Hi everyone! Let’s talk change. Change is hard and the need to change is sometimes like a swift kick in your ass. I’ve been beating my ass for years, put myself through diet and exercise plan after diet and exercise plan with very few if any results. Reflecting on that time maybe I didn’t have enough discipline to make it work or I didn’t care enough about myself to want to look and feel a certain way, but the past is behind me now and we all know we can’t create a new fabulous future if we dwell in the past so I’m not going to. I recently had my one year follow up surgeons appointment and all blood work was normal, yes I sill take my vitamins and drink my protein shake. Some of you may be under the impression that once you have this surgery everything will be so fabulous and wonderful and your doc will immediately take you off all your meds and you will live happily ever after. Not so for everyone. Prior to surgery I was taking Synthroid for hypothyroid and Losartan for hypertension. I’m still on the Synthroid which will most likely be addressed when I have a well visit exam and blood work with my primary MD who I have not seen in many months. I’m also still taking my blood pressure medication. At least I can say that at this appointment my cardiologist was impressed by my progress. Plus my blood pressure was the lowest it has ever been in her office she was tempted to cut the medication in half but changed her mind and told me if I had any concerns about my blood pressure or if I just didn’t feel right to call her. I am now determined as is my surgeon to get me off the blood pressure medication. Who needs to be 34 on BP meds anyway? Certainly not me I take enough stuff. So here’s my plan I am going to take my blood pressure on a more regular basis and record it and after a month or so call my cardiologist with the numbers and ask her what she thinks. To me this sounds like a good plan.
On the exercise front. I have recently joined the YMCA, which is a pretty good value for the monthly fee also the people watching is fabulous! I needed to do more than I was doing. I’ve always had a tough time with exercise and always made excuses not to but I refuse to not drop the rest of the weight I want to. And I refuse to allow myself to become a sleeve patient that gains back the weight they lost. On that note let’s talk some numbers. I’m sorry I didn’t measure myself prior to my surgery because that’s where the loss is quite noticeable. But my starting weight pre surgery was 293 lbs which put my BMI at 50.3 which is in the obese category. I recently weighed in at the cardiologist at 198 which makes my BMI 34.0 which is still in the obese category but it’s such a huge drop in numbers that I don’t even care. What I do care about is getting to my goal of 140 lbs. The nutritionist at the surgeons office told me I should pick a more realistic goal so I went with 150 lbs for her, so I suppose I’ll be happy with anything between 140-150. I have started a routine for my days off which includes going to the gym for at least an hour and I feel much better with the level of activity I’m doing. I’ve also changed my eating habits significantly and I’m just telling myself that some things I can’t eat because my stomach just won’t tolerate them and some things I shouldn’t eat because they’re awful for you and I just stay away from them. I’m eating a lot more veggies, beans, and whole grains like quinoa. I have difficulty at times eating meats like pork and beef because if I don’t cut it up small enough, chew it enough or eat it too quickly they don’t like me. The nutritionist really wasn’t keen on the idea of eating a mostly plant based diet, but honestly I don’t see the harm in it. Besides I haven’t cut out meat all together I’ve just cut back on it. I’m also not doing as much dairy as I was in the early days post surgery. Anyway that’s the latest update happy reading!