The following is part two of an account of my gastric bypass. (Part one can be found here.) It covers the diet during the first year and some of the challenges you might face living everyday life after having the surgery. The above picture is me 10 days post op. I weighed roughly 300 pounds at the time it was taken.
Go to your medicine cabinet and find a bottle of cough syrup. Do you see that little cup they give you to measure out the dose? That is the size of your stomach following the procedure. Think about that for a minute. I mean really think about it. Now think about how much food you might consume in a typical meal. Now look at the cough syrup measuring cup again, and the change in your lifestyle after the surgery becomes very real. The first two weeks are probably both the easiest and hardest to survive. You are on a straight liquid diet. The goal is 60-80 grams of protein a day. That’s three protein shakes at regular meal times and you are allowed two snacks. I use the term “snack” loosely as you are pretty much confined to cottage cheese, yogurt, and sugar-free Jell-O or pudding. It’s easy because these orders come straight from the doctor, and you aren’t very hungry due to nausea anyway. Only an idiot would try to eat solid food because you’d probably end up right back in the hospital after bursting your stitches. It’s hard because people around you are eating real food and after about 3 days you would kill someone (anyone!) for a bite of something solid and tasty. I had some friends over about a week after the surgery and I almost murdered one when he brought in a burger, milkshake and cheese fries from a popular local joint. He sat down at the table and started eating it and was saying things like “These are the best cheese fries I ever had.” I had to inform him if he kept it up I would use the shotgun on him because he didn’t seem to think it was a big deal.
It’s also important to stay hydrated after the surgery, but with a stomach that only holds about an ounce you are constantly sipping. You are not allowed to drink from a straw, because when you do this you take in a lot of air which your stomach simply does not have room for. This is why carbonated beverages are also a no-no, even if they are diet. Gasses from these drinks can expand in the stomach. So you are left with water, water, and more water. I tried several different diet drinks during this period but I am extremely sensitive to aspartame and can’t stand the taste of most of them. Today I drink something called Swiss Diet Tea with Lemon and water, but mainly tea. When we run out, it’s declared a “Tea Emergency” around the house and trips are made just to find it. It must be good because it is regularly sold out. Today, my wife and I found some in stock at the third store we tried.
After a couple of weeks, the restriction on solid food eases up and you can finally eat some protein that you can actually chew. This is not as much of a relief as you think it might be, because you can only do so much with ground beef, ground pork, and ground turkey. Your stomach can’t handle fully solid protein yet and trying to eat it will make you sick. You are still supposed to avoid carbs. My doctor had me absolutely terrified of carbs. I remember my wife stopped at Sonic with me in the car and I ate one of her tater tots and I was scared for the next hour of what the carbs might do to me. The reason you are on a high-protein diet is because you will start to lose weight rapidly, and if you aren’t getting enough protein you will burn muscle instead of fat. The reason you are supposed to avoid carbs is because too many can cause the dreaded “dumping” syndrome, something I will discuss in the future.
You also have to start working out during this time. Usually you start with something low impact like walking. It’s amazing to watch the pounds simply melt away. During this period you will lose 5-7 pounds a week. After walking I graduated to deep water aerobics, which were both fun and low impact and since it was hot as hell outside I got to spend time in the pool. The class was all old ladies and they were positively thrilled to have a man in the class, although they got a little frisky and one of them even goosed me in the pool during a workout. I think they enjoyed picking on me a little too much. As a side note, if you have a senior citizen level-grandpa or dad who is lonely, make him go to these classes at your local YMCA! Not only is it a good core workout but he’ll be swimming with girlfriends before too long.
On the days I wasn’t getting molested by the Golden Girls in the pool, I did some recumbent biking. I remember the first few weeks after five minutes on a bike I would be drenched in sweat and I felt like I wanted to die. Pretty soon though I was doing 20 minutes without any trouble and I knew it was time to move on to something else so I did weights. I dropped the water aerobics class and just did regular swimming because it’s a good idea to change your workout every couple of months to keep your body guessing.
During this time it is very important that you get support. Friends, family, a support group, an internet forum, you need it from somewhere. You really need support from someone has gone through what you have been through because things will happen and you need to know they are normal. I was saved by talking to someone whose wife had had the surgery. My conversations with him during the first month probably kept me from going off the deep end as he could relate to what I was going through. Probably the worst and most disheartening thing is what bypass patients call a “stall.” One week you will simply not lose any weight at all. Then it turns into two weeks, then maybe three or four. This is completely normal your body is adjusting to the massive weight loss. These can be tough times because you step on that scale and it just stops moving and you start to look at the same food over and over again and wonder if it is really worth it.
Next week, I’ll talk about possible side effects and complications, and whether or not the surgery is really worth it. Also, surprising things the surgery seemed to have cured.
