LindaS

Tomorrow will be 4 weeks postsurgery and I work from home so I haven't seen many people so far.
One of my favorite compliments came from my thin, beautiful sister before I had surgery. She said, "You are already beautiful. People tell me all the time your sister is so beautiful. Now you're going to get your confidence back that you lost somewhere along the way, and when you do, look out world!" I will never forget how that made me feel.
My absolute favorite, though, came from my 5-year-old granddaughter who said to me last week on Face Time, "Nana! Why does your neck look so long?" I think she is noticing my weight loss.

I just got a fantastic one! One of my clients said "Girl, you look like a coke bottle!"

Off topic, Revs, I would like to invite you (and our fellow sufferers) to join an imaginary group created by me and some of my friends: ACORN (Adult Children of Registered Nurses.) It's a support group for those of us who grew up under the watchful eyes of an RN. No one but us can understand the joys of never being able to fake illness, of our mothers refusing us medical treatment until we were on death's door or alternatively over-diagnosing us with diseases out of their Merck Manuals. Our motto, stemming from a teenaged car accident that one of my co-founder friends got into, is "Don't Bleed On My Couch."
My story is that when my Water broke in a non-obvious way with my first child, a week early, my parents happened to be busy that weekend (they live 700 miles away.) My mother's reaction to this was, "Oh honey. I'm sure it's nothing. Don't go over to Labor and Delivery and bother the nurses." I ignored this sage advice. C was born 10-12 hours later.

I still feel like a newbie, though.

That is all.

Wow first post in the new sub forum.
Hey fellow WLS victims....erm.....I mean patients. Butter here....sleever and dispenser of wit and sarcasm and occasional in your face advice. Welcome to the new gigantic all encompassing WLS forum. I for one was a little apprehensive about it, as I thought VST was big enough. Now we're all together...bandsters, bypass patients, sleevers....everyone.
So since we're all together now, let's embrace the new dynamic and start bridging the gaps right now...rather than have any "us vs them" barriers. After all, every one of us has the same goals...improved health, weight loss, better quality of life. Our surgeries may be different, but we all recognized that we needed surgical intervention to get there....to save our own lives. In a way, that sets us apart from the mainstream in alot of people's eyes. And I don't know exactly what we should do about that....or even of there is anything to be done to make WLS more socially acceptable. But the least we can do is accept each other...surgical differences not withstanding.
After all...if you don't like me, well so be it. There are plenty of reasons not to. But don't let it be because I'm a sleever.
Ok....end of morning rambling.

I said sometimes. I'm good. Just kinda wish I was done. But I'm good. I'm getting there. . Thanks.

Or maybe not. I remember when I got my sleeve, I thought I'd reach my goal weight within 6 months. I was wrong. It has been over two years, and I still haven't reached my goal. I've learned to enjoy where I am, which is so much better than where I had been.

Keep reading about people who miss eating, who miss/crave certain foods, who wish they could eat more. I know that's true for some people and they are the ones who post. But I do believe that a lot of people are where I am.
I really LIKE that I can't eat too much food.< /p>
Yes sometimes I wish I could have a bite of something unhealthy, but the desire passes in less than 3 seconds.
I really LIKE that I can go out to restaurants and focus on friendship, camaraderie and conversation and not worry about the food.
I really like not constantly having to think about food. That I only think of it when I'm hungry rather than all the time.
I really, really like that I no longer spend my waking hours wondering what diet, super food, eating plan I should try next to lose my weight.
I really enjoy the feeling that I am in control, rather than feeling the food controls me.
I don't think I'm in the minority. I think this is like complications. People who had tough recoveries post, people whose recoveries were simple don't post. But for the pre-ops, I think it may be important to see that not everyone is struggling with missing food.
Are you like me? Will you post your experience here so others can see?

Or maybe not. I remember when I got my sleeve, I thought I'd reach my goal weight within 6 months. I was wrong. It has been over two years, and I still haven't reached my goal. I've learned to enjoy where I am, which is so much better than where I had been.

263 vs. 175

Love every second of my journey! 57 lbs so far another 35 to go from a size 18 to an 11 ... 2X scrubs to a med love my sleeve!

