ms.sss

I dunno about you guys buy my enjoyment of soupy-soups has plummeted since wls. I just cant eat them comfortably anymore. In order not to feel overly full and ick, I need to drink the liquid first, then have some solids. And if I want more liquid after that, I'd have to wait, and often, by then I don't want any anymore. Or worse, I forget and don't wait long enough (since its sitting in front of me) and then I regret it. Sigh. For this reason, soups are mostly the very thick chowder kind for me know.

You guys look like a power couple on a zoom meeting 😍 P.S. congrats on 15 years!!..and feeling awesome

What the?! Holy smokes, you have shrunk so much since the last pic you posted! Looking good lady. The tank top makes your pants look like high waist-ed ones, so it totally works on you! Re: crop tops...before my tummy tuck, I made sure to wear pants/skirts that were higher waist-ed to hold in any extra skin, and to make sure the tops didn't end higher than my natural waist. AFTER the tummy tuck though, was a different story! Your surgery is like, what, a month away? You wont need to worry about any of this later, unless its a modesty thing (which I, personally, have very little of, lol). Crop tops + ultra-low-rise pants here you come!!! P.S. You can fly a plane through your thigh gap.

Obviously *I* love the colour and style, LOL. You are right, once the boobs get a liiiiittle smaller, so at the very least to be able to close that lowest unbuttoned button, it would be perfect. Its a keeper! You look pretty tall (how tall are you?), you could get away with cuffing the bottom and not look like a munchkin. Paired with some no-strap heels you would look like that 6 foot tall model. 😍

Yes, please! Since pandemic started we as a group have not been posting on this thread as much (which is by far my favourite one on here) 😢 My Mr. is completely useless in the giving-opinions-of-how-i-look department 🙄. He will always say "looks good", then follow up with "Is it comfortable?" Dude, I don't care if I'm comfortable...just wanna look awesome. lol. Which is why I ask the Kid...can always count on her to tell the truth, and often get a good laugh out of it 😂

I suffered from constipation the first couple months as well. I had to figure out a routine that worked for me and stick to it to keep it at bay. Generally, I had it under control with daily Benefibre supplements in my morning protein shake, drinking lots of water. If I didn't go in a couple days I'd try Miralax, if still none by the next day, I'd do Milk of Magnesia. If STILL none by the day after that, I'd do a glycerine suppository. It got alot better later, after I started eating more food (specifically fat). Note that I did have really bad bout of it about 1 year later when I had plastics (it lasted 13 days!!!), but I blame that on the pain meds & iron supplements (causes constipation), the lack of food I was eating, and a fear of bearing down in fear of busting open my incisions. Edited to add: moving seems to help too, like a going for a walk or something.

Like most, I didn't buy anything special as I basically had all that I needed in my kitchen already. Of these things, the things I used multiple times a day were: the food scale measuring cup/spoons insulated coffee mug (cuz I preferred to sip my water HOT). wide mouth water bottle for mixing protein shakes (didn't use my blender once). Further, while they aren't kitchen items, I also used the timer on my watch and a food log app on my phone (MyFitnessPal) I ate out of teacups (I measured them to hold 1/2 cup volume so worked out great) Edited to add: I'm 2+ years out and now that I think of it, I still use all of the things listed above practically every day still, except maybe the timer and protein shake water bottle. And the water in my insulated coffee mug holds ice water now, lol)

Sigh. Sometimes it takes me a while to accept certain things! LOL. I got it in my head a while back that I HAD to have one when I watched an episode of Project Runway and saw one of the judges (or maybe it was one of the models?) wearing one and thought it was the coolest thing ever. Granted, she was probably 6 feet tall, so she could probably wear a paper bag and still look like the coolest thing ever. Double Sigh.

