Momonanomo

That is so wonderful -- all of the things you mention are just absolutely wonderful! I'm so happy for you and so excited for the future. Thank you for posting this. You're an inspiration!

I'm sure your husband was trying to be complimentary and didn't think about the implications of his compliment. Guys don't think like us sometimes I haven't been sleeved yet, but in the past, when I lost 75 lbs, I remember being kinda miffed and resentful when i felt that people I'd always known were treating me so much better than when I had been so overweight. But then I thought -- well maybe it's MY behavior that's different, because I feel good, and energetic, and confident, and they're responding to that. (if only I could've maintained that loss. . . but anyways...) He's always said you are beautiful; respect that he meant it. And have faith that he will be thrilled to see you happy and healthy. And I think maybe the glow of being happy and healthy is what people respond to -- not being 'skinny'. So ...you will be a total knock-out, because you will be happy and healthy! I think major weight loss can mess with our heads a bit and get confusing. I plan to camp out on this forum, and seek support with local groups, and maybe even a counselor one-on-one. best wishes to you, and kiss that hubby of yours -- he loves you and means well!

If it's cold outside, why not try the mall? Lots to look at to distract yourself, it's open long hours so you can go when you want (especially this time of year!), it's well-lit, it's warm and there are lots of places to stop and rest.

Happy New Year indeed! What a great way to start 2013! Congrats and best wishes

I totally agree with bakawaka -- get thee to the mall! Don't shoot for a mile the first time out, just try to do a little more than you've done each time and build on your progress. You CAN do this, don't worry. Enjoy the mall. It is a safe, warm place with lots of resting spots. Just do the best you can -- bet you'll surprise yourself!

Congratulations and a big THANK YOU for continuing to be active on the boards after 2 full years -- it means a lot to hear from someone who has been so successful and keeps coming back to share your wisdom at the 2 year point. You're a true inspiration! Much much appreciated! mahalo!

omg your description is so funny! LOL!!!!!! I think this process will be mostly about trial & error and that maybe as time goes on tastes will change. Maybe eventually you will actually crave fruit punch flavored liquid cow. Ha! No doubt having a sense of humor about it all will be very helpful Best of luck to you!

Thank you SO much for the detailed report -- I try to find & read as many Surgery Day Stories as I can. You are so right to say that knowledge is power -- I agree. I get a little scared sometimes thinking about going under the knife and being under anesthesia. Reading your story was very reassuring. I wish you the best on this new adventure and much success! Keep us posted!

Wow you look 20 years younger too! 68 lbs gone forever buh-bye! Your outfit in the new pic is really cute too btw! Love it!

that IS exciting! I look forward to someday also being able to 'go shopping' in my own closet!

I've also always heard that's a sign of not being well hydrated . . .

You're not a jerk! lol! You've lost 66 lbs, and you've earned bragging rights You look gorgeous and HAPPY! -- good job!

thanks for sharing the stats on movie theater popcorn - yikes! I will be sharing those lil tidbits of info with my mom, who cannot resist the alluring scent of popcorn that they pump through the lobby of the movie theater! Not so alluring when yoou think of how bad it is for you.... Seems like it was a major learning experience for you --- you're back on track already, and I applaud you for it. Onward!

Happy birthday! And what an awesome birthday present, to get your insurance approval. Here's to an exciting and wonderful year

I'll chime in and say I would also go for the second opinion -- this surgeon sounds totally insensitive and not to mention perhaps unsure of her surgical skills? I dunno....maybe she's just trying to limit your complications, but wow the bedside manner seems to be seriously lacking. And for her to turn the conversation around to herself and talk about how she should be the one crying? Wow :/ Not even sure what to say about that remark, because it's disturbing on a lot of different levels. But I gotta say that it really stuck out for me that you said "This isn't gonna stop me from the diet/exercise plan I've been doing" Good for you! THAT is a winning attitude!

Best of luck to you! That's awesome that the timing worked out so well with finals! Please do keep us posted.

