Stomach Flu...Not A Fun Way To Lose Weight...

       As my title says...not fun.  Sunday I had planned on leaving a new blog entry since it had been a few days.  Then of course i started to not feel so well that afternoon.  By bedtime i knew something was up and i think i was pretty much delirious and dehydrated until about Tuesday night.  I somehow crawled out of my blankets Tuesday morning and went to my Biology Lab Final...man i hope i did well on that.

     So with that said i have no news on the surgery or diet front.  Everything is still going well diet wise. I'm trying to get back into the swing of it after this bug and hopefully i'll survive the holiday tomorrow.  Not excited about those temtaptions. lol  Hopefully i will have some more news soon. I'm getting a little worried about my surgery timeline.  I was hoping to have taken my Nutrition class this monday but they never called or scheduled.  Hopefully i can get ahold of them on Friday.  If not it looks like i'll contact them on Monday and maybe things will work out...  In the mean time:

                   Have A Happy Thanksgiving!!

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~ Justina

Day 19, Pre-Op Diet:   -15 lbs

    

Next Step...

Sorry i haven't checked in since Saturday.  It's been a busy few days and i wasn't feeling that great over the weekend. But I'm recovered now from the cold or whatever it was that i had.  

So my diet has been going okay since Saturday.  I had a few rough moments but i seemed to work through them.  I was struggling with the fact that i can't eat what i want and everyone else could.  It was pretty frustrating.  After some encouragement from friends, family and Daniel i got through it and kept chugging on. 

So here i am, down 12 lbs now! I got a call from my dietitian today.  I was supposed to hit my 15 lb goal by the end of this week.  So i was a little surprised that today she wanted my weight and was going to go off of that.  So being 3 lbs short of my goal i was a little worried.  She said she would talk to the Dr and get back with me as soon as she heard back from him.  The phone rang literally like 3 minutes later.  She said the Dr approved my current loss and i can now move on to the next step!!

I am now currently waiting on a phone call from someone to schedule my nutrition class and set the date for my actual surgery!!  The nutrition class will teach me all there is to know about the rest of my pre-op diet and then the ins and outs of eating post surgery.  It's like an all day class i believe.

I'm very excited to be moving on to the next step and can't wait to hear from them, hopefully soon.  I'm supposed to stay on this aggressive 3 & 2 diet until i get the nutrition class.  That isn't what i wanted to hear, but what can you do. lol  Guess i can eat some more celery and lettuce for another week or so. ;)

Thanks for checking in on me and reading my blog!!

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~Justina

Day 12, Pre-Op Diet:      -12 lbs

One Week Down, So Many More To Go...

Well today i completed my first official week on the Pre-Op diet.  It definitely had it's ups and downs emotionally and physically. But it obviously is all for the best and I'm being rewarded quite well. :)

I weighed myself this morning as promised.  I had been playing with a 1-2 lb gain the last 2 days and it was soooo frustrating.  But this morning it showed that I am now currently back to -10 lbs on the dot.  Which makes me very very happy.  I seem to have been having some sort of plateau issue going on and I'm hoping that this morning was the end of that issue for now. Losing 10 lbs in one week is definitely something i never thought i could do and I am very encouraged.  The diet is hard and i have had some terrible days, but I'm pushing through.

Yesterday was the first time i ate out at a restaurant while on the diet.  We went to Wasabi (Japanese Steakhouse) for a friends birthday.  They make A TON of food for you there.  But i did pretty well.  I ordered the chicken and shrimp and was really looking forward to my shrimp.  The meal also came with a salad, soup, fried rice, noodles and an assortment of veggies.  I only ate my chicken, shrimp, salad, veggies and picked all the egg pieces out of my rice.  I tasted the rice just to satisfy my taste buds.  I was super paranoid i was going to over do it but i totally didn't.  :)  

So with one week behind me i am looking forward to this next week.  I hope i can lose the additional 5 lbs that i was supposed to lose by 11/23.  I know i can do this! 

Thanks for checking in on me and reading my blog!

