Patricia Bee

Been a while since I checked in. A friend of mine said, "You know, if you do a French tuck*, you can show off those belt buckles of yours. You're slim enough now."
I am not convinced this is the style for me (feels like I wasn't paying attention after pulling my pants up and accidentally buttoned them around my shirt), but damn if it didn't feel nice to actually be able to do it. So here I am, another almost 40 lbs. down, 39 to go. Three quarters of the way to goal.

* French tuck - you tuck in the front but not the back. I know no French people who do this, but maybe it's named after Tan France instead of France France.

Congrats!!!!🎉
You look great too!!

I was 417 when I started, currently stuck at 278, but it will go, I just have to be patient. Pic next to car is Sept 2020, pic with the palm tree is from April of this year in Florida. 54 pant size, to 42 pant size, 5xlt shirts, to 3xlt shirts. Big change!

The picture on the right was yesterday; the one on the left was me close to my fattest. I'm eight months post-op and still losing weight, albeit much more slowly now. I was wearing size 46 pants that barely buttoned around my waist on the left; size 32 on the right. Size 4XL shirt on the left, L on the right. (The left is blurry because I had to crop and it didn't do it nicely. You can still see puh-lenty!)

175 lbs down. Work outfits, and swimsuits.

Found a pic from my heaviest and made this comparison. Can't believe how far I've come.

Also if u were wondering I blot out my hands because I have discernable tattoos on the sides of my fingers lol

Sent from my SM-G975U using BariatricPal mobile app

Tomorrow is my 3 month surgery anniversary. I've lost over 70 lbs on this journey through the pre and post op phases. The before pic is not even from my highest weight, that was about mid 2020 but I got up to the 340s at one point.

Today I'm proud to say I fit back into a non plus size XL. From an XXXXL/22 to XL! I'm so happy to see the results beyond the scale.

I tried on two new shirts today to check my progress and was shocked to see them fitting.   

Sent from my SM-G975U using BariatricPal mobile app

My heaviest and my current side by side 95 lbs total 70 before surgery and 25 post op !

7 months post-op!

Hey fellow DSers...
Just a little story from me, a DSer roughly 2 1/2 years out.
I underwent the DS on 8/13/2018, and effortlessly lost over 100% of my excess weight.
So during the 2020 lockdown I think a number of circumstances contributed to me gaining ~30 pounds of regain! I'm not sure when the regain precisely started, probably sometime in April 2020, since I wasn't logging my weight by that time.
Now to the DS's credit, even with that 30 pounds I was still within the "normal" BMI for my height, at around 24 BMI. This regain wasn't disastrous, but I certainly didn't like the trend.
Basically I believe I got overconfident in the DS, and what the DS can do. The DS does have an "achilles-heel" and that's simple refined carbs. The powerful malabsorption properties of the DS are defeated by simple refined grains and simple sugars. In addition, those foods seem to be "slider foods" as I can fill up quickly, but they pass though the sleeve quickly so I'm ready for more.. For some reason (depression, low fat absorption, who knows) I developed quite the sweet tooth, and I ate as much chocolate and candy that I wanted (which was a lot). I also ate processed high-carb-laden frozen foods, grilled cheese sandwiches, quesadillas, pizza, fast-food breakfasts and lunches, etc. I didn't eat a huge amount at once, as I still have good restriction.. but it all added up. Oh and of course no physical activity or exercise.
On around Jan 21st I decided to take control again and got back to basics... eliminated all simple carbs/sugars/etc, logged and counted calories, though I didn't exercise. The DS worked it's magic, and I'll post a screenshot of my weight log over the past 2 months.
The last time I logged my weight in MyFitnessPal was Dec. 7th, 2019 at 133.2 lbs. I'm not sure why I stopped logging - probably because my weight didn't move much at that point. I made it my goal to lose all my regain since that point - so 133.2 lbs. was my goal. It's really a bit low a weight for me, but I wanted to start from where I last left off and rebuild good habits from that point, not a point of regain.
The loss wasn't really that difficult, and I wasn't really all that hungry very often. I still have good restriction - the "cottage cheese" tests seems to indicate I have about a 6.5 oz sleeve capacity, may 7 or 7.5 if pushed or with certain foods, and less with dense Proteins.
I love the DS. Best decision ever.