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I'm back in the US for two weeks at the end of this months (I'm a Montana girl no matter how long I've lived in the UK) and I'm hoping I can hit all the thrift stores while I'm there. There's a few thrift stores here, but not so many that have plus sizes. I'm guessing I'm a UK 20 (US 18) now so still a plus size.

I drink matcha every day and I also have mushroom coffee. It comes out to about 60mg of caffeine total per day. Less than a regular cup of coffee but juuuuust enough to give me a little bit of "get up and go". I stayed away from all caffeine for about 6 months, then had matcha twice per week for 2 months, then added the mushroom coffee twice per week 2 months after adding the matcha. Now I drink them daily and it's all good.

That's tbd at this point. My current plan is week to week keep a low dose in my system that quiets food noise and gives some suppression that makes it easier to IF, but not so much I'll continue to lose weight.

I almost never post here because I hate the format on this website and prefer fb but wanted to try to inspire more people. The first photo is how big I was the night before the surgery. The other 3 were taken within the last week. I had the duodenal switch December 30, 2021 at the age of 24. My weight immediately going into the procedure was about 301. (My highest weight of all time, I believe was 320) I now hover between 157-160 and basically eat whatever I want. I'm fairly active and also malabsorb a ton (common channel length is 85 cm) Depending on the day, I eat somewhere between 3500-4000 calories a day. My weight doesn't budge. Still, life sucks in other ways. I struggle with serious depression that has crippled me. Mental health is always a work in progress. Any questions feel free to ask.

It will happen soon don't worry so don't spend a lot of sizing down as I have found that I buy something and then a few weeks later it is too big already. Buy cheap if needed, belts have been great.

Hi everyone 🩷 I’m considering having revision surgery and have an appointment with my doctor next week. I’d love to hear some of your experiences with revision surgery, the process and road to your actual surgery date, post op experience - anything you’re willing to share ☺️… soo lay it on me ! The good, the great, the bad, and the ugly! I lost about a 100 lbs and kept it off for about 4 years but since having a baby 2 years ago I’ve really been struggling with my weight again. TIA 🩷

Did you have the same problems during your liquid and pureed phases? If not it might be worth going back a step to purees as summerseeker has suggested. I do understand that chewing food really thoroughly is basically the same thing, but it takes the guesswork and possibilities for errors out of the equation. I know I am weird but I quite enjoyed my pureed food (because it was my first non-protein drink intake for almost a month). So tasty 😍 At 2.5 weeks I was just just onto pureed food, made with a LOT of liquid, and I was eating about 40-60mls (1-2oz) of goo for a meal, depending on how much protein was in it. We are all so different. I have seen people here thrive on solids much earlier. If your surgical team are confident that it isn't a post op complication you might have room to experiment a little. At 2.5 weeks fluids are paramount - there is wiggle room with protein and other macros in most programmes. I hope it all settles really quickly for you - sounds unpleasant.

I don’t start taking my vitamins until 2 weeks later and then just add each one at a time period. NeonRaven8919: no gas pain? If not how great!

2024 was a very tough year for me and my family. Both my mother and husband Dx with Cancer. My poor darling Mum old lasted 21 days from Dx. I haven't really had a chance to deal with it, have been drinking a lot! Christmas hit hard. Fortunately Hubby is doing well, but Chemo has knocked him around, poor fellow. Last round this week, so fingers crossed it all goes well and he gets the all clear!! 2025 goals: Successfully get through PreOp (starts 1st tomorrow😬), Op (16th Jan) and Post without issue!! Finally lose the weight I have been carrying most of my adult life! Spend less money! Find some exercise I enjoy and do it regularly. Be more grateful and appreciative of all the good/great things I have in my life. Happy New Year everyone!!!

@Karla83 I’m one day after surgery and that’s definitely true for me and it’s only sips of water. I can feel it. As soon as the water hits my banana stomach…I feel the pain. Mine is like intense muscle spasms. Liquid pain meds about every 3-4 hours. For me it doesn’t take it away. Still very uncomfortable. Walking already and my pain started back up really intense once got back in bed! This is a short period of time compared to a lifestyle change! Where the majority of pain is though is where my hernia was repaired.

Omg lucky! What a fantastic score!!! We don't have thrift stores here 😭😭 We do however, have those budgeted stores which I visited but barely found anything nice. I got 2 shirts but were still abit tight on me which were like 3 USD each..

