gottalose100

LouiseC thats a great point... Even if it's weird and uncomfortable. Lol

March 1st 2014, I will be 4 years out and living in maintenance. All the trials and tribulations of surgery behind me. Life has settle down and routine has taken over. My yearly visits to my surgeons office are pretty uneventful. My lipids are stable because my Vitamin regiment is stable.
What I chose to eat is also routine. I don't veer off my food list very often. Boat loads of fruit and veggies, chicken, salmon, etc.. I try not to incorporate different foods in my plan because that seems to be where I get into trouble. I slice and dice, add spice and bake, sauté, crock pot, and broil the same foods just different ways with different spices and flavors. But I found very early on that if I incorporate different cultural foods into my eating plan is where my troubles can begin. for instance, I had to give up (American) Italian food..we all know why..lol. I had to give up most French dishes, we all know why..not that these cultural dishes don't have healthy choices, I just wasn't makin'um. So to eliminate the drama I cause when I veer off, I don't veer much. Food is now a lesser priority then before, is all. When my pouch cries, I first drink Water, just to make sure it's not thirsty first, then after that, it still tapping me, I feed it. At this stage I can pretty much tell what my pouch wants, I seldom get thirsty in the mouth anymore, its my pouch thast thirsty, took me a while to recognize the difference. Strange as that sounds it's a fact. My pouch is its own childish entity. At this stage I have also recognize the difference between my brain wanting food and my pouch wanting food. In order to be a successful GBP (Gastric Bypass Person) you have to get to know your body, listen to it, and tell it NO if you have to. I think I'll end this here, I'm a thought blabber..lol..I'm sure I'll be writing more. Its nice to have a place where my babbling might actually help someone..lol..thanx for listening

Wellllll, Laura - your face is soooo pretty!! :-P

Shoot, nobody ever told me that.
If I had a dollar every time, I'd be broke....

Can u reach out for help with your house cleaning. I am a person that if my house is in disarray..it affects my emotional stability .. Just hang In there. Get rest ..u will get a burst of energy by rather 3rd or 4 th week which I did.

Wow, time flies! I am 2 years post op... My story: I started in the 260's..... made my very modest weight loss goal (170lbs) in 9 months and have been maintaining fairly easily since, (a few ups and downs!) At one point I was up 7-8 pounds but I am currently holding within 2 pounds of my low weight. I was eating sliders for sure, I caught myself and got back on track with normal eating. I still have hunger, I only lost it for about 4 months. I still have fair restriction, but sliders are almost as easy to eat as before. I eat anywhere between 1500-2000 calories a day to maintain. I don't eat low carb, but I try to fuel my body healthily. Don't get me wrong, I still eat cheezits and cookie dough for dinner sometimes! I drink 2-3 beers per week, and drink sparkling Water everyday, no troubles with carbonation. I bike or slowly jog/ walk a few days a week. Nothing crazy. I have a fairly active job as a RN. I have ZERO loose skin BUT I am 170 pounds, so if i wanted to see 130 pounds I might run into that problem. I wear as size 12 and mediums and some larges. (pre-op I was 2x and 24 easy) I would like to maintain my weight for another year then try to lose 10 more pounds. I am super happy, best decision I have ever made to get the sleeve. I am 30 years old and weigh less today then I did when I was 12 years old!
I am very grateful for this website, I have been on nearly everyday for the past 2 1/2 years, and I will keep coming back to help keep me in track!

Today is January 15th 2014. Exactly 6 months ago today (178 days) I took back my life! In 178 days I have lost a total of 104 LBS!!! Sucks I don't have better before pics but as you can see. Befores were only taken when I wasn't aware!
Highest weight 350
Surgery weight 343
Current weight 246

