Rainbow_Warrior

2 days post op. Going home today! Can't wait to be in my own house with my wife and dog!!

Yes, njgal, I probably need to put that on my extensive practice list or to-do list.

1. Peeling off a few more kilograms and shrinking my liver in the process.
2. Practising drinking 1.75 to 2.5 litres of Water per day. (Hard work.)
3. Practising the stretch in my Protein consumption.
4. Checking out the quality pureed food packs at ALDI ready for post-op eating.
5. Using the blender (more than ever before) to liquidise/puree raw fruit & veges.
6. Reading the dietitian's folders. Reading advice from sleevers past and present.
7. Ending my connection to high consumption bread and beer ... practising abstinence and minimisation.
8. Warning "the trusted few" which signs to warn me of post-op.
9. Stockpiling discounted Optifast and discounted Isowhey for shakes now, soon and later.
10. Various other bits of self re-education.

I choose my goal because it puts me in the middle of the normal BMI range. But my real goal is just to be under 150

I initially thought I'd love to get to 180 but when I checked the BMI charts that was still obese so I decided on 174 which puts me at overweight. I will reassess once I get lower and see how I look/feel.

"Were my doctors too complacent to tell me the truth as I may have been a long line of regular $$ to them? Mmmm. Maybe I'm overly suspicious. "

I think obesity research is even now in its infancy. Many doctors don't know any more about it than those of us who are living it.

Sent from my SM-G930V using BariatricPal mobile app

Compression workout gear from Under Armor is very expensive, but keeps the extra skin from flapping all over the place.
The caveat is you'll need to wear long-sleeved compression shirts if your arms are problematic, and compression pants if your legs are the problem.
Also, a Spanx shaper might keep the belly skin from plopping to the floor while doing push-ups.

I mentioned before my stoach rash due to allergic reaction to the surgical glue. Well yesterday was the worst. I almost called my doctor, i couldnt stand it.
Well I started taking oral pill benadryl and washing my abdomen with cetaphil twice a day and re applying cortisone cream. I had 2.5% from a previous issue. At bedtime, I read the box and saw that I could take 2 pills. So I did and woke up to a much better situation. So I will be repeating the benadryl and cortisone untill it's completely gone.

Sent from my SM-G930T using BariatricPal mobile app

Best wishes for this new step into your future!

It's a mental mechanism others develop to assume that all calorie controlled diets with exercise are easy and that I (and 95% of other grossly obese and morbidly obese people) are just not trying hard enough.
Over the las t 40+ years, I have watched some formerly very skinny and some average weight people become overweight then obese. I see their eyes when I say, "I know it's hard to diet for long periods of time, eh? ... harder than you used to think, eh?"
Some do begin to empathise ... but not all.
- - -
People who tell me my upcoming gastric sleeve op is cheating get both barrels from me.
I emphasise that I am spending megabuck$ to buy the advantage ... i.e. paying a direct price for all my failures at dieting because I want to "get in the game" and end the medications, the painful joints and the combined negatives of hal a lifetime of obesity.
Thanks for reading my 10c worth.

Congratulations.
Nice start.
Time to update your current weight/mass, eh?

I was not ridiculed as such but my (otherwise lovely) father was too free with well-meaning comments and advice every time I saw him.
I just pulled him aside one day in my late thirties and said, "Dad. Enough! I know I'm plump and I do try to control my weight but your constant comments and bits of helpful advice are actually NOT HELPFUL. They feel like nagging and negative reminders every time I see you. I don't want to be angry with you so just stop, please."
That worked fairly well.

I'm telling most family, a few selected friends and just two trusted colleagues.
There has been discussion amongst friends and workmates and, inevitably, many people including some long-term fat/obese people who go on about 'cheating'.
I don't want their negativity and 5h1t. Surgery is my considered choice after over 20 years of losing every dieting battle (about which I used to feel too much shame).
We are, after all, fighting fast food, advertising, mass-produced high-sugar, low-nutrient cr@p and I was too slow off the mark.

