My story (long)

I have just found this message board, I have been lookin around the plastics board for a while but just found the non-surgical board.  I thought I would share my story and give some inspiration that you can loose a lot of weight on your own, that you dont have to have surgery to loose it.   First a little background.....  I was always heavy, even as a child.  I remember being the pudgy little guy that needed the husky pants.  There was a time where all I would wear was elastic waisted pants.  I found them to the most comfortable.  My weight continued to grow throughout elementary school and high school.  I dont totally want to blame my parents, because as I grew older I could do things differently.  But they were a reason as to why I was overweight.  We would eat fast food a lot, order pizza, and generally not eat healthy.   After high school I went away to college, being a college freshmen, I put on weight.  I dont know how much I put on or what I weighed, as I never weighed myself.  All I know is I got bigger and bigger, finally having to buy size 46 pants. I also was in a size XXL shirt.  I remember not being able to keep up with my friends, it always seemed that they were leaving me behind.  I went through all four years of college, tried to eat healthy, but never really did.   I had thought of having WLS, it was something I thought I wanted.  I never had done any research on it, it was in the back of my mind, but never really did anything to make it happen.  After grauduation, I received my graduation photo, the one where you receive your diploma.  I looked horrible, but I still wasnt ready to do anything about it.  I wasnt ready to commit to anything.  Right about the same time I graduated, I have an aunt who started dieting and started to loose weight.  After she was on the diet for a couple months I decided it was time to something about it.   I live in Michigan, here we have a diet program called Medical Weight Loss.  This is the program that we did.  I went in for my consult and to learn about the program.  This is when I finally was weighed.  I was kind of shocked and apauled at what number came up.  I weighed in at 292.6.  I am 5'9 so my BMI was 43.  I decided it was time to do somthing about it, I bit the bullet and signed up for a 24 week program, which is about six months.  I set a goal weight of 200, I wanted to loose about 93 lbs in that six months.  The program that I did was very very structured and limited.  You could only eat a certain amount of food and only certain amounts.  The program I was in called for you to drink four meal replacment shakes a day, one nutrition bar, and one meal.  This meal consisted of 3oz of protein, two servings of veggies, one serving of fruit, and one startch.  You were also limited on what kinds of foods.  For instance you couldnt have any startchy veggies like corn, you couldnt have carrots.  Startches were half of a baked potato, 1/4 cup pasta, 1 cup of air popped popcorn, ect.  Very very limited.  All in all it equalled out to about 925 calories a day.  Which isnt much, but if you spread it out evenly throughout the day, it wasnt too bad.   One thing that I really liked about this program was that it was structured.  You went into the clinic three times a week to get weighed, you saw that the program was working.  The clinic I went to, the people were very very helpful and encouraging.  They offered advice and all in all were very helpful.   Right away I could see that the program was working.  I started the program in Mid-Late October 2005 and by Christmas of that year I had lost 50 lbs.  The first week I had lost over 10 lbs!!  The majority of this was all water weight, as I had increased my water intake significantly.  I kept at it and the weight came off very easily.  By April 2006 I had reached my goal weight of 200 lbs, I had lost 93 lbs in six months.   After I had reached my goal weight, I decided I wanted to loose more.  I wasnt happy being at 200 lbs.  I then decided I wanted to weigh 180 and set off to loose another 20 lbs.  It took a long time to loose that extra 20.  It was weird, I would stay at the same weight for a long time, then overnight drop 3-4 lbs.  I did a lot of yo-yoing where my weight would fluxuate between 185-187, then it would go between 182-184.   Something happened not to long ago, about a month ago.  I started dropping more weight.  I went to 178, then 175, and I am now down to about 168ish.  Some days its 170, some days its 168.  I am very happy with what weight I am now.  It seems that my metabolism has increased and I am burning off more than I am eating.  Im not as hungry as I was before, therefore Im not eating as much.  I would guess that I stick around 1500-1600 calories a day.   I am now down about 125 lbs.  It has taken me a year and a half to loose this.  Going from 292.6 to about 168.  My clothes fit me so much better now.  I have gone from a size 46 pant to a 32.  I can now fit into size SMALL!!!  But This much of a dramatic weight loss has reeked havoc on my body.  I was left with rolls of skin around my stomach.  I have loose skin on my chest, on my arms, but the stomach is the worst.  That is why I have decided to have a little nip/tuck done and get plastics.  Next Friday, April 27th, I will be having a lower body lift or circumruntial body lift.  Its kind of like a tummy tuck, but they go all the way around your body.  I am very much looking forward to this, as I dont feel skinny.  When I look in the mirror, all I see is bags of skin and it makes me feel fat.  The PS says he will take off about 10 lbs of skin from my stomach, which is huge!  I am hopeful that this will give me the flat stomach that I have always wanted!! I want to give all of you out there that are trying to loose the weight on your own some inspiration that it can be done.  You dont have to give up and have WLS to loose it.  It is one thing that I am the proudest of, that I didnt have WLS to loose the weight.  When people ask how I did it, I proudly say that I did it on my own without surgery.   I have posted some pics in my profile, there isnt much content to the profile yet, but I will get around to doing something with it.  There are a couple of me before the weight loss, some of me now, and some of what my body looks like now.  I will post some of post plastics once that is done and I am healed.   I wish you all the best of luck in your weight loss endeavors, I know you all can do it, all it takes is some dedication and patience.  If you have any questions or need encouragement, feel free to PM me.   Ken

Congrats on losing all that weight, in such a short period of time.  I believe that your center was better then mine. And you were on a different program then I was. Because I didn't have meal replacements or anything like that. I had actually meals and what not. It just didn't work for me. Sad I wi**** would have like it did for you. So now I'm on my own. I seen the pics. They are going to take alot off of you. You will have a totally different body. That must be exciting! Oh and welcome to the board, you are now the 3rd guy on the board. Haha. Keep coming in and join in our questions, and lend some advice and what not!  ---Christa

Wow, you give us something to strive for..what an inspiration, and welcome.....

Wow.....  I don't know what else to say.  What you have done is simply amazing!  God I wish I would have stuck with it when I got to 240 from 290 3-4 years ago.  I could be where you are now.  Oh well, that's then. This is no and I'm almost back to the 290 I started at 3 years ago.  Please once you have your PS please post more pics.  This is one of my fears about losing the weight is I'll have the excess skin.  I fear that even if I have PS my body will be scarred and butchered up.  I would love to see the work you get done and see how it heals.  Thank you for the inspirational story!

chris -  hate to break it to you but you will pretty much definitely have excess skin if you lose a large amount of weight. i have had about 30 hours worth of PS across 5 surgeries and i still have extra skin and look butchered! scars are a small price to pay to look somewhat normal - its still better than being obese....

yay Ken! I have cruised the ps board and some of the results are flipping amazing. It has made me not be afraid to consider it. I feel i have enough panni hanging to get surgery, never have even looked into it. I am also not to goal weight, so i think i will try to hang out for a while longer.  I think I would look into the fleur-de-lis style myslef. Is your sgoing to be the same?   Hope you check back with us.

Congratulations on your weight loss.  I hope you can maintain it.  As far as not needing surgery for weight  loss, am I missing something here?  You are having surgery because of your weight loss. 

Chris, All I can say is stick with it.  You will loose it again, dont give up hope.   I am having surgery because of weight loss, but this is to take care of what happened to my body because of being so heavy.  I am 23 years old, I have a lot of life left and dont want to feel ashamed anymore.  So I am doing something about it.  I have tried exercise, but the only way to get rid of the skin is to have it surgically removed.   Good luck with everyones weight loss!!! Ken