Back in the Saddle Again

After last week's disappointing trip to the scale, I'm ecstatic to report that I managed to take off five pounds! It's a good thing, too, because for a couple of days there, I had scared myself into believing that the weight was just going to start piling back on. It's crazy how easy it is to let my fears take over.

Today I am having two very important "lasts". The last day of my post-op diet. (No more nonfat refried beans!) And the last day, hopefully, I will ever look down at the scale and see it begin with "2". Tomorrow will mark four weeks since my surgery and I'm cautiously optimistic that the scale might be my friend and drop me down from 200.6, to 199.8. If it doesn't happen tomorrow I won't be terribly upset, but I'm hopeful.

Tomorrow also brings me back to Dr. Michaelson's office for my four week check-up. I'm nervous about the appointment, mostly because I don't want to disappoint him. I hope I've lost enough to impress him! I know that might seem silly, but I feel like I have something to prove right now, and I might as well take advantage of the extra motivation it brings. I've managed to workout three times in the last four days and I'd be lying if I said it didn't have something to do with my appointment/deadline. It helps to have that kind of accountability.

It's been almost a month since I last had a real "bite" of food, so I'm also very excited that tomorrow brings the promise of "real" food! The last two weeks have flown by, thankfully, but this soft food/liquid diet has definitely gotten old. I'm so excited the day has come where eating chicken and a salad is an option! (Did any of you who know me well just say to yourself, "Okay, who IS this girl?") And it's not just the food choices I'm excited about, it's also the knowledge that "regular" food will stay with me a lot longer than soft/liquid food does. I look forward to not getting hunger pains two hours after a meal! (Can you blame me?)

I must admit, I'm slightly nervous about eating like a normal (although much smaller-stomached) human being again. Ben wanted to take me to the Cheesecake Factory after my doctor's appointment to celebrate, but I turned him down. (Once again, those who know me are saying, "Okay, that's it. The real Leigh has been kidnapped. This is an impostor.") I want to be sure that my stomach can handle the regular food, which means easing into this. No matter what I decide to eat, small bites and chewing like CRAZY are definitely on the menu. I'm not willing to risk getting sick, especially since my abs are still not back to normal. So I'll take things easy and see how it goes.

That's all for now. I'll be sure to report back soon with another update on this whole crazy process. And hopefully, I'll be on the lighter side of 200! :)

<3 Leigh

I Couldn't NOT Share This...

Shortly after writing that last post, I sat down to read my latest "quiet time" book. It's called Made to Crave (by Lysa TerKeurst, in case you're interested) and, as you may have guessed, it's all about food (and weight) struggles and how to cling to God in order to overcome them. This quote hit home in such a profound way that I had to stop and share it. I feel like it's relevant to everyone, as it applies to God's sovereignty in what we each struggle with:

"When I get all caught up in how unfair it is that my friend is skinny and doesn't have to work at it, how she can eat what she wants when she wants, and how much it stinks that I can't be like her, I remind myself that God didn't make me to be her. You see, He knew even before I was born that I could easily allow food to be an idol in my life, that I would go to food, instead of to Him, to fulfill my needs. And in His great wisdom, He created my body so that it would experience the consequences of such a choice, so that I would continually be drawn back into His arms. He wants me to come to Him for fulfillment, emotional healing, comfort--and if I could go to food for that and never gain an ounce, well then, what would I need God for?"

Anybody else feel that information hit their heart and explode in wonder? Why is it so easy for me to forget that God doesn't do anything without a purpose? And not just any purpose, a purpose for my good! This weight/eating struggle is not useless! Whatever you struggle with isn't either! And I know for me, that changes everything.

It also brings to mind what the Apostle Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 12:9-10:

9 But he said to me, j“My grace is sufficient for you, for kmy power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that lthe power of Christ may rest upon me. 10 mFor the sake of Christ, then, nI am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. Forowhen I am weak, then I am strong.

My weaknesses, if I let them, will draw me to the Lord and allow God to do BIG THINGS through me! And I'd rather have God's strength than mine, even if that means I have to live with weaknesses.

Anyway, like I said, I had to share. I hope all of this blesses your heart as it blessed mine.

<3 Leigh

A Bump in the Road

It hasn't been a week, but I'm sitting down and writing today because I need a dose of drive and accountability.

I have good news and bad news. The bad news first: I put on a pound.

Now before you judge me (although Lord knows somehow I still judge me) you should know the circumstances. I've been having really bad hunger pains. So bad that they wake me up in the middle of the night and make me want to curl into the fetal position. They come during the day, too, as soon as an hour or two after I've eaten. I assumed this was because I was on a soft/liquid diet and the food was just going through me too quickly. In order to combat this, though, I've had to be eating quite a bit more than I had been. I'm not eating junk food or anything, but even eating healthy, with how often I've had to eat to keep the pain away, I've definitely had more like 1500+ calories a day instead of the 800 I had been eating. This has just been since Tuesday, thankfully, but it's still meant I've put on a pound. And that I don't like.

