How is your QUALITY OF LIFE???

It's hard to get away from "the numbers" as a measure of success.  I still refuse to read any post that sounds like it is about how much someone else has lost or someone else hitting their goal weight (and certainly not someone trying to GAIN weight!), etc.  because it just causes me distress.  I know that I am a success, but there is still part of me that wants to be a single digit size.  I hate that I have to still wear shorts over my swimsuit in order to hide the extra skin (and little bit of fat) on my thighs (but even if I ahd the money for PS, I am too afraid of necrosis to have a thigh lift).

I am also disappointed that my knee pain did not improve as much as I had expected it would.  My arthritis was already too advanced to benefit much from the weight loss... but almost every post I read about it when I was pre-op talked about how happy people were to have gotten rid of their knee pain... so I expected that I would, too.  Wrong.  The worst of the two knees has actually gotten worse over the past year and a half.  Knee replacement is inevitable... rigth now I am just terrified to do it.  So my physical abilities are still limited... just by my knee not by my weight.

Having said all of that, however, the quality of my life is SO much better!  Yes, it hurts just to walk many days, and it hurts to take the stairs at work instead of the elevator (mostly going down).... but I do it anyway because it feels so wonderful to be able to go up 2.5 flights of stairs without getting winded that the pain is a small price to pay for that feeling... when a single flight of stairs would have had me completely winded before surgery!  SO... every morning, I take the stairs... it gives me a positive feeling to start the day and helps give me a little extra motivation to eat well during the day so I can KEEP that feeling!  (I do sometimes take the elevator DOWN because that hurts my knee so much more.)

I love not having to worry about where I will fit or not fit, or what other people are thinking or whispering about me (as the largest person in the room almost everywhere), where I can or cannot buy clothes (except bras {grrr}...), and whether someone will (very mistakenly) assume that I am unintelligent or lazy just because of my body size.

Lately, I have been trying to find ways to remind myself every single day where I came from and how much I have accomplished so that I will focus on those things more than on being a size10/12 instead of a 6. Most days I am very successful at acknowledging my success and what I have gained... it's just those occasional days (unfortunately, usually triggered by something here on OH) when I still feel "fat".  Interestingly, I rarely feel this way  in "real life"... it is almost always here that I feel fat... compared to the people who had WLS and did get skinny and into single digit clothes.

Lora

Lora....I was in the same boat. One of my reasons for having this surgery was to get rid of the knee pain. Nope...too much damage already done. So at 21 months out from RNY, I'm 2 weeks out from total knee replacement surgery on my right knee. I'll be doing the left in 3-4 months.

I have to say the pain isn't nearly as bad as I was told to expect. I do have a high pain tolerance, you know what it's like to hurt 24/7, so so far I'm not have any second thought. I hope I can say that after I start PT on Friday!

If you have any questions, feel free to ask. I'll answer as honestly as I can.

It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who had already done too much damage pre-op.  I'm glad you're doing well so far.  The whole idea of knee replacement freaks me out, so I will definitely be checking in with you to see how the PT goes!  I know that eventually I will reach the point where the pain from surgery couldn't be much worse than the daily pain... but I'm not there yet.

Lora

I am only 15 weeks out but my life is vastly improved. I don't snore anymore - at all. My cholesterol was 240 at one point, its 170 now. I exercise five days a week and I just got my second degree brown belt in karate after a grueling three hour test that included a three mile run. I am more confident doing presentations at work, I love shopping for sizes 12-14 on the 'normal' side of the store.

I still have forty pounds to go and I do worry about that, but even if it takes another year to get it off, it won't be like I'm not having fun and loving life on the way there.