TWENTY FOUR POUNDS!

I went to visit my surgeon, Dr. Eric Hahn, yesterday and learned I have lost 24 pounds. I still need to lose 8 more pounds before they will schedule surgery, but I am very hopeful with such great progress so far. I have a psych evaluation scheduled for the first week in December which is a regular part of the workup and I need to go through a battery of tests before surgery. He would like to do a cardio workup to get a baseline of my heart function which includes an EKG and a stress test. Interestingly, he says I need a tetanus shot (do they use rusty surgical instuments?) but that is easy enough to get. I visited a nutritionist who went over my current diet plan and what I will need to do once I have the surgery, eat slowly, no beverages with meals, eat protein first, vegetables second, fruit third and any sort of carb last. She talked about learning to study food labels and how greek yogurt is much more protein heavy than american yogurt and you need to learn about protein heavy foods. The program coordinator talked to me about scheduling and felt because they close down over the Christmas holidays how my surgery will probably be after the first of the year because at the pace I am going I would probably fit right in about Christmas week and that wouldn't be fun for anybody. I did do one thing this morning that I haven't done in a long time-dusted off my treadmill. That appears to be the next big phase of my preparations, get into a serious exercise routine. A friend is coming over this afternoon to help set up a resistance (weight lifting) program for me so I can combine cardio and weight training to help convert more fat to muscle (get skinny faster!) As you can see my Big Adventure continues and I think I will be amazed in the long run how fast it really went!