Kris

The first month after surgery TOTALLY sucks! Once I got onto solid foods things got much better, but then you have to learn how to eat with your sleeve. I'm nearly 3 months out and am really happy with my sleeve, but it took the better part of this time post op to get used to the changes. Hang in there, the worst part is nearly behind you! And it's fine to vent, everyone who has been sleeved can relate to what you are experiencing!

I guess I'm the opposite -- I used to be very regular with my periods before surgery. My last period started the day I was released from the hospital -- jan. 10 th. I'm going on 3 months without a period. I'm too young to be in menopause and definitely not pregnant. I am actually really happy to not have periods and hope this lasts a while!

Congrats on surpassing your goal -- you look fantastic! Thanks for sharing the pictures!

Tomorrow will be my 2 month surgiversary. It seems a little unreal that it was only 2 months ago that I was in Mexico having this life-altering procedure! It feels like another lifetime ago. And truthfully it really was another life ... two months ago today was my last day on earth with a full size stomach. But, as long ago as my surgery now seems, each day I still learn lessons about the capacity of my new sleeve -- it seems it is takng me an extra long time to realize I can't eat half or even a third of what I used to be able to eat at every meal. Case in point: today the hubster and I went out to lunch; he was feeling a little under the weather and when we are feeling unwell our go-to place is to a local Pho (Vietnamese soup) restaurant (Pho Tai). At this restaurant they serve two sizes of Pho -- small (which is actually way bigger than our normal bowls at home) and large (which is a freaking huge tureen-size bowl -- I think it holds about a quart, no lie). Pre-sleeve, both DH and I would each order a small bowl of pho and eat about 2/3-3/4 of it. I keep forgetting how SMALL my new sleeve is. The hub ordered a cha gio (fried spring roll, totally delish) and at my suggestion ordered a large bowl of brisket pho (and we asked for an extra small empty bowl for me so we could share -- why I asked him to order a large bowl I really don't know). I had two small bites of the roll before DH took the rest (he's a greedy bugger, and it KILLS me he has never had a weight problem!) and then the soup came. I decanted into the empty bowl what I thought was a good sleeve size portion of broth, a couple small slices of beef, and a few rice noodles -- somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 cup altogether. I ate about half of that and was stuffed. DH tried his best to eat the large size bowl but it was far more than he could handle. Next time we are going to share a small bowl. Even with the large size bowl of pho, the whole lunch today was about $12 including tip -- what a bargain! We are saving some serious money now on eating out and groceries now that I have been sleeved. Tonight for dinner I tried Barilla pasta for the first time since being sleeved. I cooked up a package of Trader Joe's turkey bolognese sauce (love that stuff!) and made about a cup of pasta (WAY too much pasta -- but at least I have leftovers for dinner tomorrow night). I served up a 1/4 cup portion and that was OK. I got really full quickly, but I'm now nearly an hour after dinner and not feeling any major discomfort (I'm still full, but not sick or anything like that). I know some people have a hard time with pasta; I think I am handlng it fine. I worry a bit about the carbs so this won't be a regular part of my diet. I'm definitely not eating as low carb as many people post sleeve. I do try to eat