Just looking for your experience/perspective.

After maintaining your weight, do you feel like a WLS patient years out? Has Anything besides the fear of gaining and keeping weight maintained come to your attention?

Yes. But it is a great excuse to not eat so much when I go out.

At 2.5 years post-op, I'm less focused on the surgery part but still as focused on the food choices and exercise.

It is an intriguing question. A few years after the massive weight loss, when the steady flow of comments and questions has diminished, the surgery part of this process fades away.

I worry about losing my edge in staying on top of following the rules as time passes. I want to remain aware of all that I've been through as a WLS patient to help keep me on track.

Note to self: you will always be a WLS patient.

what he said.

Yes, I do, two years out I' m still dealing with my weight and weight loss issues. I still measure and weigh my food. I also weigh myself daily. In doing so I have kept 100 pounds off for the last year. As part of my weight loss I will see a nurse and nutritionist yearly for the rest of my life.

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No I do not. I no longer weigh myself, count calories, or see a "nutritionist". I no longer equate my worth with my weight or consider weight gain a health risk. I decided life is too short to stay on a diet and they never worked well for me anyway.

I've embraced mindful eating, food allowance, body positivity, and focus on spreading this message of body love out to others. I stay active and enjoy fitness but I do not care to eat by any other persons rules but my own. My weight is secondary to my overall happiness. Being fat isn't a crime and there was nothing wrong with me to begin with other than poor self care and a lack of self love.

As for my weight, I'm not sure what it is but my size hasn't changed in over a year now.

I'll be three years out in July and I still think of myself as a weight loss surgery patient. I probably always will. I count calories still and weight myself daily as well as take all the necessary supplements. The excitement is long gone however,so now it's just a routine.

I’ll be 9 years this year and just finally realized that I don’t consider myself a WLS patient. I eat like a normal person. I live like a normal person. I’m only reminded when I see my annual labs.

I don’t think of myself as obese anymore.... just a tiny fluffy. I do shop religiously... work out 2x. Hard per week. Cook home 90% try to drink all my water. Good gig for 11 years, yet fat head entered an her I am with 15 extra unwelcome lbs. oh well
Nothing in life is perfect

A little bit of what each person has said for me - I have not seen my surgical team into and a half years I don’t identify as a patient - I am a person who needs to be aware of what I consume and how much energy I am spending - I was overweight for half my life yeah it’s a thing I imagine and always Wellby - it impacts how I approach food exercise and health. Like each of you I am so much more than my weight - I am an instructor, a author, a therapist, daughter, a mother a wife and with regular frequency I am even a lover. There is a great Ted talk called the danger of a solo story. We are all here because of WLS but we are complex vibrant persons Who have fought and fought hard to live life fully

2 hours ago, Stella S said:

have fought and fought hard to live life fully

@jenn1 @Stella S @Julie norton @CowgirlJaneand yours truly @proudgrammy

look at us, a bevy of beauties reminiscing from where we came

it's amazing how far each and everyone of us have come

julie and her successful lapband take the blue ribbon at 11 years PO

here come jane & kathy - neck in neck at 6 years

look at Stella run after 3 years

jen coming up the rear approaching 2 years- getting an honorable mention

look at all us go!!! we're aces!! all of us crossing the finish line

wait, wait - there is more to follow - MAINTENANCE here we are!

we all look as good as we feel, health and happiness are all they are

cracked up to be. NOT all problems are fixed with weight loss/GOAL - but

it sure helps facing life with "less" of us!!

kathy

ps any other VETS that see this, please hop aboard!

I will identify myself and tell my story if I feel it may be of service to someone else. I have been in circles where the topic comes up. As I am sure many of use has experienced, there is a lot of misinformation out there. I am more than happy to straighten them out! HA!

But also when I am around someone who I know is struggling with their weight, I may casually mention something like, "Oh, I started [fill in the blank] ever since I had WLS", and I leave it right there. If they want to inquire about it more, I am happy to share my experience, but otherwise, I drop it as I know for myself, I would have been pissed if someone told me I needed WLS.

Now, on a personal basis, yes, I still identify myself as being a WLS patient. It is hard not to when I am at a wedding reception buffet. There are 10 great things that I would love to sample, but I know I have limited real estate in there. It's like, "Oh, man, that thai meatball was incredible ... I'd love to have just one more", but I know I can't if I also want to sample other things. I don't regret having WLS, but it is hard not to ignore the reality. I'm glad I have the sleeve as if I didn't, I would be eating large quantities of everything. WLS helps me be mindful and I don't want to forget that.

6 hours ago, PdxMan said:

WLS helps me be mindful and I don't want to forget that.

Aint it the truth!!

nice to see you, it's been awhile

@PdxMan be well - continued health, happiness and success!!

Today, tomorrow, and always, i will consider myself a happy sleeved

grammy!

Kathy

I think the answer to this will be "sometimes". after a few years with a lap band things were comfortable and i didn't much think about it. When things started going bad, i was reminded of it every meal every day.

I imagine with bypass, things will settle into normal routine and i will think less and less about it.

During the losing phase, and even the early maintenance months it is a constant preoccupation with the scale and your body. For me, anyway, it consumed a lot of time. Daily board visits, chats with other bariatric patients, daily weighing. As time goes on, daily weighing becomes weekly, which becomes whenever I remember to or am curious to see. Board visits have already dropped from daily to weekly and sometimes monthly as other things occupy my mental headspace.

I tend to spend more time on facebook these days so interact quite a bit with others there. but let's face it. 30 posts a day bemoaning a 3rd week stall or complaining about "only" losing 30 lbs in a month becomes exhausting after a while...so i find myself posting less and less, been hanging more in the plastics groups lately but that will wane too...eventually I'm sure I'll be drawn back to the community groups I hung out with pre-op where people occupy themselves complaining about neighborhood dog poop instead of weight loss stalls or post plastics swelling.

This time around though, I doubt I will disconnect completely. I have made bariatric friends I still check in with and will be quick to return for support if I need it.

Yes I do and probably always will. At 4 years out I still say "i'm a bariatric patient".

Sadly, I had some regain and had to fight my way back from that and have 7 lbs to go. HOWEVER, when I saw my surgeon last fall we talked about the fact that I still have very persistent GERD, and take a PPI twice a day. I've maxed out doses on 2 of them in the past.

As a FNP I'm very familiar with the risks of long term PPIs, so I'm STILL probably facing a revision. I see the surgeon again late July so I'm hopeful that maybe things will turn around before then...

Gosh, at 6 years out I forget I had WLS. I had put on 30 lbs by drinking Starbucks Frapps. I was so angry at my gain. I had been totally embarrassed to see my primary doctor and did not want to be weighed. I finally started eating Keto and I love it. My weigh is falling off again. So now I remind myself why I had WLS and eat the keto way.

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On 5/29/2018 at 10:57 PM, Ms skinniness said:

now I remind myself why I had WLS and eat the keto way.

@Ms skinniness

hi there

glad you are back!!

keto is working for you - great

coming to this board is good for

my health (and yours too)

keep up the great job

kathy