McButterpants

I telecommute full time - I was operated on Friday and worked 1/2 days the following week. I couldn't have done more than that. It gave me time to keep in contact and keep my inbox from exploding, but allowed me time to rest, walk and sip Water, which is a huge chore when you're newly sleeved. Best of luck to you!

I remember buying my first pair of shorts in the Misses section - I stood in the dressing room and cried. I took them to register and purchased them without even checking the tag. Reality sunk in when I realized about three hours later, but I didn't care. I will keep those shorts for the rest of my life. Wishing you continued success and many trips to the Misses section!

Two years out here…I'll tell you my story: I lost a lot of hair 3 months out - like 30% of my hair. I'm not telling you this to scare you. My doc said, "Anything you lose due to the surgery will grow back." she was right, it did. She OK'd me to take folic acid and Biotin. I also used a product called Topik (it really does work like the videos show - it's a little expensive, but one bottle lasts me about 9 months) - it's great for hiding. Most of my loss was in the front and on the sides. Now, at two years out, I go thru times where I lose, it's not as prevalent as the first time, but it grows back very quickly. My stylist believes that my hair is thicker than before surgery. After all of the anxiety and after all the hair loss, was it worth it? YES!!!!!!

HI there. Dealing with the same thing here - get it checked out. While it may be reflux, it could be something else. An acid reducer has helped, but doc wants to make sure nothing else is going on - going in mid-Janaury for upper GI and ultra sound of gall bladder. Best of luck!

My husband took the scale away from me and hid it. He brought it out once a week. It saved my sanity. It's funny how we enjoy those days where we drop 3 pounds from the day before - we didn't lose 3 pounds of fat. But we go a day of losing nothing or **gasp** gaining 1/2 a pound we lose our minds. It makes no sense, but I bet most of us have done it. Your body is still healing - you just had major surgery. You've reduced calories to virtually nothing. Your body is trying to figure out what you did . So, keep calm. Follow your plan. The weight will come off, I promise - it just might not come off every single day or as fast as your brain wants it to.

The first week after surgery, I got very tired. I telecommute full time and I worked 1/2 days the week after surgery - I rested when I needed to and I walked, walked and walked some more. It's important you take care of yourself during the recovery - you just had major surgery. Don't push it.

My doctor gave me specs on what my Protein powder should look like - she didn't give me a specific brand, but suggested unjury. As it turned out, after trying many different samples, I found Unjury tasted better to me. I also like some of the nectar flavors. I would ask your doc if it's OK to stray from the brand they are suggesting. I always defer to what the doc/nut says.

I said it multiple times the first month - it was fleeting, but I said it. Have I ever regretted it? Not for a minute! Get strapped in because you're in for a wild ride! Best of luck!

Wow - I didn't expect to come back to so many posts! I love it when a topic keeps going. A couple of things... My doctor and i had a very frank conversation - SHE asked me if I was interested in the suppressants. When I replied with, "I thought those days were over" (meaning, I thought my days of worrying daily about my weight were behind me - I was scared, because I do not want to go back to that miserable person I was two years ago). She said, "This could just be the jump start you need.", ie. a short term solution to get my head right again, get back on track and regain control. She also discussed exercising on a regular basis - "exercise is not an optional activity", she said. We talked about an eating plan which will also help with the appetite - trying to fit in 3 meals (food for Breakfast, lunch and dinner), 2 shakes and the Water has proven to be difficult. If nothing else, I'm more focused again and I do not feel helpless. I am, again, working on McButterpants. So she wasn't prescribing and I'm not taking the suppressants as any magic bullet or a long term solution - like a couple of people mentioned, it's a tool. On the "goal weight" topic - I gave up on my unrealistic pre-op goal weight a long time ago. Around the 18 month mark, when I hit my lowest weight, I realized that I was never going to get there and I was totally OK with that. During this process, this has become about so much more than a number on a scale. For 43 years I identified myself as the funny fat girl - I would make self-depricating remarks and people would laugh and I wouldn't let people know how unhappy, sad and full of self loathing I was. I would eat in private - I would actually look forward to when my husband and son would leave so I could eat. It was a horrible hell in which I lived. So, I was avoiding the 17 pound weight gain - If I didn't talk about it, it didn't happen. My jeans weren't THAT tight. My fear of going back to where I was 2 years ago, quite frankly, scared the $hit out of me. After a few days of regaining control, with the help of the appetite suppressants, I'm not feeling like that any more. I feel like I'm working TOWARDS my goal of healthy living, not avoiding (there is not a number attached to that "healthy living" goal"). I mentioned above this process has become more than the number on the scale - I want to expound on that, especially for the newly sleeved or the pre-oppers. My life is wonderful. This process has made me a better person - I have found out I am stronger than I ever realized. I smile ALL THE TIME. I am genuinely happy. I've become more outgoing - I make it a goal when I travel to spend time talking to one random stranger daily - that has helped with shyness and has helped me come out of my shell. My husband and I have a great relationship - we did before surgery, but now it's more (not too much detail, but the physical aspect of our relationship is much better - that was my hangup not his). My son sees me as a role model for physical activity - we work out together, we go to hot yoga together, we cook together, our relationship is stronger. Work - that has been a wild ride. I went from wanting to quit my job 14 months ago, to getting a promotion and now being viewed a valued member of the executive team. That wouldn't have happened 75 pounds ago when I was perfectly happy giving my ideas away freely and not speaking up in meetings. I now walk into a conference room and take a seat at the table as opposed to sitting in the background with my back against the wall. I appreciate everyone's input on this topic and the twists and turns this thread has taken - people are very passionate about how they feel and I dig that. Some people like to tell stories of "worst case scenarios" - I've never been into that and while I read them, I don't let them rent too much space in my head. I could drive down the highway at 75 miles an hour and have a head on collision with a semi - that's probably the worse case scenario. But I will say, that's not going to stop me from taking that drive and looking at the mountains and enjoying the view. Have a great weekend everyone!

