AvaFern

I am below goal and I remember having all of those thoughts. I used to scroll through all the before and after success stories of people who lost weight from any method and wonder if I would ever be as cute as they were. I think this serves as an excellent motivator and reminds you that if others did it, so can you.

I mix it into Protein shakes. I use almond milk, Protein Powder, frozen greek yogurt, and some PB2. Yummy!

I've been at goal for a few months and there are days I look in the mirror and think, "girl you look hot!" and then there are days where I think "well, hello there, fatty". I think a lot of people feel like this- even those who have never been fat. I weigh everyday so I know I'm not actually any fatter on fat days than I am on thin days, so I think it's just a mental thing. I have friends who have always been in the 120's and it's funny to me because before I would roll my eyes when they would say they were having a fat day (you're 125 pounds, please don't tell me you feel fat), but now I understand that even at very healthy weights we all have days where we feel like a busted can of biscuits. On days I feel fat, I just eat less and workout more and I wake up in the morning feeling better.

Why can't you have Starbucks? I drink the tall iced skinny caramel machiato all the time- it's about 110 calories. That being said, your version actually sounds a lot better than that, lol.

Haha, I love this thread! I've lost an adult Maltese dog and a 2 month old horse! (or roughly the amount of red meat an American eats in a year- 111 pounds, holy cow people eat a lot of meat!)

I don't have a problem with the fact that a lot of men want me now who would never have looked at me twice two years ago. We can't help what we are attracted to and to be honest I have zero interest in dating a fat guy, so I don't really get to get mad if men have no interest in me because I'm a fat girl. My logic is that dating is a bit like selling a house. Do you put the house on the market when the tile is torn up, the kitchen is from the 60's, and the carpet is stained? No, because you recognized that you are not going to get a quality buyer because the house is unattractive. Comparably, appearances matter in people too. Do you want to spend the rest of your life with a person who pants and heaves and sweats all over you, while crushing you in bed? Do you want a man who can't sit comfortably in booths at dinner, who can't ride roller coasters with you, who can't shop in normal stores, and who has a serious health condition that you will need to deal with if you are his partner? Do you want to be with someone who can't control their eating, who is not healthy, and who very well may have other complications as a result of their weight? I can't speak for you, but I certainly don't. Wanting to date a person who is a healthy weight is not shallow, it's simply a fact of life for many people. We cannot help who we are attracted to. I don't like super skinny dudes, fat dudes, or really tall dudes....I'm not shallow I just know what I want so I don't waste their time. Don't you appreciate that someone else does the same for you if physically they realize they just aren't into you? I'm not saying you're not a wonderful person, a kind, loving, fantastic woman who deserves all of the love in the world. I'm saying don't get offended because guys aren't into you for whatever reason. I got dumped once when I was 130 pounds because my boobs were too big, once because I wasn't tan enough, once because I was too short, and once because I was too fat (at the time I was about 145). Not everyone is going to like everyone, so I personally am fine with a man not wanting to date me if he's not physically attracted to me because otherwise he's simply wasting both of our time. I remodeled my "house" and my buyer's market dramatically improved. It's not being shallow, it's simply understanding how the game works. Also, as a note, your tracker says you are 200 pounds, which is NOT a big woman. There are plenty of men who are very happy with a woman that size and plenty that want someone bigger or smaller. You just have to find the right one. Good luck!

