SKCUNNINGHAM

I weigh on an analog, not digital scale - so mine isn't nearly as precise as yours, Cludgie. I count the victory when the desired weight shows up two days in a row.

Give yourself a break! When you look in the mirror and start thinking critical things, try to stop the thoughts from continuing. Try to think of yourself as a "work in progress". Imagine yourself as a talented sculptor, chipping away at the beautiful but uneeded marble to find the slender beauty within.
Years ago Jesse Jackson made a speach at a Democratic National Convention (I love to listen to good speakers, regardless of their poticial beliefs). He saids (my memory may not me exact) "Please do not judge me too harshly, God isn't finished with me yet". I try to remember that line when I get into a negative thought cycle. If we ask others to not judge us too harshly, we should hold ourselves to the same standard.
You will be at goal sooner than you realize. Actually, it is helpful to your overall progress mentally to lose your weight over a few months (rather than instantly). It gives your "head" time to catch up with your smaller body.
Best of luck to you in the rest of your journey.
Sharon

Becca - I am proud of you for having achieved such great success. It is wonderful to see the changes you have made in your life. Best of luck to you in your continued journey.

I agree with Forensikchic - don't put a paid for surgery off on the possibility of having kids with your mythical perhaps next husband. We obese people have put our lives on hold so often, waiting for that perfect future. Well, there is no guarantee that tomorrow will come - perfect or not. Make today as wonderful as you can. Carpe Diem!
Good Luck with the marriage and with your decision.

I am in the Dallas area. I would be happy to mentor you if you can't find someone closer.

I think if someone is nauseuous and vomiting 2 years after surgery, they are eating more than their sleeve can handle, or eating things that upset their stomach. I am a year out and have not vomited since the day I left the hospital. If I eat too much, I get nauseous for a time. Solution - I don't overeat. There are a few foods my sleeve doesn't like - and I avoid them. Problem solved for me!
I had a teacher in high school who has lived with gastrectomy for years. He didn't have cancer - just really bad ulcers. He is alive and well some 35 years after his surgery.
If I hadn't had the sleeve, I would not have lived 30 years - I would have been dead long before from a heart problems. So, for me, life is much better without most of my stomach than it would have been.I am not going to worry about what may turn up 10, 20 or 30 years in the future.

I think if someone is nauseuous and vomiting 2 years after surgery, they are eating more than their sleeve can handle, or eating things that upset their stomach. I am a year out and have not vomited since the day I left the hospital. If I eat too much, I get nauseous for a time. Solution - I don't overeat. There are a few foods my sleeve doesn't like - and I avoid them. Problem solved for me!
I had a teacher in high school who has lived with gastrectomy for years. He didn't have cancer - just really bad ulcers. He is alive and well some 35 years after his surgery.
If I hadn't had the sleeve, I would not have lived 30 years - I would have been dead long before from a heart problems. So, for me, life is much better without most of my stomach than it would have been.I am not going to worry about what may turn up 10, 20 or 30 years in the future.

Hello,
· The next time you decide to un-clutter your life and clean up your space, start with the things that are truly useless: like regret, shame, and anger.—Sandra Kring Author.

When we have weight loss surgery we need to start by un-cluttering our kitchen to get rid of food that we should no longer be eating—if it is gone it will not tempt us. We make space for the new healthy foods that will make us successful in our weight loss journey.

I don’t ever want you to have regrets or feel shame or be angry because you have not been successful before. It was not your fault—we have a disease and it is called obesity—Weight Loss Surgery will give us the tool to overcome this. You are doing something that is going to save your life and add years to it. You are being your very own HERO because you have taken control of your life for the first time in a long time. I know how you feel because I went on this journey 3 ½ years ago and successfully lost 105 pounds and have kept it off.

Please believe in yourself enough to do the same thing for YOUSELF. If you don’t believe in yourself or on the fence about doing this I am here to help you and support you.

One thing that helped me so much was having the right surgeon. My choice was Dr. Aceves. It took me 6 months to do my research and Dr. Aceves was the name that kept coming up in all my research over and over.

