Back~To~Amy

As of now, I have only heard back from 3 people with a yes to our meeting on Saturday so there will be 4 including me. The other 3 are: Jacqi, Toni, and Amanda B. Also, I joined a weekly support group at Baylor Plano run by a psychologist and met a girl there who said she'd love to come too so we may have 5 of us there. For some reason, I don't have where you live AmandaB. But based on where the other 3 of us live, I say we change our location. Does anyone have a problem with meeting at La Hacienda off Preston Rd. North of Frankford Rd. at 1:00 pm on Saturday? The physical address is: 17390 Preston Road # 100, Dallas, TX. If I don't hear back from everyone on this, we will leave it as it at Pappasitos. Oh, and to cover my bases I'm e-mailing this to y'all too. You only need to respond in one place. I just wanna have the best shot of getting the message to each of you since I'm proposing a meeting change. I look forward to meeting y'all! ~Amy

Anything that is not plus sized!

So, I went on YouTube and was watching the sleeve procedure. That's ok. However, that led into looking at people's vlogs and some of them had quite a sigificant amount of excess skin. I have about 150ish pounds to lose and know that no amount of good genes, exercise etc. will keep me from having a bunch of excess skin. I just cannot believe what I've done to my body! It almost makes me say what's the point. I know logically what the point is. It's my health, my life but there is vanity in this too. I know there is surgery for that, but who know if and when I could ever afford that. This surgery alone is a lot. For those who have lost close to or more than what I need to, please jump in here and give me your thoughts - the good, the bad and the ugly so to speak. I'm really feeling low about all this right now. Thanks! ~Amy

Yikes! I know that doesn't feel good. I hope you are better soon.

3 weeks

I keep it simple when people wanna know what I'm doing to lose weight and I don't want to tell them about my surgery. I simply say: "I'm eating less and exercising more". I haven't had anyone day anything else about how I did it after I said that.

Good luck today. This is a good thing. You want of out before you ever have a bad attack because that is PAINFUL!

Exactly! We have "baby" tummies and should treat them the same.

What a person has trouble with will vary from one person to another. I'm 10 weeks, 1 day out now. I was released to eat anything my sleeve could tolerate. At around 8 weeks I had some salad and my body rejected it. I tried it again in my 9th week and am fine with it now. I also tried a little bit of bread in my 8th week primarily to know if I could eat it. I did fine with it but haven't had it again as it takes up too much space that I need for Protein. I haven't tried steak as I don't like it so I cannot give you my experience there. I have tried a variety of other things and haven't had issues with any of them. Some of them, like chicken that isn't shredded, sit heavier than others but I am still able to tolerate them. If I can suggest something to it is is to try one new food at a time at a certain meal. That way, if you have issues you know what is causing them. Then, once you've tried a certain food and done fine with it in a prior meal you can have it again with something new with it. Does that make sense? Good luck to you!

The few people I've known that had cobra had outrageous premiums.

I can totally see how you read it. I'm usually pretty good with my grammer, punctuation and spelling. I should have stuck a comma in between "to" and "that" as you did above and it would have been clear. I would've thought the same thing you did had a doctor told me what you originally thought he did. Truth of the matter is I was a HUGE grazer prior to VSG. Dr. Ashmore diagnosed with me atypical binge eating. I didn't binge by eating huge amounts at one time. I used to eat a huge amount of food spread out over an entire day. Simply put, I grazed all day and the propensity to do it didn't go away because I had surgery because it is a mental thing and not a being full thing. Make sense? I'm so scared of being in that 20% that I'm involved in 2 types of groups run by the doctor and several different types peer support "groups". I'm 100% to be in that 80%. Otherwise, I wasted the 12 grand I paid for the surgery. Take care. Best of luck to you.

The gym because of the variety of exercises you can do.

You look awesome. Congrats and keep up the great work!

I confess too that I think about food way more than I want to. I confess that I don't exercise as much as I should. I confess that I drink Sonic caffeinated several times a week and love every drink of it. I confess that I weigh myself every day.......at least once. I confess that I'm never hungry and sometimes eat Snacks because I'm craving something. I confess I spend too much time VST when I should be doing other things.

I started my preop diet at 304.6. The day of surgery I was down 14 pounds. Since surgery 10 weeks ago I'm down a total of 51.2.

I think you jumped to a conclusion and formed an opinion over 1 statement. First of all, he isn't a defeatist. He's telling a statistical fact. The truth! The reason we talk about this is because knowledge is power. We discuss it so we know what causes weight regain. We also discuss ways to avoid the habit and how to "live with" food without grazing. The sleeve can't make us or keep us skinny. We have to deal with the mental issues with food and not doing so is certain failure. I was a grazer all day long and the desire to do so didn't go away just because my tummy is smaller. I have to learn how to live life and not graze if I want to be successful long term. Not talking about the negative stuff doesn't make it go away. It makes us aware of things that can negatively impact our journey and it gives us the power to work on those things and be successful. I hope you are dealing with or have dealt with that side of your food issues too. And please be careful in the future about making such a harsh judgement about a single statement a person you don't know made. If you saw the number of people at his 2 groups you'd realize what a caring and good psychologist he reallly is. Otherwise, there wouldn't be so many there. Every week and month they are packed.

Per my doctor, don't use baby powder. It actually can make it worse. There is a certain kind of powder to use but I can't think of the name of it. I'll see if I can find it and will post the name. A dermatologist should know though. Also, you will need a prescription cream as those are usually fungal related. Good luck to you.

This group is great. I'm sorry the support group you attended wasn't. In my area, we have a wonderful one run by a psychologist whose expertise is bariatric patients. He does a monthly and a weekly group and I attend both. As much as I love VST, I need live support too. Best of luck to you in your journey!

That sounds like me. Since surgery 10 weeks ago and losing 51 pounds, my heat intolerance is so much better. It's been over 100 degrees here for weeks and yes, it still gets to me. It just isn't as bad as it was. I've also noticed getting chilly sometimes in my office and prior to surgery that never happened. In the winter, the most I ever wore was 3/4 length sleeves and never a coat and only a lightweight jacket when I was outside. I never used my heat in the car either. I'm interested to see what I will be like this winter. Hang in there. The heat intolerance will get better as you get skinnier.

Thanks for sharing!

Sounds like eveything is going good. Congrats on your surgery and best of luck on your journey.

Congrats on your day finally being here! Best of luck to you on your journey.