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@DedicatedLady it's a long strange trip. The weird thing is I'm pretty relaxed about the big stuff, but I suspect somewhere deep down my mind knows better and is laughing at me. I'm now as easily distracted as a toddler. Tonight I expect to google whether my feet will get smaller, what the protein content of a glass of water is and whether I should wear my pyjamas in hospital because the fly tends to come open and kind of advertise my wares. Jx

To quote: "(I know, I would have knocked the outta her too)" Seriously? Ever considered how serious a plague violence against women is in our society? I'd keep that one to yourself. Or better still get your head right before you worry about a third party's reported experience of body image issues.

Thanks Sheri! I just want to get in there so I can actually have stuff to do and cope with, not just think about! Jx

Hey guys, I'm wondering how long after my bypass I should wait before I can start to do some mild upper body work with dumbbells? I've had a personal trainer for years up until about 9 months ago (when I had an illness AND moved country) so my technique is pretty good. I just want to do bicep curls, some tricep work, shoulder presses, some vertical rows - even with light weights. Any experience or tips from you gents? Cheers, J

Thanks mate, I'm keep it low and slow - I just want to feel my muscles are doing something!

You look fantastic mate, how do you feel?

Thanks folks! First obvious question of the morning... what's a binder?

I can't give advice on dating post WLS, but I'll share the things I did find. A date's just a date. Try to have fun, laugh, connect - however it is you would with friends. Don't go in with expectations of something life changing - life rarely changes in a hour or two, and expecting it to puts an awful lot of pressure on you and your date. I split up from a long term partner seven years ago. I went out dating pretty quickly but decided that I just wanted to meet smart funny cute women and that I would enjoy their company. I had dates where I knew we wouldn't be intimate and they were brilliant fun. In the past I might have worried about whether we'd get together but I just decided that the only thing that mattered was enjoying the date. As it happened I met my gorgeous wife and something did 'click'. And now we have a five year old son. So my best advice is think of it like a couple of hours you want to enjoy and not an interview for being life partners or lovers.

I'm worried about it too. Right now (10 days before my op) I figure it's too late to either get younger or develop different genetics. I'm vain enough to care and have decided that rather than wait to find out if I got the short straw i will do what I can to improve my skin now. I am moisturising twice a day with cream that has elastin and collagen in and doing lots of sea salt scrubs and dry brushing. I have no idea if it will work but my skin feels fantastic so if that's all that happens I'm not complaining.

I was in Oz, for 14 years until I moved back to UK in November!

You're right Joann. It is your time and we'll all find our ways. Please don't think I'm prescriptive or evangelical - I'm working this stuff out as I go along just like the rest of us! Love & Peace, Jx

Hi BMC, I hear what you're saying about not talking to folks though, part of this for me is that this is the new normal and you don't spend your time talking and explaining about what's normal. I'm not avoiding talking to people about it - right now i'm just 'dieting' as far as anyone's concerned - but if they ask once I've had the operation I'm happy to talk about it (I say this now - who knows!). I'll talk about it as and when I want, and how I want - not making excuses to accomodate some damn fool's ignorance. So I won't make excuses and I certainly won't hide it. For me, I know we're all different, hiding it just plays right into the shame/embarrassment cycle that has made me so effing unhappy. I feel an amazing energy right now and I'm going to keep that. If people want to think I took the easy option or that I'm somehow weak or defective, let them. This is my reality and I'm not just taking control of my body I'm taking control of how I feel about it. You've got me ranting now. :-) But I have given this a lot of thought. I don't know how well I'll live up to my plan, but I'll keep trying and not judging. A lot of us have been hurt by people's attitudes and we know what it's like to turn that into something painful. My head, right now, is on the start of a big journey like my body is. Here endeth the sermon! Love & peace, Jx

That's great Dave, well done mate!

