Harsha

Love reading all the posts here. I've been basically maintaining the past two years or so. I'm still 10 pounds away from my goal, but I just was never able to hit it. I seem to lose and gain the same 5 pounds over and over again... but I just can't get to 160. It's so much harder now that my body really doesn't reject any food anymore, I have to have 100% willpower to not eat bad on my own. I think maybe I just have a case of the winder blah's. I haven't been to a gym since my surgery so I prefer outdoor activities. With the cold winter weather I've been hibernating more than anything. My biggest issue is getting enough water. I get so full from my coffee in the morning (I tried giving it up, it wasn't pretty) but it takes me hours to drink it... then I go home I usually have a Bang in the late afternoon (yes I know, energy drink = horrible even if it has no calories and sugar). Some days I have ZERO water!!! The crazy thing is that before surgery I ONLY drank water (gave up soda 25+ years ago) and now I rarely have water. I really need to work on that. Maybe I should grab some hint water right now... sigh

Congrats!!!!

I'm always freezing now! I see people in t-shirts and I'll have on a hooded sweatshirt. I have my heater on me at work even in the summer now.

I met my fiancé at work. Pre-surgery I was too shy to talk to anyone, he just thought I was a young stuck up office girl LOL. Post surgery I had my co-worker give him my number. Turns out I'm 10+ years older than he thought I was (which was a good thing) and he is a really great guy. We dated for a year and a half and he proposed in Aug while we were in Alaska. I never really dated much, or talked to guys. I think that there was potential out there, I just closed myself off to it. I mingled with a lot of people that became friends doing things I enjoyed, volunteering for a dog rescue, hiking, biking, kayaking, just getting out there. You never know who you could meet! I am very happy I have my guy though, I figured I was going to be that crazy 90 yr old lady on the corner that never married and had 50 pit bulls LOL (not a cat person ha ha)

I never had a dumping issue, but I agree with what was said above. Pay very close attention to your body. I get the hiccups when I'm getting close to being "full". I've pretty much learned how much I can eat of what. Example: If I get a burger at a restaurant I cut it up in to four pieces. I can eat one piece or a 1/4 of the burger (no fries) and that's it. If I eat salmon I know I can eat half of it, Salad I can eat almost a full salad. If I do take that extra bite, I start hiccupping right away. I'm guessing if I ate a bit more I'd get dumping.

Congratulations!! My biggest advice is just to follow all of your surgeons instructions. If they say two weeks of liquid, do it... don't cheat with one bite of something etc. You'll be great! This surgery has been the best thing I ever did for myself and my health. I feel like the time leading up to the surgery, all the appointments, deciding which surgery was the best for me, getting insurance approval, to me that was the hard part.

I don't have many before afters, but here are two...

My non food reward was to buy a motorcycle! I did not want to be heavy on one so I always told myself if I lost enough weight I would finally get one!

Congratulations on being approved!!! I was out of my office job for about a week, but I also own a pet sitting business and I went back to that three days after surgery. I think my biggest advice would be to follow exactly what your surgeon says and that will give you the least chance for complications. I didn't take any of the pain meds, so really after the gas went down after a day or two I didn't even feel like I had a surgery at all. Good luck to you!

As far as how much to expect to lose in the first 30 days, it's so different from person to person. Plus, you will have stalls. It took about a year for me to lose about 130. Then I slowly lost the rest, and now I've been maintaining about 155 pounds lost for a year, and now recently I've lost about another 5 pounds. I do notice the more protein I eat and drink more water, the more weight I lose.