Lauren Vento

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SO here I am, only 2 months away from my two year surgiversary.

So much has changed in my life in the past two years.  Its more than just losing the weight, its becoming healthy and active, and then creating my perfect career.  

I was certified last October as a life coach.  I've taken everything I've learned about goals, growth, and mindfulness and applied it to weight loss surgery.  Its so amazing to see people make these huge life changes, and it inspired me!  I know its not easy, I know you've all struggled, but I've yet to meet a successful person who hasn't struggled to get there. 

I wrote an ebook.  My 10 steps to being successful after weight loss surgery.  Its all about being mindful with your eating and exercising, and how exactly to do that.  I hope you read it.  Its not too long, but I think its very helpful.  Check it out?  Get the book HERE

I'm also now writing the ultimate GUIDE to WLS.  I want to answer all of your questions, as best as I can, but also tell you when you need to speak to a doctor or professional instead of seeking help from peers.  

Thank you guys, from the bottom of my heart, for being so supportive!

I’ve been overweight since I was a child.  I’ve also been depressed and angry since then too.

When I decided two years ago that I wanted to finally lose the weight, it wasn’t just because I was tired of being fat.  I had an emotional revelation in which I realized that I was not in control of my own happiness and thoughts.  I knew that I needed to improve my mental health and went on a spiritual mission to change my perspective on life.  I took 18 months to really figure out why my life seemed so difficult, and in that journey I discovered that my mental anguish was the root cause to my weight gain.  I had a long road ahead of me in changing the beliefs I held about myself and the beliefs I held about other people.  Once I discovered and changed those beliefs, I decided it was time to let go of the weight that seemed to be holding me down. 

Most people go the opposite route with their weight.  They think that if they let go of the weight, they will also be letting go of the emotional issues.  Many times those people find that the weight is hard to keep off too.  I fully believe that weight loss surgery should require life improvement therapy too.  The problem is that in our health system, our doctors are only concerned with the physical aspect of our weight, and not the mental.  The treatments have been improving over the years, but I think there is still a long way to go in changing how we look at weight loss, and the benefit of surgery.   

I have spent a good amount of time in the past 11 months since my surgery date really looking at the mental changes that I’ve had to make to be fully successful with my progress.  I have since reached my original goal of losing 130lbs and improved that goal to being physically fit and healthy.  I composed this list of what I believe are the 10 most important actions you need to take to be successful with your weight loss surgery.  I hope you can learn from this, and please feel free to share any additional things you find important in your long term success.

1.        Take responsibility for your choices.   You may have had an upbringing that caused you to have a weak belief structure, but you are still responsible for the way you take care of your body and mind.  Blame and shame are easy distractions for your mind to give up on your responsibility in how you got to the point you’re at.  Embrace your mistakes and love yourself.  You can’t get better until you embrace your responsibility and make a promise to yourself to do your best.  You cannot do your best when you make excuses for yourself.  When you take responsibility you are not making excuses for yourself.  Responsibility is a total acceptance of who we are, and focusing on self-love and improving our lives.

2.       Be honest with yourself.  It’s easy to avoid thinking about how you take care of your body every day.  Being honest with yourself is uncomfortable, but your “comfort” is what has lead you to the current state you’re in.  Progress is impossible without discomfort and anyone who’s had weight loss surgery can tell you that “comfort” is not part of the process.  Ask yourself if the choices you’re making are truly making you happy.  If not, change them.

3.       Keep a food journal.  This goes along with being honest with yourself.  An honest food journal will keep track of every bite, taste, lick, and sip.  Everything that goes into your mouth should be on that page.  This isn’t to feel shame or guilt, but to try and find each and every trigger in what is causing your weight problems.  You can’t change your appearance without changing your habits.  So for this, you must understand that writing these things down is only to help boost your progress, not to make you feel ashamed.  You’re already eating these things, so looking at them on a page isn’t going to harm you.  It’s going to help you see what you need to be more focused on.  This is to help teach you how to treat your body well.

4.       Remember that being “skinny” isn’t a solution to emotional turmoil.  It is not going to fix your relationship, make people like you, and get you a raise or a better job.  Your life will not improve because you are thin.  Your life only improves when your outlook improves, and you don’t have to be thin to improve your outlook.  You have to really figure out what in your life needs to improve and work on that separately from your weight.  Weight gain is a side effect from many emotional issues, and you can’t treat a problem by only treating the side effects.

5.       Meditate.  You need to learn to calm your mind in moments of extreme stress.  I’ve learned that when I feel overwhelmed I fall back into my old habits of comfort food and inactivity.  Now that I’ve discovered meditation, it helps me get back to the inner calm I need to make better choices.

