Ellie_Grace

Everyday I take 3 stool softeners after I had two major issues with constipation that was so umbearably painful. I rarely get in enough Fiber and so daily taking the 3 pills (Dr. approved this) with everything else has become routine and it has done the trick. It does take time to get things regulated though and sometimes I add in a 4th or 5th if things feels off, but so far in general everything is moving along and that issue is being dealt with, But I feel your pain and it was horrible when I was going through that and dread it with a passion!! Good luck!

I was told to keep it below 10g a meal. That does seem to be the magic number for me and feeling sick, so try to stick to that. A yogurt with 13g made me sick but one with 9g was fine. So for now that is my rule. I honestly think each person is different when it comes to dumping, some people dump with 5g some are like 20g and some never dump. It is a trial and error thing, but even if you do not dump I think it would be good to set a limit just to keep those cravings in check. I have had a piece of candy (snack size) and bite of cake but not much else, but hate to totally feel denied which starts to feel draining on me and makes me a bit depressed so I give in once in a great while (I am almost 5 months out and had first sweet this month), but that is just me.

That is so adorable LOL. Gotta love the kids and their total honesty even at the age of 13.

Yep bi used to eat a full serving of those. They are awesome. But u just haven't had any recently in my home I also eat the Special K chips. They are a bit more calories but still not bad and taste pretty good

Mami I know and what I'm saying is a psych wouldn't think that because what she is expressing is totally normal and not crazy or weird. I know I'm the same way

You do not need to lie to the pscyh. Just be honest and you will be fine. I do not think this is that unusual and a lot of us experience this. I am kind of the same way, I certainly saw myself in my mind much much thinner than I was and so when I looked in the mirror it made me sad. I do not think it is denial just the way it is. It is not a mental illness of any definition, I know I dragged out my DSM-IV-TR to verify this. I told my psych that I wanted to look in the mirror and have what I see match how I felt about myself inside. I also said I wanted to be healthy and be there for my family and I knew this was not a quick fix and shared what I knew about the side effects and long term effect and the expectations I had. I passed with no problem. Generally the psych is not trying to fail you, they are sincerely trying to make sure you do not have other serious mental illness that would be adversely affected by GBS like bi-polar or major depression and if so to make sure you are taking the necessary precautions and under the care of a professional. Also they want to make sure you won't commit suicide after due to mental issues not discovered and that you have realistic expectations of the surgery. Some psych evals require a test and some do not. Mine was just an hour interview and it was no big deal. Be honest and open and if you have explored this thouroughly and know yourself and about the surgery then you will have no problem passing. reading through this board will inform you greatly on complications etc, plus do more research on it if you have not done so already and you'll do fine. Remember many many people a day pass their psych evals so they can not be that hard. Do not stress! By the way I am a mental health therapist, I just am not a psychologist and have not done these evals, just speaking from personal experience here. Hope this helps at all.

This is extremely typical! I went through this and actually at almost 5 months out I still go up and down in the weight. At your stage it is probably due to many factors, one being that your body is still healing from surgery and is fighting the weight loss. It is in shock and eventually that stops and weight starts to drop. I had an over 2 week stall at that point. I now get stalls every few weeks but on average lose 2 to 3 pounds a week. As soon as you are cleared be sure to start exercising, but at this point you should be able to be walking, so do that as much as possible. Get in enough protein (which is hard at this stage as well), water, sleep and calories (which at this stage is very little). As long as you are following instructions there is no way you will not start losing again. make sure you measure your body, because sometimes when you are in a stall you are losing inches and seeing that change helps with dealing with the stalls. Be patient, this is not a short term race but one that will last a long time. IN 4 to 5 months you will be amazed at where you are and forget these early day frustrations.

Hey Congrats!! Do you live in Fresno? I live in Fresno and had my surgery with ALSA Medical and Dr. Ghiassi is my doctor. You are in good hands! I love their office and they get back to you pretty quickly. If you have any questions feel free to ask, it has only been 4 1/2 months since my surgery so I still remember it. Once approval was given (took less than 2 weeks but felt like forever) my surgery date was set 5 or 6 weeks later due to the doctor going on vacation otherwise it would have been sooner, so get ready to rock and roll

yes, I think it is a normal requirement. Let's just say I have not heard of anyone that did not have to get one. They are no big deal by the way.

I got on the scale after a couple week stall and yay I was down to 186.2 and that means a loss of 75.2. How amazing!! 41 pounds until my final goal but another goal reached!!

