AvaFern

I lost 100+ pounds, and I fluctuate within 3 pounds of my goal weight. Much as I thought I would say that I still workout and eat like I used to, oh no, I am lazy. Most of my adult life I have worked out, usually running, 4-5 days a week, even when I was overweight. When I was losing weight after the sleeve, most days I went for a run and did 2-4 hours at a boxing gym, 4-5 times a week. Once I hit goal, I had 3 plastics procedures, which hugely limited how much I could work out. I was so hyper terrified of gaining weight because I couldn't exercise, that I ended up doing a lot of walking during that time and just being more aware of my diet. It's been almost 2 years now since my last procedure and I am such a bum. Much as I like exercise, I'm so busy that I tend to de-perioritize exercise. Consequently, while I am still at my goal weight, I am very careful with my calories. I weigh myself everyday and while there are plenty of days I eat junk, as soon as I get to the top of my fluctuation range, I go right back to being strict for a few days and I drop back down to goal. I think we should work out regularly, I like working out, but I have found that I can maintain my loss without exercise if I am very careful with how I eat and I am consistently vigilant with the scale. I wouldn't advocate for being the lazy bum that I am, but you aren't locked into a life of daily gym visits once you hit goal as long as you are able to be very cognizant of the scale. Over Christmas I made more junk than usual and it is taking FOREVER to drop back down those few pounds I gained, so if I didn't weigh myself every morning I could have easily gained 10 pounds. Thankfully, I now only have 2 to lose to get back to where I need to be, but regaining is easy and relosing is a total beast compared to when I was newly sleeved. Therefore, you can eat and workout as it works for you, but for me the only way I stay thin is to weigh myself everyday and to make immediate changes if I see my weight moving upward.

I'm glad you called and checked with your doctor- that is generally the best bet. Beyond that, as someone else suggested, maybe try PB2. One serving has 45 calories, but 5g of Protein. Regular Peanut Butter has too much sugar and even 40 months post-op it still makes me sick. I get hot, sweaty, and breathe fast, which was way worse right after surgery, so PB& J wasn't something I had near the start. I do sometimes have half of one now, or even a Smuckers Uncrustable, which is just enough to hit my sweet tooth, but not enough that it makes me feel sick or that it totally kills my day in calories. If you find that the regular peanut butter doesn't work for you, PB2 tastes really good, is not terrible for you, and it also goes really great in a Protein shake.

This is a good question. In the interest of answering honestly, be advised, I'm an a**hole, so don't be offended please. As a woman who has nearly killed myself (literally) to reach a point where I am now, I would not date a fat man. Keep in mind, I'm not talking about a guy who is thick, but someone who is actually obese. It has nothing to do with thinking they are not a good person and everything to do with the fact that I did what I needed to do to look the way I do and to be healthy. I work really hard to stay this size and if I am constantly around someone who eats like crap and doesn't have the same activities that I do, first I don't think it would work and second, I feel like I wouldn't be doing myself any favors. Also, here's where the jerk part comes in, frankly I'm not attracted to it. Again, nothing to do with what kind of person they are and everything to do with what interests me. I'm not attracted to really thin guys, super short guys, overly muscular guys (like body builders) and blonde guys (and come on there are some hot blonde guys). A certain body type within a certain range of features is what I am attracted to, and just like anyone else, if the personality that comes attached to that body type is crappy, well that kills it for me too. We can't control what attracts us to other people or what doesn't, and while some people have told me I'm shallow (which may very well be true), I'm honest enough with myself to know that certain things are never going to do it for me. Therefore, as it relates to dating, I'm just not into big dudes. As it relates to overweight people in general, I don't really have an opinion. My sister is very large and she is the kindest, most thoughtful, big hearted person I know, and God help anyone if they were mean to her because she is larger. I don't really notice fat and thin people in ordinary life- they're just people, living a life, just like me, and deserve exactly the same amount of kindness, respect, and when necessary, a solid smack down, as exactly everyone else of every size.