Five years out and the poltergeist in my tummy is alive and well. It was grunting this morning after breakfast. And I mean grunting. I asked the doctor who does my follow ups about it a couple of years back because all the grumbling, rumbling and whining was so loud. She said it was my digestive system doing what it’s supposed to do: digest food. It differs person to person & I believe surgeon to surgeon (some are just more rough), After my sleeve I had very little bruising. Though others have posted some pretty significant bruises here after theirs. Can’t recall after my gall but I’ve had more with my recent surgery. (My poor belly button is so tiny now with the 3 laparoscopic abdominal surgeries I’ve had that have used it.) Each time the wounds were different. This time I even have a little lump from a pleat in my skin from the internal sutures. And one I swear looks like the Enterprise from Star Trek. And one can be more tender one day and the next another one is. Took into the third week for the bruising to be fully gone this time. The incision they removed your stomach through is usually a little longer than the others & is the one on the right of your belly button.

lol great minds...(i.e., ice cream!)...it was another unusually warm day for this time of year around these parts, so i made Mr. take me out to get some. they were out of pistachio (my fave flavour) so we went to the grocery to buy a tub (and a box of sugar cones) instead. no keto ice cream for me...this is the full fat-sugar-cream version, ha. this likely will be the last picture of me standing upright today, i think...as i ate the entire thing and the anticipated dumping im about to experience will surely have me regret it in 3..2..1...

@Mspretty86 I think if I lost more weight I would look frail and I want to look strong and fit. Once I get my boobies in 6 weeks I am going to be feelin' myself HAHAH!!! 😂 Thank you!! We are all winning!! I was strolling on Youtube and this guy who is a personal trainer, Trent Harrison, posted a video how we cannot always live our life in a calorie deficit, that being hungry is normal and a good thing! He has realistic foods that we can buy from a ton of places with high protein and low carb/cal. I have been really trying to dig deep- last couple of weeks I have been binging/grazing and just unmotivated for some reason, like I would still do my workouts but kept looking at the time because I wasnt feelin it or just doing an "easier" workout to say I worked out, but I snapped outta of it and back at it! Now I am feeling like myself! Try out her channel, tomorrow I am doing her glutes and I know I will be feelin it tomorrow whoowee! I used to follow Sydney Cummings- dont get me wrong she is good, but I needed something that pushed me harder and this chick does that. Lemme know what you think!!

You’re in the OMG I really did it stage & where buyer’s remorse can begin. Give yourself some grace. First you’ve had a pretty major surgery which puts a lot of stress on your mind and body. It will take a good 6 weeks or so to fully heal and recover: be gentle on yourself. There will be good days and not so good days but in a few weeks you’ll start to feel more like yourself. You’re 4 days out it’s impossible to be failing yet. Unless you’re downing bottles of soda and consuming burgers and fries, cake and ice cream. Focus on your plan and your surgeon’s instructions for this week only. Next week look at what you need to do for your second week and so on. It can be information overload so work so forgive yourself if you misunderstand or miss something. Oh, & don’t be surprised if you can’t meet your fluid and protein goals to begin. As long as you’re making an effort you’ll get there eventually. We’ve all been where you are at some stage and to varying degrees. If you worry about what you’re doing, check in with your team or post here. Guarantee others here will have had the same question or experience. It does get easier as each week passes.

GLP-1's have been put back on the shortage lists? The pharmacies have been adding other compounds for quite awhile which is how I originally started on Ozempic. The articles I've read though as of a few weeks ago stated since glp's were being removed from the shortage lists compounding would no longer be allowed, which is why I was asking.

Leslie Sansone walking videos are good. You can find them on YouTube. You can start with her 1 mile video or her 15 minutes videos. It’s more like walking aerobics using a few basic steps. I do 60 minute hikes 4x a week. Once a week I do her 3 mile American Heart Association video because I find the side movement is great for my hip joints. Good Luck!

