Click here to view the embedded video.

Part 1

Click here to view the embedded video.

Part 2

Be sure to check out the WLSFA (wlsfa.org) and get your tickets for the 2011 Meet & Greet

But like I said, I miss writing. I’ve been doing some videos for BTV, but nothing for YouTube and I sort of miss that as well. So, I’m going to make an effort to start writing and maybe even doing some videos again.

It’s not that I don’t have ideas for what I’d like to write, and it’s not like there isn’t more to talk about… it’s just a matter of doing it, right? And maybe the reason I haven’t is part of the whole story in and of itself.

I’m approaching 16 months post-op, and I’m within 10 pounds of my lowest maintained weight. I guess I consider a weight I stayed at within a couple pounds for at least three months as a “maintained” weight. I was in the low 190′s from about January through May or so, a 4+ month period. Then I bumped up, and have been at about 200, plus or minus a few pounds since then. I think most of that has been muscle, as my clothes still feel like they fit the same.

I’ve been biking. Quite a bit. I hit the 500 mile mark for the year last week, and will break 550 next time I’m on the bike… hopefully on Thursday. I discovered that at about 12-14mph pace, I burn about 750-800 calories an hour. My typical ride is anywhere from 90-120 minutes. That’s 1000-1500 calories burned. Wow.

I still make it to the gym here and there, but I would rather be out on my bike than in a gym.

I’ve been eating a lot of crap. Especially back in June and part of July. I’ve gotten better the last few weeks, but .. yea.. I’m still eating stuff I really don’t need… I shouldn’t want. Some examples.. donuts, candy, more donuts, chips with dip, cookies, cookie dough. And for awhile there I was also just eating a lot. Maybe it’s cause of the bike riding. I mean, there’s days where I go biking 30+ miles and I guess I’m burning nearly twice as many calories as I typically eat in a day (I think I average 12-1500 a day right now). So yea, that makes sense I guess.

Problem is, despite the crap I’ve been eating… I’ve had barely any problems. Yea, I’m up a few pounds… but that’s to be expected based on where I am anyways, and like I said, I think it’s mostly muscle.

But on the other hand, I’ve still done pretty good on avoiding some things. Ice cream… Well, I had one spoonful at my niece/nephew’s birthday Sunday… tho I did have cake – (win some, lose some?) but cake is something that you can’t just grab at the store and end up binging on, where as it’s very easy to grab a pint of Ben and Jerry’s and go nuts. So yea… I mean, I was given a plate with a piece of cake and a scoop of ice cream on it… at the cake … but was able to not eat the ice cream (plopped it on my sister’s plate instead). All I had of it was the melted stuff on the plate that I sopped up with the cake.

And Ok, yea, I bought a Snickers on Saturday. But… I cut that Snicker’s in to quarters. Ate one piece that day and put the rest in the freezer. Ate another piece last night. Here it is 3-4 days later and I still have half that Snickers sitting in the freezer. And we’re talking regular size bar, not even a king size.

I know I can make good decisions.

I just need to make more of them.

Correction. I need to continue to make more good decisions than I do bad ones.

I think I’ll leave it at that for now. I do have more to say… lots probably. I had my 25 year HS reunion this last weekend, for example. Let’s see if I can get my writing mojo back and share some thoughts on that with you some time before the holidays hit.

This posting came about from my thoughts in a discussion on the forums over at bariatrictv.com – I’ll write more about the site later… let’s just say it’s a support forum for folks who have had or are looking in to weight loss surgery. It’s a small, but growing group of some very great folks… I highly recommend checking it out if you have been through WLS or are considering it as an option.

It started out with a sort of mini-rant about the term “morbid obesity” by one of the few other guys on the site. He’s typically pretty light-hearted about things, and I believe he was looking to generate a bit of good-natured discussion. I hope he forgives the fact that my response wasn’t quite along those lines. I’ve tweeked the following a bit from what I posted there, mostly just to eliminate a direct reference or such…

I’ve been trying to think of how to reply to this for a lil bit. The more I thought, the more it stirred up in me.

I understand the emotional ties to such a term… we all do… I grew up as the “fat kid”. In a new school in 8th grade my nickname was “porky portinga”.

