JamieLogical

Did you increase your calorie intake to compensate for your increased activity? Could be you aren't eating enough. Similarly, if you are heavy on the cardio, you will need more water than you were drinking before.

You definitely need to keep eating! So you aren't losing weight as quickly as you'd like. So what? You aren't GAINING weight either! It sounds like you know what you need to do. You need to increase your protein, cut out the carbs, and get active. I know that if you do those things (plus get all your water!), the scale will start moving again. It's not always immediate though, so don't expect immediate results. A new workout routine can actually cause you to gain weight in the very beginning, because your muscles will retain water to heal themselves when you start working them for the first time in a while.

Welcome! This is a great community and I am certain you will be able to get a lot of great info, advice, and answers to your questions. I'm excited for you! March 28th is my birthday and it sounds like it might be YOUR new birthday too!

I was instructed to wait 3 months post-op before drinking, though I think I was actually closer to 4 months out when I actually did.

When you say that you "feel like you are starving" what are you actually, physically feeling? If it's rumbling or gurgling in your stomach, it is more likely acid than hunger. If it's not a physical sensation, then it is most likely head hunger. Every single food commercial was doing that to me in the early days post-op, even though I knew there was no physical way I could actually eat any of those foods at the time.

Welcome! Know that you are not alone. This community is fantastic for getting info, asking questions, sharing concerns, and just generally venting to. Please feel free to post if you have any questions after your appointment today.

I agree with them 100%. As long as you follow the plan, get your protein, water, and vitamins in and gradually increase your activity, you WILL lose the weight!

Everything will go great!

It's not as uncommon as you think. Especially if you had a pre-op liquid diet. Hang in there. I promise you, the weight will come off. You should be 100% focused on HEALING and making sure you are getting all your protein, water, and steps right now. STAY OFF THE SCALE!

Love this story! I really hope this guy ends up figuring out a plan.

My discomfort while drinking lasted about 2 weeks. Once the internal swelling went down, it became much easier. Every single tiny sip set off this whole chain of events.. .a constriction in my esophagus and painful spasms, then like a gurgling in the back of my throat, and then ultimately usually a burp. No matter how tiny the sip, it happened every single time. But it got much much better. At 2 days post-op, you are right at the worst of it. I was crying a lot in those first 4 days or so, wondering what in the world I'd done to myself and wondering if I would ever feel "normal" again. You will!

That's great!!! I feel the same way. I am 6 weeks out and only down 15lbs. I thought I would drop 20 like nothing. I started at 215lbs, so I figured I may lose slower. Hoping by the 2 month mark I can be down 20lbs. If I can average 10lbs a month I will feel secure in my weight loss! You won't average 10 pounds a month with a starting weight of 215. You are setting yourself up for disappointment if expect to lose that much that consistently. You may average 10 pounds for the first 2-3 months, but it will slow way down as you get closer to your goal. I was down to losing about 2 pounds a month towards the end there. I totally understand that. That is what I meant... since I am smaller in weight I would not lose as fast... within 5-6 months, 40 lbs is amazing.. I know eventually (and even now) it will be very minimal and slow. Like I said I am only down 15lbs since January 25th. 10 of those were lost in the first 3 weeks and the other 5 have been lost in the 4th and 5th week. Nothing at all for this 6th week! Okay, good! Glad you understand. I see so many posts on here from people who really do expect to lose 10-20 pounds a month, month after month, all the way down to their goal and I worry about those people being really down on themselves when that doesn't happen. The message I really want EVERYONE to understand is that the rate of loss doesn't matter AT ALL. As long as the scale keeps trending downward, you will eventually get to your goal. And 10 years from now, when you are living your happy, healthy life, you aren't going to be looking back thinking "Damnit! If only I'd reached goal two months earlier!" It truly does not matter!

I promise you that once you are onto more solid foods, you WILL feel restriction. You aren't supposed to have restriction with liquids. I wish more surgeons would do a barium swallow test and let their patients watch it live. Mine did one and it was plain to see that the liquid passed through my sleeve immediately. It didn't sit in my sleeve for even a second. The "restriction" that some people feel post op is all due to swelling or, in rare cases, stricture.So while on full liquid phases is it necessary to wait with drinking water if I have something like Soup Sent from my SM-G900R7 using the BariatricPal App It's probably still a good idea to get into the habit of waiting to drink after eating, but if you are atruggling to meet your water goals, it might be better to use that time to get in more fluids. The real reasons you aren't supposed to drink after eating are that it can make you overfull and can flush food out of your stomach too quickly. Neither of those are issues when what you are "eating" is actually liquid.

That's great!!! I feel the same way. I am 6 weeks out and only down 15lbs. I thought I would drop 20 like nothing. I started at 215lbs, so I figured I may lose slower. Hoping by the 2 month mark I can be down 20lbs. If I can average 10lbs a month I will feel secure in my weight loss! You won't average 10 pounds a month with a starting weight of 215. You are setting yourself up for disappointment if expect to lose that much that consistently. You may average 10 pounds for the first 2-3 months, but it will slow way down as you get closer to your goal. I was down to losing about 2 pounds a month towards the end there.