@@Dashofpixiedust8 You and I are close to the same age and we were almost exactly the same age when I was at the point you are at now. I completely understand how you feel, although I actually was somehow oblivious to my excess skin until I decided to get a boob job. I was fat and thin most of my life, so I guess I was used to being a little saggy. To be fair, I've never been super comfortable naked in front of men, but I somewhat messed around with one guy who I was good friends with about 20 pounds from goal, and at the time I don't remember feeling self conscious about my excess skin. In hindsight, I cringe thinking about what I must have looked like, but he has never once commented on it, and while granted he didn't get laid in the deal and we were mostly just drunk and better off friends, and he cared about me as a person first, I don't get the impression that it was a deal breaker. Despite this though, like I said, I was clueless about my extra skin until I decided to get my boobs done. Then I looked at about a billion plastic surgery pictures, particularly those of tummy tucks and I was like....oh wow, I could look like that? Well, three surgeries later, the only place where you can still sort of see I was once fat is my thighs because I had a groin incision thigh lift instead of the full thigh surgery. I had NO IDEA I could have tight skin and it has done wonders for the way I feel about myself. Guess what though? I'm still not really comfortable being seen naked. I've only dated one person since I've been at goal and he never once said anything about my surgery scars or anything to indicate he didn't find me attractive naked, but I preferred sex in the dark, or the light was fine as long as I could blindfold him. He played along like a good sport, but in hindsight, I do wonder if even with all of the surgery I've had, if I will ever be able to really feel comfortable naked, or if it's just something that is a byproduct of years of understanding that, while I have a lot of good qualities, being hot naked simply wasn't one of them. As such, while I completely understand your concerns, even when you lose excess skin, while I gained a lot of confidence in clothing, I wouldn't say I'm excited to get naked in front of someone, and I don't feel like amongst most women our age and older (and even a little younger), even those who have never been fat, there is total confidence in their appearance. Sometimes you just have to fake it, and the better able you are to appear confident in your own skin, no matter what it happens to look like, the less anyone else is going to recognize it as being something they should care about.

I remember making a post like this after surgery...I was Burpy McBurpin and I distinctly remember that it lasted for at least 2 years, because I remember accidentally burping when we were eating when I had moved into a new condo. It was SO freaking annoying because when you eat alone, you tend to just burp (at least I did), so when you're around people and you're regularly burping, sometimes you forget and yeah, not exactly Ms. or Mr. Manners. I am now about 40 months post-op, and while I don't know when the burping stopped, I know that I learned how to "burp on the inside", which is probably why I don't notice it anymore. Lol, burping with your mouth shut accomplishes the same objective without seeming like no one taught you table manners and once you're consciously aware of doing it everytime, you don't tend to notice it much anymore. As I'm writing this, I realize I actually just burped on the inside, but I don't think that burping at this point is an issue for me. It's worst the first few months, and it lasted for me, but not to my knowledge most other people, for at least 2 years, but it was most excessively annoying right after surgery.

I kept my surgery semi-secret. After the surgery was over, I told my three best friends. Over 3 years later they are still the only people that know. I took a week of vacation from work, but if I had to use medical leave, all you are required to say is that you are having a medical procedure- they can't push you into knowing what it is. In school, I would have the surgery around a break period, unless you take online classes and don't have to be in an actual classroom regularly. Still though, why you are not there is no one's business and unless you have mandatory attendance, there's really no need to tell them anything. If anyone asks, tell them you had a stomach bug and that's why you were gone. You really only need a week to recover physically. I had surgery on Monday, was working in my hospital bed on Tuesday (which I don't advise- I don't even really remember this day very much) and fully back working in my home office for a 12 hour day by Friday. Basically I sit on my butt all day, but even when I went back to an office job the Monday after surgery, I was fine working the entire day. If you have a job that requires lifting or physical activity, then my experience isn't applicable to you, but a basic desk job and classes, you're good to go in a week. I'm glad I kept my surgery a secret. Consciously I know that no one else's opinion should matter, but to me it did and I knew I wasn't thick-skinned enough to always be the girl that was only thin because she had her stomach cut out. There is no reason you should need to keep your surgery a secret and there is absolutely nothing to be ashamed of in having surgery, but people are judgey jerks and I just didn't want to deal with them in my business, which I felt would be inevitable. It is entirely possible to keep your surgery a secret, if you choose to do so, and if not, there are also plenty of benefits of telling others as well. Good luck!

