MisforMimi

OK so I've been thinking it was pooch not pouch!!!

Thank you!!!!!! Never saw that one!

Other than pooch.... I just recently changed my decision to have the gastric sleeve to the bypass but now I'm bummimg about not having all those cute name for the bypass.....I mean there's even a cute stuffed sleeve you can by on Etsy for Pete's sake! You've seen all those cute names they got! I'm feeling like the sleeve is the cute new iPad/phone and the bypass is the old fuddy PC....lol...I thought about putting this in the lounge for its high tongue and cheek content. Alas, humor me! What are y'all calling your new tummy???

Seriously, you got a Bob Harper thing going on!!

First off, you were a cutie before and you are a cutie after. What's interesting about your pic is that your after looks like you were never fat...ever....lucky!! That's one thing hope to avoid- to obviously look like I dropped a hundred pounds....well done!! Congratulations!

OK. This is the first before and after where I'm like shut the eff up! Holy crap, girl! Even got a little teary. I hope you are as healthy mind and spirit as you are projecting! Wow. Congratulations, I hope I have the courage to see this to the end. I'm on my phone and I can't see what surgery you had but who cares. Just the thing I needed to see on my birthday and pre-op! Great job!

That's seems like quite an investment to remedy constipation, and like you may just want 'juicing' as part of your regimen. Let's be clear, what you are describing is a smoothie, not juicing. By blending fruits and veggies with skins in tact and so forth you are mitigating a lot of the sugar with the fiber as opposed to juicing (extracting juice from fruit/vegetable). However, that happens with normal people with no surgery. I would double and triple check with the NUT because that may not be the case for us anymore. Flax seeds alone can be blended with water and some of the approved water enhancers. You will still achieve that gelatinous substance that will move out poop in some people. For some is not even that effective. Or you could drink slippery elm tea...It's an herb that is usually in throat coat teas or drink/take a laxative. Again, why purchase kitchen equipment for constipation???? Just seems like a vague area that could impede weight loss unless you are willing to go completely with all (dark leafy) green vegetables which most are not.....good luck.

Hey. Welcome. I agree with the others. I say call your insurance company first before getting your hopes up if you're not planning to pay for this yourself. The ins. companies run this game and they will have hoops for you to jump through. I have great/honeymoon examples, fair examples and just plain old noncompliant and horrible examples of people with this surgery. Oh yeah and some stellar veterans from this site. I think it's up to the individual. If you/we can get the support needed and are really ready to take on the task of discovering and coming to terms with how we got here....I think it will be OK.

Gaaaaaaaah!!!! Jonathan! I've been following happily along with this series and this the one I've wanted to skip. I have truly not wanted to go full into the depths of these questions. I've been more wanting to think about how I will make a weekly date for grocery shopping and food prep, how I could avoid taking my blood pressure mediation, how I would avoid getting my toes or legs cut off, how I could get down on the floor with my 4 year old, the list goes on and on. But for the morbidly obese and relatively young (I turn 38 on Sunday) and relatively healthy, I've only got two disease processes threatening me (arthritis I acquired very young) and high blood pressure, the process has not been so much thinking if the risk outweighs the benefit in the moment but more like if I continue down this path toward more weight and health complications THEN does the risk outweigh the potential benefits?? The answer is Yes. All day every day. But what about the time between the now and then? I'm having a hard time admitting defeat accepting that in all these years I've only gained it back. But again relatively young and relatively healthy NOW. It's this decision making based on forward leaping, or the fast forwarding that I get stuck on sometimes. I think I've accumulated a fair amount of luck in this life, resilience or some people call it. My grandmother lived til she was in her nineties and her heart just slowed to a stop one night. The diseases of my parents are lifestyle diseases, sleep apnea, diabetes, high blood pressure and high cholesterol- loose weight and they go away. No-one other than my grandmother has died in my family. No complications with surgeries, no infections, no problems with anesthesia, no cancer, no systemic lung, heart, kidney problems. Nothing. The odds feel stacked in my favor, but statistically I feel like I'm knocking on wood.....don't want to get lost in the gravity of it all, but these are things I need to think about. So, thank you.

FMLA restarts every calender year. So, you could run it through the end of the year

@RJ'S/beginning See, that's awful. Yes, medical professionals don't like to "touch" another persons/surgeons work , but was rude, unsympathetic and uncalled for. I work in the medical profession (for now) and I hold us to a higher standard of care.

@@Kindle Exact same happens to me....LOL...

