OutsideMatchInside

I think everyone in their mid 30s goes through a bit of a crisis. With 40 looming and college and your 20s behind you, people start taking stock of where their life is going. I am adjusting from being a pretty big girl, to being just a regular pretty chick or maybe just average. I notice now women don't talk to me as much as they used to. I used to always have lots of women talk to me whenever I went places but women engage me less than they did when I was larger. I'm an outgoing extrovert and people are usually drawn to me. People still talking to me, but its just not the same. I also get fewer compliments from women but more compliments from men. It amuses me. I always had a high sex drive and that hasn't changed. I think it is pretty normal that young healthy people have strong sex drives, if they don't something is medically or mentally wrong with them. That is biology at work, young people of child bearing age are supposed to want to have sex, that is how the human race continues. I never had a fat neck, I could still always wear chokers and I barely had a double chin. I don't see a lot of difference in my face except my high cheekbones look a little higher and stand out more. When I look in the mirror, I don't really see a huge difference. I see it in a full length mirror and their are mirrors all over my home, but I always think about how far I have to go still, not how far I have come. It helps that I didn't hate myself before or think I was ugly or unattractive. Now I am rambling, anyway I think it is normal to take stock of your life for an self aware intelligent person. If you weren't that would be more of a concern.

When your body is healing it needs a lot of energy. I would just increase my calories by drinking protein shakes, and eating/drinking protein shakes every 2 hours.

Pretty much on every WLS forum, they end up only being people considering, people who just had surgery and people less than a year. There are very few people that stick around long term. At first I thought it was because people are enjoying their new thinner life, but now as I am not just an observer, but almost a year out from surgery I realize it is more of a mix of enjoying life and tried of beating your head against a brick wall. There is so much good information to gain here from successful people. Really successful people, not just people that lost the expect average weight but people who get to normal BMIs and maintain them. That is really very rare on most WLS forums. I was surprised when I first started reading here the number of people that are successful and really successful. It has changed my long term goal in my mind of what I think I can obtain with my WLS. There are so many good tips to pick up if people read and pay attention.

Have your doctor explain it to you. It doesn't really matter if it stretches anyway if you are eating proper portions. There shouldn't be a chance of over eating because people should be weighing and measuring their proper portions forever. And if you weight and measure proper portions, it is never going to stretch. The only way a sleeve is stretching is a botched surgery.

@@Sophie74656 Yeah and everyone that didn't baby them and join in on the food addicts acting like food addicts train was told they were over reacting. The whole thread is an embarrassment.

You need to find someone that understands how the body works after bypass. You probably need higher not lower doses. Exercise is great, but a chemical imbalance in the brain is an imbalance and it needs to be addressed medically, with real science not Bro science. I would hate to see you fall into a deeper hole.

Once I was under 300 pounds, something I had never been able to do on my own. I felt like surgery was really worth it and I was less attached to the what the scale said. Once you get less detached, it is good to weight yourself so you can learn it just naturally fluctuates and its not as big of a deal.

I weighed myself early on and it drove me nuts. I stopped and went to once a week, until I got less attached to the scale, and had lost more weight.

I have never suffered from PCOS and I have had normal clockwork periods my entire life. Since I had surgery, my periods have been all over the map because of the weight loss. I had periods every 2 weeks for about 3 months. I think your weight loss would have to slow down or stabilize for your periods to get normal.

@ Did they adjust your meds after you had bypass to account for the malabsorption? Someone I know who is bi-polar was steered away from the bypass by their Psychiatrist, because it is too hard to manage the drugs they need post-op since there is no way to really measure how much you are absorbing of the meds. I didn't have the bypass but I had the sleeve last July and I still enjoy food and eating out with friends. I think you have to change your attitude about food. I really love cooking now after surgery more than before surgery. I enjoy the process of preparing food and the challenge of creating variety and meeting my dietary needs.

@@tasha94 If this is a surgeon that wants you to come have surgery with him, you have to take his opinion with a grain of salt. Have you been back to the surgeon who did your surgery the first time? Is that Dr in the US or Mexico? I would go to the DS honestly if the Sleeve wasn't working for me.

@@tasha94 Have you been back to your surgeon? Have you have your sleeve examined recently?

@@tanyarahmes Don't compare yourself to other people. A lot of people that post here are food addicts and they confuse head hunger with physical hunger. It is pretty much impossible to be physically hungry the first month because the nerves have not reconnected. Then there are a bunch of people not controlling their stomach acid. So don't think being hungry is the norm or expected because it is not.

@@tasha94 Have you tried doing liquid protein shakes for a week and see if you regain restriction?

@@RobertD16 If you are going to weigh yourself every day and fret over it, you are in for a very long very miserable journey. I weigh myself every day but only Mondays count. Your weight can fluctuate daily and even hourly based on the content of your body.

@@tammyrat What is your Protein daily? Calories? And most of the people that lose a lot are men, or start off very large, and mainly are very large men.

They usually question you, not the other way around.

I barely had any pain. The worst part was the shoulder ache that didn't come until about a week later. It was a dull constant ache. I stopped taking my pain meds on the 2nd day. I had surgery in the afternoon, and walked all night in the hospital. Walk around, as much as possible and it helps you recover faster and better.

@@beabenitez1978 You should try posting in the bypass forums, you will get more responses, this is the sleeve forum.

@@Montana Gal It just showed up at my local grocery store in the cooler by the door last week. I think they will be more places soon since they are relaunching the brand. I know when they first came out they were sold at Walmarts.

Protein2O water is good, at least the coconut flavor is delicious. It tastes like Syntrax Nectar. Which is something else you can try, they come in lots of flavors.

You men losing these huge amounts in the first month that most women can only dream and complaining they aren't large enough makes me want to punch something.

@@doppelganger This is one of the harder topics here because in theory everyone should follow their doctors orders, but like you said some doctors seem to cling to old ideals. I think a lot of plans are made in a way to try and break people of bad habits. Personally I have never been a snacker, I got fat eating 1 or 2 massive meals a day. So eating several time a day is a huge change for me from the past. It prevents over eating and keeps me satisfied all day. I often wonder if the people that come up with these plans understand math. A person would have to consume 20 grams of Protein per meal to get the bare minimum amount of protein a human needs to exist just eating 3 times a day. That is basically impossible to do just with food in 20-30 minutes until about 6 months, longer for some people. I have 5 -6 small meals a day now because I need more calories to keep losing weight. I had 4 meals early on, eating 100 to 200 calories per meal. You have to do what works for you in the end. My program was pretty open, protein first, avoid the usual carbs, and once I was mostly healed I just went back to eating Keto. Good luck.

I think it is natural that people grow apart. I wouldn't care really. Talking to them won't change anything, if anything they will just hide how they really feel or it will get worse. You can't solve other peoples problems, if they have an issue with you, that is their issue. If a relationship with you was important to them, they would have already talked to you about how they are feeling.

@@muggzz I pulled my food diary from 7 months. I was just cleared to eat steak, and well I was really enjoying it. I think I had filet mignon 3x a day for a week. This isn't the best day, but it is a real example. It was a low Protein day but I had a really hard time forcing myself to eat enough in the winter when it was so cold. I think shortly after this I went to 1000 calories a day. Are you tracking your foods? What are your calories and protein per day? How many carbs?