happy holiday's..... and update

Happy Holiday's everyone!

Cookies, candies, fudge, chocolate, sugar, sugar, sugar everywhere!! At home, work, grocery store, even the mall!! I am doing good though. I am keeping myself in check. Have I tried some? Yes. I wont lie. Did i go overboard, no. I have found that when i try it, it tends to be enough. I don't get the warm fuzzy feelings after eating sugary things as I used to. Sometimes my stomach hurts for hours after I eat something with sugar.

I have noticed that with all this energy I have obtained over the last 19 months, my life seems to be non-stop. I haven't had much time to keep up with the blog. I apologize. So, my New Year's resolution is to keep up more with this blog. Many people are depending on my progress and I promise to keep up.

I the next couple weeks, i will be randomly posting stories from family, friends, co-workers regarding what they saw me go through with this surgery. For a long time before and after surgery I really only considered myself through the entire process. I quickly realized that this surgery I had didn't only just affect me. Many people around me had to adjust as well.

A few months ago, I was going through old pictures and found one of me right before I had surgery. I was huge. My nephew Ryan was with me at the time. He was looking at the picture and i said "who is that?". he responded, "that's you silly, uncle nick". I smiled and said "are you sure?" He responded seriously "i am sure, i don't like that uncle nick, i like you uncle nick!!" as he pointed at me. May not seem important, but it was at the time. That is when I realized that for all my selfish reasons, I was not the only one affected.

There has been quite a bit of major changes in my life this past year outside of losing the weight and surgery. Some good, some bad. Emotionally it has been stressful. It is no secret that emotions take a major hit after surgery. Some can deal with them, some can't. I have done pretty darn good at keeping my emotions in check. I ran into a fellow gastric bypass acquaintance the other day while I was shopping and we talked about emotions. We both came to the conclusion that it is highly important to keep up with the Psychologist and mentor. I personally see a Psychologist once a month just to talk over things that could be bothering me etc. Why? Really no reason why. I keep in contact with many support group people as well. This is how I keep myself in check. There have been a couple times where things got stressful and I would review what I ate that day and realize that I ate more than I probably should have.

Now to the good. I went clothes shopping a couple weeks ago. More clothes?!?!?!?! What was i thinking right?? Well, when it gets to be 12 degrees outside, one tends to become cold. I needed winter clothes. Long Sleeved, sweaters, sweatshirts, etc. Some people suggested I wear turtlnecks, ummmmmmm no. I do not look good in turtlenecks. I did however find quite a few long sleeved shirts that look great on me.

The cold. This is really the first winter at my lowest weight. Last winter was my first after surgery but I will still around 225 pounds last winter. Now i am down to 168. I am NEVER warm anymore. I can remember times before surgery that I would open windows in the dead of winter because I was so warm. Now, i can't turn the heat up any higher. Not that i want to be that warm again, I am not complaining. It is nice to sleep in bed at night covered with 30 blankets. I can wear sweatshirts without dehydrating from the heat. Sometimes I even sleep with sweatshirts on because I am so cold.

I had blood work done about a month ago to see that everything was going well. Everything turned out good. Cholesterol was down to 130 which is low end but still good. When I went in for surgery I was at 255. I can't remember the exact numbers of everything but everything was in the normal range.

I hope that everyone has a safe and productive Holiday. Spend time with family, friends, etc.. Enjoy a piece of chocolate if you can!! Watch for updates and those stories I mentioned above. Many people wrote very insightful things!! Bye...