RJ'S/beginning

Awesome Possum! Thank you for sharing!

@@amyecpa The unknown is scary for a lot of people. there are going to be glitches in your journey. Like @@finediva mentioned...Contact your surgeon and make sure he is aware of your condition, what happened and your fears. We mostly imagine things far worse then they are. Me I have had it all and am still okay with the outcomes....Please kid, calm down and get your questions answered by your surgeon. Your gonna be okay hun!

Your beautiful! Congratulations!

That's the biggest hemorrhoid I ever heard of then...lol It might have been a tumor! hehehehehehehe

I was asked today if I was Tabs mom. I said yup and the woman said boy you sure lost a pile of weight. I thought to myself. What is a pile of weight anyway. 25 lbs, 50 lbs, 100 lbs. What constitutes a pile of weight. Is it like a pile of leaves or feathers or hammers. I find the expression a little odd. But I thanked her anyway and told her that most people think I am my husbands new wife. She laughed and said she barely recognized me. That she had to look and look to see it was me. A compliment followed closely by what may have appeared as an insult. I don't know...I think if she had not seen my hubby she would have never known it was me at all.. Thanks for the compliment I think..A pile of weight this girl has lost! who would have thunk it.....

Oh great I lost a lot of hemorrhoids....lol

Crap ton is far worse...you win the prize...lol

lol

Everyone goes through a fear of the unknown several times before and after WLS. This is very normal. All the times we tried and failed has taken its toll on us. After you will have buyers remorse...Normal...Fear of not losing it all...Normal. Fear of gaining it all back..Normal... It is all part of the process of the changes you will make to succeed. Retraining your brain will take time so you have to follow your teams advice as much as you can. Once you start to look at food as a source of nutrients for your body instead of a tool to deal with all the issues in life you will see things differently and your strength and resolve will grow. For now it is all fear and self doubt that plagues just about everyone who has WLS.

I eat a little of everything. I refuse to treat my life like a failed diet. The entire point of WLS is to learn how to eat properly and in balance and moderation. This takes retraining your brain in viewing food as a way to put nutrients in your body not a pleasure point. Not as a comfort or a trigger for happiness. There is room for everything in moderation. We live in the real world and so we must learn how to eat in the real world. There are things I cannot eat now that I could before but I have worked around that. I do eat a little Pasta, rice and bread. But I limit them. I always eat my Protein first then veggies. If I have room a little carb is taken in as well. My Nut told me that we need to be healthy and treat this as a new way of living. Everything in moderation! If you find you over eat carbs then I guess you stay clear of them until you are in a better place mentally. Some never reach that comfort zone. I understand that completely. I eat normally. Like a thin person. And that includes bread. For me it is okay.

So I have two appointments with two different plastic surgeons because I want to know what each will offer and I want to see evidence of their work. I am not scared really, just surprised that I am willing to go through so much more to try to complete who I think I can become. I need this for two reasons. One my back is hurting with the weight of the skin..Which surprises me since I had so much more weight on it before and there is so much less now and it is starting to cause similar issues. And two I think by removing the skin it will make me more mobile. And it not being in the way, will give me more confidence.... Those are my reasons for now... But are they good enough to go forward......hmmmmmmm!

Personally. I believe that you need to be totally committed and informed about any WLS. Being ready for the good and the bad that may or may not happen. It is a decision that is not reversible. It is a new set of possibilities and changes that need to be made to get to your goal and maintain it. A whole change in thinking about food and where it will play a roll in your new life. Maybe you do need to give it ( dieting ) one more shot. If you don't succeed then you know you have other options. WLS is a personal choice that can only be made by you. We can all be here and tell you why we did it or how it has made a difference in our lives. But that is all we can do. That and be supportive when you do make the choice to have WLS. With all your health issues I think you know that there is a time limit for you to make this decision. So research and hearing how others handled it can be a great help to you. I wish you better health no matter what you decide. We are here to help anyway we can.

It is so normal to stress at this time about failing. This won't work. I made a mistake. All common feelings and will be there until you lose the lbs. you want. Then it changes to ' I'm going to gain it all back ' thinking because this has been the norm for most of us on here and thousands of others who have done the traditional diets. As it has been said it is good to be a little fearful. But if you eat properly and view your sleeve as a tool. Learn to eat healthy 99% of the time your tool will get you there and keep you at your goal weight. Your sleeve will eventually relax and that is when you will have to be more diligent in eating and how much and what. For now you are on the honeymoon stage and even though you will have stalls ( I call it body at rest ) You will lose the weight. I found that changing to quality food was easier then I thought it would be. I made changes like eating farm fresh foods. More legumes, cheeses and fish. Buying directly from farmers or markets mean a better quality. It is mostly local foods. And since we can't eat much I have found that quality serves me better. As far as processed diet foods. I stay clear of them. Your dietitian has been trained to think that sugar free foods are good for you and we really know better. Once you are feeling good and feeling like you have more control you will figure it out. One thing that I have heard that is very good is Pintrest has a section for recipes for Bariatric patients. I have not used it myself but making recipes like that can last you as few meals. I find with just me and my hubby that if I make a few different meals it lasts for days and days. so I try very hard to get the best bang for my buck. And I find that it is fun to search for the best I can afford to eat. You will come to terms with all of it once you get over the fear of failing. Give yourself some time and breath. And please stay away from the scale it will only mess with your mind.

