Fluffnomore

When I went shopping yesterday afternoon my favorite grocery store was packed (Santa was there from 3-6) so I left and was trying to decide where to shop. I was annoyed, and so I thought, "Oh, maybe I'll pick up some food at Pei Wei; their chicken is really soft and will break down easily" but fortunately did a little search on my phone on their "healthy" entrees…exactly what GG says. A serving is anywhere from 800-1200 calories, easily, even of the good stuff. Granted, I can take a couple of ounces of chicken and vegetables and probably be fine, but then I'm still feeding that to my family, and THEY are eating 1200 calories (easily) at a sitting. So I headed over to the other grocery store and picked up stuff to cook. They didn't have a perfectly healthy meal either but I know that they were eating closer to 600 calories each than 1200. It's really quite amazing. So interesting…I mean we drove from the Midwest to the mid-Atlantic coast and back this week and we stopped at places like Cracker Barrel and Bob Evans a couple of times. But the difference is, pretty much anywhere I can order a cup of chili or two scrambled eggs and be reasonably certain of the "damage" when I track them. If we hadn't been eating at places like that, and if I wasn't so tracking-focused, I might have just gone to Pei Wei and ordered a few Entrees to share. I'm really glad I took the time to look it up.

I agree with the above posters. Please try hard not to worry. I have a dear friend who was sleeved in June and has only lost small amounts in the last two months. I'm guessing that I already weigh 10 pounds less than she does. Even though she started 10-20 pounds over where I did. And I'm only 5 weeks out…and overall she has lost about 45 pounds, which is nothing to sneeze at! But here's the thing. Who knows why? Who knows if my weight loss will slow down dramatically shortly? (I'd be willing to bet it might.) So we have stopped discussing our weight with each other, and I figure as long as the scale is going down that's all good. This is such a subjective thing. And there is really no rhyme or reason other than our individual bodies and circumstances. I will say this: my first doctor visit after surgery (so, from a week pre-op to a week post-op) I was down 17 pounds. Then I had a 4-week post-op visit and I'd lost another 9 pounds at that point. Any way you look at it, it was a slowdown and included a week-long stall. But that 9 pounds was probably more representative or on the high side of what I can expect to lose week-by-week from now on. I just track everything religiously and weigh in regularly, and there's not much else I can do now. Oh! I also expect to stall out shortly because I get to go back to exercising later this week, and I do a lot of working out with weights. But hopefully that will start to refine my body composition.

I honestly don't know. I have BCBS PPO in Illinois (and have had it for about 16 years) and while if they look back they will certainly see a number of medically supervised weight loss programs, I only had to self report. In any case, from the first appointment to approval was only about 2 months. I had to do two visits with a nutritionist and they had to be one month apart. So that was the only time constraint I really had. I was kind of blown away by how fast it all went, in the end, though that last one-two weeks of submission to approval seemed to drag along.

Eh, I had to have this same talk with my kids. On the first leg of our car trip we stopped for dinner and I ordered chili and a baked potato. After I sat through their chorus of "Are you allowed to eat that?" I finally took them aside (we were traveling with other relatives) and said, "Hey, can it. I have this under control and while I appreciate your concern I would not do anything to hurt myself.) In the meantime my aunt (one of the other relatives) was freaking out over how little I ordered and then finished.

Oh, come on. Bust out some more talk about knickers and wankers and stuff! LOL

Sabredy, I'm another one who barely clocked in at 40. I had a 5 day clear liquid pre-op, and I cheated. By cheated I mean I took a dose of Tylenol migraine the day the big headache kicked in. (Day 2, I think.) But otherwise not. I don't know why I felt/feel so strongly about not cheating beforehand. I guess it's because the only person I would have been cheating was myself. And like many, I had to fight to get this surgery and wanted to start as I meant to go on. I think many on these forums push the limits and use any excuse to do so. If you get called on it it's because someone recognizes themselves and their thinking in your comments. We probably all have "fat brain" - which in my case can range from "I'm not THAT fat" to "One sliver doesn't matter" to god knows what else. What has always helped me is to think seriously about this. This is not a diet; it's a major medical procedure. So if I had a doctor operating on my intestines and it was potentially life-threatening, and it was crucial that I have Clear liquids only…I would probably want to have a good outcome and do whatever I was asked to do. We think we know so much about our stomachs. We know what makes us feel slightly sick, and if it's something we want we justify, justify, justify. Somehow it is not easy to believe in our heads that this is a major procedure. And if you're lucky enough and you are in excellent health (as I was as well) you might just bounce back quickly and feel you are special and can push the limits. And yet, we're talking about stitches, about major physiological changes, and about changing habits you have had for a lifetime. On the darker side, the potential for leaks, for liver damage…it's sobering. Is it a big deal to cheat? Oh, hell…who knows? But I think so. I didn't want to take the chance, at all. And sticking to my 5 day pre-op actually gave me a great deal of confidence. I know you asked others, but my statistics are noted below. Quickly, though: HW 238 SW 234 CW 204 Surgery was 10/24, and I'm 5'5".

I feel like you see the real me.

Thank you, Redbean! :-) Birthday plans have been adjusted: dinner at home (usual stuff), my one glass of wine (allowed by PA) and a bite of the inside of pumpkin pie with a candle stuck in it. Life is good.

Oh, I know. My cousin who got married is 24. I turned 45 today. There was a lot like that I could have said, but we each have our own journey to follow in this world... And she seems happy. Her new husband will be deployed in February, so they will have to grow up very fast.

Great thread. But I'll refrain from posting a photo of my bariatric pudding and/or my Cracker Barrel scrambled eggs from earlier. If I had one of those. In a few weeks, though…watch out.

