Chimera

I've just had my one year post op check up appointment this morning and I feel very positive after receiving wonderful feedback from my provider. Although my losses have slowed dramatically these last two months, Adam told me that I am 100% successful and ahead of the curve in terms of my success with the surgery. My husband and I have really been focusing on getting more activity and my daily calories are in the range of 800-1200 a day - with protein first as always. I met with a trainer last week who has set up a program of simple strength training and cardio to help me get to my goal, which is a healthy BMI <25 - at 5'3" that is 140. Hubby, who also had a VSG two weeks prior to my own, is essentially at goal and is focused on building muscle. I am statistically right where Adam projected me to be (175) though the number has been back and forth between 175- 178 these past weeks. Just about all of my co-morbidities are resolved - though osteo-arthritis does not have a resolution but rather is managed, my pain and mobility is astronomically better than it used to be. Adam said that even if I do not lose another pound I am absolutely healthy - and that I have completely turned my health around from what it was 3 years ago. It feels great to know that I have made such great strides - finally, I am getting this monster under control. I showed him the alternate height/weight chart that factors in age and he said that absolutely as we get older it is fine if those numbers are a bit higher - it is still considered healthy. I have a tendency to rip myself to shreds and to look upon myself as a failure, a history of depression, anxiety, and disordered thinking can tend to do that and I had started to do the same thing with my weight loss progress, beating myself up mentally because I had not yet achieved my ultimate goal - feeling like a failure and forgetting to celebrate the magnificent successes I have achieved. Feeling down because of all of the excess skin, the terrible toll so many years of carrying so many excess lbs. does to one's body - feeling guilt that I had done this to myself, defeated. Feeling that I would never have ultimate success - it was a bit of a reboot to know that I am already a success in the eyes of this medical practitioner who was with me every step of the way with my surgery, the hematocrit levels that dropped to 19, the internal bleeding that followed, the multiple blood transfusions, the incisions that opened up at home when they finally let me return home from the hospital after a week - and sent me back to the ER. I was miserable for about 8 weeks after my surgery - it certainly took me a bit to recover. I feel wonderful now, and am close to goal. I need to cherish the journey and recognize the incredible positive changes that my family and I have made over the past few years. It certainly takes a bit of practice to treat oneself well - just like this ongoing physical metamorphosis, it is a process, and there is no finish line. I will get to that goal eventually

Indeed life is so much richer when your health is better!

Kristie how are you doing after your skin removal surgery? You look fantastic! I will need to have some repair work done as well with all of my excess skin, but I need to get to my goal and stabilize a bit. Did you go to Mexico for surgery or have it done in the states?

One of the most difficult aspects of this whole deal is dealing with our heads. I often wish I could have brain surgery along with the VSg - to remove the portion of my brain that is addicted to food Take a deep breath and keep on going - eat for nutrition, less for enjoyment, and learn to find enjoyment through other things - it is key to succeeding at this, and no it is not easy.

I think I will always have the freak outs with the scale - I have lots of practice over the years I need to remember that there is no finish line, and to just continue to work on all of the new, healthy habits my family has adopted - and nip those bad ones in the bud as they arise (hello devil hotdog buns from Memorial day cookout). We will get there eventually - look at how far we have all come!

I am in the same boat Lisa - I am 35 lbs. away and I have been really focusing on exercise since February. Mainly cardio stuff - I have decided to meet with a trainer to get a conditioning program set up. I am still eating the way I have since last September, its just slow as molasses right now. I keep thinking of the stats my surgeon mentions - 50% of the excess weight of in the first 6 months, the next 25% at the one year mark - and the last 25% to goal during the second year. I am close at 70%, we had surgery the same day

Started at 318 but am a shrimp at 5'3 - my BMI was in the high risk range for surgery. Still losing with about 35 lbs to go to my healthy BMI goal.