Ok, @BayougirlMrsS got me in an OOTD mood! Some online purchases from the past few weeks for your viewing pleasure, lol. I doubt I will be wearing them out any time soon, so I get to impose them on you all. Mwah-ha-ha. 🤣 #1) This black jumpsuit I am on the fence with. I do like the material and the fit, but the straps make me go hmmmm. Feel like it looks like I'm wearing the thing backwards. Maybe if I had bigger boobs it would look better? #2) Really, really love these pants (despite being in dire need of some hemming). Took a picture, but they didn't look like pants when I was standing still, so here's a video to show its flowy-ness (should've changed out of my pajama tank, oh well) #3) I am still on the hunt for a cool utility-look jumpsuit, as this one is yet another fail. The Kid said I looked like an airport baggage handler in my first one way back, and now apparently this one gives off sanitation worker vibes. Geez. I really liked the colour at first, but I realized I kinda blend into the walls with it on! It's going back.

OMG! I LOVE the dress! You look ridiculously hot in it. (I may have to get over my hatred of shipping costs and get the grey one for myself)

First: I want to say that I LOOOOVE looking at my old food logs, so thank you for giving me an actual excuse to do so, LOL. Secondly: the mandatory disclaimer: we are all really different and how I ate may not be doable nor desirable for others. Always check with a medical professional for nutritional advice and make informed decisions. Anyhoo, I looked up what I was eating at the 1 month mark and it was quite empty, so I fast forwarded a couple weeks to when I started eating more "food", so to speak. Here are screenshots of 6 consecutive food dairy logs at the 1.5 month mark. I tended (and sort of still do) to eat the same thing for days, which was/is fine for me. Note that the last screenshot of 150-ish calories was a one-off for this period, I think I may have run out of protein powder or something. As you can see i only once hit my 60-70g protein goal during this 6 day period (though i think i was surpassing my water goals by alot). This improved in the later months.

Well, hello fellow Ontarian! What did you Day? That Today is the Say? LOL (The subject line of your post just gave me a much needed laugh this morning ❤️😂 thanks, lol.) Congrats, and good luck with the surgery! Keep us posted!

Hi! I'm 2+ years out and my sleeve is just as effective as ever, in terms of portion control. The main difference, honestly, between now and the first year-ish is that I am less militant about what I put in my mouth. I was very strict during weight loss phase, and have since loosened the reins since being in maintenance. I don't go nuts or anything, I just allow myself stuff now that I didn't before (i.e., alcohol and dessert, and the occasional processed carb). Given that, I have still basically maintained my weight +/- 5-6 lbs for the past 1.5 years. When I go up a few lbs for a sustained period of time, I cut calories and get back down to my happy place. My sleeve still works as it always did, its just my choices and behaviour has changed.

Scar healing/fading will vary from person to person. You could probably predict where you will fall on the scale by how YOU healed historically. I am on the far end of the scale of slow/bad healing/fading. I am 2+ years out from surgery and my scars are still pretty dark. They have faded somewhat from the early months (and at least now they are flat!) but they are still very noticeable (see pic below...the scars pointed at by red arrows are my WLS incision scars which are 2 years, 2 months old. My belly button is also healing from scarring from plastics 1 year ago.) Generally though, for ALL scar care, it is often recommended to keep them clean and dry while healing, and then moisturize often when they close. Also, it's recommended to reduce alcohol during healing (as it may act as a blood thinner and prevent clots), and refrain from smoking (as it may affect healing as well: stress on heart, de-oxygenates blood, etc, etc...). Further, there has been some evidence of Retinol and Vitamin E topical applications to help by stimulating collagen growth which reduces the appearance of skin imperfections.... Edited to add: Just remembered! For really bad scars, I can vouch for steroid shots. I had some applied to the arm lift scars on my arm a few weeks ago and they have visibly improved. Still not to the level of near-invisibility like i've seen on others (i'm looking at you @sillykitty), but def much better than before.

Whoa. I really should keep up with the app's release notes! No, I haven't tried it (as I just learned about it this second, lol), but I am intrigued...will def try it out! Atta girl!! Edited to add: looking back, my biggest inspiration/motivator was watching my weight loss graph going down, down, down (I weighed every day, and still do, and took my measurements every Wednesday..though don't do this anymore). As well, taking pics of myself during the process and putting them side by side to watch myself getting smaller was quite empowering (but that's just me...)

