AndyPandy88

Hey fellow June surgery friends! So I've been at goal since about the end of February. Starting weight was 280 Goal: 180 Current weight: 176 Been doing good, then all of a sudden 3 weeks ago, about an hour after eating, I would have this TERRIBLE abdominal pain that felt like a heart attack. It happened two nights in a row, one night with greasy fried pork chops, the other with spicy food. Went to the doctor and found out, despite being on the prophylactic gallstone medicine, I still got them. I even took all 6 months worth or my medicine, but the doctor said even when taken correctly about 20% of people it doesn't work for. So a week ago today I had my gallbladder taken out. Same surgeon as did my sleeve, so it was cool because he checked on it for me and said it looked awesome. He even video taped this surgery (because I asked him too) and gave me a copy on dvd, which is awesome because I want to go to med school. It's funny because my husband in pre-op before my sleeve took a picture of me right before they wheeled me back to surgery, he did the same thing this time and it's freaking crazy how different I look. I don't really feel like I've lost weight or still feel "fat" until I see pictures. It's almost like my brain hasn't caught up with my body. I will post the pictures tomorrow for you all because it's crazy. You would swear it isn't the same person. Other than the dang gallbladder everything has been wonderful! (and wouldn't you know it, my first gallbladder attack was 3 days after my deductible reset... Figures). I recommend the sleeve to everyone I've talked to thinking about WLS. best decision of my life easily.

http://www.amazon.com/Syntrax-Matrix-Mint-Cookie-Powder/dp/B00402T7TO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1350883814&sr=8-1&keywords=syntrax+mint+cookie This is the Protein powder I was talking about. It's made by the same people who make nectar. It litterally tastes like a shamrock shake from McDonalds. I use a cup of milk, couple handfulls of ice, and a scoop of Protein Powder and blend it in my blender, so delicious and has 32g of protein (if you use milk). I look forward to my daily protein shake... Before I had this I dreaded having to drink another shake. ha ha. It's so delicious.

Hey Everyone, So I was sleeved on June 27th. I've been having an extremely easy time with my sleeve. I guess I'm just lucky, especially when I read about some of the problems others had. The worst part for me was just being on full liquids for 3 weeks. Those darn Protein shakes get old after a while. (Although, after I found the Mint Cookie Protein... thanks to this message board, it wasn't nearly as bad. I still have a mint cookie Protein shake for Breakfast everyday!) After I started on real food it was a real breeze for me. I think the other reason I'm having an easy time is because I always have not liked carbs. I hate Pasta, not a huge bread fan, so I'm lucky in that eating protein rich food has not only been easy, but I enjoy it more. My husband hates it though cuz he's a big pasta eater, and I'm like "Sorry honey, we can't have pasta! I can't eat it" then i snicker. I've been fortunate in that I've never stalled. Some weeks I still loose up to 4 lbs a week, the least I've lost in one week is 1.8, so in that regard i'm very lucky! In some ways I wish I would stall, because when your still loosing weight, it's REALLY hard to motivate myself to go to the gym. I'm like "Well I'm still loosing, so why do I need to go!" I'm a full time college student and work full time as well, but I still need to find time to go to the gym. The sleeve was literally the best thing i've ever done for myself. I'm only 23 years old, but have been overweight since I was 8. I passed the 200 lb mark as A SEVENTH GRADER, and weighed 225 lbs my FRESHMAN YEAR of high school. All throughout high school I weighed between 225-290. After high school I got my first boyfriend and got serious about my weight and through strict diet and exercise I was able to get down to 215 (lost about 75 lbs in 5 months). This literally consisted of me watching everything I put in my mouth, rarely eating out, and going to the gym at least 5 times a week if not more. After college started though, everything went downhill. I no longer had time to go to the gym, and watching what you eat when your so cramped for time is extremely difficult. You rely a lot on to go food and fast food when your constantly on the go to classes. Within 2 years, I was back up to 290 where I started. My weight hovered here for about a year despite trying to diet and exercise. In march of this year one of my co-workers was planning on having the sleeve done and I was like "how can you? Your BMI isn't 40?" And she told me that if you have a BMI of 35 with a co-morbidity, then that counts as well. I had always thought about bariatric surgery, but my BMI always was around 38-39, and I thought it was silly to intentionally gain wait just to have surgery. But this opened up a whole new world of possibilities! I work at a sleep lab as a sleep technologist, so a co-morbidity was easy to come by as I could just be studied for sleep apnea. So I had a sleep study and sure enough, there it was! Sweet! So I met with the surgeon and busted my butt off to get everything done so I could have my surgery while I was on summer vacation from school. Luckily my insurance didn't require any medical weight loss before surgery, so all I had to do was a psych appointment and then obviously the dietitian appointments. I got it all done in about a month and a half, and by the end of May I had my surgery scheduled. My co-worker who I was talking about above had surgery (the sleeve as well) at the end of May, so I had to wait for her to get back to work for me to leave, so I had my surgery at the end of June. It was SOOOOOOO nice to have someone go through this roughly the same time I did. It was helpful for moral support as well as the typical text messages I sent here like "um i just noticed this, is it normal?" Or "Is it normal to feel like 'WHAT THE HELL HAVE I DONE?'" ha ha. I loved having someone else I knew very well go through this with me. We are now such good friends that her husband calls us "Will and Grace" from the TV show (since i'm gay and she straight, and we are pretty much joined at the hip now.) Surgery was pretty boring according to my surgeon, I guess that's a good thing. He did say i had one of the BIGGEST stomachs he had ever seen, which makes sense to me. The reason I gained weight wasn't from snacking or grazing, I pretty much never snacked, but when I ate meals, I ATE A LOT. I was pretty sore for the day of surgery and the day after. I ended up staying 2 nights in the hospital because on my swallow test, there wasn't a leak but they said everything in there was super "tight" and not moving very quickly, so they wanted to keep me an extra night to make sure Water and the Clear Liquids I was having were getting through ok. By the time I left the hospital, I felt pretty good. A little sore If I bent over but other than that I was doing good. Now here we are almost 4 months later, I'm down 73 lbs from my starting weight and still loosing, I'm almost below the 200 mark for the first time since middle school which I'm super excited about. I had a job interview last week and had to go buy new clothes since none of my previous dress clothes fit me. I was able to buy a MEDIUM dress shirt, which was shocking to me, and I was down 6" in my pants size which is AWESOME. I've already had to buy 2 belts because my old ones weren't fitting anymore. Overall, this was the best thing I ever did for myself and I have absolutely no regrets! I'm an open book so if anyone has any questions, or wants advise about surgery or anything feel free to ask! Now here are some pictures! The first one a picture at the top of the empire state building (me and my now husband got married in New York City at the end of May. I'm the one on the far left). The other one is from the beginning of september, I think my weight at that point was about 220 lbs, so I've lost about another 13 lbs since that picture was taken. Again if you have any questions, post them here or just PM me if you don't want the whole world to see! Sorry for the long post as well!

