Health

One Year Post-Op

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1 Year ago today, I went to El Camino Hospital to have my Gastric Sleeve surgery.  One year later I have lost 96 pounds since the Surgery, a total of 195 pounds since I started my weight loss journey.  It’s a shame I didn’t quite make it to 200 pounds total loss, but I’m very proud of my weight loss progress and I’m nowhere near done.

Today to celebrate my 1 year anniversary from the surgery I took a day of PTO to have a little stay-cation.  Now the old me would have used an anniversary celebration as a reason for cake, ice cream, or other treats, but this is an anniversary of weight-loss surgery.  Instead, I chose to celebrate my weight loss by having an amped-up day.  I started by making a high-protein low-calorie hot breakfast.   Barbara and I then went down to the gym for an amped-up version of my normal workout.

A couple of weeks ago I ordered a Spanx for men compression T-shirt.  I ordered this not to make me look thinner, but because as I have lost those 195 pounds I now have a lot of loose hanging skin in my abdomen.  This skin makes vigorous cardio very difficult as with every step it flaps and smacks against the rest of my skin.  When I have tried in the last couple of years to jog or run, this has become very painful very quickly and has prevented me from doing anything vigorous.  Today, wearing my Spanx I was able to get up to 6 miles per hour and maintain that for several minutes.  I did the rest of my 30 minutes on the treadmill at a still brisk 3.8 miles per hour.  I then followed up with 25 minutes of strength training doing more sets at higher weights than I’ve done in the past.  I’m very proud of what I was able to do today and I intend on spending the next several months continuing to amp up my workouts.

I have a goal now of getting to the point where I can run a 5K, hopefully within the next year.  My hope is to do one of RunDisney’s 5K runs in 2014, and then start ramping up to bigger and better runs after that.

After going to a movie (where I drank water instead of anything caloric), I came home and made a delicious low-calorie high-protein dream dinner to finish off the day. I’m not hungry and was quite satisfied with my meals today and my physical activity.

Pina Colada

I did do one thing this evening as part of my celebration which is not best for my weight loss.  I had a Piña Colada.  When going through the pre-op preparation I was told that I would have to stay away from Alcohol for a year.  Since that year ended yesterday I let myself have a single 6 ounce Piña Colada to celebrate.

I never was much of a drinker and I’m not going to become one now that I can drink again, but I will allow myself a drink here and there.

I’ll keep you all up to date with how things keep going as I continue my weight loss journey.