AvaFern

As someone who has education and work experience in both the medical and legal field, my response to reading your original post was...what in the F?! No, your surgeon does not get to tell you that he is your only option and you absolutely have the right to seek as many second, third, or other opinions as you choose to. Someone made a very good point about ensuring that you are in-network if you transfer to another hospital, and someone else made a good point that while a bariatric surgeon is helpful, a decent doctor is able to run the majority of tests you need without having to be a surgeon. In fact, the issue may not be a GI problem- there are lots of other parts of us that can break and if we are so focused on the idea that a recent surgery is the cause of the problem (which to be fair it probably is), then we might overlook something else purely because we didn't think about the option of other systems. I would suggest that you ask for the patient advocate in the hospital. Your nurse is supposed to be that advocate, and while I don't suggest firing her, I would personally have a conversation with her about her responsibility to the patient above her responsibility to the doctor, but that's a problem for another day. If they do not offer a patient advocacy program (and some of them are nonexistant or entirely worthless), you then call the other bariatric surgeons that you mentioned are at other hospitals and ask if they would accept a referral. At the same time, you ask for a consult in the hospital you are at from a general surgeon, or you ask to speak with the chief of surgery. Your surgeon has a boss, and that boss, has a boss, and while the chief is a surgeon, his boss is usually somewhere near the board of directors who are a lot more invested in not losing money than they are in the ego of a surgeon. Go up the chain...at some point someone is going to recognize that you are very possibly a very expensive, very public problem, and take ownership of the situation. Do not sit quietly...be a pain in everyone's a*s until someone does something to fix the problem. From a medical perspective, that is SO annoying, and yet you go into medicine or nursing originally because you care about the patient and if you are doing your job so poorly as to be in a situation where a patient's health is compromised and you are more concerned about them being annoying than in fixing the problem, you shouldn't be in healthcare and you deserve ever bit of irritation you need to deal with. I also don't entirely disagree with the point that threatening to sue them can cause problems- no one wants to be involved in a lawsuit and they will avoid you as much as possible, even if they had a sincere interest in helping, they are going to minimize risk to themselves by avoiding the case. That being said, if you have exhausted your options, your husband continues to decline, and no one is doing their job...an attorney can be a powerful motivating force in a field of inaction. You can sue them later if their actions caused harm to your husband, but the idea of honey killing more flies is applicable to the situation. Be forceful, be nice, and give them the chance to do the right thing...go up the chain of command at the hospital, call the other hospitals to see if you can get a transfer if your current hospital will do nothing, and if all else fails...you bring in the lawyer. Unfortunately enough, people who are otherwise unmotivated to do their job are sufficiently motivated when their boss's boss realizes that the facility is in a position of major liability because someone was a lazy turd. The law exists to protect you when the system fails and if you have exhausted your options and no one will take positive steps toward solving the problem, then making the issue public and expensive may be a last resort, but it also has the potential to resolve a problem that otherwise seems to have no resolution.

I'm 3 years and two months post-op. I'm very happy with my decision. I still have decent restriction, although part of the reason I am able to stay at goal is because my stomach doesn't have much of a tolerance for cheese, dairy, oil, butter, sugar, or most junk food, which is helpful. I must weigh everyday because if I don't pay attention it's easy to start gaining. I've been within 5 pounds of goal now for 2 years, and I've been at or beneath goal for about 19 months. I had lost weight plenty of times before, but prior to the sleeve I would never be able to keep it off. Now, I can't eat as much, I don't really have any great urge to eat a lot, and I don't have an emotional relationship with food. As I've moved to the third year, I notice that I have to be very careful with sugar. I can, for the most part, eat what I want to because I eat such small servings, but almost any form of good sugar (cake, Cookies, frappucinos) makes me gain weight almost instantly. I've been consistently around 129-131, except for last year around this time I woke up at 137 on November 1 and it took me until January to get back to 130. This past August I dropped to 126 for awhile, but I am now back up to floating between 130-134. The last 2-3 weeks I've been extra cautious of how I've been eating because I've been drinking more sugary energy drinks and this is quickly reflected on the scale. Generally though when I get to the top of my allowed weight (133-134ish) I start logging all of my food again and within a few days I drop right back down to 130-132. The key in the long run is to understand that you don't get to be normal. You don't get to be blissfully unaware of the scale, to eat whatever you want, and to stay think without remembering every single day that you need to watch what you are eating. There are still days where I wake up, weigh myself, get mad, and kick the scale...which then results in a hurt foot and makes me more mad. The trick is though that I do the same thing the next morning- I get up and I weigh myself and I write it down in my calendar. I can then go back and see that my weight does fluctuate and I'm always able to get it back down to normal. You have to stay vigilant or it is VERY easy to gain it all back. Getting the sleeve was the best decision I have made as it relates to my health, dieting, and my happiness. It does not though make me healthy or make me happy- it just gives me a little bit of help and how I choose to use it is really what determines success.

