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Medicare costs and requirements can vary depending on your specific plan (Part A, B, C, or D) and your income level. Part A is premium-free if you’ve paid Medicare taxes for at least 10 years, while Part B has a monthly premium and deductible. Eligibility generally requires being 65 or older or qualifying through disability or specific medical conditions.

I know for me, this is the hardest time of the year. It's cold (-8F this morning according to my car, which is just insane). It's still kinda dark in the mornings and dark pretty early at night, too. The holidays are over so a lot of the fun you may have been anticipating a while back is done and the routine feels hard and boring. It's not a motivation-inspiring season. So my advice is that sometimes it's okay to take care of your mental health, and that can be as important as your physical health. Within reason, of course, so you don't let yourself slide into terrible habits. But if you have 10 things to do and you can only manage 5, pick the 5 that matter most to you. Don't do what I sometimes do and spend so much time stressing and lamenting over the 5 you can't get done that you end up not doing anything at all. 5 things is okay when 10 isn't possible. You need to move your body, but you don't need to walk AND do yoga, AND do pilates, AND... It's okay to pick one thing. It's okay to skip the gym and go for a walk with a friend. Or skip the walk and get a pedicure one day because your body is just tired. Sometimes that's what will give you energy to do the other stuff. As long as your hair is reasonably clean, sometimes you just need a ponytail. Or a hat. Not all days are cute days. Plan to get done what you must get done plus what you really want to get done, until you feel able to do more and pushing yourself to do it only takes average effort. I think sometimes we deplete our energy to the point that our bodies and minds have to insist on recharging. Give yourself the chance to recharge without guilt.

Anyone having sleeve surgery Monday 10/28 that wants to exchange contact info? I’m having mine done in Nashville, TN, that day.

well thats a way healthier post-workout meal than mine ever was! heading off to costco now to stock my fridge/pantry (and probably come home with 10 boxes of aluminum foil, or mabye a kayak, lol...who else goes to costco and buys sh*te they don't need??!?!?!?)

So sorry that you're struggling. Weight loss is both the simplest thing in the world, and also incredibly complicated. The good news is there is absolutely hope for you! Thinking through what you've posted. I think I want to break things apart a bit so we can address a few different things: Let's start with being an emotional eater. My personal belief is that EVERYONE that is (or at one point was), obese has an eating disorder, or at the very least suffers from disordered eating. You simply don't get that big without having an unhealthy relationship with food. I'm really glad that you are working to get help in this area. We have a saying here on this board that you should take to heart: Bariatric Surgery doesn't fix your brain. Success or failure long term is most often about addressing these mental, not physical issues. The surgery is a tool that can help you, but surgery alone won't make you lose weight. My point here is YOU ARE NOT ALONE. A lot of the folks here have the same problem regarding turning to food for emotional support. You can get control of this, but it does take time and help. Failure to lose weight. We all lose at different rates, so it's hard to judge whether or not how much you've lost is problematic. First, can you clarify some things? Your sidebar shows you having lost 128 pounds, but your post suggests it's a lot less than that? Also, your post says it's been 6 months since your surgery, but unless I'm misunderstanding something, it's only been 4 months? Even if it's only 4 months instead of 6, having lost 9 pounds would still be on the low side, but I think you need to also keep in mind that you are on the low end of the height scale. That absolutely does matter when it comes to weight loss. Smaller bodies need fewer calories per day. That's just a basic fact. I think it's important for you to understand that you can't break the laws of physics. if you eat fewer calories per day than you burn, you'll lose weight. Eat the same amount as you burn and you'll stay at the same weight. Eat more than you burn and you'll gain. I know that seems obvious, but people often look for reasons other than this as to why they might not be losing as expected. They'll say things like "my metabolism is messed up" as if that means they're allowed to break this basic rule. Perhaps their metabolism is messed up, but there's no rule that says you should be able to eat, say 1300 calories a day and still lose. Your metabolism is your metabolism and while there are ways to ramp it up, you don't get to break the laws of basic physics. Calorie counting. You mention eating 700 calories a day, but then mention snacking on top of that? Did I understand that correctly? Here's the thing. Everyone is TERRIBLE at calorie counting and if you're not counting the snacks, you're estimates of how much you're consuming will be even worse. Even if you're counting the snacks in the 700 calories, the likelihood that you're actually eating only 700 calories a day is really small. Studies have shown again and again that people drastically underestimate how much they are eating per day, even if they try to accurately weigh and measure everything. Part of it's just user error, but part of it is that the actual calorie counts of food are not nearly as simple to measure as we think they are. One final thing to keep in mind. Our bodies are made up of lots of "stuff", and this "stuff" is all part of what you weigh day-to-day. Fluctuations in how hydrated you are, your muscle mass and even stool weight can mask fat loss, so don't get too caught up in what the scale says. Simply put, the scale is NOT your friend. Let me give you an example of just how much the scale can lie: I'm a runner and if I run in hot weather, it's not that unusual for me to lose 6 to 10 pounds in the space of a couple of hours. Does that mean I lost 10 pounds of fat? Of course not. It means I lost a bunch of water due to sweat. Using a scale as the sole means you use to judge your success would be a bit like trying to use a hammer as the only tool you use to build a house. a hammer's great for some things, but there are also times when it's not.

