Still blipping not getting anywhere

It’s been longer than I wanted to post.  There is no sinister reason… Well, actually that’s not true.  There are two sinister reasons.

No1: I had my phone stolen on my commute to work on Tuesday and it’s taken a long time to sort out a replacement (not to mention a lot of money).  It was quite an old iphone so I cannot imagine why anyone wanted it (other than me) and it was fingerprint protected so I assume they can’t get into it anyway.  But I was really upset – people are just awful.

No2: you know how when people don’t post because things aren’t going so well with the diet?  *waves madly*.  In the last 10 days I have put ON 7lbs.  Hazel, Seren and Lesley: you are all correct – I hope – that this is a blip in a downwards trajectory….  But… I know I’m only on c600 calories a day so I really, REALLY think it’s unfair. 

I tend to go into a slump when this happens.  Not that I can eat anything solid yet – I’m supposed to be on the puree/soft/mushy food from tomorrow, increasing the solidity (is that even a word?) over the next fortnight.  I’m in fact so well after that interminable bout of nausea, I have started to have soup with bits in (you’re supposed to be having only smooth blended, thin soup for the first two weeks).  As I’m on my third week, normally I’d expect to be on the mush stage but did a bit longer on the liquid phase so I’m kind of easing my way in to it.

I am hungry but am likely to be at least until my first fill at the end of July – and even then they’re going to go at a very cautious pace, given the problems I had initially so it might take some time to feel what they call ‘restriction’, which is when I lose most sensations  of hunger and am satisfied with a very small amount of food.  I’m going to keep calorie counting regardless, aiming for 1000 calories a day.  Once I’m on proper food that is, it would be very difficult to get to 1000 cals on a liquid diet without breaking all the rules (ie I could eat chocolate or ice cream which just slips through…). 

Enjoy the sunshine this weekend – I have a dress rehearsal and then a choir performance which will be all of Saturday stuck in a church.  And the music is terrible so it’s utterly unenjoyable. I hope your weekends are more fun

Stuck in reverse

I hate my body.  And it hates me.  I have put on 4lbs (so far) this week.  4lbs.  This is my daily diet at the moment:

Breakfast – nothing (although today I had a coffee)

Lunch – a large glass of V8

Dinner – half a carton of soup and an ice lolly

I worked out I’m having 500-600 calories a day.  And I’m putting on roughly ¾ lb every day.  How can that even be possible?

I’m back at work now.  I feel fine until late afternoon, when I start feeling nauseous – at least I have done today on my first day back.  I can’t be ill any longer or until next summer – I’ve already triggered a warning.  And any medical appointment counts towards the tally of four days a year until it’s a disciplinary matter.  Fortunately I’m allowed to use my flexi time to go to appointments, because I’ll need to go once a month for fills to the band (I haven’t told people what my op was – in fact, most just know I was off sick).  This is why I haven’t been to the dentist for 8 years.  Even taking flexi for medical appointments is frowned upon.  I am not feeling very motivated or very valued at the moment! 

The weak that was

Another week has slipped by - mostly in the grip of nausea.  That finally seems to be retreating, thank goodness.  I went it to see the nurse associated with the company I had my band through - she took the 'priming' filler out (only 1mg) and that seems to have sorted it.  Or maybe it's time.  One of the nurses thought that the band had been pressing on my vagus nerve - which controls nausea.  Either way, I'm still v weak and feeble but it's such a relief not feeling - or being sick.

As I gradually have fills to the band, I was a bit nervous, but apparently there is no reason why I should feel sick after every fill.  This is doubly the relief as being off from work on 4 occasions (even if each is a day) triggers warning disciplinary action.

So, in another week on water and occasional ice lollies, mostly, I lost 5lbs.  That was of yesterday.  I suspect some of that is dehydration as I had put on 1lb this morning.  I had some soup last night and managed to drink more fluids during the day.  It's still annoying though, as I must be consuming very few calories.  SoD should not be moving in any direction upwards.

I was signed off for the rest of this week - I was pretty amazed as I thought GPs wouldn't really do that any more.  It's the longest I've been ill since I started working.  Shame that feeling ill rather spoils the time off!  Not to mention that I'm concerned I'm missing summer, skulking droopily indoors.

Next week I will have to brave the tubes again.  Given that I'm still at the stage where a shower is exhausting, I'll have to hope that I improve rapidly before then.  The Jubilee line in summer rush hour (or, actually, at all) is enough to make the most hale of constitutions shrivel.

Sick

Day 5 of non stop nausea.  I can bear anything except feeling sick - I think, perhaps don't test this.  I certainly didn't read about this in all the blurb as I do think it would have put me off.  I expected to feel sore, but not sick, sick, sick.  I've probably spoken to all the nurses and there seems to be two schools of thought on this:

1) It is a bad and prolonged reaction to the general anaesthetic.  I kind of subscribe to this one - although it is very prolonged now.  Note to self: no more operations, ever.

