gmanbat

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?

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!!!!

hmmm...The Flu Diet....can't see a best seller there. Not "the easy way out" but "easily out". Get well, soon.

Interesting topic. People use cliche sayings as an energy conserver. It is an effort for the mind to be creative, articulate and Fluid in language. Why make the effort to look up the proper tool when what's on hand will do? Sometimes the cliche does not exactly fit the job, like pliers are not quite appropriate for turning nuts and cause more problems. Most people don't talk, they blurt.

That is a great feeling! We only have so many of those ticks. Yours are going to take a lot more time to run out.

She will be most disappointed if you were not following her guidelines. But then again, if losing weight was easy for us wouldn't need surgery would we? I think they just want to see a demonstration of the desire you have in your heart and mind to lose the weight. They assure themselves that if you can lose a bit now, when you get the powerful tool of VSG you will be a success. Forgive yourself and carve yourself out a new determination to beat the shnizzle out of excess fat. Don't let the bully push you around. Run his butt out the door.

Very impressive record keeping. Agree with your good, bad and ugly comments. What is your goal?

200 around the corner, Keith! My best to you!

That's my guess, too. From what I understand and from my experience when exercise breaks down muscle, the body runs some Fluid in there for the regeneration process as the body rebuilds the muscles bigger and stronger. When it is done the Water drains out. Also, the muscle itself weighs more for the space it takes up than fat. Bigger and stronger muscles mean a 24/7 calorie burning increase. Remember, fat is the enemy, not numbers on a scale.

Yes, that is annoying. Keep bugging the office. If they don't respond, don't bathe for a few days and work out in the yard a lot. Then go in. They will pay attention. It worked for the "bathless bill colector" who once worked in England, showing up at doors in his green fog. He had a 100% success rate.

Could be some lingering gas. Hang in there and see what doc says.

Will pray for you. Hang in there, you will win this battle.

For me, the impossibility of eating and the anticipation of the pain it would give me did away with my appetite. I could barely get a little Water down. When I went through the stages I was well aware of my new stomach and it's limitations. I just didn't want to pick a fight with it. My pre-op diet was much worse. I felt like Sam fighting off the big spider in Lord of the Rings with a little sword, (my will power). After I got on to solid foods I went through a period of revulsion at the pigs in my family endlessly stuffing their faces. When I realized how little food I really needed to live and be strong I was angry that stuffing myself was such a big desire all my life. I have calmed down since. I have learned to peacefully co-exist with the stretch-bellies.

You got me curious. I googled it and learned something. That bumpy bit is the xiphoid process. Sounds like a way that aliens prepare humans for consumption. http://medical-dicti...ary.com/sternum The xiphoid process /ˈzɪfɔɪd/, or xiphisternum or metasternum, is a small cartilaginous process (extension) of the lower part of the sternum which is usually ossified in the adult human. By age 15 to 29, the xiphoid usually fuses to the body of the sternum with a fibrous joint. Unlike the synovial articulation of major joints, this is non-movable. Much the way the first seven ribs articulate with the sternum, the cartilage in the celiac plexus joins on the xiphoid process, reinforcing it, and indirectly attaches the costal cartilage to the sternum. In newborn babies and young (especially slender) infants, the tip of the xiphoid process may be both seen and felt as a lump just below the sternal notch. It is different in an adult, you were right!

Durn, that was the word I was looking for, not breastbone. Weird thing, ain't it? I don't remember it from my childhood but it was probably there.

My wife who also had WLS felt a lump in her hip area and got scared. She thought she was in trouble. Then she felt the same lump on the other side and realized they were hip bones. I did the same thing with my breastbone. Fat loss sneaks up on you if you're not careful!