AvaFern

If you don't have to go to the meeting, don't go and save the money. Also, unless they are going to mandate you buy their Protein shakes, don't pay for that either. I would really throw a fit if my surgeon told me I had to pay for a meeting and that I had to buy their specific shakes. Just tell them no...problem solved.

Today is my two-year surgiversary! I started my pre-op diet on 9/1/13 at 237 pounds, went into surgery at 228 pounds, hit my goal weight in April of 2015 at 129 pounds, dropped to 126 pounds, and for the last several months I have floated around 129-132. I went to a surgery consultation the last week of August 2013 and decided I wanted a sleeve immediately. I was self-pay, so 2 weeks later I was in the OR. For the first 2-3 weeks I thought I had ruined my life, however slowly the weight came off, I got back to regular food, and life went back to normal. Last year I had three different plastic surgeries and I am just a little bit over a year out from the first one, 9 months out from the second, and 6 months out from the last. I look at my progress pictures which I took every 10 pounds and I look like a very different person now. I wish I could have seen two years into the future the day I had sleeve surgery and known that in the end it was all worth it, much like I wish I could see two years into the future from now and know that the things I am going through in the moment will all make sense somewhere down the road. But, sadly, we don’t get to see the future, so I wake up everyday, I work hard for my health, my career, and my life and I have faith that just like in the past, the work will be worth it. I read this poem the other day and I quite liked it. I think it relates to weight loss, but also the rest of life. What you want in life isn’t just going to show up like a worm after a rainstorm…you have to wake up everyday and work hard for it. Success is for the hustlers. "The Little Black Hen" Said the little red rooster, "Gosh, all hemlock, things are tough! Seems that worms are getting scarcer and I cannot find enough. What's become of all those fat ones is a mystery to me. There were thousands through that rainy spell, but now where can they be?" The old black hen heard him, didn't grumble or complain. She had gone through lots of dry spells; she had lived through flood and rain. So she flew up on the grindstone, and she gave her claws a whet, As she said, "I've never seen the time when there were no worms to get." She picked a new and undug spot; the earth was hard and firm. The little rooster jeered, "New ground. That's no place for a worm!" The old black hen just spread her feet; she dug both fast and free. "I must go to the worms," she said, "the worms won't come to me." The rooster wanly spent his day, through habit, by the ways Where fat worms had passed in squads, back in the rainy days. When nightfall found him supperless, he growled in accents rough, "I'm hungry as a fowl can be -- conditions sure are tough." He turned then to the old black hen and said, "It's worse with you, For you're not only hungry, but you must be tired, too. I rested while I watched for worms so I feel fairly perk, But how are you? Without worms, too? And after all that work!" The old black hen hopped to her perch and drooped her eyes to sleep And murmured, in a drowsy tone, "Young man, hear me and weep. I'm full of worms and happy, for I've dined both long and well The worms are there, as always, but I had to dig like hell." Author: Anonymous

I've never had a problem with drains. They pulled my sleeve drains while I was in the hospital and I pulled my own drains after three different plastic surgeries. There really should be no pain from pulling a drain....it feels weird, but if you are experiencing any kind of pain, that's not the norm.

That is very exciting! I am sure you will love your results. Of the plastics procedures I have had, my arms and the 360 lift made the biggest impact...I don't mind the boobs either, lol, but the flat stomach is far and above my favorite result. Wishing you a fast and easy recovery!

I'm 2 years out and I order whatever I want- I only eat about 1/4 of it and sometimes I eat the remainder over the course of the next day or so. My sleeve doesn't really like fish, anything fried, oil, or some sugar, so I keep that in mind, but for the most part I don't pay much attention to calories, Protein or carbs when I eat out purely because I don't eat enough for it to really matter all that much.

I also had a whole slew of fears before surgery and up to until about 2-3 months after surgery. Really the only thing that made me get passed the worry was that I didn't get sick and I didn't die and one day at a time I recovered and began to lose weight. I'm not super crazy about the phrase "have faith" but sometimes you just have to take a leap and hope that it works out ok. I think the absolute vast majority of people on here are pleased that they took that leap and statistically you too will be quite happy after surgery is over and recovery is finished and you begin to lead a very normal, boring life, with 20% of a stomach.

Woohoo, girl you look HOT!! Good for you for having these done!

I used the Marena compression garments on Amazon. I liked the one that has suspenders, zips and snaps up the side, and extends down to the top of my knee. I used it the front and back part of my body lift and it worked much better than the binder. Link below. http://www.amazon.com/Marena-Womens-Stage-Compression-Girdle/dp/B00LAIB9RO/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1441035756&sr=8-3&keywords=marena+compression

You look great in your leggings! I am one of those people that is of the opinion that leggings are not pants, lol, primarily because I feel like most of them are sort of thin material and I feel like if I'm not wearing a longer shirt that goes down to mid-thigh, then maybe my butt might be a little more see-through than I prefer. Thick leggings all day, but thinner leggings, eh...I stay away. Speaking of leggings though, it is almost fall which means lots of shorter dresses with leggings and tights and boots and coats and scarves and pumpkin spice lattes. Yay and yum.

