Hello everyone,

I just wanted to first say Hi, I have been Lurking here for a month now gaining a little knowledge here and there. I was turned on to affordable wls by a miracle. I have been to some seminars and battled both blue cross blue sheild and cigna. Both businesses I have worked for put wls exempt. So I am paying out of pocket. Being so, I am willing to put my life on the line in the care of GOD.

I am a USCG captain. I run a big Crewboat in the gulf of Mexico. I weigh an average of 315 year round. I get hounded everytime I turn in a piece of paperwork on sleep apnea and my weight countering my physical ability to do my job. In the past 2 years I have spent over 3500 bucks on just sleep apnea tests not to account for all the travel time to get sign offs on agility tests. I do have thyroid issues which is controlled and has been for 4 years now. It was discovered by a dietician so I now on 175mcg of T4 synthroid ED.

Go YOU!!!!!! :-)

Way to go

Way to go! That's awesome.

Its official

skinny bastard

woohoooo! *high five*

LoL that funny my trainee captain said "Feed that guy a sandwich!!!"

Thanks for the high five

Hello Capt Derel' date=' I am very familiar with the creatine. The one thing I would watch at your stage is the carb and calorie intake. It is very hard to balance the weight loss and the muscle building together at your stage. As you know the creatine will make you retain water in your muscles which is a good thing. The bad thing as you know you need to increase your carbs and calories for your workouts to build up. This makes it REAL HARD to lose weight at the rate you need to be losing it at this stage and trust me, you want to lose the max weight your first 6 months because it gets ALOT HARDER after that. I lost 120 lbs. and reached my goal 9.5 months out, I was 1 year out about 3 days ago. The majority of my weight loss was in the first 4 months.

I worked out with cardio and strength training from the time I was 6 weeks from surgery and still go to the gym every day. I had to choose to lose the weight while I could or build up during those first few months. I choose to lose the weight, do moderate weight lifting and build a cusion for the weight I am adding on with more and more muscle. I concentrated on muscle toning for the first year to reduce loose skin and it worked. I am now in the muscle building process. I really carb up before workouts and have protein before and after my workouts. I have just started on the creatine which as you know does wonders.

I am just mentioning this to you so you do not lose the very important first 4 months of the weight loss process. You can still tone and lift weights just watch the supplements and carb and calorie intake while doing it. I went over all of this with my NUT and personal trainer which also is a registered dietician. You can do what you wanr with the information but once those first few months are gone, you cannot get them back and trust me, it does get harder and much slower to lose the weight after that.

Good luck on your journey.[/quote']

Thank you so much on the info about the 1st 4 months, 6 months. I had heard to try real hard to get the weight off in a year. Now I will continue to work on my aerobic exercise, I will force myself to increase it, all I am doing is walking but I am only 3 weeks post op. thanks again for posting your experience.

Well done!

I hopped on the scale this morning and it was 100.2 kg. I figured I am one decent BM away from two figure kgs!

Well done!

I hopped on the scale this morning and it was 100.2 kg. I figured I am one decent BM away from two figure kgs!

Would that be a metric "under-hundred"? That sounds like an Olympic event.

Way to go!!

Would that be a metric "under-hundred"? That sounds like an Olympic event.

Yes, my own down under onederland!

Today is exactly 9 months since I have been gutted. I am now at 190lbs. No problems still besides certain foods are hit and miss. Sometimes they are fine and sometimes they just dont agree. Did my first pull up of my life. Still losing slowly but everybody knows the lower in bf% you get the slower it goes. But 8lbs in alittle over a month isnt to bad I think. My parents and alot of people are telling me to stop losing but I have a personal goal of 180lbs. I am starting to fit into a medium shirt and size 32 pants. Not to bad from xxxl and 42.

All in all its the best thing that I have ever done for myself.

Way to go Captain. You've done great.

Awesome!!!