sideeye

TCA is shot in autumn so there are tons of season-appropriate clothes. Her wardrobe is this fantastic blend of business-appropriate and devestatingly sexy, but at the same time and not revealing. A huge part of it is her attitude, which is basically that she will either destroy you professionally or through shagging you to death and she has not decided which one you qualify for yet, and her attitude won’t change regardless of which fate she picks for you. I love her and want to be her when I grow up, and being skinnier and being able to wear the clothes makes it a hell of a lot easier to get started.

I have this weird, vengeful satisfaction around the fact that I got all my promotions and kudos at my company while hovering around 300lbs. It’s part of what’s made my weight loss transition different this time - it feels like rather than changing my body to society’s expectations so I can progress at work, I got there by merit alone and can now do whatever the hell I want, which happens to be dressing and behaving like Rene Russo out of The Thomas Crown Affair. I also think that’s why I haven’t hit a dieting slump yet - I’ve been less focused on the numbers on the scale or tracked food and far more focused on what sorts of clothes I can buy, what sort of shoes I can wear, how I impact a boardroom when I walk in. I get a new audience for that stuff every time, so the thrill isn’t wearing off. Food has been relegated to such a bottom-tier priority that I’m still using it as a fuel source rather than struggling with it (don’t worry, I’m sure that will roar back at some point, especially if I hit a depressive lull) Come back to me in 3 months when the new apartment has settled in, the clothing budget has run out and the focus on food reasserts itself.

When I get this feeling I drink a protein shake, seems to fix it. Works better for me than just fluid or just protein.

FULLY good? Around 5-6 weeks, that’s when the fatigue finally leveled out. I was still getting sharp pains at times until maybe 2 weeks out. I was back at work a week after surgery, I think - able to work from home three days after surgery, though in retrospect I wouldn’t recommend that. ‘Can do’ and ‘should Do’ are different things. No fun to stop mid-presentation and get an expression on my face like someone had knifed me. If I remember correctly the ache-pain was gone pretty quickly, maybe 4 days (Used liquid tylenol), the sharp/movement pains within 2 weeks, and then right around the end of week 3 I got the fatigue whammy. I suspect that’s the root of a lot of regret posts we see here - you’re finally feeling better and then you suddenly get completely draggy and exhausted. But that goes too. One thing I did get immediately post-op was nausea from the anesthesia.

Your psychologist is correct, and also being responsible in telling you that 60% of excess weight is the average expectancy. She’s also not a “beeyotch” - she’s a medical professional allowing you to make a factual decision based on statistics. If it doesn’t match with your expectations, then re-examine your expectations because those are the facts. Basing expectations on hope or aspirations is not a winning strategy. Many of us here have lost that 60% or more. We’re a self-selecting success group and overrespresent in the bariatric pool, since those who didn’t lose what they expected are less likely to spend much time in a community like this one. Similarly, the “this is how you achieve 60%+ loss” advice is coming from that same biased pool, which might indicate correlation rather than causation. Not saying the advice is wrong, just that it’s not foolproof. If the 60% metric is actually changing the way you think about the surgery, then it’s a good thing you heard it now.

If food journaling throughout the day is hard, fall back on a few prepackaged fixes with set nutritional content. Stuff like string cheese, eggs, packets of tuna fish, individual hummus packs. That at least gives you set units to track rather than weighing anything.

Good article: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/19/health/obesity-genetics-surgery-diet.html?fallback=0&recId=1ESAzb45BTAvWlT8kE8EhK4Sxd3&locked=0&geoContinent=NA&geoRegion=NJ&recAlloc=contextual-bandit-home-desks&geoCountry=US&blockId=home-living-vi&imp_id=470257834&action=click&module=Smarter Living&pgtype=Homepage Don’t often see them this straightforwardly set out.

