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Weight!!

Yikes!  I just realized that I haven't been listing my weight losses.   So here they are!

3/21 - 326 [my first weigh in]
4/10 - 316
4/19 - 311
4/24 - 308

I've lost 17 lbs in just over 1 month!

Not too shabby, huh!?

Now I'm not sure?

Ok, SO……I must to go back a couple of weeks to share something with you.

I had just sent out the email about my decision to have the gastric bypass surgery to my friends and family and had also posted it on Facebook to my friends on there.  I received MUCH kudos - as well as lots of support!  Several people showed an enthusiastic interest in watching my progress on my blog.  But I did have a couple of people who expressed a concern for my decision.  Let me say this.  I have NO problem with someone not agreeing with my decision.  And if you do have a valid concern, I don’t mind hearing it.  It motivates me to research more and educate myself better.

Although I really had believed I had made the decision that was right for me, those couple of people gave me pause to think; and think HARD about the decision I had made.  Up to this point, I truly believed that I HAD thought it through completely and that I had no doubts.  Apparently, my decision wasn’t as rock solid as I had thought.  One of my sisters said that she worried about the possible weight gain down the line.  She said she’d read nearly 80% of people who have gastric bypass gain all their weight back within 5 years of surgery.  That was definitely something that worried me; to go through all that just to gain my weight back.

(I found information that states "Most patients keep at least 50% of their excess weight off after 10 years."  SOURCE:  http://www.bariatric-surgery-source.com/weight-gain-after-gastric-bypass.html).

And another person I’m fond of wrote me a long email asking me to consider the surgery; stating all the “possible side-effects and the many potential complications that can arise”. 

I started to doubt my decision.  What if these things happen to me?  Maybe I will miss my favorite foods too much that I will be anxious all the time; never being satisfied.  I’m the family party thrower.  My place is referred to among my family as “party central”!  How could I have big parties with lots of food!  There is NO WAY.  I felt like I was letting my family down.  I started leaning more and more towards NOT having the surgery.  It really stressed me out.  This and other issues in my family life led me to a minor – temporary – break down (I have them periodically – they are nothing to worry about!).  My sister called me to see how I was (the one who I had mentioned her fear about potential weight gain down the road).  We talked more about the surgery and my doubts and she told me more about how she didn’t think it was a good idea.  She had some valid concerns.  But I found myself during that conversation defending the idea of gastric bypass.  And all the things I hoped to accomplish by having it.  Still, after getting off the phone with her and after a good night’s sleep, I had doubts and leaned more into not having the surgery.  I was on the lean and green diet and was doing well and felt really good.  I’m not physically craving carbs.  Sure I wish I could eat a little pasta now and again, but I don’t ever want to go back to eating the way I was.  So, my thought was to continue on the 800 calorie diet and see if that would work.  I even thought about waiting 6 months, continuing to diet and see how I did.

I had that thought process for about 3 days.  Then I remembered.  I’ve done this before, time and time again.  I need something more to sustain it.  I gradually started my thinking back to having the gastric bypass surgery.  I needed something that will physically STOP me from eating.  Something that will work long term!

So, once again I continued on with my dieting and appointments. 

The Appointments!

Holy crap, who would have thought there would be SO MUCH preparation for this surgery?? My first appointment in March was the 31^st. That was the initial visit with the first part of the “team”. I mentioned in an earlier post that they did a physical, an EKG and the initial “education” (lean and green diet) of how to lose 10% of my weight, which started at 326lbs. That meant I would need to lose 17 lbs to get a date set for the surgery and the rest before the actual surgery. I met with the case coordinator, Stacy who gave me a list of all the other appointments and tests that I would need to have done prior to surgery. $25 please! The next thing I needed to do was go downstairs for my blood work. The phlebotomist took ELEVEN vials of blood from my arm. I didn’t even get woozy! That’s how they found out I was iron deficient anemic. $25 please!

The next appointment was on the 10^th of April. I had to go to Ellis hospital for an upper GI, chest x-ray and an ultrasound of my abdominal area. Wow, I hope I don’t have to drink that barium “drink” again anytime soon. Uggh! Disgusting! $25 please! After that appointment I went to the Bariatric Center down the road for my first weigh in. I lost 9 lbs. I wasn’t as happy as she was. The nurse weighed me on the cattle scale (just kidding!) and then took my blood pressure. That was elevated – 158/78. Then she asked me if I was going to continue the lean and green or did I think I wanted to go on the Medifast shake diet. Since I was doing well with the lean and green and tolerating it as well as I was, I told her I would stay on that. I told her that I wasn’t thrilled about my weight loss and that at home on my scale it showed a few more lbs off. I also told her that I had forgotten my blood pressure medicine the day before and since I couldn’t have it that morning that maybe that’s why my pressure was up and she agreed. I reminded her that I had just had to drink barium goop and she said that might account for a lb or 2. That made me feel little better. NINE lbs in 15 days. I guess that wasn’t too bad. But you know it was mostly water weight! ;-) $25 please!

