AvaFern

Hi everyone!
Well as of 11.9.16 (just under 8 months post WLS) I hit my goal weight. SW: 256 CW: 166. I have not been this weight since I was 23 years old. I think that I will have a better body and health at the age of 40 than I was a 21.
How long has it taken some of you to hit your goal weight? Has anyone been told by those around you that you have lost weight too fast?
I just had to share the news with everyone here. I know that everyone would understand my excitement unlike those in my life that have not had the surgery!
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How did I miss the bacon thread?!
@@Kindle I'm sorry to see you go

I've been at goal for about 20 months or so and within 3-4 pounds for almost exactly 2 years. Initially plenty of people had opinions about how I was too skinny and periodically someone will say something now, although for the most part people tend to forget that I was fat for awhile and new people have only ever known me as being a very healthy size. At 130 I'm normal sized and if anything I could probably stand to lose about 10 pounds, but then none of my clothing will fit and I'll have to be less of a pig and exercise, so that's not happening. I also think that before I had plastics when I was saggier, I looked more unhealthy because even though I weighed a little more, you could clearly tell that I had lost weight and that I looked sort of sunken. After all of the skin was gone, I just look like a regular person, so there is less the perception that I shouldn't weigh what I do because there is nothing tricking the eye into believing I don't have enough fat for all of my skin.
Also, people are nosy. It annoys the complete crap out of me when someone feels it is acceptable to comment on my weight and unless I am sincerely too thin, which is about 20-30 pounds from where I am, they need to mind their business. When you've lost a lot of weight it's easy to believe people when they say you need to stop losing weight when you aren't yet at goal, but ultimately my goal was exactly in the middle of the health weight range for my height and now, years later, no one seems to think that I'm too thin and I weigh exactly what I did then.
The only person who has to like what you look like is you and if you are still 10 pounds from goal and that goal is healthy, then it's your call if you continue to lose weight and they need to mind their own business.

So, I am getting new teeth and I have some concerns hopefully you guys can weigh in on. I will get to the part where this relates to sleeve surgery later in the post, lol. If you have veneers or a full arch of crowns and don’t want to read this long post, please skip to the second to last paragraph and maybe give me your thoughts on why you picked the shade you did.
To be fair, I have teeth and they work fine, however I recently had two very new crowns in the front of my mouth fall out, so I decided to go to a new dentist who is hopefully a bit more competent than the last one. As it turns out, I am a grinder in the bedroom, and not the good kind either, the kind that apparently wore my teeth down to teeth that look like an 80 year old person in my early 30’s. I have stress fractures in all of my teeth to the point that the recommendation was made to replace several of them with crowns, and in the process redo the top row of my mouth, have invisalign, and then finish out a bridge in the back of my mouth after my teeth are straightened and replaced. My parents took me to the dentist when I was a kid and I never had any major issues, however thanks to the fact that I guess I have ground away all of my enamel, fixing everything at once so the finished version actually works together instead of doing it in piecemeal seemed like a good idea. The fact that my bottom teeth are a little crooked didn’t really bother me and I didn’t even notice that my upper teeth were not the “u” shape they were supposed to be, however given I had a small luxury car in plastics done about 18 months ago, I figured why not make my head match the rest of me, or at least my teeth.
Also, here’s the part that relates to our surgery, I have apparently wicked issues along the gum line that the doctor asked me if I had gastric reflux. I don’t, however I spent year 1-2.5 barfing my guts out a few times a week (sometimes a few times a day) because my sleeve hated food. I have since figured out that it tolerates crackers and chicken, but it took awhile to not be yakking all the time. As it turns out, that little bit of gastric Fluid in the form of barf, was enough to kill my teeth. My previous x-rays and images from before sleeve surgery had none of the issues that they have now, which means in less than 18 months of puking, I ruined the bases of my teeth. So, for anyone who has barfing issues or has issues with bulimia, that can be an outcome…although if you brush your teeth after you puke, that apparently minimizes most of the damage.
Moving on…I can’t decide on a color. Dental work is ungodly expensive and if I am paying what this is going to cost, I want brilliant, gleaming, Chiclet teeth. Unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot of help online about color shade results. So, has anyone had veneers or crowns where you chose between either Bl1 or Bl2 or 0M1 or 0.5M1? Much as I want insanely white teeth, I would rather not totally glow in the dark, however I have read several reviews where people were bummed that they didn’t go for the whitest shade possible. If it helps, I am really pale, not albino or red-haired Irish pale, but I’m a distant cousin to Casper, so I can go with a really white shade, I just can’t decide which.
So…I am getting new teeth. I got new boobs and a new butt and new arms and a new stomach, so why not get new teeth, right? I want to wear bright red lipstick and smile widely without wondering if people are thinking that my teeth are a little yellow. Before the sleeve, I would never have bothered spending this much for a cosmetic procedure because my thought process was that until I was thin, I could spend money on the gym and everything else was just lipstick on a pig. I feel thankful everyday that the sleeve has let me finally live a life that I don’t feel like my worth is entirely eliminated by my size. Hopefully this time in two weeks I will have a gleaming white smile and be complaining about how Invisalign hurts my mouth, lol.