But “obese” does not describe who I am. It is a medical condition from which I suffer, which happens to have gotten to the point of being diagnosed as “morbid obesity”, because like others have pointed out… every day I was living, suffering under that current condition I was accelerating myself towards death. 10 days ago I was in a position where I had already made significant enough improvements (losing about 60pounds pre-op) that I was already adding to my life expectancy.

My “condition” has dictated a lot of things for me over the years. It has been affecting me in untold ways… physically, mentally, emotionally for nearly as long as I have memories. There were times I thought I could beat this, that I should be able to beat this, through sheer will alone. Other times I ignored it… resigned to the fact that my condition was as much a part of me as my left foot… but the key word there is “condition”.

I believe it’s only recently that I’ve truly come to understand that this is a medical condition, a disease that I suffer from in just the same way that one can suffer from diabetes or arthritis.

9-days ago, I had a procedure done that will help me treat this condition. There are many “treatments” out there for obesity, but I think this is the best for me. Dr. Johnson has given me a new tool for me to use, one that at the very least will change my diagnosis from morbidly obese to simply obese.

I need to lose about 80# from where I am today to get to that line where the medical community draws the distinction between healthy and obese. I may never cross that line, and I’m ok with that, because I know I will be infinitely more healthy at that point than I am today. While I do have a number in mind, I hesitate to call it a goal… because I may not quite reach it and feel that I am good where I am at… that I am “healthy”, as much in mind as body as I need to be…. or… maybe I’ll go past it… maybe I’ll wipe the term “obese” from my medical records for the first time since before I was a teenager.

I currently suffer from morbid obesity, and … this may seem like a stretch to some… but I guess I’m looking at it a bit like a cancer. A cancer I am about to beat the bloody hell in to submission. And I’m going to have to continue to beat it down every day for the rest of my life. A year ago, I was resigned to not even fight it. I don’t know exactly what it was… if there was any one thing that made me change my mind last fall when I started looking in to WLS, but I did. And right now I can look at that morbidly obese diagnosis and say “bring it on.”

Yesterday I had a bit of a… well… not tough, but .. it was a day…

I got in another half-hour walk and all, but was just really wiped all day. I took a number of naps throughout the day. Woke up from one around 9pm, and was feeling a bit… warm… but didn’t think much of it.

Hopped online, and a friend of mine that has had lap-band and works in a hospital was online and we started talking. She asked if I’d taken my temp.. and for some reason hadn’t really thought of it. So I did, and I was running a fever. Just over 100.

She asked what meds I had… told her bout the stuff the hospital gave me… she said it had stuff like Tylenol in it so to take some of that. Took the lower of the recommended doses and watered down, like the doc had said to do if I took it… within a few minutes I was sweating. Not much… but I hadn’t been before.

After bout half-hour, checked the temp again and I was at 101.

OK, discharge papers said to page the surgeon if I had a temp over 100.4, so it was time to page.

He called back almost immediately, then he kinda grilled me bout my drinking, wanting to know exactly how much I had. Unfortunately… I couldn’t tell him. With the frequent naps and such, I knew I was drinking steadily (when I was awake), but I hadn’t been keeping track of just how much. I knew it was still only about 40 ounces though because of how many glasses I’d emptied through the day. But it was nearly 10pm, so yea… I was way behind.

He sort of chided me about how I need to keep track, need to stay on program, and that the fever was likely from dehydration. Said to get at least another 16 ounces before going back to bed, and to get up early, and if I wasn’t feeling any better to call his office and that I’d likely have to go in for some IV fluids.

I thanked him, and started to settle in for a night of catching up on my queue in hulu.com …  and then bout half hour later it hit me.

A HUGE wave of nausea, and started sweating like crazy.

This lasted about .. I dunno.. 5-10 minutes? And then it passed almost as quickly as it hit.

It was about then the fever seemed to break, and I was fine after that. Then I woke up this morning feeling bout the best I have all week. Bonus.

So lesson to learn… track your fluids. you may THINK you are drinking enough, but you really need to KNOW you are.

The poster then went on to talk about how it was a group photo with all these other people they knew, all smiling, and there they were “hiding” back in a corner and how “bad” they looked. They remembered how much they didn’t want to be in the photo at the time, and how sad it was to see that photo now.

Then the original poster talked about how they had posted an update photo to show friends and family their progress, and how this “best friend”, the one who brought this other photo to their attention had never commented on it at the time.

It can be difficult for people, especially those who have never battled a weight problem, to know how they are supposed to react when we lose weight like this.

