Losingit2018

Photos!

And I couldn't be happier! Lost all the weight I wanted to, lost a cpap, lost several chins, lost knee pain, gained confidence, gained a new wardrobe, changed my life! If any of you are struggling - trying to decide to do it, thinking it'll never work, thinking you can't, let me tell you, YOU CAN!!!!! I am rooting for you and am always happy to talk to ANYONE who might need encouragment. I'd post a pic if I knew how...maybe I can do it on the mobile app!!!

PS.....My horse is still fat!!!!!

Oh my goodness surgery went, my surgeon came in and prayed for us and was so kind and am a little sore but other than that feeling fine. Waiting now to be discharged and yes I have been walking, walking and walking! broth, Protein Drink, sugar free popsicles, Decaf coffee and tea! First day I was nauseated but feel fine now!

I started my pre-op diet yesterday, surgery is 20 days away! Wish me luck! It’s 800 calories a day!

Thank you!!

My instructions are strictly no lifting over 10 pounds for the first 8 weeks. I would think you should be fine now but your dr really should have told you yes or no.

RN here. There is a wide spectrum of “normal” as far as sexuality goes. As long as you and your wife are both happy, you are fine. Things will probably taper down a bit over time when the newness wears off.

Hey Lads,
I've been knocking around the forums to find some sort of generalized support checklist. There is a lot if info strewn about but I was hoping to find one place with the whole shebang. So here's my request. My wife is getting the sleeve sometime in the next two months. How can I be prepared to help her out while she is recovering? Basically, how do I not f**k up?

I stopped with the heating pad all together i feel so much better i got slight to no soreness at all im doing well thank you

Thanks Mike and Lynda. I am a pretty positive person overall, thankfully. I see things with hope in my lenses as it were. Where people see half empty, I see half full. Where people go UGH Monday, I say Make your week great. I'm positive that I'm doing this, and that I will be successful at it. It is just that way for me. It's my last chance, my only option to get better health-wise. I know it's a hard journey, hard doesn't scare me. I'm trying to look for all the positive things while being aware of the negatives because I'm sure my husband will come up with some of those and I need to be prepared to answer them.
Anyway, it's FRIDAY! Have a brilliantly awesome weekend everyone!

My journey starts all the way back to my pre-teen years. I was a chubby little girl. At about 8-9, my Mom put me on my first diet. At 15, I took weight loss shots every week for two years. During High School I stopped eating and dropped weight and grew so that helped. By 17 and graduation, I was at a comfortable 125-130. I maintained it for the next 10 years by smoking and not eating. I didn't eat healthfully, but darn if I didn't eat slowly and chew my food to death.
Fast forward those ten years and I was 27, in one abusive relationship after the other, and became an exercise addict. I still didn't eat healthfully. but I ate so little that it didn't really matter what I ate.
Forward another two years and I was 29 and getting married to my true love. I still had very bad eating habits, and now I was faced with having to eat regular meals at regular times. ACK! I gained weight almost instantly, and it's been compounding for the last 26 years. I tried SlimFast, Jenny Craig, Weight Watchers, Adkins, Mediterranean, and pretty much everything else. If I did lose some weight on them, I gained it all right back once I went off of them, plus more. I became a yo-yo dieter. The only thing that worked for me again was to stop eating. I could do a fast for about a day but by the second day my husband was on me to eat. Not that he didn't want a healthy wife, but I think he was afraid that I might turn out to have an eating disorder that was dangerous.
At 36 I moved to where we live now, kind of out in the country, with cities not too far away. Once I worked for the university I started to look into finishing my bachelor's degree. Which I did. In 2008, when I was 44. At that point I was so heavy that I couldn't stand myself and started looking into weight loss surgery. Husband and I both went in, listened to the seminar, got our first appointment out of the way, talked with the surgeon, talked with the insurance guy ... and never went back. Insurance was nigh unto impossible to get cleared back then. The hoops you had to jump through were prohibitive, so I dropped it. For then. I scheduled to do the seminar again in 2015 or so, and again the insurance hoops discouraged me. Plus other people discouraged me. So I stopped.
Now, I'm at my highest weight ever. I have GERD, sleep apnea, kidney problems, HBP, low thyroid, and joint pains. All from the excess weight. So I went back (3rd time's the charm, right?) and started the process over again. I've had my initial visit and labs done, I have scheduled the next 4 NUT appointments (thru Jan) and then the post-NUT assessment with the surgeon in January. Between this time and that, I need to get my psych clearance and have an ultrasound of my stomach done. Both are now scheduled. Now, I wait. It seems like it is taking forEVER, yet I only had my first appointment on the 8th. Not even 10 days yet and it feels like MONTHS have passed.
I've started cutting things from my diet -- all my bad habits. The first to go in October are candies, Cookies, fast food, and chips. i'm already down 7 pounds. Next month, I limit soda intake, and cut portions down to 2 cups per meal. November, I cut soda intake in half, cut my portions down to 1.5 cups per meal. December I go off the soda, drop my intake to 1 cup per meal and increase number of meals per day to 5. January, I'm hoping to be drinking my Water, and be at the point where I'm at 1/2 cup of food per meal and 5 meals per day. Hopefully I'll be able to have surgery in February depending on my surgeon's schedule, and my insurance to clear. They have lightened up on their requirements so I'm more hopeful that I'll be approved.
As far as who knows, my husband knows I went to my first appointment and that it is my goal to have bypass surgery. He's not super excited about it. In fact, I haven't been able to share any of my excitement or goal setting or anything with him. He is disabled and his health is frail, so he's been having his own issues. So, I bring my enthusiasm and my questions and my hyperactivity here to BariatricPal. You all have taught me so much already. Thank you.
I'd love to make some great friends here, and I think I will. If you'd like to make friends, send me a message or reply, or just feel free to add me. I'd love to start a conversation with other like minded folks, who are excited, learning a lot, questioning a lot, and are just generally addicted to this site. LOL. Seriously, though. I'd love to hear your story too.
Cheers,
Mac

