bethow

The difference between Jane Fonda and Jennifer Lopez is best demonstrated in one word, class. Jane Fonda proves you can be attractive at any age with your clothes on.

I just finished watching the new Terminator movie and Linda Hamilton looks incredible in it! I lost 35 pounds before my surgery on 8/21/19. As of this morning, I am down a total of 107 pounds from my highest weight so even if I never lose another pound, I would not have a thing to complain about. This was still the best decision of my life but I am hoping to keep on losing to get closer to my goal weight. I look at your pics and cannot even imagine myself being as successful as all of you. You give me the drive to keep going.

I think hat happened for me was that my cousin and my best friend had gastric bypass about ten years ago. Less than five years later they both started gaining weight. I had another friend who had great success with the lapband and one who ended up in the hospital for months and nearly died. After reviewing all three types of bariatric surgeries but what really helped me that was due to one insurance difficulty after another, it took two years to get my surgery but I started modifying my eating habits and exercising. regularly. The hardest thing is learning to stop eating when I start to feel full but I know that if I don't adequately learn that habit I will be sunk so I an really trying. I am so terrified of failing especially since I have been losing the weight so much more slowly then I was at the beginning.

Believe it or not, because my employer kept changing insurance carriers; it took me five years to get my surgery. I finally got it once my Medicare kicked in and I was retired. Then it took nearly a year because of an incompetent employee of my surgical team. In the two years prior to my surgery I lost 35 pounds on my own. In the five months since my surgery, I have lost 63 pounds. My surgeon performed 5 surgeries on the day I received mine and I was the first due to my age (remember I said I was on Medicare?) and he has been astounded at how successful I have been. Of the five patients I have had the fewest post surgical issues and have lost the most weight. He attributed it to my exercise routine and food diary that I have been keeping in my Fitbit app. I strongly recommend a good exercise tracker and food diary.

I am with Catwoman7 on a food and exercise logs. Two years before my surgery My daughter asked what I wanted for Christmas and I told her a Fitbit. It is the best gift she ever gave me. I started logging my food and exercise faithfully. As a result in the two years before my surgery, I lost 35 pounds. Not meteoric but slow and steady. I had my surgery on 8/21/19 and continued to use my Fitbit app faithfully and have lost an additional 68 pounds. The pounds come off much more slowly and I had a nearly two week stall and was terrified that 101 pounds was all I was going to lose but by now (3 years) exercise is just a routine and concentrate on when I start to feel full. I used to have a terrible habit of drinking Coca Cola but thank goodness I have lost all taste for it. One night I took a sip of my hubby’s and nearly gagged because it was so sweet. Psychologically I am using the same mindset I used to quit smoking that what I do is for my health.

Steve, it’s been years since my past has held any pain fir me. I just wanted to pass on one of life’s lessons that life is too short to waste it on someone who doesn’t appreciate you. To be truly free you must release the anger and the pain and shut the door on further opportunities . My past is not nearly as bad as so many others. I focus always on the positives. My stepfather was such a positive that when I decided to adopt my son, I decided to change my last name to my stepfather’s so that my son would carry his name. He was so happy, he volunteered to pay for it. I only hope that once the pain has passed, you will find as much happiness and joy in life as I have.

