The diet takes a back seat...

        Hey Y’all, once again it has been about 2 weeks since my last post, I would still like to do an update every week but I am thinking that for the foreseeable future it is more likely that they will usually be every other week unless I have something big to cover. 

I will apologize in advance to those who are just here for an update regarding my weight loss.  A lot happened in the last 2 weeks that isn’t related to my surgery and diet.  We will get to that in a bit, but first the diet.

Two weeks ago I declared that I was in the middle of my 2^nd plateau , well apparently the surefire way of getting thru a plateau is to declare its presence publicly because within a couple of days I started losing again.  Plateaus are so strange from a dieter’s perspective.  You don’t change anything, you are still sticking to your diet and exercise and the scale just stops moving, you stick to your guns, are patient, keep doing everything right and suddenly for seemingly no reason the scale eventually starts moving.  I am glad God knew what he was doing when he made us and knows how everything works because I certainly don’t understand it at times.

It is always nice to see the scale moving in the right direction but I think seeing everything shrinking and having old clothes be too big is far better.  I know all brands sizes are slightly different and some brands just generally fit smaller or larger but I found a regular XL shirt (that’s right no numbers or extra x’s ) shirt that I could fit into the other day, that felt awesome.  I also officially have no clothes left (except socks) from before the surgery, I have shrunk out of everything.

Following a diet will always be challenging, that is why so many fail but I find it interesting that the same is still true even after surgery.  I find I go thru phases where my motivation wanes somewhat or my self-control goes thru waves.  I found a few weeks ago that I had a hard time knowing exactly when to stop eating and would end up taking a n extra couple of bites (an yes 2 extra bites can make a HUGE difference between full and miserable).  Over the last couple of weeks I seem to have gotten better at knowing exactly when to stop and what a difference it makes not being miserable for a few minutes after every meal.

Now, to the numbers.  Two weeks ago, I was at 288, I have had a pretty good couple of weeks and am down to 279.  That means I am within just a few pounds of my next 20-pound milestone so I am thinking O will have an update next week and have some new pictures to post as well.

As I mentioned I actually had a busy and interesting couple of weeks since my last post.  This actually involves my other big life change this year.  That of course is my son Evren.  Evren was born pretty small and has always seemed to struggle to keep formula down and gain weight.  Well the day after my last post  he took a turn for the worse , he started throwing or spitting up almost everything he would eat. We took him to his pediatrician and they checked for milk allergies and some other conditions and checked his weight for 2 days.  In 2 days he lost 4 ounces from 7lb, 14 oz down to 7lb 10oz. atthis point he was admitted to Children’s Hospital here in Denver.  (Luckily Denver has one of the best children’s hospitals in the entire country).  While there he lost some more down to 7lb 4 oz, so a total of at least 10 oz and we think probably at least 2 more before he saw the pediatrician.

We were there for 5 days, they ran all sorts of tests and finally concluded that what happened was a combination of several things.  First, they think that he caught some sort of stomach bug that exacerbated some other conditions.  They also determined that he has really bad infant acid reflux and bad infant gas. 

The staff pediatrician told us that not only would they figure out what was causing the issues but that the may very well return a different son to us attitude-wise.  That is exactly what happened, we have made several changes and they seem to be working and Evren seems a lot more mellow except he still has some issues with gas pains some evenings.

While in the hospital, we experimented with almost every anti-gas bottle on the market and finally settled on Dr. Browns bottles.  We are also on a higher calorie fortified anti-gas formula and a more structured feeding schedule of smaller meals more frequently.  Evren is also on some infant acid reflux medicine and gas drops.  He also has a new bassinet that allows him to sleep at an angle.

All these changes seem to be working and as of last Friday he had regained all of the weight he had lost and was up to 8lb, 2oz. He is also definitely growing more and is finally starting to fill in and have a little bit of baby fat.

I am thinking that will do it for this week.  Thanks for reading , and of course thanks for all the thoughts prayers, and encouragement (especially the prayers for Evren recently.)