Groovinchikin

Yes! I started out at 400lbs and to make it to goal I need to loose about 220lbs. On Wednesday I will be 4 months out and I am already down 100lbs and still going. My surgeon expects me to make it to goal within the year. This is an amazing procedure, and if you follow the guidelines your surgeon lays out for you, you WILL loose the weight. I wish you and your husband the best of luck on this journey!

So, I'm about 7 pounds away from having lost 100 pounds. ONE HUNDRED. That sounds so crazy to me. I'm completely thrilled...But my surgeon doesn't seem to be. He said that I was about 15 pounds behind schedule, and that I must not be keeping up with my plan. (Keep in mind that he also just took my gallbladder out last month) That is not the case at all. I do everything I am told to do to the best of my ability. I may not get every gram of protein in every day, but I do everything I can to keep my calories low and my protein high. I exercise 3 times a week with a trainer at my University's student center. What on earth can he possibly think I can do on top of all that and a full time school load??! I will admit that I had a come apart in his office in front of two residents who were shadowing him. I bawled and bawled. I know he meant to encourage me, but I honestly felt attacked. I've had serious trauma in the past with regards to being bullied over my size. That appointment put me in a very very dark place. I haven't self harmed since high school, but it took a frenzied call to my accountability partner to get me out of that mind frame. On one hand I feel like I've accomplished sooo much. On the other, I don't feel like I can ever hope to measure up to the expectations. I feel like a failure, and I feel like the sleeve will quit working for me. For now I plan to do my best to stay positive and to stay on track. I am trying to remember that this journey has been for me, and me only. I can't be bothered if I don't exactly match up with his computer model. I will use the anxiety and the hurt to fuel my workouts, not my demons. I will make it to 100 pounds lost this week and buy a new dress. I will not let one quarter on the track derail me. I am stronger than that. Miss Piggy always brings a smile to my face, so here is one of my favorite pieces of fan art, with excellent advice from M.P. "Never eat more than you can lift".

How far out are you surgery wise? In my first 2 months I vomited every single time I tried to drink plain water, and like you I've always loved it. Now that I'm a little farther out it's not as much of a problem. It takes a little while, but eventually your water nausea will go away.

I've had a cracked rib, and this surgery is a walk in the park in comparison. It is more of a low level ache than the stabbing/throbbing pain you get after you crack a rib. To me the pain was the same kind of body ache you would get with the flu. Honestly this surgery is not terrible and the results you will achieve will be worth every ounce of pain you go through. Good luck with your surgery journey!

My hair is quite long and curly. It falls below my bra band in the back, and before surgery it was quite thick. It still looks pretty good right now at 4 months out. Unfortunately my hair is still coming out in handfuls and I'm afraid it will start looking thin soon. I'm no stranger to super short hair, but it took me so long to grow it out I don't want to cut it if I'm almost out of the Hair loss stage. So my questions are: If you faced hair loss, how bad was it? When did your hair loss stop? and when if ever did your hair start growing back?

Soon those jeans are going to be falling off of you! Congrats, and keep up the good work

The more documentation you have the better off you will be! It is their job to objectively look through your entire application, and the more official information you have the more they have to work with. I wish you the best of luck, and I love your screen name.

When you go to pull on your Spanx and realize you've out skinny-ed them!!! I think going down a size in compression garments is 10x more exciting for me than going down a dress size. NSVs are really the greatest motivation in this journey.

Thanks everyone! I think my brain KNOWS they are a bad idea I just needed the encouragement to walk away from the Jet-puffed, lol. I looked at how much sugar was in them and I think my stomach began to protest (we don't do sugar well). Thanks for keeping me on the wagon.

That is fantastic congratulations on a brand new you!

This is a bit of a silly question, but I adore marshmallows. The big fluffy kind. Since surgery I have had this weird fear of eating them. I've never heard anyone say that we can't have them but for some reason I have it in my head that my stomach may not be able to digest them. I would love to have one as a treat on occasion so my question is are they ok to have?

