How'd you lose all that weight? Part 2. 

Surgery took less than thirty minutes. The Gastric Sleeve is a laparoscopic procedure. The pain was minimal when I woke up. The worst part was the anesthesia. Due to having no thyroid, anesthesia hits me really hard and takes a long time to fully wear off. Before leaving the hospital, they have you drink 8 ounces of water and walk 20 laps around the nurse’s station. It was incredibly hard to do this because I couldn’t stay awake to save my life. Nonetheless, I got it done and they sent me on my way.

For a week after surgery, I was on a clear liquid diet and every week after that I could advance my diet as tolerated. So, from clear liquids to full liquids to soft foods all the way to a regular diet. It took about 5 weeks for me to start eating meats again but by meats I mean really soft meats or meats mixed with a sauce of some sort such as chicken salad, tuna, or ground beef. The rapid change in diet is absolutely the hardest part of this surgery. It forces you to completely rebuild your relationship with food. For about 3 months post-op I could only eat around 3-4 bites before feeling stuffed. It was the strangest thing and the most infuriating thing. I would feel like I was starving, take three bites of mashed potatoes, and feel like I had just eaten a 16oz steak with two sides. So full, that I would often times feel miserable. In the beginning, you also have to retrain yourself in how fast you can eat. I don’t think I understood just how fast we all eat our food until eating three bites in one minute caused me to puke my guts up. I ended up having to set a three-minute timer in between each bite and I mean start the time after swallowing and not take a single bite until the timer went off. This was torturous. ESPECIALLY when I wanted to advance my diet so bad due to being on only liquids for two weeks. I didn’t want to wait three minutes in between each bite. I wanted to scarf it all down!! There were days that I bawled because I just wanted a normal meal. After bariatric surgery, every single bite needs to count if you want to ensure you are nourishing your body. I could take three bites of a cookie or three bites of a protein bar. Obviously, the protein bar is what I needed, but when you give up sugar cold turkey, it’s not the easiest decision to pick the protein bar. This is truly how the surgery caused me to reform my relationship with food. I was literally eating to live, not living to eat. When I made unhealthy choices, I felt it big because I would become malnourished experiencing extreme fatigue, weakness, and even bone and joint pain. If I wasn’t getting enough protein in, I would feel so weak and so tired. It is hard to put into words just how much healthy food choices mattered right after surgery. I also had to train myself to eat every single hour for the first three months. They don’t recommend this long term but, in the beginning, you can only eat so little that if you eat every four hours like the normal person you are only consuming around 400 calories or less a day. Therefore, it’s important to take small bites as often as possible without taking them too close together because that could cause you to feel miserable. It was a balancing act to say the least and a learning curve is an understatement.

When you are raised in our culture, everything revolves around food no matter how healthy you are, and I just didn’t realize how much I would miss out on once I couldn’t eat much anymore. My husband and I had to find other things to do besides go to dinner for date night. I wasn’t supposed to be drinking caffeine so I couldn’t enjoy a morning cup of coffee anymore. I wasn’t allowed to drink carbonation so the once-a-month Dr. Pepper I would have for a treat was out the window.  I couldn’t tolerate bread, rice, or pasta because they were too dense of a food to eat when 80% of your stomach is removed. Some meats were hard to digest so there I was limited too. If I went to a wedding shower and chose to eat cake or fruit over meat, I wouldn’t get the amount of protein in that I was supposed to for the day. You can no longer tolerate to chug water because it will hurt your stomach, so you’re told to sip on water all day long but when you’re busy at work, on your feet all day, that feels impossible. You also can’t drink for thirty minutes before and after a meal because drinking fills your stomach up but also will hurt your stomach if you mix food and fluids together. Remember when I said that the first three months, I was eating bites every hour? Yeah, so I didn’t get my fluids in at first either and I was dehydrated as heck. I landed myself right back in the hospital just to get IV fluids so that I could be hydrated and then utilized an IV infusion clinic in the city that I live in just to get fluids in. About six months in, most patient’s hair begins to fall out just from a lack of protein since surgery and a huge change in caloric intake. My hair was coming out in chunks, and I spent many showers bawling. Not to mention the mental toll it takes to just no longer enjoy anything that you used to eat because you literally cannot eat more than a bite and that bite cannot contain any dense carbs. So tacos, pizza, burgers, rolls, spaghetti, alfredo, queso, soda, energy drinks, coffee, cake, cookies, etc? GONE. It’s not like I was indulging in all of those foods every week before surgery but they literally were not an option after surgery and that was way harder than I expected. Any comfort I found in food before or any positive thing I celebrated with food before; that was no longer an option and if I caved and tried even two bits of the things above I was miserably sick. To say it sucked and was the hardest thing I have ever had to do is an understatement.

But then….

The weight came off, I had energy, my knees and back didn’t hurt, I could wear cute shoes again for more than an hour, my hair began to grow back, I slowly was able to reintroduce all my favorite foods but, in a way where they didn’t control me. I had self-control over how much I would eat and had the ability to put it down once I was full. I now am able to eat whatever I want, and I also can drink enough water throughout the day. My skin issues started to resolve and my diabetic A1C came down. I was able to jog again without being in pain and lifting weights didn’t hurt my body anymore. I gained confidence at a healthy level and vowed to never ever take my health for granted again. All of the sucky things I listed above were so so so so worth it to me. I would do it again ten times over to feel how I feel now which is… healthy. I feel healthy. Thyroid cancer stole my health, and I did what it took to get it back. In the meantime, I learned some lessons about self-control and our culture’s ability to make food an idol.  I no longer live for the next meal and am not always looking forward to what I’m going to eat next. I can say no to a cupcake and feel totally okay with that instead of feeling deprived. Grilled chicken sounds delicious to me when before I would feel so frustrated that I had to eat grilled instead of fried just for a chance to lose a pound. I hired a personal trainer, and she is incredible. She has taught me so much about nutrition and moving my body. My entire perspective on my body, working out, and eating habits have changed so much for the better and I truly think it is all because I took a stand to do what I needed to do for myself. I remember feeling so fearful of what others would think of my decision and now I think about how miserable I would still be if I had allowed that fear to hold me back. I just encourage every single one of you to always do what is best for you despite the opinions of others because truly at the end of the day other people’s opinions of you are none of your business. I heard that quote once and it just hit me down deep. We cannot live our lives out of fear of what others think because then we would miss some of the greatest opportunities this world has to offer us.

I am 100lbs down from the day of my surgery and 120lbs down from my heaviest weight. The gastric sleeve changed my life, and I am so happy I went though with it. With that being said, dinner is ready so I’m about to go enjoy a taco, rice, and beans. See? I promise it didn’t stay hard forever. 😊

Please be kind to me. These are the most vulnerable pictures I have ever posted on the internet.