traceyinflorida

Congratulations! I can't wait to get there! 15 more pounds!

It sounds like you have the right plan to get things back on track. It's always good to get back to basics when it feels like things have veered too far off course. Hopefully with this great tool we have, getting back to basics will be easier done than without it. I think there is nothing wrong with a tiny piece of chocolate as long as you can stop there and not end up eating half the bag! Good luck!

Congratulations and good luck to you! (and all of the folks commenting that their surgeries are tomorrow also!) I wish you an easy surgery and a speedy recovery!! Welcome, in advance, to the losers bench!!

1. I no longer feel the need (nor can I ) to devour everything in sight!
2. My bathroom no longer looks like a laundromat with wet clothes hanging everywhere to dry so that I do not shrink them in the dryer. Now everything goes in the dryer!

I willnot miss standing in my closet wondering what to wear because I have a closet full of clothes in various sizes that are all too small.
I will not miss having to watch my kids go on rides at the amusement park that I am too big to fit on.
I will not miss walking into a room and thinking to myself I am the fatest person here.
I will not miss shopping the Plus size department in stores where there is limited selection and it is more expensive!

I willnot miss standing in my closet wondering what to wear because I have a closet full of clothes in various sizes that are all too small.
I will not miss having to watch my kids go on rides at the amusement park that I am too big to fit on.
I will not miss walking into a room and thinking to myself I am the fatest person here.
I will not miss shopping the Plus size department in stores where there is limited selection and it is more expensive!

I am convinced that the insurance companies make theses things as difficult as possible so that you will give up and go away and not try to get expensive proceedures covered. It just makes me all the more determined and persistent. I wish everyone who is dealing with this issue lots of luck and patience. I know it is dissapointing to find out that you have to wait another six months when you are finally READY. It happened to me too. Trust me when I tell you it goes by pretty quickly, so try not to be discouraged.

I feel guilty sometimes, but I am learning to get over it. When they come back to the table and I haven't eaten most of my meal, I pre-empt them to say everything was delicious, I am just not very hungry, may I please have a to-go box? If I only order an appetizer or just share with my husband (since I still eat such a tiny amount at 8 weeks) I add a few dollars to the tip. I think that is the former waitress in me...

1. I no longer feel the need (nor can I ) to devour everything in sight!
2. My bathroom no longer looks like a laundromat with wet clothes hanging everywhere to dry so that I do not shrink them in the dryer. Now everything goes in the dryer!

It gets better!! My first couple weeks I was miserable for the same reason. Sometimes I questioned what I had done to myself thinking life would never be the same and that eating and drinking had become a full time job. You are still healing and your stomach is swollen inside leaving you very little room for more than just a trickle of Water or broth at a time. Don't worry so much about your Protein at this point (you will be able to gradually increase that over time) but focus on your fluids. Broth, Protein Shakes and other liquids count as fluids, so remember to count that in your 64 oz. I found warm broth went down much easier than water for a while (although I had to keep reheating it because it took me so long to drink) I hated my protein shakes for the first couple of weeks, but that has gotten better. I could only drink about 4 oz (which I had to build up to) and that would take 30-40 minutes. It still takes me 30 mins to drink a Protein Shake, but now I can do the whole thing. I am eight weeks out. Drinking water becomes MUCH easier as time goes on. Hang in there. You are at a challenging stage, but each week gets easier!

I willnot miss standing in my closet wondering what to wear because I have a closet full of clothes in various sizes that are all too small.
I will not miss having to watch my kids go on rides at the amusement park that I am too big to fit on.
I will not miss walking into a room and thinking to myself I am the fatest person here.
I will not miss shopping the Plus size department in stores where there is limited selection and it is more expensive!

I willnot miss standing in my closet wondering what to wear because I have a closet full of clothes in various sizes that are all too small.
I will not miss having to watch my kids go on rides at the amusement park that I am too big to fit on.
I will not miss walking into a room and thinking to myself I am the fatest person here.
I will not miss shopping the Plus size department in stores where there is limited selection and it is more expensive!

1. I no longer feel the need (nor can I ) to devour everything in sight!
2. My bathroom no longer looks like a laundromat with wet clothes hanging everywhere to dry so that I do not shrink them in the dryer. Now everything goes in the dryer!

1. I no longer feel the need (nor can I ) to devour everything in sight!
2. My bathroom no longer looks like a laundromat with wet clothes hanging everywhere to dry so that I do not shrink them in the dryer. Now everything goes in the dryer!

90 lbs down and off your meds! That is so awesome! I love to read stories like this because it is so inspiring to see where this journey can take us...especially when the road is a bit bumpy! Keep up the good work!

