It’s only early June, so it is not quite 11 months since my gastric bypass. It’s been a hard year, but it has also been a good year. The hard part is the ongoing battle against deeply ingrained habits related to food. They’re much harder to change than I’d ever imagined. It’s a daily struggle to not eat too fast or too much, and it’s a struggle I fail many times. Those failures typically result in my feeling nauseated – which is a powerful motivator to change. I’m slowly VERY SLOWLY making progress.

My fear is that I will stretch out my stomach. I never want to regain the weight I’ve lost and have to deal with all those health problems again. It feels good to feel good!

The “good” part is that this morning I weighed 143.6 – a new low. I think the last time I weighed that low was sometime in the late 1960s or early 1970s. Even when I lost a lot of weight taking Phen-Fen in the mid-1990s, I only got to the upper 150s.

I’m enjoying doing Pilates on M-W-F when I’m at home. It’s good for me, and I don’t dread it like I used to when I’d work out at a gym. I like that it doesn’t make me hot and sweaty – and yet it’s a good workout. I can see more definition in my muscles.

One thing that has surprised me is the loose skin. I was under the mistaken impression that I was not so overweight that my skin wouldn’t bounce back. Nope. My arms, stomach, butt, and thighs have loose skin that bothers me – especially sitting on my butt – it’s like the skin folds in on itself and is uncomfortable. My arms and legs just have that flabby old-lady look. I’m sure if I’d had gastric bypass 10-15 years ago my skin would have bounced back better.

However, I will take all that any day over the excess weight and health issues I had before. I am happy with my weight now, and am perfectly satisfied to stay right at this weight the rest of my life.

We are at the lake right now, and most days here I hike up and down the driveway – about 1.34 miles – without having to slow down and without getting out of breath. All three dogs usually go with me, and they love it. And I’m loving wearing smaller size clothes, too.

I’m glad I had the surgery, but it is MUCH harder than I ever imagined it would be. It’s funny but the nausea I experience when I eat too much or too fast doesn’t even bother me as much as I thought it would because it is over fairly quickly. And, if I remember to eat very slowly and chew my food very thoroughly, there is no nausea. Like I wrote earlier, though, eating fast is a very hard habit to break. My body reminds me frequently to be a deliberate and mindful eater.

Some good news is that I had elevated bilirubin and liver enzyme numbers, but they’re going down. I will have a liver scan in a couple weeks. However the doctor thinks the elevated numbers are likely related to my surgery and that it will all even out soon. My liver panel blood test last week showed improvement. So hopefully he is right.

I’ve had a lot of highs and lows in the past six months. I’ve lost a little over 57 pounds, which is incredible! With the weight loss, I’ve gone down several sizes in my clothes. I have gotten rid of most of my clothes and replaced them with smaller sizes. I wore a size 10 pair of jeans today, and they were a little baggy. So I’ve got several size 8 jeans ready to go.

I’m able to do more without getting out of breath. When I go walking, I don’t have to stop to catch my breath. I can walk as much as I want. I need to do more of it, though. Along those general lines, I will be doing Pilates starting tomorrow – one on one with an instructor that Larisa, Lily, and Sophie use. I’m looking forward to starting that because the weight loss has left behind some flabby skin. I need to build muscle and tone, flexibility and stamina.

I still have significant restriction in how much I can eat. However, if I stretch a meal out to 30-40 minutes, I can eat a fairly regular (but smaller) portioned meal. Ron bought a single filet mignon steak the other day. We always cut a filet into two pieces crossways with the thinner portion for me since I like mine not quite as rare as Ron likes his. I assumed I wouldn’t be able to eat my entire portion, but I did. It was probably only 3-4 ounces at most, but that’s good because I’m able to get more protein in.

The lows are mostly fears of returning to previous bad habits. Over the past month I’ve seen how some bad habits and cravings are rearing their ugly heads again. Thus I am working to stick with my healthier and smaller-portioned food choices. I’m still drinking my homemade protein shake every morning for breakfast. Nothing else sits well with me. Eggs make me sick. I have a slice of bacon most mornings because Ron makes bacon and sausage most mornings and always adds a slice for me. So I get about 40 grams of protein each morning for breakfast.

Another improvement is my daily pill intake. Only four pills a day – my big multivitamin with iron, my blood pressure med, my cholesterol med, and my anti-depressant. Since Vandy monitors my vitamin levels, I’ve learned I don’t need all the supplements I was taking. That has cut down on my daily pill intake tremendously.

When I made a pledge last July that I was committed to doing this for the rest of my life, I think God decided to test my determination. Despite logging every bite and staying within my calories and points the majority of days, I have gone up and down the same 2-3 pounds for FOUR months! I’ve also gotten into walking more regularly.

I’m to the point of wondering how few calories per day my body needs!

So now I’ve been going over my intake and seeing where I may be under-logging what I eat.

First, I was counting my daily coffee as two points. When I actually measured everything to be certain I found it was 4 points instead of two.

Second, I have not been counting my daily gummies – Goli Apple Cider Vinegar gummies and Elderberry gummies. I then measured/counted those, and they’re FIVE points a day.

Thus I was under-logging 7 points a day. A good example of the need to be meticulous in counting points.

My goal now is find Elderberry and ACV in capsule form in order to save those points. I’ve already cut the creamer and sweetener for my coffee in half – and I’m actually still enjoying it not quite as sweet and creamy.

My other concern is to decide if I want to continue with Weight Watchers or with Noom. They both have their pluses and minuses. I lean towards Noom because it counts calories which is a little more realistic, in some ways, than Weight Watchers. Sometimes the number of points that WW assigns to treats seems punitive. For example, when I had a couple scoops of ice cream with my mother a few months ago, it was 40-something points. Even using weekly points, that was a treat that blew a whole week’s worth of work, points-wise, out of the water. There’s something to be said for not assigning “good” or “bad” to specific foods. Calorie counting seems to be a less judgmental way to eat.

So I will discontinue either WW or Zoom when my initial subscriptions end.