MegInNOLA

GT, hope you've seen a doc by now and it's nothing serious--keep us posted, though!

Just posting to bump this up the ranks for other tall folks to see. I know when I was considering the sleeve, there was virtually no information from taller women (with one exception), so I really had no idea what to expect. Let me just say it worked for me (from 337 highest weight, 306 day of surgery, to 170 this morning) and at 6'2" I'm wearing size 10 skinny jeans and they're big in the waist. Who'd have thunk it?! I also have one of the pickiest sleeves on the planet--if you search for posts I've made, you'll see that I went through quite a bit of limitation as far as what foods it would tolerate, and I had trouble with excess acid and throwing up for the first two months. I still consider my sleeve "picky," but as it has matured--I'm 19 months out from surgery now--it has gotten much more tolerant of a variety of foods. If you have a picky sleeve, I can sympathize and offer my suggestions. Hope everyone is moving towards their goals!

Well, how's everyone doing?

Started at 6'2", 306 morning of surgery, 4/18/2011, tight size 26/28, 3X Currently still 6'2", 171, size 10/12/14, M/L/XL (depending on sizing--still have some of "the girls" and am bigger up top than on bottom)

What a relief, Coops! I'm glad you'll see your daughter soon--she will definitely have a story to tell in the future, although I'm sure it is vastly different from the intended one!! So glad she is safe and headed home. My sleeve DEFINITELY hates food when I'm stressed or over-tired or emotionally upset. I have learned to eat Soup and a bit of cheese (NO meat, no crackers) when I MUST eat and I'm super tired or stressed--for instance, if I'm working as a guest clinician and I am working pretty hard for most of the day (and conducting and singing and teaching is a very physical gig, especially when working with honor choirs--you have to be "on" all the time), I get super tired and kind of worn down physically and mentally, and the best food for me is always soup, something easy on the sleeve and something that I can't "feel" in there. Lettuce/tomato salad seems to work, too, but absolutely NO flour products. For me, it's almost like going back to when I was first sleeved, although I can tolerate more volume now--the type of food that a stressed sleeve can handle is pretty much the same as it always has been. Coops, keep us posted!

I totally forgot about peanut butter--I used to eat nuts a lot, but I only have them occasionally now. That will be a pleasure to reinstate!! And I already eat avocado practically daily--it's one of my favorite foods!! We definitely do not eat butter or oil, and I only eat olives occasionally, so I guess I could probably add some olive oil in; I love it, but it's just not a habit any more. I'm traveling a lot in the next couple of weeks and will have less control over my food options. I'll post when I get back, but thanks for the tips!

It's super strange--presurgery I was having all sorts of hot flashes and nasty "menopausal" symptoms, then I had surgery and all that WENT AWAY until just a couple of months ago. I think I read somewhere that fat loss causes estrogen that is stored in that fat to come into your blood, which is why some people get crazy mood swings after surgery--I think what it did for me was delay menopause for a year and a half!! But now we're in full-blown swing of things.... Coops, you are definitely NOT alone in this. I haven't slept straight through the night in a couple of months, either. I got a lot of sleep last night at a hotel where I was attending a convention--it was SUPER COLD in the room, though, as my roommate likes the room cold, and I froze most of the night. But I only woke up once in the middle of the night, when she got home from going out with friends, and slept for 6 hours straight (bliss!!) until 8 a.m. I couldn't believe it when I woke up. And I feel SO MUCH better today! It's getting colder here finally, so hopefully it will be cold in our apartment for a few nights and I can see if that makes a difference to my sleep quality. Meanwhile, I have a sort of strange question--I keep dropping weight without really trying to do it, and it's not like it's just falling off or anything, but it's dropping... Do you think that menopause has anything to do with it? I always thought people GAINED weight at menopause, but my metabolism seems to have picked up (and I'm not doing anything exercise-wise). I'm a lot colder all the time, but that's the only thing that maybe is burning more calories....? I do not want to add any junk to my diet to slow things down, but I'd like to stop losing now. I'm 6'2" and wear size 10 and I feel fine at this size--I feel slender and long, and I'm starting to have issues with bony areas--my butt absolutely aches when I have to sit for longer than 30 minutes or so!!! Please believe me, I'm not whining, as I am sort of mind-blown that I even have this issue after a lifetime of obesity, but it's a serious question--what do you think I should add to sort of stop the weight loss (if anything)? I can't really tolerate fatty/fried/sweet things--I guess I could add cream to my coffee, but I'm just reluctant. I'd like to add food that will add nutrition and other stuff besides calories.... I could always eat Cheetos (and I do sometimes!!) but I don't want to go there--that's how I ended up at 300+ before. Suggestions? Thoughts? And y'all know me here--definitely NOT going "oh, poor me, I'm just toooo thin" etc. etc. Just trying to be healthy and do things the smart way!! This is a situation I never in a million years thought I'd have to think about.

