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I started this journey due to metabolic disorders, inability to exercise due to chronic illness, and after my gastric bypass surgery had to make a decision due to endometriosis that sent me straight into menopause. But thankfully so far due to diligently tracking protein and calories my weight has been going down and I was able to ring in the new year for the first time in many years at the high end of a healthy weight rather than being overweight or obese. I still have 14-20 lbs to lose and loose saggy skin I wish to deal with. My nagging worry is the long term maintenance. Not that I won’t continue to be diligent but what my body will do as my lifelong chronic illness and disability gets worse. Thankfully menopause hasn’t seemed to have made drastic changes. So perhaps I was already heading there anyway.

Just spent the last week in Cuba and I have found a Place to go to break a stall! - Ok just kidding but there is no food and definitely nothing to snack on. While i was gone i had to just about starve, Some veggies and some little bit of protein from the fish we caught - My goal was to be done losing weight by last night so i go home last night and hung with the kids and such. At 12:08 Pm i stepped on the scale on the way to bed. When i left last Thursday i was at 254 so thought there is now way going to loose 9 more pounds by the end of the year, But who really cares been a great journey and what is week or two more - I went to Cuba to offshore fish and have a good time - Not really concerned about anything else just have some fun and chill out. Well we did more then that! We had a blast and fished every day. Much to my amazement met a Cuban girl on the first day, Yes Ladies don't jump on me I am single and I know she really cared for me, She wants to marry me because i am thin and such a great guy close to here age ..... not because i am in the USA and can get her out of the hell whole of a communist 3 rd world country! I am just kidding i know the game but hell ride the ride as long as you can, Actually she was a great person and in college, yes meeting her parents with a 33 year age difference was creepy to me but there they are so different it was not a issue. As i nice guy i bought them there New Years eve live pig, Yes a first for me, There is no way at 377 pounds what i was prior to WLS i could have Done this trip, Fished offshore as hard as we did and well the 20 year old is out of the question. So for all you out there considering WLS ..... let me tell you it opens up a whole new world - Being obese is limiting you so much you have no idea. I as I try and freaking figure out how to stop losing weight now and Tighten up the body thru cross fit it will be phase two of the journey and even more fun. So how Did it end this trip: Great times, Great Fishing, Saw stuff i never would have imagined and Oh yes weight in .5 pounds under my Final Goal. Thank you Cuba! Simply put this was the best decision i have ever made and the reward is off the scale! F#$ck Food Have a great New year everyone

Thanks for sharing your story and fabulous results, Your primary care physician is not the deciding factor for plastics. You can also get a second opinion by another Dr. You may want to call your insurance provider to see if they changed their stance on plastics. Most insurance companies don't cover plastics. Many people have to self pay if they choose skin removal.

100% support the contact your doctor suggestions. I hear you on the protein shakes - also couldn’t stand that grainy coating it left on my teeth. Shudder! Gave them up by week 4. Are you eating any real food yet? Mince, stews, thick soups, oatmeal, well cooked vegetables ... will help solidify your loose bms, up your calorie intake & give you more energy. Goood luck.

