crosswind

. I did the same thing. I was sad for my stomach, the one that had been tirelessly digesting everything given it since the day I drew breath. Physically I am strong as a horse and always had an "Iron stomach". I've always had a metaphor floating around in my secret ethers; something about strength and the belly, fire in the belly, a solid constitution...etc. I wondered if my health would ultimately become more fragile because the mechanism for delivering nutrients to my brain and body would be circumsized.I grieved for my stomach, apologized, felt guilty as if I was betraying my body and my ancestors who all saw a strong, sated appetite as the key to survival. To them the stomach was an organ of love. I've also thought about starving African nations, how odd it is that I am paying to have my stomach cut out because I can't keep the flood of endless, everywhere calories out of me. It is sad, Meggie. I didn't quite get over it until I started reading about people -- cancer victims -- who are living without stomachs at all. Did you know that when a person has his entire stomach removed the esophageal and intestinal tract conspire to make *another* one? Usually a pouch that serves as a stomach will form in two years. Our bodies are brilliant at survival. Flip it over and look at how hard the rest of our bodies have been working to accomodate the faulty, overprocessed, high calorie diets we give them. The liver flushes toxins tirelessly, the pancreas works to adjust to all that sugar, the endocrine system constantly tries to balance itself against the onslaught of bad diet, bad sleep, bad emotions; fear and pain. So while you are excising your stomach you are giving the rest of your body a hell of a break. And in some period of time, your stomach will adjust to its new reality and keep working as hard as it always has to do its job too well.

You're totally going to be a size ten and buff by your wedding. You've got almost a year.

. hey kid. You're not alone. There are well, a lot of people who are in your position; others who never even bothered with insurance ( such as myself) and gazillions of people who went down to Mexico. I'm in my sixth week and still not dead, lost 40 pounds already. No complications so far. This is the argument I've made about the money: I was going to spend it anyway. I was going to spend it on pills, potions, exercise tapes, exercise programs, retreats, treatments, special food of all kinds ( and I've spent thousands on that already -- lowcarb gourmet that delivers to your house, medifast, nutrisystem -- even being on Atkins finds you buying special stuff like ketostix and Protein bars and so forth). And that's not even getting into the cost of being fat -- diabetes medication, heart medicine, cpap machines, doctors visits, operations, blood sugar monitors. If I am going to spend money I would rather spend it on being thin instead of on being fat. I had a chance to spend 20K in the states for a self-pay surgery and opted for Dr Aceves because in my opinion he's better or at least as good as any surgeon you could find in the states. You can dig a thousand layers deep on the internet and find almost no complaints whatsoever. I don't think Dr A does a lot of advertising -- I think he relies on people like me who can't get over how easy the whole thing was. Anyway, I don't know your financial situation but my position is that in getting it you'll actually save money in the long run. As for complications -- they happen. And given the consequences of being overweight, the misery of fixing a complication seems about equal to the misery of recovering from a stroke but not quite, in my opinion, equal to losing your toes or your eyesight to diabetes.

Oh I know exactly how you feel. I've lost 40 pounds since surgery and I'm at the top of the sixth week. All I can see is that I'm still fat and I am trying so hard not to obsess. People have commented already, but what I think is shoot, I still weigh 250 pounds, it's nowhere near enough. I keep pushing myself forward in my head -- how much will I weigh a month from now -- how about two months from now -- when will I be at goal? How long is this going to take? When you get to some outrageous amount of overweight, making sacrifices and changing your lifestyle seems like not enough reward for too much work. All that focus, concentration, obsession, hunger, isolation from others since they don't have the problem you do and on and on -- for what? Two pounds a week? One pound a week? Given that if you have a hundred pounds to lose it would take you more than two years to do that ( and that's if your hormones or thyroid or workschedule doesn't detonate the whole endeavor) at that point staying fat is an intelligent decision. And if you've done it before, there's no illusions about it, it's just going to suck in the most mind-numbing fashion. I'm used to thinking I'm overweight and starting to focus on driving down that needle no matter *what*. Ruminate about it, imagine a future and then inside the future how much do I weigh there? 165 is okay, 190 is not okay. 250 is no good. It's 40 pounds less but it's still fat. Sick in the head. I really am. I try not to do this but I feel like my real life is on hold. You know, the life in my future that exists in my head. I tell myself, listen, it takes people six months to lose 40 pounds, or forever. This time would have passed anyway without the surgery but without it you'd still weigh 289 and be too depressed to leave the house. Buck up, idiot.