I've been at goal for about 20 months or so and within 3-4 pounds for almost exactly 2 years. Initially plenty of people had opinions about how I was too skinny and periodically someone will say something now, although for the most part people tend to forget that I was fat for awhile and new people have only ever known me as being a very healthy size. At 130 I'm normal sized and if anything I could probably stand to lose about 10 pounds, but then none of my clothing will fit and I'll have to be less of a pig and exercise, so that's not happening. I also think that before I had plastics when I was saggier, I looked more unhealthy because even though I weighed a little more, you could clearly tell that I had lost weight and that I looked sort of sunken. After all of the skin was gone, I just look like a regular person, so there is less the perception that I shouldn't weigh what I do because there is nothing tricking the eye into believing I don't have enough fat for all of my skin.
Also, people are nosy. It annoys the complete crap out of me when someone feels it is acceptable to comment on my weight and unless I am sincerely too thin, which is about 20-30 pounds from where I am, they need to mind their business. When you've lost a lot of weight it's easy to believe people when they say you need to stop losing weight when you aren't yet at goal, but ultimately my goal was exactly in the middle of the health weight range for my height and now, years later, no one seems to think that I'm too thin and I weigh exactly what I did then.
The only person who has to like what you look like is you and if you are still 10 pounds from goal and that goal is healthy, then it's your call if you continue to lose weight and they need to mind their own business.

I had lots of food funerals before I had surgery. Usually they were Sunday nights (because diets start on Mondays) the 31st of the month (because diets start on the 1st), and the night of every major hurt (because clearly we were hurt because we were fat so the diet must start the next day). I also had one before my 1 week liquid diet. Your liver will not be any fattier than would otherwise be the case because two weeks before surgery you had yourself a food binge, so it really just comes down to whether it's something you feel like doing.
On an interesting note, I haven't had a food funeral since surgery and it's been 38 months. Now, if I want something, I eat it, except I eat such a small amount that there's no need to binge and go on a diet the next day because I know if I want it again in the future, a few bites is all I need and I can have it. A few weeks ago I started eating Fiber One Cookies, which is a great way to gain weight, and I found myself throwing out a leftover box on Sunday night so I wouldn't eat them on Monday. I intentionally left them in my pantry for the next two weeks instead of tossing them so I would see that I control food now, it doesn't control me.
In hindsight, I would have still had my food funeral before surgery, although I might have cried less afterward if I had known that more than three years in the future I would be the person I am now- someone who doesn't need food funerals anymore, who doesn't think about dieting the first day of every week, of every month, and after every major disappointment, and whose first thought when things went wrong isn't that if I wasn't fat and worthless things would be different.
Food funerals are ok and just like real funerals, sometimes it just means that you're getting the closure you need to move on to a better place.

I had lots of food funerals before I had surgery. Usually they were Sunday nights (because diets start on Mondays) the 31st of the month (because diets start on the 1st), and the night of every major hurt (because clearly we were hurt because we were fat so the diet must start the next day). I also had one before my 1 week liquid diet. Your liver will not be any fattier than would otherwise be the case because two weeks before surgery you had yourself a food binge, so it really just comes down to whether it's something you feel like doing.
On an interesting note, I haven't had a food funeral since surgery and it's been 38 months. Now, if I want something, I eat it, except I eat such a small amount that there's no need to binge and go on a diet the next day because I know if I want it again in the future, a few bites is all I need and I can have it. A few weeks ago I started eating Fiber One Cookies, which is a great way to gain weight, and I found myself throwing out a leftover box on Sunday night so I wouldn't eat them on Monday. I intentionally left them in my pantry for the next two weeks instead of tossing them so I would see that I control food now, it doesn't control me.
In hindsight, I would have still had my food funeral before surgery, although I might have cried less afterward if I had known that more than three years in the future I would be the person I am now- someone who doesn't need food funerals anymore, who doesn't think about dieting the first day of every week, of every month, and after every major disappointment, and whose first thought when things went wrong isn't that if I wasn't fat and worthless things would be different.
Food funerals are ok and just like real funerals, sometimes it just means that you're getting the closure you need to move on to a better place.

I am so happy today I was sleeved this time last year on this day at 387 pounds and felt like I was headed to my death bed if I didn't make some changes. This is by far the best decision I have ever made for myself. I hit onederland (199) today as well and have surpassed all of my surgeons expectations. That is a total weight loss of 188 pounds and from a size 32 to a 14 in 1 year never thought I would see the scale for myself under 200 again. I feel great I exercise everyday and I am not dying of starvation! LOL! The best part is I think for the 1st time in my adult life I am truly happy and not just hiding behind a smile.

