Love this....and OH SO TRUE!!!
We all have been blessed by great strengths! We have also been BLESSED by great WEAKNESSES! You may ask, weakness is a blessing??? Yes!!! I believe we have all been given weaknesses to improve upon, learn from and in turn, they become our strengths! By turning our weaknesses into strengths, we gain the ability to influence and reach out to others with similar struggles, and in turn inspire them to change!  Now ask yourselves... WHAT are MY weaknesses and HOW can I change them into STRENGTHS? Then ask.... HOW can I INSPIRE others to overcome theirs? THEN.....GET TO WORK!  "Neither do men light a a candle, and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light unto all that are in the house." Matthew 5:15  I have been thinking a lot lately about my family! Not just my own immediate family consisting of children and a husband; but also, my siblings, parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, nieces and nephews! This post is for YOU!!! Anyone else struggling to find motivation is free to read and enjoy as well! As you know, I have waged this war on fat for many years. I have tried many different solutions in an attempt to get healthy including sweating it out at the gym, giving myself shots so I didn't feel hungry, hypnosis, fad diets, pills etc. One thing I never did was STOP trying! I may have lost my motivation from time to time, but...It always somehow made its way back to try..... ONE MORE TIME! Recently, I have spent a great deal of time worrying about the health and condition of my family! I love each of you very much and do not wish on any of you the consequence of my Dad. When he had his stroke, many of us found motivation to get healthier and took steps to make healthier lifestyle changes.....some stayed with it (HUGE applause to you guys, you know who you are) , others no so much, myself included : (. I am not trying to make this sound like a lecture...rather, I am calling you out, issuing a challenge....hopefully making my point without offending!  I realize life gets busy! I realize it is hard to FIND that motivation to start! I realize that you may have a young family to care for, or have jobs that require lots of time and attention! It is easy to wait until we FIND the time! It gets so easy for life to run away with itself and before we know it, all our good intentions have slipped through our fingers. You know what they say about good intentions??? Motivation is NOT FOUND!!! Time is not FOUND.....rather, it is MADE!!! MAKE THE TIME!!! MAKE THE MOTIVATION!!! If we can MAKE excuses, we CAN MAKE the time!!!  It's easy to say, "I am going to be fat because of genetics!" I once heard that our bodies are like libraries....we have lots and lots of books (genes) we can choose to read from. We may have a book on obesity in our libraries, but it doesn't mean we have to take it off the shelves and read it! We can be aware of its presence and take great care to avoid that book! We can take the book off the shelf next to it about exercise and healthy lifestyles instead. We can read it, devour it and live it! We may not be able to be a perfectly skinny person, and our weight may go up and down a little, but if we take that time to consciously make healthier choices, our hearts will be stronger, minds clearer and hopefully we will live healthy, active lives! More importantly, we will be around to enjoy our families, become grandparents, great-grandparents and find joy in living!  Hopefully I have your attention now! Hopefully there is some desire for change stirring within your soul! So, now lets be realistic! My fault has lied in the fact I wanted results NOW! I have always been one to work super, duper hard so I would drop 7 pounds a week! Well, from experience, I can tell you that is NOT the way to go! That method backfired time and time and time again! One thing I am learning is that persistence, and dedication is the way to go! * Take one step at a time! * Don't try to change everything at once! * Don't get upset and give up when things aren't going your way! * Be forgiving to your own imperfections and missteps! * CONSISTENCY, CONSISTENCY, CONSISTENCY! * Pain is temporary, QUITTING last FOREVER!!! * Love yourself enough to realize when the work gets HARD that YOU ARE WORTH IT! * Find tools that will help you get healthier and USE them! Everyone's may be different, some may be drastic, others subtle....regardless, find YOUR tools that will help you become a success! And....NEVER, EVER, stop trying! I love you all!   