On To Solids!

I had my first post-op appointment with my dietician today. But first, an update from the weekend: On Sunday, I had the exact same pains I had Saturday that I posted about after eating some pasta and meat sauce, only it hurt worse on Sunday. I couldn't stand it, so I threw up. Twice. It relieved some of the pain, but then my stomach and throat just felt acidic all night and into Monday and the pain still didn't go away fully until after midnight. Yesterday I did some research, and after talking about it with my dietician, I concluded that it was heartburn. HEARTBURN?! This pain was settled under my ribcage and heading into my -right- side, away from my stomach, but radiated all the way into my back and my back hurt. I have never had heartburn before so it definitely wasn't what I was expecting. Now that I know overeating can cause heartburn, and knowing that heartburn hurts that freaking bad, I learned my lesson. Yesterday I just had a protein shake for breakfast and some oatmeal for lunch to give my stomach a break. I felt like crap when I woke up, I was so tired and my stomach and throat still felt acidic, and I hurt my lower back when I was retching so bad Sunday night. Once I finally had the oatmeal, though, I felt tons better. Apparently my body was just hungry and run down.

I ate much less last night and followed my diet for breakfast and lunch, then I saw my dietician. She gave me the go-ahead to start solid foods tonight (at a reduced volume though for another month--only 4 oz. In a month, I go to 5 oz, which will be my permanent volume). Now, I was planning on having Chinese for my first solid meal, but since Matt's friend is here, I have to postpone it. Instead, I went to Taco Bell (bad choice, I know) but instead of ordering 3 or 4 things like I normally do, all I got was a Queso Crunchwrap, that's it. And I ate it very slowly, put it down halfway and didn't return to finish it until about 15 minutes later to make sure I wasn't going to hurt. I'm doing okay yet, no pain, so I don't think I'll have any problems.

My doctor's scale said I -gained- 2 pounds from last week, but when I weighed myself at home tonight, even after eating dinner, I lost 1 pound since last week. I was wearing heavy pants at the docs, so I'm just going to stick with my home scale for weight loss, since I do it in the nude to get rid of fluctuations like that. So that puts me up to 25 pounds lost, unless I weigh less in the morning (as I had planned, but I was mad when I got home). Not too bad.

Pain...

I really need to get out of the habit of eating more food just because it tastes good. I can NOT have second helpings anymore. So far, EVERY time I have had more to eat than I KNOW I should have, I get really bad stomach aches. It's my own fault. Like tonight, I made a few filets of fish and some mashed potatoes. I only meant to eat 1 filet and a little bit of potatoes, but I had 2 full filets and way more potatoes than I absolutely should have. I feel like crap right now, both physically and mentally.

Yesterday was even worse. We went to a friend's house for the 4th of July and they had barbecued some stuff up. For lunch, I had a burger (with bun), some mashed potatoes, and 1/2 of a hotdog. Too much. 3 brownies for snack, which I didn't like that much anyway. Then dinner, 2 hotdogs and more mashed potatoes. Not to mention that I'm still technically on my mushy diet, but my fiance and I agreed as long as I chewed really well, I could enjoy the holiday. I'm scared of the scale now, come Wednesday. Why why why do I keep doing this? I WANT to lose weight, why is food so much more important to me than being thin and healthy and not in pain? I don't get it. I'm tired of this. I think it's hard because I never know how much I can eat and how little will make me hungry in an hour.

I still don't regret my band, but damn, I want to get to a comfortable point where I know how much I should eat and that I won't be hungry OR overfull.

Update!

Another week has passed. My scale was delivered yesterday and I'm down another 5 pounds since last week, bringing me to 24 gone so far. I'm happy with that number so far. I started walking during my lunch at work today and it kicked my butt going up any sort of incline, but I need to keep at it if I want to keep up the pace. I'd like to lose 100 pounds in 4-6 months. My fiance promised to get me a kitten when I lose 100 pounds, so it's really not a question of if...it's WHEN (and that makes me giddy, I want a kitten so bad).

Things are going well. I'm still on mushy food, but I noticed I'm taking more and more food at dinner (still sticking with the proper 3 oz. at lunch). I'm so hungry within an hour or two after lunch that I'm starving by the time I get home. I see my dietician next Tuesday, but I'm afraid she's just going to add more snacks to my diet instead of recommending a fill, but when I see my surgeon in 5 more weeks, I'll ask him for a fill. The hunger is killing me :( I start solid food next Friday and I already got my meals for the day planned, hehe. I'm only going to be weighing myself once a week to keep from torturing myself with daily ups and downs. Hopefully I can keep it moving!

First "Stuck" Episode

I always hear people talking about food getting "stuck" and I always imagined how they know something is stuck. Well, I JUST felt it. Stupid me, I was carefully eating one boneless chicken wing that my fiance had leftover from last night, and usually if I have some of his food, I just chew really really well. I guess I didn't chew well enough this time, because all of a sudden, my stomach (or slightly above it) hurt really bad and I could feel the chicken trying to slide back up the pipe. I started sliming (producing lots and lots of saliva as my throat tried to lubricate the chicken) and promptly went over the sink to try to cough it up. I spit up a little bit, but after a few minutes, I felt the popular "plop" as the chicken fell into the stomach at last. It was my own fault for trying to eat a solid piece of food only 2 weeks out, but DAMN, nothing like that very very uncomfortable feeling of being stuck to teach you a lesson!

