Pinky Green

Another thing, I don't gag unless my partner is pushing down on my head like some guys do. Don't let them do that. Don't complain, but push back with your head and don't let them make you go far enough to make you gag. Remember this is something that you are in control of and it is something that men like because they aren't in complete control. Or if you can get them to gently run their fingers through your hair instead of pushing down on your head it will be much more pleasant.

Another thing, I don't gag unless my partner is pushing down on my head like some guys do. Don't let them do that. Don't complain, but push back with your head and don't let them make you go far enough to make you gag. Remember this is something that you are in control of and it is something that men like because they aren't in complete control. Or if you can get them to gently run their fingers through your hair instead of pushing down on your head it will be much more pleasant.

I have gone from 2X to L shirts and pants and the large shirts are starting to get big already.

Surgery, any kind of surgery, is sort of like jumping off the high diving board or bungie jumping. Once it's done, it's all downhill from there. You'll be fine.

I got word from my test results and my A1C is still a little high at 6.0 but it was 6.3 before surgery. And I'm on the low side of average for Vitamin D so he's adding having me take 2000mg of Vitamin D also. I think vitamin D helps in weight loss so maybe it will jump start my weight loss a little.

My knees continue to get better. I can walk up the stairs without holding on and without pain usually, sometimes I can almost run up the stairs. I can go down the stairs better too but it still hurt a little and I think some of that maybe be more psychological that actual. I don't feel the need to hang on for dear life, but I still hold onto the rail.
My weight continues to go down but slower. I discovered the other day that I can squat a little. And I can do kicks when I dance again. I had forgotten that I used to do that. I am going to try to commit myself to going to sleep a little earlier. Ten o'clock and then waking up at 6 am to do Jorge Cruise's 8 minutes in the morning program. It requires no equipment and can be done anywhere. I bought the book years ago and haven't followed through but I think I might be ready now. I have to be at work at 7 but I work from my home. Right now I get up about 6:40 am but if I get up at 6 I will be able to get a good 40 minutes of exercise. I could even do the 8 minute routine and then do 32 minutes of cardio by walking around the apartments. I haven't started yet but at least I have a plan. The hard part is getting up 40 minutes (or even 8 minutes early). I would just get up at 6:30 but there is a learning curve in doing each exercise, you have to read and look at the pictures and then attempt to do what they say. Maybe I can also find a video somewhere of the moves he suggests in his book.

I had not been exercising as much as I should have been because my knees were still hurting, at my one month appointment my doctor said I could take my arthritis medicine again.
However, I may not need it that much longer - or at least not as often. Yesterday, I decided to take a walk, I forgot to take my arthritis medicine and I walked from my upstairs apartment, down the stairs, across the courtyard, across the road to the front part of the apartments, across the front parking lot, and then down the street to little strip center on my street. It wasn't very far .35 one way, and I only stopped at the end and sat down for about 5 minutes or so. I used to have to sit down 3 or 4 times to make it that far and my knees would hurt a lot. This time my knees didn't start hurting enough to make me stop until I get to the end and then when I rested a bit it didn't hurt as much as it had before. And then I walked around 2 stores before I headed back. I am guessing that another 20 lbs and my knees won't hurt at all.
And I can scratch almost my whole back.
I bought 2 pair of jeans at costco the other day - they were size 18 and one fit and the other didn't, one was 1% Spandex and the one that fit was 2% Spandex. Then I went to Walmart and they had a pair of jeans that was 18P and was 2% Spandex but this one didn't fit either, but they will in probably 5 or 10 lbs.
I was not able to overeat at Thanksgiving this year. I did eat more than I thought I would be able to eat but way less than I would have eaten in the past. First, For Breakfast I had a Protein shake. Then I went to my friend Linda's house for lunch. I had 5 Ritz crackers with a bit of cream cheese and Raspberry Chipotle Sauce and my friend cut up slices of different kinds of cheese into quarters and I ate 4 quarters of cheese (1 whole slice) and 4 or 5 black olives.
Then I went to my friend Sam's for dinner and had a couple of pieces of carrot, celery and broccoli dipped in guacamole and 2 deviled egg halves for appetizer and then dinner came and I had about 2 oz of turkey, a small piece of cornbread, about 2 tablespoons of cranberry sauce and about 2 tablespoons of sweet potatoes. Later we had sugar free vanilla ice cream with apples cooked with cinnamon, nutmeg and diet Dr. Pepper. I felt like I ate a lot but I know in the past I would have eaten about 3 times that much.

I like the idea of sneaking in a 100 calorie pack of already popped popcorn. Then you still get to have the popcorn, but don't get all the extra salt and calories that you get with the dreaded (calorie-wise) movie popcorn.