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~ Justina

Day 8, Pre-Op Diet:        -10 lbs

Salad Fiascoes...

Didn't blog yesterday because i had nothing new.  There isn't much going on around here actually.  I went to school today and did okay with my meals.

My first class was at 10:20 so i drank a shake when i got up at 9am.  I get to school and realize that i forgot my protein bar that i needed to eat after Biochem.  Phooey.  I messaged Daniel that i was going to have a bad start to the day now because i forgot my bar.  Wouldn't you know it him and the girls came out to the school before i got out of class and left my bar in the truck on my seat.  *LOVE HIM!*  So i needed to eat lunch before i went back for mat at 12:40.  I thought, no biggie i'll go get a salad.  Yeah...

I went to Wendy's and got a Grilled Chicken Cob Salad.  I figured i could take the bacon and cheese off (since i'm not allowed to have those) but the tomato and egg would be a nice flavor with the chicken.  So i get back to the school and pick apart the salad.  It had this weird gross crumbly cheese on it i had to scoop out. Anyway, i finally get it all picked apart and i put a little bit of dressing on it (i'm not a big dressing eater) and then go in the bag to get my fork.  No fork.  Seriously Wendys?  So yeah...i ate my salad with my fingers.  It was disgusting and i think i'll leave a plastic fok in my truck now.  lol

The rest of my day smoothed out.  The only issue i'm facing now is because of my weird schedule today i have technically only eaten 4 meals out of the 5 i'm supposed to.  I should have a protein bar around 8 but i don't want it.  lol The things are so not appealing to me (i don't really like chocolate) and i'm not even hungry.  But i know i need to eat it becasue if i don't it will mess up my whole calorie/car/whatever intake.  Boo.

On a high note, Daniel measured my chest and stomach today and i've lost!  I lost 1.25" around my waist and 1" around my chest!  How awesome is that!  Trying to hold out until Saturday for another weight in. 

Thanks for checking on me and visiting my blog today!

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~Justina

Day 6, Pre-Op Diet:    -10lbs

Feeling Good...

This morning i weighed myself again...

DOWN 7 MORE LBS!!!

I am now down an official 10 lbs, which is amazing!!  Looks like all these salads are paying off! ;)  I've definitely noticed a difference in the way my clothes fit already (lose & comfy is a nice feeling) and i seem to have more energy than I'm used to.  Seeing the number on the scale this morning was a nice pick-me-up for my day.

I had class for the first time today while doing this diet.  I got up earlier than i usually do when i have late classes so i could eat my meals at the right times. (Shocking, i know!)  I decided to do my shake for breakfast when i woke up and then ate a salad  w/chicken for lunch right before i left for my class.  I was doing really well during class, wasn't hungry at all.  It was a lab, which can sometimes last 3 hours, so i brought along a protein bar for my next meal if it got to be the right time for it.  Luckily we got out early today so it didn't come to that.

I was getting pretty tired of salads today.  The thought of eating another salad made me feel so blah.  Luckily my amazing husband came to the rescue and realized i needed a change.  He made me a delicious steak on our handy dandy George Foreman grill (seriously best invention ever) and some green beans.  It's amazing how just a change in a meal can lift your mood.  I was feeling pretty discouraged and worried i couldn't do this before supper.  But that meal really made me feel better and kind of renewed my spirits.

So now I'm doing okay again.  I actually have one more protein bar or shake to eat today and i don't feel like it now but i know I'll be hungry come an hour or 2. 

So all in all it was a good day that started on a great note and seems to be ending on one too.  Well...except for the fact that i have to do my math homework. ;)

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~Justina

Day 4, Pre-op Diet:    -10 lbs

Day 3...

Well today wasn't fun. I was pretty hungry today most of the day. I got up a little later than I would have liked to. I had the day off school so I definitely relaxed. Since I got up later I had to start my meals a little later than I would have liked. So even though i ate later I was still pretty hungry. Annoying. Part of the problem I think Is that I'm getting tired of salad. Eating salad for 3 days in a row isn't fun and getting old fast. But I think I'll be okay. 

