So close I can taste it...

Hey everyone. 

Sorry it has been so long since my last update.  I have been really busy with work and a Christmas show and way too many doctors’ appointments (mine and April’s).  Those are probably not good excuses and I am sure I could have found the time to do a post (or two).  Anyway…

So I am really close to being ready for surgery.  I had my last 2 appointments with my dietician.  At this point it is just a matter of basically checking in, see how I am doing with the changes and see if I have any questions or concerns.

I think that I am well prepared mentally for the change that is coming my way.  I know what to expect, or maybe more accurately I know as much as I can about what to expect without actually going thru it.  Or put a different way it is kind of like my upcoming foray into fatherhood, I understand that I don’t even know what I don’t know about being a parent (and a post op person) but I know enough to know I can handle it and get thru both of them.

I am feeling good about the surgery but I am starting to get a little nervous.  When I started this blog I talked some about different theories and forms of diets and weight-loss and about how statistically none of the work at all for the morbidly obese, that is save gastric bypass.  Unfortunately I have been reminded of that recently via my own life.  I had been doing really well on the diet, I had gone from 415 pounds down to about 385 and then plateaued somewhat but eventually did get down to about 380.

In the last month I have actually backslid somewhat and gone back up to just under 390 pounds.  My dietician said that is actually pretty normal with this 6 month diet leading up to the surgery because you get to a point where you can see the light at the end of the diet tunnel and the surgery is in view.  Along with this you also have to come to terms with the fact that there are some foods that you will likely never have again and you actually go thru a sort of mourning where you revert back to your old habits and indulge a little more than you should.  When you combine that with it being the holiday season you end up putting on some of the lost weight.

My dietician also reminded me that while losing some of the weight before surgery is a good idea  the reason I am having the surgery is because diets don’t work for guys my size.

I also went to a pre-op class that the surgeon and hospital require.  A lot of it was on nutrition and specifics of what I would be eating and how.  They also covered what I needed to do during the week leading up to the surgery and what to expect in the weeks just after surgery.  Most of the nutrition stuff I already knew although it was good to get some specifics and some tips on how to choose some products.  The general nutrition rules are that I need to get my protein first and foremost then get my complex carbs. For protein they taught us some simple math to do, in almost everything we eat they want it to be adding some protein their ratio they want us to look for is at least one gram of protein per 15 calories we eat.

As far as the days right before surgery they want you to already have anything you are going to need right after surgery already bought before surgery.  That includes my protein shake of choice for the first week or two, chewable vitamins and sublingual B-12 lozenges. Also need some gauze pads for changing out over the incisions. They said they also get some form of good prescription pain meds for me as well.

They said I will be in the hospital for 2-3 days after surgery and out of work for 3-6 weeks (I am aiming for a month).  I will be on a liquid diet while in the hospital and a few days after and then progressing kind of like a baby but hopefully faster thru varying degrees of soft food to normal food (that I will be cutting to the size of M&M’s…plain, not peanut and chewing to a smooth paste).

While they say that there are no foods that we can absolutely never have again there are some that they say will be in our best interest to avoid completely.  First is anything with a lot of sugar because it causes something called dumping syndrome which sounds really unpleasant.  The other one is rice, pasta, bread and anything really starchy, not because it is nutritionally bad for you but because of what happens to it after you swallow it and that is that it turns into a big gummy mass of starchy goo that ends up getting stuck in trying to pass from stomach to the intestines.

Now that I have my last appointment with the dietician behind me I have everything in place for the insurance approval.  Unfortunately my liaison between me and the insurance company is out of the office on some personal family business and won’t be back until probably first of the year but I am still aiming for having the surgery the first week of February.  I will let y’all know as soon as I have a date.

I also recently let my management at work officially know about the surgery, they are being really cool about it.  Even though I don’t technically qualify for FMLA yet they are going to go ahead and approve it anyway , which is really cool.  The rest of the office is doing a office version of  “Biggest loser”,  starting a week or so before my surgery.  I figure I will track my progress alongside them  but think it would be cheating to actually be eligible for the prizes, it will still be fun.

