So I had to bring the boy to daycare today. Man that was tough. Someone else shouldn’t raise your children…it doesn’t seem right. I never really thought of it before until I had to bring him there today. It was really sad not knowing if when he cries, he is taken care of. I hate it.

I am now down a total of 183lbs…closing in on that 200 mark. I don’t know if I will hit it or not because that is a little lower than I want to be but the doctors still think I need to be around 200lbs. That seems way too skinny for me. I feel bad constantly telling my wife how much I am losing because I know that she struggles too and didn’t have the surgery, but I am still amazed every day when I look in the mirror. Do I keep it in or do I talk about it? I am not rubbing it in her face but I can tell that the closer I get to her weight now, the more she tells me stuff like ” you suck”… which I know that she is kidding for the most part, but I still think that she is hurt that she didn’t have the surgery. I went through a bad relationship with a WLS person and it was not easy. I was gaining and she was losing… and I really got jealous. She then turned into a little high school princess which soon ended our relationship haha. She wanted to go out to the bar every night and show off, and I didn’t want her to. End of the line for that one.

Oh well. I have a healthy family, I have a loving wife, I have a good job…. and the weather is pretty damned awesome for January in North Dakota!

It’s amazing how in the beginning, you have really good intentions on keeping a daily, or weekly blog…but then life happens. Man, things go so fast that you don’t really have time to do anything. That is where I am right now. So, it’s been about 9 months since my surgery, give or take a couple weeks, and I am down a total of 171 lbs. I am at a weight right now that in my honest memory, I don’t think I have seen in 20 years. Going from a size 5xl shirt down to an XL…and a 52w 32L jeans down to a 38w 34L is beyond belief. I have been donating so many pieces of clothing and buying used, that my entire wardrobe can pretty much be said to have come from Savers or the Dakota Boys Ranch. I intended to keep a pair of my 52 inch waist jeans but for the life of me, I cannot find. Energy wise, I feel like a new man. I can get off of the floor in one motion, using one hand, where before, I had to get up in stages, first onto my knees, then using a piece of furniture I could get the rest of the way. I walk 3 miles a day now where before, if I would walk, I could only do it for about a half mile MAX before I thought I was going to die. I knew that I was out of shape, but looking back, am amazed how bad I really was.

In other news, we have a new son that was born in the beginning of November! We were blessed with a perfectly healthy boy, who believe it or not, sleeps through the night on most nights. Our daughter loves him and has to kiss him every morning before school and that is also the first thing she does when she gets home.

My wife is now down 30lbs from last year when we were going to both get the surgery, which now excludes her from having it. This may sound like a bad thing, but she is doing an AWESOME job on her own and I support her 100%. We have been doing a little trickery when we have supper by always using our smallest plates to eat on. This make it seem like you have a full plate of food and really does work.

Other than that, I will try to keep this blog up a little more than I have in the past and one day may share some pictures of my progress.

Ok, so it’s been a little while since I last blogged. It is weird how consuming this surgery and these changes become in your life. I have lost a total of 108lbs so far and there doesn’t seem to be a stopping point in sight….so far. Depending on who you talk to, I still have a bit to lose. At 6’5″, some people/charts say that I should be about 200lbs… to me, that’s a little too skinny. I want to be around 250lbs. That sounds like a good number, and one that I haven’t hit since the early 90′s.

In other news, my wife is still pregnant and we have found out that it is going to be a………….BOY! That is very exciting news to us….but we still have to break it to our daughter who hoped and prayed for a sister. There is a 50/50 chance that she will cry…but we’ll see. We will break the news to her this weekend..haha. Other than that, I am feeling awesome and would recommend this surgery to anyone out there that qualifies for it.

69lbs as of today. That is amazing. I am starting to feel great…physically and emotionally. The funny thing is that I am still heavier then my previous highest weight but when I put my new jeans on that I bought last night….it was a nice feeling fitting in to 3 sizes smaller than when I started my journey.

I am starting to get a routine down for eating and slowly finding out the things that I shouldn’t eat…or that don’t agree with me. For some reason, creamy soups make me feel like I am going to die. They call it dumping syndrome, but I am pretty glad that I only get mild cases of it. Basically if you eat something that you shouldn’t… maybe something that has too much sugar, or too much fat, it will dump it from your pouch and into your intestines to flush it out causing you to get rid of it….one of two ways.

