Chimera

So inspired that I actually put a real pic up rather than the cartoon head I have been sporting for the last few years lol.

That is right - we will get there eventually! My hubby and I did hit Barnes and Noble for a yummy skinny latte and I picked up Michael Mosely's book - I know there is another 5:2 by another gal but I will start with his. Think I will watch the documentary again tonight (have it saved on the DVR). and I will give the 5:2 a whirl starting Monday 9/9 - you 5:2 folks have had such inspiring success!

I did not know that caffeine can mess with one's insulin levels - I love my Starbucks 2 pump vanilla lattes - perhaps I should switch to decaf. I usually do 2% milk rather than skim, I think a little fat is a good thing - lord knows the fat is low with the rest of the stuff I eat/drink. Heck maybe I should just switch to plain herbal tea and keep the lattes as an occasional treat. Not sure about you guys but I have a whole lot of skin to deal with (with plenty of padding left in it lol.) It has got to be at least 10 lbs. I'm guessing. I am just going to keep up the good habits - maybe someday I can have the last bits cut off and I will be at that 'magic upper range of healthy BMI haha.

I will just keep replying to my own threads then. another site that is fun is My Body Gallery - which was linked by a forum member a while back and I think I spend half a day there http://www.mybodygallery.com/

Grrrr. I am very tired of the forum not letting my have access to edit posts punctuation etc....drives me nuts - and never a response in the help forums.

Was poking around looking up how close I am to being just overweight rather than obese according to BMI charts (which as we know have some serious limitations in actually determining how healthy or what size someone actually is). Looks like I am 2 lbs away from that milestone - and I found this interesting link that a gal has on her Flickr page. http://www.flickr.com/photos/77367764@N00/sets/72157602199008819/

I also keep reminding myself that it can take a long time to get those last lbs. off - we are in good company! and you look utterly amazing, beautiful and vibrant! never forget how far you have come

I hear ya Lisa! We had our surgeries on the same day last year and I am still working my way down to that normal BMI - it is so hard to see how far we have come so much of the time. I think that is one reason I hang on to the number, because then I will have absolute proof that I have been able to do it. Our society is so tuned in to the astounding 'before and after' transformations that occur with massive weight loss that we can be pretty hard on ourselves when the scale stops or slows. Yes all of my co-morbidities are resolved, my docs are frankly freaked out at how drastically I have improved my health over the last 3 years (my pcp still cant believe I stopped a 28 year smoking addiction after she prescribed Wellbutrin and told me to get nicotine patches - smoke free now for 3+ years) I am but a few lbs. from simply being overweight and man I will be dancing a jig when I move into that next category.

I know right? That article really resonated for me too - all of this great reading over the last few weeks has really helped me to recalibrate my oftentimes emotional response to not being at goal already - heck I was at 80% EWL at 1 year post op and am about to ramp up my workouts and put myself back into a ketogenic state to get the rest of it off. Its been easy for me to let the carbs climb a bit - mainly through dairy and an occasional Starbucks treat - I have not been gaining, but I have not been losing much anymore either - guess I am seeing first hand how to maintain in the 172-174 lbs. range.

sorry for the underline - vsg talk hates my browser lol.

Some really great reading! I too love dr. Sharma's work and have quite a collection of links to his articles - here is another recent one that I found pretty interesting - (sorry for the OH link Alex). http://www.obesityhelp.com/articles/why-bariatric-surgery-can-fail-part-2/

Rofl gman!

Congrats on goal! What an awesome achievement! I have started noting the weight I was from last day of the month from the previous year - lets see for last August I weighed 222 lbs. - and this year I weigh 50 lbs less. I will take it! I am going to continue to try and stop comparison with those fast losers and just be mindful of my own progress and success - and the fact that I am not piling it all back on - which is what has always happened in the past. Just going to be that better version of myself and keep slogging away at it

Real Self is a great site to learn about plastics and see snapshots - sorry about the underline - I cannot edit my posts unless I write them in a word processing program and then paste - ugh.http://www.realself.com/

