clk

I was on clears after surgery. The only advice I have is to make whatever you drink room temp or warm. It helped me a lot. Nice warm broth with lots of seasoning was perfect to sip from a cup. For me the trick was to keep it from being bland - get some hot and sour soup and strain it, eat some broth from taco soup or just jazz up some regular old chicken broth with plenty of seasonings. I had spasms for a day or two post op and realized after suffering through them that they usually happened when I was drinking something cold or cool. Take it easy and take the time to heal. You'll be recovered and losing weight in no time! ~Cheri

Congrats to you on a serious accomplishment! Holy smokes, that's a lot of weight! My body hit certain points where it was just happy to hang at a certain weight. Right around 200 pounds, right around 160 pounds (that one took forever to break) and right around 140 pounds. Every time I'd drop a big chunk of the weight I'd find myself totally stalled for weeks on end. Just don't give up because you will definitely reach your goal if you keep on going. Slow going is still going! Congrats again on the huge success so far. I can't wait to see how long it takes you to drop the last bit! ~Cheri

Congrats, congrats, congrats! I think it's amazing how you just keep on going despite reaching goal and being totally thrilled with your success every step of the way. You look amazing, lady - I, too, wonder how small you're gonna get! ~Cheri

Parmesan crisps - I love the salty cheesy flavor. These only come out nice and crispy if you use freshly grated Parmesan, though, and since the cheese is the only ingredient you're better off investing in a nice, quality wedge. I love the Kashi crackers and can only eat 4 or 5 at a time, even at nearly 17 months out. I'd be careful, though. Popcorn is my favorite salty/crunchy snack and it definitely slides. I can eat far more than need to be eating in one sitting! ~Cheri

I think in this, as in all other weight loss things, YMMV. Follow your doctor's plan and if he doesn't give you one you should ask him/her for guidance. It took me months to work up to a steady 500-700 calories a day. I knew going in what my BMR was, though, and knew I needed to hit around 900 calories a day and not much more to lose at a decent pace. Not everyone is the same. You're going to see other women on these boards that eat 1200+ calories a day because they have to in order to lose. You'll also see women that hang as low as possible in the 500s and limit their carbs to 20 or less per day. We all need to do what works for us, not just to lose weight, but whatever it is that we can maintain in the long run. I'm a slower loser and have been regardless of how I tweak or restrict. I aim for about 900-1100 calories a day, 80+ grams of Protein and 75 or so grams of carbs. It works for me, I never feel deprived and I can do this for the rest of my life with no problem. There is no one-size-fits-all answer. If there were, none of us would be having surgery in the first place because the first time we gave Weight Watchers a try it would have worked! So, my advice? Track you intake carefully and add or subtract calories and/or carbs until you find the place where you feel satisfied with both your diet and your results. ~Cheri

Yep. I think there are a number of things that go into it, though. As a general rule, people are nicer to someone they find attractive, and probably without even realizing it in some cases. But a big part of what is attractive to other people is how you carry yourself. And as you drop weight, YES, you carry yourself differently. I have more confidence, I dress differently, I put more time into my appearance. I smile more, I'm nicer and I feel better about myself. All of these things change the way other people perceive me and how they react to me, from people I've known for years to salesclerks at stores. My husband is supportive but never wanted me to lose weight in the first place. Sometimes he gives me a hard time about being "too thin" or getting skinny. However, he's got no problem with the attention I attract these days. To him, it's like the highest compliment he can be paid - he chose a woman other men find desirable and she's 100% loyal to him, too. He definitely gets a kick out of it and never really expresses any jealousy or insecurity. ~Cheri

I developed gestational diabetes when pregnant with my twins in 2007 and it didn't go away after delivery. They told me later that all the signs prior to pregnancy pointed to pre-diabetes and insulin resistance. I was on Metformin twice daily for three years prior to VSG. I had trouble getting my fasting blood sugars below 140 (they were frequently in the 170s regardless of my diet) and my postprandial readings were "good" if they were 190 or less. Within days of surgery my fasting sugars were 100 or less and my postprandial readings were in the 140s. I never took another pill after the day of surgery, though I did require insulin a few times post op. I'm now nearly a year and a half out from surgery and don't even bother to take blood sugar readings. For all intents and purposes, I'm no longer diabetic. With no extra medications I am able to keep my blood sugars steady all day long in the healthy range. I no longer have spikes and drops when I eat certain foods, though I do tend to avoid overly sweet things simply because I don't care for them anymore. In any case, my diabetes improved even before my weight started to fall off - the change was almost immediate. I was told that my odds of having diabetes return with old age are higher than average, but that otherwise I can live my life normally. I'm confident that you can have the same/similar results. If you search the forums here you'll find a number of other posts and every diabetic I've seen post has at least improved post op. A few folks that were on insulin have only been able to step down to pills, but none of them were at goal weight yet, either. Who knows how much more they might continue to improve as they drop the weight? ~Cheri

