Bufflehead

My places to check were always Lucky Vitamin, Vitamin Shoppe, Amazon, and Nashua Nutrition. Just depends who has it on sale and who has free (or Prime, for Amazon) shipping. And don't forget to check EBay, you can also get good deals there. It's a hassle to check a lot of different sites but if you are cheap like me, it is worth it.

Ask your dr . . . we had to take Dulcolax + Milk of Magnesia if we went over 3 days with no pooping.

Completely agree. There are some post-wls people who can successfully maintain a normal weight using the "eat everything you want in moderation" or "make good choices 80% of the time" approaches, but I think most of us have to be much more vigilant than that. I think a lot of people want to imagine that they are one of the lucky "I can eat whatever I want and maintain a normal BMI" few, but when confronted with evidence to the contrary (the scale going up, clothes getting tighter) they refuse to believe it. My surgeon likes to say that if you are over 30 years old, living in Western society, and have a normal body weight, odds are very good you have to work at it. Whether or not you have ever been obese or had surgery, you still have to work at it. I know this is true for me. Maintaining a slim, healthy body means I have to work hard, both in being vigilant with what and how much I eat and in exercising, and I don't get "treats" or "cheats" or "oopsie" slip ups if I want to stay out of plus sizes. It sucks but not as much as having to buy two airplane seats and ask for a seat belt extender sucks, and not as much as an assuredly early grave would suck.

Hearburn/reflux is a very well-documented side effect of sleeve surgery, whether you are having a revision from lap band or this is a first bariatric procedure. If you have a hiatal hernia, see if your surgeon can repair it during your sleeve surgery. This is a very common cause of GERD and having it repaired can make a huge difference. I had occasional GERD prior to my sleeve surgery, my surgeon fixed it during my sleeve surgery and no GERD since. Many sleevers take a PPI such as omeprazole or Protonix for several months after surgery -- talk to your surgeon about this. If you already have GERD and it is not caused by a hernia or some other repairable deformity, then gastric bypass may be something you want to consider. Sleeve surgeries can cause or worsen GERD but bypass cures it something like 98% of the time.

Unless you have complications there is no reason you *need* to follow up with a bariatric surgeon. I don't know anyone who had surgery in Mexico who does. The standard advice I have seen is to see your PCP at 2 months, 6 months, and 12 months post-op. Have your regular blood and urine tests as well as vitamin and mineral levels checked. Weight and blood pressure checked and recorded. The lab work, without insurance, is what may kill you cost-wise. You may need to do some serious shopping around for that, but it's important. As far as food goes, I'm not much help as I tend to focus on eating for nutrition rather than to stave off boredom. I really don't care if I eat the same things over and over again, so I don't ever really think about "new ideas" for food. That said, here's mostly what I ate during weight loss phase: breakfast: chicken or beef roll-ups in romaine lettuce (with pickle relish, hot mustard, etc.) lunch: chopped chicken breast with green veggies and a little light salad dressing dinner: poached egg on refried beans, tuna salad bake, lamb chops, steamed curried scallops, steamed cayenne pepper shrimp, chicken breast baked in yogurt, turkey-spinach-goat cheese burger patty, sardines in mustard. Good luck!

You shouldn't be looking for "full" you should be looking for satisfied. But so soon after surgery, you really can't trust your stomach to give you proper signals. Your tissues and nerves are still too traumatized. That's why it's important to strictly weigh your portions and stick with that for the time being, instead of looking for physical signals that you've had enough. Good luck!

Yogurt is good for all kinds of stomach/digestive troubles. That tends to be what I turn to when not feeling up to par.

Hair loss is caused by the stress of surgery (Google Telogen Effluvium weight loss surgery) not by a vitamin deficiency. Don't waste your money on extra vitamins.

I eat shrimp quite frequently too -- it was one of the first things I was eating when I was off liquids. Never gave me the slightest problem. Most of my sleever friends eat it too. Bread and rice are off the menu for me pretty much permanently. Bread because it does hurt me and rice because it is nutritionally worthless for someone with the disease of obesity and without enough redeeming characteristics for me to want to make it a "treat."

Walk as much as you can and nap when you are tired. When you are not napping or walking, try to be sitting up rather than lying down. Lying down doesn't help get rid of the surgical gas, it keeps it trapped. Take your pain meds on schedule. Yes you are going to be bloated for a while, not just from gas but from the IV fluids. Stay off the scale for the next few weeks at least or it will drive you nuts.

Sounds like you are in good shape to keep things hush hush then! I've never heard of a blanket statement that sleevers can't eat asparagus. I know plenty of sleevers like me who eat it regularly. I really am scratching my head as to where the dietitian got that information. There is no guarantee that you'll be able to eat any particular food post-op (bread is a "never again" for me) but I don't think it is predictable like she makes it sound. Hmm.

What are you taking for it? What does your surgeon say?

