Jack Fabulous

Unfortunately, I tolerate sweets and sugars quite well. I wish sugar made me sick.

There is a woman who reads my blog. I was going to be in her town on business, so, I decided to ask to meet her; to my shock and horror, she accepted. This was not a “date” in the true sense of the word; in my mind however, I treated it as a date in order to gain experience in my social skills. We planned to meet for dinner. We talked – a lot. I found her to be intelligent, articulate, funny, interesting, and strikingly good-looking. All the characteristics I like in a woman. But really, the reason I’m telling this story is because of what we discussed and how it is helping me grow. I’ve written quite a bit about my negative self-image, my believing that I am unattractive, repulsive and fat and my shyness around people, especially women. I’ve discussed my fears and my social awkwardness. She didn’t see any of that. One of our first topics of conversation was my negative self-image. She said she was expecting someone far different than the man standing in front of her. She was expecting an ugly, fat guy who would have trouble communicating. Wait, that’s not me? Apparently not. She accused me of having a handsome face and not being fat. She thought that I had a terrific personality and didn’t think that I was socially awkward. She reiterated her impressions of me several times that I feared she thought I was making up this entire thing. In my diary I pen my deepest and darkest thoughts. My self-perception is a reflection of these thoughts about myself based on a lifetime of abuse. So while I may have this façade of being all put together on the outside, my writing is really about what’s in my head. My self-image is about how I see myself; not how the outside world sees me. What she was able to accomplish in one afternoon, I could not have accomplished in years of therapy and thousands of dollars. Ever since that encounter in October, I’ve started to evolve my opinion of myself. I’ve begun to question my negative self-image and attempted to gain a more confident attitude. I still have issues with insecurity, shyness, and self-esteem and I still feel socially awkward a lot of the time, but thanks to her I’m trying to build a positive attitude about who I am. And for that I owe her a debt of gratitude.

I don't see a double chin

Hey everyone! I just wanted to start a thread to introduce myself, but also to hear from other members who might be new to VSG and updates on the progress of those "veteran sleevers". I'd love to hear from all of you! It's such great inspiration to hear your stories, especially since we're all in our twenties. I am 44 yrs old and had my surgery on February 16, 2011. It's been a whirlwind of emotions - as I'm sure you've all experienced. I love knowing that others have been in my exact shoes headed toward a healthier life! I weigh 270 lbs now and have a goal weight of 175. It's really hard to image I will ever get down to that size because I've been huge my whole life. Regardless, I'm hella excited for the possibility to finally have control over my biggest and most public problem: my weight. Looking forward to hearing for you

I had several unusual and emotional dreams last night. One was a very sentimental dream about the fire department. I guess I still really miss that place and I have not done anything to give myself closure. I also had a nightmare that I had gained 40 pounds. This is a direct result of how I have been feeling emotionally. I seem to get into these cycles where I throw caution to the wind and revert back to my old food addict behavior. I’ve been eating high calorie foods for the last couple of weeks. I’ve been able to maintain my weight but I haven’t lost any. I know that at the rate I was going that I would have ended up gaining some. Luckily, I’ve tried to get back into control and provide myself with structured meals. I’ve also gone back to drinking a few protein shakes as meal replacements to try and jump start my weight loss again. I’ve also felt very angry for the past several weeks. I’m not sure whether I’m eating more because I’m angry or the other way around. I think the anger stems from my mourning food. I’m angry that it’s gone. It’s not totally gone of course and I can have a satisfying meal, but lately I’ve wanted more food than I can eat. That has just been pissing me off.

ZonePerfect All Natural Nutrition Bar, Strawberry Yogurt are my favorite

Welcome to the group and congratulations on reaching goal! I hope to get to my personal goal by my 1 year anniversary too.

I'm just wondering how many folks regularly attend the monthly support group meetings sponsored by your doctor? Do you find them to be helpful? Why do you or don't you go?

I drank a lot of smoothie king during my liquid phase. You are not losing too fast. The first few weeks just concentrate on doing the best you can. Your stomach is still too swollen to really hold much food/water. I lost 1 pound per day during this time. Make it last as long as you can!

As you heal you will be able to eat a lot more

I like Premier Protein Chocolate...but it tastes like chocolate milk so you might not like it.

You can find my complete blog HERE. As I have written, I identified myself as an overweight guy who didn’t do much of anything. I went to work, I came home, and I was not social. I can’t identify myself in that way anymore because I’m more active and trying to be social. However, I am a baby when it comes to interacting with people. My weight used to hide me and give me an excuse to not have to deal with people. As another strategy to break out of my shell, I signed up with Meetup groups in the area. Several are for photography and a general social Meetup. My wife and I made reservations to go and see a play and have dinner with about 20 other people from Meetup. That should be interesting. I’m actually quite terrified of how to act and what to say. Thankfully, my wife is going to be there with me and she doesn’t have these hang-ups. I can lean on her quite a bit. For quite some time I’ve longed to have a group of guy friends. I watch movies like “The Hangover” or “Bachelor Party” and wish I had male friends that I can do things with like go to Vegas. I’d love to have a small but intimate group of guy friends to hang out, drink beer, eat chili dogs and cheese fries (burp!) and talk about whatever is on my mind. We could go out to see movies that my wife doesn’t want to see, play a little poker, car shows, chili cook-offs, fishing, paintball, you get the idea. All of those things guys like to do; I want to be able to do. I was telling this to my therapist who suggested I look on MeetUp. I found many groups for women but none for guys to just hang out and be guys. So, I created a group for guys. Because of my self-esteem issues I have very low expectations for the group. I didn’t think anyone would actually join the group but I figured it wouldn’t hurt to try. I thought, “Oh well, I’ll create it and we’ll see what happens.” I paid for a group for 90 days because I figured that once this flopped, I wouldn’t be out a whole lot of money. Well, what happened is that I got 90 guys who signed up in just a few days. YIKES! So I guess this group might last a little longer than just three months. When I created my “low expectation” group, I also created a happy hour. I picked a date and time I was available but I figured that since nobody would sign up that it would be a moot point. Monday night it not idea for a happy hour but since nobody was going to show up, it was not that big of a deal. Within a couple of days, I had 15 men sign up for the happy hour. HOE. LEE. ****. I didn’t know I was filling such a void. Well crap, I guess that means I actually have to go and figure out where to have this thing. I really was expecting that no one would sign up for the Meetup, and no one would show up for the Happy Hour. These are the kinds of things that the old me, the 330 pound me, would have thought: “I’m not worth it, so therefore no one is going to sign up.” However, this is the kind of thing I need to change my attitude about. I AM worth it. I AM interesting. People SHOULD like me, and if they don’t I’ll just beat the living crap out of them until they change their mind. Sorry, I got carried away! Now, the Happy Hour is stressing me out because my wife is not going to be there. It’s going to be a bunch of guys I don’t know. It is all on me to make it a success. I don’t know how to act. I don’t know what to talk about. So we’ll have to see what happens. Anyway, that’s all the news that’s fit to print for today.

I agree. Its a great movie!!