BlueCrush

A bit about me: I had the sleeve surgery in December 2017 period. I've lost a total of 181 pounds since last May, and now I'm looking to gain some muscle mass. I'm currently sitting at 225lbs pounds and 6'2.5" tall. So many unanswered questions of not been able to find good responses to. Things such as how to start eating any calorie surplus now that I want to add muscle. Will I be able to eat enough to add muscle? Follow me on this thread and I will track my journey for any others that may follow the same path. Starting status: 8/17/18 - 225lbs

I started at 406.

I went to Mexico. $10,500 for 360 LBL, BBL, lipo in 3 sections, and male chest reduction. Price included 2 nights at the hospital + 8 nights recovery at the Hyatt hotel where they had 24/7 nursing. I did have to pay about another $1k for first class flights to get there and back, but that could have been cheaper if I went coach. Flew into San Diego, CA, and they had a driver pick me up and drive me across the border (about a 45 minute drive from San Diego to the hospital in Mexico). Researched and found a surgeon I liked. Followed the surgeon's daily procedures on Instagram and Facebook for nearly a year, and interacted with LOTS of his past patients in the FB group to get a good comfort level.

I'm in Indy. Its hard to find plastic surgeons in the Midwest who specialize in post-massive weight-loss patients. Most of them do about a thousand breast augmentations or facelifts for every one of this type of surgery. For this reason, I ended up going to a plastic surgeon in Mexico that specializes in post-massive weight loss patients. Best decision I've ever made. As an added bonus, it was about 1/4 of the price it would cost for a less experienced surgeon here. You can search my profile and find posts with pictures of my before and afters. Feel free to send me a message if you want more information.

I'm at about the two year mark now. Definitely slower gains at this point, but still going strong.

The photo that kick-started my motivation VS current. I'm about 2.5 years post-WLS and about 14 months post-skin removal surgery.

I'm over 2 years out from surgery now, and I average about 2600 calories a day (closer to 3000 calories Fri-Sun, and closer to 2200 Mon-Thu). I've been doing this for over a year now, and have been maintaining between 220-225lbs (6'3"). Your capacity will change over time. Your relationship with food will as well once you stop thinking of yourself as a dieter/weight loss mindset and shift to an eat-for-performance mindset. I still track food every day, but not for weight loss purposes, rather for hitting my macros (specifically protein) for fitness/performance goals.

Dr. Aex Galvez in Tijuana, Mexico. Yes the hotel stay and aftercare nursing at the hotel was included.

I slept in a recliner for about 4 weeks. It was a lifesaver.

I'm on a mission to a post sleeve six-pack, so this is very relevant to me.

Nice! I'll be a follower!

This. I feel like you pulled that answer right out of my head.

How are you going to give an update with no photos? LOL!

Good to hear! I was the same with more soreness instead of pain. Don't be in a rush to get those drains out. You'd rather have them for a few weeks versus getting a seroma! I had 4 drains total. 2 of them came out after about 10 days. 1 came out at about a week, and one was in for almost 3 weeks! I had to keep them in until draining less than 10ml per 24hr period.

How are you doing?

You've got this! It will complete your transformation. I'm excited for you!

I had plastics in May and also got the fleur de lis as I wanted things as tight as possible. We had planned on doing abdominal wall repair to tighten the muscle, but when I woke up from surgery, he told me that my abs were already very tight and did not need any muscle repair. He said this was likely due to my weight lifting routine which includes lots of squats, deadlifts, and other core exercises over the past 18 months or so prior to surgery. So, yes, it's possible that you do not need muscle repair, but I don't know how your surgeon would know that before he opens you up and sees it. It's likely he's just assuming at this point. My surgeon said less than 5% have abdominal walls tight enough to not need muscle repair after massive weight loss, and they're most always male. I've attached a picture for reference, but I also have a few videos of the procedure if you're interested as well. One of them includes where he's working on my abdominal area and speaks to not needing muscle repair. Just send me a private message and I can send them your way.

Recovery was not bad for me at all. Although, I was in the hospital for two days, and then a recovery hotel with 24-hour nursing care for another 8 days after the surgery. I couldn't imagine going home after like one or two days with no support. That would have been rough. I really didn't have any pain as they had me on a pain IV for the first several days. I would say more just general discomfort and swelling, but not pain. The biggest issues I have dealt with have been fatigued for the first few weeks with getting super tired after the smallest bit of activity, and then recently I've become very itchy due to the swelling and healing process.

