I've spent a lot of time over the past few weeks preparing, planning, thinking, and...buying. I want to make sure that when I come home from the hospital, I have everything I need for those intial weeks. I am guessing I will be feeling pretty crappy, and I don't want to have to scramble around assembling the things that I need.
For Christmas, one of the things that I got is an immersion blender. It's a neat gadget that I can use to puree various foods when I am in the soft/pureed foods phase. (Tangent: for any of my non-op friends who are reading this, I have to gradually return to eating solid foods - first I will be on clear liquids, then full liquids [like cream soups and stuff], then soft or pureed foods, and finally back to solids.) I am trying to think of things that won't be gross pureed. A lot of the "recipes" I have found involve pureeing things like chicken or ham, which just seems disgusting to me. I am thinking refried beans, maybe chili, soups, stuff like that. I have some unflavored protein powder to add to foods during that phase so that I can amp up the protein, since I won't be eating much meat.
I've also ordered or purchased all of the vitamins that I will need. I found out a couple of months ago that my levels of vitamin D and iron are very low, and that's with a whole stomach! This brings home for me just how important it's going to be for me to take all of my vitamins every single day. I have to take chewables for the first couple of months, and then I can switch to a capsule if I want.
For a multi, I've landed on Trader Joe's chewables. They taste good, have a negligible amount of sugar in them, and have all of the nutrients that I need in a multi. I will take two of them per day, because I won't absorb as much after my surgery. I also need to take calcium citrate - not carbonate or any other form. The reason it has to be citrate is that other forms require stomach acid to break them down so that they can be absorbed, and I won't have enough acid to do that after surgery. I finally found a calcium chewable that doesn't taste like fruity ass: the orange flavored chewable from Building Blocks Vitamins (and if you click on the second link, and look on the left, they will send you free samples). I got the raspberry iron from them as well, which is also in the best form for WLS patients, ferrous fumarate. I will also take a sublingual b12 twice per week.
I've got some protein powder and some ready-to drink-shakes, but I will probably need to get some more. A lot of those things are pretty damn gross. The one that I have found that I like most so far is Click, but it really doesn't have the ideal nutrition stats for a WLS patient, since it has caffeine and 7g of sugar to only 15g of protein. It's really, really good though. Muscle Milk light ready-to-drink is decent, as is the Optimum Choice powder that I have. I think I may get one more thing just for variety, because I am going to have to consume a LOT of protein (what are you laughing at?) after my surgery, so that my body doesn't try to consume my muscle because it thinks I am not feeding it enough.
I guess the only thing I've got left to do is maybe make a couple of pureed meals to freeze. I think that those little half-cup gladware things will be perfect for freezing individual portions. I'lll wait and do that a bit closer to S-Day though.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
Monday, December 28, 2009
Oh hai!
First things first!
The "SMO" in my blog title refers to the fact that I am (as of writing this) Super Morbidly Obese, which is defined as having a BMI of over 45. My current BMI is about 60, down from an all-time high of 65 a few months back. Three weeks from tomorrow, on January 19th 2010, I will climb onto an operating table and a very nice lady will rearrange my insides for me (laparoscopically, if all goes according to plan) so that I will, hopefully, lose a whole lot of weight. I need to lose about another 100 lbs (from my current weight) just to get to the point of being "regular" morbidly obese, about 200 lbs to be classified as "overweight", and about 230 lbs to reach "normal" status, which would be about 150 lbs on my 5'6" frame.
Having weight loss surgery is a pretty drastic step, but as you can see, I am drastically overweight. I am lucky that I have relatively few health issues as a result of my weight. My blood pressure is high and I have some joint issues, as well as asthma (which is mainly caused by allergies, and pre-dates much of my weight gain, but I am sure the extra weight isn't helping). But my cholesterol, A1C, fasting blood sugar, etc are all solidly in the normal range. I know that if I continue to be this heavy, that's not going to last forever. I've done every diet known to man, I took PhenFen, Meridia, and that stuff that makes you leak oil out of your ass. None of it has worked. I hope that this will.
I have a couple of major reasons for wanting to do this. The biggest one is that my weight is really, really slowing me down. I calculate my actions based on my weight. I avoid going to places where I might not have a comfortable place to sit, or where I might not fit in the seat, or where there will be tight spaces, or stairs, or long walks due to parking. I rarely go to the mall, or a museum. Concerts are iffy, because if they're sit-down ones, I might not be able to fit in the seats, and if they're standing ones...well, I'd have to stand. I only go to certain movie theaters, where I know the armrests flip up. I don't fly.
I want to be able to move, to walk, to go places without considering the parking situation, to travel. I am tired of being stared at by strangers, pointed at by children, treated rudely by salespeople. I am tired of being tired.
The second big reason is that my husband and I would like to start a family in a couple of years. At my current size, I am more likely than not to have major complications during pregnancy. Yes, having had WLS can also cause complications, but the statistics show that most women who wait the required amount of time to get pregnant have normal, healthy pregnancies.
This is a major commitment. I will have to eat a certain way for the rest of my life. I will have to take a pile of vitamins every day for the rest of my life. I will have to go to follow-up appointments, blood draws, support group meetings. To me, that's all worth getting my life back.
The "SMO" in my blog title refers to the fact that I am (as of writing this) Super Morbidly Obese, which is defined as having a BMI of over 45. My current BMI is about 60, down from an all-time high of 65 a few months back. Three weeks from tomorrow, on January 19th 2010, I will climb onto an operating table and a very nice lady will rearrange my insides for me (laparoscopically, if all goes according to plan) so that I will, hopefully, lose a whole lot of weight. I need to lose about another 100 lbs (from my current weight) just to get to the point of being "regular" morbidly obese, about 200 lbs to be classified as "overweight", and about 230 lbs to reach "normal" status, which would be about 150 lbs on my 5'6" frame.
Having weight loss surgery is a pretty drastic step, but as you can see, I am drastically overweight. I am lucky that I have relatively few health issues as a result of my weight. My blood pressure is high and I have some joint issues, as well as asthma (which is mainly caused by allergies, and pre-dates much of my weight gain, but I am sure the extra weight isn't helping). But my cholesterol, A1C, fasting blood sugar, etc are all solidly in the normal range. I know that if I continue to be this heavy, that's not going to last forever. I've done every diet known to man, I took PhenFen, Meridia, and that stuff that makes you leak oil out of your ass. None of it has worked. I hope that this will.
I have a couple of major reasons for wanting to do this. The biggest one is that my weight is really, really slowing me down. I calculate my actions based on my weight. I avoid going to places where I might not have a comfortable place to sit, or where I might not fit in the seat, or where there will be tight spaces, or stairs, or long walks due to parking. I rarely go to the mall, or a museum. Concerts are iffy, because if they're sit-down ones, I might not be able to fit in the seats, and if they're standing ones...well, I'd have to stand. I only go to certain movie theaters, where I know the armrests flip up. I don't fly.
I want to be able to move, to walk, to go places without considering the parking situation, to travel. I am tired of being stared at by strangers, pointed at by children, treated rudely by salespeople. I am tired of being tired.
The second big reason is that my husband and I would like to start a family in a couple of years. At my current size, I am more likely than not to have major complications during pregnancy. Yes, having had WLS can also cause complications, but the statistics show that most women who wait the required amount of time to get pregnant have normal, healthy pregnancies.
This is a major commitment. I will have to eat a certain way for the rest of my life. I will have to take a pile of vitamins every day for the rest of my life. I will have to go to follow-up appointments, blood draws, support group meetings. To me, that's all worth getting my life back.
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