AvaFern

I didn't lose consistently. I would go through weeks where I lost a good 2-3 pounds a week, and then I'd get stuck for 2-3 weeks. As I remember it, I had surgery in Sep 2013...that Christmas I ate some junk so I maintained at the amount I had lost for about a month, then I lost consistently until that June, where nothing I did could get me under 167. I ramped up my workouts, ate less food, and started to lose again until about August where I was then stuck at 157. After that I had 3 plastic surgeries between Sep-March, during which time I lost slowly. I stayed at 134- 5 pounds above my goal weight- from about December to April 1, after which point I have mostly been between 129-133, although last October I ate too much at Halloween and hit 137, which I quickly spent the next month working to lose that weight to get back to normal. As of today, I'm 129, and it's been 16-months ish at goal. Ultimately, you don't ever lose consistently, but for me, the only way I have continued to lose and maintain is by weighing every single day and constantly staying on top of it. As soon as you get complacent, you get stuck, you stay stuck, or you start to gain. The only way this sleeve has worked for me is understanding that everyday I need to be aware of the scale. There are days I eat junk food, it's good, and then the next morning I get right back on the scale. If it starts to move upward, immediately I make the changes I need to to make sure I drop again. The only way to lose and get to goal is to be vigilant and to keep working even when it feels like you are getting nowhere.

@@Jane1979 The other person who commented was right in that you can use the blender ball cups...I don't love them because I like things that are frozen. I really just don't like Protein shakes that don't have add-ons in them. Last spring I went through a kick where I made about 10-15 protein shakes over the course of a few weeks, but before that I had less than 5, mostly because the pre-made ones are gross and just mixing powder and milk, or gag, even worse, powder and Water was disgusting to me. You can get a blender that works fairly well on Amazon for cheaper than other places. An example of the only Protein shake I have ever really made and drank a lot of (as in 10-15 of them, lol) would be the vanilla ice cream flavored Syntha-6, a half scoop of PB2, a frozen cup of the Yoplait Greek yogurt cupcake flavor, and enough vanilla almond milk to get all of that to blend into the consistency of a milk shake. In the end, it has a reasonable amount of protein, for a reasonably low amount of calories and you end up with a pretty big cup of it. I usually drank about half before I was really full. It tastes like a cupcake batter vanilla milkshake, and while it takes a lot more effort to make, it is so much less disgusting than the pre-made kind. As for feeling full- I am consistently amused by this even now. Like you, I could easily eat an entire pizza by myself, although my preference was more for bakery items. I also really liked Lean Cuisines and Lean Hot Pockets, which I could eat 2-3 boxes of them as one meal. Now, for whatever reason Lean Cuisines takes gross to me, and while I still like lean hot pockets I rarely eat them because they are something that makes me gain weight fairly quickly. This past week I had mandatory things scheduled all week (I work at home so I'm not used to having to be someplace every day all day), and most days I totally didn't care that I got no food. I had a Benita bar around 10am most days, either half a sandwich or a pack of goldfish crackers for lunch, and then dinner was whatever I found in my house, which was pretty much goldfish and the vegetable steamers I keep in my freezer for when I want real food but don't want to leave my house to get it. One day I had 3 wings...they were the bad for your, Ranch flavored wings, they were good, but after 3, I have zero interest in eating any more. One day my sandwich was a fried chicken slider thing from Target- also not very good for you, but something I eat very rarely and I had half around 4pm and half around 7pm. Last week I actually lost 2 pounds because I didn't have time to eat and I wasn't very hungry. It's really nice though, once surgery is over and you're at your goal weight, to be able to have a few bites of food that is bad for you and then have no need to eat any more of it. I usually avoid sweets, but the other day I had about 2/3 of a mini scone from Panera. It was good, but once I had a few bites I was completely content. I am lucky that my stomach doesn't have a high tolerance for junk, so that helps me avoid unhealthy food too, but overall, my food bill is not only much less now than it used to be, but I still get to eat some of the junk I had before, I just have no interest in eating any more of it than an average person who didn't have to have their stomach cut out to be able to be thin.