Other than that, I have been ok’d to hit the gym so I am pretty excited about that… but I am still a little intimidated to start. Still have the fat guy mindset I guess. We’ll see how it all turns out!

So there is this thing in the WLS world called the ’3 week stall.’ This simply means that most people that get to the 3 week post op point have a stall. It’s your bodys way of saying “What in the hell did you just do to me?” Right now I have been stalled since Monday which is a little frustrating. I have been doing pretty well with my eating but my water intake has been a little hit and miss, as well as my vitamins. This is something that I need to correct before I get in to trouble and have to go back in to the hospital.

There have been about a half dozen times that I have become sick from eating something. 3 of those times have been with soups that are a little thicker… so I think that this might be a sign that I can’t have these things. Luckily I learn fast….haha.

Other than that I am feeling better every day. I am down about 57lbs right now..holding steady. I am cleared to go to the gym in 2 weeks and am looking forward to that.

So yesterday was 2 weeks since I have had my surgery and I feel pretty good. I have been a little tired lately and haven’t had too much energy but I am sure that is from eating about 600 calories a day. I don’t feel too hungry most of the time but when I do see a commercial for something, or drive by a fast food place.. I do get a little feeling like “I need to stop.”  This ‘head hunger’ is far worse than anything I could have imagined. No wonder the world is so fat… it’s EVERYWHERE!!!

I am down a total of 53lbs and that includes the 30 that I lost before surgery. The funny thing is that even after losing 53lbs… people still say.. “I can tell that you have lost weight….I can see it in your face.”

WHAT? Did I have a 53lbs head? You can’t see it anywhere else other than my gigantic bulbous face? LOL

Oh well.. maybe the rest of my giant body will start slimming with my newly skinny face so people will say, “I can tell that you have lost weight… I can see it in your man boobs…  they are a little smaller than mine now…”

I feel good. (danananananana)

I knew that I would now. (danananananana)

SO GOOD! (BAH BUM)

SO GOOD! (BAH BUM)

I ATE FOOD (Bah bum bah bum BUMMM!)

I just had a scrambled egg with a tiny bit of ketchup on it and oh man… it was the most amazing meal ever. Sounds sad I know but it was divine. I am feeling pretty awesome right now. I woke up with little to no pain today which is a great start to any day. Every time I eat something I do still get the ‘gurgling’ tummy and hope that is just the new pouch reacting. I hope I am not a gas factory from now on turning every bite into an air biscuit if you know what I mean.

Tonight…….TOMATO SOUP!

So no one said that this was going to be easy so I’m not really complaining, I’m just going to be honest. When I got to the hospital at 8am on Monday morning we waited until about 8:40am and they came to get me and said that the doctor wants me up there right now, he is running ahead…so we get the warp speed edition. So I’m changing clothes, being poked and prodded, questioned… run through the ‘factory’ preparing for surgery. Once I got in the Operating Room, fear did start to set in a little bit. I kept thinking how much it looked like a butcher shop. After they put me on the smallest table possible…I’m serious, this thing was only about 12 inches wide, strapping my legs down and trying to make me feel comfortable, a young woman put a mask in front of my face and said “Breathe in deeply, this is what will put you to sleep.”

Then I wake up… whew, the fear of being awake during surgery did not happen….

After an hour or so in Recovery I made it to my room and saw my wife… which was a nice feeling.

For the first couple of hours, I was in and out, sleeping and pushing the ‘happy’ button lol. This went on for most of the afternoon until the early evening. They wanted me to get up and walk toward the early evening and this was something that I would have to do in order to get the catheter taken out.. so needless to say, I wanted to walk! When I sat up for the first time, I was extremely nauseous and started dry heaving. There was nothing in my system for me to get out so I just sat there on the edge of the bed for about 10 minutes, dry heaving… wanting to get this ‘thing’ taken out and wanting to take my first steps. I had to give in and lay back down. This happened a few more times until later that night I was able to get up out of bed and walk around. I would still get nauseous so they changed my pain meds and that seemed to take care of it. Later that night I was feeling good until I got the hiccups. These lasted for a solid 30 minuets with only about 10 seconds in between each one.

The second morning I woke up and was extremely sore in the mid section. I think that this has not only to do with the surgery itself, but the dry heaving and hiccups on top of that.

