Chimera

You should also be at your lowest possible weight goal for 3-6 months -it needs to be stable both for the best long term results as well as complications go down- the plastic surgeons who have presented at my surgeons support groups mention that often a panniculectomy may be covered with lots of documentation of skin breakdown/irritation - but tummy tucks (involving the muscles below), body lifts, etc. generally are not.

I have the same thing as you do in the third photo - still have a bit of budge in mine because I am still in losing phase. I do not like it one bit!

Thanks so much for having me! I had a bit of a shaky second week with fasting (very busy with work) but have kinda ended up fasting today - when tomorrow is my scheduled fast day. I guess it has turned out to be more of a 16 hour fast - got busy this morning working on a presentation and didn't eat until this afternoon. Just made some delicious hard boiled eggs - which is my go-to snack/mini meal in a pinch. For some reason I am absolutely stuffed from one hard boiled egg - still at 16 months out. 3 turkey meatballs do the same thing. I am still figuring out my favorite choices for fasting days - I am one of those lucky ones that do not have an attraction to Protein Bars - but my downfalls are vanilla latte's (2 pumps of vanilla rather than the normal 4) and cheeses and nuts. Lisa and I talk often on FB - we both could live on just coffee drinks I just want to mention again how inspiring you guys are - trying out the 5:2 eating plan/pattern has really seemed to help to get the scale moving in the right direction again for me, a big part of that has been reading about all of your experiences here. I hope to reach my goal of 140 by my 2 year surgiversary, which I think is definitely achievable. I am finally getting to the point that it is okay if it doesn't happen by a certain date - I think we all know by now that no matter how compliant one is with all of the post op protocols with diet, exercise, supplements, hydration, mindfulness, self-loving kindness, and continued support with family, online pals, and real life groups - it doesn't always mean you get to goal lickety split. Thats okay - we are in good company!

GT, Buspar is Buspirone hydrochloride (anti-anxiety) - Bupropion is Wellbutrin (anti-depressant) - what I was prescribed when I quite smoking and my nutritionist says it is also great for helping with one's weight loss. My Klonapin/clonazepam is an anti-anxiety med (taken in very specific situations - i.e. car trips - I have severe PTSD in the passenger seat and will go into orbit without this medication - took me 12 years before I finally got the medication so I could join my own family on holiday vacations.) Sorry for the wall of text - I am using internet explorer - I will go switch to chrome so I can edit...

I know the scars from brachioplasty can be significant - and when my own plastics time arrives I will need to see if I want mine done, scars yes but also significant improvement of life by removal of batwings - my thighs/stomach/rump are what are the worst currently. I have a feeling if it were me I would go for it CowgirlJane.

I don't think those are WL surgery girls - I just posted links because it is so interesting how drastic the change is with so many of them - mind you this is coming from someone who had to lose close to 100 lbs for a lot people to start noticing my own weight loss - when you are reeeally big it seems you have to lose quite a bit to even drop a clothing size. Milestones seem closer with fewer lbs the closer we are to goal I guess.

This has always been a challenge for me as well - I have found that if I make sure I get a lot of liquid in prior to the no drinking 15 mins prior to a meal I am good - I still want to drink but it is not from a feeling of dying of thirst. Sometimes I do need a bit of liquid while eating, so I will take a sip but I try and be careful with it. I think it is bar none, one of the most challenging aspects of post sleeve life - I am sure there are many of us that feel the same way. Not drinking with meals is one of the main tenets of post operative care - if you want to take advantage of your WL window of opportunity I would follow my doctors orders...eating healthy wasn't 'my thing' either and that got me to to 318 lbs with a mess of health problems

Looking great Butter! Wishing you a safe and speedy recovery! M2G I have heard that anywhere from 5 - 10 lbs of skin for every 100 lbs lost is an estimate with body contouring post massive WL. But as with everything, I am sure it is different for everyone.

Wow Butter - that is amazing - it must feel pretty amazing to have that gone, well when you heal up that is. I too want the big badboy of all contouring surgeries - belt lipectomy/lower body lift would be the main one - I know the thighs come up a bit with that - I look like I am wearing leg warmers on my thighs with all the wiggly-jiggly skin. I too have the weird deflated 'ghost-body' that lies down around the now fitter version underneath - its hard to describe to folks who have not experienced it themselves. I know I will never look like a young thing who was never an ounce overweight, I am way past that - I think the psychological benefit of having the skin physically removed with be really significant and positive for me. Continually engaging in the rigorous work with our WL surgery, the head, heart, mind work that is an essential component of all of this, not to mention rebuilding our strong muscular selves - for me it will be just one part of this experience. I am so happy for you guys with this next step in the process - I know I have to train like an Olympian to prepare for my own contouring surgery - which will happen someday and you guys are an inspiration!

I love bacon - I'm in west Seattle cowgirl - I can come over and slap him with bacon if you need any assistance! My 17 year old makes a huuuge mess when she makes bacon and so I get to see it, smell it, AND clean up all the grease - yay me. This is why I keep a secret stash of turkey bacon in the freezer - she doesn't like it and is too lazy to defrost haha. You are a superstar in training for your plastics - I am so excited for you! I cant wait until I am at that point - still have a ways to go though.

Here are some links - These are not pro-ana btw. Mostly motivational stuff young women are posting. http://beforeandafterjourneys.tumblr.com/ http://thinspiration-pictures.blogspot.com/2012/12/before-and-after-thinspo.html

Sweet! I seem to do much better with hunger this way - I have yet to do a really hard workout fasted, but I hear very good things about it. I have been looking at interesting images this morning. I am fairly tapped into visual social media sites such as Tumblr because I use them in my college classes as a compliment to my class website stuff etc. Looking at weight loss (no I don't teach weight loss haha - but rather in the art and technology arena) before and afters on Tumblr, you get a lot of hits of young girls who want to be very thin...what I am noticing is the drastic difference in what a body looks like with losing 10-20 lbs when you are below 150. I mean my own before and after right now is pretty crazy - I've got the sleeping bag of skin to prove it - but it really is significant how much a body is altered even with a very small number of lbs lost. - lemme see if I can go find an example...

Catching up - so sorry about the burglary, I have had my house and my car broken into as well - it is awful...I was just so grateful that my small dogs were not taken or harmed - at least there was that little bit of light. I think I would have a rough time with your trainer as well - I suppose if she knew your history she might never have made such disparaging remarks about anything that helps people to move more (and provide a safe, comfortable atmosphere for women, which can be rare) Maybe she simply hasn't had a lot of work experience with clients or customer service - bonehead moves like those you have describe seem like the hallmark of either an idiot or one who lacks professional skills with humans. I did waterobics as well to start - and I loved it. My husband and I quit when the classes were too easy - I could launch myself 6 feet out of the Water haha (and they had really bad music 80% of the time). I think it is an excellent workout for folks who have joint problems - it was great for me because my jiggly was all under water Been having some rough fast days over the last week - they always seem to be over 500. I have been trying more of the Leangains pattern - fasting for 16, with an 8 hour eating window - for me that has been 3 pm to 9 pm with my wacky schedule. It seems to help with my hunger and getting the 500 days on track. so I am doing 5:2 with 16:8 in there lol. the weight is still shimmying up and down a bit by 2 lbs (168 - 170). Fasting today and feel good - but the mornings are not problematic - its the afternoon and evening when my family is all home and the siren call of Starbucks calls to me lol. Hangin in there and remembering my doctors stats - 50% EWL the first 6 months, another 25% during the next 6 months (75% down in a year - I was down 80%) and the last 25% can take 1-2 years...that is where I am with about 8 months to go to my 2 year year post op date.

Welcome back Globetrotter! I am new to the group since you have been gone, but have been on the boards a long time. I can absolutely relate to auto-immune issues - rather than gut, intestine, celiac stuff - I have a lot of severe issues with my skin and my eyes, which have both been diagnosed as auto-immune responses (dyshidrotic eczema - my hands and feet blister badly on the palms and soles, and severe chronic conjunctivitis - infections of the lining of the eye) - currently I have been in remission for a good while (thank goodness!) but the last flare-up I had was devastating. I was on heavy compounded doses of prednisone for a long time which is just awful - talk about weight gain - I literally could not stop eating, and I spent so many months on various steroids that I was run down and worn out. Shortly after is when I started the year long pre-op journey with starting to change my diet - and by cutting down on the white stuff flours, sugar, rice, wheat in general - I have not seen a flare yet. This is the time of year my body usually starts to trigger, so far so good. I too take meds to help with my brain chemistry - Buproprion and Clonazepam (hi trauma and one of my nutritionists who is always the science gal tells me how those meds have positive impacts for those of us trying to shed pounds. I think you can get green tea capsule - I should get some of those heh

Also started 9/9/2013 SW: 173 CW: 168 A very happy 5 lbs. down

Holy Moly! that is awesome LauraV! Still chilling at 168 this morning - scale dropped down and stuck. Also started my monthly - which hasn't been so monthly lately as the change is upon me. I am usually super hungry prior, and then that goes away and the scale drops a couple of lbs. - going to do a fast day tomorrow to make up for not getting a fast day in since Monday and hope to get back to my regular gym and fasting days (mon/thurs) next week. Hopefully I will see that scale nudge down a wee bit more for my 'official' weigh-in on Tuesday morning.

I love your before and after snapshots Lisa - you look fantastic! We will get there!

I plan to plant an avocado tree and an almond tree in my backyard for healthy fats and nuts at maintenance well j/k I suppose that would involve moving to southern climes where delicious things like this actually grow rather than the wet NW. Who am I kidding - I have had my hands overly full with two tomato plants this summer - could not eat that many tomatoes when we had two full sized tummies in the house

Drink, drink, drink Georgia! fill up that tum with liquid

I am one of those that gets pretty obsessive about numbers and statistics - I still have every graph, chart, booklet, and document from every weight loss attempt I have attempted (the Weight Watchers Collection is like the Smithsonian lol). I originally had set 130 as my goal - then revised it to 140. That goal weight puts me in the healthy BMI range (we all know how inaccurate these are - yet still they are widely used.) I am 49 next month and I am 5'3". Our bodies are all so vastly different - I now wear a size 8 in pants but also can wriggle my rump into a 2 if there is at least 1% spandex in the material (this is when my husband starts following me around the house leering at me and telling me how 'sexy" my pants are...this makes me think maybe I should not wear them in public rofl!) I have friends who I think look smaller than I do and they wear a bigger size from the same store - go figure. So I have decided that clothing number sizes are not something I am going to get in a tizzy about...heck I wore a 3-5X on top less than 2 years ago. I want to get to 140 and see how I feel. I have heard bariatric surgeons say that a BMI of 22 is ideal for a woman (whatever that means) - I know I will want that 140 to be the top end of a bounce range - which means I will most likely want to drop below that number to maintain that healthy BMI. My doctors and nutritionists never set a goal weight for me - the goal has always been to resolve co-morbidities - and that happened at 9 months post. At my year one checkup I was already considered a spectacular success with an 80% EWL...but I will not be happy unless I go all the way. I have never achieved goal weight in my life and I am going to do it this time, and maintain it. I feel good - I don't feel obsessed, just determined and positive to do the things I need to do to achieve what I want. I can see how far I have come, which has taken a long time to be able to see (I never liked looking - it was too painful), I can see it now and I am almost there

I cant even image the 150's - so many milestones at 155...I hit 155 25 years ago in 1988 for a nanosecond after 4 torturous months of old school Optifast (400 calories of nasty shakes a day, bi-weekly blood draws - nothing else for 16 weeks) went from 211 to 155 and then got in a serious car accident that put me out of work for a year - leg reconstructed with surgery....needless to say, the losses never lasted. 155 was my highest weight in High School - Ohh Im gonna get there..its less than 15 lbs. away! Then goal is another 15...its on!

Those Kim's Magic Pops look delicious and are probably something that would trigger me - I am very much a salty, crunchy person The faux cheese nip has long been a favorite in our house, both among those who have had their tummies removed and those that still have theirs intact. Have you guys ever tried these? I know there are all sorts of videos here and on Youtube with how to make these. Take a Kraft single (I use the Sharp flavor) Slice said cheese and make 3 slices each direction to make 16 little squares. Place little squares on a piece of parchment paper. Microwave for about 50 seconds - squares will puff up, deflate and then harden into a crispy 'cracker'. Nutrition: 16 crackers/one slice of cheese 60 Cals. 4 Protein 2 Carb 4.5 Fat You must use parchment and the microwave - using regular cheeses and the oven makes those nice crunchy, flat (and greasy) things like Parmesan crisps. I try and stay away from wheat or baked goods as much as possible because I turn into a raving carbohydrate monster - so these work for me as a vehicle for other delicious things I don't track fat - I think it is good for us. I made these for my monthly bariatric support group meeting one time last spring and you would have thought I was the second coming of our lord with how popular these were - I even had fairly newish posts ops with tears in their eyes over a little crunchy snack they could enjoy lol.

Gamergirl that is great! My husband had a vsg as well, and he has walked right by me when meeting up to divide and conquer the grocery store as well

I am a professor and scheduled mine right after the end of spring semester - being older I knew that it might take me longer to get back up on my feet. I am glad I made that decision - as I had complications, was in the hospital for a week (internal bleeding) and it took me a bit to heal.

I lost 14 in about a week and a half - my surgeon has us do Atkins induction with liquids the day before surgery.