Bufflehead

Wow . . . I have made it mantra that I just follow the rules my dietician lays down, whether I agree with them, like them, or even understand them or not. But this would be a tough one. I would ask for clarification and guidance from one of the other dieticians. It doesn't sound like this one even tried to explain her reasoning, which would disturb me greatly. You may not have another appointment set up right away but honestly I would request an immediate follow-up with a different dietician in order to get a better understanding or what is going on.

My plan says eat until satisfied/you feel the restriction kick in. We are not supposed to wait a while and start eating again later - the dieticians say this leads to building up a "grazing" habit which will be detrimental to weight loss or maintenance later. So, we have three defined meal times and stick to them.

I'm thinking about a trip to a country I've always wanted to visit. Travel was something that became less and less accessible (or even desirable) for me the bigger I got. Probably somewhere Nordic!

Your nerves may be healing slowly. I would measure how much food you should be eating and stick to that, and not eat more just because you feel like you can. You might be damaging or stretching your stomach without even knowing it if you overeat. I don't know how much food your program allows for your stage, but mine said maximum of 3 ounces or 1/3 cup total for each meal while on soft foods. I weigh or measure my food and don't go over regardless.

Every plan is a little different - I definitely had to puree fish, pureed =/= "kind of mushy." The only things I didn't have to puree were poached and scrambled eggs, refried beans, yogurt, and cottage cheese (or something like melted cheese if I melted it on top of my refried beans or pureed chicken salad etc.). I would stay away from anything that is not high protein while on purees, so that means nix the avocados and mushrooms for now. I think the avocados and mushrooms are fine for soft foods though. I'm going to keep my mouth shut about the chocolate except to say it is not permitted on my plan until goal is reached. I wouldn't eat any kind of chili without pureeing it first. And yes, stop mixing food and drinks now. Oh and my 2 cents -- you aren't going to be eating a whole lot of cheese. Full fat isn't going to hurt you. I regularly eat full fat cheese and have never gone over my allotted fat grams for the day (30).

I love Unjury. Haven't tried the Isopure powder but I can say the RTD made me gag. They call it Isopuke for a reason!

How's it going? How are you feeling? I'm just over six months out now and I feel great. I had a really easy recovery and no complications. I've tolerated all the food that I've tried and I've kept within my program's dietary guidelines. I'm so happy I did this!

J-P drain (standard for my surgeon) that came out about 30 hours after surgery, no catheter.

The only one that I like is Enell - you can buy from http://www.enell.com/ - make sure you read the "About" portion to understand their fit and sizing. Or you can get seconds for much less at http://www.discountsportsbras.com/Default.asp - if they have the size you need in stock.

Dr Williams at VUMC??? I'm aiming at late Feb/early March. I'm so excited. Oh, I'm in Columbia..... Nope, different Dr. Williams, but I have heard fantastic things about your guy too!

You eat and drink at the same time ? U not suppose 2 As I said, I had permission from my medical team to eat whatever/whenever/however I wanted on Christmas Day . . . and yes, that included drinking with my meal if I wanted to. It isn't something I ordinarily do, don't worry.

I ended up with a bad cold on Christmas day and didn't eat much. I had permission to eat whatever/however I wanted that day (with the proviso that Christmas is one day, Christmas is not Christmas Eve and Christmas, or Christmas Eve until New Years Day, etc.). Anyway, I sampled a lot of stuff - had a couple bites of prime rib, Yorkshire pudding, green beans with fontina cheese, shrimp aspic, and celery casserole. Had a bite of pecan pie with ice cream. I even started the day with one of my mom's famous shortbread cookies and a quarter of a boysenberry pinwheel from the local bakery. I had maybe a quarter of a glass of red wine WITH dinner! But my amounts ended up being so small that I ended the day with under 500 calories and 30 carbs, which is less than my usual (around 700 calories and 50 carbs).

I didn't have any nausea, not even immediately after waking up from general anesthesia. I had one of those ear patch things put on before surgery and I think that probably helped.

My surgeon's team says it isn't a stall until you haven't dropped any weight over the course of two weeks. I think "slow loser" is not a beneficial term and I don't use it or consider it worth thinking about enough to define or apply. Weight loss rate comparisons aren't helpful to anyone IMO.

Tortillas are counted as a bread in my plan, but you may want to check with your own dietician to see what her/his rules are. Also, they really don't have a lot of nutritional value so IMO there's no point in trying to eat them.

