Stevehud

try iso pure ready-made drinks. they aren't shakes, you can get them at many health food places, Vitamin shoppe etc. they are like kool-aid, they can have an after-taste but the black tea with lemon especially is very easy to get down. i also recommend the Syntrax nectars or naturals,

could you enlighten me as to what ANC/OMP is?

i think you have the sodium grams wrong on that 555 grams is over a pound and a half of salt lol.

you know my wife has lost about 35 pounds along side me losing mine. and she said the other day , its so hard to stop shopping for workout clothes. and this from a couple ( me and the wife) who used to make fun of people dressdin yoga pant or workout clothes all the time. Now we do it. I guess maybe it was a defense mechanism. anyway. well that and weighing myself, its become more than a habit with me, and i cannot stop. lol

ok i will make this on saturday il let you know how it turns out. a substitute for bread would be a godsend, If its good ill nominate you for sainthood in any religion or devote one to you.

Alex I met my wife on AOL chat room as well. 1996, we were married in 1998 our 17th anniversary is this Friday as a matter of fact. I like to tell people, we met online while still in dial-up, before it was "cool" to meet online. lol. BTW all, I am 44 M Married in Weymouth Massachusetts ( a few miles south of Boston ) I am an avid gamer, sci-fi buff, I took up the guitar to help with the boredom eating thing, ( idle hands and all that) ive been playing for about 6 months and love it , i play the blues, have lessons every Saturday and work as a tech support IT person for an online adult continuing education company. My favorite shows are, face off, ink master, flea market flip, and agents of shield. oh and chooped, cutthroat kitchen and all those shows. etc. lol

please do what canyonbaby says, no one here is a doctor , just because you have had a procedure does not make them somehow an authority on it. If the surgeon says draw circles on your forehead with crayons, then do it. On a side note , a surgeon who gives out untested food supplements is someone I would stay away from. Considering it could conceivably cost them their license to practice. Doctors are not allowed by FDA to give out supplements in their role as a physician. Many people don't seem to know that. But forearmed is forewarned. Its why doctor oz has to put disclaimers on his websites etc.

i have told and will tell anyone who will listen and even people who wont, well especially people who wont. They are my target . I wrote about this in my blog and share it with everyone on facebook and then some. bartenders know i have had it, waitresses, friends of friends, heck I am not only not ashamed, I am damn proud of it. As you should be, even if only proud of yourself. Its your decision who to tell, I wont get into any of that, its a very touchy subject. But please do not be ashamed of who you are and what youve done, there is no need for it. Good luck and congratualtions.

not to enable , but you are still inspiring to me and a role model for what we can achieve. Dont let this get you down. i think you look great. some days i think i look good and other days i cant seem to tell that ive lost anything at all. keep your chin up you know you have this under control and so do we.

lots of great posts here. well said by many.

Welcome to a great place. You will most certainly find what you need here, there are many wonderful informed people here who will do their best to help you in any way. I am proof of that. Even people you may not get along with or agre with, can help you a great deal and be inspirational. Welcome, if you have any questions, do not hesitate to ask.

Excuse me LL, i didnt insult anyone i made a generalization about people who act like they somehow possess knowledge that the entirety of the medical community does not. This person stated that her sleeve stretched and she could verify this because she failed at losing weight therefore the sleeve stretched, which is like saying mcdonalds made me fat not my unhealthy eating and lifestyle. Yes as you know this kind of thing is infuriating to me. I am on a mission to stop ignorance and misinformation from being spread about WLS, and to see this happening directly here of all places, where people try to make a haven to help others, is simply abhorrent. Worse is people take what is said to heart so there are now people who believe the sleeve will fail them rather than they failing themselves. It gives people an excuse to fail, it is an enabler to allow them a way out. I'm sorry but, you yourself have had some famous run ins with people outside of here and expressed your displeasure shall we say , at their ignorance. Well this is me doing the same. If people come on here promoting spurious half truths and outright ignorant advice that could cause people to either fail or make it more difficult to succeed, they can expect to be taken to task for doing so.

sorry i have to stop posting on this thread, its going to get real bad real fast. I cannot deal with people who look at all the medical facts and say they, who arent docotrs at all, know the truth no one else knows. Band07- so youre saying that it must stretch because you failed? ahh i understand now.

