mngreeneyes

You look fantastic! Congratulations. pam

This weekend I flew to Atlanta for my youngest nephew's wedding. The last time I flew a couple of years ago, I had to get an extender for the seatbelt and because I carry my weight in front, I also couldn't use my tray table (at least on the plane I was on). Friday on the way down and yesterday on the way back, I didn't need an extender AND I could use my tray table because it sat flat!!!! It was so exciting! I also got to educate several people about WLS, which was interesting. They were all supportive, but had questions and were respectful in their inquiries! I didn't make it an issue, but if people asked why I hadn't eaten much or the like, I explained about my surgery. Heading towards 3 months post-op and loving it! pam

WHOOOOHOOO! Way to Go! pam

I have a Garmin Vivofit 2. I love it. It is Water proof and you can even swim with it. That was one of my requirements of my tracker. Its a wrist one with a clock, which I love. pam

You are starting out very near to where I started my journey last July. I am 5'5" and was 282 at my highest. I started out wanting the lap band, but my surgeon did not recommend it and after hearing him talk about why, it made sense. Then I thought I wanted the sleeve, but when I learned about the sleeve and GERD, I had changed my mind again to RNY. My surgeon agreed and I now couldn't be happier. I also chose the surgeon who presented at the info session. He was a good choice for me. Its been 2 1/2 months and I am at nearly 50 pounds. I go in for my three month checkup in 2 weeks and can't wait to see what they say. I wish you the best. Enjoy the journey and all the things you need to learn and habits to develop. They are so important. pam

I am 2 1/2 months out from surgery. Before surgery, I told people that I felt would be supportive, my family, a couple of important coworkers, my student workers, and a couple friends. They all were and are super supportive of all I did before the surgery to prepare and all I've done since as changes to my life, renewed exercise and careful eating, etc. Since the first of the year, I have started telling more people, especially those who haven't seen me for a while. So far everyone has been very supportive. There are still people I will never tell. They may find out from others, but I will not tell them. I made a choice to not post anything on facebook except the day before surgery when I posted "Tomorrow is a big day for me. Prayers requested" I had posted similar things for job interviews that I couldn't talk about so it seemed generic enough. I got a private message from a college friend who it turned out had had the same surgery about 5 years ago (before we reconnected on Facebook). It was so nice to have her support. I wasn't going to tell anyone, but my two friends who were helping me around the surgery, but I rethought that and instead was super selective about who I told. So far at least to my face everyone is being supportive and encouraging. I wish you the best, Keep reminding yourself why you made this choice in the first place, HUGS pam

I can eat eggs and they have been very helpful as an option for eating out, but they do have to be cooked not to dry. I also have asked for salsa to put on them so that they are not dry at all. I had an omlet at a restaurant once that was cooked REALLY dry and even the salsa didn't help. I wasn't able to eat eggs though until one month so maybe its a good thing your NUT suggested waiting. pam

I had surgery in November. I know that there were things that I have subconsciously put on hold until I lose the weight. I say subconsciously, because I tried not to do put things on hold, but I also didn't pursue opportunities to do things while prepping for surgery. The only outright choice I made to put on hold was my job search and I waited until I had met with my surgeon and sent in the insurance paperwork for final approval about a month before my actual surgery to suspend the hunt. That was when I knew surgery would be coming fast and it did. From Insurance approval to surgery was almost exactly 2 weeks. I was afraid that I would get an interview when I was still out recovering and I had never had surgery before so I wasn't sure how fast I would recoup. As it is I have half-heartedly been job hunting since Christmas and will be hitting it hard again next week! Enjoy and use the prep time to learn new habits. It helps immensely. pam

I love the "butterfly day" label. Good luck on your surgery. You will be in my thoughts and prayers. See you on the other side! pam

Not unless I was doing serious dieting and exercise. Even when I switch to strictly plain Water, I still didn't lose anything that I could attribute to the Diet Coke. pam

