Wallflower7522

I was really worried my plastic surgeon would be concerned about my weight but he didn’t seem to have an issue with it. My high weight was 340, my lowest weight was just under 200 and now I hover between 215-220 at 5’6 this still puts my BMI pretty high. But I’ve maintained my weight loss for over 4 years. I also have a larger build and a lot of muscle. I would say at least 10lbs of the weight I’ve gained back is muscle. I’ll be curious to see what he says when I go back for my 2nd consult, the first one was to try to get insurance approval.

The plastic surgeon Im seeing to quoted another person in my support group $5800. I’m in East Tennessee. I saw him yesterday and they think I may be able to get insurance approval because of skin irritations that have been on going for almost 4 years. So we shall see.

Bring it up and have your blood work checked. My iron levels were low and it was causing me to have similar issues.

Hi all, I haven’t been around here in a while but I’m working on a reset and wanted to check in. I’ll be 4 years out in a few weeks. I had RNY gastric bypass. I initially lost 125lbs and have slowly gained back around 20lb, it fluctuates a little. Some of that is definitely fat, I’m not always vigilant about my diet but I also weight train a few days a week and have added on some muscle mass. I had a bike wreck last summer which resulted in a broken hand, dislocated knuckles, and pretty severe scrapes and bruises. It could have been much worse, but it did put me on my butt for a few months. I get most of my exercise in the summer by riding. I put put on about 15 pounds and it was winter by the time I finished physical therapy. For the last 4 months I’ve been really committed to my gym routine. I’ve been watching my diet more closely, cutting back on my drinking which, was never a problem or excessive but it is empty calories. I’ve lost most of the 15lbs and put on a little muscle. Sorry for the book, just want to give you the full picture. 3 months ago I woke up in the middle of the night to let my dog out and suddenly had what felt like severe hypoglycemia. I was pouring sweat, shaking, dizzy ect. I got some juice in me, laid back down, and felt ok soon after. I don’t have a meter so I couldn’t test. I had a drink earlier in the evening after dinner, which I normally don’t do, so I thought that might have been the cause and made a mental note to not do that again. But this incident was also many many hours after that, much longer than a normal reactive hypoglycemia episode or dumping. 3 weeks ago, I had a fairly normal dinner, a couple of pieces of thin crust pizza with vegetables, fell asleep so on the couch, and woke up again the same state. I hadn’t had anything to drink that night. This time I was slurring my words and stumbling around. I got some juice and felt ok. 2 weeks ago, same story. Except this time I didn’t have juice, I rubbed some honey on the inside of my cheek and ate a tea spoon of it. I was home alone and the next thing I know I’m waking up on the kitchen floor with no idea what happened. I went to my doctor, she told me to go on a hypoglycemia diet, which is pretty similar to an RNY diet and she ordered a glucose tolerance test. Let me tell you, that was not fun. Considering I avoid sugary drinks and items, trying shove 75grams of it into my pouch was awful, it’s amazing I didn’t throw up. My test results came back yesterday and they were interesting. Fasting glucose was 82, 1 hour was 77, 2 hours was 67, and 3 hours was 78. They actually did a finger stick at hour 3 and said it was 58, i know the meters aren’t as accurate but I was surprised at the difference. Does anyone know if those are expected results from an RNY patient? I was surprised to see my blood sugar never really went up. I’m not sure what my doctor will have to say about it yet. It figures when I’m watching my diet and focusing more on exercise than I have I start having these issues. But I’m determined to keep going. I’ve been keeping a juice box and glucose tabs next to my bed. I’ve also been splitting my dinner up and eating a little later, so far i haven’t had another incident. I really hope that’s the end of it. I have a good friend that’s in the process of having the sleeve so I’ve been talking to her a lot lately and going to support group and it’s been such a great motivator. It’s funny people thing this surgery is an easy way out, at 4 years I’m working even harder on it now than I was at 4 months.

Thanks for the replies. I haven’t been back to the doctor yet, but she seems much more concerned with my anemia than she does my blood sugar. I’m actually doing an iron infusion on Thursday since I’m just not absorbing the supplements. So far no more hypoglycemic incidents.

