VSGAnn2014

Wow! I just saw this thread (how did I miss it?)! Congratulations to you, Kathy. I've considered a face lift myself. But I'll have to wait for another year to get serious about it. I cannot wait to see your before/after pix of this. So very proud of you. Wonderful decision on your part! Ann

Congrats on having an easy start. Just take every day as it comes -- good or bad. Just do what you're supposed to do that day. That's all you have to do. My own WLS was complication-free and drama llama free. Not saying there weren't times when I wasn't a little white-knuckled late at night to stay out of the refrigerator. Not saying I was 100% perfect, because I wasn't. But because of the hunger-crazing ghrelin being gone, all my research and self-education and pre-preparation, and my compulsive meal planning and tracking (which taught me sooo much about nutrition), my own WLS trip thus far has been completely doable. However, I never imagine there's an end to this strip. Just turned on the TV and The Barefoot Contessa (cooking show) is on. She's so cute (weighing at least 240 pounds) and competent and making the most delicious food that I can see with affection how it's not completely awful for everyone who's fat. On the other hand, I'm not The Barefoot Contessa. And I was fucking miserable at nearly 240 pounds. So there's that. All told, I'm so much happier watching her than being in her shoes.

ROFLMAO! Thanks for all those hilarious images, folks. Good on ya, @@Jerr_Bear !

On the regain issues ... my shrink works with a number of bariatric patients and has seen many people go through this process. Back in January 2015 I asked him, "What issues do you see patients struggling with who regain weight? And by that I don't mean that they're eating too much. I'm really asking what's going on inside them that leads them to regain?" After thinking a moment, he said: "What I mostly see is that they're struggling to find new reasons and new motivations to focus on their weight and fitness. "After they hit their goal weights, many of the rewards they got while losing weight go away. They're no longer motivated by seeing the scale move down. After a while, their family and friends get used to what they look like and stop commenting on their weight loss or weight. Even people who were their strongest supporters during the weight loss phase no longer offer supportive comments. And when this positive reinforcement disappears, that has a negative effect on the patients. "So then they must find new goals and new motivations to maintain their weight and to be fit. And for some folks that's not easy." So that's one shrink's brief observations about the psychological (not medical or physiological) causes of WLS patients' weight regain. Maybe that will ring some bells for other readers. Interestingly, over a year ago I committed to see my shrink for three years during: * The year of losing weight * The year of maintaining weight * The year of boring real life

Here's the LABS Web site. They'll be releasing longitudinal study results later in 2015: http://www.edc.gsph.pitt.edu/labs/Public/index.html So far, it appears they've found that through Year Three RNY and lapband patients do pretty well, on average -- although there's considerable variation in outcomes. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24189773

I had GERD pre-sleeve and took Ranitidine 40 mg. twice a day. That was sufficient for me. Post-op for the first 4.5 months I took a stronger antacid -- a PPI called Protonix. That seemed necessary as my much smaller tummy was healing. Now, and for many months, I've been back on the Ranitidine 40 mg twice a day regimen. And I'm fine -- if I don't eat a lot of the foods that aggravate GERD in massive quantities at the same time, e.g., wine, chocolate, sugar, caffeine, etc. And no serious sleeve patient would do that anyway. I also find that drinking a glass of milk after dinner seems to help me a lot. The most effective lifestyle change to improve GERD is to not eat for two hours prior to lying down to sleep at night. Finally, I was aiming only for an 85-pound loss with WLS, so I didn't think that warranted RNY. The sleeve has been a great tool for me so far. I'll hit my surgiversary in two weeks. I reached my weight goal 3.5 months ago.

But you're both about 2 months post-op. At your tenure, I was eating only 800 calories, 60 grams of Protein and about the same grams of carbs.

Nope.

I haven't told anyone (other than hubby and 2 friends) about my weight loss surgery. Therefore, I'm not posting WLS before and after pix of myself here or anywhere else online. Feel free to ignore my posts.

@@MarceMonster ... I can't predict for you what effect some more carbs would have on your weight loss rate. The only way to find out is to experiment on yourself. Without going nuts, of course. One thought -- I've found that making gradual changes instead of rapid ones gives my body a chance to adjust. I do think it's important that we not to be scared by this process. We won't be able to control everything about our lives. Stuff happens. I don't mean by that that we should invite the winds of chaos into our process. But I do observe that we who have the obesity disease tend to be all-or-nothing, perfection-or-failure kinds of people, an orientation that hasn't served us well at all. I am a scientist, by training. And I keep my dieting stats like crazy. I use My Fitness Pal, transfer some of the data into Excel, run graphs, see how outcomes change when my eating / exercise changes, and how long it takes for those changes to occur. One thing that seems clear is that if I do something on Friday, the scale doesn't automatically change on Saturday. For instance (and this is just for me, not necessarily how you would react), I found that when I moved up to 1,200 cals / 100 grams of Protein and carbs after Month 6 that my weight took about a week to stabilize lower. Prior to that the graph had gone down in a much straighter pattern. And after Month 6 it moved downward in week-long, upward first, then downward waves. (I hope that makes sense.)