I think almost all of us have experienced this. Sometimes I go back and read my posts from right after surgery and I laugh a little because of how much I thought I had ruined my life. Everything will be ok. You are less than a week out from surgery, which is by far the worst time. Give yourself a few months and you too will be able to look back at this post and think, whew, glad I got through that!

Well that was a crappy thing to say! If it makes you feel better (it always makes me feel better) I read a study once that people cannot tell that a person has gained weight until they hit the 10 pound mark- anything under that is not noticeable. I feel like when I go up or down a few pounds that I can tell I look a little thick, but my clothes fit fine so I just remind myself of that study and I feel a little less self-conscious.

I understand how you feel and the desire to eat your feelings. This week things ended with the man I had been dating and historically I used break-up to eat my feelings for a few days and then to fuel a furious diet and workout for a few months. Now though, I'm at my goal weight and all of my feel good food makes me barf so I was forced to deal with the problem without my two best coping mechanisms. So...basically I cried a lot, lol. Our situations are different, I was not engaged and the person I was dating is someone I can look at and see that he is nice to have as a friend but we probably wouldn't have worked long term, but I still feel a loss and without food and a crazy desire to kill myself at the gym so I could show him that I magically got hot as was always the case in the past, I was a little at a loss. My advice is to take a few days, eat the food you want to eat, and then get rid of it. Use this weekend to have yourself a big sad fest, watch some movies, cry, eat some ice cream....then Monday get back on the wagon and use your sadness to motivate you to continue to work toward your weight loss goal. There were two quotes that I thought about a lot this week...this first one is "don't be reckless with other people's hearts, and don't tolerate those who are reckless with yours" and the second is that poker song, "you gotta know when to hold em, know when to fold em, know when to walk away, know when to run". I think one of the biggest lessons you learn as an adult is how and when to walk away when a situation is no longer giving you what you need. You did that. The hard part is done. Now you're only left to walk toward that something better that is right up ahead on your path.

Hahaha, your post title made me laugh. I don't eat much of the food I eat when we go out because I tend to get sick, so servers are always concerned I didn't like the food. I just generally tell them I had a big lunch or that I ate too many chips (this is good for Mexican places that give you free chips) and ask for a to-go bag.

I weigh myself everyday and my weight fluctuates within a 4 pound range. I was stuck in a class all this week and I gained 2 pounds earlier in the week, and today I am down 1. Weighing everyday has been very important for me because I can see that my weight has fluctuated in the past and I always ended up dropping again. Also, weirdly enough, when I swim I tend to retain Water. Realistically you shouldn't actually absorb water, but I swear when I do a swimming workout, I always gain the next day.

Maybe you and your husband could consider talking about the issue with a therapist. You may find it is less of a physical issue than a mental one.

Prayers for you and Dave!

So, I'm actually two days late posting this because I thought my first plastics surgiversary was next week. I had a breast lift/augment and abdominoplasty done on 8/20/14 and this was my first and favorite of the three plastics surgeries that I had over the last year. I was always a chubby kid so never in my life have I had a flat stomach- there was always this little fat roll (or a big fat roll or rolls depending on my weight). Now that I am at a year, all of the swelling is gone. I'm a little over 5 months out from my last surgery, so I know what my final result is and I look like a very different person. I can wear tight clothing, because there's no skin or fat to be pinched and I can feel like I really look like a normal person now, instead of a fatty or a former fatty. Also, when the first boyfriend I have had in a very long time decided to be a complete tool this week, I had no problem walking away. I didn't date anyone while I was really fat, but even when I was a little larger (145-160ish) and I was younger, I always believed that I wasn't good enough because I was fat, I was saggy, and I was someone that no one would ever be proud of being seen with. In the end any relationship that failed was because I was worthless, because on the outside I was ugly. I feel shallow saying that the sleeve and plastic surgery corrected that, but to a certain extent it did. I'm still self conscious about my brachioplasty scars and part of me wonders if when his friends saw my arm scars they made fun of him and that's why he was awful to me....but I think that's just me being paranoid. Even if it isn't being paranoid, the scars are way better than the old wings and I am working on accepting that. I am 126 pounds on most days, I wear a size 0-2 pants and xs dresses and shirts, I have no health issues, I am athletic, I am completely self-sufficient and I do well, I have nice homes and nice cars, I have a high IQ, a doctorate level of education, and I am, I believe, a person who is mostly kind and of some value to the world....and a guy was still mean to me. Before I would have said, well duh, it's because you're fat, you're saggy, and you're embarrassing to be seen with, and I would have discounted all of the good things about me purely because on the outside I was worthless. Now I can say...well, sucks for him. For the first time in my life the end of a relationship doesn't mean I wasn't good enough because of what I look like...and the 20K I paid for my sleeve and the 40K I paid for plastics end up being priceless, because not seeing myself as worthless on the outside, has done really good things for not feeling like I'm worthless on the inside. So...happy plastics surgiversary to me.