Hugs,
Suzanne
Sleeved 10/21/2008

A long time ago I was thinking I might start a VSG blog. I thought I'd write about my experiences and my amusing every little thing I thought about while losing weight, but over the months I changed my mind. First of all, I'd probably be banned by the vsg doctors for my stubborn insistence on refusing to eat 800 calories of pure Protein per day and second of all, I've got lots of emotional baggage other people may or may not have; which makes me like a really bad cheerleader and mostly sore loser -- even though I am at a new low today of 194.5.
When I thought I would start this blog, I had something in mind to write about because I knew it would get people to come -- because everyone wants to know something I already know about one particular thing.
I know how to lose lots of weight and not have your skin sagging off your body like a spent balloon.
The reason I know is because I did intense research on this when I lost 135 pounds on a lowcarb diet. I actually lost that weight *faster* than I'm losing this time around -- I have *already* done the nine hundred calorie pure Protein anorectic diet and it took me...let's see...about half the time it took me this time to take off a hundred pounds.
Anyway, problem was that after going through all of that I had a stomach that actually looked like a second butt. You who have lost a hundred pounds really fast and have checked out what your belly button looks like lately know what I am talking about.
There was no way I was getting a Tummy Tuck back then -- I couldn't afford it and it seemed hugely drastic to me at the time. To tell you the truth, getting your skin razored off your body for some reasonstill seems drastic to me, and I have had my stomach cut out.
So this is what I know about attacking your saggy bits. I know it works; I'm doing it myself, and even though my skin is a little loose in places I don't have serious problems. I don't have a dreaded "pannus"; my arm skin is not falling down like a saggy stocking. So if you don't want a second surgery, can't afford a second surgery, and are willing to spend a little time and some money, here are my suggestions.
1. Dry skin brushing.
There are several published methods on the internet that you can buy that will tell you how to do this. If you don't want to buy them, then this is the upshot. You need a good skin brush with tough natural bristles that are going to hold up. This one is my favorite because it's got a nice paddle action to it and a good strong handle and no this is not an Amazon affiliate link:
http://www.amazon.co...30481589&sr=1-2
You do this before your shower or at night or whenever but once a day, no more, no less. Again, there are programs you can buy with DVD's and stuff, but the basic way to brush is:
Start at the bottom of you. Brush upwards, thirty times; each side of your calf, each side of your thigh, etc.; each butt cheek, and the dreaded stomach area -- firm upward strokes. Then go to the top of you and brush downwards; each side of your arm and your chest area. The point is to "brush all toxins towards your heart." The reason you do this is because you're stimulating the lymph in your body through the lymphatic system which has to go through your heart to get processed and eliminated.
2. If you want more help, look into Carole Maggio's No-Lipo Lipo system, which costs some money but actually does work if you work it. Her program takes dry skin brushing to a higher level by incorporating a fat-busting self massage protocol and skin conditioning system.
3. Topical exfoliation.
You can do this several ways, but the easiest is to go to Skinbiology.com and buy their "skin tightening" protocol which includes several choices of natural acids to take off the top layer of skin so you can work through to the lower layers.
4. Copper Peptides.
Skinbiology.com.
After you do your dry skin brushing and take your shower; apply an appropriate strength copper peptide to the affected area. You can do this with extreme success at the lower belly and on the insides of your upper arms especially.
5. Pilates
When cosmetic surgeons do tummy tucks, one of their primary concerns is the fact that the recti muscle -- the one that holds the lower girdle of your organs in place -- has split apart due to the extreme pressure of obesity on those muscles. That's why it's major surgery -- they're not just slicing some skin out and stretching it back into place; they're actually repairing the muscle by stitching it back together across the expanse of your lower abdomen.
Pilates can repair that muscle. It's not because Pilates emphasizes "core work" -- it's because it realigns the whole body and *then* works the core -- in time, just like physical therapy, these muscles strengthen and move back into position.
6. Dot Laser Therapy ( or Fraxel, with reservations)
The basic strategy behind skin rejuvenation through laser is controlled injury. When the skin is injured, it makes new collagen; this increases elasticity and you snap back. I know dot laser works because I've had it -- but the issue here is really the expense. Treating your belly is a *large* area and you could run into about the same money as your tummy tuck with varying results. But if you're not interested in getting cut open, you will see a result from either of these.
7. Exercise the wattle.
Here is an exercise I've been doing to minimize the wattle where my double chin used to be:
Lie on your bed backwards with your head hanging off the edge, Lift your head so it is parallel to the floor. Hold for twenty counts. Drop your head. Lift again for another twenty count. Do that three times. On the last one -- lift for twenty, turn to the right for twenty, then to the left for twenty. Do this once or twice a day.
8. DMAE for small areas.
DMAE tightens skin, but it's expensive and there is a whole issue -- listen to me now, don't get the stuff from Walgreens -- with making sure that the DMAE is *active* and deliverable to your skin. Perricone makes one and Skinbiology does too. Another option is to make your own -- you can dissolve DMAE capsules in olive oil and slather it on your neck, under your arms, inner thighs -- etc -- and get a therapeutic result. If it's not fresh or deliverable,though, what you're going to get is sort of forty dollars you spent on a nicely scented type of Vaseline.
9. Slow down.
If you're very overweight and you've just gotten weight loss surgery, chances are the first one hundred pounds are going to run screaming off of you and you will be left with the aftermath. But after that -- slow down. *Most* people have great elasticity in their skin even into their late fifties, and your skin needs time to adjust. If you're in your first year of a massive weight loss, don't assume that hangy stuff is going to be there forever. It probably won't be. What it needs is time. The rule of thumb is one year per one hundred pounds.
10. Lose more weight.
A lot of people complaining about saggy skin are really complaining about extra fat. Let me put it this way: At 175 -- a reasonable amount for my 5 foot 10 frame -- I was still bothered by bits of myself that had shapeless, untaut attributes. At 158 this was not the case at all. You might still need to drop another ten or twenty pounds for the "skin" you're upset about to go away. Fat will fill out the least taut parts of you and that might be part of the problem.
11. Time and time again.
If you are not 100 years old, and you have lost somewhere near 100 pounds, your skin is actively trying to contain your internal catastrophe. It is spending 24 hours a day calculating and responding, trying accommodate and contain you. If you have lost 100 pounds and you have had weight loss surgery, that is one hundred pounds that is never coming back and that means your outermost layer has to adjust to this new reality. Six months is all it takes to convince it that there is a reason to shrink. One yea\r is enough to tell it you are now less massive perpetually than you used to be. In a year you might see straight up miracles you never expected. Don't go cutting on all this biological genius prematurely. What if you save ten thousand dollars by just hanging back and waiting to see how your brilliant body responds to being half of itself?
Think about this logically. You are an amoeba, pretty much. Your skin is the membrane that separates you from the environment. If you take away certain stressors over time; the membrane is going to behave intelligently and differently. Don't underestimate it. Work with it. And wait.