At 11am tomorrow I have to drive to Rexford, NY for the mandatory psychiatric evaluation and then 1:15pm I'm to meet with my surgeon, Dr. Panemanglore - whom they call Dr. P. Then downstairs for a visit with the nutritionist and to get weighed again. I don’t think I’ve lost a ton more, but I think I’m down a total of 14 lbs lost! Woo hoo! Hmm....What do you think? $75? I’ll let you know!

The Trip

April 1, the morning of my trip came and I could barely drag myself out of bed. I felt blah and weak. This diet was kicking my butt! But I’d been on a low carb diet before, but never this low and the calories were much lower than I ever had before. My blood sugar must have been low. But I knew I would have to do my best to continue. I really wanted to see the weight come off as quickly as I could to get to the surgery! I packed 2 good salads for myself, weighing all the protein. I packed sliced apples and celery sticks for snacking as well as hard boiled eggs in case I was in need of protein for a meal on the way down and back.

I did pretty well down and back and I’m happy with my choices. It’s not easy to diet and travel but it really can be done. Sunday late morning I ate my breakfast and we left around 1pm. I decided since I was feeling so logy that we would stop at a Dunkin Donuts for an iced coffee. Late afternoon I had my salad while my “trip buddy” had a fried chicken sandwich and fries from one of the restaurants at a rest stop on the way. Oh, the French fries smelled heavenly! I didn’t even ask for one! During the rest of the trip my trip buddy occasionally snacked on prunes and honey roasted peanuts. Although neither are allowed on my diet, I did eat a few of the prunes (they were delicious) for, what I had hoped would be, energy. I didn’t touch the peanuts though they are one of my FAVORITES! I did, however eat some celery and an apple that I brought. That night we didn’t really want dinner, but since I was nauseous on and off all day, I decided to eat 2 of the hard boiled eggs I brought. Who knew that hard boiled eggs could be SO DELICIOUS? I guess I was famished!

The next morning I could barely get up, but of course I had to. After riding 10 hours (thank God my trip buddy likes to drive) and getting to sleep at 2am and then back up by 7am AND because of the low calorie diet I was on, I definitely thought it had to be my blood sugar. On the way out of the motel I stopped in the lobby where they had the “continental breakfast” and grabbed a small cup of orange juice. It’s not allowed on the diet, but I figured it was better than passing out. Once we got in the car, I felt better. Standing up and walking were an effort to the point where my leg muscles hurt and were weak. I was wobbly. But once I sat down, I felt pretty much ok; a little nauseous, but tolerable. We stopped at a convenience store with the intention of getting coffee. Since I don’t drink hot coffee, I looked for iced coffee. Blech, they had that processed pre-sweetened kind! I knew my stomach wouldn’t tolerate that. I grabbed a “snack bag” of mixed nuts and a Diet Pepsi for the beginning of the long ride home. A bit later we stopped off at McDonald's for breakfast. I didn’t have any food, but I did get an iced coffee. Normally McDonald’s iced coffee is good, but this one was not sitting well in my stomach. Maybe this was a sign that I really did need to give it up?

When it came time to have lunch we had a tough time finding a diner or restaurant that wasn’t fast food. Finally, I was so hungry I just decided to say screw it and said to stop at the next rest stop where there was a Kentucky Fried Chicken! I was now so hungry, I just didn’t care. Just before we pulled off the exit the sign mentioned other places to eat including Ruby Tuesdays. That’s it! We found a place I could eat without cheating on my diet. They have a GREAT salad bar. Once inside I saw that they DID have a great salad bar, but in the past I would eat most anything on it. I had forgotten how much NON diet foods they had on there: macaroni and potato salad, bacon bits, cole slaw and other carb-laden (but YUMMY) foods. But I did not give into temptation. Those foods were definitely NOT worth cheating over. There was plenty other salad fixings I COULD have. For the main entrée, which would be the only meal we were stopping for, I had spaghetti squash with roasted eggplant and sauce. Although I’m sure the sauce was not prepared totally low carb, it was a better choice than most of the other entrees on the menu. And it was DELISH! I only ate half the entree and brought the rest home. I didn’t end up eating my other salad as I had planned; that ended up being lunch the next day.

