Sunday 9th July 2017
8 weeks and a few days post op.
Life post op is getting easier all the time as my brain gets used to the dietary changes.
It's not just the dietary intake that changes though, it's the portion sizes, hormonal changes, habits, changing your attitude to food and exercise, feeling the cold more.
I used to place a lot of importance on exercise, too much.
My appetite was running so red hot all the time I thought that I needed to exercise to counteract all that I was eating.
I wasn't looking at what food I was putting into my mouth in the first place.
But I wasn't looking at what I was putting into my mouth in the first place because I was feeling so tired and stressed out by life all the time I just wanted to eat for comfort.
It became a vicious cycle.
A good friend of mine once commented that she had noticed I had put on a significant amount of weight around the time that I first moved to Kew.
There were a lot of changes for me around that time.
Moving to a new suburb away from family and friends, changing work places for my charity work, getting to know new colleagues at work, getting to know the streets of a new suburb, (thank goodness for the powers of a decent GPS) - it was all very exciting and stressful change.
For someone like me with minimal energy reserves, big changes like that can have a significant impact - I didn't acknowledge or appreciate that fact at the time.
Now, post surgery and living back with mum, I feel that I have more control over my life.
The concept of control comes up a lot in my therapy sessions.
The surgery helps to control my raging appetite, I don't feel the same mad panic to flog myself with exercise so much, I don't think about junk food so much, and I can save more money now that I'm living back at home - I don't feel so out of control.
Dr V on FB brought up a concept that really resonated with me.
Everything that I thought I knew to be true about food and exercise pre surgery was not correct and not working for me, otherwise I wouldn't have needed the surgery.
I needed to change my mental approach to exercise.
I didn't need to knock myself out to be fit and healthy especially if it was stressing me out, making me even more tired leading to more comfort eating.
I still eat junk food now, just in much smaller quantities.
The other day I was thinking of buying some fish n chips and sampling a bite of everything that I used to order pre surgery.
But then I decided against it because I didn't want to waste most of the meal by throwing it away.
My stomach can only handle 2 steamed dim sims at a time.
This is one of the mental changes you have to adapt to after WLS.
I don't know what the exact food ingredient list is that makes up steamed dim sims but I find them filling.
They are an approved food for my post surgery.
Some food tastes different to me now post surgery.
Water, coffee and, (dare I say it) McDonalds taste different to me now.
If I go to McDonald's I'll order a small fries and cheeseburger.
That's it.
McDonald's makes me feel queasy now.
It doesn't satisfy me emotionally like it used to pre surgery.
It's like the connection there has been disconnected which I consider to be a positive thing.
I don't feel particularly sad or glad about it, it's just the way it is now.
I don't miss it, I guess I have just accepted it as part of my life now.
Another new change that I have noticed is that I have started to feel the cold more, particularly through my back area.
I have Raynaud's disease which means that the circulation to my hands and feet are crappy.
And we are bang on in the middle of winter.
So I certainly feel the cold and felt the cold even at my heaviest weight of 102.7 kgms.
Now that I've dropped about 13-15kgms, (it bounces around a bit) I'm feeling the cold even more.
My hands and feet turn all shades of pink and dark purple - it can look quite alarming to the uninitiated.
So I'm thinking I should invest in some quality woollen undergarments.
I'm lucky that I can now fit into my mum's long thick jacket that I wear outside for my dog walking work.
And I have a great pair of industrial strength thick gloves to wear in winter too.
I saw the surgeon last week for a check up and he said that I could start using my hand weights again.
I feel the need to tone up because my stomach area and arms are getting a bit loose and flabby in the wind.
Unfortunately he said that I couldn't start doing sit ups yet but he suggested I do some plank type exercises to help tone up my core muscles.
I'm doing a lot of walking as it's part of my job and I started back at work this week.
I did really well, better then I expected because my energy levels were really struggling for the first 4-5 weeks after surgery.
Now they seem to be getting back to normal - for me.
Now that I think about it I am developing a mighty fine collection of internal artificial body parts.
A few years ago I had surgery to remove a bunion from my foot.
They put pins in my foot to help reset my foot bones and they are still in my foot.
Now I have a line of staples along my stomach edge to add to the collection.
My body seems to do okay living with random bits of metal.
And credit has to go to the skill of the surgeon too.
