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Every time I make a healthy eating choice over what I would have eaten before I count as a victory! Now that I'm over a year out it is getting harder to do, my appetite has returned and so have my cravings for stuff that I should stay away from. A recent personal victory for me: When on vacation we were watching a shepherd demonstrate his working dogs herding sheep. He caught a sheep to shear and wanted a volunteer to come help. I never would have done it before because people were videotaping and I would not have wanted my fat body on camera! When no one else stepped forward, I did, and went up to shear a sheep with him, and then fed the lambs with a giant bottle. I was glad I got to experience it!

You can absolutely mix and match your protein powders... I do that all the time for various reasons. Most pre-ops folks have issues with the lack of sugars / taste of fake sweeteners. Post op you might find that much different. I've enjoyed Muscle Milk's products as well as Isopure and Gold Standard. Right now I've got Synthia-6, 2 things of Isopure and 1 Gold Standard Casein (slow acting protein used for overnight muscle support).

So I spent last night in the local ER in excruciating pain from a kidney stone - my very first! My surgical team tells me that, low and. Broke, this is “very common” after WLS, including VSG. Any experience with this out there? Any advice on prevention (other than hydration)?

My students told me that I got mean after the surgery.

I wonder if I'll be dissatisfied when I get to goal?

Total cost was about $12,500. My stress test was covered by insurance, I just had a $10 copay. My psych evaluation was $150. The nutrition seminar was $30.

I am just starting my journey and was wondering for those of you who were self pay how long did it take you to have surgery after your initial consultation? My BMI is 40, but I don't have a cormorbidity. Thanks in advance.

That's considered a stall. Plateau's are generally when you are close to your lower limits and you get stuck there pretty much forever, so let's hope this isn't a plateau. Are you tracking body fat % as well? Are you working out? Bodybuilding/weight lifting? What's your daily intake vs burn look like? Are you tracking intake? Hows your water? Something VERY important to factor is your BMR. Basal Metabolic Rate, the amount of calories you burn in a day just by being alive, think in a coma, alive but not moving, that's your BMR. BMR drops as you get older and it drops as you lose weight. https://www.active.com/fitness/calculators/bmr If I assume you are 6 foot, starting weight of 408, starting age of say 35 would put your BMR at 3285 calories per day. Dropping that 408 to 330, with the same height and age, drops that BMR to 2799 calories per day. That's just shy of 500 calories less burn per day now. So, you can see, as we get older and thinner, it keeps getting harder to maintain the same speed of weight loss. We need to either increase our exercise or decrease our caloric intake, or both. Hope that helps some.

Yes, my surgeon's told me how much I could expect to lose total after surgery and that it was possible to exceed that expected percentage. My surgeon said "you can lose 60% of your excess weight or more" basically. I'm in the "or more" category at the moment. In my experience, they want to give a conservative estimate since not everyone makes it to their expected loss. Also at each post op visit where weight loss was monitored (ie: not just the staple removal appt) they would say if i was on track or exceeding expectations. You can certainly call the office's nurse line and ask approximately what you should be losing per month. And yes, I think 40 pounds down 6 weeks out sounds like fabulous progress--but I'm not your surgeon so I don't reeeally know I didn't reward myself with prizes because that would personally take me down a path of rewarding myself for something I really just needed to do for my health. I do a little cheer every time I meet a goal and maybe get a coffee that week, but my big prize to myself will be a new wardrobe at goal or under goal. So that's expensive enough! I have a history of holding myself to high standards though, so prizes at mini milestones are like "yeah well you should be doing this anyway so keep it up!" ha.

Today I am officially halfway to the goal weight that I have set for myself. I have lost a total of 84 lbs and I have 84 more to lose to get to my goal. Trying to celebrate the small wins.