I am not sure how to detail this but looking back I remember how difficult it was to get down on to the floor and tons worse to get back up again, without rolling on to my knees and struggling to get up. My knees would be hurting, my back would be killing me and I hated it and it was embarassing. OK that said here is my NSV~ Last Thursday I was running a group at my work. A patient had a seizure and I had to run over and help hold him into place on his chair so he would not fall on to the floor and hurt himself. Then we had to lower him to the floor and I sat on the ground next to him to reassure him and to check on him while help arrived. I had to hop up undo the straps on the gurney and then grab the backboard, get back down on to the ground, help load him on the backboard and help lift him on to the gurney itself and Strap him him down on the gurney for safety and then he was taken away. When it was all over I realized I was hopping and kneeling and lifting and all of this and I never gave it a second thought!! I never hurt, I never struggled to get up or down or lift him or anything. I was a bit sore the next day, but just in my lower back but dang that was it and it was just a twinge if I paid attention to it. I NEVER could have done all that before surgery. It was amazing to realize I could do that and be fine. I never gave any of this a second thought until later in the day, but then it hit me and I am shocked and so excited over something so small.. How far and how fast things have changed for me.. I love this new me! I am strong and powerful and capable, what beats that?

Me too. Thanks so much!!

Vicki You will!! You will want to look at yourself in the mirror in awe of who you see there. You will want to take pictures with your grandkids! You will want to look your best and emphasize the new great features of the new you because you worked so hard to get there and earn the right to show it off. I was just like you! I wore make up only when I had to, I wore my clothes big and baggy. I never exercised. I hated myself, rarely had me in any pictures. I felt like a nonentity that no one but my family cared about. The list of things goes one, but today things are better. It has been 4 1/2 months and at 77 pounds down with 39 to go to goal of 145 to go, I see things changing for the positive. Do I still think of myself as beautiful? No, but I see that I am not ugly and disgusting as I did before. I now ask my husband to take pictures of me, he finds that amusing but does it anyway. Do I love my body? No but I don't hate and I am more forgiving of my imperfections than I was before. I exercise often and do it for me, not for anyone else. I try to wear clothes that fit, which is hard obviously, but I try because it helps me to feel better about me and others notice the positive changes as well so I get positive feedback from others which helps my self-esteem. I am still very insecure and worried about still be the ugly lonely one when this is all over and still wont have friends and that honestly they did not like me because of my personality not my weight and the connected baggage I carried with that. I was not a secure strong positive person while I was fat, I felt less-than and allowed others to treat me the same. Now I mostly feel positive, but there are days I still feel fat and that I will never meet my goals and I will just look saggy so who cares, but those days are getting less and less as I drop down. I am afraid of regaining the weight because I don't want to go back to that person, I want to be who I knew I was before. Right before getting on the scale I will say come on 284 umm no I mean 184 for example. my mind just does not want to drop that 2 and change it to a 1. HAHA I have been in the 200s for 24 plus years so of course it does not want to accept I have changed, but it will. I am now almost down to my high school weight when I weighed 182, and the lowest I ever was was after high school when I got married at 145, so I can not wait to get there again and maybe one pound less. But I am trying really hard to be happy in the moment with who I am and not expect the weight loss to make me happy, even though it is certainly happening and partly because it is giving me the confidence to be me and not feel so judged and found wanting by those around me.

FISH! Fish is soft and easy to digest and Tilapia which is cheap and the highest in Protein at over 20g and I could eat more of that then normal meats even now. Because I can buy in prewrapped individual portions, It is my go to meal when my family is having something I can't. I just make up a Tilapia fillet with veggies and I have a good healthy meal. At 2 months I was given the go ahead to eat anything healthy with a few exceptions. I also liked eating shrimp cocktail for the same reason, it is eaten cold and so was easy to eat for lunches at work or as a replacement meal for family dinner time when needed. I handled the cocktail sauce with no issues btw just make sure low enough in sugar and it is all good there. For a snack or Breakfast I found medium to soft boiled eggs are good as well, I found hard boiled to be a bit dry and would coat my throat which was nasty since I could not drink to wash out my mouth and it seemed to go down harder. Scrambled eggs are not my favorite now whereas I used to like them, but I can eat them sometimes just not on my top of the list. I also like those Mini babybell light for a quick snack as well as mozerella cheese sticks. At two months I went and got almonds, just chew well and yummy and satisfied your crunch need. Just eat one serving size which is like 29 nuts or something. I buy those snack bags and portion everything out so I just have to grab and go. Same with the pepperoni snack bites and other crackers like the special K crackers or Gerber chewable crackers which fill a need just not the protein. Honestly I think I started trying all kinds of things at 2 months and have not had issues with much. So slowly just start trying anything healthy that your doctor approves and give it a shot. If you react badly then avoid it for awhile and try it again in a couple months, since what bothers us changes later. Good Luck

I hope still big changes are ahead- but my goal is only 41 pounds away but hoping those last 41 are more dramatic. Lol. Thanks!!