A couple small wins yesterday. Small, but I take note of them and small wins encourage the behaviors that lead to bigger wins, right ? So...this 'un is a two parter. Several months ago, a few weeks before I had taken action to burn off the regains and dig my way back.... I was goofing around on the web... looking through a certain company's website. They make gear that is hobby related. I happened to notice that they also had some logo T-shirts that looked cool. So I ordered two....but ordered them for two sizes smaller than I was wearing then. They arrived and were stashed away with some other clothing, all smaller sizes, that I'd been ordering. The stash had made it's way upstairs to be put away. Soon afterwards... I started putting in the work....burning off the regain and get in better overall health. Kitchen discipline being the first step. Fast forward to yesterday.....laundry day at the hacienda. Grabbed a shower and started getting dressed so I could go knock out some errands. Almost dressed but remembered my normal day off work stuff was on the drying rack. Damn. I spied the stack of smaller sized stuff still in shopping bags....sitting there. Hmmm. Screw it...let's find out, dude...either it'll fit or it won't. Grabbed one of the new cool guy t-shirts and some new flat fronted cargo pants. Cut off tags & peeled off stickers and began to.....WTH !!! This shyt if fitting. Bamsucka. Got dressed and strutted around the room like a bantam rooster....chest poked out....big grin. Small Win Numba One Achieved. While running errands I wheeled into a parking space in front of one of the local gyms I'd been considering. Took my bantam rooster arse up in there and looked around. It was clean, plenty of open treadmills and recumbent bikes...just what I need for pre-habbing my knees. Gonna build up the muscle tissue before getting those suckers replaced over the next couple years. I joined. Small Win Numba Two Achieved. I plan on never having to eat an elephant (although I used to look like I could)......but....but if I did....I'd eat that thang one bite at a time. Thankfully getting healthy may prove to be easier than elephant eating. 🤣

Many of you know my story. Was two months shy of turning 54 in 2019 when I got my sleeve. Lost all my weight & more and was successfully maintaining that low weight. I began gaining weight from puberty: about a stone a year. Then I started my 60-75kg weight diet/regain swing from my early 20s until peri menopause & menopause hit and then seemingly overnight I was 91kg. Nothing I did moved that weight. Hence my decision to get a sleeve. I experienced some weight regain (good 2 almost 3 kgs) almost 4 yrs ago after I had my gall removed. We worked out I had an absorption issue and wasn’t absorbing protein well or it turned out my HRT tablet (hot flushes, etc. had returned). Switched to a patch and lost the weight without doing anything & no menopause symptoms. Had a hysterectomy in September 2024 & then couldn’t access the HRT patch I was using (damn supply chain issues) & this is when my body turned against me again. ALL my menopausal symptoms returned: hot flushes, night sweats, poor sleep, headaches, creaky joints, acne, etc. & weight gain. Only three kgs so far but that’s in the last three months. And so here we go again. My body working against me. Since this regain began in January (used my last HRT patch in December & was my usual weight at the end of Dec) I’ve made some modifications to my eating. Dropped a snack, reduced some portions (which were still only recommended portion size or a little less). I eat pretty carefully anyway & stick closely to my plan of eating. Was eating about 1600 calories a day and now am probably at about 1300/1400. So at the very least I should have slowed the regain but nope. It’s scary & upsetting. I recognise it as being how my body & my hormones work (or don’t work!) but that doesn’t help. My doctor is trying to help me sort out alternative HRT but nothing is working yet as it all involves at least taking one tablet. I wish I was completely past all this hormone crap & I wish supply chain issues for pharmaceuticals were a thing of the past for everyone affected. I so wanted to be my maintained slim self when I turned 60 in 4 months. I always have been overweight at significant birthdays. This one was going to be different. The way I’m going I’ll be a stone heavier. Not overweight but more than I want to be & have been happy at. Very sad face.

I share this story in hopes that it may help someone to never pick up a drink after VSG or to at least be hyper-vigilant about the dangers of drinking post weight loss surgery. I was sleeved in August of 2015 @ 310 lbs. Quickly lost most of the weight needed and began running 5k. Not really setting the world on fire, but it was really good for me. Prior to surgery, I had always enjoyed drinking with friends. Typical guy stuff - couple beers @ a football game or watching the game on Sunday, meeting for drinks after work, etc. Never an issue or problem. Never anything that i had to have. My doctor warned me against alcohol, sodas, and transfer addictions, but I thought "never me". WOW, was I wrong. I remember the first couple times I had a beer after the surgery (I waited 6 months), it was very fizzy and uncomfortable. I convinced myself that it would get easier, and unfortunately it did. Next came the rum and coke zero. Wow, that tastes great, and I get a buzz very quickly. That fast buzz turned into getting very drunk, very quickly. Our new bodies absorb the alcohol in 1/2 the time that a normal internal system would. Over the last couple yeaars there have been many episodes of drinking way to much, blacking out, and not remembering what happened. I have had to apologize for my behavior more than once after a night of drinking. I even started drinking every day. I would make a drink as soon as I got home each day. 1 turns into 2 or 3. Just like lays potato chips you can not have just 1. Alcohol consumed my every thought. When can I have a drink? How can I make sure I can get a drink? It amazed me how I was able to justify that if creamer was good in my morning coffee, how great would Rumchatta be (it's damn good, by the way). I am living proof that transfer addiction is a real thing. I am now in counseling for my alcohol addiction. Transfer addiction is definitely a real thing. Prior to VSG surgery I was over 300 pounds because I had an addiction to food, and all the wrong kinds of food. My new addiction is alcohol and it's best friend is food addiction. what goes with beer = chicken wings, or nuts and pretzels, what goes with a margarita = tacos, etc. Alcohol also makes it impossible to lose weight. So if you are really dedicated to clean eating but you drink, your weight may stay the same, but it surely will not go down. I have packed on 60 lbs of the 120 that I lost. And, I am slowly changing behaviors to get back to where I want to be. It is a journey,, but I am worth it. I will overcome. Addiction is sacrificing everything for that one thing ! Recovery is sacrificing that 1 thing to have everything !

