VSGAnn2014

One more thought ... This is why some people choose to work with a therapist as part of their WLS journey. They find that helpful in identifying all kinds of temptations and triggers for over-eating and in developing more successful responses to those triggers. I'm an optimist and think we can solve a lot of our own problems, even long-term eating problems. But we probably can't solve them just by wishing we could solve them. We have to actually come up with different, better solutions -- since most of our old solutions haven't been that effective.

My initial instructions said liquid diet post-op for 2 weeks. At my 10-day post-op meeting, the P.A. advanced me to purees and said to experiement slowly with soft foods "as tolerated." Tomorrow I'll be four weeks post-op, and I'm now eating lots of purees and some soft foods, e.g., chicken salad, refried Beans, cheese, omelettes, steamed salmon, beef chili, yogurt, a Protein shake a day, a few small bites of veggies occasionally, some toast (with chicken salad) and even had half a little sausage last night. The volume of food tolerated at a sitting ranges from 2 to 4 ounces, depending on the food and "just how my tummy feels at the moment." I haven't thrown up even once. I'm eating 3 meals and 1 snack a day. Am getting close to 80 grams of protein in at this point. Onward and downward.

Well, here's the deal ... The sleeve only restricts us for the amount of time we are eating and shortly thereafter. This works out fine if we limit our eating to 3 meals and 1-2 Snacks each day. But if we graze all day, once the food in our smaller, sleeved stomachs passes through the pyloric valve into the intestine, we can put more food into our sleeved stomachs. For example, if you got into a pattern of eating 1 Breakfast and 3 lunches and 3 dinners throughout the course of 15 hours (which one could certainly do if they were determined to do it), you'd stop losing weight and start gaining weight. I guess that's what some people who regain all their weight back do. It's time to remember that our sleeved new tummies are weight loss tools -- not a silver-bullet solution for all eating temptations and disorders. Now you have to: * Diagnose the problem. * Design solutions for your problem. * Put those solutions into effect. * Be accountable for your actions. I wish you the very best in resolving this.

In this situation, IMHO the interest rate is meaningless. What's much more meaningful in financing hospital costs / debt is how large the hospital's total bill (to you) will be, which you'll have to pay off. Please be aware that the amount a hospital can charge you may range by as much as a factor of 4, depending on how you negotiate the hospital costs. And if you are 30 years old and unsophisticated in financial negotiations you are very likely to be screwed by both the hospital and by the company (and their sales agents here) that want you to borrow the money from them. Just as an example: Would you rather pay off a $30,000 bill at 0% or a $15,000 bill at 8% interest? (Of course, how long you take to pay off the debt matters, too.) In these two examples, paying off a $30K loan at 0% over 5 years will cost you $500/month. A $15K loan at 8% will cost you $304.15/month to pay off in 5 years. Just saying. You need some good advice from someone locally who has experience negotiating these kinds of costs with local hospitals and their payment schedules. Good luck!

My closet is full of beautiful clothes that will fit me all the way down through a size 12. But after that (10s and 8s?) I dunno what will happen. Will I get below that? Will I be "shaped" a 10 or an 8? If you're really in the mood to pre-shop, try hitting a high-end consignment shop. I went to one last week, and there are some seriously lovely things for $22 - $25. A lot of the clothes are also in great shape. You can't hurt yourself too much at places like that. Enjoy.

@ ... I'm glad to hear you are feeling so much better. Yeah, you were pretty pissy there for a while. LOL! It's all good. I think what matters for us is what happens from here on out.

Focusing strictly on the smoking part of this conversation ... In the US, 45 million Americans are still cigarette smokers. Put another way, that's 19% of Americans over the age of 18. Put yet another way, 81% of Americans over the age of 18 do NOT smoke. Smoking has terrible impacts not only on smokers, but on all their families and friends in terms of: * costs and stresses on family members who care for disabled smokers; * household financial costs of smokers' habits; * second-hand smoke impacts on children and adults who live with smokers; * lost productivity at work and lower household income contributed by smokers. Focusing only on the financial costs of smoking, it's shockingly expensive. Depending on where smokers live, they pay $5.25 to $12.85 for a single pack of cigarettes. For a two-pack-a-day habit, that's an annual household line item for one smoker of $3,800 to $9,380 (after cigarette taxes, but before income taxes). See http://www.theawl.com/2013/07/what-a-pack-of-cigarettes-costs-now-state-by-state. Generally speaking, the poorest people with the least access to good healthcare smoke the most. Annual healthcare costs (public and private) of illnesses due to smoking are approaching $200 billion. These days, it is neither immoral nor petty nor superficial for a person who's evaluating or re-evaluating their marriage or relationship to factor into their appraisal the current and even past smoking behavior of their current or potential partner. The impacts of your smoking partner's habits will likely negatively affect your future financial, emotional, physical and mental heath prospects. So, as the song lyric asks, what's love go to do with it? A lot. But not everything.

