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It's my 14 week surgiversary!!! What!!! No flowers?

Got Vanilla and Chocolate Premier Protien, in the tubs, at Sam's. Ready to start my pre-op next week! 23 days to surgery!

My doggy is now back home in his cute little splint and cone. He is soo adorable and annoyingly smart. He figured out how to push the cone back so he can bite at the splint. He also is running on 3 legs but walks on all 4 (Except in the dirt lol). 

My stall is finally over. I moved 1 lb on the scale on Sunday. I finally moved. I have been bouncing between 203 - 205 lbs for the longest. I am finally 202 lbs. I think its over. I have been sticking to my Keto and meal prepping. I cannot believe that I look like this. I feel amazing. I look amazing and although I have a long way to go, I am soo proud of the progress that I have made. I am almost to my second goal of being under 200 lbs. I have made the decision that I want to bring in the New Year at 155 lbs. That is an average of 9 lbs over the next 5 months. I can handle that. I have already prepared my Keto weeks and the grocery lists. I just want to reach that third goal by the end of the year and I believe that I can. 

My ex-bf has been texting me and calling me a lot. Honestly, I really do miss the fool. I just do not want his insecurities destroying my progress. I am highly conflicted. I know he is a great person and I truly love him a lot. I just do not understand why he has any insecurities. The man workouts and is built. He is very handsome and extremely intelligent. As of now, he is being supportive. Sending me work out routines to try, new recipes and even went as far as to get me a class doing Aerial Silks (Something I have showed extreme interest in). I really need to have a one on one with myself regarding our relationship.

Hi. I am new here. 2 1/2 weeks out from surgery.

Hi, all!  In April 2017 I learned I needed a hip replacement but could not find a surgeon to help me.  My BMI is too high making the risk of infection too significant for anyone to consider the procedure.  So, after being obese the vast majority of my life, here I am.  Time to face the demons.   

One of my biggest concerns is failure.  My father and his sister both had gastric bypass surgery and both are larger now than before their procedures.  

I need to lose (and keep off) 85 lbs to qualify for hip surgery.  I've lost 24 of it so far, pre-op.  Ideally I'd like to eventually get below 200 lbs.

Surgery is scheduled for 8/7.  Today is day 4 of a two week clear liquid diet (which is much harder than expected).  

Three weeks post op. Down 18lbs as of this morning.

Hi everyone! I'm me and nervous. I just turned 60 years old. I think I'm officially grown up now. I'm young at heart, goofing around with my grandchildren all nine of them. I have had crohns disease since I was 19'years old. I still managed to make it through nursing school and more ask retired after 35 years. My husband and I have custody of three of our grandchildren after our son in law died and our daughter ran away. One of the things I would like to run by the members is my feeling of selfishness about having this gastric sleeve. I'm overweight, diabetes, hip replacement and crohns. I feel that if I didn't make it through surgery, it would absolutely devastate the grandkids again! I never thought I could even have a sleeve done due to having all of my colon and rectum removed. So, I have an ileostomy. I have a huge hernia at the site. I went to Duke University and the gastroenterologist suggested I have weight loss surgery because if he repairs the hernia, the weight will cause it to come back. I'm scheduled in three months. 

7/8 - Extremely healthy keto day. 

7/9 - Halo Top 1/2 Cup Chocolate Mocha Chip (I am in heaven!!). Healthy keto day. Weighed in at 208.4 lbs. Gained 1.4 lbs  

7/10 - Hung out at Coney Island with my Mom, little Brother and my dog Buddy aka Rasta Scoobs. At Nathans Philly Chicken with no bun. The guy gave me the nasty look when I ordered it. (It was like really, you are going to come here and want to eat healthy at Nathans?). With a nasty tone, he says, "It's going to be the same price and the same amount of meat." So in an even nastier tone, I said, "Did I ask about the amount of meat or the price? No. I asked for a Philly Chicken with No Bun. Thank you." He just placed my order and my brother says, "Don't be surprise if you find some special sauce or a hair floating around in it lol."

7/11 - Keto Day. Decided to step on the scale and weighed 205.4 lbs. I was like WTF!!! What is going on? At this point my weight is fluctuating up and down. I think I maybe starting stall soon and my body is warning me. It could also be water weight. 

7/12 - Another Keto Day. Went out to eat with my mom and brother and I was upset because I could have the Tacos of Bell. My mom keeps saying, "Oh you have your meal prep and you have been doing so good on your diet. Taco Bell is not good for you." I was like then why are you eating it. She says, "I'm grown and your mama. Do as I say and not as I do."  She is right but sooo annoying sometimes. 

