sasicas

I would guess it is just jealousy and insecurity. Is she heavy?

Before Pants-20 Shirts-1x-2x Shoes-8 Now Pants-8-10 Shirts-Medium Shoes-7-7 1/2

I am in my 20s but I can tell you that my cycles have gotten sooooo much heavier and I end up in a lot of pain since surgery. However mine are even shorter now.

What a wonderful update! You are such an inspiration to me, I so appreciate all the advice you have shared with us all!

You know, I LOVE this group! As crappy as it is that some of us have had some jerks for "friends" I am glad to know that we are not alone in this. I heard there would be sabotagers early on, never thought it would happen to me, then saw it through my own life. I remember sitting in group one day and one of my friends mentioned that her closest friend had done the same thing to her, now her and I are closer than ever because we know what it's like. Why do women have to be so catty?! It seems as through most people who deal with friendship issues are women. Why do women pit themselves against their friends?! I will admit, I thought a time or two that it would be nice to look normal and not be the big ol' fat friend. Never once did I speak those words though. I never made it a goal. I never wanted it to be a competition. I thought, sure, some of my friends (and my husband too) might follow suit and try to get healthy because they knew I would be there to encourage them, but never dreamed it would cause all out war and jealousy. Admittedly I wanted to be skinner than my husband, he knows this though. It wasn't set from jealousy, it was just that I wanted to look good for him and I wanted the traditional wife look of being skinnier than him. But we never made it a competition, I never got angry with him for being skinnier than me. UGH! Like it has been said, at least now we know our real friends but it sucks to know that something as silly as losing weight and getting healthy could destroy friendships.

My personal, no-medical-background opinion is you should be on the PPI, and you might have to switch them around some. I started on Prilosec (or maybe it was Prevacid) didn't work for me, I now take 2 Nexiums and 1 Zantac per day. No on the sprite either, trust me, you don't even want to try carbonation. I just tried it recently and remember I am 5 1/2 months out, and it was not a good feeling.

Ugh! Why do people have to be like that! It's as if some people just never got out of high school. Who cares how we lost weight, I just want people to be happy for us for being healthy and doing what we needed to do.

Thank you, I try to remember that she truly was not who I thought she was. It just kills me. I am not the sensitive type and it takes a lot to get to me, she is one of the only people to ever get to me and actually hurt me. I think a lot of what bothers me about how it went down is that I had shared my entire life with her, I confided in her, I felt I could trust her more than anyone, she knows things about me that no one else knows. Obviously my husband is the other person I trust but men don't always care to know things or have an interest in things that I needed to talk about. *sigh* Generally I am very cautious as to who I open up to and it bugs the snot out of me that she actually gained my trust, then showed her true colors, it makes me wonder how in the world she manipulated me in such a way as to make me think she was a real friend. I hope she never decides to go spreading my business to anyone.... Anyways, guess I needed to get that all out Thanks.

I tried and tried to eat and couldn't do it, the swelling got so bad that I could not physically get anything done. Even during my hospital stay for 12 days I could not even drink Water, they had to put a PICC line in, it was right around the 7 week mark that I was finally able to get mushy food in and they discharged me. the nausea stuck around for a week or so but I have been fine since then.

The person I considered my best friend bailed on me. She was supportive of the surgery until the week before, I had a moment of weakness and said I might back out, at that moment she no longer supported it. She had started doing everything she could to lose weight, and she was a lot smaller than me to begin with anyways, but it seemed like she couldn't stand the idea of not being the skinny friend. She came to the hospital the day of my surgery and that was the last time I saw her. She would talk to me like normal on the phone for the first few weeks but as I lost weight she just took off. I called her a few times over one weekend, she didn't answer, she didn't answer texts. She called once on Monday and I decided to wait and see if she would call again as I was not about to fight for a friendship when clearly she had begun distancing herself. She never called again. I reached out to her on facebook a few times trying to find out what was going on, she never responded. She has since moved and I am sure I will never hear from her again. I have another friend that was very unsupportive of me, he said over and over I could do it on my own. I rarely hear from him anymore and it's usually only when he's upset about something. He's not even someone I would consider a friend anymore. I have dealt with a lot of snarky comments too, some just joking, many are just low blows. You would think my "friends" would be happy for me to get healthy and fit but jealousy can be a very ugly thing and girls apparently don't like becoming the "fat" friend. Ugh! This surgery really has shown me who my real friends are.

YES! I felt so nauseous for so long. I have a few issues with my sleeve but my nausea turned out to be because I had increased swelling in my sleeve. They find in some people that for no known reason they just swell up more and it makes us nauseous. It alleviates between the 6 and 7th week from what my surgeons said. And that is what happened for me. Personally I would request a scope just to make sure there are no other issues so you don't end up in the hospital like I did. I did regret the surgery too, now I am so glad I did it and would do it again.

