Through Thick and Thin #11 (December 17, 2002)
The View From Eight Weeks Post-Op
or
I'm So Surprised I'm Still Fat When I Look in the Mirror
Today I'm approaching my eight week anniversary of my VBG weight loss surgery. How completely different, and how wonderful, things look from this vantage point! The pain, frustrations and challenges of my difficult first six weeks of recuperation have already begun to recede, and I'm feeling better, stronger, thinner, and more myself each day.
I have now lost more than 50 pounds (averaging about one lb./day) and the next time I weigh myself I expect to weigh less than 300 pounds for the first time in many decades. As of a month ago, I had already lost about 26 inches off of my neck, waist, thighs and ankles, and I expect to have doubled that diminution by the time Kari measures me on my two-month anniversary. My diabetes has virtually disappeared (i.e. my blood sugar counts four times a day are almost always "normal"). My severe case of obstructive sleep apnea (which had kept me chained at night to my CPAP for the last 15 years) is also close to disappearing due to my weight loss.
Each of these are blessings and miracles, as my Brothers and Sisters of the Scale can appreciate. Another miracle is the fact that I am vigorously walking at least 2 miles each day, and loving it! Feeling more svelte and fit with every step. Every week I increase my pace and speed, and I hope to be able to comfortably walk five miles, or more, by the spring. My next goal is to be able to complete a very difficult 9-mile hike through the virgin old growth forest by next summer.
I am just beginning my transition from a purely liquid diet to solid foods. It's been difficult for me to slow the pace of my eating — i.e. one ounce in 15 minutes, a second ounce in another 15 minutes, and the third ounce to round out the 45 minute process that my meals have become. But I've been blessed by a lack of hunger pangs between meals and by my apparent tolerance for a wide variety of the solid and semi-solid foods I've been trying. (Many others experience an intolerance for many types of foods.) I've turned the need to chew my food into a liquid state into an exercise in sensuous eating, savoring every last drop — and it's working!
The greatest miracle of all has been having and feeling an operational appetite regulator. I can now recognize the feeling that tells me when I'm full. When I experience that feeling, I stop eating immediately to avoid the unpleasant sensations of feeling stuffed. I've yearned for a working appetite regulator my whole life, and I feel so fortunate today to have one that's really working for me. And I'm proud and pleased that I'm developing a new habit of stopping my eating as soon as I feel the "full" message. I know there are ways I can cheat, and I'm not.
What a joy it is to feel my body reshaping and transforming. To have already baggy clothes become even baggier. To know that absolutely everything in my wardrobe fits me splendidly, or loosely, and that I'll be ready for the next tier of sizes soon.
The strangest experience I've had, in the midst of all of these miracles, is the shock and disbelief I experience when I happen to catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror. I feel like I'm already at my goal weight of 175, svelte and well-shaped, moving with grace and style, and then I'm confronted with this image of a still very obese man in the mirror. It just doesn't compute.
And I know that it's just a matter of time until the two images merge together and the thin man I feel like savors my thin image in the mirror. And until that day I'm grateful for my WLS, and for the people who have helped, guided and supported me on this path.
Best wishes to you and yours for a holiday and New Year's full of gratitude, acceptance, love, self-love and peace.
Glenn
Contact us at contact@gastricbypasscoach.com.
Copyright ©2002 Glenn Goldberg. All rights reserved.