I pay exponentially less for food now than I used to. Immediately after surgery, I had Jello and Protein shakes- sort of. I didn't like protein shakes so I didn't drink them much, but I did buy them. It was a lot cheaper to just get the big vat of powder and mix it with ice and milk and it tasted less gross. If you blend Protein Powder with milk, or almond milk, a cup of frozen Greek yogurt (the kind that comes as regular Greek yogurt and then you stick it in the freezer) and throw in some PB2, mmmmm....so much better than the pre-made shakes. I'm a little under 3 weeks short of being 3 years post-op and my grocery bill is really not at all like it used to be, so even if it's a little pricier to start off with until you find what you like in Vitamins and healthy food, in the long term, it's less expensive. Don't take my menu as a sample of what you should eat- it works for me, but I've never been a rule follower. I've stayed at goal for almost a year and a half and I've been within 4-5 pounds of goal for almost 2 years (the last 5 pounds took months). For Breakfast I had a handful of oatmeal square Cereal, lunch was a snack bag of goldfish, and a cup of onion Soup from Panera (technically it's French onion soup, but I don't add the cheese or croutons), snack will be a Fiber One bar, more goldfish, and dinner will be the other part of my Panera Pick 2- a Mediterranean flatbread. Most days I don't order Panera, and I'll have a sandwich- half for dinner, half for lunch. So, my food bill for the entire day was less than $10, which I used to be able to eat for a snack, lol.

Like @@KristenLe said...there are plenty of reasons that surgery may have been cancelled and almost all of them are very unique to the person and likely would not pertain to you. You could always just ask. If I overhear another patient talking about something that might impact me, I would say...I overheard a person in the waiting room who had their surgery cancelled, would their situation be applicable to me or is there anything I need to worry about that might have my surgery cancelled? If they give you a line about confidentiality, they are incorrect- nothing in that question violates HIPAA, although if they don't answer at all, especially to the last part of the question, they would get a whopping attitude from me because not only do you have the right to ask, they have a responsibility to answer questions specific to you and not about the other person. Sometimes it creates less stress to just ask than to wonder.

I'm about a month short of being 3- years post-op, and while I have adjusted to the fact that I feel like I'm fairly average sized, periodically someone who never knew me as being fat will call me small, which makes me laugh a little on the inside. I'm still not small by any means, but sometimes even now, I forget I'm not still the fat girl. Then I go shopping and all of the clothing fits and I feel much better, haha.

I'm not sure if this makes you feel better or not, but most of your doctors don't care about you. Your PCP, of any of them, should have an established relationship with you that allows them to care a bit more, but for the doctors that rarely see you, you're just another piece of meat for them to fix. It seems highly personal, but it really isn't. When I was working in healthcare, which was in the emergency setting, not primary care, I do not specifically remember more than a few cases and those were significant to me for some reason (the first baby I delivered, the first person I did CPR on, the first person I almost killed- but didn't she wasn't even hurt, thank goodness). I'd be more concerned that your doctor after all these years has such craptastic bedside manner. Past not killing you, doctors, nurses, medics...they don't care about you, but good God, they shouldn't say it. Are you sure he was going to say "care"? Although I can't really think of anything else, a lot of doctors struggle with talking to patients about their weight because the logic is that you have a scale and you're educated- why harp on the obvious? If your PCP is older, this is a far more common perspective than younger doctors, particularly since now we know that obesity is a disease with genetic links and there are so many ways to help people combat it. So...not saying your doctor wasn't wrong, because I also can't really think of a word other than "care", but if it helps at all, it has absolutely nothing to do with who you are as a person and everything to do with how he was likely trained to maintain a degree of distance from patients. I would have called him out, and once all of your paperwork is in place and you no longer need him for everything...I suggest you do the same. It's ok for a doctor to not care, but it is not ok for them to be an unprofessional jack*ss.

Yes, with the benefit of hindsight, I would do it again. I am three-weeks short of my 3-year surgiversary and my entire life has changed for the better. In the short-term, I was plenty miserable and thought I had ruined my life right after surgery but, wow, if I could forward to today and see my life, I would have second-guessed myself so much less. Also, two months is more than enough to go back to feeling normal.

Your hair will grow back. I have read different things about Biotin and my dermatologist told me it doesn't work, but whatever, I still take it everyday and I have for about 6-8 months. I'm almost 3- years post-op and it's only been in the last 4-6 months that my hair has started to look normal again. I've also been washing my hair with Lipogaine and Regenepure about once a week for the last two months and while I'm not sure if it's helping, it certainly isn't hurting. I never ended up bald, lol, and the thin hair is something that only really bothered me after someone said something about it. In the end, your hair does grow back, and you get to be thin, so in the long term win-win.

