aquitenonnymouse

Good for you! You're doing a great job! It was a long time before I went out to eat, because it was too hard to get something reasonable. Even an appetizer, I could only eat a tiny bit, and feel annoyed that I wasn't able to taste the wider variety of things that I used to.

You're just about due for your first plateau. Keep on it, it will start coming off again! After the first couple of months, I never saw that 5+ pounds lost in a week again, but I'm getting there, slowly, but surely.

I don't have a medical article on this, though.

What I've been told is that you can't ruin it by stretching it out ONCE. What stretches out your stomach is repetitive overeating, which causes the stomach to gradually get larger and larger from the ongoing stress on it.

Plateaus are totally normal! Don't be discouraged. Your body is accessing the next amount of adipose tissue, holding Water, making muscle, and regulating hormones. It WILL start coming off again. Stick to the exercise, and the food regimen. Also- too few calories puts your body in starvation mode, and you won't loose anything. Make sure you are eating enough food, and get your Protein in! Good luck!

I've noticed an increase in facial hair also- upper lip, and neck/under chin. As we lose weight, our body produces less estrogen (fueled by amount of adipose- fat- tissue in the body), and produces more testosterone. It stinks, but... eh. I'd rather be thinner and healthier, and break out the tweezer more.

People seem nicer to me than they used to be. I'm not hiding my surgery. I don't introduce myself with it, but if someone asks how I'm loosing weight, or what I'm doing, I tell them. For me, honesty is the best policy. I'm not sure about jealousy. I haven't really run into it, so I don't know that I can help there. I will say, that if she is lashing out at you, it's going to be because she feels insecure, or feels like a failure, not because she is a bad person or because she wants to hurt you. You have an opportunity to give her support.

Shaper camisoles might be the perfect thing for you, or a open-bust shaper bodysuit. Having straps avoids the frustration of rolling waistbands, for me. Good luck!

Don't stock up! Things will fit differently, your body will look and feel different, you'll loose weight faster some places than others, etc etc etc. I didn't wear shapewear until 3-4 months post op, I think. It really didn't make much of a difference before that, other than the smoothing that I wore it for before surgery. Good luck! I like Silkies footless tights, and have worn Spanx before, too.

I'd go for an open bust body suit from Spanx, or something similar. You probably need to go down a size from what you're wearing now if it's not giving you the compression you need.

Congratulations!

Nice job! I always told people that I just 'wasn't a coat person' and I just wore a big sweater and then hat, scarf, gloves, etc. The truth- I was ashamed that the clothing companies that my family would have tried to buy me something from... nothing would have fit me. My belly and hips was bigger than their largest plus size coats would fit. But NOW, I'm always cold, and this winter, I'm getting a COAT! And a ladies large will fit, thankyouverymuch.

I've only had something like that happen once, and it was because I overate. I didn't really think that I had, but really looking at it... I did. It was musaka at a Greek restaurant- eggplant, tomato sauce, and ground beef. It went down easy, but sure made me feel sick! I almost always weigh what I eat, but that doesn't work at a restaurant. I portioned off on my plate what I thought was reasonable, but forgot I that I had salad already. For a comparison, since 5-6 months out from surgery, I've been trying to eat 4oz at Breakfast, and 5 oz at lunch and dinner. I -can- have up to 7 or 8 oz of some foods, that are dense... like if I just really really really want Soup, because it is more liquid. Weighing what I eat is very helpful to me. You should NEVER be sick after you eat unless you have food poisoning. Take a step back and really really really look at what you ate the times that it has happenned.

It will go fine! Just go in with a positive attitude... and maybe don't eat the jello. To me, it was gross.

You'll do great!

If I want to keep it cooler for longer I'll put it in an insulated travel mug, but otherwise... it gets warm. I wonder about the travel mugs that you put in the freezer to keep your drink cool because they have an ice-pack type layer in between the inside of the mug and the outside layer. Maybe one of those would help?

Thanks for posting those pictures! It's good to see what the change looks like. You look great!

Those drinks still have calories!

In my experience, and according to a lot of research, diets do not work for the majority of people. In a study my surgeon told me about, 2% of morbidly obese people trying to loose weight are able to keep the weight off with diets and exercise. The other 98% gain it back. Many gain it back, plus more.

Yay!

I'm 6.5 months out, and I went from 12 to 10. Not only are you loosing fat in your foot (some- there's not actually a huge difference in length between sizes next to each other), but you're also putting less compression on your foot. The bones in your foot spread out when you stand. It's why your foot looks bigger when you are standing up than where there is no weight on it. You will probably find that your arch is higher after loosing weight.

I had three weeks of liquid post-op, but no pre-op liquid diet. I just had to loose a certain amount of weight before surgery.

Nice!

Great job!

Add some soluble fiber, or fruit juice, like apricot, prune, or mango that have soluble fiber in them! Good luck!