I had the groin incision thigh lift and the full 360 body lift, which around the hip area pulls the outer thigh up. It was part of my original TT scar, so I'm sure that would also work for you- it just extends the scar a bit further past your hips toward your back. Like you, I had boobs and stomach done and love the results of that procedure but the thigh lift is, eh, not as awesome.
I didn't want the big line running down my legs, so I had the groin incision one and the first time I had it done, I was not thrilled with the results because both of my upper, inner thighs still had wrinkles. My doctor did both inner thighs a second time when I had my third surgery, the back half of the 360 done, and while they are now a whole lot better than they were when I started, it isn't the awesome factor that you get with the boobs and TT. I really don't notice much in terms of the outer thigh lift, however I had all of the extra hip skin taken off and the back skin taken off at the same time, so it's potentially a matter of perspective. I had Lipo on both my inner and outer thighs during an earlier surgery so the swelling would be down when I had the thigh lift done and this allowed for an extra degree of lipo to be done during the thigh procedure. In the end, I still have ugly thighs, lol, although nowhere near as bad as they once were. I had hoped the outer thigh lift and lipo would correct my cellulite issues a little, which it did initially, but now at almost a year post-op since my last thigh procedure my thighs are just as cellulite ridden as before. My inner thighs are certainly an improvement, but unlike the nice, tight lines of a Tummy Tuck, the groin incision thigh lift doesn't give you that. I would still have it done again because it is easier to workout when your legs are not flapping and because I feel like my thighs now just look like a normal, out of shape, slightly flabby girl, instead of a formerly obese, extra skin, floppy girl.
In terms of recovery, I am also a runner and the thigh lift healed very well both times. I had it done the first time at Thanksgiving 2014, and I was back to running my regular distance by the second week of January. The second time I had it done, those scars healed perfectly and had I not had giant issues with my back I would have been good to be running again in 6 weeks. The trick to the groin incision surgery is to make sure you keep it clean and dry, almost obsessively. For the first month, every time I went to the bathroom, I would wipe both scars down with a flushable wipe, then use a damp, clean wash cloth and wipe down both scars again, and then use a hair dryer to dry the scars. Every. single. bathroom. trip. I also used antibacterial soap over my scars during the first month whenever I took a shower and again, dried them with a warm hair dryer anytime I got the scars wet. So freaking annoying, but my groin scars healed quickly and without complications both times.
Also, as an extra note, they place the scar slightly below your groin, so that if you are wearing a bikini bottom you can see the scar. The rationale behind this is that otherwise it is put in a place where it pulls on your labia. My second procedure they cut out both of my first scars and put the second incision below one and above the other. Because the second incision was just a bit too close to the groin line I had my lady bits pulled down on one side. It was insanely annoying for about 6 months, but my doctor told me to be patient and to let the skin heal and he was right- everything was returned to normal down there, lol, While my one incision is very close to the crease of the thigh, the other one you can still see just under where a bikini would run. The scar fades well, and at almost a year out, I can still see them, but they are very light.
So...I would have my procedure done again because I like that my legs are not as bad as they were originally. I would have liked to know going into it though that my results would not be as mindblowingly fabulous as the stomach and boobs were. Also, if you are going to do the outer lift, generally adding the posterior body lift isn't much more expensive, since it's all one big procedure. I notice a big difference in how clothes fit because that hip and butt/back skin is gone now and I only paid for the body lift, so the thighs were a free added bonus, lol.

I'm not sure if this makes you feel better or not, but most of your doctors don't care about you. Your PCP, of any of them, should have an established relationship with you that allows them to care a bit more, but for the doctors that rarely see you, you're just another piece of meat for them to fix. It seems highly personal, but it really isn't. When I was working in healthcare, which was in the emergency setting, not primary care, I do not specifically remember more than a few cases and those were significant to me for some reason (the first baby I delivered, the first person I did CPR on, the first person I almost killed- but didn't she wasn't even hurt, thank goodness).
I'd be more concerned that your doctor after all these years has such craptastic bedside manner. Past not killing you, doctors, nurses, medics...they don't care about you, but good God, they shouldn't say it. Are you sure he was going to say "care"? Although I can't really think of anything else, a lot of doctors struggle with talking to patients about their weight because the logic is that you have a scale and you're educated- why harp on the obvious? If your PCP is older, this is a far more common perspective than younger doctors, particularly since now we know that obesity is a disease with genetic links and there are so many ways to help people combat it.
So...not saying your doctor wasn't wrong, because I also can't really think of a word other than "care", but if it helps at all, it has absolutely nothing to do with who you are as a person and everything to do with how he was likely trained to maintain a degree of distance from patients. I would have called him out, and once all of your paperwork is in place and you no longer need him for everything...I suggest you do the same. It's ok for a doctor to not care, but it is not ok for them to be an unprofessional jack*ss.

My surgery was 38 months ago. I will have about 3-4 pieces of ham (as in 3-4 bites that I cut into pieces so maybe like a half a piece of normal-person ham), 3-4 bites of turkey, which is pushing it a bit on dense Protein but dinner takes forever so plenty of time to eat slowly, and then a bite or two of whatever else looks good, which is usually beets, maybe one of those baby onions (pearl onions?) covered in that cream stuff (which is kind of making me gag right this second but I'm usually good for one on holidays), a few bites of stuffing, which helps to make the turkey a little moister and less likely to be barfed, and I'll probably put a bit of gravy on the turkey and stuffing and a little orange sauce on the ham, mostly because it makes them moist and easier to not get sick.
For dessert I will have a cookie or two.
I will then sit there while my mom and my aunt make disapproving looks, lol. If I plan it correctly, I can eat slowly enough and let the creamy-oily-sugary things get cold enough that they don't make me barf.
So it sounds like my Christmas is horrible, but I will be wearing a size 0 dress (I bought it already, haha) and I will be more than content to have enjoyed that amount of food with no real desire to have anything else. It sounds weird, even to me this far out, but I don't have any real interest in eating any more than that. My birthday was this week and I debated having a cupcake or a cookie to Celebrate...in the end, I had neither. Not only wouldn't it really have been very good and it probably would have made me feel awful, but the effort to drive 5 minutes and go get myself a cupcake or something sugary to Celebrate, compared to just eating a granola bar at home, wasn't worth it. It may not seem like it, but having no real urge to celebrate your birthday with food is kind of an awesome thing.