@@CowgirlJane - you are relevant. You were relevant to me when I was a scared pre-opper looking for help and guidance, you were relevant to me when I was newly post-op and had questions and you were relevant to me this past week when you responded to my first post in months. I always appreciate your views and frankness.

Many thanks to all that replied…Here's an update on me. The first thing I did was have an attitude adjustment with myself - I was feeling sorry for myself and discouraged. So, I pulled on my big girl panties and marched on…I changed my mindset from "this sucks", "the weight gain sucks", etc. to looking at this as an opportunity. There are people that have things much worse than I do - I have a great life, full support of family, a great job and a husband, son and dog that love me. I am blessed. I did well yesterday with the two appetite suppressants - I didn't feel weird, maybe a little jacked up (I also woke up this morning at 4:00 am wide awake). I had very little food yesterday compared to a normal day lately - I quickly realized how much I have been grazing. Today - same story. Very little interest in food. I feel like I'm feeling my restriction better - I'm probably more alert and I am going back to mindful eating. I almost feel like I'm at the 6 month post-op mark - remember those days? So, I'm going to keep on keeping' on for the next 6 weeks with the appetite suppressants until I see my doc for follow up. By that time, I will have had my upper GI and ultra sound on the gall bladder and we will see where the road takes me. Thanks again for the advice, kind words, and suggestions. This is an awesome forum with awesome people - I'm glad I came back.

It's hard, it really is. I drank a lot of decaf green tea to help get thru. I remember looking at my teenage son at one point during the pre-op diet and just started to cry. It is difficult, but hang in there. It is so worth it.

I remember my dad asking me, "Are you sure you can give up all the foods you love?" My response was, "Dad, I've eaten enough bread for a lifetime. It's time to stop." He also asked, "Are you sure you can't do this on your own?" Really? I'm 44 years old - I haven't been able to so far, I doubt giving it one more try is going to work. I think you're right - it's fear. Fear of the unknown and something maybe they don't fully understand. I know I didn't fully understand weight loss surgery before I started researching it for myself. If you're fully committed and can answer their questions with solid facts and conviction that this is the right thing for you right now, they'll see it's the right thing.

I'm nearing two years out, but not much has changed... At our favorite Italian place, my hubby and I share an entree - usually chicken with some Pasta and sauce. I pick out the chicken and have a couple of bites of the pasta. Mexican - I'll order 1-2 tacos, depending on the place and I'll eat the insides of the taco only. Maybe a bite or two of the shell. I've become an "insides" eater - Philly Cheesesteak? Absolutely, just eat the insides. Subway? Take a couple of bites like a "normal" person, then eat the insides. Burritos, same thing. I've only been uncomfortable a couple of times where people said, "You eat like a bird" or commented on how little I eat. I always say, "I ate a big lunch" or "I had a late snack" or something like that.

Exercise, exercise and more exercise. There are lots of contributing factors with excess skin - age, how long you've been overweight, genetics, etc. I have sagging skin and I think of it as a tax I have to pay for allowing my life to get out of control. I found that once I started yoga, the sagging in my arms wasn't as bad (the bat wings) and my legs had more definition as opposed to sagging skin at the knees. I am starting weights again now and I can see better definition in my arms.

