M2G

WOW! Amazing! If I looked like you I wouldn't even consider plastics, you look amazing!

Awww, Dee thank you so much! You are so sweet.

Did you click on them to make them bigger? I don't want to be a space hog, so I tend to make them smaller and turn them into jpgs for posting.

Well, since this is the Vet's Forum, the farther you get out from surgery the harder it is to find those NSV (they typically hit when you are less than a year post-op for many of us!)

So Georgia, I love that you started this.

My most recent NSV of memory was this. A gal that I only know from the gym (see her regularly about 3-4x a week), she is tall and slender and beautiful. Super-nice girl. So she texted me right before Christmas saying "do you happen to have an ugly Christmas sweater I can borrow, I have a party to attend and don't have one to wear." Unfortunately I don't own any ugly Christmas sweaters (seems to be quite the rage to have parties and contests surrounding the "ugly" Christmas sweater) but anyway, more importantly, she thought we must be in the same "SIZE RANGE!" Wow. What a nice compliment to be "normal enough" to be able to trade clothes!

Well ladies, the wedding was wonderful! We had the lunch, walked around in downtown Denver, which is just fun but also busy, the sights and smells I think on a daily basis would get overwhelming. It's fun for a bit but just different than living in the suburbs...where life seems to have a slower pace.

Then checked into our hotel and proceeded to get fancy. It was so fun! The wedding started at 7 and was beautiful, followed by a cocktail hour (which was really more like 1.5 hours) we stood chatting, kiddos played with giant connect 4 game and giant Jenga game, we ate and drank. Then opened the ballroom and we moved into there, watched the bride and groom arrive, etc. They had all this as food set up in various "stations": (OMG so much food...thank you sleeve for preventing me from eating it all!) Station 1: Roast beef and salad, rolls Station 2: soft taco bar, beef, chicken or fish and ALL the toppings Station 3: Mini burger sliders, mini crab-cake sliders, regular and sweet potato french fries Station 4: Mac and cheese ...you picked whatever you wanted in there (meat, veggies, etc) and they would sautee it for you fresh and hot (I never even SAW this station, lol). My plate was a chicken soft taco (I ate half) 1 slim slab of roast beef, a salad, and half of each a slider and crab-cake slider (minus any bread). Oh yeah and fries. I did also have 3/4 of a slice of wedding cake...yum!

Anyway, here is a photo!

I know the definition has been a bit of a moving target, but there is a reason for it. You really do have different questions and answers further out... I mean, really you could make a case for having a 5 year out only forum... but with the sleeve, it would be mostly empty! I love hearing what people have to say about being far out from surgery... thats where we are all heading after all... a place where the concerns are past mushies, slow losers and feeling like you have lost those 30 pounds forever ...when you haven't even gotten to the 3 year mark yet where statistically the most regain happens. Its hard to imagine ever feeling hungry again or eating more than 1/4 cup of food early out. Its nice to have a place where that is just not in the mix. Most of the vets reach out and answer questions in other parts of the forum, and the Vets section is open for reading. I would have loved to have a vets only forum to read early out... pure gold! I could see one thread with "ask a vet" as the title, with the understanding that the vets would not be interested in answering questions that are not really about vets experiences.

FYE, amazingly well-spoken! ~~Applause~~

Omgosh those are beautiful! Maybe THAT is what I need instead of plastics. Although I'm 100% sure I would have the back fat pushed up. Sigh.

Interesting...I know a lot of people have to be "careful" with Quest bars...which I mean duh, we are all food addicts in one way or another so it's not surprising that people can turn something "healthy" and "good for you" into something that is a danger zone, but interesting that they haven't been 100% honest.

Well, HAPPY NEW YEAR'S ladies! We have the big "wedding" tonight downtown and to say I'm excited is an understatement. We are having lunch with a bunch of friends at a place near the hotel, we'll check into the hotel, wedding starts at 7pm and goes until 1am! The girls and I all have our fancy dresses ready...will take lots o pics for ya, and hair and nails have been all fancied up (straightened one daughters hair, the other is opting for curly...)

So after a really hard week I'm looking forward to this wedding, seeing friends and most of all seeing one of our good friends get a second chance at love. Makes me so happy!

Hi. I'm so glad to find this Colorado group. Just had my sleeve 12/17 in Dallas but live in Aurora. Are there support groups near me I might be able to join even though I didn't have my surgery here?

Hi Kiap82...I just sent you a PM. My surgeon allows anyone to join his support groups, you didn't have to have surgery with him to join. They are free, always.

I just sent you a PM with specific details, please let me know if you don't receive it. To post a Private Message to someone, click on their picture. That will take you to their profile, and then in the upper-right hand corner, you will see a choice to "send them a private message" fill out all the fields and click send. Make sure you include a title for your PM or I think it won't work.

