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Every now and then I get a PM asking me how I have lost so much weight so fast and what do I do for exercise. Let me tell you honestly I have lost a significant amount of weight just by simply doing things that I couldn't do for a very long time. Things that most people do daily. When I was 488lbs I could hardly stay on my feet for 10 minutes at a time without sever muscle cramps in the back of my legs. I couldn't even walk the grocery store with my Wife. I used to sit in the car and wait for her to do it and then I would get out and help her load the car. We would get home and carry the groceries into the house and I would have to sit and catch my breath, rest my legs before helping her put stuff away. It was no way for a 45 year old man to live. So to say I lost a lot of weight with no exercise is not completely accurate but the exercise I was getting is stuff that some folks may take for granted and I never will again. At my heaviest everything but sitting and lying down was a task. I was a home body as much as possible and even going out to a movie was a task. I even reached a sad point where taking a shower was a real chore but I did it every day because not taking one is just unacceptable not mention gross. So as my journey has progressed so has my physical activity but yet I am still having a problem getting in actual exercise and sometimes just a simple walk is hard to get in. Last week I committed to 10 hours of cardio and came up way short not even reaching half. This week same thing I committed to 10 hours of cardio and I didn't get the walk in yesterday. Today I am going and this time no excuses. Exercise needs to become a daily task just like taking a shower is a daily task.... So far my weight loss has not really started to slow down but I am starting to see the signs that it might. I figure as I am inching closer to goal it will only get more difficult/slow. My initial goal that I was shooting for was to weigh 220lbs. That would still put me into the obese BMI but I can accept 220. I am on track to hitting my goal of 250 for Christmas which I set last Christmas. Starting to wonder if 199 is possible. Excess skin is really becoming noticeable but there is not much I can do about that. Insurance is not going to cover plastic surgery. So you choose to live with the excess skin or be fat. I'll take the loose skin just as long as I don't start having problems. Anyway if you read this far then thank you. I hope your day is going well and that your scale is being friendly to you!