I've often read people who were concerned that their loss was not quite as much as they expected and they're worried because they're nine months out: they want to take advantage of the "honeymoon period." I'm just not sure about this honeymoon period thing. It seems to me that if you're eating under a thousand calories a day, eventually, somehow, the stuff is going to come off whether it takes you six months or eighteen. Is this a guaranteed experience, did you have it yourself, are you bummed at your sleeve after a year because you got to 170 but not 160? Also; WHY is it so hard for weight to come off once you start gaining it after the sleeve? It would seem to be easier: at least easier than it was before the sleeve. Thoughts?

Hi Starry -- I'm about a week ahead of you. I think you're expecting a little too much of your munchkin stomach right now. My first week was trial and error. Some stuff went down, some stuff didn't and there were a couple days that I felt like I was going too fast and went back to shakes and mushies, sometimes for a whole day, sometimes just for a few meals and then I'd try something that was actually food at night. It's still like that for me. Bread is a total bomb, can't do it but I can do a tortilla. I was terrified of trying to eat meat -- I got some turkey down and then yesterday some very fluffy chicken salad. Today it was Medifast oatmeal, a Protein bar, and now I'm working on some lean cuisine asiago tortellini and doing sort of a crappy job at it. I think I got three of them in me which Is fine actually since a whole serving has 40 carbs. You're still recovering. I think everybody overestimates what they can get in their stomachs after a month's fast. Go slow, experiment, keep trying. Never fail foods for me so far are cottage cheese, oatmeal, Smart Ones egg and veggie Breakfast quesadillas, Protein Bars ( slowly), deviled eggs and yogurt ( but I'm sick to death of it). Right now I'm eating around 5-600 calories a day. I guess I could eat more but I'm finding that I run out of hours in the day to eat.

Yep. I'm starting to get a clue that I'm the same way. Mini bagels on sale at the store today. So *small*, I could use one for a napkin ring. Sixty calories. *Half* is 30, which is what I ate, jurassically, and got my ass kicked again. I don't think I can eat it. Not choosing to eat bread is pretty pure and righteous, not being able to is another thing. I'm not sure if that's a blessing or a curse.

I once lost all the weight I am attempting to lose now on a lowcarb diet. I was a lowcarb size eight but over the years it seemed I was getting more and more anxious -- anxiety problems, mood stuff, that seemed to be fixed by carbs. I'd put the weight back on and go into an UTTER PANIC. I've been on the verge of quitting jobs so I could stay home and starve and do crunches. For a few years I could go back on lc and lose whatever...five, ten, twenty pounds. But then I married a vegetarian who liked to eat in restaurants and was constantly going on and on about how my diet was so unhealthy. This caused me to go quite batty and start hoarding food and going to the drugstore to buy licorice and swedish fish and suddenly nothing worked -- not lowcarb, not vegan, not raw food...nothing. I could drop twenty pounds on anything I tried but I just was not getting down there where I wanted to be. Plus I was obsessed. By the time our marriage ended I had decided to Just Be Fat. Other people are fat, I can be fat, it's not a freakin CRIME you know. Ahem. Anyway,. Point is, I think lowcarb works -- I know it does, but I think it's unhealthy for me personally to get too into FOOD given my psychopathic backgound with all of it. However I have to say that in my first week experimentation with solids, certain breads seem to go down and certain of them DO NOT. I ate three weight watchers mini pizzas ( not a whole serving) last night. They're mostly bread, kind of a soft doughy kind. These things started punching the hell out of my esophagus all the way down, then came back up to complain a second time before kicking my ass again. It was miserable and suddenly the whole concept of doughy minipzzas seemed...unappetizing. Maybe for the rest of my life. I don't have a problem with bread. I will so totally eat it. But I'm kind of finding that as the days pass I'm getting less interested in that and more interested in cottage cheese and mozzarella, and thinly sliced turkey. I have not seen a surgeon yet recommend a low carb diet but it seems like you might end up on one regardless.