I am a male who had a gastric-reduction/duodenal-switch surgery performed on March 12, 2004. At the time of surgery, I was 483 pounds and I am nearly 6'5" tall; yes, I am a big & tall man. By my 1-year anniversary, I had slimmed down to 275 pounds. I was 32-years-old at the time of surgery. Up to that point in my life, I had only been on three dates in my life; never a second-date. This was not for lack of trying... at least at first. I had been rejected so many times when trying to ask a girl out that I liked and it appeared she liked me. So many times, after asking a girl out that had been nice to me and appeared to like me, the act of asking them on a date killed the "relationship" and they would keep their distance after that. Instead of developing a personal life, I focused on work. My self-esteem at romance was less than zero. In addition to being overly fat, I also weighed a lot because I am both big-boned and very muscular. When I say "big-boned," it is not an excuse for being fat (like Eric Cartman of South Park), but literally, per physicians who have seen my X-rays, I have very large and thick bones. When I was in high-school, I was "big" into weight-lifting. I set records at my school in weight-lifting that still stand to this day, more than 30 years later. One such record was the "sitting leg-lift", where I straightened out my legs to lift 1,400 pounds. I would do many repetitions of isolated leg lifts of over 2,000 pounds. After high-school, I stopped weight-lifting as an exercise but still would make a point to move heavier objects than anyone else in practical life. I was a volunteer firefighter for 10 years; as I was in college and for the first several years of my professional life (as a nurse). It was during my life as a nurse, my lifestyle became more sedentary and I went from being "obese" to "super-morbid-obesity". I was an emergency department nurse at the time I had weight-loss surgery. Thankfully, I had no significant co-morbidities with my super-morbid-obesity. After surgery, I dropped weight extremely fast. The first week, I lost 28 pounds. The second week, I lost an additional 23 pounds. By one month, I was already below 400 pounds. By six months, I was down to around 300 pounds. By this time, I felt like a new person. I decided to start seeking a romantic life. I had many female friends that I worked with, but they all treated me like a brother and I didn’t want to ruin another “relationship” by trying to transition it into romance. I didn’t know what to do, so I went to eHarmony.com. I went on one date from the site, but that didn’t go anywhere. My next date from the site, I married, and we have been happily married for 14½ years so far. Over the years, I still deal with “letting go” and ballooning up to the highest weight of 315 pounds, before refocusing on what I am eating and losing weight. At one point, I was exercising like crazy and was on an extremely low-calorie, ketogenic diet. People actually told me that I was looking unhealthfully thin. I got down to 212 pounds. I did several body-composition testing procedures and all seemed to corroborate with a body fat percentage of around 8%. I had a lean-body mass of around 196 pounds. I was “proud” of this accomplishment, but I did not feel that well and I was torturing myself to accomplish it too. I finally decided to stop torturing myself; this was back in 2013. Since then, I’ve kept my weight about 270 pounds, plus or minus 15 pounds. I’m told, by people that don’t see me naked, that I look thin or “healthy”. What they are NOT seeing is all the excess skin and fat folds obscured by shorts and a T-shirt. Even with just swim trunks on, people don’t realize all the abdominal skin I have tucked below the waistline. Since I don’t wear “Speedo-style” swimsuits, they don’t see all the excess in my thighs either. At this particular moment, I weigh 267 pounds and have a body fat percentage of 26%. I have long wanted to get rid of all this excess skin. I have no way of knowing this for sure at this time, but it is my belief that the excess skin weighs around 50 pounds; I believe that much of this excess skin is counted as body fat in composition testing. As mentioned, I’ve been living with all this excess skin for quite some time. While I get chaffing between the thighs, which can get raw from time to time, I have not had sores or skin-breakdown/infection due to the excess skin. I was originally told that this was the only way health coverage would pay for the skin removal process. I have since heard that my health coverage company has successfully been sued for not covering skin-removal surgery, so their stance has changed. I’ve reached out to my primary care physician, but he told me that due to my “Body Mass Index,” I don’t qualify for surgery. I’m told that my BMI must be less than 30. This frustrates the heck out of me, as I’ve already pointed out, my lean body mass is 196 pounds. If I had ZERO body fat, my BMI would be 23, which is the middle of “healthy” when obviously 0% body fat is NOT healthy! I’ve pointed this out to my PCP, showing that BMI is NOT a valid indicator of a healthy weight; it does not take body composition into account. He said he’d reach out to the departments that handle this to re-evaluate... hoping to hear back soon.

Happy 2020!🍾 I'm five years post op. Starting weight was 254 Lowest 125. I maintained pretty easy in my first two years. My honeymoon ended when I had a regain in my third year. It was an emotional freak out moment. I came back to this site for support and worked the weight off. I maintain in the 130's. I give myself a ten pound bounce range to work up and down the scale. So far so good. We will see how I do in the years to come. I identify as a weight loss patient but, life is normal and mundane this far out. People no longer comment about weight loss. Most have no Idea that I was obese. I am vigilant about my weight. I indulge and take diet/exercise breaks. When the scale moves up, I go back to bariatric weight loss diet. I looked into plastics my first and fifth year out. I backed out both times. I'm done with people judging my body at any size. I'm comfortable in my loose skin *wink* I will never be a bikini model with the damage I did being obese. *I was not a bikini model before surgery.* Before and after.

You look beautiful!!! And like a million bucks woman!!!! And what loose skin? Also congrats on being BOT!!!!

Prohibition 1920's theme party last night. Loose skin showing and I didn't care *smile* Back on track after all the holiday indulging. Happy 2020 all. Lets do this!

Banded in March 2001, revision to MGB in May 2016. Hernia is back and since that part of the reflux symptoms and surgeons want to do another revision. I guess I need to schedule it, huh? Weight wise I'm an unspectacular normal weight. Still can't make up my mind about plastics but my skin is bothering me more and more. I'm looking into the Avelar technique (would have to go to Austria to get it but since I'm most likely going to be a self-pay anyway...) but with a revision looming over my head I have other problems at the moment.

I am pre-op and my gastric bypass is scheduled for January 22. I am 64 year old and still plan on having plastics after I loose my weight. Your only as old as you feel.

Welcome to 2020. No NYE for me last night though. We had an early start to the airport for flight to Melbourne this morning. Went comfortable - wide leg pants with draw string waist & t- shirt with puffy sleeve (actually a puffy flap over the sleeve). NSV on plane - put on the seat belt and pulled and pulled and pulled to get it tight. Could have wrapped the loose bit around me twice. Plus so much room in the on board toilet. 😁 I hear your pain re the wardrobe crisis @FluffyChix. Like the black jacket - lovely neat fit. I did like the soft pink colour on you though it did look a bit too floaty.