Yep, I'm still losing, probably 2 pounds a month at this point. Not actively trying to drop any more, just living and doing my usual daily stuff. I eat what I want, trying to keep the focus on healthful foods, although I do drink wine occasionally and enjoy my sugar-free low-fat ice cream. We don't eat a lot of "junk" around here (my husband is also a sleever). Neither of us really likes sweet/fatty food, so we don't keep it here. I eat corn chips almost daily, but it's as a mini-meal with some cheese or hummus, and it's a small serving, since my sleeve still very much keeps me from overeating. I'm over 18 months out now and figure I'll stop losing when my body hits ideal equilibrium--no idea, but as I say, I'm not actively trying--just living and eating and enjoying things. :-)

Hey Coops, I'm having hot flashes, too--it's the PITS. I seem to only have them during the night and after I blow-dry my hair in the morning--I guess the heat from the dryer sets one off? The worst are the ones at night--and I have more than 10 a night. I know this because I wake up every hour--as soon as I wake up, I feel a sort of odd fluttering in my stomach, and then I get a wave of heat that washes over me. I take off the covers and it dissipates in probably 15-20 minutes, but seriously--I totally understand the drained, frustrated feeling from lack of sleep. I still don't sweat with them, and I don't know why except that I just don't seem to sweat much at all any more, not even when working seriously hard. I confess that I consider that a solid benefit of weight loss, this being cold all the time during the day, but I wish things would even out!! I freeze all day and burn up all night. Yuck. I've been trying some herbal stuff for a few days, but it isn't really working yet. I think I'm going to ask my PCP for a script for some topical hormonal cream to see if that can help. My brain isn't functioning really well these days--sleep deprivation!

Hey y'all, just checking in to say hi and let you know if you have questions/concerns, you can message me. I had surgery a year and a half ago (April of 2011) and am doing well-still dropping super slowly even after goal, which is pretty cool. Hope all my fellow Louisianians are doing well!!

Hey Coops, yes to all symptoms--total lack of energy (felt like BLAH all the time), nails splitting, hair falling out by the handfuls. Underactive thyroid is one of the easiest medical conditions to treat--one tiny pill once a day. I take Synthroid every morning; generic, levothyroxine, is only $4 here on my plan, but my doc recommended that I stick to the name brand for better consistency in potency and formulation--it's still only $20 a month, which is the only prescription I have now that I've dropped the weight. Thyroid issues are FAST to diagnose, too; the blood work is easy. Just be sure that you request a "complete thyroid panel," not just a plain old TSH (thyroid stimulating hormone), because sometimes only one part of the thyroid equation is out of whack, and the TSH doesn't always show that by itself.

Coops, if your thyroid is out of whack, that could totally keep you from losing any weight AND cause thinning hair--plus make your cold or hot all the time (depends, really--mine did/does both) and give you a sense of general BLAH. Definitely get it checked out!! And make sure they run a detailed thyroid panel, not just one general test. Sometimes it's one specific part of the thyroid hormones that is out of whack, and you can't always tell that from just the single general test. Ask for a free T4 in addition to the TSH. Before I was sleeved, my doc told me that there was no way I was going to lose any weight at all until my thyroid was under control--she said I could actually GAIN weight on as few as 250 calories a day (that's 250, not a typo) because my thyroid was so underactive that my metabolism was SUPER slow--she said it wouldn't matter if I consumed NO calories--I would probably not lose any weight at all until I got the thyroid into the normal range. So it's a big deal. I'm sorry--I thought you had had that checked a long time ago--that would have been my very first suggestion to you!! Meanwhile, definitely keep us posted--I'm curious about it now and wonder if that's the reason you're still stalling out, despite what I consider a very limited caloric intake for someone as far out from surgery as you are.

Nothing new to add except that, if you play your cards right and use the opportunity of being sleeved to truly alter your eating habits to healthy ones, you can continue to lose (albeit very slowly!) for a long time. I'm still losing at almost 18 months out--it's super slow now, like one pound a month drop, but it's still going. My husband just dropped into Onderland (199, thank you!) at 2-1/2 years out! He was sleeved a year ahead of me. So yeah, use the sleeve for volume restriction, but also use this time to wean off of those foods that were never your friends--ditch them! Start new, healthy habits that will keep you slender and healthy for the rest of your life. Best wishes to you!!

My husband and I are both sleevers, and we eat a lot of sushi. Since I can't eat regular white or brown rice but CAN tolerate rice paper, we make spring rolls with boiled shrimp, julienne veggies (cucumber, lettuce or cabbage), some cilantro (ESSENTIAL, in my opinion), all wrapped up in the rice paper. It's cool, it's no-cook, it's high protein, and it's fantastic. We dip into peanut sauce, which is basically peanut butter, some chili sauce, and some soy sauce with a squeeze of lime juice, thinned with water. We LOVE these! For you carb trackers, there are 4 carbs in a piece of rice paper--and I can only eat about half a piece of the rice paper-wrapped spring roll at a time. You may be able to handle more. Enjoy!!

I never meet my water goals, either, and it's not until I get cramps in my feet at night that I really buckle down--dehydration is a b*%&$!! And I don't know about you, but I don't have a lot of time during the day to sit around and sip--teaching is a time-consuming profession, and as a choir director, I can't really be drinking in class. So my new resolution is to keep a bottle of water in the fridge at work with enough flavoring stuff in it so that I will WANT to drink it.... and I still definitely need to keep tabs on the caffeine thing--it definitely perks me up, but it also dehydrates me. I used to think of it as a trade-off I'd take, but I really don't like feeling super tired and jangly all at the same time--dehydrated whilst wired on caffeine isn't fun.