JillianMarie

I am also having surgery on Monday. I have tried everything in the entire world and am a completely desperate point. Obviously i wouldn't be having them permanantly remove most of my stomach if that wasn't the case. But think about this, the way you have been living, the misery, unhappiness, the yo-yo dieting, the shame and embarrassment, i have been hiding for years. I am willing to give up being able to give up being able to eat normal amounts of food to just live a normal life. I just want to be happy again, and unfortunately i'm having to take a drastic measure. But on the bright side, there is an answer and a solution, and this is it. However i am scared to death and nervous as hell!!!

If you dont mind me asking, do you know what size sleeve they gave you?

Of course i am pre-op, but i have always used protein supplements and a lot of yogurt. I get generic sugar free light yougurt because i go through so much of it. Walmart has a great value brand, light version that is terrific in every flavor. Love the black cherry and lemon merengue pie. The protein powders you can get at Netrition.com or at GNC stores in your town. They have every flavor you can imagine including banana nut bread- mmm!!

Good idea!! i happen to LOVE yogurt, i eat it everyday, and there are so many different varieties of Protein powder out there, so being able to mix different flavors into yogurt gives you a very high protein snack/meal with very little bulk. I will have to do that. Especially after surgery when i am on soft foods only and want to make sure i am getting all my protein in. Jillian :001_smile:

Wow thank you Tiffy, i had no idea they had so many different sizes! Stacy- just because i dont have as much weight to lose as most people getting the surgery. However if i did go with a smaller sleeve i'm sure my metabolism would re-adjust and the new stomach would eventually stretch larger anyhow i suppose...

Thank you Brenda, those words mean a lot to me. I feel like there is hope for the first time in my life, and i'm ready to take on the pain and scars that may go with it!! :drool:

I look at this thread with hope for the first time in my life. I eat so much, compulsively. As im reading this thread i am yet eating again today, a big bowl of oatmeal and sliced apples. The hunger never ends for me. While i love food and enjoy the taste of what im eating, the constant hunger makes me despise food because i look down at my thighs and belly and look at the toll that this "wonderful food" has taken on my body. And my strong desire for the food makes it so hard to put the fork down and just stop. I don't know what it is like to feel full. I can eat an entire pizza and still have room to go. I am having surgery on Monday, and I am just trying to imagine what it will feel like afterwards. To be full without overeating is just an amazing concept to me.

Hi everyone! I just decided as of last night to have the vertical sleeve surgery. I have yo-yo'd all my life through dieting and am sick of the skinny years and the fat years, the times when i do go out and look great, and the times when i stay at home and hide. I have become a compulsive overeater and have stretched my stomach out to no end. I am able to eat nearly 7 lbs of food without getting sick, more than probably anyone i or you will ever encounter could eat. I am not obese, but do have some weight to lose, and if i didn't eat 6 pounds of broccoli each night in order to feel satisfied, i would be significantly obese (granted i substituted with regular foods). My constant hunger leads to food binges and overeating. I am young and very active so fortunately i have not become obese, however, i know that my activity level will not be able to remain the same, as i have to workout for nearly 3 hours a day now to burn off what i eat due to hunger. I am having this surgery to live a normal life. Not to lose 100 lbs, but to be able to have a small stomach, eat small portions and feel full, not have the constant binge eating followed by hours of exercise, I would just like to be able to feel full off of a small amount of healthy food, and be able get a normal-not excessive- amount of exercise daily. I believe that if my hunger is reduced quite a bit that my extra weight (approximately 30 lbs) will be lost (i eat low fat, low calorie foods as it is and exercise) and i will be able to maintain that loss without struggling from a huge empty stomach. I know this sounds like a crazy story to most of you, but for once i have hope that this weight battle will finally come to an end :thumbup1:

After making the decision today to have the sleeve done, i have been reading through the forums and a lot of your posts. What i am about to ask may upset some but i am not trying to come across harsh, i am just concerned. I am planning on having surgery in Mexico first of all. I see that many of you have. Well, i notice that there are a lot of posts about hunger and weight loss stalls, and it has me wondering, if you are put on a liquid diet for quite some time, you are going to lose weight, regardless of whether or not you have the surgery. If you then start eating solid foods after a liquid diet, you start to feel full sooner because your stomach has adapted to being fed less. Which gets to my point and main concern- how do you really know that they are removing 70% or the majority of your stomach? Only those who get full MUCH faster and simply cannot eat nearly what they used to would have had that full amount of stomach removed, it just makes sense. Some have said that they feel fine immediately after surgery and were walking and exercising the day after. It seems to me that if you truely had that much stomach removed, you would be in severe pain, unable to eat anything, and need quite some time to recover. Do you think that some people get a bogus surgery? For those of you that have had your surgery in Mexico, what is your opinion?

LAN2K- I can see your point of view. I really didn't think i would lose 30 lbs very fast, i have hypothyroidism, and also am a big fan of protein shakes, and there are a variety of different shakes including high calorie shakes that are dense in calories and healthy nutrition if there was the problem of losing too much weight. I just really didn't foresee that being a problem because in the past, i have always hit a rock bottom weight that my body would not budge further below, even if i was to stop eating. I think my body is very "aware" of the dieting that i have done and is trying to hang on to every additional fat cell it can. Oh the human body :thumbup:

Tiffykins, thank you for your response. Yes all patients are different. I am postponing surgery to think about it more and research it further as well as look into other options. It could be that a liquid diet could help me shrink my stomach. The thing is that i dont want to lose more than 20 or 30 lbs, i mainly want to shrink the size of my stomach. That's where my case is so different. It would not be possible for me to lose 60 without being a walking skeleton. Possibly my doctor could do a modified version of the surgery and reduce my stomach to a "normal" size as opposed to the very small size that it normally is reduced to in most patients. I can only ask and find out.

I appreciate everyones responses. To clarify things, i have gone to counseling, i have been to an eating disorder center, i have tried Atkins and many other diets. I know that it's not a lot of weight that i am talking about. However, someone mentioned about me being proactive about doing something about it ahead of time... and that is my point. I don't have a huge appetite, it's not the thought of food or looking at food and wanting it, it is my actual stomach feeling hungry and empty ALL THE TIME. Even after i eat a substantial amount of food, an hour later, my stomach is growling (not gurgling from digestion) but actually feels hungry again like i have an empty pit. Counseling doesn't fix this. And i CHOOSE to eat large amounts of vegetables so that i don't end up 300 pounds or more and risk other health concerns. Eventually this problem could lead to severe obesity, and that is what i am trying to avoid. I do not want a smaller stomach to down a 2000 calorie milkshake. I want to be able to consume a normal sized meal, and be done. Not feel as if i have eaten a grain of rice as others sit around me stuffed. Right now there is a physical problem- the stretched out stomach, and it hasn't shrunk on it's on through liquid diets or other methods. I see this as being the only option that could help me long term. I eat very healthfully and enjoy healthy food, it would just be a dream to be able to sit and have a yogurt and a sliced apple and it hold me over for a few hours as opposed to 6 yougurts and 5 apples and still that hunger nagging at me. Hopefully someone understands where i am coming from.

Thankyou for you replies! You know those last minute "doubts" that you get when facing something as serious as this... and after viewing all these posts and especially some where people have questioned whether or not enough of their stomach was removed, i really started to wonder... But thankyou for verifying it for me and I'm glad that you have a great Doctor that you are working with!!!

Congratulations on the weight loss! I have not yet had surgery, yet i am very concerned about the nausea and vomiting following the surgery. Does this happen to everyone? What can be done to avoid it??