Leaderboard

FINALLY! Onederland! I can't remember the last time I didn't see a "2" as the first number on the scale. Seeing the "1" this weekend was just surreal. I think I must have stepped on and off the scale at least 10 times. What a motivator! I feel like I've accomplished the impossible and now ANYTHING is possible!! ~40 to go (I'd like to hit 50 just to have some wiggle room). For those who might be struggling after the first couple of months - Months 1-3 were EASY - weight just fell off. Month 4+, slowed A LOT (as in less than 8 a month) - Being able to eat pretty much anything I wanted without having an upset stomach didn't help. I was hoping to be under 200 by the end of December. Stalled (much of it my fault for choices I made, and simply my body catching up), got frustrated, felt sorry for myself, etc...and at times even wondered if it was possible or if I was just going to stop there with my weight loss. Booked a vacation and decided that I WOULD be under 200 before I left (next Sunday - nothing like cutting it close!). Got back on plan, made better choices, and quit feeling sorry for myself and WOO HOO - Major goal #1 accomplished. If you're struggling, hang in there, refocus, know you aren't alone in this journey and make up your mind that you CAN do this. NSV's this week - I didn't see the "OMG, PLEASE let this fat lady be seated ANYWHERE but beside ME on a plane" look. People actually look me in the eye rather than past me. Servers @ restaurants are concerned that the food they served me wasn't good because I didn't eat much. I got more work accomplished onsite because I didn't need a lunch break (quick protein bar and I was good to go). I could go to ANY store and buy some cheap clothes for vacation - Can't wait to rock that bathing suit coverup in Hawaii next week!

I'm sorry but when you're losing weight, your body is not hungry. You're losing weight because your body is using the energy and calories you take in and getting rid of what you don't need. Nine times out of ten, you are NOT actually hungry. It's head hunger. Weight loss surgery gives us all a chance to relearn our bodies and the difference between actual hunger and head hunger, between what our bodies need and what our brains crave. The truth is that our head does indeed play tricks on us, if we let it. We don't need 1000 calories to survive. It's not about calories, it's about energy, eating the food that actually fuels us, and knowing the difference. Now some of us don't actually get hungry but we deal with head hunger, which has nothing to do with nourishing our bodies. It's to fill the chemical need of our brains. That's the truth. Get the necessary protein. Get the fluids. Understand we need less "calories" than we think. Don't count calories. Count nutrients. Be victorious!!

I'm currently a 36B. I was a 36 D or DD before plastic surgery (well, that was after I rolled them up and stuffed them in my bra - I needed the extra space for the rolled-up numbers). I can't remember what I was before I lost the weight. Huge, though.

I went from a 54DDD to a 38C. That's a big loss for me... has been really strange to get used to...

Im feeling the same so many emotions at once my surgery is march 8 good luck on urs!

There’s really only one way to get rid of loose skin & that is to have it surgically removed. Your skin has been stretched out and it can’t stretch back. But in saying that there are factors, like age, general skin elasticity, how long you were at your highest weight, how much you weighed at your highest weight, etc. that may mean you don’t have as much loose skin. I have flabby, flappy upper arms but have decided not to have any surgery. I just keep my elbows close to my body. No waving my arms in the air like I don’t care - lol! I even got told I had lovely arms a couple of months ago 😂. You can dress around your arms too. I don’t wear strappy or strapless tops but that’s no bother. I love all the puffed sleeves about at the moment & off the shoulder tops are very flattering. You won’t feel the heat nearly as much either when you lose your weight so a sleeve won’t be as much as an issue. Good luck.

I love that they taste so good, it almost feels like cheating. LOL I recently had chunky PB & sugar free grape jelly on a 1/2 whole wheat pita, and I was in heaven. I was a huge PBJ fan before surgery. Maybe I shouldn't have done it because now I want to eat it everyday for lunch. If you had 2 Yasso bars, good for you. There are days when I say I am going to do it, but I am too full to try. No judgement here.

For me it was really basic. I had a painful knee that I had suffered with for 37 years and I wanted to get a knee replacement. They wouldn't do it at the weight I was then, so I took the plunge. I had my bariatric surgery in March 2019 and my knee was replaced in August 2020. It's SO GOOD being out of pain now!

I had got referred in March 2017. Did all the stuff, and had a date set for Dec 2017. I chickened out, rescheduled for March 2018, and chickened out (again) and rescheduled (again) for June 2018. Then yep, chickened out for the third time. Then one day that summer I was at a pool party sitting on the steps of the deck putting on sunscreen. I had trouble reaching my feet to put sunscreen on them cuz of my bulk. So i resorted to bending my knee and swinging my foot behind me to reach as I sat on the top step of the deck. I happened to look up as I was doing my thing and noticed some people around me looking at me with what I interpreted as pity (i dunno for sure if that is what they were thinking, but that is what *I* thought they were thinking, and that was enough). How I felt that very moment solidified my decision to finally go through with it for reals. That week I called the centre and rescheduled (again) for October 2018. I didn't chicken at that time, thank goodness. Zero regrets, and haven't looked back since.

Have you watched any of Dr. Weiner's videos on YouTube? He's a bariatric surgeon who has a lot of great videos, but he said something about head hunger in one of his videos (can't remember which one now) that really bugged me. He basically said that "stomach growling" hunger feeling is just head hunger, and I was like, "B.S.!" I am so thankful that my surgery has almost completely eliminated my hunger (so far... I know my hunger will probably return eventually). Before surgery, I felt like my stomach was a bottomless pit, and I could eat huge quantities of food and still be hungry. I tried waiting after I ate since we're always told it takes time for satiety to set in, and nope -- I would just keep getting hungrier. There were so many times that I didn't WANT to eat any more, but I was just so hungry. Sometimes I couldn't sleep because of hunger and I had to eat more just so I could sleep. And I am quite sure that this was real, physical hunger and not just in my head. My personal theory is that this is one of the factors that makes it more difficult for some people to lose or manage their weight. I truly believe that some people are just hungrier than others, or maybe we feel hunger more strongly -- kind of like a pain threshold. People who don't have that extreme hunger can't understand why it's not as easy as it sounds to "just eat less." Now, I will also admit to having head hunger -- eating out of boredom or habit, or because something looks delicious and I want to taste it, or I'm eating something so delicious that I want to keep eating more of it, or to treat myself to something I've been looking forward to eating -- and I still experience that sometimes. I still have times when I see something I want to eat really badly even though I know that I'm not hungry. But it is a heck of a lot easier to resist when I'm not actually, physically hungry.