Although you're a guy and I can appreciate that it's probably annoying to not be interested in good sources of Protein, for me, developing a distaste for food in general is probably what has kept me at goal. I used to love fish, except it made me sick a few times, like hellaciously, puking for hours sick, and now I look at it and think...nope, I want nothing to do with that. The same is true for a lot of other foods, not just those that are otherwise good sources of protein. My friend sent me a picture of his dinner last night, which was a crab cake and shrimp wrapped in bacon and my cheeks started to get that twingey, barfy feeling, just looking at it. That dinner was really high in protein, but I would have been gagging in 5 minutes. I embrace the fact that a lot of the stuff I don't eat ultimately just makes me eat less in general and keeps me at goal. I like small amounts of chicken, although dry chicken doesn't go well. Steak is good, for about 2-3 bites. Pork is eh, ok, for 2-3 bites. I feel like that's the goal though to an extent. We're not supposed to want to eat the whole steak anymore and thanks to my total disgust with eating more than a few bites of it, largely because I know it's going to make me sick, I have no problem having a few bites of most food, enjoying those, and then being totally not interested in eating more than I should eat. It's a blessing in disguise.

For me the scale is like the best-friend that you sometimes want to slap because she insists on telling you the truth when you don't want to hear it. The scale keeps me sane. When I was overweight and not losing weight, I hated the scale and I would avoid it, which then resulted in gaining even more weight. Since the sleeve, I have weighed myself and written down the weight every single day (which is coming up on 3 years). Every morning I weigh myself on three scales- not because I'm crazy, but because scales fluctuate sometimes and when I see that all of them went up, or that all of them are getting close to the top of my 3-pound fluctuation allowance, then that same day I go back to watching what I eat. One scale syncs to MyFitnessPal, one has cool measurements (body density, etc) and one has giant numbers and it was the scale I bought before surgery and I like it, so it stays. I can say that it is my scale that keeps me from obsessing over my weight and it is what has kept me thin. It is also my scale that keeps me from wondering why suddenly all of my clothing is a little looser and people keep telling me I look like I lost weight. I've been at goal for about 1.5 years now and within 5 pounds for about 20 months and my weight hasn't fluctuated. This summer I had some dental work done, which I think has contributed to a total lack of interest in food because it all hurt my mouth. For a few weeks I just haven't had much interest in food, so while my clothes are a little looser, my scale just says I am at the bottom of the fluctuation range I give myself, so I know that I'm healthy and not actually losing any significant amount of weight. My scale lets me know when I eat too much and I need to cut back, but it also lets me know that if I've gone a few weeks without eating a lot and not feeling great that no, I'm not actually wasting away like my clothing makes it feel, but that I lost 3 pounds and that I am actually well above the healthy low-weight for my height. The scale gives you a reliable, quantitative number to base your decisions on...like it or hate it, for me it's what keeps me healthy.

I distinctly remember having myself a good cry-fest a few times in the weeks after surgery. You feel like crap, you can't eat anything good, and you still feel overweight- it's a good recipe for being emotional. If it helps at all, I was not the most happy person before I had surgery, and there were days when I was at home that I would cry for no really good reason, just that I was really unhappy. I'm almost 3-years post-op, and other than a meltdown about a week ago on a work project that would not cooperate at around 2am, I don't remember the last time I cried because I was sad. Being thin may not make you happy, but it certainly did good things for me. You just need to get through the bad part and then everything else makes it all worth it.

@@LipstickLady The onion soup is awesome. My stomach doesn't like melty cheese- she likes to barf anything that's even come near warm cheese, lol.

I had a few sips of champagne at three weeks post-op. It was a dinner in my honor and it would have been rude and entirely unnecessary to not be polite and sip tiny sips at toasts. I didn't really drink anything again until probably about a year later, which was a few shots of tequila. After that, my next drinking night was about a year later, which then led to a summer of having a darn good time and probably too much tequila. It was fun, I was careful with how much I consumed, and I was just fine. It's now been a year since that time and since then I've had a few glasses of champagne, 1-2 cups of scotch, and a giant shot of tequila- all of which got me supremely blitzed, very quickly, and ensured I had a fabulous time, for very cheap, without a hangover. You can have a sleeve and drink. You can have a few sips of booze shortly after surgery. You will be fine. Don't do shots, keg stands, or beer bongs....save those for a few months from now, hahahaha.

