lilbearzmom

I've had the past four days off of work to go back to my hometown for my mom and grandpa's joint birthday party. It was awesome as I haven't seen some of my family members in 6 months and they were all shocked at how I look. Okay, so here is my deep, dark secret. I've always kinda envied those women who are small and delicate looking (yet a total steel magnolia underneath!) but at 5'5 and within spitting distance of 300 pounds THAT wasn't a term applied to me. The best I could hope for was that I had a pretty face, or nice eyes or hair. Underwhelming since I always knew they were tacking on the "too bad you're so big". *rolls eyes*. Yet I had soooo many people tell me how tiny and dainty I looked. My uncle even picked me up when he hugged me and spun me around! I still have about 30 pounds I want to lose...but what a great feeling! I'm at a stage where you can actually notice 5 or 10 lb weight loss and I LOVE LOVE LOVE what I'm starting to look like. I adore my kickboxing, zumba and yoga classes and if I don't run several times a week I feel weird. Whats even better is that my amazingly supportive grandparents (so funny now as my grandma was not 100% on board when I told her about my surgery a year ago!) have said that when I run my first 10K this summer that they'll be there at the finish line. That's amazing considering they want to travel to ME and at their age (late 80s) the 3.5 hour trip is hard for them. Wow. Just...wow! This entire long weekend has been great motivation to continue my 'Battle of the Bulge' until I get to my goal!!

I found one of my trigger foods. It's spaghetti or more specifically pasta. My mom made some homemade spaghetti on Sunday (homemade as in, homemade from a jar, you know, the same line of thought as Olive Garden treats you like family). Really, Olive Garden treats you like family, I don't recall my mom ever presenting a bill at the end of a meal. But I digress.
 
Any way, I took the leftovers home with me. For supper, I ate my normal portion, and a few minutes later wanted another portion - even though my stomach was telling me I was stuffed to the top. I wanted it so bad that I would have cage wrestled a bear for another bowl.
 
It wasn't easy, but I stopped myself. The hardest part - and I can't believe it was so difficult to do - was to throw out the spaghetti. I kept telling myself that I could space out the spaghetti into several meals during the week. But, I knew if I left it in the house, I'd find some way to convince myself to eat more that eventing. There is a dog that trots through my yard daily, so he may be going into insulin shock today!
 
Only 1 other time have I wanted to eat something so bad - it was a banana laying in the fruit bowl. So adios spaghetti noodles, I'll eat you at mom's house, but you won't be coming home with me anymore.

I'm feeling really good today. Like I've said, every day is better than the one before. I had my follow-up visit with the doctor this morning, and he's happy with how I'm progressing and how my incisions are looking. I'm down 15 lbs according to their scale, 20 according to mine. 15, 20, whatever it is, I'm on my way. I just got back from taking my daughter Chloe for a walk to the library. Felt good to get out for a walk. I walked around the block a couple times yesterday, but it was chilly and raining so not too pleasant. Much nicer out today.
 
Well, I bit the bullet and posted a note on Facebook about the surgery. I woke up at 5 am and couldn't sleep, and all I could think about was getting it off my chest. I spent the next 2 and a half hours working out what I would say. I created the note, then shared it to my wall with the following statement - "Dear friends, please read the attached note in its ENTIRETY before passing judgment. I hope for your support. Thank you, Joe"
 
Here is what the note said:
 