Congratulations on your weight loss of 100 pounds. Exercise is an important component.
For the first year after surgery, I exercised daily. Generally this was by hill walking. My driveway was steep and I would walk up and down the driveway for 30 minutes per day. This is a great form of exercise because it uses two different sets of muscles; one set on the way up and a different set on the way down. It was also great because all I had to do was step out my front door. But I am not a great fan of exercise. It feels like wasted effort. But I am a great fan of physical labor. So in the “Maintenance” phase, I relied on physical work. This took several forms.
I live in Indiana. My driveway is 700 feet long. During the winter when it snows, I shovel my driveway. It is strenuous work but without the added weight on my body, it is not hard. I also heat my house all winter with firewood. So during the winter I am constantly moving firewood for my wood stove to keep the house warm.
During the rest of the year, there is cutting a large yard of grass and planting a garden and an assortment of other chores. Even a trip to the mailbox to get the mail is a walk of 1/4 mile.
One of the tasks I worked on over the 2nd and 3rd years post-op was building an underground shelter. Tornados struck about 7 years ago, just after I retired. The tornados did a lot of destruction to my property but spared my house. My house is a one story without a basement and there is really no place to take shelter in the event of another tornado. So I decided to build an underground shelter from an intermodal-shipping container into the side of my hill. Of course, if I build a storm shelter, it should also be a root cellar. And if I go to the effort of building a storm shelter/root cellar then why not go through a little extra effort and build it for Come-What-May, including asteroid impacts, nuclear war and nearby supernovas, etc.
So during that first year I moved around 100,000 pounds of gravel by hand along with around 60,000 pounds of concrete blocks and the next year I moved about the same amount.
This year I built a log cabin playhouse for the grandkids. I just turned 69.

Hitting a plateau or weight loss “stall” is common for just about everyone. While it’s certainly frustrating, it’s important to understand this is just temporary.


The good news is weight loss plateaus usually happen after you have lost a significant amount of weight—so congratulations!
During your post-op weight loss, the body will eventually need a ‘time out” to stabilize itself and adjust to your lower nutrition intake, smaller size and increased calorie burn due to exercise.
It can happen at any time in your weight loss journey, but is particularly common 3-6 months after bariatric surgery.
Generally, stalls can last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks, even though you’re staying on track. Expect from one to three plateaus in the first year following weight loss surgery.
WHY DO WEIGHT LOSS STALLS HAPPEN?
You can blame your body’s metabolism—
When you lose weight rapidly, you are losing lean body mass (muscle) and fat. Muscle plays a big part in the burning of calories by keeping your metabolic rate high, so you want to hold onto muscle and strive to build more! (This is one of the reasons we ask you to take in so much protein).
A weight-loss plateau usually occurs when your metabolism slows down. Now that you’re thinner, the activities you’re performing may not be resulting in as much caloric burning.
An increased metabolic rate is not the only reason for keeping muscle. You want to keep muscle so you can use them to exercise and burn even more calories. Weak muscles make exercise more difficult, so build muscle with strength training and cardio workouts.
EIGHT TIPS TO OVERCOME BARIATRIC WEIGHT LOSS PLATEAUS AND BOOST METABOLISM
1. Increase the intensity of your exercise.
2. Weigh yourself less often.
3. Keep food journaling to ensure there are no negative nutrition issues creeping in.
4. Eat all that Protein to help retain muscle, even in shake form.
6. Drink 64 ounces every day.
7. sleep eight hours nightly and keep a set schedule, even on weekends.
8. Talk to your bariatric team during the plateau for an added level of support and guidance.
KEEP IN MIND…
If you are weight training, consider that muscle weighs more than fat; while you are building muscle, you are still losing inches (girth) even though if it isn’t reflected in pounds lost.
USE YOUR SUPPORT NETWORK
Remember there are several layers of people supporting you during your road back to good health:
Your doctor Bariatric dietitians and nutritionists Family Friends Colleagues Live and online support groups. (They understand more than anyone!) If a plateau lasts more than a few weeks and you haven't contacted your bariatric surgeon yet, make an appointment for an ASAP visit to rule out any issues.
Meanwhile, stay positive and Celebrate how far you have come in a short time.
This is a very brief traffic jam on your highway to success.

