JamieLogical

@@BrightEyes42 This Olive Garden thing cracks me up! And, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but if you think VSG is bad, you are in for a real treat with skin removal surgery. I had extended tummy tuck with muscle repair and breast lift with implants and the pain, restricted movement, and recovery were a million times worse than my sleeve surgery. With sleeve you can actually look forward to getting a lot better every day and feeling pretty normal within a month or so, once you are getting enough calories in. The recovery from skin removal takes months. It is excruciatingly painful and uncomfortable. But, going on 5 years out, that's all a distant memory and I am grateful every single day that I had it done. I even just had a long talk with my husband last night about potentially getting inner and outer thigh lifts in the fall....

...I noticed about 6 months ago...I still can get that sick, tight feeling after a slice of pizza, but it doesn't last and I can return 2 hrs later for a little bit more...I have no hunger pangs after I've eaten like that...but the old way that I used to eat is starting to slip back in. Sounds more like grazing behavior than a stretched sleeve to me.

I agree with this. You aren't supposed to do more than 30 grams of protein per hour, it's tough on your kidneys and doesn't get fully absorbed.

I hope you can work on getting your Protein up. It's truly critical to your healing and health and long term success. Maybe once you are allowed more real foods you can work on getting it up through food and not so much from the Protein shakes. I don't know what you have available to you in Jordan in the way of protein shakes, but maybe you could experiment with some different brands and flavors that are available.

Hope you kick that soda habit and fast! Not good at all! I think letting yourself have some occasional sugary treats is okay. But soda every single day is not acceptable.

Welcome to the "losers' bench"! I had my surgery in Mexico and paid around the same price. Definitely a lot of cheaper alternatives outside the US, even though many of the surgeons are as good or better than you would find here. I hope you are doing well with your recovery and receiving the follow-up care you need.

I switched to Protein bars the minute I was allowed solid foods, because I was SO OVER shakes. You just have to be very choosy and make sure you don't get anything high in net carbs, sugar, or saturated fat. I used to swear by Quest Bars until they changed their main ingredient and now they do NOT agree with my intestines. I now use Combat Crunch Bars, but they are a little higher in calories and net carbs, so I am not sure I'd recommend them for the weight loss stage (I'm in maintenance). You should be able to get a LOT of your protein from food by now as well. Greek yogurt, string cheese, and turkey snack sticks were all good ways for me to get protein in between meals. For meals themselves, make sure you are making high protein choices and always putting your protein first.

It does in the ingredient list.

Seems better right off the bat, because the protein is from whey isolate. My nutritionist told me to only use whey isolate as a protein supplement and avoid things like collagen.

They would still have sugar from the fruit.

I had to have sugar-free "fake" popsicles during my pre-op diet.

I did their calorie-free dressings on my pre-op diet and they left a lot to be desired. I mean... they had some flavor and I guess were better than eating dry salad, but only marginally. I was supposed to be allowed one green salad a day with calorie-free dressing during my 15 day pre-op "liquid" diet. I eventually just stopped eating the salads altogether and stuck to my Protein shakes, sugar-free Jello and popsicles.

Worth a call to the surgeon's office at least to see if there was just some sort of error.

You can probably get away with skipping the multivitamin for these first couple of days. I didn't start back on a multi-Vitamin until 7 days post-op, when I was cleared to swallow pills, since my multi-vitamin is a capsule. That was all at the instruction of my surgeon. Are you having similar difficulty with plain Water or is it just the multi-vitamin that's causing you problems. I too am very surprised your surgeon would put you on anything fizzy. That sounds like a recipe for disaster so soon post-op!

Great post, Kindle. We have to be able to live the rest of our lives with out sleeves. We shouldn't all become shut-ins just to avoid temptation.

I am allowed to drink right up to the time I start eating, but supposed to wait at least 20 minutes after. I found that realistically, if I am eating to the point of "fullness", I have to wait more like 40 minutes to an hour after eating, because it takes that long for me to have room for water. You certainly shouldn't try to drink at 30 minutes if you are still feeling too full.

Try marching in place while sipping. It seemed to help me a little for some reason.

If you aren't exercising regularly, there is a very good chance that much of the weight you are losing is actually muscle and not fat. Even if you didn't exercise before, it took a lot of muscle to lug your excess weight around. As you get lighter, it takes less strength to carry you and that muscle will diminish if you don't exercise to maintain it. Also, on a reduced calorie diet, your body will consume stored muscle for energy the same way it will consume fat for energy.

Wat was the probiotic for. ? You will see MANY MANY posts on these forums about constipation post-op. I never had any problems at all with constipation since surgery and I thank my probiotic for it. I think it really does help! Often in those threads, I see many posts from people saying they take a probiotic and don't have trouble with constipation and most of the people who DO have trouble, don't take a probiotic. Thriving gut bacteria is essential for proper digestion. Most of the ultra-pasturized, anti-biotic fed foods we get in stores today don't provide the proper flora for a healthy digestive system. Taking a probiotic daily can help restore gut bacteria and then eating prebiotic foods helps to feed those bacteria.

Can't watch the video, as I'm at work right now, but I think this site does a good job in general of dispelling he myth that having surgery in Mexico is sketchy or dangerous. There are literally thousands of posts in the Mexico & Self Pay forums on this site from people why have had positive experiences receiving excellent care in Mexico.

I was shocked to learn my sister is an a*****e over the summer, after having known her and spent 34 years of my life with her as my best friend. Who knew? OP, I think the solution here might be having a heart-to-heart with your sister about all the struggles you've had post-op and how much work it really has been. You have to do just as much work to lose weight as someone who hasn't had surgery. Gastric sleeve isn't a malabsobative procedure, so calorie in or out to you is exactly the same as a calorie in or out to anyone else. You have to control what goes into your mouth and how much activity you do. So you have worked for every single pound you have lost.

I have gummy bear implants and I really like them. I actually need a revisions though. Not because there's anything wrong with the implants, but because I gained 80 pounds after I got them and then lost 100 pounds. That did a number on the little breast tissue I'd had when I originally got the implants and now I have pretty much NO real breast tissue and the implants can be seen below my skin. I am going to have to have new pockets created and the implants re-positioned. But the actual feel, texture, weight, and movement of the gummybear implants is awesome! PS: Get a boob job. DO IT! I cannot tell you how happy I have been with that decision (even with my need for a revision now). I would say that decision ranks right up there with my decision to have gastric sleeve in terms of "best decisions I've ever made".

That's the way I've always understood it as well. But the OP says she had an upper GI done and the radiologist actually told her the sleeve is stretched. She didn't say how MUCH it's stretched... I can't imagine it's anywhere close to a normal sized stomach still. But it is alarming that she has been told it is stretched when everything I've ever read/heard has led me to believe that's next to impossible, and not at all the cause for people's weight gain years post-op.

I was actually a little sad when I was shopping back at Christmas time. One of the malls nearby got a Torrid, which has really cool looking plus size clothes, but now I'm too small to wear any of them!

Yeah it does seem like every single one of them has incisions come open at some point, which is really weird. None of my incisions ever came apart at all and I had hundreds and hundreds of subdermal sutures. I did have a few spit stitches, but that's very common. And what is that yellow goop that I am seeing on all their incisions on that show? I never had anything like that. I very briefly had steri-strips and then just nothing at all covering my incisions besides my compression garments. Have they even talked about compression garments on that show? Edit: In this most recent episode the woman had a breast lift and augmentation and they showed her shortly after with just and abdominal binder and a camisole on. I was like where the f*** is her surgical bra?!?! And just a binder for the tummy tuck that soon out?