AvaFern

This sounds about normal. It still happens to me and I'm 14 months post-op. Just yesterday I decided to eat half a chicken sandwich...grilled chicken, lettuce, tomato, and wheat bun and I spent the next 2 hours puking up chicken covered in slime. It's really very sexy, lol, but it's also normal, so don't be worried.

I had a tummy tuck and my abs were sewn together in the process. It doesn't really add to the pain at all- I really had minimal recovery time, and the resulting look is certainly worth it. I couldn't immediately tell the difference, but people have commented how small my waiste has become (haha, if they only knew why!) and now in pictures I can see that my waiste is certainly smaller, which gives a nice final look. My doctor didn't really discuss it beforehand and after he said he sews everyone's abs shut just because it makes them much happier with the final look, doesn't really take much more time since they're already in there, and for most people is needed anyway since their abs are separate from weight gain or pregnancy. I say go for it.

My current dilemma is whether or not to have an arm lift done. In August I had an abdominoplasty, breast lift & augmentation, and lipo, which ended up being great- I am a fan of plastic surgery. In November I have a groin incision thigh lift scheduled, however I have been back and forth on the brachioplasty. I am afraid of the scars. Everything else I’ve had done can be hidden under a bathing suit, but those scars are not easily hidden and even with excellent scar therapy, they will be visible to some extent. So, for those of you who have had an arm lift, do you regret it at all? Do you prefer having the scars over the wings? I have always had fat arms….in college, when I was normal sized before I gained and lost a few hundred pounds over the course of 10 years, someone called me “the flying squirrel”, and my arms weren’t even that bad then! I am worried that I might be trading one cosmetic deformity for another and I don’t want to end up being even less attractive than I started out as! I know this sounds like I am insecure, but ok, I am, and I’m kind of shallow…I like feeling attractive. The thing is, I can’t decide if wings or scars are the lesser evil. Also…one last thing. These will be the only scars that anyone can see. Very few people know I’ve had the other procedures done. For those of you who have had an arm lift, or plastic surgery that a lot of people know about, was anyone super judgey about it? Thank-you for your thoughts!

I can see your concerns, but what's so bad about being wanted for your body? Realistically, the very first reason anyone is interestedin you is based on your appearance. If you met a wonderful man who was very overweight, would you really be as interested if he was the same man in a healthy body? I'll be honest, I would not be. I've worked very hard to be the size that I am and I am completely fine with men looking at me and wondering what I look like naked (which p.s. let's hope what they picture is better than the reality, lol). I know who I am and I know the type of man I like having in my life- that hasn't changed from where I am now and where I was 100 pounds ago, except now I have a lot more options available to me than I did when I was larger. It's like putting your house on the market...can you really blame the perfect buyer for not being interested if you don't update the kitchen and vaccum the floors? Weight loss is like cleaning house...if you want the best options, looking the best is how you get them. It isn't fair, but what's the phrase...don't hate the player, hate the game.

@@Oak Park Lorena I did end up choosing to have the surgery and I also chose the place where I wanted the scar. I did not want it along the bicipital groove, which is the classic placement on the inside of the arm, because everytime you talk to someone, that part of your arm shows and it can be seen. I also didn't want it on the back of my arm because then you can see it from behind. My surgeon is going to place it right along the inside edge of my arm so that it can't been seen from the back, but it also isn't running down the middle of my arm when I move my hands in the "waving goodbye" motion. With that scar placement, you can see it when I lift my arms up, like I'm brushing my hair or if I swing my arms back from behind, but it's not as readily noticeable as the traditional placement. I really wanted the minimal incision version, but my arms are too flappy for that.

I would agree your friend is tactless, but I don't disagree that there is anything wrong with writing a letter to your children. You are not going to die in surgery- you're more likely to die in a car accident on the way to surgery, however having your affairs in order is important. I wrote my parents a letter before my sleeve surgery and before my plastics surgery and I made sure my best friend knew where all of my account information was in the event it needed to be taken care of. You are not selfish for wanting to have a surgery that will change your life, and if anything maybe writing those letters will remind you of exactly why you are having surgery- so that you can really enjoy your children's childhood, so you can run with them and play with them and be able to truly live the life you deserve.

My feet are also smaller although I think it is the result of a reduction in swelling. I look at my before pictures and my poor feet even look bigger, possibly because they were carrying around 100 extra pounds. I didn't have any conditions that would have resulted in swollen feet other than just being a chunk, but I just put on a pair of ballet flats that I last wore about 100 pounds ago and they are too wide for my feet now. On a good note, you may find you really enjoy boot shopping now. My legs finally fit in all the cute high boots that I could never fit over my calves before. I have very much enjoyed shopping for this winter!

