AvaFern

I sort of changed after I lost weight. I fluctuated a lot in my 20's (I had surgery at 29) so I had my skinny clothing, which is somewhat close to the style I wear now, and then I had my fat clothing, which were dark, loose fitting clothes. When I finally hit goal I found that I bought, and still do buy, a lot of clothing that I would never have worn when I was fat- partly because I couldn't have fit into it and partly because I believed that if I was fat, no matter what I wore I would never actually look good. Now I wear skinny jeans and tight tops, a lot of dresses, a lot of business professional pants, jackets, and shirts, and a lot of heels. I wear makeup when I'm going anywhere that matters and I always include jewelry. I feel like I can be attractive now and wear cute clothes without anyone thinking I need to spend more time on the treadmill and less time putting makeup on the elephant. Past that though, I have no problem running to the grocery store without makeup in jeans and a t-shirt and as soon as I get home I change into pajama pants and a tank top. My inner bum is still alive and well, lol.

I'm about 20 days short of the 2 year mark. I don't have any complications other than that I can't really eat fats, milks, or oils without getting sick, so other than barfing a lot when I make bad food decisions, I've had no issues. I fluctuate about 3-4 pounds but I've been under goal for about 5 months and haven't had a super hard time maintaining.

Yes, you will be able to eat all of that again although the point is that you can no longer eat it in excess. I had 1/3 of a hotdog a few weeks ago for the first time in years. It was good. I've had no real desire to eat another one since. I have chik fil a regularly- especially the chicken salad sandwich and the grilled chicken sandwich. I eat about half and then I'm no longer interested in continuing to eat the rest. Not sure when your surgery was but I'm two years out and medically I can eat whatever I want. I have a sleeve that likes to make me puke when I eat fats, oils, milks, sugar, etc, but I can eat everything- it just tends to come right back up, lol.

The second I stop weighing, is when I start gaining weight. The scale makes you miserable, but it also keeps you accountable. I know immediately when I have gained a pound or two and then I take immediate steps to fix it. If you're never weighing, you never know if what you're doing is working. I have weighed myself and written it on a calendar the vast majority of days for the past 12-15 years. I can see very clearly that the months where I stopped weighing myself, is when I gained a lot of weight. Unfailingly when I weighed myself everyday I lost weight or at the very least maintained. Throwing your scale away is equivalent to the idea that ignorance is bliss...until of course you have to get on the scale again and you realize you wasted a lot of time living in bliss only to be dropped into a pool of misery.

The only way I could get enough Fluid is to use a straw. The idea is that you might suck air into your stomach and may feel stomach pain, but your stomach isn't a closed system and if you aren't getting any stomach pain with a straw, you're fine. I used a straw accidentally around the second week and I am now almost 2 years out and I always drink with a straw. It won't hurt you and it's one of those rules that someone came up with along the way and everyone else tends to still consider it a rule when in actuality there is no real reason for it, especially after your stomach is fully healed.

A lot of people seem to get sick right before surgery- probably the result of the liquid diet and not really eating enough for your immune system to do its job. I was one of those- super sick right before surgery. Whether or not you need to tell your doctor depends on if you have a fever and if you can breathe well through your mouth and nose. If you just feel crummy but have no fever and no airway blockage, you're fine. If you tell them you are sick they will likely push the surgery, however if you give them plausible deniability and you do not have a fever or any airway blockage you're good to go. A cold is only a major issue when you have an uncontrolled fever or you can't support your airway while you are drugged. Unlike when you're sleeping and your airway gets clogged with snot, you can't wake yourself up and cough when you are on drugs. As a result, you just can't breathe and in the recovery room if no one is paying a lot of attention to you, this is bad. You need to be able to breathe on your own without any need to clear your nose or throat. Since you're still 5 days out, load up on Vitamin C, take your other Vitamins, and you will very likely be fine in time for surgery.

