JamieLogical

The first few weeks post op, I had that EVERY SINGLE TIME I took even the tiniest sip of water. A gurgling kind of thing in the back of my throat. Luckily it went away and 18 months psot-op, I get it very rarely.

@@SparkleTime I really like that graphic. It seems reasonable and doable. So many people on these forums seem to have CRAZY expectations of how quickly they will lose and are only in for disappointment. But that info seems pretty conservative and sets a realistic expectation.

You would think he's learn after 10+ years!

If you are burning that much through exercise 4x a week, then 1000 calories isn't enough, nor is 65 grams of protein. You need to increase both your protein and your calories.

Why would anyone NOT weigh naked? Assuming you are weighing in your own home, of course. I weigh myself every morning after I pee, right before I hop in the shower. Already naked for the shower anyway!

There's a reason why we aren't supposed to drink our calories or eat a lot of soups and mushies past the post-op food stages. Sleeves offer no restriction for such things. The only reason SOME people feel restriction with those things in the very beginning is the swelling.

I wasn't cleared until 30 days post-op, bu I literally counted down the days. Rejoice in getting to have it so soon! Just make sure you go easy on it and dilute it with a lot of cream in the beginning to make sure your tummy can handle it okay.

@@1Cor2:9 Sorry I misinterpreted your post.

Welcome! All of the emotions you expressed in your original post are completely normal. Though they are definitely the kind of thing that only other WLS patients can understand. It sounds to me like you have made a great decision for yourself and you have the right attitude to be successful long-term. Like you, I was a pro at losing weight. I used to joke that if weight loss was an Olympic sport, I'd have multiple gold medals. Maintenance was a whole other story. I think my main problem was that weight loss was always a "diet". I always thought of it as something temporary and that I would eventually be "done". So as soon as I was "done", I went right back to my old lifestyle and regained all the weight. The great thing about WLS, is it's not a temporary phase. It will never be "done". Your sleeve or pouch is forever! Once you make that switch in mentality, maintenance becomes much less of an issue. I had sleeve, not bypass, but I reached my goal weight just before my one year mark and I have been maintaining for the past 6 months. Through that six months I have experienced many of the types of life stresses that would have thrown me off track in the past. Yet I have managed to get through them and not regain the weight. It's been amazing!

My water nausea is temperature related too. I have to drink ICE COLD water... with ice literally floating in it. Or hot beverages. Anything room temp or even just refrigerated sits in my stomach like lead. I'm 18 months post-op.

You aren't eating anything close to enough calories for your level of activity. If you had a 22,000 calorie DEFICIT last week, that means you have a 3142.857 calorie deficit per day. That is WAY WAY WAY too high. Your body is definitely going to go into starvation mode running that kind of deficit and you are going to completely trash your metabolism. You should be trying to run about 1000 calorie a day deficit to keep your metabolism in tact.

So happy for you! I wish you continued success.

Exercising probably isn't going to help with loose skin. At best you might build some muscle to "fill in" the empty skin a bit. I am not sure when I first started noticing loose skin, but I definitely had plenty of it by the time I'd lost 90 pounds. Everyone is different though.

I vaguely remember some diet in middle school where I had to eat grape fruit, and pitas filled with tuna salad.... I have done Atkins before... really not much different than post-sleeve except I'm not quite as strict on the carbs now. I also did 5:2, which was actually really great. I would definitely recommend it for people trying to lose weight without WLS. Edit: Thought of a couple more: Did Slim Fast for a while in my early 20's. And did Nutrisystem for about 2 months at one point.

According to the Mayo Clinic, that's not true: http://www.mayoclinic.org/healthy-lifestyle/nutrition-and-healthy-eating/expert-answers/caffeinated-drinks/faq-20057965 I would, however, be concerned about the effects of caffeine on your healing stomach. Most caffeinated beverages are also high in acid.

@@con con Feel free to PM me if you have questions/concerns about going outside the US for surgery. I've gone to Mexico twice for surgery (once for plastics, and once for VSG) and plan to be going again in late August/early September. I'd be happy to share my personal experiences with you.

I really really hate the idea that WLS is someone admiring defeat or failure. I don't know why society projects that mentality. With ANY other medical condition for which there is a surgical solution, you don't see that. If you have to get a knee replacement for a bad knee, no one is yelling at you that you should just suck it up and walk it off and power through the pain. If you have an appendicitis, so one is telling you it's mind over matter and you should just tough it out. I don't get why WLS is any different. You have a serious disease, for which there is a surgical remedy. Why is it "cheating" or "quitting" to take advantage of that tool?

The question is, how is one possibly supposed to eat a HALF CUP of edamame AND something else post-sleeve? My protein goal is 100 grams a day. I eat 5-6 times a day. I am 18 months post-op. This means I need ~20 grams of protein for each meal/snack. If I eat a half cup of edamame for 12 grams of protein, where is the other 8 grams coming from? How am I going to have room for it? And remember, the OP's fiance was just sleeved last week. He is a loooooooong way from being able to eat 1/2 cup of food in a sitting. That's not to say edamame isn't a great choice. If you insist on having "sides" with meals still, it's an excellent option since it has its own protein. Definitely better than just some lettuce in a salad or something.

Only 10 grams of protein for 190 calories doesn't seem like much of a protein bargain. You can get 20+ grams of protein for that number of calories from Quest Bars or Combat Crunch.

Yep. Lots of Quest fans around here. I found them to have kind of a styro-foamy texture, but the flavoring was good. Wish they weren't so super pricey!

@@Missy407 Congrats!

Yesterday I manged to have a 110 calorie surplus! But it meant eating out for lunch, having a candy bar in the afternoon, having some potato chips when I got home from work, having an extra Protein bar before bed, and it being a cardio rest day, so only doing strength training. And I was still down another 0.2 pounds on the scale this morning.

I got a new FitBit Blaze last Friday. I decided to start tracking my food on the FitBit site for this first little while, just to get a sense of all the features available to me with the Blaze. I have been maintaining at or below goal for 6 months and I am currently training for a half marathon. The problem I'm having is that every time I have ever tracked my food regularly in the past, it has been in an effort to LOSE weight. I have an obsessive personality and I find that I am now becoming super obsessed with the numbers and I'm finding it hard to force myself to eat enough to MAINTAIN my weight instead of trying to lose more weight. I've run a significant deficit every day since I started tracking on Saturday. Saturday: 1698 in / 2446 out Sunday: 1672 in / 2104 out Monday: 1886 in / 2824 out Tuesday: 1685 in / 2374 out So I've averaged a 700+ calorie deficit each day. And as of this morning, I'm down 0.8 pounds since Saturday. I know I tend to naturally eat around 1700 calories a day and I've had to add in extra Snacks since I started my half marathon training in order to "eat back" the calories I'm burning. The problem is, now that I am tracking, I am psychologically having a hard time eating back those "extra" calories. It feels "wrong" and "bad" somehow. So I guess my questions are: Do any of you still track in maintenance? If so, how do you force yourself to eat enough calories? What tips/tricks do you have for getting in extra calories? Did you struggle to disassociate tracking from "weight loss mode"?

Congrats! I hope everything continues to go really well and you have an easy recovery!

Well, I'm a year and a half out, so I have no limits on what i can eat anymore. Early on, my go-to snacks were Dannon Light & Fit Greek yogurt, string cheese, turkey sticks (like beef sticks, but with turkey), and Protein bars. Once I was allowed nuts, I would often do an ounce of peanuts for a snack as well.