Thanks for the tip, I just ordered some!

thank you ...blessing[emoji119][emoji173][emoji173]

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I thought that I would chime in with something that I have used in the past. Rather than use the flatbread or tortilla wraps, try Joseph’s Lavash bread. The wraps are large and we only need about 1:4 of one which equates to 30 calories. They are made from flax, whole wheat and oat bran. Super yummy!

It actually works very well for some folks. I have a family member that has been doing well for years taking it in combo with a few other meds.
If it is not working well for you, do not hesitate to see your dr and try something else. There are many things out there. You just have to find what works for you.
What I have seen some people do that are attempting to restart their weight loss is go back to basics. Start where you were just after surgery. Do liquids then soft foods, etc. always be sure to get Protein first.
Good luck!!!

I thought that I would chime in with something that I have used in the past. Rather than use the flatbread or tortilla wraps, try Joseph’s Lavash bread. The wraps are large and we only need about 1:4 of one which equates to 30 calories. They are made from flax, whole wheat and oat bran. Super yummy!

Don’t see an option to edit on mobile app. My post should read 1/4 of a wrap.

Emma!!!!! So very glad to hear that you are home!!!
Hoping that the rest of your journey is smooth and uneventful.
please do keep us posted with your progress. We are all rooting for you !

I wish I had that problem. I did the first five months, but then my hunger came roaring back. Things get A LOT harder once your hunger comes back. I was hoping I'd be one of those lucky few who never really got it back. But alas...no.
P.S. Sorry if it sounds like I'm belittling your problem - I was just wishing it was MY problem. Losing and maintaining weight after my hunger (and interest) in food returned became A LOT more challenging. It was so much easier when I didn't want any food!

Hey nate, just a thought but have you discussed increasing your Effexor? I am on the same dose as you but was on 3 tablets a day for a while, 1 in the am and 2 in the pm. Really helped me get out of the pit I was in. It may just be what you need to get to a head space that will help you stay on track x

i was vomiting blood ..felt super weak..... heart palpitation ...it was beyond horrible... i ran to the E.R.

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Thank you all... everyone in this group has been super supportive once again thank you soooo much for ur wishhes...ill keep you posted how im doing

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today after 3 weeks and a half they send me home... i miss my apartment soo much..... so im 1 month and 2 weeks since my sleeve was done ...but i have to start from scratch meaning im bak on liquid diet... idk who has been thru a leak but im so scared to eat now ...🤦🏻‍♀️... being traumatized....this was a super hard journey.... being in a hospital so long ...at times even without talkin to no one ...stuck in those 4 walls ...today im beyond grateful for the littiest thing in life....... Now the start of my 2nd journey AGAIN ...
please wish me luck this time around ....
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My husband and I have been getting prepared for the 6 months of qualifying for insurance to pay for our gastric sleeve operations since June. I had a feeling that my company would be changing their insurance and would be no longer covering weight loss surgery so I knew we had to both get it done this year if we were going to do it.
He just had his on the 5th and I have mine on the 11th. Our deductibles are paid but I had $1000 left Out of Pocket and he has $3000. We already had to pre pay $1100 last week for the doctor. We had to prepay $1,200 for our endoscopies 2 weeks before that among all of the other money that we had to pay up front for the psych exams, blood work, nutrition classes, drs appt, etc over the last months. I never imagined that it would be this expensive even with insurance. We are a paycheck to paycheck family, so I have had to put everything on credit cards. We have cut out a lot of stuff so I have been able to pay off the cards each month so we aren’t drowning in debt over this.
The surgeries cost $23k a piece and I ASSumed that the hospital would bill us the remaining out of pocket costs AFTER the procedures, but the morning of my husbands operation the hospital demanded the full amount left of our Out of Pocket amount before the surgeries or it they would be cancelled?!?!?
Our Drs office and even the concierge at the hospital stated we should be able to made a down payment and then set up payments with the hospital but they wouldn’t budge. They said with this type of surgery no payment plan could be arranged. Again, this is 2 hours before my husbands surgery. I was crying uncontrollably, my husband was arguing with the financial manager and even said that he would cancel his surgery since his was more and that I should just have mine. We called our drs office to see if there was anything they could do. They called the hospital and they finally agreed that since my husbands surgery was hours away he could pay $800 down and then make payments but I would have to pay in full since I still had a week. Needless to say, I will have to get a new credit card with deferred payments cause we don’t that kind of money and no way we have gone through everything just to walk away now. It made a stressful day even more stressful and draining.
I understand that these operations aren’t cheap, but I had no idea before we started this that everything would be prepay or we probably wouldn’t have even started. Anyone else experience this, or am I just naive and no idea how all of this worked?

I am so sorry to hear what you are going through. I did hear if another person ( different forum) that was going to have to have this done. Not sure if she has or not though.

I have no info to share. Just wanted to wish you luck.