warrior68

Well today is my one year surgivesary, and I celebrated with Cookies, cakes, candies, pizza, garbage plates, chicken wings, and ice cream Sundays! LOL Or maybe I celebrated with a 3 miles run, bought myself a new bicycle so I could do a sprint triathlon this spring, as well as re joining the CrossFit gym. One year total loss of 151 lbs, most of it was lost in the first 6 months, its been slow since then. From 326 lbs on March 1, 2011 to 175lbs on March 1st, 2012.... Not bad if I say so myself. Who would have ever thought a last March that I would be in shape enough to be considering being able to do a half triathlon by the end of this summer? All I can say DAMN I am proud of me! I could care less if the few people I told about the surgery discount all the hard work and gym hours I have put in because I had the surgery. Fact is, none of them are even close to in shape enough to think about running to the car in a parking lot, and I running three miles on whim. I really shouldn't make comments like that, but I do occasionally get tired of hearing, "well of course you lost weight, you had surgery!" I have given up on explaining that it wasn't the surgery alone that made me lose 140 lbs in 6 or 7 months, and reminding these people that while they we sitting on the couch eating pizza, I was at the gym, running, lifting, biking, and going to crossfit. Wow how did I turn what was going to be such a positive post into a screw those people post, sorry bout that. Anyway, long story short, I'm loving life right now, and looking forward to an awesome summer. I will say to anyone on the fence about getting the sleeve, JUST DO IT! The sleeve has changed my life, and I am forever grateful for it. My only regret was not doing it sooner, and I kinda regret telling the few people I did tell. I would to thank all the people on this awesome forum that helped me out answering questions, and giving guidance as I needed it.

Hey everyone, just joined this group today, I am from Upstate NY, Way Upstate, In the Rochester NY area. Is anyone else from the Upstate area?

Thank you everyone for the words of encouragement! I am getting back on tack at the gym. The sweets are hard to kick, but I am cutting back on them daily until thanksgiving, then cutting them out completely after I have a small piece of pumpkin pie on turkey day.

Long story short I spend a lot of time outside, even in the cold NY winters. I have been putting off buying a new Jacket, and had given away all my old ones that were way to big. I went shopping for new Jacket last night, not only did I find the same Columbia jacket that dicks had marked down from 210.00 to 150.00 Kohls had it marked down to 129.00, TJ Maxx had it for 79.99, Major score on the price! Now for the most important part of the story, its not a XXXXL, XXXL, XXL, or even a XL, its a large, and I still have extra room in it! Its hard to believe that last fall I was wearing XXXXL - XXXL depending on the type and brand of the jacket. I have never in my life been able to fit in anything made by Columbia, This is just the motivation I need to get back at it for the last 25 lbs I need to lose.

What is the 5 day pouch test?

The past couple months I haven't been coming to this forum, mostly because I have not been being so good. I am still losing weight, although very slowly, but I have been eating the wrong foods, and have all but completely stopped working out, WTF is wrong with me? I had huge loses over the first six to seven months, down over 130lbs in six months, then started letting up on everything, and have only lost 16lbs in the past three to four months. I am so close to goal (25 lbs away from goal to be exact), but its like I am sabotaging myself. I stated on Monday with eating right and working out again, but it is so hard to get back in the "Zone" that I was in, I really wish I would have never let up! I am finding it very hard to cut sugar back out of my diet, I crave it like its a drug! The more little sugary Snacks I sneak, the harder I find it to be motivated to get back to the gym. Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love my sleeve, and would recommend it to others, what I am going through is not a product of being hungry, or needing sweets, its all in my head. Has anyone else gone through this and then got back on track? I tend to wonder if I give up the coffee, if it will make it easier to give up the sweets again? I mean I wonder if I need to just be 100% at all times with my diet in order to stick to it, it seems the more I cheat, the more I think it is ok, and then cheat some more.

Had my Surgery on 3/1/11 down 141 lbs at this point. Started at 326 lbs, most of my loss was in the first 6 months, now things are slowing down, but I am consistently maintaining or loses a pound or two a week at this point.

I dont friggin believe it! I made it, I'm there, I just weighed myself, 198.6!! Hell Yeah, damn I doing back flips here! 6 Months, and 126+ Lbs lost!! Holy crap! When I got down to 220 I told myself, ahh heck one hundreds at such a big deal, why does everyone go so crazy with this damn Wonderland crap? Well now I know why, its the best feeling ever! Worse part is now I wanna celebrate with a fish fry, is that so bad?

