Momonanomo

You. Are. Absolutely. Amazing! You have worked so hard, and it has definitely paid off! My favorite line of your whole post is "The sleeve did not fix the cavernous space between my ears. " That's very wise, and this is great advice. We are the key to the success of our sleeves. Thank you for posting, and thank you for being such a great success story. Best of luck on your upcoming body lift! Healing will likely be a breeze now that you're so healthy!

Yup i wasnt interested in anything but clear liquids the first week, and even then it was a challenge to have a sip. My mom made abig thing of jello that i was so not interested in!

Congratson getting it done! First week for me was a bit like having the flu. I was in hospital less than 24 hours. When I left, for the next 6 days, there was lots of sleeping, a little nausea, no pain but just worn out. I didn't have access to a scale the first week and I just wasnt in the mood to care at that point. I did venture out on a couple of shopping adventures starting day 4, and I was amazed to think I could do that after having the majority of a major organ removed! It was easy, not painful, but i just felt tired very easily. My advice would be not to worry about the scale for now. Job #1 is staying hydrated and job #2 will be to get your protein target as soon as you are up to it. But the hydration is key to beginning to feel better. Be kind to yourself and dont overdo. Best of luck! You are on your way!

LOL! My anesthesiologist was adorable, and I was so SCARED that when he started the drugs in my IV I was gonna say something totaloy inapropriate

I believe it's been wacky hormones for me. About a month or so ago I was SO ANGRY at work that I made someone cry when she turned in some things late. There is no question that she turned them in late and that it caused problems for me, but I am usually soooo much more tolerant. At the time I felt entirely justified reprimanding her, and actually even now I could say it was justified. It's just not my usual style, so to speak. I have since apologized, and she has too. It's funny how when you're in the midst of a meltdown, your actions & reactions seem entirely justified. And it doesn't necessarily occur to us at that time that it *might* be hormones that are making us freak out. Hormones are sooooo sneaky! I think I am now back to my old chill self. I think I am anyways. Reality is in the eye of the beholder, right?!? Anyways, having ruminated on the whole thing a bit, my take on it is this: I need to be super aware that I have been short tempered lately, likely due to the weight loss and/or low calories and/or hormonal changes. I need to take a moment if I find myself getting angry to really evaluate these feelings. I need to look at the situation as objectively as possible and try to act accordingly and in a rational way. I need to have my antennae up to the possibility that I am maaaaayyybeeeee currently predisposed to over reacting....

I'll jump in and mention 6pm.com It's all designer, name brand stuff at BIG mark downs, free shipping and free returns. They have a big variety of sizes too! My island doesn't have much to chose from, so I'm big into online shopping

that's awesome gg! Congratulations on your overweight-ness! lol I have that marked on my list of milestones too My most recent milestone that I passed passed was to weigh what I did when I met my prince charming. His mind is blown to think that I am still 55+ lbs from goal. My ever-changing bod is like him sleeping with a series of different women all the time! lol I am 2 lbs away from being overweight. Yay! Unfortunately, the weightloss is slooooowing way the hell down lately. No worries though. I will get there! In -5 lbs, I will be in onederland and at 90lbs lost. In -15 lbs, I will be down 100. After that, the next mini goal is to weigh what it says on my drivers license. lol!

