Happy holidays everyone!!! Hope the season finds you all well. I am 9 months post gastric sleeve now and down a whopping 83 pounds, which honestly I still can’t believe. This last month has not been easy though. I spent several weeks stuck at the same weight getting very discouraged wondering what I needed to do to break this stall. I increased my activity, water and protein intake and finally I’ve dropped a couple more pounds. I am more than halfway to my final weight goal of 140 pounds, but of course with the holidays temptation is everywhere.
Some of what has taken place this holiday season has been fabulous. I attended a work Christmas party in a dress I never would thought about wearing a couple of years ago. I gotta say I rocked that dress! I’ve discovered that the advice they give you on not drinking alcohol is for good reason; mainly because my one drink acted like 3 in my body. So yeah no more drinking for this girl–good thing I had a designated driver. The other thing that has occurred a few times may have been dumping syndrome, may have been something else still haven’t seen the doc yet to ask. I’ve had a few spells where I feel super sick after eating. I haven’t precisely pinpointed what it could be that causes me to feel so awful. My symptoms: hot flash followed by cramping and nausea sometimes diarrhea, then chills. My skin also flushes then pails and after this is all over I feel like a Mac truck hit me. It’s awful! So it could be dumping syndrome, could be too much fat or sugar intake, still not sure. I don’t have a doc appointment for a few weeks yet so I will make it a point to ask then.
With that being said let’s talk about temptation and the holiday season, it sucks big time! Everywhere I look there is some kind of tempting food, and most of my fat may have gone away but my sweet tooth hasn’t. I’ve tried not to go too crazy and just have little bits of things. To be honest the times I’ve gotten sick I definitely think I went overboard on the sugary fatty foods. No one, not even me, is perfect on this journey.
Hmmm, what else has happened between now and the last time I’ve blogged. I received Christmas presents from my mother from normal stores in normal sizes that actually fit. This is huge! This hasn’t happened in years, plus my mother actually said they looked nice on me, which also hasn’t happened in years. I’m still struggling with disciplining myself to exercise routinely—I’ve always been awful about that, but my diet has changed significantly. I’ve cut out carbonation almost completely, which means no soda. There is some flavored carbonated water I love that tastes better when it’s flat so I do drink that sometimes, because let’s face it a girl gets tired of water all the time. I rarely eat pizza or pasta, there’s very little nutritional value in it for me anyway. I do eat some bread, I don’t go crazy with the bread eating, but the Italian in me has a hard time fully giving it up. Woe is me I still love the occasional fast food—yes boo hiss!!! But a junior bacon cheeseburger that I can only eat half of benefits my pup way more than it does me.
I am thinking about joining a gym, since it’s gotten cold out my activity outside has dropped, even my dog doesn’t want to go out. I figure if I’m going to join one now would be a good time since this is the season for gym promotions. My thing is I don’t want to join one and not be disciplined enough to go on a regular basis, then I’d be wasting my money and let’s face it none of us has money to waste. I did hear from someone that if you workout for 30 consecutive days your body is conditioned to just go and do it. I may test this theory.
Shout out to a school friend who has begun the gastric sleeve journey I wish her much luck and success and until next time I wish you all happy reading.