I was told I should walk as much as I can and could resume normal workouts at 6 weeks. I was cleared to jog at 3 weeks and I went back to full cardio and lifting at the 5 week mark.

I got sick a few days before surgery too. I blasted my cold with Vitamin C, Zicam, and watered down OJ (since that's allowed on the liquid phase). Generally they would reschedule your surgery if you can't breathe easily out of your nose. When you're intubated during surgery it doesn't matter much since they're breathing for you, but when they extubate you you're still not really awake and you need to be able to protect your own airway. If you can't breathe out of your nose and your throat is clogged up, you're not conscious enough to wake yourself up and cough to breathe, like you would be if you were just sick and trying to sleep at home. If you just have a headache and a scratchy throat with a little bit of the sniffles, they won't care. The big thing is you need to be able to breathe when you're not awake enough to correct your posture or cough to clear your nose and throat. You're going to get a ton of antibiotics after surgery, so that may likely clear up any cold you have anyway. I went into surgery feeling a little stuffy, but I left three days later feeling like I got hit by a truck- but no signs of a cold at all!

I also use MyFitnessPal and I average an intake between 1000-1200 calories most days, with the occassional day hitting 1400 calories. When I add in exercise I am usually under my daily suggestion of 1200 calories. I just don't "complete" my daily diary anymore so it doesn't nag me about not eating enough. I'm also a woman, so the settings are different for me and how much I should eat. I would think 1500 calories though should be within an acceptable range for a guy. Have you updated your weight in the settings, as well as your activity level? I'm not sure if that will help since I've been using the app since the start and 1200 calories has always been my daily goal, but maybe it calculates differently for men.

My best advise is....suck it up buttercup. I say that with kindness, a smile, and a internet version of a pat on the back. Your husband is in the wedding party, you gotta go and you have to be a lady- which means you smile, you be nice, and you act like you wouldn't rather be at the dentist getting a root canal than suffering through some god-awful wedding. I completely know how you feel. I avoided people for a very long time when I was fat, however I can look back at the pictures that people managed to snap of me then and be extra happy with how I look now. Also, being able to fake it is an important part of the process when you do end up hitting your goal weight. I fake it all the time. I put on a smile, and I laugh and giggle, and I toss my hair, and I strut my cute butt around in 5inch heels and I act like I am damned awesome. On the inside I want to be at home, in my pajamas, preferably with the TV on and even though I act fabulous, on the inside I'm the girl that never feels like she's good enough, at any weight. I've noticed though the more that I fake being happy and awesome and confident, the more I find it becomes second nature and I don't feel as much like the big fraud that I know I am. Fake it til you make it honey.

In my experience, the pain itself was gone after the first few days as long as I didn't move around much. I stopped feeling twinges of pain when I twisted wrong at about 5 weeks.

Congrats on doing so well so far on your plan so far! Your current weight shows at 160 and your goal looks like it is 125. Cutting out the cardio and adding lifting is not going to get you to your goal weight quickly. People are taught that building muscle burns fat, which it totally does and it is good for you, but when your goal is to hit a certain weight, that being 125, the more you cut out cardio and add lifting, the less you are going to lose. I was really stuck around 166...as soon as I added more cardio that incorporated some strength moves (my boxing class is a lot of running with pushups and squats and such), the quicker I dropped and the more I toned. I've used trainers in the past when I was around that weight and purely lifting weights as opposed to doing a lot of cardio does absolutely nothing for me in terms of weight loss. I'm really big on the number on the scale and if you want to be 125, you can't have the muscular structure that someone who is building at 160 is going to have especially if you're building that muscle through lifting instead of through active movement like you would get in a plyometrics class or something. If you look at the Biggest Loser, they have plenty of weight work, but everything is offset with a ton of cardio. So...not do diss your trainer by any means, because he (or she) was taught to preach the value of lifting, but from someone who was at your weight and has a goal close to yours, I don't feel that dropping cardio off that much is going to help you. As a funny note, I always thought that I had to workout hard to lose weight, which is what I did the first part of my weight loss. Then I had plastic surgery and couldn't work out for almost 8 weeks and I dropped 16 pounds, some of which was very likely muscle. It made me realize there was no way I was ever hitting my goal of 129 if I didn't first get there and then start building muscle. Good luck!

