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I had VSG Surgery on 22 October 2022 and this is a chronicle of my story so I hope it helps you in whatever stage you are in.
This is my 2 week update and it's not 2 weeks as I film this, it's more like 4 weeks but that's ok right?! This time has gone by so fast. So if you are in the early stage and you are thinking "this is never going to end", particularly when you are on liquids phase, trust me, it goes by in the blink of an eye! So just do the best you can in whatever phase you are in right now! That is your only job right now... to just do your best at that phase and know that it is for a reason.
If we jump too quickly ahead in the eating phases we could do damage, we could split our sutures, we could leak into our stomach region
which NOBODY wants, least of all you. So it's really important to just follow the guidelines. Everybody has different guidelines, everybody's surgeon and team is different so please follow your team's advice and guidance and just keep going and you'll get there.
Before you know it you will be eating normally, you'll be eating with your friends, it really goes so quickly!
So what has happened for me in 2 weeks?
You would have seen on my last video that I spent the first 9 days of that 2 weeks in Perth (Western Australia) so I did a lot of the working ou
t of the liquids and the soups and all of that kind of thing in a hotel. Then we flew home which brought about the first hiccup in this journey!
When we arrived home, we drove past the Good Grocer where I was to pick up the same soups I had been consuming in the hotel (which I knew sat well for me) but they didn't stock them. Probably because in summer here it is 45º celcius (113º F) most days, so soup is probably not a "go-to" up here but I didn't think that through lol.
So we had nothing in the house and I didn't kno
w what I was going to eat! so I ended up going to their bain marie as they always have hot meals for the workers here and are pretty good quality. So I ended up getting a container of Chicken & Cashews and a container of Thai Green Chicken Curry, knowing I had oat milk, macadamia milk and almond milk in the cupboard. So when I got home I whizzed it up in my Vitamix and watered it right down so that you could drink it through a straw (which is what liquid phase is) and that's what I had for dinner!!
I gotta say, if you are looking for an unusual soup, it works beautifully!!! It was really delicious!
It was however extremely filling compared to the more liquid soups I had been having in Perth! I was full on about 60-70 mls instead of 100-150ml that I had been having. But if you are stuck, that's an option. It's all about the consistency, not the actual ingredients. So that was my first "Oh! What am I going to do!"
The following list are things that I have noticed or things that have happened in those first two weeks to share with you.
Cold soup sits better than hot soup for me Going on with the food, the first 2 weeks is nourishing liquids and I found towards the end sat better than hot soup did. Everybody is different and this is really common to have a particular preference for one or the other, but for me, cold soup right out of the fridge (which I stumbled on by accident after letting myself go to long without eating) so I grabbed a little container and just started eating to get something into my very sore tummy and realised I preferred it, and it sat better. You see I don't get hungry now, but if I go to long without food I get an extremely sore tummy. So if you are not stomaching whatever you are doing at the moment, try the opposite. It could be room temperature for you... who knows... but try other temperatures to see what sits best for you. Nothing else really comes to mind about the liquid phase except that once I got home I was able to make my own soups and get more specific about what I made, about what ingredients went in it including a lot more nutrients in it, I just had to learn to make really really really small amounts as I went along which I will do videos on as time goes by. I am learning very quickly how to do things like make a tiny Edamame Pasta where the total amount comes to a quarter cup! Not bad right?!
There is Less than a spoonful between satisfaction and FULL! I learned the hard way that there is literally not even a spoonful between being satisfied and being so full you hurt. Watch the video if you want to see real time footage of the first time I experienced this! Remember we are not talking about puree at this point, as I'm still on liquids! This is a spoon (and honestly only half of the spoon had liquid on it) of SOUP!!! So it's always good to know what you can handle! I highly recommend you start learning what your body is telling you.
