Today is my One Year Surgiversary. What a difference a year makes! One year ago today, I weighed 470 pounds, 70 pounds down from my highest weight of 540. Today I'm at 226. That's 244 pounds lost in a year, 314 pounds less than my highest weight. I'm less than half the man I used to be. Woo hoo!
For the visually-oriented, I will take my usual WLS mug shots later today and post them in the Member Photos section and the Before and After album in my Profile...
I don't post as much as I used to here on TT (nor do many of my TT "contemporaries" or the people who were already "old-timers" when I joined this site two years ago
) but that seems to be a normal part of the WLS journey, as post-ops go out and live our new lives.
So what is my life like now? Well, it's
fantastic in many ways and I consider myself incredibly blessed, but there is still much growth and progress to make and many issues to tackle. Here is a brief run-down:
My weight:
I'm at 226 now, pretty damn bony (prominent collar bones, you can see my ribs, and my freakishly prominent sternum looks like the nose-cone grille ornament of an old Studebaker; it has literally - I'm not kidding here - made grown men shriek like little girls when they saw it
), with nice arm muscles and a
lot of loose skin around my waist, buttocks, and thighs and also some (but much less) loose skin on my chest, upper arms, and latissimus dorsi. For those of you who went on the Thinner Times Cruise in December and have a frame of reference (several of you told me to stop losing weight at that point!), I'm almost 20 pounds lighter than I was on the cruise...
My surgeon, Dr. Patrick Chiasson, is pleasantly surprised at my weight loss. Although there are people here on TT and on other WLS forums who have lost more in the same amount of time, my surgeon told me that he's never personally had a patient lose as much as I have in one year.
Dr. Chiasson originally set a goal of 215 for me. For a "normal" BMI, I would need to be just under 205. I used to normally weigh between 190 and 200 in college. By those benchmarks, I need to lose more weight. Do I want to lose more weight? Yes. I like seeing the dial on the scale go down. Do I actually need to lose more weight? Probably not, given my boniness (my partner, a RNY patient himself, has nicknamed me "Ribcage"
) and the quantity of loose skin hanging off me - I don't know how much more of my weight is fat. At my request, my surgeon gave me a prescription for a self-pay Dexa Scan, so that I can have a reliable body composition analysis done and see what my lean body weight, percent body fat, etc. are - Tucson no longer has anyplace to have hydrostatic immersion, so a Dexa Scan is the only option for this. I hope to schedule it soon...
When I met with my surgeon three days ago, he reminded me that my body will stop when it wants to stop (I could keep losing for up to six months more, depending on my "honeymoon" period) and that there's no real harm (except aesthetically) in losing more weight as long as I'm healthy, but that it was also fine for me to do what I've been doing since December, increasing my caloric intake to a maintenence level, rather than a weight loss level, to stop the loss. We'll see where I end up...
Exercise:
For the last eight months, I've been doing a weightlifting class called BodyPump at Gold's Gym three days a week. Body Pump is a group fitness class, part of the Les Mills series, involving strength training with a cardio element, using different weightlifting "tracks" set to music in a format similar to an aerobics or cardio class. There is a warmup track, then squats, then chest, then back, then triceps, then biceps, then lunges, then shoulders, then abs, then a cool-down track. BodyPump uses lower weights and very high reps, so that it builds long, lean muscle - you get great toning and shaping, but not the same bulking that you'd get from free weights on the weight floor.
BodyPump constantly varies the routines so that your muscles are always "confused" and never get used to the workout, plus you increase the weights you're using as you progress, so that you're always challenged. My progress has been fantastic, and I've actually gotten friends to join in and they're as addicted to it as I am! Every day I go, I have to shut up the evil little voice in my head that tells me I'd rather be going out for lunch - I stab that little voice with a screwdriver and head to the gym, and invariably when I'm staggering out after the class, ass totally kicked by the workout, I feel great about not listening to that voice!
BodyPump is offered worldwide, at many gyms. Here is a link for the BodyPump page on the Les Mills site:
BODYPUMP Group Fitness Program - Les Mills Global
I also try to do cardio regularly and was doing three days of cardio (trreadmill, elliptical, and water aerobics) in addition to my three days of BodyPump until I started putting the brakes on my weight loss in December, at which point I cut down my cardio work. I now go maybe once a week in addition to Body Pump, but I miss the cardio and want to get back on track, so I'm going to find something new to challenge myself.
Eating:
I'm still every bit the food addict I was at 540 pounds, and will always be a food addict. That's the reality of my situation. However, this year has given me a different realtionship with food and some essential tools for keeping my eating within the bounds of sanity. I'm also going to start attending OA meetings in my area - I've already gotten a list of meetings that fit my schedule. I had the VSG, so I don't dump - I can eat basically anything and I do, just in much smaller quantities. As many here on TT have experienced, simple carbs trigger binging for me, so I try to avoid them, but still eat them. My major carb vice is gelato from Frost here in Tucson - it's to die for and I go several times a week. Here is the link to torture you all, just 'cause I'm evil:
FROST A Gelato Shoppe
I get plently of water (7-8 liters a day, which is 231-264 oz.) and plenty of protein (150 g or more daily), but I need to eat more vegetables and fruits. I get in around 2000-2400 calories per day now (that sounds shockingly high to many of you, I'm sure, but that's actually less than the Base Metabolic Rate for a man of my age and weight) and keep my FitDay food and activity journal dutifully every day. Mostly, I eat protein shakes or bars, Fage or Trader Joe's Greek yogurt, chicken and turkey breast, Morningstar Farms soy sausage patties and Garden Veggie Burgers, beans, chili, salads, light string cheese, cottage cheese, sliced green apples with reduced fat Gouda cheese, etc. - the usual suspects for WLS patients, but I do still eat crap, too, just not nearly as much and not nearly as often as I did pre-op. It's an onging battle. My goal is to eat like a healthy person eats...
Other WLS stuff:
I was recently asked to join the Leaders' Board of my local WLS support group (they do three meetings per month) and have accepted, in order to keep myself accountable and to help others on their journey.
Thank you to all of my friends and family, here on TT and at home, for all of the incredible love, support, guidance, and infomation and advice you've given me. Although I don't have room to name all of the people who have been so great to me here, I'd especially like to thank those here on TT who have been
extraordinarily kind and loving to me (and to so many others): Claire, Katie (Toony), Beth (Milady B), Corrine, Mike Fisher, Jeff (Big Bear Jeff), Donna (sdgrrrl), and my Sea Monkey Queen, Vanessa VPA, and I'd like to give a big hug and kiss to all of my fellow TT cruisers, who were part of one of the best experiences of my life. Love you all!
Happy Re-Birthday to Me - One Year Out, 244 Pounds Down Post-Op!
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