My surgery was 38 months ago. I will have about 3-4 pieces of ham (as in 3-4 bites that I cut into pieces so maybe like a half a piece of normal-person ham), 3-4 bites of turkey, which is pushing it a bit on dense Protein but dinner takes forever so plenty of time to eat slowly, and then a bite or two of whatever else looks good, which is usually beets, maybe one of those baby onions (pearl onions?) covered in that cream stuff (which is kind of making me gag right this second but I'm usually good for one on holidays), a few bites of stuffing, which helps to make the turkey a little moister and less likely to be barfed, and I'll probably put a bit of gravy on the turkey and stuffing and a little orange sauce on the ham, mostly because it makes them moist and easier to not get sick.
For dessert I will have a cookie or two.
I will then sit there while my mom and my aunt make disapproving looks, lol. If I plan it correctly, I can eat slowly enough and let the creamy-oily-sugary things get cold enough that they don't make me barf.
So it sounds like my Christmas is horrible, but I will be wearing a size 0 dress (I bought it already, haha) and I will be more than content to have enjoyed that amount of food with no real desire to have anything else. It sounds weird, even to me this far out, but I don't have any real interest in eating any more than that. My birthday was this week and I debated having a cupcake or a cookie to Celebrate...in the end, I had neither. Not only wouldn't it really have been very good and it probably would have made me feel awful, but the effort to drive 5 minutes and go get myself a cupcake or something sugary to Celebrate, compared to just eating a granola bar at home, wasn't worth it. It may not seem like it, but having no real urge to celebrate your birthday with food is kind of an awesome thing.

My surgery was 38 months ago. I will have about 3-4 pieces of ham (as in 3-4 bites that I cut into pieces so maybe like a half a piece of normal-person ham), 3-4 bites of turkey, which is pushing it a bit on dense Protein but dinner takes forever so plenty of time to eat slowly, and then a bite or two of whatever else looks good, which is usually beets, maybe one of those baby onions (pearl onions?) covered in that cream stuff (which is kind of making me gag right this second but I'm usually good for one on holidays), a few bites of stuffing, which helps to make the turkey a little moister and less likely to be barfed, and I'll probably put a bit of gravy on the turkey and stuffing and a little orange sauce on the ham, mostly because it makes them moist and easier to not get sick.
For dessert I will have a cookie or two.
I will then sit there while my mom and my aunt make disapproving looks, lol. If I plan it correctly, I can eat slowly enough and let the creamy-oily-sugary things get cold enough that they don't make me barf.
So it sounds like my Christmas is horrible, but I will be wearing a size 0 dress (I bought it already, haha) and I will be more than content to have enjoyed that amount of food with no real desire to have anything else. It sounds weird, even to me this far out, but I don't have any real interest in eating any more than that. My birthday was this week and I debated having a cupcake or a cookie to Celebrate...in the end, I had neither. Not only wouldn't it really have been very good and it probably would have made me feel awful, but the effort to drive 5 minutes and go get myself a cupcake or something sugary to Celebrate, compared to just eating a granola bar at home, wasn't worth it. It may not seem like it, but having no real urge to celebrate your birthday with food is kind of an awesome thing.

My surgery was 38 months ago. I will have about 3-4 pieces of ham (as in 3-4 bites that I cut into pieces so maybe like a half a piece of normal-person ham), 3-4 bites of turkey, which is pushing it a bit on dense Protein but dinner takes forever so plenty of time to eat slowly, and then a bite or two of whatever else looks good, which is usually beets, maybe one of those baby onions (pearl onions?) covered in that cream stuff (which is kind of making me gag right this second but I'm usually good for one on holidays), a few bites of stuffing, which helps to make the turkey a little moister and less likely to be barfed, and I'll probably put a bit of gravy on the turkey and stuffing and a little orange sauce on the ham, mostly because it makes them moist and easier to not get sick.
For dessert I will have a cookie or two.
I will then sit there while my mom and my aunt make disapproving looks, lol. If I plan it correctly, I can eat slowly enough and let the creamy-oily-sugary things get cold enough that they don't make me barf.
So it sounds like my Christmas is horrible, but I will be wearing a size 0 dress (I bought it already, haha) and I will be more than content to have enjoyed that amount of food with no real desire to have anything else. It sounds weird, even to me this far out, but I don't have any real interest in eating any more than that. My birthday was this week and I debated having a cupcake or a cookie to Celebrate...in the end, I had neither. Not only wouldn't it really have been very good and it probably would have made me feel awful, but the effort to drive 5 minutes and go get myself a cupcake or something sugary to Celebrate, compared to just eating a granola bar at home, wasn't worth it. It may not seem like it, but having no real urge to celebrate your birthday with food is kind of an awesome thing.

My surgery was 38 months ago. I will have about 3-4 pieces of ham (as in 3-4 bites that I cut into pieces so maybe like a half a piece of normal-person ham), 3-4 bites of turkey, which is pushing it a bit on dense Protein but dinner takes forever so plenty of time to eat slowly, and then a bite or two of whatever else looks good, which is usually beets, maybe one of those baby onions (pearl onions?) covered in that cream stuff (which is kind of making me gag right this second but I'm usually good for one on holidays), a few bites of stuffing, which helps to make the turkey a little moister and less likely to be barfed, and I'll probably put a bit of gravy on the turkey and stuffing and a little orange sauce on the ham, mostly because it makes them moist and easier to not get sick.
For dessert I will have a cookie or two.
I will then sit there while my mom and my aunt make disapproving looks, lol. If I plan it correctly, I can eat slowly enough and let the creamy-oily-sugary things get cold enough that they don't make me barf.
So it sounds like my Christmas is horrible, but I will be wearing a size 0 dress (I bought it already, haha) and I will be more than content to have enjoyed that amount of food with no real desire to have anything else. It sounds weird, even to me this far out, but I don't have any real interest in eating any more than that. My birthday was this week and I debated having a cupcake or a cookie to Celebrate...in the end, I had neither. Not only wouldn't it really have been very good and it probably would have made me feel awful, but the effort to drive 5 minutes and go get myself a cupcake or something sugary to Celebrate, compared to just eating a granola bar at home, wasn't worth it. It may not seem like it, but having no real urge to celebrate your birthday with food is kind of an awesome thing.

