Hi,
My name is Mary K. I'm starting this blog to chronicle my experience as a person having gastric bypass surgery. Gastric Bypass is also known as the Roux-en-Y gold standard of bariatric surgery. I'm hoping this blog will be a place where others going through the surgery can read and share their comments on the experience. I am not going to talk about my actual weight number, as I have friends who will read this blog and might be quite shocked at the number. But I will say that I need to lose about 140 lbs. to reach my goal. I am told this is about10 stone for you Brits out there, and about 64 kilograms for the metric folks out there. Either way you slice it...it's a lot of weight.
One might ask...how do you get to be 140 lbs overweight. Well, it's not that hard honestly. All of my life, my weight has been a challenge. My parents both struggle with their weight, so I get about 30% of it from genetics in my opinion. Another part of the problem was growing up watching my mom struggle with food. We were constantly restricted in what we could eat because of her issues, and so the first thing I did when I was out of the house was go in search of forbidden foods...at my grandparents', my friends, the local convenience shop. Lastly, I learned at a very early age to use food for comfort, and I ate emotionally. Food just seemed to numb the pain and loneliness of my life.
When I was a kid, I was extremely athletic. I was a tomboy and played every sport known to man, swam like a fish, and lived on my bike. So I was never obese...just never skinny. When I was about 13, I stretched out to my final height of 5ft, 11 inches...about 182 cm's for metric people. At that height and as active as I was, I was set to be a knock out...but...the problem with being a tomboy in life, is all the boys see you as their best buddy. So when I was ready to be a girl...none of my guy friends wanted to date their "sister", their buddy. So I went into a deep depression and started gaining weight between 14 and 15. I was a good 50 lbs overweight my sophomore year in high school. My parents sent me to a weight loss camp the summer before my junior year in high school, and I lost all the weight. I was thin, but when I came back...I just didn't have the support to continue that lifestyle. I kept the weight off for about 2 years, but by college it came creeeping back on. By my second year in college, I went through another big depression, and I gained about 70 lbs in six months....yes...this is possible. All it takes is eating Chinese food at 2AM with your boyfriend 3 nights a week, and being a live-in nanny for an evil family. Don't try it...trust me it will kill you.
So I ballooned up, and for years I tried every diet imaginable to lose the weight. The most I could ever lose was about 40 lbs. But then as we all do, I'd go off the diet and go right back up the scale after I returned to old habits. I learned I was sensitive to carbohydrates, but was unable to keep on high protein diets for more than six months at a time, because they are so heavy and I wasn't creative in my cooking. Also, all my comfort foods were not proteins...pasta, sweets, these were still forbidden...so I was miserable. In the summer of 2006 I got a bit of a wakeup call. My doctor told me I was diabetic. This was a shock. I was only 32 years old...how was this possible? I started seeing my life slipping away from me...not living long enough to see my son grow up, never being able to beat this weight problem, it was scary. I put myself in therapy, and started on a diabetic diet, but a year later, I still hadn't lost weight. I just couldn't get myself into a correct regime to take it off. Being in therapy has helped a lot to identify my life issues that make me eat, and I'm working on them.
About a year ago, my best friend Angela, who was also very overweight had gastric bypass surgery. I was with her through it all, though from afar...she's in Wisconsin, I'm in Virginia. Her surgery went well, and over the past year she's down 130 lbs. She's at the tough stage when it's all her. I was with her through nausea, constipation, crying over not eating, all her ups and downs. But what I also saw was her increase in stamina, her decrease in stress, her self esteem shoot through the roof, and I began thinking, maybe I should do it.
I began investigating the different surgeries. Unfortunately the lap banding is not covered by my insurance, so I didn't really have a choice. I would probably have chosen it if I could have, though I have been told that it fails more than the gastric bypass and can take years to lose the weight. They also don't recommend it for someone like me with a very high BMI and comorbidities such as diabetes. In the surgeons' opinions, the gastric bypass is the most affective for someone like me. I researched surgeons in my area, scoured the forums and internet sites about complications, and gradually made my decision.
The decision wasn't easy. I considered it a failure to be honest. I figured that if I chose surgery, then I was giving up on my own will to beat the fight with food. I struggled over this in therapy for a few months, when I finally realized, that I have to do this for myself. I have to give myself a chance at a better life now. This form of forced behavior modification is what it takes to give me the space in my head (and stomach) to figure out how to deal with life WITHOUT food. When I finally decided to do it, I figured it would be quick and easy...especially since I was diabetic. I signed up for the surgical program, and found out...nope...it's not easy. They purposely put time in there to make you go through the program and make certain this is for you. I started my odyssey in August 2007, at Norfolk Surgical Group. Before you can even get the surgery approval, you have to get a psychological screening, go to exercise and nutrition classes, and attend two support group meetings. This process took me only about a month and a half, but then the process to get it approved in insurance took a couple months. I had my approval in late December, but then I had to wait through the holidays to find out my surgery date. I finally got it in January...my date would be February 11. I was terrified and excited all at once.
