I have officially completed one week of my pre-op diet! Hooray! I made it! And I didn’t kill anyone! I think that should be applauded more than anything.
I dropped 17 pounds this week, all of which I am sure is water weight. But hey, they are 17 pounds I am no longer carrying, so that’s really what matters most here. So how did you do it? you’re probably wondering. Continue reading
Posted in pre-op, vsg, weight loss surgery
Tagged myfitnesspal, photo post, pre-op, pre-op dieting, progress report, reflections, sleeve gastrectomy, success, tracking, VSG, WLS
Yesterday I had posted a Facebook status about how proud I was of myself for sticking to my nutrition goals for the week (I have done a good job, methinks), and one of my friends replied by telling me that she shared with the folks in her lab about “how awesome [I] was for doing this for myself, but sharing [my] experience openly” (her words, not mine). Continue reading
Posted in vsg, weight loss surgery
Tagged educating others, reactions to WLS, reflections, sharing the journey, sleeve gastrectomy, support, VSG, vsg realness, WLS
Can you believe that bacon is allowed as a fat choice on my pre-op diet? Me either!
Today marks Day 3 of my pre-op diet, and I have to say, it’s actually going better than I ever expected. I have been stomach-growling hungry only twice so far, and had a wicked headache yesterday. I think that was partially due to the fact that I didn’t eat breakfast–I couldn’t, because I had an upper GI series scheduled for yesterday morning–and carb withdrawal. While my surgeon’s plan allows me to consume 1200 calories and 120 grams of carbohydrate, I’m trying to keep my carbs below 100 grams. I wasn’t given a specific protein goal to hit, but I’m trying to get between 80 and 100 grams of protein daily as this is my post-op goal. I have also managed to keep my fat grams below 40 each day. And of course, I’m drinking water like crazy. So far, the result has been that I’m down 9 pounds (!) and my shorts are fitting a bit more loosely (I need a belt!).
Of course, this is only Day 3 of 19. Ask me how things are going at this time next week!
Posted in pre-op, vsg, weight loss surgery
Tagged biology is awesome, eating, liver reduction diet, nutrition, obesityhelp.com, pre-op, pre-op dieting, progress report, sleeve gastrectomy, VSG, WLS
June 17, 2013: Three weeks pre-op. Pre-op diet began today.
I met with my primary care doc this morning to review my latest labs and to get my pre-op clearance from her taken care of. Labs, while not fabulous, are providing me with baseline a1c, fasting glucose, triglyceride and cholesterol levels. My EKG was picture perfect and I have been deemed fit for surgery.
Posted in pre-op, vsg, weight loss surgery
Tagged data, fitbit, measurements, medical testing, photo post, pre-op, pre-op dieting, sleeve gastrectomy, VSG, WLS
One of the last regular meals I’ve eaten today: tacos al carbon at a local Mexican restaurant.
Today is T-minus 3 days and counting until I begin my pre-op diet. I’m beginning it a week early, as the week I am supposed to begin it I will be teaching workshops to adults. As I told my teaching partner, “I’d rather not be in carb withdrawal and bitchy while I’m trying to teach these people!” So I’m going to start a week early to get the withdrawal out of my system. I figure it can’t hurt anything to begin a week early, and whatever I can do to lose a little more weight before surgery will be a good thing for both me and my surgeon.
But before I start the first stage of the next stage of the rest of my life, I decided that I wanted to have a few “last meals” so to speak.
Surgery Day is closing in, and there is so much left to do. Documents to get in order, last meals to eat, and hoops to jump through.
So much to be done…
One of the things that you are not told prior to embarking on the surgical journey is that there are an awful lot of hoops you must jump through to make the procedure happen. At least there are with my doctor, but I realize there is a reason for all of the hoops–he is trying to keep me as safe as possible so that complications are avoided both during and after the procedure. He’s also trying to make sure I have all the tools in my toolbox that I need to be successful with the sleeve he is going to craft for me in a few short weeks.
Posted in pre-op, vsg, weight loss surgery
Tagged counseling, dietician, medical testing, pre-op, pre-op testing, preparations, sleeve gastrectomy, support group, surgeon, VSG, what's up doc?, WLS
Laying out a plan of attack for eating before and after surgery.
If you know me, then you know that I am a planner. Always have been, always will be. When the thing I have to tackle is a major life event, planning is critical to the success of the event. I look at my upcoming surgery as something that needed to be planned from the get-go. From the initial surgical consult down to my pre-op testing (starts this week, yay!), everything about this has been carefully planned and orchestrated. The eating I’ll be doing for the rest of my life is not excluded from this planning.
Posted in pre-op, vsg, weight loss surgery
Tagged eating, meal planning, obesityhelp.com, planning for success, post-op eating, post-op life, pre-op, pre-op dieting, preparations, sleeve gastrectomy, success, VSG, WLS
A few weeks ago, I decided to send away for a DNA testing kit from the company 23andMe. For $99, they will genotype your DNA (a very different process than sequencing), and from this information you can learn about your ancestry, what health conditions you are at risk of developing, whether or not you are a carrier for several common (and some not-so-common) inherited diseases, how you might tolerate certain drugs and what some of your physical characteristics are. For a long time, I’d suspected that some of my behaviors and physical characteristics had an organic, biological basis and I wanted confirmation that perhaps I was correct in my thinking.
La Guerra de La Gorda 