blackcatsandbaddecisions

Not a single person noticed I’d lost weight until I was 90 lbs down. Sigh. But after that it was like the floodgates opened and everyone is clearly noticing now. I am within 65 lbs of my goal weight now (after losing 113) and it’s crazy to think that I’m actually that close and yet still I can see so much excess fat everywhere on my body. My goal is within a healthy BMI for myself, but tbh it’s been so long since I’ve been there who knows if that’s really the ideal weight for my body. I guess I’ll figure it out as time goes on. But can these darn stomach rolls just go away already?!? I wish I could direct my body where to take from. Like stop it with the shoulders and chest already it’s skin and bone there, take a look at the busted can of biscuit dough that is my midsection and take a bit from there!

Air fryer tofu is so good. But I understand the texture thing- it’s a very distinctive texture and there are certain foods I can’t stand because of things like that. I love paneer as well and I’ve found that most tofu haters also don’t like that.

Literally going back to Target today to buy a few more. 😬. It was so filling and I had missed pizza so bad! I was going to eat another 1/4 of it today as leftovers but my husband and kids ate the rest of it already.

Oh man, I noticed at my doctors office that they had only armless chairs and benches, probably for this very reason. But my surgeon was at a bariatric clinic where he sees pretty much exclusively overweight people so I guess that’s to be expected. Fitting in chairs now is a huge victory for me- an average person out there will never understand “constant chair worry” but I love not having it anymore!

Banza makes a frozen pizza with a chickpea crust too! I had it tonight (ok I had 1/4 of it) and it was amazingly good. I got it at target. My husband tried it and agreed that if I hadn’t told him it was chickpea crust he’d have no idea.

I like the boca burgers, or Morningstar grilled patties. I’ll heat up one for dinner with a fried egg on top. I can’t generally finish it but it’s good! I’m a huge fan of Morningstar sausage links. I’m not a full vegetarian, I’ll eat poultry or fish on occasion, but I won’t eat any mammal so that rules out pretty much everything else.

I take: Bariatric Choice One daily multivitamin with iron Kirkland Signature Vitamin D3 Nature Made Super B energy complex Celebrate calcium chews I got the sleeve. Had my 3 month labs done recently and I’m doing great on all levels, even running a little high on vitamin D so I could potentially cut that back to every other day if I wanted. The pills are super easy to take, no problems or concerns, and the price is pretty darn reasonable. When I run out of the calcium chews I’m thinking I’m going to cut the Kirkland signature calcium tablets in half (they’re pretty big) to sub for those.

I sometimes find myself thinking about how weird Covid has made having wls because so many of us will be seeing groups of people at drastically different weights. I still go to work each day so my coworkers are used to it, but I’ve not seen my siblings since 110 lbs ago. If I don’t see them until this summer or fall I could be at a normal weight range- when they last saw me at almost a 50 BMI.

Most of us ending up with wls have an eating addiction, and likely an addictive personality in many areas. Transfer addiction is real. Watch out for anything in your life that your brain is trying to use to cope (drinking, drugs, shopping, gambling) because new things can crop up once you take away food.

Im in month 4, yep, it’s def more hair loss than normal, but it’s not like I have bald patches or anything. I have long hair and if it gets super bad I’d cut it but for now it’s just kind of annoying every time I run my hands through my hair to have multiple strands there. Like other posters said, it comes back, and generally not noticeable to anyone but you.

Newyorklady our stats are so close! The only difference is I started heavier than you, but on day of surgery I was almost your exact weight and we are the same height. I had a few thoughts of darn, I lost around 60 lbs without it, why do I need this at all? But the reality is that I don’t need help with the initial weight loss, I need help with getting to goal, and staying there. Weight loss gets harder the more you lose, as we all know. I’m currently 228 a few months after surgery (I’m a slow loser, most likely because of losing so much weight prior to surgery) and the difference between even 280 and here in terms of how I feel, how I look, and lifestyle is huge. For the first time in forever I actually can see that I’m able to lose weight and not be consumed by hunger and feelings of deprivation while I do it. I am glad I did surgery when I did, because I’m at the right time in my life. But there is a piece of me that knows 6 years ago I was maintaining in the 280s, and if I’d started the process there instead of waiting to yoyo all the way up to 340 I would have saved myself years of grief and misery. I’ve heard it here before with “I can do it on my own!” If I could have, I would have.

I wanted to stop having daily concerns about things like how I would fit into a chair at work, not being able to play with my kids, feeling exhausted and like every move was like running a marathon. I didn’t feel like how I looked matched how I felt- I didn’t even feel like myself anymore. I wanted to be able to exercise again. To have some control over my endless cravings. To fit into clothes that I actually liked. To not feel like I never wanted anyone to see me because the first thing they would think is about how fat I was. To know that I can’t fit on an airline seat, when traveling was one of my greatest passions in life. Four months in and I have no regrets. I’m 110 down, and getting closer to just being “overweight”. To go from a 48 BMI to 33 feels amazing in every way.

4 months in! Current weight 230.4. I lost 12 lbs last month, so pretty close to the 15 I wanted. And yes, I was able to get my rings on again. I’m waiting before wearing them full time, because I’m doing a lot of rowing right now and I worry about hands swelling. I did a much better job with getting back into exercising last month- amazingly exercise is so much easier 108.6 lbs down. I’ve been rowing and trying to do walking interspersed with jogging- it’s slow but I’m working my way up. I’m pretty firmly in a size xl regular sizes. It’s hard to avoid buying a lot of clothes in this size because I know I’ll be losing more weight- it’s just hard to picture being anything less than an xl. Nonscale victories- buying new clothes and liking how I look in all of them, having enough space on the chair for my oldest son to sit next to me, it’s easy to buckle up in my car (no shifting around or straining to get the buckle, it’s so much easier to get up from chairs, change positions, etc. Next months goals- lose 12 lbs again, be able to run for 10 minutes straight (hey, I’m still really fat so this is a goal!) and row for 20 minutes at least 5 days a week.

