swizzly

My feet and face both did get a bit smaller first. Weird. I agree that it is annoying to lose in butt/thighs but not abdomen -- so trousers are tight in the waist and baggy in the arse. Soooo attractive... The only area that seems to be not losing at all is my arms, damn their fatness!! I can fit a medium or large shirt most of the time, but often they are too tight in the effing arms. That's going to be some seriously attractive baggy skin I will someday get there...I'll have to take up bingo straightaway to use them to full effect.

Awesome!!

I find peanut butter to be the single best addition to my post-op diet so far. I used to not like it much pre-op, but now it tastes like heaven to me. It goes down well, fills me up pretty quickly though, and has good carb and protein stats. I just told my husband we have to bring our jar on holiday with us (it can't be found everywhere, so I never know when I'll find it!) because I'm scared of trying to get enough calories without it. My snack every night (my after-dinner snack, which is on my plan -- 'late snack') is a spoon of peanut butter that I nibble on for a few minutes till it's all gone. Delish.

Excellent point, and totally true. I was forbidden from anything but walking for six weeks, and walking was just meant to give a bit of gentle movement and breathing, not a big workout or long distance.

Great story, thanks for sharing it here. Best to you.

Well, my program is controversial sometimes, but I'm happy to tell you my own experience. I have gotten at least 700 cals per day since the second week post-op, and I'm up to 1000-ish now. I am also required to eat carbs every day, so I do. I find it absolutely to be helpful to my energy levels, my memory and thinking, and my blood sugar levels. I do eat a lot of Protein, but I also get in 70-90 carbs per day, almost all of those from whole-grain crackers/bread or potatoes/pasta. There is a huge emphasis on eating (not drinking) your calories here, and eating a balanced diet from the start -- including carbs and fruit/veg. So I personally really like this approach, I would never do a liquid diet or massive calorie counting or restriction (these are triggers for me), which I'm not asked to do here anyhow. I wouldn't do it, though, even if I were in the US, so it's just down to my personal needs and knowing what I can -- and cannot -- sustain. I find it extremely positive to learn to really listen to your body and treat it well. (ETA: I do eat three meals and three Snacks per day on my plan.) Best of luck to you.

Man, I can only imagine. I spent a few months in Russia back in the 90s, and at the time, I was only like 40 lb overweight. But I was huge compared to most of the women there. The middle-aged women and babuschkas were *fascinated* by me -- they wanted to know how I'd done it, they wanted their own kids to be fatter, they saw it as healthier. It was a very weird experience to be the biggest person everywhere I went, and only be in a size 16 or 18 misses. But yeah, the younger women were soooo thin, and I just felt like a monster walking around. Sigh. You have a ton of courage and moxie, I like that about you.

Yes. When I was a practicing bulimi-rexic. Don't. do. it. Take gentle walks at most. Focus on getting more food/protein in, you are on too few calories IMO. Can you add some Snacks between meals to get more in? Good luck!!

OMG. {{{Ursie}}} Your story really touched me. I totally hope the sleeve is just the ticket for you. Truly.

There is nothing that is permanently forbidden on my program. No one ever mentioned gum at all, and soda was just listed as something you shouldn't have too much of, and wait till you reach your goal first.

Hi there, very similar experience to mine, minus the pain + some nausea and dry-heaving. LOL. I also wanted to BUST OUTTA THERE like two days before they finally let me. I never had a catheter, which is fine bc I hate them. Why are the night nurses always the cranky ones?? Most of them here speak English...but will opt to suddenly refuse to in the middle of the night when my German is the most sucky. HMPH! Glad you are doing so well!!

Ironically, I could eat a lot more early post-op than I can now, because I could not at all "feel" when I was full. So I am sure I overate a couple of times then. You should be super careful the first month or two to really eat only a certain amount, as you can damage your wee tummy. I had a bean and cheese burrito last week for dinner, homemade (no Taco Bell here, waaaaahhhhhh), and could not even eat half of it, after I tore away a lot of the extra tortilla. And I ate small cheese raviolis for dinner last week as well, and could only eat four of them, they were smaller than pierogi. (Maybe the Russian ones are really much smaller than other pierogi?) Anyhow, I am three months post-op, so that's just for comparison. I hope you are doing okay and can get the eating under control, I would hate to see you hurt yourself somehow.

