CowgirlJane

Yeah, I am going to physical therapy...come to find I am pretty messed up. Uneven muscling, flat lower back etc.

Overlake in Bellevue also welcomes all...

Same for me...they moved down but are nearly invisible not stretched.

They go on sale regularly for about 20 bucks for 18 like Sammie mentioned. I like strawberry and chocolate. My best friend likes strawberry and vanilla. I buy several cases for both of us when they go on sale so never pay the full price. There are a couple of other awesome Protein bargains there if you decide to join.

Loved the story of Jack!

I have typed two thoughtful and inspiring posts in reply to fiddle man .hahah...and they both went POOF ...Some things are just not meant to be. Good post fiddle.

So, I know some of us have been feeling a bit "low" lately. I think I would love us to refocus on "eating and living" right. I don't want to do 5:2 right now but i need support to reduce my coffee (AGAIN!) and improve my vitamin and quality of eating AND resuming my high intensity of exercise. For me it doesn't matter if it is 5:2 or something else - but just to sort of get back on a healthy track. I am backing away from my relationship with Steven. I thought i had ended it, but really hadn't and I guess I have mixed feelings because I am "Attached"... but he no longer makes me feel like a million bucks and I think that is a sign... I might maybe possibly have met someone that is worth getting to know. Cautiously optimistic... he seems normal, fun, responsible, tall, handsome, fit, lives nearby, (bald, but I can live with that). He is yet another conservative republican but as long as he isn't mean spirited or racist about it - I am completey fine with that. Only time will tell. I have learned alot in this dating process and feel much wiser about how to approach it and I think also how to "Read" these guys as alot of em are flakey faking liars...ha.

Replies to this are going to vary ALOT by what stage you are in. The first 6-8 weeks for many of us weren't alot of fun. It is hard to get Water in... transitioning to solid food is hard... all that, it was like a fulltime job! Then, it is AMAZING.. the honeymoon period when the weight is coming off and you feel on top of the world. I can remember all those NSVs (non scale victories). Honestly, I was so happy that it made up for saying good by to my old friend "over eating" Then, most of us face a cross roads... weight loss slows or stops and you need to decide how you will face that. I decided that while I was so much better off weighing under 200# rather than over 300# - I wanted to strive for a more normal size so I pushed hard to get to my goal. I didn't want to look matronly I guess - not really sure, but I wanted to be a normal size. Once you are past the rapid weight loss phase, it becomes alot more about your personal efforts to get the weight off. Then, there is maintenance which is a whole nother headtrip in many ways. Even so, I needed this surgery to get my health under control. Health improvements are the foundation for my life improvements and that is the track I am on.

I appreciate you posting this and I think it is very wise that we all do our research so you know what you are "signing up for". Not every sleever... in fact MOST don't have uncontrolled reflux. It is however a serious problem for those that do. I don't know enough about bypass to know the potential problems... but it is all about tradeoffs. I do think that if someone had reflux before the sleeve, they probably should think pretty hard about it... I never had reflux in my life until my lapband was too tight. That was living hell.

I have only begun to scratch the surface of all this research but, you have inspired me to do something about my Calcium intake. i was really pretty good for a very long time but the last few months I just cannot handle the pills. They make me queasy and if I eat them anytime near a meal - well, i can write that meal off as it will just kill my appetite. I am going to return to buying the chews. One reason I don't like the chews is they are like candy. I feel almost like Protein bars sorta trigger bad ways of eating too... that I don't want to eat Vitamins like candy. I am far enough along now maybe it is worth trying it... and learning how to have things in the house that ***might*** trigger a candy response in me since overall I don't have a problem with overeating. Thanks for all the effort you have put into sharing all this!

I would have to say YES. I feel like I am finally free from being buried in fat and it is wonderful. I would also say it is no walk in the park to go from being a BMI of over 50 to a slim, normal sized woman. It has had huge consequences on my life. However, I would reframe it a little... there were huge changes in my life that really really needed to happen but didn't until I lost some weight. It was like all the weight become in many ways an obstacle to living a full life.