I’ve made my decision. I just got my referral, and I’m signed up for my first seminar with the surgeon in 2 weeks. I’ve been addicted to VST for about a month, and I am a sponge absorbing everyone’s pre and post op stories. God bless the people of VST I’ve had a weight problem all my life it seems, whether real or perceived. I’m tall, and I was always the biggest kid in the class in elementary school. I wasn’t an overweight child really. My older sister had a more petite frame, and I think in some ways just the fact that she was smaller made me identify with being a Big Girl before I ever really was. But when adolescence hit, I did indeed become overweight. I’ve always been hungry. My mom talks about how even as an infant still in the hospital, the nurses would have to bring me in for feeding well ahead of my scheduled feeding time – mom would get a call from the nurse’s station and could hear me shrieking in the back ground. We have discussed recently how interesting it was to have two daughters being raised the same way who had fundamentally different feelings about food. I have a very clear memory of saying to myself at age 15 “If I don’t get control of my weight right now, I never will”. And I never really did, imagine that! I went up and down the next 25+ years! I actually look back at pictures of when I was 15, and think damn I was cute – I don’t look anywhere as big as I felt. I was 5’10” by 8th grade, and I felt that I was huge compared to my classmates. By the time I graduated high school though, I weighed 200 lbs. Still, looking back and comparing to where I am now, I wasn’t so bad off. Through college I went up and down between 170 and maybe 220. I was a SERIOUS yo-yo dieter. By age 24, out in the professional world and having a failed romantic life, I got tired of being 235 lbs and joined Weight Watchers. And man, I was good at it! I got down to 160. But ya know, I was motivated by a failed romance, a situation in which I felt “if only I wasn’t overweight, I would be desirable”. With age comes wisdom, and I now know that the guy was just a total loser ANYways, I attended WW under the guise of adhering to their program, but in reality I just severely restricted my calories for almost a year. I lost weight, but I wasn’t exercising, so no doubt I harmed my metabolism BIG TIME. I was so successful that WW asked me to work for them as a group leader. I wish I hadn’t. It actually is a really good program; it teaches balanced eating habits and a healthy lifestyle in a very livable way. It works for SO many people long term. It just didn’t stick with me long term. The weight came back, and a bunch more. Same old story that so many of us had lived. Then I discovered diet pills! Hoorah! I was able to go from about 250 to 185, and I lost a bit of my sanity as well – because it is essentially speed. Very bad scene for me. And again, no exercise, just severe caloric restriction. So when I stopped, back came the weight. And the beginnings of other health problems. In my early thirties, I moved to Hawaii. Hit 279. Yikes! Desperate, I went back to diet pills. I got down to 206 and met the man who would become my husband. As we got to know each other, I learned that he actually prefers women who are not stick figure skinny. He told me early on that I was his “dream girl” in mind, spirit, and body. How lucky am I?!? He seems attracted to me no matter what. He loves how I am now, loved how I was then, and has expressed appreciation for photos of me when I was 100 lbs smaller. He loves me no matter what! So I dropped the pills (he never knew about), and the weight crept up. Even as I’ve gained weight, he’s still chased me around like that little cartoon skunk on Looney Tunes, and (lucky me!) he tells me how gorgeous and sexy I am every chance he gets even all these years later. He’s fine with the fact that I will never be ‘petite’. He is, however, extremely athletic, and as the years have gone by and my weight has crept back up he misses me going on hikes and paddle boarding with him. He still thinks I’m sexy-as-hell, but he loses an awful lot of sleep because of my snoring. We both wish I had more energy and confidence. I love him dearly, and I love that he loves my voluptuousness, but he also loves me enough to want me to feel good. I tried medi-fast. That one was really was bad for me – maybe I lost about 20 lbs, but then I would go crazy with hunger and undo all the good I’d done. Three years after we met, I got to 282. OMG, it sucked. Tired, sick, sleepy – no way to live a good life. Apnea while awake and just watching TV! I contemplated WLS. I shared this with DH, and he encouraged me to research it and committed his support with whatever I chose. What an angel. Well at that time several years ago – RNY and the band were pretty much it, and I didn’t like either choice. I won’t go into my concerns with those 2 procedures here, but I decided if that’s what WLS was, it wasn’t for me. DH has said many MANY times since then how GLAD he was that I didn’t opt for surgery…. So I joined <national prepackaged meals diet program>. I lost 40 lbs within a few months. It’s another great program that works for a lot of people. A family member of mine in fact has lost 70 lbs and kept it off! But…..it didn’t stick for me. I’m still going all these years later, but in the last year I’ve gained back 20 of the 40 lbs I had lost. Never even got down anywhere close to goal. I’m just SO been-there-done-that. I get too freaking hungry. I cheat the program. I feel like a huge failure. I comfort those feelings with food. More eating leads to even more hunger because of blood sugar swings, and more feelings of failure. I set myself up for failure with the old “Last Supper Syndrome”, you know the one – where you tell yourself you’ll get back on track tomorrow, so you may as well absolutely make the most of it tonight…and