Take them anyway. They aren't going to hurt you and most everyone on here took them immediately after surgery. Let your doctor know that you researched it online and there is no harm in using the strips so you will be using them. I also put a heating pad behind my shoulders which helped a lot with the gas pain.

I had a hiatal hernia repair and I had no idea that I had one until I found out they fixed it after surgery. I had started getting heartburn a few months before surgery, which is supposedly a symptom of this kind of hernia, but otherwise I had no clue. It's an easy fix while they're in there and I haven't had heartburn since. I've read that it can be caused by obesity, pregnancy, or other situations where you have more pressure than usual on the abdomen, but it can be idiopathic as well.

I was cleared for everything at 6 weeks. You're not going to hurt your stomach (the organ) by doing ab workouts, but you might irritate your incisions if you do it before 6 weeks. If you don't have any pain, then go for it- if it hurts, wait a few more days and try again.

I was the opposite, I always saw fat and I avoided pictures or public events as much as possible because I felt that no one really wanted to be around someone as massive as me. I'm now at a healthy weight and I look in the mirror and think, well, you look ok, but those legs are big, and that butt needs work, and my god, those batwings of yours...girl put on something with sleeves. I know what you mean though about being a fat girl who has tricked everyone into thinking she's thin- I totally feel like that now. I was actually just thinking this morning about how every single day for the rest of my life is going to be about not eating too much and getting fat all over again. It wasn't the most optimistic of thoughts, haha.

I have the Quaker's Weight Control oatmeal for breakfast every morning with a little bit of honey mixed in. It has 7 grams of Protein and it's sweet enough that I really enjoy it, but not so sweet that my sleeve gets upset. She doesn't like sweets, lol, so finding the middle ground for me was important.

I wake up, use the bathroom, get naked, and weigh myself every morning. This way I have a consistent record of what i weigh at the same time everyday. I write my weight down in a calendar so when I'm stuck in a stall like I have been for over a month now I can look back and see exactly how long I've been stuck. Also, weighing everyday keeps me very conscious of what I eat, so if I gain a pound one day, I'm really careful the next day and I almost always drop right back down to where I was.

@BitterSweet* Thank-you so much for your kind post! That made my day!

You most likely popped a stitch in your stomach. I feel like you would be able to feel that a lot more readily than you would feel a staple pop in your stomach. Your stomach should produce pain, if it did at all, more medially. An incision on my left side hurt a few times and it was just the incision in my stomach. I'm 13 months out and never had any issue with stomach leaking. Also, your staples are in rows, so if for some reason you pop one, there are two others along the same line backing it up. Also, your actual stomach heals quickly, so since you're in the soft food stage, you've probably come far enough where the stomach has healed at least partially into its new shape and it would take a lot to really rip it open at all. Also, that fun sliming feeling happens when you eat food that your stomach doesn't like. My sleeve still does that and for me, the only way to make it stop is to just barf, which doesn't require any help from me...I open my mouth over the garbage and it all comes spewing out covered in goop. It's really very sexy, lol. You learn what you can and can't eat. If you had egg salad it was likely the mayo that caused it, or at least that's what would be the issue for me. Some people have a lower tolerance of eggs as well, so that may be your issue.

I would go for it. I have my second round of plastics scheduled the day before Thanksgiving, so I'll be too high to really be eating anything on the holiday. I will be 14.5 months out from surgery at that point and I don't care in the slightest bit that I won't really want to eat anything. My relationship with food is totally different than it was before surgery- I can have it or I can skip it and either way it's ok. Good luck!

Reading that made me hungry, lol. That sounds about right being 5 weeks out. I'm a year out and most days are about 1000-1200 calories although I got so sick of eggs and chicken that now I eat whatever I want (it's 95% healthy) and track everything on MyFitnessPal so I know I don't overdo it.

You are 1 pound over your acceptable range- don't freak out yet. Believe me, I am the same way, however that one pound could easily have been from Water retention if you ate something salty. I know that if I gain a pound, I can spend the next day being very careful with what I eat and it is inevitably gone by the next morning. That's why we weigh everyday, so that we see a pound and fix it, instead of getting on the scale and being 15 pounds heavier. I completely understand the terror of getting fat again. Everytime I eat something there is a twinge of fear, but I can rationally assure myself that if I gain a pound, or in your case 4 over my goal weight, I just need to refocus for a few days or a week and I will likely be right back to where I was. You will be fine, just eat really well this week and I bet you're back to normal in a few days.

You look fantastic! I love your costume- super cute!