Elode

@@Mega_100 Well happy belated birthday to you too! Having the day off is lovely! @@jane13 I'm so excited! I've watched ever YouTube video they made about it!! @@Terra B Thank you!

@@Kindle Thank you for sharing! I plan on talking with her over thanksgiving. She says she's going to talk to her PA about it when she goes back in. She sounds like she wants to do it and expresses interest but then never does. I think she's scared, scared of being put to sleep, scared she won't be able to eat ect... The normal fears most of us have. I though seeing me go through it would calm her but I just don't know? She thinks she's doing good on Atkins and she has before but gained it all back. She's retired now and volunteers at her local Nursing home 3 times a week. She calls bingo and sings to them. She always bakes them cookies and breads every week because they don't get that kind of stuff and many don't have visitors so she feels like they need that kind of love. Problem is when she's doing this "Atkins" diet plan she always derails by eating some of what she's cooking. She and my father like to go to the Chinese buffet in her tiny town to "celebrate" everything. It's a vicious cycle and she's defiantly a food addict in denial. Well I say denial bit she knows it's wrong because she tells me she shouldn't but she "doesn't eat that much". Yes, yes she does. Her PA has expressed concern with her BP and legs. She's short with really big legs and her little feet are always swollen with pitting edema. She can't stand on her feet very long. It's sad and I worry about her. I know and she knows that she will have massive amounts of lose skin if she ever does. She says she's not worried about that. She's been married to my father for 37 years. My dad called me the other night and is worried about her. He says she has to roll back and forth to get out of bed and you have to give her your hand when she needs to get out of a chair to help her up. He's afraid she's going to die in her sleep. That's always been her fear. He depends on her and always has. I just pray that she will be blessed with the surgery. I hope when she sees me in a couple weeks she makes up her mind to go through with it and start the process for real. Don't even get me started on my brother! He's just about where she is and he's only 37. @@Joz31 Hey that sounds like fun!!! I'm outside Springfield between Springfield and Branson.

@@Debbieduck4 Thank you! Truthfully the first once she sent grossed me out because I could barely eat as it was. I refuse to go off track and even when I start to I correct my direction! Thank you for the continued support. I will need it for a loooong time!

We did a " What's for breakfast" so while I'm prepping for dinner tonight I figured why not get some ideas from others. I have always loved cooking. I come from a big Italian family on one side and a down home country cooking grandmother on the other so I had no choice but to learn to cook. One of my few fears I had about having the surgery was that I would no longer be able to cook like I'm use to. The first few months after surgery I couldn't due to the recovery and dietary limitations but now that I'm fully healed and am "one" with my sleeve I'm back and better than ever. Cooking is even more fun for me now because I get to experiment and make recipes that are still delicious but have a healthy spin on them. As an example, tonight I have a new turkey marinade I'm trying out. I have included the marinade for those who might want to try it. I switched the vegetable oil out for olive oil, I used Splenda brown sugar apposed to the real and lite soy sauce. We will have roasted beets & Brussel spouts with a Asian side salad. I roast my vegetable with light olive oil and I will make my own Asian dressing. This whole dinner is really simple, it's high in protein and gives you plenty of veggies. It doesn't have to cost a fortune to eat healthy. I may have spent 15 bucks on the whole meal. This will make two meals for my family of 4. So what do you eat for dinner? Any favorite recipes? If you have pictures share! I'm a picture girl! I'm also a fan of recipes that don't require me to leave the country to find. Simplicity is my friend.

@@wannaBthinsoon I would never! I'm so proud of you!!! I was looking forward to your surgery and updates from the beginning! I knew you would be awesome!!! You just had to make it out of the wishing side over to the doing side!! See, and that's why you don't listen to everyone else! You go girl!!!

@ Thank you! It was good.

@@bigbit Oh hooray! I'm so glad you're doing well! It's a process but it gets better by the day. My first day of real food was thanksgiving. You'll be right there too! Keep up the good work. Next year at this time you'll be wondering where the time went?! It's incredibly fast, you'll be slimmed down and won't believe it! Mark my words.

