crosswind

Hi there: Just want to follow up here on my own thread from two years ago and say that I did get my sleeve from Dr. Aceves in March of 2011. I had NO complications, no complaints, no problems whatsoever. I did not reach my goal of 155 but I am holding steady in the high 170s and I have done so for about a year. One thing I had to watch for was supplementing Iron and b12, which got me into trouble at about 18 months. But this had nothing to do with the surgeon or really the sleeve -- I just needed more of it to begin with, anyway. I do not regret my sleeve, or my choice of surgeon, at all so far.

Well, that's true, NannieG. I've had a couple similar things happen to me over the past eighteen months. You *can* make the scale start to climb. I can remember two instances where I thought...hmmmm...I seem to be a little puffy. This had more to do with how I felt than what I weighed. I did check on the scale -- four or five pounds up one day. Could be Water weight, could be...not. So that's just a question of cutting back a little. The thing is, the issues just aren't as extreme as they were. I gain four pounds instead of twenty before I even notice. It's not a huge sacrifice to cut my calories back. . I imagine that's how normal people do it.

I really don't think there is such a thing as a honeymoon. What I do think is that in the first months you've had serious, major surgery and had your stomach cut out and if you're not an alien this is going to cause you to eat quite a bit less than you did before. After your stomach heals, you're going to want more food. You'll be able to eat more food, naturally, since the scars have healed. After that period though -- in my experience -- the weight still comes off even at a much higher caloric load because your body really uses all those calories. When you get to a point that you're eating exactly what you burn -- you stop losing. I'm not sure if I'm there yet. The scale is still going down. Lowest I've seen it is 165; but it bounces up to 171 on occasion and every once in a while if I've eaten late at night a couple nights in a row. I look at it this way. I had the surgery because I wanted a permanent solution. Permanent is permanent -- there is no "honeymoon" small stomach and then it balloons and suddenly turns into my old stomach that could easily digest an entire pizza in one sitting. It just aint gonna happen. I have figured out a way to overeat, though, and that is to eat too many calorie dense minimeals too often. The problem is, though -- basically in order to do that I have to eat *all the time*. Eating over 2000 is so rare simply because all I'm doing in that case is finding stuff to eat and eating it. I just don't see the potential here to get four thousand calories inside me the way I used to be able to -- ever again. This was major surgery. It cost me twenty thousand dollars. It's permanent. I literally can not reasonably do more than that.

. Hi there. I might the wrong person to ask because I did *not* diet and did *not* work out crazily. I mean I do get exercise -- Pilates 4 times a week -- but I don't obsess about either thing. I eat out of the grocery store and do eat CARBS; I hate Water and I'm sure I get in at least 100 ounces of fluids every day but that includes decaf and sobe lifewater and Vitamin water zero. So I was a slow loser on purpose. But let's see -- I think I got under 200 in February; to about 190 in March; I was 183 in April; 176 in May..and now to a NEW LOW of 172!!!!! It's about 117 down so far. My "goal" is 155. I keep thinking I'm going to stop losing at some point but so far that hasn't happened. I'm also in size eights these days. Be patient. It comes off even when you think it's not coming off.

I'e got all kinds of stuff on my bathroom countertop. Stretch marks and the sagging are really diminishing although I know I can't hope for perfection. I'm using Mama Mio Skintight; Goodbye Stretch Marks, Boob Tube and Get Waisted body shaping cream, and they're all working a little bit, over time. I also have this stuff called Excel premium Stretch Mark Creme which got a fantastic rating on amazon. I just started using it a couple days ago though. I'm also down to 176, so a couple more pounds seem to be drifting off. I went to see a plastic surgeon in April. He told me a tummy tuck was the only solution ( of course) and if I lost any more weight the area would get worse. I'm not sure about this anymore. My belly is really looking a lot better and I keep asking myself if I would trade it for a tight belly button and a scar where I got slashed open from hip to hip. I keep thinking I'd really rather not have the scar.

