Gastric Bypass Truth

Yaay! For the first time in about a month, my scale moved today!

I’ve been stuck at 180 since right after the gallbladder surgery, but today my scale read a sweet 178. I’m now firmly within the range of what I weighed in high school, which is way cool.

(Back then I ranged from 165 – 185 and thought I was massively overweight. Of course, immediately after graduation my PCOS kicked in and I soon discovered what massively overweight really was. For years I’ve looked longingly at photos of myself from those days, wishing I’d known then what I know now.)

So how did I bust this plateau?

I followed my own advice (not that said advice is original to me, of course.) I upped my protein. I cut out cheese-its. I drank more Propel’s and I exercised more.

In other words, I worked at it. Pretty much putting to rest (again) the myth that gastric bypass surgery makes weight loss “easy” or “automatic.” Sure, you’ll lose weight in the beginning no matter what you do. But that only lasts a few months – days or weeks for some people.

For most of us, losing weight still means sweat and sacrifice. The difference now is that the sweat and sacrifice get results, where before it just got frustrating.

It’s kind of like trying to build a house. Before gastric bypass surgery, I was building that house with no hammer. My Pouchie is like my hammer. Actually, it’s like a really cool hammer gun. With that gun you can actually get the boards to stick together and form a structure. Without the gun the boards didn’t really want to stick together at all.

But you still have to get in there and cut boards and drive nails in them. The house doesn’t just spring up from the ground of it’s own accord.

It’s work, but my house is looking better every day!