I'm almost 8 weeks out . I was wondering if I should hit the gym now and if so should I up my calories and protein or anything? i'm getting in 80 grams of protein ,64 oz or more of water and 800-900 calories some days and 500-700 some days. I want to continue to lose and I want to build mass so I can prevent some sagging skin.... please advise ,,,,,

Has anyone used a facial mask that they really felt helped to tighten that loose facial skin? Mine isn't bad, but I think doing a facial mask will help. Just not sure what to try. Sent from my SM-G955U using BariatricPal mobile app

I get pooped out from just walking around too, so apparently I didn’t get the super healing powers either. The Doc I saw at my follow up yesterday was the intern. I still have a lot of soreness in my thighs, she felt around and said I do have a lot of loose skin where they did the liposuction. During the conversation I told her that WLS patients that pursue plastic surgery keep more weight off at the 10 and 15 year mark, so there is a health benefit. Surprisingly she did not know this, but she did say that they will probably be allowed to do more procedures in the near future, and that they could do more with my thighs. While that is certainly good news, I wasn’t talking about me getting more surgery. This is like giving birth, I need some time to forget about the pain before I do it again. 😂😂 Plus I am terrified that I am gaining weight without my usual gym schedule. I was a slow loser and even gained some on this journey. The gym not only helped with my weight, but my overall health and well-being. At first it felt like a second job I had to go to. I started going twice a week to a 30 minute beginner class and doing the free Sat. morning class. The weird part is that the gym I ended up at isn’t air conditioned and only has space heaters. The staff is basically former athletes (some with significant sports injuries) and most have degrees in kinesiology. They do have personal training, but the 30 min classes are only $10 and they make sure you are doing things correctly so you don’t hurt yourself. They even give you a modified exercise if they know you have a particular injury. I almost wish it was a chain so I could share this experience with everyone. I never would have tried lifting weights if I wasn’t at this gym. I miss it now even though I couldn’t lift that much. I can ‘t wait to get back at it. There probably isn’t anyone on here very close to me (Central Texas) but the name of the gym is Oppose Gravity and they are on Instagram. Plus, the gym members come in all sizes and shapes. I started in a beginner class and I couldn’t do one sit up, I can do a bunch now. I also could barely do a squat because of my bad knees, but all the exercise actually improved my knees and I have less clicking than before. There were a couple of times I have had to wear the braces because I did to many burpees or jumping. I also cannot do an actual push up yet, but I will get there. I can plank and do girl push ups. Now I just need to find a way to make going to the gym my job and vacationing/shopping for my free time. Guess I need to buy a lottery ticket...my adult children call them poor people tax, but I call them $1.00 hopes and dream tickets. As long as you just get the one every once in a while...

You got this! I'm resetting by not buying groceries for the next month unless I absolutely need to. Trying to blast through these last 20 pounds before a skin consult Sent from my SM-J727R4 using BariatricPal mobile app

I'm liking the flatness (and wrinkle-free!) aspect of mine too My stretch marks were on my hips and they seem to have been excised. However. There seems to be some skin discolouration that I guess was previously hidden in the crease where my torso and thigh connect. Now that all the skin there got stretched out, it is now easily visible. I'm hoping exposure to some light/sun/air will even out the skin tone there eventually... Btw, I now have an even greater appreciation of your ability to go dancing for 3 hours so soon after your surgery a couple weeks back! I am 2 weeks PO tomorrow and I am still slightly hunched over AND I was so pooped from merely walking around the block earlier that I feel asleep on the couch afterwards. You've got super healing powers.

So I asked about standing up straight at my appointment today. The surgeon of course said everyone needs to listen to their own surgeon. Then she said everyone tightens things up differently and hopefully they consider age and skin type when doing so. The only reason surgeons don’t want you standing up straight right away is because they don’t want you to pull apart your sutures. So basically standing straight timeline is about what is comfortable for you.

Girl. I am stealing your leg pic to show my surgeon as to what I want mine to look like next year when he does my excess skin removal. LOL.

So basically your going to loose weight so you can screw your body up possibly in a wreck. Ok then. I stick to a Harley Davidson myself. Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using BariatricPal mobile app

Slimming Down Steve- I see we share the same warped sense of humor. Any Silence of the Lambs references are welcome!! *It puts the lotion on its skin or else it gets the hose again...*

Congrats on the weight loss! What is your experience with excess skin after losing that much weight?

