ILKrista

Was this just for weightloss surgery in general or specifically the sleeve? My thought would be that many people who have been morbidly obese for their entire lifetime and waited until much later in life to get the sleeve may have already done some serious damage to their heart. After all, just because you finally lose the weight doesn't undo 40 years of heart damage. I hope that's the case, because I sure the heck don't want to drop dead in my 30s! Keep researching... it seems unlikely to me that this was referring to the sleeve specifically, because we generally don't have issues with malnutrition like bypass patients do.

It took a little over 8 months for me from the time I first met with my PCP until I was sleeved. My insurance only required 3 months at the time (they just changed back to 6 months), but I had to wait because I switched to *** & then a coworker was on maternity leave. I think for most people who are going through insurance, you are looking at 6 months to a year wait time.

Thank you all for letting me vent. Usually, I'm a little more understanding about other people's insecurities... and I know very well that this person has plenty of them. I like to think that normally I would rise above the little comments, but I'd really had enough of her saying how terrible it would be if I weighed less than her. At least now I won't have hear anymore of that. Of course, I'm sure that she will find something else to comment on. I'm using the negativity to motivate me to succeed... which is the opposite effect I think she wants it to have.

I'm not sure if this is considered a success story or not... I have a friend who continually has to add in little put downs about my weight. She will say something like, "God I am getting so huge... I mean I am nowhere near your size, but you know what I mean." or she will tell me that she can't tell that I've lost any weight at all (I've lost 80 pounds and have strangers coming up to me at my job commenting on it now) and other mean things along those lines. Yesterday, she tells me that she has been 'a little competitive' with me in trying to lose weight because she doesn't want me to weigh less than her. (This is no shock. Ever since I started losing weight she has been trying like mad to keep up with me) Is it terrible that I took such joy in informing her that I already weighed less than her? I had been looking forward to being able to say that for months. Her BMI is still less than mine (but not for long) because she is 5 inches taller. On the one hand, I feel like a jerk for being so happy to finally be able to tell her that she is the heavier one. On the other hand, I feel like she deserves it because she has been so mean about my weight. I know many of you will tell me to dump her as a friend... It's impossible as she is my boss as well. I also think she is one of these people that doesn't think about what she is saying... she told her sister who is dealing with hair loss that it was looking like she was starting to go bald. Anyway, I needed to gloat/vent about it a bit.

So, I am a little over 4 months post-op and have lost about 80 lbs since January. I am happy with how much weight I have lost so far, but 90% of the time, I still feel huge... almost like I did before I lost any weight. I look at myself and still see all the fat everywhere. I still have 60 lbs to lose. I'm just wondering at what point did you feel like you were thin? Did you hit a certain size or weight and suddenly you really felt like you had changed? Or do you still always feel like the biggest person in the room?

Well, the weight loss hasn't suddenly increased like I'd hoped when I started this. But I have noticed a big difference in my legs & butt. The legs on all my pants are much looser & for the first time in years, I don't feel like I have a really droopy butt. I hope everyone else is seeing the result from all their hard work. Keep it up!

Week 3 of the Couch Potato to 5K and it isn't as horrible as I thought it would be. I actually keep thinking to myself that I probably could run considerably longer than 90 seconds, but I don't want to push myself too hard and then end up giving up on it. I'm realizing that a big part of the reason I HATED running is that I was trying to do it with almost 150 lb extra at my heaviest... I think that would be challenging for a Navy SEAL much less a regular person like me. Now that I've lost about half of the extra weight, it really isn't as terrible as I was expecting. I hope all of you are continuing to do well on your 5K journey!

When I had my surgery, they fixed a hiatial hernia & removed my gallbladder. I had to go to see a specialist who made a recommendation to my surgeon as to whether it was neccessary to take out the gallbladder or not. For me, I had a lot of stones & some scarring on my bile duct, so they said it had to come out. I would check with your doctor if he will do it or not. I figure that as long as they are alread in there, they might as well fix you up. Good luck with your surgery!

I had this problem but was always too embarrassed to talk to a dr about it. I've noticed some definate improvement, though it hasn't completely resolved. I'm hoping losing another 50 lbs will fix it completely.

I've become a Goodwill JUNKIE! I go there every Sunday and spend about $20 on clothes. Some of them I can wear now and some are clothes I expect to wear sometime in the next 3 months. When I get back I sort them out. Every couple of weeks I try on the clothes that didn't quite fit me yet & it is so exciting when they suddenly fit & I can add them in to my regular clothes rotation.

My original PCP was horrible about it. He very rudely told me that I was so fat because 1) I ate like a pig (yes, those were his exact words) and 2) I was lazy. In fact, he told me that those were the only 2 reasons anyone on the planet was obese & he would never recommend me or anyone else for weightloss surgery. I was so humiliated that I didn't ask about it again for 2 more years. Then, being heavier than ever before, I finally found a new PCP, went in there ready to do battle if necessary to get this surgery. Thank god, it wasn't necessary & she agreed that it would be a good option for me. Just remember, doctors are not experts on everything... they just sometimes think they are.

