DesertRat

Shhhh! You're ruining the whole wonder drug business. But you are right. 30+ years ago I used to fast for days on end. My answer to any problem while fasting was a big old slug o' water and it always worked.

I would definitely think that this is a good question for the doc. I know that my CPAP is a pain most of the time. Preferred Homecare is my service provider and I am not impressed. They didn't even tell me about the elevation adjustment, etc. The thing is, with a BMI of 32 you may be no longer in need of a CPAP machine.

There's a product called Fiber Advance that can be purchased at WalMart. It's a gum drop with no refined sugars and two grams of fiber each. The only downside is that the recommended dose, two gum drops, has six grams of carbs.

As a genuine person with a weight problem I can say with some authority that I think all of us cast a much more critical eye upon ourselves than a person that is of average weight. IOW, we are more detail oriented about our appearance. Slender folk come in many varieties and, unless they are severely underweight, they tend to accept the anatomical variations they possess. OTOH, when you've fought weight for decades every visible feature can be a source of concern. At least that's my opinion on the subject.

That's quite reassuring to hear. For me hunger exists on two levels; the continuous hunger that always exists, even when I am physically feeling full and the hunger I would feel after great exertion such as when I come in from mowing my yard on a hot day. I've long since learned to say no to the continuous hunger which is probably the only reason I am at a BMI of 36 as opposed to a BMI of 46. I had my pre-op endoscopy yesterday and fasting for 12 hours was no problem although I would have given $1,000.00 for a cup of coffee. As it was, I had the procedure and was able to get coffee for less than $2.00 at a restaurant near the surgery center when the procedure was over. I guess tha the $998.00 saved was worth waiting an extra two hours for my morning coffee. As I see it, the question of sustainability comes into play. I can lose 20 pounds in the next month without surgery, all I have to do is starve myself, be in a lousy mood, and live miserably. I've done it before . . . but it's not sustainable as a lifestyle. No one wants to live starving, walk around with blood sugar in the 70s and in a bad mood and such a thing can really hurt one's employability. If weight control was easy, if diets actually worked, if we all had nothing else to do but exercise, cook healthful foods, etc, we would probably all be near ideal weight and there would be no such thing as a VSG but we live in the real world where nothing is ever that simple. In reading your blog PdxMan, I see a man that has changed his life, taken control of matters and set couse for a positive future. Thanks for posting, I found it quite an encouragement.

You've come to this point because you feel that you need to act to protect your health. This is a long term commitment to yourself. Chances are that you will not experience the severe difficulty you anticipate. It won't be a walk in the park but you will find that your hunger will abate to some degree. I used to practice fasting, nothing but water for days on end. By the second day hunger was hardly an issue. You'll do fine.

I've had the same thought. I think that there are valid reasons to believe that the sleeve will be more effective in the long term than bands. Probably the best evidence is the fact that failed Lapband patients succeed when revised to the sleeve. Here's my thinking on this. The shock of abdominal surgery, in and of itself, is enough to trigger weight loss. I quit eating after my appendectomy, probably because my digestive system was in shock from the trauma of a burst appendix, a complex operation to remove my appendix and clean out the peritoneum and the fact that I was deathly ill for the first few days afterward. I would imagine that a Lapband being installed also alters the operation of the digestive system for a time just because of the shock. That could easily be the tipping point for weight loss. But restrictive bands have little or no effect on hormones and the sleeve is said to have a serious effect on ghrelin. This would only make sense in view of the fact that the part of the stomach removed is responsible for a significant proportion of ghrelin production. I've also read that ghrelin is thought to be related to depression. Just a crazy guesstimate by a medical layman but, IMHO, it seems to fit nicely; depression, cravings for carbs, high insulin levels in response to a high-carb diet and a body hungry for proper nutrients secreting ghrelin which triggers more depression and cravings for carbs . . . It would certainly explain why my hunger seems almost constant much of the time. If the sleeve can reduce hunger to some extent and the restricted capacity of the stomach slows down eating it should work and be durable. It's not foolproof but I think it's probably the best bet out there for permanent weight loss. Even of my permanent results were only 50% EWL that would probably mean the difference between a healthy future and a diabetic future. If I can achieve and maintain 100% EWL I'll become the world's oldest Chippendale dancer and get rich on tips.

