Bariatric Bad Girls Club

I am now officially 18 months post op.  That magic window that I have spoken of before is closing and closing fast.  I have always advocated that Weight Loss Surgery is not a quick bandaid approach to losing weight.  If you treat it as such - you will still lose the weight - but then you are at risk of putting it all right back on.  Because of the surgery - you will lose weight - and a lot of it.  But your body (I still marvel at our bodies and how they adjust to things - smaller stomach - missing organs, etc...) will adjust to a smaller stomach and re-routed intestines. You may stop dumping when you eat too much sugar or carbs - your little pouch may stretch a bit to accomodate more food - or you and your brain may figure out how to bypass the signals that your body is telling you you have eaten too much or the wrong things.  I mean - let's face it - I didn't get fat by accident people.  I ate - and ate - and ate.  And to be honest - there are days even now that I can get around the rules and eat quite a few things that I couldn't before - and eat all day if I time it right.  I still dump, but it takes more sugar for me to dump than it did before and I'm still unpredictable at it.  I can't eat a lot at one time, but if I time it right I could snack all day long and get in a ton of calories.

So the question becomes - what am I going to do about it?  I've lost about 115 pounds.  I would love to lose about 10 more.  I am down to a size 10 (I have even managed to squeeze into a few size 8's - but the extra skin makes it quite difficult).  I don't want to go back to the land of size 26 !  I don't even want to go back to size 12 or 14! I want this to stick - I want to take what I have learned over the past 18 months and make it work for me.

So that is where the Bariatric Bad Girls come in.  They are a group of wonderful women I have come to know (and quite honestly stalk!) who have are several years out from surgery.  They have lost the weight - and some of them have gained a little back - but they have lived to tell the story.  They do have the occassional slip in behavior - but they are committed to keeping the weight off.  These are the women I identify with - they don't sugar coat life.  In fact, they sometimes have sugar!!!  OH NO!  But then they get back on the band wagon - and they get back to the business of living the post bariatric surgery life.  I love it.  I am so with them.

The Obesity Action Coalition has been formed as a way to educate people about obesity and it's effects on our lives.  The Obesity Action Coalition is an IRS registered 501(c)3 National non profit organization dedicated to giving a voice to those affected by obesity. The OAC was formed to build a nationwide coalition of those affected to become active advocates and spread the important message of the need for obesity education. To increase obesity education, the OAC offers a wide variety of free educational resources on obesity, morbid obesity and childhood obesity, in addition to consequences and treatments of these conditions. The OAC also conducts a variety of advocacy efforts throughout the U.S. on both the National and state levels, and encourages individuals to become proactive advocates.

The Bariatric Bad Girls Club has come up with a way to donate some money for the OAC.  They have created a bracelet that you can purchase for just $5 and proudly display your membership in the BBGC!  Part of the procedes go to the OAC to help promote Obesity action and awareness.  I have a link for purchasing the bracelets on the right of my page.  Click on and join the cause to bring more awareness!  I know it can be a touchy subject - it was for me for many a year, but my sister reminded me of something recently when I had to have my kidney removed.  She said "Can you imagine having to do this 115 pounds ago?"  Yeah - kinda brings a lot into perspective for me.  :)

Ramblings ....

So I keep thinking "I'm going to blog about that ..." and then it doesn't turn into much to talk about.  So excuse me if this blog is rambling a bit - just a bunch of things going on in my head.

So I'm now 13 months out from surgery.  I have been stuck playing with the same few pounds since September.  I had to stop running when I had the vertigo problems and the ear surgery.  It took me a while to get back into a good running routine with how cold it has been here.  I have a hard time running in the cold - my old asthma rears it's ugly head then.  I am now back into a good running and exercise routine in order to meet my running goals for 2010.  But I am still stuck at the same weight. Frustrating.

I had my 1 year follow up appointment with my doctor.  He was happy with my progress but would like to see me loose another 20 pounds.  I, personally, would like to loose another 30 pounds.  I have come so far - I find it hard to believe I can't loose this last 30 pounds.  So I have recommitted myself to tracking my calories and my exercise on http://www.livestrong.com/ (they took over The Daily Plate).  I am trying to stick to 1100-1200 net calories a day.  I am easily able to eat about 1500 or so calories a day.  That is really wreaking havoc with my brain.  This part won't make sense to some of you.  I know that is a normal amount of calories to be taking in - possibly even still pretty low.  But it scares me.  I'm afraid to take in too much more than that in a day.  The fact that I haven't lost weight in 3 or so months scares me.  I am not ready to be done and I am afraid of going in the other direction.  I have actually started dreaming about it - waking up and I'm up over 200 pounds and I'm so mad and afraid and disappointed.

And there are some days I think Kanga has become made of steel - I can eat a lot of things I couldn't before - I can take in more than I could before.  I don't like that.  I don't want to go back to "normal".  And then there are some days that she reminds me that she is still in charge and I can't get more than a couple of bites of anything or I dump on something that hasn't caused me to dump in the past.

I did get my hand slapped at my 1 year follow up with Dr. Enochs.  I am not good at the vitamin regimine.  And for no good reason - just not good at it.  So I really need to get on top of that pretty quickly here.  I am going to have some bloodwork run soon and that should give us an idea of what the impact of that truly is.

Some other things that have been rearing their ugly heads now that I am a year out:  I have been having some off and on pain my abdomen.  Sometimes it's breath-taking pain - sometimes it's just an ache.  I talked to Dr. Enochs about it and he has a couple of different concerns that can be common after gastric bypass.  One is scar tissue.  I have had quite a few abdominal surgeries - 2 c-sections, an open hysterectomy, an open gallbladder removal, and some laparascopic surgeries.  So I most likely have quite a bit of scar tissue - that could be catching or kind of strangulating my intestines.  Something else that is common is that you can get an internal hernia once all the fat that used to hold things in place is gone.  So what do we do about it?  The only way to tell if the pain I'm having is one of these two things is to have surgery - there's no test that will tell them definitively if one of these things is what is happening.  It's a fine line to when we decide to do something about it - right now it doesn't normally interfere with daily life, but it could happen over night and become something that needs to be taken care of immediately.  So the approach we are taking right now is "watchful waiting".  We shall see.

I have also started having some reactive hypoglycemia symptoms.  I haven't had that officially checked out, but it looks like that is what I am dealing with - drops in blood sugar that make me weak and shaky, etc...  From what I can track it appears to be reactive which means I should be able to control it with what I am eating and how often I eat.  I plan on talking to my doctor about it when I see him next week.

I see my doctor next week to get fitted for orthotics for my running shoes.  I seem to have developed bursitis in my left foot and I don't want anything to distract me from my goals for running this year.

Speaking of running goals - I have already raised $500 for my Polar Plunge after the 2010 Torch Run.  I can't believe I have raised that much money!  I am looking forward to that run and will be sure to post pictures of of the craziness that ensues.

So thanks for listening to me ramble on and on.  I just had a bunch of things on my mind and no clear way to get them all out, but getting them out on this blog really is cathartic.

I don't feel so good!

So I had my first dump yesterday. That was absolutely miserable. I had a Breakstone's Cottage Doubles. It's cottage cheese and some raspberry puree. I didn't look closely enough at the label and the puree had 14 grams of sugar in it. Not long after I had it for lunch I was miserable. Headache, nausea, sweating, dizzy, just generally feeling like I had been hit by a truck. I threw the other cottage double I had in the fridge out. It was so miserable. I don't want to feel like that again. Sugar is not my friend.