As of today, I'm "only" overweight not obese per the BMI chart! Time to celebrate!
Only you guys could understand my happiness at being overweight
How many pounds for you before you hit the next milestone for you? What's your next goal?

Not good, not good at all.... Please people don't do it, and please stop suggesting for other people to do it.
First, this behavior is the first steps of bulemia and getting into the habit of chewing food and spitting it out can lead to a very serious eating disorder. After WLS we are already dealing with changing the way we relate to food, so we want to instill good habits all along the way and avoid the bad ones as much as possible.
Second, there's a biological reason not to do this too. When you smell food and when it enters your mouth and you begin to chew, the body goes into Prep Mode to receive food. Your salivary glands produce saliva, your pancreas produces insulin, your liver produces gastric acid and your brain begins to calculate how much nutrition you're about to receive from the food you eat so it can keep track of it's daily needs/calories --- the body is a well tuned machine and it knows how to deal with food when it knows it's coming. But then you spit out the food. Your body still has excess saliva, insulin, gastric acid and it can't figure out why it didn't get the nutrition it thought it was going to get so the brain accountants go nuts.
Excess insulin in your body causes your appetite to increase so you'll eat more food to soak up all that extra hormone. Excess gastric acid in the stomach -- now released at the Y of your common channel -- can cause indigestion or heartburn or ulcers. And those brain accountants are now doing some creative math to recalculate the nutritional value of food because it thought it was going to get a certain number of calories, but none came, so next time you try to eat that same food the brain thinks you need twice as much to get the same nutrition as it thought it should have gotten last time.
So not only is the whole "chew and spit" habit a training ground for bulemia, it's also a way to tease your body into thinking it's getting food when it really isn't. Bulemia is a very serious illness and not something you want to play around with.
From the unknown sleever.

Do you miss the weight?
Yes, so much so that I am considering strapping a small child to my back just to recreate the old feeling...
Couldn't you have tried harder to lose weight ?
You are so right, 30 years just wasn't long enough to know if I could have done more.
Haven't you lost a lot of weight, you can see it's come off your face.
If you could tear your eyes away from my face, my arse is actually worth a look now

To entertain myself I thought up bad answers to frequently asked questions posed to WLS people:
"Is the food OK?" (asked because you ate so little)

Oh, yes, I haven't had food this good since the Turkish prison.


"Isn't weight loss surgery the easy way out?"

Yes, it is. I was going to shoot everyone smaller than me to make myself look average but there is an ammo shortage.


"How did you get so fat in the first place?"

I was stranded on an island with a group of sumo wrestlers. I had the only gun. A year later I was the only one left.


"How could you afford this operation?"

Well, I got this e-mail from a Nigerian widow...


"How could you do this to yourself?'

I originally wanted to do it to you but couldn't get a Brazilian visa.


"How did you lose so much weight?"

I sent myself in a suitcase on American Airlines. They lost it.


"How did you get those scars on your belly?"

Picked up by a Pterodactyl.
You wise guys got any?

Okay deep cleansing breath, I'm including my FACE in the pic this time! Look at my husband's pics! Can you believe it? Dang man is at 70% of his excess weight lost, I'm at about 54% of mine.
pics are day of sx, 8/2/2013 and today, 11/11/2013
We are all so hard on ourselves btw. I saw mine and went, "eww! tummy rolls!" My husband saw mine and said "You're looking skinny babe".
He saw his and said "My stomach shows." I saw his and said "...."well, I can't tell you what I said on this site but I'm sure you can guess :-p

She must of saw that sticky Alex put up warning people about you...
Truth be known? I've been letting my dog poop in their yard

I think they banded me too, and i don't like it! If I wanted the band, I would have chosen it. Where's my sleeve?

I like the idea of one-year to post a new thread and anyone can reply. And despite what it says to the left, I'm a sleeve vet of more than two years. I never had a lap-band.