I can appreciate your irritation, although...a $7 burger isn't really a fancy place to eat. If your total bill for a burger, presumably two non-alcoholic drinks, and a $3 split fee was $17, I feel like they're holding themselves a bit high as a "nice" establishment. Given the way you were treated, I tend to think their behavior supports the point that they aren't the fine dining they seem to consider themselves to be. That being said, I haven't ever been charged a split fee because I don't really split things. I eat what I want to, then take it home or let someone else at my table eat it. Margins on actual fine dining are slim, and you aren't being charged a $3 fee to actually cut the burger, just like a corkage fee has nothing to do with the manual act of removing a cork, but rather the right to split a meal or to bring your own bottle of wine, when to do so without any minor fee is really not customary practice. It certainly would have been nice though if they had put somewhere on the menu that the fee existed. At a nice place, I can see economically the purpose of a split fee and most people paying to eat at a nice place, first don't care about the $3 and probably don't notice it on their bill, and second at an actual nice place, there would not have been any attitude from a manager, the fee would have been removed. The difference in my experience between a classy place to eat and a place that likes to think its classy is that there is an understanding that you sometimes lose a few dollars, but you make up for it in customer loyalty. A truly nice establishment handles the customer in a way that leaves them feeling happy...sure they complain about you when you leave and they roll their eyes when you aren't looking, but they are never, ever rude to your face or in front of any other customer. They certainly don't have their family members replying to your Yelp comments- that would make them look incredibly stupid and any person who was accustomed to eating in nice places would absolutely avoid going somewhere that responded that way on social media if only because it clearly demonstrates a total lack of class. So...sure, a split fee is normal sometimes, and I understand that you were surprised by it, but I find the behavior of the business to be unacceptable if they are going to cast themselves as being a better than average place to dine. I wouldn't go there after seeing that exchange on social media because it reeks of a scene- something that you will rarely if ever see in a nice place, and certainly not in a way that is exacerbated by management. I'm sorry you were treated poorly, but if it makes you feel better, places like that rarely last very long for all of the reasons I've mentioned above. They will be sad soon enough, lol.

I didn't have terrible gas pain. In the hospital they keep you highly drugged, so you really don't feel much, and while I didn't use the liquid narcotics at home, they give you drugs to take home too. I brought with me a heating pad which I kept under my shoulders, and I brought with me the meltable gas-x tabs. The hospital didn't have any and largely didn't much care when I asked for them, so I was glad I had the gas-x with me. I used the strips that melt, so you're not actually taking the pill version, which is a no-no. The gas pain usually refers to your shoulder area, so although in reality the heating pad scientifically isn't doing much for the pain, it made me feel better so I didn't care that it shouldn't actually work, lol. Overall, my gas pain was minimal- I was too busy being sick from the narcotics. I had them stopped at around 24 hours post-op, then I felt less awful, and I was fine with liquid Advil.

@@Heather I Thank-you for asking! We still aren't at a point where we can review the final exams, but all of my other grades were high, so I am not getting kicked out of law school! I might end up on academic probation if that F stands, lol, but when my last 3 grades finally posted I was well over the academic dismissal GPA, thank God. I have no idea what happened, and I spent most of Christmas freaking out about it, since they oh-so-kindly didn't post our last grade until the 27th, but in the end, the other grades balanced out the bad one. Fortunately, merit scholarships are apparently reviewed annually, so if I do ok next semester, I should be ok there too. I'm still hopeful the F is a mistake, but they are really careful with grades so I think that is being too optimistic. Hope you had a nice holiday!

I can appreciate how annoying it is to have people eating in front of you when you're on a liquid diet, but for the rest of your life people are going to be eating in front of you and if you want to be successful, you will eventually have to be able to be ok being around what others eat without having it yourself. Only my three best friends know I had surgery 3+ years ago, but I have never asked them to modify what they eat so I don't have to be around foods that might mess up my diet. My one friend routinely does Paleo and another can't have gluten, but they never ask me to change how I eat because of what they can and cannot have. Although it's hard to imagine, soon enough you really won't even want that pizza. I didn't eat very well over the holidays, but I can say that I have no real urge to eat junk food the vast majority of the year and someone else eating pizza, Pasta, or cake in front of me, doesn't even cross my mind as being tempting to me anymore. Right now, it's annoying, but in the future it will continue to happen, so you do eventually just not really notice it anymore.