Amen to that!
Sadly, some people who have 'serious history' doing this to family and loved ones don't notice until the boot is on the other foot.
- - -
Mind you, what I call COMPLACENT COMMERCIAL OBSERVATION is bad too. "And what is that?" I hear you ask. COMPLACENT COMMERCIAL OBSERVATION is when three family doctors in the space of 35 to 40 years treat each ailment/illness/injury related to obesity (or morbid obesity) as single episodes.
I wish that Doctor K back in 1980 had just said, "I know you've told me you've been to Weight Watchers and that you play a lot of sport but are not able to maintain a normal weight. Would you like me to monitor your weight and involve other health care services? Reality is, RainbowWarrior, that 105kg is very bad place for you to be when you really should be seventy-five to seventy-eight kilograms."
Doctor K and two other GPs (and a couple of locums) failed to say anything like this at all while I was in their surgeries. It was an older Chinese-born GP filling in one Saturday morning about 2013 who said to me (while he had my history up on the screen), "90% of your health care issues would go away if you lost that 90 or so extra kilograms you're carrying everywhere."
Were my doctors too complacent to tell me the truth as I may have been a long line of regular $$ to them? Mmmm. Maybe I'm overly suspicious.
In the last couple of years, I found a doctor who listened better, reflected better and invited me to do regular swimming at the same pool he and the practice doctors go.

The best people will, ultimately, admire your honesty should you wish to speak frankly.

No.
I am polite, even cordial ... an attentive listener. I focus on his advice and support. He can do a job I need.
He's a refined version of my plumber, my lawn maintenance man, my electrician, etc.
I want him to be well-trained, dexterous and to do his job well. In return, I'll pay him the gap fee and authorise the health insurance pay off.

For the last 20 years I have had to wear suit and tie for work. As I got heavier in that period I slowly started stopped wearing a tie because I could no longer do up my top button on my dress shirts. Then the jacket became uncomfortable along with with my unforgiving dress pants. In the last couple of years I decided I was going to dress casual Friday style with stretchy jeans and dress shirt but everyday. Despite a fairly strict dress policy at work no one seemed to notice or really care that I was starting to look really dumpy. Despite the stretchy pants , the extra large shirts were spilling out my pants because of my generous tummy and I was having trouble finding belts bigger than 44 inches to contain everything. For me one of the worst things about being overweight was trying to be reasonable comfortable for 8-12 hrs a day in professional clothes. It just didn't happen. Now, I still like to wear jeans at work but its a fitted pair of size 36 Calvins, a nice tailored fit dress shirt, and fashionable set of dress shoes. Now feel like I am rockin casual Fridays( every day ) as a choice not as my only option .

Surgery went well. Been sleeping most of the day. I feel okay with pain meds...rough when they wear out...dilaudid is my friend

I need to lose 130 according to bmi charts. My doctor thought the high range on bmi would be too low for my frame. We agreed to target 100 lb loss then reassess.
when I lose 100' I will be the smallest I've been in over 20 yrs. I'm not going to obsess about the last 30. Just see where my body decides to settle and I can maintain comfortably.

I was doing the same thing in reverse just days ago.
i.e. What would I (a morbidly obese 61 year old male Australian) say to my 15 year old (or 18 year old) self given temporary use of a time machine?
My four top answers would be:
1. Don't eat factory-generated Breakfast cereals or any added sugars or sweeteners.
2. Moderate portion sizes are best and "seconds" should be a rare thing NOT your normal thing.
3. Soft drinks or carbonated drinks are unnecessary ... including all diet varieties.
4. Alcohol, especially beer, does not have to be central to social life or "winding down".
- - -
While I cannot guarantee that these four pillars will stop my adult overweight, I'm sure that I would not have reached 191.8kg (423 pounds OR 30.25 stones).
Five of my grandchildren had a dad that was 208kg (458 pounds) in January 2015 and is now 99kg (218 pounds) today following diet shakes for six months then Gastric Sleeving in late July 2015. In fact, it's his success that finally prompted me to go for Gastric Sleeve surgery myself.
He and my daughter do not want any of their five kids to repeat his life or mine. They operate under my first three advice points for their kids. My daughter and the youngest grandchild in that family are Coeliac as well. So food and eating and drinking sensibly are at the core of their daily life.

I'm glad you're personally focused. I'm impressed that you are ready to sidestep meanness and negatives.
Stay on track.
Respond to the people who are (helpfully) pushing you towards your goals. Ignore the small-minded and ignorant ... most of all, stay out of any forums where they predominate!
Cheers.

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'm at a loss to know what you're referring to, celticNgel.
I have posted my story.
I have responded to other people's weight loss news.
People have responded to me by offering me hope, advice or words of applause.
Of about 180 responses in ten days, only ONE has been negative.
Maybe, I'm guessing, you have entered the wrong forums.