AvaFern

I don't have these conditions, however Hashimoto's is a condition several people in my family have. When your immune system attacks your thyroid, it can't function as it should, which can lead to hypothyroidism, which could be why you have a difficult time losing weight. Pernicious anemia you can resolve with B-12 supplements and injections and hypothyroidism, is resolved with a little tiny pill that you take once a day. Neither of these conditions are something you should get upset over as they are both easily treatable and if anything if they can treat your thyroid condition, you may be able to lose weight naturally without having to have a sleeve. My understanding is that most doctors want to fix these kinds of conditions before approving a sleeve surgery especially since pernicious anemia can actually result after the sleeve and you are already predisposed to it. I didn't take a B12 supplement for the first year after surgery and I ended up getting quite anemic, however an Iron supplement and a B12 supplement fixed me up and within a few weeks I was fine. Good luck with your sleeve process!

I can't eat most meats if I do not chew them really, really slowly, and eat only very, very small portions and I am over a year and a half post-op. I couldn't tolerate meat at all for the first few months. I think because it is so dense and sometimes quite dry, my stomach felt like I was choking it, so it produces that saliva goop and then pukes the meat right back out. When she eats though, her stomach shouldn't hurt. I would feel nauseous fairly frequently, but there was never actual pain in my stomach. Sometimes to consider talking to her doctor about...

I'm 18 months out and don't tend to always follow the Protein first rules, but I'm maintaining beneath my goal weight and still losing, so it seems to have worked out. My days tend to vary, but they usually go something along the lines of this: Breakfast - 1/3 cup Cascadian Farms Fruit and Nut Granola (I only eat this kind- no reason I just like it best) Snack (after morning workout) -Protein shake (almond milk, frozen Greek yogurt, PB2, & protein powder) lunch - 1/2 Hillshire Farms Little Plate (it has salami, cheese, and a hard cracker- like an adult lunchable) Snack - turkey and cheddar cheese roll-up or cottage cheese or 1/2 a Protein Bar or handful of granola dinner - other half of the Hilshire Farms Little Plate Snack -Veggie crisps This day works out to 916 calories (with turkey as the second snack), 92 carbs, 40 fat grams, 53g protein, 2,370 mg sodium, and 32g sugar. I ate exactly that the other day so MyFitnessPal gives me the full breakdown. The fat grams are a little higher than I like because of the cheese, and the veggie crisps have no great nutritional value, but I like them. On some days I'll eat more than that because I'm hungry or I've worked out a lot. I routinely eat a grilled chicken sandwich from a fast food place, the other day I had an entire chicken salad from Chik Fil A over the course of two meals, and I add things like hummus, watermelon, cantaloupe, crackers, chili, marinara sauce with zuchinni noodles, etc. For the most part I eat whatever I want to, just in very small servings. Also, my "whatever I want to" is dictated by my sleeve which hates anything that has fat, sugar, or has been near butter or a fryer. Almost all sweets and junk food make me instantly sick, so while I wouldn't mind eating a piece of cake, one or two bites is about all my stomach will tolerate so I just tend to not go for things like that anymore. Also, there are days where I may hit 1800 calories, so don't think you'll be stuck eating 1000 calories for the rest of your life. I'm hungrier when I workout more and when I know I'm going to blow my calorie goal for the day I just make sure I do it in protein based food instead of junk. Once you've hit the maintenance stage, you can eat anything your stomach will tolerate. I weigh myself everyday and I record everything I eat or drink in MyFitnessPal, so I keep myself accountable and then if I happen to want to have a cocktail or some cake or something else bad for me, I eat a few bites, I enjoy it, I put it into MyFitnessPal, and then I go back to eating my regular food afterwards. The nice thing about the sleeve is that it has taught me moderation- something I could never manage before surgery.

I had the sleeve done when I was 29. I fluctuated in my 20's from down to about 137 to up to 237 at my highest...I lost about 80 pounds 4 times, and it really made having a social life difficult. If I could have spent the entirety of my 20's being as thin as I am now, which was never possible before the sleeve, I think I would have really had a lot more of a chance to enjoy life. I can appreciate though the feeling that what you are doing will impact you for literally the rest of your life and when you have 80-90 years left to live that can be a scary thought. Honestly, that still freaks me out a little bit so I try not to think about it, lol, but I am quite happy and I hope that you will be too!

