Bufflehead

People who see you a lot usually don't notice very quickly. Hey, I'm down close to 90 lbs. and only one person has noticed/said anything. It doesn't really bother me because I'm uncomfortable with people focusing much on my looks/body. I also have never mentioned someone's weight loss to them except for very close friends or family. It just seems rude for me to even be looking at their body and making judgments or comparisons. Also, I do think there are people out there who notice but choose not to say anything for fear of being offensive or overly personal. Like, if they tell you "you look great!" it might be taken as the same thing as saying "you looked horrible before!". Or they might act all happy and excited for you and it turns out you lost weight because you have cancer.

I eat until I feel full or until I hit 3 ounces of food, whichever comes first. The vast, vast majority of the time I feel full before I get to three ounces. Particularly if I am eating meat -- I think I managed to eat 2 ounces of meat a couple of times, but usually my limit is about 1.5 ounces. I try not to push it. The 3 ounces is a rule from my surgeon, not a self-imposed one, but as I said, it's usually more than I can eat anyway.

I'm only allowed three meals a day so that's how often I eat. I rarely get hungry between meals though. If I do, I have a protein shake. I'm just about 10 weeks out now.

I ate refried beans, poached eggs (both with melted cheese), cottage cheese, cottage cheese mixed with peanut butter, tuna pureed with sriracha sauce or olive oil mayo, chicken pureed with marinara sauce and topped with melted cheese, chicken pureed with low carb bbq sauce, stuff like that. I wasn't allowed pudding, potatoes, cream soups, etc.

1. I am a smoker, and as much as I would like to not be, it is hard to quit. My surgery is coming up soon and I am quitting cold turkey. Any ideas to keep away from that post-op? I'm not a smoker so I have no first hand advice to offer. I have friends who have had good results with chantix and e-cigs. How soon after surgery can I start working out? The dr.'s orders that I have seen most frequently are to walk, and only walk, for the first four weeks. After that, gradually add in more intense exercise but stop immediately if you feel like you are hurting your abdomen. Go back to walking for a few weeks and try again. Loose skin: should this be a worry of mine? 200-205 lbs currently, 23 years old. How can I really minimize that? There are no guarantees but common wisdom is that the younger you are, and the less you have to lose, the less you'll have to worry about loose skin. Based on your stats I would say you probably have less to worry about than most people. Some people try to minimize it with various moisturizers, toning, etc. but the standard medical advice is that if you get it, the only way to minimize it is with surgery. At least after waiting a year or so to see if it springs back on its own. Honestly, though, odds are you won't have much. Personally if I were in your shoes I would not worry about it. Best Protein shake suppliments? What to mix with to lessen the nasty taste? Completely a matter of opinion! I like unjury chocolate Splendor mixed with Hood Calorie Countdown nonfat milk and some additions such as PB2, a few drops of peppermint, or a small handful of frozen raspberries. I also like a lot of the Syntrax nectar flavors just mixed with Water. Be sure you get protein powders that are low in calories, low in carbs, and high in protein. It's hard to find ready-to-drink Protein shakes that have good numbers, but Premier Protein is good. Isopure ready to drink has good numbers but a lot of people hate the taste, or need to mix it with something else to make it drinkable. what can I expect post-op the day of my surgery, and day after. Pain scales, nausea? Again, everyone is different. For most people the gas pain is worse than incisional/abdominal pain. The gas pain was not great and made me very uncomfortable, but I wouldn't have rated it more than 4 or 5 out of 10. Once you get up and get walking it gets better. I didn't need any pain killers during the day -- not even over the counter ones -- starting the day after surgery. I did take some lortab to help me sleep at night. I had some tenderness around my drain site for a couple of weeks when turning or standing up but nothing major. Frankly I've had worse menstrual cramps than what I experienced a day after surgery. Even the day of surgery really wasn't that bad. I spent most of that day post-surgery either sitting up or walking. I was having normal conversations and doing normal things, not lying around crying with pain or anything. Good luck to you!

