bellabloom

It will take some time for people To accept and get used to the new you. I do believe another persons weight loss can be threatening to some people, especially if they are struggling with their own body image. The important thing is how you feel about yourself. Try to look at their comments with empathy, as for the ones struggling, you’ve been in their shoes. After weightloss the face does fall a bit. Over time it will tighten back up as you get healthier and the weight redistributes. After wls a lot of people go through a period of looking a little off due to just the drastic period of underrating their body has gone through. Over time you will start to normalize if this is the case. From your Photo you look amazing to me! Remember people are just fragile and sometimes they say mean things, but they still love you. It’s okay to tell them you don’t like it, and then let it go.

Hey all! I wanted to post and update my progress and share my journey for newcomers. I’m three years out of VSG surgery, start weight 240 lbs at 5’6. My lowest weight after surgery was 114. Scary scary thin. After my surgery I could barely eat for an entire year and had malnutrition and many mental and physical barriers to overcome before I began eating again. It took a year to get my stomach straightened out to where I could eat solid food, and another two years to get my mind straightened out to where I was eating enough food. Surgery like this is a big deal, easier for some, harder for others. Because we are a population that struggles with disordered eating behavior and many of us eating disorders, it’s hard to predict how it might affect you. For me, it leveled my life for awhile- but intimately put me into a better place. My life before surgery consisted of constant dieting and deprivation with periods of intense binging on thousands and thousands of calories when I failed on the numerous diets I tried. Surgery was for me a last resort that I believed would stop this cycle and make me effortlessly thin forever or really just take away my ability to eat, because eating was a huge source of emotional pain. Here I am at my lowest weight. That’s some scary ****! I went through some very dark times after surgery that forced me to get super real about what I needed to be happy and healthy. This past year I’ve been consistently rebuilding my health. I began doing this by saying no to dieting and calorie control. No counting, no obsessing, no weighing myself. My life now three years out consists of taking care of my health in a more holistic way. I eat in abundance, and I’ve recently began to be super inspired towards fitness and weight training. My calories average around 2500 per day although I don’t know exactly as I don’t count them. I’ve been able to go a lot of time without reading a food label or thinking too much about what I eat. For me at this point weight has become something that I fight to be at peace with. I try to keep my mind off numbers and I’m focused on just feeling great and strong in my skin. I no longer believe being super thin is the path to happiness. Being able to eat and enjoy food, socialize without worry about food, and be in a healthy body is more important to me. My weight will always be secondary to those things. I’m posting this to give you an idea of what’s possible long term. Surgery is a great tool in some ways but it comes at a high cost. It’s taken me years to rebuild my health and I’m still trying to get my metabolism and muscle mass back to wear it should be. But even without surgery I would have faced a hard road and surgery gave me the push I needed. These days I’m happier than I’ve been in a long time and also I think, healthier. Best wishes on your journey! And remember- you are beautiful right now. Weight doesn’t determine a persons beauty or worth!!!

I think this is great question for this board. And I’m sure that you want to hear people’s stories, but I believe the key here is - you are asking this of yourself. Did you try hard enough to lose weight without surgery? And what you are really asking is “do I deserve surgery?” The answer is yes. Yes yes yes. You deserve to make any decisions you feel is right for your health. There isnt anything that says “this is when you have tried hard enough” and now you get surgery. Would you have a heart attack and make yourself run and eat well instead of taking a medication to control your blood pressure? No. You wouldn’t pass up on an excellent medical invention that could help your disease and save your life. This post could be a mile long for me. Dieting in itself has been shown to fail. And it fails for many many reasons. Weight loss is extremely complex. Statistically speaking, this surgery works for most people. Wayyyyy more than dieting. Take it. You deserve it.

🤤wowsa [emoji4] You were hot before too though. [emoji57]

Dehydration is SUCH an issue for me. Drinking water is a truly challenging thing. Probably the thing I struggle with the most. I’ve been really trying to address it lately, forcing myself to drink more. I do suspect it attributes to some of my issues. Not all of course, but being dehydrated isn’t helping me! As anyone who has had this surgery knows, drinking enough can be a real challenge.

Absolutely. And as I’ve said, even with the struggles I have now, I would do it all again to be in the body I currently have. I have come to believe there are better ways to lose weight that doesn’t involve surgery, but in the place and mindset I was at the time, surgery was the best option for me. I’m glad you are doing well.

Becoming obese is not as simple as having a lack of willpower and being a glutton. I know plenty of obese people with rock hard wills and incredible self control when it comes to other aspects of their lives- just not food. You are over simplifying an issue that is biological and psychological and extremely complex. Insinuating that over weight people are just irresponsible, don’t care about their health and weak is offensive and wrong. This isn’t about being PC. I’m the last person to care about being pc. It’s not about not hurting someone feelings or babying someone. It’s about bringing awareness to the FACT that obesity is creating by numerous underlying issues in our society and eating patterns and cultural mindset that go far being one individuals liking of cheesecake. We are dealing with a population of people with extremely disordered eating behavior brought upon them by a lifetime of misguided messages about how to eat, what to eat, how much to eat, and most importantly- what to look like. What we are not dealing with is hundreds of thousand of people who just can’t resist the delicious crunch of their double decker. Because I promise you, if being thin came down to willpower alone, I wouldn’t have had to remove 90% of my stomach organ to get there.

God I love you [emoji173]️

Except for me, apparently. Lol. Just cause I don’t spin the same worn out diet mentality line of “just eat less and you’ll weight less, it’s magic” doesn’t mean I’m sugar coating or wrong. There are many ways to lose and maintain weight that are different than the usual take of calories in calories out. I don’t like “tough love”. It’s a sugar coated way of just being a narrow minded a*****e. You want to take a population of people with eating disorders and super messed up behaviors around food and tell them all you need is more willpower and some “tough love” and you’ll lose and maintain your weight - YA RIGHT. keep fooling yourself people. Everyone on here can share their opinion. It doesn’t make them right. A lot of people on here are wrong. Just like I was wrong when i still thought weightloss was a matter of willpower. It isn’t. It simply is not. So.

You can change your doctor. Look for someone else. That’s what I had to do.

It’s really hard to explain it exactly. But I will try. When I eat it hurts if I don’t chew my food into pure mash. Which can be really hard to do especially in the company of other people- im talking and forget to chew for example. Even if I do chew it still doesn’t feel great to eat and swallow. It feels like I have a straw in my stomach that is small and tight and it feels like food has to fight its was down. There is a tight kinda stuck sensation and often like a stabbing just below my rib cage. This is especially the case with dense protein. In addition after I eat most of the time i just feel ill. Either slightly dumping or full dumping or slightly shaking or nauseated. Tired and like I need to lay down for a while. Just spent and Ill and sick. This is the case for me about 75% of meals I eat. The whole point of the surgery is to make it physically difficult to eat a lot. Well, that’s exactly how it works. You trade the ability to overeat with a lifetime of discomfort eating. That’s my situation anyway.

It sounds like a stricture. Time to find a new surgeon. Hope you are doing better.

I used a skin forming lotion from nivea a ton after surgery. Not sure if it helped but my skin does look pretty great!!

I love spicy food too and I’ve always eaten after my surgery (once I could eat that is) but these days it seems to be troubling me a lot. I get gas and heartburn. Not sure if it’s surgery related or just old age!! [emoji17]

Vaping is just as bad as smoking. Nicotine is extremely dangerous to use after surgery. I wish you would consider quitting!! You could get an ulcer for sure and trust me you don’t want that. Plus vaping- it’s just not sexy. [emoji21]