BigSue

The annual subscription for Bariatric Pal Multivitamin One is the best priced bariatric multivitamin you can get. I think all chewable multivitamins taste terrible, so I get the capsules. I suggest you order a smaller quantity to try before you commit to a whole year’s worth. I also use Bariatric Pal calcium chews. I LOVE the French vanilla caramel and Belgian chocolate caramel. They taste like candy. They are lower priced than most other brands, and they often go on sale (I bet they will be on sale for Black Friday!).

What a fantastic NSV! Truly life-changing. Congratulations and I hope you enjoy learning to drive your new car.

What a fantastic NSV! Truly life-changing. Congratulations and I hope you enjoy learning to drive your new car.

I used to set a timer and wait a minute between bites, and also chew each bite for at least 30 seconds. Eventually chewing everything really well becomes second nature (and you'll regret it if you don't). I also bought some tiny forks and spoons (search for cocktail forks/spoons) to help take small bites, but I'm over 3 years out now and use regular utensils. I take larger bites now but wait longer between bites (usually 3 minutes). Some people believe that you should eat mindfully and focus on your meal, not work or watch TV or anything while you're eating, but I personally take the opposite approach. If I'm not doing anything else while eating, I eat too fast, so I like to multitask during meals. I usually eat lunch at my desk while working and it takes me about 45 minutes to finish a salad.

Drinking a hot beverage (tea or coffee) helps. Warms you up from the inside!

5'3" woman here and I'm maintaining on 1200 calories per day, and that's with at least 90 minutes of cardio per day. I can relate to the feeling of shock about having to stick to such a low calorie count forever because I wanted to cry when my surgeon estimated that my maintenance calories would be around 1200-1400, maybe 1500 if I worked out a lot. Being short is a real drag. So as I see it, you have a few options (which you can mix and match to find a balance that works for you): Adopt and maintain eating habits that keep your calories low. I have found some go-to low-calorie foods that allow me to keep a low calorie intake without making me feel too deprived because I enjoy what I'm eating. 3 years out from surgery, my restriction isn't what it was immediately post-op, but it still helps, especially when I'm filling up on salads and other low-calorie veggies. Increase your exercise. Unfortunately, that doesn't help a whole lot because diet contributes far more to weight management than exercise, but for me, increasing my exercise from 60 minutes/day to 90 minutes/day allows me to maintain about 5 pounds lower with the same number of calories. Accept a higher maintenance weight. A lot of people get way too focused on a number on the scale as their goal/maintenance weight. The number on the scale, or your BMI, doesn't tell the whole story. You list your goal weight as 140 pounds, but if you are satisfied with your health, quality of life, and appearance at 150 pounds, maybe that should be your goal weight, and you can maintain that with slightly higher calories than 140.

I used to get that stuck-on-the-way-down experience fairly often when I first reintroduced meat after surgery, but I have learned to chew my food really well to the point that it has become automatic and I rarely have that problem anymore. But last week, I went to a restaurant and got some really delicious snapper, and it was so good that I ate too much, too fast and regretted it. Fortunately, the feeling passed after about an hour, but it was not a pleasant hour and like your ham experience, it was a good reminder that I still have to eat slowly and chew well.

I first looked into weight loss surgery about 15 years before I actually went through with it. Like you, I was scared away by horror stories and all the changes I would have to make and the things I would have to give up. I was also particularly concerned about vomiting because I got the impression that WLS results in vomiting at the drop of a hat. BTW, I am 3 years post-op and I have had exactly one bout of vomiting since my surgery. I think it's really important to go into the surgery with realistic expectations. If this forum is any indication, way too many people get WLS thinking that it will work like magic, and they're completely unprepared to make the lifestyle changes that are necessary to use the WLS as an effective tool. So I think it's a good thing that you are prepared for the rough parts of the surgery, and it probably won't be as bad as you think. Not gonna lie: the beginning is really hard, but once you get 2+ years out from surgery, you will probably be able to eat fairly normally, and if you play your cards right, you might just find that you no longer want to eat the way you used to. You'll establish a new normal for yourself where you won't constantly feel like you're "giving up" what you really want. I highly recommend a podcast called We Only Look Thin. It's run by a couple who each lost over 100 pounds. They didn't have surgery, but a lot of their journey resonates so deeply with me. Weight loss (especially when you have a daunting amount to lose) is largely a mental battle, and this podcast absolutely nails it. They are amazing at verbalizing the mental processes that I've gone through, and they are very honest about their struggles. They have some great reality checks about things like fairness, excuses, and mental loopholes, and they have some fantastic advice for navigating the everyday struggles of weight management. Now, I didn't start listening to this until after I had lost 200 pounds, so it might be easier for me to hear and realize, "Yep, past me made a lot of excuses. Past me didn't take responsibility for my eating habits," than it would have been when I was still making excuses and resisting the changes that I was going to have to make. But maybe it would have been easier for me to make those changes if I had heard this podcast before I started than having to figure it out as I went.

