Shinyhappymommy

You look great! I really liked the face shots of you with your curls down. Beautiful.

Thanks. You guys are sweet. I realized later that the pink shirt is actually what I wore to my first appointment with my surgeon. I'll have to send him that picture too.

I was a huge sweet eater pre-band. Some of the ways I deal with sweets now: If I'm really craving a treat, I try to indulge on a small scale. If I want ice cream, I have a little cup (the kind they give out at school sometimes.) That's around 100 calories. I don't do this often, but when I do it, I don't let myself feel guilty. I tend to make Desserts for specific occasions. If we have dinner guests, for example, I make sweets, serve them, then send most of the left overs home with the guests. Then, I promptly freeze the remaining dessert. Then each of us in the family gets usually one more serving of that treat. I'm the only one with a weight problem in my family, but I feel like it's a good trend for everyone to cut down on their sweet consumption. I don't let things stay in the house that are a temptation to me. I have dh take them to work or something. Another thing I'll do is make something I've been craving for a potluck. That way I can have a serving of it at the dinner, but not end up with the whole pan of it. Our church has potlucks every other month or so.

I posted this on my monthly support site, but thought I'd share it with all. Here's a comparison of my favorite shirt now and my favorite shirt pre-band. (4 months and 60 pounds!)

Tonight I was doing laundry and picked up my new red shirt that I'm wearing in the above picture. I thought it looked so small to me. I laid it out on one of my favorite shirts from my heaviest days. I had to take a picture. (The red shirt may have shrunk up a little in the wash, but I put it on and it still fits, so this is legit.)

Dang toilet seats anyway. I have broken at least five of them that I can think of right off the bat. It's the cheaper ones that only have small supports underneath that would do it. The house I live in now has awesome, rock-solid seats on the toilets and I never worried about them breaking. Once I was babysitting at my sister's house, went to the bathroom, broke the dang seat and was so embarrassed I had my hubby run out and buy a new one, and install it before they came home. I told my sister anyway because it wasn't a perfect match to their previous one. That has to be about the most humiliating thing to have happen to a fat person. I broke a chair at a friend's house before. I was sitting in it and as I went to get up it collapsed. Oh! This one is the best. I fell through the floor at a friend's house into her crawl space. The floor was about waist or chest level on me after I had fallen. The floor had been torn up to repair pipes underneath and not properly secured, but still it was very embarrassing. It was my birthday too. The most heartbreaking one for me was trying as hard as I could to get the airplane seatbelt done up without an extender. I could get it, but just barely. I sat with tears in my eyes after I was done. And then buying a second seat for my big butt last September. Five months later and I was banded.

Becca, thank you so much for that. I cried as I watched the NSV portion. (The emotion-manipulating music didn't help that! LOL) I can so relate to many of your NSVs. I've lost 60 lbs now, too. My almost 8 year old dd loves to put her arms all the way around me now. I haven't been to an amusement park since I was about 300lbs and I can so relate to the not-fitting-on-the-ride thing. Crossing legs, check, throwing away plus-sized catalogs, check, losing clothing sizes, check. I am so grateful for this blessing in my life. Thank you for expressing it so beautifully in your video blog.

I agree with the previous poster. If you have thrown up, you need to be done eating solids for a good 12-24 hours. The two times I have PBed I just do a mini post-op diet. I do liquids for about 6 hours, then full liquids/pureed foods, then soft foods. With as much vomiting as you've had, you might do a couple of days of liquids, just to make sure your stomach has calmed down. Then, when you do start eating again, start slowly and proceed with caution. If you can't swallow your saliva, or have repeated vomiting after going on liquids, I'd say call your surgeon right away.

As always, thanks for the kind words. You are a great bunch of supporters! Yay you!

I've lost 60 lbs in just under 4 months. I'm 11 pounds away from losing 50%. I don't plan on stopping any time soon!

So here's an updated picture of me with my husband and our youngest child. It's the first picture of me in a very long time that I have really liked. :scared2:

You both look amazing. You really look like you are feeling good about yourself. Your husband is looking great as well. Good for you guys!

Starting at a BMI of 46 I lost weight faster than my lower BMI counterparts. Same surgeon, one same surgery date, one a month later. I keep reminding them that I had much more to lose than they did. Percentage wise it's not that drastic of a difference, but to just say the pounds lost it seems like it.

My surgeon recommends that I weigh every day for the rest of my life. He said it's a lot easier to fix a 5 pound weight gain than it is a 30 lb weight gain. If it ever becomes something that messes with my mind or makes me upset or uptight, then I'll cut back, but for now I'm fine with it. I remember reading a post a while back written by a woman who said she'd been in tears over a 2 lb weight gain. I thought to myself that someone who is that affected by the numbers on the scale shouldn't be a daily weigher.