protein first but almost every meal has some type of carb along with the protein, whether a bite of toasted sandwich thin, a few crackers with tuna, a bite of noodle with meat, etc. I guess I am eating more like a normal person as far as protein-carbs go, but of course just in much smaller portions. I do keep track of my calories and most days I eat around 800 calories -- some days fewer, some days a little more. I do assume I would lose a little more weight each week if I went ultra-low carb, but I figure as long as I am staying within the calorie range my surgeon suggested (which I am), I can have a balance of protein and carbs. On Friday I had my weekly weigh-in and the scale said I am down another 2 lbs., to 197.4. I gave my mom my old scale (hers went kaput) a few weeks ago, but I knew my old scale tended a couple of lbs. higher than my new scale, so my best guess is I've lost 29 or 30 lbs. since surgery. I'm down about 33 lbs. from my high weight (the day I booked my surgery; December 1, 2010). Before surgery I had hoped to lose 35-40 lbs. within the first two months of surgery, so am not that close to what I thought I would/could lose, but never in my life could I come close to losing so much weight in such a short period of time. I think my body has settled into a routine of losing 2 lbs. a week, and I hope that continues for a long time! I think I should note some other physical changes that have occurred since surgery. The first major change is I have not had a menstrual cycle in two months. I got my period the day I was released from the hospital after being sleeved (Jan. 10th), and then the next month had some very very light spotting, and then nothing this month. YAY!!! Another reason I love my sleeve! I hope this continues a long time. I loathe my monthly curse so am loving this time w/o it! Another change -- Since surgery I have developed the beginnings of turkey neck and it is AWFUL. My face is definitely getting smaller but the skin is crepey and horrible on the lower part of my chin and neck. I bought some BIo-Oil last weekend and have been using that in lieu of my regular Olay moisturizer routine, hoping that the oil would smooth my skin more ... but so far it is not to be. I hope my skin catches up soon but I am worried that I will have a wattle the rest of my life. Eeek!!! I am only 43!!!! And another change -- I am definitely getting gray smudges under my eyes. I never had this pre-sleeve. I now try to cover them with makeup but even I notice the change. People have said several times that I look really tired, even when I haven't felt tired; and I think it's because of the change around my eyes. I hope this is temporary. I have had a very stressful month at work (hopefully the worst is behind me) and just got back from a cross-country business trip (3 hour time change, so I definitely had some jet lag) and had some trouble sleeping on several occasions, so I'm not sure if this is diet-related or stress/work-related. Today I started cleaning out my closet and drawers of excess clothes I know I'll never wear again (primarily summer clothes -- by summer I know I will definitely be too small to wear size 22 shorts/capris/shirts, yay!). I filled two huge tote bins and took them to the local Goodwill to donate. My closet was stuffed full of clothes -- about half of which I rarely or never wore/wear, so this was a very fun experience. In a few weeks I will take another round of clothes to donate. I should have a nearly empty closet within a month or two! Wow! I know I won't be buying a lot of clothes while I am actively losing weight so I will probably have a nearly empty closet most of this year, until I get down near goal.

