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The bariatric surgery closet that is....That's right, you read it correctly, I had bariatric surgery. I had a Lapland procedure done a year ago in March. I wanted to talk about from day one of medifast, but I didn't know how people would react. I still don't know how everyone reading this is going to react, but I'm going to talk about it anyways.
I had Lapland surgery last march at my highest ever weight of 264 pounds. I'm 5'5", and 264 pounds was getting way to heavy for me to carry around. I decided enough was enough. I was lucky that my insurance covered every part of the procedure except the $750 administrative fee. I had to go through 6 months of fitness and nutrition classes before I could approved. I sat through all those classes thinking, duh, I know this stuff. Eat more protein and less sugar, and start exercising. I thought I've tried all that, this Lap-band will help me stick to it. I had a friend who had the Lapland done before me, and she lost 100 pounds in her first year. I just knew that I'd be able to do the same thing. Well ten months later I started Medifast at 250 pounds, so I lost a whopping 14 pounds in 10 months with my band.
I think there are lots of reasons I didn't lose. The first is that my surgeon is very conservative, and I didn't really get much restriction until about 8 months in. So in my mind I thought, I can still eat anything I want, so I'm going to. Then once I had some restriction I kept pushing the limits to see what I could eat. I would still eat pizza and chicken wings, just less than I used to eat. My wake-up call was when I went to my last surgeon's appointment in December and I had gained weight from the previous visit. This magical band was supposed to make my weight go down, not up! So I decided that I would start Medifast on January 1st, and I've been on the program since. Coincidentally, I've lost 23 pounds in just 7 weeks with this program.
Now I honestly don't know if I could have done this program without the lap-band. I'm not sure that I could have survived the first week without restriction, or maybe I could have. I look at all the success stories on this site, and sometimes I wish I could have started medifast before going through with the surgery. In the end though, it took gaining weight with a lap-band that made me motivated enough to try and stick to medifast.
I know this is a long post, so if you've made it this far thank you. I guess I wanted to post this for several reasons. One- I wanted anyone considering the surgery to know that it doesn't always work. It's not a magic fix, and it takes just as much commitment as sticking to Medifast does. Two- I felt like I was keeping a secret from this community that I belong to, and I didn't want any shadows hanging over my weight loss victories. Three- I feel so stupid that I had a surgery that basically helped me lose less weight in more time than medifast.
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Up, down, up, down! I'm losing weight, I'm not. My clothes are fitting better, maybe they're not. I'm so sick of the up and downs. I've been resisting temptations left and right, and I still don't feel like I'm making any progress. Sunday's are my weigh in day, and last Sunday I weighed myself only to find that I had lost a measly .8 pounds putting me at 232.2. Well, I promptly went back to bed. When I woke back up I weighed myself again and I was down 2.4 from the last sunday. I like that number 229.8. I was officially in the 220s and I had lost more than 20 pounds. That's the number I recorded on my tracker. Well the next day I was back to 232, then it fell to 231 and that's where I've been since. I'm so frustrated at myself because if I had taken the .8 of my original weigh in, I may have been able to record a loss this week. Now I feel like I've gained weight this week, when in reality the other number was probably a fluke. Either way, I am not losing that much that fast. I've been tracking every single thing that I've eaten, and I have checked my ketones with the strips every day this week. I have not gone out of ketosis once. So what gives? Why am I not losing weight?!!!
Aside from the weight roller coaster, I"m going through an appearance roller coaster. Every day I wake up thinking man my clothes are fitting better, but I look in the mirror and I still see the same person. Plus, no one has really started complimenting me. I don't know if it's because I still have the general shape of a fat person. Maybe no one will notice until I actually start to look skinny. Maybe my less fat body now is no different than my heavier fat body. I don't know what it is, but either way it's frustrating. I'm also frustrated because I shouldn't really care about what other people think. I'm a grown woman who still lets her moods be affected by other people. That's so annoying!
