goodlife

Hi there...I'll be two days after you and I'm right here on the northshore in Mandeville.

Congrats! I just got my date today too! Good luck with your pre-op diet...the protein shakes I'm drinking really fill me up.

thanks for the post...I can't believe it's been a month already! I don't know if I was even posting yet but I remember reading about it somewhere I around the time I first got here. wow..time flies.

haha...love the banana! Thanks to both of you...I'm all the expected things. Nervous, happy, excited, anxious, apprehensive. I got all the chewable Vitamins and stuff from the surgeon's office so that's out of the way. I have two prescriptions to get filled. I have to go to the hospital on Friday to do my pre-op there.

ugh...I have very superfine and thin hair already. In fact you can see my scalp through my hair on the top. I lost a lot of hair after the birth of my second child and I went to a dermatologist and had shots in my head to stop it from falling out. It seemed to work but it wasn't a very pleasant experience...especially with my needle phobia! I don't want to have to do that again but I guess I will cause I will seriously be almost bald if I lose that much hair!

Good luck and best wishes for a smooth surgery and easy recovery! Will be praying for you! Looking forward to your updates too.

Wow...that's FABULOUS! Congratulations and Happy Birthday!

Good to hear she came out ok! Wishing her all the best!

The PrescriptFit chocolate tastes just like brownie mix to me...it's really good. I don't care for their vanilla at all though. I get it at my surgeon's office but I'm sure you can buy it online too. I tried Chike banana flavor today and it was ok but to me it had a powdery taste.

Glad to hear it went well and as you know from reading everything on here...it WILL get better.

I keep telling him that... A Happy Wife Makes for a Happy Life!

I don't have one yet...I'm hoping I will find out tomorrow. They told me it's usually between 7 and 10 days after the pre-op so I'm hoping for either the 28th, 29th, or 30th.

Good luck and best wishes for a successful and smooth surgery and recovery! Please update us as soon as you can!

Congratulations! I'm looking forward to the girls getting smaller! I've already told my husband that a lift just might have to be in my future.

I have my pre-op appointment tomorrow and I don't really any questions in mind because they've pretty well prepared me at the nutritional class I had to attend last week. They also gave me a list of things I have to bring with me to the hospital and how to prepare the day before. Example: I have to buy this Hibiclens soap and shower with it the night before surgery and the next morning before going to the hospital. They told I'd be given an incentive spirometer at my pre-op appointment and that I needed to practice breathing with it 4x/day up until surgery and afterwards as well. They told me to make sure I bring it with me to the hospital. She told me what kind of Vitamins to have on hand and what kind of scripts they would give me at my pre-op appointment. They told me what to expect when I get to the hospital, what to expect when I come out of surgery and that first day and night in the hospital, etc. She told me what they'd give me in the hospital medicine wise and what it is used for. I'm guessing I'll probably come up with some questions while there but I haven't been able to come up with any so far!

I totally understand. My husband hasn't actually really come out and said it but I know he sometimes feels that way. Not always though...I think he goes back and forth. Right now he's on a supportive streak again...he's especially happy because I started taking Chantix in an effort to quit smoking. To him that signifies that I'm serious about wanting to get healthy. I call him Dr. Jekyl and Mr. Hyde....because he's so wishy washy all the time. But even though he's probably my biggest critic and may not be 100% behind my decision, I know that he'll be right there by my side as I go through it, and he will do anything I need him to do afterwards. I sat him down the other day and laid it on the line to him though. I told him I AM going through with it and that I did not need any negative comments from him. If he couldn't be positive and supportive then he needed to just keep his mouth shut. I don't have a problem with him expressing his concerns or whatever but that he needed to figure out how to do it in a way that didn't piss me off. LOL I've been trying to bring it up more and more and when we went shopping at Sam's the other day, we were looking at nutritional labels and stuff and talking about what I could have post-op and what not. So I think he's coming on board. But either way, I'm going to succeed either with him by my side or in spite of him..matters not to me which way it ends up. :biggrin2: Maybe you could convince him to go to a seminar with you? They said in the seminar how for most of us diet and exercise alone wasn't going to be enough to get to a healthy body weight and to keep it off. They cited studies and such. Maybe hearing something like that would help him? I also agree with everything Tiffykins said. I'd just keep working on him little by little and wear him down. Good luck to you and I hope he comes around.

MidwestGirl...how tall are you? Congratulations also on your fabulous success!

Hi there....where is Keithville? I've never heard of it. I live just north of New Orleans. So hello fellow Louisianian! Congrats on your loss....that's damned good.