I like the idea of sneaking in a 100 calorie pack of already popped popcorn. Then you still get to have the popcorn, but don't get all the extra salt and calories that you get with the dreaded (calorie-wise) movie popcorn.

I like the idea of sneaking in a 100 calorie pack of already popped popcorn. Then you still get to have the popcorn, but don't get all the extra salt and calories that you get with the dreaded (calorie-wise) movie popcorn.

I never posted pictures originally so I'm going to post these new ones and then later when I lose more weight I will post these again to compare but these are me after I have lost 47 lbs.
  

steelergirl, if you can cite a reputable study that says it kills brain cells, bring it on. Otherwise you are just repeating what someone else told you which may are may not be true.
I do know that some people have problems with it. I have known people that had problems - I lived with a husband. but I'm a 53 year old woman, I have been using it since I was 25 on and off. I have never had problems quitting when I needed to. I have had the same good job for the last 15 years and I don't live in my parents basement.
I know that drug and alcohol counselors and the drug treatment community see things a certain way and one of the reasons is that they only come in contact with people who use drugs and alcohol in negative ways and don't really understand casual users of drugs and some of them don't even really understand casual alcohol use. People who don't have problems with drugs don't go to drug counselors of their own free will. Sometimes people that would not have a problem if marijuana was legal get forced into treatment because of a positive drug test or because of an encounter with law enforcement. These people don't always need treatment. They just happened to be unlucky.
I have know people who really did have a problem with marijuana. I had a husband that worked probably 2 years out of the 10 I was with him. He would sit in his chair, watch TV, pour him a coke, smoke weed and then smoke a few cigarettes and then start all over. I would go to work and come back and he would be in the same place.

That was actually what I did. And I did it with fish. I had the low calorie Blackened Tilapia at Luby's Cafeteria. I was about 3-and-a-half weeks out. I could only eat about 1/3 of what they gave me and I chewed it until it was mush.

Something else that has been happening. My knees have improved quite a bit. They still hurt after a while but now I can go to Walgreens or other smaller store and my knees don't hurt much. I used to have to grab a shopping cart to lean on and now I don't need to. I used to go to Walmart or Kroger because they have an electric cart. Sometimes I still use the cart if I'm tired or if I am doing a lot of shopping and going to go all around the whole store and "window shop" but if I'm just going to get one or two things near the front of the store I just walk there and back to the register.
I am also being able to do more housekeeping lately. I took everything out of the cabinets and scrubbed them all down and then sprayed for bugs. I'm still working on the kitchen. I'm not putting anything back if I don't use it. I bought new stainless steel cookware and am throwing out all my old worn non-stick cookware. And I have a cast Iron griddle/grill and a cast iron skillet. That is going back. And I'm going to get some glass storage containers.

Also, my doctor said no seeds, popcorn or nuts for 6 months. Except nut butters, non-crunchy of course.

Well, there are some encouraging things. The size 8 underwear that I bought to replaced the size 9 and 10 underwear are starting to get looser and soon I will trade my size 8 underwear for the size 7 I have waiting.
I also walked all around the park at Gulfton and Chimney Rock. http://www.mapmywalk...rkout/221103734 My boyfriend and I go and he sits in the car and watches soccar (futbol) while I walk around the park. He said it took about 25 minutes. Next time I'll time it. I noticed that my knees no longer hurt. Now my muscles hurt, but I think that's an improvement.
Also, I am learning how to cook Central American Lite. Today I took a pork tenderloin and cooked it in the slow cooker in salsa verde. Had 2 corn tortillas. But if I had had that before I would have had 6 corn tortillas. It's funny, I feel like I'm eating a lot but it's like 2 1/2 oz of meat mixed with tomatillo salsa.I ate a half cup of that. Earlier today I made some arroz con leche with low fat milk and splenda and cinnamon. I also used brown rice. It was delicious and I had a quarter cup.
I also find that I can go down the stairs without pain and also pretty fast now. I can even go up the stairs carrying groceries now without having to put them on as high a step as I can reach and then moving them as I go up.
And my boyfriend tells me that I eat like "un gato".

