southernsoul

Bahahaha...I thought the same thing! I think some of the month groups have gotten organized into FB groups, but maybe us June folks are too lazy or something.

Tina, I just turned 49 & have been perimenopausal for about a year. My periods got out of control & unpredictable, so I had a Mirena IUD put in & that helped a LOT. I was sleeved on June 19 & I'm doing really well. I have no idea when full-blown menopause will start, but I hope I can lose all the weight I need to before then. If your peri is just beginning, do you think that your stall may just be hormonal & the weight will start up again at some point? The word "impossible" seems like a big leap to make, but then I'm not a doctor. Good luck!

My doc told me not to worry about timing my water while on full liquids. If I took in something slightly denser or thicker, I tried to wait a bit, but not necessarily 30 min.

Ask if you can add sugar free Torani syrup to the yogurt. One of my favorite treats when I got to the soft stage was part skim ricotta cheese with a little Torani caramel added.

There's a blog called Protein Pow by a British weightlifter, and she focuses on baked goods with various protein powders. I have saved several of her recipes, but haven't tried any yet. They look yummy, though.

I quit on March 1st in preparation for my surgery on June 19th. My surgeon required 90 days smoke free & I wanted to give myself plenty of time. I used a combination of Chantix & a refillable e-cig (which the surgeon gave the OK for). I never smoked in my house, so there were no triggers inside, but I couldn't go out on my deck for like a month. My neighbor actually emailed to see if I was OK, since she hadn't seen me outside for weeks. Driving was a big issue for me, especially since I was commuting 90 minutes one way to school 3 times a week. I made some CD's of all the best (?) sing-out-loud oldies songs, and I would pump it up & sing my heart out all the way to school. I'm sure I looked like a complete crazy woman, but whattaya gonna do? It worked & kept my mind on something other than smoking.

My 2 week preop diet was high protein & very low carb, less than 20g per day. I didn't have any calorie or fat restrictions, so I could eat chicken, steak, fish, eggs, cheese, and green veggies. After the first week of eating like this, I got on the scale & had lost 17 lbs, from 320 to 303. I almost fell off the damn scale!! I made my husband get on to make sure it wasn't broken. I didn't even know such a big loss in a week was possible. The second week I only lost about 1.5 lbs, mainly because it was my time of the month & I usually gain weight that week. Several people asked me if I was still going to have the surgery, which surprised me. Of course I was! I agree with you that making diet changes preop helps in our postop lives. Now that I'm back to eating regular foods, I'm pretty much eating just like I was on my preop diet (except for the volume, of course!).

I'm having the same struggle. I try really hard not to take a sip, but sometimes I just need a little moisture. I try & make it the smallest sip I can & I haven't had a problem so far. However, I definitely don't want it to become a habit!

BAHAHAHAHA!!!! Wow, I needed a good belly laugh...thanks, jensjoy28! Vsginkc, I felt just like you do. My surgery date was June 19th. I stopped smoking back in March, then cut out sodas & a significant amount of carbs in April, & then even more carbs & caffeine & most alcohol in May. I knew if I waited until right before surgery, I would HATE having to give up everything all at the same time...and I knew that I would probably fail. There was no way I was going to jump through all these damn hoops & not give myself the best chance I could to be successful. Today, at a little over 6 weeks out, I feel great. I've lost 44 lbs so far, I'm exercising, not smoking, eating real food that is well prepared, and although I've had a very small amount of wine twice, I'm certainly not having a cocktail every day. Even if you have waited til the end to start giving the other stuff up, it CAN be done, and it will help you to feel so much better postop, which makes it harder to go back to our old ways later. Good luck to you!

I had problems with the chewable bariatric vitamins if I took them on an empty stomach. The first time it happened, I had chewed it up as I was leaving the house. Got 5 miles down the road & had to perform the stunt driving pull over to the emergency lane to throw up out the car door maneuver. It happened one more time after that & then I couldn't chew them without wanting to gag. I haven't taken any in 2 weeks, but I know I need to get back on it. I think I'm going to try a gummy type & hope they work.

