Miriam

Funny, but just tonight I mentioned to someone that until now, the only way I really knew that I had lost lots of weight (other than the scale) was the fact that I keep on fitting into smaller size clothes - I just couldn't see the change in the mirror (other than my face) - my body still looks so fat to me (OK, to be honest, there's still plenty more fat to burn, but it's considerably less than there was a few months ago). Then, tonight, I saw a video that had a short clip of me shot just 2 or 3 weeks ago, and wow - for some reason the video showed me what the mirror didn't. That made me realize that I look like I'm at almost normal weight nowadays (and the camera tends to ADD pounds!) - it was a real shock for me! The person I was telling this to couldn't wrap her head around it - she's been pretty much the same (average) weight (+-5 lbs. at any given point) for years, and is perfectly comfortable with her size. I told her it'll probably take me a year, if not much longer, to actually match my body image to my body size. So I definitely do feel you.

I think that in a way, that's actually a good thing. I work in two places (a school and an office) - at school I get non-stop compliments, literally every time I walk through the door, and it's quite embarrassing at this point. (and yes, it is very noticeable, I guess, but I still feel uncomfortable having to answer questions about the weight loss the whole time) At the office, no one has said a word and I like things that way. So for now, count your blessings

I do the original callanetics - also an oldie, but I LOVE it! One of the few types of exercise that I actually enjoy doing...

I'm three months post-op and am still afraid to eat any sort of chopped beef or chicken or turkey (even though that's one of the first foods the doctor said I could eat) because almost every time I tried (and believe me I tried - these are my favorite proteins), my sleeve rebelled. I personally think part of it is due to the fact that I ate too much and too quickly (the one time I ate about 1/10 of a mixed beef / turkey hamburger very, very, very slowly it was OK), but there are other foods that can go down a lot more quickly by me. So my feeling is that your sleeve is reacting to the food (despite the doctor saying it's OK - these types of reaction are so individual) and / or the amount. Probably what will make you feel best is throwing it all up (sorry if that doesn't sound pretty, but that's the only thing that works for me, and I still end up having to do it every so often when my sleeve takes issue with something I've eaten).

Amazing - thanks for sharing! Posts like yours are what keep me inspired to keep on giving it my all.

That's what I've done. I don't think anyone's figured it out, but more than a few people have commented on how fast my weight loss has been (well yes, it has) and I'm pretty sure that a couple of my colleagues are afraid that I'm anorexic! (Part of that was my mistake - I sat in the cafeteria one day and ate lunch there - ooops, forgot that it's not normal to eat about 3 tablespoons of scrambled eggs and be full...) If they figure it out, nothing I can do about it, but I've decided that it's not something I want to share with the world. The only time I felt really bad is when one of my colleagues, who is probably at least as heavy as I was post-op, started sincerely complimenting me on my weight loss and asking me how I did it. I would have loved to share with her because who knows? She might decide that this is something for her as well (I know that she's also struggled with weight loss for many years) and it was only because someone told us about his bariatric surgery that I started looking into it. Maybe at some point I will speak to her privately and tell her.

I also think that 12 is far too young unless the child is morbidly obese like the 300 lb. kid mentioned earlier. Does a 12-year-old even know what he's getting himself into with the sleeve? Don't get me wrong, I'm not the least bit sorry that I had surgery, but it definitely is life-changing and not always in a good way. Also, as others have mentioned, can a kid that age get enough nutrition after the sleeve in order to grow properly and get through puberty? Doubtful. My parents always worried (and made me worry) about my weight, and I think that's probably half the reason I ended up fat enough to undergo WLS - looking back, I was actually pretty normal throughout most of my childhood and really only started putting on lots of weight after puberty. But as much as being fat negatively impacted my teenage years, I don't think that I was ready to make that decision about WLS at that age. Just my two cents' worth...

I wanted not only to lose weight but to finally gain control over my never-ending battles with weight which always ended up with me being the loser (ahem, that is gainer) and being heavier than before. I wanted to get rid of that feeling of helplessness because I had come to the realization that I just couldn't do it on my own. I wanted to, for the first time in my life, to feel like a normal person and be able to buy clothes like a normal person. I wanted to stop having to buy a new size every half a year or year and just be able to stick to the same size like most people manage to do for years at a time. I wanted to look good enough to attract a guy, and eventually, when I got married, to wear the wedding dress of my dreams and know I looked good in it. Oh, and I worried about my health, especially since we have many genetic health issues in our family which are definitely effected by weight. Cancer, cholesterol and heart problems, high blood pressure, and my pre-op blood tests showed me to be in pre-diabetes stage. I'm only about 14 weeks post-op, so haven't reached any of my goals yet, and yes, am still battling the demons that got me to where I was, but I can already say that I will NEVER be back at where I was. It just isn't going to happen.

I'm so sorry to hear about all your complications - that is everyone's worst nightmare. However, I'm sure that you didn't undergo all this just to lose 30 lbs - I have no doubt that you'll continue to lose and lose and eventually reach your goal weight - just wait and see!

Ha! Reminds me of something my two of my colleagues said to me recently. They don't know that I've undergone bariatric surgery and I think that they're worried that I'm anorexic (as if!) so they tried to stage some sort of intervention to make sure I was OK - I guess my weight loss is a bit too fast to be attributed to plain dieting and exercise... Anyway, at some point they tell me that I REALLY don't need to lose any more weight, that I'm perfect the way I am. Seriously??? I have lost lots of weight since my surgery about 14 weeks ago, and am down quite a few sizes, but I'm still a size 16 and have a long way to go. I just laughed it off, but it was funny to be told that I don't need to lose any more weight when I'm still way bigger than I should be.