I had lots of food funerals before I had surgery. Usually they were Sunday nights (because diets start on Mondays) the 31st of the month (because diets start on the 1st), and the night of every major hurt (because clearly we were hurt because we were fat so the diet must start the next day). I also had one before my 1 week liquid diet. Your liver will not be any fattier than would otherwise be the case because two weeks before surgery you had yourself a food binge, so it really just comes down to whether it's something you feel like doing. On an interesting note, I haven't had a food funeral since surgery and it's been 38 months. Now, if I want something, I eat it, except I eat such a small amount that there's no need to binge and go on a diet the next day because I know if I want it again in the future, a few bites is all I need and I can have it. A few weeks ago I started eating Fiber One Cookies, which is a great way to gain weight, and I found myself throwing out a leftover box on Sunday night so I wouldn't eat them on Monday. I intentionally left them in my pantry for the next two weeks instead of tossing them so I would see that I control food now, it doesn't control me. In hindsight, I would have still had my food funeral before surgery, although I might have cried less afterward if I had known that more than three years in the future I would be the person I am now- someone who doesn't need food funerals anymore, who doesn't think about dieting the first day of every week, of every month, and after every major disappointment, and whose first thought when things went wrong isn't that if I wasn't fat and worthless things would be different. Food funerals are ok and just like real funerals, sometimes it just means that you're getting the closure you need to move on to a better place.

I've been at goal for about 20 months or so and within 3-4 pounds for almost exactly 2 years. Initially plenty of people had opinions about how I was too skinny and periodically someone will say something now, although for the most part people tend to forget that I was fat for awhile and new people have only ever known me as being a very healthy size. At 130 I'm normal sized and if anything I could probably stand to lose about 10 pounds, but then none of my clothing will fit and I'll have to be less of a pig and exercise, so that's not happening. I also think that before I had plastics when I was saggier, I looked more unhealthy because even though I weighed a little more, you could clearly tell that I had lost weight and that I looked sort of sunken. After all of the skin was gone, I just look like a regular person, so there is less the perception that I shouldn't weigh what I do because there is nothing tricking the eye into believing I don't have enough fat for all of my skin. Also, people are nosy. It annoys the complete crap out of me when someone feels it is acceptable to comment on my weight and unless I am sincerely too thin, which is about 20-30 pounds from where I am, they need to mind their business. When you've lost a lot of weight it's easy to believe people when they say you need to stop losing weight when you aren't yet at goal, but ultimately my goal was exactly in the middle of the health weight range for my height and now, years later, no one seems to think that I'm too thin and I weigh exactly what I did then. The only person who has to like what you look like is you and if you are still 10 pounds from goal and that goal is healthy, then it's your call if you continue to lose weight and they need to mind their own business.

