300PoundsDown

I'm not sure about this one. Plain water is the best thing to drink! Personally I haven't had any change in taste for water. The only difference is that I can't gulp water. I can't down it. That goes for any liquid or food for that matter. However, I can drink it and it tastes fine to me. As for chewable vitamins...I use them!

Wow this is really interesting!! Thank you so much for posting this!! I think this is one of the biggest fears people have about the sleeve. We always hear about this "window" that will close on us at a year or so out. But I think a lot of that is our anxiety. It's true that we can eat more as time goes on than we could in the beginning. But it's also VERY true that the stomach will never grow back and can only stretch but so much. Here we have an example at 4 years out even!! I love it. You have done a great service to everyone by posting this.

Periodically I go through stalls. And the further out I get the slower the weight loss goes. I do believe that your body is always searching for a balance. It wants to be stable. It wants to hold onto the weight. I find that you have to shake it up every now and then. Shock your body in a way into not getting too comfortable. I switch up what I'm eating sometimes and what I am doing for exercise. Your body adjusts to what you're doing so switching it up confuses it lol I don't think puree would really necessarily help but I definitely would go with the low carb. For me personally, carbs and sugar are absolute killers. I basically have to limit my carbs to under 30 a day or I'm looking at slow losing. Hang in there! 300 pounds down

Yeah!!!!!! That is so awesome!! I feel this way too and I also love that my sleeve reacts fine to pretty much anything . One of the reasons I picked this surgery! You're doing great. Keep turning back the clock! 300 pounds down

I completely claim that verse too!! That is my verse! It completely rings true for me and it helped me come to terms with having this surgery. Trust me...the further along you get the more you are going to love your sleeve. Before long you will probably look at it as the true stomach you were always meant to have rather than just a second choice. Honestly, I feel like I had some kind of disorder and this corrected it. I can really relate to how you're feeling on so many levels. There are a lot of emotional things you deal with after surgery and I started going to a counselor early on for that reason It really helps! Good luck with everything! 300 pounds down

I feel this way sometimes but then I quickly push it out of my head. This can be self destructive if you focus on it too much. I get anxiety when I hear about this window of opportunity. It makes me depressed. But the reality is that 80 percent or so of your stomach is gone. It's not growing back. Even if it stretched out a bit it still wouldn't be what it was. So to me that isn't a window that shuts. It's a permanent open window!! lol It may be faster in the beginning but that is the way it is with all diets. All people lose weight quicker in the beginning of something. Your body is constantly trying to stabilize itself and hold onto the weight. It also adjusts to what you're doing. I think we have to constantly shake things up. Change our routines. Change what we're doing in our exercise plan. Even change what we may be eating. For me, this works. When I find my body has gotten comfortable at a certain weight, I have to do something different to shake it up. As long as I still am going down then I'm ok. Right now I've been stuck in the same range for awhile and it's frustrating. However, I know that in time it will go down and down. As long as we keep working it!! I know you can do it!

I am very sorry to hear this is something you have to deal with. That really stinks!! I have heard a lot of people don't like shakes. There are some protein drinks that are not shakes but more of the clearer liquids or like fruit punch. I am pretty sure you can order them on netrition. I'm sure someone on here knows what they are. I've heard people who don't like shakes prefer those flavors...orange etc. Similar to gatorade.. And I agree about diluting them down as much as you need especially in the beginning. The most important thing is to get your liquid in and make sure your doctor stays on top of it. I hope you feel better soon!

As others have said, this is the 3 week stall. I totally know how you feel!! It does happen as your body tries to stabilize itself from the loss so far. It will pick up again!

I'm really starting to hear that. I wonder why that is happening. I hope your doctors are monitoring you. Hang in there!

You've felt like this for 3 days? I think I would call the doctor. I've had food get stuck before when I ate too fast or drank to fast but it didn't last more than a few minutes. I'm wondering if maybe you got some food stuck and then your throat became sore afterwards. maybe you're just feeling the soreness?

I am about 7 months out and mine has slowed down. I don't really know why b/c I'm not eating any differently. I just know that it slowed down quite a bit. On the other hand, it's still going down and that is what is most important. I haven't been able to exercise like I was before due to an injury and that's not helping . However, I don't and never will again overeat like I did before. Eventually the weight will leave!

