Rainbow_Warrior

That is a favourite side effect mentioned by nearly everyone. I'm hoping to off my two combined hypertension (blood pressure) medications within a month or two. They are cheap-ish at $15 per month. I don't know when I'll be off Apixaban (for blood clotting) but I'm told 4-10 months is the norm. At $40 per month, it will free up some good $$$.

Indeed. My method acknowledges every key part of my weight loss/gain history but still focuses on the IMPORTANT thing of the progress in the PRESENT.

Out of all the foods and drinks one might eat/swallow, protein shakes are always a bottom choice. Personally, I'm not that impressed with the flavours either but I do the 'mindset' thing. They are, I tell myself, a choice that has worked short-term for over 75% of dieters and for just over 35% of the long-term dieters. Compared to Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, keeping a diary etc, they are relatively successful. So, I make up my mind to just take them and think of the goal ahead ... the weight-loss. I remember the less satisfactory flavours and skip buying them next time. In saying all that, my son-in-law's surgeon (in 2015) recommended ISOWHEY which comes in either individual sachets per meal OR three TUB sizes of bulk powder (14, 21 or 40 doses). The bulk stuff saves 25% to 45% of your cash. It's low in sugar. The IVORY COAST CHOCOLATE is good (in my opinion) and MADAGASCAN VANILLA is fairly nice. The ALDI Slim & Trim shakes are overly sweet but they are pretty much the same nutrients as Nestles Optifast and the generic OPTISLIM. ALDI is good in that individual sachets are always $AUD1.99 which is barely half of the Optifast price ($AUD3.30 to $AUD3.85). Optislim (at pharmacies and drugstores) is almost always two boxes for $AUD55 to $AUD65 ... i.e. 42 sachets at about $AUD1.35 to $AUD1.65 each. Because of its low sugar, ISOWHEY comes in at 108-110 calories, way less than the 205-212 calories of all the other brands. - - - One lady I met says she stirs in a heaped teaspoon of instant coffee and a couple of artificial sweeteners to each shake. As I said, I just psyche myself up and tolerate it for the greater good. Mind you, the ISOWHEY is okay by me and the ALDI is good for a sweet 'hit' every other day.

This! In my case, I come from a family who were the bakers to five villages and a large agricultural hinterland. My granddad was a great baker and instilled my lifelong love of bread. Bread was always one of the big three issues. (The others were portion control and self-rewards of desserts and treats that were NOT warranted.)

I think it depends on many things. It should, in my case, be acknowledged that my highest ever weight was 11-12 years ago. 191.8kg. Then, after many struggles with my weight and my realisation that I was "out of NORMAL options", I decided on the gastric sleeve and got my general practitioner to refer me to the surgeon. So I acknowledge that I was 174.6kg this July when I met the surgeon & dietitian. They asked me to meet several other medical professionals to assess my suitability and to prove a commitment to shrinking my liver. So when I went back after five weeks (last Monday) I was 167.7kg and my surgery date (Thur Oct 12th) was selected.) My next milestone will be my weight on the morning of Oct 12th. And my goal weight/target is 74.6kg. (I originally set 88kg in 2006 and 81kg in 2014 but now have a goal under the BMI end-zone of 25.

I just keep a record of all the milestone weights Highest weight: 191.2kg (421.5lbs) March, 2006 Start Weight: 174.6kg (384.9lbs) 17th July, 2017 (the day I met the surgeon) Pre-Op Weight: 167.7 (369.7lbs) 4th September, 2017 (the day I started my pre-surgery diet; the day the surgeon announced that 12th October, 2017 as the day of my Gastric Sleeve operation. Op Weight: ???? 12th October, 2017 ... my weight on the day of the op Goal Weight: 74.6kg (164.5lbs) ... date unknown ... I just hope it's in early to mid 2019.

Very likely the right decision, Rainbow Gypsy. I am in Newcastle area too. My surgery is Thur Oct 12th. Good luck with your appt.

My surgery is in 34 days (OCT 12). Good luck and best wishes with yours!

Good luck with your surgery. It's barely hours away now. Your new life and future awaits.

1. I hope you have good quality tap water. 2. Try to sip it slowly my dietitian advised ... even to the extent of putting it into a low bowl and "eating it" from a teaspoon like a clear soup. 3. Try it hotter (from kettle or urn). 4. If water is too hard to consume, flavour it with one cherry OR half a strawberry OR a small thin wheel of banana OR a segment of lemon/lime/orange. [Consider putting 250mL/8oz in the blender so tiny fragments of fruit are integral to the water.

Good one! Enjoyed it!

So, where are you now after six months from that post? How are you coping post-op?

Yep ... severe knee pain is a very bitter bill. Just going up that one step at the front door using a walking stick to steady myself because the pain and cracking of the joint in nigh on unbearable.

I failed to admit it in any other post so far but something like this took hold of me. SIX MONTHS AGO, my 32 year old son died on his sister's 34th birthday. He was crushed by a four tonne steel beam falling on him at a construction site. He left behind a pregnant widow and a 15 month old boy ... now a widow with a son 21 months and 7 week old daughter. I suddenly realised that I had no leading adult male left in the family but me. The eldest grandson is only 11.5 years. Someone has to be there for those important things. I had to step back into another part of my life that I'd tacitly handed over to my daughter and son in 2013-2014. My son-in-law is a good man but he has "his own side" of the family tree to be in first place with. My daughter and I are still devastated by the shock and the size of the gap to fill.