2) The stomach is so enflamed by being manhandled that this is causing the nausea.  I can't quite see the cause and effect here.  Sure, I can see that would be sore, but nausea?  Stuff is going down, no matter how enflamed it is, so it's not that liquid is stuck, the wrong side of the band.

Whatever it is, I can't bear it.  I managed to get a phone consultation with a GP yesterday.  She's prescribed anti-nausea drugs and I'm pinning all my hopes on that.  P went to pick them up for me yesterday, only to find they didn't have them in (grrrr) so he's back there today and when he walks through the door this evening I'm going to be getting one in (they dissolve against your gum) straight away.  Apparently they could work in as little as 10-15 mins so please keep your fingers crossed for me.

Otherwise, I have to go back into their clinic and have the very tiny amount of saline in the band, removed to see if that helps.  They said I could go to Birmingham today before 1pm, or Manchester tomorrow.  I can't even wash my face or clean my teeth, my hair is rank, I can't imagine how I could do that.  They're starting to talk about me going to A&E for IV.  I can just imagine how well that would go down - I'm pretty sure that they'd think I'd brought it upon myself and why should they have to clear up the mess.  Avoid.

It's my sister-in-law's 50th birthday tomorrow and I cannot for the life of me see how I'm going to get there.  I missed a family BBQ last weekend so it starts to look anti-social.  My own mother, usually oblivious to anything not concerning her or the dogs, is peppering me with questions: why am I sick?  But what's the cause?  But why? I had to tell her I was unwell as I go to choir with her on a Wednesday- I just said I had a nausea and sickness bug.  I have no intention of telling her the truth, but the incessant 'whys' are more than I can deal with at the moment.

After seven days on water and not much of that, here's my WI for part of that period, from Wednesday when I was on 900 cals to this Wednesday- I lost 10lbs.  I can't recommend it as a diet method - and I'd happily have lost less if I could have done so without the nausea, but I guess it's a silver lining.  Sadly, my  hateful, traitorous body appears to have caught on 'oh ho' it seems to be saying 'think living on a glass of water a day will cause rapid weight loss?  Think again sucker' as it adapts to this new regime and and the weight loss stalls.  I have skipped right through an entire stone bracket like this though and I hope I will soon feel well enough to be elated by that.

The other side

Well, I'm here - just.  Of which, more later.

Previously on the op....

I had to be in at the crack of dawn on Saturday.  I was first up - which I had mixed feelings about.  I'd have preferred they had someone else to warm up on, but it was certainly better than being last.  I think, had I not forked out a lot of money for this, I would have fled.  I kept thinking "Has it really come to this?", but as the answer was clearly a resounding "yes", I just about held my nerve.  I think as well, had I not come to the end of the road with everything else, I would have regretted it.  I kind of doubt that anyone would plump for this as an option (no pun intended) without having tried a lot of other things, but one thing I have learned in life is that people are odd.  So, maybe.

The staff were very nice, especially the anaesthetists.  I had a few issues with my nurse who seemed to think I should be entirely comfortable with being naked, but I won all gown tussles.  As soon as I came round, I was determined to head for home as quickly as possible.  I definitely have a strong bolt instinct.

I expected to feel sore, I'd read that the gas they fill you full of can cause considerable pain.  I was sore, but it was manageable.  The gas didn't quite present in me as it generally seemed to - I had chest pain rather than bad shoulder pain - but again, this, I felt, could have been worse.  All in all, I thought, I'd come out of this okay.  Wrong.

For the last two days, I've had really bad nausea.  The sort that means you keep bowls in every room and still clutch one to you.  The sort that means you wait for hours in the loo, waiting to throw up.  The sort that means you break out in a sweat, nausea sweeps through you like waves and there is nothing you can do and no distraction from feeling so awful.  Generally, I particularly hate being sick.  And I hate the feeling of being about to be sick even more - there is a sort of relief in finally getting it up.  But not here.  Because there isn't anything to throw up.  That would make it even more painful.  And worse, it could cause damage to the siting of my band.  I feel absolutely miserable.  I just have to wait it out, I know that.  But equally, I know this is not a normal reaction, so I don't know what to expect.  The nurse - via email - has mooted me coming in and having any liquid in the band removed.  I am not well enough to leave the house and I can't bear the thought of being pulled about any more.  So, I wait and I hope that it passes.  And I feel sick, really sick.

P reminds me that in a month I'll look back on this as a blip and something I got through.  I'm hanging on to that thought.