Wow! Has it really been that long since I blogged, March 2013! Yes it has been a while. For those of you who do not know me, my name is "Love" and yes I still love my lap band 3 years post op. I am at goal weight and a normal BMI and have successfully maintained that weight for 1 year now. The questions i still get asked are: 1. How much is in you band? ( I have no idea, I have not had a fill since January 2012) 2. How much can you eat? I eat about a cup to a cup to a half of food, Most meals consist of protein and veggies. I am one of those low carb eaters by choice because i still have issues with carbs. One I love them, two they get stuck, and three I lost weight better by eating on the low side. 3. What can you eat? Anything, yes I can eat most foods. The issues for me are, if I chose to eat a slice of pizza it will fill me up much quicker and I will be hunger much sooner. I do eat pizza and small burgers or sandwiches occasionally but it has to be the perfect storm. My band has to be cooperative and I have to be relaxed and take my time. Not the type of foods I eat out in a restaurant. When I eat out I usually eat off the appetizer menu or share with my hubby or friends. I am a cheap date! 4. If you had to do it all over again would you do the surgery again? That would be a big YES, lap band has given me back control over my life and my health. It is true you are what you eat, I eat healthy now and I feel great. 5. Don't you think you are too thin? NO, I am a normal BMI. You are suppose to see my collar bone and I am suppose to be able to feel and see my hip bones. Geez world it is really healthy to be thin. 6. Do you drink protein shakes or eat protein bars? Yes, I still supplement with protein bars and shakes. I do not drink or eat them daily but I always keep a good supply of them around. It took me lots pf trial and error to find protein supplements I like and that taste has changed over the past 3 years. I found the most difficulty finding a protein shake I could stomach the smell and taste of. I personally hated and still do the premixed drinks, too sweet for my taste. I ordered off a bariatric web site in the early days and used a lot of unflavored protein powders. Today, I like Pure Protein, Frosty Chocolate and Vanilla. They are my base and I add flavorings, fruit, peanut butter and ice. I never use milk to mix with unless I am supplementing them as a meal and need the calories. How did I learn to like the powders, it was necessary, I needed to eat between 90-100 gms of protein a day when I was weight training and this was the only way I could get in the necessary protein to build muscle and loss weight. You see I had plateaued for a very long time and still had 30-40 lbs to lose to reach goal. If you eat too little you will not lose weight and your body will stop losing. 7. How long did it take you to lose your weight and how much did you lose? It took me 2 years to reach goal and I lost 132 lbs. I like many of you thought I would have my weight off in a year, boy was I shocked and disappointed when that did not happen. I stalled really bad and stayed the same weight for about 6-7 months right before my 1 year date. 8. Do you exercise? Yes, exercise is key to losing and maintaining weight. These days I am not as aggressive and obsessive as i was when trying to melt off that 132 lbs but I still exercise.You have to really work to find out how your body burns calories and how many you need to maintain. Figuring all this out took me months to figure out. I used a fit bit, my fitness pal and a trainer to help me learn to use my body as a fat burning machine. Fat and muscle weigh the same, a pound is a pound and a pound of muscle does not weigh more than a pound of fat. Use this as your vision, a pound of jello is your fat and a pound of chicken is your muscle. The mass of the jello is greater than the chicken but still weighs the same. That is why when you are exercising and toning you look smaller and the scales my stall. I know silly but so true. Also when you are exercising to build muscle and tone you need to be in your target heart rate to maximize your burn of calories. Losing weight is really a delicate balance of everything and is so much more than just cutting back the calories. 9. Since it took you 2 years to lose the weight why could you not lose it on your own? Well I guess the answer to that is yes, I could have lost the weight on my own without my band but I never, never could have maintained it for a year without my band. I view my band as my safety net, my inner voice, my conscious so to speak. It keeps me focused and honest with my self. I was a closet eater, if no one saw me eat it, it did not count. Sound familiar to anyone? 10. Do you have a lot of excess skin? No, I am fortunate and do not have a lot of excess skin. Do I have a nice tight, firm body. No, I have the body of a 58 year old women who lost 132 lbs and I am very happy with how I look in and out of my cloths. And believe me it has taken me a while to get comfortable with those words. Would I like to have some nips and tucks, yes it would be nice but my WLS does not recommend, At my last visit in June we discussed cosmetic surgery and he informed me that the benefits did not out way the risks for me. My surgery would be completely cosmetic, I have no skin break down or health issues from excess skin. So I am happy with me and my Victoria Secret Boobs! lol 11. Do you consider you are on a diet and do you get tired of watching what you eat? No, I have adopted a healthy life style. Have you ever noticed what skinny people eat, they do enjoy desserts and they do enjoy high calorie foods but they enjoy them in moderation. Moderation and balance is the key to maintaining your weight, learning that your body uses food for fuel and if your intake is lower than your needed use you will gain. So keep moving if you feel the urge to eat. 12; Do you drink while eating? Sometimes but only sips. Fluids fill me up and if I drink while eating I get stuck and PB or slime and neither is pleasant. I do not drink high carbonated beverages, I do have a soda stream and I do drink low carbonated beverages that I make using half a pump of gas I drink these only occasionally when I want to treat myself. 13. Do you drink alcoholic beverages? Yes I do drink Alcohol. I have had several bad experiences with alcohol during this journey and had to learn the hard way that alcohol and weight loss do not mix for me. I always loved martinis but have had to learn that one is not enough and two is too many. So I drink my wine and have an occasional martini on special occasions and savior the entire glass. Remember alcohol is empty calories and has absolutely no nutritious value at all and no a fruity drink is not a substitute for one of your fruits. I do not drink beer, I have tried and for me it is too fizzy and makes my stomach hurt and causes a lot of bloating. 14. Final question, what do you do if you get hungry between meals? Silly question, but here it is. I eat! I try hard not to eat in between meals and to not give into boredom eating or head hungry. I believe in planned snacks. Boredom eating is one of issues that we all have and feel and the sooner you learn to accept and deal with them the better off you will be. We all need to Analyze why we eat and when we eat. i eat when bored and like to snack late at night. So I plan snacks and makes sure they are low in calories or if high in calories they are packed with protein. I do not keep sugary treats around, I keep dark chocolate, protein bars, nuts, peanut butter and bananas, apples and pop corn for snacks. I have to seriously watch the nuts and popcorn and not have them to readily accessible. So this is my life on maintenance, is weight loss easy, NO! Is is worth the effort, YES! Do I love my Band, YES! Would I do it again, YES! Everyone's experience with lap band is different, there are basic rules yes but the key for me was finding out how lap band was going to help me. I honestly do not think about my band these days, it is part of me and how I eat. Small plates and small portions are just how I eat these days. Funny, most of my family now eats off a salad plate these days, I have quilted them into my feelings on why America is fat. Portions... Portion Control and learning to put the fork DOWN and give it 20 minutes before you go back for seconds. I wish all my lap band friends and family success and never compare yourself to others or allow others to make you feel bad about your journey. Me than: Me today:

Good evening, On Yahoo I was just reading an article that said Tim Gunn thinks it is awful the way designers treat plus size women. Finally someone on our side. He said if he was on the 8th floor at Saks in NY he would jump through the window because the clothes are that bad. I am not in plus size any more but I totally understand what he is talking about. When I wore plus size I wore a lot of Ralph Lauren. The jeans fit the best and lasted forever. Maybe now the designers will listen because Tim has a lot clout!!

I am surprised at how well the first day of the diet went, The hardest part was Dinner when you could eat 3oz of protein. That made me hungry. But I prevailed. It didn't hurt that I registered 1 of my kids for High school & spent 5hrs over there trying to sort out a messed up schedule. I put 2 bottle of water in my bag & drank them slowly. I've had a bit of a headache but I think that is part of detoxing from Sugar & Caffeine. I did pretty good with water. Better than I thought. I just need to try to add 2 more bottles.The whole "dry meal" thing is rough on the water intake. I got 59 grams of Protein so I will take it. I need more but that's a good start. I am thinking why my Dr put his patients on a 2 week diet is to work the bugs out the best you can before hand. rather than after. its a lot of managing your time, & being accountable, I guess this is where all the other diets I have been on come into play. A learning experience. I think the second thoughts are all part of the process too. I have noticed I second guess when I want something not on my diet. I just do my best to remind myself, I have tried numerous things & crashed & burned. now it's time to succeed. move forward & just flat out do the best I can do. some days will be hard some I won't think twice about. this is just a fact of life. That's where this site comes into play. A place to vent with others that can relate. Good Luck to everyone no matter where you are on your Journey!

Source: Coloring hair Saving this for later.

Had a fantastic weekend but as usual my only wish was it didn't fly by so fast. I was in my friends wedding this weekend. Probably for the first time in many years I felt really good about myself. I felt I looked decent and I was confident. I am so thankful to my new best friend of 15 months (My band). It is truly amazing what proper fitting clothes can do for your psyche. Even standing outside decked out in a tux with it being 95 with a heat index of 105 I was quite content. 15 months ago I would not even have been able to stood long enough to be in this Wedding and finding an actual tux that would fit would've been a tremendous challenge. This first pic was taken with my IPhone which obviously has a dirty lens.

Hey everyone I am new I just created my account. I am 23 years old 5'8 293lbs. at my highest weight I was 315.6lbs and since then I can not get lower than 290lbs its so frustrating .. I feel like if I just look at food I put weight on. I have met a surgeon about 2 years ago, but sadly my insurance didn't cover the VGS and I was WAY TO SCARED to consider anything else. Finally my insurance covers the VGS I have been thinking about it again for a while, but never said anything and a friend contacted me via Facebook telling me that she was sleeved and telling me how happy she is. Come to find out we have the same insurance. I went to my primary yesterday and he gave me the green light to begin the process. I am meeting with his head nurse on Thursday to speak further about the procedure and starting paper work. I have so many mixed emotions, most of all I am excited ! Ideally I would like to have the procedure done March of 2014, that would give me six months to prepare myself. I look forward to getting to know you guys and hearing your amazing stories and soon being able to share mine !