Right now I'm just frustrated about the whole thing! I want the big 3 and 4 pound weeks. At this 1 pound a week thing it will take me 2 years to get to goal weight!!!!!!! |
So I'm starting my couch potato to 5k program today. This is the 6th week on the program, and I've been avoiding exercise. I've read so much on the boards about how exercise slows people's progress down, so I've been hesitant to start. Actually if I'm honest with myself, slow weight loss is not the real reason why I haven't started exercising.
I haven't started exercising because I'm scared that I won't be able to. The running program calls for 60 seconds of running with 90 second of walking for 20 minutes. It seems so easy, but I don't know my feet can cary this 232 pound body through 60 second of running (not to mention my legs, butt, and lungs). What if my thighs start a fire from rubbing together so much? I can see the headlines now "Fat Girl Dies from Thigh Friction Related Fire!"
In all seriousness though, I think the biggest reason I haven't started exercising is because I don't want to face how big I've become. Sure I've already come to grips with how I look, which is the main reason that I started Medifast, but now the physical ramifications of my weight will be slapping me in the face. I used to do triathlons and run 5ks on a regular basis. I would go to the gym twice a day, and I was constantly pushing my body to its limits. Then life took over, and I'm where I am today. My plan to run tonight is bringing up all kinds of feelings of failure. How the hell did I get back to the point where I'm not sure if I can run (more like jog, which is even generous) for 60 seconds? |
I lost a total of 16 pounds in three weeks. The hunger was finally gone, and I was feeling great. Then this week was not a good week. I've gained one pound this week, and my ketoid strips show I'm barely in ketosis. The results on the strip wasn't really a surprise because I'm hungry again this week. I started getting depressed about gaining that pound and more importantly not losing anything this week. Well when I get depressed I get busy trying to find a solution to my problem. I've been racking my brain over what I did differently this week. I avoided the bagels two days in a row. I said no thanks to the cake at my chiropractor's office. I thought I had been good!
The truth is that I was good by avoiding all the obvious in your face carbs, but I hadn't been avoiding the hidden carbs. I realized that I stopped keeping track of my food, and I haven't really been measuring out my portions like I was before. I've never been good at keeping lists or schedules, even my planner in school would only be filled out for the first week or so. Well low and behold I stopped logging my foods, and now I'm paying for it. I had eggplant parmesan two days this week. I thought it was ok because there was no breading, but eggplant and the tomato sauce has a ton of carbs. Not only do they have a ton of carbs, but I didn't really measure my portions. Who knows how many carbs I actually ate. I also had buffalo chicken bake over spaghetti squash. I should have had it over kale or some other better green. Also, my husband does not really measure things, so we've probably had way more cheese than we're supposed to.
Basically all this has added up to hunger, low ketosis, and weight gain :( The only thing that is keeping me going is the fact that I put on a shirt today that wouldn't fit around my arms or button over my chest a month ago. I know this program works, so I just have to chalk this all up as lessons learned. |
So I started doing our taxes yesterday, and it looked like we might owe several hundred dollars. I started stressing out big time. First I couldn't figure out how we owed (I'm usually very good at math) and second I couldn't figure out how we were going to pay it. Well the stress started some negative thinking and before I knew it I was getting depressed.
I was driving home for work and all I could think of was how much I wanted to scarf down the eggplant parmesan (no breading) we made the other night. Seriously, I was in my car thinking about how great it would be to just eat and eat. At first I thought, well that makes sense because I forgot to eat my 4th meal before I left work, so I'm just hungry. Then I really started thinking about it and I realized I never dreamed of gorging myself on my medifast meals. Even when I'm starving I try to eat my MF meals slowly, but this eggplant parmesan is cheesy goodness! Holy crap, I'm an emotional eater!