June 27th surgery date. 73 lbs down. 27 lbs left to go!

Sleeved June 27th, have lost 58.8 lbs so far. Have yet to hit a stall (knocks on wood), and feeling great.

I agree with this poster. syntrax mint cookie is my favorite. I have it every morning for Breakfast because it's so dang good!

I'm the same way. I'm 6 weeks out today and have no desire for food. Often forget to eat (which is bad). I used to enjoy eating... Like it was a hobby or something... Now I eat because I have to. I get no pleasure out of it. This to me is how humans and other animals were made to be. Eat because we have to to sustain life, not because we just want to which is how I got overweight. Ha ha. Like the poster above me said, it's a good thing and you will get used to it. Just will take some time.

B-12 is a water soluble vitamin, which basically means if your body gets too much, then you just pee out the excess. If won't harm you if you have too much of it, only if you have too little. Now there are some vitamins like vitamin D that are fat soluble which means if you have too much, it gets absorbed into fat cells and can cause major issues, but B12 isn't going to hurt you if you have to much.

Exactly one month down today (Sleeved on June 27th). Weighed myself this morning at I was down 34.6 lbs! YAY!!!! Feeling pretty good, on the soft foods portion still, but only 3 more days of that till our doctor moves us onto a regular (Obviously low carb and sugar) diet. Can't wait to have tiny bits of beef again! ha ha, I always have been a red meat guy, but I'll still probably eat a majority of white meat just cuz it's more lean.

Hey everyone. I'm about 3 1/2 weeks Post-op. I was wondering how long I should wait before I can start jogging or running. I have been doing a treadmill at the gym and just going like 3.0 to 3.5 with an incline to get some extra calorie burn. Any insite?

I had surgery on June 27th as well. Have lost 24.4 lbs as of this morning! My goal is to loose 100lbs so I'm already 1/4 of the way there. So excited to start real food next week though!

I'm a Registered sleep tech, So I do sleep studies on people for a living. I can tell you, of the repeat patients I have seen who went through WLS, Probably 70% are able to completely go off of CPAP when they reach their goal weight, and the other 30% get significant reductions to their pressure settings, making it much easier to tolerate. It's definatly a good thing!