7/13 - My day was healthy. Received two new Hidrate Spark bottles. Gave one to my mom and brother. They are in love and I set them up on their phones. 

Breakfast: 2 egg whites boiled with salt. 

Snack: 2 pickle slices

Lunch 1 - 2 : 2.1 oz of turkey with a tomatoes, a little cheese, romaine lettuce and my special dressing. (Broken up into 2 meals)

Snack: 21 olives. 

Dinner 1 - 2: 4 oz of ground beef, a little cheese, romaine lettuce, tomatoes, sour cream and salsa. (Broken up into 2 meals)

Hey, I think I found where people are putting their status updates!  Lol.. (Only took about 6 months...)  

Ok, so I'm 16 weeks post op today, and am 50% of the way to my conservative goal (42% of the way to my stretch goal).  I don't know if it's good, bad, or ugly.. but I feel great!

Well my weight loss is on vacation...lost 3lbs in the last couple weeks slow as molasses...and since I'm not eating anything (no appetite) it's really annoying. 

Less than a week to go.  Blood tests and ECG today.  I'm almost at the target weight that my surgeon doubted I'd make pre-op (It gets me below the cut off for an extra charge the hospital makes), I'll beat it easily before surgery day.  Feeling nerves for the first time.

Monday will be 7 weeks since my surgery. A lot has happened in this short amount of time, so much, that Sometimes I just shake my head in amazement. I have lost 46 pounds since January 1rst and 21 since surgery. I am down to a size 12 from a 14-16 in January, and I am so close to wearing a large top I can taste it...lol..

I am exercising almost daily and last week I started the C25K program. I never thought I would be running, but I absolutely love it! I have so much more energy now and I feel so much better about myself. The scale does not stress me out at all. It is just a number I record every week. I am much more confident in myself as I know I am eating right and moving my body.  

my dh and I are headed to D.C. Today to meet up with his brother and sister and nephew. They are in town for a few days and it is so close to us we couldn't miss this opportunity to spend a couple days with them. My husbands sister is a marathon runner so it will be nice to pick her brain about getting started with running. This will be the weekend getaway that we didn't get to have for our anniversary last month. 

Have a great weekend everyone😃

Happy Thursday! Nothing much to update on, I'm just writing to keep up the habit. I've been plugging away at food/protein/water goals. Going grocery shopping tomorrow, so next week I'll be (slowly) introducing new foods to my sleeve. I still feel a good amount of fatigue which currently is my biggest frustration. There are people who reported feeling their energy come back by now, and while I have had a steady increase, I still get fatigued pretty quickly. Fingers crossed that I'll turn a corner soon!

I have hit the dreaded stall. I had surgery on May 26th, so this is a little disheartening. Trying to remind myself that this is a part of the process. It's still frustrating though. (-_-) I have been bouncing been 1.5 lbs for the past week and a half. Just have to focus on getting my water and protein in and ignore the stall. Maybe I should just hide the scale?

So today while I was watching this female Asian longhorned beetle oviposite her egg I was thinking about the science behind WLS. How many experiments aka..clinical trials have been done, are still being done, and will be done in the future to help doctors figure out the complex mysteries of this disease we call obesity. It blows my mind to even try to think of all the variables involved in the design of these trials.

My research focuses on this beetle, a much simpler organism, and yet it can take days of thought and reading current published research to determine the variables that need to be considered and controlled during a planned experiment. Sometimes we even design pre-experiments just to figure out whether something is going to effect something else before we run the main experiment. All of this thinking has made me realize how little we really know. Why has my diabetes gone into remission after surgery? This surgery has done what following a low carb diet alone could not do, normalize my blood sugars minus any medications. I haven't had time to read all of the published literature on this subject, but I would like to.

My mind is trained to looked for patterns in data so of course this is the way I am approaching my journey after this surgery. I am logging everything I eat, drink, and my exercise. I will export the data to excel and graph it to see if I can figure out how my body works now in relation to theses things and weight loss.  I know for some people, maybe most, this is not something they would want to do. It may seem excessive and time consuming, but I hope to learn something that will be useful to me during the maintenance phase. 

I am increasingly more convinced that low carb is going to be the best diet for me to follow long term. I just don't see any reason to test the waters when I am doing so well right now. I have zero cravings for sugar, bread, rice, pasta... my energy levels are good, my bs are excellent, and I am losing weight.  These are my musings for today, 5 weeks post-op.

