Boo...no mention of VSG at all or do I need new reading glasses? you have VSG AFTER you became a body builder and lost 125 pounds...or maybe too embarrassed to mention it took VSG (extreme remedies for extreme ills)  to "get there" 

'It took me over two decades to realize there is no magic bullet, no pill, no powder or drink,' she said, 'It's a slow process but you do get there!' It took Ms English 13 months to lose the weight she had put on due to various life cir****tances.

Im just JEALOUS  raaarrr pppsssst!!! lmao

Ya look GREAT!! bottom line ...it IS YOUR WORK really that is has got ya there! 

sounds like you have a stricture (narrowing) presented stomach "dysmotility" ( 'difficulty moving' foods thru peristalsis past the stricture) ...dilated (stretched) the tissue with balloon dilation...to 15 mm (~size across inside of a dime)  ...typical treatment with endoscopy for stricture.

They inflate deflate the balloon tip attached to the endoscope a few times to push the scar tissue (stricture-narrowing) back  and widen that narrowing...to improve motility food gettin past.  

I think your lucky you had this sooner rather than later...crossin fingers that stubborn ole scar tissue is nice n soft enough to STAY DOWN with just the one dilation. ... many peeps with strictures have to go in for repeated dilations cuz that ole scar tissue can be stubborn wannin to spring back to where n how it was formed... months later before repeat dilations n gently stretchin it out over a few treatments..keeps it down for good. 

Everythin else looks great..esophagus and duodenum (small intestine just past your pyloric valve)   

I would expect to get better...strictures are annoying but you can do so much to help yourself out....while gettin past it  Take it easy with meats, low fiber foods that slow peristalsis while yer healin.....chew to liquid as much as possible to help yer stomach out...will also help slow YOU down so you can concentrate on SATIETY!! lol  see how that works!

This report says to me... yer well on your way...to gettin past this speed bump n  ROCKIN THAT SLEEVE!! 

a day in the life...wont be such a big deal if you don't make it one. Carry on soldier...tomorrow's a NEW DAY!

WOOHOO!!!    this is the best post Ive read here in a month......well sides seein HappyGirls B&A amazin transformation pics. 

Gastritis !! ...and did the balloon dilation anyway... 

yer one super duper VSG trooper...let me tell ya! Hold your head HIGH Sara...and go get them goals of yours

I subscribe to this newsletter...I like this website, n a few others I subscribe to...like Shrink Yourself, Am I Hungry, Dr. Mercola, and George Mateljans whole foods livin (nutrition) for my orthorexic ass.  

Got this this am..from Coach Calorie thought it was worth sharin...pretty much says it all...what we go THROUGH even with WLS. 

A few fav Coach Calorie articles linked on my Stalls and Plateaus blog too

here's the home link Coach Calorie   in case this one doesn't work wanna check the website out