6.       Educate yourself on proper nutrition.  Many people I’ve spoken to, myself included, try to fit our comfort foods into the list of what we should be eating.  I can tell you that even if you take the bun off a burger, it’s still a burger.  Really learn what your body needs to stay healthy and fit, and realize that food is not strictly for enjoyment, but fuel and nourishment for our body and soul.  Remember how guilty you felt just writing a food journal?  Now if you ate foods that benefit your body, it would be EASY to write a food journal every day.  The one thing I was told in my pre-op class was “Oh, you don’t like to eat _______?  That’s too bad.  But I’m telling you that you need to eat it.”

7.       Don’t deny yourself anything in moderation.  I don’t eat healthy 100% of the time.  No one does, and if they do, they have more self-control than anyone I know.  The key is limitation.  You can indulge in a craving, but if you don’t nourish your body with proper foods more often, you are not going to be successful.  The benefit of surgery is that a lot of the unhealthy foods are difficult to eat, or cause severe discomfort, but that doesn’t last forever for some of us.  We have to keep in mind that head hunger and cravings are not an excuse to treat your body poorly.

8.       Be present.  Every time you make the decision to eat, you have to be present in the decision of what foods you’re going to nourish yourself with.  Imagine what each food choice you make is going to do to benefit your body, and how much of that food is nutritionally valuable for your health.  Picture what your goal is and decide if that food choice is beneficial to your goal.

9.       Move your body.  Physical inactivity is proven to cause anxiety and depression, both of which are difficult to handle while dealing with weight.  When you move your body, in any way, you are not only aiding yourself in weight loss, but in boosting your mental health.  When we make excuses and stay inactive, we are taking away from the progress we could make.  Find a physical activity you enjoy and do it as often as possible.  Also remember that exercise isn’t easy, and it isn’t supposed to be.  That physical strain is actually physical improvement.  The burn is growth.  Embrace it instead of fearing it.

10.   Get help.  If you find yourself struggling with making good choices you need to talk to someone about it.  If emotional turmoil or pain has deterred you from your progress, you need to seek out a professional.  Get a therapist, go to a support group, read a self-help book, or find a coach that can guide you through it.  When you internalize and refuse to move through your emotional pain, you cannot successfully utilize the weight loss tool you have chosen.  This is why so many people regain the weight.  They have not dealt with the emotional and mental side of weight loss and used the surgery as an ineffective solution.  You have to improve your thoughts before you will ever improve your body.

 

Lauren Vento
The Happiest Woman Alive

My original goal for this entire process was to get to a single digit clothing size.  Well I went out and bought some clothes and I am now a size 7/9 or Medium!!!!  HOLY CRAP!  And I know I could be a 5/7 if I didn't have so much excess skin.  I am STOKED!  

I know that my last list was a little bit negative, but at the same time I wanted to share it.  Now I want to share a list of 10 things I never thought I'd be able to do, but now can, since I've lost the excess weight.

1. Do my hair in the summer.  I used to have a sweating problem.  My head was always drenched with sweat.  Once at a theme park I was humiliated when someone pointed it out.  Now, I can do my hair before going outside in the heat and not worry that I'm going to look like someone dumped a bucket on me.

2. Shopping in the "normal" sizes.  I love going into target and seeing all of the new clothes being displayed knowing that they will fit me.  For years I had to walk past them to the "fat lady" section.  Now, I don't!  (I can't wait to buy a bathing suit this year!!!)

3.  Piggy back rides.  I hadn't had one since I was a little kid, but my husband can now pick me up.  That is special.

4. Buy shoes!  My feet went from a size 11 to a 10.  Ladies, you know what that means?!  New shoes!!  It also means that I have a much larger selection of shoes I can buy, because its almost impossible to find cute size 11s.

5. Wake up feeling refreshed.  Of course, this doesn't happen EVERY morning, but it happens 10 times more NOW.

6. Ride kiddie rides and Roller Coasters.  I've always loved amusement parks.  My husband and I love taking our kids to Disneyland, Knotts, Six Flags, and any amusement park we can get to.  When my weight was at its peak I couldn't go on many of the rides because I wouldn't fit, and then the dreaded moment when I was asked to get OFF a ride happened.  I was devastated.  Now I am small enough to join my kids on the kiddie rides with weight restrictions!

7.  Shave without mirrors or fears of hurting myself.  Yeah, enough said on that one.

8.  Exercise without pain.  I actually FEEL stronger now after a work out!  The endorphins are fantastic!  There isn't anymore real pain when I work out.

9.  Kama Sutra.   We're all adults here right?

10.  And the most amazing thing about surgery?!?!?  I can play with my kids, on the floor, running around, ride bikes... I CAN PLAY WITH MY KIDS!!!!  If that's not the best part of this whole thing, i don't know what is. 

What are YOUR favorite things to do now? Or what would you LIKE to do when you lose the weight?

