AvaFern

Hahaha- the photos of the men were kinda funny. I suppose my type of man is "built fat", lol. As for the women, I'm not quite sure where I fit. Even at 130-132lbs, I don't look hot in a bikini. I've also had a lot of plastic surgery, the last of which is next month, and even then I'm probably going to look like the bottom half of me is "chubby" while the top half is "fit" or "curvy". In terms of being called certain things, I am on a dating site and there are some things that I don't love. Of the hundreds of messages I get a month (not being conceited there are a lot of desperate men, lol), they almost all open with some stupid name. Hun, sweetie, sexy, gorgeous, beautiful...not sure why but they all kinda irk me. I like sweet names when I am dating someone, but when the first thing you say to someone is..hey sexy, my response is...hey ugly, get lost. So I'm a B..but whatever, lol. I don't tend to think I can judge people being shallow, because I'm pretty shallow myself. As I mentioned, I like a certain body type in men, and I'm largely not interested or attracted to a lot of the others. I worked my butt off to be thin and have abs and a fat dude or an overly skinny one just doesn't turn me on. As such, I can't really complain if a man isn't attracted to some physical feature of mine. Looks are a huge part of the equation when it comes to the opposite sex, and as much as I can say that personality counts, and being a good person matters, and having good values is important...at the end of the day, if I'm not physically attracted to someone, it isn't going anywhere. So...my name is Ava, and I am a shallow jerk.

I know what you mean, although I tend to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they are not intentionally being rude. I feel like sometimes people just want to talk to you and they feel that by complimenting you on your loss and asking you how much more you plan to lose gives them a line of conversation in which they feel they are making you feel good as opposed to being annoying. My big peeve is when people ask me how much I've lost. I generally reply, oh well I had mostly gained it all before, so I'm just trying to get back to where I was. But then they keep pushing for a number....and I feel like saying, I've lost 107 pounds makes me sound like I was this total monster before, and for people who happen to overhear the conversation it's just embarrassing to me that they now know I was a hefferilla. A girl at the gym the other day introduced me to her friend and said "omg, this girl has lost 100 pounds!" and I know she wasn't trying to be unkind, so I tried to be gracious, but it certainly reminds me to be more cognizant of how I talk to others who have lost weight.

I don't think this is a bad question. I don't miss anything about being fat, but sometimes I miss being able to eat away my feelings. The few times I've tried that now it has quickly resulted in puking my feelings right back up. Sometimes I miss being able to go out to dinner and eat like a normal person. Sometimes at the gym I miss being able to actually be good in MMA class. I'm too small now to be very effective at all and I generally just get bruised a lot. Mostly though I would give up all of that all over again to be where I am now.

Yes..you go into the OR completely nude. Beforehand they give you a gown and tell you to get naked, you take everything off, even your socks. Then they usually give you a pair of grippy socks to keep your feet warm and generally a blanket or two. When you go into the OR, they remove your gown and your socks after you have been put asleep, they set up the sterile field around your stomach, and then when the surgery is done, they dress you back in your gown, your socks, and these compression things that squeeze your calves so you don't get any clots. You will wake up in recovery, with a blanket over you, and once you are moved to your room, it's up to you if you feel like putting on more comfortable clothing. I ditched that hospital gown immediately, put on some pajama pants, a sports bra, and a pajama top. You're going to feel fairly miserable for a few days- may as well be comfy! Also, with all of the IV Fluid, you need to go to the bathroom a lot, so if you put on pants, you don't have to worry about flashing people everytime you get out of bed. Good luck!

When I had my surgery, no one knew I had it done. I drove myself home from the hospital, I took care of myself completely after surgery, and I have never had a "support" network so to speak. My three best friends now know I had the surgery, but I didn't rely on them at all for any form of help. I also took care of myself entirely after both of my plastics procedures as well. You are only limited by yourself. You can absolutely do this alone. On another note, if that was my husband, let's just say no one would be making him dinner, washing his clothes, or making his life any easier for quite some time. A marriage is a partnership and if he is unwilling to be your partner, to hell with him- be your own partner. When you are thin, healthy, and hot...if he still doesn't feel like being the man you deserve, well then you can go get yourself a new one and rid yourself of your husband's little boy bs. Good luck!

