joatsaint

I wish I had brought my own pillow. I am used to a feather pillow that I can mold and shape. The hospital pillows pop back into thier old shape as soon as I pick my head up. And it would have been nice to have a pillow to squeeze against my stomach on the ride home.

You spend $3 bucks on a shirt marked down from $12.... cause you can find sizes that fit on the clearance rack!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (got 4 work shirts today for the price of 1 ****Does Happy Dance****) Who says WLS doesn't pay for itself!!!!!??????

You may not be ready for those foods. eggs and Beans were very tough on my stomach for months and months. I didn't try bananna till around 6 months, and even then, Frankensleeve just wanted to seize up after 1 bite. 2 foods I lived on and never had probles with, creamy Peanut Butter and Cream of Mushroom Soup.

My firt month was very rough. The smallest sip of Crystal Light or a 1/2 teaspoon of food would make Frankensleeve tie up in knots. I was never worried about getting in the recommended protein/calories, only staying hydrated. I kept a big mug of ice cold Crystal Light lemonade on my desk and drank small sips every time I looked at the mug. It will take time for the swelling in your new tummy to go down and things will get easier. But honesty, my 1st 2 weeks, I was eating at most 1/2 of a sugar free popsicle per day and the follwing month, I was eating about 3/4 can of Cream of Mushroom Soup per day. I knew that I had more than enough calories stored in my fat to last me through the longest Zombie Appocolypse!!! So I wasn't worried about starving.

I didn't try popcorn till sometime between 6 and 9 months post-op, for 2 reasons. 1. I was always worried that some of the pieces would get lodged in my staple line (if it wasn't fully healed). 2. I was eating so little that I really needed to get as much nutrition as I could per calorie. My 1st time eating popcorn, I could only eat 1/2 of a 100 calorie bag. Sometime after the 1 year mark, I was able to eat an entire bag. I could probably hold more, but I limit myself to 1 100 calorie microwave bag every couple of days.

I'm just about to start my 21st month post-op. I still feel my restirction, but after Frankensleeve healed, he could hold more. So, it's still there, but the swelling has gone down and there's more room. The 1st 10 days, I couldn't eat more than 1 bite per meal. And for the following 3 months, I was only eating about 3/4 can of Soup per day. After 6 months, I could hold about 4oz per meal. At 9 months, I could hold about 6 - 8oz per meal. At 1 year, I was up to about 12oz per meal. Now I can hold up to 16 oz, depending on the type of food. Any kind of meat fills me up much faster than vegetables. With meat, I start feeling full at about 8 oz. The restriction feeling is not the same as being full pre surgery. That old good feeling of "oohhh I'm so full" was replaced by "oh! that hurts! I ate one bite too many." In the beginning, I had to eat slowly and learn my limits to keep it from hurting. After a few months, I learned how much I could safetly hold. Now I can look at a portion of food and know how much I can hold, it's an unconscious habit. And if I don't stay aware of how much I'm eating, I could easily overeat, just by going back to my old habits. I could go back to grazing all day (even though I'm not hungry) and put much of the weight back on. But again, much of my new way of eating is now an unconscious habit. So it's not real hard to stick to the amounts and types of healthy foods I should eat. The discipline to stay on track does not take the same effort as it did pre-surgery. All my cravings and hunger pains disappeared the day after surgery, and never returned. I can walk past donuts, cake and pie, want some, realize I'm not hungry and walk away (most of the time :-P). Now there are some foods (slider foods) that do not easliy fill me up - popcorn and Peanut Butter are the 2 I can think of right off, but it's very easy to limit my intake. That old need to eat till I'm bursting is gone. That makes it soooo much easier. I've seen people posting about things they can never eat after surgery. And miss being able to eat them. I can understand that, but at the same time, I would be glad I couldn't eat the food that made me overweight. I haven't had that problem. I been able to eat anything I wanted, but even if I knew going in that I couldn't eat certain foods ever again, I'd still have done it. I was ready to do anything to reset my life and get the weight off. I try never to tell anyone what to do, this is major surgery, no matter how casual the media makes it look. And there are people that have had complications, but VSG was what I needed to get my life back. And I'd do it all over again, even if the odds of surviving it were only 50/50.