On the other significant life change for me in 2012.  The pregnancy is going splendidly; the baby seems to be developing exactly as he/she should, mommy is definitely starting to show, although not as much as my sister who is a month ahead of us.  We should find out the gender at our next appointment…assuming Little Noble cooperates with the ultrasound tech.  The appointment is January 6^th, I will let y’all know about that as soon as I know as well.

Once again thank you for reading my blog and of course thank you for all your prayers and support…for both the surgery and the baby.

Almost forgot, one last thing.  Hope all of you have a wonderful Merry Christmas and a fabulous New Year...Hopefully as great as mine is shaping up to be.

Doctors, Doctors and More Doctors...

So, first I have to apologize for not having an update recently. I have been making process towards meeting the prerequisites for insurance and the surgery itself, I just kinda let the blog slip.

I have had a few different appointments recently, with a cardiologist, my dietitian and a psychiatrist. Between my appointments and my wife's that I am going to with her I am getting a little tired of doctors offices.  We have 2 different offices that we have to go to in the same building at Rose Medical.  I actually accidentally went to the wrong office the other day.  Luckily I caught myself before walking in, I don't think they would have been able to help me much with my diet since it was my wife's OB/GYN.

I'll start with the Cardiologist.  I had to get a cardiac stress test to make sure my heart was healthy enough for surgery.  I also have come to the conclusion because of this one that I have an adhesive allergy.  When I first got there a really nice lady got me set up with all the sensors on me for monitoring my heart rate, she was really nice but new and apparently needing some more training. All the sensors had to be redone and they had to shave part of my chest for some of them.  I ended up with a bunch of red circles from the adhesive form all the sensors, those sensors stayed for about a week and a half.  

So after getting that straightened out they got me up on the treadmill and had to get my heart rate up to 165 bpm, they made the treadmill pretty steep and a really fast walk so it didn't take me too long to get up to that point (that is about where I get most of the time when working out so I was tired but alright).  The only part that kinda freaked me out is my blood pressure spiked to 200/100. I asked if that was normal for someone my size when working hard, they said that a spike is normal but that was somewhat higher than normal, however they said it returned to normal pretty quickly which set my mind at ease somewhat.

My next appointment was my psych eval.  I had actually been looking somewhat forward to this one but it ended up being somewhat undramatic. That is unless you find tests consisting of a combined 800 true/false questions riveting, I do not.  I spoke with the psychiatrist for about 20 minutes then took the tests.  

I consider myself pretty well rounded and stable from a psychiatric standpoint, granted given enough time I am sure they could diagnose me with something (and my parent might object if they didn't find something wrong with my head), and I do have a history of depression (however that is completely gone now).  I wasn't really expecting any surprises from the eval...and I was right, I am a bit like Mary Poppins mentally..."Practically perfect in every way".

They rate candidates on a high, medium and low risk scale.  They can't say anyone is a no risk candidate but they said I was at the extreme edge of the low risk range.

My last appointment was my dietitian, this was my 4th appointment in a total of 6 that I have to have. This appointment went fine, no real surprises here.  I am still sticking to my diet for the most part and while my weight loss has definitely slowed I am still loosing but the truth is I didn't really need to loose any before the surgery, it's more about making the necessary changes to my diet before surgery than loosing weight, especially since one of the reasons to have the surgery is that normal diets don't work for guys my size. 

They have been having me integrate changes into my diet each month in preparation for life after surgery.  Last month I supposed to start trying different protein shakes since that is what I will be on for a while immediately after surgery.  I have tried a few and really don't have strong opinions on any of them other than I think I will primarily stick to vanilla and fruit ones, chocolate is good but gets old fast.

My change for this month is to stop drinking water with my meals.  Actually they say to stop 15 minutes before and not start again until an hour after.  Their reason is that with the new configuration of my stomach and the lack of capacity they need the food to stay in the stomach longer and water would wash it thru to quick.  This one has actually been easier than I thought it would be.

I am still working on taking small bites, this one has definitely been the most challenging. I think it's because it's the most significant change.  We develop our technique for how we eat a meal very early and it is definitely by adulthood an ingrained part of our behavior. Changing something this significant in behavior is hard. but I will master it...eventually.

