gmanbat

Good work!!!! **gives a manly slap on the back** hooorah!

This forum's founder is a man...and, most importantly to me...I am a man. Granted, there are many women here. They are, for the most part, easy to get along with. It is natural to be nervous, you would have to have delusions of grandeaur not to be. You can do this. I was 340 to start, 210 now. It's a life changing release!

Welcome!!! I had a hard time traveling to the top of the stairs pre-op. My granddaughters pushed me around Universal Studios in a wheel chair. Too big for any of the rides. Now I can outrun anyone in my family. I push my large brother-in-law around in a wheel chair. I ride the rides all day with my daredevil granddaughter, easily fit into all of them. I am 65. It was a life changer, CWCW! You can easily reach your next year goals!

Destring! Destring! Thank you, Tattoo!

Beware of rice, Take my advice, Dear sisters and brothers, It doesn't play well with others.

It came back to haunt me in a much less appealing form. Some comebacks are not inspiring.

2 years out here. I feel hunger but it is not even close to the overwhelming compulsion I had before the sleeve. I can easily defeat it. Before it was a charging Grizzly, now it's a 3-legged Shiatsu.

I think maybe you're right.....but not all of it is legal.

Wow, I never knew! I love celery...tomorrow there shall be celery in the house....and some natural peanut butter to keep it company.

Wanna high five ya! Outstanding!

An exercise for us: Get a meal ready, sit in a silent room, no distractions. Eat very slowly, take a lot of time between bites, concentrate on what you feel. You are training yourself to listen to the feelings, to catch the signals. Keep asking yourself as you go whether you are full. A few times doing this may make you more sensitive to the work of the sleeve. Too much sensory input clouds our judgement.

ya...don't get your hopes up...

We have fake flowers out of our love of vegetation...we are lethal as gardeners. I never had dolls as a boy, just dug in the dirt and blew up G.I Joes with firecrackers like any normal kid. It sure is fun dressing up this little doll though. I used to dread going shopping with her. She normally came out of the dressing room and bought nothing and was very depressed. Now she shops with a smile on her face...trying stuff on is just a formality. I actually don't mind watching her purse.

I am 65, wife is a kid of 62, these operations and using our heads with food and exercise took decades off of how we feel and put many years on to our lifespans, I am sure. We are having a ball...we went from near stop to ludicrous speed! Yeehaw!

Fantastic! You're doing it! You look great!

Here ya go: Before: After: Gained 240 pounds between us. Sorry...kidding....reverse everything.

old joke> If you dream about a giant marshmallow don't eat it...it's your pillow! I had an opposite dream last night. I looked down in my dream and it was an absolute straight shot to my feet....no belly, no loose skin, what I used to look at when I was a skinny kid. Without big bucks for plastics...dreams do remain just dreams at times.

Maybe time gap would be better wording. It is what you wished you could have had in school to skip that last torturous hour before the liberty bell rang.

http://www.mayoclinic.org/tests-procedures/anesthesia/basics/definition/prc-20014786 Always one to take advantage of interesting situations I told myself before surgery to remember what the docs in the operating room were saying when they worked on me while I was "out". I also had a joke ready for the recovery room nurse which I would ploy her with at the first moment that I had recovered any control of mind....( "Was it a boy or a girl?" ) . Counting down from 100 in the room...99..98..9------------------------ "C'mon, Gary...breathe!" Said the nurse in the recovery room. I checked my memory banks for doctor conversations. No nothing. Not even a sense of passing time. This most definitely is not like sleep. It is a venture into oblivion. The closest conscious equivalent in my experience was a time when smoking grass in the 60's when I was far away from where I was a second ago....apparently. I said OK to the nurse and when I realized I could talk I hit her with my hilarious birth joke. Not even a polite chuckle came out of her. Either she had no sense of humor, too professional to laugh, or she had heard it way too many times by men who thought they were oh, so original. I have relived that time warp feeling many times in my mind. It is like that missing tooth area that your tongue can't help going into after extraction. It is certainly a very interesting experience.

It is amazing what we considered "normal". The evening meal had to contain meat, potatoes, vegetables, and bread at our house. It also had to be followed up by dessert. Then TV and snacks. Our new lack of capacity sure opened our eyes and shut our overworked jaws.

Yesterday I was out with my wife and she drew my my attention to a man with a large belly. She said, "That is just what you used to look like." "Yes, and you used to constantly tell me to pull my jacked-up shirt back over my belly!" I said. "You haven't bugged me about that in a long time!" "Yes, I know!" she said with a big smile. She didn't want me walking around with half a hairy belly sticking out, I didn't think I could help it. The shirts I bought fit fine when I bought them, washed once they became belly shirts. I literally walked around with both hands stretching the shirt down over the beach ball so I wouldn't get the needle from her. Of course, she didn't like that either. Now the silence is golden. I no longer own a shirt which instigates a Jerry Springer scene.

How horrible for you! If I were to guess, and I guess I am about to guess, the doc is an insecure little toady inside and likes his feeling of power with women in a vulnerable position and then going into whatever sadistic tirade seems suitable to the moment. His school had to talk about proper conversation when women are in the stirrups...maybe he was sick that day. I know I am ultra-sensitive to nurse talk when they are putting in a catheter....

Great article. The word resolution comes from resolve. Resolve requires a made up mind and that is demonstrated by consistency more than in any other way. One can be adamant and emotional on January 1 but lose momentum by January 2. Resolve needs to be visited every day, kept alive by attention, effort and clear thinking. My change came when I kicked out the temporary promises and settled on a permanent condition. I deemed myself worthy of the best body I could obtain. I saw what I wanted to be and made that become a reality. I was determined to do it or die trying. Lifelong athlete, healthy eater. That's it. The sleeve gave me the boost, I won't let it down.

One battle does not a war decide. You have the enemy on the run. He turned and drew you back into old ruts. You already have him identified. You have a plan of action. He's toast.

Prayers for you, Amanda!