Miss Mac

I had to get over the fact that food is for nutrition, not for entertainment. My taste buds had to get reigned in and learn that they were not going to get their way anymore. Yes, eggs and cottage cheese are boring, but be patient. As your progress farther and farther away from your surgery date, you will be able to customize your menu to include a full varienutritious food that you like. You may still be having a "food funeral" and are missing the factory made edibles that are pushed on us as food. A good site to tap into is Eat This Not That at http://www.eatthis.com/ A lot of what I was eating was by habit and timing. I found out that I missed the salt, sugar, and grease instead of the actual food itself. I ate breakfast because it was time for breakfast. I would eat cheese Danish on Wednesday because I had Cheese Danish on Tuesday. My sleeve has totally rearranged my life. You will find out that your sleeve will be the boss of you forever and needs to be tended to carefully. By the time I got to where I could eat an egg, I was soooooo glad to have that egg. This will get better, and you can get some good suggestions from The World According to Eggface, as well as here. here is the link: http://theworldaccordingtoeggface.blogspot.com/

I have been holding off on responding, but this sounds to me like the urban legend about going to a foreign country, getting kidnapped and waking up with a kidney missing. On her repost it indicates that she has 18 posts, but on her profile page it says this: There have been 1 items by g8edgrl (Search limited from January 22, 2001) .....One post from 2001....... My BS alarm goes off when there are only a very few posts and the surgery date is the default 1999. I hate to sound cold if this is for real, but it is soooooo bizarre and hard to believe.

Although I am well aware of the metabolic and nutritional benefits of green tea, I still think it tastes like dirty feet and twigs. I stumbled across a mention of the value that ginger, lemon and tumeric (which is in the ginger family) can add, so I put fresh ginger and tumeric on the shopping list. I made some up and gave green tea another chance. Bang! I actually like it and get extra energy from it. Funny thing though. My boyfriend does the marketing and picked up jicama instead of tumeric. We had never used it before, so we looked up its uses. It is verrrrrry low calorie and high Fiber and taste kinda like Water chestnuts. I use it now to cut in strips and dip in hummus, or dice and throw into the soup pot. It picks up the flavor of whatever you cook it with. One other thing I want to try is this trick that my boyfriend uses to make baked chips from the sunchokes he grows in his Mediterranean garden. He peels the root and cuts it into thin rounds and lays them on a foil lined cookie sheet. Then he drizzles them with olive oil and sprinkles black pepper and cayenne on them and bakes til they are crisp. We use very little salt, so he doesn't add any. They are spicy enough. Here is the link to the tasty green tea recipe. The only thing I do different is that I uses pieces of ginger instead of powdered, and add some pieces of the fresh tumeric, too. The recipe makes enough base to have four servings of tea. The recipe says iced, but hot is just as fine. http://www.webmd.com/food-recipes/lemon-ginger-iced-green-tea

Be naughty, too, while you are in Florida.

Uh oh! First, here is a hug from Chicago. Secondly, since when is meat and veggies yucky, and edible chemical-laden crap from a factory your best option for self indulgence? I am sure you have heard the saying "If you keep on doing what you have been doing, you are going to keep on getting what you have been getting." So, you have to change your thinking in order to change your results. Don't start tomorrow. Start with the next thing that goes in your mouth. You need to think of your body as a mechanical container for the spiritual you - that essence of being that makes you who you are. You need to respect that machine and give it the proper nutritional fuel that it needs. Your wouldn't try to make your car run on Pepsi instead of gas. Would you let a toddler run out into traffic because it can? I hope not. You need to stop your self imposed pity party and take control of this situation...starting right this minute. Stay around and absorb everything you can from this site. Many of us do falter along the way. Encouragement and tough love" from this forum helps turn us around. I assume that no one is force-feeding you and that you voluntarily put this factory crap in your mouth. By coming here, you are at least reaching out for help. Opinions and tact will vary, but we have your best interest at heart.

Welcome. I recently passed my two year date. Unless these vocal people have Power of Attorney over your health care, they can't stop you. What are they going to do? Kidnap you or chain you to the bed? Once you get your sleeve, they can't undo it. They will just have to tolerate the healthier happier you. Quit listening to them and hampsters running around in your head. A couple of snarky responses you can use are: Thank you for your sudden concern about my health, but this is something I have to do for myself. or Here is my doctor's phone number. Call him and tell him that you disagree with his diagnosis. Here are links to a couple of threads about this topic: http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/315739-snarky-comebacks-to-snarky-comments/ and http://www.bariatric...-way-out-crack/

I did not have the "shoulder gas", but was nauseous until I used up the post-op meds I had to take. The Zophran behind the ear Patches helped enough that I did not vomit. Nothing felt smaller. I gained 12 pounds from fluids at the hospital. But with every pound I Iost, I felt better.

