mark!

I've read that it can create a better environment for stretching the sleeve, and create some sort of "combustion" inside the pouch and cause a rupture. Not sure, but that'd be enough for me to say no go.

Had to EGD today, man that was a freaking breeze of a procedure, really don't know what I was getting myself worked up about. Really no problems, staff at Baylor Trophy Club were amazing! 4.5 more days to go until I'm there. can't wait!

The "optimum" window is sketchy science, there are plenty of articles supporting it, and plenty denying it, but those who believe in it state within 3 hours, preferably within 45-60 minutes after. I've never been one to chug protein right after a work out and I've always made good gains in the gym.

Well, the main thing is just starting. I had a 1,000 questions, and just started rambling about them, mostly inadvertently hijacking others posts, but they didn't seem to mind. Most people are very friendly here, and are will to go the extra mile to help out. Congrats on getting started though, that's the first huge step to take!

I take my testosterone sub-q. If I don't massage my abdomen or inner thigh after my injection I'll get that knot. I've learned, if you "slide" your top layer of skin where you pinch, then pin the fat, inject, take it out, and release the pinch, it will slide the skin back over the injection site, making it easier to massage without having any of the substance come back out. I also put my finger over the site while massaging. What size needle are you using? For sub q, depending on how thick the serum is, you should be able to get away with an insulin needle, which may cause less trauma to the site, and massaging will disperse the serum quicker.

Holy crap, maybe I'm just really tired, but this made me tear up. Is that how I'm gonna see myself? Man. That's powerful stuff right there.

I 2nd this. It's pretty darn good. And frozen yogurt...oh Lord those places get more of my business than any other chain probably. Hopefully I'll still be able to partake, in much much smaller portions however. They may actually have to down size because I'm having the sleeve, crap I didn't think about the economic turmoil from my decision.

Yeah, d**k and flame thrower, two things I never want to have put together.

Has anyone had any issues with the buffalo chicken and spiciness? I really wanna try this on my pureed foods phase, sounds absolutely amazing, again, that may be the pre op diet talking.

I've always been perplexed by those who start a diet, and 3 days later claim "starvation mode!" Yeah, your metabolism will slow down, but you won't just stop all digestion and body functions on the stop when your body feels threatened it may lose its weight. Good article. There are a ton of other scientific articles about too.

I'm hoping the chili and soups do it for me. I'm a bit worried about it. Right now, it's a consistency thing. A full bodied soup full of veggies and meat, I love, but something like cream of broccoli, or broth, I have a hard to stomaching. I'm hoping things like chicken salad in a food processor work for me, but I'm not too excited about going through these two weeks before I get to soft foods.

Absolutely great staff out there. Amazing so far. I'm 1 week in on pre op diet, it sucks, but I know it's worth it. I really can't wait to get the surgery done and be on the other side of this. Really looking forward to it right now. Kev I'll be checking out some support groups as soon as I'm sleeved, I may hit you up whenever I'm sleeved and a few weeks post op. I'd join this weekend, but being so close to surgery and on the pre op diet, not sure going to a restaurant is such a good idea for me right now, haha.

I would say a 5k a week out post op would be pushing it. But...stranger things have happen. If you're determined and feel good enough to do it, rock it! I would just be very, very cautious, your body NEEDS time to heal, and in all honesty, you're stripping down a major organ to about 30-40% of its original size, that's pretty major. Everyone's different, some people take 2 weeks to get back to wanting to do things, some are good to go it seems right out of the hospital. You'll just have to take it day by day and play it by ear until post op to see how your recovery is going to be.

Congrats and good luck! it's my opinion, non medically, that the sleeve will replace the bypass all the way unless the bypass is medically necessary in the future. There are a lot more medical risks and absorption problems with the bypass, and with the success rate of the sleeve and amount of weight being lost, it's awesome. I'll be sleeved in a week, and I'm so glad I've chosen the sleeve.

That's basically an HSA right? They have crazy strict restrictions on what they can and cannot be used for, plus with the way the government just cracked down, you can use them for even less now.

What part of the knee is hurt? Is it dull or sharp pain? There are so many different finely tuned parts in the knee, if you can point out where it's hurting exactly, I can make some recommendations for joint supplements and some leg workouts that will help. To start with, I take TwinLabs Joint Fuel. I have arthritis (diagnosed) and bad patella tracking (self diagnosed with Dr. friends opinion afterwards) and the Joint Fuel has been awesome on my knees. Deadlifting anything over 500lbs used to kill my left knee, with Joint Fuel, I don't have any pain at all other than soreness from a workout. I'm fairly certain however, I'll be looking at at least one knee replacement in the next 15-20 years, if not sooner. To get started, the c25k app is awesome for cardio. I haven't used it all the way through yet, but I will very soon after I'm able to after surgery. For lifting, which will help build your cardio endurance and strengthen the muscles, Starting Strength is always my recommendation, but it's a lot of reading. I would stay away from any isolation work. Many will tell you, and you will see countless newbies in the gym doing isolation curls, biceps curls, calf work, etc, just wasting time as a beginner. You got to have a very solid foundation before you go in to isolation work, i.e. about 3 years lifting, and is usually only used for sculpting and not building. If you don't want to do starting strength, do these: Bench Press, Overhead Press, Squat, Bent Over Rows, T Bar Rows, Pullups/Pulldowns, Deadlifts. For squats, you can swap them out with leg presses or hack squats really easily. I would also start with barbells instead of dumbbells, just because it's easier to balance a bar versus two dumbbells, and start light. For upper body stuff, stay in rep ranges 6-12 reps, 2-3 sets. For lower body, higher reps, I'd stay 15-25 reps again 2-3 sets. Just getting started shouldn't leave with these long ass drawn out work outs, they should be fairly short, rest 60-90 seconds between each set. You could do a 2 days split, or 3 day split. M-W-F. Start with upper-lower-upper, next week M-W-F being lower-upper-lower. Let me know if you have any other questions man, always glad to help out.

