Rootman

6 foot. Funny you should ask, one lady yesterday INSISTED that I was at least 6'2" tall because her ex husband was that tall (wonder why he's an ex? - but I digress ). For some reason this is a common misconception from others I meet both males and female, I don't know why. I even had them measure me in my stocking feet at my last Dr appointment a few months ago, it came out at 5' 11.5" in the late afternoon, close enough to call it 6 foot even in my book, I should be a tad taller in the morning and hope to maybe rebound a bit more as I lose more weight, I WAS 6'2" DECADES ago and have since lost it, due to compression of my spine, hips, knees and arches. According to every BMI chart I've seen I should weigh between 160 and 190, I chose 180 as a "goal" just to be within those bounds. There are some BMI charts out there that have a "big boned" setting that increases the range but I have never considered myself "big boned" in fact when I was last skinny in my 20's (I'm now 50) I was rather light framed and almost effeminate with low muscle mass. Pretty sissy looking anyways.

GO SOMEWHERE AND DO SOMETHING other than just go out to eat or throw a party. Make it an EVENT rather than a meal. If you do go out and have a life partner see if they are willing to share an entree between you as a meal. And Happy birthday! Congrats on the weight loss.

I think I would tend to go with the folks suggesting the acid, I had the same problem and got a RX for omeprazole too which is the same as Prilosec but twice the dosage and costs me less with my RX insurance coverage. Try and stay away from traditional ant-acids like Tums, too much Calcium carbonate and not enough Water can lead to kidney stones. I found that I still got a little twinge mid morning and the doc suggested what pregnant women do when they get an upset tummy, white crackers. I eat two and feel fine till the next meal. A lot of my problem is stress, I was on vacation last week and hardly had to eat any crackers, back to work today and I have eaten 3 already this morning.

I started out at 375 pounds, 375 MINUS 65% is 243.75 according to my MS Windows calculator. I weighed in at 242 this morning so I am under the 243.75 figure.

Be careful taking Tums - calcium carbonate - if you are not drinking enough water and are not active enough it can lead to kidney stones, very painful!

Congrats! Feels even better to go from the XL to an L size too! You'll be there before you know it.

Arf! that's funny, just think how many beers you can drink without getting up! Remember though you DO have to empty the collection bag eventually and it DOES create a hell of a mess if it spills or breaks.

A lot can happen in 24 hours, wait and let the surgeon make the call. I am sure that you won't be put at the back of the schedule, they have to make some consideration for emergencies and issues that pop up. We all wish you well.

Yes you can, the big problem is that they contain only 1 gram of Protein PER TABLET, so if the bottle has 100 tablets in it for say $10 that's $.10 per gram, so to get like 50 grams of protein would require 50 tablets at a cost of $5.00 - not very cost effective and a LOT of pills to pop. Here's an example of some online: http://www.google.co...ved=0CEgQ8wIwAA There are liquid Protein shots you can buy that contain 29 grams of protein in less than 3ozs of sweet liquid, they have a nasty sweet taste that is hard to take at first. One you can chug them in 2 or 3 swigs they are more tolerable.

They seem to be accurate. Pretty good reading. Pictures of 300 calories: http://nutrition.about.com/od/changeyourdiet/ig/Food-Photos---300-Calories/ A general How To Lose Weight Article: http://exercise.about.com/cs/weightloss/a/howtoloseweight.htm Burning fat: http://exercise.about.com/od/weightloss/a/burningfat.htm

Yes, what Sarsar said, everyone's different. My pain was VERY mild but I had a lot of nausea and general malaise. It took a few weeks to pass but I felt pretty good after that.

When I had bloody urine it ended up being kidney stones. They are typically accompanied with pain either in the kidney area or frontal area in front of the kidney area. Since you didn't mention pain this might not be the case. They are caused by insufficient Water intake and perhaps too much Calcium carbonate intake. If you take calcium carbonate like Tums you should not be, take calcium citrate instead. More than likely it's a UTI like the others say. See the doc. You can help prevent UTI's by drinking acidic juice like cranberry or a supplement called EmergenC which contains a lot of vit. C - ascorbic acid.

I weighed myself one the third day after surgery and pretty much daily from that time forward till just a few weeks ago when I broke past 250 pounds. At this point I weigh weekly on Sunday mornings. You probably shouldn't do this as you can get very discouraged during stalls and weight gains. I know I did. Now I just have a real sense of accomplishment and feel and look really good and consider myself in the home stretch and am not as concerned.

Man, I was terrified for years that this would happen to me. I was 375 lbs with a 52" waist and could barely cram my enormous a$$ into one of those seats, surprisingly I could get the belt buckled - just. One guy from our company was forced to buy 2 seats and guess what? He DIDN'T get them in the end, they charged him for them and was given only ONE seat, they "resold" the other one or simply didn't have it to offer to begin with. He was furious. They would not give in and give him both seats and would not later give him a refund of the extra seat. I can sort of see their point, the charge was for the MASS which was basically as much as TWO adult men but dang it, he bought 'em both and should of gotten 'em both.