My surgery was 38 months ago. I will have about 3-4 pieces of ham (as in 3-4 bites that I cut into pieces so maybe like a half a piece of normal-person ham), 3-4 bites of turkey, which is pushing it a bit on dense Protein but dinner takes forever so plenty of time to eat slowly, and then a bite or two of whatever else looks good, which is usually beets, maybe one of those baby onions (pearl onions?) covered in that cream stuff (which is kind of making me gag right this second but I'm usually good for one on holidays), a few bites of stuffing, which helps to make the turkey a little moister and less likely to be barfed, and I'll probably put a bit of gravy on the turkey and stuffing and a little orange sauce on the ham, mostly because it makes them moist and easier to not get sick.
For dessert I will have a cookie or two.
I will then sit there while my mom and my aunt make disapproving looks, lol. If I plan it correctly, I can eat slowly enough and let the creamy-oily-sugary things get cold enough that they don't make me barf.
So it sounds like my Christmas is horrible, but I will be wearing a size 0 dress (I bought it already, haha) and I will be more than content to have enjoyed that amount of food with no real desire to have anything else. It sounds weird, even to me this far out, but I don't have any real interest in eating any more than that. My birthday was this week and I debated having a cupcake or a cookie to Celebrate...in the end, I had neither. Not only wouldn't it really have been very good and it probably would have made me feel awful, but the effort to drive 5 minutes and go get myself a cupcake or something sugary to Celebrate, compared to just eating a granola bar at home, wasn't worth it. It may not seem like it, but having no real urge to celebrate your birthday with food is kind of an awesome thing.

Okay guys, this is getting awesome. At my highest weight I wore a size 6x t-shirt. I love funny T-shirts and every year when my family and I go to Maine I stock up on funny t-shirts at the little stores in town. This year in August I saw a couple shirts I loved but they didn't come in my size. I decided to get them anyway thinking that I'll be losing weight and maybe I'll fit in them eventually.
Since I've been trying to do things I previously couldn't I decided to try one on just to see how close I was.
It fit. I mean a bit snug, but it could maybe be passable. I won't wear it out yet until it fits looser but before I would have never been able to get it over my head let alone be able to have it on and sit down without it rolling up
The size? 2x!! I wore a 6x and now I almost fit in a 2x!! I did cry this time guys and it felt really good
Highest weight 10/30/2015: 540
Surgery weight 5/27/16: 480
Current weight: 352
Also, I'm sooo close to losing 200 pounds in a little over a year!!!
Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

I'm not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but maybe not alone. Several years ago when I was at my highest weight, my little sister came to visit me. At the time she was 20-ish and while she is brilliant and beautiful and thoughtful and kind, she had a thyroid issue when she was younger and has never been able to lose weight. At the time though, I was around my top weight of 237ish, so I had considered the places we would go because I knew that both of us needed to consider our size. Anyway, we went to a theater where I had gotten us prime seats in the very front row of the balcony. In the first few minutes, during an oddly quiet part, my sister's chair broke. It made this giant crack and everyone around us heard it. Thankfully there were extra seats so I just moved over one and she just moved over one and I then wrote a ripping letter to the theater about their crappy seats, but I remember how embarrassed I was for her and that I thought, well that could have been my chair. I had both tickets and we hadn't really picked who would sit where, so it could have easily been me. Four months later I was going into the sleeve procedure and it is now 38 months post-op. I no longer have to worry about whether I will fit into a chair and now my biggest problem is the fact that my butt is bony and hard chairs are miserable to sit in. I don't mind though, because I remember how it felt to worry about chair sizes and I am grateful that a sore butt is now the only concern I have.
I'm so very sorry you're having such a bad day, but in the end, even though now is a long, frustrating wait, soon enough you will realize that it was worth it. Time passes no matter what you do- right now you are using that time in the best possible way and moving toward better health. Think where you will be this time next year, or the year after that, or like me, 3 years and beyond. This time three years ago I was finally starting to feel normal again after surgery (my surgery was in Sep 2013), I was back at the gym, and I was closing in on around 205-ish from 237. This time two years ago I was complaining that I was stuck at 145 and I had finished 1 of 3 plastics procedures. This time last year I was finished with all three plastics procedures and my biggest concern about my appearance was the fact that I had gained a little weight at Halloween and my poor "fat" self was 134 pounds. This year I'm 132 pounds right now, 2 pounds above where I prefer to be, but I haven't looked in the mirror and thought I was fat for quite some time. All of the hurt and tears and humiliation from those past years starts to fade and all the misery before and after surgery tends to be forgotten. In the end, the journey you are starting is exponentially worth the time it takes to get to the destination. This is just a little blip on the rest of the radar of your life, even though now it feels terrible.
Screw those stupid chairs...sit on your couch and binge watch a tv show you've been thinking about. This time next year, whether or not you fit in the chairs at that theater will be the last thing on your mind.