I promise you that once you are onto more solid foods, you WILL feel restriction. You aren't supposed to have restriction with liquids. I wish more surgeons would do a barium swallow test and let their patients watch it live. Mine did one and it was plain to see that the liquid passed through my sleeve immediately. It didn't sit in my sleeve for even a second. The "restriction" that some people feel post op is all due to swelling or, in rare cases, stricture.

I'm moved that people have thanked me for this post. Thank YOU for you support and understanding.

I was sleeved over 18 months ago. My husband didn't think I needed WLS. In fact, he shared with me that my decision to have WLS diminished his respect for me, because he had always thought of me as an incredibly strong person and he felt that having WLS was me "giving up". A lot of his perspective was my own fault. I had lost and regained many times since we were together. Every time I regained, I always had some excuse: an injury, an illness, recovering from surgery, etc. The problem is, I always milked those excuses for far longer than necessary and I took full advantage of them. Meanwhile, he bought into them. So where I *knew* that my regain was 99% to do with my own failures, he thought it was 99% legit. Also, I was a secret binge eater and I went out of my way to hide a lot of my eating from him. I would eat big fast food lunches, then bring the evidence back to work with me to throw in the trash. Or I would take trash straight out to the bin in the garage instead of putting it in the kitchen garbage where he might see it. So I did a really good job of tricking him into thinking I had a better handle on my eating and my weight than I really did. Which meant he didn't see how much I truly struggled with it, both mentally and physically. By the time I had my VSG, I knew myself well enough to know that it was the right decision. But it has taken me losing all my excess weight and maintaining it for 6+ months for my husband to catch on. We had a great talk at dinner on Saturday night. I had completed my 8 mile run for my half marathon training and was rewarding myself with a date night of dinner and a movie. While I was on the treadmill, doing my run, I had watched a couple more episodes of My 600 Pound Life. I was discussing the episodes with my husband and we got into the talk we always get into when discussing that show... how do people let it get that bad. We talked about how spouses and parents are "enablers" and how Dr. Nowzaradan always berates them for that, but in real life, what choice do they really have? It's easy to be on the outside looking in and say "well he should just stop buying sweets for her" or "well she should stop cooking him two dinners a night" or whatever. But when you are inside that reality, caring for someone you love and wanting to keep them happy, it's easy to see how they end up in those roles. My husband confessed that had I continued on that trajectory, he doesn't think he would have had the strength to try to intervene. Plus he might not have even realized how bad it had gotten until it was much too late. As it is, he says he looks at pictures of me now at my highest weight and he can't believe it. He doesn't ever remember seeing me that big. He sees those pictures and thinks "how did I ever let her get that big?" And since he never consciously registered how big I was and how much damage I was doing to my health, he can't truly say that he wouldn't have let it keep getting worse without realizing it. He then went on to say that he'd like to think *I* would never have let it get that out of control. And my response was, "I'd like to think I'd never let it get as far as it did, but I did!" I told him I probably would have made many more valiant attempts to lose weight. I probably would have gone through many more cycles of losing and regaining. But eventually the cycle was going to have to break in one direction or the other. Either I was going to lose the weight for good and keep it off or I was going to keep packing on the pounds and give up on losing. Without surgery, the latter was the FAR more likely scenario. Eventually I really would have had a chronic excuse, like a bad knee or back or hip and I would give up entirely. We came away from the dinner with me finally feeling like he understood why I'd had the surgery. Why it really was the best decision for our future. And even though it took him a while this time, once again he understands that I am always right.

@@mBig Had your nutritionist not mentioned a protein goal for you before? 60 is still pretty low. I was told to try to get up to 100 as quickly as possible post-op.

Some people have more issues with carbs than others. I think it's very important to stick to your surgeon and nutritionist's guidelines I the early months as you are healing. But ultimately you need to figure out what is going to work for YOU long term. Only you have to live the rest of your life.

There's no reason you can't have them down the road. Just have to be mindful. They are a good source of protein and healthy fats.

I was told to do a total of 60 minutes of "brisk walking" immediately post-op. That was supposed to be broken up into many walks throughout the day in the beginning, of course. I wasn't allowed to increase my intensity or do any strength training until 3 months post-op. At which point I started doing Couch to 5k. Now I'm 18 months post-op and training for a half marathon!

Yep. I always weigh mine on my food scale. Soooo easy to overdo it with nuts and they are so high in calories. You have to be pretty careful with them.

@ Glad to hear your visit went so well and you are feeling so positive about the whole thing. Only two weeks to go!

I was told no nuts for the first 3 months. They fell into the "crunchy" category and I was not allowed anything crunchy for 3 months. Since then I have eaten lots and lots and lots of peanuts. You need to be careful, because they are very high in calories. That's actually why I eat them. Since I reached my goal weight, I've struggled to not keep losing and nuts are a great way fro me to get extra calories in.

I assume you are talking about carbs. Certain carbs do go down SO easily and it is easy to go off track once you start with them, because "carbs breed carbs". Once you start having SOME carbs, you start craving MORE carbs, so it's a slippery slope. My best advice to you is to try to hit the reset button. Track your food for a few weeks. Try to keep your carns low. Try to maximize your protein. And hopefully you can kick the carb cravings again.