I'm sorry I haven't been on these forums in forever!
I kept promising to come back here and post an update but I'm just so busy with my "new" life. I just can't believe how much things have changed.
It's been 1.5 years. A little over 170 lbs lost.
For the first time in my entire life, I'm in the "one-derland!" From 360 to 190 lbs. I can shop in trendy "normal" stores at the mall and no longer fit into the smaller sizes at some of the plus size stores I've grown attached to.
Started as a size 32-34 and now a size 12-14. I would be wearing mostly 10's were it not for all the loose skin that I have. Went to a lot of plastic surgeon consultations, and they say I am carrying about 8-12 lbs of excess skin. Don't let the fear of saggy skin scare you away from this surgery - i absolutely hate the way it looks but I hide it very well! Wearing things like Spanx, tights, and leotards (really pretty ones are available for cheap on amazon.com) help conceal the loose skin.
Some added benefits of weight loss were that size of my fingers and feet shrunk as well. I didn't realize I would have to buy new shoes! Not like that's a bad thing
I had a lot of extreme hair loss. It got so bad that I regretted doing the surgery for a while. 6-12 months post op was the worst. But I am recovering because it's gotten thicker, healthier, and people have been complimenting me on it again (my hair used to be my fashion statement when I was ashamed of my body).
It may be hard to hear this, but believe me when I say this is true: I no longer deal with facial hair. I remember desperately reading through the pcos-related forums before committing to this surgery and wondering if my hair problem would ever go away. It did, but it was a result of laser and not just weight loss alone. Make sure to follow-up with laser hair removal appointments (now I touch up every 3 months for $75). It barely hurts anymore and is just a quick 20 minute session. I started doing my chest as well, and got some great results. I really encourage anyone battling with this to visit a qualified dermatologist. You don't need to regulate your hormones to get the results I did.
My weight has been stable. No regain so far!
I haven't had my period in over 8 months, my doctor says that is due to the extreme weight loss. All my labwork, including pressure, pulse, cholesterol, insulin is better than average now. I do heavy strength training three times a week and cardio three times a week with one day off. I have built a lot of muscle and that really helps with the appearance of saggy skin.
My advice:
-Don't fall back into the cycle of having sugar/fat/soda. I briefly slipped over the holidays and it took a tremendous amount of work/willpower to work my way back on track.
-Do both aerobic and anaerobic exercise.
-Get a good prenatal Multivitamin to make up for all the nutrients we may be lacking.
-For hairiness: laser hair removal and epilating became my best friends.
-Don't let the excess skin bother you or scare you out of doing the surgery.
I wish you all the best of luck, sending out a lot of love and support. Please message me if you have any specific questions, I am planning on checking back a lot more frequently!

You have nothing to be ashamed of. I am proud of you and I don't even know you. It takes courage to keep working to make yourself more healthy.
There is a whole forum here for people with band to sleeve revisions. I know you will find even more support there. http://www.bariatricpal.com/forum/394-band-to-gastric-sleeve-revisions/
All the best for your surgery.

The thing about torrid love affairs is they never end with a clean break. Sure, you have every reason to think it’s over. You changed your phone number, attended a weekly support group, burned every picture of the two of you together and started dating a healthier, saner person - one your friends actually like. But passionate romances don’t die until the second or third bullet. There’s always at least one steamy reconciliation before the thing is finally stone cold dead.