I’ve been wanting to do a blog entry, but then the website went all wonky. I’m going to try this today, and decide if I want to continue blogging or not. So far I’m not a real huge fan of the new site. I chose VST over the “other” WLS websites because it was specifically for VSG people; now bariatricpal mixes us all together again. Yes there is a certain amount of segregation, but now I find it difficult to navigate. I don’t really like the name even! I know people do not like change & I am one of them. I find myself less involved in the message boards because of the change. I am grateful that the change to the site took place when I was 5+ months out. I can’t imagine having gotten to where I am without the old board. Perhaps I’m ready to fly on my own now anyway. I am down 85 lbs since the start of 2 week preop diet, and down 75 since surgery. I am wearing clothes from the back of my closet, and people are finally really starting to notice I’ve changed. Amazing to me that it’s taken this long for them to see! BUT in a way, I would rather not draw attention to myself in this way. I am ready to be at goal weight and having people just know me as a girl of a healthy weight so that they don’t feel the need to compliment me on my loss. Some days are easier than others with the weight loss. I KNOW at this point that I could eat whatever I want. I have been very diligent thus far, and I am averaging a loss per week of 1.24%. I am occasionally tempted by the wrong stuff (i.e. “treats”) but I haven’t given in, and it is SO much easier since surgery to stick to a healthy plan I’ve devised for myself. I contribute this largely to having gone through detox in the time immediately after surgery. I’ve never been able to eat this clean for this long, and it feels good! I don’t look at it like a diet – that’s so cliché, but I have always WANTED to have a healthy lifestyle I just never had the control before. Now I know I have the control if I work it right. If I am hungry, I just have to make sure I eat dense protein first so that I can feel restriction. If I do not do that always, I will have a hard time getting to goal. I can’t say that I track my food anymore regularly, and I don’t count calories, etc. I stay away from bread, rice, pasta, except for one or two days per week. I have for the most part foregone sugar and processed food. I don’t stress over things being low fat. My breakfasts are coffee and protein drinks, then I have a green shake (spinach, fruit, protein, avocado, almonds) mid morning, then some lean protein for lunch, then a chike protein drink mid afternoon, and a “lean & green” dinner – but it’s mostly lean protein and just a spot of green vegetable. I feel my green drinks keep my veggie intake up. Routine is key for me. I take my vitamins daily, and drink as much water as I can. I enjoy sugarfree popsicles in the evenings. More than one. Sometimes I wonder if that’s a problem. They are essentially frozen crystal light, but am I playing into old behaviors by going back for several per evening? Yes I am still seeing weight loss but I want to change 40 years of bad habits, so I wonder about eating several of ANYTHING. I will ask my NUT tomorrow when I talk to her. I had bloodwork done and saw my endocrinologist yesterday. He said my iron is slightly high and my blood pressure is slightly low. The episodes of feeling worn out can be blamed on the low blood pressure. Even when I was 85 lbs heavier my blood pressure was on the low side, so you can imagine how it is now. I’m a bit of an anomaly in that way. So I get to indulge my salt cravings, and I need to make sure I stay hydrated even that much more! I fully intend to get to goal. I have yo-yo’d in the obese range for several years now. I’m now beginning to enter territory weight-wise where I haven’t been in 10 years, so I am really beginning to feel different. It’s fun and exciting and a bit scary. But I want to do it anyway – I want to lose about 59 more lbs.! And, 2 lbs from now and I will be merely overweight and no longer obese. That’s cool! I never lost hair, and I figure I’m in the clear. I’ll say it again: I never had hair loss! I will be at the 6 month mark in a week, so I pretty much figure I’m in the clear!! Yay! I had accepted that as a side effect long ago, but lo and behold it didn’t happen to me. I am thankful, but I would have dealt with it. I just didn’t want to cut my hair, because I’ve been growing it out for years. I got my claories up to 900 to 1000 fairly early after starting real foods, and I think this helped me hang on to my hair. I have half a small avocado in my green shake every day, as well as almonds. These things are high calorie but are “good fat”. And good fat is good for the hair and skin. So far excess skin isn’t horrible, but I know I won’t know until I get there how much of an issue it will be. I won’t get plastics though – it just looks too painful! And I hope that after years at a healthy goal weight perhaps the skin will go back to a reasonable shape. All in all I am very happy with how this is turning out! I knew immediately after surgery that I just needed to get on with living a new lifestyle and that as time passed I would see results. And I am! Onward!

Time flies...that means we must be having fun! Congrats - your hard work has truly paid off. Thanks for being here to inspire & entertain us!

Me too, me too. I am uncomfortable with the compliments, i just want to be me and not a topic of conversation. That being said OMG that person with the camera did indeed cross the line big time! Good grief! Good for you for reporting it, and shame on the supervisor for even somewhat defending their actions. IMO, people's bodies just really shouldnt be a topic of conversation in the workplace EVER. Looking good or looking bad, looking thin or looking heavy, it is just completely inappropriate. Do not touch my body and do not use it as a topic of conversation. This is a serious matter that your supervisor should take very seriously. That being said, please dont let it get in the way of your progress. I completely understand what you are saying about wanting to lay off the hard work because you dont want to draw more attention to yourself, but you would only be hurting yourself. Just try to remember that in a year or so the novelty of your new body will have worn off for these weirdos at work and they will move on. You will get to enjoy your healthy body for life! Good luck and keep us posted k!

and omg hooker name would be Sugar Gap. :/ that is dreadful

"momona" in Hawaiian means fat or ripe. In pidgin it definitely just means fat! I used that and then tacked on the "no mo" to stand for "no more". So momonanomo = fat no more. And I am working hard on getting there!

Looking GOOD girl! You are the total package

Stop now if you can. Better to get it out of your system as much as possible, and gum is a no-no during post op. I stepped down from nicotine gum to the mini lozenges, then switched to sugarfree altoid mini's. Best of luck to you!