I think the minority of people diet-shame. There are plenty of people on this board who either practice the policy of "if you can't say something nice, don't say anything at all" (like me) and there are also people who are completely up-front about the fact that they don't follow the diet (also like me). Sure, there are a few that like to preach about how they follow the diet perfectly, but the vast majority of people who post regularly and who are veterans not only don't follow the diet exactly themselves but really don't give other people a hard time about it. In my experience, it is the people who haven't even had surgery yet or are recently out from surgery who like to jump all over people for not following the diet and this is probably because, first, they haven't had to actually do the diet yet so it seems like it should be easy, and second, they're only a few weeks into having the sleeve and breaking the diet might kill them or at the very least make them really sick. So...next time you see a nasty post diet-shaming, look how long the person has been a member, how much weight they have lost and how many posts they have. I would bet that in nearly all circumstances the person is new (ish) the site, has very few posts, and is nowhere near their goal weight. Inexperience tends to have a big mouth. Now, past that. I don't follow the diet at all. I drink with a straw, I drink diet Pepsi, sometimes I eat a few bites of Pasta or a few bites of pizza, I never ate my Protein first, I have had less than 20 Protein shakes during the entire time I have had the sleeve, and some days I work out and some days I don't. I have been under goal for 3.5 months and I haven't had a super hard time staying there. The further out I am the more I realize I need to be careful with what I eat, but I also know this doesn't mean I'm banned from any food forever. The other day I had a few fries, yesterday I had cake because I was baking and wanted to make sure it actually tasted good, and last weekend I ate creme brulle. I've also weighed myself everyday, logged everything into MyFitnessPal, and worked out most days. I recognize that maintaining my weight is a battle for literally the rest of my life, however I also recognize that everyone has the right to their own decisions and actions. Most veterans on the site have pretty much the same attitude, so while the rude posts may have stood out in your mind more than the nice ones, remember that there are a whole lot of people who post very frequently on here who say absolutely nothing in some of the trending diet-shame posts. The silence of the veterans should speak louder than the comments of people who haven't actually lived with a sleeve or who have done so for a very small amount of time.

I don't love belts on my pants, but I really like the wide belts that you wear just below your rib cage with certain skirts and dresses. I think I have maybe 4 belts and all four of them are the high waist versions.

I hit my goal, which was 108 pounds lost at 19 months. It took 7 months to lose the last 10-15 pounds and 4 months to lose the last 4 pounds.

Take the discount!!! Although it's not quite the same thing I still get VERY happy when people card me when I'm buying alcohol (I'm 31 so well past the age where I'm not obviously old enough to drink). I am almost always carded, so I suppose I have gotten a bit spoiled. The other day my boyfriend and I were out to dinner and the server carded him (he's 4 years younger than me) and didn't card me. I was like, ummm hello, do I really look that much older?! Still though...I say take the discount. I wouldn't have minded 20% off at my Michael's trip today, lol.

I remember one time when I was probably around 10 my family was swimming at the lake near our house when a group of neighbor ladies showed up to swim. I said something to my mom along the lines of...you must have been embarrassed to get out of the lake in front of them. I don't think my mom ever went swimming in public again. She wasn't even that overweight, just a bit chunky. At the time, I know I had no intention to hurt her feelings, I just made a stupid observation and to this day, 20+ years later I still feel truly horrible that I would have said something so insensitive. Your daughter is only 6 and I'm sure she has absolutely no idea how hurtful her comment was. You are taking steps to improve your health (I'm at goal weight and I HATE jumping rope, so good for you for doing that) and your daughter will eventually see that you did what needed to be done to be healthy. With any luck she will have no memory of her insensitive comment and when she is 31 like me she won't look back and think...omg, how could I have ever been so cruel without even realizing it!

I'm like Babbs, there are days where I am starving and have to be careful to not eat everything in sight and there are days where I have no real interest in food. I also have days where literally everything I eat makes me sick and days where nothing makes me sick. I am a little further out than you at 22 months, although I was an emotional eater and I find that I still struggle with that. It's like that quote from the Austin Power's movie...I eat because I'm sad and I'm sad because I eat. I'm not sad anymore since I'm at goal, however there are times where I feel like I'm hungry when in reality I'm just anxious or stressed.

I also like sushi, although my sleeve hates it. As long as you are chewing it well and eating slowly it's totally ok to eat it. I would avoid the tempura stuff for awhile since sometimes that has hard bits, but the regular rice and fish is fine. It's a great source of Protein.