My surgery was 38 months ago. I will have about 3-4 pieces of ham (as in 3-4 bites that I cut into pieces so maybe like a half a piece of normal-person ham), 3-4 bites of turkey, which is pushing it a bit on dense Protein but dinner takes forever so plenty of time to eat slowly, and then a bite or two of whatever else looks good, which is usually beets, maybe one of those baby onions (pearl onions?) covered in that cream stuff (which is kind of making me gag right this second but I'm usually good for one on holidays), a few bites of stuffing, which helps to make the turkey a little moister and less likely to be barfed, and I'll probably put a bit of gravy on the turkey and stuffing and a little orange sauce on the ham, mostly because it makes them moist and easier to not get sick. For dessert I will have a cookie or two. I will then sit there while my mom and my aunt make disapproving looks, lol. If I plan it correctly, I can eat slowly enough and let the creamy-oily-sugary things get cold enough that they don't make me barf. So it sounds like my Christmas is horrible, but I will be wearing a size 0 dress (I bought it already, haha) and I will be more than content to have enjoyed that amount of food with no real desire to have anything else. It sounds weird, even to me this far out, but I don't have any real interest in eating any more than that. My birthday was this week and I debated having a cupcake or a cookie to Celebrate...in the end, I had neither. Not only wouldn't it really have been very good and it probably would have made me feel awful, but the effort to drive 5 minutes and go get myself a cupcake or something sugary to celebrate, compared to just eating a granola bar at home, wasn't worth it. It may not seem like it, but having no real urge to celebrate your birthday with food is kind of an awesome thing.

@@ShelterDog64 Actually no, your insurance company does not get to deny your claim if you did not violate any laws while you were driving. If that was the case they could deny claims for people because they hadn't had enough sleep, because they were older and weaker, because they had slow reaction time, because their IQ wasn't terribly high...and for a lot of other reasons that cause a substantial slippery slope and are not aligned with policy goals. If you are breaking no laws while driving, your insurance company does not get to refuse to pay a claim without making themselves enormously liable when you sue them. So, sure, they can try, but they would not be successful. On another note though, if you injure someone else while driving and a reasonable person would not have thought it was acceptable to drive, then you can be found negligent, or worse, if a reasonable person thinks you disregarded a substantial risk, you can even be found reckless in your actions. If you kill someone while driving home and a jury believes that it was because you ignored your doctor's orders, thus knowing you were potentially endangering the lives of others and choosing to do it anyway, you can potentially be guilty of manslaughter. So, @@ShelterDog64 has a very valid point in that if you drive home and you get in an accident you may have some problems. Your insurance company on their own is going to have a tough time denying your claim if you were legally fit to drive, but a negligence case against you has the potential to be successful. Short of killing someone, criminally you aren't breaking any laws, but in civil procedures, the standard to make you miserable is far lower than criminal. So yes, you can drive home, but if you crash, you're potentially screwing yourself depending on exactly how you manage to crash.

I'm not sure if this will make you feel better or worse, but maybe not alone. Several years ago when I was at my highest weight, my little sister came to visit me. At the time she was 20-ish and while she is brilliant and beautiful and thoughtful and kind, she had a thyroid issue when she was younger and has never been able to lose weight. At the time though, I was around my top weight of 237ish, so I had considered the places we would go because I knew that both of us needed to consider our size. Anyway, we went to a theater where I had gotten us prime seats in the very front row of the balcony. In the first few minutes, during an oddly quiet part, my sister's chair broke. It made this giant crack and everyone around us heard it. Thankfully there were extra seats so I just moved over one and she just moved over one and I then wrote a ripping letter to the theater about their crappy seats, but I remember how embarrassed I was for her and that I thought, well that could have been my chair. I had both tickets and we hadn't really picked who would sit where, so it could have easily been me. Four months later I was going into the sleeve procedure and it is now 38 months post-op. I no longer have to worry about whether I will fit into a chair and now my biggest problem is the fact that my butt is bony and hard chairs are miserable to sit in. I don't mind though, because I remember how it felt to worry about chair sizes and I am grateful that a sore butt is now the only concern I have. I'm so very sorry you're having such a bad day, but in the end, even though now is a long, frustrating wait, soon enough you will realize that it was worth it. Time passes no matter what you do- right now you are using that time in the best possible way and moving toward better health. Think where you will be this time next year, or the year after that, or like me, 3 years and beyond. This time three years ago I was finally starting to feel normal again after surgery (my surgery was in Sep 2013), I was back at the gym, and I was closing in on around 205-ish from 237. This time two years ago I was complaining that I was stuck at 145 and I had finished 1 of 3 plastics procedures. This time last year I was finished with all three plastics procedures and my biggest concern about my appearance was the fact that I had gained a little weight at Halloween and my poor "fat" self was 134 pounds. This year I'm 132 pounds right now, 2 pounds above where I prefer to be, but I haven't looked in the mirror and thought I was fat for quite some time. All of the hurt and tears and humiliation from those past years starts to fade and all the misery before and after surgery tends to be forgotten. In the end, the journey you are starting is exponentially worth the time it takes to get to the destination. This is just a little blip on the rest of the radar of your life, even though now it feels terrible. Screw those stupid chairs...sit on your couch and binge watch a tv show you've been thinking about. This time next year, whether or not you fit in the chairs at that theater will be the last thing on your mind.