<br><br>Hi Ali,<div><br></div><div>Thanks for your comments! You know, I hadn't called my surgeon about the grey under my eyes ... I hadn't thought to do that! Sometimes I totally forget that I could contact the dr. if I needed to. Fortunately, in the two weeks since I posted that blog entry I've noticed that the grey tinge under my eyes has gone away. I am thinking it probably was the travelling I had done and having a very stressful few weeks at work (not getting good sleep at night, for sure). I am planning to get a blood workup next month to make sure everything is OK. I take vitamins almost every day (wish I had a perfect track record, but I end up forgetting to take my vitamins about once a week. <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: 11.8056px; "><img src="http://cdn.verticalsleevetalk.com/public/style_emoticons/default/blink.gif" alt="" class="bbc_emoticon"></span></div><div><br></div><div>Best,</div><div><br></div><div>Kris</div>

Dr. Aceves did my sleeve and I had zero problems except catching a rotten cold on the way back home, which of course was not his fault. If I had to do it over again I definitely would go back to him. He and his team are fantastic. He actually keeps you at the hospital longer than most surgeons do here in the states, and the hospital staff are excellent. Best of success to you!

Thanks everyone for posting the pics! You all look wonderful and these are so inspirational!

Optasia, I don't have a whole lot of value to add to this conversation, but I do want to acknowledge that your concerns are legitimate, and I think most people have the same concerns pre-surgery. And I can honestly tell you that if you can successfully lose weight on your own without surgery, do it. Pretty much everyone who has this surgery has tried many, many times to lose weight and keep it off and has failed. It's never going to be anyone's first choice to have such a major life changing surgery. However, I can honestly say that for me, the good things that come after being sleeved far outweigh the bad. I'm just over 2 months out and I can eat a lot of different foods, but bread, Pasta, and rice are still pretty much a no-go for me; those foods just don't sit well inside me. I actually consider that a good thing because carbs are my downfall. Since my surgery I have lost nearly all desire for sweets, and I am much more sensitive to sweetness in foods than I was pre-surgery -- also a good thing. I used to eat LOADS of bread and butter pre-surgery, and since my surgery I have not had any butter at all and maybe a total of 4 bites of bread. 99% of the time I am totally fine with not having bread, pasta, and rice. These were foods I would eat with pretty much every meal, so that is a HUGE change for me. Since my surgery, I haven't had any problems at all with sliming, vomiting, or depression (I think everyone has a "WTF did I do to myself" moment the first few weeks after surgery -- I certainly did -- and really the first month after surgery for me was not fun). But once I got a month out and was able to start eating solid foods again, and get my calories up to a better level, I have been feeling great and very happy with my decision. I do still battle head hunger (especially at my traditional daily snack time between 3-4 pm) but I would have that with or without the sleeve. If anything, the sleeve helps me cope much better with head hunger because if I cave and eat something I shouldn't, my sleeve prevents me from eating excessive amounts of it, and so I don't go into a massive downhill binge cycle like I would pre-sleeve. It's no lie that surgery will totally change not only what you eat but how you look at food. Part of it is wanting to do the right and healthy thing for yourself and eat foods that are helpful to weight loss, part of it is you will likely have some food intolerances for at least the first few months, and part of it is knowing you will only have a few bites per meal and you will need to make those bites count so you get decent nutrition. I still have trigger foods that go down way too easy and in a far larger quantity than dense Protein (snacky salty things like chips, crackers, etc.). I really have to watch my intake of those foods and I know I'll have to do that the rest of my life. I still have hunger pains (a lot of people don't, so it's kind of a crap shoot whether you will or won't) but my hunger pains are not as intense as pre-surgery and are easily satisfied with just a few bites. Sometimes I still get bummed that I can't eat much (especially when I'm eating something fantastic and want to eat more than my sleeve can hold) but I am more used to my sleeve's capacity and am dealing with it. I love that I am basically losing weight without effort -- this is BY FAR the easiest weight loss I've ever had in my life. I don't feel deprived at all, my energy is good, and I am optimistic about the future. I used to have a lot of trouble with one of my knees, and even though I've only lost about 35 lbs. that has made a world of difference in how my knee feels. I am really excited about doing physical activities I wasn't able to do pre-sleeve. And it is very exciting and fun to donate clothes that are now too big and buy smaller sizes, sizes I haven't fit in for a LONG time. I know this is a major life decision everyone has to make, but for me it has been one of the best things I have ever done for myself and I have zero regrets. I wish you the best with your decision!

I was 231 lbs. on the day I booked surgery (about 5 weeks prior to my surgery date -- actually I was almost certainly 233 lbs., due to the scale not being really accurate, which I didn't find out about until about a month after surgery when I bought a new scale). I lost 6.5 lbs. on the preop diet and was 224.5 on last day before surgery (again actually I was more like 226.5 due to the scale). I just hit 8 weeks out last week and was down to 197.4 lbs. (on my new scale), a loss of 29 lbs. from surgery and 35 lbs from my pre-op high weight. I try not to compare myself to people but it's natural, and I am amazed by how fast some people are losing. There are so many variables -- how tall are you, how muscular are you, how old are you, how active are you, etc. I calculated my base metabolism rate (BMR) and based on me eating 800 calories a day I found I should be losing about 2 lbs. a week (I am a very petite 5'1" 43 year old female). That has been happening routinely (until this week, when I had way too many carbs, and only lost a pound. I really have to watch my carb intake!). So anyhow, if you want to know what is a "normal" weight loss for you, google BMR calculators and find out what your BMR is, then calculate how many calories you eat each day and calculate from there how many lbs. you can expect to lose in a week. If you lose more than you should, celebrate. If you lose less than you should, examine what you're eating and if you are at the level of activity you identified when calculating your BMR. If you are losing about what you should lose, you know you are totally on track.

