TES

If you're going to do cereal, I might suggest going for a higher-protein one like Special K protein or Kashi, and eating with some Greek yogurt instead of milk--will keep you fuller longer.

so sorry to hear, Luckysmomma--wishing you all the best. Hopefully it will get better.

hope you feel better soon!

weird...I was just talking to someone about this yesterday.

What specifically do you regret?

I have noticed that my skin is really dry! I've never had dry skin before and it's actually peeling a bit around my mouth. I use Oil of Olay moisturizer (the one in the red jar) because it was compared with much more expensive moisturizers and came out ahead. But lately when I'm home or going to bed, I have also been putting Vaseline on the dryest parts of my skin. On my lips, too, bc they have been chapped. And I drink a ton of water--whcih I think is important to keep skin healthy too.

Congratulations on your weight loss so far--that is amazing! What type of food and exercise plan are you following? Are you still seeing a dietitian?

I'm so sorry, Laura--both about your brother and your mom. Good for you for working so hard to break the cycle.

addicted smokers smoke out of pleasure, too....

Yes...yes...yes! Very well said. If people are posting these things and don't want constructive feedback, then they really don't want help. They want people to enable them. I don't believe in doing that.

That was nice of him to say, but really it is an unsolicited comment. Is he overweight himself? I think there is an impression from a couple of decades ago that only people who are 400-500 lbs get weight loss surgery. I think you should be very proud of what you are doing to improve your health, and just think when you look in the mirror when you are at goal and you see what others see!! This is one of the reasons I hardly told anyone about having the surgery. I didn't want everyone's opinion about it...and it seems like lots of people have them.

My surgeon's office said that I would feel pretty much normal at 6 weeks and it really was about 5.5 to 6 weeks until I did. I thought I felt normal at about 4 weeks but I didn't realize until I felt so much better at 6 weeks that what I felt at 4 weeks wasn't yet normal. My surgeon's office let's you start organized exercise classes at 6 weeks and strength training at 12 weeks--so I'm thinking at 6 to 8 weeks you should be able to rock the night away comfortably. Just remember that you need even more hydration than you used to--so I would really hydrate a lot before you perform on a given day and keep the fluids going throughout the night. And you might want some carbs before your gigs and protein after, just like when you do a hard workout.

No! I mean I wondered...what have I done when I felt awful the first day after surgery--but that quickly passed. I am still enjoying the same social things with my friends and family. No one even seems to notice that I don't eat or that I eat a lot less than everyone else. I keep myself busy talking and/or serving or cleaning up (no wonder I am such a popular guest! haha). Also, I bring healthy foods to gatherings, like mixed berries with a Greek yogurt sauce for Easter and they are a HUGE hit. Everyone wants to be healthier. And I get my friends to join me in healthy activities like taking walks together or going to water aerobics.

Heartfelt congratulations! Did you lose all 50 lbs in 9 weeks? Can you share what you are eating and what type of exercise you are doing? You look great!

I was cleared to eat raw veggies at 6 weeks (iceberg lettuce at 4 weeks), but no seeds or nuts unil 4 months. I'm so happy to have veggies again! I have a hard time fitting them in at meals but my RD said that I can have them as Snacks.

haha...I have some halos around lights at night (common side effect--but I'm used to it now) and sometimes I see a rainbow prism around white light from my left eye only (extremely unusual side effect). It's really the new normal to me after 9 years or so (sort of like how our mind now thinks half a cup of food is a normal portion of food, to keep this on topic) and I LOVE being able to work out (also on topic) and not worry about glasses, especially when swimming, or walking when it's hot or cold (no foggy glasses). Also like to wake up in the middle of the night and be able to see the digital clock.

What an amazing difference! You look wonderful! You are very photogenic, too (in both pics).

I think it's this magical thinking....get the surgery and you can keep doing what you are doing and magically be thin in like a month. These types of posts should be coupled with the people who post that they are upset because they "only" lost 50 lbs their first 6 weeks so they must be a slow loser. This is the same type of thinking that people use when they judge people who get surgery by saying it's the easy way out. I guess the only way to truly understand what it entails is by actually having the surgery. if people go into it with unrealistic expectations, they end up disappointed and regret it. I know even when I had LASIK, the big thing that helped me be happy with the outcome (I had some side effects) was to go into it with realistic expectations.

And as an fyi...80% of kidney stones are calcium based, and 80% of those are calcium oxalate. So it's likely that your stones are oxalate--which is why the low oxalate diet is so important. My RD said it's far more important to get in enough water though--remember, enough to output (urinate) 64 oz/day, which means you need to consume at least 100 oz.

I've been struggling with post-op kidney stones (all passed in my urine so far) and here is what my medical team said/recommended: * it's important to eat a low oxalate diet (you can google this) * you have to output at least 64 oz of water/day, so that means you have to drink a lot more than that--I try for 100-120 oz when I can I don't think that the extra Protein in and of itself can cause kidney stones. Be sure to go to the ER if you have severe pain, especially with chills or a fever.

I really don't think that she was judging you! She offered some good suggestions to help with what you presented as a challenge. It is true that so much of the changes we need to make are mental, such as differentiating between needing and wanting. And we can all relate to what you are experiencing. It DOES feel like a need at the time. Amy's suggestions of some ways to mentally retrain ourselves and some substitute options that crunch but that are healthful were good ideas! Good luck! I know that it can be tough, especially at first.

I also just read someone's post saying they didn't have any post-op care bc they went to MX...just like choosing a doctor in the US, I think it's important to find someone who offers good pre-op and post-op care, and/or to have it lined up with a dr here if going out of the country for the surgery. It sounds like the VSGers who have been most successful with surgeries, such as people posting on this thread, both in MX and the US have done that, which is great!

Yes, I think that you can be underprepared or uninformed even if your surgeon has a great pre- and post-op program. A great example is that I read a poster tell someone that you shouldn't have protein during the first couple of weeks post-op because your body can't process it at that point. I posted that actually my surgeon stresses how important protein is during those first couple of weeks, to help you heal--he also says that not enough protein during the first 2 weeks is one of the major causes of hair loss later on. I said it nicely and said maybe our surgeons just have different approaches. But I wanted the OP to have the correct info. Then I happened to see that the person who said that about protein not being a good idea the first couple of weeks post-op had the same surgeon that I do!!! I felt like they (surgeon, handouts, RDs, PAs) told me so many times how important the protein was. It was in the book we were given, which I literally read through 3x while I was waiting around on pre-op testing day. Then I read it again after surgery, went over it in post-op appts, and we went thru it page by page on pre-op day in a group setting. Plus the RD stressed it so much in my pre-op and post-op appts. I am not criticizing the person who made this comment, but it is just an illustration of how even when people are given the same tools, they may have different impressions. It reminds me of people saying their surgeon didn't tell them what to eat/drink on full liquids. Really? I mean, if I weren't given a meal plan for something that important, I would have chosen a different surgeon (we received ours before surgery). The post-op care is just as important as the actual surgery. I'm actually really glad my insurance required 6 months of pre-op medical and nutritional appts, too. That really helped prepare me.

dehydration or ketosis? are you seeing a nutritionist? have you had your b12, iron, and Vit D levels checked?

The last couple of weeks I've gotten into a bad habit of skipping breakfast and drinking coffee, and I feel like it makes me hungrier at night after dinner. I am back to religiously eating b-fast. Gotta stoke that furnace first thing.