How far out are you? Has anything changed to bring this on? I have gone through stages where I've been more hungry than usual. I have to be very careful about sugar. I try never to eat or drink anything with more than 4 grams of sugar in it. That can mess me up. Most of the time, things go well but recently I found myself getting hungrier than usual. It was starting to worry me actually! It seemed like all of a sudden I was hungry again! I did some research on these boards and several people suggested taking an antacid like prilosec or tums. They said that your body can sometimes overproduce acid and it mimics hunger. I had never heard this before and bingo! I tried taking 2 tums the next time I felt this way and it worked. I really would suggest it.

Are you only 2 weeks out? Truly you are just at the beginning. It took me several months to get a lot of the junk out of my head. It's a process. If you're like me you have built up a lot of years of emotional eating and now you're learning a whole new way of interacting with food. I can only speak for myself but this was a lot like going through a break up. A bad one!! I went into a depression in fact over it . Mourning the loss of my twinkies! The good news is that they cut out the part of your stomach that makes grehlin. I believe it takes a little bit to work its way out of your system though. For me it took a little while but as time went on I found myself less hungry. A lot less hungry. Things DID change. So that's the good news! Just hang in there

Hi everyone! I am so happy to see how many of us started at such high weights and have been successful. This surgery has totally changed my life in so many ways. I started this thread and I remember still writing that first post. I was so hopeless. I felt nothing could help me. I thought the rest of my life would be spent in a constant state of hunger. It took me years to make up my mind to have the surgery but in the end it was the best decision of my life. I have lost 125 lbs in the past 7 months. I post regularly on my blog about my experiences and I love to hear from others on this journey. It has helped me so much learning from others experiences!

Christina, I'm sorry to hear you're struggling with this. I know it has to be hard. It is such a life changing experience for us to have this surgery that it just changes everything. I know that has to be hard both on us and the people who live with us. I think you are in a situation a lot of people find themselves in. I know that I had friends who I would eat with. We were all overweight and our favorite thing to do was eat. That was almost the thing that brought us together!! Then suddenly you change drastically and they don't. It creates a bit of an earthquake in the relationship and you have to find your grounding again. I am divorced so I probably shouldn't be answering a post about husband issues...lol. However, I do know this. I was never able to convince my husband to do anything he didn't want to do when we were married. In fact, I'd venture to say my attempts at getting him to change only sped up the demise of our marriage. People generally don't change unless they want to. And even then it's tough. There are a lot of people who want to change and still don't! So you have to be truly internally motivated to do it or it won't last. Any time in my life someone tried to tell me about a diet or influence me to lose weight, I did the opposite. I would probably even gain weight as a result. So I would say it's almost a losing battle to even go that direction. I have a friend who is very obese. We became friends b/c we identified with each other. He loves to cook. He loves to watch food shows etc. He now has a ton of health issues b/c of his weight. It's essentially ruining his life. We both talked about the surgery but I went through with it. For whatever reason, he's just not willing to pull the trigger. For a long time, I was on the edge but I still wasn't desperate enough to do it. I don't know what has to occur in someoen's life for them to reach that point. I just know that it's different for everyone and there seems to be almost nothing that we can do to speed up the process. I wish I had something better to offer!

This just proves what a miracle this surgery really can be in someone's life. You know I just had a conversation the other day with someone who insisted that this surgery cannot cure people of diabetes. When I told her that I knew people in real life that had been able to go off their meds she literally didn't believe me. I tried to explain that it happens and within no time at all but she insisted it couldn't be real. Here you are living proof!

Wow I am so happy for you!! This is so exciting!!! I can't wait to hear how it goes!

I was so overweight for so long that I had irregular periods for years and even when I had them they lasted 1 day and were mild. After surgery almost immediately I began having regular periods and they all last 3-4 days and are heavy. I also noticed that I am hungry around that time. I never noticed an increase in my hunger before surgery but that was b/c I was always hungry! there was never a moment before this surgery that I wasn't famished or starving. I think if it increased at tom I woudln't have noticed b/c I was constantly hungry regardless. this is the first time in my life I feel like a normal woman. I've heard others talking about getting hungry around TOM but to me that was an every day occurence. Now I actually feel normal!

I know how you feel about anxiety. I suffered with anxiety and panic attacks for years and I still struggle with it on occasion. The best thing to do is to prepare yourself with knowledge. I know you will do great!

I don't know how many mine had done to be honest. I don't think I asked. I did, however, research reviews of him online. I read tons and tons of reviews on here and on the obesity help website. To me, reading patients reviews over time was what sealed the deal. Good luck!