I've taken a Christmas break from logging. Been doing it on and off, but applying the same rules to my M-F and eating basically the same stuff this week. But having bigger weekend blowouts with food and some alcohol. Those shenanigans will get shut down as of January 2. Last celebration is January 1. And that's when we will also launch Bariatric Accountability Club online in Facebook and our small developing website. So Jan. 2 will be down to basics of the Forever Diet! I'm happy to say that I'm still sitting at 129.4-129.8 as of Sunday! Hope I will stick the landing on Monday cuz I will have to make it official on the ticker. Here's yesterdays food but no daily totals: B1: Protein Latte x 3 (3oz PP) B2: none L: blackened turkey wedge salad with avocado (ate 1/2 of salad and 1/4 of the turkey) + approx 1/4oz brisket + 1/2oz smoked sausage + 2tbsp Better Way Jalapeno Cilantro Ranch Dressing AS: 2 glasses cabernet + 1oz pork skins + 1/2 oz aged gouda + 1/2 oz aged cheddar + 2oz baked brie + 1oz GS apple + 1/2 oz rosemary pecans Din: blackened turkey wedge salad with avocado (ate 1/2 of salad and 1/4 of the turkey) + 1/2 oz prime rib, lean only + 1/2 oz blackened mustard crusted atlantic salmon

Spend a lot of money if you need to. You can give yourself a lot of knee problems if you wear the wrong type of shoe. If you are obese, which everyone here here is, or us d to be, you probably have already stressed or damaged your knees. I have hurt my left knee because of the way my weight used to effect my foot. I either was or my weight caused me to supinate. If your feet bend the wrong way, it will directly impact your knees. Loosing 80 or so pounds per knee, has helped alot... Someone posted the chart. Look at your shoes now, and see what the tread wear is. That will say what you need. Before I got neutral support shoes, my outside tread was GONE and my inside tread looked brand new. I was also wearing Dept store cheap shoes probably designed for pronation - opposite of what I needed. . . My advice is to jump the shark. Go see a podiatrist and get custom molded insoles. That has helped me, immensely. I suppinated, and required neutral support shoes, but, suppinating just wears them out anyway. The custom insoles greatly mitigate that. And they can last a decade or more. . . You can't have enough. Running shoes are not walking shoes. The cushioning is designed for different movement. Walking and running have different ways your feet impact the ground. If you jog, get running shoes. Always have a pair of walking shoes for casual use. I have 4 pair. And I switch my insoles between three of them until I get more insoles. One for walking. One for running, and one for sports (cross trainer). It sounds rediculous, but the walking and running are different. When I stress my feet running, I want a shoes for that. My cross trainers are the new balance 672 or 674 or whatever, and they are built tougher and have better build for sideways movement and are just $70. So, when I am fencing or doing odd whatever, I am not wearing down my more expensive casual walkers. Same with running. My 4th pair are just cheap to wear around hous to prevent wear and tear on my walkers, and slip on and off easily (always properly tie and untie your expensive shoes so they last). Sounds insane yes, but as my walkers wear down, it's separate from my running shoes. My running shoes might last me 2-3 years now. Walkers just over one. As my walkers wear down, it's separate from the better support I get for exercising or fencing and when I go running. . . Please do not go cheap, get good quality shoes. The discount shoes you see in malls, are no good really no matter what brand they are. Brand names build separate styles for discount stores (Kohl's, boscovs) and they are cheaper build and quality. They are not on sale, or have a blemish, they are just cheap. No way around it, you need the more expenses shoes. My life turned around when before I had the surgery when I switched my cheap shoes to $120 class walking shoes. Don't learn the hard way and years from now find out you slowly gave yourself problems because of bad footwear choices. The high quality brands also last much longer than their cheap counterparts. Someone posted a link for new balance shoes. Unless they are selling top line shoes that are on the new balance website (and not counterfeit) I'd say to ignore it. I have tried high and low to find cheaper versions, and I do not believe any licensed resellers of new balance or Brooks (the best sub $200) allow anyone to sell more than $10 below MSRP). I hope I am wrong though. . . You one have one pair of feet. Treat them well. Sent from my ONEPLUS A6013 using BariatricPal mobile app

So I'm hoping to wear actual pants for NYE instead of these yoga pants and joggers I've been living in for the past 12 days. So I tried on my jeans and the button closed, but barely. And breathing was not the easiest, lol. I know, I know, I'm supposed to put the tape measure away. Obviously, I'm not a good listener, as I went ahead and took some measurements. NOTE: I just realized that my math sux and that I should have stated in my quote above that my waist measurement increase was +5.5 inches (and NOT 4.5" 🙄 ) ...anyhoo, I am happy to report that my +5.5" waist circumference swell has reduced to a +2.5" swell. I'm down to 28". I wonder if when all is said and done I will get smaller than my pre-op measurement of 25.5"? He didn't take much bulk off, mostly only skin, so probably not, right?

Thank you all for your positive input. I was really getting discouraged. I hear stories of people loosing like 40 to 60 pounds in a month. Come the new year im joining a gym, so hope to see better results .