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Hey thanks, yeah I am trying very hard to stick with it by making semi normal food at night. This is how I will eat going forward, maybe not as big a portion, but right now getting about 8-900 cals per day, figure that will be good for weight loss going forward. Your Pickle salad sounds interesting 😁 Funny how we obsess about one thing!!

How old are you and do you have any medical issues. I am nearly 70 and my year is up in March. I count the 7 months before my surgery because I lost 60 pounds during that time. So we are simular in we might loss. I am down 140 pounds total. I have a bad knee. I have been walking a little, and I mean a little. I have started Tai chi. It says weight loss if you do an hour but I am up to 30 min. We all have different problems that may slow us down. Do something and do something you enjoy.

I would suggest you do some more research into which surgery to get. There are pros and cons to each. Many people choose the sleeve over gastric bypass because it has a lower risk of dumping syndrome, vitamin deficiencies, and ulcers. Most doctors want to do what’s best for the patient, so they should be able to explain why they recommend the sleeve for you. Do you know how many calories you are eating? Have you tried measuring and tracking your food? At your height and weight, you are eating approximately 2500 calories per day, and you will need to eat less to lose weight. Either surgery works as a tool to help you eat less, which is how you lose the weight.

Happy birthday to me! My 64th and one year until retirement! The email from this forum reminded me I haven't been here in awhile. I was 275 when I had my lap band back in May of 2009. I got down to my goal weight of 195 by the end of that year. A few times I've slipped back and went close to 240. The band, which I guess they don't do anymore, has been a great tool, but diet and exercise sure played a big part. In 2011 I ran my first of 7 marathons, had to give that up after back surgery in 2014 and I've taken to cycling, which almost killed me in 2020. (But hey the lady that hit me ended up buying me a new camper to use in retirement :) ) I definitely learned I was a stress eater and just knowing that helped. In 2020 because of covid my work moved to home, and I've been in my basement most of the last 3 years. Not going out to lunch everyday helped and adding 1-2 hours back to my day I was able to get out more. Today on my 64th, 14 years after the surgery I'm still at my goal weight of 195, but over the winters I've snuck up to 205-210 a couple of times, but hoping in retirement (huge stress relief) I can get outside and do things to keep me away from food and snack more often. Just came back from a busy one week vacation where I lost 5 pounds because we were out doing things!

An interesting article about “Fat Memory” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-024-03614-9 Key points: •Fat cells have a ‘memory’ of obesity hinting at why it’s hard to keep weight off. •Long-lasting changes to the cells’ epigenome are linked to a decline in their function. •For fat cells, the shift in gene activity seems to render them incapable of their normal function. •Even weight-loss surgery did not budge that pattern. •The research is ongoing as “It’s not yet a causal link, It’s correlation. … We’re working on this.”

Are you in the UK? I am and I was told that the NHS doesn't do any cosmetic surgery after weight loss unless it's causing a health problem. I really hope that they can do something for you if you want.

If you want to try collagen supplementation, you certainly can, though the scientific evidence is a bit of a mixed bag. Some studies seem to show benefit, but I think we have to keep in mind this condition is also a temporary issue brought on by the stress and dietary deficiencies you went through. In short, it's going to resolve by itself over time and thus it's really hard to know if the collagen is actually doing anything. IMO, the best possible thing you can do for your health, for your hair loss, as well as to speed your weight loss would be to really double down on dietary protein intake and not supplements. For those about to jump in and mention that collagen IS protein, yes that's true, but it does not contain all the essential amino acids. As such, you really should not count it toward your daily protein intake. Plus, a capsule isn't going to contain very much protein anyway. I'd guess less than a gram per capsule, though I suspect it might vary based on the source and size of the capsule itself.

This is a toughest part of the surgery . No person in the world [or so it seems] has the same pre op diet as you, so its difficult to equate. Some have dieted before hand and some like me had lots of food funerals. I did mine for 3 weeks and lost 15 pounds. You are going well. Call your team if you have been in a stall longer than you think you should. Doing this process you will get lots of baffling losses and plateaus. Its just your body wondering why you are not feeding it the same as before. It took me 2 years to loose my weight, be patient . Stick rigidly to your teams regimen. Your liver will tell them if you have cheated or not. They won't operate if your liver is fatty. It makes it fragile to move away from the surgery site.

