Hey guys! It's Ron here.....

Oh......and it would be cool if you shared your own personal Lindsay Lohan and Brittany Spears pooter stories. 

You da man, Fish!!

Boner

I don't know what you should say, but if your focus is to the men, I think you have to do it in a way that makes it ok to be a man, with all of our stupid quirks and ways of thinking.  There is so much female presence on OH that this forum is a blessing.  Sometimes guys are gross or extreme or disgusting, and that is just fine, cause in some sense that is part (not all) of who we are. 

Then the question becomes how to do that without being a glutton and rethinnking who we are as men. 

Ditto what Lance and Fish said!

I do like Guy's suggestion regarding the increased schlong-size benefit to men who've had WLS.  On the other hand, I'm thinkin' most of your audience will be women so not a direct benefit to them unless their husbands have had, or are considering, WLS.

That said, I think Fish hit the nail on the head (pun intended), when he said it's all about maintenance and "what ya gonna do" when you get to goal weight and the WLS honeymoon is over. 

I won't get up on my soapbox but it's all about healthy eating AND exercise. Hopefully most have learned how to eat healthy and have developed healthy eating habits. Ongoing head hunger is an obvious issue but your speech could go on for frickin' years on how to overcome that.

On the other hand, my guess is the majority of your audience have not, nor will they, develop good exercise habits. A good solid, consistent exercise program not only keeps (gets) you healthy but also makes up for a lot of eating sins. There are endless studies which show those WLSers who exercise regularly are most likely to keep the weight off over the long haul. 

I've preached ad nauseum about the importance of finding an exercise passion whether it's cycling, running, hiking weightlifting or whatever. The only way to find your exercise passion is to try different things and hopefully you can stumble upon one which you really enjoy. There used to be a guy here on the board who actually got into competitive lumber jacking. Chopping down trees with a frickin' ax has to be a good workout, huh?

Once you find a physical activity you enjoy doing, you've got to set goals for the activity. We all have weight loss goals which we set in order to lose the weight. But what are the goals once we lose the weight? Ain't none to the best of my knowledge. The only goal is to try to minimize the amount of weight I put back on. Not too inspirational if you ask me. 

I try to set ever-increasing cycling goals at the beginning of each season with the knowledge that if I don't train hard, I'm going to flame out (fail) and will suffer mightily during the attempt. Failing AND suffering .....no can do. 

Off my soapbox....sorry about that. Oh' ya.....finding a great support group like the locker room for men is a good thing as well.

Good luck with your speech, Ron.

Boner 

       

I need to add to my speal that the exercise activity doesn't have to be major, mind-blowing activities like Dave's HIIT program, Chad's triathlons or RockyTop chasing possums on his bike in the Tennessee woods.

The fitness activities and goals can be more modest such as taking up dancing which one of the guys started here recently. The key is to find something you enjoy doing which gets you moving and out of the old Lazy-boy recliner sippin' on a sud watching the boob tube. 

Boner  

Well guess what guys!  It is looking like I will be doing and extra talk.....I will be doing a MEN ONLY meeting! So we can talk about anything we need to and not worry about offending any of the ladies!!!!! I don't think they like the idea of me talking about the testicle lift I had to have to make my balls smaller so I wouldn't sit on them!!!!!!! Who else is gone fishing?
Hahahahahaa
BTW...I already have a feeling that this meeting will become a frat type party so if you don't like TMI you might want to skip the meeting for us guys after the main event on Nov.1st
God Help us all!!!!!! hahahahahaaaaaa

HEY RON!
Can I crash at your house? lol

I say, speak on that which you know the best....you're 7 plus years out from the RNY? (i think it was the RNY) so speak about what it's like to be 7 years out from WLS, the impact it's made on your life, the changes and adjustments you've had to make because of the weight change, and what "unexpected" results or challenges you have had along the way. I'm sure most people realize after the fact that WLS isn't the be all and end all of all life's problems. What's weird is that even the most sane people, the most logical people go into WLS, (even if it's a secret desire) hoping that WLS will solve all of lifes woes. Like being fat = being unhappy and unsuccessful etc...and being thin = being happy and successful...etc.

Ron I'm sure you'll do fine, you could fart the ABCs and the women will be showing you lots of love..lol...they do make up about 95 percent of all OH events.

Scott

Hi Ron,

Definitely, staying on a post-op diet and exercise routine on a busy or erratic schedule. I would imagine you travel a lot and have engagements at all times of the day. Wondering how you manage to stay on the doctor recommended protocol while on such a schedule.

I know a lot of people post-op and non-op have health problems from this type of schedule.

Thanks,

Dave 

 Hi Ron .. 

  I think one of the most important topics that came up during the men's breakout group (yep, all 6? of us  )  at OH's Texas event last year - led by Bo and Ramon  - was the "to tell or not to tell" question (dates, prospective mates, etc. of post-ops) about our WLS ..      A lot of really varied opinions on this, either way, were expressed among the group  ..  We even had input from a pretty hot-looking young gal in the similarly-small audience who said she would definitely want to know, in that she actually thought it was a "vulnerability" on the part of the guy and therefore she would find it kinda sexy.   

  I hope you can bring this subject up during your speech.   It looks like from what there is online, you let your spouse know about your surgery at the time you met, which I think is very commendable and, IMHO, the way to go (but then, being an actor in films as a pre-op, I guess there was no way to keep that a secret, for long anyway        )

  The "Post-Op Blues" (depression) is another important aspectt of WLS that I think needs to be talked about more at OH events, given how serious and even life-threatening it can be.    This is not a particularly "men's topic", since it can potentially affect any of us, but I think guys tend to try to suck it up or blow it off and not admit it exists when it hits them, more so than gals  ..     Did you have any post-op depression problems, and, if so, maybe talk about how you handled them ..  ?