BigDaddyJoe

I've sent invites out to both of you. Should be in your email.

Fariethin, now that I am on my computer and not on my iPad, I can see your profile and see that your surgery was March 6. I have sent you an invite.

Are you a March sleever? If not, I'm sorry but the decision has been made that too many non-March sleevers have gotten into the group and that goes against the original intent of the group. There are other Facebook groups for people not sleeved in March.

I agree, Serendipity! Almost like our mind is doing it to us. I know it will come off eventually, just seems like it's taking forever to start moving again. Before this past week, I was losing .5 to 1 lb a day for a little while.

OK, I guess I jumped the gun a week ago when I said I was no longer obese because I weighed 227 and my BMI was 29.9. Ever since then, I've been fluctuating between 227 and 229. Guess I'm in some sort of a stall. Oh well, I'm not really stressing over it. I know I'm still doing all the right things and it will move when it wants to.

No, it doesn't have to be me. I'm not sure if it would let someone else do it either, because the message I get says that 'this person has already been invited', not that I have already invited you. The only other option would be to add me or another member as a friend on Facebook, then we would be able to add you without an email address. If you'd like to try that, look for me Joseph Stahl. If you can't find me or too many turn up, put my email address joe_stahl@msn.com into the search box and I should turn up.

I did send it, GrammyViv, and it won't let me invite you again. The email is done by Facebook, so I have no idea what it looks like. Maybe one of the people who have received the email will see this and answer your question.

I'd be interested to see people's answers to this also. I've looked at it as being its own reward. I've cut the BP med dosage in half and will hopefully be off it soon. What more reward do I need than that?

Subtitle: I'm no longer obese! I'm no longer obese! I never in my life thought I'd be so happy to utter these words! I weighed in this morning at 227.0. That calculates to a BMI of 29.9, and I'm no longer considered obese! I was 227.6 yesterday, so I knew it would be a matter of days. In less than 8 short weeks, I've moved from obese to overweight, have cut my blood pressure medication dosage in half, and stopped taking my prescription Prilosec. Next goals: I'm 3 lbs away from losing 50, getting off my BP med completely, and getting off my CPAP machine (AKA the medieval torture device). Another (perhaps less realistic) goal is to lose 7 lbs by May 13. May 13 is my 13th wedding anniversary, and I'd love to get down to the same weight I was then (220). It will be hard, because my weight loss has slowed this past week or so, but I know it's possible.

Yes, Hwynbrwneyes, the Facebook page is secret, you can't even find it if you aren't a member. I've sent invites to you, duckie913, jkfletch82, and GrammyViv.

Ok, I have sent invites to sunflowers and bostonhok

That's just an average so you're not upset if you don't lose more than that. I'm only 7 weeks out from surgery and have already lost over 50% of my excess weight. If you follow the nutritional recommendations and do some exercising, there is no reason you can't get down to your ideal weight.

OK, I think I'm all caught up with the invites. I set up the group, but anyone who is a member can invite people, so if you are already a member and see someone posting here that they'd like to be added, you can go ahead and do it, so they don't have to wait for me to get to it.

Tyra - the Facebook page was something I created, but then people were concerned about the page being visible, so I deleted it. It takes 2 weeks to delete a page. I created a 'secret' group that people need to be invited to. I will invite you right now.

So, I went for my 6 week follow-up visit on Thursday, and also saw my primary care physician the same day. First, the follow-up. My surgeon was very pleased with my progress. I've mentioned about the scale discrepancies before. The first visit with the doctor, his scale and my home scale showed the identical weights (274), so that's what they had as my starting weight. Every visit since then, their scale has been 5-6 lbs higher than the home scale. So according to them I went up to 280 before the surgery, but they still have 274 listed as my starting weight. This last visit, they had me in a different office than usual, and that scale was 7 lbs higher than the home scale. So according to them, I have lost 36 lbs, even though at home I know it is 43. I'm not going to argue, they are still very happy with 36, and I would be also if I didn't know it was actually 43. Now for the primary MD visit. He was amazed at the difference in how I looked, and my weight loss. My blood pressure was 110/80, and he said that in 2 weeks I can start cutting my BP pills in half and he would evaluate me again in 6 weeks. This is huge for me, getting off the medication was one of the major reasons I did this surgery. Also, big news - on Friday my wife was sleeved! That's why I haven't blogged about this other stuff until today. She is doing pretty good now, her recovery has been much different than mine. She has had a bit of a rougher time than I had, but I know she will get through it.

I looked at it as a test to see how dedicated and determined I was, and to see if I was mentally prepared for the lifelong changes I was about to make.

I had made a blog post very similar to this a while back, and someone posted the following link to help me understand what is going on: http://www.dsfacts.com/weight-loss-stall-or-plateau.html It really made a lot of sense to me, and helped me get through it. In my first month, I had a 5 day stall, and a 9 day stall, and still lost over 30 lbs. I'm now 6 weeks post-op and I've lost 45 lbs. It will come off, it has to. It just doesn't come off evenly or in a straight line. There will be periods where your body has to re-calibrate itself. The day after my 5 day stall, I lost 5 lbs overnight, and the day after the 9 day stall I lost 2 lbs overnight followed by a lb a day for 4 or 5 days after that. Just try to stay positive. I know I got a bit discouraged, I just went through major surgery and expected results overnight. But now that I look back 6 weeks later, it feels like 45 lbs DID come off overnight.

My wife and I both followed the pre-op diet to a T for one week. My wife works with a couple women who had the lap band from the same surgeon we used, and she asked them about what they did for the pre-op diet. One said 'Are you kidding? I was at Red Lobster the night before surgery', and the other one said 'I started it the day before'. These women are both nurses, who you would think should know to follow doctors orders. So no, I don't think there will be any issues.

I just need to add another reply, because I didn't want to keep seeing that last reply show up at the top of my subscribed posts on my VST app anymore, LOL