Ok!!! I am posting these before and during pics......please, please, please don't laugh.....I am all natural for these pics, no makeup, which is something I am rarely seen without! I think they are a good indicator of my weight loss to date. Nearly 60 pounds gone, with 78 more pounds to go! Click to set custom HTML I am a bit of a slacker, so this isn't exactly a two month update...rather it's been two months and one week! Regardless, it's UPDATE TIME!!! Complications- The complications seem to have passed; the last one being the stricture I had. I have, however, had several issues with eating too fast or too much. My body is doing exactly what it is supposed to be doing when that happens; by creating major discomfort for me, promptly followed by the food finding its way back up. My Dr. assures me this is as it should be and part of the "retraining" process so I learn to eat slower and chew more thoroughly! It is working!!! My Diet- I am now eating many things, including soft and very tender meats. I have things that I love, such as tomato soup, V-8, mashed potatoes and cheese. I also have things I have lost my taste for such as sweets, bananas and breads. I will occasionally eat a piece of well-toasted bread, but for the most part, I have developed an aversion to most bread products. They come off as doughy and tasteless to me now. Protein drinks and bars are super sweet to me too, and I have to force myself to ingest them so I can get my much needed protein. I eat tiny amounts still. I can eat about a half a cup to 3/4 cup of liquid foods such as tomato soup, but can only eat about 1/3-1/2 cup of solid foods. Meats fill me up fastest with me only being to eat about 1 oz at a time. I have also started eating vegetables such as broccoli, carrots and zucchini. My Exercise- I started walking several weeks ago, and have slowly added in some jogging as I walk. I am walking up to 3 miles most days, and several days a week I have added evening walks with friends at the park, or with my family around my hilly neighborhood. I am headed back to the gym and spinning classes today! I have made a goal to ride in a bike relay in September and so I have lots of training to do to get ready for it! Step one is to get my endurance up, which I will focus on over the next month. I will also be adding core and strength exercises slowly over the next couple of months! I can also tell you that my hard work has started! Exercising is much more difficult post-bypass that pre- bypass. My body no longer can take in the calories to sustain vigorous exercises so I feel as if I have bricks on my shoes most days! It is truly hard work, but I am determined to do this!!! My Weight Loss- I have to admit, I hit a small plateau for a few weeks, followed by a couple of weeks of slow loss. I am happy to announce that in the past week, I seem to be back to nearly a pound a day loss! I am also shrinking quickly. I started at a size 22 jeans and 24 dress. I am now swimming in size 18 jeans, ready to drop into my 16's, and I am in a 16 dress. I did not take my starting measurements, so I am unsure of inches lost, but I am definitely shrinking! I am excited to see the results quicken as I add more exercise! Weight loss to date: 57 pounds (should hit 60 pounds mark this week!!!) I am on track for my 80 pound loss goal I have set for end of May!!!!  I AM DETERMINED to win!!! Half-Way to ONE HUNDRED pounds! That is my excitement today! Although my journey started just over 6 weeks ago, it seems as though so much has happened along the way. First, the stricture I discussed earlier was not a stricture. Rather, it turned out being scar tissue that had basically kinked my lower intestines, which did not allow for anything to pass. Food, water, stomach acid, bile etc, built up and was causing me a lot of discomfort and pain. I ended up having another surgery to by-pass my original by-pass and the scar tissue. This ended up being an "open" surgery rather than a laproscopic one, which resulted in an extra-long hospital stay. I am grateful for so much love and support that lifted my spirits that were so dampened by this setback!  I finally started to feel like myself again, started working out again and even dropped 2 pant sizes last week! So exciting! I could finally see the benefits of my sacrifice. Then....it hit again!