I only use coconut flour if I am making something that I want to taste coconut-y 👩🏼‍🍳

I think alot of people have had some covid weight gain. Both wls people and non-wls people. Reduction of activity, boredom, stress, proximity to the fridge/pantry all day long, etc., etc. I had a small gain of 6 lbs that I acknowledged mid-summer. As of this week I finally said good bye to those stinkin’ pounds. There really wasn’t a secret strategy to the loss: I cut calories and increased exercise a smidge. Took me 4.5 months (which is a stark reminder that weight loss is not as fast/easy as it once was, as the ease of not eating has decreased by a lot). I’m sure I could have probably done this faster by cutting more calories, but honestly, I just didn’t want to. I accepted the slower loss in exchange for extra cals. Its actually a good thing that you “caught” the gain and are making (it seems) an effort to address it now rather than later if/when the gain is much, much more. Remind yourself the eventual outcome if you continue on this path (an old Before Picture, perhaps?). Rid your place of the foods that are contributing to the gain, and replace with more appropriate foods if u are able. When the urge to eat when u are not truly hungry comes around, do something else: drink water, do some yoga, wash the dishes. If f u still want to eat 45 mins later, portion out a small-ish amount (like 1/3 cup or something) and commit to only eating that until another 45 mins has passed. Rinse and repeat. You know what to do. Its up to you to find it in yourself to do it.

Ok, I know no one asked, but because I am anal and a self-proclaimed research queen, I did a bit of a deeper dive of the reviews on Baritastic and downloaded the app for a bit of UAT: (Mind you I have been using MyFitnessPal for 3 or so years so I am a little biased) I find Baritastic layout quite busy/cluttered (MFP is waaaay cleaner) The set up for daily log is by 3 meals (breakfast/lunch/dinner) and snacks which is fine if this is how you eat, but I eat many little meals a day so.... I HATE ads. Page loading is noticeably slower than MFP (though this could just be me) If I wanted extended services, like social groups, recipes, reminders, etc, this app would be a nice all-in-one. But I dont, so.... Looks like there is no desktop version? Not sure this is such a big deal, but I do find it much easier to import recipes and edit them on a desktop. From the very small sample of reviews that I read, there is a general consensus that MFP's food database is superior (I have not used B enough to have an opinion on this). The big PRO of B for me is that it offers two of the things I paid premium for in MFP for free: Net carbs & timestamps. Based on this, I'd probably still go with MFP as my needs are less "bariatric-wholistic" and I'm a sucker for simplicity (use and looks). If I never used MFP, all the above may not bother me so much. But I did, so....

Oh for goodness sakes. This functionality has been around for 4 months now? And I didn't even notice! This would have been handy 2 years ago!! Just turned it on....😎

Had I not already put in months of data into My Fitness Pal, I might have given Baritastic a trial run...there seems to be generally favourable reviews on it.

I ended up getting the subscription shortly after surgery. I was all about macros during weight loss phase and the Premium version shows macro breakdown goals in grams while the free does not. There are a bunch of other features, but this was the main reason I got it (and to a lesser extent, I also appreciated the timestamp functionality in the paid version). I'm in maintenance now and can probably go back to the free version as I don't watch my macros as diligently anymore. When my subscription year is up, I will likely cancel. Aside: The one thing that I don't like about My Fitness Pal is that it doesn't immediately show NET carbs (i.e., Total Carbs minus Fibre and Sugar Alcohols), though simple math on my part can figure this out. But Still. Would've be nice to have it displayed automatically.

Agreed. Having an established Red Line, along with regular "checks" - like weight or how your pants fit - may help you to keep in check and address the issue before you "suddenly" end up 50lbs heavier or busting out of your pants. While I can handle (mentally) that my weight may fluctuate 5+ lbs, I REFUSE to have to buy bigger pants. That is my ultimate motivation, LOL.