I haven't had any side effects unless you count positive things like "my blood pressure went from uncontrollably high to normal" as a side effect. I can't eat bread or drink carbonated drinks without discomfort but I don't really think of that as a side effect. I had lost most of my hair pre-op anyway due to bad genetics so hair loss wasn't really an issue for me.

1. How long before you could sleep on your stomach again? I'm not a stomach sleeper but it probably would have been about 3 weeks. 2. When were you allowed to start exercising? I could do light/moderate exercise (no weights) as soon as I felt up to it after surgery. I was cleared for all exercise at 6 weeks. 3. Have you noticed a difference in what your feet look like? They are a little narrower after losing 200+ lbs. 4. Or you calves? (I've always had big calves, since having my daughter. It would be nice to have regular sized calves again) My calves are now much narrower -- just like every other part of my body just about. 5. How has your closest friends or family reacted? Especially if it was initially a secret. All of my friends and family have been incredibly supportive and happy for me. I don't keep secrets well so this was never a secret. 6. If it was(is) a secret, did(do) they suspect anything? N/A (I plan on keeping it a secret, but will be up front with exercise routines I do). Do you think people are going to believe you lost 100+ lbs by exercising? 7. Was you told that you couldn't have asparagus? No, as long as it was appropriate for the food stage. I didn't eat asparagus until I was graduated out of soft foods, just because I like my asparagus on the firm side and all my food had to be soft enough to cut easily with a fork. I couldn't bring myself to do that to asparagus so I stayed away until I could cook it the way I like. I've been eating asparagus regularly since then and it never gave me any problems. Good luck!

I wasn't allowed grazing on my plan, so I didn't do it. Any protein that I needed in addition to my three small meals per day (no more than half hour per meal) I got through protein shakes. Beyond getting in enough protein and fat to be healthy, you don't need to worry about calories or getting "enough" calories IMO.

Other possible things to keep an eye out for: constipation (yes you need to poop in order to lose weight), impending period, meds that might be causing water retention, and broken/wonky scales. As the poster above said, unless you are sipping milkshakes all day every day, you are not gaining fat.

@@nikko9599 the slimies are when your mouth and throat start producing tons of clear slimey liquid like you might do right before you throw up -- but instead of throwing up, you just keep producing slimey fluid. Enough to hack mouthfuls and mouthfuls and gobs and gobs into the nearest toilet. You will also likely feel extremely nauseated, weak, and completely exhausted. It's hard to describe but when it happens to you, you know something is completely wrong and you feel miserable. People tend to get the slimies if they eat too much, too fast, or the wrong texture of food. I only got them twice -- once when I overate the yogurt I mentioned and another time when I stupidly took a mineral supplement pill on an empty stomach. Believe me, when/if it happens to you, you will never want it again!

No, it isn't bad at all. Don't push yourself to eat more than you want. 4 oz is a maximum, not a minimum. If I had tried to eat 4 ounces of ricotta cheese on my first day of purees I would have been in extreme agony. I used the wrong measuring spoon accidentally on my second day and ate 2 oz. of Greek yogurt instead of allotted maximum of 1.5 ounces and got the slimies as a result. When you are satisfied, stop! If you get to your allotted maximum of food and don't feel satisfied, stop anyway! Do not try to look for the "full" feeling or eat so much that you irritate your vagus nerve and get something like a runny nose or the hiccups. Stop before you get there. These guidelines will serve you well, I promise.

No, I've tried a couple of times with carbonated drinks post-op and both times it was extremely physically uncomfortable.

Maybe I'm misreading something, but it sounds like nothing actually happened that made you feel humiliated, judged, and broken-spirited? You were just assuming that people were thinking these terrible things about you? I know the gym can be a stressful place and that most of us feel really self-conscious in most public situations, let alone a gym, I totally get that. But if you can, work towards giving the people at the gym the benefit of the doubt and not assuming that they are all judgmental jerks. They may very well be nice people who were happy to see someone new in there working, or they may be nice people who weren't even paying any particular attention to you. And even if they are judgmental jerks, tell yourself that you aren't concerned with the opinions of judgmental jerks. I mean, they are judgmental jerks! You are better than judgmental jerks and you laugh in the face of their judgment! But seriously, I really doubt they were noticing or caring. I rarely go to the gym but when I do, the only attention I have ever paid to anyone else is when they interrupted me to talk about something, which is usually most unwelcome.

See if you can get a copy of your plan document or member benefit handbook. If they don't specifically set out a weight loss requirement, it would seem unfair of them to deny your approval because you didn't meet a requirement they never told you about? Good luck!

Does your insurance require you to lose weight while doing your dietitian visits?

I didn't have any post-op symptoms. I mean, I was in a little bit of pain (from the gas) and was tired for a while. Other than that, nothing really. I never threw up or felt nauseated.

No exercise will prevent or cure saggy skin, sadly. Neither will lotions, potions, magical pills or wraps. Neither will "losing weight slowly," You can build muscle to fill in some of the saggy skin, but there's only so far that goes.

No idea, I certainly wasn't asked to provide one. If I were you I would make them tell me.