For me (I'm 8 weeks out from surgery) bread is pretty much the only food I've tried that really gives me discomfort after I eat it . I am coming to accept that it may be many months or even years before I can eat bread (or maybe never again). But, as a total bread lover pre-VSG, I can also say the longer I go without bread, the more OK I am with not having it. I hope that is the same for you!

You look great! Thanks for sharing the pictures! Very inspirational!

Hot diggity dang Rootman, those pounds are FLYING off of you! Unbelievable! Sounds like you have a great doctor. I never told my GP prior to having VSG (I belong to an *** and only see my dr. once in a blue moon anyway) and hope the next time I see her she is as positive as your dr. has been!

First of all I want to say howdy to everyone who has read and commented on my previous blog entries. I am still figuring out my way around this site and didn't realize people had commented before until I was poking around my profile and saw comments. Thanks for the comments! I heart my fellow sleevers and sleevers-to-be! So ... today I posted on the Success Stories topic that I have finally achieved my first big VSG goal -- to be below 200 lbs. I weighed in this morning at 199.4 lbs. on my new scale, despite having been on the road all week and eating out virtually every meal. I am THRILLED to have made this goal ... it took a bit longer than I had hoped but I am a small woman (5'1") and my body doesn't need as many calories as taller folks. I have been pretty steadily losing two lbs. a week for the past few weeks and as long as I keep up at that rate I am totally fine and happy. I still have just shy of 75 lbs. to lose for my final goal, so I will be on this journey for quite a while. My birthday is in mid November and I will be absolutely thrilled if I am within the vicinity of goal by then. Another major excitement -- clothes shopping. My size 22 WP clothes are really loose so I went shopping and was so excited to be out of sizes that start with the number 2! Today I just bought a couple of pairs of size 18 Lee relaxed fit jeans. They are a bit snug, so I figure I will be able to wear them at least a good 3 months before they get as loose as my size 22s are right now, and then moving down to the next size (hope to hold out buying more jeans until I can fit in a size 14 P). And this is embarrassing to admit, but today was the first day in a LONG time that I put on makeup -- foundation, blush, eyeliner, lipstick. I was happy with the scale and wanted to look as good as possible to celebrate. Honestly, I never bothered with makeup because I thought there was no point ... a made up face couldn't distract from such a big round body. But now that I am losing weight and getting close to the realm of normal sizes, I am taking more care with my appearance. I went to the store and splurged and bought a couple of new lipsticks today since I haven't worn lipstick in quite a while, and some translucent pink nail polish. I will say that first month post surgery was not fun at all, but now that I am nearly 2 months out, and feeling really good and losing weight more successfully than I have in decades, I am SO, SO GLAD I got the sleeve. I have confidence that I will continue losing weight ... not at a really fast pace, but slow and steady is terrific for me (hopefully my skin will shrink more easily with a more gradual weight loss). I am really getting the hang of being OK with really small portions of food, and I have never overeaten to the point of throwing up, which makes me happy, I also tolerate most foods really well. I definitely limit my carb intake and avoid bread, which fills my sleeve up too fast, and avoid sweets and empty calories. Speaking of sweets, my taste buds seem to have changed (I know this happens with a lot of people who get sleeved). I am a lot more sensitive to sweetness than I was pre-sleeve -- things that were pleasantly sweet pre-surgery are now too sweet to me and I don't like it. I have had almost nothing sweet at all to eat since being sleeved, and although I am briefly tempted by sweets when they are right in front of me, I usually have no trouble passing them by (or if eating some dessert, just limiting it to one small bite (which satisfies any sweet cravings I have). I love my sleeve!!!!