I had a small hiatal hernia that was discovered in my upper GI series. Surgeon fixed it in surgery, took him about three minutes.

I've lost a gold brick, a coffee maker, and a human brain. Hopefully at my next weigh-in I'll be able to say I lost a newborn calf!

I haven't had any of the above except one case of the slimies early on. Of course I'm about 9 weeks out so haven't hit the stage where I expect hair loss. Dumping is rare with the sleeve, and the other problems seem like occasional things that affect some people, certainly not everyone. I think maybe you have an overly pessimistic perspective on what post-sleeve life will be like -- if you hang out in forums a lot, you'll read a lot of people posting about their problems. That's human nature. They have an issue with nausea, they run to post about it. But it's pretty rare for people to sign on to the forum and start a topic, "I had no nausea today (not that I ever had any)!". Yes it's smart to be aware that some people experience some negative side effects, but that isn't everyone's story.

I'm using it as an excuse to get a partial wig! But I came into this surgery with pretty severe hairloss already.

I'm really watching my zinc intake because as far as I know it's the only thing that has been shown in a published scientific study to help with hair loss post WLS (although the sample size in the study was so small, who knows what it really means). I am getting zinc as follows 2 Trader Joe's High Potency Chewable Multi Vitamins = 30 mg Country Life Chelated Zinc = 50 mg Chike High Protein Coffee = 5 mg total 85 mg per day This is very high and I wouldn't do it long term. Zinc is one of those things that you can't just take too much of and assume your body will flush it out and you won't have any problems. Taking over 40 mg zinc daily for an extended period can have serious long-term effects and you shouldn't go over that number, even on a short term basis, unless you are working with a doctor who is monitoring your labs and health. http://ods.od.nih.go...thProfessional/ If zinc upsets your stomach (it does for a lot of people) look into taking chelated zinc instead of zinc glutonate. You won't absorb as much of it, but absorbing some is better than absorbing none because either you're vomiting it all back up or you just refuse to take it because it makes you feel so awful!

I'd be careful with "eating back" calories you burn on MFP. First, their calorie counts for exercise are often way off, usually too high. A lot of people recommend only eating back half the calories MFP says you should, if you are going to do it at all. Also, there is recent science that shows that exercise will suppress your metabolic rate, so if you eat back your burned calories and in addition your metabolic rate gets lower, meaning you need to eat even fewer calories to maintain or gain weight, you will find it a lot harder to lose weight. http://www.policymic...you-lose-weight The dieticians and exercise physiologist in my surgeon's group strongly recommend against eating back exercise calories per MFP. So I record my exercise there, but just change the calories burned to 1 calorie instead of 290 or whatever it gives me. That way there is nothing messed up in my standard daily goals. But that is what my health care folks and my own research have led me to do -- I would encourage you to check in with your own health care providers and see what they have to say.

A lot of times the "nonfat" or "lowfat" versions of sauces are doctored up with HFCS, sugar, or a long list of frankenfood ingredients (propylene glycol, a main component of antifreeze, for example). The portions I was eating at the puree stage were so small (no more than 3 T. of food, 3 times per day) that I would almost had to have eaten an all-mayonnaise diet to go into any sort of fat danger zone. I logged everything religiously in MyFitnessPal and made sure I didn't go above 30 g of fat per day. Usually I didn't go over 20. Now that I am on soft foods I don't use sauces so much. I do try to get my healthy fats in with avocado, olive oil, peanut butter, oily fish, etc. But I keep the total amounts low and stay in my target calorie range.

How good you will feel is impossible to predict -- most people feel fine and up for very light housekeeping within 5 - 7 days, but lots of people don't bounce back as well or suffer complications. So it would be good to have a back-up plan. As far as lifting goes, my surgeon said I couldn't lift anything 10 lbs or more for two weeks, and nothing over 20 lbs for four weeks. But I have seen other people get different advice from their doctors.

