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How I got to this number is a little silly actually. I weighed 125 when I was 25 years old, in my mind it was the last time I was happy with my body and weight. I am completely aware I am 51 years old now and its silly to compare BUT that mind is an evil thing sometimes. I am very competitive and I am not a gracious loser and I feel like this is a battle against my will. Anyway, I am just going to keep doing what I am comfortable doing and what I know is sustainable and deal with my demons in my brain! Thank you everyone,

The only real way is to have a body fat scan. My first go round at loosing weight with diet and exercise I lost 140 lbs and rushed into skin removal. I had a TON, it hung so low. If I laid it flat it was almost 11 inches! Long story short, it was only 7 lbs when it was removed..bummer.

Good morning from sunny SoCal! I'm now 4 days post-op. Yesterday was the first day the surgeon wanted me on 'cloudy liquids' (pureed soups + protein supplements), and I did really well with that. I measured out the soup and shakes and made them last almost a half hour. The Baritastic app says I got 61g of protein (close to target... very good for a first day on shakes though, eh?) and 483 calories. Movement was really good as well. I have a repeating timer that goes off every 30m to remind me to get up and move for a couple mins. Doesn't feel like much at the time, but by the end of the day, 4m/h times 16h is just over an hour of total movement. I feel good when I do it. One day when I lose more weight and my knee and back pain go down, I'll be able to go on significant walks again, but baby steps. My low weight of the year was 369.9 the morning before surgery, and I've been in the 370s since then because I'm puffy and gassy still, but I trust I'll see the 360s again soon. So many vitamins and new BP meds to coordinate that I ordered a cute pill organizer from Amazon that will be here next week. Right now they bottles are all in a single bag, so it's a lot of rifling through to find things.

This might be a silly question, but how can I tell if my saggy tummy is loose skin or fat? I'm 20 lbs away from my Ideal Body Weight (lost 73% of EBW), and I'm trying to figure out how much of that is loose skin vs. fat. When I pinch my saggy tummy, I don't feel a lot of subcutaneous fat. I'm a 50 year old man.

I never lost my hunger either. Only the first 2 weeks or so because of the recovery. I always got hunger signals after 2 weeks or so. And I am actually grateful for the signals since I usually eat only when I get those signals. It felt natural and appropriate for me to follow my physical hunger cues than otherwise. One should definitely not rely on not being hungry to lose weight. Yes it helps many who don't get those cues. But many of us will have physical hunger. Long term success is training your head around the new life style. Trust me, being diligent will help you stay on track in the long run. I wish you all the best.

I too had my VSG on Aug 17th. I’m 5’2 and my start weight was 230. Now 9 days post op and 16 days on liquids, I’m down 24 lbs already. This is crazy

totally get this fear… lots of alcoholism in my family. i have always been cautious with alcohol because of that but realized and that my weight came from using food to mask sadness, depression and anxiety… just another addiction! so important to do the emotional work. half the battle is acknowledging it… great for you in getting a therapist to help you work it out.

Everyone is different, but this is my experience. I was given meds before surgery to help with after. Immediately after surgery I had gas pain, as expected. It was notable, but manageable and it disappeared quickly. In the hospital they gave me a muscle relaxer (made me sleepy), medicine for nerve pain (had that for three days post release), and Tylenol. I also woke up from surgery with a binder on. I was walking and moving pretty easily that day, I was sore… but honestly once the gas pain dissipated, it was really manageable. I was there over night, and walking pretty normally by discharge. I’d say I mostly had discomfort - certainly pain if I moved around to quickly (bend or reach) but it was not sustained. I also used heat packs in the hospital and shortly after - and ice packs on my incision where my stomach came out and over areas of the nerve pain. Today I’m 10 days out… I still experience some mild nerve pain (but not bad at all). Of my 5 incisions, only the one where the removal was is at all tender around the incisions area - but that’s more of an intense bruise feeling. I still wear my binder as it helps keep the skin pulling but I carry a lot of my weight in my abdomen. I take Tylenol occasionally - but really needed all the time.

