Bufflehead

High carb, grain-based foods like waffles won't really engage your restriction, or not very much. That's the big reason we are always instructed to focus on high protein foods first. So I don't think you stretched your sleeve (and there is nothing magical about liquid that can "shrink" your stomach or any other body part). You just discovered the way that people eat around their sleeve and gain weight back. What you need is a game plan to not do that in the future. Things I do when I'm feeling hungrier than normal or having cravings: give myself a day or two when I can eat as much as I want -- as long as it's lean protein or green veggies (and no sauce, butter, cheese, etc.). Exercise. Go for a walk. I keep reminding myself that hunger is unpleasant, but not an emergency. I make an eating plan for the day -- write out exactly what I am going to eat and when. That way I can remind myself, "yes, I'm hungry right now, and it sucks to be hungry, but I can wait until my snack at 3, I get to eat an apple then." That calms me down and makes me feel like hunger is manageable. And get crap food out of the house -- why are there frozen waffles in your house? No one needs frozen waffles. If someone in your house is a waffle addict, buy them a cookbook, some whole grains, and a waffle iron. You might benefit from reading some books on cognitive behavioral therapy techniques to deal with hunger in ways other than eating. Sometimes hunger is just something you have to learn to live with, and CBT techniques helped me a lot. I really got a lot out of The Beck Diet Solution. Good luck!

You can get samples of tons of different brands from Nashua Nutrition, just Google Nashua Nutrition Protein Samples. Of protein powders that have numbers (calories, carbs, protein) in the same ballpark as Unjury, my favorites are Syntrax Nectar Sweets (chocolate truffle & cappuccino), Syntrax Matrix, and Optimum Nutrition Gold Standard. They are all cheaper than Unjury, but not a whole lot cheaper. For powders that are significantly cheaper, you might try Pure Protein (you can find it at Target and I think CVS) and Body Fortress (Wal-Mart, Kroger). Body Fortress in particular gets good reviews. However, there really isn't a way to sample them, so you could possibly buy a container of it and hate it.

Barring complications, I think you'd be ready at 7 weeks out. Just be sure to keep yourself completely hydrated and if you find yourself feeling tired, give yourself permission to stop and rest.

My dietitian said that two months without weight loss means that you're in maintenance, not a stall. If you do hit that two month mark, you may have to decide whether you want to stay where you are or whether you want to keep going in your weight loss, and if you want to keep going, what you are willing to do for it.

Yup, me too, sounds like a forum-wide glitch. I'll bet they get it back soon.

I also have a small waist and a comparatively big butt, and believe me I feel your pain with most jeans not fitting at all! If they fit my rear end, I have a big waistline to swim around in. In fact, this is true for almost all pants for me, not just jeans. Kohl's has a house brand of jeans & stretch denim pants that fit me perfectly, and they cost about $20 each, maybe $25 if you don't find them on sale. The thing is that these are elastic waist, so maybe not the most fashionable -- but I don't like to tuck my shirts in any way, so no one knows. I love them and get lots of compliments on them.

8-10 lbs per month is what I usually lost after the first month. Y'all are crazy with your expectations. ETA: I was no lightweight, I started with a 59.9 BMI.

Agreed, hiccups after eating generally means you ate too much, too fast. The food gets mashed in against your vagus nerve, which runs along the top of the stomach. The nerve gets irritated because it's getting crushed by all the food you crammed in your sleeve. The vagus nerve controls all kinds of reactions in the upper body, such as hiccups, having your nose run, and burping. So if you get any of these during or after eating, make sure you eat less next time and eat more slowly. Good luck!

It isn't weight loss that causes the size of your liver to shrink, it's eating a low-carb, low-sugar, low-calorie diet. This forces the liver to extract its stored energy and use. Eating that kind of diet also usually causes weight loss, for sure, but they don't necessarily have to go together. Two people could eat the same diet for two weeks before surgery and lose different amounts of weight due to different starting weights, faster metabolism, diffferent muscle density, one person retained more water, the other person exercised more, etc. But their livers should shrink roughly the same amount just based on their food intake. So, don't worry about how much you or anyone else loses, just worry about how well you comply with your pre-op diet plan

The only way I've successfully increased my potassium level is eating more potassium rich foods. It's hard to supplement since just ingesting a bunch of potassium can do nasty things like stop your heart! There are postassium-rich foods that are sleeve friendly like yogurt, tuna, sardines (in fact lots of fish has potassium), tomato sauce, beans, dried fruit (small amounts of course), and edamame. Good luck!

Very common, my surgeon has pretty much everyone on 40 mg omeprazole daily starting the day after surgery.

The veggies I added in were asparagus, broccoli, squash (zucchini & yellow squash), eggplant, spinach, and green beans. All very well cooked and soft. The trick is to keep the amounts very small -- protein needs to be the primary focus post-op. I was under orders to stay away from high carb veggies such as potatoes, sweet potatoes, and peas. Also no grains so corn is out too. Avocado is a great source of fiber and healthy fats -- you need to watch the amounts, of course, since it is so high calorie. That was one of the first non-protein items in my post-op diet. It's technically a fruit though

I think you'll find that most people don't pay much attention to what or how much you eat. Of course, if you start bringing your own meals (which you should if the group meal is starchy), people will likely notice that! If anyone comments, just say something like "my doctor has me on a strict low carb, high protein, small portion diet since my weight really isn't healthy." All true, and if you invoke your doctor and your health, I've found that everyone is pretty much willing to let it go instead of saying something like "it's just this once! One serving of lasagna won't kill you!"

