ms.sss

same, same. 😞 the amount of money i spend on my food order vs. what i actually eat is kinda embarrassing. its so wasteful i know, but my insatiable desire to order everything on the menu has seriously been out of hand for YEARS and i really need to do something about it. im trying this thing where i put a serious-honest-to-goodness effort to order ½ or what i REALLY want to order. while it's getting LESS ridiculous, i know i still have a long way to go. wish me luck. and good luck to y'-all in return ❤️

break ups suck. allow yourself to feel sad. but try not to SUFFER. its difficult to tell the difference, but there IS a difference. sending you virtual hugs and hope you are getting actual ones wherever you are. ❤️

i've tried these picture calculators and am not entirely convinced they get the cal count right...especially with intricately-plated resto meals with those 10-ingredient sauce swooshes and crab-infused potato puffs lololololzzzzz. my own inquiry mind, ha! i like to know what calorie burn im at, and these days im on super-exercise mode, so i know im probably at a higher level than "normal". plus, i've sort of been trying to put on some weight since February, and my "unsuccessful-ness" of it all is starting to annoy me. (though secretly i kinda enjoy seeing a low number on the scale. sort of. kinda. i thinks. hello eating disorder!) ironically, i feel great. no health issues nor complaints. energy for days, and i can keep up (if not surpass) all the 20-somethings in class (p.s. im 53 this year). so i dunno.

p.s. tracking my calories is proving to be extra challenging with the amount of eating out im doing. i need to take the ridiculous amount of time to input all my food at these restaurants, or stop eating so much at said restaurants. neither if which i am willing to do. arg.

cookies. ate about ½ of each of the cookies in this Crumbl mini sampler pack (milk chocolate chip, lemon glaze and candy egg Brownie) 295 calories for what i ate (i.e., the peices on the plate)...at least thats what the Crumbl website says

yay! congrats! excited for u! recovery really varies from person to person. i do understand that if your procedure does not include muscle tightening it should be a little bit less painful (but again it depends on your individual pain tolerance!) things that i found useful for recovery (note: i had muscle tightening) 1) my husband. lol 2) a stool to sit on in the shower 3) big sturdy pillows to stay propped up in bed (helps when getting out of bed too) 4) my mother's cane to walk...mind u i probably walked too much, but it def helped my back cuz i was hunched over all the time. 5) a pillow to hug in the car when going over bumps, or when i coughed, and omg when i sneezed (sneezing was the worst!!) 6) my faja to keep me all tight and snuggled. i wore mine way beyond than what was prescribed because i just really liked the feeling of it, ha. good luck! ❤️

sushi lunch!. (check-marked the items i ate! lol) 423 calories. plus shared a 350ml bottle of sake beforehand (so another 210 cals on top of that for a total of 633 cals)

i haven't been logging my food regularly for quite a while now as i felt like i could manage on maintenance autopilot. anyway, looks like i need to tweek my diet as i've been unsuccessful in bringing my weight back up to an acceptable level for months now. its kinda challenging as i've been eating out 90% of our meals all these said months, and its hard to guess the calories content of restaurant meals. gotta try tho. so here we go! my first tracked meal in a reaaallly long time: cottage cheese, blueberries, black pepper and anchovies (dont judge me! lol) 193 calories (easy to log cuz i made it, ha!)

pro tip: if you create an album on your profile and upload pics to that, you can add and delete to your hearts content. (if you want to share a pic in one of said albums in a post/thread, just copy and paste the urls into your post!) i do this all the time. ❤️

i got alot of the same responses/reactions about my decision to get an arm lift as well. i was told my arms weren't so bad, that they were fine, and that no one noticed the extra skin. Well *i* noticed. i always disliked my upper arms, even when i was "normal sized" as a teen, in my twenties, early thirties. one if my biggest sadnesses was having to wear a shawl on my wedding day over my awesome sleeveless dress because i was uncomfortable showing them. then when i started the road to morbid obesity, i absolutely HATED them omg fast forward to post wls and my joy of wearing tank tops again were marred by not up to snuff arms. so i got me an arm lift, baby. i wont sugarcoat it: recovery was a bee-yatch. mostly self-inflicted as i didn't listen to my doc and did too much too soon. i also have noticeable scars (im over 5 yrs post plastics, 6.5years post wls), which i knew going in as i historically scar badly. BUT, omg i love my arms. weird to say out loud but true. im sleeveless like ALL the time, even in winter lol. and because i love my arms so much i take care of them with regular exercise, ha! here is a link to my BariatricPal photo album of my arm lift before pics and progress/results over the years: there are pics 6m before arm lift, day before arm lift, and 1 & 6 months after, and one from last fall (5 years after arm lift) (im trying to find old pics of arm close ups where im not flexing, but it seems i only like to flex hahhaha) long story short, if you have the means/resources and the desire, do it! you only live once, may as well enjoy it with fabulous arms (or boobs or butts or noses) if thats what you want. good luck! ❤️

