M2G

Congratulations on the -50!! WOO HOO! And I have to say my first thought was that you got a different swim suit (in the same fabric)...then the more I looked I realized what everyone else did that all of the sudden you shrank and then the suit was too big! GREAT JOB!!!

The incredible shrinking woman! Woo hoo! Congrats!

WOW! 82lbs in 5 months? HOLY SMOKES! You are doing fantastic, and look amazing! Congratulations!

Definitely love this thread... 1. Feeling amazing (I have often said I didn't feel 'sick' before, but now I just FEEL amazing, so much energy and vitality!) 2. Wearing normal size clothing and not even stepping foot in Lane Bryant or in the "Plus Size, Woman's World" 3. Setting an example for my husband ...who decided to be sleeved as well, yeah! And setting an example for my two pre-teen daughters. The other day my oldest daughter said at the dinner table..."wow, the whole family has been eating so much better!" :clap2:

WOW! Amazing difference! Look at your lips and chin area, wow, they are beautifully defined now. Don't feel discouraged about only losing XXX since surgery, look how far you have come, be proud that a lot of that was BEFORE surgery, you are so much healthier now. I also get caught up in that feeling because I haven't lost XXX like someone else, but then I remind myself how far I've come and even though I have a long road to goal, eventually I will get there! Embrace your entire journey!

34F, oversewn to reinforce the staple line. I also have had zero complications. :thumb: <BR><BR>(My ticker says the rest!)

As I have often said, the Before/During/After photos were something I could not get enough of when I was learning, researching and contemplating the sleeve. Now I'm 7 months post-op and have lost -65lbs. I have declared myself a slow loser, but in all honesty it doesn't matter. I'm losing weight!!! How can anyone argue with that logic? I have only lost -10lbs since my 5 month post-op so that averages out to about -5lbs a month. I definitely *wish* it was more, but I am being patient and working my sleeve and I will continue to work towards goal. As for the sleeve, I truly have not regretted anything about my decision to sleeve. It has been the best decision I have made and the best thing I have ever done for myself. It is right up there with my wedding day, births of my children, HS and college graduation, and every other major milestone you can think of. I wouldn't change a minute of being sleeved as I love my life!!! The photo on the left was March 2010 and the photo on the right was actually at my 6 month post-op and I've lost about 5lbs since then, but it's still pretty accurate.

Hubby and are both sleeved and we do not experience true hunger ever! (I'm 7 months post-op and hubby is almost 3 months out.) I agree with Tiffy...food is still appealing and of course head-hunger. But the absence of true hunger is such a wonderful gift...love it. I know of several sleevers who still experience true hunger, so it's not a 100% guarantee that you will lose it. GOOD LUCK!

My standby items are ordering a chicken sandwich and either ask for no bun or toss the bun. I usually eat half and take half home, order a steak and veggie or salad. My hubby is sleeved and I thought we would share more often, but we tend to have different tastes when it comes to eating out. So we tend to split only about 50% of the time. The other times we just box up our meals and eat on them for a while. I like the Chicken Ensenda platter from Red Robin, you can order it with one chicken breast, and I usually only eat a few bites of the salad. Good stuff!

How exciting that your goal for the challenge is your GOAL GOAL. WOO HOO! I think Juliah, and Sleeve4me are also in the same boat. Course we all know Sleeve4me got to her goal...SO exciting!!!

Wonderful news! Congrats and I will be thinking of you on June 1st (you picked a great date, BTW, it's my 15 year wedding anniversary!)

I think I'm only a month behind you and still haven't hit -70lbs yet...so I understand what you mean about being slow. I am wearing 14's now too. But I am not focused on how long it takes, my body will do what it needs to do and we are losing and that is all that matters. I doubt that at 8 months I will have lost 80lbs so I think you are doing FANTASTIC!!!! Celebrate your success!!! :welldoneclap:

Wow, you are doing incredibly well! Congratulations! And I have to admit a teeny bit of jealousy that you still have not had one week where you didn't lose weight. I'm the opposite, can go weeks without dropping, then might lose 1 or 2lbs, then get stuck for a few more weeks. I'm used to it now but when it first started like that at 4 months out I was a little concerned. Everyone is different, and even though I *wish* I lost something every week it just isn't in the cards for me. But don't get me wrong, I am happy for you and cheering you on to goal. You are doing fantastic!!!:thumbs_up:

Congratulations on hitting the 50lb milestone!!! Woo hoo!

