Mattymatt

You've maintained your weight loss for quite sometime! That's something to celebrate!

Good on you for taking a positive action!

One way to go about it is to look at the major, respected hospital systems in your area and compare programs - attend an information session. This is what I did. I am in the Greater Philadelphia Area and the two most respected systems are Christiana Care and Penn Medicine. Of the two, I ended up going with Christiana Care because they had more rigorous work-up requirements. I needed 3 life skills classes, a psychological eval, an Upper GI and Abdominal study, a lung function test, and a cardiac stress test. I felt that I was in safer hands. The staff at Christiana Care have also been a pleasure to deal with. I also looked at after care, knowing this would be important as well. Since this is a life altering experience, you should have no doubts as to the competence of the surgeon whom you will be working with. If you have even an inkling of doubt, it's time to look elsewhere.

Wine is rather caloric. I am glad you found one potential cause but there could be more. Can you go to see a dietitian that specializes in post-op, bariatric surgery patients? Maybe they can help you get to the bottom of this.

As the millennial saying goes, you only live once. I think you need to tell your husband to get bent and go ahead with improving your life. I cannot countenance being with someone whom will be so unsupportive. It's time for you to live life for you.

Please call your surgeon. This is something important that should not wait.

Love this. They sure can get bent!

The pouch stretches. It sounds like the person you spoke to was non-compliant with the program. I am personally concerned that this could happen to me because I've been successful with traditional weight loss programs in the past only to veer off course and gain back the weight. In some ways this is my hail mary pass ... I have to be successful at this or I will die early or painfully.

@JohnnyCakes Keto is just another fad diet. There are so many fad diets and all have one common denominator: they all fail long term. I am determined to do one thing and that is track what I am eating for the rest of my life, like taking the vitamins. Hell, I even made index cards to remind me to eat slow, chew 20x, liquids 30 minutes after eating, etc.

I have a love/hate relationship with mine. I really do sleep better and I've noticed that my breathing during the day has also improved. I used to get burning in my lungs from exercising too hard. That seemed to go away. Now I just breath hard from being out of shape.

Vitamins for the rest of your life is a lot better than diabetes for the rest of your life. I'm diabetic and it sucks. I mean it sucks! To me there is no trade off.

Keep up the forward progress!

For the win!

Yep! This is pretty much dead on. The purpose of RNY is so that you never go back to your old ways of living. I never want to live to eat again. The misery of diabetes cannot be over-emphasized! I needed to experience this first hand to get my ass in gear.

Thanks for answering my question. Now I feel as if I've some hope for developing a positive body image post-surgery.

I have read stories that really run the gamut when it comes to weight loss over a 3-6 month period and I know it largely depends on metabolism and genetics but what would be considered a reasonable expectation? I don't want to go in to this expecting a 90 pound weight loss in 90 days (it's happened to some people) and end up significantly short of that.

Don't rule out gastric bypass as it is still considered the gold standard for weight loss surgery. You know that you could do the gastric bypass and only take one vitamin 4x per day. The Vitamin is called OptiSource and it comes in an orange flavor that's pretty good. If you're going to undergo surgery again, this might be the best route for you. There aren't really any negative long term effects. The stories you read about need to be taken with a grain of sand. Less than 1% of people that undergo gastric bypass have long term problems. You read about those more than the successes so you don't get an adequate perspective. I am going the gastric bypass route because it is the *gold* standard and I am willing to make the changes necessary so that I am never obese again.

You look great! May I ask about your age? I am 40 and hoping to look as young as you.

Feeling comfortable with your surgeon is extremely important and cannot be emphasized enough. I ended up changing surgeons when I was pretty far along in the process because his staff was obnoxious and I felt that he talked at me, rather than to and with me. The second surgeon is wonderful and her staff are fantastic. The program at Christiana Care in Delaware is comprehensive and fantastic. They do a really thorough and complete workup .... they want you to have the safest and best chances for success.

You should be very proud of your results. You look fantastic and I am sure that you probably feel even better!

I understand it's hard but you can do it! 2 weeks will absolutely fly by, and before you know it, you'll be there.

Doctors can be such jack asses. Sorry you had to hear that. I have my medical clearance appointment on the 29th and I am hoping they don't pull some crap like that on me.

Speaking of fad diets ... everyone wants me to try the keto diet. Fad diets don't work - they come and go. The real success is actually with people that have used surgery as a tool. The keto diet ain't real good for you either - it's terribly high in fat. The studies point to about a 65% success rate. That's a little bit more than 1/2 people keeping weight off long term. I am done with the fad and the yo-yo.

In my experience, you aren't going to win over the naysayers and they have no bearing on your decision. You're doing this for you. The naysayers may come around when they see how healthy you've become or they may get jealous of your success. My father isn't supportive and I really don't give a damn one way or another. It's your health, your life, and your matter - no one else's. You are doing this for your quality of life.

The substance is at least partly the issue because the substance is doing something to alter your brain's chemistry. Sugar is shown to be almost as addictive as heroin. There is a reason that heroin is sometimes cut down with table sugar.