Janerose - I am proud of you. I'm sure the family had a wonderful time celebrating your Mom's birthday and that's not what they will remember most about the eveing - not your lack of eating. It sounds like you are really doing well on your coping mechanisms for eating in a group. Each time you successfully do this, you are building your skills for being able to do it again the next time. Soon, it will be a habit you don't even have to think about.
Best of luck to you.
Sharon

I can relate to this post. People are telling me I have lost enough weight. I am not even in the normal BMI range yet!I still weigh 150 pounds - I don't think that is "skinny" on a person who is 5'4" tall. I remember when I graduated high school at 135 pounds - my (soon to be ex)boyfriend at the time told me I would be much prettier if I would lose some weight. (SIDEBAR: I also remember at that size, I wore 12's and 14's - and now I am into 10's and 12's. So there is definatley something to this vanity sizing these days.) Someone told me "you don't need to lose any weight, your husband loves you the way you are". While that statement is true (about him loving me), he also loved me 103 pounds ago - so that is not a determinate of my stopping point. That person was well-intentioned, unlike some of the jealous nozy people who make some of the rude and stupid comments mentioned by posters on this thread.
It was nice attending a class last week where no one had ever met me before. They just thought I was a normal person - not some ex-fat person who needs to be watched like an animal in the zoo.

I make chicken or tuna salad with light miracle whip or light ranch dressing.I usually cook beef, pork and venizon in a crock pot and have it with gravy. I make ground beef with gravy. I make tartar sauce with low cal miracle whip for fish, or I use tartar sauce on fish or seafood.

Swizzly - Congratulations! You have had a wonderful 1st year post-surgery. Wow - to lose this much weight and quit smoking!! Most people gain weight after stopping smoking, so you have really done a doubly-amazing thing. I know those last few pounds are frustrating to get off, I'm right at the point you are. But I think it is right to focus not "just" on the scale or hitting a weight by a certain date.
Are you doing anything to Celebrate your first year loss? I treated myself to a shopping trip to Chico's and some lingerie from Soma.
Best of luck on the next year of being a thin person.
Sharon

February 22nd 2011
103 pounds gone FOREVER.

I had 2-3 ounces of beer one evening and got buzzed! No other side effects - except I was thirsty.
I had the same experience when I sipped 1 or 2 tablespoons of fine tequila. The world became a wonderful place full of lovely people. I am officially a cheap drunk.