I have a lot of plus-size clothes that still have tags... There are items that were too small when I bought them, but I forgot about them and missed my narrow window of opportunity when they would have fit! I never bought really expensive clothes, so there's nothing that I think is worthwhile to have altered, especially when they are the right size for someone else out there. I don't have the time to sell items on my own (and really, I don't have anything that I could sell for much), so I plan to donate them. I'm embarrassed that I haven't gotten around to it more than 2 years after I shrank out of them. It is certainly annoying to think of how much money I spent on clothes that I never wore, but I look at it as a small price to pay for losing the weight. I've been binge-watching old seasons of Project Runway on Amazon Prime, and there's an episode in Season 4 where women who have lost a lot of weight bring in their favorite outfits from their highest weight, and the contestants have to use the fabric to make new outfits for them. I think it would be pretty cool for someone to start a business specializing in that! But it would definitely not be a practical or money-saving option.

First of all, there is no such thing as a "window of opportunity." There is no clock or deadline on weight loss surgery. The surgery is permanent. The surgery itself doesn't cause weight loss -- the surgery is a tool that helps you to eat less so you can lose weight. For most people, yes, the effect of the restriction wears off over time, so the first year or so is often called the "honeymoon period" because that's when it's easiest to lose weight due to low appetite and high restriction. But that doesn't mean that you can't lose any more weight after X months post-surgery. You have to build and maintain good habits during that honeymoon period so you can sustain the weight loss. It is a lifelong journey and if you get back into eating too much, you could regain the weight. Second, yes, weight loss normally slows down as you approach your maintenance weight. It's easy to lose 10 pounds when you have 100 pounds to lose, but much more difficult to lose the last 10 pounds (when you only have 10 extra pounds). This is partly because having excess weight results in burning more calories -- if you're carrying an extra 100 pounds, it just takes more energy (and thus burns more calories) to do anything. If you maintain a constant calorie intake -- say, 1800 calories per day -- you will lose weight quickly at 300 pounds but more slowly at 250 pounds, and eventually you'll get to an equilibrium (say, 200 pounds) where you are burning the same number of calories as you're eating, so your weight will stabilize. If you want to lose more weight after you reach that equilibrium, you'll either have to lower your calorie intake or increase your calorie burn by exercising more. Finally, my personal opinion is that people should not get hung up on a specific number on the scale. The non-scale measures of success are so much more important. If you are satisfied with your health and appearance at 222 pounds, there is no reason to worry that you are 2 pounds over the range that your surgeon estimated (which is almost certainly based on statistical outcomes, not a personalized assessment of you, specifically).

Thought I’d share a fun pic from my 3-year surgiversary (ok, I’m one day late, but close enough). I don’t really have a good before and after set of pictures because I used to hate being in pictures and I would avoid the camera at all costs. However, I still have a pair of size 28 pants that I wore at my highest weight of 341 pounds, and yes, I can now fit my whole 135-pound body into one leg.

This is something you need to discuss with your doctor ASAP.

Pre-op diets vary widely from one surgeon to the next. Some take a one-size-fits-all approach and require a 2-week liquid diet for everyone just to be safe. Some don’t require any specific diet until the day before surgery. Some dictate pre-op diet based on individual patients. I strongly suggest you follow your surgeon’s directions. Do you trust him to cut you open and rearrange your digestive system? If so, then trust him to give you appropriate pre-op instructions. If you don’t trust his medical judgment, you probably shouldn’t let him do surgery on you.

Wow, great job! It takes a lot of strength and persistence to make such a change.