4 Mile mountain hike with 4 other moms, 11 kids and never once did I HUFF or PUFF going up, down, around big boulders, and crossing a small creek on large rocks. I was shocked at how easy it was. Felt like I've been hiking for years, lol! I LOVE MY SLEEVE!!!

WOO HOO!!!! 8 more to go and I will join you there!

WOW! The amazing disappearing woman...LOVE the new cut!

I have always been a 'big girl'...graduated from HS weighing about 175, which of course now, looking back, I would have given anything to stay in that weight range. I gained a lot my freshman year in college...most people talk about the "Freshman 15" and mine was more like the "Freshman 30" I had no idea how to cook a healthy meal, and of course didn't count calories or understand healthy eating. In my family food = love and my mom loved to cook, so much that she was a bit of a control freak in the kitchen. She would shoo us out and make a wonderful meal and never taught me how to cook. So I had zero skills when it came to cooking and even knew less about healthy cooking...I used to consider a bag of popcorn a meal. I met my hubby my Junior year in college and when you gain 15-20lbs a year it really starts to add up. At the time I didn't own a scale and would grow out of clothes and just go buy bigger sizes. Denial is a wonderful island to visit but a very bad place to make a home. I have no idea what I weighed when I met him, but was wearing about a size 18 on bottom. He accepted me as is, we graduated from college and for the first time in my life I started thinking about dieting. And so began what became an 17+ year battle of the bulge. I have done just about every diet in the book. WW (more than once) South Beach (more than once) Medifast (more than once) Hydroxycut Simple Calorie Counting Chiropractor Diet (was NO SUGAR and NO CARBS) Meridia (lost 5lbs in 3 months...whoopee!) Slim Fast Choices (was a weight loss center, used to have to pee on a ketosis stick...blech) Diabetic Exchange Diet Low Fat Low Carb (not necessarily Atkins plan, but similar) Magazine Diets (you know, lose -10lbs in 10 days!!!!) Met with Nutritionist for 1/week for 1 year Curves Diet 40-30-30 Fat Burning Nutrition Diet I would always *lose* weight, but it never stayed off for very long. I had tremendous success with my first go-round with Medifast. I did an ALL liquid diet, (remember Oprah and Optifast...yeah, that was me with Medifast) lost about -80lbs in a one year period that was 6 months of liquid, followed with 6 months of transition to liquid/reg. food and finally all reg. food. It was during that time that I met weekly with a nutritionist. I did somewhat well with keeping it off for about a year...bounced around with 15lbs that sort of crept back in the year following the Medifast success. Then got pregnant with DD #1. I gained 60lbs with my pregnancy. I will admit I caved in with my weakness for ice cream and had it just about every night during my pregnancy. Then I had my DD and lost -10lbs in the first 4 months. Oops. Maybe that wasn't all baby weight in there. DUH!!! Then got pregnant with DD#2 when first DD was 10 months old. That is what they tend to call a back-to-back pregnancy, and yes it is hard on your body (in case you were wondering.) With my second pregnancy, I realized that the weight wasn't going to fall off (duh!) and was more careful and only gained about 18lbs throughout the whole pregnancy (but was still playing with the 50+ lbs that never went away from the first pregnancy. Gave birth to a 9lb baby, so my net gain was 9lbs. SO I was def. more "aware" the second time around. When my kids were 3 and 21 months old (they are now 8 (almost 9) and 10!!!!) I joined Curves. I started out 3x a week and slowly worked my way up to 5x a week. And guess what? The weight STILL did not fall off my body. When I would combine the Curves with "dieting" weight would come off but exercise alone did not = weight loss (for me anyway.) Over the years I would talk to my PCP about bariatric surgery. About once a year at my annual physical I would bring it up (so would my hubby) and we were always pointed in a different direction. We actually took the many suggestions from our Dr. and tried it. And we would lose, fall off the 'wagon', and of course eventually regain. Finally in April of 2010, I just had a lightbulb moment when I came home and told my hubby I wanted surgery. He agreed 100% (although it took him much longer to decide he wanted it too) but he was 100% supportive of my decision. Together we called our insurance and listened to the options. I picked Band. And for about 3 or 4 months (I had a 6 month mandatory wait time) that is all I wanted. Then when he got on board with surgery for himself he begged me to research the sleeve. We had never heard of it but our insurance coordinator had mentioned that it was 'covered' on that first phone call. (I say covered b/c we are on a "high deductible plan" so we shell out $5K per year to hit our ded. and then pay 10% thereafter.) So I did the research, we settled on the sleeve and the rest is history! This wasn't something that I woke up one day and wanted to have. It was a culmination of many years of trying to control my weight on my own, and succeding temporarily and then failing. I had no co-morbidities, but in Nov. 2008 my mother was diagnosed with Diabetes (type II). And in 2007 my hubby was diagnosed with hypertension. I sort of felt like a ticking time bomb, and was maybe lucky due to my age (I'm 39 now) and the fact that I worked out regularly. Now I no longer fear what the future may bring in regards to my weight. I may still get sick or have issues or cancer or you-name-it, but I can do everything in my power to make sure it isn't due to my morbid obesity.

