My Bariatric Life

@@#1Coltsfan are you in Indy?

http://www.neinsteinplasticsurgery.com http://www.drsterry.com http://www.capellaplasticsurgery.net Capella did my work. He has practices in NJ and NY. Surgery is in NJ. Friend of mine had her work do e with Neinstein. Don't know anyone who used Sterry but he has a good reputation.

@TheRealMeIsHere! Good job getting insurance coverage!!!!!!

@@sdocforce I surely hope she / he would be truthful. You always can get it in writing if you have concerns.

Thanks, everyone! I appreciate the support and tools and resources. I wanted to add that anyone who is trying to let go of something in her past, whatever it is, and stop letting it ruining her future, I highly recommend the Landmark Forum. It is a weekend course and I found it extremely empowering when I did it many years ago. Also in my article, True Love, I list some books and videos that I have used recently to connect with my spirituality and grow. Peace.

When I had my gastric bypass in 2003 there were not the multi-faceted treatment teams that there are today to take patients through the journey. My bariatric surgeon said "I do the surgery. The rest is up to you." I did the physical work but I never did the mental work. I never even knew it was a consideration. In 2013 I had a series of plastic surgeries to my body and face. And that is when I really felt like a different person. In part, I felt like the person I was when I was thin. But that was so very long ago that I was a "kid" back then and so I could not 100% identify with that "version" of me. And I certainly could not identify with the obese me (before RNY) or the overweight me (after RNY). It was in 2013 and 2014 that I went through a very challenging time, a series of events, that led me to a spiritual journey to find myself. And while that journey is amazing, I feel there is more that I can be doing to grow. I wrote an article for BariatricPal magazine called True Love in which I discuss learning to unconditionally love myself and others. That is the essence of my growth. I have looked at many of the world religions and many philosophies and they all have one unifying message at the core: they teach us that our purpose here is to love. I also touch upon my spiritual journey in an interview that BariatricPal did with me. So the purpose of my post is to ask your help. I want to accelerate my growth and I could use some guidance. How is it that you did the mental work after weight loss surgery? How did you find yourself, what makes you happy, what is your life's purpose, what are your values? What tools have you used to grow spiritually and emotionally? What behaviors/habits did you have to stop? What new behaviors/habits did you have to start? Did you do anything to receive the "gift" of Spirit? Thanks so very much. This is important to me and I appreciate your support.

That's probably self recrimination...

@@JustWatchMe I think your pst contributed useful advice, as well there are lots of people going through or will go through or have been through divorce. I am sure it will help them to identify with a fellow patient who struggles. I think divorce is one of the hardest things a person will go through in their lives. Good luck to you. If you follow the link to the article on True Love, it lists many of the resources I have used to help me grow. Perhaps there is something there that resonates with you. Also, several people have strongly recommended mediation, getting out in nature, and spiritual growth. A friend recommended the book Sacred Contracts - Awakening Your Divine Potential. And my spiritual guide suggested I look at euro-linguistic programming. It is a process of self hypnosis.

I struggle with this. When I went Paleo it truly did relieve my problem.

My skin and fat were pretty firm before my plastic surgery. I did not have one of those very deflated looking bodies. I had a roly poly belly. There are photos in my Flickr album of the before and after: https://www.flickr.com/photos/mybariatriclife/sets/72157647785394956/ I went into plastic surgery weighing 198 pounds and size 14/16 jeans. If you watch the video in my sign you can see the transformation. By the end of my surgeries I was down to 148 pounds and size 2/4 jeans (mostly 2s and I am 154 currently and they fit just fine -- I do were them tight). Anyway, Dr. JF Capella my PS removed 11 pounds of skin and sub-Q fat and 1 liter of fat via lip (I think that is 2 pounds). So a lot of what I had was visceral fat, which cannot be removed surgically, and which I dieted and exercised away after my plastic surgery. In total I lost 50 pounds and 50 inches after plastic surgery. BTW according to the ASPS when the sub-q fat is removed it also removes the hunger hormone and thus appetite decreases. So they report there is additional weight loss from that alone. It wasn't a huge amount though. I will say that my appetite greatly decreased after my tummy tuck and I think it mostly had to do with the muscle plication added renewed constriction to my RNY pouch. I hope this is helpful. I know it was a very long answer and that I did not specifically answer your question... :-)

