pwpjp10

Hi all, good to see these stories. I had my sleeve on January 18, 2011 with Dr. Jones at Park NIcollet. I weighed 257 and was a size 24 or 26. Now I am at 165 and can wear a size 12 in most things with about 15 more to goal weight. My life has totally changed! Though I worked full time and traveled alot for work, before I had to curtail most of my physical activities, use a cane and walker, drive carts in stores, and even needed a wheel chair at the airport for travel. Now I have my life back. I can do house work, shop for hours, run all over the airport, wear heels again and have tons of energy, and can wear clothes that I like again and find things that fit easily. At first I had alot of problems. My doctor required 10 days of liquid diet prior to surgery and I actually gained weight on that. Then weight loss was really slow and I was very frustrated as I have alot of arthritis and could not take ibuprofen until March. When I was able to take that again, everything changed. I was able to get moving and even though I didn't really exercise formally I started to lose more consistently. I have Chobani black cherry yogurt for breakfast, 1% cottage cheese for lunch, other cheeses and/or almonds for a snack and meat and some potato and vegetable for dinner with a few squares of dark chocolate for a treat. I stick to about 1000 or 1100 calories per day and keep track on Fitness Pal. We do eat out alot and eat what I want but a whole lot less of it. I bring part of my food home or my husband and I split things or I order an appetizer or small plate sizes. I even treat myself to ice cream and triple cream cheeses and popcorn sometimes, but generally stick to protein items rather than breads, sandwiches, pizza or pastas but generally keep snacking to an exception. So I don't feel deprived at all. I love the feeling of restriction as it helps me curtail my portions. I think the sleeve was the perfect solution for me as I am not diabetic and didn't want permanent malabsorbtion. I just hope I can maintain this. Anyone a couple of years out? I would love to hear what happens after 18 months and how you can maintain this over time.

Hello! I had my sleeve on January 18th and have lost about 20 lbs, but lots of that was before surgery and have not lost a pound since Feb. 7, in fact I have gained 1b since then. I have done everything I am supposed to do in terms of food progressions and am not snacking or going outside the parameters on amounts or anything. I have been doing about 500 to 600 calories a day! For a week or so I had trouble getting Protein in as the lactaid milk with Protein powder made me too nauseous, but since then I have been advanced to the soft diet and am now getting more protein in through food and doing regular skim milk with lactaid pills which does not make me nauseous. But I too am pretty discouraged, I have been doing pool excercises three times a week (which is as much as I can do due to back and hip issues.) I know I will be a bit slower due to that but this seems ridiculous. All this pain and no reward! My clinic says since my BMI is not as high as some (I have to lose about 100 lbs) and due to age and back issues I will be slower and not to worry, but I was not a terrible eater to begin with and if tiny portions don't work, what will? Did you guys do anything to get out of a stall?

I can't stand artificial sweeteners either so am sticking to water, broth, and tea for my liquids. Also have found two protein powders without artificial sweeteners. One is call BioChem (Natural). Got it at local coop health food store. 22 grams of whey protein a scoop, flavored only by natural vanilla bean so it goes ok with milk. The other is Resource Beneprotein, made by Nestle, has about 6 grams per small scoop. I had to get it at a hospital pharmacy, but you can get it on line. Not much taste at all to that, mixes with yogurt, soups or milk. I also talked to my dietician and since I am not diabetic they did not see alot of harm in adding a tiny bit of chocolate flavor to my shakes (calories and carbs are minimal for a teaspoon) and it can make it easier to get them down. Problem is right now I am so sick of all the dairy!

Hi all, I had my sleeve on 1/18/11 and am still on soft liguid diet (1/2 cup yogurt and cream Soups for B/L/D and Protein powders with milk in between) until 2/8 per my surgeon's protocol. 20 lbs lost thus far. I am so sick of the dairy , Protein powder and milk that I gag getting it down, so can't get all of the food in that I am supposed to. When I tried to force down a Protein shake yesterday morning I felt sick all day and couldn't eat anything the rest of the day. How bad is it if you are not eating all they say? How bad would it be to move to pureed a few days early? Also I also have lots of pre-existing back and arthritic pain and so am not moving like I should. Liguid Tylenol is so sweet and syrupy I gag. Does anyone know when it is safe to swallow actual pills like tylenol and ibuprofen? One of the reasons I had the sleeve was because you can take some anti-inflammatories after surgery. I am asking my doctor too of course, but they want me to wait as long as possible and I am not sure how long that is! It would be great to hear from others with experience!!