Globetrotter

Well, let's not let the topic go down a rabbit hole, I am not the originator of this thread, it is she who is claiming the sleeve has failed and is seeking a revision. My input was purely theoretical, and I gave my reasons. Clearly, just wanting to feel like a newb post-op again isn't grounds for having a revision done.

You didn't mention how quickly you are eating? One of the worst things we can do as sleevers to cheat ourselves is to eat quickly, thereby fooling the stomach into accepting more than it should. One week out from surgery it took me an hour - a whole hour - to eat a cup of beef consomme, I would work on an RTD (ready to drink) protein shake, a single Muscle Milk, all afternoon, and never quite finish it.

I am 5'3". surgery weight was 294, lowest weight thus far 164, that was one year ago, I currently weigh 189, I am approaching my 3rd surgiversary this summer. I do not doubt for one minute that PCOS is playing a nasty role in your weight troubles, having suffered myself. But, that would have nothing to do with dilation of your stomach, that can only (to the best of my knowledge) come from consisten stretching of the pouch due to eating over the new capacity. Have you ever done a reset, what some like to call the 5 day pouch test? I'm in the middle of mine right now, to figure stuff out. It's where you return to post-op eating for a week, complete with liquids, mushies, etc. At the end of a week you see where you are, how you feel, what your capacity is, etc. Please don't take this as blaming you, as you can see from my numbers, I'm right there with you. I just think that there are a lot of factors at play for us right now, after this amount of time has passed since surgery. Personally, frankly, if I had the money, I would get a revision, I would! I want that feeling back, that feeling of restriction, that could-not-possibly-care-less about food feeling, the absolute lack of hunger ... but once you've had gastric surgery, and then have another, I wonder about scar tissue and complications from that.

I cannot keep any snacks in the house, not even semi-responsible ones like peanut butter or cheese I also cannot keep cash lying around or change because I will find myself - almost against my will - using cash and change at work for the vending machine Until I get a few years at goal/maintenance under my belt I guess I am still like the fragile alcoholic who can't be around any reminders at first ...

I cannot currently get my blood tested for anything, but I had all manner of 0 opanels done before deployment and if anything had shown up deficient you can believe the army would have dinged me for it . I get in about 60 oz of water a day, it's tricky because I have to stack it because I don't have an indoor latrine and going to the bathroom at night is, an adventure When I am done for the day, after the gym and shower and I lay down, I am effing wiped, I mean, it takes conscious effort to lift my arm to scratch my nose. I just chalk it up to adjusting to my new environment, my new daily rhythm, newly strict diet and vigorous exercise. I only just restarted on my vitamins this week, I will give it another week of faithful vitamin use, water drinking, and regulated exercise and food before getting concerned. Right now it just sucks

Thanks UK, that chart does still show me topping out at 131 lbs, which would be fine by me.

This is EXACTLY the kind of information I was in need of, thank you!! I am going to cut out salt/sodium, drink a $h!t ton of water and eat my carbs after my work out and see what happens

Taura bird - no not really. that 125 was when I was a teenager, a completely and utterly different ball of wax from being a woman in her early 30's. Besides, this is not really the focus of my concerns/fears/anxieties voiced here. There are a lot of layers going on here, a lot of pain and fear and confusion, and the easy answer of "you know what to do so go do it" isn't going to answer the mail for me right now. One can know something academically and still struggle in reality.

Calories in calories out makes me want to pull my hair screaming as I run around the room! I have been with my body for awhile now and I know it's sneaky sullen backstabbing ways, I can exercise hard cardio for one hour, 6 days a week and eat a balanced diet of 1200 calories a day and barely see the scale move almost a pound in a week. Bump that up to 1400 and I GAIN. The only time in my life where I have seen genuine movement on the scale was in the 6 months following surgery when I focused solely on severe low calorie/carb - 600 cals, >30 carbs. I did exercise during that time, but it was 30 minutes gentle walking on the treadmill or elliptical with a weights rotation, nothing strenuous at all. Now that I am not super mobidly obese and cannot rely on the sheer momentum of weight that needs to be lost to drive forward the weight loss, I am at a *loss* as to how to actually lose weight. What do those "light weights" do, the ones who have VSG with *only* 60 lbs to lose? I'd really like to know.

I am over 2 and a half years out and have suddenly in the past week experienced extreme exhaustion like i haven't felt since immed post-op. I take a women's multi daily, but I have started exercising regularly again, 45 min a day. But I was doing that post-op and I didn't feel this exhausted. I feel ... weary, and my calories and carbs aren't super low either.

