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I feel like I need to share my experience with others, as I wish someone would have shared the same with me years ago. My weight loss started over 20 years ago, never stopped since, culminating with a gastric sleeve in 2017 (SW 360, CW 250, GW<200). After the WLS I've lost about 70 lbs and hit the plateau which lasted a few months. I tried breaking it with intensive gym, calories counting, but no real impact. As a result, I've lost motivation, and over the next 2 years gained about 30 lb back (late night snacks, sugary treats), which was a huge frustration. Having a sleeve - the best WL tool one may ever have - I felt like being a "regain" statistics, not an individual with life and willpower. I still had my "pouch" restriction, but after 30-40 minutes after having a meal I was ready to eat again. It lasted till last November, when I hit 290 lbs. The frustration turned into anger. I spent days to research diets and practices. As a result, I'm back on track, losing rapidly about 3-4 lbs a week, full of energy. Here are my 3 key pillars, which brought me back: 1. Low carb diet. After researching multiple trendy diets, KETO seemed to be the most promising one. But I didn't like the idea to consume lots of fats, and avoid vegetables. I'm an old-fashioned guy. So I adjusted the KETO idea by adding a decent daily portion of green veggies (zucchinis, asparagus, green pepper, kale - those which have nearly no sugars, but lots of fibers), and limited my fats to avocados, brazil nuts, eggs and fatty fish (salmon) - no huge amounts of bacon, butter, cheese and oils. For protein those above also provided enough, plus I have some lean pork, beef or chicken. That type of diet keeps my in permanent ketosis, while I still have a decent amount of fibers and healthy protein. My nutrients are around 50-60% of fats, 25-30% of proteins and 10-15% of carbs. 2. Intermittent fasting (IF), 18:6. It means my eating "window" is 1pm - 7pm, during which I have 3 meals. Personally I believe that low carbs diet and IF are made for each other. Being in ketosis I feel no hunger at all, as my insulin is very low. That makes IF a simple task. Also once a week I do a 42 hours fast by skipping meals on Sundays - right before my weight check on Monday morning! ). IF is also a solution to plateaus. I adjust the fasting time to 12:12 for a few days and do a long fast after (48+ hours) to reset. 3. CICO (calories in, calories out) is the 3rd pillar. Keeping everything written down is not just a good habit, but also makes me feel I control the process better. My daily intake is around 1,100-1,300 calories, which creates a huge weekly calories deficit for weight loss. One may consider it's a bit too low, and I would rather agree. I'll certainly increase my calories after hitting my goal. A few more tips from my experience: - After 40+ gym can't be the only solution. Keeping yourself active (especially with this pandemic) is important for general health, but unless I'm a professional athlete, 1-1.5 hour walk every day (outside or a treadmill) is good enough. - Staying hydrated is a must, healthy weight loss won't work without it. Tracking water was always a pain for me, I was forgetting to do that. Now I have 6 magnets next to my water cooler. Each time I refill my bottle, I move one magnet to the other side, which helps me to see how many refills left. No fuss with writing down, takes a fraction of a second to move the magnet - while keeps me fully informed. Helps a lot! - Supplements!!! Lots of them! Since I'm restricted and have rather a distorted diet, I need to fill the gap of minerals and nutrients. Multivitamins, husk fiber, omega-3, collagen, cumin, ox bile, Vitamin D, electrolytes etc. It's 18 pills per day, in 2 batches! My latest blood work returned perfect results - no deficiencies, and the lowest sugar level I ever had in my life. As a conclusion - no hunger, no frustration, no cravings, energetic, clear mind, active, positive - and still losing weight! I even think that it would be very doable without my WLS, but in fact a restricted stomach makes everything much easier. So much easier, then it feels sometimes I'm actually cheating in this weight-loss game! I do hope someone will find it helpful. I wish I knew that years ago, but better late than never.