Until next time folks.
8 weeks and a few days post op.
Life post op is getting easier all the time as my brain gets used to the dietary changes.
It's not just the dietary intake that changes though, it's the portion sizes, hormonal changes, habits, changing your attitude to food and exercise, feeling the cold more.
I used to place a lot of importance on exercise, too much.
My appetite was running so red hot all the time I thought that I needed to exercise to counteract all that I was eating.
I wasn't looking at what food I was putting into my mouth in the first place.
But I wasn't looking at what I was putting into my mouth in the first place because I was feeling so tired and stressed out by life all the time I just wanted to eat for comfort.
It became a vicious cycle.
A good friend of mine once commented that she had noticed I had put on a significant amount of weight around the time that I first moved to Kew.
There were a lot of changes for me around that time.
Moving to a new suburb away from family and friends, changing work places for my charity work, getting to know new colleagues at work, getting to know the streets of a new suburb, (thank goodness for the powers of a decent GPS) - it was all very exciting and stressful change.
For someone like me with minimal energy reserves, big changes like that can have a significant impact - I didn't acknowledge or appreciate that fact at the time.
Now, post surgery and living back with mum, I feel that I have more control over my life.
The concept of control comes up a lot in my therapy sessions.
The surgery helps to control my raging appetite, I don't feel the same mad panic to flog myself with exercise so much, I don't think about junk food so much, and I can save more money now that I'm living back at home - I don't feel so out of control.
Dr V on FB brought up a concept that really resonated with me.
Everything that I thought I knew to be true about food and exercise pre surgery was not correct and not working for me, otherwise I wouldn't have needed the surgery.
I needed to change my mental approach to exercise.
I didn't need to knock myself out to be fit and healthy especially if it was stressing me out, making me even more tired leading to more comfort eating.
I still eat junk food now, just in much smaller quantities.
The other day I was thinking of buying some fish n chips and sampling a bite of everything that I used to order pre surgery.
But then I decided against it because I didn't want to waste most of the meal by throwing it away.
My stomach can only handle 2 steamed dim sims at a time.
This is one of the mental changes you have to adapt to after WLS.
I don't know what the exact food ingredient list is that makes up steamed dim sims but I find them filling.
They are an approved food for my post surgery.
Some food tastes different to me now post surgery.
Water, coffee and, (dare I say it) McDonalds taste different to me now.
If I go to McDonald's I'll order a small fries and cheeseburger.
That's it.
McDonald's makes me feel queasy now.
It doesn't satisfy me emotionally like it used to pre surgery.
It's like the connection there has been disconnected which I consider to be a positive thing.
I don't feel particularly sad or glad about it, it's just the way it is now.
I don't miss it, I guess I have just accepted it as part of my life now.
Another new change that I have noticed is that I have started to feel the cold more, particularly through my back area.
I have Raynaud's disease which means that the circulation to my hands and feet are crappy.
And we are bang on in the middle of winter.
So I certainly feel the cold and felt the cold even at my heaviest weight of 102.7 kgms.
Now that I've dropped about 13-15kgms, (it bounces around a bit) I'm feeling the cold even more.
My hands and feet turn all shades of pink and dark purple - it can look quite alarming to the uninitiated.
So I'm thinking I should invest in some quality woollen undergarments.
I'm lucky that I can now fit into my mum's long thick jacket that I wear outside for my dog walking work.
And I have a great pair of industrial strength thick gloves to wear in winter too.
I saw the surgeon last week for a check up and he said that I could start using my hand weights again.
I feel the need to tone up because my stomach area and arms are getting a bit loose and flabby in the wind.
Unfortunately he said that I couldn't start doing sit ups yet but he suggested I do some plank type exercises to help tone up my core muscles.
I'm doing a lot of walking as it's part of my job and I started back at work this week.
I did really well, better then I expected because my energy levels were really struggling for the first 4-5 weeks after surgery.
Now they seem to be getting back to normal - for me.
Now that I think about it I am developing a mighty fine collection of internal artificial body parts.
A few years ago I had surgery to remove a bunion from my foot.
They put pins in my foot to help reset my foot bones and they are still in my foot.
Now I have a line of staples along my stomach edge to add to the collection.
My body seems to do okay living with random bits of metal.
And credit has to go to the skill of the surgeon too.
Until next time folks.
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