JamieLogical

I only had to be on clear liquids the first few days, then I was allowed first stage full liquids (Protein shakes and drinkable yogurt), then strained cream Soups.

I think the others are right that you should give it a little time. Sometimes as we lose weight, it just gets distributed in an odd fashion for a little while and then things even out a bit better. I've noticed this throughout all of my past weight loss and this time around as well. Plus, the skin *can* bounce back a little with time. So if you are unhappy with how you look right now (I don't think you should be, but I understand that's a very personal thing), maybe just wait a couple more months before doing anything drastic.

My gut says that's pretty high in calories and sugar. I eat Dannon Light & Fit Greek. It's the least "greek" tasting yogurt I was able to find. Like you, I've never been a fan of greek yogurt. But there's no denying the higher Protein content! Here are the stats on Dannon Light & Fit: Calories: 80 Fat: 0 grams Carbs: 9 grams Sugars: 7 grams Protein: 12 grams It does have some artificial sweetener in there (sucralose), so if that's something you are avoiding, then it might not be your best option.

My husband wasn't very "on board" with my surgery either. He was convinced I was "strong enough" to lose weight on my own, especially because he'd seen me do it so many times over the years. The problem is, he legitimately bought into all my excuses about why I had gained it back every time. I, however, knew they were just excuses and that I would simply come up with more next time around. I was also self-pay, but I went to Mexico, so it was fairly inexpensive. My retirement plan has a deal where you can borrow up to 50% of the value without paying any penalties or fees and you are essentially just paying yourself back most of the interest, so that was an easy way for us to finance it at what comes out to less than 2% interest. I went ahead with the surgery, despite my husband's reservations and he has been great post-op. He has put up with all of my whining and frustration and pain. He took good care of me in those early days. And he has adapted to the way I have to eat now. All-in-all, even though he wasn't on-board at the beginning, he's been really great about it.

It's definitely normal to experience "buyer's remorse" in the early days, especially if you are dealing with any sort of complication. My suspicion is that it is some other ingredient in your protein shakes that's making you sick, not the protein itself. Hopefully you can work with your doctor tomorrow to figure out what's up. Hang in there! I have no doubt that you WILL get a handle on this and be able to get some protein in eventually. There is a lot of trial and error through this whole process. It sucks that you've hit a road block THIS early, but I'm sure it is only temporary.

I was going to take it, but I did mine backwards. I had my plastics 4 years ago and then my VSG 11 months ago. Hope you manage to get all the respondents you need!

This reminded me of my beloved Endless Shrimp at Red Lobster. Last year's even was right after my surgery, so I wasn't even tempted or sad. But this year's will be tough for me! I'll see those commercials and know I wouldn't even be able to make it through the first two portions they served me, much less the 8 or so extra portions I used to scarf down! Endless Shrimp used to be one of my favorite times of year!

I do all of my workouts at home. I posted my work-out routine in another thread a while back: http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/343348-workouts-post-sleeve/?hl=%2Bcrunches#entry3860702 Unfortunately, since my sister and her 4 kids moved in with me in June, I've had a pretty tough time sticking to the schedule. Working out with the kids in the house is a real challenge, since they all seem to want to kill themselves on my fitness equipment. Once she moves out in September, I plan to be back to this plan 100%. Edit: Just realized that was only my strength training. For cardio I worked my way through Couch to 5k and now run 5k every other day. On the days I'm not running, I try to alternate between biking and resting, but it's been a lot more just resting, because of the aforementioned issues with the children in my house.

Here's a good article that kind of explains some of the why: http://www.sparkpeople.com/blog/blog.asp?post=why_the_scale_goes_up_when_you_start_a_new_workout_plan

I was allowed to swallow pills at 7 days post-op. How long have you been instructed to keep crushing your pills?

Hang in there!

Congrats! If you stall a bit in the coming week or two, don't panic! It is very common. Just stick to the plan and keep getting in your protein and water.

I don't see why olive oil wouldn't be okay. I would say that if you are pre-op, you are a LONG way from having to worry about salad anyway. Most post-op plans don't allow for raw vegetables for quite some time, plus you always need to be putting protein first, which means not a lot of room for leafy greens, since those are VERY filling. Some people do manage to work salad back into their diet at some point-post op. I haven't been able to at 11 months out. Any raw veggies make me very gassy and uncomfortable, so I can only do cooked veggies and, of course, only AFTER I've gotten my protein in.