Fear of the unknown is healthy. That's just part of the game. Reading too many negative scenarios on here is unhealthy, mostly because from what I've seen, most people are drama queens/kings and over exaggerate things it seems. Everyone is so different. From what I've gathered, expect to be sore, expect to feel nauseated from time to time, and expect to take things really slow at first.

Man, you and I come from so similar backgrounds. My mom had me at 11.8lbs, 2nd biggest baby that day in Texas, lost out to a female, sigh. I was 464 at my heaviest and was able to get down to where I am now, about 350 +/- 2 pounds. I never worried about my weight, I never saw it as an issue. I was able to go places and do things all the same, except fit in rides at six flags, etc, which really sucked. I'm glad everything is going well for you bud, hopefully I'll have the same success after the 26th.

Can I just say I think it's funny ya'll get so pissed off about certain words? hehe I don't mind hubby, or any other terms my wife may have referred to me as. Ass, idiot, dummy, jerk, yeah I earned those, you're not taking them from me buddy. (I'm sure "buddy" makes someone here mad too). I mean, all in all, they're just words. I refer to some guys as "brother", but I certainly don't mean that to come across as a literal term, and I've called some girls sister too, mostly in joking terms. For me, it's any military, police, ems type folks that get the "brother" from me, and it's not constant. I certainly never mean it in the "douchebag" jersey shore type setting.

I use a nasal mask, want to try the nasal pillows though. I sleep with my CPAP map nights, but end up taking it off about halfway through the night apparently. I sleep on my stomach, did 2 sleep studies, one I slept on my stomach, the other on my back. On my stomach I didn't show any signs of apnea back on my back I did, so they said I had obstructive sleep apnea. I just considered it a shoe in to get approved for surgery, meh.

We already have a restaurant grade blender that mixed up fruit really really well, but we ended up getting a juicer from some family, it's a Jack LaLanne juicer, and it's a beast. I love it. It separates the pulp and seed, which can be added back in say like us, my wife hates pulp, I love it. My Dr friend bought a vitamix, said the Ninja does everything the vitamix does, and is about a quarter of the cost too.

Damn, that would be a factor for me, honestly. But if you can get the finances worked out, I would still look in to it. Have you thought about Mexico? A lot of people here have great success with getting sleeved in MX for about half the cost.

Disclaimer: Opinionated Post...I understand not everyone feels this way, that's cool. I hate it when people say "just move on if they don't support you leave them" yadda yadda. Really? I guess I was just brought up in an old home, taught that you communicate and work things out. My wife and I, man we've had some crazy problems, and sometimes our marriage is pure hell, but we've never cheated on each other, and we don't keep anything at all from each other. Our relationship is wide open, nothing held back. Sometimes it sucks, and sometimes it really helps us grow TOGETHER. I love my wife, she's the center of everything I do and want to be. Check out the book Love Dare, it really is pretty fantastic. Also check out 5 Love Languages, both of those opened our eyes to what we were doing, the path we were leading down, and what we needed to do to fix it. Now couples frequently ask us who we saw for counseling, we never did. I thought the same thing about testosterone too. I felt depressed, fatigued, worthless and always down in the dumps. I didn't have any motivation to do anything except sleep. My levels weren't even all THAT low...but they were low. I tried the gel, I hated it. I responded great the first month, afterwards, it sucked. I stopped responding. I hated having to wait to get dressed, not being able to touch my wife or handle anything she or the kids may come in contact with...even my dogs worried me, Lord knows he doesn't need ANY help at all with his "drive". I started getting injections. My Dr prescribes my test to me, and I do my own shots at home, my numbers have been steadily in the upper 800's each test done now. I would also have his e2 (estrogen) levels checked, and ask them everytime after to check those levels. There's a chance that when supplementing test, your e2 levels will rise and counter the test injections, defeating the purpose of getting pinned in the first place. He'll also need to get the old wonderful prostate checked out regularly, as the injections can also cause it to swell. For now, I just get my blood panels done to keep that checked, but my Dr wouldn't let me do that until she did the manual exam first.

In my opinion, it's a big decision and you should take care of it now. If you've struggled with weight loss your entire life, something could be wrong brother. 35 is still young, get that taken care of and get to kicking ass on the back end. There's a chance you could maybe do the lap band and have success, but I'm sure your doctors will talk to you about that depending on how much you want to lose. Explore the options and go from there. It's no easy way out, hell just the insurance hoops you gotta jump through are more than a lot of folks would put up with, haha.

I thought long and hard about it, but never did it. I really, really came close. I had Chipotle once, steak and veggie burrito and frozen yogurt, but that really wasn't out of the ordinary for me at the time after a big workout, lots of protein, 60g protein in that one meal. But didn't do the whole all out binge fest, and I felt tons better afterwards.