So this is life after Gastric Sleeve surgery Part 1

Jul 8

Jul 8 So this is life after Gastric Sleeve surgery Part 1

Before I had surgery earlier this year I spent a lot of time researching what would happen afterwards. There is a lot of info out there if you look for it, and if you dig through all of the Instagram accounts that just appear to be a lot of before and after photos trying to pimp out for free stuff there are a few accounts that are actually really informative.

So going into the surgery, in quite a few areas, I had a pretty good idea of what to expect.

That being said there is a difference between knowing what to expect and actually experiencing it.

So today, I want to talk about all of the things I was expecting, but am still trying to fully get my head around.

Weight Loss-

This one is a bit of an obvious given. When you have weight loss surgery, you loose weight.

I was also prepared for the fact that it seems to happen pretty quickly. The reality of that though just seems like it happens so much quicker then you would expect. 2kgs a week right after surgery and that was when I couldn’t really move around much. Now that I’m back at the gym, I can move around freely and have an abundance of energy, it still feels like the weight is just falling off me.

No matter how much I was prepared for this to happen, it still blows my mind. With all of the health issues I had my weight was just this pain in the ass area for me. I would eat (mostly) healthily, I would workout like crazy and nothing would change. If anything my weight would go up. To see the numbers on the scales steadily going down, even when I haven’t been working out as much as I used to still just blows my mind.

Lean Muscle Loss-

Part of the reason why the weight has been so quick to drop is because I’ve lost lean muscle, and a lot of it. I had sort of been prepared for this since it’s why so much of my food has to be protein. In my head I was super aware of this, but to see if happen, it still completely confounds me. The thing is you really can see it, and it leads into the next thing I was only sort of prepared for.

Loose Skin-

Everyone knows that with weight loss surgery comes loose skin. The two go hand in hand. Having yoyo dieted, and even having had a pretty extreme eating disorder I already had seen the “loose skin effect” from dropping weight so quickly. It’s not usually the fat thats going in these cases, it’s the lean muscle. I remember the way my stomach would be a little bit loose and floppy, but to see it all now…wow. It’s more than just loose skin, it’s also like really soft, floppy flesh. I get countless hours of entertainment when I’m sitting on the couch just touching and prodding my soft, fleshy bits and wobbling it around. So floppy and fleshy is my body now that when I look at myself in the mirror naked I no longer see a smiley face (two boobs for eyes, a belly button for a nose and the way my belly fat hung down a bit looking like the smile), no now my naked body looks more like a face that has had a stroke. Right now I look exactly like a naked Zoidberg. Is skin removal surgery in my future, I don’t know. We’ll see how well I can manage it with upping my strength training and start there first.

My Boobs-

I had heard the horror stories before; that when you loose weight as a female one of the first places you loose it is from is your boobs. I mean after all, your boobs are just fun bags of fat that you jiggle around. If you’re loosing fat, chances are you’ll loose it from your boobs.

This to me has felt like an attack from my body on me personally. I mean how dare they! I was good to them, I always made sure they were well supported. I never went to the gym without them safely incased in a good quality sports bra to protect them and this is how they repay me; by shrinking and the boobage that remains are steadily heading south towards my waistline.

I tell you guys, I’m a seriously hot catch right now…

The Cold-

I had heard people talk about this one a lot. As a formerly much fatter person I very rarely got cold. I ran hot mostly because of the volume of weight I was carrying around with me. I could walk a tiny distance and my body would heat up like crazy. I was like a whale with an insulating layer of flubber to protect me from the colder temperatures.

Now though, I can get cold at the drop of a hat. I feel it all the time. My feet constantly feel frozen and I’ve had to go and buy a bunch of jumpers just to make it through this winter. There is a plus side though to being cold more often, now when I take Gizmo out for a walk I can be wearing a hoodie, a huge puffer jacket, walk with him for an hour and heat up to the just the right point where I am warm but not an overheating red sweaty mess.

Food and Eating-

Just like the weight loss, this one is also a given.

If you have 90% of your stomach removed you are not going to be able to eat much food.

Going into the surgery I completely knew and understood this, but it still blows your mind in actual reality. To finish a single Optifast shake after surgery would take nearly an hour. Most mornings if I have a smoothie made with half a banana, a few frozen berries, a cup of protein + milk and some supplements even now that can take over 40 minutes to finish.

A single crusket with about two tablespoons of cottage cheese and a few thin sliced bits of ham and by the last bite I’m completely full.

Since the surgery the amount I can eat has increased slightly, but even now that I’m at my “most” in terms of volume its still hardly anything.

Before the surgery, I would make these delicious homemade burgers. They were juicy, loaded with salad and a beautiful Angus beef patty. I could comfortably eat one and a half of these with some extra salad or homemade wedges on the side, or two whole burgers with nothing else. A month ago we made burgers. I was convinced I could manage half a burger…I made it through 2/3rds and was FULL. The next night I was home alone and there was one meat patty left so I split it in two and put it and all the salad/condiment fixings into a lettuce leaf thinking that with no bread I would easily be able to finish it. Thank god I have a dog because that was two nights in a row he was forced to help me finish some beef patty.

I know that my stomach is smaller, I feel it when I’m eating. I don’t get hungry all that often, but the thing is my brain is still catching up to that fact. All those years of being conditioned to remember that the body needs food to fuel it is hard to break. I look at the small amounts I can eat and it just feels wrong to think that I’m not actually slipping back into my eating disorder days.

But, I’m not. I’m doing what I’m supposed to, the doctor and the dietitian are happy and I have more energy then ever.

That half burger is sitting on a tiny side plate. In fact, I can’t even remember the last time anything at all I ate was on a normal sized dinner plate…

I still have a long way to go but over time a lot of these things I’m still working on getting my head around will start to feel more normal. They will begin to feel right, will be less mind blowing and eventually will just be a normal part of my everyday life.

This list…this was just the things that I was expecting. Coming up in a later blog…all of the things I really wasn’t expecting.