Tales from the Saggy Baggy Elephant

Well it has now been six weeks since my surgery, all is going exceptionally well.  I am on normal food, very small quantities of normal food, but normal food none the less.  A few things don't seem to sit well in my stomach and so they have been eliminated from my diet.  I am still struggling to drink enough water as that just doesn't sit in my stomach without feeling weird.  Apparently it is quite common, but one of the things I need to preserve with.  I am supposed to drink 1.5 litres of water a day, at the moment I am struggling to drink half that.  Milk and juice are fine, although I no longer seem to enjoy a cup of tea like I did before which is a shame.

I am happy to report I am now weigh less than 100 kgs, 99.5 as of my weigh in yesterday morning, so that is just over 17 kgs since I started this journey in mid December and nearly 11 kgs since the surgery itself.

The weight loss is most noticeable in my face and in the saggy baggy skin that is forming on my thighs, upper arms and stomach.  I have always had excess skin left on my lower tummy from having 4 very large babies and lots of stretch marks.  Now it looks like saggy baggy elephant skin.  Even my calves and lower arms seem to have more loose skin than they used to.

I know that I will be having surgery to have a tummy tuck and the like, but I'm thinking I will need some on my thighs and upper arms as well, still we will see.  This is all at least 12 months in the future, so until then I will just have to focus on the health benefits of this weight loss and not the fact lots of me can swing in the breeze.

I am already off one of my blood pressure medications and down to just 2 tablets a day for the Diabetes.  My surgeon had hoped I would be taken off those, but after my recent visit to the Diabetes Professor  it seems I will remain on them for a least a while longer.  They wont give me a hypo and there is research that shows that Metformin can help reduce the risk of heart disease and cancer in people who are insulin resistant.  They are not a big deal to take each day, although having them with a meal is sometimes a struggle as I am not supposed to drink and eat at the same time. Breakfast never seems to be as much of a problem as the one with the evening meal, so I am now taking it during the meal rather than after, and that seems to be helping.

Talking about evening meals, those are the ones that seem to be the hardest to eat as well.  At this stage I should be able to eat 1 cup of food, and yet often I have to throw away at least half of that as I am too full.  The couple of times I have continued to eat I have paid for it, severe pain and the feeling that my food is sitting above my stomach.  Still it is a learning curve and I have not had to vomit.  I just walk around for a few minutes and it all seems to work its way down, and really only 2 occasions in six weeks is not bad going.

My meals are still mainly protein based, just I am adding veggies and carbs a little at a time.  The goal is to eat the protein first and then the others last.  I have to take a vitamin table every day to compensate for the lack of greens etc, and I do miss veggies, but the small amounts I have taste yummy and are little sweet treats in my meal.

Mentally I am doing really well, I had a little bit of doubt about getting below the 100kg mark, it seemed something that I couldn't do, but it just happened and now I am here I can only see the way forward.

I will try and get back into the blogging mode as there is lots to tell, but my mind just hasn't been here at all.

Thanks for popping by, I hope you have a wonderful week wherever you are xxx