I'm always dry in the winter but yes, post op it seems to be even worse. I'm not really sure why. Perhaps because just by choosing healthier foods I'm on a lower fat diet than in the past? I take my Vitamins and do my Protein shakes (because I just don't have good sources of protein here) but it's far worse than it's ever been. I tell my husband to grease me up like a pig after I bathe because the dry skin is actually painful (and itchy) on my arms and back. I use a nice bath salt and I scrub with exfoliating scrub. Then I lotion up afterward. It helps. It's still an issue but it's less painful now that I'm trying to stay moisturized. If you find a solution that's diet related, please share. I'd be willing to try it out. ~Cheri

I started at 242 and honestly felt I'd never reach my goal (-107 pounds, or 135) and tried to tell myself to just be happy if I could get down to 165 pounds. I am a slower loser and it goes even slower the less I have to lose but I did surpass 100 down and I'm only 3 pounds from goal. It's definitely possible, you just have to be patient. And don't be surprised if you feel like you could stop sooner, either. I had an "in my wildest dreams" goal of about 125 pounds but I really don't want to lose anything else after I hit 135 pounds. I'll be having plastic surgery in the future and I'd like to keep a few curves for myself, not to mention my poor husband! Who knows, after plastics I might wind up closer to that 125 than I thought. Certainly my doctor would like me in the 120s due to my height but I honestly have very little actual weight left to lose! You can definitely achieve 100 down. The question is how much can you do in one year? I'm a slowpoke but I was down 92 in one year. Trust me, I wasn't crying any tears of disappointment that I didn't hit the 100 mark! I was thrilled with my progress, and you will be, too. Best of luck to you on this process. I can't wait to see your success! ~Cheri

You'll see women of all ages on here and we all lose at different rates. I think it has more to do with our body types and make up than anything else. I'm a slower loser whether I'm following the plan to a T or being lazy about it. I will say that the only real trend I see with the very fast losers is that almost all of them seem to be SUPER restrictive on their diet (less than 20 carbs a day and very low caloric intake) or are total exercise junkies. The same stuff that works without surgery, in other words! But rest assured, the sleeve works. For some of us (regardless of age) it's a longer journey, but if you stick with it you can easily reach your goals. And I've said this before but I feel that it's absolutely true: once you get to goal you won't CARE if it took you ten months or twenty months to get there. You'll be thrilled with your success either way. This is not a contest! The sleeve does pay off - you can search this site over and over again and you're only going to find a handful of unhappy customers. It will change your life and it will make losing weight easier than it's ever been before. It will also help you maintain that loss long term, provided you don't cheat yourself by eating foods that slide on a daily basis. I've been a visitor here for a long while and almost everyone that comes back and says they're unhappy with their progress or has had a small regain has fallen into the old bad habits. If you work your sleeve, it will work for you. Good luck! You're going to do great. ~Cheri

Yes, more info, please, or we can't help! If you're early out try warm liquids, and remember slow, small sips will do the trick. And yes, Oregondaisy is right (as usual!) that dehydration will cause you to feel ill no matter what else you put in your body. If you can't handle cool Water, try room temp or add some Crystal Light and see if it will go down easier that way. ~Cheri

I know it's disappointing to wait but I'm glad that your doc is playing it safe. I hope the next few days pass quickly for you. It will be over and you'll be recovering before you know it. Good luck! ~Cheri

We're stationed at the Embassy in Bishkek and recently attended the Marine Corps Ball. Days later, people are still coming up to me and complimenting me on my dress and how nice I looked! I know it might seem odd to consider this a success story but I've always avoided attending the military balls because I always feel like the fattest girl in the room or the unattractive wallflower. I never felt comfortable enough to dance and I always left as soon as we could possibly break away. This year I danced all night with my husband. I talked to everyone and had a great time. It was just an all around wonderful experience. My only issue was eating! They served about ten courses and it was hard to even try a taste of everything. So I consider this a success story. Not only did I lose enough weight to look and feel great in my gown, but I shed enough emotional baggage to feel confident and have fun. I just wanted to share! ~Cheri