Every day seems to get better and as I type this I have been out of the hospital for about 48 hours but am still extremely sore. I have to get up about once an hour and walk in order to move the gas around my body. They pump you full of gas to get your abdominal wall away from your stomach and intestines in surgery and that gas has to come out somewhere. Let’s just say that my wife is very forgiving right about now haha.

Tomorrow is the day that I have been anticipating for over 3 months, and I can’t believe that it is finally here. I would be lying if I said that I wasn’t nervous, because I am. I think that is rather normal considering that surgery of any kind has it’s dangers. This is something that is going to change my life forever and it is a chance to have a life that I have NEVER had! It’s an amazing feeling. Hopefully everything will go as planned and I will be on the ‘losers bench’ by this time tomorrow.

They called me on Friday to let me know that I had to be at the hospital at 8am so I am assuming that my surgery will be shortly after that. It should only take about 90 minutes to complete and I should be out sometime the next day…again, if everything goes as planned.

So wish me luck, wish my family luck, and hold on…. cause the ride is just starting!

Well I hit my personal goal of 30 Lbs lost. The surgeon only wanted me to lose 20 so I feel pretty good. The main reason that I had to lose that amount is because they want to shrink your liver so it’s not in the way when they do the surgery. Men typically carry their weight in their belly….right where they need to cut in which makes it more dangerous for them and increases the likelyhood of complications.

I am getting a little nervous because in 4 days, my life will change forever. I have done everything I can to prepare myself mentally going in to this but you always hear the bad news when you start researching things on your own. I will just leave my fate in my surgeons hands and let whatever happens, happen!

So there are 10 days before I have my gastric bypass surgery and I have read every single thing on the net regarding WLS. I have watched every YoTube video on it… every forum on it… and every horror story that the web has. I’m fully prepared. So why am I still worried? I’m sure it’s normal to worry prior to a major surgery. The last time I had one I was 15 years old and it was a horrible experience. About 2 weeks prior to that surgery, we were at my grandmothers having tea when she told me a story about when she was 16 and had to have her appendix taken out. She told me that she could remember them bringing her in the operating room, knocking her out (or so they thought) and preparing for her surgery. She then told me that she was one of about 40,000 people a year that have anesthesia awareness. WHAT??  Yup… she was awake during her surgery. This scared me so bad that 2 weeks later, when my appendix flared up, I waited too long to go to the hospital and it ruptured. I was in and out of the hospital for months…nearly dying, simply because I was afraid to be awake during surgery.

This fear still haunts me to this day.

This was the first question that I asked my surgeon when I met with him the first time….”Do you use BIS (Bi spectral Index) monitors. This monitors the level of unconsciousness during surgery. Sounds good to me!!! Of course I am still afraid to be the 1 out of 100 person that dies from the surgery….

I have actually gotten a lot of peace of mind from some people out there that are going through or have already gone through this process.

There are tons of forums out there for people that are considering or have already had gastric bypass, or WLS (weight loss surgery) in general. One of the ones that I have found that was really interesting is called Thinner Times. (www.thinnertimes.com)

I really like that it is a well established site and there are a ton of people on there…great support system!

Wow what a week! So…. on Thursday as I am getting my comfy clothes on after work and my wife asks me “How mad will you be if I don’t have the surgery?” Thinking that she is having second thoughts about it I told her that I wouldn’t be mad at all and asked her why she felt like canceling the surgery. She then pulled a pregnancy test out from behind her back…. WOW!

So….. needless to say, her surgery is put on hold for right now. She was scheduled for March 14th but since she can not keep that date any longer, the surgeon gave it to me!!! So it’s official… I have a date!

I don’t know what is more exciting… the surgery or the baby… so many emotions going on all at once. I would cancel my surgery in a second if it meant having a healthy baby….but on the flip side, I want to be there 10 years down the road for the baby and without the surgery, that might not happen… so it’s really on my mind a lot right now.

Yay baby!

My wife received her surgery date yesterday. She will be having it done on March 14th. They did set up a tentative date for me of March 24th. We both have our Pre-Op visits with the Surgeon on March 1st so I should know for sure by then. He wanted me to lose 20lbs for surgery and guess what?? I’M DOWN 17 LBS AS OF THIS MORNING!!!

That is from being on a liquid diet since last Wednesday…but if I am looking at the end of March for surgery, I’m sure to be down a good 40lbs before surgery. That was my personal goal after I met with the dietician.

