How To Lose 100 Pounds Quickly

Just about all of us would love to be able to lose a few pounds quickly. Here's my personal experience of how to lose 100 pounds quickly in a surprising way.

Yep, I lost 100 pounds quite quickly. I lost 100 pounds overnight as a matter of fact.

I went to the hospital weighing 342 lbs. Actually the highest I noticed when weighing at home was 349 but as I will discuss later my weight was going up and down a lot.

When I woke up after surgery I weighed 242 pounds. Since being at home I’m in the 230’s. I've been in the low to higher 300's since high school so it's very strange still for me to write a number starting with 2.

Pardon the large watermarks on my photos as I don't trust people to not steal them and try to use for weight loss product sales. This is a photo of me wearing the same clothes pre-surgery and post-surgery, where I am pulling the shirt which is now 3 sizes too big back.

No, I didn’t have some new state of the art weight loss surgery. And I certainly don’t recommend this method of weight loss.

I had a giant ovarian cyst that weighed 82.5 pounds removed along with the affected ovary itself, my uterus, fallopian tubes, cervix, and enough for a biopsy from my other ovary.

It’s actually taken quite a bit to get used to my center of gravity being so greatly altered and my overall weight no longer being more evenly distributed.

It’s still hard for me to wrap my head around everything that’s happened the past few months. But I feel like I need to share my store as a way to bring awareness to other women and as a form of therapy of sorts for myself as I recover and start feeling better.

My first ER visit was in mid-August 2018 and I'm first publishing this series in October 2018 as it's taken that long to both mentally and physically be able to really write again.

GoFundMe Details

I do have a GoFundMe campaign set up by my wonderful friend and fellow blogger Ashley of Quirky Inspired that you can find here. Why am I asking for assistance?

I love helping others here on Smart Savvy Living as much as I can with helpful tips, tried and true recipes and everything in between. But right now I have to be honest and say I need some help, too.

For a couple of months before I went to the hospital, my health started going more and more downhill though I didn’t realize how much at the time and I thought it was temporary.

I could spend less and less time on my feet at one time and I could only sit at my computer at my desk for 15 minutes at a time at best before having a lot of back pain.

For someone that makes all of their income based on working at a computer and creating recipes this is rather detrimental. While some of my income is passive, like ads, my ability to keep growing my traffic and do sponsored work to keep my income at its normal rate has been affected.

Being self-employed I also can’t simply go on disability leave either.

I still can’t lift over 15 pounds nor bend over and such with an incision that still has staples from just under my left breast to my navel so doing sponsored work will continue to be out for me for at least another couple of months probably, which is unfortunately the time of year I get the most sponosored work.

I also get tired very easily and am obviously sleeping, or trying to, more than normal. I'm still having a lot of doctors appointments, plus phsycial therapy and/or home health visits almost every day, plus doing additional therapy exercises which all take up time.

Full recovery could take 6 months up to a whole year.

I also didn’t have health insurance the first time I went to the ER and that bill alone is over $8,000, with over $3k being just the CT scan. Luckily, the hospital does decrease bills of those without insurance, but that means I still owe $4,000+ at this time.

I did obtain insurance before the surgery, but that is an additional $200 less a month income, along with at least a $2,000 increase in deductible and $5,000 increase in max out of pocket limit.

There are also additional expenses like having to buy a bed for me to have downstairs because I couldn’t go upstairs. I also need a whole new wardrobe because I’ve lost at least 3 - 4 sizes from what I was wearing before and clothes are literally falling off me.

We also sometimes have to resort to takeout for food because I can’t cook and Mr. Savvy just doesn’t have time or is too exhausted between catching up on work and looking after the house, cats, and things I can’t do for myself.

Plus, just a couple weeks before I initially went to the ER we unexpectedly found one of our cats unresponsive and Mr. Savvy rushed her to the vet but she was just suffering too much so we made the choice to euthanize her, but it was yet another $300+ unexpected expense when things were already tight.

Becky, the cat we had to euthanize due to health issues. She was forever the size of the kitten due to malnutrition at a young age which may have attributed to her, unfortunately, very short life of just 4 years. We miss her terribly.

We luckily don’t have any human kids to stress out about providing for, but we do have a handful of cats we’ve rescued throughout the years that we obviously want to have full bellies and a stable roof over their heads.

All of the moving around of bedrooms, me not being home for almost 2 weeks and Mr. Savvy having spent most of his day at the hospital with me, and then being home and having strangers via physical therapy and home health nurses have been stressful on them.

A cat tax photo of Chester and Oscar. Yes, all of our cats except one are black because we think that not only are they beautiful animals, but it's a shame that they are usually the last to be adopted simply because they're black. We have gray and white Chester as we rescued him from the side of the road.