Saturday morning I went to take a drink of water, and lo and behold....PAIN! The water stopped in my chest and would not go down. I tried a little food later in the day, and same thing....PAIN. I knew this meant another call to my Dr. Another drive to the hospital, another procedure and hopefully NOT surgery. Sure enough, Monday morning the Dr had me drive to the hospital where I spent the day re hydrating on IV fluid. In the afternoon I underwent an EGD, where they knocked me out and put a scope down my throat. I had gotten a stricture, much like the one I wrote about in an earlier post. Only this time, I did indeed have a tight stricture which would not allow food or water to pass. Thankfully it went well, and no other complications were found. I was excited to be on my way home in the late afternoon as predicted by my surgeon! Today, I feel back to normal with the exception of a sore throat. A- Shows a stricture much like mine B- Shows the scoping procedure to stretch it C-The new opening as it should be Moving on from the medical lesson........ So....update time!!! I had an official weigh-in today at the clinic and I hit an important milestone! I am half-way to one-hundred pounds.....gone!!! That's right! I am down a whopping 50 pounds! I am not yet at my half-way point of my goal, but a fifty pound loss is indeed something to celebrate! Goals I have set for myself, that I WILL attain: 80 pounds gone by May 31st Jump out of an airplane with my son, Jeff- sometime in June 100 pounds gone by July 1st Run the Color Run 5k in Boise, ID- August Ride in the Salt-to-Saint endurance bike relay-September 21st Argh! I know I did my research on bypass surgery, but doing research and going through it are very different things. I have not been able to eat or drink for a few days now without lots of pain and discomfort. I spoke to my Dr this morning and I am now headed back to the hospital. This time it will be outpatient though, so thankfully NO overnight stays. Apparently, my stoma (the opening from my pouch to my intestines) is scaring over and not allowing food, water or even stomach acid to go down. So, I get to go get scoped today. YAY!!! So excited for that. He did inform me that I will feel so much better by days end, so I guess I have that to look forward to. I really should not be so pessimistic, and really, I am trying REALLY hard to remain positive. I am worn out though and tired of setbacks....I just want to feel normal again and have energy and feel like myself! Anyway....I am sure I will be glad I had this surgery, but today is just one of those days I ask myself what the heck was I thinking.......I just keep remembering that there is opposition in ALL things, and that does not exclude this surgery. Anyway....I've now vented and now onto more positive thoughts! My weight loss is crazy good, down 41 pounds this morning, and THAT, I am grateful for! : )
Two weeks have now passed! Other than my lack of ability to eat, It seems strange thinking that I ever had the surgery. My body is nearly healed and energy levels are increasing daily. My Dr. informed me yesterday that I can expect to feel fatigue for a few weeks, still. I decided to take 6 weeks leave of absence from work so I will have plenty of time to heal! I am glad I did, there is no rush to get back on my feet and I am more able to follow the lead of my body's needs. I have started to get out and walk, and have even started with some simple, light weight strength moves. I am anxiously awaiting when I can be strong enough to hit the gym for a good, sweat drenching workout! Last Friday, I woke up in the morning with a pain in my chest, lung area. The normal me would dismiss it and give myself a day or two to fight off whatever I was dealing with. However, knowing that bypass patients have many things that can go wrong, I went into the ER for tests. I spent all day in the ER being poked and prodded and stuck. After ruling out heart issues, blood clots, leaks in my new pouch, I found out I had come down with pneumonia. Thankfully, it was a mild case and I caught it quickly, so the effects of it were able to be minimized. I spent a night in the hospital and got lots of fluids and antibiotics, which allowed me to be back up on my feet in no time! I felt a little frustrated, but actually realize because I sought out help immediately, I didn't suffer too much setback. Food continues to be a challenge for me, I am struggling to learn to eat slow enough. Years of speedy eating is proving to be a hard habit to break. The more discomfort I feel, the more I learn to slow down! Otherwise, not too many issues here! I am still grateful for this opportunity to improve my health! Looking forward to continued improvement and heightened energy and strength!  This weeks Stats:
Start Weight: 310 Day of Surgery:300 Two Week weigh-in: 276 Weight loss since surgery: 24 pounds Total Weight loss: 34 pounds 6 days have passed since I started my journey through weight loss surgery. It has been pretty much a huge fog to me because of the pain meds they have me on! Let's just say they give ya some REALLY good stuff! LOL Anyway, I got home on Monday and have had lots of adjustments to make already. Here are a few of them...... 1. ONLY clear liquids for first week. Can I say, jello and broth get REALLY old?!!! 
 2. The pic to side shows what I used to eat easily before surgery, the pic above.....cannot even eat all of it post surgery.
3. 2 T of sugar free jello and 2 T of broth are more than I can eat in one sitting and it takes 20 min or so to get even half that down. , the tiny cup of cole slaw before is bigger than both the jello and broth combined. LOL 4. Sip, sip, sip, sip!!! I still have to down 64 oz of water a day, but I can only get down about 4 oz an hour.....it proves to be quite the challenge! Even with all the changes I have made already, they have not been hard to make! It has not been a easy surgery, not an easy recovery, but regardless, I would do it all over again! Now, I am going to be a very brave person and begin posting weights.....ahhhh...cannot believe I am doing this, however, I feel it is important for accountability purposes. Don't judge me.....lol So here goes..... Start weight-310 pounds Weight on day of surgery- 300 pounds 6 days post-op- 287 pounds Total weight loss- 23 pounds Weight loss from surgery-13 pounds |
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