@@Babbs Do you think if you had met your husband at 235 instead of 145 he would still be with you? When you love someone you are willing to overlook the flaws that later develop, but when you meet someone for the first time without the benefit of already loving them, all the little things do matter and do limit your potential for dating. The guy I was dating was my friend first, so when he found out about all of my scars he never once said anything bad about them because he already cared about me as a person. If I had opened with...hey there, I have scars all over my body, you want to take me to dinner? I sincerely doubt the result would have been the same. I am happy for you that you have such a great guy in your life, but let's be honest...if he didn't already love you for who you are, would he have given the 235 pound version of you a second glance? As much as we want to say that appearances don't matter...in the initial impression, that point that gets you to the first date, the first anniversary, and to the 20th anniversary, if you aren't something someone wants to look at, there is a very slim chance they are ever going to get to know all of the other wonderful things about you. Size matters...(in all aspects of the word, lol) and as much as we want to tell ourselves that it is the inner beauty that matters, it is outer beauty that gets you through the door- inner beauty just keeps you there.

I guess I'm a hoarder, because I've kept all of my clothes. I went from a size 2 in college to an 18 just before surgery and now I'm back to a size 0-2, so I have allllllll of those sizes of clothing. It's funny though, the vast majority of clothing that I wanted to fit back into isn't really something I want to wear now and I ended up just buying new clothing anyway. I also tended to wear all of the same things over and over again when I was fat, so I don't have a ton of that clothing to start off with. I have a lot of those rubbermaid totes full of clothing from over the years that I wasn't going to wear anymore packed away in my garage. In hindsight, I think donating them would have been a great idea.

I can still go out to eat wherever I want, but I only eat at the absolute most half my plate and more often than not close to 1/4 to 1/5 the plate. When my sleeve is cooperative (she likes to get sick when I eat oil, fats, milk, sugar, etc- which is not the norm) I can still enjoy food. I will be honest though, I don't enjoy food the way I used to and I am ok with this. I really used to look forward to going out to eat, to trying new foods, and to sitting in front of the tv with yummy food. Now, I can't eat as much and if I eat junk I generally end up sick, so I don't enjoy food anymore. The result of this is now I wear a size 0-2 pants, xs shirts and dresses, and I have been under goal for months. Last night I had a biscuit with orange marmelade...it was good, I enjoyed it, and I had no interest in eating a second one. The other day I had a little cup of ice cream with the same result. You can still technically eat all of the food you like, you just may not have the same desire to eat a ton of it. You can still enjoy food with a few bites of it and be healthy as a result.

I am 1 year and 2 days post-op from my first plastic surgery which was a breast lift and augment and an abdominoplasty. I am still totally numb from just below the incision to a little above my belly button, which is roughly 5 inches (ish). I am about 9 months post op on my brachioplasty, and I don't have any numbness around those incision lines. My posterior body lift and auto augment and groin incision inner thigh lift were in March, so I am about 5 months post-op on those. My thighs are not numb at all but my back has roughly the same area of numbness as my stomach. Basically, there is about a 5-6 inch belt around me that is still completely numb although only the front part is at the year point.

I also didn't pay attention to carbs and looking at MyFitnessPal I easily get in 100+ a day. In my past experience I could lose weight without carbs but the second I ate them again I gained it all back, so I decided that any change of lifestyle for me had to include a decent amount of carbs because I wasn't giving them up for life. I lost more slowly than a lot of people, but I'm now at goal and have been for about 5 months and I eat a ton of carbs.

I told my 3 best friends about my surgery a few days after I had it. It has now been almost 2 years and only those 3 people know. I just didn't feel like dealing with the judgement that people tend to have about WLS and I decided it was my business. I have no plans to ever tell anyone else in the future.

I weigh everyday on two separate scales and I write it down in a calendar. I have weighed everyday almost my entire adult life, except when I stopped doing it are consistently the times I gained weight. This morning I gained a pound because I ate more yesterday than I usually do, so now I know today I need to tone it back a bit. It is far easier to lose a few pounds that you gain in a week or so than it is to lose 10 if you only weigh once a month. There are days where I wake up and I dread the scale and usually it isn't as bad as I think it will be. The scale every morning keeps me accountable.

I had that feeling for a month or two after surgery, particularly when I tried to drink without a straw. I didn't notice when it went away, but just one day I realized it wasn't there anymore.