All of this, unfortunately, is definitely adding up financially and to the stress of my income being lower than normal. So, if you are able to help out at all with my GoFundMe fundraiser whether through donation or sharing we certainly can’t say thank you enough.

Table Of Contents

This is going to be a rather long post and series so I thought I’d include a table of contents if you’d like to check out certain sections, especially as I continue to update as my experience unfolds.

Please note that some photos may be uncomfortable for some to view. I don't show any boobs or privates but will eventually include photos of my CT scan, surgery, incision, and bruising and skin.

1. GoFundMe Details - This whole life event has severely impacted my income being self-employed so I’m asking for help here.
2. What Made Me Finally Go To The ER (Added Oct 1, 2018)
3. The First ER Visit And The Worst Pain I’ve Ever Experienced (Coming Soon)
4. Life Between The First And Second ER Visit (Coming Soon)
5. Back To The ER And Waiting For Surgery (Coming Soon)
6. The Art Of Looking Forward To Surgery And Being Scared (Hopefully Not) To Death (Coming Soon)
7. Wait - It Was How Big?! (Coming Soon)
8. Yay - I Can Finally Eat Again! Nope, Spoke Too Soon (Coming Soon)
9. A Sigh Of Relief Amidst All The Chaos (Coming Soon)
10. The Tube Is Out And Have You Pooped Yet? (Coming Soon)
11. After What Feels Like Forever I Get To Go Home (Coming Soon)
12. Happy Tears And Why Losing So Much Weight So Quickly Isn’t Fun (Coming Soon)
13. Realizing My Post-Surgery Limits (Coming Soon)
14. A Third ER Visit - Something Foreign Is Growing Again - Really?! (Coming Soon)
15. A Month Post-Op (Coming Soon)
16. Happy 33rd Birthday - Hopefully This Year Will Have Fewer Surprises (Coming Soon)
17. Questions I’m Often Asked (Coming Soon)
18. Others’ Experience With Ovarian Cysts And Tumors (Coming Soon) If you have your own story you'd like me to link to or include please send me a note at [email protected] or leave a comment on this post.

What Made Me Finally Go To The ER

As I mentioned earlier, I didn’t have health insurance when I went to the ER the first time. So, when I did decide to go to the doctor or ER I was sick enough to know it wouldn’t be something that would just run its course.

Mr. Savvy had suggested going to urgent care or a clinic. However, I knew there would likely need to be diagnostic tests done so I thought it best to just go to the ER.

Looking back, there were some symptoms I should have probably noticed earlier. At the same time, the symptoms could easily be explained by other rather common causes.

Indigestion And Digestive Issues

The first one was all of the indigestion and digestive issues. Until I started doing more research after being diagnosed, I had no idea that one of the most common symptoms were digestive issues.

For the past few years, I had heartburn/reflux and burping that got progressively worse. About a year ago eating raw onion started making me really sick to the point I’d be vomiting and on the toilet for an hour a few hours after I ate them.

Then it started happening whenever I ate onion that was barely cooked. It progressed to happening whenever I’d eat onion that wasn’t thoroughly cooked and garlic. I thought I had developed a nightshade sensitivity.

Earlier this year I started vomiting more and more. Usually, it was just stomach acid and/or bile. So, I thought my reflux was getting worse or perhaps my gallbladder was irritated.

As a result, I started using Tums more. But it continued getting worse so I graduated to Nexium but didn’t want to stay on it long term so I started using Pepcid or Zantac.

As time went on, it got even worse. Sometimes it correlated with forgetting to take the acid reducers. Right before I went to the ER I was eating very little and often vomiting regardless of if I took the acid reducers or not.

Hopefully this isn’t too much information, but my bowel movements had pretty much been regular and like clockwork since I could remember.

When I wasn’t eating food that made me sick, I noticed I was experiencing constipation more often. I thought this was because I was getting sick so often while I figured out what foods were causing that.

In the past when I had diarrhea it wasn’t unusual to not have a bowel movement for a day or two after. However, some of the stretches were starting to be 3 - 4+ days.

I thought it may be because I was eating a lot less than I was accustomed to. I had also more or less started eating a low carb diet in an attempt to ease my digestive issues and constipation can be a common side effect.

My appetite also gradually decreased over several months until it didn’t exist at all. It was totally strange to me as I have always loved eating food, trying new dishes, restaurants, and recipes.

I identify as a foodie and most of my blogging “career” is based around creating recipes. How could I possibly not feel like eating at all?

This was a growing concern for me as time went on, of course. But, I also knew it was common with a low carb and mainly meat-based diet to not feel nearly as hungry.

Then the “bloat” started. With all my other digestive symptoms I really thought it was simply bloat - just gas.

At first, it even seemed to be there and then go back down. In hindsight, that was apparently because I was losing weight while the mass kept growing. I didn’t think too much of it at first because I thought I was just gaining weight even though I was doing things to lose weight.