Think about it… how many posts do you see form folks who are told by someone how good they look after losing the weight and are hurt because they feel they’re being told they weren’t a “good person” when they were fat. Almost as many posts by people getting upset because a certain friend hasn’t given them a pat on the back for losing the weight.

I think sometimes we put people around us in a no-win situation.

Our old pictures are a double-edged sword. On the one hand we can look at them for inspiration, they remind us of how far we’ve come and give us a huge (pun intentional) reminder of a place we never want to go again.

On the other hand, for many of us they are an ugly reminder of a time we were not in a good place in our lives. They stir up those old feelings of loneliness, awkwardness, depression, and more.

It is harder at some times than it is others, but I choose to wield that first edge as much as possible. I keep before pictures on my phone, I have a book of before and after that I show at meetings I volunteer at for my surgeon. For the most part, I don’t hide from where I was… I’m not saying I’m proud of those pictures, but for better or worse they are a part of who I am, they are part of what made me what I am today.

image credit: HubPages

The last few days have been a bit of a blur.

I’m much more wiped out that I think I really expected to be.

Pain level has been fine… haven’t touched the meds they sent home with me. I think I don’t want to risk the nausea I kept getting from the drugs in the hospital.

Sunday I managed a short walk down to the end of the block and back… maybe 100 yards. Other than that it was sitting up, watching some TV, sipping water… bit of jello… laying down for awhile… sleeping for a bit… rinse and repeat.

Only thing I’ve been downing is water and jello. Broth just is not holding any appeal right now. I tried to jazz up some water yesterday with cucumber slices… two sips had me kinda gagging.

I’m not feeling hungry…. but I think I’m feeling my original stomach and how empty is…? does that make sense? Kinda how amputees still “feel” their lost appendage. Ok, not a true comparison cause my stomach is still there, just not in the capacity it was.

Speaking of yesterday… walked about twice as far as I did Sunday in the morning. Then was gonna shoot for the same that afternoon, and ended up going alllll the way around the block. I dunno, I think it’s like 1/3 of a mile. Took a bit over half an hour. It felt good, but it really wiped me out. I slept most of the evening after that.

With all the sitting and laying on my back in bed, my butt hurts (just had to share that).

I have started doing a few things for work, trying to keep from going stir crazy, answering a few emails, updates on our website. But it’s been hit and miss cause I seem to still be in a bit of a fog a lot of the time.

Gonna go take a nice hot shower I think, then maybe head out for a walk… well, after getting dressed.

Right now, I am probably being wheeled in to the operating room, about to undergo weight loss surgery.

Obviously I am not posting this in real time. I am writing .. or wrote? this on Monday afternoon and telling WordPress to publish it later. Handy feature that.

Anyways, I just wanted to thank all those who have been cheering me on over the last few months. I’d name by name, but I would likely forget someone and I would feel crappy for that. But it’s been good to know I have so many people… friends, family, people I’ve known online for years and never met, all who have been encouring and understanding and so supportive.

It’s meant more than I’ll likely ever be able to really express… so just let me say…

Thank you.

And I will post some sort of update here or identi.ca at some point when I can.

What I started out wanting to talk about was a sort of “the good, the bad, the ugly” sort of thing where I talked about some of the good things I’ve experienced recently due to WLS, some of the bad things I’m struggling with, and the ugly truth about excess skin.

I took a couple runs at it because I kept rambling on and going too long, I wanted to keep this under that magic 10-minute mark and kept blowing it.

So yea, things kind of wandered, but that’s fine. The whole body image thing has been in the back of my mind for awhile and something I’ve wanted to tackle but just haven’t gotten around to it. Plus, there are so many aspects to a topic like this it can be hard to know where to begin.

Warning, here be ramblings.

Readers Digest version… I wasn’t always fat. I was fairly normal as a young kid. Very active in sports, but I sucked at phys-ed. I hated the whole Presidential Fitness thing they did ever year. Couldn’t do chin-ups to save my life, and was always one of the last to finish at the running thing. I have memories of being part of Weight Watcher’s by the time I was out of Grade School…. and again in High School. In middle school I was big enough that the shirts that came with the gym uniform were tight on me and I earned the nickname “porky”, and I was well over 200 pounds by the time I graduated high school.

Combined with issues at home with my step-dad and with the exception of a few close friends I always felt quite the outcast.

