DedicatedLady

So far surgery is a success.  I'm on liquids 'clear' and 'full' until day 17, then I start blending all my food...haha, yay? I've tried very small pieces of a few soft solid foods. It takes about 2 minutes for everything to register that it is being rejected.. Then I throw it up about 15 times, rather unpleasant. So suffice to say, it has been easy to stick to liquids like I'm supposed to   Thick cream soups kind of have the safe effect. Protein shakes however, are going down, slowly, but going down none the less. Down 12lbs since surgery 8 days ago. Even received compliments, the "your face looks skinnier" compliment. It's odd but I'll take it   

So far surgery is a success.  I'm on liquids 'clear' and 'full' until day 17, then I start blending all my food...haha, yay? I've tried very small pieces of a few soft solid foods. It takes about 2 minutes for everything to register that it is being rejected.. Then I throw it up about 15 times, rather unpleasant. So suffice to say, it has been easy to stick to liquids like I'm supposed to   Thick cream soups kind of have the safe effect. Protein shakes however, are going down, slowly, but going down none the less. Down 12lbs since surgery 8 days ago. Even received compliments, the "your face looks skinnier" compliment. It's odd but I'll take it   

So far surgery is a success.  I'm on liquids 'clear' and 'full' until day 17, then I start blending all my food...haha, yay? I've tried very small pieces of a few soft solid foods. It takes about 2 minutes for everything to register that it is being rejected.. Then I throw it up about 15 times, rather unpleasant. So suffice to say, it has been easy to stick to liquids like I'm supposed to   Thick cream soups kind of have the safe effect. Protein shakes however, are going down, slowly, but going down none the less. Down 12lbs since surgery 8 days ago. Even received compliments, the "your face looks skinnier" compliment. It's odd but I'll take it   

Its official, I'm tired of all my meals being either chocolate or vanilla flavor. I'm a salt person lol.  I have a dozen options to get creative with the shakes, and I've mixed it all. I'm out of options, and in three days I move to 48hr liquid diet anyways. Thankfully its Saturday, incredibly easy to stay occupied all day (the old me might have met friends for beer and food, but not anymore  )  Only 9 more shakes to go and they are done until post surgery. YAY! My 48hr liquid diet includes "strained cream soup",this makes no sense to me, why strained? why cream? Its feels counter-intuitive to have something manufactured, that's high in fat and has crazy sodium levels. Does anybody else have this included in their pre-op diet or am I the anomaly?!

I watched this video yesterday and I am so happy it did, it sure made me smile. Its a good watch if you've got the time.

Eureka!! My most delicious smoothie yet!
I finally took the time to slowly go around the grocery store (and I mean slowly) and look for new things I could incorporate into my protein smoothies to jazz things up. I tend to avoid sugar substitutes if possible, which has eliminated the option of juice squeeze things and most things labeled "sugar-free" anyways,including jello,popsicles,gum etc..  I found some promising new ingredients. I picked up some good finds (in my opinion). I got Matcha green tea powder with ginger, pumpkin pie spice (if your store doesn't have this premade its pretty much cinnamon,ginger,clove,nutmeg.super easy to make), imitation caramel extract, imitation coconut extract, and organic vanilla extract. 
So onto my smoothie, it contains the following (as I stare at it lovingly) :
-1  cup unsweetened cashew milk
-1 cup water/with a handful of ice
-1 scoop Vitaleph Vanilla protein mix
-A splash of caramel extract
-A dash of Vanilla extract
-Pumpkin Pie Spice
I blended it all together, poured it into a giant cup and am happily drinking so far the best protein smoothie I've had. Also looking forward to tomorrows chocolate protein,espresso, and coconut breakfast smoothie. Fingers crossed it does the trick

Well it's about bloody time. I'm down a couple of pounds...257 lbs from 260 lbs after almost a month. 
By the way does anyone snack on nuts like almonds or peanuts or cashews or sunflower seeds...I know there fattening but aren't they healthy fat ?

