AvaFern

So, not to be critical at all, but phentermine is not really the way to long term weight loss. I tried it, I felt like a crackhead because it made me so jittery and I lost weight, however as soon as I stopped taking it, the weight came right back. If you've recently gained weight, how many calories were you eating then? If you were at say, 2000, why not drop your calories back to 1700 for a week or two, then to 1500, instead of all the way down to 1000-1200? Not only will this make it a gradual process to go back to fewer calories and you will feel less deprived, but you may end up losing weight if you eat a bit more, granted if that eating a bit more includes healthy food. My entire life I have been on one crash diet after another. I have starved myself anywhere from 20 pounds down to 90 pounds down, however the thing I liked about the sleeve is that I knew it was going to take time so I wasn't as freaked out furious when I got on the scale and the number didn't move downward everyday. As long as I watched my calories and I exercised, I knew I would eventually get to where I was going. Phentermine and 1000 calorie diets are not the key to long term weight loss and maintenance if you are over two years out from surgery. Again, I am totally not being critical because I have seriously done every diet in the entire world (grapefruit, cabbage, cookie diet anyone?), but if you are able to approach it from a more moderate take instead of trying to knock out your 30 pound gain quickly, it seems more likely that you will find yourself less upset about stalls, you will be healthier without the phentermine and not be at risk for the quick gain often associated with stopping that drug, and you might find that it takes twice as long to lose, but it stays off for twice as long too. Good luck!

I started in a tight 18, which was the biggest size I had and I refused to buy any bigger. I am now in a variety of sizes, lol. In shirts I am an extra small or small. In running tights I am a medium in Nike and Under Armour, but a small that is kind of loose in most other brands. In dresses, good gosh, I run anywhere from a 2 to an 8. My most recent happiness is that I can squeeze into a size 2 in American Eagle pair of jeans and the 4's fit me comfortably. In an ideal world I would like to lose 10 more pounds and squeeze my butt into a size 0 in those jeans. I don't really care if that size 0 is absolutely busting at the seams, but it would be something I would be proud of.

Good job! I paid $50 for a Nike jacket a couple months ago because it was the first time I had ever fit into an extra small. I was also not thrilled with the price, but when you have great NSV's like you posted about, it's ok to splurge a little!

Haha, you are the only person I have heard who says they miss prunes. I tried those little prunes that come individually packaged in the little plastic jar and I gotta say, yuck! My mom loves them though so maybe it's just an acquired taste. You can have them again as soon as you are back on regular foods. A few more weeks and it's prunes for you! I won't ask you to save me any.

Bwahahaha....bet he changes his tune then.

I also live alone and while I spent three days in the hospital, I drove myself home from the hospital and didn't interact with or see anyone for the next week. I stopped on my way home and picked up a prescription for liquid hydrocodone, which in terms of cost is usually cheap on most insurance plans because it comes in a generic version. I actually didn't end up needing it. I had narcotics the first 24 hours after surgery and then I stuck to liquid Advil. You will be completely fine on your own, just have your bed all made up and comfy, the tv remote nearby, and things within easy reach. Before surgeries I always make sure my house is clean and work is done so that there is nothing that can annoy me while I'm trying to recover. The first few days are fairly miserable. You will likely be exhausted, sick feeling, Water hurts going down your throat, and you may potentially be emotional. A lot of people have done it entirely on their own and you can too. Just remember that time passes and soon enough you will feel normal again.

Are you taking your B12? I'm not sure if you can take Iron yet or not, although really you shouldn't have an issue with either quite yet. I was very fatigued the first month of surgery and then I was good until about 14 months out when I felt like I got hit by a truck. Turns out I was anemic and once I started taking the B12 I had ignored and an iron supplement, I felt better within a few days. Either way, if you are still on mushy food and shakes, I personally did not really start to feel better until I could eat real food again. Fingers crossed the fatigue passes soon!