Thank you for this. My dark circles have gotten worse lately and my husband says I look ill. I have been very tired. So I betcha my Iron is low. FYI gastric bypass 2003. The problem with iron supplements is constipation. Has anyone tried PatchMD? They have an iron supplement delivered through a patch on the skin. My friend who had a DS is using them and she said all her lab levels have gone up (she is using the other supplements, too, from PatchMD). I may give them a try. But they aren't cheap so it would be great to hear feedback from other patients. Anyone?

@@Lisajacs good luck on your surgery! ugh, just wait until 6-mos or a year down the road when you look at those nude before photos... you forget just how bad your body was because you become used to your new body...

@@csg my surgeon has operated on people your age, although I do not know any of those patients personally. You may want to check on RealSelf, a plastic surgery community. I know there was one woman I corresponded with there who was in her sixties and got a tummy tuck.

I grew up with a romanticized notion of love: One day my prince would come and life would be perfect. I still have my vision of him: A big, tall, dark and handsome dominate male, the stallion, who would rescue me, worship my feminine traits, but not possess me (except in the bedroom). Aside from the attributes in parenthesis, my fantasy man came straight from the Disney Princess movies of my childhood. Love is the deepest and most fulfilling connection to the world. Yet it is sadly ironic that most of us don’t know what love is. Storybook Love I grew up with a romanticized notion of love: One day my prince would come and life would be perfect. I still have my vision of him: A big, tall, dark and handsome dominate male, the stallion, who would rescue me, worship my feminine traits, but not possess me (except in the bedroom). Aside from the attributes in parenthesis, my fantasy man came straight from the Disney Princess movies of my childhood. That’s not true love, although I admit I still long for this fantasy man of my dreams. Thanks a lot, Disney. I’ve been “in love” a few times. I met John when I was 15 years old. He taught me what it was to be loved. John was my protector, my knight in shining armor who rescued his princess many times. Joe was three-years older than me. He swept me off my feet on his white horse (a Chevelle) and ultimately shattered my illusion of love. And then there was Bob who cherished me. He called me his beautiful Czechoslovakian doll and wrote me poetry. Bob is the closest I’ve come to my Prince Charming and I married him when I was 19 years old. But life has not been perfect. There are two other men I have loved but our relationships were never consummated. My storybook love ideal caused pain in these relationships. I was looking for someone else to make me feel complete, to satisfy all my needs, to make my life perfect. These precious men truly were deserving of my love. But I did not know how to love myself. And I did not know how to love them. That’s not true love. That was me being selfish. Truth is, I ultimately shattered my illusion of love, not Joe. It took me a long time to understand that love is an “inside job.” Finding Myself Decades pass and thorough them I go from fit to overweight to obese, then back to overweight and finally back to fit. And it was not until recently that I was able to love the person who was: That obese woman who used to look back at me in the mirror. Late last year I began a spiritual journey toward finding myself. I believe this important step in our transformation after weight loss is often overlooked. It took a series of catastrophes within relationships with people who were very important to me, to bring me to my knees and ask “what is the meaning of all this?” Fate delivered a spiritual guide to me. I stumbled a lot at first. Jen, a weight-loss surgery/plastic surgery friend, during our interview about love after obesity told me “change requires being open to being guided and looking for the lessons and messages in that guidance.” I remained open to the messages the universe was sending. I kept searching for what I was supposed to learn. I counseled with Rev. Mark, who also is a metaphysician, one of the most enlightened spiritual leaders I’ve met; I read a few books (good read: Return to Love) and countless articles; I did guided meditation and visualization; I did the course on YouTube and journaled; I watched documentaries (good watch: Love); I prayed (and still do) for the Holy Spirit (G_d's love) to allow me to see only through the eyes of love. And around Christmas my heart was broken open. That's when miraculous experiences began to happen. I