I drove myself home from the hospital. I also made sure I was off the narcotics for 24 hours prior to doing so. As long as you insist that the strongest thing you have at that 24-hour pre-discharge point is liquid tylenol, they cannot legally prevent you from driving home. Hospitals have no actual authority, so while they can strongly discourage it, as long as you are not under the influence they have no legal ability to tell you that you can't drive home. To avoid the issue, you just don't tell them. I drove to the hospital, I did my thing for 3 days, I was actually happy to be off narcotics after the first day because they made me sick, I was discharged, and then I drove myself home. It would be far less stressful to just Uber, but yes, technically you can drive yourself home as long as you have discontinued any narcotics at the very minimum of 24 hours prior.

If you don't want to have booze or caffeine, order a sprite. I never drink on a first date anyway, and if they make an issue out of it, I know they aren't someone I'm going to be interested in. I'm 3 years out and I can't drink much alcohol without getting super drunk and I can't eat most food that is made with butter, oil, or cream, which largely eliminates dinner options. I stick to salad and diet coke on the first few dates, and the men who are the type of people I would actually like have the social skills to know that one does not comment on what a woman eats or drinks on the first date. You don't need to have an excuse for why you aren't drinking booze or eating crap, and if you feel like you need to provide one, for me that would be an indicator that I probably wouldn't like the person very much if I got to know them better anyway.

I have random movable lumps too. Some of them are lymph nodes and some are all kinds of other benign little blobs that show up sometimes. I have a few cervical lymph nodes that I can feel around my collarbone area, which freaked me out a few years ago so I had them scanned- all fine. Is your other lump on your arm, under your arm? If so, that's more likely a lymph node and that would be one that you want to go to your doctor about. The vast majority of lumps we find are benign little blobs that mean nothing, but running them by your doctor when you see him or her never hurts. I had a weird red zit-like thing in my hair that I was 90% sure was nothing, but I still asked my doctor about it when I was in the office. Second opinions don't hurt- especially when you are diagnosing with Google.

I am a huge advocate of allowing yourself to eat some junk sometimes, and Halloween seems like as good a time as any to have a few pieces of candy. I didn't have any candy at all, and it didn't occur to me that I might want any. I tend to stay away from sweets because they both make me gain weight and make me feel sick, but it took probably about 2 years post-sleeve to get to a point where I can really say that I don't much care about candy anymore.

The first few weeks blow. I thought I had ruined my life. I literally remember calling my best friend, one of 3 people who knew I had the surgery and sobbing with the exact words "omg I think I just ruined my life." I am 37 months-post op and I have been at goal for 19 months. I didn't ruin my life- I got a life that I can finally actually live, instead of spending it obsessing over my weight. Not sure if this makes you feel better or not, but after awhile you really don't care that you don't want food. I had a handful of crackers and a wedge of laughing cow cheese for dinner and I didn't really feel like eating that. Food isn't really something that I get excited about anymore, and given I now get very excited about size 2 dresses, I am ok with the trade-off.