Follow the 5% rule - once you regain 5% of your weight past goal it's time to jump back on the good eating bandwagon. Reevaluate your eating habits and log your food for a whole week. I bet you'll find the culprit! This is not a huge regain. If you jump on it right now with small corrections you'll be fine. What you don't want to do is let it go and find yourself up more than ten pounds after the holiday season. Also consider what else is going on in your life. Got stress? New medication? Are you out having social cocktails more frequently? Any of those things could explain the small bump up you've noticed on the scale. Good luck. I firmly believe that weighing at least weekly is the very best way to keep ourselves accountable and on the right track. It's all too easy to slip into denial and find yourself battling a larger regain. ~Cheri

Ha, enjoy that NSV. Hey, eat what you like - take care of your nutritional requirements and then have a good time with it. This surgery is forever, it's not a diet you can just jump off of and regain 100 pounds with, so do your best to eat well without depriving yourself. We don't want to get small just to live miserably - the idea is to get small and enjoy everything we either couldn't or wouldn't enjoy before! Great work! ~Cheri

It could also just be the shock to your system. I lost almost nothing until three weeks post op. The stress of the surgery, the IV, the long flight...all of it added up to an actual GAIN despite the fact that I followed doctor's orders to the letter. It's been a while since you posted. How's it going now? I'd be reluctant to start playing the add-this, subtract-that game this early out. You're absolutely going to lose weight post op, so there's no need to worry about tinkering with the system as you're healing! And I think starvation mode is pretty controversial here, but you can search for topics on it. I'm in the group that feels that one study was blown way out of proportion and is used by doctors to apply a "one-size-fits-all" diet band-aid to every overweight person they see. After metabolic testing it was proven to me that on 1200 calories a day I can expect to lose just over a pound a month. Not exactly the results I'd want after throwing away 85% of my stomach, right? Anyway, I hope you're doing better now. It's been another week and your weight loss should be picking up steam by now. Good luck, ~Cheri

No advice, since I self-paid. Just wanted to say congrats on taking this first step, and that I hope everything goes well for you! ~Cheri

Happy for you! Enjoy the journey, you won't believe where you'll be in a year. ~Cheri

You'll get through this. Everything you're talking about sounds just like my recovery. You'll be back to normal sooner than you think. A tip for when you get onto the protein: if the cold Protein shakes are harder to get down (they were for me) try mixing your vanilla protein with some warm chai tea or coffee. The warm drinks were SO much easier on me in the beginning because cold drinks were hard to get down and made me feel nauseated. Take care, you're doing great! ~Cheri Edited to add: Make sure you don't mix steaming hot liquid with your powder, though, or it will clump. I brew my tea or coffee, then pour it into a shaker cup with a few ice cubes in the bottom, then mix in the powder. It's still warm enough to go down easier but not so hot it turns into a mess. I'm nearly 17 months out and I still drink a protein coffee or tea every morning, because it's a great way to get in some extra nutrition.

This is the hardest part. Some of this you'll get over soon, once you're off liquids. I remember in the early months feeling horribly frustrated by my inability to eat anything more than a few bites. Getting in my calories was a struggle and nothing ever sounded good or even tasted as good as my food memories! You'll get through this. You're going to learn to live with your sleeve. You're learning your limitations. And you're doing the right thing - you're following your dietary guidelines so that you can heal properly and avoid complications. With time you're not only going to be used to life with the sleeve, you're going to love it. Yes, we all mourn the old eating habits. We don't realize how much of our lives revolve around food until we can't eat non-stop! Once I had surgery I realized food was everywhere and part of every social thing we did. Muffins at work, lunch with friends, dinner and drinks with the husband and even our get togethers with extended family revolved around a meal. It's hard to learn to enjoy these things without feeling like you have to eat to enjoy yourself. I promise, you will get there. In the meantime, let your body heal. You're only a few days away from realizing that the food you're salivating over now isn't going to taste nearly as good as you remember, and you're only going to be able to eat a few bites of it anyway. ~Cheri

Great goal, Diva! You'll make it in no time. And thanks for posting the comparison pics, too - those were fun to look at! Marilyn was recorded by her dressmaker as between a 23-24 inch waist. I think in today's measurements that would actually make her a size zero from most clothing manufacturers. Her waist-to-hip ratio definitely makes her look more "zaftig" in photos but in reality she was quite small in the waist. I saw an exhibit that had some of her memorabilia years ago and was astounded to see some of the dresses she wore - I'd always pictured her as this larger woman but the waist on her dresses were smaller than my thigh! So, you really are aiming to be the size of Marilyn. :smile1: I wish you a speedy recovery. You look absolutely fantastic. ~Cheri

