joatsaint

"could have eaten my fingers" - I hope you're not a proctologist! I know where you're coming from. During my pre-op diet, I wanted a hamburger so bad I was tempted to drive by McDonlads just to sniff the dumpster!

Can't I do this with out the surgery? You know, eat the crazy small amouts and still lose weight? Why isn't that ok? You can eat the small meals to lose weight, and it is okay. I just couldn't live that lifestyle for very long. It was a non-stop battle to keep myself from eating more. Who are you using? Who is your doctor? Is it costing you a fortune? And if so how are you financing such an endeavor? I don't want to recommend my doctor, since I wasn't happy with the aftercare, but I paid about $5k between the doctor and hospital. I put it on a credit card and will have it paid off before the end of the year. Does anyone who has complete the surgery regret it? I do not regret it for a minute. Even with all the discomfort of the 1st 10 days, I am very happy with the result. Food is no longer the focus of my life and I love sitting at a buffet restraunt knowing that I will only eat about 1/4 plate of food.

Congrats on your sleeve. You might switch from Protein Water to something without the protein, just to see if the problem goes away. When I first got home, I was eating sugar free Jell-O and sugar free popsicles and getting lots of cramps and bubbles in my stomach. I didn't realize it, but my new stomach did not like the sucralose or the sugar alcohols. So your new stomach may not be ready for that kind of protein yet.

It hasn't happened to me yet, but then only 4 people know about my surgery. I believe what happened to you is just - people don't think. They forget about the things that they can't see or aren't reminded of. I did it to myself pre-surgery. I was food planning for post-op meals, and my friend stopped me and said, "You don't need that much, you have to plan for your new stomach."

I have to go with inches. I don't care if I weigh 250 - as long as it's all muscle. My new tagline - - priceless Gman, you get 2 snaps up in a Z formation!

The pain! Oh God, the pain! - no, just kidding. They put me under and I woke up with a scratchy throat. I wouldn't even have noticed my throat if I hadn't been warned that it might be sore. I was under for about 20 minutes, woke up and was back in the car headed home within the hour. If they haven't told you, they won't let you drive yourself home, but I felt alert and had no after effects of the anesthesia. They gave me the same stuff used on Micheal Jackson, to put him to sleep. It was funny, they put a mouth guard in so I wouldn't bite the scope, said they were about the put me under. Next thing I know, I'm waking up (thinking that I had just blinked my eyes) and I put the mouth guard back in because I thought I had let it slip out. They were laughing at me, cause I didn't realize the procedure was over.

Get a cat. The meat isn't as stringy and they are great rotisserie style. P.S. I also hear they have more Protein per pound than dogs.

God! I wouldn't want to have more than one leak test. That stuff tastes worse than ass! But, I've not read any posts about dr.s ordering more than one leak test. I scared me stiff when the nurse announced the leak test negative, I didn't know that was a good thing.

Congrats on you weight loss. I'm looking forward to a new wardrobe myself.

It feels good when your pants are loose. Mine are getting a bit baggy, just not as fast as I'd like. :-) I don't take any measurements, I just see how far my hand will slide down between my gut and the steering wheel. :-P

I believe it is normal, I'm 7 weeks out and still can't handle soft foods like zucchini or squash and occasionally chicken is still a problem. Everyone's stomach heals at different rates. I was still eating almost exclusively Cream of Mushroom Soup at 4 weeks, most everything else would cause big gas pains after the 1st bite.

Thanks for the post, you're looking good. Keep pimpin that sleeve. I'd join your Facebook page, but I don't like that Facebook tracks your internet surfing and sells info from your profile to advertisers.

Congrats on having such an easy recovery and so much weight loss. Keep pimpin that sleeve!

I think the variations are based on the doctor's experience with his patients and how safe he wants to play it. The main concern, I believe, is giving your stomach enough time to sufficiently heal before being stressed. You can't go wrong by staying on the clear liquid diet longer than suggested. And you can use my food test to see if your stomach is ready for a new food. Take a bite, about 1/2 teaspoon, wait 5 minutes, if there is no stomach upset, take another 1/2 tsp bite and wait 5 minutes. If I don't feel any stomach distress after that, I'm confident my stomach is ready for it. But I still eat very slowly to see when I feel full. Different foods fill me up at different rates.

Thanks for such an inspiring post.

My doc only told me to stay away from sugar. So I followed a low carb diet pre-op.

Yea, the IV - they pumped about 8 lbs into me in 2 days. But I was down 10lbs by the end of the first week.

Next time could you take a picture from the back of the room? :-P

The beef broth and protein shakes are for the pre-op diet and the 1st week post op. Some people continue to drink the protein shakes to get in the recommended daily protein. I rarely drink the shakes after the 2nd week post-op. I moved onto creamy soups and and a lot of chicken run through my food processor until very very finely chopped. I believe anyone that has 85% of their stomach removed will lose weight. You can't help but lose, if you are limited to 4oz of food every few hours. Now the big question is, where is your hunger coming from? Only you can figure that part out. Is it from emotional eating, boredome, stress, or is it because you have hunger pangs caused by the hormone ghrelin? From my own experience, I knew that my hunger was real (even though I had eaten 2 hours earlier, I'd be hungry again). It wasn't until I talked to my surgeon that he told me that I had an excess of the hormone ghrelin (produced by the stomach). The bigger the stomach, the more of the hormone produced. The surgery stopped my hunger pangs. I have not had that nagging sense of hunger (other than my stomach growling) since surgery 7 weeks ago. And 4 or 5 oz of food keeps me satisfied, whereas before, I could eat 1 lb of steak and know I'd be raiding the fridge in 2 hours. And I don't have any cravings anymore for certain flavors. Whereas before, I'd think about something that would taste good and I couldn't get the thought out of my head until I ate it. Don't get me wrong, you can sabotage yourself after surgery. There are foods, called slider foods, that are calorie dense (ice cream, peanut butter) that pass through the stomach quickly, so it's possible to eat more. And it is possible to just graze all day on snacks that are high in calories. The sleeve gave me the control over my eating that I needed. I really think of it as an addiction that you can't quit and never touch again. Other addictions can be quit and never touched again. But what if a heroine addict, smoker or alcoholic knew they had to take some every day or their body would die? What if they had 75 TV channels that ran commericals for cigarrets every 10 minutes during their favorite programs? Or had reality programs (like the best places to pig out or the food challenges) devoted to the best places to get their fix and showed people taking drugs and loving it? Could they just reduce the amount they took? Ok, rant over. :-)

You go girl. You look WONDERFUL! Congratualtions! Keep pimpin that sleeve.

Pre and post op, I could eat anything on the list I was given. It listed sugar free Jell-O, with no restrictions on the flavor or color. All they cared about was that I ate foods low in carbs. I was eating sugar free cherry Jell-O and sugar free popsicles - red, orange, green, and purple. Be careful post-op though, my stomach didn't like either one of those after surgery - or sugar free Gatorade. My stomach does not like sugar alcohols or sucralose now. Crystal Light and splenda, I have no problems with.

Thanks for the link. Sleeving solved the problem for me. I no longer feel an almost overwhelming hungar for carbs like rice, pasta and potatoes.

Thanks for the update. It really helps me with my doubts that I made the right choice when I hear from long term sleevers. Keep pimpin that sleeve.

You know you've been on low carbs too long when you finally eat some corn and it tates as good as eating candy!