@@ShelterDog64
Actually no, your insurance company does not get to deny your claim if you did not violate any laws while you were driving. If that was the case they could deny claims for people because they hadn't had enough sleep, because they were older and weaker, because they had slow reaction time, because their IQ wasn't terribly high...and for a lot of other reasons that cause a substantial slippery slope and are not aligned with policy goals. If you are breaking no laws while driving, your insurance company does not get to refuse to pay a claim without making themselves enormously liable when you sue them. So, sure, they can try, but they would not be successful.
On another note though, if you injure someone else while driving and a reasonable person would not have thought it was acceptable to drive, then you can be found negligent, or worse, if a reasonable person thinks you disregarded a substantial risk, you can even be found reckless in your actions. If you kill someone while driving home and a jury believes that it was because you ignored your doctor's orders, thus knowing you were potentially endangering the lives of others and choosing to do it anyway, you can potentially be guilty of manslaughter.
So, @@ShelterDog64 has a very valid point in that if you drive home and you get in an accident you may have some problems. Your insurance company on their own is going to have a tough time denying your claim if you were legally fit to drive, but a negligence case against you has the potential to be successful. Short of killing someone, criminally you aren't breaking any laws, but in civil procedures, the standard to make you miserable is far lower than criminal.
So yes, you can drive home, but if you crash, you're potentially screwing yourself depending on exactly how you manage to crash.

I'm not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but maybe not alone. Several years ago when I was at my highest weight, my little sister came to visit me. At the time she was 20-ish and while she is brilliant and beautiful and thoughtful and kind, she had a thyroid issue when she was younger and has never been able to lose weight. At the time though, I was around my top weight of 237ish, so I had considered the places we would go because I knew that both of us needed to consider our size. Anyway, we went to a theater where I had gotten us prime seats in the very front row of the balcony. In the first few minutes, during an oddly quiet part, my sister's chair broke. It made this giant crack and everyone around us heard it. Thankfully there were extra seats so I just moved over one and she just moved over one and I then wrote a ripping letter to the theater about their crappy seats, but I remember how embarrassed I was for her and that I thought, well that could have been my chair. I had both tickets and we hadn't really picked who would sit where, so it could have easily been me. Four months later I was going into the sleeve procedure and it is now 38 months post-op. I no longer have to worry about whether I will fit into a chair and now my biggest problem is the fact that my butt is bony and hard chairs are miserable to sit in. I don't mind though, because I remember how it felt to worry about chair sizes and I am grateful that a sore butt is now the only concern I have.
I'm so very sorry you're having such a bad day, but in the end, even though now is a long, frustrating wait, soon enough you will realize that it was worth it. Time passes no matter what you do- right now you are using that time in the best possible way and moving toward better health. Think where you will be this time next year, or the year after that, or like me, 3 years and beyond. This time three years ago I was finally starting to feel normal again after surgery (my surgery was in Sep 2013), I was back at the gym, and I was closing in on around 205-ish from 237. This time two years ago I was complaining that I was stuck at 145 and I had finished 1 of 3 plastics procedures. This time last year I was finished with all three plastics procedures and my biggest concern about my appearance was the fact that I had gained a little weight at Halloween and my poor "fat" self was 134 pounds. This year I'm 132 pounds right now, 2 pounds above where I prefer to be, but I haven't looked in the mirror and thought I was fat for quite some time. All of the hurt and tears and humiliation from those past years starts to fade and all the misery before and after surgery tends to be forgotten. In the end, the journey you are starting is exponentially worth the time it takes to get to the destination. This is just a little blip on the rest of the radar of your life, even though now it feels terrible.
Screw those stupid chairs...sit on your couch and binge watch a tv show you've been thinking about. This time next year, whether or not you fit in the chairs at that theater will be the last thing on your mind.

I'm not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but maybe not alone. Several years ago when I was at my highest weight, my little sister came to visit me. At the time she was 20-ish and while she is brilliant and beautiful and thoughtful and kind, she had a thyroid issue when she was younger and has never been able to lose weight. At the time though, I was around my top weight of 237ish, so I had considered the places we would go because I knew that both of us needed to consider our size. Anyway, we went to a theater where I had gotten us prime seats in the very front row of the balcony. In the first few minutes, during an oddly quiet part, my sister's chair broke. It made this giant crack and everyone around us heard it. Thankfully there were extra seats so I just moved over one and she just moved over one and I then wrote a ripping letter to the theater about their crappy seats, but I remember how embarrassed I was for her and that I thought, well that could have been my chair. I had both tickets and we hadn't really picked who would sit where, so it could have easily been me. Four months later I was going into the sleeve procedure and it is now 38 months post-op. I no longer have to worry about whether I will fit into a chair and now my biggest problem is the fact that my butt is bony and hard chairs are miserable to sit in. I don't mind though, because I remember how it felt to worry about chair sizes and I am grateful that a sore butt is now the only concern I have.
I'm so very sorry you're having such a bad day, but in the end, even though now is a long, frustrating wait, soon enough you will realize that it was worth it. Time passes no matter what you do- right now you are using that time in the best possible way and moving toward better health. Think where you will be this time next year, or the year after that, or like me, 3 years and beyond. This time three years ago I was finally starting to feel normal again after surgery (my surgery was in Sep 2013), I was back at the gym, and I was closing in on around 205-ish from 237. This time two years ago I was complaining that I was stuck at 145 and I had finished 1 of 3 plastics procedures. This time last year I was finished with all three plastics procedures and my biggest concern about my appearance was the fact that I had gained a little weight at Halloween and my poor "fat" self was 134 pounds. This year I'm 132 pounds right now, 2 pounds above where I prefer to be, but I haven't looked in the mirror and thought I was fat for quite some time. All of the hurt and tears and humiliation from those past years starts to fade and all the misery before and after surgery tends to be forgotten. In the end, the journey you are starting is exponentially worth the time it takes to get to the destination. This is just a little blip on the rest of the radar of your life, even though now it feels terrible.
Screw those stupid chairs...sit on your couch and binge watch a tv show you've been thinking about. This time next year, whether or not you fit in the chairs at that theater will be the last thing on your mind.