I'm grateful for two things that I was reminded of last night. The first one is that I have this 4 week pre op diet to prepare for whats next, because it caused me to stop and think about why I eat in the patterns I do, and to try and change it. For example, I was standing in the kitchen having coffee with my fiance last weekend and told him (it was about noon) that because I know we have cookies in one cupboard, normally I would have had cookies with my coffee, and then perhaps another coffee so I could have more cookies.. Not that I need them, but just because they are there and I know that. I said normally the cheezies in the other cupboard I would have had as a mid day snack simply because they are there and its a treat. In neither of those situations would I have been hungry and eating to satiate myself. I would consider myself a "convenient grazer", I wouldn't go into the kitchen to cook for one person, but if there was crackers and cheese I'd eat it, just 'cause. If there was chips, cookies, crackers, beef jerky etc, I'd eat them because I have an addiction (the realization of that is my second epiphany for the week, continuing on....). He is so very helpful. Even apologizes when we hosted fathers day dinner because I had so few options, and went as far as to offer to steam me some vegetables so I had more to eat. I politely declined, because I am getting better and better at saying no to food.
The minute I was given a surgery date and put on Atkins, I started eating like I had just had surgery. Small plates, small portions,the effort to cook vegetables for myself, staying out of the kitchen, drinking a lot of water. I've tried very hard to stay in the mindset that this is real, there is no turning back, and I will absolutely be successful for the rest of my life. Being forced to go on a diet pre op has opened my eyes to how much time I spent eating, and why, and a realistic understanding of how much I was eating. When its a day of grazing, plus one meal (that I got very bad at eating close to bed time) it no wonder to me how I got to be this big.  I got all of my ducks in a row when it came to organizing the procedure, now I just need to make sure I stay on track. In 3 days I go from Atkins to 3 Vitaleph shakes a day (plus leafy green and SF popsicles/SF jello.. blech for aspartame) and my supplements. Its becoming very real and my nervousness is melting away, while my excitement grows stronger. Goodbye self-doubting Raquel, hello confident beautiful dedicated Raquel.

Month 1 is in the books!! 17lbs lost since surgery, 32lbs down in total. I am so happy with my progress. I have a long way to go, but I am so psyched to see a loss this big on the scale. It's been years since I've seen any real loss at all. Goal for this month is to work on increasing my activity. Let's do this!!!

So today while I was watching this female Asian longhorned beetle oviposite her egg I was thinking about the science behind WLS. How many experiments aka..clinical trials have been done, are still being done, and will be done in the future to help doctors figure out the complex mysteries of this disease we call obesity. It blows my mind to even try to think of all the variables involved in the design of these trials.
My research focuses on this beetle, a much simpler organism, and yet it can take days of thought and reading current published research to determine the variables that need to be considered and controlled during a planned experiment. Sometimes we even design pre-experiments just to figure out whether something is going to effect something else before we run the main experiment. All of this thinking has made me realize how little we really know. Why has my diabetes gone into remission after surgery? This surgery has done what following a low carb diet alone could not do, normalize my blood sugars minus any medications. I haven't had time to read all of the published literature on this subject, but I would like to.
My mind is trained to looked for patterns in data so of course this is the way I am approaching my journey after this surgery. I am logging everything I eat, drink, and my exercise. I will export the data to excel and graph it to see if I can figure out how my body works now in relation to theses things and weight loss.  I know for some people, maybe most, this is not something they would want to do. It may seem excessive and time consuming, but I hope to learn something that will be useful to me during the maintenance phase. 
I am increasingly more convinced that low carb is going to be the best diet for me to follow long term. I just don't see any reason to test the waters when I am doing so well right now. I have zero cravings for sugar, bread, rice, pasta... my energy levels are good, my bs are excellent, and I am losing weight.  These are my musings for today, 5 weeks post-op.

I'm grateful for two things that I was reminded of last night. The first one is that I have this 4 week pre op diet to prepare for whats next, because it caused me to stop and think about why I eat in the patterns I do, and to try and change it. For example, I was standing in the kitchen having coffee with my fiance last weekend and told him (it was about noon) that because I know we have cookies in one cupboard, normally I would have had cookies with my coffee, and then perhaps another coffee so I could have more cookies.. Not that I need them, but just because they are there and I know that. I said normally the cheezies in the other cupboard I would have had as a mid day snack simply because they are there and its a treat. In neither of those situations would I have been hungry and eating to satiate myself. I would consider myself a "convenient grazer", I wouldn't go into the kitchen to cook for one person, but if there was crackers and cheese I'd eat it, just 'cause. If there was chips, cookies, crackers, beef jerky etc, I'd eat them because I have an addiction (the realization of that is my second epiphany for the week, continuing on....). He is so very helpful. Even apologizes when we hosted fathers day dinner because I had so few options, and went as far as to offer to steam me some vegetables so I had more to eat. I politely declined, because I am getting better and better at saying no to food.
The minute I was given a surgery date and put on Atkins, I started eating like I had just had surgery. Small plates, small portions,the effort to cook vegetables for myself, staying out of the kitchen, drinking a lot of water. I've tried very hard to stay in the mindset that this is real, there is no turning back, and I will absolutely be successful for the rest of my life. Being forced to go on a diet pre op has opened my eyes to how much time I spent eating, and why, and a realistic understanding of how much I was eating. When its a day of grazing, plus one meal (that I got very bad at eating close to bed time) it no wonder to me how I got to be this big.  I got all of my ducks in a row when it came to organizing the procedure, now I just need to make sure I stay on track. In 3 days I go from Atkins to 3 Vitaleph shakes a day (plus leafy green and SF popsicles/SF jello.. blech for aspartame) and my supplements. Its becoming very real and my nervousness is melting away, while my excitement grows stronger. Goodbye self-doubting Raquel, hello confident beautiful dedicated Raquel.