Stargirl
Member
I sourced this group and joined because I'm feeling really disconnected since surgery (July 30) and hoping to gather some insight and support from folks who've also been through the process of getting your tubes and pipes surgically reorganized. And particularly those of you who've lived through the stigma of being overweight.
If dieting was Girlscouts, I would have all the badges.
To name a few: my mom started taking me to weight watchers meetings when I was in second grade. In third grade, despite not being diabetic, she took me to special weight loss series offered at the local hospital about "living sugar free." In fourth grade I had my first brush with the grapefruit diet and ate nothing but grapefruit, cottage cheese, and melba toast rounds until the summer before fifth grade, which I spent living on Alba 77. In my teens through adulthood, I tried the various iterations of Weight Watchers, Slim Fast, Atkins, South Beach, TOPS, Paleo, Whole 30, the Cabbage Soup diet, Metabolife, Clean eating, juice cleanses, the master cleanse, and so many more.
On my 43rd birthday, to my shame, I clocked in at 324 lbs. My joints hurt all the time, my ankles would swell like crazy, I had trouble walking up the stairs, and I'd given up so many things I loved just because I wasn't able to physically do them (downhill skiing, ice skating, kayaking, paddle boarding, and more).
I knew my upward trajectory had to stop and started not only adhering to a strict 1200 calorie a day diet but working out for an hour a day. By fall, having lost 15 pounds, I went to the doctor for a checkup for the first time in 2 years and learned I was pre-diabetic with high blood pressure. It was at that point I decided to go to an intensive weight loss and diet assessment at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Through their program and over the course of 2 months, I met with nutritionists, endocrinologists, psychiatrists, sleep doctors, physiatrists, gastroenterologists, personal trainers, and more.
I was SO SURE they would come back with some kind of silver bullet as to why I had always been heavy and why I was not losing... until they didn't. They referred me to the bariatric program.
I went in super skeptical but listened to what the surgeon had to say and ultimately, after thinking it over for several weeks, decided to have a gastric sleeve.
My insurance required 6 months of medically supervised weight loss during which I was expected to lose at least 5% of my body weight (about 16 pounds). The 6 months was completed in April, but the closures related to COVID delayed my surgical date for nearly 4 months. By the time I had surgery, I was hovering around 275 lbs.
Surgery went smoothly but recovery did not. Although I'd been religious about the liquid diet, it turns out I have a very large liver and, while moving it, the surgeon unknowingly nicked my spleen causing internal bleeding. This went unnoticed until I was home and developed a huge bruise on my left flank in addition to a dangerous dip in blood pressure and severe exhaustion. My hemoglobin was at 7 by the time they caught the bleed. Fortunately, it did stabilize and start to come up, so I did not have to be readmitted to the hospital. That said, when you're not really eating or drinking anything, it takes FOREVER to get back to normal.
It's been two months since surgery and I'm currently at 221 pounds. The doctor anticipates I will be in "onederland" by the end of the year.
With COVID, I am working from home and I live rurally, so I've not seen a lot of people. As a result, the response when people do see me is generally shock because– depending who they are– I've lost 50-80 pounds since the last time they saw me. While I am not embarrassed about having had surgery, I also choose not to tell people who may not understand and will be likely to say something that is neither helpful nor supportive... so I tell them everything except the surgery part (lots of exercise, no sugar, no red meat, no white starch, no soda, no juice, no alcohol, working with a dietician, etc.) When I think about it, most of that stuff is true... I'm just excluding the part where I do all that and also don't get more than 800 calories a day.
Overall, I feel so much better. I'm much more active and physically capable. I am also pleased with having lost so much weight. However, I also feel very alone and somewhat misunderstood. I am not married and have no children, but I have several friends, am close to my parents, siblings, and their spouses. Among my family, while they all know about the surgery, they have done nothing to make meal times together any easier, my dietary limitations seem to annoy them (or they take it personally), there's comments passed that are not super encouraging and/or make me feel uncomfortable. Among my friends, one is considering surgery herself based on my success and for some reason it scares me for her.