I weighted 242 pounds and lost down to 175... and then gained it back in less than 6 months. Stress I guess. I noticed that it was getting harder and harder to walk and then my knee started to hurt all of a sudden. Really bad.
I went to a doctor someone recommended. He did a CAT scan and said it was a bone bruise and it would get better. I went the next month and he still said the same thing even though it wasn't getting better. Finally I asked him to give me something for pain and he gave me a prescription for darvocet for one month. My friends said he wasn't doing anything for me and I should go to another doctor. I went to another doctor who acted like I was some kind of drug addict for changing doctors. But he gave me another prescription for darvocet. A few days later I forgot to take the darvocet and went to work and couldn't get up from my chair to go to the bathroom. I called my doctor and he was on vacation. I went to his backup doctor who actually diagnosed my arthritis but gave me arthritis medicine, how about that, a brace and a steroid shot. He told me if I didn't lose weight I would need knee replacement surgery in 5 years.
Now, I had a doctor recommend WLS for me years before. But that was when most of the people you heard about getting WLS were over 300 lbs and I only weighed about 220. But now smaller people were getting it and I was facing a choice of knee replacement surgery or WLS. And then the wife of a friend of mine had gastric bypass surgery and lost 170 pounds. My friend kept at
me to get it before it was too late.
Then in April of last year, I met my beautiful new granddaughter Desiray. And I want to take her to the park and the beach - museums and festivals. Bike riding and swimming. And I want to move to Central America when I retire and be another grandma doing zip lines in Costa Rica with my granddaughter.
Plus, the process has gotten me diagnosed with Type II Diabetes, sleep Apnea and something called Hypertension-Related Heart Disease, without Heart Failure

I am now in a stall. I got down to 195.2 and have been going back and forth between 197.8 and 195.2 for about a week and a half now. I know that that is natural but it's still discouraging. I was sleeved on 9/26 (15 weeks, 3 days ago) and I have lost 45 lbs now if you count 195.2 as my weight.
I need to lose 65 more pounds to make my goal so I'm almost half way there.

For Nikki & Diva, from that wonderful sage...Winnie the Pooh:
"You are braver than you believe, stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think."

I'm not sure if those hormone changes are from weight loss. I had all that around the 50 year mark and I hadn't had surgery. Just normal menopause changes I think.

Just want to reassure you, I am 3 months out, I have lost 44 lbs and I am able to eat almost anything, just not near as much as I used to. For example, yesterday I ate a piece of fried chicken. But I didn't eat 3 pieces of fried chicken. I can eat steak too, although I've never been a big steak fan. I even had one of those small size Mounds bars (the ones that are like half of a full size candy bar) at Halloween.
I even still eat Mexican food. I just can't eat the Acapulco dinner anymore (cheese puff with queso, guacamole, taco, tamale, 2 enchiladas, rice and beans). Now I go and order fajitas and eat about 1/4 of the meal and take the rest home or I order one of the child's plates which is something like one enchilada, rice and Beans. and eat the whole dinner. I am probably not typical because I read a lot of people here who can't eat this and can't eat that, but I am sure there are other's here who will tell you that after a certain time, a few months or maybe 6 months, you will be able to eat most of the foods that you love but you won't be able to overeat - or at least not much.

It gets better. I think the fourth day was worst for me. I felt tired and hungry and all of a sudden on the fifth day I woke up and had all kind of energy. After that you pretty much won't experience hunger like before. I have been sleeved for 4 months and I find myself forgetting to eat. And even when I eat something that is a little fattening, I don't have the urge to eat a lot of it. I used to eat 3 pieces of fried chicken, now I can only eat a drumstick. I used to eat half of a 16" pizza and now I take a couple of bites of the crust and eat the toppings off the rest of the slice. Sometimes I have my boyfriend order and eat a little bit off his plate. I have lost 45 lbs.

Just want to reassure you, I am 3 months out, I have lost 44 lbs and I am able to eat almost anything, just not near as much as I used to. For example, yesterday I ate a piece of fried chicken. But I didn't eat 3 pieces of fried chicken. I can eat steak too, although I've never been a big steak fan. I even had one of those small size Mounds bars (the ones that are like half of a full size candy bar) at Halloween.
I even still eat Mexican food. I just can't eat the Acapulco dinner anymore (cheese puff with queso, guacamole, taco, tamale, 2 enchiladas, rice and beans). Now I go and order fajitas and eat about 1/4 of the meal and take the rest home or I order one of the child's plates which is something like one enchilada, rice and Beans. and eat the whole dinner. I am probably not typical because I read a lot of people here who can't eat this and can't eat that, but I am sure there are other's here who will tell you that after a certain time, a few months or maybe 6 months, you will be able to eat most of the foods that you love but you won't be able to overeat - or at least not much.

I'm trying to think of a new short-term goal. I guess I will just make it 190 lbs.

Started my 2 week pre-op diet at 240.
Surgery Sept 26 228
Hopefully if not by Christmas then at least by New Years I will slip into Onederland. Today I put on a pair of blue jean shorts that were too tight a couple of weeks ago and they fit great now - and they are not even stretch jeans. They are a size 18W. I seem to remember wearing a 22W at one point but I kinda lost track of my actual size and was wearing mostly stretch 2X pants before surgery.