Are you married/ dating someone and actively trying to have kids? If so, yes it's a waste of money when you could get it all done in a few years after you've had a child. If you are not in a relationship and are not actively trying to have kids, plastic surgery is a bit like renovating the kitchen before you put the house on the market. You will feel more confident in your proverbial house and you will attract a far more optimal buyer than would be the case if you skipped the kitchen reno and hoped your dream buyer was willing to overlook your 80's cabinets. From a personal perspective, I am 31 and I would like a child, however I am fully aware of the fact that I have 5 years, maybe, to have a child naturally, and while I could easily settle for someone and knock myself up, I'm not a settling girl. Men like hot women...all men like hot women. Plenty of men are willing to happily date a woman that is only decent looking, but honestly, the more attractive you are the greater the volume of men that will be interested in you and thus you give yourself far more options for a future potential baby daddy than you do if you put your proverbial house on the market before you feel sexy in your own skin. Yes it's shallow, but it's how dating works. I have had a TON of plastic surgery and while I originally told myself it was because I had read a study that plastics patients are less likely to gain weight, if we're being honest, it is because I was a saggy, droopy, former fat lady and I knew that very few men that I would be interested in would ever be proud to stand next to a woman who looked like me. Hence, I went through 8 months and tens of thousands of dollars in plastic surgery. I am now by no means a hot woman and I am ashamed of all of the scars I have, but I have the confidence to not give a crap if a man doesn't like me now because the only person who can see my scars is someone who sees me naked (exclusive of my arm scars) and if I let a dude see me naked, he had better not be complaining about a few scars. Plastics may not be the answer, but for me it gave me at least a little bit of the confidence I need to feel like maybe some day I deserve to be loved by a high quality man who would one day want to have a child with me. Also, the majority of plastics surgeries for body contouring patients hold up very well with pregnancy. My doctor told me of everything I've had done, only my boobs would need to be redone if I had a child and if I didn't gain a ton of weight during the pregnancy. Further argument for doing it now instead of later! Good luck with whatever you choose!

None of that sounds like it is bad to me. Cottage cheese is kind of wet and gloopy, so it isn't as dense as like chicken or meat, so it potentially slides through your sleeve more quickly, which is why you can eat more of it. Either way, can you imagine before your surgery eating a day like the day you described and not being starving? I am now 1 year and 7 months out and there are days where everything makes me sick and I eat next to nothing and days where I'm like, holy cow, I was SUCH a pig today! Except being a pig is like 1400 calories at the absolute most. The best way for me to monitor my weight has been to track my calories. If suddenly I realize that I am eating more calories, then I can go back and check out where my issue is, but as long as I am under a set amount, which is 1000-1200 for me a day, then I try not to worry if I somehow ate an entire half of a chicken sandwich all in one meal (which was my most recent- "omg did I break my sleeve" concern).

pudding does that to me too as well as a number of other foods and I notice it is a lot more likely to happen if I eat it on an empty stomach. I like the sugar free/ fat free caramel version or pudding...or I used to until it decided to hate me. There is something about milk fats, real sugar, fake sugar, oils, fats from butter, fried stuff, and 90% of food that tastes good that my sleeve doesn't like. I have found that I can generally guess when something is going to make me sick, so I avoid it, and pudding is on that list. I also know that I can spend hours feeling miserable, or I can just puke it up, get it over with, and try to eat something later to make up for it. Generally my stomach is so intolerant of certain things that once I start to feel a little sick, I can walk into the bathroom, hang my head over the toilet, open my mouth, and it all comes spewing right back out Exorcist style- no finger down the throat disgustingness required. I almost immediately feel better. In the future, if you want to try the pudding and milk again, maybe consider eating it when you aren't stressed out and when you aren't eating it on an empty stomach. My stomach is way pickier if it is empty than if it I have something that might make me sick after I've had a few pretzels or crackers. On another note, I snuck out of class in high school, but I would never have made up a song about anyone's butt- what a bunch of little sh*ts!

I had an abdominoplasty done about 8 months ago and my understanding is that if your insurance will cover the pannus removal, then you can pay the difference for the abdominoplasty and it is only a few grand. Honestly, if you're going to put yourself through the procedure and you can financially manage the difference, it is worth it. I have never had children and I have always had a hard stomach under all my flab and as it turns out, my abs were massively separated and my surgeon stitched them back together. I didn't really notice a difference in my waist size but other people commented about how I had "really brought my tummy in" (ha! if only they knew about the surgery!). Of the procedures I've had done, I also had the back half of the LBL, which is not terrifically fun. Either way, the pain lasts a day or two and it is generally minor, but the discomfort lasts 1-3 weeks and it's more annoying than painful. You twist the wrong way or pick something up off the floor too fast and you are quickly reminded that you just had your skin chopped off. Whatever you decide on, good luck!

I was stuck in the hospital for three days and by 24 hours after surgery I realized the narcotics were making me sick, so I asked them to switch me to liquid Advil, which they did. I filled my prescription for liquid hydrocodone, but I didn't end up taking it. The physical pain is not the bad part, it's just the nausea, weakness, and for me the fear that I had possibly ruined my life that makes recovery less than pleasant. It all works out though.