20 Healthy Weight Loss Tips From People Who Lost Over 50 Pounds   We asked, and you delivered. Thank you to all who contributed. Literally hundreds of healthy weight loss tips were emailed in and posted on Facebook. All of the tips were compiled, and a common pattern began to take shape. Here they are - 20 of the best healthy weight loss tips from people who have lost over 50 pounds. Drink Water One of the biggest common denominators amongst people who lost over 50 pounds is they all switched over to drinking water. They gave up the sodas and sugary drinks and instead quenched their thirst with water. This tip alone helped hundreds of people lose weight. See why drinking water is the secret to fat loss. Keep a Food Journal Write down everything that goes into your mouth. Most people were surprised to see how much they were actually eating. It wasn't until they wrote it down that they began to realize the cause and effect of what they were putting into their bodies. Here are 6 convincing reasons to start journaling your food intake. Count Calories What a boring and tedious job, but probably one of the most effective undertakings for losing weight. There is no getting around calorie balance. If you want to lose weight, you have to eat less than you burn. I personally use the LoseIt app to track my food calories (calories in), and the BodyMedia FIT Armband to track my daily calorie burn (calories out). Control Portion Sizes In our super-sized food culture, portion sizes have gotten out of control. Eating portions the size of your fist is a good start towards controlling your food intake. Getting in the habit of measuring your food with a digital food scale is a great way to learn how to eye portion sizes. Also, don't feel like you always need to finish off all the food on your plate. Leaving a couple bites will teach you self-control. Here's how to determine correct portion sizes for weight loss without calorie counting. Don't Diet The best "diet" is the one that best fits into your lifestyle. Once you find that, it's no longer a diet - it's just a way of life. One of the best healthy weight loss tips people sent in was to approach weight loss as a lifestyle change, and not as a diet. Once you get it out of your head that there's an end date, you can start focusing on the day-to-day realities of living a healthy lifestyle. Being fit is not a destination - it's a way of life. Be Consistent No one is perfect. We are all going to make mistakes. However, successful people are consistently living a healthy lifestyle. Over a period of time, they are eating healthy 90% of the time, and they are exercising several times a week. Make exercise and healthy eating part of your everyday routine and soon it will be as second nature as brushing your teeth. Plan A healthy lifestyle takes planning. Most mistakes occur from a lack of a plan. Plan your meals in advance so you know what to buy every week at the grocery store. Only buy what you plan on eating, and try to cook your meals ahead of time. The simple nature of reheat and eat makes it much more likely that you'll stay on track. Make Small Changes Make small changes consistently until they are habit and you no longer have to think about it, and then make another change. There's no need to completely change your lifestyle all at once. You'll be much more likely to stick with your new healthy lifestyle if you make small changes. Try changing one thing at a time. Here are 10 baby steps towards better health and fitness. Educate Yourself Learn the whys. Don't just do something because someone said to. Understand the purpose behind it. Many people just want a meal plan or blueprint to follow for weight loss. However, the successful people that lost weight and kept it off long term started taking an interest in how nutrition and exercise impact their bodies. They learned the "whys" behind what they were doing, and they were more successful because of it. Get Active Nearly everyone who lost over 50 pounds added in some form of physical activity. Even if it was just a little bit, the fact that they were more active helped them lose the weight. The trick is to find an activity you enjoy. Not everyone likes the same exercise. Find an activity you love to do, and then push yourself out of your comfort zone. Get comfortable with being uncomfortable. Don't Beat Yourself Up You're going to mess up. We all do. Successful people don't beat themselves up over it. They get right back on track. They don't wait until tomorrow to do so either. Their healthy lifestyle and weight loss continues to move forward and make progress because they allow themselves to make mistakes, learn from them, and then end up stronger as a result. Surround Yourself With Positive People We are highly influenced by the people close to us. Many successful people had to move forward with their lives and leave old friends and lifestyles behind. It was a hard decision to make, but they understood how important it was to surround themselves with people who believed in their dreams. Start How do you expect to accomplish your goals if you never start trying to achieve them? Beginning is half the challenge. Don't be afraid of failure. People who lost over 50 pounds stopped waiting for things to happen, and went out and made things happen. Here are 8 common weight loss mistakes you should avoid. Stop Making Excuses Successful people made the shift and realized that the reasons for why they weren't reaching their weight loss goals were actually just excuses. It was a hard idea to accept, but once they were honest with themselves, they spent less time making excuses, and more time finding ways to accomplish their goals. Do It For Yourself Make ME #1. Lose weight for Me, not because of pressure from other people. We all have our own reasons for wanting to lose weight, but a common denominator amongst the healthy weight loss tips sent in was that the successful people undertook their new lifestyle because they wanted to. They weren't pressured into weight loss by friends or family. They did it for themselves, and as a result, they inspired others to do something for themselves too. Be Patient You didn't gain your weight overnight, and you aren't going to lose it that way either. We all want the weight gone quickly, but once you realize that weight loss is a process, you can stop beating yourself up for not reaching your far-fetched weight loss goals. Stop looking at weight loss as a day to day challenge. If nothing changes, nothing changes. This is a lifetime commitment to changing. See why losing 2lbs per week isn't realistic for everyone. Stay Positive Negative thoughts lead to negative results. You are the result of what you think. Keeping a positive outtake on your weight loss journey increases the odds of your success. You will learn a lot about yourself during your lifestyle transition. There will be many challenges and difficulties, but it's important to understand that even though it might not be easy, it will be worth it. Discover Your Relationship With Food Why are you eating bad? Make the connection between your eating habits and your emotions. Get to the root of your negative lifestyle choices. Know when your body needs food and when it wants food, and find new ways to reward yourself other than with food. Don't Try to Be Perfect If your goal is to be perfect, you're already setting yourself up for failure. No one is perfect. Even the people who seem to have the most perfect bodies didn't get there by being perfect. Perfection is something many strive for, but ultimately something they will never achieve. Do your best! Read why progress, not perfection, is the key to long-term success. Never Give Up Weight loss happens the moment you don't give up. Many people don't realize how close they were to achieving success. There comes a time when things just click, but that doesn't happen until you're ready to throw in the towel and call it quits. The longer you stick with it, the higher your odds of success. Keep moving forward, and don't ever give up!

