I've had my surgery; now let's see how my first couple weeks went. First I want to emphasize that there is nothing earth shattering in those first few days. I just had surgery and it's more about healing than your new world of eating with the band. For the first night I was only allowed clear liquids and I was thrilled enough with ice chips and some gatorade. From day 2 through the first full 2 weeks post surgery, the diet consists of only liquids. Broth is the name of the game and some light soups that can be strained of anything too clumpy or solid. I continued on the bariatric protein shakes, using milk instead of water. A small note on the milk...my wife found a product called Skim Plus, that is wonderful. It is essentially skim milk fortified with extra protein and vitamins to be of the consistency and taste of near whole milk. I've been using it ever since and feel like I'm getting a good deal of bang for my buck with the shakes as a result. The nutritional value is well worth a little extra cost and I lucked into a nice sale at Publix as well as some coupons at the time. It has a pretty good shelf life before being opened compared to other milk as the expiration dates I found to be a month out. Stock piling it in my fridge whenever I catch a sale!
Cream of Wheat is another good item as long as you make it with a thin enough consistency. Pat the wonderful nutritionist at Dr. Jessee's office went through the suggested menu items and there was a lot of yogurt suggested. I really don't like yogurt, so this was hard. My wife did find me these Fusion yogurt drinks that I was able to stomach. Unfortunately you may want to consider those sparingly as their sugar count was kind of high. I guess it is a tradeoff, but Pat you can see I'm trying. ;-) Juice is a good option, but another spot to watch your sugars. Wal-mart had some nice no sugar added options including a nice apple and a white grape peach. Both I found to be very tasty without too much sugar.
The toughest thing is the more you heal and begin to feel normal, the hungrier you get. Hungry may not be the right word. I felt like a divergence began between my mouth and my stomach. They used to always agree. Now my mouth craved stuff, that my stomach would over rule. Commercials can be rough; My mouth would say oh that looks good only to be quickly followed by my stomach saying I don't think so. I began to feel schizophrenic. Lol! I chose the smart choice and followed my stomach's lead. The cravings would generally be short lived and easily managed, certainly compared to what I used to have to deal with when the stomach and mouth ganged up on me and the next thing you knew I swallowed a pizza or a box of cookies or both! I appreciated that the Lap Band was taking the edge off and allowing me to act responsibly.
Probably the hardest part of this phase is there is only so much variety in what you can manage with a liquid diet. The first week I was fine, but the second started to get old, so I started allowing some substance in the soups and allowing for the normal thickness of the cream of wheat. It's all just a part of the process as you heal. This was a natural progression into the next two weeks which would allow for a mushy diet consistency. The biggest advice I can give is it is perfectly normal to start testing your band some in this phase, just proceed cautiously. Take your time and chew thoroughly. No reason to rush it. I may even be enjoying my food better now than ever before as I no longer feel like I'm in a race where I assume whoever eats the most the fastest wins!
Well enough about food. Lets talk about healing and moving. At the Palms of Pasadena and Dr. Jessee's office they emphasize you start moving as soon as you can to minimize any chance of blood clots forming. A couple days I even got a follow up call from the nurse who worked with me at the hospital at the end to check on my progress. That was a nice thing as it gives you the option for any further questions. Again, the Palms of Pasadena is a great facility. I started the first few days with just wandering around the house at a pretty slow pace, but it felt good to get moving and quickly graduated after a few days of that to an outdoor stroll. Again this was at a comfortable pace and a short distance with gradual increase of speed and distance over the first couple weeks.
There was a certain amount of discomfort in my stomach especially in the area around my belly button. I was prescribed two pain killers, one that was stronger than the other. I quickly weaned myself from the stronger to the weaker over the course of the first couple weeks. By the end of the first week I only needed the stronger stuff at night to help me sleep and by the end of the second week I was down to an occasional weaker or even ibuprofen for at night with nothing during the day. I'm not a big fan of taking pills and wanted to not become dependent on anything. My incisions were covered by Durabond, which is krazy glue for surgeons. They didn't give me much concern except for my belly button where I felt a certain amount of swelling as well as discomfort. Somewhere along the line I also started to notice some small residue marks on my shirts in that area; more to come on a later post with regards to this. Through the end of May I was feeling stronger and stronger and able to do more. Biggest obstacle seemed to be bending over as I felt some pulling in my stomach and I was told not to lift anything over 20 pounds; Good advice as I found groceries to be a bit heavy the first couple of weeks.
I believe it all made for a great start and was looking forward to what was coming, but I feel like it is just a start and I have a long way to go. It's important to remain patient and not to try and get ahead of yourself and do too much, no matter how anxious you feel to do it all. At this stage you really need to allow yourself time to heal. Remember weight loss is a lifestyle journey, not a diet destination! Thanks to all for their support and wonderful advice along the way.
me
No comments:
Post a Comment