I've been doing a lot of research into plastics these days - generally you want to be at goal and have been thee for at least 3 months for skin surgery. I would suggest shapewear in the meantime - I've noticed that the skin continues to really change and shape up in many areas as you continue to lose. You look young from your avatar photo - that is an even bigger bonus, you have much better chances of some of that skin snapping back after time. Generally, if you have 60+ lbs to lose - you can expect that skin surgery will improve your contours. if you are looking at hundreds of lbs (my real deal goal puts me at close to 200 down - lets talk about flappy skin galore lol) - the best option is LBL - lower body lift or belt lipectomy - cut all the way around and pull your lower half up like a pair of pantyhose - sounds like the worst healing pain imaginable but I will gladly endure it to get rid of the scary flabby skin between belly button and top of my knees. Someday - I am working on getting the last of the weight off and increasing muscle mass under the fat.

I third that suggestion! I spent time in therapy a few years back with an eating disorder group - interestingly enough I guess binge eating/overfilling are similar in some respects to anorexic/restrictive behaviors clinically. Hang in there - our surgery was only on our stomachs - the work on the head is all on us

Just wait - it gets even better

Interesting article - I spend a lot of time with "fitspo" types of imagery on Pinterest and Tumblr and I can see how it can influence you.

http://www.today.com...sion-6C10866502 Melissa Dahl TODAY 6 hours ago pinterest.com So you’re on the couch entering hour three of a Pinterest binge. This is a time when you probably could use a little motivation to get yourself to finally log off and drag your butt to the gym. That’s essentially the point of “fitspiration” – a cutesy, Internetty term for images and slogans meant to inspire people to meet their fitness goals, hundreds of which are posted and pinned every day on image-heavy social media sites like Pinterest, Tumblr and Instagram. And a lot of “fitspo,” as it’s nicknamed, does a great job of doing what it’s intended to do: inspire people to get and stay fit, say body image experts and fitness bloggers. But mixed right into those healthy messages are also some sneakily harmful underlying themes. “A lot of these things are very reasonable -- they say things like ‘Just start,’” says David LaPorte, a psychologist at Indiana University of Pennsylvania who has studied body image and social media. “Or, I love this one: ‘Failure isn’t falling down; it’s refusing to get back up.’ “The trouble is when you surround all those good messages with images of people that are unattainable for most women, quite frankly,” he says. Because many of the “fitspo” images actually look a lot like “thinspiration” – and if you’re unaware of that term, do a quick search on Pinterest, Tumblr or Instagram. You’ll immediately find thousands of photos of heartbreakingly thin young women (and some guys, too, but mostly young women): It’s a lot of protruding hipbones, visible rib cages, “thigh gaps." Search for “fitspiration,” and you’ll see pages and pages of similar images -- it's usually a headless shot, zoomed in on a defined, flat set of sweaty abs. Here's a couple examples of these images from Tumblr: “It sets up an equally unrealistic standard of beauty, but it’s under the guise of being healthy,” says Charlotte Hilton Anderson, a fitness blogger from Denver. On her blog, she’s called fitspo “thinspo in a sports bra,” and many body image experts say she’s exactly right. Recently, Tumblr and Pinterest responded to reports about the negative impact of “thinspo” or “thinspiration” by placing PSA-style language at the top of the results page when a user searches for those and other terms that may promote self-harm; Instagram banned both hashtags entirely. But fitspo has so far stayed mostly under the radar. Out of curiosity, LaPorte pulled up two Pinterest pages to look at them side-by-side: in one he’d searched for thinspiration and the other, fitspiration. “There are very, very subtle differences, but they look, for all intents and purposes, identical,” says Laporte, who was half-seriously designing a study as we spoke over the phone. (“We could pull them up and have people sort them out by fitspo or thinspo,” he mused. “I’m going to have to put an undergrad on this one.”) It’s worth noting the similarities because researchers who study body image and mental health have linked “thinspo” to some potentially damaging consequences. In 2010, LaPorte published a study that showed even when people with no history of eating disorders briefly looked at thinspo sites, it actually changed their eating patterns: On average, they ate about 3,000 fewer calories the next week. The participants only clicked around the thinspo sites for about 90 minutes at a time. “Now imagine you’re a 16 or a 14 year old … and you go onto these websites for hours,” LaPorte says. And a 2006 Italian study found that thinspo sites worsen some of the issues associated with eating disorders: specifically, asceticism, competition and obsession for control. Few academic studies have looked at thinspiration, and none have considered fitspiration. But psychologist Mia Holland, who specializes in treating patients with eating disorders, sees more than a few links between fitspo and compulsive exercise. While scrolling through a “fitspiration” tagstream on Pinterest, slogans like “Exercise til it hurts” and “Pain is only in your mind” particularly stood out to Holland. “Those are very unhealthy mottos to live by when exercising. If something hurts, STOP,” Holland said via email. “The body is a great barometer of its own tolerance. Yes, we do experience some discomfort when working out. … However, if the pain is unbearable, it is time to stop! “Slight discomfort can mean a muscle is working – full pain means we are pushing it too hard and need to stop,” she says. Holland reiterates that there really is some healthy, positive stuff under the fitspo and fitspiration hashtags, too, like healthful recipes or practical and safe workout tips. And if the fitspo online community is where you’re getting your encouragement to lace up your running shoes and head out the door – well, that’s wonderful, and you should keep it up! But be sure you're aware of some of the sneaky, negative messages hiding there. “(Fitspiration) does contain some good advice and healthy recipes, but that can veil the hidden negative and potentially harmful messages such as ‘Exercise til it hurts,’” Holland says. “If someone sees the positive information listed ... they will be swayed to think all of (fitspiration) is positive and helpful – when in fact, it is not.” Jodi Rubin, the creator of Destructively Fit, a training program to help fitness instructors spot eating disorders in their clients, offers this advice for people who want to participate in the online fitness community without becoming dangerously obsessive about it: Being active can and should be fun, she reminds. “I use that as a gauge often,” Rubin says. “Hopefully, exercise is fun for people. When it starts to become a drag, when it starts to feel like if I don’t go then I’m not going to feel good about myself” – that’s when it becomes a potential problem, she says.

