Everything changes for me tomorrow. My life will never be the same again. With luck and a hell of a lot of hard work and determination, my all aspects of my life will improve. So you could say tomorrow is the second most important day of my life, ever…the first being when I was born.
For those who have never met me: that’s the majority of you, I have had a chronic weight problem for the majority of my life. Indeed, I was 80kg when I left school at 18. Not bad really but that’s the lightest I have been as an adult and at only 1.65m, even then I had a BMI (yes, I know BMI is a challengeable measurement but it’s one most people understand so I am going to use it) of 29 putting me in the overweight category. Thing is, back in the day, cycling and playing football kept me reasonably fit so I didn’t really think about losing weight that much. However, a broken ankle in at 24 put an end to all that and by the time I met my lovely and thin soon to be wife at 28 (well 10 years later….she had to check first that I was the one before we married!), I had ballooned to 95kg.
Settling down and losing the will to look good…. I had “caught” a wife so why bother……. saw my weight slowly increase to around 110kg. Having Cannock Chase on my doorstep was good as I could get out on a MTB and do a few hours rides per week. That and Weight Watchers managed to bring my weight down to 100kg. However, weight loss never seems to stick and soon I had lost the will and the weight went back on. This happened a number of times until the 2nd Feb 2002 when I had a car accident which damaged my left leg so much that it was too painful to cycle anymore.
Well at least that’s what I told myself until 2009 when finally at 131kg and with a BMI of 48.1, I managed to get back on a bike and do some miles. In fact, 2010 was a good year for cycling for me with over 5 300km achieved. Slowly, my weight went down to 117 kg but then, I hit the wall…not a real wall but a weight loss barrier and slowly, the weight went back on and up to 124kg.
As you can guess, carrying around 71kg than the NHS says your ideal weight should be has taken a toll on my life. I have had massively high blood pressure: 220/120 at one stage which in a family where strokes seem to kill one in three, isn’t perhaps the best thing to have (both my father and younger sister had strokes in their forties), while I had developed type 2 diabetes which is poorly controlled by metformin (my last six month blood test came back with a score of 9.3….it should be below 7). All in all, I am in a bit of a mess health wise. Indeed, two years ago my GP gave me five years to live unless I lost a bucketful of weight.
Not wanting to die in my early 50’s I tried to lose weight: I joined the gym, tried to increase by cycling and swimming sessions and tried to lose diet. Again it worked to a degree but again I couldn’t get below 117kg! Slowly however, the weight goes back on and despite trying again and again, I now find myself at 128kg. Not a good weight to be is perhaps an understatement.
So what is the point of this post and why is my life going to change completely from tomorrow? Well, tomorrow I start the pre-op diet needed before I can have a gastric band fitted.
Now I know I might get some negative comments about this from some people (not saying I will get some from this forum but who knows) but this is certainly not something I have not thought long and hard about. The one thing I am totally clear about is that this IS NOT an easy cheat to weight loss. It certainly is not easy (if you believe it is, try reading the rather excellent booklets produced by Oxford Radcliffe Hospital), it really needs to be worked at (at least half an hours walking/exercise each and every day…currently I cycle two to three times a week) and is not guaranteed to succeed as it is possible to overeat and put on weight with a gastric band fitted. It is also possible to over eat and vomit; to eat the wrong things and not get the nutrients you require; while there are some side effects which can result in the need for emergency intervention and/or in a very small number of cases, death. No, if you think a gastric band is easy then having one fitted IS NOT FOR YOU!
Then there is the cost. My GP said that it would be possible to put me on the waiting list for an NHS operation. However, this could take over two years and there would be no guarantee that funding would be possible at the end of this wait. While there is a debate to be had whether such operations should be undertaken on the NHS, I don’t think I can wait any longer as my health is being damaged every day I am overweight, so I have decided to go private. The cost (£6 299) is also something not to be taken lightly also. Also, going private goes against my principles but then, like buying a house, my wife told me where I could stick my principles. It’s quite nice to hear she wants me to get healthy and to hang around for a few more years….and no, its not just so I can build up a larger pension pot she tells me……
So there you are, tomorrow I start the pre-op diet and on the 8th Oct, I go under the knife. For four weeks after that, I will be living on liquids and very soft foods before going on a 20:20:20 diet….eat a piece of food the size of a 20p piece, chew 20 times and eat for no more than 20 minutes a time. Completely life changing and designed to make you feel full quickly and thus, meaning you don’t eat until you explode. Will I lose weight? Well according to the paperwork, I should lose 50% to 60% of my excess weight in two years. My surgeon however, feels that I should lose considerably more than that and keep it off as the gastric band is in there for life, meaning if you do put on weight, it can be adjusted to restrict the amount you can eat. I am not aiming to need to do this!
Thanks for reading this
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