Sounds like you may need to call your surgeon especially with the low grade fever just in case you're getting an infection. I think the one normal common thing is feeling tired and ran down at your stage. I did a lot of sleeping the first 6 weeks. Between healing from surgery to the restriction of calories,it doesn't give you a lot of energy. I'm 10 weeks and started to feel a lot more energy about 8 weeks out. If I do a lot one day the next day I'm usually wiped out. My doctor said that's normal till around 6 months out. I hope you feel better and they can get to the bottom of why you don't feel good

The weird thing is that I had only seen bits and pieces of My 600 Lb Life until recently. I've always thought it was abhorrent the way they exploited people struggling with mental health and weight...just disgusting. Lemme tell you it was a bit awkward when I found out Dr. Now was a friend's dad... But just in the past week since I've been on my pre-op diet (my SADI-s surgery is in less than a week now) I've been watching it...still think it's awful, but watching it all the same. I think I'm watching it because it gives me a glimpse into the process of WLS and puts my mind at ease that so many people have had successful surgeries. I'm incredibly nervous about the actual procedure, and this is helping with that anxiety some... I don't watch Dr. Pimple Popper because she gets on my nerves for some reason. I have no idea why...she's perfectly lovely. I used to watch her on Youtube a looooong time ago before the TLC show because I'm a pimple popper through and through. LOL (I may have revealed too much about myself with that one....)

This.

I was opposite. I had one done when I got down to 146 lbs (I'm 5'6") so I could see how much further I had to go. She said "ah...you're done". My fat % was 22%, which is on the lean side for women. (I did eventually get down to 138, which I knew was too thin for me - I'm pretty muscular and have a large frame, and I didn't look very healthy at that low a weight). But anyway, those DEXAscans give you info you'd never know otherwise - I found it very helpful (it also reported that my bone density was below average, so I went to my doctor, as the scan technician recommended - turned out I had (and have) osteoporosis. Never would have known it that early if it hadn't been for that scan!

I understand you wanting some quiet time when you get home. When I got home I used to say I’ve been nice to people all day long & I can’t be nice to anyone else. I was a poor sleeper pre surgery - averaging about 5 hours a night so I understand your exhaustion & low tolerance levels. Not sleeping is an awful thing. After surgery I became a world champion sleeper - about 9 hrs a night sometimes more. Unfortunately that seems to have changed & I’ll have a couple of bad nights & then a good night. Hope I’m not reverting back to my old habits. ☹️ Have to question how effective melatonin really is though. My mother was prescribed melatonin & took it every night. She was told it could take a year for levels to build up & the benefits to be realised . Well, it’s been 2 years & she still doesn’t sleep. Not sure how old you are, but poor sleep can be a symptom of peri menopause. Hope you find a solution soon.

I too am a stomach sleeper. I am almost 2 months post-op and have no problems sleeping on my stomach now. I had to sleep on my sides for a few weeks after surgery. I would forget and roll over to my stomach. It never hurt, it was just uncomfortable.

I don’t keep many clothes long term (over 5 yrs) because My personality may outgrow that particular style. I decided to donate the majority of my clothes that didn’t fit (body or style) to charity. I gave the clothes I loved the most to friends and family (who could fit them) so I knew for sure they were well cared for and I could enjoy them from a distance.

I have epilepsy but I haven’t had my surgery yet. My doctor said there wasn’t any issue with it. The only thing is that some people might have to adjust meds because after surgery you can’t take Extended-Release meds anymore. If that’s the case for you I’d try to make the switch before surgery if you can to ensure that you tolerate the new meds first. Good luck!

Hello everyone 😊 I am a new member here, i did my VSG surgey on 27 Sep, 2020🥳 I am almost 4 months out of surgery 💪🏻✨ Just wanted to say sorry if you can’t understand what I am writing since English is not my first language 🙈 I am from Saudi Arabia btw ❤️ I wanted to get VSG for the past 2 years and read about about it, watched a lot of youtube videos for people’s journeys. I read about everything that could happen after the surgery and I thought I was prepared But starting this month I felt less motivated and more fatigued than before I don’t know why I can not eat very well I get full just by eating 2 bites and I can only finish half of the meal like if I cooked 1 egg (medium) I can only eat half maybe with 1 olive 🫒 if I have a toast with sliced turkey I can only eat 1/4 of it yesterday my dinner was 4 pieces of pasta with feta cheese and small chicken breast cubes and could only have 3 bites only by for ing myself to get the third bite I don’t understand, why am I eating and drinking so little? And is it really little or the correct portion? I can only drink up to 1200 ml which is around 4oz. I can not drink anymore than that still working my way to drink more 🙈 and every time I eat or drink i get a feeling like a pinch in my sides 🤷🏻‍♀️ I feel lazy and unmotivated, I just want to lay in bed all day anyone went through the same as me at the beginning of surgery?💔 I have anxiety and overthink everything so I don’t know if what I am going through is really bad or not 🙈