How far out are you? My opinion, which you can totally discard, is that once you are at a maintenance stage incorporating some frozen meals into the diet is a good way to play around with trying flavors. I followed maybe half of the rules of the diet largely because I have no desire to spend the rest of my life stuck in a diet where all I ever get to eat is chicken and cottage cheese. I didn't start incorporating frozen prepared foods until recently and I stopped doing it fairly quickly too. They tend to have a lot of sodium and preservatives and I noticed I ended up retaining Water a lot more when I ate them and I tend to feel a lot better when I try to stick to mostly stuff that isn't overly processed. That being said though, life is about being able to eat and if you have a job where there is minimal opportunity for prep and the best thing you can eat a few days a week is an Atkins meal, well there are far more unhealthy options available. I used to eat Lean Cuisines like they were going out of style so I can appreciate the convenience of a hot meal. If you are newly sleeved, maybe try to limit the processed stuff initially just to avoid the sugars and sodium and to give your body its honeymoon period where it has the chance to drop a lot of weight quickly. After you're close to goal though or even after you've been following the plan for awhile, there's nothing wrong with trying frozen meals, especially if they are high in Protein.

I can't sleep at night without melatonin and Benadryl. 50mg Benadryl and two Melatonin tabs and it knocks me out quite nicely.

You sound a lot like me. Never in my life have I made a decision where I sought a man's approval first. I am also self-employed, successful, and quite happy with or without a guy in my life. My perspective has always been that the day someone tells me how to spend my time or my money is the day I'm done with them and that would include telling me what I should and shouldn't do with my body. I would never tell a man that he couldn't have the vast majority of surgeries (vasectomy or sex change, I'd have an opinion) and as such, I would expect that he respect my wishes as well. My approach is a bit harsh, however I would let your husband know that he has two options, he can accept your decision and be the supportive partner he should be or he can choose to continue to act the way he is acting, you will still have the surgery, and in the event he no longer is able to fulfill your emotional and physical needs, you will be going elsewhere. Life is to short for grown women to have to deal with little boy bs. Either he steps up or he gets out. Either way you win.

You and I are close in weight and while I would like to drop to around 119 I have found that there are certain things that prevent me from losing, which aren't unhealthy. As an example, when I lift weight, I maintain or gain weight but lose in inches. I have largely avoided weight training because I know I am all about a certain number and if I had been lifting the entire time, I would never have gotten into the 130's forget the 120's. I look at a squat rack and I gain weight, so now that I am under my original goal weight and sort of close to my end goal weight, one way to not continue to lose weight and to increase my tone is through building muscle. In conjunction with building muscle, a nice side of being a little thinner is you can add Protein shakes that have more calories and more protein. This balances out the calories you are burning with exercise and adds calories to your diet that aren't bad for you. You can also up your protein a little more, which also adds calories and is healthy for you, because now you don't have to worry about eating so much that you won't lose. I know that if I want to continue to lose I absolutely must have some form of cardio workout and be under 1400 calories, or if I want to be lazy and skip exercise, I don't get more than 1000 calories. I have found that to maintain I can eat around 1500-1800 calories and around 60-80g of protein and as long as I'm working out I don't really gain, I just bounce around between 2-3 pounds. So shorter version of my answer to your question- add more protein, healthy fat, and weight based exercise. You'll build muscle, which will make you look more toned, but you won't be getting skinnier since you're counteracting everything with higher calories and higher protein. Adding a single Protein shake that has a decent amount of calories (I like the kind in my blender with Protein powder, almond milk, PB2, and frozen greek yogurt) should help you gain a few pounds healthily or maintain.

I used the Campbell's chicken and noodle and poured it all through a strainer. Basically any broth instead of cream or marinara based Soup with the chunky parts removed is fine. Broth saved me..I was so sick of drinking stuff without salt, and the heat and salt of the broth, oh it was heaven.

You lost 12 pounds in 14 days, which is not a bad thing. I didn't lose a lot more than that around the same time frame you're in partly because it took awhile to get rid of all the IV Fluid I was filled with during surgery and post-op. Although you lost 9 pounds in the liquid phase, the trick is that now that you have the sleeve you won't gain those 9 pounds right back when you start eating again. The entire process of losing weight with the sleeve is frustrating, sometimes slow, and sometimes completely stalled. But in the end, it's worth it.

I ate Smart Puffs one night on my pre-surgery diet and then my next memorable cheat was at about 3 months when I ate chocolate, unapologetically, the entire Christmas season of 2013. January 1 I was right back on the wagon, but yes, I was a chocolate pig for about three weeks when I really should not have been. Oh..and I did it again this Christmas, lol. I didn't gain weight either time and I kept it to only the holidays, so am I looking forward to Christmas 2015? Oh yes I am, t-minus six months until I am going to enjoy chocolate cake, Cookies, ice cream, and candy. Until then though, I will sit here and eat my turkey roll-up.

You can have your cake and eat it too! Haha, if you think you can only eat a few pieces, then totally order cake, enjoy it, and let everyone else enjoy it. If not, let them order cake that they like and you don't really like, and then everyone has a nice time and you won't be tempted. Hope you have a great birthday!