Just got approved by CIGNA!  My BMI is 40.6 and I don't have any major co-morbidities.  The approval from CIGNA after the surgeon's office submitted everything took one week.  

I want to scream...I am stuck at 260 lbs now for over a week almost two. I'd pull my hair out if I had any...LOL

I found a blog on Pinterest of a lady doing an arm workout. Showed her amazing results after three months.  12 min a day. I think I'll try this and do a before and after on it too.   

So after being back at the gym, I find myself loving it, but also thinking I could save my money to go towards a breast lift and workout at home/school track, etc instead.  I'm on the fence about it right now.  

Officially 7 days into pre-op dieting. July 6th is my official VSG date. Its Wednesday so I report my weight with my nutritionist and on the graph page with my user ID. Last Wednesday I said 295lb. When really I was 293.8, but likely for fear of not being successful at losing 15lbs by surgery date, I 'padded' my number..wait, wait, that was sugarcoated hey, ok, I lied because I was afraid of failure, there I said it.  My week has been a breeze, I feel like I'm running on motivation (while carrying a water bottle of course) Now keep in mind, I have been living off green vegetables, steak,chicken,shrimp,coffee,water,and when I cracked I had 5 potato chips. I barely notice the kitchen cupboards are even there anymore, because I know there's no snacks in them that I can have. I open the fridge and inside is my own shelf of what is allowed for me. I swear the entire shelf is green with the exception of the styrofoam carton of eggs on the edge. Yesterday there was a giant box of pizza on the shelf just below, and if it weren't for the smell of the hawaiian (I didn't even have to open the box to be able to tell the type, honest lol) I probably wouldn't have noticed it was there. Essentially, after a week, I'm kind of bored of food for now. Which in my opinion is exactly what I need prior to surgery. Oh, quick note. I have nocturnal epilepsy but I've been seizure free for like 8 or 9 years and take medication-so my concern with this pre-op diet was that it was going to effect me neurologically. I've been perfectly fine, I just make sure to eat proper foods at proper times. 

Now, onto my weigh-in day. I had a $15 scale for 9 years that was like it had been built by NASA, it was the most accurate thing I've ever owned. It broke during bathroom renovations 2 months ago and I was devastated. Some time later, we buy an expensive scale (haha it was like $30) and I can stand on it 5 times in a row and get 5 different numbers, in like a 9lb range, I **** you not. Okay I know its time to get a new one, as soon as my schedule permits. Today however, I need that number or my nutritionist will actually contact me. Deep breaths, I take my first step, 280.2. I step again, but close to the outside edges trying to trick it or something, 280.2. I stand close to the front, 280.2. Close to the back, 280.2. I move the scale to the other side of the bathroom, and stand on it backwards, move it to the hallway stand backwards again, stand on it crouching down, sideways,backwards;The number won't go away. I actually told myself walking into the bathroom that I needed 20 consistent numbers to be convinced (that shows how little faith I have in this scale)

Well, long story short, I'm convinced. 280.2 it is, and I'm not padding my number for once. It feels freeing. A brief idea went through my head as I stood there in my birthday suit, while processing the number that my toes pointed too, that I need to "maintain" this until surgery..that thought bubble immediately morphed into "eff that, I'm going to keep working" and being successful, because its the attitude I will need to have after surgery as well. I don't say this often enough, but GO ME!

Today is a good day, and I have a can of tuna with my name on it that needs eating...yay

Day 2 (pre op diet)

Why is the evening the hardest.....I am working m-friday 8-5pm and then get home and remote in and work 7-9 Mon-Sunday.  This week is a beast. I have gotten dizzy and the room started spinning. But I am just drinking water a ton and trying to , you guessed it remain positive. Sometime I plan on letting my husband read this, so I want to say sorry for snapping at you last night. I know I apologized in so many words but sheesh this is hard. Anyone who has had weight loss surgery clearly knows this is NOT the easy way out. 

I had gastric sleeve surgery in Mexico last July. I'm a bit disappointed that I've only lost 60lbs.

my one big big secret is I've done this all alone. Nobody knows, I mean nobody, not my husband, sister, anyone. You may be asking how did I do it. I told my family I could not come up to our cottage for a week. I booked the flight to Mexico and it all got done in a week. I can't tell my husband as he would divorce me. So this is the first time telling this story, hoping to get support from other sleepers.

