Chimera

Wow Butter - that is amazing - it must feel pretty amazing to have that gone, well when you heal up that is. I too want the big badboy of all contouring surgeries - belt lipectomy/lower body lift would be the main one - I know the thighs come up a bit with that - I look like I am wearing leg warmers on my thighs with all the wiggly-jiggly skin. I too have the weird deflated 'ghost-body' that lies down around the now fitter version underneath - its hard to describe to folks who have not experienced it themselves. I know I will never look like a young thing who was never an ounce overweight, I am way past that - I think the psychological benefit of having the skin physically removed with be really significant and positive for me. Continually engaging in the rigorous work with our WL surgery, the head, heart, mind work that is an essential component of all of this, not to mention rebuilding our strong muscular selves - for me it will be just one part of this experience. I am so happy for you guys with this next step in the process - I know I have to train like an Olympian to prepare for my own contouring surgery - which will happen someday and you guys are an inspiration!

I love bacon - I'm in west Seattle cowgirl - I can come over and slap him with bacon if you need any assistance! My 17 year old makes a huuuge mess when she makes bacon and so I get to see it, smell it, AND clean up all the grease - yay me. This is why I keep a secret stash of turkey bacon in the freezer - she doesn't like it and is too lazy to defrost haha. You are a superstar in training for your plastics - I am so excited for you! I cant wait until I am at that point - still have a ways to go though.

Here are some links - These are not pro-ana btw. Mostly motivational stuff young women are posting. http://beforeandafterjourneys.tumblr.com/ http://thinspiration-pictures.blogspot.com/2012/12/before-and-after-thinspo.html

Sweet! I seem to do much better with hunger this way - I have yet to do a really hard workout fasted, but I hear very good things about it. I have been looking at interesting images this morning. I am fairly tapped into visual social media sites such as Tumblr because I use them in my college classes as a compliment to my class website stuff etc. Looking at weight loss (no I don't teach weight loss haha - but rather in the art and technology arena) before and afters on Tumblr, you get a lot of hits of young girls who want to be very thin...what I am noticing is the drastic difference in what a body looks like with losing 10-20 lbs when you are below 150. I mean my own before and after right now is pretty crazy - I've got the sleeping bag of skin to prove it - but it really is significant how much a body is altered even with a very small number of lbs lost. - lemme see if I can go find an example...

Catching up - so sorry about the burglary, I have had my house and my car broken into as well - it is awful...I was just so grateful that my small dogs were not taken or harmed - at least there was that little bit of light. I think I would have a rough time with your trainer as well - I suppose if she knew your history she might never have made such disparaging remarks about anything that helps people to move more (and provide a safe, comfortable atmosphere for women, which can be rare) Maybe she simply hasn't had a lot of work experience with clients or customer service - bonehead moves like those you have describe seem like the hallmark of either an idiot or one who lacks professional skills with humans. I did waterobics as well to start - and I loved it. My husband and I quit when the classes were too easy - I could launch myself 6 feet out of the Water haha (and they had really bad music 80% of the time). I think it is an excellent workout for folks who have joint problems - it was great for me because my jiggly was all under water Been having some rough fast days over the last week - they always seem to be over 500. I have been trying more of the Leangains pattern - fasting for 16, with an 8 hour eating window - for me that has been 3 pm to 9 pm with my wacky schedule. It seems to help with my hunger and getting the 500 days on track. so I am doing 5:2 with 16:8 in there lol. the weight is still shimmying up and down a bit by 2 lbs (168 - 170). Fasting today and feel good - but the mornings are not problematic - its the afternoon and evening when my family is all home and the siren call of Starbucks calls to me lol. Hangin in there and remembering my doctors stats - 50% EWL the first 6 months, another 25% during the next 6 months (75% down in a year - I was down 80%) and the last 25% can take 1-2 years...that is where I am with about 8 months to go to my 2 year year post op date.

Welcome back Globetrotter! I am new to the group since you have been gone, but have been on the boards a long time. I can absolutely relate to auto-immune issues - rather than gut, intestine, celiac stuff - I have a lot of severe issues with my skin and my eyes, which have both been diagnosed as auto-immune responses (dyshidrotic eczema - my hands and feet blister badly on the palms and soles, and severe chronic conjunctivitis - infections of the lining of the eye) - currently I have been in remission for a good while (thank goodness!) but the last flare-up I had was devastating. I was on heavy compounded doses of prednisone for a long time which is just awful - talk about weight gain - I literally could not stop eating, and I spent so many months on various steroids that I was run down and worn out. Shortly after is when I started the year long pre-op journey with starting to change my diet - and by cutting down on the white stuff flours, sugar, rice, wheat in general - I have not seen a flare yet. This is the time of year my body usually starts to trigger, so far so good. I too take meds to help with my brain chemistry - Buproprion and Clonazepam (hi trauma and one of my nutritionists who is always the science gal tells me how those meds have positive impacts for those of us trying to shed pounds. I think you can get green tea capsule - I should get some of those heh

Also started 9/9/2013 SW: 173 CW: 168 A very happy 5 lbs. down

Holy Moly! that is awesome LauraV! Still chilling at 168 this morning - scale dropped down and stuck. Also started my monthly - which hasn't been so monthly lately as the change is upon me. I am usually super hungry prior, and then that goes away and the scale drops a couple of lbs. - going to do a fast day tomorrow to make up for not getting a fast day in since Monday and hope to get back to my regular gym and fasting days (mon/thurs) next week. Hopefully I will see that scale nudge down a wee bit more for my 'official' weigh-in on Tuesday morning.