I don't know if they firm anything, but by exfoliating in the shower and then applying moisturizing lotion or almond oil, my belly is a soft as the proverbial baby's butt.

How about string cheese. Just don't take boiled eggs or you will stink up the joint! Later on around three months you can probably tolerate nuts or seedless grapes.

I have a variety of exercise and dance style exercise videos (32). My favorite is Leslie Sansone's Walk Your Belly Flat. I have post-stroke balance issues so I follow her video in the house at least twice a week. They can even be done standing in place in front of your TV. My next favorite is Joel Harper's Firm after 50. This has both upper body, lower body, and ab workouts, demonstrated at three levels. He does the advanced, a pretty young thing does the moderate, and his mother does the modified level. It's a full-body "body-weight" routine that is easy to follow.. I have a variety of dance videos which I follow at my own pace. My form and timing are lousy but they are fun: Hula, Bolly-wood, Burlesque (yes, Miss Mac at age 64 can burlesque dance!), African Heat - Latin Beat, Salsa, and even Richard Simmons Sweatin' to the Oldies. Other one that I enjoy but can't quite match the energy is Shaun T's Hip Hop Abs. This morning I ordered his new one called Cize. The commercial says four payments of $19.95, bu I got it online for one payment of $19.95. I also have several videos by David Stamps, including Chair Salsa, Chair Boxing, and Chair Tai Chi, and Chair Aerobics (which is gentle and suitable for bedfast people as well). Some days I just crank up the music really loud (did Shakira's Hips Don't Lie You Tube video yesterday) and try to follow along in a very sloppy way. But this is the "dance like nobody is watching" concept. Other times, I will put on my MP3 headset and use the house as a tool. My home is a tri-level, so several laps through the house is its own workout. From the fourth step I do push-ups and backward kicks. I set up my backyard as a fitness trail. At several different locations I do a different exercise. By the time I have made a few laps, I know I have really worked out! Whatever video I do in the daytime, I have started do this at bedtime, right next to the bed: 10 angled push-ups from the edge of the mattress, 10 lunges in place and 10 squats, and then 10 "backward rows" with five pound weight. Then Repeat. I can do it three times, but my goal is to work up to ten times...that would make 100 of each. Pilates is big on doing "hundreds" With adding my bedtime routine, I sleep waaaay better. I drink a Protein shake after and take a shower to wash of the sweat, then go to bed. By the way, Sweat is Just Fat Crying.

My oldest sister got a bypass. My younger sister got a band. I got sleeved. We are all happy, healthy and near half of our original sizes. As for the pain......My sleeve was my 12th surgery, which included two c-sections. The worst pain was the knee replacement and the least pain and easiest recovery was my sleeve. On a scale of 1-10 I would say...knee replacement 12 and sleeve 2.

True....doc could rank 500 out of a class of 500 and still walk away with a diploma.

Same for me. Hydrocodone is like Tic Tacs now. I was switched to Oxycodone with much better results. It helps enough that I do not have to take Lyrica which was seriously hindering my weight loss. I went back on it once when a pain clinic appointment was too far out and I gained ten pounds in twelve days! One thing about Oxycodone though......it makes me really sick to my stomach. I just have to decide if I want to be immobilized by pain or slowed down by nausea. Most of the time nausea wins. I have had total knee replacements on both knees. I promise you that once you get those staples out, the difference in your pain level will be like night and day, pickles and twinkies, snakes and kittens.

Walgreen's generics and my labs have been perfect for two years.

So, who's the psychic genius who thinks they can tell who bariatric surgery will work and who it won't? I had very slow metabolism, too...and lost slowly..but I am losing and now in sight of my goal. Keep up hope and follow doctor's orders.

The worst is over. Now you can focus on recovery and reinventing yourself. Congratulations that you made it over into Sleeveland!