Thank you for sharing that. I am 67 and this is my first weight (and I hope last) Bariatric surgery. Good luck with your next procedure and don't give up!

Congratulations on your surgery! You are now one of use (those wearing a sleeve no matter what)! I had a sleeve done in 2014. Unfortunately, I gained all my weight back and added to it! I’m not sharing that to discourage you or something I am proud of. But, I too have been results oriented my entire life. I have been an expert at loosing weight fast! If I could make one suggestion it would be to follow the prescribed food plan and focus on your journey! Losing the weight will happen naturally and you will have developed the tools and habits for the weight to be gone forever! I am beginning the next step of my journey: a SADI-S procedure. I am 61 and I will never give-up trying!

Agree totally with @The Greater Fool. The number on the scale is less than important than how you feel. Happy & healthy should be the real goal. Can you drop below your set point & lose more? Sure. But it will require you to reduce your calories & up your activity. And when you get to that lower weight you will have to continue to consume fewer calories than you do now & do more physically.. It will be a constant battle because your body is most happy at its set point & will do all it can to keep you at that weight. Only you know if that battle is sustainable. Don’t forget, if you are going to have skin removal surgery, you will lose another couple of pounds so you may be closer to the lower weight you want to be at than you think anyway. Maybe the question is why you’ve selected that weight as your goal? An arbitrary number? A number chosen for an emotional reason? Because someone said it was the right number for you? Even science gives you ranges in all things which indicate how healthy you are (body fat, cholesterol, BMI - agree with it or not -, sugar, blood pressure, etc.). How wonderful you were able to donate your kidney to your daughter. Just think this wouldn’t have been a possibility before your surgery. And it’s fantastic your daughter is doing so well now. Hope your husband continues to be successful with his weight loss too. Congratulations on the weight you have lost.

Aaah boob rash. Never had boob rash but had plenty of upper inner thigh rash. If you don’t live somewhere with hideous summer temperatures you can’t understand the irritation that is these rashes. Try to keep the area dry - gently pat the area dry throughout the day as needed. Try using a barrier cream as well as the steroid cream. Avoid synthetic materials as they make you perspire more. And pray for cooler weather. Congrats on your weight loss so far. Just think, this may be the last summer you ever experience boob rash again. Woo hoo!

I was pretty hungry during the liquid diet phase and was initially pretty disappointed, like you, that I hadn't "lost" the hunger like many people report. Like, you, I didn't do a pre-op liquid diet, because my surgeon doesn't require or recommend it. Now I'm on pureed food and doing better. I do still get hungry if I eat too little. Like yesterday, I had one scrambled egg for breakfast and felt fine, but today I had only half a boiled egg, mashed (leftover from the previous day's lunch) and felt hungry afterwards. You are losing weight, even if it may not be as fast as you wish, but still at a healthy rate and that's the important part. It's understandable that you will lose weight slower than someone who is closer to 300 pounds or more. The best way to avoid hunger is to focus on protein, since it makes you feel full longer. Also, fibrous vegetables may fill you up, too. I guess for both of us we just have to keep measuring and hoping our bodies will get used to smaller portions. I weigh or measure everything I eat and enter all my meals into myfitnesspal, in order to make sure I don't go overboard and get enough protein.

Our house is in a culdesac at the bottom of a street that is about a half mile long, and we live at the bottom of that street down the hill, which is very steep the whole way up. It is a HUGE hill. I never could walk even partially up that hill without having an asthma attack or having to stop to try to catch my breath a million times. My son started school yesterday and I made a goal to walk every morning after I drop him off. I have wanted to conquer that hill for so long. Most people that walk in our neighborhood never go on that hill because of how steep it is, even the really fit people. Our culdesac is very quiet as a result lol. I didn't get to walk yesterday, so I started today. I walked completely up that steep half mile hill without stopping and was able to keep going around the rest of the subdivision, which is fairly flat compared to our hill. I can't believe I can do this now! It feels so good to not have my weight holding me back anymore! Sent from my Pixel 5a using BariatricPal mobile app

