catwoman7

the extra fat pushes the muscles out after awhile. You don't HAVE to get this done, but if you want a fairly (or very) flat stomach, then muscle tightening and lipo will usually get the job done...

I'd wait and see. Some people have no hair loss at all - and for those of us who do, often it's light enough that we're the only ones who notice it.

I hardly had any. I noticed more hairs than usual in my comb and brush, but when I looked at my hair in a mirror, no - not noticeable. some people have no hair loss at all. it's kind of unusual to have it fall out in chunks and have bald patches. It happens to some, but that's very uncommon. Usually you just have some light to heavy "shedding" (mine was super light). Others may not even notice it unless it's really heavy. Some people who have heavier shedding get their hair cut short or wear hats or scarves. honestly, in the grand scheme of things, the hair loss seems pretty minor. For a lot of us, no one notices it but us - and in any event, it's temporary.

I still occasionally have dreams in which I'm smoking - and I quit smoking 27 years ago! I think addictions can be like that - whether food, cigarettes, alcohol, etc - they can remain part of your self-identity even years after you quit (or in the case of food, after you tackle your bad eating habits).

incisions are smaller because they don't have to remove anything like they do with sleeve

same here - some programs (including mine) are pretty balanced (as opposed to ultra-low carb)

you're fine. First of all, you're at a lower weight than a lot of us are, so you're not going to see the huge drops that someone over 300 or 400 lbs is going to see. that said, I was over 300 lbs - and I'd lost 28 lbs when I was eight weeks out, so it wasn't much more than you - and I started out WAY heavier...

my diet was all liquid plus four protein shakes a day, so first of all, consider yourself lucky that you can have a meal! secondly, since your eating very few carbs, your body is likely in ketosis. It usually happens after three or four days of ultra-low carb eating. It was that way with the all-liquid diet, too - after about four days, it got easier because I wasn't so ravishingly hungry.

yes - this is true. There's no way at that time I could have done the treadmill (well, even now, since I have arthritis). But back at almost 400 lbs, well, no..

I'm definitely hungrier when I've been doing intense exercise - and Crossfit is intense! Your body is burning up a ton of calories with that - so you'll have to find the balance where your body is getting what it needs - and you continue to lose weight. I agree with the person who suggested you have a chat with your dietitian. I don't think 1600-1700/cal a day for someone doing CrossFit 4x a week is too much, though. Are you still losing weight? If so, this may not be a problem. But talk with your dietitian.

I'll be seven years out in June. Lost 235 lbs, have gained back about 20...but I'm oK with that..

I had to have one (my clinic required it for everyone over age 50 (which I was..), or under 50 if they'd had a history of heart issues) it's not bad - part of it just feels weird. They put you in a machine that looks kind of like an MRI only it's not as long (really just covers your chest) and the opening is a lot bigger -so you won't get that claustrophobic feeling that some people get in an MRI machine. Then you just lie there and they take a bunch of measurements of your heart. Then they'll take you out of the machine and give you an injection of something that mimics the feeling you get when you exercise REALLY intensely. That is the weird part because you can feel your heart racing - it's just kind of bizarre since you did nothing to get that way - it's just that shot. It feels a little freaky. Then they stick you back in the machine and take all the same measurements again. They're just trying to measure how your heart reacts to stress - and how quickly it recovers. it's pretty easy and painless - it's just that racing heart drug feels weird.

you'll probably have some, but you're at a lower starting weight than a lot of us so it may not be too bad. I had a ton - but then, I started out MUCH heavier than you.

I know everyone's calorie intake can vary, but at seven years out, I'd gain weight if I ate 1800 every day (I eat that much sometimes, but if I did it consistently, my weight would start heading north pretty quickly). at a year out, I was eating about 1000-1200 calories/day. You may want to try lowering your calories a bit to see if it kickstarts your weight loss again. You may have inadvertently put yourself into maintenance, and it sounds like you want to continue to lose.

LOL! My husband works at a university and was working with two exchange students from northern Sweden one year. We were having a really cold winter here that year, so I asked them if the weather reminded them home. They said no - it was hot here! (and I live in frigid Wisconsin! But they were from up above the Arctic circle, so....)

