TakeCareGirl

14 months post op and down 215 pounds since my highest.I Have another 30-40 pounds to go but i am more than happy with my results. Life's Good !

You're so lovely! Congratulations on your 120 pounds gone forever!

Now I am just "super obese" thanks to the 14 lbs I lost since surgery 6 days ago...clear liquids does wonders for the waist! Too funny that I am happy to be super obese! Can't wait until 195 lbs then I am just "obese", then from 160-190 lbs I will be just overweight! I am 5'7".
There was a talk show on today and the host (Steve Harvey) said the problem with all of this obesity is that we call it by fancy names instead of just calling it what it is, FAT. If we went back to calling you fat versus obese, it might make people want to fix it....of course he is a little chubby, or thick...oh I mean fat so it was sort of funny he was talking like that.

DawnyBoca 3 weeks out - drinking only clear liquids - your rules from your NUT - you need to follow, ok?
stomach is healing from major surgery - don't jump ahead and try to eat solids til your told its ok
you will gradually eat more forms, finally get to solids, so you'll feel better - you'll be able to eat anything - in very small portions
having some stomach pains, MASSIVE pains, unbearable pains? contact your dr. tomorrow
if the pain isn't THAT bad, hold on, the pain should decrease one day at a time
bathroom issues - yeach, those are also common problems post surgery - that knowledge doesn't help your situation
mourning loss of your best friend, desire for food, totally understandable
dealing with problems for awhile, IMO, in the long run, are worth the results you get from the sleeve
I love my sleeve - sounding trite, but i also wish i had done WLS years ago
journey with your sleeve is rewarding - your health, quality of life will improve
You've lost 18 lbs post op - WooHoo
good luck

totally do not regret this at all.... 63 lbs are gone forever only 110 more to go !!!! yipppie

73 lbs down!! My husband and I went out last week with a few other couples and I have always been so self concious. I've always been the "fat" wife out of all the wives and girlfriends of our friends and hated going places. For the 1st time I haven't felt like the fat girl at the party. I didn't feel uncomfortable or out if place, not that our friends ever made me feel that way. They never have in any way and are fantastic but you have to be happy with yourself first. I have a little ways to go but I do believe this was the best decision for me!!

I'm 4 days post op, having been on a 10 day liquid diet prior to the surgery. My A1C 6 weeks ago was 7.2. My A1C at my pre-op exam 1 week ago came back at 5.6! I could not believe it. Right now they are holding off on my going back on diabetes meds. I am hoping this is the end of it.