what @SpartanMaker said. increases muscle mass which drives up metabolism. good for physical health and side benefit of looking hawt. AND probably the number one, oft-ignored-yet-totally-obvious, underrated, oh-so-accessible producer of positive mental health...❤️ also...what @DaisyChainOz said. while it really doesn't matter what WE think you look like, you do look fab as ever. if u didn't see the number on the scale, would you still look pretty effing awesome in all those gorgeous clothes in your closet? but i get it, fear of going back to our pre-wls selves is a big thing in our demographic, no matter how unlikely that is your case. hugs. p.s. you know what i did last week when i was feeling down and annoyed? i bought a new pair of shoes. just saying...

agreed. if they called it a custard, i may have tried it, ha!

may not be a popular answer, but if you are looking for a high protein, high calorie, low density food, chicharron (aka pork rinds or cracklins) was my go to back in the day when i had very low stomach capacity and was trying to stop weight loss. worked like a charm. mind you they are also very high in fat (and depending which brand or how you make them, are also high in soduim) so keep that in mind.

dinner tonite: kale and pomegranate salad (yum!) + jerk pork w/ bitter greens (i've had better) + candied corn pudding (super duper yum). ate ½ the salad, a couple bites of the pork, 1 forkful of greens (which i spit out sorry), and on the left of the last pic, ½ the pudding and just a smaaaaaaall taste of the ice cream (i'm lactose intolerant and didn't have any pills on me, so i had to restrain myself, lol). the dessert on the right was mr.'s..a raspberry creme brullee, which i declined because it was soggy on top. i mean what self-respecting creme brulee is soggy on top??? no thanks.

dinner last night: i have a bad habit of ordering more food that i can eat which is both a blessing and a curse for Mr., who always gets tasked to dealing with my leftovers. i don't have an after pic, cuz yeah, he ate it all before i could (plus he ate all of his dinner too omg.). i have no proof, but i believe i ate 2 broccoli florets. 2 or 3 forkfuls of of the sauteed onions, 4-5 potato squares, 1 forkful of corn, and maybe 1/4 of that ribeye. i ate from the left side which was the fattier part...soooo yum. IMG_1644.mov

so i recently joined a new hot yoga studio (cuz i had do a temporary move...long story) and tried a spin class that is included in the membership. omg. i am now a convert! i love it. i always kinda laughed at it when spin classes were portrayed in movies/tv/pop culture, but i totally drank the kool-aid and am now a believer. it appeals to the competitor in me as i look at others' rpms and intensity level screens (yes, i know i shouldn't do this), and i love the loud dance music that drowns out all other sound and the go-go-go of it all. totally opposite of my other true love of yoga...maybe why it appeals to me. anyway, just a suggestion for something to try....u may be surprised that u like it (i totally was). good luck! ❤️

yep. mine still talks to (sometimes screams at) me, and im 6+ years out! often times i can FEEL the noises as well. though lately in the past few weeks, ive started to feel the rumbling not just in my abdomen, but also in my back! weird. we theorize its because i’ve got so thin lately that the rumbling can be felt everywhere as there is less mass to “travel” through or buffer the gastro “tremors”…*shrug*

i goaled myself for 120, smack dab in the middle of the bmi healthy goal range for my height, only because i needed a goal to head towards (i wasnt much of a lets just see kinda person back then…though i am now…but i digress) anyway got to 127 and i called goal cuz i wasnt interested in going lower based in what i saw in the mirror. plus i felt pretty great already. that was 6 years ago. since then i seem to have continued to slooooowly lose weight. i sometimes gain a little but my graph definately trends down over the years. especially the last 2-ish years. and im not TRYING to lose, just am due to my lifestyle choices and other circumstances (more active, got braces, tried out vegetarianism - spoiler alert, it didn’t stick lol). as of this morning i am 101 lbs. yes i realize its too thin. i was 98 lbs a few days ago, so im on it! so really, setting a goal can help lead you in a direction, bit the buck doesnt stop there so to speak. feeling good, liking/accepting what u see in the mirror, all the nsv’s should be considered. further, weight loss (or gain, by the same token) is not restricted to to the immediate months after surgery. if u stop losing, doesnt mean u cant lose more in the future. same as gaining…doent mean i wont gain weight back. nothing is static, things are always changing…you decide if you will change as well.