Oh and I wanted to add...this week I think I'm shedding hair? I think it must be stress-related...I know our hair goes in cycles but I've picked more loose, stray hairs of my shoulder this week and it made me think of my post-surgery-induced hair loss...funny what stress does to us!

My point in posting that was not to demonstrate that WLS doesn't work. The article itself, without the book, does a good job of showing that a person can have expectations that will not be fulfilled by having surgery.

i understand that completely... but, i dont think the "article" fairly represents the book. the book is a very human journey through one woman's experience with WLS. and i think figuring out that being skinny would not make her happy was just part of the requirements of her journey. expecting one thing and getting another is part of life and not a reason in and of itself to not get this surgery. not being willing to work though that honestly might be a reason though.....

I also read Jen Larsen's book and was horrified at how willy-nilly she jumped into having a DS (IMO it's one of the most drastic of all WL surgeries) and it was funny because she totally DID think that losing the weight would solve all of her problems and was bitterly disappointed that while losing weight was great she did not magically get the "life" she thought she wanted once the weight was gone.

Anyway, LV, as usual this is a great post. One of the things that I HATE more than anything around here is people who are post-op, pop in with a statement like "the sleeve is the easiest thing I've ever done, I get to eat whatever I want and life is so grand!" I don't want to belittle anyone or take away their success or rain on their parade but there is just a LOT of work that goes into making any WLS a successful one in the long term scope of things. A LOT OF WORK.

Nothing worth having is ever easy. Successful families, marriages, careers, and yes even weight-loss all take hard work.

Hello my little 5:2 Family!

I don't think I've been here in about a week! WOW that takes some catching up to do!!

First of all, Merry belated Christmas to you all! Coops, love the sweater and the new low...that just totally rocks! Georgia love the new DL photo...wow, you look great! Laura, also love the old kayaking photo...wow, what a transformation for you. Just wow. Kim also love the photo of the little dog with you photo-bombing the corner. Haha! Wanda, thanks for noticing that I had gone MIA for a while and Georgia thanks for remembering I had a house full and TOFFEE and NO ESCAPE! Aaargh! Sarah, I desperately want to take the tree down but the girls voted to keep it up. Sigh. Florinda, I'm so SO sorry for the loss of your team leader. My thoughts are with you, your team and his family.

A little update from me. Christmas Eve was nice, we had dinner at my SIL house and my MIL and FIL made crab legs and ham. Omg I never even made it to the ham I was busy cracking and eating those crab legs. I'm not much of a seafood person but my in-laws are and they have definitely introduced me to a love of crab legs and salmon. (I still don't like shrimp, scallops, and most other fish) oh I can do lobster, and tuna also. Halibut also, but that is about the extent of my seafood likes. LOL. Christmas day was hosted here with a proper turkey (which my brother and mother brined...yum if you have never had brined turkey, it's a must try!) and a pork roast. All was well, except by the end of the night my husband and brother got into an argument over a silly game and that sort of ruined the night. Good feelings gone.

Then by Dec. 27th, I had noticed that our beloved cat wasn't feeling himself. I could just tell something was wrong. Booked an am Vet appt. for him on Fri. and took him in. We knew he was already starting with renal failure (he was 16+ years old) and we were thinking they would tell us that his kidneys were getting worse and that we would have XXX number of days/months left. Well, as it turned out, he had a mass on his abdomen and it was likely cancer. He was suffering and so we opted to put him down. What a day filled with emotional turmoil. The four of us cried ourselves through a couple of boxes of tissues, and in the end he was peacefully let go with all of us surrounding him, crying. Then my oldest daughter came home, and flung herself on the floor and was basically inconsolable. She eventually cried herself into a nap. Sigh. My two daughters are 11 and 13, and our cat was 16...they have never known a life where he wasn't a part of it. My mom and brother tried to be comforting, but eventually decided to vacate the house for a while to give us some privacy and time to grieve.

It has been a horribly emotional week and sorry to come here and be just down.

I've eaten terribly, the scale is up... like +4lbs past my comfort zone and I haven't even THOUGHT about fasting. The toffee tin is almost half gone, I'm tempted to put the rest in a deep freezer. Ugh. I just can't seem to get myself together and while I swore to everyone I would NOT gain this year, so far I'm on the rise. And we still have the big new years eve WEDDING to attend on Tues. night. At least it will take my mind off the sadness and grief.

Here was my fur-baby, Magnus the cat.

Forgot to mention what my mom is bringing WITH her.

TOFFEE

Homemade toffee that is better than any store-bought toffee that you can think of. GOOD GOD GIVE ME THE GIFT OF RESTRAINT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been pretty bad about keeping up with this thread. And having 2 girls sick with the flu for a week killed my plans. Bah!

Oh well, I'm at 90.5 today. I'm certainly not going to make my goal of 180. We will just have to see where I end up.