then tomorrow never comes. So here I am today: 260, feeling a fool, kinda half-arsed doing <national prepackaged meals diet program>, exhausted, sore and tired of it all. A month ago, I saw a new doctor (because surely this can all be fixed with the right medication, right?) and he – unsolicited- advocated WLS. I was like “No, I don’t want surgery. My husband wouldn’t want me to have surgery.” So the doctor ordered a battery of tests – you know, all the blood work, fasting and then with the sugar drink. Man that day was hard – afterward I was cold and shakey and had to take a 3 hour snap. Apparently I don’t handle a super-dose of carbs very well! What this doctor had brought up interested me. Over the next month, I again researched WLS. This time, I discovered the sleeve. I devoured every bit of info I could find on it. And….everything that was a turn-off for me about the other WLS options was resolved when it comes to the sleeve. I learned about grehlin, the hunger hormone in the lining of the stomach, and realized that’s what has driven me since birth to be so hungry! The thing is, once you become overweight and then obese, the problems just snowball and your body chemistry gets farther away from normal. I do take responsibility for it having gotten out of control. But I feel validated knowing I had this challenge from the beginning whereas people like my sister, and DH, didn’t. I have discussed all this with DH and we have agreed that he just doesn’t understand what it’s like to have a weight problem. …So when I brought up WLS with DH this time, his immediate reaction was “I’m against it.” At that point I had already fully gotten on board with the idea myself, and was so excited and so hopeful for a healthy life, that when DH shut me down like that, I felt almost as though he had signed my death sentence. I know I’m being dramatic, but I also know many of you reading this will understand where I’m coming from. So I went and researched some more. I found VST – awesome! I’m so grateful for VST! More educated, I approached DH again, and was again shut down. He 1) doesn’t believe my weight is that big of a problem and 2) believes if I just eat less and move more I can overcome this. He seems to think It’s a moral and strength-of-character issue. You all know that line of thinking. But, I’m convinced that if he had been along for the ride with me all of the past 30 some-odd years that I've struggled with this, he would understand better. We enjoy a spectacularly healthy relationship and approach life as a team – this is one thing though, that we don’t come at from the same place. So the problem here is twofold – not only is it something we don’t see eye to eye on, but it is so rare that we don’t see eye to eye, that to not to is additionally disturbing! We do have a relationship of equality too – reading the last paragraph one might not think that. Truth is, I can do what I want, but what I ultimately want is for us to be on the same page with it. I need his support. After Thanksgiving at my parents’ house, we came home and DH said out of the blue “See, if you had WLS, you’d never enjoy Thanksgiving again.” And thus opened a long and detailed discussion about WLS and the sleeve in particular—what it is, what it does, how one lives a sleeved life. And by the end of our conversation, you know what? He said he’ll support me. Woo HOO! So I’ve been to the doctor again for the results of the tests, and I’m prediabetic. If I stay this weight and just get older, I will become diabetic. If I gain weight any time soon, I will become diabetic sooner. My BMI is like 38.5. I’m worried because my insurance says approval is for BMI of >40 or 35+ with comorbidities. The rest of my bloodwork is fine. The doctor is sending me for a sleep test for apnea and feels that will suffice for comorbidity. Pretty sure I have it, but what if I don’t? He's also putting me on (can’t remember the name) the medicine that Type II and prediabetics take to help regulate blood sugar, and it does often cause *some* weight loss. DH asked last night (with a tone that was, to me, antagonistic) “What if, while you’re out for surgery, the doctor decides to also perform liposuction?” And I was like WTF are you talking about? that’s as absurd as him giving me a nose job during WLS! Well, I guess I was a little too vehement in my reply, because he got offended. And adheres to the belief that these two surgeries are absolutely along the same lines. He reiterated that he doesn’t want me to have WLS (although he will support me). I can tell by his relating liposuction to WLS that he *still* REALLY doesn’t understand what this surgery is about. Seriously! He’s a really intelligent guy, my DH. Extremely intelligent, actually. But I thought this was pretty ridiculous. Part of me thinks he really needs to be made aware of how vastly different these two surgeries are, not only on a surgical level, but also in motivation, intent and result. Not to mention -- my surgeon wouldn’t do anything I hadn’t signed off on, even if he was trained in cosmetic surgery and had a lipo wand on hand in case the spirit moved him. (Yes, sarcasm) So, is it necessary to try to educate DH more on this? To make sure he knows this is not a cosmetic/vanity surgery (like when his ex a decade ago got breast implants)? Or would it be advantageous to just let him think it is more along the lines of a boob job or lipo, so that he doesn’t grow overly concerned about the seriousness of WLS and go back to saying he absolutely won’t support it? No, I think it better to be straight forward as we have always been with each other. I so whole-heartedly believe that this is the right thing for me, and that I am an excellent candidate. Thanks to all those sharing their stories. Hope I can pay it forward someday. My blog entries should be of more reasonable length in the future