I’ve had a few girl-friends over the years, but I never really… dated. I dunno. In many ways it’s because I never trusted myself. Yea, I would find someone attractive, and was attracted to someone here and there. But when it came to getting in to a relationship… was it because I truly felt something, or was I just happy enough that I found someone that expressed some interest in me?

I don’t regret any of the (few) relationships I was in, but looking back I can’t help but wonder why I was in some (most) of them.

In my early 30′s I had really gotten to the point where I had made a sort of peace with myself, that I was going to remain single. Yea, I know, looking back it seems kinda stupid. I mean, I was only in my 30s. But I was over pushing 350 pounds at the time. Between not trusting my own feelings and basically not feeling worthy, I had resigned myself to being alone. Sure, I got lonely at times. But what’s a seriously overweight, seriously introverted guy gonna do?

I would cover it with a bit of humor – I would say how I’m going to grow up to be that old guy sitting on the front steps in the Bermuda shorts with black socks, watering the grass with the hose and threatening to spray any of the kids that got too close to my lawn.

Then I met ‘her’. Not something I expected to do. Not something I wanted to do. But I guess that’s how it typically happens, no? She was the first woman I could say I really pursued. And as I told her once, I could close my eyes and see me as that old man on the front porch, but now I was relaxing in a rocking chair and instead of snarling at kids I saw her there with me, just enjoying the evening.

Obviously, that ain’t happening.

Things didn’t work out. Part of me still isn’t entirely sure why. Another part of me does blame the weight.

When that ended, I had my last major weight-loss prior to my surgery stuff. I went through a period of depression and I couldn’t eat. I lost about 40 pounds in less than two months. Not a weight-loss program I would recommend to anyone. And of course as things got better for me, I put the weight back on… and then some.

So yea, late last year, after having lost over 150 pounds, my life was going good. Really good. But I was … lonely.

Ok, that never really went away, but I’m not sure what’s worse. Being fat and alone, I guess I could bury those feelings in a bowl of ice cream, or a plate full of sour cream enchiladas, or whatever cheese laden, sauce topped, sugar loaded food I happened to have around.

But I don’t do that any more.

So I decided to try the online dating thing. Initially I got some good response, which was… weird. I was not really expecting it… but I went with the flow. Met a couple of nice women, chatted with a few others, and even “dated” someone for a little while.

It ended after she decided she was still too hung up on her ex, which was probably a good thing.

Looking back, I think I was getting in to the same old habit. Yea, I “liked” her. Yea, she was damn attractive… petite, brunette, very affectionate. But… I don’t think it would have lasted long anyways. At least it shouldn’t have. I think I was more in to the idea of being with someone than I was about being with her.

It wasn’t long after that I decided that maybe I’m just not ready yet.

So three months later, that’s where I’m still at. The idea of being with someone is still very appealing. It’s not that I had a bad life before, but things are just so much… more… now, that I think about the only thing that could make it better at this point is to have someone special to share it with.

I’ve made some ‘excuses’ about being too busy. I’m attending support-group meetings nearly once a week. Volunteering at the intro meetings for my surgeon a few times a month. Trying to make sure I get my exercise in. But really, I’m just not ready.

For as far as I’ve come, I still have a ways to go. I still suck at taking compliments, especially about my looks. To believe that someone might find me attractive, physically attractive, is still a foreign concept for me.

I am much more comfortable with who I am, I am much less introverted than I’ve ever been, but along with the weight I’ve lost I lost something else. I lost a lot of what made me, me. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing either, but it is something I’ve yet to fully wrap my head around.

While I may never fully do so, I think I need to get a better grip on it, get a better grip on who I am before adding something like a relationship in to the mix.

This is part of that whole mantra about how we have WLS to fix our body, but the mind stuff, that’s all up to us.

So yea, I’m ok with things like they are right now. Well, mostly. Some days are better than others. But I know that each week that goes by I am making progress, I am moving in a very good direction. And maybe, just maybe, years from now I will have someone with me on that front porch.

image credit: Waka Jawaka

My wife Beth and I discussed having weight loss surgery in early 2008.  We had heard good things, and bad things about it.  As far as I know, we only knew one person who had actually had weight loss surgery.  That person was not very compliant, and didn’t receive much education about her procedure and follow-up.  She didn’t have a very good result, in fact she ended up having her band completely drained and is living with no restriction at all… and consequently little to no weight loss.