On Friday March 8, 2013, I had a surgery called 'vertical sleeve gastrectomy'. This is a bariatric weight loss procedure. This was not a decision that was made lightly, or hastily. I will try my best to outline my reasons for doing it, what it is, and reasons for not telling anyone.
Reasons for not telling people
First, I want to say that I was originally planning on only telling a very select few people about this. But I realize that this is probably not very realistic, as the changes will probably be pretty significant, and pretty quick. I've even outright lied to some people, including some of my coworkers and bandmates, which I am very uneasy about. I hope they will forgive me. Please don't be offended if you were not one of the people I chose to tell beforehand. My main reason for choosing not to tell people beforehand was that I didn't wish to invite any negativity, or have anyone trying to put doubts in my head as I had already made the very difficult decision and none of that would have been helpful to me. Every person I did choose to tell had the exact same comment - "you're not THAT big." I appreciate the 'compliment', and suppose I got pretty good at hiding it. Before surgery, I weighed 274 lbs. I'm sure this number will probably shock most of you, as that seems to be the universal reaction. Another comment I heard was "you could do that yourself". There have been times I've been able to shed decent amounts of weight, only to put it all back on, and then some. And each time I would do this, would make the next time even harder. I also REALLY didn't want to hear anyone say to me that I was 'taking the easy way out', as no doubt some of you reading this might be thinking right now. This would have done nothing but anger me, and would have jeopardized our friendship. Believe me, there is nothing easy about having surgery. I'm still recovering, and wouldn't ever want to relive the first 24 hours. It is still going to take hard work and exercise to get to my goal and maintain it. This is only a tool to help me achieve that goal.
What it is
There are basically three main types of weight loss surgery. There is the gastric bypass. This was never a consideration in my mind, as I view it as being a last resort for extremely overweight people, and there can be a lot of malnutrition involved. I was actually scheduled for the lap band procedure, as I know a few people who have had it done, with varying degrees of success. After hours and hours of further research, I decided against this. Basically, the lap band is a device that is implanted and placed around the entrance to the stomach. The band gets filled with saline so that it inflates and restricts how much you can eat. The 'temporary' aspect of the band (the fact that it can be removed if any issues arose), was the biggest plus to me initially. The more I read online, the more I saw people not happy with the lap band, and having it removed and getting the procedure I had, the vertical sleeve. Some issues with the band include slippage, erosion, and the long-term maintenance (you have to go periodically for 'fills' to adjust how much the band is filled). Some people just could never find what they call their 'green zone', the perfect level of restriction where they are restricting enough to lose weight but not so much that they are vomiting after 2 bites. Also, insurance concerns crossed my mind - would insurance cover the fills forever? What if I moved or had to change doctors? All of these things pointed me in the direction of the vertical sleeve. The vertical sleeve is the newest of the three types, and is basically a laparoscopic procedure where up to 85% of your stomach is removed, leaving you with a sleeve about the size of a banana. Basically, you are then restricted to eating between 3 and 5 ounces at any meal. You can eat pretty much what you did before, only MUCH less. Some people find that they don't tolerate certain foods after surgery, or don't like the tastes of some foods they liked before. It is a permanent solution. The weight loss results are comparable to the bypass, typically very good. Another benefit of this surgery is that the part of the stomach that is removed is the part that produces the hormone grehlin, the hunger hormone, so feelings of overwhelming hunger go away. People say that they go from eating extreme amounts of food and never feeling full before surgery, to having to remind themselves to eat so they can get in enough calories after. The fact that the lap band was 'temporary' and could be removed at any time, was what made it more attractive to me initially, and seemed less 'drastic'. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I needed a permanent solution that would help me make the lifelong changes I needed to make. Wanting something because it was reversible, enabling me to go back to the way I was, no longer made sense to me.
Reasons for getting surgery
First and foremost, I did this for my wife and kids. I don't want to leave them without a husband and father. Sure, I'm not happy with how I look, but looks were at the bottom of my list of reasons. I would have been perfectly happy to continue to eat 5-6 slices of pizza and being upset that there wasn't any more because I still didn't feel full, and watching my weight continue to rise every year. I 'know' what the right things and right amounts to eat are. But 'knowing' and being able to stick to it because you never feel satisfied are two very different things. I never smoked or drank or did any drugs. Food was my drug, and it was negatively affecting my health. Besides weighing 274 and growing, I had a BMI of 36, which is considered obese. I have high blood pressure, high cholesterol, erosive GERD (acid reflux), shortness of breath, a leaky heart valve, and what my doctor says is the second worst case