Glass half (a stone) full

Last WI before the op (on Saturday).  I lost 2lbs this week.  Not to be too glass-half-empty on this, I was a little disappointed.  Only because my body has got used to this (really very rigorous) diet too quickly: my losses have slowed to 1lb every other day, with a STS in the middle – except today has been my first day of not losing (or even STS) but putting on (only 1lb but…).  I know, hand on heart that I’m sticking to fewer than 900 cals a day.  And I’m making sure I do plenty of walking over the course of the day (except on Sunday when I did some ‘light housework’ which apparently burnt 800 cals!  Who knew!  And I was being conservative calling it ‘light’ as I was, erm, glowing like a pig).  I had an ultra low cal meal last night, but used a lot of soy sauce so it’s possible that’s the reason – my engagement ring felt tight this morning.  Or it could be that I had a bar of chocolate last night – I only did this because I had the calories to ‘spend’.  I was delighted and really enjoyed it – I didn’t see it as cheating and it was all the more wonderful for that.  I hope it wasn’t that innocent (yes, innocent!) pleasure.

But I’ve still lost about half a stone overall in the fortnight – and given that my average has been 0.5lb a month, for, ooooh, years, this is an enormous improvement.  And post-op I will only be able to have fluids for two weeks and then a further three weeks gradually moving from puree to mush to less-mushy mush.  I think the calorie consumption post op is working up to 1000 cals – although I can’t be sure, but I did a quick google and it seems that the first couple of months is 300-600cals (My Fitness Pal is not going to like that – it has a fit on 800-900 cals) and then settling in to c1000 cals.  Every time you have the band tightened, you have to just have fluids for the first two days so I guess that will cause a lowering in calories – and hopefully a parallel lowering of weight.

I think my anxiety about the slowing losses is that I need this to work.  I have been feeling optimistic about losing weight – and the prospect of it coming off even more readily post-op.  I try to be cautious about feeling this way – after all, I’ve tried so many times and so many ways and failed.  And I have to learn to cope with gains without spiralling off the rails (to mix my metaphors) and self-fulfilling my own prophesy.  Today I’ve had a couple of Percy Pigs (I swear they have crack in them) and a biscuit.  I’ve counted it in my 900 cals, but I know it’s less than ideal.   I had to force myself to put them in my MFP – otherwise I would have ignored it and had more.  So well done me, but more improvement needed.  And strategies to deal with scaley disappointments.

Just desserts

I’ve been waiting for my weekly weigh-in to update you, dear Reader.  That would have been yesterday, but a busy day prevented this.  But first…

I did quite well when I went to dinner with my brother and nieces last week.  It was dim sum – my absolute favourite – and I did manage to eat a lot less than I would ordinarily do, and certainly less than I would have liked.  I also managed to walk 7.5 miles that day which must have helped.  BUT, most impressive of all, I left my brother and nieces at the door of Ben and Jerry’s and walked (the long way) back to the tube.

So… (drumroll)… I lost 5.5lbs this week.  I am delighted with this.  This includes putting on 1.25lbs after taking a day off on Saturday (not to go mad, but I wasn’t calorie counting).  

The op is a week on Saturday and I have another weigh in before that (next Wednesday) and, of course, half a week after that.  I am weighing every day – I know that’s not for everyone but it does keep me on the straight and narrow – and whereas I was losing a lb most days, that’s slowing to 0.5lb.  That could be because I’m coming up to *that* time of the month, or because my body (always an enemy) has caught on to me. 

I briefly stopped dreading each encounter with Scales of Doom – I had my record of eating on MFP (and the accompanying ticking off for eating too little – which always amuses me) and I felt fairly confident that SoD would be going in the right direction.

But, I got too cocky.  I scrupulously avoid any sight of myself in mirrors and shiny surfaces.  I have learned to put make up on and dry my hair without really seeing myself.  Yesterday I had my guard down and accidentally caught sight of myself in a lift mirror.  Oh dear, what an absolute state.  It was a stiff lesson in how much I really have to lose.  I hope I’ll get there this time, I really do.  I know I feel MUCH happier than I did on LighterLife, even small amounts of food, even (some) low calorie food is so much better than artificially flavoured dust packets (I may never be able to have another milkshake in my life).

Having said that, today has not been a good one.  It was a charity cake sale at work today.  I have resisted all manner of treats for over a week, but home-made cake is impossible for me to resist and I have had a very small piece of Victoria sponge and a very small brownie.  I’ve counted them in and the rest of my food diary today makes for tragic reading – but that’s the consequences of eating cake.  I’m not sure I regret it – as long as it’s not the start of a slippery slope, and I’m determined it isn’t – then choosing to occasionally eat something off-plan, is a part of life and a skill I need to acquire; I’m far too all or nothing.

And if anyone spots lunches in the usual Pret/Eat/M&S/Leon/Itsu/Crussh sort of places that are about 300 calories, do please let me know. I found an article, quoting several M&S sandwiches for being comfortably under 300 calories and I can’t find them.  At least, I can find what seem to be the sandwiches, but they are all about 100 calories more than the article says.  Grrrr