swizzly

So far, there is nothing I can't eat. Not that I have tried too much crappy stuff or anything. But I have used whole wheat tortilla with my homemade hummus, yummy. Of course, it's very filling, very fast -- I can't fit much in.

I have never sweated much under my arms, still don't. But I sweat on my head and face a lot -- might be less stinky, but is also significantly less attractive. I hope I am like you and it goes away eventually.

Oh what an adventure. Hope all goes well! Do tell us what your sleeve looks like now, I am always interested to hear how they've stretched (or not).

I have artificial sweeteners running in my veins, starting with saccharine and Tab since I was old enough to hold the can myself. That said, I'm not a huge aspartame fan, but I do use it. I find that if I Water things down 2-1 over what they're supposed to be, it's okay and not too sweet. I have eaten sugar post-op, especially in a "diet" quark I was eating all the time, and then found out was made with sugar. I also eat a bit of dark chocolate sometimes. It hasn't made me sick or anything. I am a slowish loser anyhow, but it's certainly not down to sugar abuse lol. I drink plain water all the time now, not a problem. But I never had a liquid phase where I had to live off those shakes, though the one I can find here isn't overly sweet. I honestly mixed it with way less powder than the instructions said to. Glad to hear you are now post-op AND ship-shape.

I didn't even know that revision was possible, that's great! What do they do for the revision -- do they first reverse the RNY and then make a sleeve from the pouch + old stomach? If you know the details, I'd love to hear them. Best of luck also!!

I eat bread -- or crackers. If I have egg salad, I will use half a slice of wheat bread or 3-4 wholegrain spelt crackers. Yummy!

I was SOOO nauseated and vomiting violently for the first three days after surgery, and the nausea meds were making it worse, but then suddenly I just felt better and have never been nauseated since. I hope you're feeling better again soon as well.

PS -- my plan does require three meals and three Snacks per day, so I'm eating fairly often to get in that many calories. Though I have a hard time to hit all those snacks during the work week. ETA: The bariatric clinic did a test on me that measured resting metabolic rate, and mine was 1880.

I'm shooting for 1000/day, but this is my own goal - there is not a calorie/carb/protein goal prescribed in my program. I usually get between 800-1000 per day, and 60-100 g of carbs, which are required on my program. I have some anorexia in my history and anything under 800 is a trigger for me. Also, I have a pretty good metabolism and I do not want to slow it down.

I've not had a stress test and I don't really know what it involves, but I DO know I hate failing at anything, so I can relate on that level for sure. It doesn't even mean anything in the grand scheme of things, but it still gives an excuse to beat up on yourself...as though we need one more of those. I'm glad there was an alternative.

You look great -- and the scenery where you live is beautiful!

FWIW, I have always felt I could eat more (and much more easily) than a lot of people on here as well. I've been on full solids since day four post-op, and though I took a fairly conservative approach at first, I could eat a whole egg straight away. I could probably eat an egg and a half at this point, likely not two. My plan calls for three meals and three Snacks per day, and I usually get in 800-1000 calories per day. I am fine with that, my past experience of doing 400-600 calories per day was absolute shit on my body. If I lose more slowly, that's okay. The other day I was out shopping and walking around town all day and I realised I was starving, so ducked into a (new!) Burger King that has just come to town and had a cheesburger -- I took off the top bun, ate half the burger with bottom bun, then ate just the remaining meat without any bun. So about 1/3 of the total bun + the entire meat/cheese patty. And I was full after, but not overly so. It went down well and I felt awesome after. I can eat bread, Pasta no problem. I'm not a huge fan of rice, so I don't even bother. I eat 30g of bran flakes (about 1/2 cup) + about 2oz of milk over it and that makes a nice satisfying breakfast. There are not foods I can't tolerate, and I don't have to chew like a madwoman or eat sloooooowly. I was briefly inclined to become neurotic and anal about it, but then I figured, meh, feck it -- I am enjoying post-op life and getting in a lot of quality food. I feel like I'm doing very well. I also drink coffee every day and have an occasional glass of wine. Very occasional. This is Europe, it's all allowed no problem.

I have once in a while gotten a little chillier than before, but in general I have not gotten significantly colder.

