Bufflehead

Lots of people find their tastes change after surgery, but I don't think anyone really knows why. Don't worry too much, you don't need water to be successful post-op. As long as you are getting your fluids in, it is all good

You will absorb more of the protein from whey protein isolate than from whey protein concentrate. Also, whey protein isolate is typically digestible for someone with lactose intolerance, while whey protein concentrate is more likely to give the lactose intolerant person digestive problems. So those are a couple of factors to consider. Isolate is more expensive and tends to foam up a lot more if you are blending it yourself. Personally, I looked at the numbers and didn't think the difference in absorption between isolate and concentrate was enough to make me particularly care. I used both forms of protein powder throughout my weight loss and managed to lose over 200 lbs and get to my goal so using whey concentrate didn't hurt me.

I would definitely check in with your insurance coordinator and your insurance carrier. Most insurance companies will judge your eligibility based on your *first* weigh in, not your last. There are some exceptions, but I wouldn't assume that a nurse knows for sure what the answer is. So do some real digging on that. If your insurance company is like most (not all) you would still have the option to consider as you progress with your weight loss. Good luck!

If it is like most hospitals, they will give you special mesh underwear with pads to use. No tampons, no wearing your own undies. Let the nurse know when you check in and they will take care of it. It is not a big deal to them, they see it every day when women come to the hospital.

You are just going to check it out. If you hate it, you don't have to do it. I promise you the people there will care more about what they are doing than what you are doing. And if they are judging anyone, it's people who don't go to the gym at all. Couple of pieces of advice -- don't tell the gym people you had weight loss surgery. Most of them won't get it and won't appreciate it. Don't take any nutrition advice from gym employees or gym randos. They aren't dietitians and have all sorts of weird bro "science" about food that is not in accordance with post-wls eating. Finally, if you don't like the gym, you do have more options. I do lots of my exercises at home -- I cleared a space in front of the tv and do exercise DVD's like Cathe Friedrich's low impact HIIT and Kelly Coffee-Meyers Circuit Training series.

My goals were: full liquids and purees (first 8 weeks total): max 60 carbs per day, max 650 calories per day, minimum 70 grams protein soft foods (months 2 - 6): max 60 carbs per day, max 800 calories per day, minimum 75 grams protein continuing in weight loss mode past 6 months: max 75 carbs per day, max 900 - 1100 calories (depending on whether I had at least 30 minutes of vigorous exercise that day -- 900 calories if no exercise or moderate exercise, 1100 calories if 30+ minutes vigorous exercise), min 90 grams protein. I lost over 200 lbs with this plan and hit my goal weight, so it worked well for me. IMO the idea that you need more calories to lose weight is a myth -- if it were true, anorexics would be fat and no human or other animal would have ever died of starvation.

I use MyFitnessPal as well. Yes, you can chart your weight.

@@Latoya1214 I am not sure -- we didn't have a diet just like yours at the practice I used. I would call up your surgeon's office and check to be sure.

you asked, did you mess up? Unless eggs and peanuts are on your pre-op diet, then yes, you messed up. Is it likely to derail your surgery? I really doubt it. The liver reduction diet is meant to be low carb, low sugar, and high Protein, and your choices fall in those ranges. If I were you I would focus on being more compliant going forward -- if nothing else this is good practice for being compliant post-op -- but not beat yourself up about a few peanuts and bites of eggs. They aren't going to harm your prospects for surgery or hurt you (repeated self-sabotaging might so I am not suggesting you keep doing it!). Overall it sounds like you are doing well and a minor slip like this is something to keep an eye on, to make sure it doesn't keep happening, but it isn't something to get down on yourself about. Good luck!

Walk as much as you possibly can. If you are not walking, try sitting in a rocking chair or glider and rock/glide. When you rock forward, lean your upper body into it, cross your arms across your abdomen and press gently towards your back. Also, use a heating pad where you are feeling the gas pains. Good luck!

Another thing you can say is "my doctor is supervising my weight loss efforts and she ordered no liquid calories. I'm following her orders." This will also help explain why you aren't eating much of anything. It also has the advantage of being true or close enough. Good luck and have fun at your reunion!

Best wishes! Spend as much time sitting up in a chair as you can, stay out of bed post-op! It helps, I promise!

Make sure you know the answer to whether you can get the surgery or not depending on your weight at the day of surgery. Ask your surgeon's insurance coordinator to work with you and get a definite answer. Only then can you make the right decision.

Eating soup is the same thing as drinking with your meal, so if you are supposed to avoid that, you may want to switch to straining the soup, drinking the broth, then eating the solids from the soup.

What does your program call for? I was still on liquids until 4 weeks out and wasn't allowed high carb foods like potatoes, farina, or oatmeal *ever* in the weight loss phase, so those would have had my dietitian reaching for her whip if I had eaten them at all, let alone so early out. I was allowed cottage cheese and scrambled eggs in the pureed phase, which started for me at four weeks post op.