I completely understand what you mean about the surreal feeling and the challenges of adapting mentally to the changes in our bodies. It's so interesting (and inspiring) to hear about your experience of seeing food as fuel and learning to listen to your new stomach – that’s something I’m working on too. It’s definitely a process to shift those old habits and ways of thinking about food! I also resonate with the struggle of recognizing our new size. It’s such a strange feeling to realize that clothes we never thought would fit actually do now. It’s a learning curve both physically and mentally, but it sounds like you’re handling it with such grace and determination. Wishing you all the best with your gym journey – muscle gain definitely changes the scale numbers, but it’s amazing to see your strength and confidence grow! Thank you again for sharing your story – it’s so motivating for me. 💕

I actually did tell my GP it was actually his idea. I am 440 pounds and was 435 ish when he recommended the gastric sleeve surgery. He did make my next evaluation in Janurary because he's expecting my weight loss surgeon to do the surgery sometime in November if I pass my evaluation. I'm all the way ready and just have the evaluation left to do hopefully all goes well this afternoon! Still a little nervous but I'm feeling MUCH better than i was several days ago. But anyway my GP did mention that if i got the surgery in November that I'd need to get labs done for Janurary. So I'm assuming he's going to adjust my meds then and my psychiatrist knows I'm getting surgery too although I told him I was getting it done in Spring because that was the plan then. I moved it back to November because my GP recommended i do so. I'm still gaining weight so he wants me to have the surgery as soon as possible.

I am doing a trial session of hypoxi (https://www.hypoxi.com/en/) on Saturday as I am hoping it will help with the bad lipoedema in my calves and ankles which I feel kind of takes away from all the weight loss and how well I have done over the last almost two years as I still can't wear anything that does not cover it all up as I am so self conscious about and it depresses me a bit as I can't see that I will ever reach my dream of being able to wear calf high boots. I haven't been given a price list yet, as Saturday is a trial, but I am sure it will be very costly so don't want to get sucked into a gimmick and I was wondering if anyone else has done sessions to help with toning (not necessarily lipoedema related) and if you have any feedback? The one immediate good thing I can see from what I have read is that I won't have a problem following their nutrition guidelines which is not to have high fat or high carb foods a couple of hours before a session and or for a few hours after a session.

further to the above, given your lifting regimen, i wouldn't rely too much on the number on the scale vs your body measurements. you look like you gained quite a bit of muscle mass over the past few months (and will likely create more!) and we all know muscle is denser than fat so.... along with scale weight, i personally go by how my clothes fit...so long as i don't have to buy bigger clothes, im good, ha! (although my tshirts seem tighter these days, but i know its because my back and shoulders are getting bigger...not sure yet how i feel about that...lol)

I agree with @DaisyChainOz. There's probably a lot going into his feelings and communication is really important. As a man, I do also understand that some men (me included), just are not good at talking about our feelings. It's partly that we've been conditioned over a lifetime that feelings make us weak and thus we are "lesser" because of it. Also, we've just never learned how to express our feelings, nor to really understand them at all. It's not that we don't have feelings, we just don't really understand them in a way that can be expressed. I tell you all this so you can be patient with your husband. It may take some time for him to share what he's really feeling. The best thing to do is just be supportive and make sure he understands it's okay to share what he's thinking instead of what he's feeling. "Feeling" can be a trigger word for some men. One thing that may (or may not), help the discussion is understanding the risks involved. Again. I don't know what's going on in his head, but if he is fearful of change, or the risks of you having surgery, it's important to help him understand that by far, the riskier thing is NOT having the surgery. I don't know your age or current weight, but I'm assuming you are pretty heavy and likely older just based on the need for a hip replacement and the fact that your orthopedic surgeon won't do the surgery at your current weight. If you are in what's termed "Class III obesity" (in other words, you have a BMI over 40), that alone shortens your life expectancy by 10 to 14 YEARS. I think it's important for both of you to understand this. If he truly loves you, then he should want you to stick around longer.

Yes to your first question. I only lost like 60 to 70 lbs. My surgeon staff only wants me on a 800 calorie diet loss weight. Except low cLorie sweet tea I don't eat much food let alone it's hard to eat anything when most foods have above 200 hundred calories.

Yeah. I'm big boned anyway so I'm supposed to be a little overweight. I'd rather set a realistic goal and succeed than try to get down to the weight I'm "supposed" to be and fail and get discouraged. Besides a weight loss of nearly 150 pounds is still a pretty significant weight loss it's losing an entire person worth of body weight.