Before you go and say, good for you Donna! Or WOW, what willpower! Let me tell you my motivation. That night when I got home, there would be pizza and wings waiting (we had special company!). And I had been planning on having some! And I did, but limited it to ONE piece of pizza and 6 Buffalo wings. WAY better than I would normally do. I’m STILL happy with my choices. Traveling and dieting is tough!

I had taken a couple of days off for the trip and with my regular days off I didn’t have to be back to work ‘til Saturday. I still felt crappy the next few days thinking I would probably call the Bariatric center to see if this was normal or if I should add something to my diet. On Tuesday I got a letter in the mail regarding the blood work that had been drawn a week ago and it informed me that I had iron deficient anemia and that I need to take iron supplements and vitamin C to bring my levels up to where they should be. I am to take those with my meals twice a day. I continually forget them. I take medication in the morning and in the evening. I can barely remember to THOSE regularly. I finally gave in to using one of those BIG geriatric looking pill containers for the week with morning pill and night time pill slots. Oy ve!

Oh, and I figured out the reason I wasn't feeling well was because I had some type of stomach bug. I don't know why I hadn't thought of that? I just assumed it was the diet! Turns out poor Jessica ended up with it and so did my trip buddy! I was sorry for them, but glad that's what it was.

I've had a few times where I was sick of a salad for my meal, but Jessica has been great about making me something delicious for dinner, using the foods and fats that my diet allows. Some of the leanest type of meat on the list is shellfish. And I loves me my shellfish! I've become a lover of lobster, but who can afford to eat that? Even to diet! But it's pretty cool that it's very low in fat! For my birthday Jessica steamed a lobster for us to share. It was succulent and finger licking good all in one! Even though there was a tiny bit of melted butter on the table, I mainly ate the lobster meat without it. Very tasty! Dinner would be a challenge for me if I had to make it every night. Jess makes it most nights. She's a bit more creative than I am. And working 12 hour shifts doesn't leave me much energy to plan a delicious and nutritious dinner that is different every night! If it were up to me, I would make a salad and broil chicken. Now how boring would THAT be!?

What? Am I a rabbit?

I honestly wasn’t sure how I was going to do on this low calorie, probably tasteless and “OMG, do I have to eat SALADS all the time, what am I a rabbit?” diet. You know I’ve done the low carb diet before, and I’ve done the low fat diet before. But now I had to do BOTH of them. How on earth? But I was determined.

I looked over the diet carefully. In big letters at the top of the first page, it clearly read “PURCHASE A FOOD SCALE – THIS IS MANDATORY.” Wow, how bossy. And yeah, ok, right. That’s what my first thoughts were. I’d attempted the weighing of my food before - back in the OLD days of Weight Watchers. You measured EVERYTHING. This diet was very reminiscent of that diet. I hated it back then. One of the things I want so desperately was to NOT think about food! And now I have to plan out everything and measure and weigh everything. BUT, I was determined that I was going to do this. On one of the many pages of the diet that I received, there was a statement that said something like "If you don’t think you can do this diet, just think – this is temporary. It’s just to get the weight off for the surgery." I could live with that.

I decided that I would start the diet on the following Monday, March 26th. So, the first day of the diet was supposed to be a day off, but I took a 10a-10p overtime shift. I carefully measured out all my food and packed my lunch box with lunch and dinner AND I ate my breakfast before I left for work. I actually made it through the day without being too hungry in between. Mid afternoon when I started getting hungry, I sliced up an apple. That actually was tasty and filling. I thought that being at work would be tougher on my first day, but I think it was helpful. I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to clean out my refrigerator and my pantry so that might have been a challenge. The next few days went well believe it or not. Not A LOT of cravings, but there were some and I was hungry between meals, but pushed myself through and didn’t cheat.

I forgot to mention in my last post that I was also told that I had to cut out soda (I drink Diet Pepsi almost exclusively – never a sugared soda). I looked at the nurse like she was crazy. She told me that I might as well stop drinking it now as I won’t be able to drink it after surgery because it will cause me to bloat and may cause some stretching of my stomach. That would NOT be helpful. CRAP. I am addicted to caffeine. I also knew that I couldn’t drink iced coffee on the diet either because the cream is not accounted for in the calories. So, during the first week I switched to Snapple raspberry iced tea. I ended up with terrible heartburn, even though I took Omeprazole every night before bed. CRAP, again.

By the end of the week, I started feeling kinda blah in my stomach and a little tired. I figured it was the diet; my body was probably in shock not getting the calories I normally consumed. I worked that Saturday (overtime) even though it was my birthday. I never work on my birthday, but this year I really needed the money.

The next day I would be traveling overnight on personal business.

......to be continued.

And so it goes....

