BigTink2LilTink

Hello everyone. I am Justin M and I just found this site today. I am glad to find it having had my Gastric Vertical Sleeve surgery just a few weeks ago. I found this site via a Google search cause I was looking for ways on how to deal with this post surgery gas and bloating feeling I've been dealing with for the past week since going to soft solid foods.
 
My weight has been an issues for me since I was a child. I have always been the big kid to the big teenager to the even bigger adult. I was able to somewhat keep in physical shape while having a big frame especially in high school cause I played both football and did track. My first two years of college I was able to maintain a job as a warehouse stockmen at a Sears store that kept me in even better shape than playing sports did, but I still had very horrible eating and nutrition habits. It wasn't until I moved away after my sophomore year of college to attend school away from home that my physical activities stopped and my eating habits got totally out of control. I went from being 275lb in August of 2000 to 500lbs by May of 2003, the year I graduated college.
 
By the beginning of 2005 I was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes. I didn't start taking my weight seriously even after being hit with diabetes until around 2008. At that point I had reached my highest weight ever of 556lbs. I started working out at a gym and by the end of 2009 I was down to around 460lbs. However around 2010 my marriage was falling apart and I got into a depression while going through my divorce. With coping with the loss of my marriage I gained 20lbs back and was right at around 480lbs.
 
By 2011 I decided to get some better control of my eating habits and do more active things. I was able with the help of my Endocrinologist  and drug called phentermine I was able to get my weight down to 398lbs by the end of 2012. I was so happy that I felt like I could get off the phentermine and continue down the path of successful weight loss. Well I was wrong. By June of 2014 I had gained back all the weight that was lost in 2012 and I was slowly getting back up to 500lb. I knew then that I had to make a change that was going to require surgical help.
 
So about 20 days ago I went under the knife for the first time in my life and had my stomach removed in hopes of correcting my eating habits, while creating new better life leading changes. I want to live to be a very old man. I don't want back and joint pain anymore. I no longer wanted to be a diabetic depending on shots of insulin in order to maintain a decent quality of life. So I made the choice, I had the surgery and here I am now. Its still a difficult process. Some days I cry for wanting my stomach back reversing this decision cause I miss my old foods, the junk food, the horrible cravings that got me sick in the first place. I hate hate hate having the gas and bloating now too. But as with other that have gone through this surgery I have to give it time. Time for my body to fully heal and then I will see the positive of making this decision to increase my health, extend my life and the quality of it, and to become something I haven't been since 2004 which is insulin independent.