Monday, November 14, 2011

My New Life!!!

I haven't blogged in quite awhile, so I decided that today was the day that I would get back to blogging.  The last time I blogged was back in June so it's been almost 6 months and it's time to get back on the bandwagon!  My favorite blogger dianthe has been blogging diligently lately so I am just following her lead (although I am not as eloquent as her!)  I actually started a blog a couple of months ago and I decided to not post it, but now I am going to tell you the story about my new life.

In June, David and I went to Vegas for a couple of days!  We had a fabulous time!  I mean, who doesn't love Vegas?  We stayed at The Cosmopolitan hotel which was absolutely FABULOUS!  Since I had to travel for work for almost 15 months straight I was lucky enough to earn a bunch of Marriott points so our stay at the Cosmopolitan was complete FREE!!!  Marriott Rewards FTW!!!!   Looking back at the pictures I see now how completely unhealthy I was! Take a look at this picture of me with Buzz and Woody!


I am fortunate enough to have a FABULOUS husband that loves me for ME and not what I look like.  I am not sure how I got so lucky but I am more than extremely blessed!!!!  

I have been overweight for pretty much my entire life.  In fact at one point in High School I was wearing a size 16.  Being in high school and shopping at Lane Bryant is not fun!  Back in 2002/2003 (?) my sister had gastric bypass surgery and because of complications almost died (she got down to like 89 pounds!)  Needless to say her complications scared the crap out of my family.  Gastric bypass was never really an option for me after this because I was too scared of having the same complications.  In 2009/2010 I started looking into other weight loss surgery options.  The most popular and less evasive surgery I found was Lap Band.  David and I discussed Lap Band and he was not a fan of this procedure because they put a foreign object in your body.   Regardless I was still hell bent on having some type of surgery and since my company has very limited insurance I switched to David's health insurance.  Unfortunately at David's last company they did not cover lap band, but luckily for me he got a new job and they DID/DO cover weight loss surgery!!!!  YAY for me!

Now I needed to figure out what surgery I wanted to have and who my surgeon was going to be.  I went to visit a few different surgeons and we discussed all of the different options.  In the end I decided that the Vertical Gastric Sleeve surgery was the best option for me and I found a FABULOUS doctor at the Medical Center of Plano (thanks to a recommendation from a friend!)  


The VSG procedure basically removes 85% of your stomach.  I know there are plenty of people who have very vocal opinions about how this is the "easy way out", but trust me - there was nothing about this surgery that was easy!  I went through a 3 month program through the Aetna insurance prior to having my surgery.  The 3 month program included seeing the doctor, seeing a nutritionist, a psychological evaluation, seeing my regular doctor, getting my blood pressure under control, etc...  At the end of the 3 months my request for surgery was submitted to Aetna and it was APPROVED!!!!!  Two weeks prior to my surgery I was to start a liquid only diet - water, protein shakes, sugar free jello, sugar free popsicles, but absolutely NO real food.  This was definitely the hardest 2 weeks of my life.  

On July 27, 2011, I went into the hospital and had the gastric sleeve surgery.  This is one of the best decisions I have ever made in my life!  I was in the hospital for 2 days and when I came home I was on another 2 week liquid diet - but this liquid diet was so much easier because my stomach is now so much smaller.

Today my diet is very different than my pre-surgery diet (or lack of diet).  I no longer drink sodas!  Believe it or not giving up sodas was very easy for me!  I eat a lot less bread/carbohydrates that pre-surgery.  Typically I "eat" 3 meals a day - protein shake (EAS AdvantEdge) for breakfast, some type of protein for lunch (eggs with ham and cheese or left-over dinner from the night before) and then dinner is normally chicken or fish - I'll have a little bit of veggies, but my primary focus is always on protein.

As of today I have lost 56 pounds.  I still have "fat person" vision - meaning when I eat I normally put too much on my plate.  My stomach only holds about 3-5 ounces of food so I have to be careful to not make myself sick when I eat!  I also still see the "fat person" when I look in the mirror - I mean I KNOW I still have a lot of weight to lose, but it is still hard for me to see the progress!

Below are a couple of pics from September!