I found a study from the American Journal of Surgery, Sugerman et al., Jan. 1995 pp. 91-97 that looked at gallstone formation after gastric bypass (sleeve wasn't done much for weight loss then). Patients who received no actigall developed post-op gallstones 36% of the time while patients who received 600 mg of actigall only developed gallstones 2% of the time. This study was done for 6 months after surgery -- patients received the actigall (or no actigall) for six months post op then were evaluated for gallstones by sonography. Some of the patients of course had their gallbladders removed due to stones during those 6 months and they were counted in the "gallstones formation" percentages. This study was done using the generic medication Ursodiol but that is the same thing as the brand name Actigall.

What works for me when I find myself going off the rails is not the pouch test, but the meat and green veggies test. 3 - 5 days of nothing but lean, unprocessed meat -- no deli meat, no sausage, no bacon, no jerky -- no sauce, nothing breaded and green veggies -- okay to use herbs and spices and a modest amount of healthy fat -- olive oil or grass-fed butter. Nothing else -- but I allow myself unlimited quantities and eat whenever I want to. This reeducates me on what hunger really is and what my capacity is. It also stops the cravings for sweets and carbs after about the first two days. It is very hard to eat only lean meat and green veggies and not lose weight. After five days of this, I go back to logging all my food and tracking it on myfitnesspal.

They are not "sugar free" but I drink a lot of the diet Ocean Spray cranberry juice drinks. They have cran lemonade, cran mango, cran cherry, cran pomegranate, and cran pineapple as well as others. They each have 5 calories, 1 gram of sugar, and 2 grams of carbs (plus 100% of your recommended vitamin C for the day). You'll find them with other bottled juice at your grocery store.

Exercise!

The battle to lose weight is won in the kitchen, not in the gym, as they say. And as the poster above says, if you aren't, get religious about weighing/measuring your portions of food and tracking how many calories, carbs, and grams of protein you are getting every day. You need to be in a caloric deficit. If you don't know your resting maintenance metabolic rate, start by assuming 10 calories per pound of weight. So if your ticker is correct, that would be 1770 calories per day. To lose a pound a week, drop your calories to 1270 per day. To lose 2 lbs per week, drop your calories to 770 per day. Remember to readjust these numbers as you go forward -- if you lose weight, you'll need to drop your calories even further to keep losing at the same speed. If you do the above (including weighing/measuring your portions, no guesstimating, and tracking religiously) and don't lose weight, you need to either drop your calories further, or up your exercise. Don't fall into the trap of trying to estimate calories burned via exercise and eating them back. Good luck!

Tuna and salmon packets, turkey meatballs, eggs, PB2, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, avocados, frozen artichoke hearts, asparagus (I like the frozen grilled asparagus from Trader Joe's), cauliflower rice (frozen from Trader Joe's), sardines, canned mackerel, frozen scallops, frozen shrimp, Babybel cheese, fresh mozzarella cheese sticks, unsweetened vanilla cashew milk (for mixing protein shakes etc.), frozen turkey burgers, spicy refried beans, spicy chicken sausage. I rely a lot on frozen meat & veggies, as well as tinned meat, because I live alone and couldn't possibly get through fresh meat or fish before it goes bad unless I ate the same thing for every meal (scallops for breakfast lunch and dinner) for three days in a row!

Ice is fine. It's going to be completely melted by the time it gets to your stomach anyway. You can't stretch your sleeve on liquids. Your pyloric valve still functions, meaning it opens right up and lets liquids through. You will only get a feeling of having over-eaten when you get to purees or soft foods, and you have something with some heft so that your pyloric valve closes up to allow your stomach to get to work on digestion. This is one of the reasons sleevers are cautioned not to drink their calories, except in the early going when you need those protein shakes. The sleeve will not stop you from drinking all the milkshakes and frappuccinos you want. It also won't stop you from eating a ton of high carb, low protein foods like crackers and cookies, but that's a story for another day The reason some people struggle with liquids early on is because their stomachs are inflamed, bruised, and swollen after the major trauma of surgery. The fact that you have recovered quickly means you have a surgeon who did meticulous and excellent work, and you are a quick healer. It's a good thing, I promise!

@@xoxococojay I recommend at least trying out the psychologist and dietitian post-op. If you find they are not useful to you, you can always stop.

For me the early portion of post-op and weight loss mode really wasn't hard. The weight fell off like magic, I got compliments all the time, I got to buy cute new clothes, I felt fantastic. I didn't have any complications and didn't experience any depression or regret or anxiety after the surgery. Things got hard for me when I had to lose the last few pounds and transition into maintenance. I had been in denial about some things -- though I would have parroted back some wls sayings to you and swore that I believed them, things like "you have to change your relationship with food" and "you have to commit to this for the rest of your life." As I got closer to maintenance and then into maintenance, I realized that: --I would have to work hard to maintain my new weight for the rest of my life, for real --The way I ate in weight loss mode would be very very similar to the way I would have to eat for the rest of my life --I would not be able to "eat what I want in moderation" and still be successful at maintenance --I would not be able to have anything like a regular cheat/self-sabotage day or meal in maintenance and still be successful All of these things did kind of put me in a tailspin. I basically gave up because I just felt defeated -- right at the time I should have been feeling triumphant! I ended up re-gaining about 20 lbs right after I hit my goal weight. I managed to turn myself around, gave myself a good talking-to about the idiocy of feeling sorry for myself, and worked hard to get those 20 lbs off again.

I was cleared for weights at 6 weeks out. I'm like you, I love weightlifting and only do cardio because I have to.