Tomorrow marks 37 weeks post my gastric sleeve surgery or 9 months on the 15th May. What a 9 months it's been too - it's crazy how much has changed and the progress I've made during this time.
As of today I am officially 26.4kg & 138.5cm down since my pre-op started on the 1st August 2022. I have lost an entire ruler length from around my bellybutton measurement alone. I am comfortably wearing size 12-14 clothes, down from sizes 18-20 and today I even purchased a size S women's Nike t-shirt.
I have decided though to not purchase anymore clothes until I reach my 30kg loss as I am in between sizes at the moment, particularly in bottoms & I'd only be plugging a hole for the sake of it to have them not fit in a couple of months!
Life generally is living in my new norm now. I can eat pretty much anything I could before surgery, I can still drink alcohol like I could before surgery (!) and the next part for me to work on is the mental side of things.
From a food perspective my focus on protein has backed off a little but I need to change that and go back to the levels I had before, which is around 90g a day. I know that works to keep me feeling full and it helps reduce my mindless eating. Typically a day of eating for me will look like:
Breakfast smoothie which gives me 40g of protein. I do a couple of glugs of almond milk, shot of coffee, tsp homemade peanut butter, scoop of each of vanilla protein & tasteless protein plus ice. It's a delicious nutty caramel flavour & I drink it on my way to work.
Lunch will be either leftovers of Mexican Chicken with greens, last week it was Black Pepper Beef on greens, sometimes its a wrap with tuna & salad, or the Coles PerFORM soups (only half a tub) with a sandwich thin toasted
Dinner the same as lunches - generally a protein with veggies combo, sometimes a little pasta or rice depending on what I'm making
Snacks I will have a protein muesli bar, yoghurt & fruit, chocolate, couple of shredded wheatmeal biscuits with my cup of tea of a night, cream cheese squares (love the Kiri ones!), coffee or protein coffee
I need to ensure I listen to my cues to stop eating though. For me its when my tummy starts to rumble/gurgle and I get a bit burpy. If I don't acknowledge it & push through to finish what I've got then I just feel horrible. SO uncomfortable and feel like I need to throw up to get relief. It's hard though when you're eating something delicious!
It goes to show there's a lot of undoing of making sure to "eat what's on your plate" and overeating from a portion perspective. That's where my upcoming psychologist appointment comes into it and hopefully a plan to work through some things with her. Recently I've had a few lightbulb moments as to what may have played a part in my weigh issues over the years and I feel better going into the appointment in a couple of weeks having somewhere to start. I've noticed some of the old habits are coming back in and I want to address those now to ensure they don't impede my progress and I can continue on towards my goals.
Physically I am running 3 times a week and walking the other days. I still haven't reintroduced resistance training, but I know I need to. My running now is so much easier on my joints, I can definitely feel that. And it is helping to shift the excess weight from around my middle and keep those cm's coming off. I don't stretch anywhere near as much as I know I should either so I need to introduce both these things into my routine so they become habit.
Do I have any regrets? Shit no! This still is the best thing I could've done for me and my health. I still get surprised sometimes when I look in the mirror in an outfit and my brain is trying to catch up. I still though have days when I look in the mirror and don't really see the changes. That's just part of it and I know a lot of people who've had weight loss surgery experience the same. More for me to discuss with my psychologist.
Has it been easy? Definitely not. It's still a constant thought process and something you need to be aware of, forever. Some days I would love nothing more than to inhale an entire bowl of comforting spaghetti bolognaise like I used to. But I physically just can't anymore! I can still have it and cure that craving, just in a very tiny bowl.
The next 3 months until my 1 year sleeve-iversary will be continuing to focus on my exercise and moving. I'm currently doing the Run with Turia 10km program, a step up from the 5km I've previously done. All part of my transition to longer running for the lead up to New York Marathon in November 2024. I'll be refining my nutrition again and not beating myself up about some of my less than great choices over the last couple of months. And finally hitting 30kg loss since pre-op. Ideally I'd like to get to 70kg, but I'll be happy between 70 & 75kg which should have me around a comfortable size 12.
As with any of my surgeries or life situations I am an open book. I am always open to chatting to someone who is considering it or has a family member/friend who may be thinking about it or just want to know more. Share this blog with them, have them reach out to me via socials. The more informed we are about some of these life changing decisions, the better.
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