I've worked in healthcare and you don't have anything to worry about. You can clearly coordinate your diet with the hospital and bring things with you. They are legally required to work within the parameters of your diet so as long as you fill them in ahead of time, bring with you everything you can (Vitamins, non-refrigerated Protein drinks, protein that doesn't need refrigeration (Jerky, PB2, protein bars) you can have it all with you in your room. Don't expect the hospital to go out of their way to make you special food...that isn't part of the deal, however, you are more than able to bring enough food with you to be just fine in the hospital for a few days. If you have family, they can also bring you hot meals or cold Protein shakes throughout the duration of your stay. A knee surgery should not have any restrictions on what you eat afterward, so as long as your surgeon and the doctors are informed about the food you have with you and the fact that you will be keeping it in your room, it should be smooth sailing. Also, they don't have the option to not listen to your doctor regardless of whether or not your sleeve surgeon is in another state. Either they do what they are supposed to do (within reason as agreed upon ahead of time) or you sue them. Hospitals know the score. Bring what you need with you and be fully ready to do as you damn well please while you are in the hospital. You are a patient and a customer, not a victim or a prisoner...remember that and you will be fine.

When my stomach doesn't like something, it feels like it is coming up my throat. I feel a little hot, my heart beats faster, and my chest gets red when I eat sugar, however when I eat oils, fats, cheeses, or anything else remotely unhealthy I just feel like the food is sitting right in the middle of my throat and slowly working its way back out my mouth. Then I puke and feel better. Also,sometimes with dense Protein my throat starts to slime...thick, gooey, clear slime that coats the food and makes you barf. At 5 weeks out you're close to being healed, so soon you will be able to have a better idea of what works for you and what doesn't.

I chose my goal weight by adding 10 pounds to my goal weight from college. I always wanted to be 119, but I figured there was no way I would ever get there, so I picked 129 because it seemed more realistic. I also would have been happy in a size 6. I have been under goal since April and I now wear a size 0 or 2, however while I am ok with how I look I do tend to think I would feel just a bit better at 119. It does seem to be very much harder to lose the further and further out you are, so my advise would be to lose as mush as possible the first few months to a year and then see how you feel afterward. Also, you should be within the normal BMI which is a chart available online. I needed to be 137 to be considered "normal" at my height.

I spent the first night through the second night after surgery puking non-stop to the point that since I had a totally empty stomach I just dry heaved for almost 24 hours. They gave me Phenergan, Zofran, and the Transderm Scop patch and nothing worked until I asked them to stop the IV narcotics. Within a few hours I started feeling better. You really don't need the IV drugs if they can give you liquid advil. Your stomach just feels like you did too many sit-ups, it isn't painful as much as it's just annoying to move. Also, you can't drink anything for 24 hours after surgery, and then when you can drink something it's clear liquid, so IV drugs just make you feel more miserable than you already are. If you know they make you sick, tell the anesthesiologist to give you some Phenergan while you're in surgery and you should be fine. I've had 3 plastics surgeries and I asked them to do that and I haven't been sick once when they managed the nausea before I was awake enough to get sick.

1/2 serving of Cascadian Farms fruit and nut granola....same breakfast every morning, yum.

I had a desk job. My surgery was on a Monday and I was back to work full-time the next Monday. You are physically able to do desk work at about 5 days, which is when I started working from home again. I actually wrote a report on day 2 from the hospital but I was so drugged up I barely remembered it...fortunately the report was actually well done when I went back and read it later, lol. I put in a 15 hour day at my home office on Sunday then went back to my physical office Monday morning. It depends entirely on how much you want it. You can sit at home and relax if you have the luxury of doing so, or you can get your rear back to work inside of a week. I didn't have the option of taking off more than a week, so I made it work. The same is true for my plastics. I was working at a desk for 12-15 hour days post-op day 5. Physically you will be fine, mentally it's a little exhausting but completely doable.