Great job @Sunshine3073. I love my walks/hikes with my husband - it's a great time to reconnect. We also have times where we don't say anything at all, we just walk. Keep up the great work!

When you look at it logically, there is not way you could have gained 4 pounds - you aren't eating enough food. You're still recovering from major surgery - your body is just trying to figure out what you're doing. You have severely limited your calorie intake, removed the better part of a major organ, you went under anesthesia, etc. You've thrown a lot at it. My husband went so far as to hide the scale from me and he brought it out once a week. That saved my sanity. I also started taking pictures and my measurements - it was nice to see a difference in my body and my measurement numbers when the scale didn't give me the result I wanted. This early out - the scale is not necessarily your friend. Do not give the scale power over you or your progress. Our bodies don't always react the way our brains want them too. You're doing great - keep up the good work!

After surgery, I became a food pusher. There is an episode of the King of Queens where Kirstey Alley has Carrie eat a donut and tell her how it tastes - yeah, that was me! I kept asking my husband and son if they were hungry. I wasn't hungry. It was weird. Once I realized what I was doing, I forced myself to stop. One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday morning was watch the Food Network - I stopped that. I even stopped cooking for a while. I had to end my unhealthy relationship with food. I guess much like an addict - stop everything cold turkey. Now, nearing two years post-op, I eat food to fuel my body - I have a healtheir relationship with food. I enjoy it. I try different kinds of foods. It just doesn't rule my world.

Just like everything in life, if you compare yourself to someone, one person is almost always going to leave that conversation unhappy. This is YOUR journey, no one else's. Embrace the fact that you took this step to change your life and make yourself better. I know how you feel - I considered myself a "slow loser" and it was frustrating at times. You are unique in so many ways - your age, your path to being obese, your metabolism, your muscle mass, etc.

Decaf green tea helped me greatly during the pre-op diet. (Decaf because I had to be caffeine free prior to surgery.) Things like applesauce have a lot of sugars in them. Splenda made you hungry - it can have that effect on some people. If you think it did, try it again and if you still feel the same way, give it up. Hang in there - this pre-op diet sucks, but keep in mind, that is short term. You have to do this to get to the next step. Once you're post-op, there will be restrictions that suck, too. You'll live thru them. You got this!

Start by walking - seriously, it's the best thing you can do for recovery. Once you're cleared for more than walking, maybe try a class like spinning or Zumba. Try getting a personal trainer to get you started. I have also found the buddy system does work - I didn't believe in it at first, but knowing there is someone at the gym waiting for me, got me motivated. I found hot yoga a year ago - I didn't think I would like it, but I stuck with it for the first 2 week trial membership. I absolutely love it. I never thought I would. It is now my passion. But I know that I have to do other things as well - I have found I love hiking. I have also found a renewed passion for biking. One thing that keeps me motivated is goals - I set out to log 1000 miles of intentional exercise this year. I set out each month with a goal (maybe 100 miles and 15 yoga practices or something like that). I verbalize my goals to friends and co-workers - that helps me with accountability. They check in on my progress periodically. Just find something you like to do and do it - commit to it. If that gets boring, find something else.

Grazing. Not moving your body. Not following the "Protein first" rule. The sleeve will limit the amount of food I can eat at one sitting if I eat dense protein. I can eat a ton of tortilla chips and seem to be a bottomless pit when it comes to chips or other slider foods. I still have great restriction with chicken, steak, or other dense meats. I make an effort to move my body every day in some way - even if it's a one or two mile walk with the dog. Any movement is good movement.