Hey there, congrats on having a fab vacation and losing so much weight at the same time! I just got back from a business trip and had to eat out for every meal, and I lost weight too (never would've happened pre-sleeve!). My husband and I are planning to go to Hawaii in September ... I can't wait to go snorkeling (something I've long wanted to do but too ashamed of my fat body to try). Your post got me all excited for my own fab Hawaii vacation! I hope your cold eases up quickly!

Oh happy day -- today I had my weekly weigh in and yay, my new scale told me I had lost 2 lbs. and am now in ONEderland! 199.4 lbs.! My first major scale victory has been achieved! I am SOOOOO happy!!!! I haven't been in ONEderland since I was 30 years old. And this was achieved despite me travelling for business and visiting family all last week, and eating out every meal. I ate out at my favorite restaurants but because of my sleeve I was able to stick to very small portions, and I also stuck to the Protein first rule. In my life pre-sleeve, a weeklong visit with all those restaurant meals out would have resulted in a 2 lb. gain. Next goal is to weigh less than DH (180 lbs) --I hope to get there by May 1st. I love my sleeve!!!!!

Hi redayh, congrats on your success and thanks for answering our questions! It's always exciting for this newbie to hear from fellow sleevers who are well into maintenance mode. How long did it take you to get to goal weight? Did you exercise a lot or just let the weight loss happen through caloric restriction? How is your sleeve capacity now compared to let's say when you first got to goal?

LOL I have a pet bunny and he poops constantly and in the most unexpected places ... hope that is not happening to you!

OK, I'm in! SN...................Starting Wt........Current.......Goal.......Lbs to Goal Kris...................... 202.2 ......... 202.2............180.......... 22.2

So I got a new scale this week. My old scale would change weight depending on whether I started with my left foot or right foot.. I got a brand new & supposedly highly accurate scale and it was delivered from Amazon on Tuesday. Well, shock of all shocks, it showed I weight 2.8 lbs. more than the old scale. I was SOOOO mad! The next day the weight was confirmed, and then yesterday ... OMG ... it said I had gained two lbs. I was about ready to send the dang scale back to where it came from. And then I had this dilemma about whether to change my starting weight on my weight loss ticker to be 2 lbs. heavier ... and did that for a day or two ... but then things got better today and so I changed my ticker back to what it had been before the new scale. I got on the new scale this morning and it said 203.4 lbs. Yay! My old scale said 203.0 (which it has been saying pretty much all week). It's just so weird how my old scale seems far more consistent than the new scale! So, for the week I am calling a loss of 2 lbs. (since my weight last week was from the old scale, and I have NO idea what the new scale would have said last week). I am SOOO close to ONEderland ... 3.5 lbs. and I will be there. That will probably be two weeks away, I'm guessing. So barring some miraculous big weight drop this weekend, I will have just barely missed my goal to be at ONEderland by Valentine's Day. But still, to be down 21 lbs. from a few weeks ago is pretty good. I think I'm right about average weight loss for my BMI. I also have decided to stop the daily weigh-ins. They only make me crazy. Friday is my designated weekly weigh in day (since I was sleeved on a Friday). I will peek on Val-Day to see how close/far I am from my first goal but try not to weigh again until Friday. I had pizza for the first time since being sleeved last night .... oh wow it was good. Pepperoni and bacon. I had about 2/3 a slice, something like that. No crust. I was stuffed. It is still very hard, though, to have food in front of me that I want so badly to eat, but can only eat a small amount of, and can only eat slowly. But on the other hand it is very gratifying to be totally full on such a small amount of food. There was one slice of pizza left over from dinner and I had that for lunch today and it was also good. Actually I had it for lunch and an afternoon snack since I could only eat half at lunch. I tried a bite of crust but don't think my sleeve is ready for that yet as I was rather uncomfortable afterwards. Tonight is date night ... going out to our fave local Thai restaurant. I'll have chicken satay and maybe order some coriander chicken to eat this weekend. I know I'll only probably be able to eat one skewer of chicken satay but I am SO looking forward to that! Breakfast was an egg (well about 2/3 an egg) on a sandwich thin (about half of that) and that was very filling and kept me full until lunchtime. I like that breakfast a lot. Let's see ... what else ... I went to the gym after work on Wed and walked 45 minutes on the treadmill. It's hard to exercise in the evening because I am still pretty tired when I get home from work. Will go to the gym tomorrow morning and get the weekend off to a good start.