I drove myself home from the hospital at about 48 hours after surgery. I made a point to make sure the narcotics were stopped 24 hours before I drove, but it wasn't a very enjoyable trip and I don't remember much of it. Even though I wasn't technically high, it probably wasn't the best idea ever. Physically I was fine, but I would def suggest being off the painkillers at least a day or more before driving.

@Pinkgirl1234 Yes, overall I am very happy with the sleeve. I would still do it all over again because the positives far outweight the negatives. @Jess55 There seems to be no reason why other than that my stomach hates certain foods. It's a little like developing a food allergy to everything that is bad for you (yet also happens to taste great). Some days my stomach is fine, while other days it pukes up almost everything I eat. I've decided to be fine with it. I wanted to be thin and the cost of that is now I never really get to enjoy food again. If my options were enjoy food and be fat or really not care much for it and be thin...I'll take my size 0 jeans everyday.

I'm not sure if this will make you feel better or not, but I have the sleeve and I barf almost everyday. Unlike a band, I can't just undo a sleeve, so for the rest of my life I will likely be a puker, which I can only imagine what it will do to the enamel of my teeth, my esophagus, and my electrolytes, given the surgery basically resulted in making me a mild bullimic (minus the finger down the throat part). Don't get me wrong, I would still get the surgery, but the sleeve may not have cured your vomiting problems and you could have potentially been stuck with that for the rest of your life. So, reading this, I'm probably not being very helpful, but maybe it gives you a little perspective. I will keep my fingers crossed for you that insurance changes their mind.

I was single before surgery and no one saw me without clothes until well over a year after surgery when I was supremely saggy. He knew I had lost weight, so the topic never really came up. I feel like I was more concerned though the first time someone saw me naked after plastic surgery now that I am covered in scars. I told my current boyfriend about the scars ahead of time and he has never once said anything negative about them. While I am very close to being back to being single again, part of me does believe that when someone sincerely cares about you they don't care much about what you look like naked. The other part of me wonders if my scars are something anyone will ever be able to love. I think the trick is to be emotionally invested in someone before you are physically involved with them. My soon to be ex-boyfriend and I talked almost everyday for months before we finally ended up being physically involved. We met online, went on a date, and I wasn't really into him, but we stayed friends. Then one day several months later we started hanging out again and a few weeks later he got to see the naked me. I've had boyfriends when I've been saggy before and I suppose it never really bothered me much and they never complained. When you love someone, you don't care about some extra sagginess, however how often is the first time someone sees you naked a situation where you love them? I guess that is the catch-22 for me.

I think you're probably fine. I was also self-pay and I got a few bills after surgery. I had to pay one for like $100, but the others my surgeon's office just fixed. Sometimes there are wires crossed and the hospital will correct the problem.

1. True/False: My doctor says my taste buds may change after surgery and foods I love now I may not like. They may or they may not. I still like most of the foods that I used to like, but for some reason I now crave meat more than I used to (probably a little bit of anemia). I also tend to really like salty Snacks and in the past I never cared much about them. 2. Will my appetite REALLY go away? Will the feeling of being hungry all the time disappear? It might, temporarily. There are different kinds of hunger. Will you be physically hungry all the time? No. Will you always know the difference between stomach and head hunger? No. Sometimes I find myself eating because I feel like I'm starving and I'm really just stressed or bored. I'm almost 2 years out from surgery and while I eat much smaller portions and avoid certain foods, that nagging head hunger isn't gone. 3. I'm totally addicted to food. While I have been able to mostly control it over the past 3 months, there are times when I have NO WILLPOWER and stop at Culver's on the way home from work for a big, greasy double cheeseburger and a soda! Will I be able to break this after the surgery? If you're like me, that burger will make you puke. You won't be able to eat as much of the food you like so you might be able to only have a few bites and be completely satisfied. My sleeve doesn't tolerate most milks, eggs, oils, some sugar, and certain types of Protein, so a lot of the junk I am lucky in the fact that I actually can't eat it because it will just come right back up. Food addiction is tricky though. You can eat around the sleeve and get fat all over again or never lose weight at all, especially after the first few months. As an example, despite my milk issue, ice cream slides down my sleeve like a hot knife through butter. Oooh I love ice cream and chocolate and Wheat Thins. I could easily eat these 3 things enough to gain a lot of weight, so I just make sure that I don't ever order them or bring them into the house. The other day I had some drama with my boyfriend and I proceeded to eat his snack size ice cream cup in my freezer, just like I used to do before. The difference now is that I don't go get a regular size one or 4 snack size ones. I enjoyed the one and now I'm done with it. The sleeve is a huge help, but it's really not a fix for eating addiction.