You’ll run into your ex at the store and go a little weak at the knees, or you’ll send a gushing e-mail on a lonely Friday night, or you’ll decide that avoidance is childish and the grownup thing to do is at least be friends. Before you know it, you’re right back where you were, and after the initial exhilaration dies you realize your mistake. Nothing’s really changed and you’ve wasted time and emotion yet again on someone who isn’t and never will be good for you.
An unhealthy relationship with food is eerily similar.
You may be stunned to learn that you’re so in love with the simple act of eating. One of the most common things bariatric surgeons hear on follow-up visits is, “I never realized what a relationship I had with food”. You thought your weight problem was from ignorance over what to eat, or faulty childhood messaging, or not making time to care for yourself, or your grandmother’s genes. That may be where it started, but that’s not what kept it going.
After surgery, you figure out the truth. You’ve been embedded in a romance as sticky and hard to leave as Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor’s on-again-off-again love affair.
Just like lovers in a doomed romance, you’ll be tempted to drift back into your old relationship with food. And it’ll sneak up on you when you’re most vulnerable, right when you think you’ve got the whole thing whipped.
Here’s what happens. Your surgery gave you a massive head start. It forced you to change your eating habits, it did away with your hunger pangs and allowed you to drop weight at breathtaking speed. You got positive reinforcement from the immediate success of your new behavior and from the fact that you just flat out felt better. Every week contains a little drama in the form of unaccustomed praise, changed relationships, different activities, and new clothes.
But the excitement will wane. Life will settle down, just like someone who’s had a thrilling engagement with lots of gifts, a fabulous wedding, an extended honeymoon, and the first couple of scary post-marriage fights and rapturous make-up sessions, but now has to get used to day-to-day married life with the spouse who leaves a trail of potato chips in his wake and the mother-in-law who calls three times a day. In other words, life will become normal, and, at times, even mundane.
Even more sobering, your body will adapt over time. You’ll be able to undo the straitjacket put on your system by the surgery.
For those who had a gastric bypass or vertical sleeve operation, two things come into play that will test your resolve. First, you’ll get hungry again. Even though the surgery bypassed ghrelin, the hunger hormone, other hormones will ramp up to fill the void, and most patients will start feeling hungry again, anywhere from six to twenty-four months after the surgery.
Second, your new stomach will adjust and toughen up, just like babies’ feet callous as they learn to walk. It will expand a bit, and its cells will change to create more and thicker mucus which cushions the food you ingest, making it easier to eat bigger quantities and varieties of food.
If you had the gastric bypass surgery, a third issue will come into play. The dumping syndrome that’s kept you from eating sugar will disappear in most patients. So the piece of cake that would have made you violently ill six months ago won’t cause a problem now.
For lap band patients, two issues can lure you back into your old lifestyle. First, you’ve figured out how to cheat, and you’re familiar enough with the band that you’re no longer worried about hurting yourself if you thwart its restriction. You can drink high calorie milk shakes or put your favorite food in a blender and eat as much as you want.
Second, you rely on the lap band to limit your food intake like a surgical shock collar rather than taking control of your own behavior, creating a negative reinforcement method of diet control that starts to grate on you. You have your surgeon decrease the saline in your lap band for special occasions, like Thanksgiving, and then put in enough saline “to make me throw up” when you want to lose more weight instead of taking the steering wheel and driving your own eating and exercise plan. Over time, you’ll begin to resent the choke hold the band has over your body and you’ll grow tired of the twice-monthly maintenance visits to your doctor.
That’s why the first six months after your operation should be treated like a sprint, wringing every benefit you can from the surgery while you’ve got all its mechanical and behavioral benefits going for you – the compliments, the falling scale numbers, the lack of appetite, and the physical inability to eat too much. This time won’t last forever, and those six months will be the best shot most people ever get at losing their excess weight.
You’ll learn to listen to your body to tell you when you need food. You’ll figure out what it feels like when your glucose is low, which means you need energy and should put some fuel in your tank. You’ll be able to tell the difference between real hunger versus head hunger, between needing energy and just mindlessly following an eating habit, between desiring food versus needing food.
There is no finish line. There is no moment when you can say, okay, I’ve won that battle and I can forget about it. Like a recovering alcoholic has to pay attention to what he drinks for the rest of his life, you’ve got to be vigilant about diet and exercise for the rest of yours.
But, you say, that sounds depressing. Surely life wasn’t meant to be quite so restrictive. That’s just too hard.
Actually, it’s not. It’s just conducting yourself in a fashion that’s consistent with your goals, something you’ve been doing your entire life with your job, your marriage, your family, and your friends.
Think about it.
The things you’re proudest of in life are the things that have required the greatest work and sacrifice - your education, your children, your marriage, your career. Maintaining a healthy weight is no different and it’s something you should pat yourself on the back every day for doing.
You’ve tasted what life is like without the suffocating excess weight. Your new habits are far less restrictive than the physical, social and emotional limitations your old weight burdened you with.
It’s time to kick your dysfunctional romance with food out of your life forever.

Hell yeah I'd be angry.I agree with you, there must be a hormonal imbalance. Cortisone, thyroid hormones, and even electrolyte imbalances can slow weight loss. I'm an endocrinologist's dream.... I take pills to regulate almost all of ny hormones.... And for that reason I am afraid I will be in your boat too
Start a thread to vent, and find others who may have overcome it. And totally see an endo.

Linda-
You are so right- you don't realize what our kids absorbe!!
My kids are older, and the first time my youngest son saw me was 6 months after my surgery and I had lost over 100 pounds- He came home and he Actually cried! I was almost afraid... I asked him he thought I looked sick or something, he just replied..... I wasn't expecting such a change!!
And speaking of kids and a NSV moment.......
Several of my kids friends hadn't seen me since my surgery, and he had been home here for the past two months, well....... I finnaly saw two of them...... the one came in the kitchen, and I could see the look in his eye and the double take and the big smile and then I got "WOW........ LOOK AT YOU!!!!!!!!" A big hug and kiss followed and I was touched!
The other kid I saw while I was working..... samew thing....... double take and just the look of Surprise!
Big hugs and a kiss there tooo!!:001_tongue:
My kids never commented on how big I was, I know they loved me regardless of my size, but I'm sure I was an embarresment to them, altho they never would say it.
So seeing these reactions really makes me smile!!

So ... wore my new teal bra and matching paisley panties (14/16) today ... no one saw them, but I KNEW I had them on and felt "sexy" all day ... silly, I know, but that was one of my goals - matching sexy panties and bra!

"for the first time in 3.5 years, I literally fell asleep in my love's arms."
Tiff, that brings tears to my eyes, it such a sweet, sweet NSV. The best I've ever heard. Nothing trivial about it, just the opposite.
The journey you have been on is so remarkable. You should write a book; I am sure it would be successful.
Soak up the love, Tiff...and enjoy! And thanks for sharing your personal journey.