One thing you can do is stock your fridge with foods that won't activate those hamsters running around in your head. Right now, I have sugar free pudding, sugar free Jello, sliced tomatoes, carrot and celery sticks and homemade hummus. I recently discovered jicama, and will put slices of that in the fridge, too. Boiled eggs are high in Protein and guilt free. If I eat carbs,I pack them in at Breakfast and then eat lean the rest of the day. This morning I had a scoop of oatmeal that I put Protein powder, cinnamon, dates and raisins in, and ate that with a small banana. I was not hungry for a morning snack because breakfast was keeping me full. For lunch I have a taco salad almost every day. I add mixed salad greens and spinach to my taco meat made with ground turkey, peppers, onions, garlic, diced eggplant, celery, taco seasoning and salsa. I don't eat much cheese, but I sprinkle a little shredded cheddar on it and if I want to indulge, I will have a spoonful of sour cream. By looking at this you can tell that it is high in protein, high in Fiber (which helps you feel full) and low in calories because you really can't eat much at one time. If i have an afternoon snack, it is likely to be a pickle wrapped in a slice of turkey, or those raw veggies with hummus. dinner is usually 2 ounces of meat and as much cooked veggies as I can handle. Broccoli, cauliflower, eggplant, zucchini, mushrooms, peppers, sunchokes (veggies that provide high fiber and low calories. If you haven't noticed, I eat my fair share of Mediterranean style veggies. That is because my boyfriend loves to cook, and he is from Malta. He grows a garden of Mediterannean veggies in the back yard. He frequently uses olive oil, garlic, lemon, and Mediterranean spices in his cooking. The point that I am trying to make is that since your live in a Mediterranean adjacent country, a lot of this should be available to you locally. The way he cooks, I get plenty of protein and fiber without the killer calories. I can eat until Miss Tummy says quit, without doing caloric damage. I challenge you to get creative in the kitchen and have some fun with food, instead of seeing it as the enemy. Go for foods you can chase, catch and pick instead of factory products, and you will do well. Learn how to adjust old favorites to make them acceptable to a bariatric patient. Now get in that kitchen and have some fun!

I am guessing that the doctor thinks that an orgasm would cause contractions somewhere in the route from the nice warm baby nest to the cold cruel world......? That stinks, but that baby is the boss of you now.

Congratulations on your outstanding weight loss. Just don't let those green meanies steal your joy.

Thankfully your kids are old enough to understand that they need to take care of you for a while. Lap babies are more complicated to manage. Most of us come home at two days. My experience was pain for a couple of days and nausea for a couple of weeks. Follow your program instructions. Many people have gone before you and your bariatric staff knows what works and what doesn't. Don't expect to have any noticeable energy until you at least get on purees. For me it was soft foods. About purees......baby food and applesauce get boring very quickly. What I did was take whatever meat and veggies my main man had for a meal and put it in the blender with some broth or Water. That way I at least got familiar flavors and had control over the seasonings. On purees, I made it real sloppy so that it would roll off the spoon. On soft foods, I made it the consistency of mashed potatoes. Let the kids wait on you for a few days, and show the older ones now how to do laundry. Let them do the carrying of things for a while. Maybe you could fix some meals ahead so that all the older ones have to do is pop it in the microwave.

I had one really lousy week post-op and then as soon as I got on soft foods at three weeks, I began to hurt less and feel more energized. Keep in mind that your stomach has been brutalized and just needs tender loving care while it heals. The inconvenience we go through is worth the result in the end. Do you have anyone in the house who can give you a gentle back rub? If nothing else, get the heating pad out. It all gets better with time.

You wouldn't be normal if you didn't feel doubt just before surgery. Keep in mind that guilt can't change yesterday and worry can't change tomorrow. Here is my favorite thread: I hope it encourages you to continue on the path to taking control of your health. http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/219831-what-was-your-final-straw-that-broke-the-camels-back/page-124#entry4047240 My final straw was a stroke. I, too, wish I had done this sooner.

Sounds like you would benefit from some imaging. Sometimes it helps to know what something isn't just much as knowing what it is.

My largest incision was aggravating for about a month. The other smaller ones itched, but gave me no trouble. Just be careful to lift much or to strain your abdominal muscles in any way. They are still healing, too. It sounds like you know what to do if you suspect infection.

I can't imagine how awful you must feel. Here is a hug from Miss Mac in Chicago. You did mention that he had a previous suicide attempt, which means to me that he was already in a personal angst that tormented his mind. That wasn't your fault either. I agree that you would benefit from counseling on two fronts....for grieving and for finding the boost you need to proceed toward bariatric success. If you haven't searched out a local support group for both aspects, then at least find a forum on-line for survivors left behind after the self-inflicted death of a loved one. We can especially support you with encouragement for weight loss. You will find several people on here who have had their progress interrupted by surgery, pregnancy, and loss. One of our members recently had a spinal fusion, and I expect to undergo a full lumbar fusion before summer. You may find that I will need to come to you for support when inactivity during the recovery process slows my role. You will find many friends here. I am glad you popped in. Please take good care of yourself and keep in touch with us frequently. In the meantime, here are three concepts that we all have in common that help us stay focused: Drink Water until your eyeballs float. Don't eat anything made in a factory. You will have your best success with foods you can chase or pick from a plant. Topload your diet with lean Protein. Don't become part of the sofa. I am proud of you for engaging in water therapy. That is a great start. I wish you good luck and good health.