New on here, had surgery gastric sleeve in Turkey on 1/10/24 all good so far

That is great, good for you. Maybe you should have bought a size small hoodie as well, you'll no doubt need it soon. If you haven't already done so at home maybe buy smaller bowls and plates. That is what I did, some at home and a set at the office and I use for my meals, what was called an appetiser set - plate 15*15cm and bowl 10*10cm. I use a regular sized side plate sometimes but rarely and using the smaller ones makes portion control easy.

I had a revision surgery Dec 18,23. After surgery I have lost 62 pounds and now I am struggling to get my protein and water in. And I am trying to lose the 4 pounds i gained and lose 10 on top of that

I set a timer for every 15 minutes and drink an ounce of water. This is what they had me do in the hospital and it works great. I had gastric bypass on 10/22/24 HW: 395 SW: 261 CW: 246

im also 10/29 , good luck to you i haven also started pre op diet

I know I am probably far off from having any form of skin removal, as I have been advised that my weight needs to be stable for at least 6 months before I can look into that kind of surgery, and where I am almost 10 months post-op, I don't think that'll be happening anytime soon! Regardless, I feel the need to start thinking about it now. I am 29 this year, I have PCOS and was previously told I needed to have a baby before I was 27 otherwise my chances of conceiving were very low. I am not in a position (financially or emotionally) where I want children right now, nor in a relationship where I want to have them either. I may want children in my future, but that could be years and years away and I don't know if my biological clock will be long gone by then. I have always liked the idea of adopting too. My question is: what were people's thoughts around pregnancy and plastics? How did you tackle it if this were an issue for you? My current focus is my health and my weight loss, and subsequently my full journey through plastics, not a child...but I know in a consultation I will be asked about this.

Forgot Pre op doctors appointment is 10/11

Thank you 🙏🏻 my gastroenterology appointment is in three weeks so I am going to start there and I look forward to figuring it out because it’s not fun I have talked to a few doctors on the scope of my PCP…. One has seen complications/odd symptoms in long term gastric bypass patients. When I say complications, I mean digestive complications because there are plenty of people who don’t have enough nutrient, etc., and have issues that are beyond that. I pretty much covered all of those in my first 10 years when I really didn’t know how to take care of myself from a nutrient standpoint and vitamins. I do think it could be a parasite, or potentially a combo of diverticulitis and acid reflux. Most of the potential diagnoses have weight loss associated with them, and that is definitely not the case unfortunately lol. Yes, I would love to press the fix me button, but I know I have to do the work on this