Well, I'm only 7 months, and I first noticed it around 3.5 months. It hasn't stopped yet. So I clicked 3-6 months for how long it lasted because there isn't a choice for STILL LOSING HAIR.

Dang girl, you were gorgeous before (truly truly) but now you are just stunning!!! You look like the younger sister of your before picture. I hear you so much on the frustration...it is hard to keep going when you work hard for an entire month and net a -2lb loss (or like you said even a gain!) it's hard to keep your head in the game when the scale doesn't tell you what you want to hear. But here we are 7 months later and still rocking our sleeves. Glad your "break" from here wasn't permanent, it's good to see you around.

Seems pretty common to be on a PPI after surgery...I was wondering if any of you took it before surgery? I guess hubby and I are lucky ones, we didn't have reflux/acid/GERD before surgery and we don't now. I'm 7 months post-op and he is closing in on 3 months post-op. I did ask my surgeon about it before surgery (thanks to this awesome forum, I realized it might be a reality for me) but he took the wait and see approach and so far nothing. Anyway, this just goes to answer the questions of people who are wondering why they aren't on one...I would say unless you are experiencing symptoms, just count yourself as lucky! If you do suspect that you are having symptoms def. talk to your surgeon or PCP to get it resolved.

Just a word of warning....I think when you click "chat" in the upper right hand corner, it auto dumps you into the the LAP BAND chat room. I went there the other night and had a pleasant chat with some bandsters until SarahS came in and kindly pointed me in the right direction. Once inside there you have to click on the tab to the right to be in "sleeve" chat. Nothing against bandsters, just couldn't figure out where all the sleevers were...lol.

Making progress! SN..............Starting Wt........Current.......Goal.......Lbs to Goal Mommy2Girls.....215.................208............197............11

I say buy something that you "normally" wouldn't treat yourself to because it seems to extravagant. So if you are eyeing a watch, or necklace, etc. I have bought new clothes as needed but am trying to show restraint because I know in another 50-60lbs whatever I buy now will end up in the donation bin. I haven't done any goal related rewards, but went for a pedicure with my mom last time she was in town and for my birthday, mother's day, etc. I always ask for gift cards to Ross, Kohl's, etc. So I've done my fair share of rewarding myself, just not necessarily calling it that. lol.

Okay the actual "comment" was really not that awful or harming, but it was just a reminder for me. A man who has children at the same school my girls go to was walking by a few weeks ago and I hadn't seen him for a while. Just out of the blue he says "wow, looks like you have lost a lot of weight" and I mumbled a thank you and ended the conversation. Most people would just consider this a compliment and move on. But the part that was a reminder to me, the slap in the face, that I took away from the comment was just the general fact that we cannot hide our obesity. I happen to know that this man is struggling with alcoholism right now, to the point that his wife asked him to move out and get treatment. I heard this from a 3rd party as I am not super close friends with this family. So his comment to ME, was akin to me walking by him and saying "looks like you been laying off the bottle!" Of course I would NEVER say that to anyone, even if I did know that they were struggling with a problem. So why do people feel the need to comment on our weight loss, our body shape, etc. It's all visible, no hiding, you can't mask obesity like you can with other addictions, behaviors, or problems. Most of the issues that people have in their lives can be behind closed doors, where obesity is just screaming from your body everywhere you go, everything you do, etc. I hope this makes sense.