Today I am offically "merely" Overweight. My BMI has stayed below 29.9 for the week, marking my transition from being Obese to Overweight. ****Does Happy Dance****

You roll over in bed and feel somthing hard jabbing you in your side and realize.... it's your ribs!!! Or you sit down in the car and feel your tail bone sliding along the seat fabric.

Way to go.

I was strictly low carb for the week before surgery. I was drinking low carb EAS protein shakes and eating baked chicken breast or baked pork loin. I didn't really count calories as much as I tracked my carbs, trying to stay below 10 carbs per day. I lost 10lbs that week.

I started walking after the 1st month. I started out with a goal to walk 10,000 steps each day. Took many months, but I finally got to that point. http://www.bariatricpal.com/blog/9018/entry-31216-nsv-2-you-best-step-off-b-hatch/

It really depends on your insurance provider. I have Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas and they have a WLS deductable of $5,000. Between the doctor and the hosptial charges, that's what I spent.

I feel lucky in that I lost all interest in eating a variety of flavors, starting the 1st week post-op. I can eat the same ole stuff every meal for months before I get burned out. It makes life and cooking very simple. I get enough flavor variety to keep me satisfied by going out to eat on Sat nights with friends.

After 18 months, I still weight twice a day. When I wake up and when I get home in the evening. It's just a way to keep track of how I'm progressing. I don't let it bother me if the scale creeps up a little. I just try to remember what kind of food I'd eaten in the past few days and take note of how it affected me, make the necessary adjustments and move on. When I was first sleeved, I weighed constantly... before I ate, after I ate, before a poop, after a poop... on and on. It was kind of a game. I know.... I have no life. :-(

You haven't missed your window. Your sleeve is just a tool, and does not have an "on/off" switch. It does get tougher to lose weight at 1 year, simply because your body gets adjusted to the lower calorie intake, you sleeve is healed and it can hold more food, and you're carrying less weight (so you're not burning as many calories when you exercise). I'm at 18 months post-op, the weight loss has slowed considerably because I'm eating more and I'm not carrying an extra 160lbs. But I'm still inching my way down.

At 4 months, I was eating about 4 oz per meal (4 to 6 times a day) - as opposed to the way I was eating, which could be measured in tablespoons per day. As your stomach heals, the swelling will go down and it can hold more and tolerate more types of foods. At 9 months, I could suddenly hold 8 to 12 oz per meal easily. And at a year I was able to hold up to 16 oz, depending on the density of the food. I don't believe it's easy to stretch your new stomach. From the research I've done, you would really have to deliberately work at it constantly to stretch your new stomach. And it would be painful. It still hurts when I take one bite too many, so I'm very mindful about how much I've eaten. So make sure you get into good eating habits now, because I found it pretty easy to slip into old habits after my 1 year mark.

I didn't have a lot of problems (I did get stuck in a few stalls) reaching the weight my doc said was "realistic" (235lbs) , which is 50 lbs above my "ideal" (185lbs) body weight. Now I'm 20 lbs below where my doc said he wanted me. It's not a real problem staying at 215 ~ 220 lbs. The tough part is losing more. I'd like to get down to 199 and see how I look, then decide where I'd like to be.

I don't really do affirmations, but I tell people that, "everything I lack, I make up for in denial." :-P

Congrats and welcome to the loser's bench!

Mine was about 2 hours, mostly answering the 500+ questionnaire. The acutal interview was only about 20 minutes. He mainly wanted to know that I had realistic expectations about how much weight I would lose, if I was truly committed to losing weight and was fully informed about the surgery and the risks.