CowgirlJane

Skiing was finally FUN. skied more than fell! I just went down the slope over and over!!! No anxiety attacks either!

Interesting. I have a larger sleeve theoretically as they used 38 (or was in 36?) Bougie and I have had great success. Lost 150 in 14 months....lost another 10 later and have been maintaining.

Trying skiing again today. Really anxious over it. Breathe.

I see signatures from my kindle. Also if you click on profiles you often see before and after photos. Real shame that so many are missing out on stats and photos...can be inspirational.

I am not sweetpee but Cbt my insatiable hunger happened in the early weeks post op. Others lose weight during the "high burn" but I maintained being so hungry. I stayed focused on Protein but ate often! So most of us are cleared for activity at 6-8 weeks but I will share a warning of some ladies in my FB support group who caused themselves complications after 6 weeks by way over doing it. I sometimes think I was way wimpy as I waited more like 12 weeks plus to resume horses, farm work, and hard workouts but I did manage to avoid complications. I had mega procedures done at once including the LBL. Anyway main message is that recovery is slower than it seems..

Must be spring a bunch of us are doing well! I popped up to 153 by kiddo is here and we are going out to dinner every night. Last night took both boys out for sushi, it was delicious!

I read Book of Ruth - the fiction book, right? EXCELLENT in my opinion but it was years ago. I have been on a netflix documentary bender lately!

For Denise since she asked.. might be TMI for most of you.... I went through meno when I was obese. The fat apparently kept most symptoms at bay - i didn't get vaginal dryness until after I lost weight, in fact I had the opposite problem of too much moisture. I only had maybe 1-2 hotflashes EVER but of course i have sleep issues etc so who knows what is meno related and what isn't. I wasn't having sex (my EX gave up on sex sometime around 2006-2008 timeframe) so didn't notice it until last year - first when horseback riding and my exposed parts got tender in a way they never had before and then later when I resumed having sex. At first it was okay, then got a bit sore afterwards (no bleeding or anything) even using a gel. I started on premarin but didn't like it. Then I intermittantly used a bio-identical (a small amount a few times a week) but I am unclear how or if it is helping. I recently switched formulations to a different bioidentical that I insert 3 times a week now and apply a progesterin cream to my body somewhere to help with the sleep issues. My doctor says my vaginal tissue is very healthy, but I find it gets annoyingly dry still. Not to be too graphic, but the lubricant needs to be re-applied during and since I was never like that before I find it disconcerting. One advantage of an older lover is that he familiar with it - no big deal to him but it bothers me that my body simply does not respond the way it should! What really bothers me is that once moist/wet it drys out immediately... I cannot make sense of that... almost like it absorbs the lubricant or something. Anyway, I sometimes long for my 30s which was by far the peak of my physical sexual enjoyment. I think NOW is the peak of my "mental" sexual enjoyment as I seriously feel great for days after... the whole afterglow of endorphins I guess. Sadly, I missed out on most of my 40s due to my EX giving up on sex. So that is probably TMI...LOL

So, it sounds like they are recommending this for medical reasons - you have lost alot of weight and the extra belly skin is causing health problems and perhaps interfering with exercise etc? That is the main reason I have heard of doing this before losing all the weight... referred to as "staging" or doing it in phases. Most of us are told to be at a stable goal weight for at least a little while but it is very individual. Have you had a consult with a plastic surgeon? They are normally free and really the best place to get your questions answered. I had plastics, but it was much more extensive than a panni so i can't really give advice on what to expect with the panni. I will say that skin removed from the belly area has a bigger impact than one might think as it is tied into your lymphatic system etc and healing takes awhile. Your plastic surgeon should be able to lay out the plan for recovery too. good luck!