I understand where you are coming from and see issues like that for me coming up…. Unfortunately he isn’t changing but I am. I have been married for 22 years so it’s not a relationship i want to flush down the drain, but I have to start to prioritize myself over everyone else. He too likes the way things are and is trying hard to avoid change. it has been too much hard work to change myself for the better and loose the weight i have to go back to the destructive patterns of the last 21 years….. I am giving him a little more time to adjust but also letting him know that I need emotional support and help around the house too and if he is not willing to change for me, I wish him well on his solitary path. It’s hard when partners are out of sync; even worse when one refuses to adjust for the other … I hope he can change for you.

OK, well for what it's worth the nutritionist I've had to work with on my programme has been by far the least well-informed and least helpful of all the professionals involved. I seem to know 100 times more than him about bariatric surgery. He's obsessed with carbs for some reason and won't accept that I've almost reached goal weight without upping carbs, as he suggested at every opportunity. Arrrrgh - would have loved to have someone available for the last 9 months who *really* got it and who I didn't have to start every conversation with along the lines 'well, how are WE getting on with adding in carbs now?' (the inference being - you idiot)

Oh sweet pea, I'm so sorry - I think it's not 'men' who are so frustrating, I think it may be *the* man to whom you have currently hitched your wagon. My partner has never. ever, ever been anything but totally supportive to me on my weight loss journey. He has given things up, restricted intake, upped his exercise, stopped eating carbs/sugar/whatever whenever that was what I needed at the time. I could not have done this without him. You might want to look into couples counselling. If your partner is derailing this huge, massive, life-altering thing you have done, even inadvertently, then that needs picking apart by a professional xxx

I am one of these people, unfortunately...I'm incredibly short and the weight loss has revealed I have a fairly small frame in addition, so my maintenance calories will likely be somewhere between 1200-1300...I have 4 pounds to go to my goal weight, though, so my weight loss has slowed considerably.

I'm 7 weeks post op today, so happily losing weight with pain a distant memory. However, my recollection is that my worst pain was horrible back muscle spasms as I woke up from anesthesia. This lasted for a few hours. Nurses told me I was on the surgical "board" for quite a long while due to complications elsewhere and I believe it. I struggle to lay on any sort of flat surface due to my "curves." Just doing the dexa scan was torture and I was deep breathing the whole time just to get through it. The tech felt sorry for me it was so hard for me to get up afterwards. Told her hopefully the 6 month post op scan will be much better since my butt will be so much smaller! Anyway, while inpatient they gave me tordol IV for the pain which has always been my favorite for incisional pain - but you can only have so many doses. They sent me home with hydrocodone which I took very little of.

The salty food is a great suggestion but also maybe eat whatever foods are your favorite right now. Stress can lead to weight loss so try to relax by changing your mind set from weight worry to celebrating getting to this point. Eat the food you might not get to eat for awhile. Also have you weighed yourself? You said maybe they looked at your numbers wrong, so maybe you haven't lost too much weight and you are ok. If things get too close for comfort they probably can push the surgery date back to allow you to gain some weight to be sure that insurance coverage isn't something you have to worry about.

Me too. Surgery was 15/8. Now on liquids probably till my next appt on 1st Sept. I am sooo hungry. Not losing weight either for the past 5 days. Sent from my SM-N986B using BariatricPal mobile app