I had my plastic surgeries (body ones, anyway - I had my face done later) three and four years ago. Things change as time goes on - my breasts, especially, look different than they did right after surgery. They dropped and look a lot more natural now. I was shocked after surgery - but now they look great and I'm so glad I did this. you need to give it a lot more time because they're going to look a lot different six months from now than they do now. If you're still unhappy with them at that point, they can do implants. But you may be surprised and turn out to be really happy with them... (P.S. of course, your thighs won't change since there was no surgery on them. I never had mine done because mine were never that bad, but still, they have a little hanging skin on them whereas I don't have that anywhere else - so I suppose it looks weird - but I'm in my 60s so my mini skirt and short shorts days are long behind me. If it mattered, I'd have those done, too.

yes - I still have "big pouch days" and "small pouch days" (wish I had more of the latter!). Listening to your body's signals is kind of the "thing" these days with dietitians ("intuitive eating"), so I'm a little surprised yours isn't into that. Of course, there's a minimum you do need to eat to stay healthy, but beyond that.. I tend to be really strict with counting calories, measuring things, etc because it's worked for me - but the dietitians at my clinic are into intuitive eating and don't like the fact I'm so obsessive about numbers (but again, it works for me - different strokes for different folks, I guess...)

I co-led one of the pre-op classes at my clinic for three years (i.e., before COVID hit), and my co-leader ( another WLS patient) swore by this thing...

I haven't been sick since I had my surgery seven years ago. I've vomited, though - when I've eaten too much or eaten something that didn't agree with me. But once I vomit, the nausea is gone. But as far as having norovirus (often referred to as "stomach flu" - although it's not a true flu), I haven't had that in probably ten years. vomiting is a lot easier after surgery for many of us. Your stomach is really small, so there's not much in there to vomit up - and there's a lot less acid in your stomach than there was before surgery, so you don't get that awful taste in your mouth, either. I guess this doesn't really answer your question - maybe someone who's had norovirus since surgery can chime in...

it could be that your stomach just isn't ready to progress in the diet, so you might have to stay with soft or pureed foods for an extra week or two and then try again. OR...yes - it could be a stricture, since you're in the right time frame for one. If it gets harder and harder to keep things down (and if it keeps progressing without intervention, at some point you won't even be able to keep fluids down), then it's probably a stricture. But the first one is probably more likely (i.e., your stomach isn't really to progress quite yet). If you're still having trouble in another week or two, then I'd contact the clinic again - they'll probably schedule you to have an upper endoscopy to see what's going on (and to "fix" the stricture if there's one there...)

I agree with almost everything he says. First of all, I was told by my clinic that only about 10-15% of people make it to a normal BMI - most end up "overweight' or "class I obese" (which is not very obese - we're talking about 20 or 30 lbs overweight). The research I did after I was told that seemed to back that up. My third and final goal was to make it to a normal BMI, and I was actively discouraged from doing that - but I actually did make it -and stayed there for quite a while (I'm now about 6 lbs overweight at almost seven years out). I was told - like he said - that someone who's formerly obese has heavier bones and muscles than a person of the same weight who's never been obese, because we needed that extra "infrastructure" to hold up our weight. Granted, you do lose a lot of that as you lose fat - but you don't lose all of it - so we can weigh 10 or 15 lbs more than a never-been-obese person who's the same height and build and look pretty much the same as they do. and as far as getting too thin - I got down to 138 at my lowest - I looked pretty ghastly at that weight, even though that is around the middle of a normal BMI for me. I could practically see every bone in my body. I look and feel much better in the 150s. the only thing he said that didn't apply in my situation is that you lose about half of what you'd be expected to lose by a year out by the time you were three months out (in other words, if you lost 50 lbs in the first three months, you'd be expected to lose twice that (100 lbs) by a year out. I'd only lost about 40 lbs by three months out - and I was down about 120 lbs by one year out. So I think that can vary a bit.. otherwise, I do agree with pretty much everything he said - and my experience reflects most of it.

castor oil is pretty harsh - I don't think that would be good to use on a regular basis. Something like Miralax or a stool softener should be OK, though.

the band surgery is rarely done any more - the VSG (sleeve) has largely replaced it as the non-RNY weight loss option. I think there's a specific thread for band patients in here - you might want to post over there as more lapband patients might see it. Sorry you're having these issues - that sounds awful! yes - I just checked, and there are band forums on here. Here they are: https://www.bariatricpal.com/forum/4-lap-band-surgery-forums/

it can take a week for the first BM. I'm glad to hear you're taking Colace and Miralax, though - because that first one can be a doozy!

if it turns out to be a stricture (which it sounds like it is), it's an easy fix...