I'm sorry that you have to deal with this. Your husband certainly took the cowardly way out and it sounds like you are a strong woman who will, when you are ready, find a strong man, if you happen to want one, and if not, you and your children will be just fine because of you who are and the resiliency you have. While I know it doesn't feel like it, at some point in the future, this won't hurt anymore and you will be able to look back on it and see how it has made you the person you're going to be. Right now it sucks though and I will keep you in my thoughts.

@@FrankiesGirl I am SO hoping it was a mistake! The problem is though that in law school all of your grades are done with a special anonymous number. You can't ask any of your professors about your grades until they have all posted because it risks the anonymity of your stupid special number. You can also get an F automatically if you put your name on the test (which I am 99% sure I didn't do, but who knows), if you fill out the stupid bubble part wrong on the multiple choice part, and for a few other random dumb things, which I think you can dispute. I haven't had less than a B on anything, and I had As and Bs on midterms- I just can't understand how I did so badly as to be at the bottom 5% of the class which is the only time you get an F in Contracts- which was a class I thought I knew fairly well. So...I have to wait until the end of the week when all of the other scores post until I can find out what happened, and then it will be Christmas, so hopefully after the holiday, this time next week I will actually be able to talk to the professor. Of course nothing else has posted yet today, given I have been obsessively checking it, so I get to spend god knows how much of the next week finding out if I only suck at one class, or if I blew any others too. At least though I know it was nothing personal. Between the anonymous grading and the fact that this professor didn't even know I was in his class (I asked him about next semester during another final and he was shocked I was his student, lol), I'm trying to convince myself I'm just a random number and somewhere something got messed up. Unlikely, but one can pray. @@Nymea Don't be too impressed with my walking, lol. I took half a xanax to quell my hysterical sobbing long enough to finish working after I saw the grade and I didn't want to risk driving. The gas station isn't too far from my house, and I figured the cold air might make me feel better. Mostly it just made me cold, but at least I burned off maybe a bite or two of the ice cream,haha.

@Moogle @@woo woo They added midterms to our school because too many people just flat out failed the finals, lol. Our midterms are such a tiny portion of the grade though that in the end it's still all about the final. The class I failed was the one that had the heaviest weight on the final at a 70%, so I guess the fact that I had a solid B with the curve on the midterm didn't matter. Thanks to my A- in the only other class that posted, I'm still technically beneath the acceptable curve, but hopefully the other grades help cancel out the F to the point I don't get kicked out, but who knows...I thought I did well in Contracts and apparently I got an F. Outside of the fact that now I will likely have to repeat that class, I'm pretty sure it will screw me out of my scholarship at the very least. I really only went to law school at this point in life because it was free. I've wanted to be a lawyer since I was a kid, but at some point I just accepted that I could either pay my mortgage or go to law school. Having free tuition was like winning the lottery and now...I have one semester of law school, and if I don't pay for the next 2.5 years, I'm forever the person that flunked out of law school. I never thought at a Tier IV school, when I got into Tier I based pretty much entirely on my LSAT that I would suck so much I'd possibly get kicked out my first semester. The waiting for the other grades to post is killing me....it's like being executed, except that every time you step into the noose it starts snowing and they call a snow day and send you back to your cell. Ok yes, dramatic a bit, but ugh. Everytime I read through all of these postings I feel so much better. It is really nice to have such kind and supportive people who have never me and don't know me take the time to help a stranger feel less like a complete loser. Thank-you all.

@@jvleeuw Thank-you for the clarification. I'm glad I chose to take it the way it seems you meant it. I'm sorry that you lost your first wife at such a young age and I am certain that raising children on your own was a far more difficult situation than I have ever dealt with. Congrats on your upcoming anniversary and I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday season!