So I am going to approach this from a different angle...My weight was never an issue for my husband. He was concerned about my health, but never ever said anything about my weight. He truly loved me when I was at my lowest (the day we met) and loved me at my heaviest (the day I decided to have surgery). While he supports me, he's not he rah-rah type of a guy who makes a big deal out of things - I had surgery, I worked hard to lose weight and come to terms with my food addiction. Every once in a while, like every other leap year, he gives me an "I'm proud of you comment" or "I'm glad you had surgery", but it's not like he celebrates every 1/4 pound weight loss with me. My husband wrote this for my blog at my 7 week post op mark. Is still brings tears to my eyes now...This helps me sometimes when I think he needs to "be more supportive" - he is supportive, just in his own way. From Mr. McButterpants: The wife recently asked me to write a little something for her blog. Not much on writing more than witty quips in response to my friends Facebook posts, my first response was a “oh sure” and then to politely ignore the request. It’s a tactic that works I’d say 75% of the time. I was hoping that she would be so excited (or distraught) about weight loss/lack of weight loss/not pooping/pooping/someone else pooping or not pooping, she’d forget that she asked. So a week passed and then I get a, “So I’d really like you to write a post for my blog. You know, from the spouses point of view.” I thought I was home free with her focus on the stall. Guess not. My wife’s weight has never really been an issue for me. We met over the phone and had a 3000-mile long distance relationship before the Internet and unlimited phone service. We worked in the same industry and developed a relationship over months of hours-long, bank-account-crushing phone calls. We have always said that if we had come across each other in a bar or other typical meeting place, we wouldn’t have been each other’s type, physically. Since we fell in love before we ever met, we got what we got. Which by the way, I was pretty happy with upon our first meeting. So when she informed me of her thoughts on surgery I tried hard to keep the slack jawed WTF look off my face as much as I could. I initially thought, “Your going to cut out most of your stomach just to lose a few pounds. What?” What I didn’t realize is that it wasn’t a few pounds. Much like your surprise when someone comments on how much your child has grown because they only see him once a year, I hadn’t noticed she had gained a hundred pounds since we first met. She had always just been my wife, my best friend, the person I would spend a long wonderful life with. My attachment to her has always been so much more than physical, and when I look at her I still see that 25-year-old girl I fell in love with. So when she told me how much she weighed I thought, “Holy shit, when did that happen?” My blessing of the surgery wasn’t without hesitation. I know what obesity does to a body over time and have witnessed it first hand in my father and mother-in-law. The breaking down of joints, the insulin injections, heart issues and on and on…I know, preaching to the choir. But what if something happens during surgery and I lose the love of my life? What if our boy loses his mother? The mere thoughts made my heart hurt. How would I ever cope if something tragic actually happened? But you can’t live life on the basis that something bad MIGHT happen. Its what kept my mother from fully experiencing life and I always hated that. I wanted to have the healthiest wife possible as we get older. I wanted her to be comfortable in her skin. I wanted her to wear clothes she likes, not just the ones that hide the most. I wanted her to not feel awkward around others. I’ve never really struggled with weight. Sure I could lose more than a few pounds, but it falls off with little effort. I don’t fully understand the angst that the weight causes my wife but I know she isn’t as happy as she could be because of it. Life isn’t a dress rehearsal. You gotta make the most of it. So I agreed, reluctantly. After coming to grips with the minimal risk involved and nervously waiting for good news from the operating room, it’s been a pretty easy journey for me. I’ve had to do very little except listen. Listen about the surgery, shakes, stalls, pooping, not pooping and then pooping again. My wife is hard-core about obtaining information off the internet. So much so, she once gave her GP a tutorial on thyroid testing and the latest acceptable ranges for each test, which came as news to her doctor. Still not sure why we had to pay for that office visit. So nothing came as a surprise. It made my life easier knowing that if anything came up post op that might freak me out, she had the stats on how many patients experienced the same thing, why it happened, how long it will likely last, and what the next day, week, month has in store. Easy for me, but I know it hasn’t been easy for her and that each day brings a new challenge. I am so grateful for what she is willing to put herself through for a healthier future with our son and me. Recently she’s been in the dreaded stall, but it’s subsided, and she has a little pep in her step. I love the gleam in her eye when the scale tells her what she wants to hear. I love how she gleefully shows off how crappy her clothes fit. Mostly I love that each day she seems to feel more comfortable in her skin and happier with herself. What more can you really ask for?

in the beginning I would weigh daily, sometimes more than that - GASP! I loved the days where I'd see a 2-3 pound weight loss, but on the flip side of that would lose my mind if I gained. The scale made me crazy. My husband hid the scale from me and brought it out once a week - that saved my sanity. I did start a photo journal and took my measurements every month. This also helped - if the scale wasn't moving, I would take my measurements and, sure enough, I was losing inches. I'd take a selfie and see the difference in my body and face - I was getting smaller. The scale is not representative of what's going on inside your body - the scale won't show you fat lost and muscle gained. A picture will show you that. How your clothes feel will show you that. Now, nearing two years out, I weigh probably 1-2 times a month. It just doesn't have the same control over me it has had over the past 25 years of my life. I will never hand over the power to the scale again - it's not worth it.

Congrats on your decision. Get ready for a wild ride! It's not all sunshine and lollipops - you will have good days and you'll have crappy days. You will have easy days and hard days. You'll cry tears of happiness and hears of frustration. There are certainly highs and lows. For me, except for marrying my husband and having my son, this was the best decision of my life. Best of luck toy you!