My husband of 17 years is just really driving me CRAZY!!!! I've made a lengthy post about some health stuff I have going on right now (reflux, esophagitis, gastritis, esophageal spasms, and esophageal dysmotility which they think is caused by a hernia...waiting for appt for scope) and he's using it as an excuse to just stop working out, stop eating right, stop everything. None of what I have going on is from my surgery. I don't have any leaks, strictures, blockages, nothing. BUT, this started after I did an insanely intense workout, so everyone is thinking that's the cause. ANYWAY, he has a pattern of quitting stuff when he starts, as soon as it gets hard. College, 3 different side businesses, working out, keto, vegan, low/no fat, calorie counting, bariatric surgery (had 1 consult, set up the nutritionist appt and backed out. Did this 3x before they said he couldn't come back), etc etc etc. He's always been like this, but it's gotten worse over the last year or so. He literally follows through on NOTHING. Not one single thing. OH, unless it's involving wrestling or gaming. Oh THEN his follow-through is on point. Can't let his guild down!! Can't let his buddies down!! Can't miss wrestling (he literally watches Mon - Fri, and if there's pay per view on the weekend, he watches that, too). I work full time and pay all the bills. The deal we have is I will work and he is to take care of the house, grocery shopping, etc (I have a much higher earning potential than he does, and I love what i do, and he doesn't like to work, and I hate household stuff, so in theory the deal works) but he's been slacking on that, too. I'm cleaning up behind him, doing chores, grocery shopping. He's sleeping or gaming or whatever. We've argued about it and I told him if I have to take care of the house AND work, then he needs to go get a job too. If I have to work full time, do the cooking and cleaning and shopping then what the heck is he even here for? He's not supportive anymore, we don't do anything together, we argue a lot, and he has NO FOLLOW THROUGH ON ANYTHING. He gets all excited "I'm gonna start a youtube channel" or "I'm gonna start streaming on Twitch" or "I'm going to design websites for a living" or "I'm gonna go to school and get my degree in Early Childhood Education and work as a teacher online" etc. And he ends up doing NOTHING. "I'm gonna work out and get healthy so we can lose weight and have better health together" and "I'm gonna eat right and make sure we have healthy food in the house so neither of us are tempted to cheat" and then he goes to Burger King and buys 2 double whoppers with fries and eats it all. I'm just so sick of it all. I hate even being around him sometimes. He's just so LAZY and has zero motivation for anything at all. It's infuriating!!!

unfortunately, there are women who can only eat 1300 kcal a day in order to maintain. I know women who have to eat even fewer than that to maintain (1000-1200-ish) - and others who can eat 2000 (lucky bums!!!). It's such an individual thing. and yes -- it's possible that your body has settled in at its new setpoint. You can always go lower by cutting more calories, but that's up to you. I kind of gave up the ghost. Trying to take off more and maintaining at that lower weight was a struggle that I decided wasn't worth my effort anymore (even though I struggled with that for a couple of years and would still have days I'd like to be lower!!) on the other hand, it's also possible that your body might NOT be at its set point. I do know the last 20 lbs or so was a real bear for me to take off. We're talking like two pounds a month. But I eventually got there...

P.S. don't chase the full feeling - for one thing, most people don't feel restriction to around the time they start up on solid foods - or until the nerves that were cut during the surgery regenerate (which also tends to be around the time we move to solid foods). Plus the "full" cue is often different after surgery. I don't feel full the way I did pre-surgery. Now, it's more like a discomfort in my chest. when I feel that, I know it's time to stop, or I"m going to be sorry. Others have reported weirder things like runny noses when they're full. For now, you're better off measuring out what you're supposed to eat and just eating that. and no - your surgery is not unsuccessful. You're losing weight at a normal clip. And you'll continue to as long as you stick to your program.

I *only* lost 16 lbs the first month, and I started out at almost 400 lbs. At your low starting weight (compared to most WLS patients), 16 lbs is on the high end of what I would expect. Most of us (unless we're the size of people on "My 600 lb Life) seem to lose somewhere in the 15-25 lb range the first month. Of course, you'll find people who lose above or below that range, but most of us fall somewhere in the range. And with your low starting weight, I would expect you'd be on the lower end of that. did you say you're taking "the PPI" AND Prilosec? Prilosec IS a PPI - it's generic name is omeprazole. If your surgeon prescribed a PPI as well, then you don't need to take store-bought Prilosec.