Im at 6 months out, down 83 lbs, and havent lost any hair. I think I may be in the clear at this point.... Will come back & vote when I am at 8 mos

I completely agree with this being a dangerous practice when used as a means to try to satisfy cravings. It's just too much like bulimia. I'm on this journey to get over my food addiction, not to trade it in for a different ED. There have been times, when eating a meal, that I take one last bite --- the one that, as I chew carefully, I realize will be One Bite Too Much. I end up spitting it discretely into a napkin. It happens less and less as I learn my fullness signals. And I am certainly motivated to work toward NOT having to do this. But when I need to , I do it to avoid the extreme discomfort of One Bit Too Much. So I am doing it -- on occasion -- for that purpose only. I'm hoping you guys would agree that this is a different than sucking on a dorito & spitting it out so that it "won't count". (disclaimer: dorito has been used as a random example, and if someone somewhere on the boards actually did this with a dorito and posted about it, I am not intentionally singling anyone out!)

1. To feel better physically (to alleviate extreme fatigue, aches & pains, etc., as well as to feel more mobile & strong) 2. To feel better mentally & spiritually (it's hard to show love to the world when you don't love yourself) 3. To give my wonderful husband the wife he deserves (as relating to above -- he always has thought I was beautiful even at my high weight, god bless him) 4. To STOP THE SNORING (it stopped soon after surgery - yay!) & hopefully avoid future health problems. To improve my quality of life all around. 5. to become a more balanced person and feel that I have control over my food addiction. It was awful feeling out of control. and being able to wear cute clothes will be awesome!

random thought #1: I'm kinda tired of people noticing my weight loss this week. I'm just ready to be a goal and have that be who I am, and not need to be congratulated so often on "lookin goooood". ....but maybe I'm being an ungrateful grouch? random thought #2: At high weight, I had a closet full of clothes from 24 to 14. I'm slowly getting rid of the bigger sizes as I work my way down. Was happy this morning that I was able to put my 18 jeans in the "donate" bag and slip on some 16's. Then I came to work, and one of my friends told me my jeans are too big.....smh random thought #3: I guess pretty soon I'm going to have to do real shopping and not just closet shopping. Actually not sure how I feel about that...excited AND scared!

I've only read a couple of pages of this thread -- great thread btw! Very thought provoking. I have to say that I have deliberately chosen not to participate in a "live" support group and this is one of the reasons. I have always liked that having a virtual support group meant that I could choose not to click on certain threads, or to quickly click off one if I didn't appreciate the turn it was taking. I have frequently navigated away from the ones that start out talking about a craving or a food obsession, because I don't want to "go" there. i would consider myself a food addict, certainly in a physical sense. I have used my surgery as a way to detox, and I don't fool myself thinking that I couldn't easily go down that road again. I also realize everyone is SO different!! Some can be completely successful still eating food of questionable value frequently. Some will not be successful and will fall back into old habits. Some will walk the line forever. My hope for ME is to eat well (healthfully) and not miss the junk. I want to have no junk food cravings, I will not whine about being deprived, I do not want to eat things that I have to justify or forgive myself for. I lived that way for decades and I am done with it. Telling war stories about eating junk does not appeal to me. My plan for now is to follow a clean eating plan until goal. Then I will maybe occasionally have a treat, perhaps, if I want it. I will have to test the waters on it. What I DO NOT want is for me to fall back into obsessing about food. And why do we call junk food a treat when it is so bad for our bodies and minds anyway? When I see threads talking about things people miss or things they've "cheated" with, I don't want to read them. I don't want to go there. I neither want to condone nor crucify anyone who does it. I don't want to be a part of it at all. Because the reality I choose to pursue is one in which I'm not obsessed. And -- my point is ---- the beauty of a message board is that you can choose to distance yourself from these things. Just click away. This journey is something in which we are each responsible for our own experience. I could cry, whine, beg, borrow, steal, pay a lot of money, but in the end if I continue the old food addict behaviors I had prior to surgery, I will not achieve my goals.

Lots of people post surgery notice they smell different everywhere -- their breath, their b.o., their pee, and yes "down there" too. It would stand to reason that perhaps it may taste a bit different too. This is all the result -- or they effect of --- being in the "fat burning" state of ketosis. It's not forever, and it is an indication that you're burning fat

Michelle that is AWESOME! Your hard work has definitely paid off, great job! You look beautiful, happy & healthy

For me, some days water is a bit uncomfortable, but most days are just as if i had never had surgery. I start slow to test it and then drink for whatever mood my sleeve is infor that day!

I found a protein caoculator here: http://www.healthcalculators.org/calculators/protein.asp My NUT used a similar formula; she increased my recommend intake to help recover from surgery. Once I was a few months out, she dropped it back.

Congrats! You are awesome. You've got a great husband too!