I'm finally able to clean my closet out and I have a couple of stacks of clothes up for grabs. They are mixture of sizes 26/28 and 30/32. They're mostly from Wal-mart or Fashion bug. They are well used and not in perfect condition. I've tried to weed out the ones with tears or stains. One of the stacks is my nicest things, but be aware they are well-used and not necessarily super fashionable. The other stack is stuff you'd use only if you're really in need of something to clothe your body. I've been there many times, so that's why I'm offering them in case anyone is in need. In both stacks there are some shirts, some pants, some capris, some sweaters. No jeans or dresses, but there is one skirt in the nicer things stack. Each stack has about 10 items in it. I may throw in more as I finish the laundry. I don't want to sell these, but I do ask that you pay shipping. PM me if you're interested. Melissa in Kansas

I have one person taking some of the items, but here are descriptions of the rest. Shirts (all of these are knit fabric) 1. 26/28 Lane Bryant, Brown sweater with multi-colored horizontal stripes (this one is stretched out a little and has a small hole near the neckline. It was one of my favorite shirts, so I included it. 2. 30/32 pink shirt. Short sleeves, with vertical ribbing. Has a little underlay so it looks like you have a white shirt layered underneath it. 3. 26/28 olive green, short sleeved t-shirt with some texture to the fabric. 4. 26/28 Light blue short-sleeved shirt with round neck and flowered pattern all over. There used to be a small ribbon around the neck area, but I removed it, so now there are small holes where it was. 5. 30/32 white button down, knit short sleeved shirt. This one has vertical ribbing on it. It has a couple minor stains, but is still very useable. 6. 2x off-white, mock turtle neck, long sleeved, flares slightly, is actually maternity, but not noticeably. I used this for layering under things in cooler weather. 7. Size ? (probably 26/28) Light olive green turtle neck 8. 26/28 dark red cardigan with loose knitted pattern with holes. It’s meant to wear over something else, it’s very see-through. Ties in the front. 9. 4x oversized dark-ish powder blue sweater, fairly heavy. Has a few buttons by the neckline. 10. 26/28 black ribbed, long sleeve shirt with v-neck. 11. 30/32 long sleeved, pink shirt. Looks like you’re wearing a white shirt underneath. 12. 26/28, long-sleeved, black shirt. V-neck, looks like you’re wearing a white, collared dress shirt underneath. Pants/capris/Skirt 13. 28 straight khaki skirt. Drawstring waist, non-stretch fabric. Slit for movement in back 14. 26/28 light blue capris with drawstring waist and pocket 15. 26 average Lane Bryant light tan slacks. Material has stretch, but don’t look like stretch pants. 16. 26/28 Petite, navy knit pants. Elastic waist, no taper to the leg, they come straight down 17. 26/28 black pants. Same as above, but not a petite size. Please let me know if any of these things would be of interest to you. You can either post on this thread or PM me.

I've been frustrated that my clothing sizes haven't dropped faster than they have. This last week I decided to try on a size 20 pair of jeans I have from 5 or 6 years ago. This same pair of jeans wouldn't got past my thighs a couple of months ago, but now I was able to get them up and even zip them. Now, granted, I couldn't sit in them or anything, but they were on! So I decided it was time to try jean shopping again. I haven't worn jeans in several years, not since I went above a size 20. Well, at Wal-mart, after trying several pairs on, I ended up buying a size 20 pair of jeans. They have some stretch to them, so they fit much better than the old pair I had. Then I went through some clothes a friend gave to me and found that I'm a size 20 in many of the things she gave me. I'm floored. I stared off this journey at a size 30/32 in some things and a 26/28 in others. To be a size 20 is amazing to me. And I had reached it without realizing it. My goal now is to stop dressing in baggy things so that my body is more visible. It may not be how I'd like it to be just yet, but it looks a lot better than it does hidden by baggy clothes. I'm trying to stop hiding behind my hair and my dark glasses as well. I got a haircut and I'm starting to wear contacts more often.

And to top it off, as of this morning I have lost 60 pounds. I'm in awe of this process and the success I'm having.

I know that for me, anyone policing my eating in any way had just the opposite effect that they had intended. "Oh, I shouldn't have this brownie? Well how about these three brownies, huh?" I would rebel and get into this entitlement role of thinking I deserve certain foods. What really helped me was my husband supporting and loving me and not saying anything about my bad food choices. I knew better. I didn't need an additional conscience telling me what to do. He was quick to compliment me when I would point out the good food choices I made, but for the most part he kept out of it. For me, this was the perfect approach.

Sounds like you've got a good plan. I hope the 6 months passes quickly.

I have never been able to handle the artificial sweeteners. Splenda, Nutrasweet, any of them. One sip or bite of something artificially sweetened and I can tell it's there. After trying Splenda again post-surgery, I have been using small amounts of honey or sugar in my tea or yogurt, etc. At the advice of my nutritionist, I tried Stevia. I'm amazed. It works for me. It's not perfect, but it's much, much more tolerable to me than the chemical sweeteners. I use the liquid type. I just put three drops into my mug of tea, or into my plain yogurt and amazingly I don't focus just on that sweetener when I eat or drink it. Stevia is an herb, so it's more natural and doesn't have that nasty taste. They say if you get too much it becomes bitter, but I haven't had that happen yet.

What protein powder is that?

Here is an updated picture. I'm almost four months out and down 58 pounds.

Ladyfox, some have found this website helpful to get restarted and recommited: Surgical Weight Loss 5 Day Pouch Test Definitely find a surgeon who respects you. That behavior is unacceptable and it's very unfortunate that maybe with some better support from him you might have had more success.

I know I wasn't eating or enjoying much of anything at 1 week post-op. Liquid diet, and all that. . .