So I am actually getting really close to having everything in place for the insurance and surgery qualification.  I just have to finish out the mandatory 6 month diet (2 more months), take a nutrition class that the hospital does (which I am doing next week) and get everything submitted to insurance.

Hopefully, everything will go smoothly with insurance and I will be scheduled for surgery somewhere around Groundhog day (hopefully I wouldn't have to go thru that day over and over again).

As I mentioned in my last post my wife and I are going to be parents, our due date is May 23rd, needless to say 2012 is gonna be a watershed year for our family.  I am hoping I will be able to hit the 40 pounds lost mark in the next month or so and post an updated progress picture, but for now I will post a picture of our little one, enjoy.

Once again thank you for the prayers and support.

Third nutritionist appointment (half way there)...

Sorry it's been a while since the last post.  I'm in sort of a lull in activity between appointments right now. I am pretty sure it will pick up in the next few months as the pieces fall into place.

I had my third appointment with the nutritionist today, everything is going great.  I was actually a little bit down going into this one because my weight loss hasn't been what I had hoped recently, I seem to be hovering right around the 24 pounds lost point even though I am doing great on the diet and working my butt off at the gym (I may do another post about that in a day or two).  The dietitian didn't think it was a problem at all and reminded me that one reason I chose this route is because "traditional" means of weight loss  don't work well for most people my size.  That along with the realization that even though the scale may not be moving much I am feeling better and it is very early in a very long and important journey.

With each appointment I am given new steps to integrate into my diet and discuss how I did with the previous month's changes.  Last month my big change was to really reduce the amount of pop ("coke" for you Texans that are reading) I drank. This actually went better than I thought it would, aside from the occasional one when going out on the weekend I have cut it out almost entirely, which is a big change from the not to distant days of having probably 4-5 a day.

I was also supposed to work on taking smaller bites.  This is important since my new opening from my stomach to my lower small intestine will be pretty small after surgery, about the diameter of your pinky.  This one I have been struggling with just because it is hard to remember to do it.  We train ourselves in how to eat from a very early age (not only what we eat but the mechanics of how we do it) and these are habits that are very hard to change because it is so ingrained in us.  The dietitian had one tip to try with this that I may try and that is to try using smaller utensils (which we are eventually going to have to buy anyway, more on that later). The thought being that it is a physical reminder to eat  smaller maybe somewhat more dainty bites.

I kind of like the change for this month.  After surgery I will have to rely somewhat, especially in the first few months, on protein drinks.  So my task for this month is to start experimenting with different protein drinks to find some brands and varieties that I like (think I might have some more blog posts as I go thru that process).

That was pretty much it for the nutritionist appointment.  I went to My PCP the other day to get all the lab work done that I need and it all came back good.  I still have a pulmonary stress test to do and the psych eval (that one I am actually looking forward to).  I will keep all y'all informed as these progress.

One thing that is so important in this process is having support of others in your life to help motivate you, I can't thank all of you for all your support and prayers and my wife has been wonderful but I now have one more reason to be motivated in this journey.  For those who don't already know I found out this last weekend that I am gonna be a daddy.  If being healthy enough to enjoy raising a child and actually being around to see him or her grow up isn't adequate motivation I don't know what would be.

I said I would post pictures for every 20 pounds I loose but I also said I would post some other pictures along the way of some other events in my life along the way just to share them with you.  My wife and I went to see the musical "Les Mis" a few weeks ago and we got a good picture out in the atrium before the show (which was absolutely amazing).

Thanks everyone for reading and for your continued prayers.  I would really appreciate it if those of you that are really following my journey would sign up as followers just so I have a better idea of who is following regularly.

New Picture added...I've offically lost the first 20 pounds!!!

Hi all. So I passed the first 20 pounds lost checkpoint this weekend (Yay!!). 

As promised I have posted an updated picture showing my change so far. You can see some differences, the shirt fitting a little looser, my face looks a little thinner too.

I know part of it is because of the exercise I have been doing along with dieting (I love eliptical trainers by the way) but I am feeling quite a bit better already and my average blood pressure has dropped by a little bit.

Anyway, hope you enjoy the new pic...20 down, 180ish to go!

Again, thanks for your support and prayers.

Second nutritionist appointment (2 down 4 to go)...