We used a dehydrator that my husband built, for years. (HWHN* is a handy kinda guy) He took an old lingerie cabinet, took out the drawers, used the drawer size as a guide and made frames with stiff mesh screening. (The screen door mesh is too flimsy, and the steel grid is too heavy... something in between). He put an in-car heater in the bottom of the cabinet, ran the cord through a hole he drilled, and voile. We dried everything. Some things weren't as successful as others, but we perfected cherries, grapes, plums, apricots, apples, bananas, peaches, tomatoes, peppers, mushrooms, homemade fruit leather, homemade Jerky, and many different kinds of herbs. At a time when our daughter could not eat anything with chemicals in it, we figured out how to eat well all year round.
The fruit and veggies don't look the same as the ones you buy in the store because we didn't spray them with a preservative to make them look "nice" but after the first taste, you don't care what the fruit looks like. It's awesome. My girls grew up thinking dried apple rings were the best snack in the whole world.
CE
*HWHN = He Who Hates to be Named, my very quiet and introvert husband.

I am 7 weeks out and am cleared for all exercise, including Zumba. I have heard it is a great work out and so much fun. I usually do not hear those two things in the same sentence so I am going to give it a try next week!!

If you have a local surgeon that you would use if you are able to pay with surgery I would start with them to help you find out about your insurance coverage. Ask them if they have a bariatric coordinator or someone in the office who can help you with pre-approval process. At that point, they should be able to give you a list of requirements by your insurance company to get the proceedure approved. You may be able to call your insurance company yourself (or go online and get this information). Every insurance company is different, but if they will approve based on medical necessity, then they are looking for your BMI to be over 40 with no co-morbidites or over 35 with co-morbidities (high BP, sleep apnea, diabeties, to name a few). Usually they will want a diet history. Mine required six months of supervised adn documented, consecutive diet and exercise program under a nutritionist before approval. They also required a psych evaluation to make sure I could handle life and eating after surgery. So, basically you need to find what hoops your insurance company wants you to jump through and start working on it. In my area, our hospital and surgeons have a bariatric nutrition center with a bariatric coordinator who helped me through all this. Hopefully yours has something in place as well. I found my PCP to be very supportive, but really not very knowlegeable or helpful with the nuts and bolts of the insurance process. (I needed a letter of medical necessity and medical clearance from them, which I ended up writing myself based on a template the bariatric coordinator gave me and giving to them to tweak and sign) The physician said it was so well written that she would keep it as a template for future patients. LOL.
I can't answer any of the questions about Mexico or cheaper surgeries. I've read lots of great things on this forum about people's experiences with Dr. Kelly in Mexico. You should do a search on this forum for posts about this to give to your parents to allay their fears.
Good luck with all and I hope you get insurance approval!

I just saw my doctor today (7 weeks out) and he said a 3 pound per week weight loss is great. I don't know how much of your weight loss was from your pre-op, but if you divide 36 by eight weeks, you are losing 4.5 lbs a week. Granted, you may have had a larger initial weight loss and then slower lately (same for me) so it seems really slow, but if you average it out...you are doing great! If your clothes are fitting looser and you are losing inches, then everything is going in the right direction! Hang in there!

Yay! Congratulations on making it to onederland!! I can't wait to get there, it has been 12 years! Keep up the good work!!

The truth is, I asked myself the same question two years ago and decided not to have the surgery. I thought, well if I have to make that radical of a lifestyle change, why not just do it on my own? Two years later, I realized that I had completely wasted two years and was heavier than ever. It is much easier said than done. I am glad I finally had the surgery. I just had a dinner party tonight and enjoyed it just as much as I would have if I had eaten all the tasty food I prepared. (I only ate the Protein and the vegatable I prepared and a tiny bite of Texas Sheet cake) It was just nice to be with friends for a girls night out. It was also nice to have a tool to help keep me from eating the leftover Texas Sheet Cake after everyone left!!

Yay for you! It's so nice to say goodbye to those pounds FOREVER! Keep up the great work and your wonderful outlook!!

I was also told I had mild sleep apnea. I was waking up gasping for air sometimes. I also woke up with a head ache every morning. I did not want to use CPAP machine, so I got a product called PURE SLEEP. It is a mouth guard that pulls your lower jaw slightly forward to open your airway. It is meant to stop snoring, but since I started using it, I sleep great and do not wake up with headaches. Also, added bonus...I do not snore!! It took a little getting used to, but now I do not want to sleep without it.
I brought that to the hospital with me. They gave me the oxygen as mentioned above during recovery, but at night I used my mouth guard.

58 pounds is great, so far! I know it is really hard not to compare yourself to others, but it is really important to focus on you and your successes. Everyone loses at a different rate. The important thing to remember is that everybody loses and you will keep losing too! Hang in there!

Everyone is different, but I definitely could have done it. But with an eight hour class, you need to plan for your day. Make sure you have plenty of Water to drink and something you can easily eat for lunch. If it were me, I would do a Protein Shake because I know I wouldn't have any issues getting it down. You'll have a better idea of what lunch would work for you after your surgery (tastes and tolerances change) and you can plan for it the week of your class.
Good luck!