New Year 2018

So a lot has happened in three years.  On January 24th, I will celebrate my Seven Year Surgiversary of having a Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy.  The years are just rolling by and I probably would not have even remembered the date was coming up but I received an email from a gal who happened upon my blog and it jogged my memory that I still had this blog up and running and that it was long overdue for an update!  I feel bad that I have let it go so long, but again, a lot has happened in 3 years and life sometimes just gets in the way and you let it take you away from some of the things that you know are important.
I haven't been riding my bike much in the last couple years, but I have gotten back into  doing yoga hot and heavy.  The last 2 years for sure and the last year and a half has been very committed and I've been doing two-a-days, so that I'm doing at least an hour of yoga per day.  I was doing sometimes an  hour per session,  but have backed off the last 6 months and usually do between 30-45 minutes per session depending on what I feel my body is calling me to do.  As I'm aging, I feel the yoga is a better fit for my body, my joints...I never could run or jog and  even the cycling was hard on my knees and hips at times.  The effects of the yoga are tremendous on my body as I have a tendency towards arthritis and I also suffer with anxiety/depressive tendencies and so this has been an incredible help with this as well.  It's also the reason I've gone with the two-a-day regimen as in the middle of the afternoon my anxiety can start to build and the second session helps to ground me and give me a foundation to get thru the rest of the day.
The activity and movement every day (I don't miss a day unless I'm ill or injured) keeps me in check and is probably a good part of the reason I'm still maintaining my weight loss.  I'm currently (as of this morning) 130.0 pounds--having started this journey at 280 pounds before clear liquids two weeks prior to vertical sleeve surgery January 24th, 2011.
This summer my weight had climbed as high as 142.8 which was mortifying to me but I had to start on hormone replacement therapy last December due to entering into the "real deal" part of menopause and hot flash sessions that were severely kicking my butt day and night, causing me to lose sleep and shedding my clothing during the day every 2-3 minutes of my life...let's just say it was enough of a disruption in my life that I made the difficult decision to start taking the hormones knowing it might have an effect on my appetite.  Well, it did.  And I did  struggle.  My food addiction went into high gear for several months and I struggled.  I contacted Overeaters Anonymous for help and read literature and had some success with that, but felt like it was an impossibility for me to say "I'm going to be abstinent from this food and that food for the rest of my life"...I found the meetings not all that helpful as there is no crosstalk and all I had available were phone meetings (no face to face meetings in my area). Ultimately, it just wasn't that helpful to me.
As it turns out, I ended up going back on a medication called Topamax which when I took it before curbed my appetite, and seems to be counteracting my outrageous appetite currently being affected by the hormones I'm having to take due to the menopause I'm going through.  
Ultimately, I think I'm holding steady because the one medication is counteracting the other, but if I weren't on either one of them, my sleeve would be doing the work it has always been doing and keeping me at the weight I've been at for the last 6 years after surpassing my initial goal of 150 lbs.  I've maintained 125-135 with very little effort until starting on the hormone replacement therapy and I believe once I no longer need the hormones, my sleeve will be adequate as it has been all along once again.
I would never take back the decision to have the vertical sleeve gastrectomy surgery, I believe it has saved my life.
I will end my post for today...more to come soon on my new found way of eating which I believe has also helped bring my weight back down into my goal range of 125-135!  Veganism!
Namaste!

4 Year Surgiversary-WOW!

It's hard to believe that in less than a week it will be 4 years since I embarked upon an epic journey to change my life for the better.  I took it upon myself to seek out a surgeon to perform the Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy on me to correct my obesity.  I was weighing in at a whopping 280 pounds that my 5' 6" frame just shouldn't be carrying around, and it showed.  And it also hurt--(emotionally and physically).  My joints were aching, my lungs and cardiovascular system were taxed every time I moved, there was little I could do physically that didn't make me tired or wear me out.  Just taking a walk around the block was tiring, and as a mother to 3 children (two of them small) that just didn't really work out so well.
So I scoured the internet for information once I had made up my mind to have the surgery.  I was on a mission.  I mean, ON A MISSION.  Nothing was going to stop me.  And since my insurance wouldn't pay for any of it, I had to find a company that would finance me as well.
I came across a surgeon's name in Piedras Negras, Mexico who was very well known who had written a book, had a fabulous website that showed the entire process start to finish, where you would stay, even YouTube videos of the drive from the hotel to the hospital, even a liason whom you could call with any questions about anything regarding the entire procedure.  I knew I had found my match.
So I booked my flight, and was on my weigh (way) lol.
I paid about a third of what it would have cost me if I had had the surgery performed here in the states, and turns out, Dr. Guillermo Alvarez is now extremely well known in the world of gastric surgeries and is the first to ever perform on a young person.  He has been in Newsweek magazine and has now written two books, so if you have any questions about this procedure, you can find information very easily here...Dr. Alvarez Book.
Anyway, I am maintaining a 150 or so pound weight loss and hover between 125 pounds and 135 pounds with very little effort--so the surgery works.  I will post pictures.
Me Before:

My son and I Christmas Eve 2010-one month before surgery.

Me After:

My husband and I getting ready to go out with friends about 3 1/2 years after surgery 

My hope is that this blog helps if even only one person to make a decision that helps them better their situation; whether it be to have the surgery or not.  I chose the Vertical Sleeve because I suffered from anemia in the past, and couldn't go with the traditional Gastric Bypass since they re-route your intestines which makes it so that you don't absorb your vitamins and minerals well--I couldn't have that happening.  With the sleeve, there is no re-routing of anything, everything works just like in a normal person's body, they just make your stomach smaller and remove the stretchiest part of your stomach (the very upper part called the fundus) which is exactly what they leave behind and use to make your 'pouch' out of with the traditional Gastric Bypass surgery.  No wonder you see so many of the people choosing that option gain back some/all of their weight.  

Anyway, I only know that this route was right for me and if you have any questions, Dr. Alvarez' books would be a great place to start.  You can get them on Amazon.

Thank you for reading my blog!

Lisa