I've never had a C-section, but I've had many other surgeries, and this one by far was the least painful. Yes you will have to drink a small amount of barium for the leak test. But honestly it isn't very much, and the taste doesn't linger very long. If you are worried about nausea, talk to your anesthesiologist before surgery. They will be able to give you extra meds (like a scopine patch) to help prevent vomiting.

Well, Caffeine is an appetite stimulant. People who consume large amounts of caffeine tend to consume more calories throughout the day than someone who does not. Sugar on the other hand is simply calorie dense and void of nutrition, and with as little food as we can eat the priority will always be taking in nutrient rich foods. That being said, I still drink loose leaf teas that are not decaffeinated, and I have sugar in small amounts as a treat on occasion. But I'm not the caffeine and sugar addict I was before the surgery.

I got home a couple of hours ago from my gallbladder surgery. It was honestly the easiest surgery I have EVER had! I'm in a little pain, but no where near the pain of a gallbladder attack. I was blessed with an amazing nursing staff, and I had a perfect recovery. I walked myself back to the car. Second best thing I've ever done for myself after VSG of course.

Hi! I'm a little over 2 months out an I have lost about 75 pounds. I started at 400 pounds, so I'm considerably heavier than you, but I think our stories are similar. I was a food addict. I loved the taste and texture. I was a huge volume eater. Nothing made me feel better than to be so full I couldn't physically hold any more. Through the VSG surgery I have changed my life. I will tell you that it was a struggle. The emotional attachment I have with food is very strong, and sometimes I still have issues that I have to review with my psych. but I've done the work, and the surgery is working for me. My hunger has almost been completely eliminated. (this isn't the case for everyone) and I now eat to live. I can still enjoy my favorite foods, and I can get that full feeling but with MUCH less food. I love spicy foods and my sleeve has had no problems with it. Bread is my only problem, I can only eat a bite or so without getting sick. It's a difficult journey, but it has been completely worth it. I would go back and do this again and again if I had to.

I'm a little over 2 months out, and that is when my surgeon recommends beginning a vitamin regimen. I have a chewable Bariatric Advantage multi-vite that's supposedly formulated for sleeve patients. I have tried to take them on two separate occasions and I have only managed to hold onto them for about 5 mins before I'm overwhelmed with nausea and throw the whole thing up . They taste like orange sherbet to me, so the flavor is definitely not the issue. Has anyone experienced this? Is my stomach just not ready yet, or should I look for a different product? Any vitamins you would recommend? Thanks!

I'm having mine out Wednesday. Nervous, but thanks for starting this thread! It's really reassuring that other people have had both surgeries and done well.

Alcohol is a diuretic. If you were retaining water, it could have caused you to eliminate it through excessive urination. That would be my guess.

My surgeon made me sign papers saying that I would not try to become pregnant for 24 months after surgery. As an unmarried woman, I'm certainly not planning on it. But I've had friends in similar situations and I think it's usually recommended that your weight loss stabilizes before you try to become pregnant. Also you want to be far enough out that you can physically consume enough daily calories to support a healthy fetus.

Also, if you happen to be attending a university with a Kinesiology department they usually offer these tests to students for free! While I am no where near "training hard" it's still a really useful piece of information to have. Our university also offers these tests to the community for a very reduced rate, so if anyone lives near one it's definitely something to look into.

So I've lost at least 70 pounds in my journey so far. I say at least because I gave up my scale for Lent and I'm not actually sure of my current weight at the moment. But with that much weight loss I can already do so many things that I wasn't able to a couple of months ago. The beautiful winter coat that I bought right after Hurricane Sandy is already so loose on me that I can easily overlap the front panels. I fit in the seats at my school's theater. The dress I wore to junior prom in high school is so loose now that it falls off of me. I have a neck, I can wear normal sized rings, I can run....the list is long. When it comes right down to it however, I feel like I'm still looking in a funhouse mirror! I feel like I look twice as big as I did when I started. I look at old pictures of myself and where other people can see a difference, I feel like I am still exactly the same. It's a discomforting feeling, knowing that you are changing to everyone else but being unable to recognize those changes in yourself. I suppose everyone who has undergone dramatic weight loss deals with this sort of body dysmorphia, but it's still a bizarre feeling. As a costume designer, I can pretty much sketch an accurate body sketch of someone just from a page of garment measurements. So I've taken my own actor's measurements every other week since I began. Those numbers are really where I can see a difference. I can picture bodies from measurement charts and my first chart body is dramatically different for my current chart body. So for now I guess I'll have to depend on that kind of external measure to understand how my body is changing.