I did. I had a 1 week pre-op clear liquid diet. I started Monday, did great until Thursday, then I ate some smart puffs and half of a lean cuisine that night, and then I didn't cheat again after that. Most people fell off the wagon a bit during pre-op and most doctors know this is going to happen. The trick is to not do that the day before surgery and to not take a headfirst dive off the wagon and eat your face off. You're put on the diet so that your liver shrinks enough that they can go under it to access your stomach. If it does not shrink, there is the potential that it may crack, which is a wildly more pia surgery, takes something like 6 hours longer, and is all kinds of miserable, on top of the misery you're already going to get to deal with after having your stomach cut out. A smidge of cheating is fine, but as it relates to your health, they do put you on the diet for a reason- it looks bad if your doctor kills you..

I tend to gain when I travel, even when I don't eat differently. A friend who travels extensively told me that when she travels (and she is the same size as me) she always has 1-3 pounds of Water weight for a few days afterward. She claimed it had to do with air travel, which I cannot scientifically figure out why that would be possible, so not sure about that, but we all have our explanations for why we gain weight at certain times. Not saying your Protein idea is wrong, lol, but in the future if it doesn't work out like that again, maybe try not to be too concerned- I always lose the extra bit I gain from traveling in a few days. Also good for you for eating well while traveling- that is hard to do.

As the others have said, "only losing 100 pounds" does not make you a failure, and having put on 20 pounds, during your 3rd year post-op is very easy. I had surgery in Sep 2013 and every single day I need to weigh myself and be aware of what I'm eating or I gain very quickly. The third year is more difficult- I no longer have the same restriction and can eat a lot more than I used to be able to. I imagine the same might be true for you. I started gaining weight in October 2015 and it took me about 2 months to lose the few pounds I had added. 20 pounds is not the end of the world, although I understand it feels like it. You can absolutely recover from that small amount of gain- it just takes consistent, daily attention.

Sizing in stores is so different, even in the same store. Ann Taylor has the most consistent sizing for me, which is a huge plus. I wear the exact same size in their dresses, pants, and most of their jackets, and all of their sweaters are the same size for me too. Banana Republic kills me...their pants I can be two different sizes, their dresses I am almost always a size higher than other stores, and skirts vary by 2 sizes. Express I can be 3 different sizes in pants, 2 different sizes in dresses, and pretty consistently the same size in dress shirts. NY&Co has multiple cuts of pants, of which I am 3 different sizes (one is lean cut, one is for bigger butts, and one is slim ankles), I vary 2 sizes in their dresses, 2-3 sizes in their skirts, and usually sweaters and dress shirts fit about the same. So, my suggestion would be that if you are waiting for after Christmas sales, go to the stores you want to shop at and try stuff on. Most of the time their cuts of clothing (like BR has Avery pants that fit me best) will be the same size across different seasons. When you find the size that fits you, take a picture of the tag, so that when you are shopping online later you know exactly what size to get. I still do this because periodically something fits weird and then if I order it later I know I got the right size.

I drink carbonated diet beverages daily. I drank them with a straw for years, but I am now three-years post-op and I just drink them the way I used to- can, bottle, glass, whatever. Diet Dr. Pepper, Diet Pepsi, sugar free Red Bull, Diet Root Beer...I have no issues with carbonation. I lasted on the whole "no diet soda" rule for about 6 weeks and I've had it ever since.

Brief hotflashes were part of dumping for me. I had them for about the first 6 months when I had anything with too much sugar or anything that had oil, heavy carbs, or milk. It's not a random thing, but for me was linked exclusively with the response to having eaten something I shouldn't have. I am 37 months post-op, and I rarely have this happen anymore. The other day I ate something I shouldn't have, a sugary Cereal, and I spent about 20 minutes feeling really hot, sweaty, and with my heart beating fast. It goes away quickly and eventually you either adapt and no longer have the issue or you learn to not eat things that cause it.