You know, I essentially got told as well that I 'didn't need' pain medication (well, aside from acetaminophen lol) after sleeve surgery, as though it were categorically true of anyone getting the surgery. Luckily I was actually NOT in that much pain, just a bit the first day. I mean, I live in a country with the highest standard of living, the top health care, the best of everything -- but they still are completely conservative about pain killers. It's bizarre. Plus there is an American bias, where they think Americans in general are whiny wimps (seriously) -- my dentist when I first moved here shot me full of like 2x the amount of Novocaine as I needed, and when I was still numb that night, he explained that he assumed I'd need more Novocaine (or any at all; apparently the locals often opt out of having it ) because I came from the US. We have since come to a better understanding of my ACTUAL wimp level and the appropriate numbing to use. That all said, I do believe they both recognise and treat fibro and CFS here, as I've read articles about it in the news from time to time, how it's on the rise, and how to treat it, etc. I think if I had really demanded and made a fuss that I needed better drugs, they for sure would have given them to me. The low-key treatment approach was just the default and I wasn't fussed enough to fight about it. When I had open surgery in 2007, they did give me plenty of self-administered morphine for the first day or so post-op. (Then they put acetaminophen and ibuprofen suppositories up my back door for the next few days after that...don't even get me started...) I'm anyhow really sorry that things happened the way they did with Renee's pain treatment (lack thereof) and I hope by now you are feeling much better.

Looks pretty good to me, looks sort of like my days usually look. I also eat full-fat mayonnaise and tuna in olive oil. I loathe fat-free foods. Today I ate about 1000 kcals, with 62g carbs, 58g fat, and 80g Protein, which is pretty typical for me, so you're like on the same approximate program with just fewer calories than I'm eating. So I guess it's natural that I think you're doing well lol.

My multivitamin still makes me a little nauseated every time I take it, but my b-complex sits just fine. Weird. I'm switching to tablets as soon as I run out of the effervescent ones.

Glad to hear you've survived some tough times...and done so well with your sleeve so far as well. I do think there is some 'low-hanging fruit' in terms of what you could easily change. First, don't drink your calories -- either lay off the Starbucks, or else only get small ones with SF syrup and FF milk. At the least, you could just get the smallest size and only one per day. Then limit yourself to a half-hour with it, then throw it away if you're not finished. Second, if you're not immediately post-op, it's always easy to up your fluids. Drink more than the minimum amount of Water each day, set a goal and mark it off as you go, until it becomes a habit. Water is a great weight-loss aid. Finally, eat Protein before you eat anything else and you will be too full to eat other things -- and don't eat between meals or official Snacks. Some fairly easy changes (I think) would get you right back on track. Good luck!!

I didn't tell my family. Still haven't. (It's the second surgery I've had in a foreign country, but it's the country I live in lol.) I reckon I will eventually tell them next time I see them, as they will likely be curious about how I've lost weight.

This whole thread is just wonderful, I've read through it twice already. A couple of things really spurred me on -- getting diagnosed and put on meds for hypertension, which doesn't run in my family so it was all on me. Wow, that made me feel old and fat and on the beginning of a decline. And I've also been watching a friend have all kinds of awful experiences with diabetes (also not in my family...yet?) and it scared the crap out of me. However, I think the thing that actually finally made me say YES I'm doing surgery was learning about the sleeve. It's the first one that made sense to me, though I'd toyed with the idea of GBS before, there was no way I could go through with it. The sleeve procedure itself was like a lightbulb moment for me, it just clicked. It's been a great experience so far, I would do it again in a heartbeat.

Oh believe me, hun, I WOULD have taken them if they would have given them to me, they just told me I "didn't need them." Riiiiiiggghhht. I am the biggest wimp EVER, trust me. ETA: Ah, I just realised I have a major typo in my original post -- should be "I DIDN'T take any pain meds," not "I DON'T take any". LOL. Huge difference.

I'm a bit on the slow side, too -- so I'm glad to read your success in 8 months! Congrats to you!!

I don't take any pain meds at all, pre-op or post-op (they only gave me non-narcotics like paracetamol), and I also had the nausea and massive dry heaving for nearly three days. It sucked, but it was not related to anything med-related.

Welcome, Tamz. I'm sorry for the loss of your parents. I am glad to hear you are ready to fully embrace life again after recovering from that.

LOL! I'm just glad when someone doesn't get completely offended by my soapboxes, but I'll definitely take platonic lust too. :D

I'm trying to just sort of ignore it lest I jinx myself on the verge of onderland and stall out one pound away for the next three weeks!

You are SOOOOO pretty!