I think I will order the calcium chews... lately every time I take the pills I feel bad in my tummy... the feeling is like I had the first 6 weeks post op. Not like I am going to vomit, but mildly queasy and no appetite. I am having trouble staying hydrated even - not because I can't drink but because I have so little appetite for it. Yesterday I had a whopper of a headache and I realized I hadn't drank anything except coffee. I did eat well yesterday and part of it was I went to dinner at my favorite place and had a shrimp skewer which i always seem to like. What is Bill sick from? Did the sleep doctor help him with the CPAP issues? Sounds like things are overall going very well between you two which is great.

Oh, and I LOOK for the guys on mountain bikes, motorcycles, boats or other evidence they get off the sofa and turn off the TV sometimes..haha! The hooked fish is supposed to be funny and I would say about 40% of the guys on Plenty of Fish have a pic to illustrate the joke. What I guess they don't realize since they don't see other male profiles of just how tired that joke is. I don't see other women's profiles so I have no idea what they typically look like. I have "heard" they are often negative though - like mentioning all the things they don't want. It is easy to go negative after some of the fakers experience. I recently met someone - who knows if it will go anywhere - but it was refreshing that he seems to be exactly what his profile said he is. I told him that, just how pleased that makes me to meet an authentic person and he felt the same about me. What he said is that the online sites are both "silly" and necessary since what a great way to meet compatible people that are in your geographical area. The silly is all the misrepresentation and basically people that seem to play on those sites like it is facebook or something - like they don't seem to be seriously seeking what they claim to be seeking... For example, corresponding with a guy who claims to be seeking a potential wife and by the second email is asking me sex questions. Yeah, right. Anyway, it takes patience and willingness to sort through the duds. For me, the answer is to take it really really slow since I have come to believe that a sizable percentage of guys on these sites are just looking for hookups and lie about their intentions (among other things misrepresented). Or maybe it is just the ones that contact me..haha.... which is why I have done better with the hidden profile and I contact them and I just find a better pool of candidates that way.

My experience was that the nicest guys I met were from POF. and you have to be willing to overlook all the damned hooked fish photos. The worst guy I met (liar,fake,complete player)was from match. I never tried eharmony. Where I live women outnumber men and that is very true on match. I think what works best is to have a hidden profile on POD and then contact the guys that interest YOU. Otherwise you get all theses "what's up" emails from people you would never consider. I get the out of state or many years older than me or otherwise "no way" I got jaded on this process but I am seriously open to a real relationship now so it will happen eventually.

Lapband for 10 years and revised to the sleeve 2.5years ago. For me the sleeve helped me achieve my goals and has been essier to live with. The initial recovery...first 6-8 weeks was much harder though.

I think that something physically has changed for me but I can't put my finger on it and my symptoms aren't strong enough to point in a clear direction. I am working to maintain....to stop losing because I feel less robust, less strong and healthy. I am not exercising. None of it makes sense to me. Yesterday my emotional state went downhill and I am really thinking about the events of the day to know why. It might be pointing to a personal relationship that I need to change. Today will be good though. I am excited about what I have planned. Denise now that I live alone I have to arrange a caretaker for my place....much harder for me to get away. I also no longer have a place to stay in Portland. I do have a dear friend in Salem I want to spend time with. Want to take my horse down and ride with her but she just got a new job and can't take time off. I will go to Oregon someday it just isn't easy for me. We have had a week of summer like weather....love it...though spring seems to be returning.