On January 20, 2012 I went to my family physician and asked for his help in getting the process started. He highly recommended Ellis Hospital due to their excellent reputation with the surgery as well as patient care from start to finish. He told me that they were a well establish bariatric center and really cared about their patients. So on his recommendation and after making the proper “reservation”, on February 2, 2012, my son’s girlfriend, Jess and I went to an evening bariatric seminar at Ellis Hospital. It was only about 1 ½ hours long and touched on all the aspects of each of the surgeries as well as topics about before and after the surgery. Since I hadn’t made up my mind which surgery I was definitely going to do at this point, I didn’t turn in any paperwork that night.

About a week later my doctor faxed in the physician referral. Although nothing in the letter was UNTRUE, it really disturbed me to see it in writing. I was morbidly obese with a BMI of 51. I had numerous health problems on my way to eventually having diabetes and heart disease. That really sunk in.

The next day the secretary at Ellis Bariatric Center called me to schedule my first appointment. I decided to go with Dr. Panemanglore as he was the one that did the seminar I attended.

My first appointment was with the nurse and the PA there. Such nice people! The PA did a physical, a tech did an EKG and the nurse went over all the particulars of the program. She gave me a "lean and green" diet and told me that I would need to lose 10% of my weight. That meant, on my own with the help of this 800 calorie diet, I would need to lose 33 lbs! WHAT? I eat 2000 to 4000 calories a day! How am I supposed to survive on that! Breakfast was usually 800 calories a day all by itself.

The reason I would need to lose this weight was because with the way that I eat, my liver (the liver of a typical obese person) was fatty and large and that it would most probably cause issues with the surgery. It's a requirement to lose the 10% through Ellis and my insurance company.

Well, since I was determined to lose this weight in order to have the surgery and because I knew this particular diet was temporary, I went shopping to get the items I would need. But, not without splurging through my LAST weekend, of course!

The weekend preceding the start of my diet I had ALL my favorites! It was my work weekend, all the more reason to "treat" myself. Friday night I had a turkey, swiss and bacon foot long sub from Subway, my FAVORITE! On Saturday night I went out to dinner with friends and had a salad, soup, steak, green beans and garlic mashed potatoes - my FAVORITE! Plus a couple of Coronas! I actually brought home leftovers, believe it or not. Then on Sunday morning I decided to go to Bagel Tyme for my last bacon, egg and swiss cheese on a toasted works bagel sandwich. My absolute FAVORITE breakfast! (do you see a pattern here!?). Oh and then I decided I would get a chicken salad sandwich on a works bagel for lunch! MY FAVORITE! Somehow, I managed to eat the leftover steak and potatoes for lunch, which I had originally brought for lunch - completely forgetting the chicken salad sandwich. Later that afternoon, a couple hours before quitting time, I got the munchies. So, I went to the kitchen at work and started looking for popcorn or something. As I looked in the cupboard, I found my stash of snacks which included a "cup 'o noodles". I LOVE "cup 'o noodles" - MY FAVORITE! So, I added hot water to the noodles and opened the fridge to get something to drink and there I spotted MY CHICKEN SALAD SANDWICH! I looked at the soup and then at the sandwich. Me, not one to throw away good food, decided to eat BOTH of them. After all, it WAS my last weekend of really eating!! On the way home, I stopped off at the Chinese restaurant to pick up dinner (not even a LITTLE bit hungry, but I had "promised myself"). Dinner? Yep. I got egg foo young and fried dumplings from King's Wok and then stopped at Chu Garden for fried won tons. ALL ARE MY FAVORITES. I couldn't even consider eating this until about 10pm that night. But I DID.

Unfortunately, this is all too common an occurrence when I'm about to start "new" diet. It's not a wonder I don't lose much and then lose interest and willpower.

The next day, Monday, March 26th I started the lean and green diet given to me by Ellis!

For breakfast I have:
1/2 cup egg beaters with chopped up veggies (usually mushrooms, scallions, peppers and spinach)
1/4 cup of cottage cheese
4 oz. Dannon Light and Fit yogurt

This is more than I usually have for breakfast and I must say - it's rather filling!

For lunch I have:
3 oz. lean meat (there are 3 categories "lean, leaner and leanest")
1-2 cups greens
½ cup veggies

For dinner I have:
5 oz. lean meat
1-2 cups greens
½ cup veggies

Depending on which category of lean protein I eat, I can have 0-2 tablespoons of a zero trans-fat in the form of a low carb, low fat diet salad dressing, olive oil or other types of oil on the list. No butter :-( I have been lucky to find the Hidden Valley light ranch to be rather tasty. I normally do not like diet salad dressing. And I do love olive oil and balsamic vinegar as a dressing as well. Since I don't like my salad swimming in dressing, the small amount I can have is just enough. Amazing!