Well, here i sit in what was to be my day of Lap Band surgery. But due to an insurance "mix-up" needing another test, I am back to pre-launch. I wonder if this is the way astronauts feel before a mission? Nervous, excited, aprehensive, and this feeling that somehow life would never be the same again for them. Miss their families, friends, pets. I wonder if they sit there and say ..."Boy, I am SURE going to miss eating regular food." Of COURSE not, I can guaranteee this. Anybody who can endure the battery of performance and fitness testing that THEY do cannot possibly be worried about FOOD. But I am,...kinda...no, definitely. Definitely worried. Definitely. Rainman worried. definitely. Food and I go back a long long way. It is my best friend and my worst enemy. It has been there with me thru lonely teenage nights when I was one of the "undesirables" who sat home on weekends with no date, but a can of Ravioli and a Heath bar filled the hole a little and numbed the pain. Temporarily. Until later that night when I lay in my bed and looked out the window into the dark sky thinking how many calories I could put on in just one sitting. And that God saw the WHOLE thing. And He was just as disgusted with me as I was with myself. So I laid there in the dark, crying, and listening to all the heart-break songs that Delilah had to offer. "I'm Not In Love" comes to mind most often, because it was then and there that I figured that I would NEVER be in love or be worth loving. At 12:30 I hunted for the Pringles can I had hidden under the bed. But i did fall in love, several times. It never stuck. And the young obese teen turned into the young obese woman who was still searching for love AND a teaching position right out of college. No jobs in my field, so my best friend and I decided we could search out of town. BIG MISTAKE. BIG. I found a job alright, 2 hours away from home in a little river town that rolled their sidewalks up at 5PM every night. And for a 21 year old single teacher (the only one in town it seems) life was pretty miserable. LONELY. Which made that hole in the center of my body grow bigger than a FLorida sinkhole. And GUESS what I decided to do? I took up Culinary Cooking. Julia Child, Justin Wilson,Paul Purdomme. I began collecting cookbooks and recipes. And cooking. ANd eating. Me and my little Huggy Bear, the happiest little chub of a cockapoo you ever saw. My friends were happy (wait, make that friend- jenny, who was painfully thin and resembled her pet parakeet that she brought everywhere with her. Including my dinners). I had plenty of left-overs, but not for long. ANd the sweet country cooks in the kitchen at the school just LOVED me because i was the only one who bragged and bragged on their cooking. Daily. ANd it was soooo good. Not the stuff kids get slung on their plates usually. But homemade chicken pot pie, brocolli casserole, real sweet potatoes with some delctable nutty crunch topping, and PIE. YES!! seriously, they made pies and cakes for the kids and the teachers every day. Used real butter too. LOADS of it. I think one day I saw the dairy truck back up with a "BEEP BEEP BEEP" and a ramp slid out with crate after crate of one pound blocks of butter by the dozens. And to complete the picture for you, at th end of my work day, I could always count on Mawmaw Jane to be waiting with a sack of "just a little something to keep you from having to cook for just one, honey." Leftovers of the day. but 2 servings of pie. That woman is still in my will I think. Better check. I carried extra weight until some neighbor had mercy on me and told me about a diet she had been on and she looked wonderful. She was eating and still losing. And even though she had 4 kids and was married, she befriended me and made me her project. And got me SO involved in projects around town, one of which I loved and still do to this day. Acting in community theeater and singing. Yes, under this fat is the soul of Patsy Cline. I dont know how she managed it, but maybe on one of those lonely night I spent crying myself to sleep, she crawled right into my soul and vocal chords and when I sang it sounded so much like her that i soon became a hit in this one-horse, no stoplight little town. AND then the neighboring towns, and then a big town heard about the "fat girl with the pretty face that can sing her behind off" and I wasnt lonely at night anymore. And I felt loved and needed, and I began to LOSE WEIGHT!! that lasted from 1982, married my blind date in '85, and continued to be active and still cook and sing and act. BUt then.... Then one morning I couldnt get out of bed. The pain that seized my back was so intense it took my breath away. I yelled for my husband who was getting ready to leave for work and he carried me to the car and put me in and i bellowed and cried in pain all the way. Tests and xrays later revealed I had two deteriorated discs in my lower spine and something called Spondylolythesis. I began epidurals for pain, but surgery was out of the question. I just needed to exercise and protect my back. Guess which one I decided to do and forget the other. Yep, the old Yaya reared her ugly fat head and soon i was "protecting my back" by being inactive and eating as much as I had before, for "comfort". And soon I had gained back over half of the 133 pounds I had lost before. Now add another 20 since my mom died 2 years ago. The hole was back with a vengence. I was desperate to find something to help me control this ravenous "hunger" (appetite)and it seemed NOTHING could fill this hole. Which grew with several miscarriages, 2 botched adoptions, and my dear husband who closed the door to any more heartbreak where kids were concerned. Not even foreign adoption. Bigger hole, more weight. I was, and am still as I write this, miserably sad with my life and situation. But blissfully hopefully for tomorrow, when I heard about Lap Banding. I think lifes going to change for Yaya.