You don't need to fixate on a specific number. Look at where you are now and figure out if this is the right weight or if you want to weigh less or more than your current weight. There are a lot of things to consider, but to generalize, how do you feel and look at your current weight, and how sustainable is it? If everything is good now, congratulations! This is your goal weight. It's probably not that simple because it can be a bit of a balancing act, but figure out, overall, if you'd be better off losing more weight or staying where you are. Are you physically comfortable, able to be as active as you'd like to be, and have good mobility? (Of course, there are factors other than your weight that affect these things, but consider whether losing more weight would improve these things.) Are you satisfied with how you look, what size clothes you wear, how people perceive you? Do you look healthy or do people often ask you if you're sick (which may indicate that further weight loss would be a negative for your appearance)? How easy or difficult is it for you to stick with your current calorie level for the long term? If you're hungry all the time and struggle to stick to your plan, you may be setting yourself up to fall off the wagon and regain. If you're satisfied with what and how much you're eating and exercising to maintain your weight, it's sustainable for the long term. How are your health metrics? How's your blood pressure, glucose, cholesterol, etc., and would losing more weight be likely to improve anything? Do you have any vitamin deficiencies that indicate that you're not eating enough (or not taking the right supplements)? I would take the numbers from your dietitian and GP with a grain of salt because bariatric surgery patients are different from their average patients, and without specialized training, they may not understand the nuances and may be basing their advice off the good old BMI chart. In my opinion, if they are giving you a specific number as a goal weight, or telling you that your weight is "too high" or "too low" based solely on your height and weight rather than your actual health metrics, they probably don't have great knowledge in this area. The bariatric dietitian will probably be more helpful. I know you have to wait a couple of months, but you seem to be doing fine for now, so unless you have major problems, you can probably just keep on doing what you're doing until then.

This might make you roll your eyes, but I like to say that you don't choose your goal weight -- your goal weight chooses you. You can't just pick a number and will your body to get to it. I feel strongly that the non-scale victories are far more important than the number on the scale. I wanted to lose enough weight to get rid of diabetes and hypertension, to wear non-plus size clothing, to fit into a restaurant booth, to walk up a few flights of stairs without ending up winded and drenched in sweat, etc. If you get to that point and the scale says 10 pounds higher than the arbitrary number you picked, so what? That said, when I had my psych evaluation, the psychiatrist wanted me to say my goal weight (probably just to make sure I had realistic expectations), so I went with the average weight loss for gastric bypass. There are a lot of online calculators for this, and I think I used 70% of my excess weight to arrive at a specific number (I ended up losing 100% of my excess weight). Here's another calculator that uses a lot of data from actual WLS patients to give more precise predictions based on more specific parameters: https://mbsc.arbormetrix.com/Registry/public/calculator/uiCalculator/7?menuId=1013

Thanks... I think I will always feel like BigSue. It's weird because when I was big, I pictured myself as much smaller than I really was, and now I picture myself as bigger than I actually am, so my self-image has probably only lost about 50 pounds.

There's a reason Shelly's Baked Ricotta is the most popular soft food recipe in the WLS community. It's basically lasagna minus the pasta and it is amazing after weeks of protein shakes and sugar-free jello. Pro tip: divide the recipe into 8 ramekins or small glass dishes before baking. https://www.food.com/recipe/shellys-baked-ricotta-324036

I'm 3 years post-op. I did absolutely nothing to treat my incisions and I have no visible scars now. If I look really closely (I had to refer to old pictures to see where the scars were so I could tell where to look), the skin is ever so slightly raised where the incisions were, but the color is no different than the surrounding skin.

If you're not familiar with the Michigan Bariatric Surgery Collective, you should definitely check it out. They have an extensive database of bariatric surgery patients, and there's a calculator that shows average outcomes based on the data. https://mbsc.arbormetrix.com/Registry/public/calculator/uiCalculator/7?menuId=1013 My info: 1. Basics: GENDER, AGE, HEIGHT - female, 39 (at time of surgery), 5'3" 2. Total Weight lost in the 6 months BEFORE surgery (if any) - 64 pounds 3. Weight on DAY OF SURGERY. - 277 pounds 4. Weight at 1 MONTH POST surgery - 256 pounds 5. Weight at 3 MONTHs POST surgery - 225 pounds 6. Weight at 6 MONTHs POST surgery - 181 pounds 7. Weight at 12 MONTHs POST surgery - 144 pounds

I've never heard of snakehead fish, but if I ever see it, I'll give it a try! I used to hate seafood, but now I love it and really enjoy trying different types of fish. One of my favorite easy meals is fish coated with spice rub and cooked in the air fryer, with a side salad and/or steamed veggies.

Welcome! This forum is a wealth of information for someone considering weight loss surgery. I highly recommend you spend some time on this site reading posts from people in various stages of the process, and feel free to post with any other questions you have!

I can’t believe I haven’t really thought about this NSV until now, but now that you mention it, I remember that I used to go through so many pants because of wearing out the inner thighs. I haven’t worn out a single pair of pants since I’ve been my current size (about 2 years)!

BTW, I would like to compliment you on this post. I have thought about starting a post like this but never got around to it. There’s a popular thread about weird non-scale victories, where about half the posts are not exactly victories, but more like “skinny people’s problems.” But for people who have spent their whole lives suffering from obese people’s problems, it is a privilege and yeah, a victory of sorts, to experience this type of problem.

It’s hard not to take it personally when I’m the one who mentioned “vanity sizing” on this thread and then you specifically mocked the use of that term.