. I was wondering what the next chapter in the Adventures of Meggie would hold. Only three days away from the primo drugs. I'm excited for you and a little jealous because I miss all the valium you get fed. It's like somebody turned on the benzo spigot and now, alas, the well is dry. Sure was fun while it lasted though. Good to know you're still on the fast bus, congrats

Cool. thanks Gem.

. Ohhh...I knew someone was going to come along and get all Sensible. I like the bag and the shoes and the coat and the tops could work. But the jeans are clearly only going to last five minutes. Hate to waste all that postage for nothing but you're right. Either I'm melting like a snowball in hell or Lands End sizes run *very* large.

You know how when you get to your top weight you walk around in like, potato sacks and stuff that used to belong to your dad in 1976 and just whatever you can find at the bottom of the closet to cover you and then you detach? I wasn't going to buy clothes this early but I'm going to the east coast to see my son in a couple weeks. I looked in the mirror a couple days ago and thought -- okay. You just can't go out there looking like that. I spent some time online looking at ebay lots and finally went to Land's End to splurge on three tunics, new dark wash jeans, a cute new pair of shoes, a white spring jacket and a travel bag that was on sale. Four hundred bucks. Wince. But I imagined myself on the train down the coast looking like a homeless person in black stretch pants and an ancient hoodie that gets rattier and baggier by the day and I just had to do something. But I wasn't sure what size to get since a lot of what I have lying around is size *20* and I could not bring myself to buy anything more cavernous. I was starting to look sort of stuffed into them and...you know..who was I kidding. I was a 22-24, I'm sure of it. Anyway I ordered size eighteen. I still had two weeks, I thought, I might get thinner, I don't think this stuff is going to fit...maybe I'll shrink into it... Guess what. Enormous. The jeans are baggy and gapping at the butt but wearable. These tunics I bouight that I thought would fit are massive, *stretch* material and are going to be dropcloths in practically seconds it seems like. Gotta fire up that ebay account. I think I'm about to start a small career as a clothes trader. And you know something? Even the shoes are loose.

.You know, when you get your surgery you could be an example to your friend. Talk about your tight diet and share how much thought you're putting into your health and nutrition. I feel compassion for her. If she was a bad candidate for the surgery and can't be compliant she is probably really suffering. Don't be mad at her --if that's her experience with wls of course she would warn you off it. I've seen a couple very unhappy GB and RNY patients on Youtube. Also people are pretty bummed with their lapbands. But I feel grateful to them for telling what they know because if they didn't I would never have found out about VSG.

. Well then. So much for Mederma...

You know I tried that bio oil stuff once and had no luck. I'm glad it's working for you. It sucks to spend the rent on a little tube of cream and have it do nothing; which is why I asked here before shelling out. My scars aren't really bad. I could live with them if I had to. Thank you laparoscopy.

Yum. Maybe I'll try that. I'm not much of a cook, though. I'm more of a nuke.

My incision scars aren't very big but they're kind of raised and red. My first question is how long do I have to wait before I start working on them ( in other words, is there an internal stitch there I should not mess with yet) and my second question is is it worth it to spend the money on this stuff?