@@perforce I agree! Moms are just moms! They want to protect their babies. I knew my mom would be for it because she didn't want me to be like her in that aspect. My father didn't really say anything. There really wasn't anything to say. Once I made up my mind that was it. I freaked a little the day of surgery and questioned it but I'm so incredibly thankful that I went through. It's been a life changer . I'm sure once you're done and your mom sees the new you she will be even more accepting. Sometimes you have to just stop listening to everyone and start doing what you want to do. Only you know what it's like to live in your body. You only get one body in this lifetime so take care of it! I did all kinds of diets and junk that only worked temporary. I watch the nurses at work struggle everyday both men and women. They weigh in the morning, stress about it then at lunch order pizza and stuff candy in their mouths all day and wonder why the next day they haven't lost any weight. I'm serious! I just want to shake the crap out of them! I think man, was I that stupid?! Of course you're not going to have lost any weight, you ate 5,000 calories yesterday!! It's a horrible cycle and I'm so glad I got off that rollercoaster!! These are all the reasons why I don't ever want to go back there!! Just thinking about them suck the life right out of me! No thank you, I'll pass!

@@bigbit Hey there you are!!! How's it going?? And Thank you! @@Veronica_mm Thank you!

@@jenkbacon Wonderful! I'm happy it was here for you in your time of need! It was meant to be it's easy to get comfortable with not doing things. Mine started with tracking every single thing to leaving some thing out because I didn't like the numbers, to just tracking morning and afternoon skipping night when it's the worst, to not tracking anything because I couldn't seem to stay at my normal 800 calories any more and I just didn't want to know. That lasted about two weeks and I've kicked myself in the butt again. I literally talk to myself like a nut and tell myself You are NOT going to do this! You are screwing up and you know It! Get your shit together before you screw up everything you've worked so hard to do! Yeah, I'm a hard ass with myself lol! Well I have to be, I'm stubborn!

@@Runner1 Thank you! I had my moments where I wanted to go crazy on them but I didn't. I did however throw away all the crap the next morning. Pissed my kids off lol! I left them the peanut butter pie custard but do you know I thought about that stupid ice cream all stinking day! I literally slapped my own hand when I grabbed the freezer door. If people could see in my kitchen at times they would think I was nuts! I told myself it's gone. I don't know if it is now but that's what I told the brain. I'm too afraid to look.

@@liannatx Oh girl you better start saving now for a new collection. I went from a 40 DDD to a 32 barely D. One of the ladies here was sweet enough to send me 5 VS bras when I started losing and they have been great but my boobs are staring to do acrobatics and spring right out!

Truthfully even my mom and my relationship has changed. She is morbidly obese and has been my whole life. She's 5'4 and a good 450-500 lbs. I never realized how much our relationship revolved around food until I had this surgery. My parents live about 40 mins from me and I've seen my mom maybe 3 times since surgery. I realize now that the only time besides holidays that we saw each other was when she drove to town and I would meet her and her friends for lunch. I don't eat out anymore so she stopped asking me. She assumes I can't really eat anyway so I wouldn't want to go. I'm not sure how many times she's been to town but she doesn't ask me. We are planning thanksgiving though. My mom is a big sweetheart. She's always been a kind hearted nurse. A retired PICU RN at that I was hoping and still am that she will have surgery. I know she's happy for me but I think there is a tiny bit of envy there too. She called me and told me her blood pressure is high now and her legs are always killing her. She says she doesn't come to my house because we have 5 steps up our porch and she doesn't think her legs could make it, she's only 64 but her weight is finally catching up to her after all these years of being a "healthy fat person". I knew it would. So when people questioned my decision to have WLS since I wasn't "that big" (sure 267 isn't that big lol) I knew my reasons but I don't have time to explain it all to everyone. It was a personal choice that stems from seeing my mother cope with obesity all these years. Once I started packing on the pounds I got scared. I love my mom and I admire her, I've always wanted to be as good of a nurse as she was, as caring, as good hearted but the one thing I didn't want to be was obese like her. She's proud of me and supported my decision from the start. Every Time I call her she's "starting her Atkins diet again" it breaks my heart because I know it won't last. I wish she would just do this with me.