I posted this earlier in a thread on our May 2012 thread - not everyone pokes around in the monthly threads so I thought I would cross post here as well. I have never posted a pic - and have said that I would wait until I was at goal to post one, but bah what the hey - these photos of myself and my dear husband (who also had vsg two weeks before me) are from right before surgery (May 8, 2012 - DH) and May 21, 2013 for myself. We are feeling great and hubby is working hard on building muscle and fitness, and I am still losing and also upping the exercise. I still have about 25 lbs to go to get to the upper range of my goal at 140 - which is a healthy BMI. I used to wear a 3-5x on top, 2x pants - now I am wearing a size 8 (!) jeans - and range in size from 8-12 in tops...where I used to just buy the largest thing online and hope that it fit, now I have to try everything on an have become very particular about the way clothing fits Not great at adding images but here goes.

I hear you as well! This really is a process - I too could (and can) get down on myself for not having gotten to goal yet at one year out, but I am getting there, and I feel about a million times better than I did last year and the decade prior to that. This process involves so many aspects of ourselves and many issues arise - especially if you have more than 100 to lose, its been on a long time and you are older. Issues with not feeling great, nutrition, and movement the first months, constipation/elimination, starting to move more, the clothing issue - where I found I would buy inexpensive items two sizes smaller than normal so they would last longer than a minute, dramatic ongoing body, muscle and skin changes, and all of the social, and emotional issues we must face every single day. I know that I am working hard on learning to take very good care of myself and pay attention to my physical body - at a year out it can become very easy to slip back into old habits, the weight losses slow down a lot - I have heard one must work twice as hard to lose 1/2 as much at this point, and I would agree...it is part of the process.A big part of the process for me is to recognize just how well I have done, and to learn how to NOT rip myself to shreds for a mistep, to not compare myself to others - but only to my old self. This is probably the hardest work of all. As for the complaints of not losing fast enough - I dont bother much with reading that stuff - I figure it is just folks blowing off steam, and feeling scared, they will figure it out. My monthly losses are on my profile page. Slow and steady still amounts to ridiculous amounts of weight over time..I posted pics in the success stories thread to see just how much about 100 lbs off looks on my husband and I - its pretty significant.

Haha Kristie I just noticed we have both lost 143 yay 143 haha!

I too have been wondering how all of the May 2012 folks have been. Great to see you guys are looking and feeling great I have never posted a pic - and have said that I would wait until I was at goal to post one, but bah what the hey - these photos of myself and my dear husband (who also had vsg two weeks before me) are from right before surgery (May 8, 2012 - DH) and May 21, 2012 for myself. We are feeling great and hubby is working hard on building muscle and fitness, and I am still losing and also upping the exercise. I still have about 25 lbs to go to get to the upper range of my goal at 140 - which is a healthy BMI. Not great at adding images but here goes.

Im a bit further out - coming up on 11 months out and do have some loose skin as well - if you look at my ticker, I've lost a healthy sized person, and have been heavy quite a while so I knew I would probably have some. I am not at goal, so I will probably have more skin when I get there. One thing I have noticed, and other folks might agree - is that is does get a bit better as time goes by. It seemed worse a few months ago, and looks better now. I am doing my best to get all my Protein and follow nutritionists orders, taking my Vitamins, getting a lot more exercise now, etc. Plastics - or rather the idea of recovering from they types of surgery they do for my loosey goosey areas (circumferential body lift/adbominoplasty, inner thigh surgery) is horrifying to me and waaaay scarier than the bariatric surgery - I am with ya on that one!

One of my favorite crunchy Snacks. Faux cheese Nips Take one Kraft single - Sharp Cheddar is my favorite slice it into 16 little squares place on a piece of parchment paper nuke in the microwave for about 50 seconds until puffed - will come out crunchy 60 cal, 4 Protein, 2 carb, 4.5 fat - 100%satisfying. Don't use real cheese, don't use anything other than parchment, must use the micro - otherwise you get something completely different.

I have some loose skin - most apparent on lower abdomen and inner thighs, have a bit of bat wing too but it isn't too bad. I need to do more resistance/lifting and have been doing aqua aerobics a few hours a week. It seems to continually be changing - like a lot of vsg veterans say - give it time, and it gets better. I can see this to be true for myself so far. I can see some plastics in my future - maybe someday we will be able to afford something like that. Even at 5'3", 48 years old with 178-200 excess lbs of weight on me for many years - it isn't as bad as I thought it was going to be by any stretch (haha) of the imagination. Even with a bit of fat left all over, I can still see lots of muscle definition.

Yah I am getting there losing 137 lbs is not too shabby - lost about what I would like to weigh. My doc uses the 40 because there are fewer complications with the slightly larger size. If you eat what you are supposed to (hi baked chicken breast, turkey, eggs - etc) you have terrific restriction with just about any sized bougie. I am in the period where things do slow a bit - so I have upped my activity level - mostly with Water aerobics which is really fun - Its shocking to look forward to planned exercise. I am very happy with the progression of my losses thus far!

Started at 318 here - my surgeon used a 40 french bougie, I had terrible GERD and am doing just fine - I still take my PPI once in the morning and I fee fine. Hope to get to goal near Christmas

I hope they can schedule what they need so you can have your surgery in time! CarrieP - goodness, they only did a blood test? click on my profile to see all of the testing I had to do pre-op - which I think is pretty standard for bariatrics.

Tigerbelle - I wish you the best of luck for a healthy and safe outcome with your situation. When my family and I went to the information seminar is when I got my wake up call - when our surgeon outlined the statistics of mortality, of success of losing most or all of your excess weight, and then keeping it off over the long term if your BMI is over 40 (which is tiny, think it was between 1 and 3%). A lot of folks say they wish they had done it sooner - I suppose I could say that too, I might not have gotten as big and my skin might not have gotten as stretched. But honestly, it came it the right time - for both my husband and myself who also had the surgery. Things are certainly not easy - but I will take this kind of hard over the hard of obesity, or in my case super-morbid obesity - where people in society have no problems expressing their disdain, or in some cases disgust for you due to your struggle with weight. I hold multiple degrees, am a college professor at both the undergraduate and graduate levels and consider myself to be both kind and hopefully a tiny bit Enlightened - yet I was often reduced to tears by adults on the street calling me a fat pig, or the giggling and mean stares. I have been using this experience as an opportunity to learn as much as I can about how I got this way in the first place - I've done all the therapy - years of it. I've lost all the weight - a few times in fact. This time it feels different, that I finally have a toehold that I can get ahead of this beast of an addiction - which I believe is fueled by the processed food industry and the metrics of how our society operates these days (more sedentary in a nutshell). It just adds to the dilema. Occasionally I read comments from folks here about how they could have lost it without the surgery - usually because the loses are not large or fast enough. I suppose this may be true, but I know for myself that no matter how much I lost on any diet or program be it Duke, Optifast, countless Weight Watchers memberships, Atkins, South Beach etc, etc. that my regains were right around the corner - and painfully rapid. Now, with the tool of my sleeve I feel like I finally have some power over this. I often think of this quote - I think it is from Robert Quinn that "we have only two choices - deep change or slow death." Wishing you insight and clarity with your decision - I know it is not an easy one.

Having my vsg surgery is one of if not the best decision I have ever made - I had complications with surgery that were a bit scary, and it took close to 6 weeks post surgery until I started to feel better. I would do it again in a heartbeat. No question.

I am starting to move away from the word "stall" and have adopted 'pattern' instead. When I had my first 'stall' last year I did not lose any weight for weeks, but the clothing sizes changed in a big way - it's like my body was reconfiguring itself even though the scale did not budge. My pattern now seems to be losing small amounts every week - with a larger drop post menses - much like stair steps. When I look at the trend overall (I track each Saturdays weight weekly) it has been down every week except 3 times since surgery. I think this was one reason I would gt depressed at weekly Weight Watchers weigh-ins before ever considering surgery - if I did not have a good week a few weeks in a row, then I would beat myself and start the same binge/gain cycle all over again. I am working very hard to be my own best cheerleader nowadays - not perfect, but mindful. Working on taking good care of myself and my health

Gastric bypass has a tiny bit higher loss percentage - but the sleeve is very close behind, with many less complications. For some the weight doesnt fall off overnight - some lose faster. I am not at goal but am super happy with my choice.