I'm not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but maybe not alone. Several years ago when I was at my highest weight, my little sister came to visit me. At the time she was 20-ish and while she is brilliant and beautiful and thoughtful and kind, she had a thyroid issue when she was younger and has never been able to lose weight. At the time though, I was around my top weight of 237ish, so I had considered the places we would go because I knew that both of us needed to consider our size. Anyway, we went to a theater where I had gotten us prime seats in the very front row of the balcony. In the first few minutes, during an oddly quiet part, my sister's chair broke. It made this giant crack and everyone around us heard it. Thankfully there were extra seats so I just moved over one and she just moved over one and I then wrote a ripping letter to the theater about their crappy seats, but I remember how embarrassed I was for her and that I thought, well that could have been my chair. I had both tickets and we hadn't really picked who would sit where, so it could have easily been me. Four months later I was going into the sleeve procedure and it is now 38 months post-op. I no longer have to worry about whether I will fit into a chair and now my biggest problem is the fact that my butt is bony and hard chairs are miserable to sit in. I don't mind though, because I remember how it felt to worry about chair sizes and I am grateful that a sore butt is now the only concern I have.
I'm so very sorry you're having such a bad day, but in the end, even though now is a long, frustrating wait, soon enough you will realize that it was worth it. Time passes no matter what you do- right now you are using that time in the best possible way and moving toward better health. Think where you will be this time next year, or the year after that, or like me, 3 years and beyond. This time three years ago I was finally starting to feel normal again after surgery (my surgery was in Sep 2013), I was back at the gym, and I was closing in on around 205-ish from 237. This time two years ago I was complaining that I was stuck at 145 and I had finished 1 of 3 plastics procedures. This time last year I was finished with all three plastics procedures and my biggest concern about my appearance was the fact that I had gained a little weight at Halloween and my poor "fat" self was 134 pounds. This year I'm 132 pounds right now, 2 pounds above where I prefer to be, but I haven't looked in the mirror and thought I was fat for quite some time. All of the hurt and tears and humiliation from those past years starts to fade and all the misery before and after surgery tends to be forgotten. In the end, the journey you are starting is exponentially worth the time it takes to get to the destination. This is just a little blip on the rest of the radar of your life, even though now it feels terrible.
Screw those stupid chairs...sit on your couch and binge watch a tv show you've been thinking about. This time next year, whether or not you fit in the chairs at that theater will be the last thing on your mind.

I'm not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but maybe not alone. Several years ago when I was at my highest weight, my little sister came to visit me. At the time she was 20-ish and while she is brilliant and beautiful and thoughtful and kind, she had a thyroid issue when she was younger and has never been able to lose weight. At the time though, I was around my top weight of 237ish, so I had considered the places we would go because I knew that both of us needed to consider our size. Anyway, we went to a theater where I had gotten us prime seats in the very front row of the balcony. In the first few minutes, during an oddly quiet part, my sister's chair broke. It made this giant crack and everyone around us heard it. Thankfully there were extra seats so I just moved over one and she just moved over one and I then wrote a ripping letter to the theater about their crappy seats, but I remember how embarrassed I was for her and that I thought, well that could have been my chair. I had both tickets and we hadn't really picked who would sit where, so it could have easily been me. Four months later I was going into the sleeve procedure and it is now 38 months post-op. I no longer have to worry about whether I will fit into a chair and now my biggest problem is the fact that my butt is bony and hard chairs are miserable to sit in. I don't mind though, because I remember how it felt to worry about chair sizes and I am grateful that a sore butt is now the only concern I have.
I'm so very sorry you're having such a bad day, but in the end, even though now is a long, frustrating wait, soon enough you will realize that it was worth it. Time passes no matter what you do- right now you are using that time in the best possible way and moving toward better health. Think where you will be this time next year, or the year after that, or like me, 3 years and beyond. This time three years ago I was finally starting to feel normal again after surgery (my surgery was in Sep 2013), I was back at the gym, and I was closing in on around 205-ish from 237. This time two years ago I was complaining that I was stuck at 145 and I had finished 1 of 3 plastics procedures. This time last year I was finished with all three plastics procedures and my biggest concern about my appearance was the fact that I had gained a little weight at Halloween and my poor "fat" self was 134 pounds. This year I'm 132 pounds right now, 2 pounds above where I prefer to be, but I haven't looked in the mirror and thought I was fat for quite some time. All of the hurt and tears and humiliation from those past years starts to fade and all the misery before and after surgery tends to be forgotten. In the end, the journey you are starting is exponentially worth the time it takes to get to the destination. This is just a little blip on the rest of the radar of your life, even though now it feels terrible.
Screw those stupid chairs...sit on your couch and binge watch a tv show you've been thinking about. This time next year, whether or not you fit in the chairs at that theater will be the last thing on your mind.