1 Can't keep up with my seven grandkids 2. severe knee pain and moderate ankle pain from being twice the mass I need to be for my height 3. can't buy and wear clothes from basic off-the-rack places 4. and, like you, I want to NOT be squeezed into cinema and aeroplane seats (and to give up asking for the extension for the aeroplane seat belt).

Thanks for the comment. Please keep us posted on your post-op progress.

This! I first thought about it a decade ago ... before it was keyhole surgery, back when the mortality rate was one in 40 or one in 50. (2.5% to 2.0%) I did some spectacular losses like A. 149.5kg (329.6lbs) to 112kg (247lbs) in 1997 aka [23.54 stones to 17.64 stones]; B. 172kg (379lbs) to 120.3kg (265lbs) in 2002 aka [27.1 stones to 18.94 stones]; C. 191.8kg (423lbs) to 133.8kg (295lbs) in 2006-7 aka [30.2 stones to 21.07 stones]; 176.2kg (388.5lbs) to 130.8kg (288.4lbs) in 2015-6 aka [27.75 stones to 20.6 stones] ... all ending in that terrible yo-yoing. On my first trip to my surgeon and dietitian on 17th July this year, I was finally convinced that my food addiction was always able to make me complacent and, inevitably, LAZY about my real problem. So I weighed in at 174.6kg ... 385 pounds ... 27.5 stones. I did rounds of tests and scans but lost no weight for three to five weeks. I phoned the surgeon on August 25th and told him I needed a date. He set a meeting for Monday September 4th. In those ten days, I drank THREE to FIVE protein shakes per day as well a one 500-750 calorie meal and (some days) a fruit or vegetable smoothie of 85-205 calories. By last Monday, September 4th, I had dropped 6.9 kg which impressed the surgeon. (I bet I'd have impressed him more if I'd not wasted the first month after the previous visit. So the mortality rate is now about 0.4% or ONE in 200. I'm ready. When the doctor, surgeon and dietitian asked what my target (GOAL WEIGHT) was to be I chose 74.6kg FOR TWO REASONS: (a) it's 100kg exactly under this current start weight and, (b) it gives a BMI of just over 24 ... in the ideal zone.

Impressed by your success! :-)

Brilliant result. Very impressed.

This was the next fear growing in my mind. Another morbidly obese person mentioned it about herself then I saw it on the TV program, "Fat Doctor".

1. Cinema seats squeezing me extremely tightly at some cinemas. i.e. enduring pain to see a movie. 2. The last 75-80 times on a plane having to ask for a seat belt extension. 3. My nine year old grandson asking (innocently) why I wobbled when I walked with him. (2013-4) 4. Realising that in 24 years, I could do little to beat an OBVIOUS addiction to foods that was just too hard for me to deal with. 5. And finally, my son-in-law having the surgery 26 months ago and dropping from 208kg (462 pounds) to 100.5kg (224 pounds). If he can beat food addiction and failed dieting, so can I.

It's all a matter of whether your friends are 'temporary', 'seasonal' or 'rusted on'. Some of the time, a big change in a person affects the power dynamic. Whisper43 is right ... they may have become insecure as you've become more pleasing to the eye. They might be upset that you've 'accelerated' your confidence.

I said Newcastle NSW to be general. I'm on the lake at Toronto. (I note you wrote your comment two years ago.) My op is at Lingard on Oct 12, 2017.

I know these pics are two years old but they are excellent. Be proud.

Such a range of ages and life experiences on this forum. I am able to pick and choose who I tell about my upcoming surgery (Thur Oct 12). Depending on which "audience" and what I know of his/her/its 'positivity' or 'negativity' is how much I share about my choice to go with my gastric bypass. The people I tell everything: My wife, my daughter and her husband, my three siblings, my mother, my best-man and his wife, a couple of long-term colleagues. My son-in-law is my hero. He had his surgery in mid-2015 and at 188cm (6'2") he's more than halved his body mass ... originally 208kg (459 pounds) and now, 26 months later 101kg (223 pounds). My best man and his wife have had FIVE gastric sleeve surgeries which they have failed to succeed with. His wife nearly died a couple of years ago as a result of a personal choice gone wrong. While she's currently weigh-loss surgery shy, he isn't and is having his gastric sleeve next Monday (11th Sept 2017). I also have some overseas friends who have been internet "pen friends" and "confidants" for 20-30 years. We are linked by sharing lots of our lives with one another. The people I tell nothing: There are some people I see regularly who I just can't be bothered to tell. Even though I mix with them (not always by choice), I won't say a word as they are so negative to anyone who is different, i.e. obese, black, Asian, protestant, catholic, islam ... Most of these people are the type who treat me okay face-to-face when they need my professional or personal help but I am aware that they slag off about my weight or other people's religion or perceived beauty (or lack of it). I don't need their 5h1t or their opinion so I'll tell them nothing as he new version of me emerges. - - - I have no qualms about having my surgery here in the Newcastle-Lake Macquarie area as it's fine by me.