Last year I was just over four months post op. We rented a cabin and invited family from all over the country to visit with us - I had 16 in for Thanksgiving dinner. I made a HUGE spread. I worked really hard and it was very good...but I could only eat a few bites here and there! I chose Protein first and had some soft white meat with gravy, then I opted for some of my very favorite foods - but I only had one bite of each thing. I will not lie - I made a point to eat "softer" foods so I could eat a few more bites than if I opted for more meat or salad. Hey, it's a holiday! I think I skipped the stuffing and rolls altogether to save room for the good stuff. And instead of indulging in way too much overly sweet dessert, I just nabbed a small bite of each item from a family member's plate! I didn't feel deprived in any way despite avoiding some dishes entirely. This year we're overseas and away from family, so we're joining friends at their table. The best part? I only have to bring dinner rolls and won't have to cook for an entire week to feed everyone! I'll go after the turkey for sure, with lots of gravy and maybe do the same as last year and have a tiny bite of each of my "can't feel like it was Thanksgiving without this" foods. In the mushy stage it's WAY easy to do Thanksgiving! Puree some turkey and gravy, eat a few bites of sweet potatoes, eat some super soft dressing with gravy, enjoy delicious homemade cranberry sauce. YUM! You can even eat a bite of pumpkin pie if you leave room. The only advice I have to offer is to remember that this is no longer the stuff yourself until you pass out holiday it used to be for many of us. If you accept that going in, you'll find that you can enjoy your small portions so much more. I think I actually tasted my food more post op than I ever did when I was inhaling it by the plateful in years past! ~Cheri

I did Medifast on my own two years before surgery. While I totally understand your frustration I think you're jumping the gun here. Your sleeve is still new! I think part of the idea of this surgery over other options is to shake that diet mentality. We want and need to feel like we're not deprived. Medifast is not only expensive, it's just not as good for you as something you can make yourself! If you want to go all liquids and bars, do it with better quality Protein shakes and supplements. I have an awesome unflavored Protein powder by Integrated Supplements that I can mix into soy milk or fruit juice and not taste at all. It's versatile, it's easy and it does the same thing as Medifast without the additives and sodium. I didn't lose much at all in the beginning. Instead of going back to an old solution, I'd try to figure out what I can do to make this work. Log your food. I'll be honest, sometimes the diets our doctors give us are one-size-fits-all but the reality is we're very different. Try adding more carbs in - I tried to pare my intake down as far as I could but quickly learned that I do best over 50 grams a day. Your body just had a huge shock - and now it's not sure what to do. It's going to take time. I'd say if you're not dropping weight at a reasonable pace after 2 months that you should consider new options. But for now? Just heal and build good habits. This isn't a race, so take your time. You're going to lose the weight unless you give up and sabotage yourself. Relax! The beginning is tough. Hang in there, it passes more quickly than you think. ~Cheri

Yep, great advice here. I didn't feel real restriction until mushies. I also didn't lose any weight in the first few weeks - I gained from the IV and long flights. It took a while to lose that. If you haven't heard it by now, make sure you're on a PPI that works well for you. It comes up so often because SO many of us experienced those hunger feelings and didn't realize it was acid until much later. It feels exactly like hunger and a lot of us have a freak out when it starts to be an issue. I thought my sleeve didn't work but in reality my Nexium wasn't cutting it and I needed to switch to Prilosec. The "hunger" disappeared two days later. I'm a slow loser. There are other folks on these boards that are super slow losers. Guess what? We're still losing. The fact is that this isn't a race and there's no prize for getting to goal faster than anyone else. Unless you give up completely, you're going to lose weight with this surgery. I'm learning that it doesn't really matter if you do it in 9 months or 19 months...you're going to love life at goal. The early weeks are the hardest. Hang in there. ~Cheri

I'd say that despite being given the go ahead to move onto soft foods you might want to consider stepping back and letting your body heal a little bit more if you can. Or at least maybe make *most* of your meals liquid/puree and only eat a small portion once a day of the soft food until you're more comfortable. If you're not able/willing to do that, make sure you're eating very slowly. At the beginning it only took a few spoonfuls to fill me up. Give yourself time to get the full signal before you eat too much. The feeling you're describing sounds to me like my "you've gone too far" feeling. I only get this when I try to eat bread, rice or Pasta. It's an uncomfortable, almost stretched feeling. I feel an actual ache along the sleeve if I overdo it. As for normalizing I was able to take the PPI every other day somewhere between 3 and 4 months and to drop it completely around 6 months. I was able to eat what I considered a decent amount of food around 2 to 3 months. I still have trouble eating enough food, though it no longer feels uncomfortable...I just can't eat much! I still supplement with Protein shakes even though I'm more than a year out, just to be sure I get the nutrition I need. You're still early out! Before you know it you'll be able to eat what you want, just in tiny little portions. ~Cheri