It’s been about 9 weeks since I underwent laparoscopic roux-en-y gastric bypass surgery. The first month following the surgery I experienced rapid weight loss. For well over a month I have been in a holding pattern my weight staying between 240 and 242 pounds. Even though my weight has been holding many people tell me that I am getting thinner all the time. I still wear a 44″ pants even though that is better than the very tight 50″ that rode below my belly less than a year ago. I am really looking forward to being able to purchase trousers with less than a 40″ waist.

Health wise I feel great. While I was looking forward to getting totally off of my blood pressure medication my primary care physician has kept me at a significantly reduced dosage and says she will probably always keep me on a light dosage. My blood pressure has consistently remained in the area of about 108/60. Sometimes the blood pressure seems to drop a bit lower and I find myself dizzy and will sit down for a minute or two.

As far as exercise I am still not getting as much as needed. Exercise and walking is much easier. Yesterday my son, grandson and I took a 3 to 4 mile hike in the hills and this was absolutely no problem. Since I spend hours each day at the computer, it is imperative that I do increase my exercise. To be honest I was much more consistent with exercise when I had a personal trainer and need to work much harder at working out on my own.

As far as food intake I still find that I do not get hungry very often. For the past several weeks I have eaten some meat though most of it seems to be too dry or stringy to go down well. Moist and soft foods go down the best so these are what I will normally stick with. On at least 3 occasions I have had to cough food back up. On two of these occasions it was meat that was too stringy and the third was pasta that I had ate a bit too much of.  Sometimes when eating and not realizing that I am full I will suddenly find myself spitting out (into a napkin) a bite of food. As far as sugar I have only had foods that contained a high amount of it 3 to 4 times and in very small doses. Most vegetables seem to go down well. I enjoy salad and find varieties such as iceberg the easiest to swallow.  While I eat very little bread and prefer whole grain breads I have found that the cheaper breads go down easier. My favorite cereal is “Kellogg’s Special K red berries” and I have had a small bowl of it on a few occasions. I have used milk on the cereal and have not experienced a problem. While a few times I have had a slightly nauseated feeling after eating some foods I have not experienced the dumping syndrome.

I still enjoy going out to eat though I often feel guilty about spending the money for I eat only a few bites and take the rest of it home with me. The other day a waitress jokingly stated that she might as well serve my meal in a “to go container.”

Since my surgery I sip water all day long. I have not drunk a beer or a carbonated beverage though I purchased my past favorite soda Diet Dr Pepper and after a couple of sips dumped it out for I did not like the carbonation. As far as caffeine I have continued with decaffeinated coffee though the only thing that I can say for it is that it is warm. I have even tried grinding my own beans but decaff does not do it for me. When I go out I will often order a cup of regular coffee even though it is a waste of money for I rarely drink more than about 1/2 of a cup. One night while at home I did have about one ounce of a very good Scotch whiskey and found myself very light headed.

As far as nutritional supplements I have continued to use those by Bariatric Advantage and have found them excellent. Many of these supplements are chewable and I have liked the flavor and texture of them.

All in all I am still pleased that I underwent weight loss surgery and would encourage those that have continually tried other forms of dieting without success to look into it. The good news for many people my age is that it is covered under Medicare. It is also covered under Medicaid and many private insurance plans.

Today, more and more people in just this situation are beginning to learn about gastric bypass surgery and, in particular, new techniques such as laparoscopic gastric band surgery.

As the number of people who are not simply overweight but are obese grows gastric bypass surgery is becoming increasingly popular, as it provides a fast and, with the patient’s help, permanent solution to the problem of extreme weight loss. Now, if you’re not familiar with the term gastric bypass then learning more about gastric bypass surgery is easier than ever as more and more people are turning to surgical intervention for extreme weight loss and information is now readily available on every aspect of surgical weight loss.

Gastric bypass surgery is a process by which a surgeon creates a new compact version of your stomach designed to restrict the amount of food that you can eat. At the same time, in some types of gastric bypass surgery, part of the small intestine is also bypassed so that you are restricted in the number of calories that you can absorb from the now limited quantity of food that you are able to eat. Surgery has also advanced considerably in recent years and many forms of weight loss surgery, including the laparoscopic gastric band procedure, are designed to be minimally invasive reducing the risks of surgery and recovery times considerably.

Although there are some risks involved with gastric bypass surgery, there are also many benefits in addition to the obvious benefit of losing weight. For example, many patients find that their quality of sleep is improved considerably and those with diabetes find that the condition is very much improved, if not indeed cured. Yet others find an additional benefit in the reduction of high blood pressure and other heart and circulatory problems.

If you are severely overweight then it is important to educate yourself on both the benefits and risks of gastric bypass surgery so that you can decide whether or not this particular route might provide the answer to your weight loss problem. If you think that it might just be the answer, then discuss it with your doctor and see what he says.