So this will probably be a short post, but I said I would try and do an update after any surgery related appointment.  So here goes…

So I had my second appointment with the dietitian doing my 6 month medically supervised diet.  It went pretty well. The dieticians (they were training a new staffer) were impressed with my weight loss, especially since I had lost 6 pounds in 6 days.   I personally think that is too fast but am also sure that was not true weight loss. My appointment last week was later in the day and I had drank a lot of water that day and had a big yet healthy lunch, yesterday I went in earlier and hadn’t had much of anything to eat or drink yet.  I am guessing 3.5 to 4 pounds actually lost and then a difference in what I had eaten the 2 days.

We went thru what I had been doing diet wise and they thought it sounded great, their only thing they wanted to adjust was adding more protein to my breakfast, should be easy enough to do.

I am also supposed to be making some small changes to how I eat.  You may recall that last time they wanted me to try cutting out milk from my diet and try cutting my food into smaller pieces.  I have almost entirely cut milk from my diet, I still have some on my cereal a couple mornings a week and a glass of milk maybe once a week (for anyone that knows me, this is a significant change).  I have tried cutting the food small, it is just hard to remember, guess that is the point, try and form the habit now so it feels more natural when I have to do it.

The new adjustment starting this month is cutting out pop; this isn’t about the calories or the possible negative effects of artificial sweeteners in diets.  The reason is because of the carbonation and the effect that all the carbonation and extra gases can have on my stomach at the size it is going to be after surgery.  I don’t think this one will be too hard, but we will see.

So that is pretty much it for the appointment. 

I started working out again yesterday after having to take a few weeks off die to a hamstring injury; I jumped on the scale at the gym too (using the gym scale as my weekly baseline scale).  I am down to 393.8 which is a total of 18.6 pounds since I officially started this blog.  

Pretty sure I will cross the first 20 pound mark this week so, as promised, I will get a couple new pictures up this weekend showing the progress so far…so stay tuned.

Thanks again for following me on this journey and thanks for all the prayers!

First appointment with the surgeon...

Sorry it’s been a while since the last post. Just didn’t have much to report. I’ll try and post something after each appointment.  I am sure they will increase in frequency as the surgery eventually gets closer…probably mid February at the earliest.

Had my first appointment with my Surgeon (Dr. Michael Snyder) yesterday.  Aside from them losing my file and needing to fill out all the first time paperwork again it went well.

The appointment was basically just a quick one-on-one consult. We discussed which actual procedure I want to get (roux-en-y gastric bypass), Dr Snyder thinks I am a prime candidate for this particular procedure. Discussed medical history and co-morbities due to excess weight (in my case primarily sleep apnea and high blood pressure). 

We also discussed what the doctor thought would be a good ideal weight for me to get down to.  Dr. Snyder thought that 215 sounder like a good goal based on my body frame size. I had initially wanted to aim for 200 but in all honesty I have never seen what I look like as a full grown adult at approaching a “healthy weight” so for now I am more than happy with the idea of 215 pounds for a goal.  If I get there and think I can afford to lose more I will cross that bridge when I get there.  For the record getting to 215 would be a total weight loss of 200 pounds, basically losing a full grown healthy man.

We also discussed some tests and labs that I have to have done before the surgery.  Some are just for Dr. Snyder’s benefit, some are to qualify for insurance.  Basically I am going to be getting a full blood lab workup, a psych eval (that should be fun, or at least interesting), and a test to check my heart.

After that I also had to talk to the case manager to make sure I knew everything I needed to do to satisfy the insurance guidelines.

For the record I am now under 400 pounds, hopefully never to return.  I am at 399.6 pounds.

I have an appointment with the dietician next week number (2 of 6 with her), I will post another update after that appointment.

Thanks for following and thanks for all the prayers.

Finally...pictures.

So I finally got a couple of pictures added on here.

Among them you will see my official "before" picture.  My plan is to add comparison shots in the same outfit (probably new shorts at some point when they won't stay up anymore, nobody wants to see that) every 20 pounds lost and on other significant days (day before surgery, one year after, etc),

I will also just post some other pictures of other significant events along the way in this journey.

anyway...enjoy!

My Diet History...