@@perforce The other girls are on my moms side. I should say that my moms side of the family is BIG! All 10 of them, brothers and sisters are all overweight-obese. There has always been a lot of issues and competition between the women. The men are just fat and happy but the women both my aunts and cousins have always had this weird "thing" going which is ridiculous because they were all big just some a bit less obese than others. Of all my female cousins there were only 3 that were normal size and therefor envied. I am just now normal so I've crossed over to that side. The "skinny bitch" side and I'm not that "skinny". It's a weird dynamic our family has going. Luckily they all live at least 5 hours away so most of our communication is via FB. I have always been one of my aunts "favorite nieces". I even flew her and my cousin to Hawaii for a 2 week vacation when I was working there. I was fat then so it was fun! It's just different now. Almost as if I've abounded them by getting thin.

@@perforce She's an aunt on the other side of my family so no.

I've also decided that I'm not going to tell anyone but my closest friends and you guys when I have plastics. I don't want to hear anyone's opinions about that either! I will just keep them guessing!

I've learned to just shut my mouth. I had a friend out of the blue post that she was having gastric bypass on Monday and that she's really excited about the future. I congratulated her and showed her some before and after pictures of two of my friends (married couple) who have done a beautiful job losing weight and look fantastic. I never one time mentioned that I too had WLS. I wanted to sooooo bad but I just didn't. I'm sure she has no clue. We were friends when we were really young and just recently this year reconnected on FB. She has no idea I was over weight. I was small when I was young and I'm small-ish now. It killed me to not inbox her and tell her, reassure her that she can be successful ect....but I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I've become more reserved now from the few unfavorable comments I've heard about how "easy" it is ect....

@@Terra B You're welcome and I'm glad it could help, or at least get people thinking. I have a really cute picture saved for "just in case".

@@perforce My cousin has only lost 30 lbs in 1 1/2 years time. She truly never tried. My other cousin had GB and lost 80 lbs but put 70 back on. My aunt lost the most, she lost 90 lbs but has since put it all back on plus some. My mom said she would go to buffets shorty after surgery and eat until she hurt...literally hurt. Now, I do have another aunt who had GB 10+ years ago and she's thin and has managed to keep it all off all these years. I look to her for my inspiration. She doesn't deny herself anything but if it's sweets she allows herself 2-3 bites and that's it.

I think she thinks she's being funny. I got a fruit pizza picture from her a week after surgery. I don't find it amusing and it's not something I would ever do. It makes me wonder if someone did it to her. She had her surgery a few years ago. She loves me, she's just annoying!

@@Ashlegal I'm 100% sure she's right!! It's almost like being an alcoholic but our liquor of choice is food. It's an addiction. Same thing....only different.

@@Kspot42 What's wrong with these people? Is it too much to be happy for someone even if you didn't do so well?! Just to be a nice person and support each other? Especially family! I just don't get it. I'm gals you're doing it for yourself!

@@ssflbelle I know but when I click on it it just shows the first page again, it's been that way since I stared here.

I add people as friends or they add me. I have pages and I can only see the first page so I have no clue who they all are. I think when you post a status update it lets them know.

@@Alex Brecher I cook every stinking day! I to funny that I came home and read this because I was just telling my daughter how crazy it was that we just went to Springfield to buy a new stethoscope and didn't stop to eat. We never went to town before surgery without going out to eat. I didn't even notice until I was a mile from the house. It never even crossed my mind. I have chicken and veggies baking in the oven right now. I just prefer to know what I'm eating. Do you have a wife? I cook for myself but also my husband prefers homemade food too.