First Post-Op Appointment!

NINETEEN POUNDS! 19 pounds gone. I was afraid that I had lost less because I hadn't been perfect on my diet, but now I'm kind of disappointed that it wasn't more. Surgery was 12 days ago. I really can't complain, that's more than 1 pound a day! As I mentioned, I haven't been perfect. I've had one bite here and there of whatever my fiance has, chewing very very well, but that's not enough to mess up my diet, in my opinion. What I have been messing up though is that I keep eating more at meals than I'm supposed to. I'm only supposed to have about 3 oz. a meal right now, but it's just not enough to keep me full. If I eat closer to 4 or 5 oz, it keeps me full all night. I don't know how big of a problem that is, considering it's still only about a half cup of food.

My surgeon said my scars are healing really well and it was a short visit. I don't see him for another 6 weeks, but I have to see my dietician before then. Still moving along with mushies. Other than that, not much news. My incisions look pretty good now without the steri-strips and all the old scabs are off now. I think I might be healed enough to go swimming next Friday (4th of July). We'll see!

I need to get a scale of my own now, though.

Mushy Stage Tomorrow!

I had my surgery exactly 1 week ago today. Most of the pain is gone, thankfully, my incisions are starting to bother me a little bit, though. Also, I got these three mystery bruises about 6 inches directly under 3 of my incisions. Why am I bruising there? There's no reason for it. I still have to sleep on my back most of the night, though I can sleep on my side for short periods of time. Still can't sleep on my stomach and it's killing me. Other than that, I'm doing okay physically.

Mentally, however...

I've regretted getting my band so many times this week that it's making me resentful. I hate my liquid diet. It was pretty easy for me until about Tuesday night, when I felt hunger for the first time since the surgery. Now I'm just mad about it. I still didn't cheat, though. I followed the liquid diet to the letter. I made the mistake of going to the grocery store last night and I was so upset that I wanted to cry last night when I was trying to decide what liquid to have for dinner.

I never realized how hard this is going to be for me. It's not just a matter of eating less. When I see commercials for restaurants and food, my head still thinks the same way as before the Band. Example: Dairy Queen was advertising 99 cent hot dogs. I imagined going there and still ordering like 4 of them, and that's not something I'll be able to do. It will be hard for me to accept that the MAXIMUM amount of food I'll ever eat at a time again in my life is 1 cup. According to the diet my program goes by, the maximum I should ever have is 5 ounces, which is a little over half a cup. After spending a lifetime overeating, it's hard to imagine and hard to accept. I love food, and that's how I got to be this big.

Anyway, I am VERY excited to start my mushy phase tomorrow, even though it will last for 3 weeks...but at least I'll have more options than with the liquid diet. I already have my menu planned out for tomorrow (following the quantities for my program):

Breakfast
1 Tbsp scrambled egg
1 Tbsp corned beef hash

Lunch
1 1/2 Tbsp pureed roast beef/gravy
2 Tbsp mashed potato
2 Tbsp mango baby food (I didn't want to puree my own fruit or veggies)

Supper
1 1/2 Tbsp refried beans
2 Tbsp salsa (probably less since there's less beans)
2 Tbsp mango or applesauce

I'm soooo looking forward to it!

Ouch!

I have read many blogs and posts on LBT, but most people said how minimal the pain was after surgery, and that Liquid Tylenol took care of it mostly. So imagine my surprise when last night, I couldn't sit or lie down comfortably at all. I'm in almost constant pain. Not very strong, but constant. Tylenol doesn't help at all. Maybe I just have a low pain tolerance, but I've gotten so little sleep and I'm just exhausted. I know I'm not drinking as much as I should be, so now I'm afraid of getting dehydrated. I've drunk maybe 8 or 10 ounces of Crystal Light since I got home yesterday, plus my 1 oz chicken broth and 1 oz jello. My surgeon's associate told me to call if needed something stronger for the pain, but he didn't tell me who to call over the weekend, so I ended up calling the program coordinator. She told me to call the office's answering service, and some other doctor called me back. I told him I was still in a lot of pain but he refused to give me a prescription. He basically talked down to me and told me that I should expect to have pain after any surgery. Well, thanks. So now my stomach hurts from the surgery, my back hurts from trying to get comfortable (and I can't lie comfortably on my back because of my weight), and I'm just miserable.

I don't want to scare anyone away from having the surgery, but I wish someone would have warned me that I could be in a lot more pain than I planned on. The doctor who called me back today told me it could take up to a week to 10 days for the pain to subside. I'm just hoping I can go back to work Monday like I planned, I don't want to waste all my vacation time sitting around useless in pain. I'm forcing down some jello now even though I don't feel like it. I can't tell if I'm hungry or what now, my stomach keeps gurgling everything around and making noise and such. I know once this starts healing it will all be worth it, but I at least wish I could get some sleep to get away from the pain.