To answer your question honestly, yes, I do feel like a failure because I had to have 80% of my stomach cut out so that i could finally be normal. I've never looked at people who have had bariatric surgery as a failure, in fact, I really never thought about their decision much at all because I figured it was their business, not mine. Now, as a person who has a sleeve, yes, I feel like a big stupid loser because no matter how hard I tried and how many times I lost weight, I would just pack the pounds right back on. I feel like I look at people who drink or do drugs and think, ok, so just stop..how hard is this? Yet, then I look at how I eat, and there is no just stopping me from eating the whole pan of brownies. As a result, I had a surgery that should in theory limit me from gaining weight, although I find that while it is easier to maintain weight now, I still have to be aware every single day of what I eat or I will gain again. That being said, I know I can look at myself and think I am a cheater, that I am a failure because I couldn't control my weight the "normal" way, and that I am a lazy fatty because instead of suffering again and again on diets that don't work, I gave up and had surgery. As far as I'm concerned, good for me. If in the end I am now happy, thin, and healthy, so who cares how I got here! Ultimately the only people who are truly failures are those who stop fighting, and having your stomach cut out is a heck of a way to keep fighting when everything else you've tried has not worked. If in the end you hit your goal, rationally, you certainly are not a failure.

Lol! That cracked me up! It is really nice though when people are so gracious about our mistakes. Good luck to you in the future!

So I just realized I posted in the guys group- I'm sorry! It came up as a recent topic the other day and I didn't see this was for the men only. Apologies dudes!

I weigh everyday, because then I know immediately if I am gaining. I also got an Aria scale awhile ago, so now I weigh myself on the scale I've had since the start, and write it down on my calendar like I have everyday for years, but then I also weigh myself on the Aria scale which syncs to MyFitnessPal. Sometimes if I'm feeling either extra thin or extra fat i'll weigh myself at other points during the day, but first thing in the morning, totally naked, every single day, is how I am able to best keep my weight on track.

You look fantastic! Good for you!

Woohoo! Congrats! I am so excited for you! OK, I'm a little jealous too, lol, I am having a beast of a time getting to goal, but you're a terrific motivation!

I tend to think it is a combination of both, with more emphasis on the confidence. When I am heavy, I push people away, however when I am thin, ok, I still push people away, but I radiate a lot more confidence. People want to be around people who are happy and fun and confident in themselves. When I am fat, I am not happy, I am not fun, and I don't blame people for not wanting to hang out with me. I think it's a good idea to give people the benefit of the doubt and assume they are now inviting you to events because they realize what a friendly, warm person you are and you are no longer hiding behind your weight. If we just assumed people only liked us because we weren't fat anymore, that would be pretty depressing.

There is no reason you cannot have bread, biscuits, or any other food you want in moderation. The point is to live like a normal person, not spend the rest of your life obsessing over whether you get your Protein in first. If you want a biscuit one day, then good for you, eat one. That being said...bread hates me most of the time so it's not really on my list of foods I like eating. You're far enough out from surgery where you should be able to try anything you want. The trick is to take one or two bites of something new without adding anything else in to the meal. So..if you want to see if bread makes you sick, sit down with a piece of bread, and very slowly nibble on it. Bread tends to make people sick because they eat too much, too quickly, and it gets all soggy and expands in your stomach. You will eventually find foods that you can eat, and some that just don't go well. For example, I am now 16 months out and I tried eating an egg white with a piece of toast this morning. I ate maybe half of it and then spent the next hour barfing. If you take it slowly, you can figure out what your sleeve does and doesn't like and you're now far enough out from surgery where you aren't going to hurt yourself if you eat something that makes you a little sick. Good luck!

@jayhawkgirl I am so sorry for the horrible couple of months you are having- my heart hurts for you. You have a great outlook though, and you are right, if you can make it through this, you can certainly make it through anything. I'm glad you were able to find this website and I'm sure you will find, like I have, that there are a ton of kind, supportive people on here who will be happy to answer your questions, give you a pep talk, or just "listen" to your posts. Good luck on losing your 14 pounds and I wish you a far better year this year than last!