When I went to see the plastic surgeon he told me five pounds would come off that way and I guess it does account for some. My hips and waist are fine, but my arms are still kind of chubby and I have a little backfat. I don't think it's *all* gone, but I am five nine and some change and people keep telling me I look "fine". At 178 I'm five pounds over "normal" according to the charts. I think I have at *least* ten to go -- if that were my "new normal" I'd probably be happy with that. Cheri you went to Dr. Aceves too! According to his website, his patients lose 98 percent of their excess weight in two years, and that keeps rolling around in my head. I'm not ready to give up yet! I'm on the fence here. It's actually not always the best thing to burn through a plateau. I think rushing it too much can result in resistance that just keeps making you fight off those pounds. And the best way to mitigate loose skin is patience. I know I can make that twenty pounds come off. The question is whether I'm doing enough right now to make it happen and I've just hit a slow spot, or if I actually need to diet, drop my calories and add cardio. Right now I do a little walking and swimming and Pilates three to four times a week.

It's been roughly a month since I posted a loss. That sort of isn't true, in fact I lost about five pounds and gained them back again and I'm now steady at about 178. My goal weight, when I got surgery, was 155 -- but I would settle for 158 without a problem. I had my surgery fourteen months ago with Dr. Aceves and I have lost 110 pounds. I have lost roughly eighty percent of my excess weight and this is the first month that I haven't seen any change on the scale. I have done this roughly effortlessly, without dieting -- and I had a month in there where I was drinking ALOT of wine -- still posted a loss of about ten pounds. Now I'm not sure what to do. The last twenty are bound to come off more slowly and my body has undergone QUITE a change so it might just be a little "catching up" my body is trying to do. I know I'm still eating under the calories I should need to stay at this weight but my metabolism could have slowed from the year I was giving it so much less to eat. I *really* want to get under 160. Last year it seemed like it was wasn't even a possibility, so I just left it alone. Now...man... I am *so close*. Right now I'm a size ten and even a tight eight. My waist is 27 inches, my hips are 37. I'm not sure if I should do a little more "leaving it alone" to see what happens or if I should really push off those last twenty. My problem is that I'm worried if I do that I'll gain it back and start yoyoing again, which I cannot stand and really can not do again. What do you guys think? Actual diet, or fortitude and patience?

...buttoned, zipped and sat down in a pair of Size 8 jeans. Yep, pretty tight. Muffin top. 20 pounds to go. But...wow....

One more: Mama Mio Skin Tight and Mama Mio Boob Tube. Seriously -- it's been five days and there is definite improvement. Not perfection but I'm not even concerned about perfection. Just bearableness. Try it!

if you do, let me know how it goes .

I just want to say before I tell you this that I am NOT a rep for this company -- it's me, Crosswind, who's been contemplating a tummy tuck lately because I hate my belly -- but I hated it before when I had my first kid and it just never snapped back. That was the first time I gained and lost 100 pounds and it was just hopeless. Well so now I've been applying myself to this problem rather diligently. I do skin brushing, which probably helps, bit since I'm a woman and I put a fair amount of weight on the entire area between my waist and my knees it all looks like a war zone frankly. But the tummy tuck thing I'm just not sure about. I'd love to have that perfect fantasy body but at the same time there are scars and risks and I keep asking myself if I want to trade marks for scars. Neither option is perfect but in the meantime, while I've been contemplating this, I ran across this stuff on Amazon called Mama Mio Skin Tight, which they sell to postpartum moms who are just confronting the shocking reality of the stretched out belly button. This is stuff works. It's not perfect -- it won't make you look perfect -- but it does make a *difference* immediately. I am not sure what its real results are over time because I just got this stuff yesterday BUT -- if you just want to look a little bit better right now -- under your arms, lower belly, upper thigh -- really, there is a little bit of tightening and smoothing going on that is just enough to make me think that if there was some slow...even minor change that could occur over time it might be enough to decide to skip the extra surgery portion of the body makeover. Seriously, try it -- you'll see what I'm saying. I think I paid 30 dollars on Amazon which is a lot, lot cheaper than surgery. Good luck!

