12 Weeks Progress Picture

 March 2013

June 2013 (12 weeks post op)

48 pounds gone. I was REALLY wanting to say 50lb by the time I hit 12 weeks. Oh well, still obviously very happy. I should stop raining on my own parade huh?...hey, it's a lifelong struggle. 

We are getting ready to go on a 16 hour road trip and I have all my vitamins and some protein shakes. Now that I can eat all normal food (except steak and squishy bread), I'll need to watch myself on the road. More apples and less gas station pringles. Okay there may be a FEW pringles involved. 

I won't weigh myself for over 10 days which will be kind of nice actually, being that I currently do it twice a day. I can just focus on eating well and having a good time...and here's hoping that I like the scale reading on the flip side.

Regiment

In the time since surgery, I've been going through phases with my vitamins. For a while I was very regimented and after some time had past I became less so.

Since I am getting very little nutrition from food, my dietician at the bariatric center really enforces vitamins vitamins vitamins. Oh and protein. Protein is your friend.

So it's not good for me to slip.

It's a poor excuse but I think part of it was having so many bottles to deal with and many of them cannot be taken together so I have to remember when is okay. I wrote on the top of the bottles which helps some, but I also invested in one of these bad boys...

What you see here is my daily regiment:
breakfast- a multi vitamin, vitamin D, and a sublingual (aka under the tongue) B12
mid-day- 6 caramel chews of Calcium Citrate. I slipped one in their just to remind me. Even though they are super delicious, this has been the hardest one to remember.
dinner- another multi and a fish oil pill
bed- another vitamin D and iron

Now, the multi and calcium cannot be taken at the same time. And the iron and multi cannot be taken at the same time. The fish oil and D can be taken whenever. And I can't lie, I was accidently chewing up the sublingual B12 for over a month. Sublingual....what do I speak Greek?

The way I keep it all straight is simple...the Bariatric Center gave me a huge binder of info in which it is all very CLEARLY mapped out for me. If in doubt, check the binder. The binder is your friend too.

So far my new pill popping container has been helpful. I think it was money well spent.

Uncharted Territory

I am currently down about 46 pounds and am venturing into uncharted waters weight wise. What I mean by that is that I have weighed a lot LESS than this and clearly a lot MORE than this but I've never weighed my current weight unless I was pregnant.

I've never been in this size or at this weight as a non-pregnant person.

See? Skinnier than now and a little pregnant....

And a little heftier after that baby was born....

 

And well, it just kind of stayed there for a long time. That baby is now four years old and I've still got the 'baby weight' hanging around.

Last time I weighed what I do RIGHT NOW, I was carrying extra cargo....

I cannot get this pic to rotate to save my life, sorry!

Sad but true that this is the way it's gone for me. I think it's unfair to totally blame my weight gain on pregnancies, but they certainly didn't help. I guess it's fair to say that they helped me gain weight a lot more easily and quickly than I otherwise would have. 

After Tessa's birth, I was able to easily lose everything that I had gained, especially while nursing. With Charley though, something weird happened with my body. Maybe the hormones of having and nursing two babies in 2 years? But I had a LOT more trouble afterward not only with losing weight but with control of blood sugar, sleep apnea and fatigue and even menstrual cycles. 

My body just kinda freaked out. 

And about the time I was back on track, I shattered my foot and have to have surgery which lead to about a year of recovery before I was back to full usage and excercise. 

Excuse after excuse? Maybe. But I was definitely stuck, there's no denying that. 

And when you're stuck, I guess the best thing to do is to look at the most logical ways to get yourself unstuck. And that's why I decided on surgery. Because I know my body SO well and I knew what I was capable and not capable of doing. And so far I'm nothing but happy with my decision.