I think it's important to confront it directly. I have four stepdaughters (13, 15, 19 & 22) and one daughter (5) and can say very honestly, first of all, do not blame yourself. I've been through this struggle over and over again through the years with these girls, long before I ever even considered surgery.
It's very sad and unfortunate, but the first time my youngest stepdaughters told me they were fat they were seven and nine years old. Girls are mean, girls compare with each other and girls mimic what they hear their older sisters, mothers and favorite celebrities say. So this could have come from anywhere. And let me add that not one of my girls has a weight problem. My daughter is a little stockier but not overweight, and every one of my stepdaughters has a thin build and they're all undersized for their ages.
That said, address it immediately. When living with us recently between high school and college, my stepdaughter (18 at the time) immediately started rationing herself to my portion of food. I had to very directly confront her on the topic. I addressed her smaller portions. I told her about my surgery and what it does. And then I did her one better. I asked her to log her food with me on myfitnesspal so she could see how much she should be eating and how much she was eating, and asked her to compare it with my food chart.
She was restricting herself to about 400 calories a day. And despite the fact that my meals appeared tiny, I was consuming closer to 1,200 calories a day.
We talked about health, our bodies and the detrimental effects of this type of behavior. In her case, I can't honestly say that it helped. She has a host of other issues and one of the ways she tries to stay in control is through controlling her diet. She's seriously underweight right now and struggling with anorexia. We noticed the first indications she might have a problem when she was only 15 and I really wish we had realized how serious it could become and had addressed it directly.
A few months later the 13 & 15 year old girls came to visit and the SAME thing happened again. I'll say that they'd already built in habits of skipping meals or overindulging one day only to fast the next day. It's unfortunate that their mother has a history of dieting and negative self image - these girls grew up criticizing their own bodies and the bodies of the girls around them, and seeing mostly poor examples of how to eat.
This time, I think I was really able to get through to the kids. I pointed out consistency in a good diet vs. the ups and downs they were using. I showed them how to track calories and really be aware of what they were eating. By the end of the seven week visit, they'd stopped skipping meals, stopped overindulging at meals and were eating more reasonably while not saying anything critical about themselves or their bodies.
In my case, I can only do so much. They don't live with me and my example comes from short visits - the rest of the year they're 8,000 miles away.
I hope that you can sort this with your daughter. I can honestly say that I started hating my body when I was twelve. By no means was I overweight. One cruel girl made an offhand comment about how I looked pregnant, when if anything, I was underweight. It didn't matter - it triggered self doubt because I already lacked confidence, the next eighteen years of my life were spent yo-yo dieting. As I got bigger and bigger and developed worse and worse habits I got to the point where weight simply wouldn't come off and I was diabetic from my poor eating over the years.
With my five year old, we do not talk about body size as anything other than an identifier - no more positive or negative than saying someone has blonde hair or brown eyes. She's a stockier build than her brother, but we're trying to do what little we can to show her that beauty really does come in all shapes and sizes, and that being healthy is the most important thing she can do.
In any case, I finally had to tell my older girls that I'd had surgery. They couldn't understand why I eat the way I eat otherwise. My five year old has no clue but if it comes up I'll address it. I'd rather tell her I had an operation than have her feeling like I'm hypocritical when I tell her she should eat normally! It's hard enough getting a teen girl to listen to her mother and I don't want her to dismiss me immediately if she hears me saying something that seems contrary to what she's observing.
Good luck, sorry to ramble.
~Cheri

As of today I officially weigh what my driver's license says I weigh. Or as my wife put it, I'm no longer lying on an official government document. 84 pounds down. Woot!

Congratulations!!!!!!!!!!

How inspiring! Congratulations!

My husband and I had our surgery 2 weeks apart. He started at 454 and is down to 341 and I started at 345 down to 275. His surgery date was Aug 27 and mine was Sept 10. Best decision ever. The top pic was 3 weeks after his and a week after mine. Bottom pic was this weekend!

My most recent current picture, not at goal so I won't call it a "after" lol.
Before picture I was 360ish, currently in the 220's.
Sent from my iPhone using VST

I to was motivated in the beginning by pics. I am 6 months post op. First consult weight 334.9, surgery day (June 18, 2012) weight 314, weight now 232!
Sent from Gaye's iPad Mini using VST

Not sure how this will turn out via iPhone, but...
High weight (late Mar-2012) = 228.3 lbs
Date of surgery weight = 215.6 lbs
Weight as of 01/07/13 = 139.6 lbs
Lost since high = 88.7 lbs
Lost since surgery = 76.0 lbs

Highest weight 306 first pic taken 10/22/11
surgery date 7/31 277,
second pic taken 12/22/12 at 215lbs I'm now 210 and 5"4 60lbs to go.

start weight 254.
todays weight 170.
i am exactly 6 months out.
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One of the advantages of lives at the caribbean is that we can go all year to the beach. I take the first pic this summer and with the black one today. I felt very dissapointed because i gain 5 pounds last week but, i can see for sure a difference. The weight start drop again slow but stady(sic?). Im happy and hope to meet my goal of 170 pounds for the summer 2013.

