Heres the thing, body wraps, lifestyle lifts, its all crap.

There are these tightly coiled fibers in our skin called elastin.  They are like rubber bands.  As we get obese, and our skin stretches, those fibers break.  Unfortunately, they dont heal and regenerate.  Once they are broken, they are broken.  Got any panties with a stretched out broken waist band...You know how this works then.  How bad the loose skin is going to be depends on a lot of factors - age, how long you were overweight, general skin condition.  Thats why no one can really accurately predict how much skin you may or may not have and how much it will contract.

There is another item that works against us as well if we have been obese for the majority of our lives.  Your muscles can get stretched out and torn.  Many people have muscle repair with the LBL as well.  Without getting the abdominals tightened, it may be impossible to get a smooth flat tummy.  In my case, I had a one inch separation between my abdominals.  No number of crunches or sit-ups were going to help that.

Tone will help, but PS is the only sure fire way of getting rid of the loose skin.

Are you seeking nutritional information, which you could get off the website vary accurately or permission?  Even a short skinny has 60 calories.  Thats 10% of your daily allowance during weight loss for no benefit.  What should you decide?

The Skinny CDL was always my favorite at Starbucks.  There is no way I would have had one during my losing phase, and in fact I still won't have one.  If I have a drink at starbucks, it will be a brewed decaf. A decaf Americano will have less than 5 calories in any size less than a grande.  Even a vent, its a better choice.

Try different things - have you tried Mio or the Dasani drops?  The other suggestions regarding varying temperatures is very good.  Warm Green Tea (decaf of course) helps a lot and can help with any constipation or regularity issues.

A lot of people suggest crystal light, but it is the devil.  It is too acidic in many cases and it can have a lot of hidden calories.  I stayed away from it completely during my weight loss phase, and even now i dont touch it.  Be very careful that you are not drinking your calories.  Juice and milk can have a lot of hidden calories.  Water, tea, etc. are your best choices for proper hydration and calorie control.

I gotta give my therapist credit for this one.  She gave all of us these little cards with that on it.  I tape it to my fridge, my computer screen, etc.

What you are feeling is known as the "All or Nothing" syndrome.  It leads you to think that any slow down or stall or regain means that you are just going to completely fail.  What you have to do is remind yourself of all of the tools that you learned, and that you know how to do this and recommit to doing it.

You say its real hunger, but then you talk about cravings.  Those are two completely different things.  I would bet that you are in fact getting more head hunger than you realize.  Cravings are actually a form of anxiety attack.  There is a good technique for dealing with cravings that may help you - its called the CALM technique and goes liek this:

C- Connect to consciousness; Admit that you have a craving.  RAte it on a scale of 1 to 10

A- Alleviate Anxiety; Relax, breathe deeply, distract your thinking

L - Logical Liabilities; List the pros and cons of acting on your craving.  Usually reading the nutrition info on whatever I am craving is enough.

M- Mobilize/Move On; Find something else to do other than eat

Most cravings will pass in 15 minutes whether you act on them or not.

Also, take a look at your journal - IS it accurate?  Are you following the skills you learned - weighing, eating dense proteins first, no starchy vegetables, no drinking 30 minute before or after eating, etc?

Are you going to support groups or other counseling?

At 6 months the honeymoon is coming to a close and it does become harder.  You have already lost a lot of weight and it takes a strong commitment to diet, exercise, and aftercare to get to goal and keep the weight off.  You can get there - Many of us do.  

See Kairks post a few below yours for more details.

Amen!

This is part of the reason I tell people that I did not lose weight because I had WLS.  The WLS merely leveled the playing field so that my body was not fighting me the way it normally did.  We talk about Ghrelin, and restriction, and malabsorption as if thats the sum total of the weight loss experience.  Its not, those are just parts of the mechanics.

When I gave my speech at my weight loss center at Christmas, I quoted my surgeon.  He said the first time we met:  "Obesity is a complex, multifactorial disease".  The unstated corollary is that the treatment, not the cure, for obesity is just as complicated and multifactorial.  It has to include medical and behavioral components.  

I think a lot of WLS does fail because people going in don't understand that.  It was also the reason that when I started maintenance that I started seeing a therapist twice a month.  I knew my new skills were going to be challenged by the increased availability of food to me.  I wanted to make sure I had the support for those.

I haven't beaten my obesity.  I have learned to live with it and manage it.  Monitoring my weight, logging my food, exercising; these are the things I have to do to manage my condition just as much as taking my meds and testing my blood sugar when I was diabetic.  Its just these are enjoyable tasks!

NO!  You need the calorie deficit to lose the weight - the greater the difference between calories burned and calories consumed the more you lose.  It takes a deficit of 3500 calories to burn 1 lb of fat.

You want to focus on eating to your plan, whether thats 600, 800, or 1000 calories a day.  Set a simple goal at first of getting 10,000 steps a day in.  Get a tracker like BodyFit, FitBit, etc that connects to MFP to help you track that.  Just don't put a lot of trust in its calculation of calories burned.  The best tool for that is a chest strap HRM.

I have my consult with the hernia surgeon tomorrow - then I'll talk to the plastics guy to see if we can combine.

I just noticed the bulge in my groin a couple of weeks ago while on a business trip and had my PCP confirm what it was.  Definitely trying to get it fixed so I can enjoy the end of the summer.  I miss my running and my bike (not to mention, I have lawn work I need to be doing, LOL)

you have to learn to spot when you are feeling full.  Eat slowly.  You are still healing right now and the nerves in your stomach haven't even begun to think of being fully healed.  If your stomach was starting to hurt instead of feeling full, you probably missed the original sign and had a spoon or two too many.  If you had gone much further you may have been introduced to the joys of the foamies or worse, threw up.

Some tricks that have worked for others early on:  Stop at the first burp, stop when your nose starts to run, count to 10 between every spoon full.

Good job stopping.  Just wait until purees!

Congrats on joining the losers bench!

Typically you will do 2 weeks on clear liquids, then 2 weeks on full liquids, then you reach the mushy stage.

You dont want to push your stomach too hard - its just ben burnt, sewed, and cut down by 90%.  Its pretty pissed at you and needs time to heal.

You are gong to have to learn your stomach and what you can and cannot eat.  No one can really tell you what you will and won't be able to tolerate.

I will tell you, don't worry so much about rushing vegetables in.  I was maybe 3 months out before I could take even a bite of vegetables after getting my protein in.  Focus first on getting your protein in, and then see if you have any room for any veggies.

Your stomach is still healing and will be for a while.  The scar line in your stomach won't be fully formed until somewhere around 3 months out.  Until then, your stomach is going to be really tight.  After three to six months, your body will start reabsorbing some of the excess scar tissue that formed.  Thats when a lot of us see capacity increases.

As for brussel sprouts - love them.  Odds are you will be able to enjoy them again.  Like eggs though, BS are really dense - they will sit in your stomach like a brick if you don't chew.  Remember when you are eating to chew, chew, and chew.  When you feel like your jaw is going to break off - chew some more.  Reduce those sprouts to water before you swallow.  Not chunky water, water.  Keep the image of a cow chewing cud in your mind.  

Congratulations!  Keep up the awesome work!

Every less than good decision is a chance to make a better decision next time.  Just vermin yourself of that.

Are you going to support groups?  Any type of mental after care?  If not I would strongly suggest it.