I was just talking to my sleeve friend here about this at the weekend. I at first had a hard time to tell when I was full, so I just ate small amounts -- when it felt like I needed to burp but couldn't, that was my signal to stop. I have found over time that I will get the single hiccup thing as well, if I eat just a bit too much. Now -- what, 10 weeks out? -- I am getting my familiar 'full' signal back. I can feel when I've had enough and I stop. It's not stuffed or overfull, just "full." It's like the old signal my brain remembers, I find it both comforting and a bit disturbing (full signals are an old trigger for me, which I thought was long gone, but that's another story). I got a little too full when I ate 80g (maybe 2-3 oz?) of very thin ham last night for dinner, as I was trying to up my Protein for the day and was a bit too rushed. Urgh. Just uncomfortable for a bit, then fine after that. ETA: I personally disagree with Foxbins about washing things down with Water -- my own experience has been that adding any liquids in while eating can make me very uncomfortable, very fast.

Oh my god -- that just totally still seems like a honeymoon to me!! You took a three-month break that included the holidays and eating 'whatever you wanted' and you only gained five pounds? I don't know about you, but back in the pre-sleeve years, if I went off the rails for three months + holiday season, I could easily have packed on 20. I would say five pounds is still a freakin miracle, compared to what it was like pre-sleeve. Sorry for my, um, quite energetic post, lol -- I'm just blown away by that. Good on you for doing so well.

I have had the same questions, crosswind. I thought the 'honeymoon period' was really mostly applicable to GBS, as it has the special calorie-malabsorption factor that diminishes over time, and is most active in the first year (as far as I know). The only 'honeymoon period' I could think of re: a sleeve is just that it's smaller/tighter when it's first done due to swelling, so one might be on lower calories for a few weeks in the beginning? (Though I was on 800 fairly quickly and now try for 1000 each day.) But there isn't, AFAIK, a magical element to the first months of VSG like there is with GBS. A sleeve doesn't stretch out like a pouch does, at least that's what my doctors and surgeon told me, so it's always going to be a much lower capacity than a normal stomach, and most likely a smaller capacity than a lot of pouches as well. So it seems to me like it will have a longterm effect. I think, as with any of these WLS tools, you can learn to eat around the stomach you have, regardless of its shape/size. And that maybe over time, this tendency gets worse and worse if you aren't quite careful? I don't think it's anything like inevitable, though.

Do you only have a single scar? I can't see more than one!! Yours look SOOO good in comparison to mine. My incisions were closed with staples as well, so they have those little dots all along the sides of the incision scars. LOVELY. I don't know why they can't just use surgical glue or steri-strips (which is what I had on my hysterectomy scar that's turned out so good). Sigh. JEALOUS.

The cream is called Gorgonium, but I'm not sure they have it everywhere, or if it goes by another name in different countries? I had to wait six weeks before I could start using it -- I originally used it for my very large open-hysterectomy scar and that one is now white like my skin and barely visible at all.

Mine are still quite purpley-red, especially against my oh-so-pasty skin. I do use a prescription anti-scar cream that is helping, I need to be better about using it every day.

I only had the requirement not to eat after midnight the night before, too. It's common to have pre-op diets, but not everyone has them. I would consider your course where you lost 10% of your body weight to be a major pre-op diet!

I would too, but I haven't smoked MJ in many years so who knows what effect it would have on me now.

I know smoking cigarettes/tobacco causes all that stuff, but does MJ smoking also have those effects? I've not heard that before.

I've no idea what size mine is! They never said, they just said it's about the size of a man's finger or a woman's thumb. All I know is, it is definitely small. I don't know the capacity, but it's not much!

I never try to convince people it's not easy -- for several reasons, not least of which is because I have personally found it to be ludicrously easy. My questions back to these non-thinking 'easy way out'-ers always involve inquiring how much smarter might it be to do that which is both more effective and easier? Is there some particular virtue about doing something the "hard way"?? Good lord, doing things that are clever in terms of outcome and effort is why humans don't live in effing caves anymore. Do people say OMG YOU TOOK THE EASY WAY OUT when you, e.g., choose to send an email instead of climbing a mountain and building a fire with flint and steel and then sending smoke signals?? There is also an underlying inseparable value judgment in the whole 'easy way out' thing -- to wit, "you're a big fat old fatty who has no willpower or self-control or discipline and you therefore deserve to be punished via ineffective starvation diets and weight regain overandoverandoveragain." To that judgment I say: Piss right off. Go pound sand. At the end of the day, I have clearly chosen the smarter alternative. They can all suck it. Right. I'm in a bit of a mood today. I am ranting (is this the rant section?), so I hope no one takes it personally. I could also rant about Curves in general, but I will spare everyone my precious opinions.

I was expecting to be freezing because people talk about it a lot. I am not freezing really at all. I'm slightly chillier than normal, but I still get hot when it's warranted by the weather or my activities lol. I am happy not to freeze right now, but I'm hoping that I also won't get too hot when it's high summer and the AC is crap.