The good news? I talked to my surgeon yesterday, inquiring about how soon I could start working out, and as I told him about the hunger pains, he quickly told me that those weren't hunger pains, it was my stomach trying to undo itself! Now, I know that doesn't exactly sound like good news, but to a girl who just had surgery in order to be LESS hungry, it was faaaabulous news. This pain will pass (I would assume, anyway... I somehow lose my brain every time I'm on the phone with him and forget to ask obvious questions. Something about him going to like, twenty years of college makes me so intimidated I can hardly talk.) and until it does, the answer isn't eating, it's ibuprofen. And thankfully, the calories in ibuprofen are minimal. :)

What this means for me today, is that I can go back to the diet that will continually help me take off the pounds without being in pain! And when I got on the scale this morning (I'd been avoiding it for the last few days because I knew I'd been eating too much to lose anything) it did two things. It discouraged me, of course. But it also reminded me that I have a cruise in 20 weeks. And if I want to be back at around 150 pounds, I need to lose at least 2.5 pounds per week. Every week. There's no waiting til tomorrow or Monday or next week. I have to do this right now. That knowledge, thankfully, has put me back into attack mode.

I'm telling you, my friends and family, about this goal. If I say it out loud, or write it down and publish it in this case, it helps to solidify my resolve and move forward with tenacity. By God's grace and with His help, I will conquer this. One step at a time I will climb this mountain and I can't WAIT for the view from the top.

So... first step down. My next step will be spending some time at God's feet, asking for His strength and perspective. :)

Thanks for all your love, support and prayers. They mean more than I can ever tell you.

<3 Leigh

Welcome to the wonderful world of post-op...

Hello again!

So it's been almost two weeks since my surgery. Sorry I didn't write sooner, but between being high on percocet and just plain passed out, I think my writing would have suffered had I attempted anything. Although the rantings of a post-op girl high on pain killers probably would have been entertaining... oh well. C'est la vie.

So I survived! I've been hibernating at home pretty much exclusively for two weeks, except for the past 3 days where I actually managed to go to work and be a productive human being. The recovery took a bit longer than I was anticipating (the surgery is so new that it was hard to know what to expect, but 3-5 days is what I was figuring on), but overall I'm doing pretty good. I get more energy everyday and the strength is slowly coming back to my abs.

The day of surgery went pretty well. I managed to keep my anxiety in check long enough to get into the operating room without bursting into tears, which, for me, is saying a lot. Ben was, as always, the most amazing support to me and helped to keep me calm both before and after the surgery. The surgeon, anesthesiologist, and nurses were all amazing and, other than having the surgery delayed by a couple hours (I hate waiting), I have very few complaints about how things went.

*surgery detail talk alert... if you'd rather not hear this part, skip down a paragraph*

The surgeon made five incisions, four horizontally along my stomach in line with my belly button, (one actually IN my belly button) and one in the middle of my chest, just below my bra line. He had to separate my ab muscles to get access to my stomach (if I understand right), which I can still feel the affects of, even now. The surgery itself lasted three hours.

After the surgery I woke up laying down on a gurney and VERY out of it. Opening my eyes made the room spin, so I kept them closed for the first while. Ben's voice was nearby pretty quickly, which I was very thankful for, and they didn't wait too long before making me stand up and walk over to a recliner-like chair. They want you to sit up as soon as possible to help strengthen your diaphragm. They also want you to get up and walk, which I did with great reluctance. I was absolutely exhausted and moving made me nauseous. But I managed to do as they asked, with the help of a fantastically spunky nurse named Heidi. I managed to fall asleep in the recliner chair every time they let me sit back down (I've never been able to fall asleep sitting up before, which tells you how exhausted I was). I honestly don't know how many hours we spent there after surgery. They had me sipping on water and I kept it all down fine, which was a very good sign. The anti-nausea meds, narcotic pain killers, and a drug to stop stomach spasms all did their job marvelously and left me in very little discomfort. (Funny sidenote: Ben told me that I looked like the Michelin man after surgery... they'd pumped me with six pounds worth of fluids during the surgery!)

By early evening, they let us head out to our hotel. The night was spent sleeping, interrupted only by Ben's alarm going off every time I needed to take another dose of something. I was also supposed to get up and walk around every few hours for as long as I could stand it. Which at first wasn't much at all. Actually getting up from the bed was the most painful thing (my abs would scream in protest), but otherwise it was just exhaustion that made me want to lay back down. Ben was wonderful and took amazing care of me through all of it, even letting me watch Millionaire Matchmaker while two sports had playoff games.

The next day we very carefully got me to the doctor's office, about 10 minutes away. He took a look at everything and told me it all looked great and that we could go home a day early, which was a wonderful bit of news. The hotel bed could not stack up against our memory foam bed at home. :) We managed the drive home (an hour and a half long) without any trouble, which was a huge relief, considering the fact that nausea is one of the biggest side affects of the surgery and I get carsick easily anyway.

