Discouraged...

i do seem to have to pee alot during the night. prior to losing weight, i would often have to get up and pee every hour. now it's more like every 4 hours. which i've always found odd cause i never had to pee every hour during the day! do our bodies process fluid at night or what? i'm also sleeping with 5 cats and 2 dogs on the bed...so that could contribute to my overall restlessness!

Wow, yeah that many pets on the bed definitely would contribute to restlessness! :)  We throw our cats out of the room at night, but every now and again they try scratching on the door and crying to get in.  I refuse because they just wake me up a lot, they all want to sleep ON TOP OF ME! When you were heavy you probably had to go that often at night because when you lay down it puts less pressure on your kidneys and they work more efficiently (that's why people with preeclampsia are supposed to lay down for a certain amount of time every few hours).  Before, during the day with your weight, your kidneys might have been struggling.  Also, your blood pressure goes down when you sleep (unless you have apnea) - and lower blood pressure allows kidneys to work more efficiently.  And finally, if you have swollen feet and legs then at night all that fluid finally gets cycled back up where it should be and filtered out of your kidneys, so yes, you do process fluids BETTER at night, especially when you are heavy, but now that you've lost weight it sounds like everything is normal.  I go once or twice a night, unless I drank a bunch of water right before bed and then it'll be a few more times.  When my blood pressure was high and uncontrolled, I easily went every hour and I'd have to run to the bathroom because it was so urgent.  Add on apnea and I don't think I had good sleep in the last 10 years.  But I definitely sleep good now and I LOVE IT!

wow, thanks for explaining that to me. i never had understood what was going on!

i'm glad you're sleeping well now!

thanks again.

I too take a water bottle to bed with me at night.  If I wake up, and I usually do at least once, I'll take a swig or two.  I don't have to get up to go pee and I come nowhere near finishing the bottle...but every drop counts!!! Jana

Hi Jana, About your water class -- deep water aerobics done with pointed toes will be really hard on your knees. Not as hard as something on land, but the kicks and other movements to exercise the large muscles in your legs in deep water bring lots of resistance on the knee. Go for a transitional depth - where the water is at color bone depth. Exercising in water at this depth provides for the least impact on your joints. The movements provide resistance, but the movements are slower and the impacts are not jarring. I'm in a water fitness instructor training class through the YMCA and we were just talking about this issue yesterday. Whatever you do in deep water, make sure that your toes are flexed forward - cutting through the water, instead of pointing down to the bottom of the pool. The amount of resistance is dramatic between the two! You will hit all types of plateaus along the way, and I'm guessing this is where you are now. I would not stress about it - they give your body time to adjust to the changes. We've all been there, and they are discouraging. It is just part of the journey, and one that often doesn't get talked about when we are learning about the surgery. If we didn't have this support system, we likely wouldn't have anyone to tell us about that side of things. You will lose again - please don't stress. Just keep eating according to your surgeons plan, and moving as best you can. You can chair exercise when your knees just won't allow you to comfortably move. I can remember thinking I was a failure because my loss didn't measure up to someone elses. I had one of the other surgeons in my doctors office tell me that I wasn't doing good at my 3 month check up -- he was CRAZY! I would increase your water if you are not peeing other than once or twice per day. The best way to release water is to drink more. You will hold water if your body thinks it is dehydrated. You are doing great - a loss of 52lbs in 2 months is WONDERFUL. You will continue to lose, you body just needs time to adjust. Also, take your measurements - I'm amazed that even now when I'm really not losing pounds, my size is till going down. I'm building muscle, and on my body composition scale, I've been down as low as 22% body fat, and that makes a difference in size, but not necessarily in pounds on the scale. I'm over 190 lbs, but tend to look more like 160. Don't focus just on the weight, but how much muscle and fat do you really have. I hope this helps you to be more encouraged, {{{Jana}}}