35 days ago I could eat like a horse. I remember not two months ago being able to put away a whole pizza if I was hungry, a huge sub sandwich. Anything you gave me I could finish and the fact that there wasn't anything left to eat was my signal to stop eating. Hahahahahahahaha. It is such an odd new world. I am now an abstemious eater. This morning I poured a normalish looking bowl of Cereal for myself and ate a whopping three mouthfuls before I was done. I left the house, went swimming(yay), went to get my oil checked and then got a car wash because my car looked like it had just returned from Islamabad, Then I had this weird bill that I had to straighten out. It was 3 PM. I had not eaten anything but three swallows of Special K Protein cereal six hours before. I was starving, driving around, thinking I had to get to food at some point and then I realized I could stop *anywhere* to get *anything* to eat. So after my scheduled argument with customer service I went across the street to Jimmy John's and ordered a turkey sub. Now I knew there was no way I could eat even half of it but it seemed like a brilliant option to my hungry, clueless doggy brain. Okay. When I got home I ate the following: Two pinches of turkey and provolone and a tear of bread. The whole damn sandwich was sitting there and I did not want anymore. I ate a small tomato. Done. 4.25 I paid for that thing and it would feed me for a week. I put the rest of it in the fridge with all the the other stuff I've tried to eat this week and could not finish. Imagine making a Lean Cuisine and having it sit through three mealtimes until it was spent. Can you believe that? I can't. I was standing there perusing the rapid acquisitions my fridge was making and then I realized something. I forgot to weigh myself. I've not been weighing myself at home, will not check my weight if it seems like part of a compulsion, and refuse to obsess. But I do jump on when I'm at the club. Before surgery that scale gave me the highest weight so I decided to go with it. I figured it was telling the truth. But I forgot! The health club I go to is full of normal Midwestern people. A lot of them have nordic backgrounds and I think this is why they have this odd custom of running around naked, even the old women. It is a trip. I have always been kind of a modest person and when you're fat, you know, the last thing you're going to do is go bouncing around a locker room without your drawers on. But these women just wander around with nothing on, in all their Midwestern not-so-perfect glory. I know it sounds strange but as I was averting my eyes from a 55 year old female who was not my relative I started to giggle to myself. I have been feeling utterly hideous for at least two years but I look just like everybody else there, pretty much. Suddenly my perspective shifted. I was not the ugliest, fattest human being on the planet. Not that I was looking for other candidates in that locker room but it was a quick hit of reality: I'm just a normal, overweight middle aged person, like these people here. Still can't bring myself to run around in the altogether like these women though. I'm always in my suit or something and demurely step behind a shower curtain for the full monty. One thing I can tell you though is that when you start to feel like you have more control over something as unconscious as your relationship with food, you just have no idea what other little neuroses are going to resolve along with it. So NSV I guess: I forgot to weigh myself and forgot to hate what I look like today. Go Team.

GNC Lean shake Luna bar 2 weight watchers pizza minis 3 ricotta ravioli One small cube Piedro cheese ( young parmesan) 2 rosemary parmesan crackers It was about seven hundred calories and it all went down fine. I've been eating more like 500 for the past couple days so I guess going up a little one day isn't that bad.In fact I woke up this morning with a headache, thinking I probably needed to eat a little more. But I feel like I ate the sandbox. Once i had finished eating all that throughout the day, the next thing I wanted to do was find a scale and weigh myself and obsess over whether the seven rather than the five was making me gain weight. Fat makes ya plain old nutty, I tell you.

It's most likely gas. Try a gasx strip.

Good to know, fyi.

I'm the same way! All I've been able to think about since I got sleeved is all the stuff I want to do now that I either believed I was too fat to do or actually *was* too fat to do. Ride a horse, ride a bike, go on a cruise, do more travelling, go to High School reunions, start doing Pilates again -- alll alllowed after two three or six months. I blew off the surgery emotionally entirely. But now that it's past me, recovery and weight loss both seem like they're going to take FOREVER. Hey remember something for me. When you switch up eating stages, curb that enthusiasm. Seems like every time I moved up a stage I started having problems, but they were my own fault. More Impatience!

My goodness, thank you Although I have to say for me it every once in a while it would be nice to have a day without Crosswind...

I thought the same thing. I'm really so focused on liquid and calories and nutrition, plus I have an ear infection and I'm on my second round of antibiotics ( yes, careful reader, I am careful in the pool and use earplugs for an airtight head cabin) , plus I am really still unbelievably f**king bummed at my ex-husband so I decided not to pay much attention to the scale. Bottom line: Something's got to be rearranging itself in there. It's good to be lighter but I'm sure I'll slow down eventually. We all do. But after this month I do suddenly have hope that I will see 170 again in this lifetime. So there's that!

Yo it's Crosswind of the 30 day weight loss diary marathon. I have not been weighing myself but today I went to the POOL ( yay) and swam around ( yay) and then weighed myself (...) scale says: 254. That's a 35 pound loss in roughly a month. I don't feel that much thinner but physically, I do feel better. I can just maneuver around much more easily, bend over, swim better and faster than I did a few weeks ago. My blood pressure is down about ten points and my plantar fascitis/achilles heel thingy is improving. I'm posting this because before, when I had a stomach, I would sift through these boards looking for weight loss updates. I wanted to know: how much weight can you lose in a month? How much in two months? How long til you're thin? From what I can tell a month out won't make you thin but there are other major benefits