Yes. Romantic comedy. I don't know if I've seen River. Last Tango was good for a little while, but have you seen the man from that show in Vicious? Hysterical. pam

I am more than a little of an Anglophile so I have been watching my share of BBC murder mysteries and then movies/shows with people with British accents! AMAZON Prime - Luther (Idris Elba) Fortitude (Stanely Tucci) Vikings Northmen STARZ - Black Sails Outlander Then for some reason I have been watching lots of ROMCOMs. I usually prefer action movies, but lately the eye candy has been winning. Of course, that applies to almost all the shows I've been watching lately! pam

I totally love

I am about 10 weeks out now and have lost nearly 50 pounds. I lost a bunch the first two weeks and then stayed exactly the same for about a week then lost a total of 20 for the month. I did the same in month 2 lost for 3 of the weeks but stayed the same for one in the middle. Week 9 I lost about 5 pounds then last week the scale didn't move at all. Then Sunday morning I lost 1.6 pounds over night and today another 1.7 overnight. I am now 1.3 pounds from my twenty pounds a month average! Its coming off in fits and starts, but at least that means it is giving my skin some amount of time to shrink too. At least that is what I keep telling myself! Congrats on your loss. Keep up the hard work. It will show. Also, get out the tape measure! I have found that those no loss times are when my body shrinks. It helps to look at more than just the scale numbers. pam

WHOOOHOOOO! How exciting! You are such an inspiration! pam

@@BonnieJo I am about 10 weeks out from surgery. So far, I have found that the key to success after surgery is the work you put in before surgery. One of my support group buddies likes to point out that "its not brain surgery". The surgery will help you lose the weight, but you still have the same brain that got you in this shape in the first place. Do the work and get your brain ready for later. My NUT had me practicing from day 1 habits that were going to be necessary after surgery, such as the 30/30 rule, eating slowly, Protein, Protein, Protein. Those habits were ingrained enough by surgery that I can focus on other things now to stay on track. You will get out of the surgery what you put into it. If you are ready to put the work in before, you will be able to maintain once you hit goal. Good luck, and it has been the best decision I have ever made, pam

I have been told, by people I enlisted to tell me, that I need to go through my closet and clean out the too big stuff! I also brought a load of 18s up from storage and am SO close to fitting in them. I also have breathing room in the size 20 dress (I am larger on the top than the bottom) that I am wearing for my nephew's wedding next weekend! pam

@@Inner Surfer Girl Thanks, great article! very eye opening and reassuring. As my "last ditch effort" before considering surgery, I went to a weight management clinic and started meeting with a "fat psychologist". (He was actually a very thin man, but that's what I called him!) He had shown me studies that said to lose weight I needed to exercise 2 hours a day! I work full-time so it was a challenge, but I kept it up for the better part of a year. I lost 25 pounds in the first 2 months and then stopped losing! No matter what I did I could not get out of the stall. Then I stopped taking Victoza and gained the 10 pounds I lost when I started that. To say that I got frustrated was an understatement. I gave up for about a year. I still was pretty active, but not focused. I gained it all back plus about 10 more. Then my knees started hurting climbing the stairs to my apartment and my journey to surgery began. My Fat psychologist seemed to think I was cheating somewhere so I wasn't losing, but I really was trying. Now I have some idea of why. Thanks again, pam

I also started walking as soon as they would let me out of bed. I walked whenever I woke up from a nap, even if I woke up in the middle of the night, while I was in the hospital. I believe that was once every 2-3 hours. I found that I had energy to burn when I first woke up so I put it to use. When I left the hospital I went to stay with my parents for a while and I walked a mile 3 -4 times a day. (Dad, who had double knee replacement in late August, walked with me so it took us about 25 minutes to do a mile. I healed really well and walked a 5k race at 3.5 weeks after surgery! I set no land speed records, but it wasn't much slower than my normal walking time for a 5k. I credit a lot of the pace of my healing to the walking. I also was a walker before surgery so that probably helped too. You can do it! pam