Thanks for the links Swizz... will check em out. I have been reflecting on this thread and realized something. Due to plastics, I stopped exercise back in october. Then, when I was cleared to resume exercise I decided to join and gym and work with a personal trainer who quickly injured me (not that I hold a grudge or anything). Now, I am re-habbing with a different PT who is having me do very focused, low intensity strength training of small muscles. What I am missing is my old high intensity aerobics. I am still active, riding horses, working around my farm, going on walks all that stuff, but I am not doing the high intensity spinning or group classes. I am going to resume that as I do think that "working up a sweat" nearly daily really helped me feel good. I also don't like that I seem to need an "endorphin fix" but it's where I am at right now so I guess I will just accept that and see what happens. An observation about my favorite hobby - horse back riding - is that I KNOW it triggers endorphins but i don't have time/ability to do that everyday. I suspect that there is no single thing - sleep issues, hormone issues, the need for endorphins... they all play together somehow and it is a matter of managing that balance and then just tolerating those times when I get the unexplained mood drops. I really don't think I am depressed since I have alot of energy and MOST of the time feel from fine to pretty dang good. I have alot of optimism about life and my future and to me that is not a depressed experience.

Hey Georgia we may no longer be HOT all the time but we are HAWT...HAHA

Neck Wattle cure - please do share! I don't actually think I need a facelift YET, and i am afraid of the scars and more importantly the numbness, but I would love to do a wattle reduction! Cathy, good luck - hope the house stuff sails along smoothly. I admit I am not fasting of late. I am down in my bounce range again barely - low 150s - but have kiddo home from college. I do want to take a run at getting more solidly into the 140s but thinking that will be more successful once he is gone. The other day I was looking at my chubby thighs, knowing that the chub is mostly skin (I had the small thigh lift which was very much a partial solution) wondering if i should revise to the long thigh lift. My surgeon finally sent me the mark up photos... oh good heavens, wowza, even I forgot how much I have improved. It helped me reset my brain a little. Like wow, how far have I come???? I never really shared photos of how awful my thighs were pre-plastics - some of the photos I had were taken at beneficial angles. These photos are shocking even to me. April 14 will be my 6 month plastics and I hope to have actually put together some sort of photo collage really showing side by side. I don't have any pre weight loss photos that show any skin at all... but seeing what I looked like pre weight loss, then post weight loss (without spanx), then post plastics is amazing. when I was preop, I had no idea this was even possible...

I don't think being scale obsessed is good AT ALL. I am a daily weigher, same time every morning, and I don't let little fluctuations concern me. It is useful though because like others have said...i can tell when I am trending UP. I regained 5# after hitting goal.. it took months to do it. It wasn't a single weigh in, it was a trend up. Regular monitoring kept that from turning into 15 or 50 pounds regain. I maintain a bounce range. Right now I am maintaining around 150... my bounce range is 146-151 and I watch trends rather than a single day weigh in.

I am prone to getting cold now. I keep my house warmer and my kiddo came home for spring break and complained heartily so I am wearing sweaters this week! I also learn from my skinny friends - don't be afraid of long underwear, layers etc. I think this is pretty normal. Tired all the time... I would check two things, no 3 things first. #1 hydration - are you getting plenty of Water everyday? #2 adequate sleep and #3 nutrition and supplements - Vitamin B family deficiencies can happen with the sleeve for example and make you feel really tired. I do the drops under the tongue a couple of times a week. If all that checks out - you should be evaluated. I have so much energy these days it should be bottled and sold so I don't think it is due to losing weight...

Maybe your user name "Sleeveless in Seattle" is confusing you?? haha! It is a strange set of sensations, I always feel weirdo after general anethesia too. I like to say I didn't feel fully human until about 2-3 months post op. I can't actually describe what I mean by those words, but it is how I felt.

