Monday, March 21, 2011

Other Adjustments

As I have been feeling so much better I have become very active. My days of living in my recliner on pain pills and other meds and doing as little as possible just to get by seem to be over, praise God! I have a couple of things about my ongoing recovery (in the broadest sense of the word) that I want to mention here.

First, even though I BELIEVE my post-op weight loss has subsided - there was no loss at all for about 2-3 weeks - I'm losing weight eating normally than I ever did before. I have eaten a low carb diet for about 7 years now, and as I've noted, during the early days of recovery I didn't worry too much about whether I ate carbs or not; I was eating so little that it didn't matter. And of course we all know that low carb eating isn't just about weight loss - far from it in fact. That it keeps my blood lipids in good balance and that I'm not harming my body with sugars is the main thing...anyway, I've always been able to lose, or stop losing, by adjusting my macronutrient balance. As long as I kept my fat intake at 75%, or thereabouts, and strictly limited my intake of sugars and starches, I would lose quite well. When I wanted to stop losing, I would continue to limit sugars and starches from my diet but wouldn't concern myself with forcing such high quantities of fats. NOW, however, although I still get most of my calories from fat, even without deliberately eating so much of it, I am losing. It is something very different to how my body responded pre-surgery. So, I've started dropping weight again which is something that I don't like, for many reasons, but that I'd promised my surgeon I would do. So I will have to put up with the rest which is really not as bad as not keeping my word.

Second: I'm sleeping a LOT! I'm just guessing here, but I'm thinking that my body - which will be adjusting to the changes in it for a whole year, according to the surgeon - is wondering what is going on with all of this activity it isn't used to! Between the GERD and some other health issues with which I've suffered the last few years (serious food poisoning with nerve damage causing motility issues and blockages in my digestive tract in 2006, a "cerebrovascular event" with some months of debilitating neuro issues in 2008, arthritis in my spine and elsewhere, just as examples) I have really lived a very sedentary life. Now, however, with most of my health issues either resolved or adapted to, I feel better than I have in probably 5 years. So I am doing more - a LOT more - than I have in that time. It is my guess that these 9, 10, and 11 hour nights of sleep are simply my body saying, "Whoa! Gotta catch up to you here!" That's ok, I can accommodate my body's needs :).

These are just a couple of things that I wanted to mention as my ongoing adjustment continues. I'm still eating well, experiencing no pain as long as I don't overeat which I don't do because I don't want to stress my wrap, still having the occasional food "stick" when I'm not paying attention and swallow too much at once (sticking seems to be related more to how much I swallow than what I'm eating, but that's different for everybody), and still marveling every single night at being able to lay down and sleep flat in my bed!

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