I’m 4 years out. My high weight was 340, and I started the process at 310-320. My lowest weight about 7-8 months out of surgery was 195. I gained 10lbs pretty quickly after that however, I also packed on some muscle. This time last year I was at 212 and yes, some of that was fat. I’m not always rigorous with my diet but I’m very active compared to before. Last summer disaster struck. I had an accident, not seriously injured but injured enough that my activity was limited for a number of months. I knew what would happen but I got depressed and angry at myself and the weight piled on all the way to 230 shortly after my cast was removed. The good thing is, once I got active again it started coming off and I’m down to 218, I’ve been focusing on my diet more carefully recently and cutting out sugar, not that I ate tons before, but I’m just being more careful. I’m hopeful, I’m a big girl. I don’t even expect to be super skinny but I’m going to continue to be healthy and I’m going to at least get back to where I was a year ago.

3 years out. I feel like I eat small to normal size meals now. I still take a long time to eat a meal and usually just take leftovers home and eat in "chapters" as my other WLS friends say. The amount of restriction varies, sometimes I can only get down a few bites and sometimes I can eat almost a full meal. I've only had actual dumping once or twice. If I eat a few bites too much or something too carb heavy I will feel a little bit sick for maybe half an hour. It's nothing serious, but it's enough to make me think twice about taking that last bite of something. My biggest challenge is protein intake and blood sugar management. I don't eat meat much anymore, so I try to eat a lot of legumes. I have some instances of hypoglycemia and I have more frequent occurrences of reactive hypoglycemia after I eat. My body still makes too much insulin and drops my blood sugar. I keep a lot of juice boxes and small snacks around.

I'm with you too. 3 years on March 3rd. I lost over 100lbs but my low weight was 194 and I'm at 215 now. My doctor is happy with that, she said I am built large and I've built up a lot of muscle. I'd like to get back below 200, but I don't have much hope for being lower than that. My issues now is I can't tolerate a lot of meat. Chicken makes me gag. I found myself mostly living off French fries and carbs which is a really bad RNY diet. I know I have to fix it, and I'm working on it. It's hard to do without meat. I am happy to say that I've been focusing a lot more of beans and veggies recently. I still eat some lean meat and fish. I basically live on black beans at this point and try to fill up on a lot of veggies. I still eat too many carbs but I've replaced a lot of bad meals with good meals. I've not weighed myself in a while but my size 12 jeans had gotten kind of tight and they're fitting a lot better now. I'm glad it's summer, I'm exercising more and planning a giant garden. Best of luck to you both!

Does this happen to you? I had my RNY in March of 2014 and some days the struggle to keep my blood sugar steady is a challenge. Sometimes it is because I eat too many carbs in a meal, but sometimes I can have a balanced Breakfast and I still get shaky after an hour or two. I'm getting much better about managing it. Here is the thing I can not figure out. I have a diagnosis of ADD. I take Adderall (which is a stimulant) but the side effects in combination with my dietary needs can be hard to manage so I do take days off. But the strangest side effect of all is that when I'm on it my blood sugar stays very steady. Initially I thought it was because I'm eating a lot less but I can eat the same thing for breakfast and my blood sugar will drop a few hours later if I haven't taken the Adderall. My other other hypothesis is that I'm much more active on weekend mornings than I am on work day mornings so maybe that's causing my blood sugar to drop faster. I really have no idea but I'm thankful for the unexpected side effect. So anyone else struggling with this? It's a pain, like when I blacked it at the gym or almost passed out getting tattooed, but I am slowly learning to manage it.

I only told a handful of friends and family members pre surgery. Post surgery if someone asked who I knew had it, or I knew might be interested I would tell them. If it was just some random person saying "how did you do it?!" I would say "diet and exercise" which is true. I'm 2.5 years out now. I took a new position at work 9 months after my surgery and suddenly I was always around new people who never knew the old me. Now I may make references to losing weight but I never go into a lot details how how or how much. I'm not trying to hid it per say, that's just not my life anymore and I don't want to bring it up constantly. There are plenty of old pictures on Facebook so I figure people can go look for themselves if they really want to.

As other have said you don't have to, and it may be something you don't want to obsess with. I stopped tracking mine after about a year but I also noticed some weight creeping back on and decided I needed to be more accountable than my occasional doctors appointment. The I discovered my scale is actually broken so I'm going out after work to pick up a new one.

People call me skinny, or tiny but I'm still not really. I'm a size 12 but I'm just built big and I'm muscular. But the most important thing to me is that I'm strong, fit, and healthy so I'll take it.

Mine actually didn't get that much smaller. I was a 44C/D before. Now I'm a full D cup in a 36/38 band.