I was sleeved on 1/7, lost 14 lbs in the first 10 days but only 2-3 lbs a week since and have had a very bumpy plateau this past week. I'm down about 21 lbs and tomorrow will be my 5th week post op. I did some math and for my weight and bmr and current calorie intake, I should be losing about 2.5 lbs a week, so I just try to tell myself everything is going fine when I get discouraged. Never in my life did I ever lose close to this much weight so fast, so I console myself with that.

Man I can let out some ungodly burps, which sound a bit like a huge frog croaking, and they usually come out of the blue. Thank god it hasn't happened in public yet but I bet it will someday, probably at a really inopportune moment.

OK, so I have this scale that likes to change its mind depending on which foot I use to step onto the scale. and I was thinking it's probably not that accurate anymore. So I ordered a nice new digital scale that was recommended for its accuracy, and it was just delivered today. Boo hoo! The new scale says I weigh nearly 3 lbs. more than my old scale! So now I am in the unenviable position of having to revise my weight upwards instead of downwards! I am SO bummed. Now let me ask, should I revise my starting weight upwards by the same amount I am increasing my current weight in order to be consistent or just leave the starting weight as-is and suck up the unexpected weight gain as a result of getting a new scale?

My first couple of weeks post-op I really didn't have hunger, and that was wonderful, but starting about week 3 I started getting hunger pains again. The only differences between pre-VSG hunger pains and now is my hunger is easily satisfied iwth just a few bites rather than a big meal, and my hunger pains aren't as fierce as they used to be (so I can have a hunger pain but not feel like I have to eat right at that moment ... sometimes I wait an hour or more before I eat, depending on what's going on. In the past I would never wait that long to eat if I could help it). I still have *horrible* snack cravings (for carbs, of course) in the afternoon between 3-4 pm ... my surgeon said "no snacking between meals" but it can be very tough and sometimes I just cave. I have a stash of Vitafusion Weight Management fiber gummies I got from Costco which I take when I just can't stand not having a snack. They are low calorie (45 calories per 2 gummies) with 6g carbs and 5 g fiber and I need the fiber. It tides me over pretty well until dinner, and even though I'm not supposed to, of all things to snack on I don't think those are a bad choice. But I am very disappointed about the hunger .... I was hoping that would go away and it hasn't.

quote name='Rootman' timestamp='1297259776' post='115045'] scales suck! I inherited one from my mother, she paid a pretty penny for an electronic scale. Been stalled / stuttering for a few weeks now and when I got up this morning I FINALLY weighed 299.8 - HOORAY! I broke the 300 barrier. Well I went to the bathroom, did #1 and thought I'd see if that put me closer to 299.6, the dang thing went UP to 300.4! Apparently gravity doesn't kick in till after a few minutes after I rise I think I'll shave my head, all the rest of my body, trim all my nails and make sure I go #1 AND #2 and see if it goes up AGAIN! $#%@^&@&$^# scales! LOL Rootman! I can relate! I was less than 4 lbs. from ONEderland before my scale switch and now I'm 205.8 with my new scale so am fairly bummed. Instead of being within one week or so of ONEderland, I'm probably a good two or 2.5 weeks out now.

Thanks you guys! I'm going to weigh again tomorrow and see if there is still that big a difference. If it is only 1 lb different I won't change anything but if it's two or more I will. I do like my new scale and in the long run a few lbs isn't going to make that much of a difference. My old scale only measured in .5 lb increments and my new one goes to .10 lb. Increments. Now that I'm past the first month post op I am going to cut back from daily weigh ins to once or twice a week. So lesson learned for preops -- buy your nice scale before surgery so you can avoid disappointments down the road!