Congrats on one week That's so exciting! Please do post back on what your surgeon has to say. I am really looking forward to someday soon being able to say "Well today is one week" , so thanks for sharing your story. btw your hair in your profile pic is gorgous, and your profile name cracked me up -- isn't that an error message having to do with network or internal communication? lol! good one!

thanks so much Vicki! hehe, I wrote so much in that blog that I was sure no one would read it all the way through, but I felt I needed to blog to organize my thoughts so thank you for reading & commenting and supporting. What a wonderful thing this website is! Thank you for your suggestion. He has agreed to attend the seminar with me & I hope that helps him understand better. I'm so sorry about your band experience, but I'm SO glad you didn't have long term damage. A friend of mine went through some scary things with hers. And honestly, from what I've learned about grehlin, I think that banding but leaving my tummy in tact to produce hunger hormones...well i think that just sounds like torture! The sleeve seems smart in so many ways. . . . Let's give a round of applause to all the supportive spouses! They rock!

She's absolutely right -- get all your ducks in a row and hit the ground running when the time comes. I know you're ready start already! But, ya know, time's going to pass anyway, might as well be getting everything all lined up. 2 1/2 months will pass in the blink of an eye. Best of luck to you -- keep us posted!

12/12/12 at 12 -- you KNOW that's gotta be a lucky! congratulations!

That totally makes sense -- thanks for posting!

Hi RR, I'm new to the forum, and am pre-op, but I've been thinking about this topic a lot. I've done a search on the boards looking for a discussion of "to tell or not to tell" but am having no luck. My thinking is this: why can't we just say we're "doing a liquid diet" when we're on that phase and that we're "eating mainly protein and limiting carbs, controlling portion size, and increasing exercise" when we get to that point? I mean, it's not technically lying, although it is an omission. . . . I just think that WLS is extremely personal in both choice and mechanics. Obviously people will see that there is drastic weight loss. But they will also see a difference in our habits. No doubt there will be those that wonder if there was WLS....let 'em wonder! If they are rude enough to ask....well I haven't thought of how to handle that yet. Anyway, I just want to limit the number of people I tell, for various reasons, including what you're talking about. People just really really don't understand if they say WLS is cheating!

I Can't Wait To Not Have To: ~ avoid posting a picture of myself on facebook cuz I don't want my high school and college friends to see me ~ feel like the whole bus went down a little when I stepped on (and I'm sure everyone noticed!) ~have sore knees, feet, back ~feel exhausted at the end of a day when I didn't really do much ~see people's surprise when they meet my husband and see what a catch he is I'm looking forward to: ~showing my husband how much I really love him -- frequently and energetically! ~ being able to shop wherever I want to ~getting into a gym routine and feeling SO STRONG!!!