So, I'm not a big venter, at least on social media or chatrooms, but here we go. I am literally one pound from goal....one single pound from 129. I have bounced from 130-132.2 and every single number in between for the last month. I literally lost a pound in December, then dropped to 130, and then have hit every little ounce between 130 and 132.2 for the entire last month. I run 2-3 miles a day, I do boxing classes at night, I hit my 10,000 step goal almost every day on my FitBit, and my total calories are anywhere from 1200-1500, with which exercise nets me about 800ish. I have had stalls in the past and I just kept keepin' on keepin' on. I increased my workouts, cleaned up my diet, and eventually the scale would drop. But this is literally one pound and despite working out everyday and carefully tracking my food on MyFitnessPal, I feel like the scale is playing this neverending game of Punked! It even bounced to 129 this morning, before settling at 131. I'm trying to find the humor in the fact that this time last year I was really happy to be under 200 pounds, and this time the year before I was struggling without a sleeve at around 215, so woe is me, I'm now stuck at 130, where I would have been beyond grateful to be for pretty much my entire adult life. So, to keep it in perspective, I can logically recognize that this isn't a big deal. I've been working out a lot, so potentially I'm retaining Water and building muscle. I lost a lot of weight after plastic surgery when I couldn't workout, so the muscle that I lost then is likely just coming back and this is why I'm not losing. It's one pound...really, who cares about one pound? ME!! Despite all of the rationalization in the world, I am very focused on that 129 number, especially since my stretch goal was 119. Anybody else get stuck really close to a goal and have a trick to push me over the edge? If not, feel free to tell me to stop whining, be a big girl, and deal with the stall like all of the ones that came before it- with patience and grace, not frustration and fury, lol.

Thanks everyone for your support! @katesuccess Good for you for beating your stall! I think you make a good point about tricking the body a little with some extra calories. Hopefully, I don't spend another month stuck here, lol. @laurenella82 Oh it is all about the number, lol. I am mostly happy at 131, but I've always had it in my head that there is no way you can call a woman in the 120's fat, and certainly not a woman who is 119. 119 was always my goal, except I thought I would never get there and 129 seemed ridiculous enough at the time I set that back when I was 237. Now though the scale is taunting me, lol, so I must beat it! @Rogofulm I am a numbers person too! It's good to know someone else appreciates the frustration of being so close to goal! Good luck on breaking through your last few pounds!

I looked forward to things like being able to learn to windsurf without the teacher laughing at me, being able to go horeseback riding without breaking the horse, and being able to run again without my feet swelling up like balloons. Now that I am close to goal weight, there are other things that I recognize. I can sit in my car without the steering wheel rubbing against my legs, I can sit at any table and no matter how hipster the chairs are, my butt always fits in them, and I can go out in public without ever wondering if the people I hear snickering behind me are laughing at me. I can look through the juniors section and fit into the smaller sizes, whereas before I was stuck shopping in the women's section. I can be reasonably sure that my fat days are not actually days where everyone else also thinks I look fat. I feel like I can live like a normal person without always wondering who is laughing at me for having the nerve to do something other than hide in my house or be on a treadmill. I suppose then all of the things that I looked forward to doing and all of the things I still recognize as being happy about being able to do again all add up to the fact that I get to finally live a life that makes me happy.

During my first office visit, before I could even see the doctor, I had to sign a waiver of liability, which I thought was garbage. The very thin receptionist was such a complete and total B that I seriously considered walking out. Much as my doctor did a good job, he had a horrible bedside manner and I tend to think that if a doctor employs people who are rude, it is likely a reflection of their own habits. That being said, good for you for not letting her ruin your mood- you get to have surgery! It's an exciting day!

Have you been taking your B12? My Iron was a little low because I wasn't taking B12 and it was resolved just by using that supplement alone. You can develop pernicious anemia when 80% of your stomach is gone just by being B12 deficient. On another note, I did not have any GI issues when I took straight iron. Hope you feel better!

