I have enjoyed ready so many of the post regarding all of the successes. I got my surgery date today (Jan 4) and am reaching out to see if anyone could recommend something/anything that they think would aid in my success. It could be anything from an app to a food or a favorite clothing line.

Thanks in advance!

-N

HW/CW 287

Height 5'11

Female

Late 30's

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The best advice is to follow your surgeon's advice.

Thank you laceemouse. I will do that.

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So many things help. Here's one:

Get yourself a nice, small notebook and begin a numbered list of your goals and your reasons to want to lose weight. Do this in a notebook with pen, not in Word so that you can carry it around.

Write your reasons and goals in specific, narrow terms. For example, To wear a red dress slit hip-high, not To wear a dress with a slit. The more specific the item, the more items you'll have in your list. The more reasons and goals, the more incentive to stay with the program. Not only that, but as you go along and accomplish a goal, you'll check it off. Get it? The more items on the list, the more check marks you'll get. A girl can't have too many check marks.

Don't sit down and rack your brain for items. There's no rush. Write them as they occur to you. If you're reasonably healthy, you'll have an endless supply of goals, reasons and dreams to add.

Similar to WLSResources suggestion, my surgery is not until the 30th but I purchased a nice monthly planner notebook. I wanted something that I can use to mark my successes, meal plan, goal set, keep my notes in, journal, etc. I know there are apps and things that I have used to do that at times but I decided I wanted paper for this, because then no matter where I am I can pull it out and do things like get out my feelings or maybe view a previous meal plan to get back on track. I figure that this will be a year of a lot of changes and I would also like a record of it all

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Thanks guys. Great ideas!

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Sleeved 8/23/16 - HW 271.5 (4/16) SW 246.9 CW 205.1 From size 20-22 pants to size 14-12 right now. About 50 pounds to goal.

If you are not already using it, use My Fitness Pal and track every ounce of food and Water that goes into your body. It keeps you honest. I weigh myself daily. (Some people do weekly but I find daily keeps me honest.)

1. Make sure you have healthy options in the house so you never have to be looking around for a snack.
2. Try different kinds of Protein powders now in the small sample sizes to see which ones you like or don't like and start experimenting with shakes. Pre-surgery for three months I did a Protein shake every morning for Breakfast -- and worked on playing with flavors, fruit, coffee-house syrups, etc.
3. Start exercising - walk around the block, swim, join a gym. move your body and schedule time for it.
4. Plan rewards for various weight goals -- 25 pounds - new lipstick? 50 pounds - new dress?
5. Start a private pinterest board with fashions you want to try as you get thinner
6. Research thrift and consignment shops in your area - you are going to need them.
7. If you don't have a good scale, buy one. (I have a Withings, which sends my weight directly to My Fitness Pal.
8. Consider purchasing a fitness tracker. (I use a Garmin Vivosmart HR and love it. I think it's much better than the Fitbit models.)
9. Get your head in the right place - the surgery isn't going to solve any problem you may have with emotional eating - if that's part of your issue, get help now - work with a therapist or other counselor.
10. Get a good pair of sneakers. Start by walking a little more now. Park 15 spaces away from the grocery store this week. 25 spaces next week. It's all incremental.
11. Protein is your friend. Start counting your grams of protein. After surgery, your rules will likely be protein first, everything else after. I average 60-90 grams of protein a day and I eat about 800 calories a day now.
12. Oikos Triple Zero Greek Yogurt and Fairlife Skim Milk are your friends.

I'm at the point now where I can eat anything, even bread, but I don't. Sometimes I'll have half a slice of whole wheat toast. Barilla makes a high protein Pasta (yellow box) which is really good.

Once you get a surgery date, find a group here on BP to chat with that are all having surgery in the same month. Attend your hospital or clinic's support group meetings regularly.

Best of luck with finding the new you. I wish I had done this 15 years ago.

As soon as you can after the surgery, you should also try to have the habit to exercize again, even simply walking 20minutes a day!

That's how I began, and soon after I started biking and swimming again and it felt amazing, it also helps not to have too much excess skin and it made me feel pretty good (especially those long biking hikes)!

Also the first days/weeks, it's normal to feel a bit low, to feel disgusted by food, but don't give up, the weightloss and new habits will rise and little by little eating will feel good (even great) again.

Good luck with it all!!

Thanks everybody. I am setting out next week to get everything that I can think I will need for post surgery. I will be adding an agenda to my list. I like that idea and I can write goals in it.

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Since you liked the agenda idea, I will say I splurged a little on this, I have always loved Erin Condren planners but couldn't justify one and decided my Christmas present for me was a personalized monthly planner, there are a bunch of you tube videos on how to turn a planner into almost a scrapbook of sorts and I am looking forward to having fun with it as my encouragement to track my food, goals, etc.

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Congratulations on starting your journey! I would say outside of the medical advise of your surgeon/doctor, the most helpful thing I could offer would be to be prepared to do the difficult emotional work that comes with this journey. I wasn't necessarily prepared for the realization that the emotional issues driving me to overeat in the first place would re-emerge on my sleeve journey. I had to deal with those or I would only have been initially successful, but not successful in keeping the weight off long term.