I have wrinkles too and I'm 31. I notice it specifically around my eyes. I, however, love fillers, lol. I used Voluma in my cheeks which worked great, Juvederm in my lips, which was a total waste of money because you can't even see it, and botox in my forehead, which worked great while it lasted.

Does your Protein supplement have either a lot of sugar or some form of lactose? It seems unlikely that your issue is protein and more that it is a problem with one of the ingredients. For example, I am almost 2 years out and I can't drink regular milk, eat most cheese, eat things with too much sugar, eat anything that has oil in it, or sometimes keep solid Proteins (chicken, steak, etc) down without throwing up. I have found though that 90% of the time I barf it is either because there was something on the food (a salad dressing, or it was cooked in oil) or it had some form of lactose in it. My sleeve was a little B from the very first day but she gradually got pickier, which is not the norm. It takes time to figure out what does and doesn't work for your sleeve and for a lot of people the sensitivity of the first few weeks goes away when you are back on normal food. Have you tried the Special K protein Water? No lactose, minimal sugar, and shouldn't make you sick. Almost everyone feels awful the first few weeks. I distinctly remember sobbing on the phone to my friend that I had ruined my life after surgery. Turns out I didn't ruin my life and now my life is very happy and normal. Keep the faith that this will all be worth it in the end.

My advice would be to mind your business and to keep your thoughts about her food choices to yourself. I regularly go out to eat and order normal food. I, like your friend, eat maybe 1/8 the meal which almost never adds up to more than 200 calories if even that. The majority of the time I eat healthily, but the rest of the time I eat what I want to. I have maintained under goal for several months and ultimately it's about calories in and calories out. There is nothing wrong with having Mexican food, especially when you eat less in calories than a person is eating who orders a healthy entree and eats the entire thing. I can also say that if anyone ever made a comment about what I was ordering I would feel EXTREMELY self conscious about eating in front of them to the point that I would likely avoid meals with them. I think your intentions may be good, but when it comes to food and people with food problems, the only person who should be talking to them about it is their doctor. They have a mirror, a scale, and likely the knowledge to understand their food choices. When someone else makes a comment it just embarrasses them, hurts them, and will make them defensive and closed off even when your intentions were good.

For the most part I don't tend to have any major pet peeves. In terms of people wanting to go out to eat, I don't care where we go. My logic is that just because I can't eat most of it and most of it makes me sick, there is no reason other people should not get to enjoy their dinner. On another note, I hate when people push for a specific number. So, how much did you lose? (Me: oh a bit) Them: But specifically, how many pounds? (Me: WHY?????) ok no not really I am polite and answer, but it irks me that they push for a number. Oh and "hey skinny" annoys me too. I've been at a healthy weight for over a year, so why must people keep drawing attention to the fact that I used to be fat, especially since most of them also knew me when I was thin before being fat? Oh and it also annoys me when people comment on how much food I don't eat. Only three people know I had surgery and it seems like everyone else takes it upon themselves to comment about my meal sizes, my hair, my thin cheeks, or whatever else they happen to think is wrong with me. I really like my boyfriend...he is great. He doesn't know I used to be fat, so he's always telling me how cute and little I am (which I like, don't get me wrong) but then he teases me because I don't eat a lot. He's never mean about it and I know it's just gentle teasing, but I've gotten to the point where I'm like...yes I ate half of a side salad for dinner, but remember you like me little...do you want a fatty for a gf? Then STOP COMPLAINING ABOUT WHAT I DON'T EAT!!!!!! Ok, so guess I did have a bit of a rant in me there, lol.