I lost alot of weight by 6-7 months out... over 100#. I reached a crossroads since by 8 months I wasn't losing much at all. I sort of had to ask myself the question of "is this good enough?" i don't think there is a right or wrong answer to that question, but I personally really wanted to be normal weight and not still overweight. I also realized that weighing under 200# was a heck of a lot better than weighing over 300# so i didn't want to get trapped by thinking I was a failure at losing "only" 100 pounds.... So, I saw the NUT and we had a real discussion about it. I decided to go for it... so I refocused, i gave up Protein bars which had turned into my snack food of choice. I was in a way abusing them.. using them like a candy/snack substitute. I had to just quit them for awhile because 1-2 per day was adding carbs especially that I didn't need. I also increased the intensity of my exercise - I started doing high intensity interval training, took up spinning and gave up the exercises that were time consuming and low intensity. Those had their place earlier on in the process, but I needed to change to get to my ultimate goal. Those two things got me back to losing that 8-10 per month instead of 2-3 per month. THAT is how I made the final push to goal and a "normal" BMI. So, the answer to your question is that whether you make it to goal or not in the first 6-8-12 months - at some point you will start feeling more hunger, you may start wandering back to old habits... you might need to face a certain crossroads like i did.

Wow surgeon finally sent me my markup photos.unreal, even to me how much I have changed. For my 6 month Mark from plastics I. Am going to do a before and after collage. Denise I went through menopause several years ago whicb is why I ruled out hormonal issues but my doc says that can still happen. And I do still have a sex drive but it's different than in m 30s. Thanks to my EX I missed out on sex for most of my 40s. Back to sleep....

Sounds like stress to me... don't worry about it... I think you are perhaps unusual that you were always so regular. The body and mind are very intertwined and sometimes collude to confuse us!

I was told the honeymoon period was the first year. I knew there was no way i was losing 150+ in a year so I asked my NUT what that really meant to me. Did it mean I was destined to remaining "overweight"? She told me that I could keep losing and maintaining as long as I keep "working that sleeve" - there was no expiration date on that. She was RIGHT. Yes, weight loss slows down... thank goodness really! I got to my initial goal in 14 months and have lost another 10# since then. I am 2 years and 3+ months post op now and I know I could lose even more weight if I were so inclined (which I am not). It is really about working the sleeve. I am not saying it is easy, and I do agree that you are well served to be as diligent as possible that first year (or 6 months or whatever) as it does get harder, but the only limits exist in our own minds.

Swizz, that is exactly what I do - tell myself this too shall pass, and usually very quickly. In the case of Sunday since I also had GI distress I have myself permission to have a down day and took it really easy. I put myself to bed early and took something to really sleep and guess what - I feel good today so far. One other coping thing I do is call a friend. I used to call and tell them how horrible I felt but then I realized that didn't help either of us. Now,I just call and talk for like 5-10 minutes and about 99% of the time that seems to reset my brain since I usually don't really have a dang thing to complain about. It is a mystery that maybe has no solution. Maybe it is just one of the joys of womanhood (hormones) and that at my age i really need my sleep. I used to be able to have a few nights of poor sleep and be just fine and I really can't anymore for some reason. I also believe that some of it is that I am not suited for a desk job, which I have. I need to move and be in front of people. I love many many things about my job so I am not complaining, but over the long run, I may be thinking about additional lifestyle changes that suite my personality better. I like to be on the MOVE, I like to interact with people face to face, I like to be constantly challenged and as I am very verbal - I like that interchange with people. I don't get enough of those things at work and I know sometimes the tension for me is trying to focus on desk work when what I really want to do is run around and talk to people...haha

Ok, it was my experience that due the nerves that are cut during sleeve surgery that i couldn't really feel restriction well until about 6 weeks post op... and as I started transitioning to firmer food. I think you might be panicking too soon. I ate by the measuring spoon and cup and the clock those first 2 months because I could not trust what my tummy was telling me. That DID change, and it was hard to transition to solids but i did it and was very successful. Hang in there and good luck.