3 years ago today I had the VSG!
So much has happened in the last 3 years in regards to my attitudes, abilities and awareness surrounding my body, what I eat, and how I exercise. I will do my best to keep this short!
First and foremost, I am one of those people who had a surgical procedure to help me lose weight. And I hit a "low" weight and then, in the space of about 10 months, regained about 20ish pounds. Nothing is more humbling than being a "statistic" in this way. I had always heard that this regularly happens to WLS patients and a part of my brain said "oh that won't be me!" Haha. Lessons learned the hard way are sometimes the ones that stick with us the most.
So if any of you have the question "is it possible to regain weight with the sleeve?" ...the answer is YES it is possible. The regain is actually quite easy. You quit tracking your food, you eat a few more calories than you need to, extra "treats" find there way back into your life, and you slack off on the exercising. Losing the extra regain...well notsoeasy. I have lost -12lbs of my regain and will continue to fight until the regain is gone.
Here are just a few quick things that are true for ME, personally.
1. We can live on a lot less food than we think we can live on. If you take nothing else away from this post, please remember that statement. During the time that I had regained some weight, I found myself wanting to eat more and the truth of the matter remains that my daily caloric intake needs to be somewhere in the neighborhood of 1,400 calories or less for me to maintain or lose weight, regardless of how much I exercise. This is completely reasonable, doable and normal for me. And I am finally OK with this. (Yours may be completely different!!)
2. Don't underestimate the importance of exercise!! It's taken me a while to finally push myself out of my comfort zone when it comes to exercise, but I've found out what a really challenging workout does to me mentally and physically and I know when things get to easy that I need to push myself farther. If you have never exercised before in your life, then your goal is to GET UP OFF the couch and DO SOMETHING. And if exercise is not completely foreign to you, then you need to set some goals to push yourself harder.
3. Plastic surgery. I have not had any...yet. I went for an initial consult this past May. It was really hard to see how much damage being morbidly obese has done to my body and how much it would cost to get a nice "perfect" body. I've had a lot of time and space to think about what I learned at that consult and what I realize now, is that I'm not sure I can afford perfection. Or that it necessarily exists. I just know I could put one of my kids through college for what I was quoted for plastics. So I'm currently on the fence and in the mode of trying to be happy with where I am and not worry about chasing a down a body that might not exist for me.
4. I constantly drink Water. I drink (half-caf) coffee (usally 2 cups a day), I rarely drink alcohol and I never drink anything carbonated. I've been carbonation free for over 3 years now. I also rarely use any type of crystal lite, or flavor enhancers etc. Sometimes I drink plain (unsweet) tea.
My net loss is somewhere around -90lbs. My husband is also sleeved and did NOT regain any weight. He is 2.5 years post-op and seems to maintain his more modest loss (-70lbs) more effortlessly than I do. He also can eat more calories than I do, so right there are complete differences among sleevers! I just don't think we can ever "give up" ...and there is no "finish" line! There might be a GOAL WEIGHT, but once you are there, it's still a journey to keep the weight off. And for that reason I'm eternally grateful to my VST 'family' for always being here!
BEFORE VSG 2010

AFTER VSG 2013 (all of these photos have been taken in the last 2 months)

SIDE BY SIDE

I don't see how single women who live alone can wear shapers. I've worn tanktop types a few times, and when I do, I always have to enlist my husband's help getting the thing off of me. I think I've even had to have him help me pull the back down in the back when putting it on as well.
They should put a warning on them saying you may require assistance in removing it. :-)

Oh that hubby story made me laugh so hard. good thing my industrial strength "body shaper" has the potty opener. actually it is post plastics compression gaments. the bra is actually a matador jacket and the bottoms come all they way up under the boobs. Where they overlap... I swear my rib .bones are compressed. My first shower post op it took 2 nurses forever to get it back on- i was swollen, there were drains etc. Those two nurses were sweating by the time they were done.
I didnt wear heavy duty shapers prior though because of the discomfort. I tended to wear lighter control tanks. key is always to take them on and off down the body, not over your head.

BAHAHAHA!!!!! The first time my husband attempted to take off my bra for our "first time" was like some kind of pre-pubescent boy's nightmare of elbows and grunting and knocking me in head....and he was 40 years old at the time!! I'm still somewhat stunned I actually had sex with him after that. I adore my guy, but he is not the smoothest operator around. If he tried to take a shaper off my body, he might choke me to death.