Vanishing Velez

SW: 267
CW (11/3/2024): 265

This post will be covering 2 appointments. The first one was with my therapist. She and I are currently meeting weekly. We talked about how the Yoga just didn’t happen the way we wanted it to. I think that I probably need to do it first thing in the morning, and to do that I need to get up earlier.

We also talked about how the mindfulness was working for me. I definitely noticed that I am holding a lot of tightness in my neck, shoulders, and hips. I also noticed that what I’m actually hungry for are often things like broccoli or carrots rather than the junk that I eat-but I still will grab the junk.

One of the things that she suggested was switching over to a bento-box style lunch. Rather than having a sandwich that is all one flavor, I should have a bunch of smaller things that have different flavors and textures. Not only does this keep the meal interesting, but it allows me to get more variety in my diet.

The goal for next week is to do yoga 3 times during the week rather than daily.

After my appointment, I had approximately a half hour before I needed to leave to go to Waterbury for my first nutrition appointment. I quick stopped at McDonalds and grabbed a burger for lunch-I know, I know, not the best choice, but I needed something really fast that I could eat in the car.

When I got there, I met Kaitlin Ngo, who I initially thought was a Registered Dietitian. It turns out that she is is a general surgery PA. I mean, I’m glad that I am seeing the PA that works directly with Dr. Shetty, but I just was not expecting to see a PA. That’s probably my fault for not reading closely-I’m pretty sure that it says on my paperwork that she is a PA.

I digress…the first thing that happened was they asked me to fill out some paperwork. The paperwork asked me to list what I ate yesterday including amounts. A separate page asked how much I exercise I do, what types of diets/weight loss have I tried before, what my household looked like, who did the grocery shopping, who did the cooking, what my job was, etc. They did was take my blood pressure and oxygen level like they do at every other doctors office. They also weighed me. I had not remembered what my weight was previously, but I was able to look it up on MyChart. I guess I lost 2 pounds, but being 100% honest I was not trying to lose weight at all.

Anyways, when Kaitlin came in, she asked me a bunch of follow up questions, looking for clarification specifically regarding what brands of food I was eating, etc. She also asked if I measured my food using measuring cups or if I weighed my food with a food scale.

Lastly, she gave me a packet of information that she and I will be going over in our future appointments.

A lot of this appointment was a conversation: Her getting to know me, and me getting to know her. She seemed impressed that I had such a thorough understanding of how things work, which kind of surprised me. I mean, people go to get bariatric surgery because they’ve tried everything else first, right?

Anyways, for those who do not have the same information I do, here are some of the things we covered:

I’m not sure if these are two of the labels that she showed me, but the point is the same. She asked me to tell her which one was the better choice. Once the third one got put down, I immediately knew which one was the best choice. I will do a whole separate post on reading nutrition labels.

We talked about making small changes-like going from 1c of granola in the morning to 1/2c. She wants me to think weekly rather than daily, which is a tough thing for me. Basically, think of it this way…if I think daily, 100 calories over is no big deal. However, if I think weekly, 100 calories over every day is 700 additional calories a week. If my goal is to lose a pound a week, I need to be in a 3500 calorie deficit over the course of the week. So this mindset makes sense.

We also talked about things like not drinking fruit juice or sodas. The soda will be difficult, not because I’m a heavy soda drinker, but because I drink sparkling water. The issue is the carbonation. There is no nutritional value to my sparkling water, but the gas in the carbonation can easily stretch a new stomach. And with fruit juice, You have all the sugars of the fruit without the fiber to counteract the sugar. That’s not a huge deal, because I have fruit juice maybe 2x a year.

I asked if there was a goal for weight loss pre surgery, and she said that I couldn’t gain, but they don’t have a set amount to lose. This is where I find it odd that not all surgeons follow the same procedures. Like, some people have to do a 2-3 week liquid diet pre-op, and then 2 weeks post op. Others can leave the hospital and go right to soft foods. Some doctors require a 10-30 lb weight loss pre-surgery to show that they can handle the lifestyle changes. Mine doesn’t. This causes all sorts of issues on the weight loss boards, but that’s a story for another time.

So yeah, look out for my post about nutrition labels. I may post that later today, maybe tomorrow. I will also do a post going over all of the handouts in the near future.