Before surgery, like the night before, I didn’t worry about writing anyone goodbye notes but did realize that if I died my parents would go through all my stuff and find things I didn’t want them to see. So I wrote my sister and literally said “if I die, preserve my memory for the parents by getting in here first and censoring things”. She responded with the appropriate eye-roll. After surgery I was mobile and feeling absolutely no pain as soon as I woke up, which was great, but it did mean that I was fully aware when I vomited a TON of half-coagulated blood after walking the halls. Most people pass it through their system, but I got to do the whole Exorcist thing. Oh, and my hospital switched over to a new software system the DAY OF my surgery, so when the residents meandered over to puzzle over the new UI of the surgery board in pre-op, I ended up explaining it to them (I work on interface stuff and was waiting in there forever). And then when I got home there was a snowstorm and I staggered the two blocks to the pharmacy only to discover the new system hadn’t placed my meds order, and then the pharmacy closed because of the storm. Not a good night.

You would’ve thought it would be caught in elementary school, right? I have to go see a new doc about it - apparently if it develops in adulthood it’s no good. I’m hyper mobile, that might have something to do with it. ANNOYING.

I didn’t know I have scoliosis until the barium swallow for VSG, at which point the nurses went “oooooh” audibly from the next room. Not even mild, MODERATE scoliosis, it’s incredibly visible on x-ray. And the more I lose, the more I totally notice that my torso is shifted to the left above my pelvis. It’s very weird.

The new bras have arrived and are great. If I have to do this again in a month I will just give up and wear a sports bra until next autumn.

I have to pack up my current apartment to move to my new apartment. I am not looking forward to this. Part of it is going to be donating 95% of my closet, which I already know is going to give me the vapors because of course I still wonder if I'll need them a year or two down the line... I also know by midweek I'll just be chucking things into boxes at panicky random. Bleh. I also have a friend who's recovering from a coma and stroke, and I've promised her that next time I see her I'll have some scandalous stories to share, so I have to brainstorm some seriously naughty and debauched things to do before the end of the month. She can't react much, but I told her about a recent one-night stand and her eyes went REALLY WIDE and she inclined her entire body towards me, so pretty big incentive to provide something similarly shocking. The family that's taking care of her is pretty religious in perspective so I try to balance things out by being wholly indecent (don't worry, she would appreciate this and I could recount stories she told me that would set the nursing home curtains on fire).

This right here is why I don't necessarily say I don't get hungry anymore, because I'm not sure I EVER got hungry, I just ate. I think I was experiencing a rush of chemicals (hormones? endorphins? dunno) that literally gave me a high when I over-ate. I posted about this early on, because a lot of people assured pre-ops that after the surgery you would "eat to satisfaction", and after surgery I thought they were nuts because I wasn't feeling the same high, which I identified as "satisfaction". Then when I described all of this to friends over the past few months, I realized that most people DON'T feel a chemical feedback loop when they eat a lot (and never have). So... Is that food addiction? Whatever it was, I was absolutely looking for a certain spike in good chemicals that I achieved by over-eating. Now I don't feel that at all. Now everything is much more focused in my taste buds and the capacity of my stomach. There is absolutely no point anymore in overeating, because I do not get that rush and all I get is a stomachache. So after a lot of accidental Pavlovian conditioning, that seems to have worked its way up my behavior chain and now I not only don't over-eat, but I'm not having the impulses to seek out food I used to. Now, when I rarely DO feel hungry, it's a real sensation that my stomach is empty and that my body wants quality calories, and I tend to go for healthier foods. I'm coming up on 10 months, so will report back if any of this changes, but what I lost appears to be my easy route to my "fix". Totally changed the way I interact with food.

Before you go shopping, dig through all of your stored clothes and see if there are any goal/whim things you bought that you never fit into so buried in a drawer or something. For the past 2 months I've been wearing things I clearly bought online on sale, then when they arrived I didn't fit in them. The size 12 jeans I'm wearing right now were still in the plastic when I unearthed them. Honestly though, you will feel SO different when you're in properly-fitting clothes. Even if it's just some stuff you get off the Old Navy sale rack, definitely buy some things that are the right size.

I ordered some ThirdLove bras last month, and they're great! And then I lost the next round of weight right off my chest, so now I've had to order more - both band and cup size are down one. This **** is expensive. Good thing I don't buy much food anymore.

Ditto. Vain, single and with disposable income. Also frankly, it sounds like sillykitty and I have similar work roles, and there is a definite advantage in my role at least to being pulled-together (in this case literally, with sutures). Still very much on the fence about this whole thing, but I can't deny that since posting this topic I've noticed a LOT of stuff that I would be interested in altering... That said, I still need to go swimming and see what bounces back independently. I generally have good skin that looks years younger than my actual age - genetics, don't fail me now!

