time2

How wonderful. I look forward to moving without pain. My surgery will be next July (insurance 12 month wait). I love flowers but live in OK where the heat is brutal. I do have a very small perennial bed and reading your post reminded me that I need to deadhead some rose and weed a little bit. The flowerbed is elevated and there is no hard bending. I look forward to moving without thinking about it! What a lifestyle changed you are experiencing. I am not telling my 85 year old dad who lives back East as he loves me just the way I am and would not understand how the sleeve works. He is and has always been a thin person and sees weight loss as a will power thing. I am spending the next year saving ideas that I have read about what to eat afterward (and what to take to the hospital for surgery). I think my hardest part will be what I have read entitled as head hunger (your stomach isn't hungry but your head tells you it wants to eat). No more food channel shows as I think they prompt me to eat! Right now I weight 236 (and am 5 ft. 4 inches tall)...with one year to attend nutrition meetings, I have a fear that I might reach 180 and my insurance will not approve the surgery. This is so strange being afraid to lose too much weight in order to get surgery to lose weight! Thank you for all the words that you are giving to us pre-op folks!

Go, you!

I am 61 years old and weigh 236 pounds and am a year out from surgery (insurance requirements). I have dieted and lost major pounds each decade only to gain them back. Finally I decided to go the fat acceptance route. I have all the same co-morbidity risks you list. I thought I could beat them due to genetics!! Then they all hit me around age 60. Diabetes is now under control with diet...other problems are still there. Knees started aching last year...knee replacement time is fast approaching if I do not get the weight off. You are young and can live a life controlling your health issues once you get (and keep) the weight off. We all know that keeping weight off is such a struggle...the gastric sleeve has many who lose hunger pains. Unlike past diets, maintenance may not feel like starving. I wish the gastric sleeve was around when I was much younger. (I had a friend who had gastric bypass back in the early 80's; her experience was bad and scared me off.) Your life can be so much better as you can be so much more active (me too once I have surgery). Your friend should accept you no matter your shape or size...just as you do her...maybe she will come around later. I have found over my life that there are different friends for different times (even though it hurts saying good-be to a friend). Life is too short...do what you feel you need to do for yourself. Love and support to you on your journey. P.S. Your friend may be mourning a loss of someone with whom to eat uncontrolled food. It will be hard to hang out with her if food is involved.