Well, GG…I just completed my 930 mile drive from my cousin's wedding today, and it looks like I am going to the grocery store. Big plans.

I'm back and it's my birthday. No, I am not asking for permission to eat cake. The trip was really good. Dropped 2 pounds while on it; I feel very good about that. Boy, I hadn't really been out of my bubble since surgery and so it was very interesting to see how tough it can be to be in the middle of a huge group of people and NOT to go along with the program. It was a good lesson, and overall I think I passed.

I did so well! Really happy about that. Three or four bites of mega-chewed dark turkey, two bites of mashed potatoes, two bites of stuffing, and a small piece of very soft yam? (I think it was yam. I don't exactly know the difference. Tasted like sweet potatoes.) Very happy and was full but not uncomfortable.

Happy Thanksgiving, friends. Traveling at this point (5 weeks) has been interesting but totally manageable. Had the long travel days, rehearsal dinner, wedding and Thanksgiving with 30+ family members. In all this time, maybe 2 people noticed what/how I was eating. The best/funniest food moment: after eating less than half of my meal at dinner last night, my 26 year old, 6'6" cousin looked over at me and said, "Hey, are you going to finish that?" Hilarious. We switched plates; everyone was happy. Anyway, I am most thankful for all of your crazy assedes, and look forward to being around more soon.

I am KIDDING. (Sort of.) Was released to purees yesterday and here's what I will say. After 4 weeks of liquids, my first bite of roasted chicken and mashed potato paste was manna from heaven. I can't believe I just typed that. So I am traveling next week for the holidays and a family wedding. Looking for ideas of how to be as seamless as possible in this transition. Here are the things I tried a couple of bites of and did fine with: scrambled eggs and refried Beans. Obviously mashed potatoes. So worst case scenario I will be able to find these things when we stop for the day, if nowhere else. But... Who's got tips for successful eating on road trips in this phase? If you're on liquids and reading this, here is my newfound observation regarding the liquid phase…it actually goes more quickly than you think. I was right in there slogging away with the misery of Clear Liquids, but full liquids was more interesting and that two weeks went a lot faster for me. I feel like I'm in the home stretch now as far as getting back to eating like the rest of the world, if much smaller portions.

Hey! An update. Traveling has been fine so far. We were hit by a complete lack of options in the middle of our trip but ended up at a Bob Evans for dinner. I ordered chili and a baked potato. Of course I didn't finish even half of either, but it felt nice to order real food with the family. Same thing with the hotel. So glad hotels with hot Breakfast bars usually put eggs out. Ate early with my kids and no extended family so as not to raise eyebrows, though strangely I care less now than I did. So I am managing to keep to my guidelines such as they are. Mashed up the potato really well and it worked great. Such a relief!

Do you have close friends you can ask? Why not? Not all of them will tell you but I have a few girlfriends who would be willing. One of my wakeup calls this summer was when a friend of mine who I thought of as "around my weight" and I were talking about an upcoming wedding that I needed a dress for. She has lost about 60-70 pounds over the last few years (before I knew her.) She said matter-of-factly, "I don't have anything that would fit you now; I gave all of that stuff away. Too bad, it was beautiful! Let's go shopping!" She is an artist and you have to understand she wasn't saying this in a judgmental way. But it gave me pause. I remember thinking, oh, come on…I'm not that much bigger. But we went shopping and sure enough, she was at least 4 sizes smaller. I think she would have been comparable to what I weighed before I got pregnant 15 years ago, and maybe even smaller than that. And she's bigger than many of our mutual friends. (Another wake-up call!) My point is, our brains are CRAZY. I knew roughly what she used to weigh, and that I was around that weight or slightly less, but I still didn't comprehend that I was around 50-60 pounds heavier than she was...

Or the stairs.

I felt great. Also the 24th of October. Needed help from my friend to drive home. Stopped taking painkillers the first day home. Drove the second day. I was really up and around almost normally by a week later…but felt well enough by Sunday. I had my kids carry laundry baskets upstairs for me and take the garbage out. Little rats should do that anyway. Have your family around if it will be nice for you. If they're not traveling a long way maybe have them on call just in case. Not everyone does as well as we did. I also had one of my friends deliver dinner one night, and that was lovely (but not necessary enough to engage the dinner chain in my town.) My family is far away, but I had let a number of people know I was having surgery. Other than giving one kid a ride the night I got home from the hospital, I didn't have to ask them for anything.

I have experienced both ends of the spectrum since surgery. Crazy. Hadn't been constipated once since the birth of my second, 11+ years ago. Also had a minor accident brought on by the crazy intense act of walking up the stairs. Seemingly out of nowhere. Luckily I work at home, but I think I will throw a change of clothes in the car just in case for when I'm out of the house.

Moe, you look about 30 years younger. Amazing transformation. Gemini, you also look totally different. Great pictures!

Hey, SleevinIt, I have another method for the breathing that really worked for me when I was suffering from GAD. You do a deep breath in on a count of four, and then let it out through your nose to a count of 8. As many times as you can, or until you calm. Something about the counting really helps focus your mind elsewhere. Socalfosh gave you all my other tricks. Good luck. I know the anticipation is so hard.

It's also possible that your body is reacting to the boot camp and building muscle. Are you taking measurements? I had a one week stall around week 3-4, but as I look at all the numbers overall it wasn't so much a stall as hovering around about 2 pounds. Overall, if I look back over two weeks, I have lost 2 pounds; I just stayed steady for a week in the process of losing the second pound. Hey, it's not a lot but I'll take it.

I've been driving all day. And look what I missed! Erm, nothing. DOUBLE nothing if you count that Miracle Whip nonsense.

I have biotin gummies and they go down fine although I chew them quite a bit. Sublingual B-12, and chewable or crushable everything else. I started the vitamins about 1 week post-op.