I think everyone loves food don't they? This is where the rubber meets the road - discipline and mindfulness are very important now - our heads get in the way a lot of the time, it was my own head that allowed me to eat my way to 318 lbs and it will be my head that gets me out of that mess - along with my handy sleeve hang in there - everyone loves food - focus on the basics, get away from the food, work on hydration and move your body.

What an awesome, awesome site! Thank you sooo much for the link to this - I struggle with dysmorphia terribly and cannot wrap my mind around what I look like - it is so nice to see the different sizes and shapes and see where I am

I would love to get some help with this - As I type on my PC running Windows 7 64 bit - now I am using italics, which I have not selected. Sometimes I attempt to post and strikethrough is what I get - again I have not selected this option, nor can I post and have it do anything else unless I write my posts in Word and cut and paste onto a new reply or post. So frustrated!!!!!!! See now it is underlined! Is this something on my end? It just recently showed up. HELP PLEASE.

The only consumption issue I have with my own 16/8 schedule is that I like a cup of French press coffee with a teaspoon of sugar - early. I also think it will get easier when the new semester starts and I have classes that start early and I have early commitments other days of the week.

Rofl! I was reading one of the articles on Hugh Jackman and his IF/Leangains training program getting ready for The Wolverine - my husband sees the article and immediately flexes and puffs up lol. He wants to know if he looks like him I told him his workout schedule is good but he needs a lot more protein to put on that much muscle. I don't know if my hubby would leave if he showed up at our house - I think we would both pick his brain about fitness...and If Emily Blunt showed up heck even I might kick my husband out

Bah I really wish I could post and have use of the editor - so I will just keep replying to my own post lol. I think I am going to give the 5:2 plan a spin. I have been doing Leangains and I love it - which is more of the 16/8 - fast/feed daily schedule. After reading on Butter's maintenance post I researched getting a resting metabolism test done - turns out that they do them at Swedish - the medical center Fiddleman and his wife had their surgery at (see you guys on Saturday at support group - I think I will go see them and check it out.