Steve, my birth father was physically and mentally abusive and when she had the courage and the conviction to leave and demand a divorce at which she got full custody of my brother and me (keep in mind this was 1960 and there were no services to assist her), he stole my brother and me, telling us that she had been killed in a car accident. For the next four years of hell he directed his fury at my mother to me. When I discovered my mother was alive , I did everything I could to get my brother and I out of that living hell. Thankfully, my mother had married a wonderful, kind and loving man who was head over heels in love with her and extended himself to her children when we finally escaped into their care. For seven years we never heard from him and then he showed up at our door. He made it perfectly clear he was there to see my brother. At first I was crushed and then he deliberately started to pick a fight with my mom and used me to do it because I refused to talk to him. He made several snide comments about my weight, a genetic tendency in my mother’s family that she struggled with and beat her whole life. He told me he was still my father. My stepfather had remained in the bedroom for two reasons; he was a cop and couldn’t afford to get into trouble and he knew that neither my mother and I were afraid of him anymore. I was 18 and had graduated from high school less than a week before. When he accused my mother of turning me against him and demanded respect he did not deserve, I was done. I told him he was not my father that my father was in his room (I meant it then and I will mean it for the rest of my life) and that I was 18 and quite capable of drawing my own conclusions based on the facts. And the fact was that for four years he had made my life hell and that he no longer had any right or invitation to be in my life because I chose to be happy. In spite of struggling with my weight my whole life, I still managed a successful career, a happy husband (we celebrated our 39 anniversary on 12/28th, raised three children and two grandchildren. For your mother to speak to you or your spouse like she has is beyond the pale of hurtful and hateful comments. To be jealous because you took control of your issue and apparently she hasn’t is indicative of how petty and narcissistic she is. The time has come to remove this emotional cancer from your life and forge ahead on creating a happy life for yourself and surround yourself with people who appreciate you and make you happy. In the long run, you will kiss neither the pounds , the emotional baggage or your mother. It’s often said the best revenge is to be happy. Choose to pursue happiness because life is always ready to toss us around to fate.

Lol, I think there’s a lot of us rowing that same boat. At the beginning of my journey my highest weight was 315 pounds and due to financial and other challenges, I spent over two years losing weight on my own and lost 35 pounds on my own . Since my surgery on August 21, 2019; I have lost another 66 pounds for a total of 101 pounds. I’ve lost my double chin and discovered my clavicle but because of my age (67) and the length of time I was obese, I have loose skin everywhere. I am retired and have enough money saved to live comfortably and frugally but there’s no way plastic surgery is in my future unless I hit the lottery. I see the pictures posted here and think that there’s no way that’s in my future. But I began this adventure for my health not to try to be sexy at seventy so I will leave it to the power above and attempt to age gracefully (if there is such a thing). I am more excited that exercise has developed into a nearly daily habit and for the first time in my life, I believe that I can overcome what I considered my greatest failure; unable to keep the weight off.

Yikes, ten degrees?!!! And I have been whining because we got down to forty degrees in the desert Southwest. My best friend, Polly who had her surgery ten years ago, warned me that I would feel cold (something that I hadn’t felt in about twenty years) and boy she was right. It doesn’t help that I live with a polar bear that thinks 60 degrees is comfortable. I had my surgery on 8/16/19. In the previous two years I had lost 35 pounds on my own. Since The surgery I have lost an additional 66 pounds but it was just weeks after my surgery that I dragged out a rarely used blanket and keep it next to my chair in the living room and need to use it on a daily basis. So, I cannot imagine looking as svelte as you and living in ten degrees. You are an inspiration!

I know what you mean Azhiker. I managed not to put on any weight over the holidays. It is the first time I feel as if I am in charge of my weight. I am still a long way off from my goal weight but have lost enough to feel confident that I will make it successfully. I am contemplating returning to work because I already have so much loose skin that I know I will have to have plastic surgery in the future. Thank goodness I have the energy to do it.

I like to say that I am playing food Russian roulette. I used to say that I was a Chinaman in a previous life because I could eat rice anyway it’s cooked but I soon discovered that was to be no more. My stomach has never tolerated fried food well so my consumption has always been minimal so that’s not an issue. But there are some foods that I can eat one time but the next time upsets my tummy; ergo the Russian roulette analogy. I have always ate pretty healthily but I now realize that my portion control was nonexistent. I am constantly shocked at how much I used to eat before my gastric sleeve. I was doomed to never succeed at weight loss without this surgery.