Yup......Had a leak 3 days after the sleeve. Ended up in a coma and a stay of 5.5 months in hospital. Had to date 18 surgeries and/or procedures. It has just been a barrel of laughs you know! No regrets though......

Too late I read it before you deleted it...lol

Personally I think with all the enhanced food and all the preservatives and all the processing and all the glues and what they are feeding the animals and so on and so on and so on. I personally feel that if I add fake butter to it and artificial sweeteners and so on then I may surely get sick... I was told by my nut that I can eat real food without anything doctored in it and it would be okay. I would lose my weight and attain my goal. Now if I ate sugary foods and fatty foods as my main diet I would gain for sure. Even if I was not grazing it would happen. Our bodies are conditioned to store calories. And it will if allowed to do so. I try and mostly succeed at eating Protein first, then veggies, and a carb. In between meals I try to eat some fruit. I have tried to eat just protein at a meal and it would not stay down. Waited and tried a few weeks later. Same results....So for me real food at meals no fake stuff that I know of and so far so good! I will tell you I do eat the odd sweet. Sugar is my trigger food. Love me some skinny popcorn as a snack as well. So for me no diet food!

I will admit..I am a food porn junkie. I watch shows about food now as I am relearning how to use food differently so it is gonna taste great or it is not entering my mouth or tiny little sleeve. lol My 600 lb life. Don't know why it just breaks my heart that most of these folks don't have the total support of the medical teams to get where they need to be. If they could do it on their own ( lose 50 lbs before you can have the surgery ) I think they would have done it. Anyway I digress. Buried alive. And all or any real life crime dramas like I survived, Border wars, All the guys who are living in the wilderness. Can't stand happy ending good family fun TV. Loved that before surgery and so with all the stuff I have been through.....Happy endings seem like a fantasy...Hope that changes!

Being looked at as their trophy eh. Them hoping that you will not succeed eh. Parading you around like some prized cat. You look at these people as friends. I think not. They are using you as a form of entertainment. It is not about them. It is about you and how you are feeling about what they are doing. It is about why you made the choice to take this path. It is about you caring about yourself no matter if you lose another 50 lbs or gain 10. It is not for their personal pleasure or whatever they are getting out of it. I went through a similar thing with one of my friends. And blankly told her that if she paraded me one more time we would no longer be friends. She stopped. It was my choice to dump her if she did not comply. You have to decide how much you are willing to endure for these people. Me I dumped a pile of useless weight of so called friends and am now looking for real friends to replace them. Family, well that is an entirely different matter. You know what. I now look for quality. I just took anybody before. so it will be up to you hun to make the stand. What they are doing is just another form of abuse. It should not effect them one little bit what size you were or are now. They as friends should be looking at what is under the flesh. If they are not..Then they are not friends. They are living through your own personal experience as if they deserve to. And by the way they don't!!!!!!!!!!!! I agree with @@CowgirlJane counseling may help. Everyone deserves to be treated well. And if you feel like you are not, get out of it! Me, well no one knows me anymore so it is much easier. No one recognizes me! So in a sense I am now invisible...and I love it!

I have found myself getting quite used to the new thinner me. I don't think about whether I will fit in the seat at a restaurant or if there is enough space between me and a stranger if I am walking by. Are people looking at me and judging me because of my size or even what I put in my cart anymore. I have become accustomed already to this much thinner and happier me. I was at the hospital this morning as I have been sick with this nasty flu that has been going around and was concerned because of my compromised immune system that I might have pneumonia as it turned out I did not. But when they wheeled me down for a chest X Ray I realized that I took up less then 1/2 of the space on the stretcher then I used to when I had to have these kinds of tests. It got me thinking that maybe I am finally seeing myself a thinner person and don't look over my shoulder anymore for disapproving looks or hushed criticisms of my size. Maybe I am starting to get used to the new me. A smaller version. The person I was meant to be. I don't seem to even notice much new now. Or changes anymore. But today I just happened to look down on the stretcher and noticed. It was kinda nice you know....I told my hubby about it and he said yes there was a time you could not move on one of those. You couldn't roll on one side or the other. And then he smiled. I think he was trying to compliment me Anyway I noticed and it felt great. I really never want to feel the emotions I did when I weighed 380 lbs. And I certainly never want to visit that place again... It was a nice reminder of how far I have come on my journey to health and well being not to mention why I made the choice of having WLS in the first place!

Mean comes in all sizes sweetie. Just keep doing what your doing for yourself and never mind them.

He does the surgeries because this is not the contouring work of a plastics. Most of the surgeries he does is to get rid of excess areas that are health issues that are causing trauma to the patient. I noticed that when the 7 years are up most of them have not gotten plastics. Probably cost like other people. They have their own reasons. But he seems to remove the ulcers and edema, skin conditions that can effect their lives.

I wish I had too. I was so angry...but now I want to see how she does losing that 51 lbs. She looked Anorexic to me. No shape no butt and no boobs.. I did however like some of the things people said to her regarding her views. To me it is her 15 min. of fame and she showed parts of herself that she can never take back. I almost pity her...no wait..Not!!!!!!!!

I used to cross country ski..Kept falling on my arse. Not a sport I have thought of returning to.... You go get um though...Awesome!

Majority of us have had this flu and it has been a B***H. This will pass and you will be able to get back to your perfect recovery. Onward and upward!

I live in Canada. I waited 4 years. Now it is a 7-10 year wait.....