Lol. What I did was, I got a Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy a year ago. Basically not a thing else. I did start a job which got me moving a little more and I got back into Pilates again a few times a week. I swam last summer, love the Water. But I did not diet,. as I keep saying ( alot). And I think I look pretty good, skinwise, because it all went so slow. I'm thinking the little bit of jiggle I've got might snap back if I go slow on the last 24. Maybe not to perfect, but who's perfect? Still considering the tt and the breastlift, but something is telling me to wait.

Start: 289 End 179 Twenty four pounds to go

Actually, you know what, it's not working. I tried to upload and it just hangs

. Okay, cool, thanks...

I kind of want to do a before and a not-quite-after today but I really only want to show you guys and then take them down later so they're not hanging around the forum for the whole world to see. Can I take them off or delete them somehow if I do that? Tech assistance, please?

. Hiya. I'm a female and I'm five nine. I did gain a couple pounds over christmas, but I was basically just laying around and eating Cookies and drinking tons of wine for ten days. When I got back to work and into my regular routine the scale started moving again. It felt like it started moving faster because I was eating lesss sugar; the Water drained out and took a couple more pounds with it. i do count calories though normally, though mostly out of curiosity. I eat seventeen, sometimes eighteen hundred most days. And I found it really easy once I was paying attention to work on portion control, like buying the 100 calorie Snacks and lean cuisine frozen stuff because most of those meals are under three hundred, which is what I can usually get in me in one sitting. I don't see those habits changing. I don't go out to eat very often and when my stomach is full I just don't want anything else. I do have to be careful with Pirate's Booty though. I don't buy it anymore because it is pretty darn easy to eat a whole big bag of that

I got on the scale today and it said: 179.8. I'm making this announcement because I want people to know that so far, my year-long experiment with sleeve eating has not been a failure. If you've ever read my posts before, you know that I am not dieting with the sleeve. I am not lowcarbing. My calories are not at starvation level and they have not been since I got my surgery last April. My actually surgery was March 29, but I mostly count it as April 1 just to round everything out. Okay so the thing is, there is research out there that says that people typically lose sixty percent of their weight in the first year and that's all you get. There is research that says that you will "stretch" your sleeve after six months or so, lose your "honeymoon" with your sleeve, stop losing and get stuck. There are surgeons who say you *have to* be on a lowcarb diet of 800 calories for the rest of your life or you won't lose the weight, and they say that you need to exercise like a demon *while* you're eating that 800 and you have to stay like that forever or you'll get fat again. I want to tell you that in my experience this is not true. What I want to tell you is that I got the sleeve because I was 46 and SO FAT -- I weighed 289 -- and I was at the end of my rope. I had dieted before and gotten the weight off only to regain it and the way I did that is pretty much to follow all the instructions above. Eating 800 lowcarb calories a day will get you to goal weight, there is no doubt,but in my opinion that's just no way to live and it's impossible to sustain. It also creates such intense anxiety about eating and your body and your food that it creates a horrible unending complex about fat, and feeding yourself, that the cure is worse than the disease. I got my surgery in March. I was *severely* depressed and the reason I was depressed primarily was because I WAS SO FAT. I really hated myself. But I decided that the fat was emotional mostly and so what I was going to do was this. I was going to lose weight without dieting by having a surgeon remove eighty five percent of my stomach. And knowing that was taken care of and I had done the most *extreme* thing I could possibly do to solve my weight problem, I was going to let it come off naturally, eat normally and not push myself or punish myself because obsessing over my weight has basically been my career since I was 13 years old. I had this thought once when I was watching Oprah Winfrey. All that woman ever talked about was her weight. All she ever did was look at the scale. Every time she lost fifty pounds it made the freakin national news and when she gained the weight back she made this weird confession and apology to everyone in the world. So obviously she was obsessed but what I really thought was holy crap, really? Imagine what Oprah could have accomplished with her life if she was not spending seventy five percent of her time obsessing over her pants size. Imagine what *I* could do if this was NO LONGER A PROBLEM for me and when I say NO LONGER A PROBLEM I mean I NEVER HAVE TO THINK OR WORRY ABOUT IT AGAIN. So really....I was looking for more than weight loss. I wanted to be healed. Completely. So the weight has come off really slow. In August of last year, I weighed 237. In November, I weighed 222. In January, 209. On April 1, my surgiversary, I weighed about 190. I've gone on vacation, I've drunk numerous glasses of wine, I've eaten cake and Pasta and carbs, I've avoided cardio really for the most part -- but my calories are *naturally* way under what I would need to sustain these weights and so....slowly....it's coming off. And it's still coming off and it has now been *over* a year. I think I'm going to hit goal eventually. This will be without dieting, without worrying about the "honeymoon period", and without forcing myself to do ninety hours of cardio a week. And when I get there there's not going to be some freakout/rebound where I now have to figure out what "maintenance" is and be on the verge of shooting myself in the head because I had a piece of birthday cake or a piece of gum with sugar in it. So this is what I want to say: If you're just starting this project ( I refuse to say journey -- UGH) then realize that patience is required. Plan on a year *or more*. Even if you believe the honeymoon thing you're not going to drop all your weight *inside* your "honeymoon" so think about it...what are you going to do when it's over? Because you're still going to have to lose a lot of weight and you're going to have to sustain whatever you're doing for the rest of your life. It's frustrating that such an extreme solution is not instantaneous, but it is NOT, so prepare yourself. You're going to be working on this for at least a year. A year is a long time and you can't just not be alive for a year while you get thin. I didn't have that year to waste and you don't either. If you're just starting this project, consider what you want your life to be as a thin person. Not a "formerly fat" person. Not a constantly dieting, obsessed person. This is what you'll be free of when it's done, so prepare by starting now and living your life. And finally: Prepare for the idea that you may not lose all your weight in the first year. But remember this post by me and realize that you *will* very likely get exactly where you are going by the end of the second one and forget all that stuff about first years and honeymoons. This is not magic, it's science. It's mechanics. The mechanism that uses energy that is your body will continuously be operating at a deficit *even after* the honeymoon, *even after* the first year, and that means you *will* get there. You *have to*. This requires patience, and then more patience. That's really the *only* think you need going into this. The rest, I really promise you -- will take care of itself.