Fortunately for me, I love fresh fruit. However, I am terrible about cutting it up so as I prepared for my surgery, I began but those fresh fruit trays they sell in the store and taking them to the office for our celebrations. One of the other girls started bringing a vegetable tray and then another started bringing tossed salad. I realized then just how special my coworkers were. But what really truly amazed me was when the drug reps who came to our clinic stopped bringing no no’s and started bringing in fruit and vegetable trays to the office. Is there one coworker in whom you can confide about these issues who might not only offer moral support but spread the word quietly so others can become supportive? If not, keep coming here to this site for the moral support. Good luck

Surgery: gastric Sleeve SD: 8/21/19 HW: 315 SW: 280 CW: 216 GW: 165 When I look in the mirror, I don’t see the weight loss at all. When I see the photos of others on this site, I am floored and find it hard to believe they ever had a weight issue. The only way I can physically tell that I am losing weight is the enormity of my old clothes. I am going from blouses I never wore because they were too tight to the same blouses I can’t wear because they’re too big. I have exactly three pairs of pants that fit me but I refuse to buy new clothes until I get closer to my goal weight. I want to thank all of you who have posted photos. You are all my inspirations.

I won’t go into details, I did once on this sight. Suffice it to say, it took me four years to get my surgery. It was an emotional roller coaster and I won’t lie there were many tears of frustration. The two years prior to my surgery, I lost 35 pounds on my own with diet and exercise. Since my surgery in August 2019, I have lost another 64 pounds. Most of that from the four weeks on a liquid diet before and after my surgery. Maybe because it took so long, really appreciate the wonder this surgery has brought to my life. I always considered my inability to lose weight and keep it off my biggest failure in life. For the first time in my life, I feel like I will not only lose the weight but be able to maintain the weight loss. Where exercise was always a challenge, it had just become part of my daily life now and I have finally come to realize what huge portions of food I had been eating. I am trying to lose one more pound by the end of the year because if I do, will go into 2020, a hundred pounds lighter than my heaviest weight!

Lol, when I was young I always felt the cold so I have lived most of my adult life in the Mohave Desert. But as the years passed, the weight piled on, feeling cold was a thing of the distant past. I was 315 at my heaviest and 280 at the time of my surgery. Fortunately my best friend who had had gastric bypass a few years earlier, had warned me that I would be cold s the time. She wasn’t kidding. I keep a flannel throw in the living room to cover with, and I wear socks and slippers to keep my feet warm. For Christmas, my granddaughter made me a blanket (with bears on it because I collect bears) that will now join the throw on my chair. Lol, I also invested in a small ceramic heater that blows warmth directly on me while my polar bear of a husband can continue to sit in his desired frigid temperatures

My nutritionist told me that obese people tend to live to eat while healthy people eat to live. What you are feeling is a normal reaction to a huge change in your life in a relatively short time. There’s going to be a period of adjustment. I know for myself, I used to love good food and often didn’t know when to stop. Since my surgery, my pleasure in the taste of good has diminished and I realized that I was no longer living to eat. I was terrified of putting on weight over the holidays but even though I felt that I had splurged I did not put on an ounce for either Thanksgiving or Christmas. For the first time in my life, I feel in control of my eating habits. I am only half way to my goal weight but I am feeling so optimistic. The high point from Christmas was my younger daughter said, “Mom, that’s the first time I have ever seen you sit with one leg crossed over the other!”

For five years I tried to get my surgery through my insurance at work and my mother suffered through the ups and downs and frustration with me. Finally, last August through Medicare I had my surgery. Unfortunately, I lost my mother to cancer three years ago. One of our last conversations, she made me promise not to give up. I know it can be frustrating what you and your mother are going through but how I envy you that your mother is there to share it with you. As a mother, I can see that she might be frightened that you are going too far with your weight loss. Reassure her that you are striving to be the healthiest you can be and reassure her that s your weight loss efforts are to be healthier.

SW: 315. Weight before surgery 280. Current weight 233! I would love to get to 140 to 150, but I haven’t been this thin for years so each day and every pound is a reason to celebrate and be thankful for.