In answer to the original question, both of those things should be fine, if as the other said, you blend the chili. I personally don't like Wendy's chili, mostly because Panera chili spoiled me forever. Panera's chili though is only available from Sep-Apr, so the rest of the time I have to make my own. My chili takes at least 90 minutes to make, but then I freeze it in cup-size bags and I have lunch for awhile. When I was post-op, I had butternut squash soup from Panera and the brocolli cheddar- both made me sick, lol, but I am a big fan of learning to eat so that when you are out and about you aren't crippled in fear of trying something that may not seem like it is on your diet. I don't eat out much, but I regularly have the onion soup (I ask them to leave out the cheese and bread) from Panera, sometimes I have the corn chowder, and if winter ever gets here, oh it is on with that chili. The first year I was post-op, I ate plenty of half paninis from Panera and until I started getting sick from anything that had oil and fat in it, I got pretty decent at having a few bites of good stuff and then not needing any more. At almost 3-years post-op, I now sometimes eat grilled nuggest from Chik-Fil-A or half a grilled chicken sandwich, and like I said, I have Soups from Panera and some of their sandwiches. Otherwise I don't tend to really like fast food, although lately I have this disgusting enjoyment of a certain gas station pimento cheese sandwich. I've had a lot of dental work done this summer and it was one of the only soft things that I could eat right after being at the dentist without it being PB&J or soup. It's grossly delicious, it's bad for me, and whatever, a few times a month, it isn't going to hurt me. You can live a normal life with the sleeve and for me normal meant that I got to go out to eat with my friends, that if I'm running errands I can go through a drive-through or run into a gas station and get something to eat, and since I learned how to enjoy a few bites and throw the rest away (yes, children are starving in Africa- I still have a hard time throwing stuff out sometimes), I've been very comfortable not being stuck cooking my own meals or locked into a specific menu of what I can eat.

I am almost three years out and I had a piece of cornbread with a tiny bit of honey the other day- I had about 5-6 bites before I started sweating, and then about 5 minutes later my face was flushed, I was hot, still sweating, and my heart was beating quickly. After surgery, like Lipstick Lady said, too much food, too fast, and sugar, does it, but for me it was also dairy, oils, and fats too. I generally don't have the hot sweats issue very often anymore but I also very rarely eat sugary stuff and I have learned after barfing a few hundred times what happens when I eat too quickly or I eat foods that have oil, sugar, or fats. For me, it always went away in about 20 minutes and that was true the other day as well. I laid in bed for about a half hour with the fan on, panting and sweating, and it cleared up pretty quickly.

Good job! It's tough to stick to the diet and still be cooking for other people, but it does get easier. I'm almost three years post-op and I have no real problem cooking delicious (aka: not super healthy and usually quite large) meals for other people and eating only a few bites before I'm completely content. The end result is worth all of the misery.

Do you have to change anything? If you're still losing weight, maybe take the time you enjoy being on the liquid/soft foods and take advantage of it? Most of us were ready to chew on our arm by the time we got off of liquids because not having regular food was terrible, but if you don't mind it...why not use this time to lose extra weight? When you're sick of these foods, you'll be well ahead of goal. Past that though, I tend to avoid certain foods because I know they will probably make me sick, which means I tend to eat the same things, every single day. I have been at goal for 18 months, and since I eat the same stuff, it isn't really hard to maintain as long as I pay attention. I'm at the point where I don't care a whole lot if I don't get the same food as everyone else because at this point, I fit into clothes that no one else does, lol. With every reward, there comes sacrifice I suppose, and mine seems to be that I no longer care even a little bit about food. It's a nice feeling, and one that I hope lasts forever. If you're content on the liquid/ soft foods and you are hitting your nutritional needs- enjoy them. No need to mix things up if this is working for you until you are good and ready to do so.

At 6-week post-op, you're fine to drink regular coffee. They tell you to avoid caffeine post-op because it can irritate your healing stomach, because they don't want you drinking regular soda and "no caffeine" is a good way to help minimize the calories, and because caffeinated beverages are often diuretics and you need to make sure you don't end up dehydrated. I drink sugar free Red Bull for Breakfast every morning and then diet dr. pepper and crystal light all day. I need the fizz and Water is boring. I drink cold coffee, mostly because I like milk and fake sugar more than I like coffee. Black coffee still burns my stomach and it's been three years since I had surgery, although if I remember correctly, my stomach didn't like it before surgery either. So...medically you're fine to drink caffeine, you just want to be sure that you aren't drinking sugary beverages and consuming your calories in liquids, that you aren't getting dehydrated, and that your coffee doesn't bother your stomach, in which case, give it a little more time.