I am 16 months out and sometimes eating is stil miserable. For example, this morning I had about 1/3 of a bowl of oatmeal and for some reason it made me nauseous. Now I am eating turkey, another food that doesn't usually make me sick, and I just don't feel great. I tried Thai food Saturday and I puked for an hour. I can't eat more than a bite or two of sweets or I start getting hot flashes and want to barf. Eating anything that is major Protein oriented sort of blows. I wouldn't trade it though for being the size I am now. I knew going in that I would be giving up the enjoyment of food, so now I appreciate the bite or two I get, and move on. That being said, I also felt like I was swallowing rocks the first few weeks. That part does go away! It is no longer physically painful to eat, however if you don't eat very slowly and in small portions, you will likely be barfing a lot. The sleeve will work, you just have to know that it's not always going to be a good time. Feel better!

My relationship with food is much friendlier than it used to be. We had a bit of a love-hate relationship before in that I really liked eating, but I really hated the fact that doing so made me fat. Kind of like in that Austin Powers movie..I eat because I'm sad and I'm sad because I eat...or something along those lines. Not to blame my parents, who are wonderful people, but we had a strict "clean your plate" policy, so I always felt guilty about wasting food. As a result, I never wanted food to go to waste, so I would eat it, and then I would end up eating everything in the house. Food taunted me. Now though, I can eat a few bites of whatever I want and because I physically cannot clear my plate, so to speak, there is no longer the urge to do so. If I want to have a bit or two of pie, then I do that, and unlike before, I don't have any really interest in finishing the pie later. The fact that nothing is off limits anymore purely for the sake of being on a diet has been freeing. That being said, it is also probably helpful that my sleeve is a bit of a B. She just does not like food at all, especially the good stuff. So, I have been classically conditioned to understand that I can enjoy literally maybe two bites of rich food and that is it, or I will spend the next 20 minutes barfing, panting, and having hot flashes. So, this again reinforces the idea that I can eat what I want in teeny tiny portions and there is no need to keep eating, or ultimately I will be miserable. In terms of taste, I have always had a sweet tooth and I still do, but unfortunately sugars also tend to make me sick and I just generally don't eat them often anymore. I went through a phase where I craved steak...I never cared much about meat before. I was hardly a vegetarian, but it just wasn't my first choice of food. I had this one steak dish probably everyday for about a month. Right now I am 16 months out and I feel like my relationship with food is like an old boyfriend that I care less and less about as time goes on. First, I really missed him, then I tried to replace him, then I mourned him and my inability to find a suitable replacement, and now, eh, I can take him or leave him. I eat when I'm hungry, but I don't really enjoy food in the same voracious capacity as I used to. Hope that gives you a little insight...

I am now almost 16 months out and I still don't know the pattern of what my sleeve will tolerate and whati it won't. Pretty universally I get sick on melty cheese or chocolate or any form of melted fat, fish always makes me sick, about 50% of the time chicken and steak make me sick, and then sometimes something that has never bothered me will result in instant barfing. Like someone else said, it goes in cycles in a sense. Sometimes there are days where I am great, nothing bothers me, and I can really eat, and then there are days where I can't eat anything. Calorie wise it all tends to work out in the end. Oddly enough, my sleeve was more tolerant in the beginning of the process than it is now. I used to get hot flashes and burpiness when I ate the wrong thing or too much for about the first 4-5 months, then I was golden for about the next 6-7 months, then around the year mark, everything started making me sick. I think part of the problem was that I stopped eating slowly, so I suppose if I pay more attention to that, I may have fewer issues. I think I also discovered that when I felt sick, I could just barf and I would feel instantly better, whereas in the earlier phases I just laid in bed and felt sick for about an hour after eating. Good luck!

Woohoo! You look GREAT! P.S. Love your new dress!

Yes. It happens to me when I've had something with too much sugar or fat in it. It is usually followed by barfing at which point globs of frothy saliva and gooey stuff come right back up. Sometimes my sleeve just doesn't like something, such as dry chicken, and it triggers the same response.

The only question I'm really qualified to answer is the question about eating and drinking. I literally lasted a week, maybe, of not eating and drinking once I moved into solid foods. I just can't handle eating dry food and I had no interest in spending the rest of my life not being able to have a drink with meals. As such, I have eaten and drank with every meal I have had since the very start. The only reason they tell you not to do this is because the Fluid washes the food through your stomach faster, so you end up eating more because you aren't as full. Even though I drink and eat at the same time, I get plenty full without having to worry about whether I eat too much. As long as you are cognizant of how much you eat, there is no medical reason you can't have a drink with your food.