I had this procedure, although it was broken up in two surgeries- first I had the front part with boobs, then I did thighs and arms, then I had the other 180 on the back. I like the Marena compression garments that are on Amazon. I had 3 surgeries over 7 months and I wore the garments for all of them...I must have washed them 200 times and they are still in perfect shape. I used the one that has straps over your shoulders and extends down to your knees for the first and second half of my 360 lift. It was very comfortable to sleep in and I wore them a little longer than I needed to just because they were really "safe" feeling. Pain was minimal. I used drugs the first 3 days on my first two procedures, and the first 24 hours on my last procedure because I somehow developed a reaction to Percocet. Good luck with surgery- you will LOVE your results!

For the first year post-op I worked out a few hours a day. I ran in the mornings for about 3 miles and then I did kickboxing and mma class at night most days. I had plastic surgery at a year post-op which forced me to take some time off from the gym and made me kind of lazy. For the last year I have alternated between powerwalking during recovery from plastic surgeries and running/going to the gym during the few weeks I wasn't in recovery (I had 3 plastics procedures). I am now done with plastics (Halleluia!) and I have retained my laziness. Some days I go to the gym and do the elliptical for an hour, some days I go for a 45 minute run, some days I don't do a darn thing.

My hair fell out and it's slowly growing back in. Most people just notice thinning and there aren't any actual bald spots. You can do a nice updo for your wedding and no one will even know you've lost any hair. A good stylist can also work in clip-in extensions for the wedding. I wouldn't wear them all the time because they really pull on your scalp, but for special occassions, you can look like Barbie with the kind of extensions they make today and it doesn't require hurting your hair in the process. In terms of contraceptives, I use depo...I haven't heard anyone with PCOS having issues with depo, so maybe consider that.

You can drink coke zero both before and after surgery. After surgery, wait at least 6-8 weeks until your stomach is fully healed, but following that it's completely fine. I drink diet pepsi every day, I'm almost 2 years post-op and I've maintained below goal for awhile now. They tell you not to drink soda because they don't want you drinking the non-diet kind and having all of your calories in Coke. After surgery, some people feel bloated and gassy from soda, but it really doesn't hurt your sleeve at all and if you like it, drink it. It isn't a healthy beverage by any means and I stick with the diet because I don't want the extra calories, but physically there is no reason you can't have carbonation.

Yes to the first part of your question (I got a boob job), no to the second part (my insurance would have laughed at me).

Have you considered swimming or aqua aerobics? It's a no-impact workout that shouldn't hurt your knee but both burn a good amount of calories.

No dumb questions! You are totally naked for surgery so they don't risk breaking the sterile nature of the OR. I've done rotations in the OR and I worked in health care...no one cares that you're naked. Really, when you've seen a few dozen naked people, you've seen 'em all! I'm not sure if this will make you feel better or not, but in the OR you are purely a slab of meat to be worked on and people are only worried about your vitals and the procedure, nothing else. Also, a good portion of you is covered during the surgery and you are draped so that the sterile field is maintained even more. After surgery, I really suggest bringing a sports bra. I was super glad that I had one because they expect you to walk around the hospital and I didn't love the idea of my jiggly boobies not being restrained for that process, lol. I went commando otherwise though because I had to go to the bathroom so much and I was so totally blitzed out of my mind that it was one less thing to take off and put back on.

Wow! That's aweome that you were done so quickly. I was stuck in the hospital for three days and wasn't allowed to drink anything for the first 24 hours. Good luck in your sleeve journey!

I started running at 3 weeks and I was back in boxing class at 5 weeks post-op. I'm not a fan of lifting weights, so I did that minimally after surgery and up to now when I am about 2 years post-op.