GT, HANG IN THERE GIRL!!!!

So when you are 3+ years post-op, NSVs are far and few between (because you've usually had all of them by then...no more plus sizes, fitting in airplane, movie theater, and don't forget restaurant booths, etc.)

BUT the other day this happened to me:

A tall slender girl who I know from the gym texted me and asked if I happened to have a "ugly Christmas sweater" she could BORROW? Wait...tall slim girl thinks I have something that she could wear that wouldn't look like a TENT on her? WOW! That was a first for me. Guess I must look fairly "normal" when it comes to sizes. And of course, I didn't have anything for her but just to think that we are in the same general SIZE ZONE was a big ole NSV that I had to share!

WOW, that is an impressive list of NSVs!!! Woo Hoo!

Clearance shopping is the best, and you look wonderful in your new threads. Your hair is beautiful also, lucky girl doesn't look like you are loosing any!

Preach on sister!

I still get irked every Jan. when People mag puts out their "Half Their Size" issue and it screams, NO SURGERY, NO GIMMICKS, NO pills, yet features every single "DIET TRICK" known to mankind. Pretty sure everyone who has ever lost a significant amount of weight did *something* to help them get there. Count cals, do box food, hit the gym, reduce their food intake, change what food they eat, quit eating certain things, etc. I just see surgery as one of those TOOLS, along WITH everything else to help me get to where I am today.

No shame in using a tool that helps me. But I gotta put in the hard work or it's all coming back on, just like the people who preach to "eat less, work more" ...takes work to get it off and even MORE work to keep it off. Doesn't matter HOW you get there, we are all in the same boat!

Put me in the "My Sleeve Tolerates Everything" camp...

Honestly...and this is just my opinion...I think anyone that has "issues" with things early out, may find that with time even those things that they have "issues" with, well, those issues might disappear over time. I've even known some RNY people who's "dumping" evaporates over time.

At any rate, yeah, I knew going into surgery that the sleeve wouldn't prevent me from eating anything, so that it would be up to me to decide what to eat. That is the biggest reason I wanted the sleeve, because I wanted to dictate my menu. Oh and I've never once had anything come back up in the entire 3+ years of being sleeved. NEVER! (Thankfully!)

Kathy (proudgrammy) says it best when she says "Just because you CAN doesn't mean you SHOULD!" Yep, totally true!

Like Sarah I haven't been on much...but the only thing I feel "down" about is indulging too much. My daughter who turned 13 only wanted a family party so we had some family and one family that we are very close with over on Sat. for Breakfast. We had a yummy baked egg dish, bacon and then it was all carbs from there. Reindeer chow (omg, goes down so easy) mini muffins, mini cinnamon rolls and if that isn't enough, CAKE!! Get this...my daughter picked out a white cake and it had dark green and purple flowers, etc. on it. I will tell you what...that f'ing dark GREEN icing, turned all our teeth green and I kid you not I peed and sh*t green the next day. And guess what? The next day I ate MORE f'ing cake. What is wrong with me? Aaargh. Like the color made me think "ATOMIC" yet I still went back the next day for more. Sheesh.

My mom and brother arrive today for the WHOLE week. Yeah, life is gonna get interesting. Don't know how much I'll hop on here as my brother will occupy our office/guest room.

Laura, OMG I love that you LET LOOSE and even though you weren't feeling so hot later, I agree that you had a bonding experience. Awww, your SIL...she should definitely look into surgery for herself. That is so cute about the card...DO YOU THINK THEY WILL COVER IT??? I probably NEVER would have been self-pay (as it was I had to fork out $5K for my surgery and then the next year we forked out another $5K for hubby surgery) but I'm sure the self-pay would have turned me off (kind like how having to PAY for plastics outright is turning me off right now) but honestly it would be worth every penny to pay for this tool. That is my humble opinion, now...3 years later. LOL. I hope she can find her own journey but please do NOT EVER apologize for your own journey. Hugs to you!

Congratulations on your success! WOW, you are doing a great job and WTG on the fitness stuff. I love hearing that you kicked off your healthy new life by embracing a love of exercise!!!

Oh glad to know it only shows up for us.

Yes, we are thinking of canceling the red card and having them issue us a new one. One thing I didn't think about until I saw it on the Today show is that your info could be used to open new stuff with your name, numbers, etc. AARGH! They are encouraging people to check their credit scores, etc. to see if there is unauthorized "new activity"...in all honestly DH deals with the finances of our lives (and does a good job of it) but he is NOT happy about this breach.

Okay it's 11 am and I've had coffee and a hard-boiled egg. Sucking down Water like it's my job. I WILL GET THROUGH THIS FAST DAY. I WILL. I WILL. I WILL.

