Bufflehead

If I were in your situation I'd be a lot more worried about my commitment to making healthy and proper decisions, and about the potential damage I did myself, than about the size of my sleeved stomach.

I love a good burger -- but without the bun. There may be some things that you just don't ever enjoy again. For me those things are any bread made with yeast and anything carbonated. But those are the only things! And I love my life as a slim, healthy person a lot more than I miss bread, that's for sure. Chances are very good that you'll enjoy the vast majority of your old favorites, but they won't matter so much to you. Does that make sense?

I practiced the behaviors I knew would be important after surgery. I got a myfitnesspal account and a digital kitchen scale and got in the habit of weighing or measuring my portions on myfitnesspal and logging everything. I stopped drinking with meals and for 30 minutes after. I gave up caloric and carbonated drinks. I started walking 20 minutes per day. And I read all the threads here and on other wls boards -- not just things that were of immediate concern to me, like what to take to the hospital or insurance approval, but I read all the post-op threads so I knew what to expect: things like the three week stall, gas pain from surgery that is only relieved by walking, stuff like that.

If your surgeon has a death rate of 1 out of 50, you need to find a new surgeon. The normal death rate is more like 1 out of 1000, and an excellent surgeon may well have far better stats or no deaths. The truth is that being morbidly obese is a lot more dangerous to your health and life than surgery is. By choosing weight loss surgery, you are actually reducing your risk of death in the near term by 90%. If dying is what scares you, you should be running as fast as you can to sign up for surgery. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1356432/

When I was on soft food my daily targets were: under 800 calories, max 60 carbs, minimum 75 grams protein.

Smoothies, protein bars, edamame, trail mix are all incredibly high calorie. Frankly I think whoever told you not to count calories did you a terrible disservice. And like Dr. Phil says, how's that working for you? Since you are gaining weight, I'd say it isn't . . . give tracking a try, at least temporarily, to see where the calories and carbs are adding up. Instead of smoothies (efficient way to gulp liquid calories) stick with dense protein and green veggies. Skip the protein bars and the trail mix. If you need a snack, eat a hard boiled egg, or a string cheese stick, or turkey jerky or a packet of tuna (if you eat meat). And definitely skip the cheat day -- call it what it is. It isn't a cheat day, it's a self-sabotage day. Cheating is when you do something unethical to gain an advantage. What you are doing isn't unethical, but it also isn't giving you an advantage -- you are just hurting yourself.

Your not wanting someone you don't like or get along with to know something so personal is completely understandable. That said, I don't think it's right to ask someone to keep a secret from their spouse, even if it doesn't involve affirmative lying. Maybe you can release your father from his obligation of secrecy but take some time explaining how much a positive environment and support are to you, and ask if he can talk with his wife about how they both can provide that positive attitude and support to you as you go forward. I am sure he wants that for you as much as he doesn't want to keep secrets from his wife.

Agree with @@Inner Surfer Girl -- women earn less than men, but are more likely to be single head of household with children depending on them, thus depleting their financial resources even more. They also, even when partnered with a man, spend more time on childcare and house care than men do. So, they have less money to buy healthy food, and less time to exercise or to devote to education. Also, being poor and being primary caregiver for a child are both significant causes of stress. Being stressed and living in poor neighborhoods can cause a lack of sleep. If you are working two or three jobs, probably some of them are at night, also messing up your sleep. Stress levels and poor sleep are also known to contribute to weight gain.

I was cleared to take pills as soon as I could sit up after surgery, as long as the pills were small enough to fit through a standard wedding ring. Other pills had to be either cut in half with a pill cutter (if appropriate and cleared via a pharmacist to cut the pills, not all pills can be safely cut, or crushed, or whatever) or replaced with a liquid medication, for 8 weeks. After that, cleared to swallow any pill.

@@correak I bought mine off Amazon, but I think you can get the same thing at CVS or Walgreens.

Try eating less, especially of the dense protein, and see if that helps the pain. That sounds to me like you are possibly eating too much. That would have been far too much for me at 20 weeks and I don't doubt trying to cram all that protein in would have caused me a lot of pain.

Okay don't tell the people at New Life but I chucked their nasty vitamin powder in the trash and took a double dose of Wellesse liquid vitamins for the first eight weeks. One dose in the morning, one at night. And my labs were always stellar.