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Just spent an awesome week in Hawaii and although it was filled with many special times, I have to say that not having to ask the flight attendant for a seatbelt extension was a huge HIGHLIGHT! It was also great to be on a plane and not worry about spilling over onto my neighbor's space. :) :) :) :)

I know there are many of you who wonder "is this the right thing for me?" Some of you are a little scared (as I was), some of you wonder "will this work for me?" or "can I do this?". I'm here to tell you, don't be scared...it will work (if you follow the rules!!!) and YES, you can do this!!! The sleeve has been a wonderful tool. Without it I know I would have never lost the weight and I would probably be heavier than I was back then. I know I would be in worse health, more depressed and still hiding at home instead of enjoying my life. I may be one of the "lucky ones" who really hasn't had any problems, I don't get hungry, and I have only continued to improve my quality of life. I still sometimes wonder..."When will this be over... like so many times before when I have lost weight and gained it back", when I find myself thinking this I immediately remind myself that NEVER again, thanks to my sleeve, will I go back to that dark place!!! I have attached my before and after pictures, looking at before and afters always helped me when I was trying to decide "to sleeve or not to sleeve".

Today my niece told me I couldn't wear the jeans I was wearing anymore, because they were falling off. I put a tighter pair on, and while I was walking with my hands full my pants fell down, literally last my bum. Good nsv.

I would like to try... A THONG.

What Exactly Is A Stall?
The last time I was on Weight Watchers (June 2011 through February 2012), I lost an average of .9lbs every week and I followed the program religiously.
Forum members report first month losses of 20, 30, and even 40 pounds and then refer to a two- to three-day hiatus as a stall?! I don't get that.
The body morphology has to catch up with the tremendous weight loss. That necessary phenomenon isn't a stall. A "stall" is what I experienced during my last month on Weight Watchers: no movement at all in close to 30 days.
A massive weight loss of 20, 30, and 40lbs in one month cannot reasonably be referred to as a stall.
I am only 29-days post-op but what I see is a two- to three-day "body adjustment (or catch-up) period" followed by another one- to two-pound drop on the scale. This is normal. You can't expect to see the scale drop every single day for an extended period of time. No one loses weight like that, not even malnourished cancer patients in the end stages of their disease.
What I've noticed is that during this "body adjustment period," I will not lose pounds but mass. My stomach will tighten a bit more and areas that used to have fat will have less (or no) fat.
On many other forums, they have a list of definitions of commonly used terms that members can refer to. Maybe we can agree that a "stall" means no movement on the scale for a minimum of seven days when weight loss was reasonably expected. Obviously, if I am consuming 3,000 calories a day, I can't reasonably refer to my failure to lose weight as a stall because I shouldn't expect to lose any weight.
The point of this post is not to be picayune (nor is this directed at anyone in particular) but to alert forum members to the fact that, when it comes to weight loss, mindset is everything. If you expect to see the scale drop every single day for weeks and weeks on end, you are unnecessarily setting yourself up for frustration, disappointment, and resentment.
I have lost 23lbs in 29 days: that's just over 1/3 of my excess weight in less than one month. The scale doesn't move every day nor do I expect it do. If I had experienced even 25 percent of this kind of weight loss on Weight Watchers, I NEVER would have signed up for the surgery.
Do you know how long it took me to lose 23 pounds on Weight Watchers? It took 26 very difficult weeks or half-a-year! This surgery has expedited my weight loss by a factor of 83 percent!
Should I be bummed-out, depressed, and resentful because my scale remains still for as many as three continuous days at a time? Should I refer to that three-day hiatus as a stall? Of course not.
Knowing what to expect and having reasonable goals are critically important to maintaining a healthy and positive mindset.

Well, sometimes tough love works and sometimes kind encouragement works. As for me when I post on here I'm inviting everyone's opinions, and I appreciate them all. Everyone's input helps me get perspective, even if it's something I don't want to hear. So thank you all!

alley It takes a big person to apologize when they are wrong - good for you Aussie
i know i feel better now
how about you guys
kiss and make up ok????
alley - you are getting many, many good comments, suggestion.
hope they are helping
going to a sports event, party can be hard for anyone - but soon after WLS, very difficult - glad that day is over for you
you are moving forward - hopefully each day will get better, and better, and better
good luck bud
take care