I have managed to move up my surgery date. My original date was Oct 7. My new date is Sept 24. I am so excited about the fact that I will be sleeved sooner that I expected. I talked to the nurse at the office and asked if I had to go on a liquid diet two weeks ahead of time and was told no. I only have to do liquids the day before surgery. I go see the surgeon on Sept 10 to sign the consents and get the surgery pre-op labs as well as the surgery explained. I am happy to move the surgery date.

Lately, I’ve been thinking about judgments & why people feel compelled to judge others. People post a lot here about feeling judged by friends and family members for deciding to have surgery, or feeling judged by skinny people for being fat in the first place. Personally, I have been fortunate that not one single negative word has been said to me with regards to having surgery. My family and friends have all been very supportive. Intellectually, I know I am (or have been) judged negatively by other people for my weight, but I honestly don’t usually notice those judgments. If I do happen to notice or feel judged by somebody, I don’t generally internalize the judgment and allow it to continue to affect me. But it seems to me that there is also a fair amount of judgment happening among members of the WLS community. Sometimes it’s subtle and sometimes it quite overt, but it’s all judgmental bulls**t that says more about the person making the judgment than it does about the person being judged. Here are just a few judgments I have observed being made here and elsewhere among members of the WLS community. Some of these judgments have been directed at me, some I’ve observed in others, and one or two I am guilty of making. Everyone who needs/wants WLS has a food addiction or depression or very low self-esteem. If you say you don’t, then you are either lying or in denial. People who go to Mexico for surgery are less prepared mentally and emotionally than those who have surgery in the US. My surgeon does things the “right” way. If your surgeon tells you something different, he/she is wrong and I am justified in telling you to ignore your surgeon’s instructions. People who slip up on the preop diet are not ready for surgery and will likely fail. People who do not follow instructions to the letter in the first couple of months post-op are not committed to the process and will likely fail. People who do not commit wholeheartedly to an exercise plan postop are not committed to the process and will likely fail. People who drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, or smoke weed postop are not committed to the process and will likely fail. People who come here posting questions without first searching for the answer are dumb or lazy. People who credit their faith with helping them get through this process are annoying and should not talk about their faith in relation to WLS. People who are atheist or agnostic are missing the most important part of life and should be pitied. People who have plastics after WLS are vain. People who struggle to put their own needs ahead of others aren't trying hard enough or valuing themselves enough. I’m sure other folks can think of more, and there is also a whole raft of judgments that we frequently make against ourselves. The point is that none of these judgments are true and none of these judgments are supportive or helpful in any way. We all have our own path to travel, and I believe we each generally do the best we can at any given time. At various times, my “best” will be better than some and not nearly as good as others, and that’s true for everybody. I don’t know if judging others is a way to feel better about ourselves, or just a bad habit we fall into, but it certainly does seem to come naturally to us. In my opinion, reaching out for support is a healthy, intelligent, and wise thing to do. Let’s try to respect the courage it takes to be here, and check our judgments at the door.