Tiff...I love your post...that is great information. With my family's busy schedule, we eat out ALOT. Do you know the actual physical capacity of your sleeve right after surgery? At the class I went to last week she told us we'd have a 4oz. capacity stomach. She also said everybody gets the same size no matter what. Do you think realistically say at a year out like you are it will have stretched just a little and maybe end up being more like 6 or 8 oz?

before your surgery. I got out the ole tape measure last week and measured myself all over. I think that's just as interesting to keep track of as the number of the scale. I also agree with lots of people who have said that even during stalls you could still be losing inches so I think I will try the plan of weighing once per week and measuring on that same day. So those of you who did and do track measurements...how many inches have you lost?

Well good luck to you and I hope your surgery goes smoothly and your recovery as well!

Chancie...that's AMAZING!!!!

Tiffany, Do you really think you're ready to start this? Once you do it there is no turning back and there will be no more eating everything. Do you think you're mentally prepared for what's to come?

Can you get this Dreamfield's pasta at most grocery stores or do you have to buy it online or a specialty store?

I?ll go ahead and apologize now for the length of this post. I?m a very detail oriented person and just can?t figure out how to be brief about anything! Lol A couple of weeks before my consultation with my surgeon and after I'd been reading and absorbing as much information as I could from both this site and OH, I decided to be proactive and make some changes in preparation for my ?new life? post-op. I was a huge fan of sweet tea..I have a Sonic right around the corner from my house and I probably had at least 3 Rt. 44 sweet tea's every day. It was really all I drank. I was also a huge fan of cream and real sugar with a little bit of coffee thrown in. I'd drink that all day long at work especially during the winter when it's cold outside. I also knew that my eating schedule needed to change. I?ve never been a Breakfast eater and usually skip lunch as well. Coffee was my breakfast. I'll be perfectly honest there was a moment of panic at the thought of not being able to have those things anymore but I needed to know that I could get rid of that stuff. I also panicked at the thought of having to drink so much Water because I really just don't like it all that much unless I'm really hot and thirsty and then it has to be ice cold preferable with crushed ice in it. I?d also learned from all of you that Protein was about to become a big part of my life. So I started trying out different protein powders and Protein drinks. I started having a shake for breakfast and one for lunch as well to get in the habit of actually having 3 meals per day. I stopped drinking sweet tea altogether and started using fat free non-dairy creamer in my coffee with either splenda or equal. To my astonishment, it was very easy to do and I don?t even miss it! The shakes for breakfast and lunch were very tolerable. I also started drinking water and learned that I really like Crystal Light after all. I?m getting PLENTY of fluids in now. Two weeks before my consultation I went to my GYN for a yearly checkup (although tbh, it was my first yearly checkup in about 10 years or so.) The following week I had an appointment with my PCP (my first ever as I?d never had a doctor of my own to call ?My PCP?. I loved her and she was great and very supportive of me wanting to have the surgery.) Anyway I had lost 4 lbs since the week before. The following week was my consultation with my surgeon and I was down 11 lbs in that two week period. The next day I started my surgeon?s prescribed pre-op diet. He has two plans to choose from. One is the ?MyWeight? plan which actually includes boxed food and then the PrescriptFit plan which doesn?t right away. I chose the PrescriptFit powders. They have chocolate, vanilla, and chicken Soup. I can?t stand the vanilla even with the flavored oils that you can add to them. It just has a funky taste to me although there are different vanilla flavored powders that I do like that I will use after surgery. Anyway, I have to have a minimum of 8 scoops of the powder each day. They say you have to have it even if you?re not hungry. You can have up to 20 scoops per day if you want it. At first it was easy to get in all 8 scoops. After the first week you can add seafood to your diet. That is great for me as I live in the deep south and we eat a lot of seafood. And it?s crawfish season! So what?s my problem? For the past week or so, there have been several days where I just cannot get in the 8 scoops. When I force myself to have that last shake of the day I?m miserably full. I?m trying to get in all the scoops before I have any ?real? food but that typically means I don?t eat any real food because I?m just not hungry. Yesterday I only got in 4 scoops. My other problem is that I?m just really getting sick of these two flavors only?.chocolate shakes and chicken soup. Maybe I should cut back on my other Fluid intake (water and water w/crystal light or sugar free koolaid) and see if that leaves me more room for the scoops. The chicken soup is pretty salty and so that makes me thirsty which helps me get so much water in. I haven?t gotten on a scale since the 31st of March at my surgeon?s office so I?ll be really curious when I go for my pre-op appointment on Wednesday how much more weight I?ve lost. I know I?ve lost some because I can tell in the way my clothes fit. One concern I have is if I can?t even get it all in now how on earth am I going to do it when I only have a 4 oz. capacity stomach??