now you can be way less stressed about the whole thing. And having those follow-up blood labs will be very informative.

Sounds like my pre-op diet. It was a true liquid diet and it was NO FUN. I was like "don't these people know I still have 100% of my stomach?!?!"

I had my extended tummy tuck, breast lift with augmentation, all over lipo, and fat grafting with Dra. Laura Carmina Cardenas back in Aug. 2011. I had a fantastically positive experience and received excellent care and support from Dra. Cardenas herself (came to see me every day for two weeks in the Recovery House) as well as the nursing staff of the Beauty Care Recovery House where I stayed for two full weeks post-op. I plan to go back there ASAP to have my thighs done and a revision to my breasts. I had lost 90 pounds "on my own" prior to plastics, thus the need for them in the first place, But I regained 80 pounds over the next three years post-plastics, which is why I was sleeved in Sept. 2014. My tummy tuck held up fantastically well through the re-gain and loss, but I think that's mostly to do with the fact that when I regained the weight, it almost all went into my hips/thighs. So now that I've re-lost the weight I have a lot of excess skin in my thighs. I need the breast revision, because the weight regain and re-loss seems to have completely depleted what real breast tissue I had and caused my implants to become more obvious (I can feel them through my skin!) and the left one to become slightly malpositioned. I'm hoping Dra. Casrdenas will be able to help me out with that somehow, though I haven't consulted her about it yet.

@@Mrs.Grace I really hope you can get your doctors to take you seriously and figure out what is going on. It's sad that you've had to resort to eating so horribly and still can't manage to put on any weight.

Oh there will be photos! If I'm gonna complete a half marathon, you can bet there is going to be a ton of proof for me to show off to everyone!

HE got MAD? That YOU didn't want him to eat a bacon cheeseburger in BED next to you? WTF? I'd lose it under the best of circumstances if that happened to me, so no wonder you were crying and upset a month post-op! Jesus!

See, if I DID loose my mind, the gutter is the very first place I'd look for it.

I became a connoisseur of cream soups post-op, once i was allowed to have strained cream soups. My favorites were cream of shrimp (Campbell's makes a condensed version you mix with milk) and Progresso's chicken cheese Enchilada. I don't know where you live, but if you have a Wegmans near by (it's a grocery store chain) they occasionally have Buffalo Chicken Chowder on their hot soup bar and it is the greatest thing God ever invented in the full liquids phase! those flavored weren't too hard on you?! I just tried tomato soup almost threw up. Could have been too much sugar in it. Well, I wasn't allowed strained cream soups until 10 days post-op. Don't think I'd try anything like that where you are, only 3-4 days post-op. Plus I didn't have any nausea at all past my second day post-op. Pain, fullness, discomfort, pressure, etc. at various times, but not nausea.

Great story. Thank you for sharing. I am so relieved that you chose to save your life and have this surgery. It sounds like things were getting fairly dire for you! Congratulations on your success so far and good luck in your future endeavors. As long as you stay committed and focused and you use this great tool you've been given to its fullest potential, I have no doubt you will reach your goal and live a long, happy, healthy life!

Once a week in the beginning if you don't want to go completely insane. I tracked my weight every Monday morning in a spreadsheet. Make sure you are always weighing yourself under the same conditions. I always weighed first thing in the morning, naked, after having used the bathroom. I now weigh daily as I'm in maintenance and there seems to be a general consensus that weighing daily in maintenance can help prevent regain. But I take the daily fluctuations in stride and only worry if I get close to the top or bottom of the little goal range I have set for myself.

You should look up ketosis. One of the VERY common symptoms of transferring into ketosis is a headache. It is 100% normal.

I became a connoisseur of cream Soups post-op, once i was allowed to have strained cream soups. My favorites were cream of shrimp (Campbell's makes a condensed version you mix with milk) and Progresso's chicken cheese Enchilada. I don't know where you live, but if you have a Wegmans near by (it's a grocery store chain) they occasionally have Buffalo Chicken Chowder on their hot soup bar and it is the greatest thing God ever invented in the full liquids phase!

I had a big turn toward "normal" once I was eating solid foods again at 40 days post-op (so right about where you are). Solid foods will help you get your calorie total up and once you can increase your calories, your energy will come back.

This water bottle really saved my life. You can probably find something similar for cheaper, but it has been worth every penny to me as I've used it all day every day since I bought it a year ago. I fill it with ice about 2/3 of the way and then water first thing in the morning. I refill it several times during the day from the drinking fountain at work, but the ice stays ice all day long in it. So I can have ICE COLD water all day long instead of switching to just kind of chilled water from the drinking fountain at work, because with my old plastic bottle, the ice melted by the time I needed to refill it and I don't have access to fresh ice at work. http://smile.amazon.com/dp/B00KOI1W14

@@CzechPleez Glad you are seeing the daily improvement I am sure you have heard so much about! I think one of the things that kind of shocked me initially post-op was what a full time job it was to keep a schedule of drinking, eating, getting my protein shakes in, and taking my meds/vitamins. There is a LOT to keep track of and it can be hard to stay on top of if you start to fall behind at all. Plus I was napping a lot, which meant I wasn't sipping! Pretty tough! But it sounds like you are planning ahead and know what you need to be doing so just stay on track.

Was that advised by your doctor? Zantac is meant to be taken as a relief from heart burn and acid reflux, not to prevent it in the first place. What you want to be taking to PREVENT acid is a PPI like Prilosec.

You also haven't mentioned how many grams of Protein you are getting daily. PS: It took me exactly a year to lose the 71 pounds I needed to go from my surgery weight of 236 to my goal of 165, so I don't think you lost any more slowly than I did. But you know what? Even losing slowly will get you to your goal eventually!

Have you experimented with different temperatures of water? I can chug ice water, but anything that doesn't have ice in it sits like lead in my chest.

Can you give us an idea of what you are eating daily, whether you are getting all your water and protein, if you are doing any exercise, and how much weight you have lost so far?

There's nothing innately "wrong" with weighing daily. Many experts actually recommend weighing daily once in maintenance to make sure your weight doesn't creep back up. But if the numbers on the scale are adversely affecting your mood, that's a different story. If seeing a small fluctuation up causes you panic and a small fluctuation down causes you joy, then you probably are doing yourself more harm than good and should cut back to just weighing weekly or even monthly. You need to be able to embrace and accept the daily fluctuations in weight that are completely normal. If you can't do that, then you should protect your sanity and stay off the scale.

What acid reducer are you on? If it's a PPI, maybe try taking it at night before bed instead of first thing in the morning?

Everyone loses at different rates. I would only worry that it's "too fast" if your surgeon seems concerned. As long as you are following your nutritionist's plan and not starving yourself, then there's probably not much you could do to slow your loss even if you wanted to.

No worries, I was just confused. There are a LOT of posts on this site about loose skin or about family/friends telling us we are "wasting away" or getting "too thin". This post is rare in that the sleever in question really is now at an underweight BMI and struggling to stop losing. So it's a pretty unique problem and I hope she can find a solution. It sounds likes she's not really getting much help from her doctor and surgeon!

Yeah, when I saw @@NewSetOfCurves response, I felt like she clearly wasn't grasping the point of this thread. The OP didn't say a single word about loose skin. She talked about being at an underweight BMI and later posted that even eating high fat, high calorie foods like nuts wasn't showing on the scale. No idea where this skin subject came in.