I wanted to ell you how things are really going day to day. Food wise, I was cleared to eat anything I can tolerate, which pretty much means anything in extremely small quantities. I had asked my nutritionist when I could try a salad. I ate so many of them in pre-op, and i really like salad. Well Lettuce as with most leafy greens do not digest well if at all. The cellulose fibers in the plants do not digest and have a tendency to act like a high does of fiber, and can expand and make your sleeve feel overfull. It can lead to throwing up. or just plain feeling like you swallowed a brick.
So I was told to try a very small amount at first ( like there is any other size I could eat?!?) well i tried some homemade chicken salad wrapped in a lettuce leaf. Well i tried it wrapped in some heirloom bibb lettuce i got from Trader Joe's. Unfortunately the lettuce tasted like grass to me.
That is one of the things that happens after this surgery. Certain items will taste bad and certain others that you disliked now have enhanced tastes. I almost feel pregnant n that i tried a pickle and was amazed at how god it was. Not some special handmade pickle , just a small piece of dill pickle. So I figured i was out of luck. Needless to say i tried a little bit of salad at work and iceberg lettuce still lasted good.
So I know what your thinking, how about an update? Sure lets get into it. First I will give you an update on my weight. My surgery remember was on Dec. 16th. In the pre-op diet i lost 30 pounds going from 362 to 332 on the day of my surgery. Today I am down to 286. Which is 46 pounds in 45 days since surgery or 76 pounds total since October 12th. Just as important along with the weight loss is the physical changes my body has made in response to the weight loss. So on January 23rd we remeasured my body at specific points and compared them to the measurement we took at surgery, and here they are below in inches.
AREA 12/16/2014 1/23/2015
Neck 23 20
Chest 60 52
upper arms R 20 (L) 20 R 17 (L) 17
forearms R 15 (L) 15 R 12 (L) 12
belly 60 54
waist 56 50
Thigh (R) 26 (L) 26 (R) 24 (L) 24
If you add that all up I have lost over 30+ inches since surgery. That seems like an absurdity, even to me and I'm the one living it. It is also a relief and a huge motivator to keep going. I average between .6 to .8 pounds a day lost now. I do have small stalls, which are expected with tremendous body changes, you will hold some water in here and there, it happens. I went 4 days without losing an ounce then on the fifth day dropped 2 and a half pounds. That's usually how a stall in weight loss breaks.
Just to give you an idea what my daily intake is like I will give you a normal day. In the morning I get up for work at about 6:45 am. I do not have to be to work until 9:30 am, but my wife is up and usually leaves by 7:15 so i like to be up and ready to go to see her off. Also if i get out of bed my chances of oversleeping are nil.
At first I had to decide should I eat breakfast or should I have some coffee ( decaf of course, although caffeine has had no harmful acidic effects on me so far). I have this down to eat first , so I whip up one egg scrambled. I even bought a very small non stick frying pan to make it easier to cook. Some days i will have two pieces of precooked bacon. I heat it up first of course. I can usually finish this or at least 90% of it over a half hour while the news is on and i get ready to leave for work. On my way to work I stop at Dunkin Donuts.
Now in the past this was a very bad thing for me. I wouldn't eat breakfast at home but would buy a bagel with cream cheese, and extra cream cheese ( yeah I liked my bagel loaded lol) and two donuts as well for later in the day, and a cup of coffee, extra cream, extra sugar. Obviously this was a big part of keeping myself fat, but I love donuts. It was comfort to go, with a hole in the center.
I realized that I cannot just deprive myself of everything bad I did, I just have to adjust. So now i get a medium decaf and add a sugar substitute like monk fruit extract, ( tastes better then sweet and low, yecch) or even just one sugar, which overall is not that bad if that is the only sugar you have, although unrefined sugar is better like in sugar in the raw etc. I usually can only drink about 1/4 of a medium, before it gets cold and cold coffee is not my thing in winter anyway. For lunch i have a protein shake, either a Fuzzy Navel flavor or Cappuccino. Then for dinner its usually something chicken related. A store near us sells really good marinated chicken, in both pieces and in breast forms. Like Asian Chili, or Parmesan garlic, or Bourbon Turkey Tips. These cook up quick served with a very small side of vegetables and sometimes even a smaller amount of starch. A total of about 1/4 to 1/2 cup of total food. If i get the urge later I will have some sugar free jello or sugar free pudding. We went out for breakfast this morning to the doughnut shop we always frequented, no I did not get a doughnut, I got one egg and some toast and I was able to eat about half the egg and about 3/4 of one half slice of whole wheat toast. It is rough but it is also very interesting to leave a lot of food on your plate especially since I grew up in a household where you ate everything on your plate as a rule. Well i think I will leave it there for now, The next post will be much sooner I swear. So see you soon, and go Patriots!
Here is my cartoon for this post, Enjoy:
