CowgirlJane

I am still in the honeymoon phase, but like most long term relationships, it just takes more work now. Seriously, I did not have a linear progression. It was definately easier to lose the first 6 months but I genuinely believe that for most of us, the key to maintaining the effectiveness of the WLS tool is to keep following the rules. It is like a big circle, if you don't follow the rules you get hungry and it is hard to follow the rules. If you eat properly, your hunger tends to be well managed.

The bariatric centers of excellence tend to be the insurance experts. I was not required to have a 6 month diet. My insurance did not require a phych eval (my COE did - but they accepted a letter from a counselor I had seen who was actually anti WLS, but was willing to write a letter that I was a good candidate). Anyway, I think you should work with the surgeon's office you pick to work through the approvals.

Coops you are doing great!! Slow and steady wins the maintenance race!!! I have abandoned 5:2 and am doing great without it so I feel a little fraudulent trying to claim what I do is even in the same ballpark. What is working is eating very light several days a week, and avoiding eating at night so I have a true overnight fast. I went to a sports medicine doctor and had my bum knee ultrasounded. It was so uplifting! This doc said my muscles,tendons and ligaments are outstanding, good mass and strength. I have mild to moderate arthritis but he said not nearly as bad as he would have expected for a 50year old who used to be well over 300#. He blessed my active lifestyle and gave me tips on things. I am doing more PT to get me ready for mountains to be climbed and horses to be galloped this summer. Then he said something that was so uplifting. He told me I was in the top 1percent of people who turned their health around and to always be proud of what a huge accomplishment that is. Well, I don't know about top 1percent but it made me think of our little group of superstars here. We moan over 10# but truth is we have achieved and are maintaining something really incredible. If you ever forget that....look at old photos.

At 3months out I had no food restrictions other than what was sensible for losing massive weight. I eat berries daily. Some of what he said makes sense,most of it really doesn't to me either. Truth is a good NUT is rare..I am so lucky I had a great one my first 10months or so. After she left I only visited her replacement once.... When I got to goal, I celebrated over email with the one that left. Do you have a choice to see someone else? Just be thankful you didn't get the one that made you play with plastic food...yes....preop that happened to me....so it could be worse.

I am not one that believes counseling solves everything but I think it would be helpful. It is a big decision and it does impact your life. I worry about thinks like your resistance to hydration (water)because post op that is a big issue. I was banded and then revised to sleeve. Band really impacted my life due to the vomiting and food restrictions. Sleeve I eat very normally (petite portions but I can eat all foods) however I avoided social restaurant events probably the first year post op. I am twice your age and had the patience for that. I was obese pretty much my whole life. In my mid 20s I weighed in the 200# range and I remember how awful I felt about my body and looks. Trust me, you judge yourself way harder than others do. U are more than your dress size or looks and counseling might help you see that.

I had heard good things about it but as a single woman I wanted feedback from someone my age range. It was very very negative. Like deal breaker for the two guy friends I asked. Sexist reasons but it gave me pause.

I was thinking about getting something else pierced on my 50th. I asked a male friend what he would think of that in a "new relationship partner" and got very negative feedback so I didn't do it

It is thought that smaller sleeves might increase certain risks. I dunno... mine was a 38 ...I lost a lot kf weight and been keeping it off 2 years now. I think that overtime your efforts become very important regardless of your bougie size.

I find if I just go back to basics (no need to go liquid diet) and eat clean my hunger drops and suddenly my sleeve is "small" again. It isn't really smaller. ..it is simply the sensation of restriction is stronger when you eat a certain way.

Queen I had much worse skin and so it was very worth it but reconstructive plastics is no freaking joke. I planned it for mid October so I wouldn't lose a riding season. The pain was not the issue and I had no complications but recovery was slow, I was hunched over for weeks and yea, it was hard. No one can decide for you, but the way you describe it...probably not worth it. For me, I'd do it again but glad I don't need to.

I am not sure if this will ring true for you - but i will share my experience. None of this came out preop because my deep emotions were largely drowned by the obesity. That lethargy and physical misery of being morbidly obese was a predominant "feeling" and alot of my other needs and feelings were not really clear and known. when I no longer carried all that "weight" - both literally and figuratively - suddenly I had emotional space for other topics. Like, damn, am I living the life I want? Guess what - I wasn't! I didn't feel like I had much of a choice before, but now I do. I would go so far as to say I didn't even REALIZE how much I was missing out... how much the years of obesity robbed from me. About 8 months or so post op, I went through the doldrums. My weight loss slowed alot too. I had to look deep inside and ask myself if i was content losing ALOT of weight, but still looked kinda matronly, or if I was going for "trim". I had to think hard about some of that - all irrelevant when I was super morbidly obese, but was a big issue during the journey. I have gone through a major transformation, and much like an iceberg, the part you can see is really just the tip of it.

My advice - wait. Losing weight is such an emotional demanding process Divorce is also such an emotional, demanding and at times devastating process. I personally think spending some time just being "you" might not be a bad thing. I am 3 years post op and eat petitely but nobody guesses i had WLS. Skinny chicks eat small... and nobody cares.

3 years out... very happy and maintaining at less than half my former size. My life is so much fuller and richer! I do have more tummy upsets, but nothing that is a big problem. And lets be honest I felt like total crap when I was super morbidly obese, so this is nothing.