of sleep apnea he's seen in his office. If you don't know, sleep apnea means you stop breathing for significant periods of time, which lowers your blood oxygen level, and the 'jarring' that occurs when your breath comes back could cause your heart to go into a deadly rhythm. So basically, I was a ticking time bomb that could die in my sleep at any time. I have a machine called a CPAP machine that helps me breathe at night, but I've tried it and find it impossible to sleep with it. I'm actually getting a new one today that my doctor says is easier because the air pressure level automatically adjusts based on what you need at any given moment, instead of being set at a fixed level that sometimes seems like too much and would wake me up.. I plan on giving it a try, and hopefully once I lose a significant amount of weight the sleep apnea will disappear. I also hope to be off my medications. Most people who get the sleeve are able to get off their medications and are cured of their sleep apnea. I've seen stories of people being cured of type-2 diabetes (which I thankfully did not have, yet) the day of surgery. Amazing. The apnea and medication for blood pressure, while being the result of being overweight, also become self perpetuating problems. They limit my energy level, which in turn limits my activity level, further adding to the obstacles to weight loss on my own.
How I'm doing
The surgery went well on Friday. The surgeon found a fairly large hiatal hernia, which he repaired while he was in there. The first day was basically Hell. I was in pain, discomfort, had a hard time taking deep breaths, and was extremely tired. All I wanted to do was sleep, not only because I was tired but because I wanted to avoid the discomfort. They pump your belly full of air during the procedure to maximize the space they have to work, and this air leads to gas pain which radiates to your left shoulder. This gas pain is no joke. Every day gets easier than the one before it. I am on a clear liquid diet for 1 week, basically limited to water or crystal light, broth, sugar free jello, and sugar free ice pops. I also need to drink protein shakes until I can start eating foods with protein. They want you to get between 60 and 80 grams of protein in every day, and if I can't get all of that in from food I will have to continue with the shakes. At first, it was very hard to get in the fluids, due to swelling. Very small sips. That is getting easier by the day. After 1 week, I progress to a few weeks of a puréed diet, eating mushy foods. A blender will be my friend for this phase. After that, I can start introducing some 'real' foods, slowly to see what I can tolerate. They still want you to concentrate on getting most of your calories from lean proteins and vegetables, limiting sugars and starches. I welcome my new relationship with food. It will no longer be something that I do for pleasure, consuming unlimited quantities. Instead it will be something that I will have to be conscious of, sometimes reminding myself to eat so that I can get in enough calories to sustain good nutrition and fuel my body. It will be a big change, for sure. I continue to feel better every day. The pain is basically gone, limited to what I would describe as a 'tightness' feeling at the incision sites. I had 7 small incisions, which should leave minimal scarring. The first step out of bed or off the couch is the hardest, because of this tightness, and my fear of twisting or stretching anything the wrong way. I'm walking well, just a bit slow at the moment. The tightness also makes it impossible to sleep on my side or stomach right now, limiting me to my back, which is the worst position for my sleep apnea. To counter this, I've found that sleeping upright on the couch with my feet up on an ottoman is the best for me. I tried piling pillows on the bed to elevate my head, but found that it was pushing my head forward, further restricting my airway. I will get my new CPAP machine today, and look forward to sleeping in bed with my wife again tonight. As of this morning, I've lost a total of 20 lbs, including 9 lbs lost during a strict one week pre-op diet.
In conclusion
I am a very private person, who doesn't like divulging personal (potentially embarrassing) information, as I've done at length here. I only just decided to write this after waking up at 5 am and not being able to fall back asleep. I hope for all of your understanding and support, and 'friendship'. I welcome any questions or comments, either under this post, or in a private message, or in person. I do not welcome any criticism or cruel comments or jokes (even lighthearted ones, as I might not view them this way). If that is your inclination, please refrain from commenting, or go ahead and remove me from your friends list. I apologize for ending this on such a down note like that, I just want to make it clear how serious I am about this. Thank you.'
So far, I've gotten all positive comments from people, except for one person. He used to be a close friend, but we grew apart in recent years, but are still friends on Facebook. It's been years since we've talked, even on Facebook. He said he was hurt that I didn't contact him, because he had weight loss surgery also and could have helped me in my decision. I had no idea he had surgery, and told him that and asked him how I would have known. We sent messages back and forth, and he still was upset, saying stuff about how he's sick of putting himself out for other people only to get nothing back (paraphrasing). I told him that I was disappointed that he chose now, a time when I'm reaching out for support and understanding, to make it about him and his hurt feelings that our friendship isn't what it used to be. Whatever, I can't worry about that now. I need to take care of myself at this point in time.

