Sunday, January 13, 2013

Now you're just somebody that I used to know..

Slowly as I go through this journey to losing weight I am becoming more aware of the fact that, hey, I am actually losing weight! I know that things fit differently and parts of my body (skin) are looser now and whatnot, but with as much as the scale says I have lost I am only down like 1 dress/pant size. It's not really what I thought would happen by being 83 pounds lighter.

.. And that number just amazes me. That is only 17 that is SEVENTEEN pounds from being a full 100. I don't know what I am going to do at being 100 pounds lighter but I really should plan something and just go for it. I'd love to make that a goal for 8 months postop but I'm not sure if 17 lbs in about a month and a half is realistic or safe. It's not impossible at all but I don't want to PUSH myself too hard and get off balance with nutrition that I seem to have a decent grasp on, for the most part.

I dunno. I just wanted to share this with everyone who is losing weight, however you are losing it. It's not easy and I want to just take a moment to say this is not the EASY way out. In the support groups I'm in so many people talk about their experiences with friends and/or family giving that spiel about how they feel like it's an easy way out and they should just diet and exercise. Ummm... yeah that is the idea. Weight loss surgery does not magically make it come off. Those of us who have had it know that we still need diet and exercise or else it will stall out and not really come off. Sure there may be some initial 'fall off' pounds but it stops after a certain point and nutrition becomes a huge huge role. You can't just eat junk forever even with a weight loss surgery. Sure you're not restricted by types of food (excluding those who do sometimes get certain intolerances after surgery, it is afterall ON the stomach) but you make the choices of what you put in your face so the surgery is a mere tool that helps us a lot better to lose weight with diet and exercise, it helps us for the rest of our lives and does not go away.

So if anyone that happens upon my blog ever has anyone say this to them, perhaps say to them or show them that above paragraph. I feel it really sums it up in a somewhat short way so hopefully my insight will.. help.. someone. Maybe.

So it's just a short post right now, but I wanted to leave you with this. If anyone had any idea of how much weight we are losing in terms of physically being able to see it, well.. it doesn't get around much. I was pretty amazed at these photos. I should probably hold off on posting this until I actually lose 100 lbs total postop, but I decided that that post will contain 'after' progress photos of me in comparison to 'before instead. :)

 
So this is 1 pound of fat:
 
And this is 5 pounds:


Another, better example of 5 pounds:


And last.. 100 pounds of fat:


So there you have it. That is a lot of volume! It's mind boggling, isnt it!?



Reference:
http://www.bodytransformationlab.com/photos-of-fat/

 

 

2 comments:

  1. Congratulations to you on 83 pounds. One of my sisters had lap band surgery seven years ago. I don't completely understand the science behind her surgery, I do know she had to go back every so often and have the band adjusted. I don't know what or why, but she gained almost all her weight back. I think her social connection to food and family gatherings was a greater pull than her desire to be a certain size/weight.

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    1. Thank you for the encouragement :) In terms of the lap band, the way it works is it rests sort of 'on top and around' your stomach, and it has a fillable bubble around the ring of it, and it can be filled or unfilled. It has some weird saline solution they put in it to make better restriction. But many people have problems with the band and they get revisions to another surgery, such as VSG (vertical sleeve gastrectomy) or gastric bypass. I had the VSG, but I never had a band because I can see a lot of complications with it.

      You should perhaps encourage her to talk to her surgeon about a revision. If she went with VSG, it is minimally invasive compared to other permanent surgeries, but VSG was around before WLS became a "thing" as it was used for other problems of the stomach, i.e. cancer removal, removal of ulcers, etc. It is just where they take out a portion of your stomach. For the WLS type specifically, they take out the stretchy part so you are forced to only eat a smaller portion. The cool thing is, there are no known direct fatalities linked to the VSG surgery, and also there are minimal complications linked to long term effects (although the information on that in terms of it as a WLS is minimal itself). The stomach cannot really be stretched back out as that more flexible part has been taken out completely. Your pylori is intact, so you have no issues with food dumping into your intestinal tract and stretching the intestine letting more food to be able to be consumed (gastric bypass has this problem very commonly).

      I hope your sister finds something to help her. There are still options and hope for her out there. I found with VSG at Christmas time for example, I was not necessarily the best at picking healthy foods only. But with the surgery I was able to only eat a certain amount only. The bands have tendencies to break, and not really restrict, and they make you vomit A LOT. With the VSG, none of those are issues!

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