Its a Japanese custom..called Hara Hachi Bu undereat our stomach sleeve capacity...tradition taught to them since childhood so they don't overeat and become obese. 

Techniques can be mastered by ALL not only Japanese...takes about 20 meals for the stomach to memorize satiety point..(no longer hungry and no longer full)

You eat 80% of stomach capacity. As soon as ya feel the slightest amount of pressure following a BITE...YOUR DONE...immediately discard or put away till later. 

Dr. Oz article I found on it a couplea years ago  and then his show segment on it.

The Okinawa diet references Hara Hachi Bu 

I can't get this link to go so here's the article on TECHNIQUE in the huffington post...written by a nut in Cali

Hara Hachi Bu: Eat Until You Are 80% Full 

My husband is one of those naturally thin people. He has been thin his entire life and has never had a problem with food. As someone who has been up and down the scales and until 20 years ago when I lost 50 pounds and learned how to keep it off, flirted with various forms of binging and purging, it has been a fascinating learning experience to watch what this "naturally thin" creature does around food.   Early in our life together, we were at the dinner table and I noticed that he was just sitting there thinking. There was still food on his plate but he had put his fork down and it looked like he was pondering something important. I said,   "What are you doing?"   He said, "I'm thinking about how I will feel if I take one more bite. I think I've had enough but I'm just checking in to make sure."   It was then that I knew for sure that he was from an entirely different planet than me. On my planet, you ate until there was no more food on your plate. I was taught to clean my plate as a child. The reward for doing so was dessert. The amount on my plate was often determined by someone other than me. This style of eating had absolutely nothing to do with what my body needed, how full I was, or how I'd feel if I took one more bite. I never learned to listen to my body when it came to food.

  The Japanese practice something that makes such sense that I can't believe we don't start teaching this to our kids. It's called "hara hachi bu". It means, eat until you are 80 percent full. You have probably heard about the Okinawan people and how they often live to 100. They are the longest lived, healthiest people on the planet and they practice hara hachi bu. Of course it helps to eat healthy food as well, but simply learning to eat until you are 80 percent full would do wonders for us Americans.   Most of us have no idea what 80 percent full feels like. We do know that if we eat until we are full, in 20 minutes we are likely to feel too full, as it takes about that long for the stomach to communicate with the brain just how full it is. But how do you tell when you are "80 percent full"? Here is what registered dietician, Susan Dopart, has to say on the subject: 

  It takes sometimes 15-20 meals to reset the muscle memory of the stomach to get used to less food and people need to trust that will happen. Most are used to eating until full, which is past satiation and which keeps weight on.


  Susan suggests eating just half of what you normally eat and then checking in to see how you feel. According to Ms. Dopart, once we begin to feel any stomach pressure we are at the "80 percent full" stage. She also tells her clients to eat until they are no longer hungry, instead of eating until they are full.   

Many of my clients say their hunger/satiety mechanism is broken. I understand this, as mine was as well. If you override your body's natural inclination to stop eating when it has had enough, over and over again, I think that natural signal can go into a coma. According to Susan, however, it can wake back up after about 20 meals. I can tell you that after years of maintaining a fifty pound weight loss, mine is working again. However, the challenge now is to listen to it and honor it.  

 Whoops ok found it...Here's the link too...http://www.huffingtonpost.com/irene-rubaumkeller-/not-overea ting_b_969910.html?ref=tw

HTH!!

Like Holly, Im soooo glad you changed your mind & aint scurrred no more   soooo important for YOU...no matter who you offend, or takes offense. 

This is a pretty dang good forum Straw..don't give no one that power..to scare you ...

Ive been here off n on sheesh...5 years now I GOT NO WHERE ELSE TO GO ...I GOT NO WHERE ELSE TO GO ...I GOT NOTHING...man" lmao!!

There is a VSG Maintenance board here on OH.. its pretty dead there tho  that's why most VSG vets stay here  . 

Hang in there Straw...yer bound to get upset with a bunch of us...n Im sure there will be someone out there to return the favor ,-)

but overall...YOUR GONNA BE AOK HERE  cuz we're family now...