Band07 i think you should sure your surgeon, in a decent gastric sleeve the fundus ( i.e.) the stretchable part of the stomach is removed, now you will stretch a little because of the loosening of the sutures and tissue placement but it cant get anywhere near normal, your pics actually dont mean anything because there is no size guide on the pics. i can tell the second pic is much more close up and zoomed in, i had my sister who is a nurse practitioner and has her doctorate in nursing and is a ex rad tech verify that fact so to know how close up the second pic is vs the first, they are obviously not the same angle or distance by far. Heres some doctors who are widely respected in the field has to say on the subject. The ideal gastric sleeve should be fairly tight at the beginning (usually a 34 fr bougie), should begin about 1 inch from the pylorus (the end of stomach), and go directly to the angle of his right next to the esophagus. Experience shows that the sleeve will not stretch more than about 5% if kept tight from the beginning. . Source: HealthTap, https://www.healthtap.com/user_questions/43678 Pouch stretch is a common concern of patients after bariatric surgery. They may worry that their pouches will stretch and they will be able to eat large portions of food again. The good news is that your smaller stomach after gastric bypass or sleeve gastrectomy, will generally not stretch up to the size of a normal stomach. Whenever we perform a CT scan, contrast swallowing x-ray test, or endoscopy of the stomach pouch, we typically find that the pouch is the same size years after bariatric sugery. How then can people eat slightly larger portions years after weight loss surgery? Part of the answer lies in the "compliance" of the pouch. Compliance describes how easy it is to distend something. Imagine a balloon fresh out of its package. When you first try to blow it up, it will be difficult. But after blowing it up and deflating it 100 times, it will be easier to blow it up the next time. You will not have to blow as hard. The balloon has not really "stretched" per se. When you deflate it, it is still the same exact size as it was when you first took it out of the package. The volume of the balloon is no larger. The same is true of your stomach pouch. Even though it will still be small years later, it will be easier to fit more food in it if you try. I always tell my patients that just because you can eat something, it doesn't mean you should. Even with increased compliance, I have found that 5-7 years after bariatric surgery people still can't eat as they could prior to surgery. Portion sizes remain limited so you pouches are always there for you, ready to help keep your weight under control. Carl Lowe, Jr. MD taken from Carolina Surgical Center you can search threads here for more answers and links to doctors who will show you the real truth.

Honestly, every time i got hungry i went into the mens room lifted my shirt and punched myself real hard in the stomach... No just kidding. I kept a picture of my wife next to me and everytime i thought about food i would look at her and remember that i was doing this so we could be together for a lot longer than if i didnt do it. I used her image to reinforce my own dwindling will power. Also try keeping a blog, it really helps to let these things out. Sounds crazy but it helps.

Heres a link to those taste tests if you have time, and would like to see. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9YtO83j45OsMIY1l1p_rNw

Hiya ive done a lot of pre-made taste tests, videos are available ( im repetitive) but i never found a premade that tasted like anything good. Not even the premier , i barfed first time i tried them. The problem with boost, ensure etc. is the sugar and carbs. Boost contains 20 GRAMS OF SUGAR and 41 Grams of CARBS. That not far off from a Hershey bar or a twix! You have to understand one basic fact. Protein shakes were not originally designed for weight loss, but were designed to replace a meal, or to add calories to muscle builder types. It is only recently that we see the advent of weight loss appropriate Protein Shakes. ALWAYS ALWAYS check the labels. Every special K, Boost, Atkins etc all are high in sugars and carv=bs, not one is fit for a bariatric patient. Even Muscle milk has a muscle milk light because the regular is high in sugar carbs and calories. Heres a tip buy shaker cups, load it in the morning with your protein mix inside, if you dont like that put a ziplock baggy with your daily protein mix powder in it inside the bottle. then just put it in your bag, at work pick up your 1% milk or Water from the cooler right into the bottle and shake shake youre having a shake. Easy Peasy. Heres a link to those taste tests if you like. https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC9YtO83j45OsMIY1l1p_rNw

I have three words for you. Chew Chew Chew. I know I sound like a train, but it is the honest truth. I had the very same issue, now while I cannot say we are the same, it sounds a lot like me . That's when I really started focusing on chewing. even things that were softer like scrambled eggs, I mean who chews scrambled eggs? Well I do now. you can swallow the same amount of food,bite size wise that is as they don't alter your esophagus size at all, but when it hits that narrow sleeve, well, you get the sick feeling. So my point is you really have to focus on chewing things beyond what you think is ok. especially in these begining stages. It gets easier, but then again you get tougher things to eat as well, so it all balances out. good habits now, make things a lot easier later. Good luck! Keep up the good work.

