I was pushing 400 LBS, but enough was enough.
Joe
Medford, OR
-165lbs
Seeing others progress.
In December 2013, I had decided enough was enough. I didn’t know it at the time, but looking back now, I feel as though I had hit rock bottom. And let me tell you – once you’re there, you will start coming to the realization that something needs to be done. It started a few years back when my mom and sister were looking into the gastric sleeve surgery and, before long, they found the right doctor, saved up some money, and purchased their plane tickets.
A few months later, after seeing the results that they were getting, I knew I was going to be next on the list, and since then, I’ve not looked back. On January 1st, 2014, weighing in at 370 lbs (the most I’ve ever weighed), I started talking with doctors to see what I needed to do to make this thing happen. Luckily, I already sort of knew what to expect – thanks to my mom and sister for giving me the heads up – and basically I was told the same thing they were.
In order for me to qualify for the surgery, I was required to lose a certain percentage of body weight (where in my case it was a minimum of 30 lbs) in the next 60 days. Given that I had not worked out or even lifted a weight heavier than a box of doughnuts in the past 5 years freaked me out a little bit. But having that motivation in the back of my head, and knowing that I could get the surgery if I met this goal, drove me to start dieting and working out as much as possible.
I was definitely no ROCKY BALBOA since I barely made the cut at 329 lbs just 3 days before surgery, but I still felt like a champ and proceeded onward from there. Quickly realizing that I should never go for a job in accounting (for I’d be fired day 1), I present you my weigh-in records. You will see there are some gaps between some of the times due to laziness or just forgetting that I was keeping track. You can see, at first, I was dropping fast but for someone who now got full off of only a few teaspoons of liquid, I can’t imagine getting any heavier.
1/1/2014 – 369
1/8/2014 – 364
1/10/2014 – 360
1/11/2014 – 356
1/13/2014 – 356 (I remember I was pissed that I sucked at losing weight since last time I checked)
1/14/2014 – 355
1/16/2014 – 349
1/18/2014 – 347
1/22/2014 – 345
1/27/2014 – 343
2/2/2014 – 340
2/6/2014 – 339
2/16/2014 – 333 (Thought it would be a breeze from this point – 3 lbs. Psssh, no problem!)
3/7/2014 – 329 (Holy crap. Barely made it)
3/10/2014 ———- Surgery day————–
3/16/2014 – 319
3/17/2014 – 317
3/24/2014 – 308
3/28/2014 – 305
3/29/2014 – 302
3/31/2014 – 300
4/6/2014 – 297
4/12/2014 – 292
4/18/2014 – 288
4/19/2014 – 287
5/13/2014 – 272 (Couldn’t workout or eat solid foods until around this point)
5/28/2014 – 266
6/1/2014 – 261
6/27/2014 – 256
7/17/2014 – 250 (Scale ran out of batteries at this point and it was a while before I got some more.)
11/4/2014 – 240 (Huge plateau for months – I was still losing in size, but not much weight)
12/21/2014 – 220 (Got back to eating better and doing some workouts. It’s paying off today.)
If you talk to anyone that has had this surgery, they will tell you that you will go through many plateaus where you will not see any weight loss, and I’m no expert, but I think that is due to rebuilding muscle and being able to eat whatever you want again, so it will slow down on the scale but keep going in the pants size and the way you look.
Today, after replacing the batteries, I stepped on the same scale weighing in at 205 lbs and decided I should share some pictures for anyone out there contemplating on having a similar surgery, or just like to see progress pics for motivation.
[BEFORES]
(Taken some time between December 2013 and March 7th) The middle row of pictures was me at the hotel near the hospital the surgery took place. These were after losing 30 lbs. And the bottom was my first day at the new job, look how happy I was! The majority of these ones were taken this month – 12/19/2014.
[AFTERS]
Thus far I’m very happy with the results. I’m not really ready to show the shirtless ones just yet because if I don’t like looking at them, you probably won’t either. Just sayin’!
[FACE COMPARISON]
If you have any questions about the surgery, or for me personally, feel free to ask and I’ll do my best to answer. Thanks for reading, you beautiful people! TLDR: Had Gastric Sleeve Surgery. The numbers you see are the dates of my weigh-ins as best as I could record them. Progress pictures at the bottom. Any questions please ask! Thanks!