I will be 55 during the Christmas holidays. But - I will be the size I was when I graduated high school and college - which is a heck of a lot better than being fat and 55. For you youngsters just turning 50 - wait until the folks at AARP start sending you info in the mail! I have just now stopped tearing it up and started reading it (they have a huge staff and some well researched material). I might even join those guys at some point - you never know.
Also, thank God for clothes to hide the pleats of wrinkles that puddle at certain places on my body. And thank goodness my husband is near sided without his glasses, so I am just a fuzzy out of focus smaller woman, and he can't see all the wrinkles all the time.

When I get the suit back from the cleaners, I will take a picture and post it as one of my one year post surgery pictures. I also have a very nice dressy LBD I will be taking a picture in. :-)

When I get the suit back from the cleaners, I will take a picture and post it as one of my one year post surgery pictures. I also have a very nice dressy LBD I will be taking a picture in. :-)

I am currently looking for a job (took an early retirement settlement at the end of December). It is certainly nicer to be looking at a size 10P, rather than a 24W. I had a job interview last Friday. I wore a beautifully tailored navy suit with a tiny shadow stripe of a paler blue. Under the jacket, I wore a blue cashmere sweater that picked up the color of the stripe. I had taken the suit skirt to the tailor and had it shortened (since I am 5'4" - this is a regular thing) to be the perfect just-below-the-knee length. If I was still morbidly obese, like a year ago, I would have either worn pants or left the skirt long - almost to my ankles. I had to buy a new pair of panty hose - in size B - the only ones I had in my lingerie drawer were size Q - and they made my legs look like elphant's legs with all the wrinkles.
Cross your fingers or say a little prayer that I hear good news from the company I interviewed with!

I am currently looking for a job (took an early retirement settlement at the end of December). It is certainly nicer to be looking at a size 10P, rather than a 24W. I had a job interview last Friday. I wore a beautifully tailored navy suit with a tiny shadow stripe of a paler blue. Under the jacket, I wore a blue cashmere sweater that picked up the color of the stripe. I had taken the suit skirt to the tailor and had it shortened (since I am 5'4" - this is a regular thing) to be the perfect just-below-the-knee length. If I was still morbidly obese, like a year ago, I would have either worn pants or left the skirt long - almost to my ankles. I had to buy a new pair of panty hose - in size B - the only ones I had in my lingerie drawer were size Q - and they made my legs look like elphant's legs with all the wrinkles.
Cross your fingers or say a little prayer that I hear good news from the company I interviewed with!

I am currently looking for a job (took an early retirement settlement at the end of December). It is certainly nicer to be looking at a size 10P, rather than a 24W. I had a job interview last Friday. I wore a beautifully tailored navy suit with a tiny shadow stripe of a paler blue. Under the jacket, I wore a blue cashmere sweater that picked up the color of the stripe. I had taken the suit skirt to the tailor and had it shortened (since I am 5'4" - this is a regular thing) to be the perfect just-below-the-knee length. If I was still morbidly obese, like a year ago, I would have either worn pants or left the skirt long - almost to my ankles. I had to buy a new pair of panty hose - in size B - the only ones I had in my lingerie drawer were size Q - and they made my legs look like elphant's legs with all the wrinkles.
Cross your fingers or say a little prayer that I hear good news from the company I interviewed with!

If someone should accidently see you in a changing room, and happen to notice your stomach apron, I bet they would think "Wow, that lady has lost a bunch of weight. Way to go! I wish I could lose weight like that."
I don't think we need to be embarrassed about things like that any more than an amputee should be embarrassed by his / her missing limb.
I think a person who would think less of you for having a stomach apron needs to turn her hyper-critical mirror around and look at her own self. I know of at least ONE flaw that would be shining out visibly - her small and narrow mind.

My sleeve was 50 weeks ago (fast approaching my 1 year mark). I have lost 108 pounds, gone from a 24W to a 10 petite and am much healthier and in better shape. I am exercising >5 times a week.
I would rate my sleeve a 10.

If I could have asked for Jesus directly to heal me (like he did so many in the times talked about in the New Testament) I would have asked for him to heal me from being fat - to heal me to be a "normal weight" person. So, I did ask Jesus to heal me - be guiding the hand of my surgeon - by helping the people that were involved in my surgery in the hospital - by giving my husband patience to make it through my recovery - and for myself to have the strength and wisdom to do what was necessary to use this tool correctly and to change my life.
Jesus gave me what I prayed for.

Just for a different view, I pretty much tell them that I've lost over 200 lbs. I felt I needed to own it in order to accept my decision to change my lifestyle. Hiding it was something I did when I was overweight.