Hi, Yes to all your questions. Many people have a hard time due to the restrictions the sleeve places on you to drink any volume. Add to that the fact that you recently had much more of your stomach removed than you actually have remaining, and you get the picture. I personally was a huge drinker, ( pun intended) extra large iced coffee and like two to 4 cans of diet soda while at work. But no way to do that after. That being said I recommend you utilize the time stamped Water bottle method. It is simply the easy way to monitor your intake and remind yourself how much to drink at a minimum each day. Its convenient and easy. Heres a picture to help show you what to do. It sure made my life easier. Good luck! You Can Do this!

so i taste tested these in videos i posted on you tube ill get you the links. for me personally i love the black tea with lemon, the orange was good and the alpine punch. but everyones tastes are subjective. could not do the grape and the apple is not my cup o tea. and im not a coconut person either. But they are a great change from the thicker Protein shakes, by far. I do like mixing the black tea with Syntrax nectars lemonade protein mix, and making an awesome protein rich,half and half.

lasting a day on the post op diet is a sign that maybe theres something else here. While this is all hard it does require a lot of discipline. 60 g of carbs is a lot of carbs. also where do the carbs come from? starches like bread, rice, Pasta etc or are they fruit type carbs? or high Fiber carbs. 60 grams of carbs from mostly sugars will undo all your hard work, in an instant. You have to want this bad enough to make that liquid diet work for a few days. after all you have been through, you should be able to push the liquid diet for 3 days at least. You might also want to adjust your workouts. try alternating cardio with strength training. You have to make the effort to get the results. I know you know that. So i think you can do this. you did it once, you can do it again.

So here is a funny thing that happened to me. This past Monday morning at 4 am I awoke from a sound sleep with pain in my chest centered just over my heart. At first I thought something that will just past perhaps, but it didn't. So to make a long story short, me and the wife headed to the ER. Now I will spare you several details like how many time they missed my veins etc. now the first ER nurse I had asks me about my history and she sees my medic alert necklace and asks about it and I of course say i had WLS on December 16th etc. SO she says, "Oh i had a gastric bypass in October." So we hit it off talking about all things WLS etc. Just a weird coincidence right. So onward, I gt scheduled for a nuclear stress test. and the nurse in the stress testing room says" oh you had the sleeve done, my sister and my mother both had it done a year ago." then a nursing student who is there watching the whole thing says" my mother had it a year ago as well." Now I'm like huh, this is a very very big coincidence. However it gets worse. Before I was discharged I was discussing my symptoms etc with a very thin nurse practitioner who says" i had my gastric sleeve done 1.5 years ago at the same hospital you did by the same doctor." WHAT ARE THE ODDS HERE PEOPLE? Seriously, out of like the 6 nurses and staff i had almost all had either had wls or had a direct family member who had. I know WLS is more popular etc. But lets face it, i did not expect any of this. It certainly made this experience easier, and i certainly did bond with these people a lot more than any other nurse etc. My when the last nurse practitioner said she had had WLS with the same surgeon i did and the same hospital, ( which is not close to us at all, so its very weird) My wife looked at me dumbfounded. Now just as an FYI, It turns out i have an inflamed area of my rib cage muscles centered just over my heart, due to stress and exertion ( all that spring cleaning and lifting bags of old clothes and tubs of books etc, plus i had stepped up my workouts a bit kinda pushed it too hard evidently.) What a weird set of coincidences. How many people have you met, outside of here or weight loss places that have had WLS? any of them surprise you?

Hello, Nsaids, like ibuprofen are as far as I have been led to know, are an absolute no no. Now that being said , i was recently in the Emergency room for chest pain and even though I am not supposed to take aspirin, i had to for the chest pain protocol incase i was having a heart attack. I let the ER doctor know and they said that in this case since it was just a few baby aspirin to go ahead and take the risk, but even they told me in any other case, it wasnt worth the risk. My surgeon okayed me for tylenol gels, and liquid tylenol ( which tastes like ass) for occasional pain etc. as for food intake for me, it was liquids for 2 weeks, then pureed/soft for 2 weeks, then soft meats , ( ground meats etc) no unsoft vegetables or leafy veg etc then at the 3 month mark cleared for whatever i can tolerate. Although im 4 months ut and i still dont do like steak type harder meats.

not much is worse than coming home from the gym, sweating etc and you want to just chug something cold, but you cant... lol its hard.

I'm sorry you had this happen , I hope you still get to enjoy yourself some,