A friend asked about the different diets I have been on and my opinions on them.  I thought it sounded like a good idea for a post so here goes. (I just finished and was surprised at how long it was, so just be aware it’s not a short post)

As is the case with most obese people I have tried a lot of different diets, some good, and some bad. Some I tried for months and had quite a bit of success, others only lasted a few weeks before deciding they were not for me, and at least one barely made it out of the box. So in no particular order…

I’ll start with the one that barely made it out of the box. Michael Thurmond’s six week body makeover, in fairness I really didn’t give this one a fair try.  Their big selling point is that it is a program is that it is supposed to be custom tailored to fit your exact body part.  Sounds pretty cool, right, you can target the areas that need the most help, or somehow address your eating issue so that in their words you can “Eat more, exercise less, and still lose weight.”  So, I don’t really know exactly what I was expecting but it was basically these cards with upper, middle, and lower body sections on them and sort of small, medium, or large. Once finding your body type they had a diet plan for you, in my case since I was pretty much big everywhere it focused…on everything. I probably should have at least tried it but thought at the time it was a letdown , didn’t tell me anything I didn’t already know and I just lost interest in it almost from the get go.  The only cool part was it also included an exercise program with big rubber resistance bands that I have actually used quite a bit.

Next on the list is Jared’s “Subway diet”, you all know the drill, six inch sub with no fattening things on it for lunch same for dinner plus a bag of baked Lay’s. I think if you could stay on this one it would probably work for you, as long as you exercise with it.  I could not do this one, within about 3 weeks I was so burnt out on having subway all the time and being limited to their “6 grams of fat or less” subs that when I stopped I didn’t go back to Subway for about 6 months and avoided all of the “6 grams” variety sub until a couple of weeks ago (about 8 years).

I tried Slim-Fast for about 2 weeks; this one didn’t work for me because for some reason the shakes made me sick.  I thought the shakes actually tasted pretty good but I think I would have become bored with it pretty quick had they not made me sick.

I’ve noticed a pattern here, I said earlier “in no particular order”, but so far it has been  the diets that worked the least for me…oh well.  I’ll go to one that worked pretty well for me, Atkins.

Atkins worked really well for me, at first, but I think it has a flaw.  I am your stereotypical “steak and potatoes” carnivore, and really I can pretty much drop the potatoes with little or no problem and just be a carnivore.  I think I can safely say that I will never adopt the vegan lifestyle because my 2 favorite food groups are meat and dairy.  This is also a bad combo for the traditional diet but for Atkins it was great.  No pasta, no rice, no potatoes, and no bread.  What does that leave, some fruits and veggies but lots of meat and cheese.  It was great…bacon double cheeseburger, 2-3 carbs, sure why not…big ribeye steak, ok…sausages, sure give me 3 and forget the bun…you could even go to Carl’s  Jr. and get a bug juicy, messy burger wrapped in lettuce, it was great.  And I did lose weight, about 50 pounds, but…there was a problem, after a few months I started having cravings for food high in carbs, at first I could handle them and on occasion try and have a really low carb day so I could have more carbs at night, eventually the cravings got worse and I crumbled.  In the back of my mind I also constantly fought with the idea that I was losing weight but ingesting massive amounts of fat and figured in the long run that couldn’t be good for me.  I know that the Atkins diet and some other ‘low carb, high protein” diets have been modified  to take into account “good carbs” and “bad carbs”, I haven’t tried this one but I imagine it is a lot more balances and not so meat and dairy centric and probably better for you than the original version.

Next on my list I am gonna combine 2 diets and that is Jenny Craig and Weight Watchers.  These are both well known diets and probably the most used diets in the world. I actually like a lot about both programs, I like that they both focus on accountability and needing the support of others to succeed.  I also like the idea of the Weight Watchers points system, it’s essentially calorie counting but simplified to smaller numbers and easier to track. My problem with these were more accountable to timing and how I viewed the image of these diets at the time, I was going to the meetings or weigh-ins with my mom and when I would go not only was I the only teenager there most of the time but was also the only male and it made it uncomfortable for me.  I think now with all the online tools and services, it would be easier for me but I am convinces that even then I wouldn’t stay on them long enough to attain my goal.