Willingness to treat you and follow up after out of the country surgery depends on your doctor, and does vary greatly doctor to doctor. You need to consult with your primary care physician to see if they are willing to do this, and if not, find a different primary care physician before your surgery.

PWMDMD, I'm late to the thread, but yes, everything you said in your original OP! I'm 6ft 3in and 225 lb, and was in that same awkward boat where my bariatric nutrition didn't know what to do with me. They were wanting me to eat about 1500 calories a day for maintenance, and that was just not going to happen as I could not stop losing weight at those calories. Once I got down to about 220, I was trying to GAIN weight (muscle), and they just could not comprehend a post-weight loss surgery patient wanting to GAIN weight. In fairness, they deal with mostly women who have no interest in gaining muscle, and also a majority of their patients never actually hit their weight-loss target, so never get out of "weight loss" mode. At the same time, when I was talking to trainers at my gym, they were recommending I eat like 4000 calories a day to gain muscle, and that also wasn't happening with me just because of physical limitations of my sleeved stomach. What I ended up having to do, it's just a whole lot of trial-and-error myself. I found that I maintain weight at about 2800 calories a day. I did end up putting on about 5 lb of muscle weight, but it took me almost 7 months to do that while eating about 3200- 3300 calories per day and 160-180g of protein/day. It was slooooow going. I was not a weightlifter prior to bariatric surgery, but got into it big time about six months after the sleeve. I lift weights 6 days per week, and have gone through a few different programs at this point. My lifts went up quickly over the first 9 months or so, and then progress came much slower, which is normal for someone first getting into weightlifting I suppose. I haven't been able to lift in about 4 weeks because I had plastic surgery to remove loose skin. Surgeon says no weight lifting until 8 weeks post plastic surgery. When I left off, my one rep max was bench-205, squat-320, deadlift-315. My bench has always lagged significantly behind my squat and deadlift. But yeah, it seems to be a very limited number of people in our boat who are post bariatric surgery, but trying to get into bodybuilding / weightlifting. The bariatric offices don't seem to know what to do with us, and neither do the traditional trainers / nutritionist who have never worked with bariatric patients.

7.72lbs of skin was removed. Oddly enough, I'm only like 3lbs down from my pre-surgery weight, likely due to the swelling that takes 6-8 weeks to fully subside from this kind of surgery. I thought it was funny that the day before surgery to the day after surgery, I was UP almost 11lbs despite having 7.72lbs removed lol. The swelling is real, but I go more by what I see in the mirror vs. what I see on the scale now days.

I had no impact at all to my tattoos, as I did not have to get skin removed from my arms. I credit that to all the weightlifting I did over the past year filling out my arms to the point where I did not need surgery on them. The only places I had to get skin removed were my chest, abdomen, and lower back ( think like the place where women get "tramp stamp" tattoos).

Just diligence. I've got a two-year streak going on MyFitnessPal tracking my food everyday. I'm sure I stay under my calorie goal (2800 at the moment) while getting at least 160 grams of protein per day. Couple that with going to the gym 6 days a week. Do that for a year straight, and you will see the results. Most people just don't have the diligence to be consistent for that long. Edit: I should add that I've not done cardio in the gym for about a year now. All I do is weightlifting with free weights. I had to abandon cardio, because I couldn't stop losing weight, and I got to the point where I was trying to gain muscle and cardio was counterproductive to that goal.

I've surprisingly had no pain at all. It's more just general soreness and tiredness as the body is using all its energy to heal. The hardest part has been trying to just stay at home and do nothing after I've gotten so used to a lifestyle of activity and exercise. It has been much more mentally tough than physically tough.

Almost 2 years to the day separate these photos. Me at 406lbs on Memorial Day 2017 in the pic to the left. I started my diet and exercise journey the day after Memorial Day 2017. I lost 88lbs through diet and exercise, then had VSG surgery on 12/11/17 and got down to 220lbs by August 2018. I added 5lbs back in muscle with my weight lifting routine, and just had skin removal surgery on 5/2/19. Currently sitting at 225lbs on the pic to the right. Still a bit swollen and healing from the skin removal surgery. Guy's over 400lbs, IF I CAN DO THIS, SO CAN YOU!!!