ILKrista

My landlord saw me 2 weeks after surgery and commented that it didn't look like it had worked. I really wanted to strangle him. Just focus on what you need to do & ignore anyone sending negative energy your way. This is a point in your life where you need to be selfish & focused on yourself. Follow the rules & you will lose weight. I think it was a month or 2 before people started commenting. I've finally reached the point where people who barely know me (I work in a public library) are coming up and commenting. So it will happen... just not days after surgery!

Fun idea! Mine are: Trying on clothes (I hit Goodwill every Sunday to do this)! Flirting - I'm not married & haven't really dated in the past 10 years because I was so embarassed by my weight, so flirting has been really fun. Going out - I finally had the courage to join a meetup group & make some new friends. Going out has been great. Before I was practically homebound with the exception of going to work. Planning trips- I love to travel but haven't done much in the past few years because flying when fat is no fun & traveling when everything exhausts you sucks. So I am planning future trips to the places I really want to go. Ummm... flirting again ? I can't think of another one.

I don't know if I would say I hate food, but for the most part, I feel apathetic about it. I don't really experience hunger & if I let myself get distracted, I could easily only eat once or twice a day. I have to remind myself that I must eat 6 times to get the needed calories, protein, etc. The biggest thing that keeps me eating is that I'm losing a lot of hair & I'm afraid if I don't eat right, I'll lose a ton more. However, if you are actually feeling afraid to eat, I would consider going to talk to a psychologist. Because we have eating issues already, we are at a considerably higher risk of developing an eating disorder. Best of luck to you!

I know we all wish that we could 30 lbs a month, but for most of us, that is not realistic. I was kind of disappointed a few months after surgery because I really never lost more than 10 pounds a month. I lose about 2 lbs a week... but after 5 months, that has added up to a lot of weight. As long as you are losing, you are doing great. Keep going and you'll be where you want to be before you know it!

Hmmm... So, I saw the surgeon for a follow up visit yesterday. During the visit he mentioned that my 'Ideal' weight would be 125, but they didn't want me to hit that. They want me at about 150, which would still leave me in the overweight bmi range. His reasoning for this is that it is very hard for people to reach their ideal weight and many end up with eating disorders trying to get there, or they do extreme dieting and then end up regaining some of what they lost. Instead, he wants me to stop losing weight when I'm still 25 lbs overweight. Now, I weighed 150 in high school & I was pretty chunky looking. I feel like I didn't go through the pain of surgery & I'm not going to the gym 4 days a week so I can still end up being fat looking. I just don't think I'm going to be satisfied if I stop losing weight at the point he is telling me I should. I'm curious what others would do... would you follow the dr.s advice? Or, ignore it & get to a healthy weight? If you made it to your ideal weight, do you feel like you got there in a healthy way and does maintaining that weight seem difficult?

I will have to check this out. You are looking great! It is so motivating to know that it really is possible to make such huge changes to you physical appearance as you have.

I have Kefir yogurt nearly everyday for breakfast. I like it because I can pour it in a coffee cup and drink it on my way to work. I buy the regular, lowfat type. Maybe I will try the plain with sugar free jello powder. I haven't had a problem with weightloss by eating the regular. Anyway, I highly recommend the Kefir.

ELECTIVE! I would strongly disagree. If you told him you had a slight heart murmur that would kill you sometime in the next 15 years, would that be considered elective? Let's face it... the word MORBID in morbidly obese refers to the fact that being that heavy is slowly killing you. You don't see many morbidly obese people in their 60s & 70s because they are DEAD. I think you have a strong case for arguing that this is NOT elective! This is something that can potentially save your life. Just because it isn't emergency surgery doesn't mean that it is elective. Not to get too heated, but it really ticks me off when people try to imply that it is any less valid of a surgery that it would be to have an ulcer or tumor removed. Just my 2 cents.

Thanks for your response Tiffykins. I'm trying not to get too caught up in numbers because they don't really say much about how your body is looking, depending on muscle mass. I suppose I should try to hit the doctor's goal before I start worrying about if I should go lower or not. I am curious, how tall are you? In my mind, 125-130 is about where I should be (I'm 5'2"). Thanks!

According to my doctor, it really doesn't matter what exercise you do, as long as you get your heartrate to it's target zone. For me that is between 135-160. I'm not sure how he calculated this. When I first started exercising, walking on hill was enough. Now I have to jog a few minutes & then walk a minute. The doctor also really promotes interval training with different speeds of walking/jogging to maximize the calorie burning.

Ever since surgery, I can't tolerate protein shakes at all... probably because I had to drink them 6 times a day for the 2 weeks prior to surgery. Now, when I want something with protein that I can drink in the car, I have the Kefir drinkable yogurt. It has about 11-12 grams of protein, I think.

I was sleeved the week before you & I feel your pain with the hair loss. Mine started right around 3 months out and still continues. I do feel like I'm not losing as much each day, but it is still a lot more than I normally would. I am taking biotin every day & using the Nioxin shampoo (you can buy it from ULTA, I believe). I'm hoping people are right about the 3 month cycle & that in a another month or so I will start to see some regrowth. I told myself before surgery that I was okay with losing some hair, but when it really starts happening, it is TRAUMATIC! I just tell myself, that if nothing else, I am going to be one damn hot bald woman.

Was this just for weightloss surgery in general or specifically the sleeve? My thought would be that many people who have been morbidly obese for their entire lifetime and waited until much later in life to get the sleeve may have already done some serious damage to their heart. After all, just because you finally lose the weight doesn't undo 40 years of heart damage. I hope that's the case, because I sure the heck don't want to drop dead in my 30s! Keep researching... it seems unlikely to me that this was referring to the sleeve specifically, because we generally don't have issues with malnutrition like bypass patients do.