I'm about 6 months out and STILL have these altered tastes. Things I used to love I now can't stand, and things I never really liked I now do, thankfully they are mostly things that are good for me. Some things I like now are just variants of previous tastes, I used to love milk chocolate, a Hershey bar with almonds was the best pre-op, I tasted a Hersheys kiss a while back and thought it was nasty sweet. However I now like DARK chocolate which I used to hate, I love the bitter sweet taste now.

@MNBSleeve, I understad that part of the process. I used a few Base Metabolic Rate ( MBR ) calculators to set a goal, or limit I should say, of calories for a daily limit at about 1760 calories, which is for a 50 year old male at 180 pounds would need just to stay alive. This is nothing more than an artificial limit I've set. I will HAVE to exceed this once I reach goal and have to find a level that I need to reach in order not to lose or gain any more weight. I realize too that at goal weight I will HAVE to replace the calories I burn if it makes me drop below the MBR rate plus the caloric needs of the days activities or again I will continue to lose weight. As of now I rarely exceed 1000 calories a day, at close to 6 months post op I just can't seem to get in any more calories in my tummy in a day. I guess It's OK for now because I still am burning fat and losing weight. I really concentrate on Protein as I will need this to maintain the lean muscle mass I am hopefully gaining. I was just worried about consistently burning off not only the BMR+Daily activities caloric needs but a few hundred more several days a week, running as I said a negative caloric total. I just didn't want to end up hurting myself for some stupid reason I didn't understand.

Congrats!

Good idear! I was actually thinking of about the same thing although I was thinking of a mug warmer - bet they're the same thing, probably only the labels are different

I'm closing in on 120 pounds lost, while I am a far cry from reaching my goal I find that I am finally seeing myself as a slender person. I was a bit different before as I REALIZED I was fat but had a mental picture of myself as being thin, now the physical reality is catching up. People I used to admire as being thin suddenly seem to have a lot more paunch then I used to remember them having. I used to glance at them and say to myself "If only I was that thin", now that I am quite possibly thinner than they are (I carry my weight amazingly well, always had) they seem so much larger. My mind is a funny thing.

Well I am afraid that I consider the swallowing air and swallowing the gum theories to utter BS. Yes, you can swallow some air and you typically just burp it back up, you swallow a lot more saliva though. If you are that clumsy that you will swallow it then stay away, it's probably harmless but doesn't help either, you'll just poop it out in a few days.

I too had edema every night for the last several years. My feet and ankles would swell to the point that the skin got shiny because it was stretched so tightly. I started to wear compression hose which helped a lot but I would still get swelling after taking them off, the hose would get uncomfortable after a hard days work. It was that way for a few months post op till I lost about 100 pounds then started to subside. Now I only notice a moderate amount of swelling after a hard days work, nothing like what it used to be.

Well, I've seen just the one guy and like I said he was from Asia and I know they have a different view of social mores. I've seen more than one accidentally drop his drawers and pants by unfastening his belt and opening his pants and losing his grip. One guy peed all over himself, the urinal and the wall and his (unfortunately) light colored pants by accidentally dropping his pants and panicking and trying to catch them. I've even seen a few that insist on pulling their pants down over their rear and holding them up by spreading their legs and keeping them up on their thighs. To each his own but I just wish they'd keep to their own space and not intrude into mine. It's almost as bad as "peekers" who lean over to take a look - SICK!

I have a gaol of 195 pounds and have already lost 130 of those and my weight keeps dropping. I lose about 4 pounds a week since I lost my first hundred. Since then I've increased my caloric intake a bit as I can eat more now. I would also say that if you could do it depends on your initials weight too, if you weight 300 pounds and want to lose 200 it would be quite difficult to lose that last 100 or so pounds. If you weigh 500 then 200 pounds of loss should be a snap. As you lose weight the amount of food you need to support your body weight ( base metabolic rate, BMR ) lowers, you NEED less and less calories just to stay alive.

Yep, the coconut and celery are the only things that I've heard, it's not that they won't digest in the stomach - it never does - it is insoluble Fiber, it can just get physically balled up and can create a bezoar ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bezoar ) in the stomach, which is basically like a hairball, a lump of stuck together insoluble fiber that can create a blockage and create a lot of pain and digestive problems. The chewing gum and soda stuff is all BS too, I would suppose that if you were constantly swigging pop and chewing multiple packs of gum it MIGHT cause issues but as they say, everything in moderation.

I was out 4 days - took vacation - and this was not nearly enough, I was miserable for the first month. Take 2 if not 3 weeks off if you can manage it.