@@PorkChopExpress If you choose a reputable surgeon, you won't be deformed, especially like the lady in this story. I had three separate surgeries, and my last one I ended up getting an infection. I now have kind of an ugly scar on my lower back- it looks a little like I got shot in the upper butt with a large caliber rifle (or a small shotgun, lol). The scar line across my back is uneven as well, mostly due to the infection, but with clothing on, I look exponentially better than I ever could have looked before. My surgeon did a beautiful job and like most surgeons, will fix my messed up scar on my back whenever I'm ready. Right now I'm still a little over plastics...I had over a year of combined recovery for all of the procedures and the only time you can see my scar is when I'm not wearing clothing (and if someone sees me like that, they'd better not be thinking about a scar!). This doctor could have potentially avoided being sued if he had fixed what he had done for free, although, yikes, I'm not sure I'd want to go under the knife with that guy again. Bottom line, these stories are the very few exclusions- most plastics surgeons are very good at their job and give you fantastic results. Even when something unavoidable happens, like did with my last procedure, it can usually be fixed. Skin removal made me whole life different and I am very grateful that I was in a position where I could afford to have it done.

I started my 1-week pre-op diet at 237 and I went into surgery at 228 on Sep 9, 2013. By Christmas of that year I was 195- 200 pounds...so I lost 28-33ish pounds between surgery and Christmas (4 months). I then dropped again from January to May, at which point I was stuck at 177 for WEEKS. I added more exercise, improved my diet, and by September 2014, I was at 158 pounds. I averaged about 6.5 pounds a month for the first year, of which some of that time I barely lost anything. I then had my first plastics procedure, after which I couldn't workout, so I lost some muscle and I went into my second plastics procedure in November at 143ish. By the second Christmas post-sleeve I was 134, where I then stayed until April of the next year, which means it took me exactly 18 months to get to goal of 129, which was 108 pounds and works out to 6 pounds a month. It was NOT a speedy process. I am now at 37 months post-op and I have been at goal (I fluctuate up and down about 3 pounds, so I hit 132.8 and I drop to 126 throughout the month) this entire time. Last Halloween I ate to much crap and I woke up November first at 137. It took almost 6 weeks to get back into my goal range again, so had I not been very cognizant of even a little weight gain, it would have taken forever to lose more than that. Since that time, November 2015, I have stayed within my 126-133 range, and I'm usually between 129-132. Once I get even a little over 132, that day I start making changes. I've been drinking a lot of coffee the last few weeks which involved milk and caramel and I noticed that my weight was getting very close to that 132.8. I cut out the coffee (and sugar and milk) and this morning I'm back at 130. Although this is a long post, from the perspective of being over 3 months out, losing weight was not easy and it was not fast. It required waking up every single day and focusing on an end goal that didn't seem like it would happen. That doesn't change when you hit goal. I still weigh myself every morning and when my weight starts to creep up a pound or three, I login to MyFitnessPal and I am very careful for a few days until I get back into my goal range. If you want to be thin the rest of your life will be about being aware of what you eat and what you weigh, because if it's hard to lose now, it is an absolute B to lose weight a year or two out from surgery. Once you lose it, keep it off! Slow and steady may not legitimately win the race, but it has worked well for me. Good luck!

If you're concerned about your breath, for me the issue was from not being able to chew. Your mouth cleans itself a little bit with the mechanical process of chewing, so when you're stuck on a liquid diet you get a gross film on your toungue and I felt like my breath was gross. Past that, you just had major surgery, so it's normal to feel disgusting. It gets better.