I was one of the lucky people who ended up with a very temperamental sleeve. I used to have the reaction you described when I had sugar (Peanut Butter and chocolate were a no-go), but now I've learned that I can have a bite or two and I'm ok. I am also almost 2 years out. My stomach likes to barf, so anything with oil, milk, fats, eggs, or sometimes sugar, gets puked right back up instantly. I try to see it as a positive thing since I know that if I eat badly, I'm going to get sick. It's an excellent way to keep your diet in check if anything that tastes good makes you sick. It seems more likely though that your sleeve is just sensitive this early in the game. It is very possible that once your stomach is readjusted to food, you won't continue to have this problem. The first few weeks after surgery almost all food made me feel nauseous, but not barfy. I would lay in bed, my skin would get really hot and red, and my heart would beat fast. This stopped happening after a few months and now that part of the response to bad food only happens if for some reason I eat way to much sugar. A few bites of sugar and I just get hot, I don't get the need to lay down until I'm not dying kind of sick any more.

My feet shrank a little because they were less swollen. I look at my pre-surgery pictures and my poor ankles and feet were swollen. For the most part I fit into all my old shoes but the ones that I wore a lot are now too big for me. Prior to surgery I was at an 8 and now I'm a 7-7.5, so not a huge difference and I think most of it was just not making my feet carry an extra 100 pounds of weight everyday more so than having had fat feet.

As long as you're surgery is tomorrow, you can take Dayquil until midnight tonight. Your surgery should only be rescheduled if you have a significant fever or your cold has clogged up your throat. After surgery you are drugged pretty heavily when they pull your intubation tube, so you need to be able to support your own airway since not being able to breathe through your mouth while you are drugged just means you're not breathing at all. I had a whopping cold before surgery, but I could breathe just fine through my nose and mouth so I wasn't concerned about fibbing that I felt fine. If, however, I couldn't breathe well, I would have told them this. Unlike when you have a cold and you try to sleep, if your throat gets clogged up, you wake up coughing and blow your nose. When you're drugged if your airway is blocked, you just lay there and don't get any oxygen since you physically aren't able to be woken up by the fact that you can't breathe. So...no big fever and no airway complications, lying about a cold is fine. A fever and/or airway issues, it's generally better to delay the surgery a bit than risk dying in recovery.

126...exactly the same as the start. Thank-you!

I used my food scale for the first few weeks until I was sure I had an idea of what the right serving size was. I was pleasantly surprised by how much meat I was allowed to eat, which was a nice benefit of having used the scale. It is still somewhere in one of my cupboards but I rarely use it anymore.

Next time your nut, doctor, or nurse tells you that you signed a contract and that too bad, so sad, you better drink your Protein or else, you need to have a conversation with them about malpractice. That is complete and total BS. Their job is to make sure that you are able to get nutrition and if you can't it is THEIR problem to help you fix it, not to tell you that you better choke down some shakes or you're out of luck. Explain to them that there is an issue with the shakes, you cannot keep them down, and if they are unable to work with you to find an appropriate solution, then you will be happy to contact both your insurance agency and your attorney regarding their complete and total failure to do their job. I worked in healthcare and doctors and nurses like to bully people when they think they can get away with it. Bully them right back. That is garbage and you deserve their help in finding a solution. That being said...I never drank protein shakes because they made me sick. Nothing is going to happen to you if you don't get all of that protein in every day. I was self pay so I was entirely on my own with nutrition. I went through the phases of clear and regular fluids and then moved on to soft food and regular food and I literally had maybe 5 protein shakes the entire time. They are disgusting. I drink them now because I like the kind I make in the blender. I use almond milk, because my stomach doesn't like real milk, I blend in a frozen greek yogurt, a little PB2, and protein powder and it tastes like a milkshake. The pre-made shakes are not yummy, but if you're creative with a blender you may like them more. As a note, I am almost 2 years out and about 6 weeks ago I had all my blood work done. Like I said I had no formal nutritional guidance, never got in all my protein, and largely eat what I want to (which doesn't include sweets or fats or much junk). I have maintained below goal since April and all of my blood values are almost exactly right in the middle of the normal ranges. Protein shakes are not the end all and be all and you will be fine without drinking all of them. I hope you feel better...and please go let your doctor, nurse, and nut have a piece of your mind. If they can't do their job, someone else will be more than happy to remove them from it or do it for them.