So, last Friday was my 3-year surgiversary. I had good intentions to post on that day, but this is the first day that I haven’t been slammed with work or other stuff. This in itself kind of makes me smile because while I was busy before I had surgery, it was never because I was away from my desk for huge amounts of the day and not really thinking about weight at all.
On surgiversary day, I woke up at my goal…I was 129.2. I have been at goal for about 18 months now, although I do fluctuate down to 127 and up to 133, depending on the day. The only way I have been able to stay at goal is to weigh myself every day and take immediate steps to correct any weight gain. As an example, while 9 days ago I was 129.2 and 3 days ago I was 129.8, this morning I woke up at 132.8 (yikes). This happened because I spent two days eating sweets. I had a mini scone from Starbucks…and then two more. I had a pumpkin spice latte, several pop tarts, a cake pop, and I’m sure I’m missing something in there. I really didn’t eat much more than that, so I wasn’t much over my calories for the day, but sugar and sweets are one way that I gain weight almost instantly if I eat them more than occasionally. So, this morning I’m back to my normal routine where I can have sweets sometimes if I want to, but I’ll be more careful for the next few days and I will be right back around 129 by about Tuesday. In the event any new person happens to be reading this, getting to goal is difficult, but being aware of the fact that you never get to just ignore the scale and think you get to stay skinny once you’re at goal is also not exactly the most fun realization. I am fine with it because my size 2 clothing makes me far happier than cupcakes, but it is a sobering thought to know that if I want to be thin, every single day for the rest of my life I will need to be aware of my weight and the actions I take to maintain it.
On that note, maintaining is not terribly difficult as long as I don’t eat too many sweets. I was one of the people who didn’t follow the vast majority of the rules after I hit the 6-week post-op mark, and it worked for me. When I want cake, I eat cake…I just make sure I weigh myself and then if I gain weight, I eat carrots instead of cake the next few days. Most days I don’t workout anymore. When I was losing I worked out for 1-3 hours a day- now I don’t have time for that and to be fair I’m kind of lazy. I eat about 1200- 1500 calories on average, which means that on days where I am out of my house all day I eat about 800-1000 calories and days where I am at home all day I munch my way through probably about 1600-1800, but it all averages out to roughly 1200-1500-ish. Most days I have sugar free Red Bull and a Bevita bar for Breakfast, I snack on goldfish crackers throughout the day, and then I will have either half of a pick 2 from Panera for lunch and the other half for Breakfast (ex: a cup of chili for lunch and half of a sandwich for dinner), or a turkey and cheese lunchable for dinner without much lunch, a few bites of a Chipotle salad as kind of a lunch-dinner ongoing chew-fest at my desk, or some other variety of something that usually involves some form of meat, vegetable, and mild carbs.
Past that, I drink coffee like a fiend and I mix in the full fat caramel from Starbucks with skim milk, I drink diet soda, I never use a straw, and I drink and eat during all my meals. If I want to have alcohol, I do, although to be fair I think I’ve had a few glasses of champagne and a few sips of wine once this summer and that’s about it in probably over a year. At three years post-op, I know what foods my stomach doesn’t like (too much sugar, dairy, oil, fat, fried stuff), so if I want to eat something like that I know I get a few bites and if I eat more I’m going to get sick. Basically my diet is one that works for me and is something I can do for the rest of my life. I don’t care that I don’t eat Pasta, burgers, pizza, chips, brownies or Cookies anymore, because I know if I want them, I’m allowed to have them, so I don’t have much interest in having them often. I don’t care that I can’t sit in front of the tv and enjoy a giant pile of food like I used to or that I don’t really get to fully enjoy the going out to dinner experience because some food just makes me want to barf looking at it. I am just fine with not being able to eat heavy foods in the morning- no more eggs and waffles, because just thinking about that made me feel woozy, and I am ok with walking through a grocery store and feeling no real interest in actually buying and eating anything. My relationship with food has become one of necessity as opposed to friendship. I eat when I am hungry (and sometimes when I’m bored), but not when I’m sad or overly happy and I don’t wander through the grocery store after a bad day and throw everything that looks good into my cart because I can console myself with it later. Food and I are friends now, because it keeps me healthy, not because it makes me happy.
Beyond that, my life is totally different now. When I first debated having this surgery, I was horrified that I was cutting my stomach out FOREVER. What in the flip was I thinking?! The first few weeks after surgery I was sure I had made a mistake and I read all of the stories on here in the hopes that I would feel better. I looked for those of people who were years past surgery to know that I wasn’t making a mistake. I can honestly say at this point having the sleeve was the best thing I have done. For the first time in my life, I am not obsessed with my weight. I had been thin in the past but it required exercising everyday and constantly feeling like I was starving. I very rarely even feel hungry now. I had put so many things on hold in my life because until I was thin, I had no interest in doing anything else. I now own two successful businesses, I am in law school full time (a dream I have had since I was a kid but never even considered seriously as an adult before) and I am working on my MBA. While work was good before the sleeve, any pursuits outside of that were entirely oriented toward being thin. I had no time to improve my education because fat people need to be on treadmills, not in law school (my thoughts at the time- not now!). When I leave my house in the morning, I look in the mirror and 90% of the time I think…damn, you look good. Never once in my life have I felt that way before. When I have a bad day, when someone is not very nice to me, or when something doesn’t go right…my first thought is no longer that it happened because I am fat and worthless, and in fact, it doesn’t even cross my mind. I shop in stores where 3 years ago I couldn’t fit in their biggest sizes and now I am in their smallest sizes. I spend money on makeup, shoes, watches, clothing- things to make me feel pretty, whereas before I never bothered because I didn’t think I was worth it.
Although this is kind of a long post, as a three-year update, if anyone is thinking about the sleeve, I wanted to explain how much it gave me my life back, how I really do get to eat normal food and live like a normal person, and because of this surgery, I have SO much more in my life than I ever did before. I am happy, I am healthy, and every bit of misery along the way after surgery was worth it to be at the place I am now.

How about you confirm he screwed up before accusing him of doing so? Did you have a bariatric swallow test? If not, go get one done- you can clearly see the size of your stomach and compare it to others to determine if your surgeon did indeed do something out of the ordinary. Next, request your patient files- they're yours, they have to give them to you. See what size bougie he used and then compare this to the norm for a patient that is comparable to you.
Much as I am completely fine with calling out a surgeon for being incompetent, I like to make sure that I have documentation that he actually did something wrong before I make myself look stupid for nothing.