My surgeon's plan calls for pureeing any tuna, chicken, shrimp, etc. salad or meat while on puree stage. Things I used: chicken broth (just a little), sriracha sauce, low carb barbecue sauce, tartar sauce, peanut satay sauce, guacamole, marinara sauce -- basically I just walked the sauce and dressing aisles of the supermarket and picked up anything that I thought might taste good pureed with fish or chicken.

This looks yummy, I think I will try it. Thanks for posting!

This is a recipe I use a lot. Although the recipe is for halibut, I have also made it with salmon and grouper and it works very well with them. If you make it with salmon, a 3 oz. serving comes to 123 calories, 1 carb, 6 g. fat, and 19 g. Protein. It is lower fat and higher protein if you make it with a white fish such as grouper. Ingredients 6 oz. raw, skinless fish of your choice 1/4 c. low sodium chicken broth 2 t. lemon juice 1/2 t. minced garlic in olive oil (the kind you find in little jars in the produce section) 1/2 t. dried minced onions 1 t. dried parsley 1/2 t. dried dill Place fish in small glass or stoneware casserole. Drizzle with lemon juice, then pour over with broth. Sprinkle with garlic, onions, and herbs. Cover casserole (fine to use foil if the casserole doesn't have a lid) and bake at 400 degrees for approximately 20 minutes. You can adjust the herbs to taste -- dill is my favorite but tarragon and other spices are great too. Oh and the casserole you use should be really small if you are just making the 6 oz. Like as small as will hold the fish without having to fold it over or bunch it up.

yep, mine counts them too. The point of tracking fluids is to keep you from getting dehydrated, and protein shakes do just fine at hydrating you, so no reason not to count them.

if you have a cold antibiotics aren't going to help you, they work on bacteria, not viruses. As much rest as you can possibly get and tons of fluids is what my sister tells her patients! She's an internal medicine doctor.

lol, I typed in my starting weight and it told me it didn't have images for people that big

The science on whether exercise helps weight loss at all is actually pretty mixed. And a lot of the best, most recent science says that exercise will suppress your metabolic rate, making it harder to lose weight. http://www.policymic...you-lose-weight I still exercise because I need to do it for my cardiovascular health -- I have HBP and a strong family history of cardiac disease -- but I don't expect it to help me lose weight at all.

I just did a quick MFP search on these and neither the sodium or the sugar looks outrageous. The highest sodium I saw was 440 mg, but most were in the 200 range. Most sugars were under 5 g but all I saw were under 10 g. Still probably not something I can buy right now -- first, I haven't seen them at either of my local Krogers, and second, at this stage in my diet I am not allowed grains or starches or to eat that many carbs. But I will definitely keep these in mind for a later phase in my diet and hope they show up for me locally!

my surgeon doesn't allow soup because of the whole "no drinking with your meals" thing. He says it's the same thing and we shouldn't do it. Luckily I'm not much of a soup-lover so I don't miss it.

I have Cigna. The best thing you can have is an experienced insurance coordinator at your surgeon's office who knows exactly what their requirements are and how to meet them. My coordinator was great -- she knew exactly what needed to be done, what the wording on the letters should be, etc. She put my package together and submitted it for approval and we got approval in under 24 hours. So just be very clear on the requirements. They should be set out in your insurance member handbook. Cigna has some general policies, but if the policies in your member handbook are different (some employers negotiate different terms -- my requirements were very different from Cigna's general requirements), you need to follow the ones in your member handbook or at the very least call Cigna to clarify which govern. I have to say my experience with Cigna has been extremely positive throughout. Good luck to you!

I am pretty much the same. I feel fullness in my throat more than in my stomach. But usually even before that I just get a sense that I've had enough and want to stop eating. It's not so much physical, more psychological -- hard to explain. My nose also gets runny when I've had enough. I was sleeved on 6/19.

It shouldn't be from quitting smoking or diet cokes. Just make sure you are being completely, brutally honest about everything that goes into MFP and that you weigh/measure all your food. How many calories are you taking in daily? Typically what will help you drop more weight faster is to reduce your daily calories. Some people also find that upping their water intake helps.