OutsideMatchInside

If you change your lifestyle and your eating habits. There are no lies told. People ask about my weight loss and I tell them I am eating healthy and being active. It is no different than people asking how many kids I have. I don't go in depth on how I prevent that from happening either.

I never used a blender. It just puts air in your food and makes it thicker, pretty much the exact opposite of what you want post-op. Food Scale Ready made shakes, sometimes even just shaking a shaker is too much Good firm pillows to prop yourself up

Have your labs done. Low Vitamin D or low iron can make your hair fall out.

No. If you saw me eat you would never know I had WLS. At all. I never cut dime size pieces, I don't even have the patience for that at all.

And in the online dating threads people wonder why I am so mercenary with how I date. This is exactly why. Too many bitter men (mostly middle aged), upset about not getting what they want. They feel entitled to women, and to a certain type of woman and if you don't respond how they want, they flip on you. Women have to be careful, very careful.

What was the age of this guy? I imagine people in their 20s and 30s would expect perfect or nice bodies but that isn't really the case with people over 40. I have never had a guy comment on my loose skin. Men just tell me I am beautiful. I don't date bums either, I date well established well educated men that have their choice of women. I look good in clothes and for my age group, I still look decent without clothes. I have my own issues with it, but the more weight I lose and maintain relative stability the better it gets. Also when I was in my 20s I dated a guy that had massive weight loss naturally, and he had a ton of lose skin on his torso. I didn't care he was 6'7. LOL all is forgiven at that height.

The people that post on forums are either success or failures. No one in the in between posts really. Everyone is going to lose weight in the first 6 months just because you are healing. After that it is up to you and how you eat. If you read enough forum posts, lots of people are stalled at month 9 and regaining by month 12 or 18. You have to understand that these numbers are averages of everyone. People that are successful and people that are not. If one person loses 100% of excess weight, another loses 50% and one only loses 25%. You average that out and it is 58%. I got an A in stats but I really hate it, so you can work the rest out on your own. There are tons of studies about WLS, there are lots of forums you can read. The people to pay the most attention to are the people that feel they have failed, have not met their goal. You learn the most from them, in what not to do.

7 grams is on the high side when there are so many other options that are lower. When your calories and just general consumption is low post-op, 7g is pretty significant when you are taking in less than 100 calories a day. At 2 years out I eat a lot, so 7 grams wouldn't be a big deal to me, but I would never blow 7 grams of my carbs on a protein shake. I think about my macros and nutrients as $$ and I try to get the most bang for my buck.

I drink Cold Brew most of the time because of the lower acid and I just like the smooth taste. If I brew coffee I drink Jamaican Blue Mountain or a french roast. I never gave up caffeine or was required to. I did discuss it with my Dr Pre-op and post-op and he was cool with it, while not thrilled.

Actually that is kind of correct. Most people that are super morbidly obese never lose enough weight to get close to a healthy weight. Even with WLS. Most people that are super morbidly obese are food addicts on a different level. Without significant therapy and life style changes they just are not successful. Think about it like this. If someone is 100 pounds overweight but loses 50 pounds, yes they are still obese but they are a lot closer to a normal range. Going from 250 to 200, puts you closer to normal and since most people are over weight you won't stand out too much. If you are 200 plus pounds over weight and you lose 100 pounds, you are still morbidly obese and possible on the low end of super morbidly obese. When you are more to lose, you have to lose a lot more to make a dent. When I lost 100 pounds my life wasn't that different. I was still wearing plus sizes and shopping at the same stores. When I lost 160 pounds my life became radically different. The chances of starting at the weight I started at and losing 160 pounds in 2 years with WLS is less than 20%. I have actually managed to lose more than that, but 160 is the number when I got into normal sized clothes not plus sizes and I had to change a lot about my life. Almost most people who don't make real life style changes, start regaining their weight around 18 months. The people that keep losing well into year 2 and 3 are rare.

@P-Diddy I started with a 60/61 BMI I'm 5'6 but they measured me at 5'5. Anyway. I have cut my BMI in half in 2 years. Even if you have the sleeve you are still going to have to take vitamins. I took vitamins before surgery and I basically take the same vitamins, so there is no change for me. The amount and type of vitamins you take with the sleeve is less than with Bypass. I think this DR is full of it. I mean if they were really going to push the most effective surgery on you, they would be pushing the DS, which is flat out the highest weight loss period. It is also the most radical with the most maintenance required. Honestly, it doesn't matter what surgery you have. What matters is your dedication, will power (yes you still need will power after WLS). You can eat around any surgery. I have lost more weight than most people in my weight range that had Bypass and I just had a sleeve. My way of eating works for me, I like it and don't feel deprived. I am not in diet mode and I don't cheat. I have a way of eating and I follow it. My sleeve makes it easy for me to follow, because I have very little to no appetite and I am satisfied with very small amounts. Yes, when you weight less you move more. In big and small ways. I used to kill myself to make one trip up the stairs with shopping bags, now I will make multiple trips, I don't care. I used to take relaxing food vacations, now I have active vacations with hiking and watersports. The key is to lose enough weight, fast enough that you feel the benefits of weight loss and want to maintain it and keep going. I think a lot of people don't see results, they never get close to goal so eating poorly doesn't matter to them, they have nothing to lose. Good luck.