Wow! That's awfully low cals. I can't help but believe that you will blow through that plateau eventually. You might want to look at this post I just made. Not saying that plan would work for you. But you could consider trying something different like that. http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/347430-strange-info-from-nut-re-carbs/?p=3909519 Very best to you.

@@MarceMonster ... I'm one of those who didn't worry about low carb during my weight loss phases. Serindipitously, I wound up eating about the same number of grams of carbs and Proteins on an average daily basis. I also am one of those who, after 4 months, starting increasing the number of calories I ate (on the advice of my bariatric PA) so as not to accustom my body to operating on low cals. I added calories by increasing my Protein and adding low-glycemic, high-Fiber carbs (colored veggies, lower-sugar fruits, whole grains). I didn't lose as fast as you're losing, but I really didn't care so much about speed. On the other hand, I didn't have any big or long stalls, but lost steadily. Although my daily intake varied, here are the daily averages I aimed for: Month 1 - 500 cals, 60 gms protein Months 2-4 - 800 cals, 70-75 grams protein Months 5-6 - 1,000 cals, 85 grams protein Months 7-8 - 1,200 cals, 100 grams protein (I reached my weight goal (150 lbs) during Month 8) Thereafter, I added 100 cals/day every few weeks, until I have found a "sweet spot" that works for me -- at 144 pounds and 1700-1750 cals/day (average). I can't prove it, of course, but my theory is that eating more calories and more carbs while I was losing weight has helped me be able to eat more to maintain my weight at a pretty high calorie budget. But I've only been at maintenance for 3.5 months. As I've said repeatedly, things may change. And if they do, I'll have to change how I'm eating. This whole trip is very interesting. I've come to understand and accept that what works best for Person A is not necessarily what works best for Person B.

You don't offer much information. How much have you lost? How long have you been stalled? What's your goal? How far away from your goal are you? How much are you eating (calories, Protein, carbs)? How much are you exercising?

And THAT's how conversations with surgeons should go. Good job! Babbs, re bougie sizes, my surgeon uses a 36 for most patients. I've heard of a Mexican surgeon who uses a 32 for all patients.

Yeah, for a "research scientist" -- LMAO! -- Chuckie seemed a little off.

I never heard of this ... does your tummy stick out? At what point (below / above where)?

That wasn't MY story. I just heard about it.

Fraud ... such an interesting word.

Hey, Chuckie. Post a picture of yourself, would you? I want to see this awesome physical specimen you've become.

LOL! No, I mean ROFLMAO! I know this is going to sound racist. And I really do not mean it that way. But how can you be from India and not understand how someone can get really, really skinny? Have you never heard of Gandhi and his fasts? Obviously, you don't know much about nutrition, calories, basal metabolic rates, caloric budgets, or anything else that most people should have learned before they had this kind of surgery. Do you have any idea how much you're eating right now? Or how much you have to eat to stop losing weight? And (using simple subtraction) what your caloric deficit is? You really need to see a nutritionist. Now.

It could be nothing. Or something. For instance, it could be a stricture (your stomach has narrowed or twisted, making it hard for anything more solid to move from the top of your stomach to the bottom of your stomach). I never vomited once post-op. So I don't think this is something you want to learn how to adapt yourself to. Get it looked at. And if it needs fixing, get it fixed.

If you didn't want your WLS to be a topic at work, you shouldn't have told anyone at work.

The first person to talk to seriously about this is your surgeon. What does he/she recommend? If you can't reach your surgeon (and surprisingly, but actually, some people don't have access to their WLS surgeons post-op) and given that you're only two months out, can't eat a lot at one time and (as @@BigViffer said) you do not want to eat crap, I would do this: 1. Eat 6 times a day. 2. Drink whole milk WITH your meals. 3. Nibble on 500 cals of nuts throughout the day (they're high in calories, but are comparatively "healthy") 4. Use My Fitness Pal to understand how many calories and Protein / carb / fat grams you're consuming. This will teach you a lot about nutrition, which I suspect you haven't learned yet. 5. Find and work with a good bariatric nutritionist who can guide you more specifically in what to eat in your unusual situation. And now, if you would, answer this, please: Why in hell did you (a young, healthy male nearly 6 feet tall) have WLS if you wanted to lose only 37 pounds? Did you get drunk one night and mistake a WLS surgical clinic for a tattoo parlor?

If you don't mind me asking, who was your surgeon?

Sounds good to me. At 3 months out I was under 200 pounds and averaging 800 calories and 75 grams of Protein a day. I ramped up to 1,000 cals / 85 grams of protein a day at Month 5.