I love not hitting stuff with my hips and butt all the time. But my tailbone sure does miss the extra padding.

I try to eat frequent small meals and have a good carb/fat/protein balance. I don't eat much meat, my normal Breakfast is usually Peanut Butter and wheat toast. That keeps me pretty stable. I also try to watch my caffeine intake as it sometimes makes me shaky. I was not diabetic before surgery, so I don't have a monitor but I need to get one and keep track. I have talked to my surgeon about it and his advice was the small frequent meals. I do drink a ridiculous amount of fluids which seems to help. Adderall is a diuretic and can cause electrolyte imbalance so I drink a ton of poweraid zero, G2 (sometimes) and propel.

Like everyone else said, it depends on the intensity. I do yoga 1-2 times a week outside in humid 80-90 weather. I swear my butt off and I get my heart rate up but that's only part of my exercise routine. I also bike, and lifts weights to give myself a well balanced exercise plan.

Interesting. Thanks for the review! I've had a charge HR for almost a year and am debating on upgrading to a Blaze soon. The $200 price point is a little steep so I'm torn between the blaze and an Apple Watch which I could probably get for $250 but as I'm more interested in fitness tracking I'm leaning towards the Blaze at the moment.

I've always been really prone to bronchitis and that hasn't changed. But it seems like my allergies have kicked into high gear. I had allergies as a kid but it's not been as bad as an adult until the last couple of years. This year I'm taking Zrytec, Flonase, Benadryl on occasion, symbicort, and I'm using a rescue inhaler more often. That's just for seasonal allergies. I also break out in hives if I don't medicate myself before workouts and I even seem to be allergic to the ink in my tattoos at times!

310 to 210 and a size 24/3x to a 12/L. I'm two years out. I got down to 194 and I've gained weight (but not size) since I've been working out pretty frequently. All though I'm happy with my size 12, I'm still feel like I should be about 30lbs less but my doctor is happy and said not to stress about it too much because I have a large frame.

I went from a 12 wide to an 10/11.

I'm still in pain but I didn't want to miss the turkey trot. It hurts the most when I'm sitting or laying so I'm going for it! Might not be running much, but I'm going to yo the best I can! Happy Thanksgiving y'all!

I was planning on running our towns turkey trot and hitting the gym at least 3 days. But I attempted to ice skate this weekend and now I have whiplash and a bruised tailbone so now I'm down on my side for a few days. :(

I've been going to Planet Fitness 3x a week since right after my surgery so for about 18 months. Yes you'll see super fit people there but also people who are of all sizes. I love it. No, it's not the best gym money can buy but for $10 a month is been a god send. It's been so awesome to do things there I wouldn't have dreamed of when I first started going.

If you are looking for a cheaper alternative, I also suggest ASIC. Our local running store just shut down and I honesty just don't have they money to spend that much several times a year. I have a high arch, I'm on my 3rd pair of ASICs and I haven't had any issues. Also, as i think someone else point out, your foot will shrink a lot as your lose weight. I went from a 12 wide to a standard 11.

I haven't posted here in forever but id like to give an update and some encouragement for the newbies here. My surgery was in March of 2014 and it's probably one of the best things I've ever done. I went from 310 at the time of my surgery and a size 24 to a low weight of 194 and a size 12. I have gained about 10lbs back but I've also added a lot of muscle and I'm still a size 12. I would like to lose more, but I'm happy for now. I run, bike, kayak, and travel a lot more. I did some of these things before but not nearly as easily as I do now. I exercise at least 3 days a week and I'm preparing for my next 5K now and hoping to do a 10k in the spring. The past year has been amazing, I've got to have awesome Halloween costumes, ride roller coasters, spend all day dancing at music festivals, explored Washington DC all on foot, and even met the host of my favorite podcast. I went to the beach in a (very modest) bikini and wasn't self conscious at all. I accepted a new job that was far outside of my comfort zone and that led to another job that was perfect for me. It wasn't an easy journey, but I was lucky I didn't have a lot of complications. The worst symptom I have now is occasional low blood sugar but I can control that by sticking to a healthy diet. We all slip sometimes though. Best of luck to you all. Some of you are going to have harder journeys than me. For some of you it may take a very long time to see the light at the end of the tunnel but I really hope that it will all be worth it one day. The picture of me here was take on Christmas 2013, 2ish months pre surgery and the after was on Halloween. (I was Han Solo)