I only regained my energy at about week 6, and I've read that it's taken others as long as 3 months to do so. So while it's definitely not pleasant to be so low energy, I wouldn't worry just yet. Regarding Protein, my NUT claims that the body has plenty of protein stores (well, if anyone's body would have, it would be mine, since I used to eat huge amounts of protein pre-op) so there's no need to get in full protein right after surgery. My three-month anniversary was yesterday, and I'm still not getting in anywhere near enough protein...

OK, I never in my life thought that I'd ask this question (I was always a huge volume eater), but here goes: Am I eating enough? I'm currently almost 12 weeks post-op, feeling quite good, losing weight, but I have this nagging feeling that I should be eating more. I have an appointment with my NUT in about 5 weeks, but in the meantime, I was wondering what others' experience has been with this. Until now, I haven't been weighing my food, just estimating how much I could eat and usually ended up leaving some over. Today I prepared what was meant to be two meals for my working hours (I usually eat four meals a day) and decided to weight it - it came out to just over an ounce of chicken for those two meals. Other meals (egg salad, tuna, etc. sometimes with a little bit of veggies or carbs thrown in) are pretty similar in volume. So that means I'm eating around 2 oz. of food (almost all protein) a day. My NUT is against Protein shakes (don't ask) which I'm sort of ignoring, but I can't say I like them very much so I have maybe 1/4 of a cup of Protein shake (5 grams of protein) on my good days. Most days I don't have any protein shake at all. Once in a while (maybe a couple of times a week) I also have a cup or two of pure chicken broth over the course of the day. That's my total food intake. As I said, I'm feeling OK, but feeling a little nervous that I should be eating a little more at this stage. (If I do, I end up throwing it all up.) What do you guys think?

Have you tried liquids other than plain water? I know that my sleeve doesn't like water at all (and that's all I used to drink before my surgery!), so now I drink mostly flavored water, but also chicken broth and even hot cocoa. Anything to get the liquids down...

Oh, absolutely about not being in agreement on lots of details - that's why I think it's important to take everything that doctors / nutritionists say with a grain of salt (even though in general I do think that it's important to listen to your doctor / dietician) - because whatever they say, someone else will tell you differently. And from being on this forum for a few months, it's clear to me that what works for one person doesn't necessarily work for the other.

I didn't say that all bariatric dieticians were against protein drinks - on the contrary, probably all those in the U.S. do recommend protein drinks. I said that according to my NUT, all the bariatric dieticians in MY country (not the U.S.) decided against it in some sort of joint meeting or convention, which I can probably believe since it's not that big a country and there are probably not more than 50 bariatric surgeons in the whole country. But as I said, I'm sort of ignoring her advice because if all the dieticians in the U.S. are in favor of protein drinks, it shouldn't be that big a deal (and in addition, the reasons she gave for banning protein drinks were quite silly).

The bottom line is that every person's body is different. I was also worried about starvation mode and stalls, but so far that hasn't been the case for me. There's actually a great thread (an old one, but it's still accessible) on the Obesity Help sleeve forum about how many calories to eat to successful reach your weight loss goal, and while most of the posters seemed to be in agreement that the best spot to be in was 600-800 calories a day, there were a few that said they lost the weight on 1,000+ calories a day. So I don't think there's any one right answer.

I know that different NUTS have different methods. My NUT told me 5 meals a day. I find that I can't do more than 4, and at least at the beginning, I felt really hungry if more than 4 hours elapsed between meals. So I do think you need to listen to what your sleeve tells you, and so long as you're just eating a few bites per meal, I don't think there's anything terrible about that. My only question is how you get all your drinks in if you're eating every couple of hours?

Sorry for the delay in responding - have been traveling and had no time to even get online. Yeah, she was very clear that she was totally against protein shakes - apparently this is what all the bariatric NUTs in the country (I'm currently living outside the U.S.) decided on together, for a bunch of reasons which I absolutely don't agree with and which honestly don't apply to me. (For example, they're afraid that people will get used to drinking shakes rather than eating - let me assure you that that would NEVER be the case with me - I like eating too much!) So I have ignored her advice to an extent, but since I have a really hard time getting down the protein shakes, I don't force myself to drink too much, either. That's probably a mistake. I'll have to discuss this again with her next time I see her, which is in about a month. I am working out - probably not as intensively as some, but I try to do a half hour of combined walking / jogging 4-5 times a week as well as 30-45 minutes of toning 4-5 times a week. I'm losing really well as far as I'm concerned, so I can't complain about that. My energy levels are usually fine, but I do make sure to get in my Multivitamins. Honestly, I have no idea how I'm managing on the number of calories that I'm eating, but I really don't know how I could up it (OK, other than forcing myself to drink more protein shakes, but those fill me up too) - my sleeve just won't let me eat more.

She told me I didn't need to worry about getting protein in at this point, because my body had enough protein stores to last me a while. I'm not too convinced about that, though. Fat? Yeah, plenty in storage - go ahead and take it all! But protein? Not so sure.

Glad to know that I'm not the only one!

Thanks - that's a very sensible way of looking at things!

LOVE that line and am definitely stealing it! I'm the same. So far half my face has disappeared, but only one or two of my multiple chins which is VERY sad...

I can't wait for a B cup! (I'm only an inch taller than you - actually half an inch but don't tell anyone...)

I also had terrible constipation a few weeks out of surgery. In the end, the only thing that really helped was a laxative. After that, I found that regular exercise made a big difference.

I told very few people, so when people ask me about what I'm doing to lose weight, I just say that I cut carbs to a minimum (true - as it happens to be, I've cut all food to a minimum!) and am exercising (also true). I think some people will suspect because the weight loss is just a bit too rapid by anyone's standards - and certainly mine - but my policy of keeping it quiet hasn't changed so far. It's really no one's business but mine.