I am one year and almost 9 months post-op and this happens to me all the time. I never puke blood though, but other than that I have comparable issues. As an example, I've been eating quinoa sticks this week and randomly today they made me supremely sick. Some days I will be able to eat a few pieces of sushi, other days it makes me barf almost instantly. I have a few foods that have always been safe, like tomato based Soups, marinara, some crackers, etc, but I think at some point almost everything has randomly made me sick. There isn't anything medically wrong with me- my stomach just hates food. I was initially concerned that I may end up eating too little, however I've learned to enjoy both the good and the bad food days because they always balance out. Some days I can pack away 1500 calories and other days, like today, I'm struggling on 500-800. My irritable stomach keeps me skinny so I don't complain about it too much.

I'm 1 year and 7 months out and the foods I know will make me sick are milk fats (so any milk other than skim- except weirdly not all ice cream), Desserts that have a lot of sugar (a few bites of creme brullee is fine but more than that and I'm heaving), anything fried, anything that has been anywhere near butter, and anything cooked in any kind of oil. So basically everything that tastes good, which works out well for me, lol. I have noticed I can have one or two bites of everything, but I can almost immediately tell from those two bites if something is making me sick and then I stop with plenty of time to spare before I actually get sick. As an example I bought a pressed juice today which had kale, spinach, pineapple, and apple- nothing that should have made me sick. A few sips in I realized the pineapple probably had too much sugar, so I got rid of the drink and I was fine. A few more sips and I would have been heaving. It's really all about what your stomach does and doesn't like. You learn to adapt. Good luck!

So, I just saw this post and I think I'm a little late to reply, but I feel like I personally have a very specific type. I'm not into skinny dudes, I like muscular men, preferably 5'9-6'1, who can easily, umm, toss me around. So, when I was bigger I was still attracted to the same kind of men I'm into now, they just tend to like me a little better now, lol.

I would have killed for a catheter. Ok, maybe not, but I would have been darned happy to have one. I did not have one for surgery and I didn't have one after and they fill you with SO many fluids you are up going to the bathroom what felt like every hour at least. I was so SO sick of having to wheel my stupid monitor into the bathroom (which I remember had this irritating lip that I had to lift the thing over). Everytime I'd fall asleep, I'd wake right up again to have to use the bathroom. In theory, it would have been wonderful, but in practice, catheters come with a high risk of a UTI so I'm good with not having had one. I had one for all three of my plastics surgeries and my second one I ended up with a wicked UTI, so I sort of got off the yay-catheters-are-awesome bandwagon after that.

I know how you feel. I used to really enjoy food and now most of it makes me sick. I can have a few bites (like 3-4) of almost everything, but more than that I'm throwing up if there is any butter, fat, sugar, or anything that is actually good tasting in the food. I have made myself feel better about this by really learning to enjoy those few bites and being happy that I am now at goal weight. I've gotten to a point where I don't really crave sweets anymore because they make me feel horrible and I've never loved fried things or buttery things, so in the end things worked out ok for me. I have however found slider foods that I can eat way more than I should of so I try to be very careful around crackers, cheese puffs (the healthy kind), and Chex Mix. I can eat the whole bag in a day without getting sick, so I just don't keep it around the house. There are also some healthy things that I consistently can eat without getting sick. Turkey chili, marinara based sauce over zuchini Pasta, turkey with cheese, a Protein shake I really like which has almond milk and greek yogurt as two of the ingredients, and other protein dense things. You will find things you enjoy eating again and that don't make you feel poorly, it just takes time.

See...this is an example of a topic that is in the recent topics feed and only because I saw another guy get mad about women in the men's room did I happen to look to see if this was the guys room only. As a woman, I am now backing out of the man's room and I will let y'all discuss mudflaps, but hopefully you see this and don't get so annoyed with us when we accidentally give you our opinion without realizing it was only for the dudes.

I was the opposite...I weighed everyday because I felt it gave me more control. I have my weight written down everyday for most of my adult life but the times I gained were the times I stopped weighing myself everyday. Since surgery I have written my weight down every single day so I can see exactly when I had stalls, when I went up or down, and around the times that I added or removed something from diet or exercise how it affected my weight. There are days, like yesterday, when I get on the scale and I want to throw it through a wall, however because I knew immediately I had gained weight I was super careful yesterday and this morning I was right back to normal. When I weigh everyday, I can fix a problem immediately, whereas when I don't, if something I have been doing is causing a gain I may not realize until I have to lose 5 or 10 pounds instead of 1 or 2. I'm a pretty controlling person so I would go crazy if I wasn't 100% sure what I weighed every single morning. I took my scale with me on vacation. Amusingly, I weigh myself on 2 scales everyday because I got the Aria on that syncs to fitbit awhile ago, but I wasn't wiling to give up my original scale. So yes, I weigh myself on two scales every morning. Obsessive, a little, but skinny, so worth it.