Now I obviously knew this in some way because you don't get to be 30 years old without realizing something is wrong. However, this is the first time that I actually thought about why I wanted to eat rather than just eating. I thought to myself owing taxes is not the end of the world, you'll make it work out, and you don't need to eat to feel better. So I got home, ate a MF bar, and got on the computer to look at my taxes again. It turned out that I had left something out, and we don't owe at all. Phew, thank goodness for that!
I did eat my eggplant parmesan for dinner, but I ate a normal portion at a normal rate. I stopped when I was full. This was a huge step for me! Medifast has really made me stop to think about what I'm eating. No more stopping by a fast-food place for a quick fix. I know I have to eat slowly and space my meals out because if I don't I'll be too hungry with nothing to eat for the rest of the day. I lost another 4 pounds this week for a total of 16 so far. Those numbers make planning meals so worth it! |
So I've survived the second week! I lost 3.4 pounds this week. I was actually quite disappointed in this number after losing 8.4 pounds in my first week. I have to keep it in perspective though. It's 3.4 I didn't gain, and I could have lost less. Also, if I keep losing 3 pounds a week I'll lose my whole 130 pounds in ten months! That's huge! Well small actually :) I also looked up my BMI range and even at 150 I would be in the normal range, so that helped my goal feel a little more attainable. My husband's doing this with me, and he's lost 8 pounds so far. I know this makes me a horrible person, but the fact that I've lost more than him makes me feel much better about my 3 pounds this week! (I promise I am actually involved in a loving and supportive marriage :)
I've noticed several positive changes this week. First- the constant hunger is gone! I get hungry when it's time to eat, but not really that much in between! I've also been able to cook cauliflower pizza crusts today, and I have not wanted to just dig into one! Hopefully some day food will be an afterthought for me. Right now, it's definitely a focal point!
Second- I have so much energy! I usually nap when I get bored, but I've barely been able to fall asleep during the day. I've also spent all afternoon making these pizza crusts to freeze, and I have enough energy that I'm cleaning my kitchen! Normally I don't even feel like doing the dishes after cooking!
Third- I'm not really craving the bad stuff. I've been surrounded by donuts at a meeting, walked through sam's club with all the samples, and gone grocery shopping all without being tempted to take something. It's just not worth it. Those are the things that got me into this mess in the first place. That old saying "Fat and Happy", how many people are actually FAT and HAPPY? I know I wasn't!
I want to start the couch potato to 5k program, but I'm afraid. I'm afraid that I'm so out of shape that I won't even be able to run for the 60 seconds that the first week requires. I'm also nervous that this will slow down my weight loss. I mean 3 pounds a week is slow enough, thank you! I'm also worried that it will start making me hungry again. That was not a fun phase to go through! I'm probably using the slow weight loss as an excuse for not starting the program! I guess I need to just jump in and start! |
I'm an activities coordinator at a local community college, which means that I plan tons of events for students. The easiest way to get students to participate in an activity is to offer them food. The more fatty and carby the food the better. Last semester my activities offered students funnel cakes, snow cones, soft pretzels, lemonade loaded with sugar, thanksgiving deserts, chips, dips, and tons of PIZZA and SODA. Now I could have been good and avoided those foods, but the sad fact is that I didn't.
Not only am I surrounded by food at work on a daily basis, but one of my favorite channels to watch is the food network. My husband and I love all of the cooking competition shows. My favorite is the cake challenges. Even if I avoid the channel that is completely based on food, I can barely watch TV without seeing a million commercials with food. Delicious, cheesy, fatty, carby, yummy food! I feel like I am constantly surrounded by food! If I think back to all the activities I've done with friends and family they all involve food. My first response to the question "What do you want to do?" is "Let's go out to eat."
I'm only on the fifth day of this program, and I"m really stressing out about how I'm going to handle all my upcoming student activities this semester. I'll have to choose between gritty and weird tasting medifast or a slice of pizza. I did make that choice today when I declined to have a single slice,wing, or cookie at an afternoon meeting. I just hope that I can continue to make those good choices.
I hope that I can continue to fight the onslaught of food that is all around me! |
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