I can not believe how fast time is moving!!!! Just two months shy of a year! 107 lbs down and happy with it. I am able to eat more and that's a little scary!! I make sure I eat my protein first. Lunch is usually a grilled chicken breast with lettuce, grapes, and strawberries. I still measure my food because I worry about over eating.
 
My work load is kinda heavy at this time, so I am lucky if I go the gym once a week I feel so guilty about that! That's why I stay on top of my food intake. On a typical day I usually intake: 2 Isopure protein shakes( 100 gr protein), 64 oz of water, two eggs in the morning, grilled chicken for lunch, Atkins bar for snack, and Chili for supper.
 
I should confess now :Last week I ate three Oreo cookies, and last Friday I ate a bag of M&Ms!!! LORD HELP ME!! I hope this is not going to become a habit because I refuse to undo all my hard work!
 
HIGHEST WEIGHT: 348 LBS
TODAY'S WEIGHT: 241 LBS :wub:

When I first decided to have VSG, I didn’t initially come to this board. I did my research, talked to my Drs. and went through the process. Any questions that I had, I was able to research through the internet and typically I found answers. If I couldn’t I would discuss them with my Dr. or my nutritionist during my 6 month pre-op requirement. I found this board just days before my surgery. I came here looking for mutant people like myself. People whose life had spun out of control and sought solace and comfort in excessive food and drink. People who had decided that they have had enough of the churn. People that were taking the steps to improve their health and their lives. People that actually allowed themselves to be spread out on an operating table and let a group of strangers cut out a perfectly good stomach. You see, I don’t have a lot of support at home as my spouse had RNY a few years back and failed to maintain her weight and is fairly obese again. She’s been pretty passive aggressive about the whole thing and, well that’s a whole Jerry Springer episode all in itself. I don’t have any close family, and I didn’t share my surgery with anyone who was particularly close friend wise. For some unexplained reason, I needed to be in a tribe for this journey, so I found this board. I came here and I met a whole raft of nice people, people that I enjoyed conversing with on a daily basis, mutants like myself (you all know who you are, and I thank you for the friendship that you all have extended to me).
 
I learned things on this board and I contributed and tried to support. As I did, I came to realize that this surgery is a whole lot tougher on some people than it had been for me both physically and mentally. I guess that I had focused so much on trying to lose the weight and get healthy, that I didn’t see WLS as that big of deal. I’ve done every diet, taken nutrition classes as part of my school work, was a pretty faithful follower of good gym habits; I just couldn’t put down the fork and the cup. I barreled through all this like I always had, by not taking any prisoners. It never occurred to me that others weren’t like that, so it was an eye opening experience to hear the struggles of others. As I tried to pass along my experiences and support, I started getting offline messages. Some were funny, some were more questions, but over the last couple of weeks, I got a couple that were just down right mean. I was being chided for responding in an honest and forthright manner, not being judgmental, but offering an opinion based on experience and facts. Then last week, I was perusing a thread over in one of the other sections that basically called out the so called “vets” on the board for hijacking threads and interjecting silliness and nonsense into too many threads. The poster felt like all this should be relegated to the chat room and policed off the boards. What really melted my butter was a reply by someone that I had truly respected, and someone that had been chastised openly on the board for some of their responses, actually agreeing with the poster about how some of the “vets” handled their posts. This was someone that I had actually defended and sent a message of encouragement to, now blazing away at others (and myself, in my opinion) on the board. It was a wake-up call that maybe there are mutants here that don’t come here for the same reasons that I do. Maybe they feel that this should be a very narrow, well patrolled repository of information and facts, and that there’s no room for a joke and a smile and a bit of irreverent behavior among the tribes people.
 
So, last week I decided to take a few days away from VST and figure out what I wanted from it. Had I graduated from the tribe of mutants? Was this drama that seems to interweave itself into threads on a regular basis worth it? Had I really been that callus in my responses as I was accused of being? I even visited another gastric sleeve board just to get a perspective of how the other tribes live. Then, it dawned on me that we all come here to get something that we need. It might be information, it might absolution, it may be reassurance, and it might even be a joke when we need one, but we all come here seeking something. Because my reasons for being here are different from others, I shouldn’t be castigated for offering an opinion or a word of tough love or even warm and fuzzy encouragement. I shouldn't feel bad to have a joke with a fellow mutant about some nonsense. But, I have decided that for now, it is best that I don’t participate as regularly as I have in the past. I want to continue to learn, I want to see how others react to their quest for health, but mainly I want to be with my tribe. I can do that from the lurkers chair just as easy as I can by participating and I don’t have to sweep the drama from my mailbox.
 