. Hee Hee gmanbat. Not to mention...shampoo.... ~a

Well, I guess when I was younger I was kind of a snob about this. Or at least very negative about any kind of surgery. Ten years ago I would *never* have gone to get a VSG but then...my mom was alive then and *her* attitude was that if you weren't a one hundred percent natural beauty then you were faking it. She was also very overweight and at some point decided she just didn't care anymore ( even though of course she did very much) and she was just going to be fat because there was nothing wrong with that -- and of course there isn't. Boob jobs, nose jobs, eyelifts, all that -- were for insecure people who had too much money and not enough to do in their lives. But now i think attitudes have changed. Now it's more like hey man, if you really want that what is difference between wanting that and a cool old car you like because they basically cost the same amount. And the kind of confidence that comes from either one might take you just as far. i don't know. I'm still working it out.

Okay.... I know you guys are being supportive and I really appreciate it. You're all saying what I think I think. But...is there really no one out there who'd say look, you're 47. Give the money to the starving children in Africa and get over yourself? I'm curious about peoples' attitudes. No other vote but go for it?

Yeah, see, the other thing is I'm not scared of complications, pain, drains -- any of that. *I went to Mexico and had my stomach cut out.*. I was prepared to throw up endlessly and have my stomach blow apart six times with complications. I was on an airplane drinking apple juice out of *another country* two days after my stomach was removed. I don't care about that. I don't even care about the money. I *have* the money. I mean I suppose I should be investing it in something more practical like gold bullion or long term care insurance or some annuity for my old age but....okay, let's face it, we should all be doing that, right? Accepting ourselves completely and working towards not being a burden to society in our old age and all that. But the thing is one thing people spend A LOT of money on also is the attractiveness of their bodies. I don't think this is an industry that preys on our insecurities anymore, I am starting to think it's a human need, like the need to feel useful and loved. How silly is this really? I'm in a place in my life where I have to start everything over. I know it's vanity but at the same time it also means I'll be able to walk around knowing I look pretty good to other people. When you have to start over -- that really, really helps, is what I'm thinking. And I also keep thinking, well, listen, I'll just take care of this one last thing and *then* I'll concentrate on the loveliness of my soul and so forth. Then, like, I *promise* I will.