Will add only that I've seen from online posts that some WLS patients (most of them were quite large or suffered from something called "fatty liver disease") were required to be on a stringent liver-shrinking liquid diet for up to 4 weeks. Just be glad you're not on one of THOSE pre-op diets. And do see if you can find other ways to relax. People on these pre-op diets usually have only one or two rough days of headache, lack of energy, irritation. After a few days, most people just get used to it and plug ahead. In any event, this part will be over soon.

It's not clear yet in my case. Sometimes I'm "normal" (go every other day). Sometimes I'm more constipated. Following these times, a few times I've had urgent (and I mean urgent!) diarrhea! I can see that after I started eating pureed and soft foods I have become less regular. I suspect it's because I need to ramp up my waters. I'm not using any "aids."

I was sleeved 8/18. Tomorrow is four weeks post-op. At this point, life is starting to absorb more of my attention (compared to the first few weeks of "the sleeved life" when all I thought about was meal-planning, sipping Water, recording food/drink, etc.). Now I sometimes I forget that I can't eat more than 2-4 ounces at a time. And when I remember my sleeve and restriction, I am absolutely thrilled! I know that over time my restriction will lessen and I'll be able to eat more at a single sitting than now (although never as much as I once did). But for now, this is working for me.

Oh, my gosh! You're so beautiful and ... little! Congratulations.

Congrats to you. And I love that dress!

Yeah, you're not going to feel much restriction on a liquid diet, even a week out. Liquids move on through pretty fast. Just keep hydrating. And relax.

The soup suggestion above is excellent. On pre-op you need plenty of Protein (to keep your body healthy and built up -- it's about to go through some monster trauma with this surgery) and it needs to be low-cal enough to shrink your liver big-time (by using up all the glycogen in it and the 8 pounds of Water that helps to store it). I've read a few posts reporting that surgeons just pulled out all the instruments if the patient's liver was too fatty and puffy. They want it shrunk.

Yes, of course. But just one.

Well, you could tell people: 1. You have cancer (hey, your hair's gonna fall out soon, so you're covered). 2. You're on a hunger strike 'til the Bieb goes home to Canada. 3. You are having weekly liposuction treatments. 4. You're found these new miracle diet pills! 5. You're trying out meth. 6. You're the last person in America to have discovered the Atkins Diet. 7. You've had bone implants in your legs and are now six inches taller. 8. You're really your thinner twin who until recently was living in Australia. 9. You had hypnosis to lose weight rapidly. 10. You recently gave birth to triplets.

You said a mouthful!

Yeah, Day Two wasn't great for me either. But ... it's only Day Two, so it probably never was gonna be good for many people. Good news ... tomorrow is Day Three. And then Day Four. One day at a time.

Hi, Greg. Today is Day 26 for me. I'm one of those who had a pretty easy surgery and recovery. There's a great thread on here (will try to find it and post here later) where dozens of people weigh in, saying, "What's wrong with me? I'm doing great. Surgery wasn't tough. I feel good." But no, I wasn't one of those walking a mile right after surgery. But on Day Three I did a lot of laundry and housecleaning. My early days were "energetic" ones alternated with "napping" ones. By Day 5 I was hitting 60 grams of protein. For more than 2 weeks I've gottenclose to 80 grams daily. I'm now eating pureed and soft foods, and even an open-faced (toast) sandwich. Calories are around 700-800 these days. I've long been walking with the dog for 30 minutes. Went back to work 2 weeks post-op, and was fine. Every week I'm stronger. Yes, this is major surgery. But people on this forum have had quite different responses to it. Not altogether sure why. P.S. I had multiple incisions (6 small ones) and didn't have a drain. No problemos.

All great ideas! Thanks.

Yup. Had to remove all jewelry and piercings.

Yeah, I had that dry cough, too. I assumed it was from the tube down my throat (anesthesia dealio and the hiatal hernia repair) and possibly from the oxygen I used a little bit in hospital. Little spot of blood on your teeshirt? Wouldn't worry about it. You could've even scratched a mosquito bite. Relax.

My (on-time) three-week stall just broke this morning (I dropped 1.4 pounds). After consulting my daily weight chart (yeah, I'm obsessive like that), I see that it lasted 6 days. No biggie. I was ready for it. And knowing it was a common phenomenon, I was so unbothered by it. BTW, I'm very sure Cowgirljane's comment above is the important one to heed.

Seriously, Bryan, big congrats on your big leap out of the gate. It must be terrifically motivating. BTW, you're now enjoying your "three week stall." Search for that at this forum or google it. It's a very common phenomenon. No biggie at all though. Just keep doing what you're doing. Best ....

Sounds brilliant to me. I did a lot of fantasizing that my recovery would be easy. And it worked for me. LOL! Actually, I probably was just lucky. But either way, it wouldn't hurt to imagine before surgery how easy the recover might be. It goes that way for a lot of people. Break a leg!