If like me you may have Lived In an obese body for the majority of your life and to finally be of normal weight I know is freeing. Winning!

So if I'm understanding your post correctly, you've been eating 1200-1400 kcal per day yet your weight has been stable at ~215 pounds. This either means: Your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is also around 1200-1400 calories per day, OR You're eating a lot more calories than you think. Let's explore each of these in more detail. Based on your height and weight, your TDEE should probably be 1800 to 2200 calories per day. Just your BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate (the number of calories your body burns per day just to keep you alive), should be ~1500-1800 calories per day. There are lots of reasons this could be lower, but for your TDEE to be 1300, you'd have to have a BMR in the neighborhood of ~900 calories per day or as much as HALF of what we'd expect. This would be exceptionally low considering your size. BMRs that low tend to only be seen in elderly frail women. To be clear, without having a metabolic test, we can't know for sure, but this does seem unlikely. A more logical reason for this discrepancy is that you're actually eating a lot more than you think. Calorie overestimation is extremely common (unlike extremely low BMRs), thus I lean toward this as an explanation. I have seen some suggestions stating that the magnitude of this may be as high as 40-50% underestimated. In other words, someone could think they're eating 1500 calories, but they are actually eating 2200+. So where do people go wrong? Misreading/misunderstanding nutrition labels. It's not uncommon for people to confuse a serving with a container of food. Sometimes, manufacturers will list a serving of something, but what you're actually eating may be 2 or more servings. Accepting as fact the calorie counts on nutrition labels. In the US, calorie counts on nutrition labels can be off by as much as 10% before manufacturers would be expected to adjust the calorie count. Keep in mind, though that manufacturers are self policing here and really don't have a lot on incentive to make sure these are correct. Many people simply guess at serving sizes, especially if it's a meal they made themselves. This can lead to wildly inaccurate calorie counts Also very common when they are making meals themselves is to just look up a calorie count for a similar food, but this also can be really inaccurate. Lots of people guess at amounts, thus you may think you're getting say 1 cup of a food, when it's actually 1.5 cups. Speaking of measuring by cups, this also is wildly inaccurate. To properly measure calories, you really need to weigh EVERYTHING you eat IN GRAMS. Any other method just isn't very accurate. I also wanted to touch briefly on your comment on exercise. While I think it's great that you're exercising, this really has nothing to do with weight loss. Lot;s of studies show that increasing energy expenditure through lower levels of exercise like you're getting typically leads to lowering your energy expenditure elsewhere throughout the day. This means you really have no increased calories burned and shouldn't think this means it's okay to eat more as a result.

My advice is to make changes to your diet and exercise in the next few months that you feel you can maintain for the rest of your life, as opposed to trying a fad diet (Keto, paleo, etc.) that is likely to be too extreme. Focus on basics like reducing your simple carbs and sugars, increasing your lean protein and veggies. Start measuring your portions to make sure you are not eating more than you think. Start getting your 64oz or more of water every day and cut out any sugar-sweetened drinks that you might drink (and also alcohol) because it's just empty calories. Walking and light weights are really great, but remember that about 80% of your weight loss comes from your diet, and only 20% from exercise, so don't feel like you have to go crazy with joining a gym and working out, especially if you're starting from sedentary. Regular walking every day does amazing things. At this stage, small changes can make a big difference. One thing I did right away was go through my cupboards and get rid of temptations. I stopped buying crackers, pretzels, cookies, and sweets. I would still have a treat when I was out, but I would try not to bring it home. Since I work from home, not having things in the cupboards to tempt me was a huge help. I was not required to lose weight before my surgery, but by making these little changes, plus the strict 2-week liquid diet, I ended up going from 251 lbs to 225 lbs in about 6 months. You can do it!

First of all, congrats on your amazing progress! 🎉🎉 You're doing incredible, and hitting 6 months with such a huge loss is definitely something to celebrate! About your BMI question, BMI is always calculated based on current height and weight, not your tallest height. While bones do have weight, the difference from losing an inch in height isn’t usually significant enough to impact BMI drastically. So, if you’ve shrunk, your BMI would be based on your new height. That being said, BMI is just a tool—it doesn’t account for muscle, bone density, or body composition, so don’t stress too much about the exact number! I can totally relate to the excitement (and overanalyzing) as I’m coming up on my 6-month “surgiversary” on February 14th! ❤️ I started at 109.5 kg (241.5 lbs) and now I’m 84.2 kg (185.7 lbs)—which means I’ve lost 25.3 kg (55.8 lbs) so far. Like you, I feel great, but seeing these milestones makes me reflect on the numbers too. It’s such a wild ride! You're so close to a “normal” BMI—27.3 is amazing! Keep going, and I have no doubt you’ll get there soon. Let’s celebrate our progress and keep pushing forward! 🎉💪✨