90lbs down with probably 40-50 more I could lose, but honestly I’m a size 12 now and fit into normal human clothing and airline seats so anything after this is just bonus.

This whole thing is a hell of a head game, honestly. Whenever I came on these forums and allowed myself to compare, I was convinced that I was losing at a slower rate than everyone else, but it's been 9 months and I'm down 90lbs so clearly my perception was way off. Just focus on eating right, drinking water, getting more active and paying attention to your doc. Everyone's body is different and we only remember the comparisons with others when we come off worse, so avoid that if possible.

Oh, I should mention that what made me think of this topic at all was the possibility of a breast lift. Not a fan of augmentation, but if I lose much more in my chest things are going to get... pendulous.

I'm going to start swimming like a monster and see where it gets me (just moved close to a university pool, was a swimmer through college, so not hard to pick up again). So far things have been settling okay, but if I continue to lose in my stomach I'm going to end up with squishy bits. I think the apron bit will spring back, but there's just too much stretched area to go completely flat again. I'm on the fence about what to do with that - I may still have kids, so I don't really want to do that surgery only to stretch it all out again, and I tend to wear lingerie that smooths everything out anyway. So if the only real hangup there is that my skin goes all puddly when I lie on my side naked? Eh, I might be able to brush that off. So far I've been losing weight like taking off a series of wetsuits. My arms are definitely going to be the most noticeable for excess skin, but... I think it really will be two or three years after surgery before I make that call, if I can live with it I will.

Are any of you considering skin surgery? I know we're still pretty early for it, and we all likely have more to lose, but... I don't know, I don't mind how I look right now. It all looks fine in clothing and it's not like I strip off a hell of a lot. Is anyone experiencing the sort of skin issue where it's actually inhibiting yet?

Surgery March 5 2018: 289lbs This morning: 199 lbs

Do you know when the last time was that I saw a display on a scale that DIDN'T have the number "2" in it? Eighteen years ago. Dear god. And great idea for a thread - I was beginning to feel a little out of place, not a newbie but not a vet.

I think it's a combo, and none of it your fault. I agree that the guys are likely engaging some weirdo coping mechanism by broadcasting that you like them, likely to both seek attention (attractive woman is interested in me!) and to create a social barrier (...but I'm MARRIED and wouldn't DARE!). It's an alien approach to most women, because it is self-aggrandizing and dumb and easily disproven. But then there's the stupid gendered thing where a woman who refutes such a rumor is seen as protesting too much, and a man who says he's not interested is just telling the truth. Down with the patriarchy, etc. HOWEVER. The other thing is possibly that you're so used to having your physical form negated by others that you poured most of your attention into your personality. So when people met you, they mostly liked you for your awesome communication and engagement traits, because you'd spent a long time honing them and were awesome. But NOW, you're SLIM. And that means your knockout personality now ALSO has a level-up of them liking you hormonally, so now they like you even MORE and some of that liking is sexual, and now their brains are fried. Because you're an attractive woman with a great personality and you're talking to them and that's unusual (which is likely also a quirk of having lost weight, because lots of women who fit in that category but were never fat have learned from past weirdness to tone things down). Don't change who you are because of two dumb himbos. If it eventually gets to the point where it's too damn annoying to talk to men because they keep doing this, then you can think of changing things up. But for now it's just a couple of guys short-wiring because their brain and their pants simultaneously find you attractive.

Don’t worry about the scale right now, worry about intake. Drink your water and your liquids constantly. Right now, unless you’re getting milkshakes and melting down chocolate Santas, you’re not going to be able to damage your weight loss through ingesting broths, shakes and other nutritionist-approved liquids. But you CAN screw yourself up by NOT taking in enough calories/nutrients/liquids at this stage. It’ll happen. You didn’t make a mistake. You’re in the lull where you think you should be feeling better than you are, and you want a metric to counterbalance the emotional frustration. Most people look to the scale for that metric, but short-term scale-watching isn’t going to give you the lift you’re looking for. Marathon, not sprint! If you want a metric to focus on, track your protein intake and water. You’ll get there, the patience part is one of the harder things to adjust to.