@@jvleeuw You can't get an F in law school. In regular college, I wouldn't be too worried about it, but in law school, if you are beneath a certain GPA, you are dismissed. Also, because I am full scholarship at a school that is $40K a year, if that F drops my GPA low enough, not only do I get academically dismissed, but I also lose the entire scholarship. Unfortunately, it's a full-time scholarship, so I don't have the option to go part-time, without paying full tuition. A single F in law school, especially your first year, has the potential to literally screw you into eternity. At a 4th tier school, which is where I am, if you are not in the top 10-20%, which that F will prevent me from being, you are almost automatically barred from most jobs in big firms. I don't really want to work for a big firm, and I'm less concerned about the overall GPA problem than I am about the issue that first, if I have to repeat that class and it isn't available next semester, by default I'm dropped to part-time, which then eliminates my scholarship, and second, if I score badly on the other exams, the scholarship is gone AND I get academically dismissed. Hopefully, @@cheneisew is right and they don't dismiss the first semester, but our handbook which I have now read all over again, seems to indicate that I could very likely be kicked out effective sometime within the next week. Also, as a fun little kicker, once you are academically dismissed from any law school it almost entirely eliminates your chance to ever attend law school again. So, while I can appreciate the advice to chill out and not sweat it, I'm not that kind of person...I have always done well academically and it is the one thing that I have always believed myself to be...smart. I got an F in undergrad in statistics, and that was almost 12 years ago, and I had to justify it on my graduate and law school applications ever since. An F in law school may not be the end of the world, but it has the potential to entirely end any chance at ever becoming a lawyer. @@LipstickLady Yes, I tried really, really hard to let the "find a man" part go. I'm going to take it to mean relax, get laid, drink some wine, get a good night's rest, and you'll feel less crappy in the morning, as opposed to far more offensive ways to take it, lol. @@woo woo and @@LipstickLady Also, I do think you both make valid points about accommodations. Periodically today everytime I have had a mini little meltdown whilst thinking about my epic f-up, school comes back to haunt me. Blaming others for my issue isn't generally my style, and it's a very extrinsic locus of control characteristic, which I really try to not engage in. I feel like if I can at least objectively recognize that I'm doing that, it is somewhat less awful of me. I think my biggest issue is that I don't believe that the accommodations for everyone are valid. For example, I have one kid in my class, SUPER nice dude, works really hard, and is dyslexic. He gets time and a half to take the exams, he's had his diagnosis since he was a kid, and he works his butt off to keep up with everyone because he can't read as fast. To me, that is more than fair. I am mostly frustrated that several people, one of which I referenced in my first post, who have never, ever had any diagnosis until after midterms when they realized with a diagnosis they could have 4.5 hours to take a 3 hour test, now have this benefit. Several people then went to a psychiatrist and magically ended up with ADHD just in time to take finals. I am careful about my comments on ADHD because I recognize that this is a very valid condition, but when your entire adult life it never occurs to you that it might be a problem, and then 2 weeks before finals you suddenly have a diagnosis that gets you accommodations, I think you are full of crap and you worked the system. That then makes it even harder for people with valid diagnoses to be respected because everyone knows that multiple people don't have the condition, but they took advantage of the rule to get an advantage over the rest of us. When you have a valid disability, I am fine with leveling the playing field, I just think that when you get a brand new convenient diagnosis, after you fail all of your midterms (which this person did), just in time for special accommodations for finals, I call bs on that. Do you think I'm wrong? I would never say anything negative about the one guy I know who has had his accommodations in place for years...the dude is dyslexic, that's only fair, but when never before have you had a problem, and suddenly you realize you get extra time on very, very hard exams if you come up with a condition you should have had diagnosed well before now, I really feel like this is working the system and frankly, cheating. That is where my statement came from yesterday, although I was too busy crying into my icecream sandwich to clarify it as well as I should have. I know that my F is not the end of the world, it just feels like it. Best case I have to repeat that class and I think I can find a way to do that without being dropped to part-time, but worst case I get kicked out of law school. I would be so ashamed. I worked so hard to get there, and I worked so hard to do well, which I had been doing great until this grade, that now I feel just so much like a failure. I can handle failing at some things (like sports...I like sports and I play a lot of them, but man I'm kind of a clutz in some of them), but a big part of my identity is my belief that my brain can get me through anything, and now the one thing I have consistently been confident in may be why I fail at what has literally been my goal in life since 4th grade. Apologies for my whining...fingers crossed my last three grades are high enough to save me. Thanks again everyone for your kind thoughts.