I have been on Wegovy for 6 months and have been on the highest dose for a month now. I have not had any side effects that I can tell, but I also haven't had any effects at all. No weight loss, food noise is still there and don't notice that I get full faster or less hungry. I asked my Dr about switching to Zepbound but my insurance won't cover it. Anybody else have this medication not do anything?

Hey thanks for sharing with us. I just had my surgery the 14th of Feb, so I know I will have a lot of loose skin in my future. I myself just started back to work after being disabled for 2 years due to mental health and my weight. So it's a major non scale victory. It's also a field I have been wanting to get into, and they were god about finding me a client that would fit my needs. How do you like the gym classes? I am going to start hitting the pool at the YMCA for low impact workouts and build myself back into gym shape. I love the bikes too! I want to get one to ride with my bf around the neighborhood, i think it'll be a fun time. Hope you have an awesome day!

You are killing it! Your point about calories is really on point as well. I recommend any bariatric surgery patient read up on Relative Energy Deficiency in Sport (RED-S). The simple explanation is that if you work out a lot, you need to eat more. If you don't, then you are a lot more likely to start having a hard time with things like fatigue, various injuries, getting sick a lot, lack of concentration and depression. At its worst, you can get really sick, leading to heart issues and worse. My personal experience is that women tend to struggle with this more, though anyone can be impacted. Some people here might think it doesn't affect them because they don't consider themselves athletes, but if you are working out multiple days a week, it is a risk, especially considering how hard it can be for us to get more calories in. Over time, you'll hopefully learn where your personal limits are. For example, I've found that right now I can maintain my weight reasonably well up to about 30 miles a week, but beyond that I lose weight whether I want to or not.

Thank you for your kind words. I think I am going to be the same with the moving goal. I was actually tiny my whole life and didn’t start gaining until around age 25. I was a size one when I met my husband so I would love to get back there but I am not nearly as active now even when I exercise like mad. My hobbies have changed from very active ones to sedentary ones so formal exercise is my primary form of activity. I just want to feel good at this point and if I get to a size medium I will be happy enough. I won’t just stop there though unless my body wants to. Building muscle is going to be my next big challenge. I wish you the best of luck in your goals with that. I am thinking that at some point I am going to have to get a personal trainer for the muscle building since that is something I have never even tried. Hopefully next year I will be In a place that I can start working on that. Maybe insurance will cover it since I will need help to do it safely after my surgery 🤔 I need to ask about that.

Lol it feels wonderful! Thank you! You've made your goal weight and then some, definitely reason to feel proud and to celebrate! Great job!

I'm not sure where you found the 50% body weight number, but I had my 6-month appointment with my surgeon today and was told that losing 20% of your starting weight and keeping it off is the definition of "success" from a medical perspective. So, if you started at 252, that would be a 50 lb loss. Prior to gaining weight, you were at 65lbs lost, making your initial results within the successful range and if you are currently at 205, you're just slightly out of that range for longterm success. I think you may have confused the percentages of "body weight" and "excess body weight." To determine your excess body weight for a woman, you start with 100 lbs and add 5 lbs for each inch over 5 feet tall. So for you, that would be 120 lbs. (That's not a goal weight, but rather an "ideal" for a person your height who has never been overweight.) You would then subtract that from your starting weight, giving you 132 lbs of "excess" body weight. 50% of that is 66 lbs, which is essentially what you lost after surgery. Current research is showing that gastric sleeve surgery is not as durable for weight loss for some people. The Pound of Cure podcast has a lot of episodes that address this (you can find it on Youtube). It's certainly worth talking to your doctor about your options, which may include revision or GLP-1 medications. You'll want to find out your insurance coverage options, too. Of course, the first thing you'll want to do is make sure you are following your nutrition plan and exercise guidelines and cutting out bad habits to see if that helps you reverse some of the gain. If you haven't had a physical lately, definitely go in for that as any number of things can crop up, especially during perimenopause, that can cause weight gain. Wishing you luck! I'm 50 and I'm definitely nervous about reaching my goals and keeping the weight off at this age.