@lkerrigan Honestly at 7 years post-op unless you are having some kind of gastro issues, you don't really need a bariatric Dr. A starting point would be to have lab work done and get your vitamins in order if they are not in order. Once you are that far post-op, losing weight is basically the same as it is for anyone else. Track your food, all of it Weigh your food for accurate tracking Be active even if that is just walking Eat dense protein, eat real food. Good luck. Congrats on being clean

maybe 600 max 3 premier shakes a day is what I was on at the 2 week mark

My taste buds never changed, food tastes the same to me. However newly post-op food was just kind of frightening because it might hurt or be hard to digest, so I just wasn't that interested in food beyond eating enough to meet my goals. That changed as time went on. I still love food and I really enjoy my food. I just don't get like a buzz off eating. That mental connection seems severed forever.

I would not bank on it.

This is a really temporary thing. As you heal life becomes more normalized and food is definitely satisfying.

I have never had a keloid. My scars did not keloid and you can barely see them. I can only pick them out because I know exactly where they are. My hair shed but all of the shedding was not due to WLS or losing weight. I'm prone to anemia and if my iron slips just a little, my hair sheds. It also sheds with stress, and my business is very stressful. My hair is growing and filling in very fast this year. I wear wigs anyway so it doesn't matter to me. I like wearing wigs because they support a more active lifestyle. I keep my hair braided so I don't have to care about it for exercise and I wear wigs when I go places. I really love it. I'm also natural so wearing wigs allows me to many more styles than I would normally. Any time you take a lot of vitamins it can cause a texture change in your hair for some people but not all. My hair is like a #4 but if I am really pounding iron, it will go to a 1B (not talking texture but color), my texture stays the same.

For DS and Bypass patients, yeah, pretty much.

If people post in here, we respond.

I cook for one every day. I don't eat leftovers and I cook all my meals fresh. I don't meal prep, I hate leftovers and I am not going to punish myself with them. Plus I just won't eat them anyway. I keep it simple and cook a piece of protein. Grilled, baked or pan fried. I buy my meat usually a pound or 2 at a time, fresh, with the exception of my grass fed beef which is frozen and some seafood. I eat raw veggies mostly, baby spinach. I buy a bag or 2 when I buy my meat, I try to eat a bag a day. I don't make recipes, a waste of time and money. When I do make recipes it is something like pizza that I don't mind eating more than once, or cream cheese pancakes, which are a serving for one anyway,

I think it is the brands and time. You are a lot further out from surgery than me. I am still adjusting to how small my clothes are now. I am getting better at guessing what fits and what doesn't but I have only been semi stable at this size a few months.

I'm friendly, outgoing, and I have never been shy. I have a big personality and I always talk to people, make eye contact and engage in conversation. My friends have theories. I try not to think about it too much and just live in the moment because it makes me crazy when I think about it. The current working theory is, when I was huge, the fact I did my make up, wore nice clothes and had nice designer accessories and big hair was viewed as "ohh how nice, she is till trying" "good for you big girl". Now that I am "normal" size it is more like who does this B*$%^# think she is. People discount overweight people a lot. I don't ever think I was invisible before but I was non-threatening. Basically I had to realize that previously people didn't value me that much in general. Prior to surgery I might have been worth $.65 on the dollar, but now it is like $.90 cents on the dollar. Also, yeah it is nice to be able to buy clothes anywhere. I had a great time recently shopping on vacation. I was able to buy random thing at the street vendor and not have to worry about them fitting me. One size fits all actually applies to me now. Still when shopping in stores, because sizing is not standardized for women, trying everything on is really annoying. Plus sizes are more standardized because their are fewer vendors. Vanity sizing in normal sizes is insane.

In general people were nicer to me when I was fat. They talked to me more, everything. People still talk to me, but not as much as they used to. They will just say I am pretty or something but they don't try to actively engage me in conversation as much. I never had problems with Men, I could always pull them. but random men are just super nice to me. They go out of their way, like I can be in the middle of the parking lot and they will stand at the door holding the door open for me, waiting for me to walk up there, I'm talking like I'm on the far edge of the handicap spots. Still I had more guys ask me out in person when I was larger. Men won't talk to me in public that much unless they are older or younger than me, it is like I am invisible to men my own age (I look about 10 years younger than my age to most people), but they approach me in droves online. Women are not as nice to me, flat out. I could write a lot about that, but I don't really feel like revisiting it. When i was fat I wasn't a threat and women were nicer to me. Now I get met with a lot of outright hostility. I wear 3 to 4 inch heels pretty much all the time unless I am walking my dog and that seems to be some kind of hate crime to other women. I don't get it but, I get snide comments about it pretty often. If I want to get heels to the grocery store, that is my business. I'm aggressive and assertive, always have been. When I was fat that didn't seem to bother people much but now that I am smaller it is like I am Cersei Lannister.

I'm not sure why people are acting like chicken wings are the devil in this thread. The only issue I have with chicken wings is they are a pain to track, and you can't really track them accurately. There seems to be an idea that people can't tolerate things, and honestly that is pretty rare. My opinion on that is it is based on one, a lot of previous WLS patients that were old, and already in bad health and had RNY. Then when you add in people that had lap band and all the issues that came with it, there is this idea that eating is hard, it isn't. A sleeve is really just a small stomach, so unless you had some other issues before, you are still going to tolerate almost everything. Which is why as sleevers, nutrition and life long changes are very important. I eat chicken wings because it is fattier white meat and basically the only way I can tolerate chicken. Chicken breasts are too dry and painful to eat. As long as they aren't coated in mounds of flour they aren't an issue.

@ryan_86 You do nt look gaunt you look great. I can understand not feeling like either picture looks like you. When I was larger I always felt I was smaller. Now that I am smaller my face is a completely different shape and I look different from pictures of myself. I had a round face for most of my life and that is no longer the case. It has taken me a few months, but I have got used to my new face, but still sometimes I catch myself in the mirror like WTF. It gets better with time.