As a fellow desert dweller I know well the pleasure of guzzling water. a 16 oz. bottle of water is consumable in one motion right now and I can follow it with another in a matter of seconds. Maybe something added to the water would help. I just sampled a product called True Lemon, an unsweetened mix that adds a bit of lemon flavor to water. It might be worth a try. Forty two pounds is pretty good for less than 5 weeks. Don't give up, your metabolism has changed dramatically . . . for the better.

Great post CowgirlJane. All of these issues have been on my mind too. I don't know what the long-term effects will be but I think that the basics make sense. A smaller stomach and less ghrelin to trigger hunger makes sense. I don't expect miracles but am hoping that it will help to level the playing field. Something is wrong with my metabolism and always has been. I gained weight too fast as in infant. I have craved carbs as long as I can remember. When I was a very small child I swiped a cake mix from the kitchen and hid it in my room, eating it a spoonful at a time. I don't believe for a moment that as a pre-school child I had a complex neurosis that made me crave sweets, i was a happy kid with a wicked sweet tooth,I believe that I craved sweets for physical reasons. When I had my appendix out I lost my cravings spontaneously and lost forty pounds. It took effort, but at least it wasn't like scaling a shear rock face. For sixteen years I had fairly good control over my weight. My BMI was 26 most of the time with one excursion to 30. Then, at the age of 32 the weight started coming back and the same eating habits that had worked for 16 years were putting weight on me. Twenty five years hence my BMI is 36.3 and I'm having other problems. A year of low carb couldn't reverse the trend. My choices are three: give up and be a diabetic in another year or two, starve myself brutally or have WLS. For today the sleeve seems the way to go. Even if it only buys me ten good years that's better than nothing but I'm guessing that I'll make the most of it.

I'd be more inclined to believe the BMI chart than the 180 pound idea. If you took a look at me you could say that I'm a big Scandinavian man but, at nearly 5' 11" i've weighed as little as 147 pounds and I was not suffering a bit from being too thin. I doubt that the 57 year old me will ever be as slim as the 25 year old me but that won't keep me from working hard to lose as much as I reasonably can.

I wonder about all of this myself. The first meeting with the nutritionist is another 12 days. I love coffee, unsweetened, no creamer. I like tea too, especially Earl Grey. Once again, unsweetened, no creamer. Living in the desert I drink a lot of water, especially in the hot weather but I also drink unsweetened Iced Tea at times. I'll do whatever it takes to make it work but I hope that when all is said and done I'll still be able to enjoy a hot cup of coffee in the morning, even if it's decaf.

I'm not an old pro at WLS but I'm an old pro at dealing with weight including, in my younger days, some very successful weight control. I feel a kinship to anyone that is fighting to get their weight under control and I imagine that all of us know the feeling of being treated poorly because of obesity. I don't know why, but there seem to be a lot of people that believe you can say anything you want to someone that is overweight. We're all in this fight together.

Don't give up. Nature dealt you a rough hand but you took action and are improving matters. Next, you just need some support. Start with the basics, eat your Protein first, veggies and hopefully you'll be full before the carbs come into play. Exercise, live to drink Water and reward yourself with healthy rewards that don't involve food. Find support somewhere. Check and see if there's a local VGS support group. There's a site call Meet Up that people use to organize meetings of people with similar interests, maybe you can drum something local up through that. Online support is great too. This forum is filled with support.

You look great. Hang in, fight the fine fight and don't get discouraged. You've succeeded marvelously.

I know it's pretty bad. I've never been much of a cook, too afraid that I would overindulge in my own cooking. Maybe with some help from the sleeve I can turn this around and eat more healthfully by cooking my own food.