I stopped snoring!!!!! So I'm not entirely sure when this happened but around week 2 or 3 there somewhere. We have a spare bed (TMI my husband doesn't like sharing stuff lol - yep we are complete opposites there) but if I snore and he has got to work the next day, he will toddle off to the spare bedroom. And I have done the same, if he is sick and snoring then I will toddle off to the spare bedroom. Anyway, we had been home for 2 weeks, he had started back at work and I suddenly thought "Ohhh... he hasn't been into the spare bedroom". At this point I had been having dairy, milks, the Rokeby Farm Protein Shakes and normally anything dairy would be the cause of me snoring without fail. I had been still snoring without dairy but that would cause me to snore really badly. So I was having kinda everything (at my dieticians advice), and so I said to him one morning "Am I still snoring?" to which he replied "No.... not really" which I took it as "No... not at all" because he's not once gone into the spare room to sleep. I find that in the groups that this is one of the first things that stops which is totally weird to me, because I have weighed less than this before. So obviously something more to do with the hormones than it is to do with the weight. so that was really interesting.
At this point I can walk 2 kms per day! We get out and do our usual morning walks most days. My tummy does hurt because I had major surgery, but it's kind of like I have done a big workout and feels kind of like a dull stitch or something like that as you walk. So I just kind of have to take it easy and not stretch it too far but 2 kms a day was not much of an issue for me.
I started CRUSHING my thyroxine tablets! So I explained it in the Vitamins and Minerals video, but I read some studies before surgery about the effects on the thyroid, and a lot of studies showed that often what can happen is the TSH and other thyroid markers can tank after surgery and it was simply because the medication wasn't being absorbed in the belly enough. So the really easy answer they discovered was too crush the tablet. So I have been crushing the tablet everyday. I actually asked the Endocrinologist when he came to the hospital to see me (I've never seen an Endo in the 30 years that I have had thyroid disease because that's not as common here in Australia. My GP has always ordered any tests I have asked for and was the one that diagnosed me) and I asked him about it and he was very "oh if you want" and really wasn't all that enthused by it. I also asked him about liquid thyroxine as I had heard you could get it he said "oh no I don't know about that" After returning home I went to the chemist and was chatting to the pharmacist and he confirmed that yes they can compound into liquid form you just need to ask your doctor to write it on the script!! It is more expensive and doesn't last as long as the big huge boxes, but it is an option. But I find, because it has Lactose in it (did you know that?) it's actually quite sweet the tablet, so crushing it between 2 spoons and popping it on your tongue with a bit of water is fine. It's not horrible or bitter or anything like that. So I have been doing that everyday just to help that along. But at the 6 week mark I will have blood tests to see where everything is at and tweak as I go along.
I Got an Urge to Clean Stuff Out!!! I just wanted to ditch things, I wanted to throw things away, and get rid of things and sell things and so I sold a bunch of things on Facebook Marketplace. The first thing I did was go into my wardrobe and I literally pulled out all the clothes I just didn't like. Things I didn't like and only had because I could fit into them. so they were the first to go and that was that. So they were the first to go! They were taken to the good will and that was that. So that was my first little clean out which was really great. But that wasn't enough. I had to go into the kitchen then and go through stuff deciding what I wasn't going to use again. So I don't know if it was a whole shedding thing that I needed to shed stuff around me. That's calmed down now but at the time I went crazy... I was minimizing everything!
So that was it! That was my first 2 weeks! And so what did I lose???? I lost 14.3 kg or 33 pounds which to me is insane! Because as somebody with Thyroid Disease and Lipedema, if I don't eat, I don't lose weight.
I have got a track record of 30 years of proving this point! In fact the more I eat, the more likely I am to lose weight. So it just seems incredible in my head that I am suddenly eating next to nothing but the weight is dropping off me. So I will be researching more about that. I will be digging deeper into that, because I have to know why... I'm that person... I've got to know why!!!
I'm happy, I'm wrapped, I'm thrilled, however I've got to know why, and what the implications are for my thyroid, for lipedema and why is it happening! I'm so thankful but why bahahahaha?
So that was me! That was my first two weeks!
And what I have been doing, and encourage you to do too, is keep a track in the notes of my phone of what I'm eating, what time I am eating it, any reactions, what I'm doing any things that come to mind, so it's really good to be able to go back and say "oh look at that, the first two weeks I was taking pain killers, anti inflammatories, I took the odd anti-nausea tablet, reflux tablet, but it was all hit and miss. But if I am talking to the surgeon and he asks for specifics then I have it. So really handy to have for anyone you want to work with moving forward.
So that's it from me, I hope wherever you are in your journey you are doing splendidly!
