WLS pt 2--Scale update

Part two of my ‘Prejudice’ post.

As I was saying, I feel those who take the road of WLS are often harshly criticized and almost everyone who hears they’re doing the surgery has an opinion. Many harsh & not constructive.

I have encountered a few myself. Not bothering to hear the reason why or my thinking on the matter, they’ve launched into a spiel on why I shouldn’t. 

At the time my primary care doctor suggested it to me, I was miserable. Pain in my knee. I limped.  I ached all over. Getting in and out of a car was nearly impossible.   If I attempted to walk for any significant time, the back pain would start and increase the longer I was on my feet.

I tried doing my recumbent bike & my knee would act up.  I only ate 3 meals a day.  I rarely snacked.

After sitting down with the dietician to go over my eating and give me a plan to lose the ’24 pounds’ she gave me to meet the insurance prerequisite, we modified my eating.   She switched regular for low sugar or sugar free, fruit for vegetables, and I was told to cut off ALL carbonated beverages and drink only zero calorie drinks.   I was also told to switch regular bread for sandwich thins.  I was lowering a lot of my wheat intake as well. Most importantly I had to move. Get at least 10K steps a day. Lastly, a number of vitamins were added to my daily regimen.

It was incredibly difficult at the beginning. I was ALWAYS hungry.   Walking was slow going. I started using MyFitnessPal religiously, logging all my meals.  I went and got a Fitbit to track my steps. It was so hard.  I was barely getting 3K steps.

By week two I noticed two things.  The first being I was mentally more aware and feeling good.  The second, I was walking a bit longer before the pain hit.   Before we knew it, I was walking pain free and the weight was coming off.  

I truly believe it was the combination of vitamins, cutting out something harmful (pop? Sugar? Wheat?) and cutting calories helped the pain disappear.   Without the pain, I could walk more.  Walk more I did. Surprisingly I lost the weight. Never thought it would happen.

Then the questions began.  “Since you see you can do it, are you still going to have surgery?” “See you don’t need surgery” and all sorts of similar opinions.

Honestly folks, I only lost 37 lbs. While that seems a lot, you all need to realize in the grand scheme of things that is a tiny portion of what I need to lose.

 Somewhere lower is a graph thing I made. I am not comfortable giving you exact numbers so I replaced the weights with the alphabet (A-H) and BMI with #s 1-8.  The weight is broken up in increments that I fit into.   While I did not reach the highest represented by H + 8, I was not far from.   I want you to have a visual of what I have to conquer.

A/1 represents the weight I would need to be to be considered NORMAL BMI.  That is what I consider my Dream weight.  To reach that, I would need to lose a total of 200 lbs.  Read that again, 200 pounds.

B/2 is my “I so wish I could”.  If I weighed B, everyone would think I was so skinny. The joys of having a large frame/build.  10 years ago after I lost all that weight, those of you who remember how skinny I was….I was at B. THAT is considered Overweight on the BMI scale.

C is my long goal.   I don’t think I am going to reach it but this is what I’d ideally like to be at.  I came back from Japan at this ‘location’.

D is where I could live with and be satisfied if I never lost another pound.  It’s considered OBESE but thanks to my large frame, I’d still look good. I will need to lose a total of 130 lbs to achieve this.

E—since I was doing equal increments, I needed to put this in. I will just ‘pass through’ with my weight loss.

F-My current location.

G-Where this all began.

As you see across the bottom, the BMI scale for each goal.  200 lbs need to be lost in order to be “NORMAL”.

That’s a tough road ahead.  Just because I’ve lost 37 do you think I can do 200? 

WEIGHT	A	B	C	D	E	F	G	H
	DREAM	Wish	Long Goal	Goal	just passing through	Current	Original	very high never reached
BMI	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
	Normal	Overweight	Obese	Obese	Obese	Obese	Obese	Obese
From Initial	-200			-130

My official weigh in with the dietitian is tomorrow.   Then we begin the process with the insurance company.  Yes I’m still going through with seeing her tomorrow.

I guess it’s time to let you all in on a secret.   When I hit 20 lbs before I thought I would, I began thinking the exact questions everyone asked me early on.   Will I have the surgery?

The answer for now is, no.

Yes, you read that. I am going to try this on my own.  I’m scared I can’t do it.  I’m frustrated that it is going to take so long.   Yet- I’m allowing myself options by holding off.  I still want to get approval as a last resort in case I fail.  

I am going to ask if I can continue working with a dietitian  I do better when I have to be held accountable to someone.   With you guys. With my doctor. With a dietitian  I may just have a chance at this.   Heck. If I could do 70 lbs on Atkins, I can do 100 on eating right & exercise. 

I actually hate calling it a “diet”.   This is just the way I am now. I watch what I eat and make sure I get in some exercise. 

So there you have it.  I’m not giving up yet, just going about things differently than anticipated.
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Friday. 
I had my appointment.
If you count what I weighed on my first appointment with them, the total lost is 44lbs.  If you count when I started tracking, based on the scale, I've lost 40.   My  FitnessPal total will continue to be off of MY SCALE. 

The dietitian was very pleased at my over achievement (44 vs 24).  I also officially decided to put the surgery process on PAUSE.   I will still continue to see her and continue to do what I've been doing.