@@Babbs Girl, its true! I work with docs every day all day and they get younger and younger and as a profession it is showing. I've even had some residents and fellows jokingly consult me about how to "look" older. As baby boomers and older docs continue to age up it is creating a stark contrast in relating to patients and even receiving adequate care. Age and as we all know weight effects are how you are seen, viewed, heard and even treated as a patient. The tone was biting but the sentiment is true and well-documented.

Especially ER docs are the most inexperienced in the entire hospital. And they are all generation Y or Z or what ever the heck is after the normal people who are used communications face to face. He would have rather texted or snap chat than actually spoken to you. It's not his fault, blame parents, society and his shotty medical school education which obviously let him skip out on the bedside manner lectures!

Nice!

@@*Lexie* That sounds like some awesome investment in patients' success. Never heard of that level of preparation.

I've also seen my avatar on other peoples posts....At first I was really thrown off. Usually happens on my mobile..

I'll be subscribing to this thread. Thank you for bringing this up. I am pre surgery but I have an interesting prospective. I have been feeling a bit like an imposter my entire process for getting qualified for surgery. This, WLS, is supposed to be the like the last house on the block. We were supposed to have tried and failed miserably at the weight loss thing and never had any long term success at losing weight, but this has not been my exact story. In 2005, I lost 140# without surgery. I discovered that I have a sensitivity to gluten and sugar and I stopped eating junk food. I didn't exercise but the weight literally fell off my body. I was lighter than I had been my entire adult life. I went from 320# to180# in about 8 months probably averaging about the same clip as a bypass patient I'm imagining. I had some feelings of euphoria, but mostly I felt like a live electrical wire. My comfy fat, my safe place to hide from the world was suddenly gone and I felt as if I was practically electrocuted if I would even brush by furniture too hard. I had trouble sleeping with the new sensations of my knees, ankles and toes rubbing together aching for their familiar cushion and I felt horribly uncomfortable if anything including clothes touched my newly discovered clavicles. I cried at random and inconvenient intervals. I stayed at this low weight for a VERY short time and hovered comfortably at 200 for many many years. I was never prepared for and have never heard ppl taking about how to just be and reside in a body, newly formed and considerably smaller. How do we really listen and hear and feel in a body with new sensations and dimensions? How do we become like the normies I call them, those people who never ever gain weight while we constantly were ballooning up and dieting down the scale? What were/are we to do with our one life outside of food? I know I have the tendency to want the newer, sexier, more interesting route to any destination, like success with even WLS can't just be about plain old (following the prescribed) diet and exercise, can it? I'm still wondering if the surgery is just the newest thing for me. I switched my surgical consideration from sleeve to bypass for this very reason. Because if I'm going to do it, I need to go old school. With me it had to be vegan, raw, paleo and Crossfit. Zero to sixty. Never just walking, always training for the half. What happens when the proverbial dust settles and it's not about the food anymore and the weight is lost? When the life I thought weight loss or this surgery would fix is still going forward unchanged? Sitting in this empty space with myself without support and resources or a clue is what made maintenance so elusive and probably so for most people who've lost massive amounts of weight with or without surgery and gained it back. Will having had a glimpse of being thin for a while make me a better bariatric patient, more compliant? Perhaps, or maybe not but at this stage in the game I can't take anything for granted but these are the questions that are clearer in hindsight and that I need to formulate a plan for now on this side of surgery.

I think elasticity will be an individual experience. If you have muscle memory that week help with toning. From everything I've read here, vitamin a,c, and e help rebuild collagen and elastin. You can use e topically. I heard from paleo folks that bone marrow broth helps and well as dry brushing tone skin. The best defense against sagging skin is working out with weights, tho.

I was thinking that modern food products are so marketed and branded and usually are over packaged. Recyclable is good. Less is better....

I think location was one of the factors holding people back in organizing an official meet-up. At least there is movement and folks can hook-up with others wanting face-to-face support and activities....all good things. I'm excited.

I think there is definitely a need for north and south support. No one really likes driving that far. The north meeting group is DEFINITELY into social activities. Or at least I am. After things are rolling maybe we can start a kickball tournament between the northenders and the southenders!! Lol :-)

Hope the packaging can be minimal...saving the planet one small meal at a time. Also, I wouldn't pay regular prices for a bari-sized meal.....just saying but this sounds like an amazing idea...I've daydream about a paleo bariatric friendly tapas style restaurant....

Go girl!

@@LipstickLady, You did all that fat???? Dang! Did you have co-morbid conditions? Or was your surgery more to avoid them down the line? Mobility certainly did not seem to be an issue. I'm way more impressed by your accomplishments than your surgery! But I guess that was the point, huh? LOL Cheers!