First Insurance Weigh In

I had my first of three monthly weigh ins at my surgeon's office today.  I am required by my insurance to follow a medically supervised diet and weigh in for three months before they approve surgery.  Basically I go weigh in with the nurse, she talks to me about what I have been doing to lose weight, checks my vital signs, and goes over my meds and supplements, labwork, tests, and things that will be coming up.  I will be on a strict liquid protein diet for 2 weeks before my surgery, I am dreading that already, not because I'm unwilling to do it but because I am afraid I won't be able to stick to it.  Willpower isn't my strong suit.  I did find out I don't have to do a bowel prep the night before surgery.  I am doing a happy dance about that.  That is one of the benefits of having to do the liquid diet 2 weeks ahead of time, there isn't much left in there to have to clean out.

According to the doctors scale I was down almost 5# from my initial weigh in with them.  That sounds pretty close to the loss I have been seeing, I was down a little over 4# when I weighed in at home last Thursday.  The nurse was pleased with my loss and she handed me this big wad of rubbery stuff that is supposed to look like body fat and it weighed 5#.  I couldn't even believe it!  5# doesn't seem like much to lose until  I picked up that blob of fat and realized I wasn't carrying that around on my body anymore.  It was quite enlightening.  I am just going to document my Thursday home weigh ins in my blog, there are just too many numbers floating around out there for me to keep straight, and I will be better able to keep a handle on it if I concentrate on the numbers I am seeing.

My diet right now has just been focusing on reducing calories and that is fine for now, but I want to work on increasing my protein and cutting way back on carbs.  That will be coming soon.  The nurse also recommended that I start trying various protein shakes to see what I like for when I have to be on them for 2 weeks.  I don't want to stock up like crazy because, I have read on forums, and seen on videos on you tube that many times tastes change after surgery and just because I like a particular protein shake or drink now, I may not be able to stand it after surgery.

Sometimes it feels like my head is swimming with all of this information and keeping appointments straight and all of the other requirements, along with feeling nervous for the surgery itself.  I know I have made the right decision and I am not questioning that decision at all but having surgery, any type of surgery, I don't care what it is still makes me nervous.  Sometimes I don't like being a nurse, I have seen and heard too much about things that can go wrong.  I am sure everything will be fine, but I think everyone has those little fears in the back of their mind.  I am still avoiding telling most people about the surgery and for now that is fine, I don't feel like justifying my choice to do this to anyone right now.  I have heard everything from don't you just want to watch what you eat and exercise more, to having to listen to horror stories about surgeries gone bad, to comments along the lines of, well if you do this you need to change the way you eat forever.  My response to that is...staying obese will cause me to have to change the way I eat forever, too, when I develop diabetes.

I have also decided I am going to have the surgeon take out my gallbladder while he's in there.  If there is a 3 cm stone in there it is only a matter of time until it causes problems and more stones are highly likely to develop when I am losing weight rapidly.  Better to just do it at the time of surgery rather than have to go back in for another surgery.

Anyway...whew...that was alot.
I will post my weight on Thursday after I weigh in.
Until next time.