Today I weighed in at 203 lbs. Everyday I have been loosing 1 pound. (Although the 3rd and 4th day after surgery I lost 7 pounds traveling home from Texas.)
Last night I was reading from http://www.gastricsleeve.com/ and the manual my doctor gave me. I am so glad I did. Between the two there were some huge insights that I would have missed had I not spent the time reading.
The science behind the weight loss is almost exactly what you will read about in Atkins diet.
The idea behind the weight loss is ketosis. In the past this was just associated with diabetics. It was thus considered bad. The truth is it is a mechanism used to sustain life when carbohydrates are not available. It is a God given system which ancient man used most of the winter.
You see the brain must have sugars to operate. By sugars I mean all carbs. When we run out of sugars we use glycogen. Glycogen are these stores of sugar. That we can use as a backup when carbs stop coming into the body. However after about three days these are also gone. As you can imagine early man may have gone all winter without grain or corn, so durring these times the body uses fats to create artificial sugar. This process is call ketosis.
Ketosis is a process that breaks oils into artificial sugar leaving behind and acid that must be urinated out of the body. Diabetics try and avoid this because there body is not working correctly. However we are trying to keep our body in ketosis.
By avoiding carbs we will remain in ketosis, and by avoiding fats will will be reliant oils from my belly rather than the cream in my coffee ;-) This forced the body to loose weight. In the mean time we try and eat as much protein as possible to keep the metabolism up.
This story is not different from what you will hear from Dr. Atkin. However, how the sleeve does differ in two fold.
1) Ghrelin
Ghrelin is often called the hunger hormon. And it seems to be missing in people who have had much of the stomach removed (i.e. gastric sleeve). Many (but not all) people who have had the "sleeve" say they have lost the sensation of hunger. The idea is that without this "desire agent" we can make intelligent food choices rather than emotional ones. Hopefully following the diet to the letter.
2) Stomach size
Now that the stomach has been resized the volume of intake is greatly reduced. Before I could eat two junior cheese burgers at McDonalds along with a coke and fries. Someday after my stomach has recovered, and grown, I will be limited to half of one junior cheese burger no drink or fry. So as you can see this will be useful both before and after the dieting. I am limited of portion size. I can't eat as much as a 3 year old child.
Currently My stomach is the size of a Bic Pen, and it is fragile. Today I can only eat about two table spoons of yoghurt before I am full. After that I must wait 30 mins before eating more yoghurt.
I think the secret for me to reach my goal is to go back on the atkins diet while following the eating restrictions from my doctor.
In the mean time I am enjoying the pound per day weight loss.
Tuesday, January 17, 2012
Sunday, January 15, 2012
after the surgery
I hate needles. I have grown to accept shots, but giving blood is the worst. To me an IV isn't quite as bad as giving blood. But it was what I was most scared of.
The IV was over in no time. I told the doctor I will wake up sick, please be ready with drugs. He said no problem. They then gave my IV some drug that felt like hot fluid. I could feel it move up my arm and to the rest of my body. They then began to push me down the hall. I told the doctor last time I had surgery I wanted to fight off the sleepiness. He smiled and said "we always win don't we?" ;-)
Next thing I know a nurse is whispering in my ear we are done.
I was told I could not have any moisture in my mouth until I had a leak test the next morning. My mouth was as dry as sand paper.
I was sick, and a few time tried unsuccessfully to throw up. The nausea medication was worthless however I found the pain kills did stop the nausea. I think my gutted stomach was interpreting pain as sickness and the pain kills worked to stop that. So every few hours I asked the nurse for more pain meds. They always give it without question. Don't feel guilty about the narcotics, you've been gutted like a fish.
One problem for me was my Chinese. Due to the drugs I kept sliding in and out of English and Chinese. The second day the nurse asked my wife if I could speak english!!! Then they took me to due the leak test along with the other patients.
Wow! all of the other patients looks worse than me, all nauseous! They had and swallow a table spoon of contrast (not bad tasting) and snap three photos. Then back to bed thank God! 20 mins later they said I had to drink water. This changed everything! Within 5 mins I went from never wanting to leave my hospital bed and IV to thinking about heading home. They water made me feel good!
By the third day I was back to 99%. It was on this day they let me see my stomach. I was shocked! It was and is the size of a pencil! No wonder I am on a liquid diet. I thought I could start sneak drinking blended soups. No way a chocolate milk doesn't want to go down. They said it will take a month for the stomach to repair itself and become strong. Then my stomach should look like a hot dog. However they warned me pushing my stomach in the next month could result in death. I want to avoid that.
I have found that two table spoons for now fills me up. However I can get twice that much water by my stomach.
I still don't know how to read my stomach. It is like the feelings from before don't match up with what makes it happy. Oh well it will Probably keep changing.
Today I was 205.
The IV was over in no time. I told the doctor I will wake up sick, please be ready with drugs. He said no problem. They then gave my IV some drug that felt like hot fluid. I could feel it move up my arm and to the rest of my body. They then began to push me down the hall. I told the doctor last time I had surgery I wanted to fight off the sleepiness. He smiled and said "we always win don't we?" ;-)
Next thing I know a nurse is whispering in my ear we are done.
I was told I could not have any moisture in my mouth until I had a leak test the next morning. My mouth was as dry as sand paper.