This is probably going to seem sooooooooo trivial to everyone else, but I had a great NSV last night.

John and I have never been cuddly when we sleep. #1 I would get so hot that I couldn't stand having him right up on me #2 He's a tummy sleeper with his elbows spread out over the bed, I sleep on my side with a body pillow.

Anyways, last night, he pulls me in super close to his chest, my back is touching his chest, and he wraps his arms around me, like completely around me (that's never happened before), and he nuzzled his head next to my neck and was asleep in a matter of minutes. I laid there just smiling like a goofy kid at a candy store, and I could feel his heart beating on my back. I laid there and actually felt his heart rate slow down as he began to drift off into a deep sleep. It felt so amazing to be that close, and not be hot and feel gross about myself. He had one arm under my head, wrap it up over me and the other arm wrapped around me the other side. I don't think I've ever realized how many "little" things we didn't do because of my weight.

He then started snoring (which he never did before), and I had to move a little because he was right next to my ear. But for the first time in 3.5 years, I literally fell asleep in my love's arms.

The most awesome and emotional NSV Shout Out. Tonight I was able to fit my grandmother's wedding ring on my finger for the first time since she gave it to me just before she passed away. That was over 4 years ago. It was unable to be up-sized, so it just sat in my safe deposit box. I figured some day I would give it to my daughter. I was at the box today for something totally unrelated and figured, why not try it? It slid right on! I cried for joy! It's beautiful. I don't think I'll ever take it off. Of course, it's on my right hand, not to be confused with an actual wedding ring. :-)

Oh Gosh Chancie, thanks to you, I went shopping for a pair of Jeans at Dress Barn, cause they have plus sized that look fasionable. And, my old jeans were fallling off me and looked down right ratty...well, lo and behold, I squeezed into a 14W! Yeah, they are stretch to fit and pretty snug, but they zip up and look much better. Then I tried on a 1x top and it was a little big! So, I snuck over to the misses reg sized and grabbed one in XL. The sales lady asked if she could help me, and I made up an excuse I was buying a gift for my sister. As if I still feel like a 2nd class citizen who doesn't belong in "their" side of the store. Gosh, I tried it on, it at little too tight, but I bought it, because I know with the sleeve, it will fit eventually.

Okay, another NSV. My ex & I still have a Macy's card together. I am charging a bunch of size 2. And, they letting him get the bill.hahahah. I may not be there yet, but I will. I think living well is the best revenge. Don't let those demons get you. I have them also. Dr. C told he wants my goal to be 125 and I guess I got scared look on my face. He said, "what's the matter, don't you want to weigh 125 Stephanie?"...it reminded me of how vulnerable I feel at that weight. But you know what, we are strong adult women now. Don't let them win.

The regular size blood pressure cuff fits! I'm three weeks out and down 24 pounds.

my kids accidently pulled off two different skirts and a pair of shorts the first time I lost weight with my band (IN Walmart and in LOWES!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
I got to buy new clothes after that!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ha! I had the classic just now. I was walking through my living room with my daughter in arms, and could feel my jeans inching down on one side!!!! and then.... wooshka! down around my ankles they went!! *hysterically laughing* and there it is...my first real embarassing NSV (lucky I bought some very neat smalls in a smaller size last week!!!!)

Way to go Ruthi! I remember how excited
I was when I fit into my first size 12s.

My biggest NSV ever was when I was talking with my trainer awhile back about
putting a profile up on a dating site. I asked him which box to check, average
or "a few exra lbs." I wanted a man's opinion. He said You're definitely average.

That same day, a man at the gym asked
me how I keep my legs so toned. I was
literally shocked. I just pointed to the machines I use.

My lbd.

Hell yeah I'd be angry.I agree with you, there must be a hormonal imbalance. Cortisone, thyroid hormones, and even electrolyte imbalances can slow weight loss. I'm an endocrinologist's dream.... I take pills to regulate almost all of ny hormones.... And for that reason I am afraid I will be in your boat too
Start a thread to vent, and find others who may have overcome it. And totally see an endo.

It's hard to accept compared to people who go from like 280 to 140 in three seconds. But I am trying to embrace the fact that any downward weight trend is good.

I started at 202(day of surgery, 211 preop diet) and I'm nearly 3 weeks out and only down 10.5 lbs! scale hasn't moved in 5 days! Not sure if bc I was smaller my stall maybe is earlier than the infamous 3 weeker?! Trying to stay positive I am eating a fraction of what I used to, it will eventually have to come off by laws of Science. Now I see how hard it would've been to continue diets bc I get to this point and give up and thanks to my trusty sleeve, I cannot!