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.

I had a gastric bypass in April. I'm down over 70lbs since surgery and I feel great. Tonight I went public about the surgery so I felt like I was coming out. I feel good about the progress. The comparison is crazy to see. Because you don't see it day to day.

🤤wowsa

You were hot before too though.

Wow! I'm so sorry to hear of your ongoing struggles! I am so sure as others have mentioned, that you've ruled out a stricture right? I'm guessing it's all the scar tissue from your 2 surgeries.
Have you honestly tried to get all your Water in lately and see if that helps your ability to eat? I ask, because Dr. Alvarez's podcast discussed what happens to the sleeve when we're dehydrated. He said, you are much more limited in volume, that food sticks and makes you full much quicker. Maybe a lot of the issue is chronic dehydration? It sure doesn't cost anything to test that out, right? Hydrate like crazy for a couple of weeks. Go back to sip, sip, sipping all day--set the timer. Go back to drinking Protein Drinks.< br> Also, my RD said she has patients who routinely drink a Protein Drink in the morning--years out. She said some pouches/sleeves are finicky in the morning and this makes it easy to meet Protein goals each day. Plus Premier Protein as a coffee creamer just plain rocks the casbah! Then, that would free you up to get your other protein and lots of veggies in during the remaining day? It would sure take some stress off knowing you have 25-30g of protein in by morning, right?
((hugs)) and so glad your kids have you around!!!

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.

I'm a mother with 2 small children, ages 2 and 4 and work full time outside the home. I had no co-morbidies going into this surgery and was healthy other then my weight. But my weight effected everything, I couldn't play with my kids like I wanted and my knees and back ached so badly from carrying the weight around.
For me, having this surgery has changed my life in the best ways. I don't struggle with food. I can eat everything I did prior to surgery except eggs. I have no issues with dumping (haven't dumped ever) or food getting stuck. I can eat a normal meal size in comparison to my thin female friends and average 1000-1200 calories a day, I'm meeting my Protein goals and while I don't meet my fluid goals everyday, I do most days.
This journey is different for everyone, some will struggle while others do not. There is a risk of side effects with any surgery but there is a huge risk of health issues with being obese as well. You have to think about which is a bigger risk to you and your lifestyle.

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.

This I do not agree with. Telling someone that their obesity is going to kill them and its their decision making process that is leading to them being obese, is in no way being a narrow minded a$$ hole... Its simply stating the obvious, yet we live in a society where everyone is so offended at every little thing. Will being overly PC get to the point we cant even communicate with each other anymore? Probably..
People need to face the facts sometimes and its not always what they want to hear. But you cant tell people its their fault for the situations they put themselves in, we have to coddle each other and place blame elsewhere.. Granted, sometimes its a genetic defect or disease that cant be helped that would cause a person to be overweight, but an overwhelming majority of the time its them just not embracing a healthy lifestyle and making poor choices.
If calling that out on someone is being an A$$ - hole, then Im the biggest one, and I called myself out on my own actions, cause I got myself fat, no one else....

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.

I hope people do the same if they decide to e. g. continue driving a car. Many people die in car accidents as well, even if they're good and responsible drivers and they have families that need to be taken care of, too.
Same for smoking. I hope every smoker has a big life insurance policy.

God I love you ️

:/ no one called her a failure? There was no judging.. Everyone gives advise differently...some sugar coat it...and some give a dose of tough love. Whenever anyone posts here for advise..they r going to get both soft and tough advise. Everyone here has there own struggle. And everyone here should be able to express there opinion.

Sent from my SM-G950U using BariatricPal mobile app

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.

I have trouble finding my doctor (since he WON'T pick up any call) And even in my one month appointment he just said, "that's normal, take nexium 40mg. Before i even managed to say that nexium almost caused me to vomit, he moved on...

Until now i am very disappointed in the way he behaves... Even my NUT doesn't like him.

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

bellabloom- Care to elaborate?

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!!

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.

I developed gerd but I also had an ulcer on the surgical line of my stomach. These are pretty common and to me your symptoms sound more like that.

