Getting close, but I am impatient!

sirbrewz · June 13, 2013

My sleeve story? It hasn't quite been written yet. I started working with staff from UT Southwestern in Dallas back in March of 2013. I am male, 45 years old and weighed in at 455 lbs, which was my all time high. I was starting to get lots of little signals that my physical condition could not continue much longer. Shortness of breaths from walking across the street, stairs were just impossible, high blood pressure. There were more bad health signs, but you all know what they are.

My wife had sleeve surgery about 13 months ago and she has lost over 105 lbs since then. She is down to about 170 lbs or so and is within 15 lbs of her ultimate goal weight. Having observed the process she went through, I felt confident that embracing this sleeve surgery was a big opportunity. Plus having her support and coaching from experience is invaluable. She admits to having some tough moments immediately after surgery, but now says this was the best decision she ever made.

UTSW had me go through a 3 month weight management process for insurance purposes. I just finished this process and had my meeting with the surgeon. Now we are waiting on insurance approval and I hope to have the surgery scheduled within a few weeks.

I have read a lot of concern being voiced by many of you about the pre operative diets. I share your pain and understand your desire to figure out the best way to prep for your surgery. Despite a lifetime of failure dieting, I have somehow been blessed to have some success losing weight during this 3 month period. From March 1 to June 5 I have lost 53 lbs! For those of you who may be struggling with this, I would like to briefly share my approach. Everyone has to chart their own path, but maybe sharing my experience will help someone.

A person of my weight (455 lbs) and my height (5' 7") burns about 3300 calories daily even with a sedentary lifestyle. I set a goal of 1500 calories, with hopes that the extra 1500 to 1800 calories burned per day would be the right approach. I also set a goal of at least 90 to 100 grams of Protein per day. I have used myfitnesspal throughout, and have found the most useful feature of the app is your ability to schedule future days food information. I plan each days approach to eating the day before using the app. This has allowed me to just "work the plan" and not have any surprises or emotional eating surprises each day.

My diet has not been textbook, but I will provide a typical day so you see what worked for me:

Breakfast: 4 very thin slices of HEB microwave bacon (80 cal), 1 Yoplait light yogurt (90 cal)

Morning snack at 10 am: Power Crunch bar (210 cal), 12 cherry tomatoes (25 cal)

Lunch: 0.5 cup cottage cheese (110 cal), power crunch bar (210 cal), leftover corn on the cob (118 cal, but not a great food choice)

Afternoon snack at 2:30: 12 to 14 white grapes (50 cal), 0.5 cup of sugar free lemon pudding (70 cal)

Dinner: Small baked salmon fillet (110 cal), 2 slices toasted low calorie multi-grain bread (45 cal each slice), 12 cherry tomatoes (25 cal), one peeled cucumber (45 cal)

Other Snacks through the day: 2 clear Protein drinks (80 cal each).

This doesn't add up to 1500 cal, but sometimes your dinner or lunch will vary by a couple hundred cals depending on the situation. A couple of weeks ago I started walking daily. My goal is there is not so much weight loss as building some stamina to help me during recovery after surgery.

Well, nothing earth shattering in my post! But I have spent so many hours reading what all of you folks are experiencing, I felt obligated to share my own story instead of lurking. I will post updates as I move along on this journey and am always willing to correspond with anyone who wants to exchange info about the sleeve.