I have tried several different diet pills (Metabolife, Hydroxycut, Apex Fat burner 2, Leptopril), none of them really worked for me…or they worked but had unpleasant side effects.  Diet pills come in basically 3 forms appetite suppression, metabolism booster, and fat absorption inhibitors (these are the ones with unpleasant side effects).  If these pills worked as good as they claim we could wipe out obesity, but they don’t, probably the most effective is the variety that limit the amount of fat you absorb (I haven’t tried Alli, but that is how it works too), the problem is if the fat is not being absorbed it has to be removed from your body somehow and it does (use your imagination).

My last one here I will address is the tried and true, plain and simple, straight forward “cut calories and work out” method, I have done this one both on my own and at one time under a doctor’s care.  This one is easy to understand but hard to do, decrease you calorie intake and increase your calories burned thru exercise to a point where you burn more than you take in and you lose weight. As long as you have the discipline to go to the gym a few times a week and count all those calories this one does work.  This one used to be a lot harder, you would have to carry a book that showed the calories and record them in a notebook.  Now days with technology and smartphones it’s a lot easier, I even have a calorie counting program on my phone that has a barcode reader,  a huge database of food and excercises, does all the math and since I am under a nutritionists care leading up to the surgery I can even share my food diary with her with this program (MyFitnessPal.com)

So, which would I recommend…we’ll if your situation is similar to mine…none of them.  The fact of the matter is that none of these are really designed for me or people who have a lot to lose (I would call a lot 80 pounds or more).  Statistically, none of them work long term. One study found that for the morbidly obese, regardless of what type of diet they try less than 10% get down to their goal weight, and regardless of how much they may have initially lost 95-98% had gained it all back and usually more after 5 years.  If however you need to lose 50 – 60 pounds or less, my advice and recommendation would be the “cut calories and exercise” method, this one will not only help you lose the weight but also get more healthy in general.

First appointment with nutritionist.

So, even though my initial appointment with the Surgeon isn’t for another month I was able to schedule an appointment with the Nutritionist to get the ball rolling on the six months of medically supervised diet.
My first appointment was today. I actually started dieting about a week ago and have done pretty well so far but since to day is my first appointment I am going to consider it day one, my starting point  My starting point weight 412.4 pounds (BMI 59.2).
An interesting thing about fat people, even though they don’t tend to follow sound nutritional concepts with their diet, most of them, including me know an awful lot about nutrition. This comes from trying several diets and getting a nutritional indoctrination when starting each one.  And while each one is different most of the nutrition info they provide is similar.
I thought I knew for the most part what I was going to hear today, and I did hear a lot of what I expected but the appointment in general was not exactly what I expected.
I expected it to just be all about being on a diet for weight loss, which they did cover some of that but it was primarily geared towards starting to make some changes to my diet now that will be necessary changes after the surgery.
This actually made a lot of sense because one of the reasons for having bariatric surgery is that regular diets don’t work long term for the morbidly obese.  This is actually one of the points Dr. Snyder drove home at the seminar.
So they work with you to form some better nutritional habits.  Their focus, however, is on changes that will make the transition after surgery easier. Stuff like cutting your food smaller and chewing it a lot more before swallowing, drinking a lot of water but not with your meals, eating multiple small meals and not “drinking your calories” (This one is gonna be tough because it includes not drinking milk and I am a big milk drinker).
We also covered the vitamin supplements I will need to be taking since my ability to absorb some vitamins will be limited.
So, nutrition appointment #1 down, relatively painless. Only five more to go.

The Seminar

I went to the Bariatric surgery seminar back on July 7th, glad I did, it was a really good experience.

I am really impressed with the Dr (Dr. Snyder).  He comes across as being exceedingly intelligent, very confident (some might say cocky but he has the numbers to back up his confidence) and really seems to care for his patients.

Skinny people will find this somewhat strange but I liked being in a crowd with other overweight people and knowing they could relate to some things I go thru. Dr. Snyder mentioned some of these and it was like he had read my mind (like avoiding booths in restaurants with fixed tables because they are too tight or tying your shoes so the knot is right on the inside edge).

