Today marks my one year anniversary of my Sleeve surgery. I had the surgery at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit, with Dr. Arthur Carlin as my surgeon.

My life is so much the better for the changes I made in preparation for the surgery, and the complementary effects of the surgery on my new way of eating, exercising and living.







Starting the Bariatric Program in April of 2014, I was ready for a change.

Most of my pre- and post-surgery tale has been told in this post:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10123987/six-month-ramblings/p1

I hope it is worth the read, but here is my main advice for those starting the process:

1. Find a Bariatric Center of Excellence or copy one’s plan. My insurance requires a Bariatric Center of Excellence, and as I looked into that requirement, I find that that certification means a great deal. It requires a solid pre-op plan, including nutritional, psychological and exercise components of the plan. I give great credit for my success to the plan I was presented with at the Orientation session. If you have a choice, use a Center of Excellence. If you are not in one, find a plan from one and follow it as much as possible (while still following your surgeon’s plan).
2. Buy into your surgeon’s plan. There are many parts of a plan that may not be as important as others. I made the decision early on to do what I was told without pushing at the edges too much. I decided to be a good follower in this case and let their program take me where it would. I was very successful with this model.
3. Hit the pre-surgery plan HARD! With 180 pounds to lose, I realized that the 6-9 month honeymoon period that the surgery gives me would not be enough to hit my goal before it got harder. Every pound I could lose before surgery was one I didn’t have to lose afterwards. I would not have expected to be as successful as I was, but I still think that putting in the work helped my ingrain the habits and behaviors needed for post-surgery life made a huge difference post-surgery.
4. Find a way to get exercising. I have had very little in the way of loose skin problems. I believe I am very fortunate to be in this position, but I alos think regular exercise helped that along.
5. Add some MFP WLS friends. As you read through the postings in the WLS groups, take note of people whose writing and comments resonate with you. Add friends from all stages of the process so that you can see what the day to day realities are. Seeing food choices as people progress through the process can be very enlightening and give you ideas for when you are there yourself. You will learn from the veterans, and give information to those behind you in the process.
6. Give yourself a break. As I became more active here, I wanted my interaction with others to be helpful and supportive. As I watched myself give advice and comfort to others, I realized that I would never be that kind to myself. I try (and don’t always succeed) to treat myself with the same kindness and support that give to others who have strayed a time or two.
7. Strive for regularity over perfection. Whether it be intake (food) or burn (exercise), you will never be perfect. Don’t let a less than perfect day lead to anything but doing your best at the next opportunity. Do the next right thing and forget the failure.
8. Learn, learn, learn. I find the main forums at MFP to be pretty hostile to the WLS process, although that seems to be changing a bit. I don’t spend a lot of time posting there, but I read a ton and have learned a whole lot about nutrition, metabolism, exercise, weightlifting, etc. I feel ready for my maintenance time, with my goal to be on a path towards improving my physical health while maintaining my weight using the information I have learned over this past year.

Since hitting my goal of 240 pounds (I am 6’5”) in April of 2015, I have been mostly successful at maintaining within 5 pounds up or down from that goal. I got my blood work done in preparation for today’s 1 year followup appointment, and as far as I can see, everything is within normal range. Since starting the process, I have stopped taking Blood pressure, cholesterol, and ED meds; I no longer need to wear support stockings for some vein issues in my leg, significantly dropped my CPAP pressures and have very little pain from my arthritic hips. I am back to walking the golf course every chance I get, my fitness and energy levels are vastly improved, and I even had a short lived return to playing softball (until I fell and separated my shoulder in my first game back!)

Initially, I kept losing down to about 233 as I slowly added calories trying to find a happy maintenance level. Unfortunately I also took a ‘vacation’ from diligently logging, and have not been successful at restarting that (I believe) crucial part of weight control. I feel like I have been lucky in settling into an eating pattern that is not resulting in gain, but I believe that this is a temporary success and I am setting myself up for failure. I wish I could find that inner peace that my good buddy, Thaeda, seems to be homing in on.

I have maintained my habit of weighing every day or two and being able to accept that data without a severe emotional reaction. I am happy that I am able to do this, as I believe it has a subtle effect of helping me to tighten up food control when I see the weight creeping toward that Target+5 range.

I am so happy for the life changes that I have achieved.

To all of you looking to start the process or in the early stages of the process: Take advantage of the pre-surgery time you have! Don’t agonize over how long it takes to get to the surgery part! USE that time!

To those of you post-surgery: Own your progress! Successes *and* stalls. Both come from your efforts. When I look at my progress from 425 pounds to 235 pounds, each and every time my weight loss flattened out, I could tie it to my eating and exercise activities. I know that there are medical issues that are different than mine, but I firmly believe that a hard objective look at your own diet and exercise logs will tell the story most of the time.

To all: learn as much as you can. I don’t post on the main forums, but I read them pretty voraciously. There is a vast wealth of nutritional and metabolic information out there. It takes a decent BS detector to wade through it, but sticking to the things that have medical or scholarly references yields a pretty clear picture for me. I fall mostly into the IIFYM/CICO crowd, and these groups and links were very informative and guiding for me:

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/group/10118-eat-train-progress

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/833026/important-posts-to-read/p1

http://community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/1080242/a-guide-to-get-you-started-on-your-path-to-sexypants/p1

I truly believe that everyone can be successful at this, with a rational and eyes-open view of what success is, learning to love yourself and give yourself a break, and diligent, hard work. As usual, I am open to questions (and likely to overthink and overshare in my answers) and friend requests.

Love to all,

Rob