Every since my Dog Sampson was 12 weeks old I have taken him to the dog park every day, he is almost three years old now. I do not miss a day at the park, I get a lot of walking miles in every day while Sampson plays. Being a park regular obviously you get to know the other park regulars, we all walk laps together while the wonder mutts wrestle, play chase and swim. There is this one lady that used to be a semi regular, she hasn't been around for months, the last time she saw me was before winter, lets call her missy . Yesterday when I got to the park all the dog walkers were standing under a large tree hiding from the sun, so I walked up and said hello. Before I even got to group I noticed that "Missy" was there, I always notice when Missy is there, she is wicked hot, the kind of lady that you can tell works hard to take care of herself. I walked up and said hello to everyone, everyone else said hello, and Missy looked at me kind of puzzled, as I said hello to her, and used her name, I thought, how odd, she seemed confused or something. As the group walked and talked every time I looked in Missy's direction she had that same puzzled look on her face. At one point more people showed up, and my dog ran over to greet them, of course I followed him, and then walked a while with that group. When the two groups met up again, Missy walked right up to me in front of everyone and said " Oh my God Tom I really have to apologize to you!" I was like, what? why? And says out loud with like 20 people there, "I wasn't sure who you were! I thought maybe someone else was Walking Sampson for you!" "I Honestly did not recognize you at all." "You look amazing!" " You're literally half the size you were!" " And so damn Handsome too!" At this point I was blushing and kind of embarrassed. Missy goes on to state that if she hadn't asked one of the other dog walkers, she would have never guessed it was me, She went on to say how I am " A shadow of my former self". Mind you, although Missy is Happily married, and was not hitting on me in any way, it felt so good to hear her say those things. Missy is one of the ladies at the park that if she wasn't married, well it would probably insight riots with all the guys trying to chase her, she really is HOT! and as I said you can tell she works very hard to stay in shape. After the whole OM I cant believe it you, her and I talked about our workouts, and compared gyms and so on. he whole time we were talking I was thinking "wow, did this beautiful lady just really say all that stuff to me?!!" I was really blown away, and felt great all day!

I was sleeved on 3/1/11, and I have been doing awesome, I'm down over 115 lbs so far! I could not be happier! This weekend I noticed that I have some thinning spots in my hair, one spot on each side of my head, I guess near/ above my ears, needless to say I am not happy about this! I keep my hair short, I call it the #2 hairdo (a buzz cut with the #2 clipper every 4 to 6 weeks), needless to say these spots are very noticeable to me, so others must be seeing them too. Not a lot of people know I had the sleeve, so If others are noticing the thinning spots I can only Imagine what they are thinking, or saying behind my back. People that dont know about my surgery must be thinking, Hmm major weight loss, now he is losing his hair, does he have Cancer, or the hivs? Maybe I'm making to much of this, but it has me very concerned. What causes hair loss? Is it Vitamin deficiencies? Lack of Nutrition? I take my Vitamins, I have missed a few days, but for the most part I'm very good about my vitamins. I have been getting at least 70 grams of Protein on most days, My morning Protein shake has 50 grams on protein, so I cant see how I would be defiant there? Is this I temporary thing? Do I need to call my Surgeon, or Just go to my Primary doc and have him run some blood test? Holy crap, I'm tweaking here! Worse part is I do not work a job that wearing a hat is acceptable, so even if people haven't noticed yet, they will soon!

I will be ordering my Fitbit on the first of the month, unfortunately this pay period all goes to banks, I will keep you all posted. I like the smaller size and less noticeable design of the fitbit just from the photos I saw. The body bug is a bit of a pain the ass, as a guy in the summer I often wear sleeveless shirts to work or go for my walks, I hate heavig everyone ask what it is, does it work? how does it work? and so on.

I have a body bug, like the ones on the biggest loser, and until I read this post, and checked out the fitbit website I loved my body bug. This fit bit seems to use different technology than the body body bug, and I am not sure if it would be as accurate as the body bug. The free website, and cheaper price make the fit bit much more attractive than the body bug. Needless to say I am thinking about switching up and going with the fit bit, the free website tools are the kicker for me, even the premium membership at fitbit is cheaper than the body bug website. I may run a side by side comparison for a week or so and see which one works best.

That is so frigging Awesome! A mini Triathlon is one of my goals, I have no problem with the bike ride, I am decent with swiming, but I suck at the running! I so badly want to like running / jogging, and I really want to be better at it, problem is I just flat out hate it!