I love your before and after snapshots Lisa - you look fantastic! We will get there!

I plan to plant an avocado tree and an almond tree in my backyard for healthy fats and nuts at maintenance well j/k I suppose that would involve moving to southern climes where delicious things like this actually grow rather than the wet NW. Who am I kidding - I have had my hands overly full with two tomato plants this summer - could not eat that many tomatoes when we had two full sized tummies in the house

Drink, drink, drink Georgia! fill up that tum with liquid

I am one of those that gets pretty obsessive about numbers and statistics - I still have every graph, chart, booklet, and document from every weight loss attempt I have attempted (the Weight Watchers Collection is like the Smithsonian lol). I originally had set 130 as my goal - then revised it to 140. That goal weight puts me in the healthy BMI range (we all know how inaccurate these are - yet still they are widely used.) I am 49 next month and I am 5'3". Our bodies are all so vastly different - I now wear a size 8 in pants but also can wriggle my rump into a 2 if there is at least 1% spandex in the material (this is when my husband starts following me around the house leering at me and telling me how 'sexy" my pants are...this makes me think maybe I should not wear them in public rofl!) I have friends who I think look smaller than I do and they wear a bigger size from the same store - go figure. So I have decided that clothing number sizes are not something I am going to get in a tizzy about...heck I wore a 3-5X on top less than 2 years ago. I want to get to 140 and see how I feel. I have heard bariatric surgeons say that a BMI of 22 is ideal for a woman (whatever that means) - I know I will want that 140 to be the top end of a bounce range - which means I will most likely want to drop below that number to maintain that healthy BMI. My doctors and nutritionists never set a goal weight for me - the goal has always been to resolve co-morbidities - and that happened at 9 months post. At my year one checkup I was already considered a spectacular success with an 80% EWL...but I will not be happy unless I go all the way. I have never achieved goal weight in my life and I am going to do it this time, and maintain it. I feel good - I don't feel obsessed, just determined and positive to do the things I need to do to achieve what I want. I can see how far I have come, which has taken a long time to be able to see (I never liked looking - it was too painful), I can see it now and I am almost there

I cant even image the 150's - so many milestones at 155...I hit 155 25 years ago in 1988 for a nanosecond after 4 torturous months of old school Optifast (400 calories of nasty shakes a day, bi-weekly blood draws - nothing else for 16 weeks) went from 211 to 155 and then got in a serious car accident that put me out of work for a year - leg reconstructed with surgery....needless to say, the losses never lasted. 155 was my highest weight in High School - Ohh Im gonna get there..its less than 15 lbs. away! Then goal is another 15...its on!

Those Kim's Magic Pops look delicious and are probably something that would trigger me - I am very much a salty, crunchy person The faux cheese nip has long been a favorite in our house, both among those who have had their tummies removed and those that still have theirs intact. Have you guys ever tried these? I know there are all sorts of videos here and on Youtube with how to make these. Take a Kraft single (I use the Sharp flavor) Slice said cheese and make 3 slices each direction to make 16 little squares. Place little squares on a piece of parchment paper. Microwave for about 50 seconds - squares will puff up, deflate and then harden into a crispy 'cracker'. Nutrition: 16 crackers/one slice of cheese 60 Cals. 4 Protein 2 Carb 4.5 Fat You must use parchment and the microwave - using regular cheeses and the oven makes those nice crunchy, flat (and greasy) things like Parmesan crisps. I try and stay away from wheat or baked goods as much as possible because I turn into a raving carbohydrate monster - so these work for me as a vehicle for other delicious things I don't track fat - I think it is good for us. I made these for my monthly bariatric support group meeting one time last spring and you would have thought I was the second coming of our lord with how popular these were - I even had fairly newish posts ops with tears in their eyes over a little crunchy snack they could enjoy lol.

Gamergirl that is great! My husband had a vsg as well, and he has walked right by me when meeting up to divide and conquer the grocery store as well

I am a professor and scheduled mine right after the end of spring semester - being older I knew that it might take me longer to get back up on my feet. I am glad I made that decision - as I had complications, was in the hospital for a week (internal bleeding) and it took me a bit to heal.

I lost 14 in about a week and a half - my surgeon has us do Atkins induction with liquids the day before surgery.