It looks like this will actually be happening. It feels like it’s been a million years and at times, I didn’t think that it was even going to happen. I know that there are going to be way more hurdles during the next year or so but you know what? I”m ready for them. I’m ready to change my life… I just need a new tool to use.

Well I got the final word today from my insurance and it is good. APPROVED! My wife was approved last week and I should have been as well but the hospital forgot to send in my psych evaluation which held up the process a little. So needless to say I was a little paranoid this weekend thinking that I would not be approved.  I am nearly certain that they are going to do my wife first because I have more weight to lose, which looks like she will be sometime in the beginning weeks of March. I will have to wait a couple weeks after that before the doctor will do mine. He doesn’t want us to be healing together in case something goes wrong, which is understandable.

Today is Valentines day… and it feels like my new birthday. This is a day that I will surely never forget.

Ok, so I have to lose 20 lbs before surgery so I have opted to be on the liquid diet. Today is day 1 of the liquid and you know, I don’t really feel terribly hungry. I am able to have 8oz. protein shakes 4 times a day, with clear broth, sugar free jello, sugar free popcicles in between. So far so good. I can tell that I am a little more cranky right now but I’m sure that will go away in a couple of days.

The one thing that is kind of funny is that they are putting me on this diet prior to even getting the thumbs up from insurance. This crap is not cheap… I spent $200 last night on the protein shakes that are ‘required’ from the hospital. Being the worrier that I am I really hope that I don’t start this phase, only to be told that insurance denied me. That would be a bummer. Think good thoughts I guess.

Ok… so yesterday I had the taste test of my soon to be new liquid diet and was a little surprised. The choices were Strawberry, Chocolate, Banana and Vanilla… and then there was just a plain one that we didn’t try because she said it tastes just like milk. I believed her but now question it. I thought the Chocolate and Strawberry would be my favorites and she even said that is the most popular combo for people to get. I was the opposite. The Chocolate and Strawberry tasted bad but the Banana and Vanilla were rather good. They also had us try some new vitamins that we will have to take which tasted like Sweet Tarts.. so that was not too bad. Other than that, we have our meeting with the surgeon today and will have  a few more questions answered…then the insurance gets put through….then surgery. I’m excited to get this process over with and get on with a new chapter of our lives.

Well I passed my Psych evaluation yesterday… which I was worried about for some crazy reason. So the good news is that I’m not crazy. Today I have the ‘Taste Test’ at the surgeon’s office. I get to test which products I like the best for my pre and post surgery diet. I’m really not too picky because I have tasted tons of protein powders and this is basically one of those. What I haven’t ever done is gone completely liquid… This will be hard. They do allow veggies which will help a little bit…but you know what? I got myself into this… so it’s the price I have to pay to complete my journey.

Tomorrow is my visit with the surgeon!!! Wish me luck!

Day 2 on the new diet and you know what? It’s not that bad. I’m a little hungry in between meals which is weird. I’m not and have really never been a big snacker in between meals… I just eat more than I need to when I do eat a meal. It’s like this…. Let’s say that I’m hungry for a sandwich… but rather than make one, I make 3. I don’t need 3 sandwiches, but I make them anyway because I think that I need them for some reason. There have been times when I would make 2 or 3 sandwiches and then something would come up after I would eat 1, and when I come back to it, I’m no longer hungry… so I know that it’s a mental thing that I really need to get over. I have always had issues with portion size going as far back as to when I was a child. I grew up in a decent sized family, 2 parents and 4 kids, including me. The biggest thing that I think made me eat more food was the fact that we were pretty poor.

There was never really much for structure in my household and I didn’t have a curfew or a bed time. I didn’t even have to ask if I could spend the night at a friends house, I could simply decide to ride the bus home with them and when I would return back home, there was no need for an explanation.  They didn’t care where I was; they only cared about how much Coca Cola was left and whether or not they will have enough cigarettes to get them through the MASH marathon. There was no set supper time with the entire family eating at the table like the Cleavers. We would all take our plates and sit in our respective spots, parents on the couch, and children on the floor in front of the TV. Then there were times when we didn’t really have that much to eat so we would pack up in the station wagon and head to the grocery store. Now most of the families could be seen walking in the front doors with the children usually three or four steps ahead of the parents trying to set off the automatic doors. We could be seen in the back next to the dumpster. Now days, when the food at the supermarket goes bad, they take it back to the manufacturer and do who knows what with it. When I was a kid, if the expiration date had come and gone, it was simply thrown out for the taking.My mom would pull the car up to the dumpster and I would jump up on the hood. It’s funny the things you remember when thinking back to your childhood, but I can still feel how hot the hood of the car would feel when I would climb on to it. It was like putting your hand in a frying pan.When I would get on my feet, I would look in at the treasures that the store had thrown out. Most of the time I would see things like lettuce, cheese and any combination of vegetables. On the rare occasion I can remember finding Red Baron pizzas and feeling like I had just won the lottery. The funny thing is, my uncle was a Red Baron pizza salesman but here we were, digging in the garbage to eat his throw outs.So, needless to say, I have some issues with food and the thoughts that if I don’t eat it all right now, there might not be anymore later.