I feel the need to correct statements that are often made and are not correct according to the FIVE plastic surgeons i consulted with. While staying hydrated, working out, using lotions and dancing a rain dance are probably all good things to do - they don't shrink extra skin. What happens is your skin gets stretched to the point where it is damaged and it just cannot recover. The degree to which that happens depends on many many factors - age, amount of weight lost, genetics, how many times you have lost and regained... luck? So, considering my lifetime high weight was in the 350 ballpark, and I currently weigh in the 150s ballpark, it is amazing to me that i didn't look like a wrinkly prune everywhere! My face has recovered shockingly well. I carried the bulk of my weight in my midsection and you can be sure my extra skin there was pretty bad. since I did have good health and very toned under that loose skin, once I had procedures done to remove it, I got GREAT results. Before I had plastics, I looked fine in clothes, the use of spanx etc really helped. Still, I love that I did it, I am so proud of my body... I feel great about it. I warn anyone though that you need to get your head on straight about this. You will be trading extra skin for scars - I wear them like badges of honor, but if you have bad self esteem you will despise them. I am single and I completely understand the low self image issue but trust me, plastics will NOT fix that.. might even make it worse. Once you have one thing fixed, suddenly everything else looks really bad. Example, for me, I have extra skin on my back/sides. I am NOT getting an upper body lift which is the only fix for that. Since my arms, lower body, breasts are awesome... it is easy to look at that skin and imagine it is the ugliest thing on the planet. Truth is, as long as I wear my bras a little loose, i can hide that skin and wear very form fitting clothes no problem!

I was an outpatient at a surgical center very near a hospital... like, same parking lot. The theory is that they have fewer issues with resistant bacteria, don't have sick people there and their surgical team just does bariatric surgeries all day so are very "tuned". I had sleep apnea so they had me and two other ladies spend the night at the surgical center. It was a very good experience, i hate hospitals so this was terrific for me. I felt safe and had no problems. The care was outstanding and very personalized to a bariatric patient.

Every surgeon has their own recommendations, i just know that I could not handle milk in the early months. Even now, I am intolerant of it to some extent which was the best thing that could have happened to me. I was an ice cream junkie and now IF I have it, it is tiny quantities and makes me feel kinda icky so it is no longer a temptation. I also have a personal belief that adult humans are not really designed to consume alot of milk. It is very high carb. A doctor once told me that cows milk is designed to turn a little calf into a big ole steer really fast... and it does the same thing to some humans..ha! Anyway, I still suspect it is the lactose. I have no idea what Protein is available in the UK, but we have premixed ones that are lactose free and taste fairly decent for a Protein Drink. I think whey protein source is a good choice.

people do have dumping with the sleeve. I had it happen when I added Peanut Butter to a Protein drink at about 2 weeks out. Ugly. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21647622 So why are you consuming so much milk? That is alot of carbs and just hard to digest. I did develop a lactose intolerance post sleeve and while yogurt and cheese are fine, milk and ice cream are not.

Could it be they had underlying self image issues? When I was researching plastics I talked to several people over the phone about their experience. I came to a stunning conclusion, some people are never happy even with amazing results. I made an effort to accept myself WITH the skin so once I did have the surgery it was awesome. These forums are full of people who are living a full, active, happy,healthier life even with excess skin If I had chosen to stay a bit heavier the excess skin wasn't too much of a problem.

View food and water as prescriptions you take because you have to. Pleasure in food will come later. You can do things like buy bento boxes and premake the mini meals so it's easy to eat the right things.

This is the only rational explanation I can fathom for the troll... I like your scar pic.. does that make me weird?!

We don't have BJ Market...I live near Kirkland, the home of Costco! When I started this thread I was focused on Protein but I love their produce too. Love the blueberry,raspberry or strawberry boxes. Also avocado, tomato ... you can g e t a six pack of romaine lettuce for 3.49. Did you know romaine is heavenly grilled?

No worries, Alex has granted some people host title...and while they are working on a fix to the glitch there are a few of us tirelessly deleting duplicates everyday! Anyway, I think it's normal to grieve the lost time (or whatever) because frankly obesity stole aspects of my life for decades. I didn't realize what I was missing until I was no longer packing around an extra person in body weight. My god, it's really terrible to add up the self abuse that was...but it's behind me now!

I feel that you must have misunderstood - you are a FAST loser compared to most women. Could it be that it is slowing down and he is trying to give you advice how to keep things going? The reality is that it is easier to lose the first 6-12 months post op and for those of us that started higher BMI, we want to maximize our changes of getting to goal. anyway, I think you are doing epically awesome! I went from 308 (BMI of about 51) and now maintaining a normal weight/single digit clothing sizes. So exciting!

No shame, you did what you did, that is the past... now do what you need to do to get on track. Everyone of us has backslid in one way or another. Maybe it was a 5 pound gain or maybe it was a 50 pound one... but it is real life to tackle it and go back to basics. I am 3 years out and finding that things have changed... yet again. It is much easier to regain and harder to relose them then it was previously. Its real life and we are all in this together sisters and brothers!!!

I take nutrition seriously. i try to eat healthy but i also take Vitamins. Conventional vitamins make me sick too - even 3 years out. for multi vitamins I can take gummies or do the liquid vitamins like Eco Drink. Calcium - I can't handle the pills but I can handle the chewables. Vitamin D are small and don't make me sick. I take sublingual vit B complex drops. No sick tummy and i only need to do it a few times a week. I have at least one premier Protein a day and that has quite a few vitamins in it too. You can lose weight without supplements but you risk your long term health in my opinion.