I don't know whether this helps you at all, but here are two photos of my face. One was taken in July 2008 (so 7 years ago) when I weighed about 100 pounds more than I do now. My husband weighed about 50 pounds more at the time. The second photo was taken two weekends ago at Niagara Falls. So we are 7 years older in the second photo, but have both lost significant amounts of weight:

@@Licia'sjourney Glad you have blood work and a check up coming up. Hopefully they can get to the bottom of why you might still be struggling with fatigue at 7 weeks. Maybe your body is still recovering and adjusting and it's just a matter of a little more time needed to find the right balance.

It has zero to do with how you lose the weight. It has everything to do with how much weight you lose, genetics, age, etc. There's really no way to predict how it will work out for you unless you've lost significant amounts of weight in the past and can sort of judge based on that.

There was just a really long post about this topic last week. I eat TONS of shell fish. Strained cream of shrimp soup soup and lobster bisque were staples for me during my full liquids phase. Crab salad during soft foods... And once I was on solids, I was eating shrimp at least 2-3 times a week. Shell fish is an amazing source of protein and is low in fat. How can you go wrong?

I have certainly had my share of "bad" foods since my surgery and if you caught me on one of those days, at one of those meals, you might think I'm a big fat failure as well. But I actually eat on plan 90% of the time and work out like crazy and always get my 100 grams of Protein in. ALWAYS. So seeing her eat maybe less than perfect food on her birthday doesn't seem like that big of a deal to me. Now, if she really is eating that way every day and not getting her protein in and not working out at all, I might start to worry for her.

I definitely think you should try to figure out some way to bring a snack that you can sneak in between classes between breakfast and lunch or add some flavored protein to your water. And definitely make sure you have water with you at ALL times. You need to be drinking all day long.

First off, it's great you finally started incorporating exercise. That is definitely a MUST for continued loss and eventual maintenance. However, as counter-intuitive as it is, starting a new exercise plan can actually slow loss or even cause some weight gain initially. The key is to not get discouraged and to stick with it. Eventually it will pay off big time!

The issue is that your body can't actually process that much protein all at once, so you may do more harm than good trying to intake that much. It is very taxing your your kidneys. Plus, from the little research I did into them, the TYPE of protein is not very high quality. When you are supplementing protein (not getting directly from meat/dairy) you want to be looking specifically for Whey Isolate. Other forms of protein are not as well-absorbed and utilized by your body.

Are you taking B12? How much Protein are you averaging? Are you getting enough Iron? It might be worth seeing if you can get some blood work done to see if you have any deficiencies. Once I was up to 800 calories a day, I was feeling pretty human. So if you are still fatigued, there might be something more at play than just calories.

As others have said, you should be able to drive as soon as you are off your pain meds. My advice to you is to not stock up TOO much on post-op food/beverages. Some people really experience a change in their tastes post-op, so something you love pre-op, may be disgusting to you post-op. You might end up throwing away a lot if you buy too much and don't like it. Also, shopping is a good way to get out of the house and get some steps in in those early days post-op. If you have someone who can drive you to the store and carry heavy items for you, it might be nice for you to be able to get out and do a little shopping in those early days.

I've just been taking my local grocery store's brand of Citrical Maximum. I was allowed to swallow pills at 7 days post-up, so never had to deal with crushing pills of finding chewables/gummies. For my multi-Vitamin, I have been taking the brand my surgeon's office pushed, Vitaleph, but they've just been bought out/rebranded, so I'm not sure I will continue with them once my current supply runs out.

If you didn't have a pre-op diet, then the headaches are probably you entering ketosis, due to lack of carbs. Most of us go through that when we do our high protein/low carb pre-op diet. It's perfectly normal for you to be able to drink much more than you can eat. If you do a search for barium swallow tests, you can probably find a video or two of someone doing their post-sleeve barium swallow test and you can see that liquids just flow straight through the stomach in a matter of seconds. food will sit in there and fill you up.