JamieLogical

If it helps, here's a typical day for me almost 6 months post-op: Breakfast: Quest Bar (Protein bar) Morning Snack: Reduced Fat String cheese Stick Lunch: 2-4 ounces of meat (usually leftover from a previous dinner) Afternoon/Pre-Workout Snack: Danon Light & Fit Greek Yogurt with 13 grams of Kashi GoLean vanilla Graham Clusters (I leave out the Cereal on my cardio rest days as I don't need the carbs to get through my workout) Dinner: 2-4 ounces of meat (usually in some sort of sauce) Late Snack: Quest Bar That usually puts me just over 1000 calories and around 100 grams of protein.

Ugh. I can tell I've come a long way from my pre-op daily-pizza-eating ways when I can look at that picture and be disgusted by all the grease instead of wanting to eat it!

I found that just marching in place helped a lot. I would get up and do that quite often in the first days post-op. It also helped some with the gas and helped me drink my Water easier if I drank it while marching in place. As for the weight loss, you shouldn't even be thinking about that right now! Focus on your recovery. There are all sorts of reasons you could have put on a little weight post-op, but it is 100% water weight and will come off.

Can you have eggs yet? You can make a scrambled egg in the microwave. It's supper easy. Spray a coffee mug with non-stick spray, break an egg into it, whisk it with a fork, then microwave for one minute. Comes out perfect every time and you don't even have to add milk. It's easy and a good source of protein. You can even melt a little cheese on top for some extra protein!

Well sure. It's essentially a low calorie/high protein diet, so you could lose weight on it with or without the surgery. I think the challenge would be sticking to it without the actual restriction of the smaller stomach. WLS is just a tool to make it easier for you to restrict your food consumption. It can also have the added benefit of reducing hunger. But weight loss and maintenance is always a matter of calories in versus calories out, no matter how you achieve it.

I was allowed 3 protein shakes a day (with specific nutritional requirements), one green salad per day with calorie-free dressing, and sugar-free jello or popsicles. I was also supposedly allowed "occasional" chicken broth or minestrone soup, but I didn't do that.That was for 15 days pre-op.

I withdraw my 99.9% comment. I'm prone to exaggeration. My point was that emotional eating is something that needs to be addressed independent of the surgery. WLS will not "fix" emotional eating, it is something many (not all) of us have to deal with in addition to having the surgery.

I am not ashamed to admit that I am completely addicted to the chocolate chip cookie dough. I have two a day (one for Breakfast and one as my evening snack). I do want to point out, though, that the Fiber used in these is what I refer to as "fake fiber" or "stealth fiber". It's not the kind of fiber you usually think of when you are thinking about the good stuff that cleans you our and keeps you regular. It only qualifies as "dietary fiber" under the FDA guidelines because it is not fully digested by the body and therefor much of it "passes through" unmetabolized. Here's a decent article on stealth fiber. It doesn't specifically list isomalto-oligosaccharides, but it's the same general idea: http://www.sparkpeople.com/blog/blog.asp?post=processed_foods_extra_fiber_bellyache

Oh yes! I wanted to mention that as well. I got thrush from the liquid antibiotic I was on post-op. There are home remedies if you have a mild case, but otherwise you should see your doctor about getting a prescription. Use a flashlight and look into your throat. If the back of your tongue and sides/top of your throat have a thick white coating, it's probably thrush.

Are you consuming the whole thing in one sitting? If so it is unlikely you are absorbing all of those 42 grams of protein. There is a limit to how fast our bodies can process and absorb protein. The conventional wisdom I've always heard is under 30 grams at a time.

It can be tough. Especially when we feel like we are working so hard for so little reward. Just remember that even when the scale isn't moving, if we are working our plan, we ARE getting healthier and making progress in other ways.

I think it's safe to say nearly all of us had similar problems so soon post-op. The struggle to get your Protein and Water in is REAL, unless you are one of the lucky few who have no trouble with liquids post-op. I promise it gets MUCH better. It was probably about the month and a half mark where I really started to feel like a human being again. Now, almost 6 months post-op, I feel "normal" 99.9% of the time. If you are worried you might be dehydrated, you should call your surgeon's office and possibly visit the ER. Dehydration can be very bad for you.

