PhatGurl80

Congrats! You will do great!

Holy cow! I sure hope he succeeds!

Yesterday marked 6 weeks since my surgery and I have to say that I think I'm doing pretty well. I haven't had any follow up appointments w/ my Dr. yet. We are going to do that at my 12 week mark. Overall I feel energized. The only time I felt really drained was up to a week right after surgery and this past week when I came down with a cold. My biggest problem is just learning how to SLOW down my eating. I have started to really focus on this and I feel much better when the food goes down. I can eat little bites of anything and I still say away from breads and most carbs for now. I do plan on adding those back in at some point, but for now I don't want to overdo my sleeve. I can say that my situation right now is very normal and maybe even text book. Now hopefully my Dr. appointment doesn't come up w/ an issue (crossing finger). So I was contemplating my life in the past 20 or so years in terms on my weight. I can remember going back as far as 3rd grade, i would look at the other girls' thighs when we sat Indian style (sorry "criss cross apple sauce") and thinking wow, my thighs are so much bigger. The women on my Dad's side of the family are all for the most part morbidly obese. To the point where they have very limited mobility. I grew up being terrified of turning out like that. So I always had my size at the forefront of my mind. I remember in the 7th grade I weighed in at 145 lbs. Now I nkow that's a very awkward stage for everybody. But I would wake up early in the morning before school and work out to Denise Austin or that guy w/ the thick black curly hair w/ the accent. I know I was most out of wack then and it took a year or two for that to even out. Highschool I think i was the most fit. I definitely didn't LOOK fat or obese, but I was a solid 175 lbs by the time i was a senior. Looking abck at all of my pictures, I surely didn't LOOK overweight. I just weighed a lot. I'm not sure why, but I guess i just had denser bones? Or maybe I really had more muscle than fat. I saw my prom picture and DAMN I looked good! So, why always the stigma of thinking I was too fat? The numbers on the scalse are misleading. By the time I was out of college I was at 215. I was still bigger than a lot of women my age and hieight. But again I didn't look obese and when I had Dr. check ups, the nurses always comented how surprised they were that I weighed in as much as I did. So, I finally decided not to worry about it, and in 8 years, I sky rocketed from 215 to 270. I looked at pictures and couldn't stand how fat I let myself become. Where was all that muscle? Am I really obese now? It came to realaity when the Dr's started telling me to lose weight and I have border line hypertension. I reverted back to that fear I had whne I was a little girl about not becoming like my female relatives on my Dad's side of the family. I finally realized I had a problem on my hands and tried through diet and exercise turn it all around. Nothing worked. My self esteem plumeted and my depression increased. Now here I am now living with a decision i made to surgically alter my body in hopes of returning to a normal weight. 175. I'm going to look hotter in my wedding dress than I did in my prom gown. Now I feel like I have a chance to back up and do all of the good things for my body I said I couldn't do because of my weight. I'm starting Yoga, Fitness boot camp, and am even going to take on my arch nemises....running. My body deserves for me to finally think highly of it and treat it with respect. Sorry for the rambiling, but the thoughts were just swimming in my head and I had to get them out Thanks for listening, fellow sleevers!

Forensikchic your X-mas status bar is too cute!

I'm with Lanette. I'll post my numbers when I see where I end up for the Halloween challenge. I'm 4 lbs away!

NikiJ - I'm having 1/2 a whole wheat English muffin for dinner. Do far its working!

I dont' have much of an appetite in the morning. But, I dtry to drink a thinned out Protein shake on the way to work or first hour into the work day because if I don't, I get hit with this intense (very uncomfortable) hunger around 10am.

My revised goal is 230 by October 31st and guess what? Today I'm 234! Soooo close! I need some ideas on things I can do for a 4lb weight loss in the next 6 days!

Oh boy....my list is gonna be a long one. I'm almost 6 weeks out and already i've had at least 1 cup full of Lay's Original potato chips, 2 McNuggets, 1 Hooter's Wing (took the breading off at least), 2 or 3 cheetos.... Wow, that sounds like a lot doesn't it? But amazingly, my body is still losing weight at a very agreeable rate. I'm still a little scared to eat breads.

MegInNOLA - I've been meaning to ask you how you've been able to handle all of the New Orleans festivals, shrimp boils, etc... I'm in New Orleans too and although my main goal was to get healthy and lose weight, I can't help but to feel a little taken aback by how little I can eat. I love po'boys and I don't think i'll be brave enough to try one post-operation! I guess since i'm a seafood lover, I can always go for the boiled seafood instead of double battered, deep fried platters I was accustomed to getting.

Oh I hear ya! It appears my fiance's late night crusades to Taco Bell or Wendy's frustrated me to the point where I just say the heck with it and don't eat ANYTHING! Which is a good thing because I should neither be eating fast food nor eating late night. Before my sleeve, anything goes!

Thanks everyone!

Glad u are doing better. Just a small hiccup on the road to better health, right.