@@alwaysvegas Dude, calm down. People don't answer all of my posts either and it very rarely has anything to do with intentionally being ignored. I posted one the other day that was important to me and only one person answered me! I was like, ummm, hello people, I don't ignore you guys! But then I thought about it and when you post is important. When I login, I generally only look at the recent posts, the trending, and the no-replies, which depending on the time of day you post can bump you out of the no-reply and recent posts in a matter of minutes. You posted at 6:25pm when most people are on their way home from work, stuck in traffic, cooking dinner, or doing something other than sitting at their computer. I happened to be working and checked the site at that time, but if you want more replies, post during the day when people are blowing time at work by sitting around in a discussion board- otherwise most of them won't even see your posts. If someone wants to reply to you then, the only way they would see your post is if they go into the individual forums and randomly click on yours amongst all of the others. The only forum I regularly check is the plastic surgery one and the rest I never click into individually, so people inevitably accidentally get ignored. Also, I didn't realize you were a guy- I never look at that, unless the topic seems gender oriented and then I'm like, well crap did I just accidentally post in the guy's only room? (which happens because all those topics appear in most recent and you don't see what forum the post is actually placed in unless you specifically look for it). So no offense man, but you need to chill. No one here knows anything about you and really no one cares one way or another. You are not intentionally being ignored, but rather your topic didn't seem interesting to some people, others have seen the exact same topic posted literally dozens of times and figured you could just look up those answers, and a good portion of people probably never even saw your post. When you overreact and have yourself a little pity party meltdown, people like me who post almost everyday and who reply to everyone indiscriminately, will see your name and skip over replying to your posts because we don't want to be involved in your drama. If you want to be ignored, keep posting like you did on this board....but before this, I promise, no one intentionally ignored you. Cheer up buttercup, it's just an online forum.

Losing weight will absolutely make working out easier. Even though I still ran and did all of my boxing and jiu jitsu classes at 237 pounds, I was not very fast, not very strong, and it was exhausting. My feet and legs would swell after a run and sometimes it was painful to walk on my swollen feet for hours or days afterward. At roughly 108 pounds less, I am SO much more comfortable working out and as a result I am back to enjoying workouts as opposed to dreading them.

@@clasnic1 Sounds like your levels are right where they should be for a person who is not diabetic and really good for someone who is a diabetic. If you're no longer on any medication and you're maintaining in the 80-120 range, that's an NSV for sure!

First off, good for you for getting the sleeve and doing so well with it! Also, I'm glad you were able to find great confidence at whatever size you are. That being said, when you are thin a different group of people will pay attention to you and just because a man isn't attracted to a fat woman, doesn't make him a bad person. I have been both thin and fat and I am very sad to think about how people treat me when I'm thin as opposed to when I'm fat, but perceptions are how the world works. I will be honest, I have no interest in overweight men, so I don't feel like I get to judge a man because he wouldn't have liked me when I was fat. As much as we tell ourselves that size shouldn't matter and we should want to be with the opposite sex because they are a good person on the inside, realistically if you aren't attracted to someone, it doesn't necessarily make you shallow, just fully aware of what does and does not do it for you. I don't like skinny men either and short guys, eh, I'm a little on the fence. I have a type of man that I am sexually attracted to. I like men who are 5'9 to 6'3, muscular (think like the 300 movie and less like underwear model type of body type) who can easily pick me up and toss me around a little (in a fun way!). I'm never going to want to do a guy who is 140 pounds with a 6 pack, or a guy who is 300 pounds with a beer belly- that just isn't my type of man. I can 100% say that there are fantastic men who fit that physical description and I am likely missing out on a great person, and I am ok with that. As such, I understand that a man may not like me now because I'm too short, or I'm too small, or my butt is a little big or my boobs are fake or my hair is thin or I'm not tan, or I have scars from plastic surgery or any number of other little physical features, and as far as I'm concerned that is his right. When I was fat I hid behind the idea that if a man didn't like me for who I was, well then that was his loss, when in reality, if a man doesn't like you because you're overweight or for whatever other physical reason, that is still his loss, but it doesn't make him a bad person because of it and if he happens to like you skinny when he never would have wanted you fat, that's how physical attraction works. Embrace it and realize that underneath, he still might be a really great guy that you would be missing out on if you stay hung up on the idea that in the past you might not have been his type.

Unless I'm reading this wrong, it doesn't sound like a problem as much as a victory. You're off of your diabetic meds and you're maintaining your glucose between 80-100. 80-120 is a normal glucose reading for a person who is not fasting, so as long as you aren't dropping under 80 and you aren't continuing to have dizzy spells, then this sounds a whole lot like the sleeve did its job and you may actually be "cured" as a diabetic. That's one of the big promotional materials of the sleeve in that it's supposedly the only procedure that has the ability to resolve diabetes. As for your hair, it's going to fall out. I took Biotin, Hair-Skin-Nails, Folic Acid, and all kinds of stuff and my hair fell out for about the first year. I am 1 year and 7 months out and I can finally see that new hair has grown to about the point just at the middle of my ears, so all the thinned stuff at the bottom looks a little silly, but the top is growing back to its old thickness. Some people who have consumed a lot of Protein have not had as much of a hair loss issue, but for most of us, that is one of the unwanted side effects of the surgery. Fingers crossed though, most people have noted that your hair does grow back and it's only a temporary issue. As for your stall, sometimes you hit those. I hit one that last almost two months at around 168, and at 130 I didn't drop a single pound for three months. As long as you're doing everything you're supposed to, the weight will eventually drop.