Sorry hit send too fast- there I weighed about 190 and started at 261. Now I'm 185.6. No new picture until 5 months -

Here I am a couple if weeks ago- my 4 month update picture

Of course you follow your Drs advice and the protein shots that don't work for us are the ones that say collagen. So perhaps these new shots are the right kind of protein and that would be awesome, has anyone have some and could check? Thanks

Trust me I am not trying to advise you either way! I know many who refuse to weigh in but every couple weeks and they love the excitement of seeing such big drops at a time, I like to see it when it is dropping daily, it is just a matter of what works for you. So you just do what feels best and works best for you!

I have had to fight this too. At certain angles I see myself as so much thinner and at others I feel so fat LOL. I have actually made myself stand naked in front of the mirror and see the positive. I have made myself acknowledge the postive changes and verbalize it. I know it sounds weird but it was helpful. There are many positive changes and yes many negative things too but I made myself focus on the positive. I wish I wish I had taken a nude picture of me in the mirror for me to see the changes, but of course I would never do that, but the changes would be amazing!! I am still in an 18 and XL but I started at 24/26 and 2X and 3X clothes, so what a massive feat. I know many of you are in size 18 and weigh 30 to 40 pounds more than I do but we can not compare ourselves. That is what we do that is so painful and damaging to ourselves. So go stand in front of a mirror and honestly notice the positive, ignore that negative voice and you will be amazed at what you see. For example: I have no more fat rolls!! It is now one big stomach but what a change to recognize and get credit for! Is it as small as I want, heck no, but it might never be, but it is tons better than before and so YAY!! I will sit in the car and just look at my face and my neck and go WOW! I feel silly when I get caught doing it, but I still feel like I am a stranger in the mirror and I need to connect with that person and accept that it is me and be proud of me! I can see my shoulder blades, wow! So many positive changes that there is no reason to focus on the negative. Soak up those positive comments, because you know before you would have soaked up and internalized all those nasty negative ones and believed them, so now soak up and believe all the positive ones you are currently getting and the many many more you will be getting later, you deserve it Dang it!!

Shapewear is not part of my wardrobe, but I am beginning to think it should. I kinda want to lose a bit more before I get some because of the cost. But yes I have issues with a bit of the hang and I was 261 (275 a year before) and I still have 40 some pounds left to go. I bought my first pair of spanx this weekend to wear with my dress I bought, so I will see how that works this weekend. My biggest concern is my arms, they are so flappy, they might knock someone over if they stand close enough to me. UGH!!

I never could do that (hide my scale and weigh in once a week only)... I am a scale addict and still weigh myself twice a day and to be honest it is more of a motivator rather than not. Even on the days and weeks I am not losing I find it motivating to keep trying so it works for me. But if you find it so depressing you dread getting on, then for sure hide it. So each of us is different. My advice in reference to all the advice you get on these boards is to use your own discretion (and your doctors) to determine how it would work best for you. It won't hurt you to weigh in once a week nor will it hurt you to weigh in daily, you just have to decide what works best for you. I would be miserable not being able to weigh in, since it is what keeps me going, but you might be different. Oh well enough rambling LOL

Oh and I was told less then 10 grams of a sugar at one sitting. 75g of Protein a day at minimum. 50g of carbs a day maximum. Do not forget to eat your veggies and fruit, we focus so much on protein, as we should, that we forget the basics of a good diet. Same with dairy, which is difficult considering many of us are now lactose intolerant, but you can eat cheese etc. I log my foods in for the day first thing in the morning (before I eat them) in myfitnesspal and see what my planned foods total up to in regards to protein and once my protein is fully filled to my expectation I then add in my other food groups to fill it out. It really works for me and helps me stay on track with protein and calories. make sure you are getting in enough Water and your Vitamins as well, both impact stalls, as do exercise and sleep.

FYI for everyone those whey shots do not work for RNY patients at all. They are the wrong kind of Protein and you can not absorb it. Basically you are wasting your money and thinking you are getting in your protein when in actuality that is not true. If you search the boards DLCoggin posted a few times specifically on that topic and it might be helpful for you new people to read that. There is so much good information on old posts, reading through them might be helpful! I don't have the time to search for the post I am referring to, but I know for a fact it is there. Anyway, check it out, it is important information that you need to know in protecting yourself and in getting the right amount and type of protein in your diet!

I am so sorry you are both having to go through this. Keeping both of you in my prayers for a swift and full recovery for him and peace and strength for you! take care of yourself!! I am glad to hear he is doing better and that note brought tears to my eyes.. how wonderful