There is no need to completely cut out starches. When you on the liquid diet the week before and the liquid then soft diet in the weeks after surgery, then you need to do exactly what your doctor tells you. Before that and after that though, as long as you're losing weight, staying in your calorie goals, and getting the required amount of Protein, having carbs isn't going to hurt you. If anything I find that the times I have totally cut out carbs, I have gained massively with just a little bit of adding them back into my diet. I know that I can eat according to the plan about 95% of the time and if every once in awhile I want a grilled chicken sandwich with a bun, a small piece of cake, or a few fries...I eat them. Unlike before I don't really crave foods like this any more and they tend to make me hellaciously sick, so a few bites and I am quite satisfied. I have zero interest in living the rest of my life without ever getting to enjoy good food...the trick is to learn the act of moderation. Your sleeve helps you with that. You can have your cake and eat it too....just not the entire cake, lol.

Aww, little boy got his feelings hurt and now he's deleting his account...which has a whopping 11 total posts. Clearly, our community will be suffering a great loss. On another note, I too have accidentally posted in the guy's room because all of the feeds pop-up on recent topics. If the subject is obviously oriented to men, sometimes I'm like, oh whoops, let me get out of here, but otherwise if it sounds like a regular topic I don't even notice what forum it is in. Guys, I promise, we women do not care anymore about your TMI problems than you guys care about ours.

So...for the God Bless Antibiotics portion of my post. I had a plastics procedure 7 weeks ago and I woke up last Monday with a ton more pain than I thought was normal, but there was no infection in the remaining open wound I have so my doctor and I weren't too concerned. I had a few fevers at night that always seemed to go away and I felt like I got hit by a truck a few days, but I seemed to get better. This weekend I started paying attention to the skin above the area where there was pain and I watched it go from a normal skin color to a bruised, reddish color, and then blistered, which I immediately recognized as cellulitis. I texted my doctor yesterday morning and he called me in a prescription for antibiotics, and I am already feeling better. I have to say of all the inventions in the world there is none that have brought me so much significant improvement in life as antibiotics. Everytime I take them I am thankful for the miraculous results they produce. On the second note, panic at the scale, I'm gaining weight. Three weeks ago I was 127 and this morning I was 132. I haven't seen that number in weeks and given that I have been trying to be really careful with what I eat because I saw my weight creeping up, I am supremely frustrated that I continue to gain. Maybe some of the gain is from the huge amount of swelling caused by the infection, but not all of it. I have lost weight multiple times in the past. I get to a decent number and then almost immediately start gaining it back. I feel this complete and total loss of control when I can't manage my weight. I spent pretty much the entire time since post-op eating what I wanted in very small portions and annoyingly enough when I tried to lose another 10 pounds after getting to goal by actually following the Protein first diet I find myself gaining. I can lose weight on Chex Mix but gain on chicken? I'm certainly not gaining muscle because I couldn't do anything for the last few weeks because of plastics. The rational side of me is telling me I need to calm down, it's 5 pounds and I am still well within healthy range. The fat girl side of me is in a complete and total panic. So...my Tuesday has been about antibiotics and a scale. Exciting.

I had my first slice of pizza in years at the year and a half mark after surgery. I ate about half a slice over the course of 45 minutes. It was pretty darn good and fortunately given how long I took to eat my piece everyone else managed to eat the rest of the pie before I could go for a second. I'm not big on drinking, so skipping out on beer hasn't been hard for me.

I drank with a straw everyday since 2 weeks post-op. It was the only way I could get enough Fluid in and as I'm writing this I'm actually sipping through a straw. Most people don't have any gas issues as a result of using a straw and it helps them significantly with their fluid intake. There isn't a medical reason you can't use a straw, doctors just caution against it in the event you may be one of the people that has abdominal discomfort.

@IcanMakeit Thank-you for your thoughts! I use MyFitnessPal everyday so I can see if I'm off track on calories and I haven't been. I just felt like a 5 pound gain in swelling seemed excessive and since I had recently changed my diet a lot to add in more Protein and less junk, which I still eat the same amount of calories- around 1200, it was frustrating to have gained. My back is currently oozing out Fluid, which is disgusting, but hopefully you're right and the fluid retention is a big part of the problem. I see my scale go up and I'm terrified I'm going to get fat again. Before the sleeve I never had a problem losing weight, but I would literally get to a low weight and almost immediately gain it all back. I'm so hypervigilant about it now because I know how hard it was to lose the last little bit of weight and I don't want to do that again. I also like being normal sized, so a few numbers up on the scale, and I really get stressed.