Thank you everyone for your insightful compassionate words of wisdom and encouragement, <3. The majority of the trauma has happened since January, one thing right after another, without the opportunity to take a breath, gather my strength, or find hope. It has seriiously been some horrific devastation every few weeks, unceasing, since January. My gallbladder, 2 weeks later my father, a week later I left and my Mom had to sell, , few weeks later I deploy, 2 weeks later the IRS, now the scariness of what's happening here ... I don't want to be a victim, I want to rise to every challenge but ENOUGH WITH THE FU**!NG CHALLENGES ALREADY! enough, universe, enough. I'm starting to wonder, do any of us actually know how to lose weight? It doesn't seem reasonable that the only way I'm going to lose a significant amount of weight is by eating 600 calories a day, by starving myself basically. That makes me angry, I am angry! With every advance in science and all these damn doctors telling us what to do, nobody actually seems to have a clue as to how to lose weight that doesn't involve some gimmick. I want to know how many calories and activity per day a naturally skinny person does, a person who makes a point of exercising and eating healthfully but doesn't track either. Sorry, rant. I have weighed 125 before, I have memories of what I felt like at that weight and I liked it, I was at my most athletic, my fastest at that weight. Since surgery the lowest I got was 165 and I was very very strong from constantly exercising and strength training and I felt awesome. The floppy flesh and skin was awkward and solidified my decision to someday have plastics. My Mother and Grandmothers at this age were curvacious but not fat, judging from photos I would say that they were all somewhere in the low 130s, the g-mothers were shorter by a few inches, Mom taller by a half inch. The desire for carbs is overwhelming, I was doing so good yesterday, and then I was cramming plain tortilla chips (super salty) into my mouth like it would save the world. v.v Also (tmi alert) I realized that one of the justifications for reintroducing carbs was that staying extremely low carb results in ... painful attempts at BMs, resulting in overuse of MoM or other things. But I noticed that a cheap carb got things moving nicely ... so, now that I am back on high Protein low carb (attempting anyway), I have noticed it reverting, not fun ... In answer to someone who suggested I see a therapist, I would love to see a therapist but someone equipped to handle our issues, doesn't exist here. When it comes to weight the army is still very much into the blame game and not interested in exploring the reasons behind the results. So far today, 4 oz egg white/ham/cheese omelet, coffee w 1%, sf torani. lunch will be tuna if I can find it, dinner, a chicken breast if I'm lucky. snack, jerky.

Breakfast - Tera's Whey protein powder, made with almond/coconut milk Lunch - 1 C cucumbers with vinegar, 1 fillet of baked fish Dinner - 1 chicken breast, 1/2 C veggie medley Snack - 1 oz beef jerky, 1/4 C milk in my tea 654 cals 25 carbs 93 protein 10 sugars 30 minutes elliptical, 10 min upper body strength training, 20 min yoga

with the gain that I have experienced in the past year, I have *only* lost 105 lbs I was so proud, prior to my regain, to tell the world that I had lost 130 lbs ... I hope eventually (after plastics and everything) to be able to proclaim that I have lost 170 lbs!!

Okay Feed, now I'm tracking! My idea of a reset was to return to post-op style living, severe calorie restriction coupled with mild but consistent exercise. I have been reading up on your version of a reset during this entire week of my version, and it does make sense. Although, it kinda also seems like a lemon lot car salesman tactic too - eat more, gain more, and then you will lose, but slowly! That being said, once I jump start my system back into weight loss, I will be evening out the calories and exercise. But after almost a year of eating whatever the hell I wanted and not exercising, I definitely need some strict "tough love" Right now after 6 days I have lost 5 pounds.

Guilt-free would be using those wonderful sugar free Torani syrups, the variety of flavors is incredible, there is even a bacon one! Right now I am facing the regain I experienced in the last 15 months (25 lbs) so, there is no such thing as a guilt free treat these days

Yep, what the person above stated is probably what's up.. I think we all go through the initial discovery phase, there are so many yucky protein shakes out there, then we find MM when we are still new and it's like, holy cow it doesn't taste horrible, hooray! But then you do your homework and discover the sugar/carbs/cals ratio, and also discover that there ARE awesomely yummy powders out there that are way lower in sugar/carbs/cals and that's that. I believe there is a permanent thread in food & nutrition that lists the good the bad and the ugly of protein powders and rtd's, good luck.

The only difficulty is in my head; panic over not getting to eat snacks like everyone else and my frantic desire for chocolate. Regarding the amounts though, it's amazing, today is day 6 of the reset, tracking every one of my 700 or less calorie intake, cardio and strength every day and it is actually getting easier to eat less. Whatever science is involved, a week ago I probably could have eaten an entire cheeseburger with only a small half time break. Now, I eat 3 forks of an egg white omelet and I'm done. So long as I see results, I'm going to keep doing this, as soon as I hit a stall I will take that as a cue from my body to switch it up.

Um, hold on Feed, your response is so perplexing... a reset is returning to post-op style eating, but your sentences confused me, talking about eating 2200 calories and gaining 10 pounds ... um, that's the opposite of a reset? Are you saying that returning to post-op eating made you gain 10 pounds? And who eats 2200 calories immediately post-op? So confused. I'm doing 700 cals, 35g or less carbs and so far it seems to be working.

Update: I have been livin' la vida post-op for 5 days now - and am down 5 lbs! Whether that is the infamous "water weight" that isn't a *real* loss, I don't care, it's numbers heading south and that's what I like to see .

Unfortunately for me, I must wear trousers all the time, because of my work (I'm deployed) so it is a constant source of embarrassment

Just what it sounds like, the outlines of your "true" shape are used, contouring you, the excess skin is snipped away following that outline. The trunkplasty (Ive heard) can leave you with a more mannish shape, taking away your curved outline.

though I hate HATE hate this term, it is basically a super pronounced "camel-toe"

But if there is extra skin?

But, won't you have a big vertical scar straight down your stomach? Why not do body contouring instead?

Well, they didn't fail me, I failed them. I went through terrible life events and for the past year just stopped every good healthy thing which resulted in a 25 pound gain. I am now doing a reset, eating like a post-op (solids) but not doing this pouch test thing. Returning to Protein shakes, zero additional carbs, etc. and low cal (700 or less). Whether it's genuine or not, I have seen a drop every day for the three days I've been doing this. I have 60 lbs to go till goal.