I did notice that I m feeling full with my small meals now though. Today during lunch I couldn't even  finish my diet coke because I was feeling so full. In between meals is when I seem to be hungry. Like right now. lol 

I'm excited to weigh myself in the morning to see if I've lost anymore weight. :) Hopefully I have something better to report tomorrow! 

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~Justina

Day 3, Pre-Op Diet:  -3 lbs

Aggressive Diet Indeed...

So I had my first visit with the DR and staff on Friday.  Had my psych eval (guess i passed that), met Dr. Curry and met with the Dietitian.  The visit was nice, the staff is super friendly and a lot of them have had surgery as well!  It's really nice to see people who have had success and know what you are going through first hand.  I think that really makes a difference with his office.  

After meeting with Dr. Curry I told him I'd like to have surgery while on Xmas break next month.  I'll be on break until like the 1st week of January. So if i had surgery before that i could have some nice relaxing recovery time at home and get the hang of all the new things going on with my body before jumping into Spring Semester.  I have a very high BMI of 59, they like their patients to be around a BMI of 40 to be safe for surgery.  I recently found out that the reason for wanting patients to be at a lower BMI is to help lower the fat content of your liver.  The liver is a very heavy organ and needs to be lifted during surgery.  To help with safety it is ideal for you to lose some of that fat that surrounds your liver to make things easier.  

So for me to have surgery around Xmas like i want i needed to go on a like super aggressive crazy high protein low carb diet.  It's called the 3 & 2 plan.  Of the 5 total meals 3 have to be either a protein shake or protein bar.  I chose the Atkins bars and shakes, they are pretty tasty. :)  The other 2 meals are a lean protein (like 6-7 oz) and 2-3 cups of greens.  My selection of greens isn't very high.  I can't stand collard greens so that's like not even an option.  I've been pretty much just been eating salad, cucumbers and green beans. lol 

Friday i had my last supper, lol, and so i officially started my new diet Saturday.  I was doing okay for most of the day.  By noon i was getting a mild headache.  I survived the whole day and ate EXACTLY what i was supposed to and nothing more.  I don't know how, but i did. lol

Sunday I again ate exactly what i was supposed to with no exceptions.  I felt like i had more energy though which was nice.  Normally i take a huge nap in the afternoon after church.  But i only wound up taking a small one so i could be awake to eat my meals on time.  Here it is 1am and I'm still doing great.  I mean yeah I'm tired because its late.  But normally I'd be super tired from getting only a small nap.  Not to mention I'm hungry.  

I weighed myself this morning out of curiosity to see if yesterday had made a difference yet.  I didn't expect to see a number change because come on, it was only one day.  But wouldn't you know it i lost 3lbs!  Crazy!  I don't think I'm going to weight myself again until Tuesday or Wednesday morning.  I want to be surprised and am hoping i will have some more loss!

I'm off school tomorrow so i get to take it easy for one more day.  Then the real work begins...mixing this diet and my weird school schedule...

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~Justina

Day 2, Pre-op Diet:     -3lbs

How I Got Started....

Hello! So because this is my first post I wanted to kind of briefly talk about my plan for this journey and what is going on.

I have been doing research on VSG surgery for a few months now.  I originally tried to go through Cleveland Clinic, but because i am self-pay there was NO way i could afford the $24,000 + surgery.  Also, they offer no financing options or even suggestions...talk about discouraging.  

Dr. Curry's program is MUCH cheaper at just $14,700 and they offer financing suggestions and support! So i began the process of finding financing and got lucky! After finding financing i contacted Dr. Curry's office and made my first appointment!

Your first appt includes meeting with the Psychologist, Dietitian and Dr. Curry himself!  The staff is amazingly encouraging and friendly.  You really feel the one on one relationship and you know they will be there for you the whole way through.  

Now that I've met with the Dietitian i was put on a plan to get to a safe weight for surgery.  So now I've started my official weight loss journey and it's going to be challenging but definitely worth it!

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~Justina