Out of the 230's

It has been a journey, these past seven weeks. I am learning that I have to put a whole lot less angst into these weight loss slowdowns.

I am now out of the 230's. I hit 229 yesterday and was still there today. I just have to realize that when I watched all of those videos about people losing a hundred pounds, they didn't lose it in a month.

I was able to tuck in my shirt today. That felt good. I am feeling better all the time. I started some running, but my knee really hurts, so I am going to keep it to just walking until I am stronger. My lower left belly also hurts now.

Feeling Better After Changing Diet

I had been so down. I was eating pure protein for the past two weeks. About 100 g of pure protein. Now, keep in mind that I am not like your average Joe. I have diverticulosis, which is potholes in the colon, too much protein can kill me.

Yesterday I added the following to my diet at about 6 pm:

1. some fruit from a can (no syrup)
2. some raisin bran cereal with a little milk (I am dairy sensitive, but decided to chance it).
3. a couple of pork rinds (my first time eating them ever) with some spinach dip.

This morning I had the first natural poo that I have had since my surgery. The first one unassisted by miralax or stool softeners.

I had been so fried for the past week or so. Miserable, tired, cranky and my diverticular pain was back.

Yesterday I swam 30 minutes of hard freestyle laps and burned about 525 cals, but had only taken in 328 cals of pure protein for the day. I felt like I was going to die.

Eating some carbs, even thought they probably were not optimal really helped me. I took in a total of 884 cals and expended 525 on the swim.

And I was down today on the scale.

I decided to skip the morning protein shake and try to see how I do getting my protein from food, which is what my doctor recommended on Monday. She also told me to balance out my eating, but I was too afraid to stray from  the pure protein. She was the one who suggested the raisin bran.

So, this morning, instead of egg beaters (which have so much crap in them) I had Egglands Best Egg Whites with a sprinkle of cheese and some diced ham and about an hour before that, I had a fiber one bar and right now I am having COFFEE. Black coffee.

I decided to skip the morning protein shake and try to see how I do getting my protein from food, which is what my doctor recommended on Monday. She also told me to balance out my eating, but I was too afraid to stray from  the pure protein. She was the one who suggested the raisin bran.

What?

I hear Angels singing.

Working on some short term goals.

Here are the goals that I am working on right now, prior to my surgery:

• Decaffeinating myself. Did you know Green Mountain makes a Haff-Caff? Yes. After a week or so, I will take that down and do a, what? Quarter-Caff?   I fear the caffeine headache, but worse would be to have that bitch the day after surgery.

•  Continuing to lose on the pre-surgery diet. I need to lose or at least not gain with every visit. Next month is my last one!! YAY! Unless I gain. Then I go to hell forever.

Maybe Hell wouldn't be that bad? He's cute, right?

•  Getting my CPAP changed to a BI-PAP. I am swallowing air, probably from too much pressure, so they will be changing my machine.

•  Continuing to swim every day. It is so fucking cold right now. It's really hard to get myself up for going outside and dragging all of my crap to the pool. The locker room and pool area are simply freezing. It's all glassed in and it's just a nightmare. But most of the time, I swim alone, so there are perks. I just keep repeating to myself, "I always feel better after I swim." And it's true. I want to go into this surgery in the best physical shape that I can possibly be in.

• Not scaring myself by googling horrible things like, "VSG Complications" or "Weight Loss Surgery Horror Stories". Enough of that already. I need to start googling success stories. No, there is no long-term track record for the sleeve, but I know enough people who have been there and done it that I know what to expect.

 So, that's about it. Trying to get through these last ten or so weeks without going mad. My mind has been so focused on this for so long. And before the sleeve journey, I was pretty heavily focused on my diverticulitis.

You know, strangely enough (knock on wood), I have not had a flare of diverticulitis since I started this diet. I am trying to be very careful of what I eat, but I have done pretty well. I am also getting much better at spotting flares before they become flares. And I take a stool softener every day now, as per my GI guy. Constipation is the enemy to those of us with gut potholes.

No shit, Sherlock, something is helping. And I have high hopes that after the surgery, my diverticulosis will continue to improve, although only a bowel resection will really put it into remission.

Playing the Odds

I recently made a video (I posted it below) about how, although I am afraid of the vertical sleeve gastrectomy surgery, I am more afraid of diverticulitis. Bettie Lou Hoo made a comment, in which she said:

Now whenever I get an extreme anger/fear/panic-inducing thought in my head, I stop and ask myself: Is this a feeling or a fact? "I'm going to die from surgery" is not a fact. The fact is that less than 1% of people die from surgery (0.06%, in fact) and of those, about 80% were high-risk. It's also a fact that I was low risk. Which made it a fact that there was more than a 99% chance I would not die of surgery. See? Like that.

In contrast, perforated diverticulitis has a mortality rate of 6% for purulent peritonitis and 35% for fecal peritonitis, according to the American Society of Colon & Rectal Surgeons. (Well, you said you wanted us to remind you - so there you go.)

You know, she's right. Dead on right. I need to stop worrying about the sleeve and get my ass in gear to stay as healthy as possible, lose as much as I can as quickly as I can, so that I can get my bowel resection and get past the danger zone of this diverticular disease.

And, as Fatkings Phil said in his recent awesomecast:

Don't let the What If's haunt you!

 I have to stop thinking of this as an elective procedure and remember the pain and the fear of the last four bouts of Diverticulitis in September, November, January and June and know that the Fucker can strike me out of the blue.


As an aside, my CPAP is now second nature. I love it. Sleeping MUCH better. I get a solid eight hours before I have to get up and I have not had a headache once since I have had it. I love it. I am also not having nightmares every night anymore. Wow. Did you know that people with untreated apnea have a threefold increase in death rates from surgery in general? Yes.

So much pain!

Diverticulitis is the reason my colorectal surgeon recommended gastric sleeve surgery. I'm suffering from it again. 

I need to remember this pain. Gastric sleeve will help me take off the required amount of weight so that I can have the bowel resection which will hopefully put the diverticulitis into remission.

In the meantime, I'm back on clear liquids until my bowel heals. 

The diet of someone after gastric sleeve is highly restrictive, but not nearly as much as a diverticular disease sufferer. I'm looking forward to eating and living without the threat of a large intestine perforation.