127 Pounds Lost! Down to 165! More than a year later...

Today is February 8, 2011.  January 11, 2011 was the one year anniversary of my gastric bypass surgery.  

I was over 300 pounds when I had a heart "attack"-ish experience and was taken from a restaurant to the hospital by ambulance. Chest pains like someone trying to crush my ribs were later diagnosed as a possible blood clot passing through my heart. Thankfully to God none of the heart muscle actually died (so not technically a heart attack). But it really made me wake up. I scheduled gastric bypass surgery for January 11, 2010. Now my weight is 165. Still 20 pounds overweight for my height, but much better off than I was a year ago! So I'm really thankful to God, and to the surgeon! 

Now I'm wearing a size 10 pants, and a medium shirt!!!  That's down from a size 26/28, and a XXXL shirt.  So it's a total of 127 pounds lost (starting from 292 which is what I weighed the day after Christmas 2009).  

On a personal note, please check out www.needGod.com - it could change your life forever!!!

 

117 pounds lost

Hello all!  Sorry it's been so long since I last posted, but the most incredible thing has happened... my weight, and my weight loss, have stopped being the biggest focus of my life!  Doesn't that just beat all???  Anyway, I figured it was time for at least one more update.  I'm down to 175 pounds.  It's totally crazy!  I now wear a size 14 jeans and a size Large shirt.  (That's down from a size 26 jeans and a XXXL.)  Here are a few pics...

Here I am, about 9 years ago, at my heaviest - well over 300 pounds.

Here's a picture taken of me recently standing in one leg of my size 26 jeans and with one of my favorite old shirts that's a XXXL.  I now call these my "trophy clothes."  :-)

Here are some family pictures that show the change...
the one bottom right is the newest of course.

This shows a little of the progress from 292 down to 175.

 And by the way, if you're considering having weight loss surgery of any kind... PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE don't go in under the knife until you have your eternal destiny settled.  It is appointed to man that he die only once and then face the judgment of a Holy God.  Check out needGod.com so you can be sure you know what's going to happen to you after death BEFORE you put yourself at risk in surgery. 

Hair Loss Outa Control!!!

Every day I've got less and less hair on my head.  The picture below shows the wad of hair I lost just in running my hands through my hair during my shower today!

I'm doing everything I'm supposed to do... eating enough protein, taking iron, taking biotin, taking silica.  Hey, I'm even throwing in a little women's Rogaine in there!  But to no avail.

Pretty soon, I'm afraid I'm gonna look a lot like Ilea...

17 Weeks - 82 Pounds Gone

Hair Today... Gone Tomorrow

Yes... yes... it's finally happened. Despite my careful vitamin routine, my hair is saying bye-bye. Woke up the other day to find a little hair-ball on my pillow. It looked like I had just cleaned out my hairbrush. I then gripped my hair on both sides of my head, and came away with handfuls! *sigh*

Apparently this is a natural part of losing so much weight so fast. If most of you moms think about it... you'll probably remember losing your hair about a month or two after you gave birth.

Well... I guess I just gave birth, in a sense, to a 70 pound "baby!" Today I'm down to 224 (from 292 that's 68 pounds). 

:-)

10 Weeks - 60 Pounds Gone

Foamies?

Ever heard of the "foamies"?  ...Yeah...me neither.  Nobody told me about this... although I now understand it's a fairly common occurrence for people who have had gastric bypass surgery.

Ok, here's what happened.  I had just finished eating a soft pretzel, which I apparently didn't chew thoroughly enough. And I started getting that pressure/painful feeling that a little bite of pretzel was stuck.  This has happened a couple of times before.  You're supposed to chew each bite at least 30 times to make sure it's small enough to make it through.  If something gets stuck, it can be painful for a long time.. or it can make you throw up.

In this case I had to throw up as my husband was driving us down the highway. So I grabbed a fast food cup out of the car trash can and went to town.  Except here's where it gets weird... I threw up foam.  It looked like I had scraped the bubbles off the top of a sink of dish water and put it in the cup.  I threw up a couple more times and each time... just white bubbles. 

I said to my husband, "Hey look at this!"

He swirved the car and said, "NO!  I don't wanna look at that!"

I said, "It doesn't look like throw up!  It looks like dish soap!"

Anyway... So I got home and looked it up on this weight loss surgery forum I've been going to (RenewedReflections) and sure enough, it's common enough that it even has a nickname... "the foamies."  

Weird but true stories from the life of a recovering over eater.

Just as a post script... I'm down to 238 (from my original 292)... so that's something to smile about.  :-D