Thanks for listening – I appreciate each and every one of you for taking the courage to make the life altering changes necessary to live a long and happy life.
 
Peace....
 
John

This is a long time coming. "They" say that journaling is a good way for people on a weight loss journey to deal with "things". I am a little over halfway to goal, so I'd say it's about time. I thought I would start with my story- what got me to this point. The point of absolute desperation. The point at which I was so desperate to lose weight that I ELECTIVELY allowed a surgeon to remove the majority of my stomach. When it is put that way (and honestly when I tell someone verbally what VSG is), it sounds so ridiculous. I mean, who does that?
 
I wasn't ever a really fat kid. I was pretty active and grew up in the 80's, a time before video games, PC's, cable TV, and a lot of the technology that keeps kids of today sitting for hours instead of playing outside. I was just a little chubby until I became less active around puberty, then began the constant battle. I spent my high school years gaining weight, until I was a little under 200 lbs by the end of my junior year. I was also by this time a "secret eater". I worked in a bakery when I was 15, and would sneak in a big bag of bakery fresh cookies to my bedroom and eat them all when no one was looking. And so it went on, until the summer between junior and senior year, when I went on the Nutrisystem diet plan and lost 45 pounds before the start of my senior year. My senior year was pretty fab- I was a drama geek, and due to the weight loss, I landed the lead in the fall play and a significant part in the spring musical.
 
In college, I gained it all back. Over the years, I have lost and gained probably hundreds of pounds. I got married in 2002 at 217 pounds, had a baby two years later. A week after my son was born and all the water weight was gone, I was at 245 lbs. In 2007, I was up to 285. By this time last year, I was at my all time high, 302 lbs. My mom called and asked if I would be interested in WLS. She said she would help me pay for it. (Backstory: my 32 year old brother died suddenly in Feb 2011, and she was/is really afraid to lose another child). I went to the information session in April 2012 and had my 1st appointment in May. Over the next several months, I completed all of my pre-op requirements, including losing 30 pounds. Due to my crazy work and school schedule, I had to have my surgery just before Christmas, on December 17, 2012.
 
It has been kind of a crazy ride, and I am still learning how to "work my sleeve", but so far, it has been so amazing. I couldn't have done it by myself. After more than 30 years fighting this battle, this I know.

This is a long time coming. "They" say that journaling is a good way for people on a weight loss journey to deal with "things". I am a little over halfway to goal, so I'd say it's about time. I thought I would start with my story- what got me to this point. The point of absolute desperation. The point at which I was so desperate to lose weight that I ELECTIVELY allowed a surgeon to remove the majority of my stomach. When it is put that way (and honestly when I tell someone verbally what VSG is), it sounds so ridiculous. I mean, who does that?
 
I wasn't ever a really fat kid. I was pretty active and grew up in the 80's, a time before video games, PC's, cable TV, and a lot of the technology that keeps kids of today sitting for hours instead of playing outside. I was just a little chubby until I became less active around puberty, then began the constant battle. I spent my high school years gaining weight, until I was a little under 200 lbs by the end of my junior year. I was also by this time a "secret eater". I worked in a bakery when I was 15, and would sneak in a big bag of bakery fresh cookies to my bedroom and eat them all when no one was looking. And so it went on, until the summer between junior and senior year, when I went on the Nutrisystem diet plan and lost 45 pounds before the start of my senior year. My senior year was pretty fab- I was a drama geek, and due to the weight loss, I landed the lead in the fall play and a significant part in the spring musical.
 
In college, I gained it all back. Over the years, I have lost and gained probably hundreds of pounds. I got married in 2002 at 217 pounds, had a baby two years later. A week after my son was born and all the water weight was gone, I was at 245 lbs. In 2007, I was up to 285. By this time last year, I was at my all time high, 302 lbs. My mom called and asked if I would be interested in WLS. She said she would help me pay for it. (Backstory: my 32 year old brother died suddenly in Feb 2011, and she was/is really afraid to lose another child). I went to the information session in April 2012 and had my 1st appointment in May. Over the next several months, I completed all of my pre-op requirements, including losing 30 pounds. Due to my crazy work and school schedule, I had to have my surgery just before Christmas, on December 17, 2012.
 
It has been kind of a crazy ride, and I am still learning how to "work my sleeve", but so far, it has been so amazing. I couldn't have done it by myself. After more than 30 years fighting this battle, this I know.