It took a little over 8 months for me from the time I first met with my PCP until I was sleeved. My insurance only required 3 months at the time (they just changed back to 6 months), but I had to wait because I switched to *** & then a coworker was on maternity leave. I think for most people who are going through insurance, you are looking at 6 months to a year wait time.

So, I am a little over 4 months post-op and have lost about 80 lbs since January. I am happy with how much weight I have lost so far, but 90% of the time, I still feel huge... almost like I did before I lost any weight. I look at myself and still see all the fat everywhere. I still have 60 lbs to lose. I'm just wondering at what point did you feel like you were thin? Did you hit a certain size or weight and suddenly you really felt like you had changed? Or do you still always feel like the biggest person in the room?

I'm not sure if this is considered a success story or not... I have a friend who continually has to add in little put downs about my weight. She will say something like, "God I am getting so huge... I mean I am nowhere near your size, but you know what I mean." or she will tell me that she can't tell that I've lost any weight at all (I've lost 80 pounds and have strangers coming up to me at my job commenting on it now) and other mean things along those lines. Yesterday, she tells me that she has been 'a little competitive' with me in trying to lose weight because she doesn't want me to weigh less than her. (This is no shock. Ever since I started losing weight she has been trying like mad to keep up with me) Is it terrible that I took such joy in informing her that I already weighed less than her? I had been looking forward to being able to say that for months. Her BMI is still less than mine (but not for long) because she is 5 inches taller. On the one hand, I feel like a jerk for being so happy to finally be able to tell her that she is the heavier one. On the other hand, I feel like she deserves it because she has been so mean about my weight. I know many of you will tell me to dump her as a friend... It's impossible as she is my boss as well. I also think she is one of these people that doesn't think about what she is saying... she told her sister who is dealing with hair loss that it was looking like she was starting to go bald. Anyway, I needed to gloat/vent about it a bit.

Thank you all for letting me vent. Usually, I'm a little more understanding about other people's insecurities... and I know very well that this person has plenty of them. I like to think that normally I would rise above the little comments, but I'd really had enough of her saying how terrible it would be if I weighed less than her. At least now I won't have hear anymore of that. Of course, I'm sure that she will find something else to comment on. I'm using the negativity to motivate me to succeed... which is the opposite effect I think she wants it to have.

Well, the weight loss hasn't suddenly increased like I'd hoped when I started this. But I have noticed a big difference in my legs & butt. The legs on all my pants are much looser & for the first time in years, I don't feel like I have a really droopy butt. I hope everyone else is seeing the result from all their hard work. Keep it up!

I thought I would mention that I found this cookbook/eating plan called 'Eating for Life' by Bill Phillips. The book talks about the importance of eating 6 time a day... high protein & healthy carb. Exactly like what we are supposed to be doing. He has a lot of really good recipes, including desert ideas (sugar free pudding with a couple of scoops of protein powder). I thought I would pass along the info since it seems more fitting that a lot of the bariatric surgery cookbooks I've looked at. You may want to see if your library has it available.

Week 3 of the Couch Potato to 5K and it isn't as horrible as I thought it would be. I actually keep thinking to myself that I probably could run considerably longer than 90 seconds, but I don't want to push myself too hard and then end up giving up on it. I'm realizing that a big part of the reason I HATED running is that I was trying to do it with almost 150 lb extra at my heaviest... I think that would be challenging for a Navy SEAL much less a regular person like me. Now that I've lost about half of the extra weight, it really isn't as terrible as I was expecting. I hope all of you are continuing to do well on your 5K journey!

When I had my surgery, they fixed a hiatial hernia & removed my gallbladder. I had to go to see a specialist who made a recommendation to my surgeon as to whether it was neccessary to take out the gallbladder or not. For me, I had a lot of stones & some scarring on my bile duct, so they said it had to come out. I would check with your doctor if he will do it or not. I figure that as long as they are alread in there, they might as well fix you up. Good luck with your surgery!

I had this problem but was always too embarrassed to talk to a dr about it. I've noticed some definate improvement, though it hasn't completely resolved. I'm hoping losing another 50 lbs will fix it completely.

I've become a Goodwill JUNKIE! I go there every Sunday and spend about $20 on clothes. Some of them I can wear now and some are clothes I expect to wear sometime in the next 3 months. When I get back I sort them out. Every couple of weeks I try on the clothes that didn't quite fit me yet & it is so exciting when they suddenly fit & I can add them in to my regular clothes rotation.

My original PCP was horrible about it. He very rudely told me that I was so fat because 1) I ate like a pig (yes, those were his exact words) and 2) I was lazy. In fact, he told me that those were the only 2 reasons anyone on the planet was obese & he would never recommend me or anyone else for weightloss surgery. I was so humiliated that I didn't ask about it again for 2 more years. Then, being heavier than ever before, I finally found a new PCP, went in there ready to do battle if necessary to get this surgery. Thank god, it wasn't necessary & she agreed that it would be a good option for me. Just remember, doctors are not experts on everything... they just sometimes think they are.

How soon after surgery are they coming? If it is within the first week, I would definately say that you had some sort of procedure- ulcer removed gallbladder out or something. I looked pretty ill for at least a week afterwards... very pale, slow moving, etc. I don't think saying you were prepping for a colonoscopy would be believable if you already looked like you had something done. Just a thought.