Ohh, I didn't know you had access to a gym! I might have modified this a bit because I was trying to make sure these exercises were something you could do without equipment. Here are some suggested modifications if you are using a gym: If your gym has a hip thrust machine, feel free to use that instead of doing the glute bridge. As I mentioned, hip thrusts offer a bigger range of motion, so are an even better exercise. Push Ups are probably fine as they are, but once you get to doing 10-15 knee pushups, you might also start doing the chest press machine, or doing a bench press with dumbbells. Once you get to unsupported squats, you can start adding some weight. Some gyms have hack squat machines or leg press machines and both will work great here. Another one to consider would be a goblet squat (google it). The nice thing about this one is that it will emphasize your quadriceps a bit more, which might be good since we're hitting your glutes and hamstrings pretty hard with the hip thrusts and lunges. As to rows, feel free to skip all the ones I wrote and do a seated cable row or do something called a bent-over row with dumbbells. With leg raises, do them as listed, but if you get all the way through those, then the next logical progression is to move to hanging leg raises. These can be done on a dedicated machine (sometimes called a captain's chair). The lunge exercises are probably fine as they are, but feel free to add weight (hold some dumbbells in your hands), if you get to where the versions I listed are not enough for you. As an optional thing, if you wanted to add in one additional exercise per session, I'd do a Bicep dominated exercise one day, a Tricep dominated exercise another day, and a Calf dominated exercise the 3rd day. The actual exercise selection does not matter much, so do whatever exercise you like or whatever machine your gym has. You can even do a different one every week. Again, if you're happy without this, then skip it. it's not going to make a huge difference, because we are hitting these muscles some already. Best of luck!

HW: 399 CW: 264 GW: 199 Total Inches lost: Waist: 12.5” Hips: 10” Progress video of my non scale victories & some before & after photos attached. ☺️ Hi everyone! I had sleeve surgery on 12/6/23. My weight on the day of surgery was 381, but just a few months prior (October ‘23), I was in the 390s — peaking at 399. 😭 I still can’t believe how far I’ve come since then. 🤯 At first, around this time last year, I was a little discouraged that I wasn’t one of those lost 100 lbs in the first 4 months stories. But now, looking back, I’m so proud of the progress I’ve made and those thoughts are long gone. My doctor even said he prefers when patients lose weight a bit slower, since it helps them adjust to their new lifestyle easier and avoid some of the negative side effects like hair loss. I’m happy to say I haven’t experienced any hair loss at all 💁‍♀️ and my habits are NIGH and DAY from when I was .5lb shy of 400lbs. I gotta say being in the 260s feels unreal. My goal weight of 199 doesn’t feel like a far-off dream anymore but now within reach. When I was 399, the idea of weighing 199 felt like a fairytale ✨ but now, being just 65 lbs away, it feels like I can see the finish line in the distance and it won’t be long until I cross it! 🏃‍♀️💨 If you made it this far, thanks for reading. 🤗🩵🩷 Wishing the best to everyone on their own fitness journey. We got this!! 💪 video-output-BBFB7DF1-7AA4-435F-9BE5-1CD3270BACD2-1.mov

a lot of plastic surgeons suggest you wait for a year after hitting your lowest weight, because it's very common to have a 10-20 lb rebound. I waited two years, and I'm glad I did since I did gain that much (actually, a little more). They say a gain of more than 10-15 lbs can affect the results.

Things absolutely do slow down, for the reasons the others have said. I lost almost 10 stones with my sleeve, half my starting weight. 9 stones of that was in the first year post op (with many stalls towards the end that made me think I was done) and 1 stone was in the subsequent 9 or 10 months. In the last few months I was honestly losing half a pound a month or less. It's fascinating looking back. The concept I am most happy to have learned on this board is that of a new set point. Once I knew that our bodies can decide early after surgery what weight it now wants to maintain, I felt less like the driver and more like a passenger who could sit back and just enjoy the ride. No actually - not quite sit back - follow the rules strictly to enable the smooth journey to my new set point. Mine ended up a bit lower than my 'goal' (plucked out of thin air) weight. Lots of people's seem to end up much higher. All of this is fine if we can make our peace with it. I get the feeling you have much more to squeeze out of your procedure @Bypass2Freedom. I do understand the frustration when you're following the rules to the letter but not losing. It's steps and stairs always - never a linear loss (well not for me). You're doing this.

