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Hey guys, just a little something to keep you encouraged. For me, the pre-op phase was the hardest part of my journey. I am currently 9 mos. P.o. from gastric bypass. I love my tool and wish I had went forward 3 years Ago when I first started this journey. I had lots of questions, but I wanted to know what life was like after the procedure. I wanted to hear from people who were experiencing it. So, this is my info..sw 264 lbs. , cw 186 lbs. Medical issues before surgery...hypertension, diabetes, pcos, infertility, lupus, heart murmur. I currently only take a low dose hypertension pill ,but they will evaluate that at my next post-op appointment. Life is good and I have had zero complications, zero visits to the hospital after surgery. Im grateful for that! I started a YT channel ( under my name Bariatric Blondeshell) that addresses the pre op phase and what life is like for us after surgery. I hope if you check it out you will be encouraged afterwards! Keep pressing on everyone, you deserve this!

All, I am reeling! I am about 3 weeks post-gastric bypass and am shocked at how extremely depressed I am. I am physically uncomfortable, constantly nauseated, and struggling to find energy to do anything. This surgery has thrown my entire world into disarray. I feel like I need to clarify: I am a chronically optimistic person so I still don't regret the surgery (though sometimes my mind moves in that direction). I am also not even an itsy bitsy bit suicidal. I have a 4 year old and 2 year old and the thought of dying fills me with absolute dread - that dread of leaving my two children alone is a big part of why I had this surgery. My husband has been extremely supportive but suffers from chronic anxiety and depression- he is dealing with his own roller coaster right now. I need to beat this.. quickly. I don't have time for depression and all that jazz. I need tips, tricks, and any bit of mental or physical suggestions that might help me move past this extremely trying experience.

Hey guys! Thought this would be fun just for us. I'm a personal stylist and its become such a huge inspiration/motivation for me after my sleeve (coming up on 10 years in Sept) that I thought it'd be cool to have an OOTD thread of our own. So gentlemen, shall we?

Surgery was on 7/7, so I just hit the 4 week mark. HW - 341 SW - 263.8 CW 238.4 Today was also the milestone of hitting 100 pounds lost. As far as my condition goes, the past 7-10 days have found me doing worse than I was previously. I've begun to have periodic dizzy spells that most commonly happen when I stand up, but also when I exert myself. As such, my exercise has not really been happening between the ongoing heat in the past week or so and this dizziness. Was worried I would see lower weight loss this week as a result, but am pleasantly surprised that I came up just shy of 5lbs. The other issue is constipation. Right now, I'm having bowel movements every 3-4 days. What's worse is that when I have them, it's causing hemorrhoids that leave me in excruciating pain for the entire day afterwards. My doctor prescribed some Colace, but near as I can tell, it isn't helping. I've also had nothing but terrible sleep the last couple of weeks, though this can partially be blamed on the fact that the two new CPAP masks that my provider will let me use are just terrible. They don't cover the mask that I prefer. It sucks. I'm also STILL on just full liquids because that's what my doctor wants me on for as long as possible in order to maximize weight loss and avoid the slow down. This has been pretty damn awful, but I'm getting through it. Doctor wants me to do it for 8 weeks. I'm telling him at my follow-up with his next Monday that I'm done and ready to move on. He's getting 5 weeks from me. Otherwise, I'm doing well. All but 1 incision is fully healed and that one is getting close. Just looking forward to being able to start transitioning into other food phases and start the slow path back to the new normal.

Stay Safe everyone in the path of Hurricane/Tropical Storm Isaias !