Do you mean you ate four eggs all at once without any issue? That does seem odd to me. I can't eat two eggs without feeling uncomfortable and I'm 3 years post-op. But yes, if you are drinking while you are eating, "tiny sips" or not, that will lead to you eating more than you should. Stop doing that and I'll bet you feel your restriction much more. It doesn't mean you've stretched your sleeve, just that eating and drinking at the same time can mean your pyloric valve doesn't close as much when there is liquid in your stomach. Also, adding liquid to your food, such as eggs, will cause it to dissolve and move through your stomach faster, thus allowing you to eat more. Also, as the saying goes, "just because you can, doesn't mean you should." Why did you choose to eat four eggs?

My surgeon's usual rule is 2 nights for either sleeve or bypass. He's pretty conservative though. He won't let you out of the hospital until you are meeting your fluid and protein daily goals.

Usually it is just time passing after surgery that helps you not be so tired. The type of food doesn't make much of a difference. You can get all the physical energy you need from the stored fat in your fat cells, but surgery makes people extremely tired for several weeks after, no matter what they are eating. Have patience and treat yourself kindly and your energy will eventually come back.

It really depends on your insurance, they each have their own requirements. You can contact your insurance company or consult your member handbook for info. But yes, the typical requirement is usually a BMI of 35 with a comorbidity or two, or a BMI of 40 without comorbidities. If you need a BMI of 35 and don't have a requirement of something like "a 2 year weight history showing a history of a BMI of over 35" and you believe you would qualify at a 35 BMI, well, most of us know how to eat to gain enough weight to go up a couple of BMI points. Certainly don't do that unless you are sure you have coverage and will qualify though! You also have self-pay options. Most surgeons will not require a BMI of 35. It can be pretty expensive in the states but there are lots of great surgeons in Mexico with reasonable prices. Good luck!

Go for it, you'll be completely healed and feeling great by the time your wedding rolls around.

What kinds of things are you eating? If you can give some examples, I am sure people can provide more specific help. Things that I find helpful: most foods on MyFitnessPal have adjustable serving sizes/types, which will include "100 grams." If I weigh my food (for example, chicken breast) and know that I am eating 40 grams of chicken breast, I use the "100 grams" serving portion and say that I ate .40 of a serving. If I ate 56 grams, it's .56 of the 100 grams serving portion. If I am using percentages (for example, if 100 grams is not available as a serving size), a lot of the time I use this calculator to help me figure out portion sizes: http://www.math.com/everyone/calculators/calc_source/percent.htm The second calculator is really helpful. If I have a tuna packet that has 2.6 ounces, I might weigh out 2 ounces because I don't want to eat the whole thing. The second calculator will tell me that 2 is 76.9% of 2.6, and then I can enter my serving portion of MyFitnessPal as .769 of a tuna packet. My food scale and the calculator are the two things I use the most to help me calculate serving sizes. Good luck!

Don't freak out. You are normal, congratulations. http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/370340-i-see-why-its-so-hard-to-find-no-complication-stories/

@@cseidman I use cashew milk (tastes better than almond to me) because it has much lower calories and carbs than soy milk. I also don't like the taste of soy milk! I can meet my protein targets without soy milk or dairy milk. If you haven't, you might want to try low calorie, low carb, high protein, lactose free dairy milk (common brands are Fair Life and CarbMaster). The lactose-free aspect helps most people tolerate it who otherwise have issues with dairy.

I don't think cream of chicken soup would physically hurt your digestive tract (though I am not a medical expert). I *do* think that deciding you don't really need to follow your bariatric team's instructions and that you'll do what you please in order to satisfy cravings will set you down a road that will hurt your long term chance of success, despite this just starting out as a small step in the wrong direction.

I love the replacement list -- but I will say that almond milk a lot, a lot, a lot more "processed" and factory-food-ish than regular dairy milk. Unless the almond milk is homemade, of course.

I relied a lot on diet cranberry juice, V8, and Unjury chicken broth. The ginger miso broth from Trader Joe's is also really good.

I stopped taking them after 6 months with no ill effects. Based on what I have read about long term PPI use, if I developed severe GERD I would revise to bypass before I would commit to using PPI's for the rest of my life.

I usually order a couple of meat-based appetizers or small plates -- seared scallops, beef carpaccio, meatballs, wings, whatever the restaurant has on offer. Pick at both of them. Alternatively, order some sort of grilled meat entree (salmon, chicken, steak) and just ignore whatever comes as a carb-based side. If anyone comments on what you are eating, or how much, just say that your doctor has you on a strict low carb, low calorie diet because you need to lose weight. Really, most people will not notice or comment on your food choices (doing so is really incredibly rude) but if they do, invoking your doctor and your health, in a polite way, will shut them up and keep them from trying to talk you into ordering dessert or something. Stick with drinking water, or coffee or tea if allowed. If anyone says something like "not a glass of wine?" or "no drinking?" just say, no, doctor's orders, I can't have that right now.