When the area below my breasts started sticking out more than the area around my navel I started getting rather worried. When I started seeing my veins in this “bloated” area be really prominent I knew it was time to see a doctor.

With all the other issues I had and looking to Dr. Google I was really worried that I had developed ascites or so much fluid in your abdomen that you have a lot of swelling. Especially since earlier in the year I had what felt like a pinched nerve and had been taking over the counter Aleve almost every day.

I thought that between that and my other symptoms my liver may be having issues, of which ascites is common.

The Weight Seesaw

One of the most frustrating things for me before I went to the hospital was the weight seesaw. As I mentioned before I had started eating lower carb, wasn’t eating much sugar, had completely cut out sodas, etc. My portions had also slowly, yet significantly, decreased.

So, I was super happy when I had lost 20 pounds earlier this year. I was weighing myself pretty much every day to get an idea for normal fluctuations.

I remember one day before I started really noticing the bloat my weight suddenly shot up about 10 pounds overnight. I was so frustrated because I felt like I was doing everything I should to lose weight but that it could be fluid or my period was about to start.

This seesaw continued for the next couple of months leading up to my ER visit. Apparently, I was doing the right things to lose weight but the cyst was growing. A lot over the next 2 months.

Why Do My Legs Feel Like Jell-O?

This ended up being the biggest symptom for me that honestly scared the ever loving crap out of me. I remember the first time I really noticed it.

In late May I received a sponsored opportunity that required me getting a product and photo at Sam’s Club. I also had a few things to pick up grocery-wise while there.

I was used to walking all over the store with no problem. This time, I hadn’t gone very far at all, maybe one-fourth of the store.

On my way to check out, I noticed my legs were really, really tired. Like starting to feel like Jell-O while being super heavy tired.

I thought it was really strange for this to come out of nowhere but thought maybe I was just out of shape. However, this issue continued to get worse.

Over the next couple of months, even though I was trying to be more physically active, the distance I could walk before my legs started feeling like this kept decreasing.

In the past, while my knees hated stairs, I could still carry up gallons of water or a 20-pound bag of cat litter upstairs. At one point, I could barely get myself up them at night without carrying anything.

The gallon of water even became an inside joke for Mr. Savvy and myself to gauge my recovery once back home because he thought it was strange when I asked him to bring up a gallon of water instead of just doing it myself like usual.

I also noticed I was bruising a lot more easily. For example, if I had my leg pressed up against something for a few minutes, like a table, chair, or even just my other leg, it would bruise.

Between this and my leg issues, I was really concerned about circulation and this was the top symptom that made me go to the ER.

Gynecological Symptoms

The strange part about all of this for me is that I really didn’t have any gynecological symptoms that I saw as being super abnormal.

My periods weren’t overly regular, but that had always been the case for me. It was the same for my mom. I always said they were irregularly regular though in recent years they, oddly enough, had gotten a lot more regular.

My periods had at one point been super heavy with large clots. But they had become a lot more normal in recent years, too. This again was something my mother had experienced so I didn’t think much of it.

I did experience painful cramps during periods but it was usually eased with some rest and Aleve. While I do think I have a higher pain tolerance, which I’ll discuss later, I never experienced the pain in that area that I’ve read a lot of women with ovarian cysts have.

I remember during this seeing the article about the woman who could barely make it to her car and was having digestive issues that ended up having a giant ovarian cyst. I thought for a brief moment that could be what was going on with me but since I didn’t have unusual gynecological symptoms I shrugged it off.

The Back Pain

The back pain. Dear God, the back pain. I’ve always had back pain periodically so I didn’t think much of it at first.

I’ve injured my back lifting too heavy of items a couple times in the past where I could barely move for a couple weeks. At one point in life, if I didn’t wear a bra for much longer than the 8 or so hours of sleep at night I would start getting back pain.

Between that and knowing that being overweight put extra stress on my back, I didn’t think much of the pain at first especially since Aleve helped.

In the growing theme, as time went on it got worse. At first, I mostly felt it when I was standing and walking.

Then it got to where I’d even feel it when sitting in certain chairs. For example, it got to the point where I couldn’t even sit at my computer desk for more than 15 minutes without being in immense pain.

I even started feeling more and more intense pain sitting on our super comfortable couch. Right before going to the hospital the only comfortable position for an extended period of time was lying on my side. Aleve no longer eased the pain otherwise.

These were pretty much all the symptoms I noticed and could come up with looking back over the past year. Since they continued getting worse and all of them adding up together I knew something on the more major side had to be wrong and I needed professional medical health.

Up next will be my experience at the first ER visit. Spoiler alert: this one day was the most pain I’ve ever been in, even including post-surgery with a nearly foot-long incision.

Again if you feel generous enough to donate to my GoFundMe or share it you can find it here. Thank you so much!