Another blast from the past

For me it was life changing in every sense. The surgery was quite simple, minor pain at the incision areas, but aside from that really no serious pain. Thankfully, I didn't have some of the 'gas pains' that others have. No nausea, vomiting or extreme discomfort. Not really very hungry for the first few weeks either. I'm not sure if it's common practice, but right before my surgery and at my 6-month check up I had a "Myers Cocktail" which is basically a bunch of vitamins given through IV. Really helped with recovery and energy levels during a time where you really can't get much energy from food. YMMV, but for me recovery was super fast. I was eating pureed food by day 2 and solid foods by I think the end of week 2. Don't worry too much about calories in the beginning. Regardless of what you eat, you won't be able to eat much. Refried beans were a lifesaver for me the first few days on pureed foods, and the Ricotta bake that you see mentioned so much here was also a staple. Couple pieces of advice (again, everyone's different but some of what I see on here leads me to believe that the issue is more frequent than some others): Pay attention to your water. Sounds silly, but right after surgery I had no interest in drinking anything. I had to remind myself to drink water. So I started carrying around my water everywhere. That helped. Kept me sipping throughout the day. One of my biggest issues pre-op was that I ate fast, and when I say fast I mean really really fast. I honestly believe that was a huge part of my weight gain as it led to difficulty digesting, overeating, etc. Use the time in the beginning to re-train yourself on eating slowly and chew chew chew chew chew! Even your liquids. Even your pureed food. Even your smoothies. Chew it all. Sounds weird, but helped me monumentally. Don't try to jump into exercise too early, but don't put it off too long either. We all do this to bring about changes beyond food. We all want to be more active, make healthier choices. It's easy to want to jump right in, but I would wait until you get clearance from your doc (ask) to start, because any injury can cause complications with the surgery or set you back in your recovery or both. Also, you don't want to wait too long because it's WAY TOO EASY to fall back into old habits. Ask your doc at every checkup if you're cleared to exercise and when you are, get moving. Have a plan ready to go. Start with walks and move into beginner plans if you have to and then progressively take on more as you can, but start. Don't get discouraged with stalls. They happen. For some they happen sooner than others, but I think most of us experience them. Just stick to your plan. There are some good articles on here about how to work through stalls. Stalls will hit your ego a lot harder than your overall progress, I promise. Keep with your plan, and you'll push through. Use this time to change what you eat. Just because you can't eat as much of something does not mean that it's a good thing to eat. In the very beginning (first 1-2 weeks), you just need to get something in. Once you start back on solid foods, make sure you're choosing healthy foods. That doesn't mean you have to count calories, macros or any of that. Of course you can if that's what helps you, but I would use this time to find what works best for you. Since you can't eat a lot of different foods, chances are when you start back on solids you'll likely be eating only 1-2 different foods at a time. There won't be 3-4 sides, etc. It's a good time to see how different foods make you feel. Some people do great on a high-protein, low-carb diet. That didn't do it for me. I stuck with the physician's plan for the first 30 days (high protein), but I wanted something more balanced and more sustainable (for me) long-term. I made the change to go to a whole-foods based diet, and it's what I still do today, almost 5 years post-op. I stay away from anything processed as much as I possibly can. This doesn't limit me as much as other diets and it worked really for me. Try foods and see how they make you feel. Weed out the ones that leave you feeling bad, bloated, tired, etc. Enjoy what you couldn't enjoy pre-op. When you get out there and start enjoying the things that you may not have been able to do before your surgery, it's automatic motivation to stay on plan. If you have activities or certain things you have had to sit out because of your weight, having the opportunity to do them is like being a kid again and doing these activities for the first time. Remember those experiences. They will get you through any challenges you might face. Remember that times do get challenging, but that's why you're here. There's a lot of support here. I'm sure you have family and friends to help in that arena as well, but there's something about talking with people who've experienced everything you're going through. Don't forget that we're here. Sorry for the long-winded post, but I hope this gives you some encouragement as you start your journey. Best of luck to you and please keep us in the loop with how everything is going!

I've posted quite a few outfits in OOTD thread in the Lounge. I'll post a few blasts from the past.

in that case, I would lay off the "tough love" responses. It takes a lot of finesse to be able to give that without offending people. I have a master's degree in counseling psych, and am 60 years old to boot (i.e., have been around the block a few times), and I STILL struggle with how to respond to some people at times without offending them. It's an art. In addition, a "tough love" response was completely inappropriate in this particular situation

I can relate - I have thought about surgery for YEARS - but always found more reasons to not have surgery than to have surgery - until I turned 50 and somehow I started to look at things differently. I started my process last year and had my surgery on Dec 26, 2018! I still have a looong way to go, but I am so very happy that I did it!! Good luck to you!!