Congrats on the vaccine! I got mine in January and no complaints here. I got Pfizer and my husband got moderna.

I can’t eat anything at most fast food restaurants- I can look at it and I know that grease wouldn’t go down well. I’ve had good luck at Panera. A cup of soup (chicken noodle, turkey chili) are great. I can’t finish the chili but I can the more broth based ones. I got a half Asian salad without wontons yesterday. Again, I don’t finish it but what I did eat was good. At Mexican restaurants I love chicken tortilla soup. I’ve not tried it post surgery but at Red Robin they have a meal that’s a grilled chicken breast with a side salad. I forget the name. It could be two meals for any of us now. 😬 One thing to watch out for is over ordering. I’m always convinced that the small side I’m getting will never fill me up- and I’m always unable to even finish that. Old habits die hard.

My life post surgery is amazingly like my life pre-surgery, just without never ending insatiable hunger. That might be an oversimplification but truly, I’ve been amazed by how quickly I adjusted and how little I think about my stomach (or what is left of it I mean). What is different this the role that food takes. I had a moment of realization before surgery where I was panicking about how different my life would be, and realizing that was because my life had gotten so narrowed by obesity that food was the central part of it. Liking food, going places to get food, food, eating candy, thinking about my next meal, guilt over not dieting, obsessing about my weight, etc. Food seemed like the only thing I had that brought me pleasure anymore. But that isn’t how I want to live, and it was killing me.

So I am 39 years old, I’m down almost 110 from high weight, and I still have 66 lbs to go to hit goal which is in a healthy BMI range. Almost 4 months post op. At this point I don’t have much in the way of loose skin and I’ve not noticed my face looking “older” than it did prior to weight loss. It looks a lot more angular, but that’s to be expected. I had forehead wrinkles prior to weight loss- and I say “had” because 20 units of Botox every 4 months or so have taken care of these before and after surgery. Overall, make sure you wear sunscreen every day, moisturize, and take care of your skin. If wrinkles appear anyway after surgery and they bother you, get filler or Botox.

I had heartburn prior to surgery- generally I had it about 1x a day, sometimes more or less. I always controlled with Tums. I have been on 20 mg of Pepcid since I had surgery in early November and *knock on wood* I haven’t had to have a tums since. I am not sure if it is the Diet change or the weight loss or just the Pepcid, but it has been a welcome change. I’m honesty kind of concerned about tapering off the Pepcid in case it’s that because this is the longest stretch I think I’ve had in years without heartburn. So, so far so good from my perspective.

I had a super easy recovery, and I was concerned because I never had restriction with liquids after like week 2. Solids proved that the restriction was there! One of my coworkers had this surgery 8 years ago and she told me that it was simply the easiest thing ever for her, the surgery, losing weight, and maintaining the weight loss. I’m hoping that it goes that way for me too, and here’s hoping it for you as well.

If you like tofu, look up air fryer tofu recipes. I love it with some sugar free dipping sauce.

I joked with my husband that if I lost too much weight to qualify for insurance I was going to buy a padded bra, remove the padding, and put those 5 lb wrist weight things in each cup. I managed to skate in right above the line, no weight manipulation needed. Your surgeons office is very unlikely to make you strip for your weigh-in. The scale is in a public place and I doubt they want that!

After surgery I tried to drink a lot of protein20 so I got liquids at the same time as protein. In the end my priority was liquid, not protein though. It does get better! I’m only 3.5 months out and I can say I am enjoying food, although not in the same unhealthy and addictive way I used to. Right now you’re in the worst part- all the physical downsides without having the weight loss upsides. The scales will go the other way soon, just hang in there!

I’ve always said I’m great at losing weight, but I’m better at gaining it back. I lost almost 60 lbs before surgery, and I’m down almost 45 in the three months after. I tried to find out exactly what you’re asking- should I use 339 as my “start” or 281 when I use those fancy online calculators? I never found an answer. I finally decided that it doesn’t matter. Those numbers are averages and that’s not what I’m going to do. I have control over what I eat and how I live and I’ll use my tool to get to 100%. In the end I’m so grateful to my past self for losing weight prior to surgery. It gets harder the further out you get post surgery so make the most of the time you have. Every pound lost now is a pound you don’t have to lose later. It will also make the preop diet and the post surgery life less of a shock. I felt very well prepared because of changes I’d made in the months prior.

Thank you for mentioning this because I’ve noticed I get back pain when standing up for extended periods of time. I’ve only lost 100 lbs but my theory is that my weight distribution has changed and I’m still hunched over from a larger stomach that isn’t there anymore.

There is nothing that my family won’t use as a butt of jokes, so I’m not sharing any information about this. My weight isn’t a joke to me, and I don’t trust them to be appropriate with the information so forget it. I haven’t seen any of them since before Covid, so when I eventually see them I’m sure some will guess but that’s not my problem. In general people react very negatively to others weight loss because they don’t like the status quo being changed (skinny people who enjoyed being “better” than us) or feeling like their own weight is being called into question for those who are overweight. I am only nice when I feel like it, so the one person who made a “joking” negative comment about my weight loss I just told them that was a very hateful statement and that I felt sorry for them that they are the type of person who thinks things like that. They immediately said it was just a joke and I told them if they think that’s a funny joke they need to examine their sense of humor. But I’m a jerk who doesn’t care about being nice to people sooooo... 😬