/joins the envious of plastics club. Cowgirl Jane - I wonder if being that empathetic shoulder to cry on has anything at all do do with eating patterns - for 22 years I was a hair colorist (which is a big old shoulder to cry on) just kept packing on the weight over the years...food after work was a true comfort - numbs one out after 12 hour days of hearing folks heartbreaking stories and challenges - a new one every 30 minutes - 5-6 days a week. I know it could be hard to not let my clients shred me to bits at times - some of these people I had seen monthly for decades, I was closer to them then the majority of my family. Your post has generated some interesting thoughts for me. Now I am a college professor and by its nature, has much stronger/more defined emotional boundaries. I still tend to worry about others over myself much of the time. I would follow your instincts with what you should do before surgery be it fasting or not fasting. I would focus on hydration, nutrients, getting both good exercise and rest. As for plastics - I want a full-on belt lipectomy - the big bad boy of body contouring! Tummy Tuck or panniculectomy will not be enough. i have the hang over the top of my tummy - my lower tummy and thighs look like a ratty old beige blanket that a pack of dogs have been playing under lol. I thoroughly destroyed my skin by getting so big - ahh well - I still prefer this to 150 lbs ago. I have the jowly neck thing too - I used to think my head looked as if it were squeezed out of a tube (meaning I have no neck) - now its the flabby bag the tube came in haha! They say one could have anywhere from 5-10 lbs of skin for every 100 lb. loss - no wonder I look like an old sleeping bag

Morning gang Just wanted to check in with good news - after my 5th fasting day (Started 5:2 16 days ago) I am down a solid, and so far sticky 5 lbs. I will go change the ticker - which I do not do unless I know the number is there for good! I guess I could almost say I have had 4 real fast days - last week was a struggle - and last night on my fasting day I was ravenous! I was a bit over after my main meal (baked chicken and steamed broccoli) was at 545 calories, 43 Protein, 48 carbs, 20 fat when I got into my husbands peanut stash - I guess it could be worse. Milestones as well - my weight puts me in the simply 'overweight' category - no longer obese, morbidly obese, or super morbidly obese. I was considered high risk with my BMI for my surgery. I now weight at least 20 lbs less than my husband - I have always been the same weight or outweighed him. We both have the same start weight of 318 ironically

Thanks gang! My husband - who also had a vsg two weeks before I did is a great motivator in the working out department (lets not talk about the healthy snack department lol.) This week is rough with my work load - multiple lectures to prep and it wont let up until next weekend. I think working out might make fast days easier for me. Friday might work better as well for fasting this week because of my running around schedule - it is easy to drink on the run and I tend to not think much about food - much less so when I am poking around the house.

I have a frightening picture from the day I came home from the hospital - someday I will post it. I had complications with my surgery that kept my in the hospital for 5 days (internal bleeding) - the day I came home the biggest of my incisions opened up and it was like old faithful with the blood (I guess there was a void - it was old blood that had ben collecting) - looked like I had been beaten in the stomach with a baseball bat - a massive black bruise the size of a dinner plate (at least). All good now though

Thanks so much for having me! I had a bit of a shaky second week with fasting (very busy with work) but have kinda ended up fasting today - when tomorrow is my scheduled fast day. I guess it has turned out to be more of a 16 hour fast - got busy this morning working on a presentation and didn't eat until this afternoon. Just made some delicious hard boiled eggs - which is my go-to snack/mini meal in a pinch. For some reason I am absolutely stuffed from one hard boiled egg - still at 16 months out. 3 turkey meatballs do the same thing. I am still figuring out my favorite choices for fasting days - I am one of those lucky ones that do not have an attraction to Protein Bars - but my downfalls are vanilla latte's (2 pumps of vanilla rather than the normal 4) and cheeses and nuts. Lisa and I talk often on FB - we both could live on just coffee drinks I just want to mention again how inspiring you guys are - trying out the 5:2 eating plan/pattern has really seemed to help to get the scale moving in the right direction again for me, a big part of that has been reading about all of your experiences here. I hope to reach my goal of 140 by my 2 year surgiversary, which I think is definitely achievable. I am finally getting to the point that it is okay if it doesn't happen by a certain date - I think we all know by now that no matter how compliant one is with all of the post op protocols with diet, exercise, supplements, hydration, mindfulness, self-loving kindness, and continued support with family, online pals, and real life groups - it doesn't always mean you get to goal lickety split. Thats okay - we are in good company!

Great post! Thanks for sharing - here is another bit of good reading about sugar and breaking its hold from a friend I went to graduate school with http://www.vanadia.com/stopbeingsweet/

You guys sound like you have the protein/coffee mojo going on! I am going to have to try some of these products and recipes. I looooove my hot drinks but regular boring latte at 37 carbs can put a strain on my little low carb budget - at least it is dairy carbs

16 months out tomorrow for me too - Lisa and I have the same re-birthday It is so encouraging to hear about the great success you have had with 5:2 Cowgirl Jane. Also on my second week and so far so good. We live in the same neck of the woods - I should pm you and ask about plastics - I need them but I want to be firmly at or under goal for that - plus there is the issues of paying for it - where was that durned money tree again?! So that will be a while for me.