Hi BMC, I hear what you're saying about not talking to folks though, part of this for me is that this is the new normal and you don't spend your time talking and explaining about what's normal. I'm not avoiding talking to people about it - right now i'm just 'dieting' as far as anyone's concerned - but if they ask once I've had the operation I'm happy to talk about it (I say this now - who knows!). I'll talk about it as and when I want, and how I want - not making excuses to accomodate some damn fool's ignorance. So I won't make excuses and I certainly won't hide it. For me, I know we're all different, hiding it just plays right into the shame/embarrassment cycle that has made me so effing unhappy. I feel an amazing energy right now and I'm going to keep that. If people want to think I took the easy option or that I'm somehow weak or defective, let them. This is my reality and I'm not just taking control of my body I'm taking control of how I feel about it. You've got me ranting now. :-) But I have given this a lot of thought. I don't know how well I'll live up to my plan, but I'll keep trying and not judging. A lot of us have been hurt by people's attitudes and we know what it's like to turn that into something painful. My head, right now, is on the start of a big journey like my body is. Here endeth the sermon! Love & peace, Jx

Thank you for sharing this. I have ten days to go and nerves are kicking in. If there is an emotional tsunami ahead post-op it's good to know about it (I think I'll have a chat about this to my wife too!). I think back a few years to my wife giving birth after an emergency caesarean, she was overwhelmed by emotion and I'm not sure either of us expected that (we thought it would just be a nice warm glow). Of course with these things being done to your body it should be no surprise at all. Knowing that this could be ahead might not prevent it - but it may help others (I mean me!) cope by realising it's a normal part of the healing process.

Too funny... but kind of sad as well. I've just decided I really don't care what other people think. This has taken me a lot of thought and soul searching to get my head round, I'm fairly sure that whatever I say isn't going to make that much difference to anyone else's preset opinions. I reached a point where my weight peaked and the judgement of others, often implicit, was dragging me down. I'm not letting that happen with this - pride is the name of the game!

This is an interesting topic. I said to my wife that I was happy if she told anyone, and that for a couple of her friends I would be glad if she did as it would smooth out some awkwardness. Clearly the choice is highly personal and what's right for you is right. That said for me it's sad that having been obese we can potentially exchange one stigma for another. I don't want to live my life being ashamed or embarrassed, and those things only come from me. I've spent too long with the emotional weight of weight that now I'm determined to throw that off, and for me that means being open and not giving and 'eff' what anyone else thinks about my choices. From a bigger picture point of view this surgery appears to be so life changing that people need to know about it and feel it's a normal choice. I think that if I'm being open and it makes someone else feel that way then I'll have a added a little to my karma!

According to the nutritional/RDA panel the Flintstone vitamins are pretty good, one tablet gives you your recommended daily allowance of most essential vitamins (I'm assuming that the US RDA/NRV is comparable to the European Union recommendations). In respect of calcium supplementation multivitamins tend to carry low amounts, however if you have a dairy component in your diet that will be well covered. My nutritionist pointed out that Vitamin D deficiency, which will affect your ability to process calcium, is a problem for some bariatric patients. However the reason isn't necessarily nutritional, rather that obese people quite often have a a tendency to cover up and avoid the sun (which is your best source for the generation of Vitamin D).

Hey geets, You'd be daft if you weren't nervous, it's the big unknown ahead of us. I've been doing the Pre-op for a week and, whilst I'm not on liquids this might be easier, I'm using it as a kind of food mindfulness training. I think that, knowing surgery is coming up, I'm more focussed on it... and otherwise I'm just trying to keep myself busy. Let us know how you're going. Best, Jx