First off, 66 pounds in less than 5 months is very impressive. Second of all, we all hit stalls along the way. Third, hair loss NOW has nothing to do with current Protein consumption. It is likely still due to the anesthesia and trauma of the surgery or low protein consumption soon after surgery. If you are truly concerned you could ask your doctor to order bloodwork to check your Iron levels. Hang in there. Stick to your plan. Get your Water and protein in. Get your exercise in. You WILL lose weight.

Glad you are doing so well!

I never had a period where I was dropping a pound or more a day (I'm lucky to lose more than a pound in a week!), so I guess it's much easier for me to handle the lack of a loss or even a small gain from one day to the next. I weigh myself every day, but I only "officially" weigh once a week. I record my Monday morning weigh-ins in a spreadsheet. So while I do weigh every day, it's not "real" until my Monday weigh-in. I don't know if that makes any sense? Do you record your weight? How often? Maybe try to limit how often you are recording and only emotionally invest in those "official" weigh-ins instead of the day-to-day ones?

Well, just like with any "diet", some people lose weight more easily than others. I have read about others who have managed to get to or near goal without any formal workout routine, but they seem to be the exception, not the rule. I work out 5 days a week and my loss is still VERY slow. Every body is different and handles this process differently. Exercise (whether formal workouts or just an active lifestyle) should be a part of every healthy person's life. I would like to believe that most sleeve patients are in this to get healthier, not just lose weight.

I agree with @IcanMakeit. It's easy to get irritable and frustrated in the early weeks. You are basically starving, you're uncomfortable or in pain, your tired, and your hormones go crazy. Hang in there. Try to be patient. I know how hard it is. I was right there 6 months ago. It will get easier, especially once you and your husband can start eating together again.

The main problem that people have with drinking post-op is due to swelling or spasms during the healing process. Not everyone runs into that though. Your capacity for liquids is not at ALL reflective of the size of your sleeve. Did you have a leak test post-op? I did and I could see quite clearly the way the barium went straight through my sleeve. Liquids just pass right through. Once you move on to purees and solids, you will DEFINITELY start to feel the restriction, since those things will actually sit in your stomach for some period of time. Here's a video of a gastric sleeve swallow test. You can see that the video is only 19 seconds long and the liquid just flows right through: http://youtu.be/K0GWL1Wtx30

As others have said, this HAS to be a decision you make for yourself. It's YOUR body and YOUR life. Either he can come along for the ride or not, that's up to him. You say he would never have this surgery himself, but maybe once you've done it and he sees your progress, he'll change his toon? My husband didn't want me to have the surgery either. Not because he himself is overweight (he weighs 155 pounds!), but because he thought of it as the "easy way out" like so many others. Now that I am almost 6 months post-op and he's seen all the sacrifices I've made and how hard I work, he knows it was NOT the easy way out after all. Maybe your husband will see the same.

Aw, hang in there. It is rough, and I'd love to tell you it gets easier post-op, but it really doesn't. At least not right away. This is going to be a rough couple of weeks, but you have a whole lifetime ahead of you where you will be happier and healthier thanks to your sleeve. Stay positive and focus on the future. You can endure a little misery now for a lifetime of benefits ahead. Know you can come here to vent any time you need. We've all been there!

If you get sleeved, you will still have to work out. It's not an alternative to a healthy lifestyle, it's just a tool to help you maintain a healthy lifestyle. As for being an emotional eater, I would say that applies to 99.9% of all sleeve patients. We didn't get to be morbidly obese without emotional eating! There is still a lot of work involved to "get your head right" even if you get sleeved. The only thing the sleeve does is limit physical hunger (it removes part of the stomach that produces the hunger hormone ghrelin) and restricts the amount of food you can eat in one sitting. It doesn't solve "head hunger" and it doesn't force you to eat the RIGHT foods or prevent you from "grazing" (snacking all day long). You should definitely take a hard look at your triggers for eating. How much you eat. When you eat. And what kinds of food you eat. The sleeve is a powerful tool, but it is only part of the equation.

Depends on your pre-op guidelines. I was not allowed any soup except minestrone occasionally. I had very strict guidelines though.

I wish you the best of luck. Sounds like things are pretty hectic for you, but I'm glad you figured out a surgery date that will work. The extra-extended pre-op diet can't be fun, but I guess on the bright side you'll drop even more weight this way!

Like a squeezing, constriction feeling in the center of my chest.

I just went back over my post-op calendar and the notes for month one said specifically to avoid nuts. My notes for month 2 said, no crunchy foods until month 3.