I'm going to lay out some thoughts I've been having. My intent is not to minimize the experience of anyone else, but simply to offer my own thoughts and beliefs. I know this journey is different for all of us, but I am always saddened when I see a post about how a pre-op person can't wait to "be skinny" or "look hot" or "feel good about myself again". Skinny does not equal happy. Skinny does not equal hot. Skinny does not equal feeling good about ourselves. There are just as many skinny people who are unhappy, unattractive, and down on themselves as fat people. Happiness, feeling attractive, and feeling good about oneself are characteristics generated from within, not without. A few years ago, at a very low point in my life, happiness seemed to me like a foreign concept. I could not remember the last time I had felt genuinely joyous or happy about anything. Intellectually, I knew that there were many things in my life that were desirable. I had a good job, a comfortable house, a dependable car, some money in the bank, food in the fridge, etc. But despite these things, I was unhappy. Now, I had good reasons to be unhappy, or so I thought. My marriage was failing, I was coming to grips with the fact that I would never be a mother, I wanted desperately to change my life but felt completely stuck, and so on. I remember reading somewhere that happy is a verb...it's an action, not a passive condition. I began to wonder...if I truly felt that there was no spark of happiness or joy in my life, who's fault was that? Who was responsible for my happiness? The answer, of course, is me. I was failing myself. I was not loving myself, or being kind to myself. I decided that if happy was an action, I was going to try and exercise my happy muscle. I was going to try and find one thing to feel happy about for a few minutes every day. My goal was 3-5 minutes a day of active happiness. I thought that would be super easy. After all, I had been able to identify good things in my life, so how hard could it be to think about them for a couple of minutes every day? Well, it was actually harder than I expected, but I stuck with it. I had to set a timer in the beginning, but I made myself do it every single day. Gradually, I noticed it got easier. Some days all I could come up with was something like the weather, or the fact that my bills were paid on time, but damn it...if that was all I had, then I was damn well going to focus on it & feel happy for 3 freakin' minutes. I eventually began to notice that I felt happier overall. I'm not sure why, because by this time I was just divorced and trying to figure out dating at 270 lbs & maintaining my new house, etc, but regardless, I felt happier. After meeting the man who has become my 2nd husband, he said that one of the things that attracted him to me was that I always seemed happy. I'm not saying that this is somehow a magic bullet against bad stuff happening, but holding happiness in my mind for a few minutes every day helps me to deal with the inevitable downs of life. It seems to me that consciously taking time to feel happy each day has somehow made a state of happiness more accessible in my brain. It's been almost 7 years since I began my happiness quest, and I can honestly say I feel happier today than I ever have in my life. To quote Charlotte in the Sex and The City movie, "I feel happy every day. Not all day every day, but every day I feel happy." In choosing to have the sleeve, I absolutely do not expect it to make me happy, because I'm already happy. I feel pretty good about myself today, this minute, at 300+ lbs. Yes, there are things I want to do, but I can't right now. Yes, I have pain every day & difficulty walking, but I still feel good about who I am and what I have to offer in my small corner of the world. I am aware that I am probably judged negatively by some people because of my weight, but I don't even really notice that. Today, I find it so much easier to find things in my life that make me genuinely happy. I am definitely looking forward to weighing less and seeing an improvement in my mobility, but I don't think it will make me somehow better or more acceptable or a more worthy person. I am enough, right now, just as I am. We all are, and we are all so very precious. Today, right now, at this very moment, we are beautiful, and we are valuable, and we are enough. I believe that with all my heart, and I hope you do, too.

I like Fage & Chobani plain. I add about 1/2 cup to protein shakes with skim milk. I like the Chobani flavors...they have really good ones, like Pear & Blood Orange. I also like Liberte flavors. I don't usually cook with it, but I have added the plain to soups. Also, if you drain plain yogurt overnight it gets much thicker & creamy, almost like soft cream cheese. You can add flavorings, either sweet or savory, and it's great that way, too.

I had trouble bending over, too. If I wore shoes that needed to be fastened my hubs had to do it. Since my knees are so bad, squatting down wasn't an option for me. It also took me about 2 weeks to bend over like normal, although I could bend a little bit before 2 weeks.

I have seen the Flat Out foldover wraps & heard that half of one is usually a good size for us. They are low carb & have some protein. I haven't tried them yet, since I'm just 6 weeks out, but plan to try at some point.

Roo, I was in the same place just weeks ago. I had not been able to got to the grocery store for more than a few items in over a year. The pain had been bad enough, but then the swelling started earlier this year. I was already going through my preop steps by then, so I just hoped it would reverse quickly once I started to lose. I am now 6 weeks post-op & I'm happy to say the swelling has gone & my knees feel so much better. My ortho doc told me that every 10lbs I can lose, I'll take 40lbs of pressure off my knees. With 42 lbs gone, I've taken over 160 lbs of pressure off. I'm walking a little every day. I can only go for about 15-20 min at a time, but I do what I can. My high weight was 320 & I am now 278. You can read more about my story in my profile & in my blog posts on here. My surgery date was June 19th. I'll never run a race or anything, and my knees are by no means strong, but I'm not in constant pain anymore. I still have a long way to go, but I'm on my way & that feels great. Good luck to you & please reach out if you need motivation or just to vent.

I don't know much about Medicaid, but would they have a list or something online of which surgeons accept Medicaid? Maybe a way to search within X miles of your ZIP code? My insurance company has that, so I'm assuming Medicaid might be similar. Maybe Google "bariatric surgeon medicaid atlanta"?

Found it on Amazon. They have a bunch of paleo cookbooks.

I haven't tried paleo bread yet, but I bought a paleo cookbook called Well Fed. It seems to me that the paleo way of eating fits in pretty well with our post-op guidelines. We've made a few things so far & all were good. Last week, my hubs actually made the olive oil mayo from the book & it is amazing. I've used in several different things this week already.

I am 6 weeks post op & starting to go out socially again. I was nervous about eating out or going to a cocktail party & how I would do when I wasn't preparing my own food. It's been just fine, though, and that has helped to increase my confidence in my ability to succeed.

I wouldn't say I was ever thin, but I was not seriously overweight until I was an adult. I was an early bloomer...I had boobs & hips by 6th grade, so very hourglass curvy, not skinny. By the time I was 12 I looked like I was 18 or 19. I was athletic during my teens, but blew out my left knee when I was 17. Re-injured it 5 months later, which meant it would never fully recover. I gained maybe 20lbs after I married the first time at 21, but at 25 I started taking a medicine that had a side effect of increased appetite. My first hubs was an almost chef quality cook, so every night we ate seriously great food. The combo of those 3 things, plus my own lack of self-discipline, started me up the weight ladder in a major way. I have never been naturally thin, nor will I ever be. But I sure did used to be healthier, and I was able to move my body and walk and dance and enjoy pain-free days. That's what I want to achieve again, regardless of the number on the scale.

I'm puresouthernsoul

Mine said the same thing, and that was for the whole first two weeks.