Now here's a very important catch they don't tell you anywhere I remember on the net. When you first start in the program you get weighed. Most surgeons and insurance companies expect you to try to lose some weight in the six months or so leading up to the surgery. At the very least YOU CANNOT GAIN WEIGHT. In fact, my surgeon's office said if I gained between 5-10 lbs I could be rejected for surgery. Well immediately my rebellious side went into overdrive. So from August to October, I'd say I put on a good 12 lbs....which was CRAZY!! I was lucky I was going through personal hell through the holidays and for once did not turn to food. I managed to actually lose weight over Thanksgiving, and once Christmas came around I decided I better get serious about coming in at least at my weight I was at the surgeon's office last time.
I knew I would have to do a liquid diet the last seven days before my surgery, so my strategy became to start the liquid diet early to drop the weight beforehand. I do not recommend this to anyone else, because it has been very hard. Yes I did drop the weight, and yes I did manage to do three weeks of liquid diet beforehand, but I don't think it was good to be miserable these past weeks and not able to eat anything good I wanted. So please, be balanced, don't be rebellious like me...if you are given the directive to lose or maintain, just try your best, and keep getting on the scale through out your waiting period time so you can monitor yourself. The liquid diet has been okay, but I would have preferred to not have had to do it. I lost 18 lbs over the past 3 weeks, but sadly I can only count like 5 of them as truly lost....at least in my surgeon's eyes...haha.
The liquid diet is pretty important. If you haven't seen the show Big Medicine yet on TLC, you should...they go through it all the time...the why's and wherefor's of the liquid diet. You go on the liquid diet to shrink your liver so the surgeon's can have an easier time accessing your organs with the laproscopic instruments.
So I've been drinking a combination of no sugar added Carnation Instant Breakfast, Advantedge Carb Control, chicken broth, beef broth, sugar free jello, sugar free pudding, crystal light, for about 3 weeks. It's not too bad actually....after a few days you just stop caring about food altogether (at least until your coworker starts chomping chips in your face and you want to punch him). So here I am, 24 hours til the big surgery, and I'm getting started on this blog. I hope it becomes a resource for other people going through the experience...and I hope I have a place where I can feel free to express all I'm going through. We shall see.
I have chosen my before picture. It was taken before New Year's....I only think it's fair to take a pic of me that was pre-liquid diet. So here I am...all of me...I'll be adding photos as I go...and maybe some videos too.
My name is Mary K. I'm starting this blog to chronicle my experience as a person having gastric bypass surgery. Gastric Bypass is also known as the Roux-en-Y gold standard of bariatric surgery. I'm hoping this blog will be a place where others going through the surgery can read and share their comments on the experience. I am not going to talk about my actual weight number, as I have friends who will read this blog and might be quite shocked at the number. But I will say that I need to lose about 140 lbs. to reach my goal. I am told this is about10 stone for you Brits out there, and about 64 kilograms for the metric folks out there. Either way you slice it...it's a lot of weight.
One might ask...how do you get to be 140 lbs overweight. Well, it's not that hard honestly. All of my life, my weight has been a challenge. My parents both struggle with their weight, so I get about 30% of it from genetics in my opinion. Another part of the problem was growing up watching my mom struggle with food. We were constantly restricted in what we could eat because of her issues, and so the first thing I did when I was out of the house was go in search of forbidden foods...at my grandparents', my friends, the local convenience shop. Lastly, I learned at a very early age to use food for comfort, and I ate emotionally. Food just seemed to numb the pain and loneliness of my life.
When I was a kid, I was extremely athletic. I was a tomboy and played every sport known to man, swam like a fish, and lived on my bike. So I was never obese...just never skinny. When I was about 13, I stretched out to my final height of 5ft, 11 inches...about 182 cm's for metric people. At that height and as active as I was, I was set to be a knock out...but...the problem with being a tomboy in life, is all the boys see you as their best buddy. So when I was ready to be a girl...none of my guy friends wanted to date their "sister", their buddy. So I went into a deep depression and started gaining weight between 14 and 15. I was a good 50 lbs overweight my sophomore year in high school. My parents sent me to a weight loss camp the summer before my junior year in high school, and I lost all the weight. I was thin, but when I came back...I just didn't have the support to continue that lifestyle. I kept the weight off for about 2 years, but by college it came creeeping back on. By my second year in college, I went through another big depression, and I gained about 70 lbs in six months....yes...this is possible. All it takes is eating Chinese food at 2AM with your boyfriend 3 nights a week, and being a live-in nanny for an evil family. Don't try it...trust me it will kill you.