Reading through some other threads I ran into something that seemed familiar. The OP had eaten some carb-rich foods on vacation and was now experiencing hunger issues. I know that I have to avoid sweets and other high carb foods completely, especially in the morning, or I will crave them all day. I'd love to hear the experiences of experienced sleevers with regard to this phenomena.

While I have not been sleeved as of yet I have had the experience of going from life as an obese person to life at normal weight and can say that my experience was quite a ride. People will react differently to you and you will react differently to yourself. I spent my childhood being teased and ridiculed and had a defensive attitude because of it. I didn't like the way I looked and I was ashamed of myself. I didn't feel like dressing up when the person under the clothing didn't look good. It took some time to adjust and it was continuous for a while. It did get easier. The matter of running to food as an escape was also an issue but I got over it. At a healthy weight taking a walk is a lot more fun. Likewise, there are any number of non-food-related activities that will benefit you. Find something you've always wanted to do and go for it. Besides that, you are going through big changes in your body chemistry. The hormonal changes directly associated with surgery are only part of it. Adipose tissue is a great place for toxins to hide so you can experience some problems from that but they will pass. Your body has probably felt like it was starving for a long time and now it's not feeling that way anymore. You probably have changes in your insulin levels, perhaps lower blood sugar than you've had in years and with things in flux you are bound to have some ups and downs. It may be that some friends will not know how to react. When I lost weight as a kid the biggest change was my social life. I felt like I fit in for the first time in my life and I had adjustments to make. Sometimes I came on too strong because of my newfound social confidence. Other times I interpreted the actions of others negatively be cause I had been so accustomed to being treated badly. It tiook a while to learn the new rules of facing life as a fairly normal-sized person. It will get better.

Thanks for the recommendation. I bought a Kindle copy before I even finished reading your post. Over thirty years ago I worked in a convenience store for about two months and I was appalled by what I saw. At the time I was probably the most slender I had been in my adult life, perhaps 160 lbs, and that was the result of hard work, exercise and saying no to all sorts of things. People would come in and buy absolute garbage and eat it all the time. Because I was the one selling it to them I quickly became aware of how much junk food some of these people were consuming. It was nothing to see a teen buy a huge frozen slush drink or a 32 oz Pepsi plus some sort of pastry. Some of these kids were in several times a day and bought junk every visit. Our biggest sellers were Miller Beer, Pepsi and Marlborough cigarettes. It's no surprise to me that the same age group are now fighting obesity as an epidemic.

That's the kind of sleep dreams are made of.

Congratulations Lissa! You continue to inspire us.

With any decision of lasting impact it pays to write down the pros and cons. One of the very first things I did when I started looking into WLS was write down my reasons. It goes far beyond vanity, it involves my long-term health. In my case the triggering factor are the words pre-diabetic. I know where that can lead and is likely to lead; I don't want to go down that road. As it is today, I can hop on a bike and ride without exhaustion and I can even make good time. I take a hike around the block nearly every day and where I live, around the block exceeds two miles. I feel good most of the time and have very little restriction upon my activity. All that having been said, I want to preserve that for the future and hopefully make things better. I'm tired of having a CPAP machine and I'm tired of taking prescriptions. If I look at my medical history over the last ten years it seems that every year or two I get one more prescription. If I get off of all of them it would easily save the cost of surgery within a year; an incentive I intend to use if I have to fight the insurance company for approval. Now, I'm giving you my reasons for two purposes; to remind myself of why I am pursuing this and also to help you remember the thought processes that have taken you up to this point. Your reasons may well be different than mine but I'd be surprised if they were any less thorough. The only other thing I will mention is this; as the veteran of several surgeries I can state that it's never easy to face, even when the surgery is a simple, low-risk arthroscopy of the knee. It's rough to face on your own, I've been there myself having been dropped off at the hospital by a friend and picked up later in the day for a ride home. My advice to you would be to call upon whatever sources of emotional support you have available; people that will really help and that really want the best for you. Then, do what you think will be best in the long run. Whether or not to go through with this surgery is a decision only you can make but be advised, you are up to the challenge if you choose to go through with it.