Yes the Baleaf brand does have a bit of compression without cutting in at the waist or ankles. Its quite a bit more compared to the lululemon ones which I also own a couple pair of them now because they are buttery soft and soooooo comfy( (as close as you can get to feeling naked while wearing clothing). Personally, I wouldn’t leave the house in them though because they don’t hide nearly enough of my “secrets.” 😂 I feel like the reason that the Lululemon are so popular amongst the younger generation is because they are generally still toned and they look fine on them. My kudos to those that have lost all their weight and toned enough to wear the lululemon though they are really nice and I heard the same thing about their durability so if I could get away with them I for sure would. I can’t speak to the durability myself because I have not owned the lululemons for long. I’m guessing for a much higher price point there are nicer ones out there But for $30 bucks, i have been quite pleased with the Baleaf. Ooh and they are like $10 off near the holidays. I stocked up just before Christmas in the smaller sizes that I knew I would be needing.

The time has come in my journey where I have had a little weight gain - about 3lbs in 10 days. I know it is to be expected it is just a little frustrating! For reference, my typical day of eating includes some protein porridge for breakfast, a sandwich or a salad with some chicken/avocado for lunch, some soy marinated boiled eggs as a snack, and then for dinner is usually some form of meat for protein, some veg and some carbs (I'll eat the veg/protein first). I try to aim for 2.5L of water a day - usually manage anywhere from 1.5-2L if I am honest! I do drink tea & coffee, and I go to the gym 3-4 times a week, mostly doing a range of weight training, and also 20-30 mins of cardio: my go to cardio at the moment is on the treadmill, on a 12 incline, speed at 4.8-6 and walking for a set amount of time. ANYWAY - just feeling a little disheartened!!

"Melt off." I was hoping that was going to be me too. A little good news....I lost 1.5lbs since I wrote my original post! I was hoping to fit in a size 10 by the Holidays. Wishing, hoping, and praying.

I was self pay at a surgical center and had to go to a hospital 10 hours later for another surgery because of internal bleeding(nicked artery), needed several transfusions and spent 3 days in the hospital plus had to have more blood and iron transfusions after leaving that hospital. I’m now stuck with over $175,000 in hospitals bills and more still coming. BCBS is denying the claim because they don’t cover bariatric surgery or complications. The hospital billed it as complications of lap band instead of complications of gastric sleeve. I’m told it doesn’t matter because they won’t pay either but what if I want to appeal it, shouldn’t it be billed correctly?

I had my gastric sleeve in Turkey on 1/10/24 couldn’t believe have smooth it went, 2.5 weeks post op and not loosing anything this week 😕