I'm a week post op today and I've been walking as much as I can tolerate. I thought I was doing well until I looked at my step count and saw I'm getting 2-3k steps per day. I tried to go out to the park for a walk today and really enjoyed it since the weather is beautiful, and this was the first time I've been outside walking since surgery. Well.. I stayed out too long and didn't have enough steam to get me back home. My large incision was extremely painful and I almost passed going up my stairs   

So I guess my lesson for today is to listen to your body. Right now, I feel challenged at 2k steps per day and I suppose I need to lay off the pressure to do more until I'm better healed. I feel like my activity tolerance should be higher, but I'm not going to push it.

I am 3 weeks post op yesterday for the Sleeve. At my 2 week check up, I had lost 23 lbs. I honestly didn't think I was going to make it through the first 2 weeks. Physically, I was making it through with flying colors !!! No issues, no problems, no pain.. nothing. I stopped the pain medicine the day after I arrived home and just took Tylenol. I am thankful that my surgery went so well.   I felt so good and as if nothing had happened ( and I also had a hernia repair at the same time) ........  BUT....the liquid diet after was horrific for me. I didn't feel full, I just stayed starving and hungry the entire time. It did an emotional number on me. I had Mothers Day to celebrate and fathers birthday to celebrate with a family of eaters. We go "out to eat" for everything !!! A trip to the store for goodness sake, they get something to eat. Yes, you can always bring your own soup... but for me... sitting at that table while t he appetizers and food and deserts are flowing was absolutely HORRIBLE. I just couldn't do it. I would often excuse myself and walk outside or keep taking trips to the bathroom just so I could be away from the table and the food or go sit in my car and cry.

Now, I am 3 weeks post op and I have learned that I don't go. I summoned the courage to tell my family " This is just too hard". I will return with them at the table when I can handle it ... and every day is getting easier... So, when my family gets together on the weekends or evenings for shopping or the zoo, or visiting antique stores ( family hobby)... I ask ahead of time if they will be stopping to eat.. If they do, I take my own car and head home at that point.

I guess my point to this is that no one thing works for everyone. You need to figure out what works and what doesn't work for you. We have diet guidelines but we don't have life guidelines. We have to figure out how to get along in this world after wls  and that isn't always easy. But, if we keep our eye on our goals and realize why we are doing this in the first place, we can make it. This is a journey. We didn't have all the answers before and we won't have them now...But with support and courage, we can find them.

5/20 - Ate the eggplant ricotta bake. I had that foamy feeling in my mouth and the rumbles. I guest eggplant does not sit well in my tummy. Went to the Taco placed and got a naked chicken burrito. I tried their new kind of chicken (FYI The guy failed to inform me that it was chipotle spicy chicken. Oh it tasted delicious. 5 minutes later I was puking up foam. I ended up spending my lunch break laid on the floor in the back of the office curled up in the fetal position. So spicy food does not love me anymore .

5/21 - Did not have any meal prep because the eggplant would not sit well in my tummy. The left over Halal chicken that I had, I spilled pulling it out of the my lunch box (Damn Portion8 container lol) I ended up getting a chicken Salad from the Turkish place downstairs. It was an interesting taste. It was sweet. Felt very disappointed after I weighed in. I only lost 4 oz for that week. I had worked out really hard. I did however notice that my stomach is getting smaller. I might have just lost inches and gained muscle. Lost 8.8 lbs during my second month post-op. Current 220.6 lbs

5/22 - Wanted to get a Protein Drink from Vitamin Shoppe. Ended up getting some Atkins Granola bars. DO NOT BUT THEM. They are delicious, high in protein but have 17g of carbs in one bar but they advertised it at NET Carbs 3g. SNEAKY SNEAKY. I ate two of them and then realized it. They also are 210 calories each. It works because I will be full off of one for 2+ hours however 420 calories on just two bars is a lot. Now I have to be really mindful of what I am reading. When I see low carbs I have to check to see if it says NET (they do some type of convoluted math to get to that low number). Went to the gym before work and the trainer really kicked my butt. I am sore but loving it. Today, we focused on Cardio. Tomorrow he said will be weight lifting. Wish me luck!!! Oh dinner and lunch consist of grilled chicken breast and a dipping sauce that I made (1/4 cup fire roasted tomato sauce and 1/2 tsp of ricotta). Watermelon on the side for snacks. 

Hey everyone i had my vsg on 1 may and in the initial first week i have lost 10kg but now my weight is stuck. Its showing same scale everyday moreover i started feeling hungry now a days no doubt i cant eat to a large portion as i did before bt m on puree diet bt still feel hungry anyone having same problem plz help bcoz this is demoralizing me