I'm going to start blogging my journey as a way to A. hold myself accountable for the negative thoughts and feelings I have towards myself and my weight B. to map my emotional journey in a way that photos alone can not. So here goes.
 
I am 23 years old. I have been fat my entire life. I was a fat child who was promised that I would "grow out of the baby fat one day" but alas I have only grown into a fat adult. I have an odd relationship with my weight. I must say that as a fat girl, you know who your friends truly are. Because of the negative stigma associated with my size, only the people of true character and kindness stuck around. I have a group of fiercely loyal friends who I wouldn't trade for the world, and they love me regardless of my physical shape. I have been interested in theater for as long as I can remember. I was a force in my community theater troupe, and while I was never chosen as the ingenue I always had a fantastic character role in everything I auditioned for. Never the star, but I had a ton of fans. My weight directly influenced my choice of profession. You see, I am a theatrical costume designer and puppet builder. I was taught to sew at an extremely early age, but I only began to pursue my talent because my community theater's designer didn't know how to sew anything for a plus size woman that didn't resemble a tow sack. I began to costume myself, and I must say that I looked fabulous. But the thing is...I WANTED to be the lead. I WANTED to be the ingenue. My size kept me from it, and I developed a deep seated self loathing over it. I developed a social anxiety disorder because of it. So in college I enrolled directly in design and never once attempted to audition again.
Last year I was looking for an internship. I wanted to work as a puppet designer and builder, so I applied to all of the usual places. Jim Henson, Puppet Heap, Puppet Kitchen, Sprout, etc. But I also applied to late night TV shows like Conan and Colbert for their props making internships. Well, I was called back for everything I applied for...except for those applications that asked to include a picture. Maybe it was coincidence...but I don't think so. Eventually I decided that as a life long Henson Fanatic they were the company I wanted to peruse. Everything was going perfectly...I had every skill and experience they were looking for but there was one last hitch in the giddy up. They called and asked for an in person final interview!! Now, I live in Alabama. The Creature Shop for Sesame Street is in NYC...that's a long way to go and an expensive train ticket just to be shot down because of my weight. Those old insecurities creeped in and almost made me cancel the interview. So many opportunities had already been lost because of my appearance. But my mom MADE me go. She said that Jim Henson company celebrated people of all shapes and sizes in their body of work, why not in their employees? And she was right. The hired me for the semester and I had the absolute best time of my life!!! That's where I began my weight loss journey...on The Street. I lost 30 pounds just working my tail off for that amazing, AMAZING company. I met people that changed my life and my perspective on everything...Only problem? I discovered that a few of the AM puppets did not fit my obese arm, and that's the kind of character I hope to one day puppeteer. So I made up my mind. WLS happened about 2 weeks after I returned home.
 
I am 70 pounds down total at 2 months out. My arm fits most of my puppets now. I still have 100 pounds to lose, but I already feel like a different person. Sometimes I just don't actually SEE the change...more on that next time.

These is basically just for me to vent over my private thoughts about something that went down recently. I still have some leftover frustration despite maybe personal messages cheering me on and supporting me in my line of thought so rather than make a forum thread for all to see begging for reassurance I just thought I would make a personal blog entry for me to come back on should I ever find myself in this situation again, because I think that spending most of the day in self reflection I have more or less worked out my real feelings about all this.
 
I've been known as the mean girl at many points in my life because I have always been active in organizations, clubs, and jobs in positions of power. I have always sought excellence, I was never happy to just be a member of a club, I jumped in head first and ran for president, you know? It's just my personality. I don't do a lot, but what I do decide to do, I do it to the absolute best that I possibly can. Now, this certainly is not to say that I do not have my days, and my screwups but I am not the type of person to screw up and then go post about it online looking for people to tell me it's OK. I track like I eat like all of us know we should, so there is never any question about whether or not something was alright or not. I'm in the green or I'm in the red, and when everything is black and white like that it's pretty obvious what to do about it.
 