Okay, my personal experience was I did terrible with the band and have been wildly successful with the sleeve so this is pure speculation based on what my surgeon "warned" me could happen. He said several things about revisions - statistically, we don't do as well as virgin sleevers. nobody knows for sure why but his personal theory was that there are 2 main reasons. 1. Bandsters got used to the feeling of fullness of restriction and were more tolerant of that feeling of the esophgus being sorta full. also, in my case, and the case of many people who failed with the band, I learned how to eat sliders because the band caused me pain when I ate dense food like Proteins. 2. sometimes, due to the location of the scar tissue and this depends alot on what happened to you while you were banded, they can't get the same shape and size stomach post sleeve as they can with virgin sleevers. Coming out of surgery my surgeon told me he was relieved, I had massive scar tissue due to slippage, dialation and heaven knows what else from 10 years of the band - he felt he got a "good pouch". Anyway, I guess I used the info he shared with me to make me extra diligent about following the sleever rules and I did somehow manage to lose 160#. When I was banded i weighed 272 and never got under 200. I regained once I had to have the fill removed due to out of control reflux and just lived with it empty for the next 8 years. When I was sleeved, I weighed 308 and am now maintaining around 148-150#. Even so, I know for a fact you are not the only one who has not had wild success post revision. i do think the fact that you are so close to goal/normal size makes it much harder. I had to work work work to get the last 30-40# off to make it to my current weight. I mean really work - low low carb, high intensity exercise 5-6 days a week and all that. I mean it, i worked it hard. I would have not gotten under about 180-190# without me really stepping it up big time and that is the honest truth.

GG could be intense and she had a way of just sorta bulldogging LV that i never understood... but i actually kind of like her. I feel like she is going through the weight loss emotional rollercoaster and would come out the otherside a really good friend on her. Dunno why,I just felt that way. Too bad people go off in a huff for any reason, but, oh well.

It is absolutely terrifying to be sitting there on the edge of your decision. Many of us went through that. Here is my advice as a life long obese person who was also really afraid of failing ... again. And has since lost 160# and is maintaining that loss. Click on my profile to see my before and afters... I have truly transformed thanks to the help of the VSG. anyway, advice here... have you really tried everything? Have you done every reasonable diet (weight watchers, low carb whatever)? What were your results? Do you have the disease of obesity, meaning you have been overweight/obese long enough that you have physical changes? You maybe used to be able to lose weight but can hardly do that anymore? Are you hungry most of the time? If you can answer honestly yes to those questions - I am guessing that you won't be able to lose and maintain significant weight loss without weight loss surgery. If you have serious doubts if you have in fact tried everything, put off your surgery and TRY everything. That way, you will know in your heart that you gave it your all and you need a tool to help you. I realize not everyone will view it that way, but I was honestly at rock bottom and so by the time I had surgery I was so OVER food as a friend. I would ahve been happy if they could figure out how to keep me from ever having to eat again (which of course is not the case!). I work at maintenance, do not get me wrong, but I worked (and failed) at trying to stay under 300#!!! Now I work, and mostly succeed at staying under 150#! My life is truly transformed into a life I actually want to live with so much potential and joy at daily things. Hang in there, this isn't always easy, it is just a tool and YOU make it what you want. You have a lot of influence over the outcome. I had the lapband and did not do well with it. One of the things I learned is that I needed help and support and so I picked a VSG surgeon who REQUIRED 2 years of follow up. I had to humble myself, the professional dieter, and go back to basics and relearn how to eat and live an active life. It was hard to turn that over and to be open to it, but I am so glad I did. I am also so glad I didn't have the gastric bypass or sleeve when I was first looking into it - I waited a year and even changed surgeons. The first surgeon was highly recommended, but I didn't like his NUT, I didn't like his program and I felt that resistance inside me. He told me I would fail with the sleeve and should have the bypass and I couldn't figure out why I would succeed at that either... That was a year of suffering to be honest but it really set the stage for my success as I knew that I needed the surgery, i needed the support and I needed to change my life. I feel that some sort of combination of luck, and guiding forces put me right where I needed to be in terms of the surgeon and program and my own brain.

Good luck on the interview Florinda! I was reflecting on how life is a challenge for most people. I am blessed with good friends, a supportive boss and colleagues I adore. My family is quite supportive and I love them dearly even though I don't see them as often as I should. Even my sons are supportive (well as supportive as young 20s men can be expected to be). I have so much in my daily life that is positive. I admire you for perservering so well in an environment that does not strike me as emotionally supportive or loving AT ALL. Visualize how much more you will THRIVE once you are in a healthy environment!! I am excited for you.