I'm going to start blogging my journey as a way to A. hold myself accountable for the negative thoughts and feelings I have towards myself and my weight B. to map my emotional journey in a way that photos alone can not. So here goes. I am 23 years old. I have been fat my entire life. I was a fat child who was promised that I would "grow out of the baby fat one day" but alas I have only grown into a fat adult. I have an odd relationship with my weight. I must say that as a fat girl, you know who your friends truly are. Because of the negative stigma associated with my size, only the people of true character and kindness stuck around. I have a group of fiercely loyal friends who I wouldn't trade for the world, and they love me regardless of my physical shape. I have been interested in theater for as long as I can remember. I was a force in my community theater troupe, and while I was never chosen as the ingenue I always had a fantastic character role in everything I auditioned for. Never the star, but I had a ton of fans. My weight directly influenced my choice of profession. You see, I am a theatrical costume designer and puppet builder. I was taught to sew at an extremely early age, but I only began to pursue my talent because my community theater's designer didn't know how to sew anything for a plus size woman that didn't resemble a tow sack. I began to costume myself, and I must say that I looked fabulous. But the thing is...I WANTED to be the lead. I WANTED to be the ingenue. My size kept me from it, and I developed a deep seated self loathing over it. I developed a social anxiety disorder because of it. So in college I enrolled directly in design and never once attempted to audition again. Last year I was looking for an internship. I wanted to work as a puppet designer and builder, so I applied to all of the usual places. Jim Henson, Puppet Heap, Puppet Kitchen, Sprout, etc. But I also applied to late night TV shows like Conan and Colbert for their props making internships. Well, I was called back for everything I applied for...except for those applications that asked to include a picture. Maybe it was coincidence...but I don't think so. Eventually I decided that as a life long Henson Fanatic they were the company I wanted to peruse. Everything was going perfectly...I had every skill and experience they were looking for but there was one last hitch in the giddy up. They called and asked for an in person final interview!! Now, I live in Alabama. The Creature Shop for Sesame Street is in NYC...that's a long way to go and an expensive train ticket just to be shot down because of my weight. Those old insecurities creeped in and almost made me cancel the interview. So many opportunities had already been lost because of my appearance. But my mom MADE me go. She said that Jim Henson company celebrated people of all shapes and sizes in their body of work, why not in their employees? And she was right. The hired me for the semester and I had the absolute best time of my life!!! That's where I began my weight loss journey...on The Street. I lost 30 pounds just working my tail off for that amazing, AMAZING company. I met people that changed my life and my perspective on everything...Only problem? I discovered that a few of the AM puppets did not fit my obese arm, and that's the kind of character I hope to one day puppeteer. So I made up my mind. WLS happened about 2 weeks after I returned home. I am 70 pounds down total at 2 months out. My arm fits most of my puppets now. I still have 100 pounds to lose, but I already feel like a different person. Sometimes I just don't actually SEE the change...more on that next time.

I'm 2 months out. Yesterday my mom took me to Red Lobster. I got some steamed crab legs, very lean protein, very delicious. But those darned cheddar bay biscuits kept calling my name. Long story short...I ate half of one and immediately regretted it. Bread just seems to sit like lead on my stomach. So from now on, I'm strictly eating protein and produce!

While I don't honestly have a scientific answer for you, I can say that it helped me during the first few days. It very well could just be a placebo effect, but it sure did help me! Plus the strips have a nice minty flavor that I enjoyed.