So I thought I was prepared.  I thought that the Kaiser Options program was going to give me all of the information I needed to get through this without a problem.  About 9 weeks into the 12 weeks of classes I started doubting that.  Now that I've had the surgery, I realize that I had NO idea what was about to come.  So here is a list of things I wish I knew about surgery, and after.  Please, if you skip any, make sure to at least read the very last one!

 1.  The Pre-Op diet.  I know each doctor is different. Since surgery I've met people who had NO pre op diet, and I've seen people on a liquid diet for two weeks.  MY pre-op diet was absolutely no starches for three weeks before surgery.  None at all.  I felt so unprepared walking out of the doctors office with the instruction to not touch carbs until after surgery.  As may people know, before surgery it takes a lot to fill you up, and carbs are every ones GO-TO for long lasting fullness.  Well that was ripped out from under me and I was NOT happy about it.  I knew it would happen after surgery, but BEFORE?!  What was I going to do?!  Which leads me to.....

2.  Carb Withdrawals.  Did you know that your body is addicted to carbs?  Did you know that without them you can go through withdrawals worse that quitting smoking or caffeine?  I didn't until it happened to me.  I was a mess, a huge crying screaming angry mess.  I actually flipped out on my sister for such a ridiculous reason that I couldn't understand why I was so angry.  My Dad quit talking to me for 3 days, and he usually calls me twice a day... Oh man, it was a mess.  This was the point when I called the surgeon to cancel my surgery.  That is when I was told by my NUT cousin that your body goes through these withdrawals and that they would subside.  At least I'm not really crazy and it was temporary.

3.  Magnesium Sulfate.  I had never heard of it, and I had no idea what I was going to do to my body.  Also, when it says "May take up to 6 hours" please wait the full 6 hours before thinking you may need more.... You wont. 

4. Rude people eating junk food and drinking sodas in the lobby while you're starving and waiting for surgery.  Wasn't prepared for that.  I guess they didn't see the "NO FOOD OR DRINKS IN THE LOBBY" sign right above their heads.  Not that I should have been warned, but it made me mad.  good thing when I woke up, I wasn't hungry anymore...

5.  The PAIN.  When I woke up from surgery I thought I was going to die.  The pain was so bad that I didn't think I was ever going to get better.  Also, I wasn't allowed to have anything in my mouth which was so dry and disgusting, all I wanted to do was brush my teeth, but they wouldn't let me.  The next day was even worse.  It took over 24 hours for them to even allow me water.  For about 48 hours after I woke up, I seriously thought that the surgery was the worst idea I'd ever had, and that I had just ruined my life.  It hurt to drink anything and to move and the GAS PAIN, well that was torture.  But I walked and walked, even though it hurt, and every day it got better.  I have to say that a week after surgery I was almost completely back to normal.

6. Complications.  I never thought I would be one to have a problem, but when I started to get the hiccups the day after surgery I knew something was not right.  Then the stomach spasms started.  It felt like the most painful charlie horse in the middle of my gut.  They lasted for 3 days and I would double over in pain whenever they hit.  These turned out to be from the pain medications.  The meds were causing me to sleep most of the day, so i wasn't taking in enough water and I was dehydrated.  All of which had caused the pain.  So get off the meds as soon as possible, and DRINK DRINK DRINK

7.  That soup actually sucks.  Drinking nothing but strained soup/broth and water was the most awful two weeks of my life.  I know some people have to do it for a MONTH! and I feel awful for those people.  I had to be on a liquid diet for 2 weeks, and by that 14th day I couldn't wait to put something more substantial into my new pouch.  THEN...

8. Mushy foods suck too.  If I have to eat another bean, fish, mashed potato, or yogurt I think I might flip out.  Too bad i don't eat cheese, because that might help a little, but man, soft proteins are awful... Can't wait until I can eat normal food with my family again, even if it is just two bites.

9. Exhaustion.  Even though I am taking in the amount of fluids and vitamins and protein that the doctor told me to at this point, I am still exhausted.  From what I hear, I have a little ways to go, but I am being optimistic about this.

10. That this was the hardest but most rewarding think I will ever do for myself.  I am almost 3 weeks out from surgery.  I have already lost 23lbs since my surgery, and a total of 35lbs.  I am now at the weight I was before I had kids.  Its still not where I want to be, but I see that I am on the way and it makes me feel AMAZING!  Also, it feels amazing to be able to eat a small amount and feel satisfied.  But one more thing... Weight yourself once a week, not every day.  I will only be weighing myself on Saturdays from now on, because I got addicted to my scale and realized that I can fluctuate 3 whole pounds daily! LOL.... So STEP AWAY FROM THE SCALE.

I hope this list helps others, and I am sure I will be updating it as I progress.  I often ask a lot of questions, and I don't mind people who ask me questions too.  Best of luck in your journey!

My surgery is tomorrow morning.  I'm in a bit of a haze trying to get through the day.  I've sent my kids to grandpas house for the weekend, and now I'm just sitting here at home trying to prepare.  This anxiety is horrible!