I don't know... I just feel like I need someone who can listen and relate.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
If dieting was Girlscouts, I would have all the badges.
To name a few: my mom started taking me to weight watchers meetings when I was in second grade. In third grade, despite not being diabetic, she took me to special weight loss series offered at the local hospital about "living sugar free." In fourth grade I had my first brush with the grapefruit diet and ate nothing but grapefruit, cottage cheese, and melba toast rounds until the summer before fifth grade, which I spent living on Alba 77. In my teens through adulthood, I tried the various iterations of Weight Watchers, Slim Fast, Atkins, South Beach, TOPS, Paleo, Whole 30, the Cabbage Soup diet, Metabolife, Clean eating, juice cleanses, the master cleanse, and so many more.
On my 43rd birthday, to my shame, I clocked in at 324 lbs. My joints hurt all the time, my ankles would swell like crazy, I had trouble walking up the stairs, and I'd given up so many things I loved just because I wasn't able to physically do them (downhill skiing, ice skating, kayaking, paddle boarding, and more).
I knew my upward trajectory had to stop and started not only adhering to a strict 1200 calorie a day diet but working out for an hour a day. By fall, having lost 15 pounds, I went to the doctor for a checkup for the first time in 2 years and learned I was pre-diabetic with high blood pressure. It was at that point I decided to go to an intensive weight loss and diet assessment at the Medical College of Wisconsin. Through their program and over the course of 2 months, I met with nutritionists, endocrinologists, psychiatrists, sleep doctors, physiatrists, gastroenterologists, personal trainers, and more.
I was SO SURE they would come back with some kind of silver bullet as to why I had always been heavy and why I was not losing... until they didn't. They referred me to the bariatric program.
I went in super skeptical but listened to what the surgeon had to say and ultimately, after thinking it over for several weeks, decided to have a gastric sleeve.
My insurance required 6 months of medically supervised weight loss during which I was expected to lose at least 5% of my body weight (about 16 pounds). The 6 months was completed in April, but the closures related to COVID delayed my surgical date for nearly 4 months. By the time I had surgery, I was hovering around 275 lbs.
Surgery went smoothly but recovery did not. Although I'd been religious about the liquid diet, it turns out I have a very large liver and, while moving it, the surgeon unknowingly nicked my spleen causing internal bleeding. This went unnoticed until I was home and developed a huge bruise on my left flank in addition to a dangerous dip in blood pressure and severe exhaustion. My hemoglobin was at 7 by the time they caught the bleed. Fortunately, it did stabilize and start to come up, so I did not have to be readmitted to the hospital. That said, when you're not really eating or drinking anything, it takes FOREVER to get back to normal.
It's been two months since surgery and I'm currently at 221 pounds. The doctor anticipates I will be in "onederland" by the end of the year.
With COVID, I am working from home and I live rurally, so I've not seen a lot of people. As a result, the response when people do see me is generally shock because– depending who they are– I've lost 50-80 pounds since the last time they saw me. While I am not embarrassed about having had surgery, I also choose not to tell people who may not understand and will be likely to say something that is neither helpful nor supportive... so I tell them everything except the surgery part (lots of exercise, no sugar, no red meat, no white starch, no soda, no juice, no alcohol, working with a dietician, etc.) When I think about it, most of that stuff is true... I'm just excluding the part where I do all that and also don't get more than 800 calories a day.
Overall, I feel so much better. I'm much more active and physically capable. I am also pleased with having lost so much weight. However, I also feel very alone and somewhat misunderstood. I am not married and have no children, but I have several friends, am close to my parents, siblings, and their spouses. Among my family, while they all know about the surgery, they have done nothing to make meal times together any easier, my dietary limitations seem to annoy them (or they take it personally), there's comments passed that are not super encouraging and/or make me feel uncomfortable. Among my friends, one is considering surgery herself based on my success and for some reason it scares me for her.
I don't know... I just feel like I need someone who can listen and relate.
Thanks for reading if you made it this far.