I'm not sure you can actually get used to them, you will be more than ready for food once you can have it. I did 2 weeks liquids before surgery and pretty much for 7 weeks after because I couldn't get much of anything down from complications. Even now 5 1/2 months later I will not eat jello, pudding, broth, or popsicles. YUCK!

Us women can be a little nuts sometimes Same goes for men though lol. Keep reminding her how beautiful she is and go work-out together For women, it's engrained in us to need to weigh less than our men. What woman wants to be bigger than her husband?! It's embarrassing, I know from experience. A huge goal of mine was the weigh less than my husband. I hit that goal months ago, then he had jaw surgery and did a liquid diet for 6 weeks and got down below me again. It played with my mind so much. I was so stinkin annoyed that he weighed less than me again. I busted my butt to get below him again and now that he can eat again and I am still losing I am 20 lbs less than him. And let me tell you, it makes me happy. Now he is working out all the time because he sees me working out and there is a part of me that wishes he would knock it off lol. It's not that I want him to be unhealthy, I just don't want him getting this super hot built body while I still look like a bunch of wrinkled skin. See I told you girls can be nuts

Awesome! Those NSVs are so much better than the scale victories. I remember how excited I was the day I realized I had collar bones again haha!

Just give it time. The worst thing we can do is compare ourselves to others. We all lose at different rates and those who start out at lower weights like yours I see from the ticker, tend to lose slower than those who start out heavier. There are so many things that come into play with weight loss from weight to age to medical conditions to genetics.

WOOHOOO!!!!

Now that is an awesome NSV!

You have lost a good amount of weight so congratulations! It is so normal for us to go through phases of not realizing just how much weight we have lost. Have you taken pictures? If you did, it is time to bust out those before pictures and compare them with now pictures. Trust me, you will be amazed! Are you doing measurements? If not, start those now too. I have found that I fail to see the changes in myself without pictures and measuring. It also takes the mind awhile to catch up to what our bodies have done. Again, totally normal. Many of us still see a fat person when in reality we have lots a ton of weight. With friends, not everyone is comfortable commenting on the changes, and sometimes, they just forget what we looked like. I had this exact situation the other night, a friend from Church sees me weekly, the changes have just grown on her and she had forgotten what I looked like pre-op, so I showed her a picture and her jaw dropped. She did not remember the fat me, only the normal me now. And with my husband, he forgets too how far my body has changed and every once in awhile, he sees me far off and it dawns on him how "skinny" I am now. Perseonally I would not go back to Protein shakes, but then again I have not drank them at all since surgery, my sleeve doesn't tolerate them so I do my best to get in enough protein through foods alone and my weight has come off fine. For exercise, just keep on working. The Jillian Michaels 30 Day Shred is a great workout too, just get some dvds to keep things fresh.

Sooo basically you are telling me I am screwed?! HAHA! I have the age in my favor but genetics, yeah, I'm screwed without surgery

From seeing the people at the WLS support group I go to, it seems that those with c-sections seem to be having the hardest time with their stomachs, I know it has caused mine to fold over. I was told by the surgeons before that sometimes those stomach muscles just seperate too much in pregnancy and don't always go back together. I have no idea how that works, but I would be shocked if my muscles were intact. I have back issues too which I was told has a lot to do with the muscle issues in my stomach, my back overcompensates for it. *sigh* Those size 8s, I never thought they would come either, but they did, I just won't wear them because it gives me the dreaded muffin top even if I wear my "suck-it-ins" as I call them Stupid fat gut. Just keep on working, you will be amazed at what your body will do over time

You are absolutely gorgeous!! Beautiful dress too!

Wow! You all look amazing! Here is mine, this was taken at 4 1/2 months out

I wish I knew the answer to this one. I have 8 lbs to go and my fat belly looks like it is here to stay. Yes it has shrunk dramatically but there is so much fat still in it, I so wish I just had the wrinkly skin there, I would be at my goal size without that stupid belly fat. Just the other night I was talking with a WLS friend, she has lost far more than me, she started out more and still weighs more than me, well her stomach is gone compared to mine, She had no idea mine was so bad until I pulled it up out of my pants (thankfully it hides well under jeans) and grabbed a handful to show her. She was shocked. I showed 2 non WLS overweight friends and their response was the same, they had no idea I had so much stinkin fat still there. Everyone thought that because I am only in my 20s that my skin, body, fat, would all just bounce back. HA! My mom said its a sign of a thyroid issue, though my labs still look fine, I have so many of hte symptoms and so have all the other women in our family, we end up with the symptoms years before the labs show it. Who knows if this is the case or not. I know for me, it hangs over my c-section scars so badly. It's flat out embarrassing to me and I spend way too much time trying to find clothes to hide it. I've given up though and have a consult with a plastic surgeon the end of this month.

My husbands comments lately have made me feel sexy. Just in the last few days he has really seen how much I have lost and is constantly making comments about how skinny I am. You should see the super tight clothes this man keeps picking out for me lol. It makes me feel sexy to know he enjoys showing me off