How soon after surgery are they coming? If it is within the first week, I would definately say that you had some sort of procedure- ulcer removed gallbladder out or something. I looked pretty ill for at least a week afterwards... very pale, slow moving, etc. I don't think saying you were prepping for a colonoscopy would be believable if you already looked like you had something done. Just a thought.

I quit a few months before the surgery using Chantix. The doctor told me they would be checking my blood for nicotine before surgery and if there was any, the surgery would be off. I did gain over 15 pounds (partly from not smoking and partly from too many 'last suppers' thinking I would never be eating these foods again). I then had to lose that 15 before the surgery... which sucked, but wasn't as hard as giving up smoking was. I'm now 10 months smoke-free, which is the best I've ever managed with the 10 + times I've tried quitting. You can do it! Just think of how much faster you'll feel better & how much easier it will be to start an exercise regime when you can breath easier.

Okay guys, I finally got started on this... it wasn't as bad as I had thought it would be. I mostly did 1 minute of walking and then 1 minute of jogging. I did do a couple where I did 2 minutes of walking because my heart rate was still pretty high. I should stress the word JOGGING. I was going 4 miles an hour for jogging and 3.3 for walking. I figure I'll worry about speed once I can actually jog more than a mile at a time without stopping or thinking I'm going to die. How is everyone else doing?

So, I saw the doctor last week for my 3 month check-in. I was told that I can no longer count walking as exercise... I need to be jogging or doing something else that gets my heart rate to about 140 and keeps it there for 20-30 minutes. So, I've decided to try to do one of these Couch Potato to 5K programs. I'm aiming to be able to run a 5K by the end of August. Does anyone else want to give this a shot and help keep each other motivated online?

I had to do 3 injections a day for 14 days. They wouldn't let me leave the hospital until I had done it 3 times in front of them so they knew I could really do it. I could either do my stomach or my upper thigh. I will say I was totally freaked out about doing it... I was more worried about that than the surgery itself. The first couple of days I would sit in the bathroom trying to psych myself up to do it. After that, it was really no problem. The needle itself never hurt, it was when I would inject the heprin that it would burn. I found that the stomach was much less painful than the thigh... probably because there is a lot more fat there. Good luck & you can do it!

My guess is that the answer to question one is that you are at the 3 week stall. If you search stalls, you will find that ALOT of people hit a stall right around the 3 week mark. Mine lasted about 8 days and then I was back to losing weight. I can't help with question 2. Good luck!

Dr. told me the blood thinner can cause some women to start when they weren't expecting it. I got mine immediately following surgery, 2 weeks before I was expecting it.

I had & still have some nasty bruises from the heprin shots. I had to inject myself 3 times a day for 2 weeks on either the thigh or stomach. I'm 10 weeks out of surgery and the bruises have faded somewhat, but not disappeared. Mine also seemed to spread out... I'm not sure why.

I gained 10 pounds from the surgery and it took over a week for that to disappear. Give your body a couple weeks to adjust to having a large part of an organ removed! It will start coming off, just give it a little time.

I voted for you. You might also consider posting this on Obesity Help, if you haven't already. Good luck!

Sunny D- I completely understand where you are coming from! I havent' met that special someone yet, but am hoping to & to have kids one day, as well. I can't imagine ever being comfortable enough to get naked with someone with tons of sagging, loose skin... so how the heck could I have kids without the plastic surgery? It seems like you need to have the plastic surgery in order to be comfortable enough to make those babies. I know people say that if he really loves you things like being fat or having loose skin won't matter. The reality is that the issue is not with how a man sees you, it is with how you see yourself. I don't know that I could let myself be open to an intimate relationship if I felt like my stomach & boobs looks disgusting. I don't really have any good advise for you. I'm waiting to see what my body will look like when I hit my goal. I probably would have the plastic surgery even without having had kids and then if I have kids later, I'll deal with the restretched skin then. I don't think I will wait to feel good about my body in the hopes that someday I really will meet Mr. Right and have babies. There's no guarantee it will ever happen. Hmmm... now I'm depressing myself.

I'm 10 weeks out and I finally decided to resume my zumba exercise class. I hadn't been there in about 3 months. In the middle of the class, the instructor catches my eye and mouths, "Wow! You look great". After the class she stopped to talk to me to tell me she couldn't believe how different I looked and it was amazing how much a person could transform in just a few months. I felt great when she said that because the scale hasn't moved in a while and I was getting frustrated. Today, I'm happy knowing the weight loss is starting to really be noticeable. YEAH!

My biggest worry would be the coughing... of course, if you smoke MJ pretty regularly, then maybe you don't get the heavy, hacking cough. I would worry that hard, heavy coughing could cause stitches to split, a hernia, or just be damn painful. But I'm not a doctor, so that's just my opinion. As for the munchies, I never had them & actually always felt far more in control of my eating that I would when completely sober. I think it is definitely something that varies by person Good luck & when you do restart smoking, maybe you could post how it went? I'm guessing others would appreciate the info without risking the criticism that goes along with posting the question themselves.

I've never heard of this... that would mean at my heaviest I would have had to eat 275 g of protein! I don't think that's possible. I try to hit 60 g every day. Good luck to you.