Again, Day 2…..so far…..so good.

Well today is day one of our new diet that we received from our nutritionist and I must say that I’m not hungry. We didn’t really get a diet but more so ideas of what to eat. Mainly it is a balance of Proteins and Carbs without so much sugar. This morning I had some Blueberry Greek Yogurt…a nutrigrain bar and a medium sized banana, and you know what? I’m full! So far so good.

I am actually offsite from work today and brought a Smart Ones Lasagna that looked like it was edible. So I will have that, an apple and another yogurt for lunch….with some string cheese in between for a snack. You know what? It’s better than grabbing a couple of breakfast sandwiches with a liter of diet pop….then going out for lunch somewhere….. So it’s a start.

I have always been a big person. Even as a child of 12 I remember going to the store with my Mother and wondering why I had to wear the ‘Husky’ jeans and not the regular ones. They didn’t make parachute pants for fat kids back then either.

I can remember one time riding in the car with my Dad when he turned to me and said “You know, you are getting a little bit big and it might be a good idea to go on a diet.” I snapped back at him “You know, you drink beer everyday and it might be a good idea if you st0p being a drunk.” He told me that was not a nice thing to say and we didn’t speak the rest of the ride home.  Oh well.

As a teen I was big but not overly fat. I did go to a dietitian and stuck with it for 3 months and lost 2lbs….and the sad part was that I didn’t cheat once and walked every single day. She was convinced that I was lying as were my parents but this was something that I clearly remember trying very hard at.

I played High School Football and did quite well at it until I found out that girls and beer were more fun and that exercise was too much work. In my early to mid 2o’s I was probably in the best shape of my life. I was 6’5″ and around 235lbs. Not bad. Every year I would gain weight and it didn’t really hit me until I went over 300lbs at around 28. From there, it went downhill rather fast because I didn’t own a scale that went past 300lbs and I thought that I was at or around there until I went to a Dr’s appointment at about 32. I was 361lbs and couldn’t believe it! I promptly went out and bought a book called ‘Protein Power’ and started reading it. It was basically the Atkins diet but without the name. I started the diet on November 2nd and by Thanksgiving I was down 30lbs! I was amazed. I was HOOKED! I kept up with it until about May and dropped 100lbs. I never felt better in my life and quickly began feeling ‘normal’ again. (Trust me… break a chair in public and you will never feel normal again) The one bad thing with low carb diets is that you really become limited on your food and it becomes sickening. You go out to eat and have to eat basically meat and veggies. They say that you have to stick with it for life….well it’s not that easy. After you cheat, you feel bad and figure that I have already ruined the day so I might as well eat as much crappy food as I can. This is a dangerous thought to have because one day leads into one year… trust me. So here I am….today.

Where do I go from here?

Well, I am married to an awesome woman that also wants to get her life back under control so we are both going to (hopefully) have gastric bypass together. I was really against it until I met a few people that actually had it and they said that it has changed their lives. I know that it’s not a ‘fix all’ and that I will still have to do a majority of the work, but this is something that I feel can really help me.

At this point, we are both through all of our dietitian visits, and have our psych evaluations next week.. after that it’s just meeting with the surgeons and getting our insurance approved. I really hope that we get accepted because I really need something to help me with this.

Thanks for stopping by. You might be wondering what Bigtime is and what it means. Well, it just sounds better than Fat Guy so I went with it. I’m a 36 year old Fargoan and I have struggled with my weight since I was a child and have recently made the decision to have gastric bypass. This is going to be my outlet for my past, present and future struggles with weight issues and hopefully something that encourages other people out there that might have struggled with or are struggling with their weight.