Munchkin
Full of Fairy Dust
@Munchkin I thought you did have the DS....what do you mean you wish you'd had a more drastic DS? Would you mind sharing your numbers....tell me to jump if you'd like....I hold VERY tightly to my number
I have a 3rd follow up with Cottam today and I'm trying desparately to get into Simper for a 2nd and possible surgeon switch. I'll keep you posted. Thanks for all the feedback.
Don't mind discussing it at all. I am a classic superabsorber. Got my first diet when I was 6 weeks old and knew the word obese when I was 2. Most of my life was one starvation diet or another starting with Metrecal back in the 60's. I dieted my way up to about 400lbs. I had to wait 2 years for a surgery date back then and when I found out I was that heavy I got really angry and put myself on @ 500 to 600 calories a day and I was mad enough to stick with it. Maybe that last diet killed what was left of my metabolism? We'll never know.
I had the DS in August of 2003 with Buchwald in Minnesota. I asked for a 50cm CC, he wanted to do 100cm so we compromised on 75cm. I stressed that I wanted the most drastic surgery possible and that I wanted my GB gone for sure. The day I went to surgery my weight was 251 so by DS standards I was a lightweight. My surgery was open and my recovery was perfect. I do have a hernia now that I got from coughing in 2009.
I didn't know back then that Buchwald DSers tended to not lose all the weight. There was something kinder and gentler about his DS surgeries. I know it now. There are quite a few of us who never got down to a normal BMI. I never had any problems and no deficiencies. And if my CC is 75...I probably should have had some! But I wasn't watching during surgery. I do wonder if my CC is really 75. And if I had started out with 20/20 hindsight I would have gone to Baltasar in Spain(could have had the surgery 2 years sooner too). But I picked my surgeon based on the fact he did do the DS and was very experienced, was local to me(70 miles or so), and accepted my insurance.
Lost 53lbs the first 4 months postop and that's it. It just quit. I was doing everything right, carbs under 50, 100gr protein and very little else. After 2 months of nothing I started tweaking things. More fat, less fat, I even tried more carbs. The diet that proved most effective for me was drinking a gallon of plain mint tea every day, 2 weeks on and one week off, less than 10 carbs per day, and one weekend a month was FREE. I could eat anything I wanted. But the weight loss was still dismal. I would read the boards and see all these people posting about needing to gain weight or stop the loss and I got angry again. Those posts drove me crazy. I couldn't imagine wanting to STOP losing weight. But quite a few of those people are now trying to lose again...
One secret weapon left. Exercise. Something I pretty much hated and was saving for last. I wasn't sedentary after surgery and I did become more active as I lost the weight but I wasn't doing anything extra besides walking. So I put the hammer down and started doing 5 miles a day. Then I started doing the same distance and alternating running with walking. Then I started pushing my self to do more running than walking. And in another 6 weeks or so I could run the whole thing. Part of my motivation was that it took to darn long to walk the 5 miles and I resented the time.
Here's what finally got my fat ass down to 170. You read the diet. Plus I was running 40 miles a week. Joined the gym. Did all the machines and played racquetball at least twice a week. But here's the conundrum. It really isn't sustainable to live like this forever. If I wasn't at work I was running or at the gym. I didn't want my whole life and all my free time to revolve around the number on the scale. Plus I was no spring chicken. How long would it be before I had some dire injury from all that high impact exercise? I knew just ageing would make this routine impossible to maintain. Hell, I was lucky to be able to do it well into my 50's. I knew I was pushing my luck.
Today I am almost 60. Officially an old bag soon! I finally had to accept what I can't change. I will always be fat. I did everything I could to change that so no regrets. I don't look like a pig headed to slaughter. I do look like a normal woman my age. And most normal women my age are fat. My weight tends to run from 190 to 200. I look ok in clothes. Naked, I am a trainwreck(picture a six breasted woman). I still diet and in the back of my brain there is still one last plan. Can my malabsorbtion be chemically enhanced? I need to buy a 5lb bag of SF Haribo gummy bears to test this latest hypothesis. And a couple extra cases of TP. Stay tuned!