So I ballooned up, and for years I tried every diet imaginable to lose the weight. The most I could ever lose was about 40 lbs. But then as we all do, I'd go off the diet and go right back up the scale after I returned to old habits. I learned I was sensitive to carbohydrates, but was unable to keep on high protein diets for more than six months at a time, because they are so heavy and I wasn't creative in my cooking. Also, all my comfort foods were not proteins...pasta, sweets, these were still forbidden...so I was miserable. In the summer of 2006 I got a bit of a wakeup call. My doctor told me I was diabetic. This was a shock. I was only 32 years old...how was this possible? I started seeing my life slipping away from me...not living long enough to see my son grow up, never being able to beat this weight problem, it was scary. I put myself in therapy, and started on a diabetic diet, but a year later, I still hadn't lost weight. I just couldn't get myself into a correct regime to take it off. Being in therapy has helped a lot to identify my life issues that make me eat, and I'm working on them.
About a year ago, my best friend Angela, who was also very overweight had gastric bypass surgery. I was with her through it all, though from afar...she's in Wisconsin, I'm in Virginia. Her surgery went well, and over the past year she's down 130 lbs. She's at the tough stage when it's all her. I was with her through nausea, constipation, crying over not eating, all her ups and downs. But what I also saw was her increase in stamina, her decrease in stress, her self esteem shoot through the roof, and I began thinking, maybe I should do it.
I began investigating the different surgeries. Unfortunately the lap banding is not covered by my insurance, so I didn't really have a choice. I would probably have chosen it if I could have, though I have been told that it fails more than the gastric bypass and can take years to lose the weight. They also don't recommend it for someone like me with a very high BMI and comorbidities such as diabetes. In the surgeons' opinions, the gastric bypass is the most affective for someone like me. I researched surgeons in my area, scoured the forums and internet sites about complications, and gradually made my decision.
The decision wasn't easy. I considered it a failure to be honest. I figured that if I chose surgery, then I was giving up on my own will to beat the fight with food. I struggled over this in therapy for a few months, when I finally realized, that I have to do this for myself. I have to give myself a chance at a better life now. This form of forced behavior modification is what it takes to give me the space in my head (and stomach) to figure out how to deal with life WITHOUT food. When I finally decided to do it, I figured it would be quick and easy...especially since I was diabetic. I signed up for the surgical program, and found out...nope...it's not easy. They purposely put time in there to make you go through the program and make certain this is for you. I started my odyssey in August 2007, at Norfolk Surgical Group. Before you can even get the surgery approval, you have to get a psychological screening, go to exercise and nutrition classes, and attend two support group meetings. This process took me only about a month and a half, but then the process to get it approved in insurance took a couple months. I had my approval in late December, but then I had to wait through the holidays to find out my surgery date. I finally got it in January...my date would be February 11. I was terrified and excited all at once.
Now here's a very important catch they don't tell you anywhere I remember on the net. When you first start in the program you get weighed. Most surgeons and insurance companies expect you to try to lose some weight in the six months or so leading up to the surgery. At the very least YOU CANNOT GAIN WEIGHT. In fact, my surgeon's office said if I gained between 5-10 lbs I could be rejected for surgery. Well immediately my rebellious side went into overdrive. So from August to October, I'd say I put on a good 12 lbs....which was CRAZY!! I was lucky I was going through personal hell through the holidays and for once did not turn to food. I managed to actually lose weight over Thanksgiving, and once Christmas came around I decided I better get serious about coming in at least at my weight I was at the surgeon's office last time.
I knew I would have to do a liquid diet the last seven days before my surgery, so my strategy became to start the liquid diet early to drop the weight beforehand. I do not recommend this to anyone else, because it has been very hard. Yes I did drop the weight, and yes I did manage to do three weeks of liquid diet beforehand, but I don't think it was good to be miserable these past weeks and not able to eat anything good I wanted. So please, be balanced, don't be rebellious like me...if you are given the directive to lose or maintain, just try your best, and keep getting on the scale through out your waiting period time so you can monitor yourself. The liquid diet has been okay, but I would have preferred to not have had to do it. I lost 18 lbs over the past 3 weeks, but sadly I can only count like 5 of them as truly lost....at least in my surgeon's eyes...haha.
The liquid diet is pretty important. If you haven't seen the show Big Medicine yet on TLC, you should...they go through it all the time...the why's and wherefor's of the liquid diet. You go on the liquid diet to shrink your liver so the surgeon's can have an easier time accessing your organs with the laproscopic instruments.
So I've been drinking a combination of no sugar added Carnation Instant Breakfast, Advantedge Carb Control, chicken broth, beef broth, sugar free jello, sugar free pudding, crystal light, for about 3 weeks. It's not too bad actually....after a few days you just stop caring about food altogether (at least until your coworker starts chomping chips in your face and you want to punch him). So here I am, 24 hours til the big surgery, and I'm getting started on this blog. I hope it becomes a resource for other people going through the experience...and I hope I have a place where I can feel free to express all I'm going through. We shall see.
I have chosen my before picture. It was taken before New Year's....I only think it's fair to take a pic of me that was pre-liquid diet. So here I am...all of me...I'll be adding photos as I go...and maybe some videos too.
No comments:
Post a Comment