Post surgery and new home for these posts

I am almost w weeks post lapband surgery and doing great. I start back at work tomorrow.

I have lost a total of 80lbs between Atkins (first 50) and liquid diet for the surgery pre and post op diet.

It may seem like I haven't posted in a while. Actually I just decided to move my posting to Obesity help's site. I post there pretty regularly and it didn't make sense to post in both places. Please come check out my profile there. It is a public profile so you can read it without joining OH. http://www.obesityhelp.com/member/karriemassotti/

Liquid Diet

I am now 9 days from surgery. I am in the middle of the liquid diet phase. It is easier than you may think. I get to eat sugar free jello and Popsicles and the protein shakes really help.

The cool part is I have lost 13lbs in 4 days.

I have my final appointment with the Surgeon tomorrow and then a biopsy on my liver on Thursday and then all that is left is show up and have surgery.

I am really excited.

Day of Medical Tests

I spent the morning doing tests in preparation for the surgery.

It was quite painless and I was amazed at how they had it all arranged where I just went from one place to the next to the next for tests.

It all started at 7am with lab work (blood and urine) sample.

At 7:30 I went to have an ultrasound on my abdomen. That lasted for 45 minutes. They got all of my organs from every possible angle. On my back, on my sides, on my side angled half way toward on my back etc... that was the worst part. Uncomfortable and also the wand hurt sometimes as they had to dig past the weight to be able to see. but, not too bad.

Next I had a chest xray. That took all of about 2 minutes... step up to a machine, raise my arms and snap. Turn to a side raise arms and snap. Finished!

Next I went for a series of lung and heart tests. These were absolutely fascinating. I had to breath in certain patterns into a machine that was testing my lung capacity and other items. for example I had to take four regular breaths and then a really sharp inhale and exhale as hard as I could like I was blowing a dart gun and then keep exhaling for 5. All of this was charted and graphed. Overall my lungs were at about 97% of what they should be so that is great news. This was about 30 minutes of testing.

I also had an EKG, it was just to lay down on a chaise lounge and they put the ekg stickers all over me and then I had to do some breathing and holding my breath. That only took about 2 minutes.

then I was done. I already have had the other required testing, colonoscopy and endoscopy and psychological eval.

My next steps are:

Wednesday 1/27 I go to a 4 hour nutrition class that teaches me all about pre and post op diet as well as ongoing nutrition. It should be very interesting.
Friday 1/29 I have an appointment with an internal medicine specialist for medical clearance for the surgery based on all of these tests
Wednesday 2/17 I start the clear liquid diet
Monday 2/22 I have my final appointment with my surgeon
Tuesday 3/2 is my surgery.

Long time no blog

Okay so I know it has been forever since I have written. I am sorry for that. I could make all sort of excuses and most of them are true, I took a few trips, I had some really hard school classes that took all my free time etc... but bottom line is I didn't feel I had anything worthy to write about.

Today, I feel I have something to share.

I got approval from insurance to get my lap band surgery and I have scheduled it.

I will be having surgery on March 2nd, 2010. It will be here before we know it.

I am very excited.

I know in the past I was unsure if I would do surgery or not because of how much success I had already had on Low Carb.

what caused me to change my mind? Well, since the last time I have blogged (months ago) I haven't lost any net weight. I have gained and lost 8-10 lbs 4 times.

Each vacation, birthday week, thanksgiving week, Christmas week all an excuse to have a cheat week and when I cheat, I really cheat. So, I would gain back 8-10 lbs in that one week, struggle for 2-3 weeks to loose that weight again and then repeat cycle. No net change.

As I have stated before, lap band is not going to magically loose weight for me. It is going to be a tool to help me loose weight. I like what a friend in a support group wrote today about how can this be considered the easy way out when you have to think about EVERY bite and how that just one more bite thought can cause you to get very physically ill.

This is my tool to help aid my will power. My diet will be basically the same as it has been on low carb. The two are hand in hand. I will eat less with the band but the knowledge I have gained from this weight loss will go a long way toward my success.