gmanbat

Rice ain't nice, to wife and I anyway. Steak and white turkey meat can get us if we don't eat slowly and chew like contented bovines.

Welcome to you, Steve. Sounds like you are on your way. You certainly have lots of folks around who are going through the same thing.

BayshoreBuddy, Ok, how did my cat get into your picture? I suspected Tigger was moonlighting as a model.

Chew slower, take more time between bites, concentrate harder on the flavors, savor the moment. Don't talk while eating, don't be distracted. It's the enjoyment you are after, not volume.

My year and a half on the forum has helped me think through a lot of things. I have shared my struggles and the struggles of many fine people about how we are perceived and communicated with by friends and acquaintances who notice our weight loss. The following are things that have bothered us: Didn't say anything about it, said I "lost a ton", said not to lose too much or my face would look bad, said they liked me better before, quit hanging out with me, got jealous, said I took the easy way out, and now that I'm slim they: are interested in me, talk to me, hit on me,.... why not before? The list goes on, we get offended by just about any reaction or no reaction. On top of it all, we are even suspicious of good reactions. We are bugged by how they said it, when they said it, who was around when they said it, and why we think they said it. The fact is that when we are bothered by people we take most of the unpleasantness into ourselves. The botherers are ordinarily oblivious to our conflict. The other annoying fact is that people say and do stupid things because people are stupid. They only know and care to know so much and ride along on superficial comfort levels. I will share what I learned about fighting. Idiots will try to goad you into a fight by insulting you. Because they say something bad they think they can make you react by getting involved with them in physical or verbal violence. What they don't know is that I refuse to get involved with people I don't like. Further, I don't respect idiots and don't care what they say about me or that other people hear what they say. Other idiots will lose respect for me for not fighting, intelligent people will lose respect for the idiot. Fights many times end with a wrestling match on the ground, way too intimate for me. I reserve my wrestling matches for people I love and then violence is not the objective. My violence is reserved for actual physical self defense and the defense of loved ones. What's that got to do with it? You are in charge of your reaction. You don't have to be bothered, you don't have to retaliate. Know who and what you are, don't be brought down and manipulated. Teach them a lesson? I charge for my teaching, (guitar), and then I don't teach people I don't like or that I think can't learn. I let fools be fools unless they truly want to learn. If you want to live with peace inside you need thick skin. You need to let things bounce off of you, don't take them in and stew over them where they damage you. Forgive people because they are people, remembering that you, too, are people. We are all stupid in our own way even as we are beautiful in our own way. People don't know what to say to a fat person or an ex-fat person that will absolutely and in any circumstance not offend them. Mother Teresa couldn't handle such a task. We need thick skin so folks can talk to us. The best advice I ever heard is to throw away your book of revenge. Love love, hate hate. Peace, my friends.

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Be sure to get calcium citrate, it is more absorbable.

I re-read your post. Rare? Horsehockey! Next time tell them to show you the proof. Sounds like hearsay.

When you scroll down do you see a white box?

Do you still feel it? It should have dissolved by now. I always either get chewable calciums or just chew up the tablets. The tablets taste bad but I'm not picky about taste. i sometimes chew up a chewable multivitamin with it to drown out the taste.

Good work!!!! Wow!

I know you'll be coming down here to Florida soon, Disney is a blast. I was in 3 coasters today at Busch Gardens with my fearless granddaughter, Katie; Cheetah Hunt, The Scorpion, and Sheekra, all gut-wrenching screamers. Could not fit in the seats pre-sleeve, slid right in today. Empowerment ahead!

Hi Blikemike2013! I like that name. May God bless you!

I started out at 340. I am now down to 210. As far as I'm concerned I have lost ALL of my excess body fat. According to some charts, which don't take into account a muscular man, I should weigh 195, that makes it about 92%. I exercise with a passion. Make it happen!

Disneymomma4, congratulations! Lemme guess, Orlando?

I don't want to sound perverted but I've had a hard time keeping my hands off myself since the fat came off. No, not in a sexual way. You know when you had a tooth pulled out and your tongue kept going into the empty space? It seems the brain needs to get used to rapid changes in body image. It seems to want to map the areas over and over until it gets the picture. I have found myself feeling the sunk in area around my collar bone, my protruding ribs, my sinewy shoulders, my smaller wrists, my thin legs when I wasn't even aware I was doing it. Decades with a fat body leaves an impression. I think my brain is trying to erase it. Anyone else having to adjust to the empty spaces?

By golly, that is the same thing I thought about my wife! For the life of me I could not imagine how she gained so much weight. She ate like a bird in my mind. Maybe I compared her eating to the black hole absorption that was my appetite. She told me later that she ate sweets non-stop. The gaps in a husband's awareness you could drive a semi through!

You fell off the wagon but the wagon is not going in circles. You are learning, learning leads to power. I am proud of how you are thinking this through. I predict you success!

Gas is not a gas. My quickly rushing in heartburn is gas, not acid, I am sure. I got a gas/antacid combo just to be really sure.

I was staying at the top floor of a very bad hotel. The service was horrid, the environment was unhealthy, I couldn't wait to get out. I was in such a hurry I didn't bother with my baggage. I get on the elevator. "Bottom floor!" I say emphatically to the elevator operator. Without a word he closes the door, starts down, and stops at the next floor. He opens the door and there is no one there. He waits, and waits, and waits, and I am getting mad. He finally closes the door and starts down again. Then a light lights up on the panel from a higher floor. He stops the elevator and goes back up! He opens the door, no one there and he waits, and waits, and waits. This time I am speaking up. "What is your problem?" Go....down!" He waits a little more then closes the door and starts down. Finally, I thought. He stops again, opens the door, no one there. He waits, and waits, and waits. I am getting furious! "Are you insane?" He yawns and shuts the door, another light from and upper floor, he stops the elevator and goes back up again! Am I in a nightmare? Finally we are descending again but the irregular pattern repeats itself, down, stop, up, stop, down, stop, up, down....on and on. No amount of screaming on my part makes any difference. He acts like he can't hear me. We finally reach the bottom floor. I am relieved to see the front door from the elevator but I have to know something before I go out into the free air. "What is your name?" I ask him. "Weight Loss", he says.

I am thinking of marketing a moon scale. It is calibrated to how much you would weigh on the moon. 83.3% less. If you weight 200 on Earth you would weigh 33.2 pounds on the moon. An alternative is the lawyers scale. You can program it to represent the truth anyway you want. You can input the desired degree of fraud. Or maybe the sympathy scale. You input your desired rate of loss and when it runs short the scale plays a crying voice and various reasons that it is not your fault. Ya, I know, all stupid. I didn't go through getting gutted to change numbers on a scale. I could have done that on my analog scale by turning a dial. I was at war with my fat. With the help of my sleeve I whipped his hiney. What the scale said was an object of curiosity, not the prime indicator of how the sleeve was doing. It is physically impossible to follow a NUT and doctor prescribed program with the sleeve and not lose your fat. Time is your friend, not your enemy if you have the right attitude toward it. Your body has it's own schedule. Time and science are your back up. Give yourself the gift of time.

First is good! All my best to you! Keep us posted when you can.

I'm in. Prayers being offered. And may God bless you!

So sorry to hear that. My wife has the bypass and is doing very well. She has lost all of her excess weight and has the energy of a race horse. I understand the sustaining power of faith in Jesus Christ in a crisis. He has brought me through many a storm. God bless you.

Ah, the delight of diminishment! Congratulations!!!!