reacquainted myself with my spirituality and my philosophy on life from a time long ago when my heart was filled only with love. It was the time before I became overweight and had used food to insulate my quiet inner voice of love from the frantic assault of the outside world. Finding True Love Finding true love is an inside job, means we must establish a sense of wholeness and intimacy within ourselves, first. Once I had unconditional love for myself, I was able to stop beating myself up for past failures. I was able to love me even though I made mistakes. And then… I was able to love others even though they made mistakes; even though they did not live into my fantasy of Prince Charming. I saw past the shell of these men and recognized their love given me through acts of service, gifts of quality time, and physical touch (good read: The 5 Love Languages). I was able to see the love given me because I had accepted myself as someone who could be loved. Previously I had seen myself as unlovable and therefore had doubted and tested the love given me. I saw their vulnerabilities and their faults and accepted these men just as they were, without judgement of how I thought they should be. Loving your idealized image of someone until they disappoint you with who they really are is not true love. That’s possessive love: I love you but only if you behave in the way in which I think you should be. That’s love with strings attached. I was able to love them with their flaws because I had accepted the flaws within myself. I was able to see their pain and how they had been hurt by me, whereas in the past I only could experience my pain and how they had hurt me. In doing so, I experienced what it is to love unconditionally, to experience self sacrifice for the good of another. Rev. Mark told me that is the deepest love there is. He called it soul love. The Resurrection of Love I had been reaching outside myself to men for the wholeness and intimacy that I was missing inside myself. Before expecting to find wholeness and intimacy externally, we must love ourselves as we are rather than trying to find someone to make us feel complete, to fix us, or to be who we want them to be rather than who they are. That is not what love is about. Every person in the world was born with the same incredible gift: the ability to love oneself and others unconditionally. We can resurrect that love at any point in our lives. I believe that forming a loving connection with another person (not necessarily a sexual relationship) is one of the most rewarding of life’s experiences and a crucial step in our growth into wholeness. If you don't know how to do that, how to really love someone else, then you will ultimately shatter the love that you have with anyone else, including with your mate. According to Maddisen K. Krown, M.A., “When we establish this awareness and loving connection, we establish a wholeness and intimacy with ourselves, which will very likely be projected and reflected back to us by others in the form of the loving, whole, and intimate relationships we have always longed for.” What have you done to discover true love of self after weight loss? Please share your story in the comment section below. Want more love? Read about soul mates and twin flames in Soul Relationships or learn to manifest your heart's desire in No Fear. No Regrets. Living larger than ever, My Bariatric Life Visit My Bariatric Life on MyBariatricLife.org,Flickr, Vimeo, Twitter, Google+ View my Borne Appétit recipe collection on Pinterest

A big part of our identity feels lost...

@@JerseyCityGal Thanks. I felt like I had a St. Bernard's face before. Woof.

@@JerseyCityGal I miss NJ. Say hello to home for me. I've only been in Indy since May 2013. There are some cheap flights via Allegiant Air and Frontier Airlines between NJ and Indy. I paid about $15k for my work with Dr. Winslow inclusive of surgeon, OR, anesthesia. The procedures I had done included deep plane face lift, neck lift, upper eye lid lift, lip lift, chin implant, SMAS to tear troughs, and filler. She also cut the muscle between my eyebrows that create the 11s but she said it would grow back. She did not charge me to cut it. She has zero interest Care Credit financing. I recently had a 35% TCA chemical peel and I recommend that -- but I would suggest that you do it in the Winter when there is less sun. I could not imagine going to anyone else. I think Dr. Winslow is extremely talented. I've seen a few of her patients who had the works done and all of them were stunning -- two women older than me and one man also older -- and they looked like the very best version of themselves. Good luck with your surgeries. It is an amazing thing to do for oneself.