omg and lol *raises hand* i totally used to bawl during savasana at the end of almost every yoga class i took in the beginning!!! my instructors said its a common occurrence....something about releasing tension and emotion?? lasted about a month or so for me (mind u i went/go to class 1-2 times daily so i fast tracked the ugly-cry phase lol). i do remember it was very disconcerting at the time. when i try to explain it to non-yoga-ers, the best i could describe was that i wasn't feeling sadness nor happiness exactly...more like feeling overwhelmed, with what exactly, its hard to pinpoint...relief? gratitude? unworthiness? its been a while since i did that in class so my memory is foggy.... in any case, it normal apparently!

chiming in to say i had a similar start to running like AmberFL. (note though that i am a track or round-my-600m-neighbourhood-block runner, and not a follow-my-nose-runnner lol). started off walking around the track/block, then jogging one side of it, to jogging 1/2 of it, to jogging every other lap to full on jogging non-stop, then doing the same progression, this time interspersing with running. then longer and/or faster runs. by the end of my running heyday, i was running at least 5K every day (sometimes twice a day) with a longer 10K maybe once a week. then...i hurt my foot. didn't run for 3 months, and never went back to it with the same intensity. these days, i probably get a 5K in 1-2 times a week (less when its too cold). but i do get my exercise in other ways, so its all good. as for fuel, its been a while, but i do remember feeling quite hungry after runs and would actually eat food before noon (not my usual M.O.), could also be because i always ran on an empty stomach (by choice, i hate - and still do - the feeling of something in my stomach when i exercise). to the OP, its effing awesome that you are discovering a fondness for exercise...it really does make a world of difference, for your health, your sleep, your body's ability for recovery, your mental clarity....your overall well-being! plus, it makes you feel grrrrrrrreaaat and look hawt. ❤️

i actually thought i was in menopause at the time of my surgery...i hadn't had a period for almost two years just prior to that. about 2 weeks after surgery, i got a period, omg. and lasted for like 8-10 days. which is weird, cuz when i was regular, my periods lasted 4-5 days tops. and this one was HEAVY. after that, i got my period like clockwork, every 4 weeks, lasting 4-5 days again. guess i wasn't in menopause after all, i was just fat. which sucked (the period part not the fat part) cuz i really hate getting periods. then about 4 years later, i truly went into menopause. and haven't had a regular period since 2022. yay! but yeah, i as i understand it, hormones are stored in some level of fat, so when there is rapid weight/fat loss, your hormones are released back into your body (bloodstream?), and you are effected by it. so if hormones are the cause of your spotting, this could be why. but to be safe, pls have a visit with your doc or gyno. don't mess with reproductive health: if you can catch something early, catch it early. good luck! ❤️

i have a oft-visiting hernia (it pops out sometimes, but i've always been able to pop it back in - yeah, i know, gross - also its not an umbilical hernia, but an incisional hernia a couple inches below and to the right of my belly button) sometimes it hurts a bit (when it protrudes a little), sometimes its excruciating (when it protrudes alot ), and sometimes it doesn't hurt at all (when its under the muscle). when its under the muscle, i can't feel it with my fingers. soooo...do u have a hernia? most likely not, but go doctor to make sure pls.. cuz if u do have a hernia, they very rarely get better on their own...they only get worse over time until u need surgery to keep it under control. ive been dealing with mine for about 5-6 years now, and i really should get it taken care of, just haven't got around to it. le sigh. good luck ❤️

google "waistband clip"... i've only seen lics of it used in front or the side, but i dont see why u couldn't affix them to the back (or at least side-back). full disclosure, i've never tried them myslef, but i did contemplate buying them during weight loss phase, just never got around to it. (im 6+ years out now and my weight loss days are long behind me)

ah, me too! my regrowth came back with a curl to it. but i LOVE it, it makes my hair look thicker than it really is. i'm 6+ years out now, so my whole head is now wavy (instead of just the top). hang in there, and just wait it out...you may love it just as much as i do.

i wouldn't worry too much about a 3 lb gain over 10 days, especially if you haven't drastically changed your eating habits and/or activity level. maybe if those 3 lbs are still there a month from now, you can do some re-evaluating, but until then, TRY not to stress (yeah, i know easier said....) case in point: 3 nights ago, i weighed myself and i was up 5.2 lbs. now i don't usually weigh at night, and i hadn't pooped in a few days, AND i JUST had dinner, AND i had a super extra-salty vodka caesar. then yesterday morning, i was a little over 1lb less than my "normal"...(i pooped! lol, and it was morning, my usual weigh in time). i didn't eat less nor more, i didn't exercise less nor more either. long story short, our weight will fluctuate (sometimes by alot) day to day. what matters is your average weight over time (and not over 10 days, but over months) good luck! you are doing great ❤️