I am nearly 68 and have ruptured discs in my lower back as a result exercising has been challenging. I invested in a recumbent stationary bike to start this adventure. I lucked out and found a used (4 times only) Teeter Freestep which is a recumbent bike/elliptical combination at an amazing reasonable cost. For Christmas, am asking Santa for a rowing machine. Knowing that walking is still the best exercise but unable to walk for long or great distances, in the spring I am getting an above ground pool even if I just walk around in the pool. The biggest change in losing weight this time is that I am dedicated to exercising on a daily basis. I lost 35 pounds before my surgery over a two year span. I have lost 57 pounds since my surgery in August. Igor spoiled losing weight so quickly from the liquid diet immediately before and after my surgery that I have to remind myself that I am 92 pounds lighter from my highest weight and to be patient. i hope everyone has a wonderful Thanksgiving . I am a little nervous about my first holiday meal with my family since my surgery. But still beyond happy on this new adventure of living healthy.

I had my sleeve surgery nine weeks ago. I am averaging 1.5 to 2 pounds a week weight loss. I think that we lose so quickly while on the liquid diet that when we start eating food and the weight loss slows down we over react fearing that we will start gaining again. But think back to our pre-surgery days. Four pounds in three weeks, we would have been ecstatic. it took me two years to lose 35 pounds before my surgery on 8/21/19. I’ve lost 47 pounds since then. The bad part for me is that because I carry most of my weight in my belly, I don’t see the weight loss when I look in the mirror. However, as more and more of my clothes are too big for me to even consider wearing, I remain positive about my chances of finally succeeding at what I had considered my biggest failure in life, my weight. This site is so inspirational that it keeps me positive and determined to succeed.

Use the virus line or tell her your doctor suggested a liquid diet one or two days a week so you do the diet on Tuesdays and Thursdays having never considered Thanksgiving.

CrystalV, why are you feeling that way and so soon after the surgery? Guilt, shame and disappointed? Why because you couldn’t succeed in weight loss without the surgery? It took courage to acknowledge your weight was an issue and to proceed with the surgery. It is not a silver bullet for weight loss. Losing weight is hard work with or without the surgery. I started really working on losing weight in February 2018 when my new doctor weighed me and I was at 315 pounds. I had always sworn I would never allow myself to get over 300 pounds. For the next two years, I watched what I ate and started exercising faithfully. I lost 35 pounds in two years. On August 21, 2019 I had my surgery. I have lost 45 pounds since then. More importantly I feel that this time I will be able to keep the weight off. I am glad you sought help when you needed it. I have been on an antidepressant for years and I accept that my brain does not produce enough serotonin bd that causes me to be depressed. I refuse to feel shame for that any more than a diabetic should feel guilty for taking insulin. We should just be thankful that brilliant minds have developed these wonderful medications to help us. Stop beating yourself up, keep an open mind and set realistic goals and then pursue them. A husband who is supporting you is a blessing (I swear my hubby is even more excited than me about my weight loss) so make sure to give him a hug and a kiss. Put the negative feelings away and look forward to the adventure ahead of you. Good luck!

It took me two years to lose 35 pounds before my surgery through diet and exercise. I had my sleeve on 8/21. Since then I have lost 45 pounds. My PCP thought I could lose weight without the surgery. But three times in my life I have lost 75 pounds on my own only to put it back on and I was much younger then. I feel confident that with the surgery, that this time I have made a lifestyle change and when the weight comes off, it will be gone permanently as long as I exercise and continue to eat in a healthy manner. The only regret I have about my surgery is that I didn’t do it sooner.

I worked in behavioral health for fifteen years and medications for bipolar often cause weight gain and difficulty losing weight. The fact that you lost 17 pounds is a victory. Remember the tale of the tortoise and the hare......it seemed like the tortoise wasn’t going to get to the finish line but he did.

I am 8 weeks post op and suffer from hypothyroidism. Since my surgery on 8/21 I have lost 44 pounds. However, the scale likes to torment me too. I try to keep myself balanced by realizing that prior to my surgery, it took me two years to lose 35 pounds. Whereas I have lost 44 pounds since the surgery. I think that because my body is burning fat at a higher rate, it has to take a break every few days and I force myself not to overreact. A few days later another pound or so will come off. My Fitbit log helps keep me from going off the deep end because it shows me the ups and downs I have been desalting with over the past two years. As long as I work hard at eating healthy and exercising faithfully, I have to believe that I will achieve my goals. So, my advice is to have faith in yourself. You’ve got this.