3 months Nothing, I always take my coffee black. No problems whatsoever! My body runs on coffee (lots of it) and that has not changed. ETA: my hospital brought me hot decaf the day after surgery and I had that with no problems either. I didn't bother with decaf once I went home though, I didn't really see the point. But I went right back to full test coffee when I was okayed for it.

I have to agree, it makes no mathematical sense, but I found that at about 6 months out, I started losing faster when I ate 1000 calories per day than when I ate 800 calories per day. eta: be sure you are getting a full 7 hours of sleep each night. Lack of sleep is a huge factor in weight stalls and even gains.

Double down on fluids and rest.

Do a search on the forums here for "3 week stall" and you'll see that not only has it happened to "anyone" it happens to just about everyone. It's so common that this question gets posted here every single day! Not kidding! Keep doing what you are supposed to be doing and stay off the scale for a couple of weeks if it is going to drive you crazy. And hang on, because you will stall again during weight loss, even when you are doing all the right things.

I stay away from bariatric products that "taste like candy" -- the last thing I need to be doing is stoking my desire to eat candy! I also don't need to load up on the calories and carbs packed into those kinds of vitamins. I use Trader Joe's High Potency Chewable Multi's. Very low calorie, low carb, and cheap. They taste fine (not like candy though). I took 2 per day for the 6 months after surgery, then switched to one per day. My labs have always been great, and I've never had any problems with nausea or anything like that.

I can't say that exact thing has happened to me (though I am treated generally better overall), but there are a lot of published, peer-reviewed scientific papers out there that show fat people are discriminated against in all sorts of settings: less likely to be hired or promoted (with identical resumes, just based on one including a picture of a fat person and the other a slender person), less likely to be admitted to college (same scenario -- identical application files, just pictures), less likely to have their health concerns taken seriously and treated appropriately by health care providers, less likely (for women) to have doors held open for them -- you get the idea. A lot of people, even fat people and formerly fat people, will try to blow this off and say it's because you have more confidence, positivity, and outgoingness as a normal-weight person. To me, that's victim-blaming. How can it be about confidence and positivity when the studies show that fat people are discriminated against based merely on a picture of them? So no, I do not think you are imagining things at all. Fat people are treated terribly by our culture, I am sorry to say.

I didn't tell anyone about my plans until right before surgery. Once I had it scheduled, I told my family and closest friends. Everyone was very positive and supportive. Since surgery, I have told anyone who has asked how I am losing weight. Again, nothing but positivity. And as a bonus, two people who asked me have gone on to have sleeve surgery themselves and are doing fantastic. I don't want to be one who perpetuates the cultural myth that anyone can go from morbidly obese to healthy and normal if they just try harder at eating less and moving more.

If you believe your stomach is possibly ripped open, your life could be in immediate danger and you should go to the nearest ER. Most people would have fever, sweats, chills, and uncontrollable vomiting in addition to unbearable pain. If you think maybe you have stretched out your stomach but not ripped it open, you should eat a very careful post-op diet for several days -- small portions of easily digestable, mushy, high protein food, no liquid calories other than protein shakes, no drinking with your meals -- and see if you feel better. There is no way any of us can diagnose you over the internet -- if you feel like your life or health is in immediate jeopardy, you should seek in-person medical treatment from an emergency facility at once. Good luck to you.

You won't really feel full on liquids if you don't get a lot of swelling and tenderness in your sleeve from surgery. That's what makes it hard for people to drink post-op. If you don't have a lot of swelling, that just means your surgeon did meticulous work and you have a fast-healing body. Without the swelling, liquid goes right through your pyloric valve, just like it is supposed to. When you move on from liquids, make sure you measure your portions and eat slowly. Don't overeat even if you don't feel "full." Your stomach nerves were cut and it can take a long time for them to heal up and send proper signals about how much food you have in your stomach, so don't rely on feeling "full." And "full" isn't what you want to be aiming for ever, in the future -- you want "satisfied," not "full." That's a difference you have to work very hard to learn! You may want to talk to your surgeon about upping your dose of Prilosec (I was taking it 2x per day post-op) or trying another PPI in order to deal with hunger. Also, ask yourself if you are really hungry or just experiencing head hunger/cravings? There are some people who continue to feel hungry after surgery. You may find it diminishes over the next couple of weeks as the level of ghrelin in your body continues to drop.

It depends on the soup. Something like chicken broth will have virtually zero, but if your soup has rice or noodles or beans, it will have a lot more. What kind of soup are you thinking about buying?

I had more of a desk job, but people in my support group with physical jobs like yours are mandated 6 weeks off by our surgery group.

Heating pad, Bubba keg, a couple of comfy cotton fasten-in-front leisure type bras (no underwire!), and a bunch of stuff to do while you recover, whether that is loading up your Kindle, your Netflix queue, new games to play, books of puzzles, knitting, etc.