I use the Syntrax Unflavored, I buy mine from Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B001I1NSUY/ I like it just fine, no problems with it. I know a lot of people also use Unjury. I haven't tried the Unjury unflavored but I like their other flavors. http://www.unjury.com/store/protein/reg/unflavored_protein.shtml The numbers in terms of protein grams vs. calories are very similar. Keep in mind that "unflavored" doesn't mean "no flavor" - it just means it hasn't had other flavors added in to it. Soy protein has its own natural flavor.

You should have someone running labwork about every three months. Your surgeon in Mexico may be able to give you a list of the tests that need to be run - it's more extensive than usual patient labwork. I know mine checks for vitamin and mineral deficiences, sodium and potassium levels, albumin/pre-albumin (something like that).

Recommended fiber per day is actually 14 grams per 1000 calories consumed. The 25 grams or so that you see referred to is a generic number based on the assumption that a woman eats 1800-2000 calories per day. I aim for 10 grams of fiber per day and usually get between 9 & 12.

You may have a larger than normal sleeved stomach due to the size of your stomach pre-op, but the amount of fluid you can take in right now isn't determinative of that. Fluid pretty much goes right through the pyloric valve and won't fill you up much no matter how large or small your stomach is. The reason some people struggle to get fluids in early is because their stomachs are swollen after surgery. It sounds like your stomach is doing fine (your surgeon probably did very meticulous work) and you don't have that issue. If you do have more capacity, whether it hinders your weight loss is up to you -- you should stick to measuring and weighing foods and not eating more than the allotted portion, or eating until you are satisfied, whichever comes first. Good luck!

I know a lot of people have been suspicious about Quest bars with respect to calories and sugar, mostly because people who are sensitive to sugar (diabetics) etc. have reported their blood sugar levels go crazy after eating Quest bars, in a way that shouldn't happen if the labels are correct. If you google something like "Quest bars and blood sugar" or "Quest bars insulin" you'll see what I mean.

I did some reading before going to meet my surgeon and read too much stuff from people with bands who struggled to eat anything other than junk and didn't lose all their weight. Plus complications like slippage and erosion. Then when I went to meet my surgeon he basically told me he would not do a band on me anyway as he thought I was too heavy to have meaningful success with the band plus he only does it for people who absolutely refuse any other kind of wls. He thinks it is the type of surgery least likely to be successful and the most likely to require more surgery later on to fix problems. It wasn't a big issue to me as my second choice for surgery would have been gastric bypass.

I try not to even click on links that look like they are inviting comparisons. October sleevers check in here! How much did you lose the first three months? Etc. I even refuse to have a ticker or generally tell people how much I've lost since surgery. Comparisons set no one up for success IMO.

Right when I get up: Chike protein coffee shake Breakfast: usually either 1/2 Greek yogurt container + 1 T. peanut butter or 1/4 c. refried beans with some additional protein (chicken sausage, turkey bacon, or a poached egg) plus some melted cheese & salsa Lunch: about 1.5 oz deli meat, a babybel cheese, and either roasted edamame, almonds, or prunes afternoon snack: protein shake or protein hot chocolate Dinner: varies, usually about 1.5 ounce meat of some sort (shrimp, turkey burger, etc.) plus a quarter cup of green veggies and either some cheese, guacamole, dried fruit, etc. Numbers: Under 800 calories, 60 grams carbs, 30 grams fat. Minimum of 75 grams of protein, and I aim for 10 grams of fiber and getting 100% of my RDA of calcium from food rather than supplements. Things that are completely off limits: starchy veggies, food with refined sugar, food with any kind of grain.

ugh, you could have written this right out of my brain. I'm six months out and the weight loss has slowed to an absolute crawl over the last four weeks. You are my MFP friend, you can check my diary and see, I am following a pretty standard program religiously. It gets tiring to work so hard at getting everything right and still the scale doesn't budge (or hardly ever budges). So I find myself thinking, why not just eat that cupcake? Now, I'm not actually going to do it, but the fact that even crosses my mind annoys me. I'm hoping that my week away with my family in California, eating a bit differently (though still on plan) and focusing on different things, will both maybe get the scale moving a bit and give me the ability to come back to this fresh with a better attitude after Christmas.

@Planetheather, if you haven't, you may want to check out http://mybodygallery.com - you can see pictures that women upload of themselves, just search for your height and different weights. The pictures also include info about the sizes the woman wears. It's how I figured out my goal size (10).