WHOOOHOOO! Way to go! Keep it up! pam

I had a year (2010) where several of my ex's found me on facebook. A was still single and realizing that I had been a great catch. He was finally looking to settle down and get married and I was high on his list of options. He lived in Texas and I live in Minnesota so that was an issue for me, but since he assumed I would come visit him (on my own dime!) and eventually move to Texas, it was not an issue for him. (we met and dated in Minnesota so I was never sure how he figured I would be okay with moving to Texas, but...) He was also a bit of a bully when it came to getting what he wanted. He just would not accept or listen to my answer. This was really getting annoying, but he was in Texas so it was nice to have the attention from a distance. Eventually, I got tired of him calling me when he was drunk to tell me he loved me, but never mentioning it when he was sober among other things and I ended even our phone and internet conversations. I never even made it down to Texas to visit him, which was one of the things he was bullying me about. About the same time, E, my high school sweetheart who asked me to marry him, found me on Facebook. He was looking for online friends and had looked up several friends from high school. During our 8+ months of conversations, his wife left him and the kids and he started divorce proceedings. I focused on being his friend and sounding board, but there was always a little bit of "what if" too. We finally got to see each other at our high school class reunion. I think we both had "what if" thoughts. We had a great time hanging out and hung out until LONG after the reunion was over that day, but nothing happened. I wasn't good at initiating and he didn't so there you are. After the reunion I barely heard from him again. I am sure it wouldn't have lasted for the same reasons it didn't last back in high school. We wanted too vastly different things from our lives and what we did share, we saw divergent paths to get there. It was at least nice to get final closure on that one! Although I am obviously not above giving second chances, both "second chances" ended for basically the same reason the first chance ended. I have definitely learned to trust my gut over the past years! pam

WOW! That sounds great. Let us know how it goes, if you decide to try it. I still have some clothes, just brought some out of storage last night, but it isn't going to be too long before I have to find some other clothes. pam

My running partner is particularly gifted in the trunk department. I am top heavy, but also have a large belly so I am pretty much invisible. I never even knew what it was like to be catcalled until Kari and I started working out together 18 months ago. Without fail she would get catcalled or slow drivebys or whatever every time we worked out. At first I thought it was kind of funny because I was still invisible, but the more it happened I realized how annoying it could be. Then one night we were coming back from a night time race and needed to switch from the light rail to my car. The McDonalds parking lot had a sizable group of young black men, the age and race demographic that most often comments about Kari's backside, hanging out. Kari rushed us to get in the car. Once there she explained that she has had groups of men surround her and not want to let her on her way because they felt they had a right to "admire" her backside and that she should be pleased by the attention and if she rebuffed there advances, they would get very angry. She said it was really scary and she didn't want us, two women alone, to have to try to deal with it. We were fortunate that they paid us no attention, but it really illustrated the dangers and problems with catcalling, etc. Although I still don't get the attention, wanted or unwanted, I am much more cognizant of the comments made towards others. Take care and be safe! pam

From what I have seen it is a very individual thing - how fast you lose. I have about 140 to lose. I sat next to someone at support group last week who had surgery almost the same time as I did and she was smaller than me to begin with and had lost 57 lbs in two months. I have lost slightly over 40 in two months. Your recovery makes a difference, your activity makes a difference, your food intake makes a difference. My recoevery has been fairly easy so I have been able to eat and drink almost from getting out of surgery. (Mind you it was ice chips then) I am hoping to maintain an average of 15-20 lbs a month, but I have no idea if that is realistic. I have lost 20 for each of the last two. I also exercise about an hour 5 days a week, although shortly that will increase too as I start weight training on top of my 5 hours of cardio a week. It all affects each of us differently. No two of us go into surgery in exactly the same place and none of us reach goal on exactly the same path. Find YOUR path. You can do it! pam

@@Lemm61 You can do it! Keep it up. I keep hearing that my skin is so much clearer since I quit Diet Coke. And overall, I would have to agree. pam