I went to get a consultation with a surgeon this week. I was asking him for the Mommy Makeover -- first because of my stretched belly that never snapped back after pregnancy, got worse after gaining a hundred pounds and is now hopeless after gaining and losing a hundred pounds again. I also have a pectus carinatum -- this bone that protrudes from my upper chest. I have hated it my whole life and now this surgeon says that with a lift and implants he could make me look more like a normal woman. I can't begin to describe what these two things have done to my confidence over the years. When I was a girl it seemed like everyone pretended I didn't have the carinatum but I was always self conscious, I knew I was shaped wrong and the other problem was that no matter how skinny I got I always looked a little bigger than most girls ( I am anyway at almost five ten) because of the circumference of my chest. Then my belly, which got ruined with my first pregnancy and made me feel terrifically ugly since then -- which was twenty years ago. I didn't think I could ever afford to fix these things about my body; and then I had this sort of moral idea that you just had to tolerate what was ugly about you because everybody had something and if I gave in to surgery it would mean admitting I was unworthy of love the way God made me. So now I'm 47. I'm at a stable weight. I'll never be fat again, obviously, and I am *now* seriously considering this. But my first question is -- and I really want your opinions about this because I don't know what to think -- Am I too old to do this? Does it even matter now? I mean obviously winning the Miss America pageant is pretty much out. When I talked to my ( fired) therapist, who was seventy, about this, she said, well what's the point? Who's going to see you in a bikini now? And I sort of thought...well...I don't know....I don't know. Then I'll think: would this change your opinion of yourself? Would you feel more confident, sexier, would you feel freer? And i think YES I WOULD. But maybe it's just stupid vanity at this point, and indicative of misplaced insecurity when I should be working on my inner strength instead of still lamenting over my ruined belly. Is this something that a 47 year old should just give up on at this point, forget having a sex life or wanting to be a little beautiful? Also, if you've had a tt and a breast lift -- how are your scars? I'm riddled with stretch marks but I don't have any scars on my body and I wonder if the tradeoff really makes a difference. What say you, sleever board? Too old for all this? Or is there still enough time left for this to be worth it?

I have a pretty saggy belly button -- but then I've always had one since my pregnancy twenty years ago. I knew I didn't need a tummy tuck because it really is not that bad -- but I wondered if there was any other kind of surgery that would work. Ended up reading about panniculectomies this morning. This is an easier surgery because there is no muscle repair and might be covered by insurance. Like I said, mine is not that bad but I might be able to convince some kind surgeon that it's a health risk of some kind. Also, though -- when I was reading about this it said that you can't do it until you've achieved a stable weight for a full year. Part of the reason for this is that that's about as long as you'd have to wait to see whether most of the problem has resolved itself on its own. I've read a number of posts from people who had their surgeries or lost a lot of weight ten or fifteen years ago -- and most of them say that if you wait long enough and just stay in shape and don't regain; you'll snap back. Slowly, but you will.

Hi I made it! Congratulations, you made it! I was going to post pics at one year, but then I decided to wait because I'm still losing -- which I did not expect. In fact -- I was thinking about starting another post this morning because while I've been fretting and fuming about my slowwwww weight loss and forcing myself not to go crazy and diet -- the fact is my loss is really not that slow. I worked it out yesterday: In November 2011 I weighed 222 January 2012 -- 209 February -- 200.5 March - 190 Mid-April, this month -- 183. Not slow at all -- some months actually faster than average. Now I'm thinking that if I still lost seven pounds last month -- my one year mark -- I might be headed lower. In fact I think I probably am. So I *will* post pics -- maybe when I'm actually at my published goal!