Stacy160

Totally normal! Your body's putting a LOT of energy into healing right now, getting used to a huge drop in calories, and trying to figure out why it's losing so much weight so quickly (which will cause the stall that's coming, so don't freak out about that when it happens!).

Shouldn't be an issue at all, you'll be able to take pills just like always.

Doing great... in that last set of side-by-sides, you look like your own daughter!!

But to get back to the topic at hand lol... I had 5 scars as well...4 tiny portals and one main one above the belly button, which was about an inch and a half long when new, and is now half that. The others I have to search for to find, even knowing about where they are.

Seahawks Fan.... Ignore my caffeine-deprived self this morning, as well as the message I just sent you. NOW I see where you said those pics were from a week after and it's going away. *bonk*

Woooohooooo, nice work!! (ps....bet it'd feel great to drop that first word from your name now! )

Did I read that right? You started at 316? Holy cow, great job, and my gosh you are gorgeous!

I think it's fantastic that you're looking into doing this now. Taking the bull by the horns, attacking your medical issues now, rather than 20 miserable years down the road. Your BMI might not place you square in the morbidly obese range, but with your comorbidities, I'd say you stand a great chance of getting your insurance to cover it. You may have to fight and appeal, but it'll be worth it. Good luck!

Oh my gosh, that's a huge difference...you're doing great!! Our bodies like to maintain this thing called Homeostasis, where everything's just running along smoothly as it should, and big changes like quick weight loss can trip your body up and make it go "whoa, wait a minute, what's happening here??" Your body many just be (temporarily) holding on to a little excess water in an attempt to control that big, fast change. In the meantime, you almost have to be burning and losing fat. When your body realizes everything's normal and okay, it'll let go of that extra fluid and you'll see things moving along again. Don't lose hope, you'll get there!

15 lbs my first month, but I was 44, entering menopause, and just barely into the morbidly obese range. Biggest loss from high weight to low weight was 92 lbs, which lasted about a day and half lol... my stable loss was 86 lbs. My son on the other hand, being male, 26 at the time of his surgery, and way into the morbidly obese range....he lost 30 lbs his first month, never stalled, and is maintaining a 195-lb loss two years out. It'll be more than that when he gets the skin taken care of (he's too skinny now, at 6'4" and 190 lbs).

YAY for you, isn't it awesome to see that new number on the scale!?

Everything everyone said above! How awesome that you're making this effort. My husband has always been very supportive of my decision and respectful of how I eat, even the thousands of times I've slipped up, but after eight years, he still doesn't know the difference between fats, carbs, and proteins. The best thing you can do is educate yourself about everything she'll be dealing with so you can understand why she doesn't want to eat the lovely breaded, frozen fish sticks (but it's meat!) and french fries (it's a vegetable!) you made for dinner LOL. Yep, her emotions may be all over the map...our fat stores a ton of hormones, so when the fat burns off, those hormones are released. BUT one possible bonus for the both of you is that many, many people have stated that all those fun new hormones also make them way more, ummm...amorous? So there's something to hope for as well! Good luck to you both!

Also, maybe a little less protein, a little more fat? Excess protein will be converted to glucose (carbs) and can slow you down. Give your body more of its preferred energy source in the way of healthy fats...coconut oil, MCT oil, etc...even if it means adding a couple hundred more calories a day. Can't hurt to try it for a couple weeks and wee what happens!

Ohhh, gotcha. OK, thanks!

Hi! Hopefully I'm not asking something that's already been addressed... I'm just returning after a long absence and looked, but didn't see anything. The description of the group here says it's a Secret group, which would mean that nobody who's not in the group would see that you'd even joined. On Facebook, it says it's a Closed group, which means joining might show in other peoples' tickers and on your profile in your Groups. I don't advertise that I've had surgery and certainly don't want to broadcast it to the world LOL.... I really want to join it but not if it means everyone I know will know. Was it meant to be a Secret group instead of Closed?

That stuff is the devil...and as it's for appetite control, why would you need that with your sleeve? The close you are to goal, the slower the weight's going to come off. Just do like everyone else suggests and go back to basics, be very strict, avoid slider foods (even healthy ones) and you'll get there.

