JPacella

My A1C was 6.4 pre-op. My operation was March 3, 2015. On May 6th it was 5.1. On Oct 29 it was 5.2.

I had a VSG at Northwestern Hospital (Chicago) on March 3 2015. I've lost over 110 pounds in those 7 months and to keep my progress up I'm able to do vigorous Step Reebock workouts for an hour every day. (My favorite workout from the 1990s) I'm off the pre-diabetes and cholesterol medicine and the only remaining pill I have to take is a fraction of the blood pressure medicine I used to take. Probably after New Years I could start looking into having the hanging skin slopped off. Having the surgery was one of the best things I ever did.

I have to say, I'm amazed at how fast this process was. I feel and look like my old self. I have another 40 pounds to go to get to 200, but I have to say I'm not stressed about it like I thought I would be. I don't feel compelled to check the scale like I used to be. I met up with some friends who haven't seen after I started to gain weight and they said if I hadn't told them how big I got they would have never guessed. So I'm happy and so glad I did it.

I started the exercise (I was walking from the very beginning, but now I'm doing vigorous cardio) because the weight loss has drastically slowed down (which I was prepared for), so right now i'm in a long plateau and await the day that it breaks.

My biggest relief is that my A1C levels dropped to completely normal.

I had my sleeve on March 3 at Northwestern in Chicago and am down 60 pounds already (357 to 297). This surgery has done wonders and I've had such an easy time of it I kick myself for not doing it sooner. My post-op pain was minimal, I had no problems sticking to the post-op diet phase changes, I've hadn't had any cravings or junk food slip ups yet. My energy level has been remarkable, I'm walking around 6 miles every day (I walk to/from work, I walk during my morning break, during lunch , afternoon break). It is starting to get to be a bit old, so I'm going to start step aerobics next week to ratchet up the intensity. I was diagnosed prediabetic a few months before the surgery and they put me on metformin. At the hospital they took me off it. I had high blood pressure and that's been dropping steadily, I was on Linisipril-HCTZ and Amlodipine. Now I'm just on plain Lisinopril. I'm glad I'm off the Amlodipine since that was causing some ankle/calf swelling which stopped right after I stopped taking it. I hope to be off the Simvastatin soon. Next week I have my first post-op full blood test since being discharged so we'll see how well blood has cleaned out. The sleep apnea is getting better too since I can tell my machine is definitely over-powered now, but I know from taking a nap without it that I still need it. So all in all, I feel like this has been going perfectly and totally glad I did it.

A palette is not a unit of measurement for volume, it's merely a surface to load something onto.. not sure what it has to do with the human body but I can see it's very important for you to have the last word.

So after two months from my Sleeve surgery my A1C level has gone from 6.4 (the highest number before official diabetes) to 5.1. What a major relief!

My medicine changes have been Amlodipine: No longer taking (thank God, it was doing havoc to my ankles) Lisinopril w/ HCTZ: Changed to just Lisinopril and half the dosage. My BP is flirting between prehypertension and hypertension stage 1. Simvastatin: Unchanged (Cholesterol not re-tested yet) Metformin: No longer taking

Muscle is heavier than fat when talking about comparing the same volume of each. "In summary, research suggests that muscle density is 1.06 g/ml and fat density is (about) 0.9 g/ml. Thus, one litre of muscle would weigh 1.06 kg and one litre of fat would weigh 0.9 kg. In other words, muscle is about 18% denser than fat." http://www.nutracheck.co.uk/Library/WeightLoss/which-weighs-more-fat-or-muscle_1.html#.VUt5fHl0zTw

The day after surgery they didn't let me eat or drink, so I was actually hungry and my lips were dry. (They gave me a sponge to wet my mouth but told me not to drink any of the water). My stomach was sore naturally. I kept hitting the pain med button but I don't think I actually needed it. I walked a few times and was glad to get out of bed. I had one or two instances of extremely brief nausea. I was amazed how good I felt, relatively. On the second day after surgery I got my liquid food (Jello, broth and tea (I think)). I wasn't doing the pneumonia-prevention plastic exhalation thing and my temperature spiked, after getting angry looks from the nurse, I started doing it, the temperature dropped and I was ready to go home.

Congrats!

I went to the April support group and will probably be at May's. Do you go?

I'm in Chicago. I had my VSG at Northwestern by Dr Nagle on March 3.

For most of my life I wasn't overweight and had nice muscular legs, but as I got fatter, I started getting fat legs and round looking ankles and so I stopped wearing shorts around people. Now that I'm losing a lot of weight, my legs are getting back into shape and I feel like I can wear shorts again.

The NUT at Northwestern told me that I shouldn't even be concerned with specific calorie counts provided I was sticking to a regular eating schedule, eating foods that were valid (ie: chicken not ice cream), eating the appropriate portion, and of course getting the right amount of Protein. That lands me in the 600 - 1000 calorie range. I do log my food and I'm usually around 750 calories a day. Food plans offered by fitnesspal and fitbit were not designed for people who have had most of their stomach removed so you obviously can't even look at that aspect of those sites for guidance.

Thanks! Some of the things I try to keep in my own mind to motivate me 1 - I am determined to not have gone through surgery only to defeat/sabotage myself. What's the point in having done this to myself if I'm only going to squander this opportunity. 2 - Any of the bad food I might think about, I remind myself that's the food that got me into trouble in the first place and ask to myself.. didn't you eat enough of that crap for a lifetime? 3 - This is the time to form new habits that hopefully will sustain me as time passes and I enter maintenance mode. I was never a veggie eater before the surgery and I somehow have to get into the grove into eating them and try to always avoid the processed/bad-carb food as much as possible. And now that I have this energy, get into an excersize routine that I like. In the past that was step aerobics, so now that I'm under 300 lbs, I'm going to start that up.. it's going to be hard at first I know but I know it will leave me drenched in sweat.

Thanks. I also started binge watching two tv shows to motivate me Biggest Loser: On the days that I don't want to walk I just think about how the trainers push those people. I know the show has an anti-WLS stance but whatever, if those folks can run a marathon after a few months, I can walk around the block. My 600 Lb Life: I think I like watching the disasters like Penny and Pauline as examples of what NOT to do. If I walk past pizza at work, I just think Penny saying "I can't function without won tons" and it totally turns my stomach. And one thing I noticed is that right after eating, laying down on the couch is a big no no as it seems like the food has nowhere to go.

I used to love ice cold water but 2 months post-op now I find that I can't stand drinking water that cold, so I just drink it without the ice and goes down much easier.