I like chia seeds, although I really only eat them in cold oatmeal. The night before, I mix Greek yogurt, raw oats (the kind in the Quaker cardboard cylinder- nothing fancy), almond milk, pineapple bits with the juice from a can (canned fruit seems to work best for me, but any fruit is supposedly good), sometimes a little honey, but you don't really need it, and chia seeds. The chia seeds thicken it a little bit and gives it a texture I like. Then I let it sit in a mason jar overnight (I used the littlest jars- 4oz), and then in the morning I eat the cold oatmeal. It's yummy. If when you're further out and in maintenance phase you want a treat, the Pioneer Woman sprinkles a little sugar on the top and then uses a brulee torch to make it cold oatmeal brulee. It's not great for a diet, and I haven't done that yet, but when she made it last week on her show I thought...hmmm, that's a nice treat I should try sometime.

I want to get drunk too. Sadly my clients frown on me working while drunk, so not happening tonight. Your surgery is on the 17th, so you have 14 days between now and surgery. Go get drunk. Your liver in 2 weeks is not going to be remotely impacted in a way that is relevant to your surgery based on having a few drinks now. I'm not suggesting you get blitzed level drunk, but even if you did, in two weeks it really won't matter. I didn't even have a liquid diet or any restrictions until 1 week before surgery, so two-weeks out, yes, medically you can get drunk and it's not going to matter as it relates to your sleeve. Past that though, while having a few drinks once a week is not an alcoholic, it also isn't a plan that is going to get you to your weight loss goals. I like being drunk and yet I do it maybe 1-2 times a year, partly because I don't like feeling crappy and I don't have time for a hangover and partly because I like being thin and boozing makes me fat. You can have a regular drinking habit, or you can have skinny jeans...if you aren't willing to try to have fun without drinking now, do you think that you will be willing to do that in the future when immediately after surgery it very much matters as it relates to your medical health, and later down the road, it is a major indicator for your potential for success with the surgery, weight loss, and weight maintenance? So yes, you CAN get drunk, but whether you SHOULD or not, is entirely up to you and how you think you will handle this same issue in a month or two.

I can understand that it sounds horrible to only be able to eat a few bites of the foods you love. It really is awesome though because after you have adjusted to the sleeve, you will only really want a few bites, you will enjoy those few bites, and then you won't think about eating anymore because you'll be thinking about something other than food. I love cake...I can have a few bites and then I am more than happy. I love ice cream...I can have way too much of that and then I get sick. In the end, I rarely eat either of them because I like being thin and since I know that I can have them if I want to, I don't feel any real urge to eat them. At three years out, I have no idea what my stomach capacity is because I haven't measured things for years. I do know though that when I look at chicken sandwich (think Chik Fil A grilled chicken) I can eat about half over the course of an hour, and I feel fine. I cannot eat more than a bite or two in a few minutes because my stomach pukes it right back out. I also generally put food I'm going to eat at home into a separate container, so if I have goldfish crackers, I scoop 1/2 cup into a paper bowl and then I munch on those for a little while. If you are successful in your surgery, you won't care that you can't eat a lot of food and you'll be completely content eating small amounts. You'll also have made it a habit to only eat small amounts so you won't really notice that you don't eat as much. At three years post-op, my days are filled with worrying about deadlines for work and grad school, and rarely do I think a lot about what I am eating. I weigh myself everyday and if I see the scale go up a pound or two, I pay a little more attention to my food the next day or so and I go back to normal. A few years from now, the fact that you can't eat a lot of watermelon will be the last thing on your mind.

I was 29, 5'2 and I started at 237 pounds. I looked like an empty bag of skin when I had lost weight. It was still better than being fat. I then had 3 plastics procedures and I am now in a body that never even since I was a kid could I have imagined. It is so weird to be able to put on a tight, sheath dress and not worry about my stomach pooch...or to be able to zip a pair of tight pants closed and feel only bone and skin on my hips, without worrying about my love handles. Ultimately, you may have extra skin and you may need to consider secondary procedures after this one, but first you have to get to that point and having saggy skin should not be a deterrent for losing weight. I am probably one of the most shallow people on this board when it comes to my looks (I have fake boobs, fake hair, fake teeth, a fake butt, and I'm basically Barbie without being hot), and I can still say that losing weight and being healthy should be the goal, and you can worry about the rest later.