Again, If what you're doing is working, then I don't see anything that needs changing. If you're in the range of 100-115 grams per day, then you're already eating what I'd call protein forward diet and about where I'd typically recommend for most people. Keep in mind what I mentioned, calories are king. You only lose weight when you eat fewer calories than you burn. Thus if you did want to add more protein, you'd have to do so at the expense of other nutrients. When eating as few calories as you are right now, dropping any more on carbs & fat could have negative effects on health. It's important to get sufficient essential fatty acids since your body can't make these (that's why there called "essential". Technically you can live without carbs since your body can manufacture glycogen from fats and protein, but the problem is that if you reduce these even further, you're going to also have to reduce your intake of fruits and veggies and these convey a lot of other benefits to you nutritionally. Here's what I'd ask your nutritionist about. The most up to date clinical practice guidelines from AACE/TOS/ASMBS/OMA/ASA say to focus on protein intake of 1.2g/kg of bodyweight. https://www.soard.org/article/S1550-7289(08)00163-9/fulltext I recognize that you are not from the USA, but I dare say these organizations have a significant level of money and experience going into these recommendations since obesity is rampant in the USA. For what it's worth, some recent data I saw showed that the USA does far more bariatric surgeries than any other country. In fact, it was roughly the same number of bariatric surgeries as the next 10 countries combined. An impressive but sad statistic. Protein is highly satiating compared to carbs & fats, plus protein takes longer to digest, meaning you'll be full longer. Being full longer equals less cravings and better dietary compliance. Protein has a small but meaningful effect on overall energy balance because on average, for every 100 calories of protein you eat, you burn about 20 calories just to digest it. This is way more than carbs or fats which range from 0 to 3 for fats and 5 or 10 for carbs depending of fiber content. This means the more protein you eat, the better your overall energy balance compared to eating the exact same calorie amount of other foods. Granted, this isn't a lot, but it all adds up. Higher levels of dietary protein help you preserve more muscle mass as you lose weight. (It helps prevent muscle catabolism which is a real risk when eating a very low calorie diet.) Because muscle is more metabolically active than fat, the more muscle mass you preserve as you lose weight, the more calories you'll burn, even at rest. Studies suggest anything above about 1.2g/kg (95% CI), is sufficient for most people to stave off catabolism, which is probably where the dietary guidelines linked above came from. You mentioned something about body recomposition, so I want to touch on that briefly. I LOVE the idea, but you need to understand it's extremely hard (bordering on impossible), to add muscle mass while on a very low calorie diet like you're eating right now. For most people, you actually need to be eating a significant surplus to add muscle mass, so I honestly wouldn't even try until you get closer to your goal weight. If you do decide to add mass, then yes, higher protein amounts than what you're eating now would be recommended (Roughly 2g - 2.5g per kg of bodyweight). This also would require a dedicated hypertrophy training plan though, and that's a bit out of scope for our discussion here. Best of luck.

Adding to the things that may not be accurate: BMI. BMI is an average that was reduced to a simple algorithm: BMI = weight (kg) / [height (m)]^2. In words: weight * (height * height). This calculation is intended to be a rough estimate to start with not the end all be all it has become. Such a calculation is closer to "correct" at the middle or average height and weight. Tall people skew to a lower BMI, short people skew to a higher BMI. The taller / shorter we are the more the BMI skews lower / higher. Body type also can skew higher or lower BMI. Not all of our bodies are built the same yet the BMI assumes they are. The more muscle we have the more the BMI doesn't work right. Body builders show the extreme of this effect. Arnold at his younger best would weigh in at a very high BMI. But us humans can build enough muscle to screw with our BMI. BMI is a rough starting place. Once you have the number, it doesn't really matter. How we feel, our health both physical and mental, how our eating and exercise are feeling. These are the real measures. Whew, done with BMI. But the post goes on. Then another part of this whole thing is Goal Weight. Simply, It may be wrong. If we're aiming for a certain BMI or BMI range the BMI discussion above should cause us to think. If it's a weight we were when we were young(er), our body has changed since then. If it's a weight our surgeon or medical team created it is another number intended as an idea that has been turned into a goal to measure us by. If it's based on those on-line calculators they give the average progress and result of someone with our demographics: We as individuals are not average. Goals are not written in stone. As a target to aim for when you start the process, it's fine. As you progress things change. Our bodies may tell us the original goal is unrealistic. If our body is happy and healthy at a different weight perhaps we should listen. The thing with goals, we are over the moon when we lose 10, 20, 50 pounds more than goal. Look how unconcerned we are about missing our goals by 10, 20, or 50 pounds. Why is missing goal by 10, 20, 50 pounds the other way so devestating? We misjudged our goals both ways. Ultimately, it's where our bodies that decided where to stop. If we have goals, we should continually evaluate them and change them as necessary. We have more information about our process now than we did when we started. More now than last week. Be honest. Be realistic. Good luck, Tek

I feel your pain! I have been lowering my dose from 150mg down by 50 each week to this week where i stopped taking it due to the same reasons you stated. I just can’t stand it now but i really do need it. It’s a struggle. I tried capulets to sprinkle but it’s the same as tablets. Asking dr for liquid later today but I’ve been totally off of it for 5 days and withdraw symptoms are as real as when i started taking it years ago. GB was on 10/31 and between this and the horrible air bubbles when i try to eat or drink anything that cause pain and make me never want to eat again, i am not a happy camper.