We didn’t want to be like that.  We didn’t want to fail.  From our research online we found that people who have gastric bypass surgery lose weight!  Compliant or not, they lose weight.  Not saying that a person couldn’t drink milkshakes and eat cake and ice cream, and defeat the surgery, they can.  But, a large percentage of people who have gastric bypass surgery lose a significant portion of their excess weight.  We knew that we aren’t the most compliant folks you’ll meet, so our only choice was gastric bypass surgery.

Prior to that time, our insurance company didn’t cover any “elective” surgery, such as weight loss surgery.  One day I was going thru the insurance companies website and found that they had changed their policy!!!  They had some stringent guidelines, but it was possible to get the surgery covered!

We started talking to our primary care physician about weight loss surgery in earnest in about July of 2008.  At the end of July, the company I work for announced that beginning January 1, 2009 our insurance was going to change.  We were being forced to change insurance carriers, to one that didn’t cover weight loss surgery.  We had about 5 months to jump through all the hoops and get the surgery done!  During this time we discovered the YouTube WLS community.  Going online and watching people tell about their trials and tribulations made ours a little less stressful.  Just to know that someone else had already been down this road.  We started our own YouTube channel.

It was a hectic couple of months.  We both were denied for surgery, but our surgeon personally called the insurance company and we were approved.  We ended up having our surgery at the end of the year with time to spare!  December 16th, 2008 was our rebirth day.  Our Surgeversery.

I think Beth and I are a little special.  We’ve been together since late 2001 and when I say together, I mean together.  We are basically inseparable.  There are other couples who have both had weight loss surgery, but I don’t personally know of any other couple who had their surgery on the same day.  It was pretty cool.

Because we both “deflated” together, she has lost over 100lbs and I’ve lost almost 150lbs, we didn’t have many of the issues that people who have the surgery alone do…  If someone flirts with Beth now, it tickles me almost as much as it does her.  And when some woman shows me a little extra attention, most of the time Beth has to point it out to me.  She loves it…  ( I’m oblivious to that sort of stuff…  I never had it before so I guess I failed to learn how to detect it!!!)

Weight Loss Surgery has been the best thing I’ve ever done for myself in my 54 years of life!!!  I’m totally prescription free…  Other than the vitamin supplements I take daily I’m done with meds…

Oh!  And I had those damned eyes fixed!!!  Laser surgery!  I haven’t tried yet, but I wonder if I could catch a baseball now???

Last year Beth and I were invited to Greenville, South Carolina for the second annual South Carolina Weight Loss Surgery Meet and Greet.  (I think it was the second…  it might have been the first!)  Regardless of which number it was, it was GREAT!  There were only two people there that we had ever met in person, but we felt like we had known all the others forever.

Many of the people there we had watched on YouTube or exchanged updates with on Facebook.  But, we had never laid eyes on them.  Even though we were a pretty diverse group, we had at least one thing in common…  We had all either had weight loss surgery, wanted to have weight loss surgery, or supported someone who did.

We had such a good time meeting and greeting that we decided to do the same thing here in our home town, Savannah, Georgia!

So here it is folks… If you have had weight loss surgery, want to have weight loss surgery, or just love and support someone who does come to Savannah, April, 23-25 and enjoy meeting and greeting your friends and cohorts.

We have some great speakers planned, lots of door prizes and give away gifts.  We are going to have a clothing swap. (as we go down in size there are others who could use those cloths temporarily…)

Antonia Namnath will be giving a presentation about the Weight Loss Surgery Foundation of America. This is a very important new non-profit that Antonia has taken upon herself to bootstrap from the ground up. She needs all the help she can get, and we hope that this Meet and Greet will be the springboard that the foundation needs to really take off.

You can find out more about the WLSFA at their official website (www.wlsfa.org) or on their YouTube channel (youtube.com/wlsfa).

For more info on the Savannah WLS Youtube/Facebook Meet and Greet 2010 you can contact me on Facebook (facebook.com/larry.tipton1) or search for Savannah WLS Meet and Greet on the Facebook events pages.

We will be making a lot of videos and taking lots of pictures of the events, plus Antonia’s husband Jim will be streaming the event live onto the internet all day Saturday, April 24th.  We will be giving you more information on how to find the feed in a later post.