The next few days are all kind of blurred together. I spent most of my time on the couch, watching five minutes of a sitcom before passing out. I was on a strict clear fluid diet for the first week, which wasn't too bad until the fourth day, when I started feeling the hunger pains. I also started having gas pains, which were only alleviated when I stood up and walked around. Needless to say, it wasn't the most fun few days. I only got really badly nauseous once, for about 12 hours, when we had started spacing out my meds more to see how I'd do. Let me tell you, that was NOT pleasant. Thankfully, I managed to get down an anti-nausea pill before I had to actually throw up. I honestly have no idea how I would have managed that if I did have to, simply because my abs were useless. I'm very thankful it all worked out without it coming to that.

The doctor was awesome through everything. He checked on me everyday, making it very clear that I could call him ANYTIME, day or night, if I had any problems or questions. I would recommend him to anyone considering this surgery who lives in the Pacific Northwest.

I went in for another checkup a week after, when I was finally given the okay to go to full liquids. Basically that means I can have smooth yogurt and creamy soups. Which, at that point, sounded like heaven. Broth and Crystal Light were NOT cutting it for me. The appointment went smoothly, other than me being dehydrated and my heart rate being a bit too high. I went home and continued to rest up, very happy to have something in my stomach that actually provided nourishment.

And now another week is almost up! Tomorrow I get to enjoy the wonders of soft foods. After I'm done with this blog, actually, I'm going to head to the grocery store to pick up some refried beans and pico de gallo! (That may not sound exciting to you, but to me, it sounds like HEAVEN)

Oh, and for those of you interested in my weight loss... I started my journey at 232 pounds and have managed to lose 28 so far. 18 of which were before the surgery and 10 since then. My goal is to be at 150 pounds by October 21st, the day Ben and I sail off on our 5 year anniversary cruise to Mexico. I know it's a steep goal, but I think it's do-able. Gonna be back in my bikini, sitting by the beach in no time! :)

TTFN,

Leigh

Withdrawals and Rehab

My life is about to change forever.

I've made the choice to have weight-loss surgery. No, not plastic surgery. I'm not having liposuction or a tummy tuck. I'm having a new procedure called plication. Basically, they're going to fold my stomach in on itself, so that I get full much faster, stay full much longer and basically have much less room in my stomach. If you want more details on the surgery itself, I'll send you here:

(Fair warning, that is a youtube video of what the procedure looks like in CG. Not real blood and guts, but if you're overly squeamish, you may want to skip it.)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AKQ6snbmXy4

More general info can be found here:
http://www.nwwls.com/laparoscopic-greater-curvature-plication

God brought this opportunity to my doorstep or else I wouldn't even be considering it. But after about 20 years of being overweight and fighting my own body, I've decided to take this opportunity and run with it. So on May 17th, I'm going under the knife.

Until then, I've been pushing to lose as much weight as I can on my own. The weight's been falling off, but it's been hard and it's only reminded me of why I want this surgery in the first place. Being hungry all day is unavoidable when I diet. I can count on maybe 2 hours of feeling satiated after a meal before the hunger pains set in. It's not fun. And of course, my own food addiction doesn't help anything either. I don't just want to eat, I want to eat French bread and spinach dip. And I don't want a piece of bread with spinach dip, I want the whole loaf. Which, of course, must be followed with something sweet.

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how I kept the pounds on.

Right now I'm in the last few days before surgery and I'm on an extra special "please kill me now" diet. Some nasty powdered stuff mixed with water two times a day, with a small meal (no more than 300 calories) for dinner. You can imagine my delight in this diet. But, I have to admit, only eating 800 calories a day does force your body to shed pounds. Fast. I'm two days away from surgery, started this diet 5 days ago, and I've lost 5 pounds. Not too shabby.

The withdrawals have definitely set in. Like I said, I'm a food addict, a "food-a-holic" if you will, and this is like going through detox. My brain/stomach/every pore is screaming at me to eat. Eat a LOT. Like, RIGHT NOW. And my social calendar, naturally, is filled with events that include piles of food I can't eat. Today, I sat in a room filled with people and their plates of barbecued goodness, while I dipped my raw broccoli in pico de gallo. Yum.

My only help is knowing that the day after tomorrow, this will all be over. Sure, the first month will be a tiny bit of torture, seeing as I can only have liquids the first two weeks and then only soft foods for two weeks after that, (my surgeon wants to be very cautious, since this surgery is so new) but after that, I'll get to be the girl at the party who has half a plate of food and says, "oh my gosh, I'm like, TOTALLY stuffed!" (Apparently I picture my skinnier self as a brunette version of Cher from Clueless) Which will be very refreshing, considering I've always been the girl who wonders if anyone will notice that she's going back for thirds.

This next month will be my 28 days of rehab. At least, that's how I'm looking at it. I can't give in to cravings, simply because my stomach will not be able to process it. There's no exceptions unless I want to be violently ill. Which, thankfully, is one thing I am NOT willing to be in order to have yummy food. Hopefully, this time will help me start to break the habit of living to eat, instead of eating to live. After all, the surgery can only help my stomach, it can't get inside my head and force me to make wise choices. That part of this ordeal will take a HUGE amount of prayer. Because one thing I know is that without God's helping hand, I will screw this up just as I've screwed up every other diet or eating plan I've tried before it.

So here goes nothing. See you on the other side...

~Leigh