Kim...that is awesome about your job...well except the money but every little bit helps. I need to figure something out. I feel like I was lucky because I was able to contract at the cable training company all while letting my little girls grow up and I wasn't away from them very much. But there is a much longer version of the story of how I came to be out of work (which maybe I will tell one day when I have time ...I'm meant to be cleaning house right now...hubby is downstairs running vacuum, as he is OFF from work and I'm sure it won't take him long to figure out I've "disappeared" ha ha!) but the short version is that I do need to find something, ideally within the next year and I'm figuring it MIGHT take me THAT long to find something. Ugh!

Kris thank you for sharing. I've been "on the fence" about plastics for a long time now. Still no answer. But everyone says the pain and expense is worth it ONCE you are all healed which can take a year or more to be 100%. Best of luck to you on your journey through this. Please update us when you can about how things are going/feeling. Hang in there!

Oh and earlier thing I said about how when we post in here it "shows" up under the Recent Topics...and then I thought maybe it didn't? Well, not sure what happened the other day but yep, when we post here it shows up under recent topics, so that is where people are probably learning that this thread exists yet they don't have "access" to it.

Oh my goodness Kelly (Chimera) love your painting. Wow. Very cool. I've been involved in "arts" one way or another for my entire career and that is what keeps me going because I never wanted to be someone who "hated" what I did for a living. If I love it then I feel much happier. I'm definitely at a crossroads for now and I don't like that part of it. The struggle to figure out a way to creatively earn income....so the struggle continues.

Georgia (gosh I hope I'm remembering that right) YOU got cleaned out from the Target deal??? CRAP CRAP CRAP. My hubby is totally worried. We went to Target black friday (well actually grey thurs. a friend of my moms convinced us all to go out shopping after the turkey was done!) and holy crap. He is considering just canceling our Target card. We both bleed white and red though, funny side squirrel story...we MET while working at Target in college. We love Target thru and thru...so canceling our card well, that just seems crazy, but maybe notsomuch after hearing your story. WHAT A PIA! SO sorry!!!

SherylJane great news about the 2 year and the checkups with plastics and all. That is generally one of my biggest worries...having to wait so long to feel 100% better. That and the fact that I would be paying off the plastics for ...oh just feels like forever. My quote for *just* a lift and TT was over $22K and I just can't see spending that kind of money. Sigh. Anyway, I put it all on the back burner and am just letting it sit there on "warm" for now. lol

GT how cool that you are familiar with Denver...if you are ever in the area let me know!!! The wedding will be at the Curtis Hotel downtown...looks funky and cool to me. I'm so excited for this wedding!

http://www.thecurtis.com/visual-gallery/

Dee, when do you get back into your home after the flooding repairs are done? Before Christmas?

Thanks for the bday wishes for my girl. She had an awesome day at school, lots of friends gave her little homemade cards and decorated her locker. We are having a family only party for her Sat. am as she didn't want a real bday party. Made ME sad but also happy to only have to serve Breakfast to a handful of family guests.

I'm doing terribly with eating and the scale is showing it. Almost 2lbs out of my bounce range (my weight in Nov determined by me as "if I see this weight within 2 lbs I will be happy" and I've been seeing it all along except today I was up 2lbs over my range. UGH !!! Gotta rein this snacking in. I AM GOING TO FAST TODAY IF IT KILLS ME. GOTTA DO IT!!!

"It's all good!"...that is awesome.

LOL, Wanda again thanks for the smile. And just so you know I can't carry a tune to SAVE my life. My girls are always like "no mom, please don't sing" but I do anyway. And horribly. I know I can't really sing well, but I can't help myself and gotta sing along...

It's me who has the New YEars Eve wedding to attend. I really need to decide between 2 dresses, gotta snap some photos so you all can weigh in.

Thank you all for the compliments, you are all so wonderful. GT maybe that will be my "next" career, just going back to doing art...lol. F*ck the computer graphics. LOL. I have one more class to complete and then I will hold a "Certificate of Web Tools" (alongside my Bachelor of Visual Arts from oh, 19+ years ago) Nothing like hitting the job market against 20 year olds. Sigh.

Anyway, the Fiber piece was done for a fiber class in college and I wish I could remember the tool I used to make it. The piece is small, maybe 3x6 inches and we used a hand-held tool that we fed thread through and it "punched" it through fabric stretched over a frame. I drew out the concept with colored pencil, but then to be honest I was truly amazed that it turned out looking like my vision.

I thought I saw watercolor in your self-portrait, GT. I love the way you mixed your media. Watercolor is my all-time favorite medium. GT, what is it you want to go back to school for?

Today my oldest daughter will be 13. It's official...I will have a teenager. She is currently the sweetest kid imaginable....totally a heart of gold, A+ student, loves her life...I really hope that doesn't change. The teen years seem to be the worst of all ...parents are like gimme back my 3 year old who threw tantrums on the floor. Next few years will be challenging for sure. I'm off to make her breakfast!