I noticed that I was super burpy after the sleeve, although the last time I remember accidentally burping when I shouldn't have was at about 1.5 years post-op. After that point, it seems to have gotten better and now I rarely notice that I feel burpy unless I really ate something I shouldn't have and then burpy usually becomes pukey fairly quickly, lol.

Lol, when i read your subject I was going to give you a lesson on the point that sometimes blood draws are hard. Then I read the rest of your post, and now I'm laughing. I was a medic too and when you can do an IV in the back of the truck going down the road, you get to judge all you want someone who can't do a simple blood draw at the AC in a controlled hospital. I also got stuck a lot in medic school when we were all learning so I don't really care much when someone can't manage to do it correctly and sticks me a few times, but the point of the matter is that a blood draw, not even an IV on a critical patient, is a very basic skill that should have been mastered well before now.

No regrets at all. To be fair, I'm not a big goer-outer, mostly because I work a lot, but now when I go out I look fabulous (clearly I'm very modest) so I don't care that I can't eat a lot or drink much. Any amount of enjoyment I had for food and beverages is entirely replaced by the fun in getting dressed to go out and knowing that I look like a normal person out having a good time.

Generally you can start using scar cream as soon as the site is superficially healed, so for the body about two weeks. I had good intentions to use scar cream, used it a few times and forgot about it. Most of my scars faded and then they were all cut off during plastics. After plastics I used Biocorneum.

I eat Cheez-its sometimes. I eat goldfish crackers everyday. I also remember that shortly after surgery crackers that had too much flavor (which is usually higher fat content) made me super sick. In theory, if you can eat saltines you're fine eating Cheez-its, but they are more likely to make you sick than boring, bland saltines.

I told only three people about my surgery but I know the easy way out would have been the response of many other people. If I'm being honest with myself and you, getting surgery is absolutely the easy way out. I no longer have to spend every single second thinking about my weight, my days are no longer filled with planning diets and exercise, I no longer feel hungry and miserable when I'm thin and depressed and worthless when I'm fat, and thanks to my sleeve, I have a totally different life that I never would have had without it. Is it easy to go through surgery and have your stomach cut out? No, not really, but it made my entire life easier as a result. I know I could have lost 100+ pounds again but I am 100% certain I could not have maintained the loss like I have. I don't need to struggle and fight any more to stay thin, and while I need to be aware of my weight every single day, it is no longer the obsession that it would have had to be if I could still eat as much as I used to. It was far easier for me to lose weight and keep it off with a sleeve than it ever was doing it "naturally". I am forever grateful for that and I feel like this is a matter of working smarter instead of harder. Why would I want to spend my entire life miserable trying to be thin when I could have surgery, spend 2 years losing weight, and then get to live a real life where weight is no longer my personal obsession? Without the sleeve my life would be much harder and I would never be able to be the size I am. If that means I took the easy way out...who cares? I did what I needed to do to get where I needed to be and the only person who gets to judge my action is me. If someone else wants to say I was a slacker and didn't work hard for it...let them! In the end, I wear a size 2 and I have an actual life again...if taking the easy way out is how I got that life, then well, good for me. You owe no one one an explanation or justification for your choices. No one owes you an understanding of your struggle or your decisions. When you can make peace with both, comments like that will bother you less. I took the easy way out...and I am forever thankful that my circumstances allowed me to make that decision. My life is wonderful and for the first time ever as an adult I feel like I have a future that doesn't rely on whether I am thin, and thus good enough, to deserve every bit of that future.

I spent the first 2 days sick beyond description, which as it it turned out, was because my body doesn't really like IV narcotics. Once we laid off the good drugs, not only did nothing really hurt, but I stopped puking every 20 minutes. I was largely miserable for 1-2 weeks afterward because I was completely freaked out that I had destroyed my life. I had never had surgery before so I didn't feel great from the anesthesia. I had pins and needles in my fingers and toes, which also freaked me out but turns out it went away in a week or so. My recovery was miserable because emotionally I made it that way by being worried that I had made a huge mistake. Once I got past the point where I couldn't eat anything and had moved into the soft stage, everything was better from that point forward. I am one month short of my 3-year surgiversary and I would go through that misery all over again in a second if I could see where I would be a few years in the future.