5 weeks out and doing great! Doing my first 5K tomorrow! (walking

Yesterday marked 5 weeks post-op. I'm not officially weighing in until Monday, but I think I've lost another 2 lbs this week. At 6 weeks I'm going to do another video blog and take some pictures so I can compare them later. So, I wanted to dedicate this blog entry to my one and only. My fiance. He has actually been very encouraging and supportive throughout this whole journey. When I first brought it up a year and a half ago, he told me to do what I think will make me feel better and be healthier, but he also said he loved me no matter what. I've always felt so self-concious standing next to him because he's very slim. He's 6ft 1in and weighs 186. At the start of my sleeve journey I was 5ft 6in and weighed 270. Yeah, we looked like the number "10" standing side by side lol. Again, he never had a problem w/ that...I did. I told myself last fall of 2010 that instead of having an invasive surgery, I'd give one last REAL try at excercising and eating right to lose weight. Again....one last time I failed. From Fall to Spring 2011 I lost 10lbs then gained back 15. I was devistated that as many trials and tribulations that I've gotten though, this ONE thing keeps defeating me. I told my fiance in May of 2011 that I want to have the surgery, we came up w/ $5,000 because my insurance doesn't cover. At no point did he ever try to talk me out of it and I think deep down he thought that it would truly make me happy. We flew to Mexico together in September and he was there every step of the way. He wanted to document everything right down to taking pictures of the partially removed stomach. We workout together. He makes me tea and broth... he's just been amazing. He and my best friend from childhood are the only ones who know about the surgery. I just can't say enough about how happy I am to be marrying this man. He's accepted me before and I know he will accept me after I hit my goal. I can't wait to become the complete woman I know I was meant to be.

Hi there. I started walking around the block once or twice about 5 or 6 days post-op. At around week 3 I started going to the gym for light weights. I'm about 5 weeks out now and I've been steadily kicking up the walking by starting off w/ a light jog and sprinkling in some workouts for the upper body w/ weights. I am going to be walking a 5K this weekend and starting a fitness bootcamp when I'm about 8 weeks along.

Ha! I love it!

*Update* Down another 7 lbs since Oct. 2! Weigh loss starting to slow just a tad. Working hard to lose that last 7 in the next 14 days!

*Update* Down another 7 lbs since Oct. 2! Weigh loss starting to slow just a tad. Working hard to lose that last 7 in the next 14 days!

Wow! In only 6 months?? Congrats on your success!

Hey there. My surgery was done by Dr. Fernando Garcia Govea in TJ. Great hospital stay and great hotel. I have nothing but good things to say about my experience and the hospital staff. Cost was $5K

Hi there. You are right on the money. We have to learn how to deal with stress or pain w/ out using food. You are doing awesome though because you've made the first step. U made the decision to get sleeved! Now u also reminded me of the book I bought but only halfway read...Women Food and God. Maybe that will have more of an impact now that I am 4 weeks post-op... Keep your chin up! It's an uphill battle but eventually you'll be gliding down the other side!

Yay! I'm at my 1 month surgiversary and I have to say I am feeling 100%. I am on full solids unless my mood just calls for some soup or broth and my exercise activity is almost normal. I'm very happy that so far I haven't had any significant drawbacks or residual pain from anything. My incisions are pretty much healed up and the only maintenance now is rubbing Vitamin A & E to get the scars not to look so ugly. I take my Kids Gummy Bear multivitamin and my B12 drops every day. I do not take a Calcium or Vitamin D supplement as of yet. I am waiting on my follow up appt with my primary care Dr. And if there are any deficiencies, we'll go from there. I still can't believe that I can get full off of just 2 oz of food...I mean to the point where I feel like unzipping pants or take a walk to ease discomfort. So, i'm still learning on when to STOP so I don't feel like i just ate Thanksgiving dinner at every single meal. Case in point, today for lunch i had two boiled egg w/ little strips of Mozz cheese and bits of ham placed on each half. After I ate the first two halves I was getting full. However, I went ahead and ate the 2nd two halves...ummm...why? I dunno. I guess I'm still trying to learn that I don't have to clean my plate each and every single time. Anyone have any suggestions or tips on how to over come this? The last thing I want to do is eat so much that it comes up...like i did at week 2. Next week, i'm going to do my first 5k of the year. I registered to walk this one, but should be A-OK to jog the next one I do. I've also scheduled myself for a 1 month boot camp class starting in November and a 1 month Yoga class. I feel so good and my pants are falling off from the 30 lbs that i've lost. Co-workers have been making comments about how loose my clothes are. My fiance complains that my clothes are starting to look sloppy and that he has to buy me new clothes! lol. I'm so happy that I made this choice. I can deal with he food changes. I'll probably never be able to enjoy a double cheese burger from What-a-Burger again, but it does not even compare to the happiness I feel RIGHT NOW for making this life change! Can't wait for my wedding in June 2012! I'm going to look and feel better than I've ever had in my life.

I started walking at least 20 minutes a few times a week about ! Week after surgery. Now at 4 weeks I can do a 45 min cardio workout and also started strength training this week. I plan on starting a yoga class and bootcamp in the next few weeks.

Wow. Can't say that I'm not a bit jealous! I tried McNuggets two weeks out and it didn't go so well. Needless to say I kicked the idea of fast foods out of my head. I would just say give your tummy some time to fully heal before making that sort of decision. In another month or two u should be all healed to continue with experimentation. Afterall you still live in the real world and u are bound to have to make those choices in the future.