Hi, all Big Guys!! First the canned answer; Everybody has those fears going into this. Your very best best is to plan on sticking to your weight loss plan until you are AT goal....after that, most people seem to find that eating their "new" way 90% of the time lets them have the occasional indulgence a couple of times a week, and allows them to maintain and not feel deprived. There's nothing that you'll never, ever be able to have again...those things just won't be part of your daily lifestyle. And anything carbonated is going to be very difficult for a long time. I would say this though....if you think you have a "sweet tooth" now, there's a great chance you have a full-blown sugar addiction. That's something I never heard of until after my surgery, but it's a real, scientifically proven thing. So that's a sneaky, slippery slope to watch VERY closely for. Now, the answer from my son's perspective: At 6'4" and a high weight of somewhere around 380-385, having been a Big Guy since 3rd grade, he had his VSG 2 1/2 years ago. He followed the rules closely and lost very quickly...maybe too quickly, because he lost a crap-ton of his muscle and strength, too. Had a difficult time for the first few months getting enough protein in. But the end result is that at age 29, he now weighs around 190 with all of his skin still there....probably be about 180 without it. Too skinny when you're 6'4" and can wear a size 32 jeans (but wears a 34 because of the skin)....BUT, now that leaves him with the opportunity to build back up from there, the way HE wants to.... Where was I going with this?....Oh yeah, I think it was more of a cheerleading thing LOL... just know that you're in for the most exciting ride of your life, you have SO much to look forward to, and refer back to paragraph I, keep all that in mind, and you'll see huge success. And good luck!!

I had my protein-y stuff all day, then my real food for the game was my hubby's frito taco salad, MINUS the fritos and western dressing, although I did throw a little taco sauce on the top. Knowing I'd be coveting and then obsessing over whatever sweet stuff he had, I experimented and made myself some sugar-free coconut haystacks. I figured that little rectanglular piece of unsweetened baking chocolate wouldn't make a whole ton of them...HAH!! By the time I added enough coconut oil, milk, and sweetener to it, it took the WHOLE bag of unsweetened shredded coconut mixed in to get the right co!nsistency, so I ended up with a crapton of them...plenty to store away for some other time! Good thing is they were filling....bad thing is that even with no sugar, they're definitely not low-calorie! But at least they kept me from blowing it on sugary garbage and triggering a massive sugar meltdown.

Looks like our new insurance plan this year will be HAP. They do cover WLS, but I don't yet know if OUR plan includes it. Has anyone had HAP cover this, and if so, what hoops did you have to jump though to get it done? Thanks!

Hi. 30 lbs. in less than three months is excellent for a lightweight! Sure, if you'd started out at over 300 lbs. you'd have lost more (numbers-wise) than starting at just over 200 lbs... but I'm betting on a PERCENTAGE basis, you're right there where you should be. I hate to say age could be a factor, but it could. I went into obvious peri-menopause right after surgery (was 44 then, I'm 46 now) and it gets harder and harder to get these last pounds off--not sure if the ever-decreasing hormones have anything to do with it or not, but I have the feeling that if I'd done this 15-20 years ago I'd be about a size 4 right now instead of a 10! Anyway, just keep plugging along at it, doing it right, and the weight will come off. Don't let the old habits creep back while the sleeve's still doing the work for you. Know that stills do happen, you can't prevent them, and it's just your body holding onto excess Fluid because it's confused about what's happening to it. You'll get there, I promise!

When not only do you approach push-mowing the lawn with enthusiasm, you throw on last year's sneakers to do it and just can't lace them up tight enough and they're still sloppy on your new, cute little feet.

If you can afford the carbs, or you want a little treat, try sprinkling some Brown Sugar Splenda on fresh pineapple slices and grilling it.... omg, it's amazing.

I have super-curly hair, and the last couple of times I've grown out from short to long, in that horrible in-between stage where I can't do anything with it (cause it's also super-thick so it gets REAL big and bushy), as soon as I could squeeze it all back into a pony tail, even if it meant using a band to keep the shorter front and sides in, I'd use a curly, clip-on longer ponytail that I got at Sally's. It's the claw-type of clip, and just squeezes right around the base of your own ponytail and works great! At that time, they had a shorter, curlier one and a longer, looser-curled one.

Nope! Just carbs, calories, and protein.

You spend and entire 2 1/2 mile run holding up one side of your pants or another, because by the time you realized hey were gonna shake right off your butt, it was too late to turn around and go back home.