This brings me to the heart of the matter, and what I seem to be continually butting heads with people over - I do not understand what people are looking for when they make posts about massively veering off course for a diet, let alone how we should be eating postoperative. I can understand it when people want to know if this or that is acceptable, but when people have gone and had 150 grams of carbs, 80 grams of sugar, and probably blown their fat and calories out of the water for the day too, I just don't understand. I know its not easy to stop, and I would never ever sit here and claim to never mess up. Hell, at two weeks post op I had frozen yogurt with my husband, and at three weeks post op I had a smallish serving of Outback Steakhouse's blooming onion, arguably one of the worse appetizers in the country. I make mistakes too, but what I do not understand is posting about it looking for nothing but hand-holding and reassuring comments.
 
I don't know what to say to someone who does that, especially when its over and over again, not just in posts but in comments to over people as well. And let me be clear - while this last episode that prompted me to really examine myself was obviously in response to a particular person, this is extremely common, which is why I felt the need to check myself.
 
I want to say something that I never said in all the back and forth, because it had not really occurred to me, and towards the end of all that, I was genuinely hurt by some of things people said and wasn't thinking clearly about the topic at hand. Enablers will not ever help you. Telling someone who has issues with food that their bad behavoir is fine and that tomorrow is a new day is not only a load of BS, its destructive in the worse sort of insidious way.
 
You will NEVER change if you don't wrap your head around the abuse that you inflict on yourself. Never, it doesn't matter how much of your stomach they take away, it doesn't matter how many ounces of food you can eat in a setting, you will find a way to ruin this gift to yourself.
 
I know this. I already HAD surgery once, and like so many of you out there, when I messed it up for myself day after day, week after week I came onto YouTube and forums like this looking for "support" when I really needed someone to tell me to stop what I was doing to myself. Some people act like they don't really have a problem with food and they might be true for a small minority of people on this site but the harsh reality is that no one makes it to 250 pounds, 300 pounds, and BMIs through the roof that merit weight loss surgery without unhealthy ideas about what is OK to eat, what isn't OK, and little ways we kid ourselves into thinking it's fine, it'll be better next time, I'll jump back on the horse tomorrow...... It's all a crock, and we kidded ourselves up to shameful sizes with that mentality.
 
I'm not saying that we should suddenly go at things with a level of intensity that we cannot maintain, and through empathy out the window but what I am saying is that when a simple suggestion that doing the hard mental work that needs to be done might require therapy or counseling of some sort, and that sparks a rage in people burning so hot that they threaten to leave the site and throw all class and dignity out the window, that does not bode well for the state of this community.
 
It would serve people well to sit up and take note of the state of things around here. When all that is offered is platitudes and hand holding, nothing good will come of that. We have to change our minds to change our bodies and sometimes that means growing a spine, and taking some honest criticism and self evaluation. No one is doing you any favors is everything they tell you is comfortable and unchallenged
 
 
If none of what I said applies to you, then you have to take some responsibility for what you post. If you make a semi-dramatic post every time you do something wrong but you have it under control, you have no right to get indignant when people notice. Some things are more appropriate in blog format not public forums.

Finally! 3 months 5 days in and 50lbs gone gone gone!!!
 
Funny thing though, have always been 5 feet 1.9 inches, and today measured at 5'2"! am I getting taller? lol
 
Size 20 now! Haven't been 20 since university days! Having a lot of fun digging through old clothes, will shop for new ones when I reach size 18

Alright so I've been MIA for a while but decided its time to come back and see how everyone is doing. So quick update...I had surgery on 8/17/12 and as of today I am down 66lbs I am feeling awesome and still working on losing about 85-90 more lbs. I am able to eat more than what I was 1-2 months post op but its still a small portion. I am able to eat almost everything but again smaller portions. I have become concerned about this because I don't want to over do it although I do stop as soon as I feel full. Any of you able to eat normal foods(pizza, bread, pasta, etc) but just smaller portions.
 
Also, I have not worked out whatsoever because I go to work AND school full time. Luckily, I am done with school the end of Feb so my main focus after that will be working out. I've attached a before and current picture of myself

1. Lose first 25 lbs Accomplished 01/05/13!
2. Get below 250 for the first time in 3 years Accomplished 1/12/13!
3. Join a gym
4. Weigh less than my boyfriend (242) Accomplished 02/06/12
5. Weigh less than when started College (232)
6. Buy a pair of pants smaller than a size 20 Accomplished 02/01/12
7. Get below 200lbs for the first time in about 14 years
8. Buy clothing that is not in the plus size section
9. More to come as I think of them!