Hi Dave, I hope all's well with you. By the looks of it we have a lot in common, similar age, height and starting weight - and we're both in the UK. I'm having a bypass (that's the plans anyway) on 12th July. I think, whatever way I look at it, it's bloody daunting and the closer it gets the less able you are to kid yourself about the implications. I have no more experience than being exactly where I'm at. I don't know if sharing my experience will help you, but I'm on a constant journey of working out how I feel so I'll share/ I've always been 'a bit overweight', you would have called me 'chubby' for most of my life, but have always been pretty active and relatively fit. That started to change about five and a half years ago when my son was born. Sleep went out of the window (we ended up in a residential sleep school, when he was one, for a week). To cope I ate an awful lot of carbs and would have a drink to help me relax. So gained about 5 stone (60 pounds) in a couple of years. I did a 12 week diet at one point and got 25kg off (I was living in Australia and thinking in kilos) but it came back with a vengeance. Around two to three years ago I started to have string of symptoms that were related to weight - I was glucose intolerant and heading for diabetes, sciatica, skin breakouts, never could shake colds and infection and of course just feeling tired and awful. In the last twelve months I've had a big change as we moved back to the UK. I've put on more weight. More importantly my back's always bad and my ankled always hurt and I can't run to play with my son and I sweat constantly. The weight just doesn't come off. I feel like I'm swimming against a current. I've started to worry about how much of my son's life I'll get to share with him. My confidence has been shattered as my self image has taken a dive. Going down the path of surgery is something I never expected to do. It's scary as hell as, being overweight, we're always told we're high risk for surgery anyway. I've spent a long time getting my head round it though and now I feel massively positive. Firstly I'm looking at it as a circuit breaker not a cure. I feel I need to break a cycle and the way the surgery works makes me think it can help. If I do the right things it is a tool I can use to limit my eating. I'm hoping the extreme weight loss at the start will allow me to get back up and active quickly and I can get into a virtuous cycle. Secondly I know a lot of this is in the head but it's still behaviour that needs to change. I know a lot about food and nutrition but that's never helped me too much. I need something that's more direct than education. The appetite supressing nature of the surgery will help, so will the enforced abstinence. Those will help - but I need to maintain that shift for it to be a lifelong change. Thirdly I'm not thinking about this as something 'I'm having done' or that is being done to me. It's just a part of something I'm doing. That might sound a bit abstract but for me it means I'm not thinking about 'things i'll miss' or what the limits are or whether I can eat XYZ again. Rather I'm thinking that this is now how it is - I am what I do. I don't even know if I'm expressing it properly here, but it's been a massive mindset change for me (and not one I was aiming for - it's come about recently thanks to considering a lot of stuff I see on here and because of following my pre-op eating plan rigorously). It's bene really liberating and it makes me feel optimistic about my chances of long term success. Dave, I don't know if any of that helps mate. I reckon I now know it's the right thing for me because I feel like I'm doing it for the right reasons and because I've made some kind of link between it and the future. I'm sure you'll get your head round it somehow - either way. In the meantime good luck and all the best. Cheers, John

I'm glad I'm not the only one who feels like that Robert! I worry about the anaesthetic, about coming out fro it. It's the thing that is nagging in the back of my mind and, even though I know it's irrational. But that's the problem with irrational thoughts! I'm just focussing on every other part, where my head's much better. See you when we come round!

Good luck Shellshook!

Hi all, I'm three weeks away from having my bypass done and, partly prompted by reading here, I've been thinking about what my ultimate goal is. I have the BIG goals that motivated me to take the step - a longer life, more activity and fun with my young son, but they're pretty abstract. Right now I don't have an absolute target weight, until 4 or 5 or so years ago I was around 220 (I have to convert from KGs so it is approximate) so my weight now feels strange and alien anyway. I imagine I would be good somewhere between 160 and 200, which his still a pretty big gap. Oddly I have clothes that I would like to wear that are much more of a motivation (some in my wardrobe some yet to be bought). Well, I am more of pictures than numbers kind of guy. But seriously, have people set out with a rigid weight goal and then realised they were happy at some other point? Does setting a low weight goal help or does it lead to anxiety? I would be really interested to know how some you approached this as we're obviously doing something that has a whole life impact. How did you find things that were tangible? Cheers, J

Thank you for sharing Mona, so much of that sounds familiar.