Thanks for your comment, Stevehud. I am glad that you have found a soulmate. The crux of my opinion piece is about coming to love yourself unconditionally. It is only then, when you love and accept your authentic self, that you are able to truly love anyone else. Only recently have I come to the awareness that I did not love myself. I certainly thought I did. But it was not until I did the "inner work" that I came to realize love of self and was no longer ashamed of the obese person I once was (12-yrs ago). I released all the blame and shame and loved myself unconditionally -- who I was then and who I am now and all that I will be in the future. I had worked for so long to transform my physical self (outer self) after weight loss surgery but I never did the inner work to find myself. Switching topics, if you believe in the concept of soulmates, which is someone who comes into our lives to help us grow (sometimes they are with us for a moment in time and sometimes for an entire lifetime), then you also may be interested in twin flame or twin soul relationships. Peace.

@JustWatchMe Sascrotch, HILARIOUS!!! So when I went back for my one-week post op to have the drains removed I wigged out, in a good way, a very good way. You see, I had not seen my body yet. I could see what I could see looking down but that does not allow you to really see your body. The only way to get the full effect of your surgery is to see yourself in a full length mirror. Well, we were moving so all mirrors were packed except the bathroom vanity mirror which only showed my neck up. Scott asked me to roll down my pants. And not thinking I just rolled them down a little bit. And this was so funny, Scott, who is normally very talkative, is standing there speechless with a needle in one hand and a cotton ball in the other and looking down at my NOT exposed lap. And there was this awkward moment of silence, and you know how they seem to last forever... then I finally "got it." I needed to roll them down my thighs so he could numb me and pull the drains in my mons (previously known as monster crotch). So I stood up and that is when I wigged out. I rolled my pants and panties way down and then looked into the full length mirror. OMG it was the first time I was seeing myself and I could not believe the change!!! I talked a mile a minute, going on and on, about how I looked normal for the first time in my life. I talked a blue streak, I was so excited. Then Dr. Capella walked in and I started all over with him. I was so thrilled that I could have run around the practice showing everyone my new body. When I came back for my 3-mos post op, I told Dr. Capella that I was very glad that I could share that moment with them because they made people feel that way almost every day and it was great for them to get to see first hand how happy they make people. I told him that must be a wonderful feeling to be able to do that for people. And he said, "It feels very wonderful."

@BethinPA@BethinPA@BethinPA I am VERY happy for you. I know thwt magical feeling that you speak of and how wonderful it feels. Be prepared to feel surreal as you get used to your new body. You may catch glimpses of your reflection in a store window and ask "is that thin person me?" Enjoy the ride!!!

@@punkinvine well even skinny girls get mommy makeovers (tummy tuck and breast lift after child-bearing), so yes someone who has lost 65 pounds could get benefit. Is it worth it? If the loose skin and muscle bothers you, then yes it is worth it. Otherwise, no. It sounds like you know what you want. Follow your heart.

@@Jersrose43 thank you! I guess that you are considering plastics? I will say that I don't think there is anything I could have spent that money on that would have brought me this much joy.

@@beth_b oy! did you hit the floor or did the good doctor catch you? I was so sacred about the scars that my surgeon was going to put all over my body. I told him that I was afraid I would pass out when he removed the bandages and I saw them. He laughed and said he would make sure I was sitting down. haha In the end I was not bothered by the incisions. I surely did look like FrankenBarbie with the pie crust incisions on my breasts, flanks, arms, tummy, buttocks, mons, and inner thighs!

This is a very insightful presentation by Dr. Mitchell Roslin on the physiology of weight gain. http://vimeo.com/user1985459/roslin

@@newoutlookonlife it was a surprisingly easy recovery and I love the result. Start saving your money. That's what I did. It took a few years but it was worth it.