I also loved hearing from a panel of people who have had one type of gastric bypass or another, and how it has improved their lives (and some of the negatives).  I found it assuring that they all were able to say what they thought was the worst thing about the surgery but that even with the negative things they all said they would undoubtedly do it again if given the chance to make the decision again; in fact some said their biggest regret was not doing it sooner.

I had already pretty much decided that I wanted to have the Roux-en-y surgery but this seminar definitely re-enforced that choice.  It may be the most significant surgery (at least it is done laparoscopically instead of open like it used to be) but it also has the highest average amount of weight loss after it and I figure with wanting to lose more than 200 pounds it is the best choice.

At the end of the Seminar we were able to set up our first appointment with the surgeon, mine is in mid August, I wish I could speed it up.  I am hoping to be able to get an appointment with the dietician sooner than that so I can at least get started on the 6 month diet.

I will try and get some pictures up here soon and then will hopefully be posting more pictures to show my progress after the Surgery.

I appreciate you coming and reading my story…so far.  I would ask that you keep me in your thoughts and prayers going forward, especially when I get to the point of the actual surgery.

God bless.

My Motivation…

So I got married just over a year ago, and I couldn’t be happier.  Only problem is my health is clearly deteriorating and the overarching cause is easy.   I am getting older and my body is breaking down or developing complications from having to carry a lot of extra weight.  I really want to have a LOT of time with my wife and any future children we may have. So I decided to try going to a doctor again, get some of my treatable conditions treated and float the idea of gastric bypass.

I was diagnosed with high blood pressure, and, after a sleep study, with obstructive sleep apnea. I mentioned gastric bypass and finally hallelujah, she says she thinks it is a great idea (I had tried it before with other doctors and they had been against it).  I knew from my research that some insurance plans specifically exclude these procedures and others allow it but with clear guidelines and a process to go thru first. I checked mine and was covered but required, among other things, six moths medically supervised diet and a psych eval, they also require that they be contacted before proceeding and tracking your progress.

I contacted my insurance and got the ball rolling.

My insurance requires that the surgery be done at what they call “Center’s of Excellence”, luckily they have 3 in the Denver area.  I decided to look into “The Denver center for Bariatric Surgery” at Rose Medical Center.

My Story...

Technically, I haven’t been overweight my entire life, in fact between me and my siblings I had the lowest birth weight.  That didn’t last long, my sister has always done a pretty good job of taking care of herself and my brother is one of those beanpole skinny types with a metabolism blessed by the gods. 

I have, however, been overweight all of my adult life. I don’t know what changed but beginning of third grade I was skinny and one of the fastest runners in my grade, by the end of fourth grade I was one of the slowest 

and the brunt of many “chubby’ jokes (children can be so mean).

To be honest, while I have been overweight all my adult life, I have only been “morbidly obese” for about 12 years, in fact my senior year of high school I briefly got down to what was almost a healthy weight.

I have been on a bunch of different diets (like most obese people) I have tried Weight watchers, Jenny Craig, Atkins, Jared’s Subway diet, Metabolife, Slimfast, (and several others), I was even under a doctor’s care for weight loss for about a year and a half (calorie counting and exercise).

As far as the science goes for each of them; they all work to some degree and I usually lost weight on them.  The science has almost never been the problem (except maybe Slimfast, which made me sick). The problem with them is that none of them are really designed for the morbidly obese who need to lose over 100 pounds.  Sure every diet program has its success stories, and they end up being the poster children of each diet.  Statistically none of them really work unless you need to lose 20-50 pounds, in fact they have done studies and in the morbidly obese over a 5 year period 95-99% end up losing less than 50 pounds and gain all of it (usually more) by the end of the five years.

That is what happened to me time after time I would lose 40-50 pounds (65 once) then gain it all back and then some and the cycle would start over.

Now here I am 36 years old, 420 pounds, and several co morbidities, including nearly constant sore knees and ankles, lower back pain, obstructive sleep apnea, high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

I also have a lot to live for. I got married just over a year ago to the love of my life and want to have a long happy life with her.  We also plan on having children and I want to be around for them as well. So I have decided to do something about it.

I have decided to have bariatric surgery, specifically a roux en-y gastric bypass…

Obviously I have also decided to do a blog to share my experiences as I get ready for , go thru, and adjust to life after my gastric bypass surgery...stay tuned!