If it continues you could ask your doctor to do an endoscopy to check for one. There are medications you can take to treat these.

I don’t think it has anything to do with your gallbladder.

Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) our bodies are really smart and good at preventing us from starving. A lot of people regain weight after losing it because our bodies get wise to the lack of calories and they slow metabolism and increase cravings.

If you are beginning to regain I strongly suggest looking into something like Intuitive Eating and getting away from dieting.

Yes they definitely fill you up and keep you full longer, especially Protein.

It was very difficult for me to stop losing weight. I still struggle to keep weight on even three years out.

It can be very hard to go from a dieting restrictive mindset to a maintaining weight mindset.

I personally did this through adopting intuitive eating. This means I always eat when I am hungry and stop when I am full, and I don’t have any food rules or no foods. This has allowed me to maintain a healthy weight as long as I make sure to eat enough.

You could try something what I do, or you could simply track and increase your calories until you find your maintenance level. I would recommend to start by adding more Snacks into your day as well as full calorie fats.

Good luck! Let us know how it goes.

And you had a whole host of health problems after your sleeve.. so it's interesting to know what you did. Some things are unavoidable health wise but I can imagine you may have had a better chance if you took your Vitamins etc so your body was stronger. Sent from my Vivo 5R using BariatricPal mobile app

I didn’t have a whole host of health problems after my sleeve- i had a host of health problems BECAUSE of my bariatric surgery and concurrent surgeries and stricture. So let’s gets that straight. Nothing that i went through was because i wasn’t a rule follower- My story is more complicated than simply saying - oh she didn’t take her Vitamins so she got sick. Not only could I not take vitamins- I could not EAT for a long time. And I mean- anything. For months. I had multiple surgeries and was in the hospital again and again for months. Taking Vitamins was basically impossible for me during the complications I went through. I would vomit profusely every time I tried because I had basically zero food in my stomach. I ended up with a pic line feeding me for months. I did end up using patch Vitamins but I only really Improved once I was able to start eating.

This whole thread to me shows that people have to do things the way that works for them. Of course it’s always better to take care of your health and follow the rules. But let’s be real- most of us obese individuals aren’t too great at self care to begin with. And living by rules- that’s really tough long term. Even short term, it’s hard.

I personally applaud those of you who are able to follow the doctors orders perfectly. Good for you. Do your best. But it’s realistic to also say- find what works for you and explore your options. Know that good self care isn’t easy and the surgery is a great time to get some therapy to help with that. I wish I had much earlier then I did.

The surgery isn’t a magic solution that’s gonna make you be able to live on a diet for the rest of your life. Those that think that are bound to fail. But it will give you a chance to explore what works for you, break the diet cycle and get to a healthier place with some help. With the right attitude and support it can be done, even if the way you do it isn’t “perfect”.

Throwing around a patronizing attitude of “well you didn’t follow the rules but I will” just shows a lack of knowledge of living with wls long term and an unrealistic idea of what to expect in terms of challenges down the line. Most of the vets get it, some are better than others at - of I don’t know, never eating carbs again or whatever. But the majority- and I’ve met many many people who have had wls know, the majority have to find something more flexible or they do regain.

Jesus Christ. I mean you look incredible, but what's most amazing is your skin. Like your skin looks absolutely perfect, despite the fact that you lost half your body weight. You said you had a tuck but still. That's incredibly impressive and amazing.

I was very lucky in this regard. [emoji1317]

Wow! You look phenomenal! Do you track your progress or anything on IG?

Thanks.

No i don’t. I’m done making progress and just in maintenance now.

Well I figured it out. To many avocados . I didn’t know they had so much Fiber. I’ve been eating like 2-3 a day. Whoops hahaha

I’m suddenly having an issue with excessive gas all the time!!! It’s been about two weeks. I just pass gas constantly and I don’t get what is happening. Has anyone else experienced this? Any thoughts what could be the issue? I’m terrified I have a blockage or something.

I am three years out.

I personally love sugar free red bull. I don’t like soda and don’t want the sugar although I do drink it now and then. Sugar free red bull is what I use to get through my work days which are long and tiresome.