Week 3 Post-Op

Jun 15, 2010

 First order of business--I wanted to mention that y'all can follow my progress on youtube at youtube.com/brownxblonde.

Okay, so 3 weeks.  When I was a pre-op, that seemed like so much time.  I wanted to have conquered the world by this point.  I think that rushed, anxious, feeling comes from the years of crash diets I did.  If I was on a liquid diet, I knew it was only a matter of time before I went off it, so the more weight I lost in those couple weeks I was on it, the better.  Don't get me wrong; I still want to lose weight as quickly as possible with the sleeve.  However, it's not as simple as "going off" this diet.  Time will pass, and it's nice to know that whether I'm losing at a rate of 5 pounds/week, or 2 pounds per week, I will get there eventually.

Things seem less bad this week.  Actually, that's not entirely true.  Things have seemed less bad for the past two days, and I think that may have something to do with getting in more protein and actually doing things.  Last week and this weekend I was still suffering from serious exhaustion.  I mean, to so much as get up and clean a dish wiped me out.  On Sunday was a family reunion, and I really thought twice about going.  My heart was kind of beating funny, and just to stand up drained me.  But I went.  And that was the beginning of me feeling better!  The food was a barbecue.  I considered not eating anything.  Last week I was on "soft" food and today I can begin "normal" food.  But I did go ahead and make myself a plate.  I had maybe 3 T. shredded barbecue, 2-3 T. baked beans, and 2 T. coleslaw.  I think I ate all of my bbq and left a bite of the others.  It tasted so good!  I didn't even want or need any more than that.  See, this is what I have envisioned for the surgery all along. 

Monday we had flooding here and so we all stayed in.  For dinner I decided to share in these jalapeno-cheese hotdogs, sans bun.  Not a good idea.  I don't know if I've mentioned this before, but the only thing that has bothered me so far is greasy or oily foods.  I did feel sick, and then had some major diarrhea.  I wonder if it will always be this way, or just in the early weeks.  So yesterday was by far my best effort on the protein-front.  I had a simple cup of milk for breakfast, half a chicken breast for lunch, about 1/4-1/3 Chili's salmon, one bite of their black beans, and a couple bites of their apples.  Then for dessert I had some yogurt.

A note on my nutritional beliefs:  carbs don't scare me.  At all.  Thankfully, they don't scare my surgeon, either.  I have never, and probably will never, subscribe to the "no carb" fanaticism.  I have done low carb before.  Each time my experience was the same:  water weight came off quickly, remaining weight came off with a struggle, all the weight came back on a warp speed.  I don't think "low carb" weightloss is very real, at least not for me.  If I can lose weight with carbs, I feel better.  Our bodies need carbohydrates--they were built that way.  I understand I need protein first and I'm good with that.  But like my surgeon's office manager said, "if you could eat all low carb, you wouldn't need surgery anyway."

As far as weightloss goes, I lost about 3.5 lbs.  I'm okay with that considering that I heard this is the time period when a lot of people begin to enter stalls.  Of course, I hope this is not an official slow down.  I was hoping to lose 4-5-6 per week for at least the next month.  But, honestly, what more could I do?  So what will be, will be.  I was really hoping to have lost 30 the first month, or 28 (a pound per day), but that may be out of reach.  I would need to lose 6 next week for the 28.

This coming week, I am planning on taking a roadtrip halfway across the country.  That could present new challenges.  But normal people go on roadtrips, and some semblance of "normality" is why I did this, after all.

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