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I never ate baby food either. Lots of yogurt, cottage cheese, protein shakes. The only thing I puréed was canned peaches since I wasn’t allowed fresh fruit yet.

YAY! I been waiting for this for a while now! Seems like it took forever to arrive. As of today, I have officially LESS than 100 Pounds to goal! My next goal is to be at 100 Lost in total.. I am hoping to be there by end of April! I am super excited!

I didn't use the Mederma or any scar strips, I used BioOil and my scars are very light to the point I have to search to find them. One thing though...I tend to heal very slowly. My steri strips didn't fall off for over a month! As soon as they did, I started with BioOil. As it was, my scars were various stages of pink (healthy pink) for probably almost 3 months. Maybe you're just a slow healer?

Healthy_Life2 is giving some really solid advice and feedback. I appreciate her comments. I am only 2 months out so can't comment on weight regain. I can say that I have made a complete 180 in my lifestyle choices. I am extremely diligent in following my post-op dietary plan. I track daily caloric intake using the MyFitnessPal App and then go over my macros in the evening to make sure I am on target. I wouldn't even call it a diet--because that's such a temporary thing. I am looking at this as a new lifestyle. I have deviated from the standard plan provided by my doctor (I did discuss it with him and my nutritionist) and I am following a very low carb keto style plan (although too high in protein intake to be a true keto diet). This type of lifestyle provides me with very clear guidelines of what I can and cannot eat--which makes choosing foods easy, I do track calories too and set a limit to how many calories I can consume in a day, but this isn't hard since I am usually very satisfied sticking to my plan. Even if my ability to eat more increases, I feel like I can make good choices that may increase the volume of food that I eat without causing me to over-consume. When they say the sleeve is only a tool, they do mean it. Losing weight post-op is still a lot of work and requires a lot of discipline. The big difference is you are no longer fighting against your high set point, so instead of heating a plateau and suffering terrible hunger and cravings, you don't have that set point fight against you. The volume restriction is also helpful, but as Healthy_Life2 said, you can eat more frequently and undermine this process. I also now get up early in the morning to hit the gym before work and I love that "me" time. Even though this new and still "exciting" for me, it's a lifestyle that I can be happy with for the long term. I do not miss sleeping in late or eating carb heavy foods. I hope I still feel this way 2 or 5 or 10 years from now, but I am definitely happy right now. I can say that you need to be mentally prepared to make major lifestyle changes after you have the surgery (before as well!!). You need to have a healthy lifestyle plan in place and be 100% committed to following it through after surgery. I think the people that commit to following a healthy lifestyle plan will be successful long term. The people that only follow the post-op plan "most of the time" and "only cheat a little" are probably not following the plan very much at all and are cheating a lot!! I have gone to a few support group meetings and there are so many people that show up that can't understand why the weight isn't coming off them, while their friends lost so much. After talking more, it turns out that, as a result of surgery, they cut down their portions of crappy processed fast foods and other junk foods, but they continue to eat the same crap they ate before surgery (just less of it). That's not how you get down to a 25 BMI!!! You have to use this opportunity not only to cut down on your portions, but change your food and lifestyle choices. The people that make these changes and stick to it don't seem to have issues with regain (other than the normal 5-10 pound fluctuations that should be expected).

What does your Dr say? It seems everyone's program is different. For the first several months mine said to focus on protein and liquids only, not to worry about calories.

Yassssssssssssssssssssssssssssss [emoji738]

No - sorry! I didn’t end up having to pay that balance but they did send me a copy of the bill. When I saw those numbers I was astonished. That’s what got me worrying about being self pay with complications for this procedure.

It isn't easy, and I did have pain, but it was very well managed with medication. I have had terrible constipation, but as much as that sucks, it is a small price to lose as well as I have. Overall it has been easier than I anticipated, I was afraid of unbearable pain, starvation level hunger and vomiting, and I didn't have any of that. I am starting to lose my hair, and this has by far been the worst of it, and I'm extremely upset by it, but I have yet to see an after picture of anyone that has gone bald, so I am hoping it resolves soon. It's not easy but it's worth it.

I was sleeved on 11/8 and have had zero complications. (knock on wood). The only thing I am dealing with is constipation, but am now taking ducolax per my surgeon and so far this week it has been much better. Other than that. Nothing. I woke up from the anesthesia and not once used the pain meds in the hospital nor after discharge. I was up and walking same day. Had surgery on a Thursday and was back to work on Monday. Once I was cleared for exercise right before Christmas, I went back to my ballroom dance classes and am now going to the gym. I will be 3 mo post op on Friday. I have not experienced hair loss as of yet, but am expecting to have to deal with it as I hear it is unevitable, but will see what happens.

It is certainly worth looking into, though it doesn't seem that there is much that is special, as there are other single incision type lap techniques that are touted, and extensive pre-op diets, liquid or otherwise, are not a standard thing - I never did anything other than the usual day before thing. VSGs are sometimes done outpatient with the standard techniques - it's more of a concern of verifying that all of the inside part is working correctly than the incisions healing, and the endoscopic aspect is a normal part of a VSG procedure as that is where they insert the bougie that they use for guiding the stomach cut. It overall sounds like they are applying a proprietary name to some fairly routine techniques as a means of setting themselves apart from the crowd. There is another guy in TX that promotes a "special" sleeve (inverted, maybe?) that is little more than an oversewn staple line that is, or was, a fairly standard procedure. It mostly sounds like marketing more than anything overly innovative; I would really verify results and complication rates as results matter a lot more than what techniques are used to get them.