So, this is an appropriate topic for the rants section... I went through a phase of feeling exactly what you expressed and then I realized WHY people don't search. It isn't laziness it is because they don't recognize that what they are going through applies to pretty much EVERYONE! It is a very personal emotional experience and people want to get a very personal and specific reply - since according to them, in the emotional state at that moment, they feel that they are the first and only person to ever deal with such angst/issue/question and it must be answered directly to them. I remember that when I was trying muster the courage to revise from the band to the sleeve. I was pretty beaten down - I mean i really felt like I had failed and was a hopeless case. It was alot of direct info from Tiffikyns in particular that helped me process and work through my feelings. I happen to know that she cut and pasted info but at the time, her replies to ME felt very personal... like i was the only failure who might take a chance on the sleeve... this crazy "new" thing I had never heard of. That was the first glimmer of "believing" that this might work. So, I cope by not reading or responding to the repetitive topics. I figure there are less burned out people than me to answer them - excited to share their knowledge! For a long time, I made an effort to reply to nearly every band to sleeve forum post... but I don't even do that anymore as there are others who do.

As soon as you move here... about half our little crew here will be in the Pacific northwest - me you and Chim in Seattle and Denise in Oregon!

Florinda, I was banded when I lived in Munich by a doctor in Frankfurt. It was a pain since bands need constant care and attention... Is your surgeon in Cali? Are you having health issues related to your sleeve? I am starting to think it was a bad idea to have swimrunbike post all that nutrient stuff... I am still not 100% on eating well and I keep getting these waves of "ugghh" and wonder if I am dying of the sleeve...lol. Not really dying, but you know what I mean? I used to feel really really really confident in my post sleeve health but the last 2 months has eroded that confidence.

I think that the self loathing of ourselves ... or rather our formerly fat selves... is unhealthy. You mention the obvious impact on others who feel that sting of comparison, but there is also what it does to your own inner life and feelings of self esteem. Looks are a very superficial way to measure ourselves and it seems like at least some degree of self acceptance helps a person find inner peace.

I admit I am overwhelmed in info but didn't it say that women who lost the highest excess weight percentages were most prone to deficiency? What I think about is how little I eat however I don't eat junk food. I have known people who don't really eat veggies and live on Cereal, burgers and fries kind of intake. Seems like even with their high intake of food they would still be deficient. Is one impact of the sleeve micronutrients malabsorbtion??

I revised in December 2011 at 308 and it took 14 months to lose 150 and hit my goal of 158 in February 2013. I have since lost a bit more while in maintenance and weigh about 142 now.

I am curious if anybody else has experienced this. Remember the good ole days when you just didn't care much about food? You know, for most of us those first 6-12 months post op? At least for me, hunger and desire for food returned and it has taken effort (eating low carb etc) to manage it. I am going through a phase again where food doesn't interest me too much and I am almost 2 1/2 years out from surgery. I don't feel sick, I don't vomit or have physical trouble eating it is more like nothing sounds good. I went grocery shopping last night wandering the aisles for something that sounded appetizing. I came home with an avacado and coffee creamer. I guess with all the talk of long term complications floating around it worries me. I initially associated it with some sadness over some things in life, but now I am not really so sure. I have never ever ever in my whole life lost my appetite over feeing sad or blue. My emotional state has been steadily improving and while I am eating better now it is because I am forcing myself to "eat right" not because I have much appetite. So, I know that everyone is gonna think I am lucky, but I don't know if that is true or it is a sign of a problem. My surgeon's office has always been so helpful and supportive, but I talked to someone there earlier this week who advised me to eat more. I feel as though I didn't make my point clear, I am not worried about wasting away to nothing as I have a ways to go before THAT becomes a risk..haha... it is more like it seems odd to lose appetite like this so far out is all.

Statistically that seems to be true but doesn't mean it will be true for you! Seems like years 2-3 is when it most often happens.

Those are very high rates of deficiencies - don't you think??? Were these all diagnosed through standard tests - if I understood your previous post sometimes you can test normal and still have deficiencies. Zinc and Iron are correlated with hair loss so interesting... I think Brown mentioned a re-occurance of hair loss, wonder if any of the other long term vets have seen that? vit D - well I was always low no matter how much I supplemented previous to weight loss. I am puzzled by that except it seems that obesity interferes with either Vit D absorption OR the test.