I was sick, and a few time tried unsuccessfully to throw up. The nausea medication was worthless however I found the pain kills did stop the nausea. I think my gutted stomach was interpreting pain as sickness and the pain kills worked to stop that. So every few hours I asked the nurse for more pain meds. They always give it without question. Don't feel guilty about the narcotics, you've been gutted like a fish.
One problem for me was my Chinese. Due to the drugs I kept sliding in and out of English and Chinese. The second day the nurse asked my wife if I could speak english!!! Then they took me to due the leak test along with the other patients.
Wow! all of the other patients looks worse than me, all nauseous! They had and swallow a table spoon of contrast (not bad tasting) and snap three photos. Then back to bed thank God! 20 mins later they said I had to drink water. This changed everything! Within 5 mins I went from never wanting to leave my hospital bed and IV to thinking about heading home. They water made me feel good!
By the third day I was back to 99%. It was on this day they let me see my stomach. I was shocked! It was and is the size of a pencil! No wonder I am on a liquid diet. I thought I could start sneak drinking blended soups. No way a chocolate milk doesn't want to go down. They said it will take a month for the stomach to repair itself and become strong. Then my stomach should look like a hot dog. However they warned me pushing my stomach in the next month could result in death. I want to avoid that.
I have found that two table spoons for now fills me up. However I can get twice that much water by my stomach.
I still don't know how to read my stomach. It is like the feelings from before don't match up with what makes it happy. Oh well it will Probably keep changing.
Today I was 205.
Gastric Sleeve
I am a male soon approaching 40. I have a family history of obesity. Before surgery I weighed 230 lbs. It was as if my body liked that weight. It was hard to gain more and impossible to loose any. However I knew from others in my family that is happy weight would slowly increase over time. I fully expected to weight 270 by the time I turned 60.
It just wasn't what I wanted. I studied and studied and I don't want to go into it all here, now. But it boils down to this, people are pre-disposed to being over weight. It can be overcome by will power, however in studies 99% of people who lost 50 lbs or more regained it in 5 years. Vegas would love those numbers. More over studies have shown those who have lost that much weight feel more hunger than others, and use fewer calories. The body is trying to regain the weight. It is fighting the mind. And I have learned over the years the heart usually beats the mind.
So I could fight natural instincts for the rest of my life or I can find a more root solution. Well this year the long term results on a new surgery came out, Gastric Sleeve. It has better weight loss results than radical surgeries like RNY. And it has fewer complications than the band. But what hit me most was surrounding the issue of hunger. 2/3 of the patients were saying they were no longer hungry, and some times forgot to eat. The other was from a Japanese researcher who said he found that patients of the "sleeve" were missing almost all hunger hormone gherlin.
This was encouraging. My Body Mass Index was 34. I have horrible heart burn, and snore, but I doubt I could talk an insurance company to pay for the surgery. Most insurances require a BMI of 35. However most doctors require a BMI of 30. My wife said it had to be a doctor in the USA. However I needed a doctor I could afford. I found Dr. David Kim. However I was told there were others in Dallas area who are also in the $12,000 range. Texas has tort reform. So I guess Texas is the place to be.
-------
Kim seemed very kind and intelligent, no beating around the bush. I like that. He also has a large staff who are very confident. With all those salaries to pay He must do quite a few surgeries a week. Still no complaints.
-------
Before the surgery they have to live off protein shakes. They say this is to shrink the liver so it is out of the way durring surgery. The shakes were good, but got old fast. Before long I preferred water.
Before the shakes I was 230 lbs, after I was 219. Not bad, but if I had to do that the rest of my life I would prefer to be fat.
In the next post I will talk about the surgery.
It just wasn't what I wanted. I studied and studied and I don't want to go into it all here, now. But it boils down to this, people are pre-disposed to being over weight. It can be overcome by will power, however in studies 99% of people who lost 50 lbs or more regained it in 5 years. Vegas would love those numbers. More over studies have shown those who have lost that much weight feel more hunger than others, and use fewer calories. The body is trying to regain the weight. It is fighting the mind. And I have learned over the years the heart usually beats the mind.
So I could fight natural instincts for the rest of my life or I can find a more root solution. Well this year the long term results on a new surgery came out, Gastric Sleeve. It has better weight loss results than radical surgeries like RNY. And it has fewer complications than the band. But what hit me most was surrounding the issue of hunger. 2/3 of the patients were saying they were no longer hungry, and some times forgot to eat. The other was from a Japanese researcher who said he found that patients of the "sleeve" were missing almost all hunger hormone gherlin.
This was encouraging. My Body Mass Index was 34. I have horrible heart burn, and snore, but I doubt I could talk an insurance company to pay for the surgery. Most insurances require a BMI of 35. However most doctors require a BMI of 30. My wife said it had to be a doctor in the USA. However I needed a doctor I could afford. I found Dr. David Kim. However I was told there were others in Dallas area who are also in the $12,000 range. Texas has tort reform. So I guess Texas is the place to be.
-------
Kim seemed very kind and intelligent, no beating around the bush. I like that. He also has a large staff who are very confident. With all those salaries to pay He must do quite a few surgeries a week. Still no complaints.
-------
Before the surgery they have to live off protein shakes. They say this is to shrink the liver so it is out of the way durring surgery. The shakes were good, but got old fast. Before long I preferred water.
Before the shakes I was 230 lbs, after I was 219. Not bad, but if I had to do that the rest of my life I would prefer to be fat.
In the next post I will talk about the surgery.
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