"Our street at 4 o'clock this morning"
Exactly 1 week Post-Op
Weight: 14.8lb
Weight lost: 1 stone 9lbs
I got my wish. It snowed. Fantastic. As you may have guessed we went out and took lots of pictures and managed to get some exercise in, despite the cold. Jack Spratt was so excited about the snow that he waited up for it – lol. At 3.30am he came and woke me up to show me. Thanks chick ;) But he did take some nice photos of our street in the snowy weather.
The other positive thing was that I weighed myself this morning and I have lost half a stone since the operation :) I’m over the moon. So what have I been doing to lose this much? Well, if you’ve been following the blog then you’ll realise that I am a serial dieter (or should that be cereal? ;) and, whilst dieting hasn’t really been a problem, binge eating, motivation to diet, consistency with adhering to the diet and maintenance of any weight lost, has been what I have really battled with. Compared to that little lot, actual dieting is a piece of piss.
I appreciate that everybody is different; wouldn’t life be boring if we weren’t? What I am about to say may be classed as heresy by some lap-banders but, at the risk of incurring the wrath of others, this is what is working for me. I have really done my research about the band. I have lurked on the forums, only really plucking up the courage to post 2 weeks before my actual operation, and I have read several books in the past month on weight-loss surgery. I quickly realised that the lap-band was only going to be one element of winning this battle, sorting out the quality of the food I eat, looking at exercising regularly, monitoring my calorie intake and exploring, honestly, the reasons for my over-eating behaviour were going to be the much harder parts. I know that I have to make the lap-band work for me. If I can diet sensibly then the lap-band can help me to control my physical urges and, hopefully, allow me to maintain the weight I have lost.
The scientific studies, such as that done at Monash University Medical School in Melbourne, have suggested that the lap-band is, “a more effective long-term solution than a very-low-calorie diet for people who are about 50 pounds overweight or more”. At the same time I have realised from all of the forum members that the band isn’t a magic bullet. Clearly, you don’t just have the band fitted and magically lose weight. There are no lost calories from malabsorption as in other weight loss surgeries. You have to work at it. I’ve read many posts from banders saying that they didn’t have the band fitted just to start dieting again. I agree that I don’t want to ever have to diet again after this but, I need to do some level of dieting in order to achieve some weight loss. Okay, don’t hate me for saying this but, I don’t want to have to rely on being over-restricted just to lose weight. There is a small part of me that would like to be so over-restricted that I can only get water down me and waste away before everybody’s very eyes but, that’s the unhealthy part of my personality. That’s my own demon. I would like, in an ideal world, to have a sweet-spot that allows me to eat a small but normal balanced meal. I would like to be able to feel full after I have eaten and for the fullness to last a few hours. Not to eat my dinner and think, as I am finishing it, that I could eat it again and feel deprived when I stop myself. Fullness or satiety are not something that I feel I have experienced for many years. Hunger, both physical and head hunger, are my downfalls. That is the job that I want my lap-band to do. The rest of it, I think possibly, I can manage myself with the right support.
So what have I done, this week to achieve this weight loss? I have been sticking to just liquids, for one thing, so that has automatically limited my food options. As I have mentioned before, I am somebody that needs a strategy. In any part of my life I need firm boundaries, often whether I realise it or not :) And for this particular battle I need some guidelines to live by on a daily basis. As I managed to lose over a stone on my pre-op diet, I knew that I would continue to lose on a 1000-1200 calorie per day diet. As I have the propensity to overeat just about anything, I also knew that this meant no ‘free’ or unlimited foods. So, whereas I may have not, in the past, counted the calories in, for example, butternut squash or onions, now I am weighing and measuring everything that passes my lips. Okay, I appreciate that this tedious but, I figure its not forever. Once I’m done with my calorie counting, I want the band to do it’s bit of magic. I want it to help me maintain my weight. If it stops the binges in their early stages on the way, that would be good too.
So this week I have kept my calories high enough to prevent my metabolism from going into shutdown and low enough to shift some pounds. Most days I am averaging 1100 calories in liquid form. Clearly I am still swollen and the physical pangs haven’t kicked in yet but, by crikey, the head pangs have been there since 24 hours after the operation. I was given a really groovy journal for Christmas and it has become my food diary. Everything I have eaten is in there because, somehow, that seems to help. I have struggled this week. It hasn’t been easy. When I want to eat I have been blogging, forum-ing and emailing.
Exercise is the other thing I have been doing this week. Walking to be precise. Now then, let me put my cards on the table. I am a naturally bone-idle futha-mucka. I was humiliated by P.E. at school, have dreadful hand to eye co-ordination, really dislike the physical pain of exercising and if, by some miracle, I do enjoy the sport, the minute an element of competition is introduced, I pack it in. Although I had plenty of great friends at school, and despite being a whole lot slimmer at times, I was always picked out of loyalty in team games because I was such a bloody liability, lol. That means that exercise is always, without fail, a chore to me. However, I am able to trick myself into doing things as often the hardest part is just motivating myself to start the activity. Here’s how I have done it this week. I have set a time that I must go walking by. I don’t get changed to walk – just my comfiest trainers and a hoodie. Once I am walking I play the game of, “I only have to walk to the next street”. Once there I tell myself to just walk to the next one. Finally I have reached enough of a distance that I don’t have any bloody choice but to walk home. Even managed it today in the snow – walked into town to collect a parcel, then walked to the park to take some photos with Jack Spratt. I started walking about 48 hours post op and have built up to 50 minutes at a brisk pace.
Finally, the other thing I have done is to be prepared. I am the Last Boy Scout. Well, a boy scout with a twinkle, but that’s hardly here nor there. I have shopped properly. Okay, so not being back at work has made it easier, but still, I’ve got out and done it. I have made my soups and smoothies in the mornings and not waited until I am desperate. I have made enough to either last the day or longer. I suppose the biggest thing I have done is stopped watching the telly. That’s been tough but, I have felt more unhappy and bereft of my comforts when I have watched it than at any other time. It’s bizarre that the two things are so complexly entwined in my head.
I am still only taking one day at a time. I am not sitting with my diary and working out how much I think I should weigh at the start of every week. This is another little me-ism that I get sucked into and it always, always, always, ends in disappointment. So I am recording my weight weekly and, only after the event :)
The way I think about it is, you can only make changes today, not yesterday. And tomorrow? Well tomorrow never comes does it? ;)
"Frosty the Snowman"
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