@@LumpySpacePrincess Thank-you! That is helpful to me. I haven't had a follow-up with my surgeon since I was three weeks out from surgery and I didn't have a nutritionist ( I was self-pay so they were more concerned with collecting the money, hacking out my stomach, and moving on, lol). For the most part I've been fine without either, but it is hugely helpful for me to see what your nutritionist suggested so I can gauge my own diet around that. Thank-you again!

CanyonBaby is a great person to listen to, so not going against her advice, which is valid advice, but I would suggest the opposite. Use a scale! I have weighed myself every single day since I had my surgery and it has been invaluable. I can look back and see that, ok the stall that felt like it lasted for months was actually only a month, or I was stuck at a pound away from goal for literally 3 months, but I know what day I made goal. I also have a reminder every single day if the scale is going in the wrong direction, so instead of waiting to weigh at the doctor, I take immediate steps to fix the problem that day. For example, yesterday I woke up at 129.6, which is just fine with me, however I had part of a chicken sandwich for dinner from a fast food place and while it was grilled, I knew I'd probably gain. I also had cheese puffs. I woke up at 130.0, so today I worked out (which I had done yesterday too) and I carefully watched what I ate. Right now I am 129.8, which by morning will drop down into the acceptable range of somewhere around 129.2ish. I don't suggest weighing at night and I don't do it very often, but weighing yourself every single day, first thing in the morning, is the absolute best way to avoid unpleasant surprises on the doctor's scale and to remain focused on accomplishing your goal weight. It is far easier to correct a 1-2 pound gain than it is to ignore the scale and find out you somehow gained 10 pounds and then have to figure out how to lose that much without wanting to sob and throw things.

Haha, the part of your post about the beach and the hot Australian girl made me laugh! We all need both selfish and unselfish reasons. Honestly, mine were primarily selfish- I wanted to be hot again. Health was less my concern because I tended to get fat and thin fairly regularly so I didn't have any comorbidities, but I wanted to be able to actually go out on the beach that I live on in a bathing suit and not have people run the opposite direction in terror. Good luck to you!

I picked my goal weight based on the number I have always wanted to be. I've always wanted to weigh 119, however I'm a little older now and 129 seemed a bit more attainable. Both 119 and 129 put me in the acceptable BMI range where I am no longer overweight, so I was happy with those numbers. I was a self-pay patient, so no one ever gave me a goal weight. I met with the surgeon, I paid him, he chopped out my stomach, and it all took 3 weeks from start to finish. In hindsight, it might have been nice to have some of the services of insurance, but it all ended up working out ok in the end. Now that I am at goal, my goal is 119, so this way if I gain a pound or two or I want to go on vacation, I am still beneath my first goal weight and I don't have to worry about most of my clothing not fitting.

Did you go to any Weight Watchers meetings? Join any gyms? Have any Urgent Care or ER visits? Most of those things require a formal documentation of your height and weight and Urgent Care/ ER/ or any form of medical visit should be able to be used in place of a note from your primary care doctor. As long as you have some type of proof, it seems like it would not be automatically declined.

The first few weeks I read about how everyone said that their only regret was waiting so long to have it done and I was like, BS, this stinks! Haha, 19 months post-op I am now on the same boat as them. I have zero regrets and while I got "lucky" in that my sleeve has zero tolerance for fats, sugar, and a good portion of food, ultimately I am at goal weight, I'm healthy, and there is no way I could have gotten here without surgical intervention. I can 100% say, while I questioned my decision initially, I would go back and have the sleeve procedure done all over again, every day.

This was my first surgery ever and I was completely freaked out. I read all the horror stories and I was sure for the first 2 weeks after surgery I had ruined my life. I was 100% miserable in the hospital and at home I felt like a zombie for those first two weeks. The only way to handle it is to take a deep breath, put on your big girl shoes, and march your butt into that surgical center. Being scared is completely normal, it's how you handle it that counts.

I also usually sleep on my stomach or my side and it felt like I was ripping something whenever I tried to sleep on my side for the first 1-2 weeks. A week or two of sleeping on my back though is something I didn't even remember until I read your post, and if you ever get any plastics procedures done, sleeping on your back is required for a good portion of them and the pain of not doing so is exponentially worse. You kinda get used to it. If you're really uncomfortable on you're back, consider a recliner or really prop yourself up with pillows. Good luck!