i still love my decision to get an arm lift...BUT it does take some work to keep them looking toned. i've been up and down in keeping up with my arm appearance maintenance over the years, but lately i've been on an upswing (thanks yoga and pilates addictions!): (and yeah, the the arm lift recovery was the hardest/longest/most problematic for me from the 3 procedures i had. PRO TIP: take it easy and don't do too much too soon!!! heal first, THEN exercise omg. Eventually though, you will be able to "wave your hands in the air and shake em like you just dont care"!)

I puréed a few things. (Tinned fish was the worst - disgusting.) You can purée quite a few proteins (wouldn’t do steak but you could do minced beef) as long as you add enough liquids like stock, milk, gravy or water. Or you can use things like mayo, ricotta, cottage cheese with eggs or chicken (like an egg salad). Really it comes down to how your taste buds react to certain flavours in these first weeks or if you’re repelled by the texture. I could eat scrambled eggs (I made them pretty soft with extra milk), instant rolled oats (again extra milky), and I would puree chunkier soups. I did have baby food a couple of times when I couldn’t eat what I’d pureed. A lot of people swear by a ricotta bake. Sure someone has a recipe they could post.

speaking of chicken, ha! this was lunch today, that i picked up after yoga classes (pro tip: don't buy take out on your way home from exercise class because it will likely be deep fried stuff like this omg). 1/3 KFC classic chicken sandwich, 1 KFC chicken tender, and 2 and a little bit of KFC onion rings (the cute little one was my favourite, lol) with a little bit of ketchup & bbq sauce: 462 calories for all of it. ate the tender and the onion rings, but got tired after one bite of the partial sandwich and gave up...so probably 275 calories for what i actually ate (mr. already ate the leftovers).

i went from pooping 2-3 times a day pre-WLS to pooping every 3-4 days post-WLS. i had to keep on top of constipation the first year, but now, (i'm 6 yrs out next month), i don't need to take any supplements or poop aids anymore. i've accepted i just don't poop alot, ha. i do have a problem pooping on vacation, and often look like i'm 3 months pregnant after an extended period away form my home toilet. i'm not uncomfortable nor in pain, so i don't worry about it too much anymore. so long as i poop withing 1-2 days of getting home i'm good. you'll find out what your new normal is and can act accordingly

I can't respond to the particular complications you have (only a doctor can) or how bypass might affect them (ditto), but major complications are pretty rare with bypass. The most common complication (and it's considered minor) is dumping, which 30% of patients get (I've never had it - and neither have a lot of others I know), but that can be controlled by not eating a ton of fat or sugar at one sitting, which none of us should be doing anyway. The next most common complication (also minor) is stricture, which is easily fixed by doing an upper endoscopy and using a balloon-like tool to stretch it out. This happens to about 5% of us, and as being the second most common complication, it gives you an idea how common complications are (I had a stricture, btw). You probably hear about them more because people are more likely to post or talk about them because they're looking for advice or support. People generally don't mention that things are going great unless someone specifically asks them how things are going. So it might appear that complications are more common than they actually are. Other than that stricture early on (and they happen very early on, if they're going to happen at all), I've had zero issues, and I had my surgery ten years ago. we were told that it was OK to take NSAIDs on a very limited and very occasional basis, but I haven't taken any since my surgery. I've taken Tylenol for any pain, and when I had hip replacement surgery two months ago, they found a non-NSAID alternative to aspirin for me since I had to be on some kind of blood thinning agent for six weeks. As far as your other prescriptions, it could be that there are non-extended release versions available - but again, a doctor would know that. Sounds like you'll be having a long conversation, and hopefully it'll provide some answers to make a decision. as far as having the surgery "late in life", there are many of us who had it in our 50s and 60s (I was 55 when I had mine), so you're definitely not an anomaly! I wish I would have had mine years earlier than I did. The thing probably saved my life (I weighed almost 400 lbs). I am grateful every day that I had it. good luck with your appts and decision.