Hawk7775

My two cents....it is obnoxious to respond to a legitimate question with a lecture that has nothing to do with the original question. I am glad you are able to purchase just an appetizer at the buffet you will be visiting. I am not planning on allowing this surgery to hamper my social life and I am not planning on allowing my social life to ruin the benefits of this surgery. The beauty of most buffets is that there are always healthy food choices. Heck, even pizza buffets usually have a salad bar. While I am not going to choose to go to a buffet, if the group I am with chooses to go to one I am not going to be antisocial. I will suck up, pay the price and choose the foods I should be choosing.

Question about the urine color. Does that chart refer to what the water in the toilet bowl looks like when we're done or to judge my hydration level do I need to fill a cup?

Don't like those league settings though.

I'm in

I was sleeved on 7/9/14. I also had a week 3 stall with a small gain. I did a ton of internet research. I am skeptical of anything I find on the internet not from some place like mayo clinic but I read an article that helped me make sense of the week 3 stall. It basically said that when you restrict calories your body initially thinks it is a temporary thing and burns glycogen for energy. For every lb of glycogen burned your body also has to use 4lbs of water. At around week 3 your body realizes this restricted calorie intake may not be temporary and wants to re-store glycogen for future emergency use. Well, for every pound of glycogen it stores it also stores 4lbs of water. Presuming you are following your program and not eating too much or the wrong things I wouldn't worry about it.

I stalled around the 3rd week too. It lasted more than a week. Google it. It is really common. I read an article about it. I am not sure that it is accurate or anything but it made sense to me. It said something about how when you start to restrict calories your body assumes this is a temporary thing and burns glycogen at first. For every pound of glycogen burned your body burns 4 lbs of Water. Around that third week your body realizes that this isn't a temporary thing and wants to store glycogen for emergency use again. So, for every pound of glycogen it stores you also store 4lbs of water. That is why some people stall or even gain around the third week.

You don't mention what you have lost, your start weight and your goal weight. I just had my 6 week followup and am down 20% of my excess body weight. Before surgery I knew that the average loss was about 60% of excess but didn't really think much of it. After surgery when I started losing I did the math and if I lost only 60% I would still technically be obese on the BMI scales. I asked my surgeon about this at the 6 week follow-up. He said that he doesn't much care for averages. He pointed out that an average means that many people lose a higher % than average. He also pointed out that your results are going to be based on what your body wants and how much you put into it. He said for example if you get to a point where you stop losing and want to lose more you need to look at your record keeping to see if there is room to reduce calories and eat better and look at exercise to see if you can increase it and be more efficient with it. Based on all of that my advice is not to compare yourself to others. It will only cause stress. This stuff is too individualized to worry about how you compare to others and knowing what others have done will not mean it will or won't happen for you. One tip though lifting weights and building muscle increases your metabolism and therefore your weight loss.

I am no expert. I used to be big into atkins though and as far as I understand it sugar alcohol does not have the same effect on blood sugar that regular sugar does. I did however find that if I ate too much of it like in the sugar free candies I felt sick to my stomach and didn't lose as much weight as I did without consuming them. It was probably the calories though. On my pre-op diet I was required to buy shakes and bars from my program. The bars has sugar alcohol. They tasted good, helped me lose weight and didn't make me sick.

Have you researched the surgeon? When I first read your post I thought that there is no way I would go through with it but then I realized that once you are in the OR the cluster ____ you are experiencing right now doesn't matter. I did everything I could to research my surgeon including calling my State's licensing board to find out where I could go to research complaints and such. I wanted to know how many he has done, whether any of them had complications, where he went to school, is he board certified, did he do a fellowship or other specialized training bariatric surgery and everything else I could. I even managed to find his wedding pictures online....lol. By the time I was done I felt very confident in his abilities. I do not think I could go through with it without that confidence. I would want to speak to the surgeon as well. I would ask what he has going on the day before your surgery and the day of. If he has something going on that could hinder his performance I would reconsider.For example if he is coming back on a red eye flight, is already over booked with surgeries or something similar. I am sure that scheduling mistakes happen and I see how that can be disconcerting but I guess for me the bottom line is that if he isn't going to be dead tired or distracted in the OR and you have done your homework about his background and experience, the scheduling snafu is not really a big deal. I was second guessing my decision up until they knocked me out so I do think you're in a different spot than I am now, 1 month post surgery with no complications thus far. I am also not a believer in omens. If you did your research about this surgeon before choosing him you just need to sit down and think about whether this situation has simply amplified your nerves or if it has caused serious doubt about the surgeon's ability to do a good job. Worst case scenario you hold off on surgery until you find a new surgeon. Doing the pre-op diet twice sucks but it will give you a leg up on weight loss.

I not here to argue but since your response was not directed at the writer's question and only at correcting me, I feel compelled to respond. I was worried about stretching my sleeve and googled it. The results seemed to indicate it was possible but I know you can't trust anything on the internet. Is it possible all of these sites are wrong? I am sure it is. However, Regardless of whether it can be stretched or not I don't see any point in stuffing it full of too much food. Below are some of the links I read. http://obesitycoverage.com/weight-loss-surgeries/gastric-bypass/5-ways-to-prevent-stretching-your-stomach-after-gastric-bypass http://obesitycoverage.com/weight-loss-surgeries/gastric-sleeve/gastric-sleeve-will-my-stomach-stretch http://www.webmd.com/diet/weight-loss-surgery/restrictive-operations-stomach-stapling-or-gastric-banding https://www.healthtap.com/topics/can-you-stretch-out-your-stomach-after-gastric-sleeve

So much for posting in the guy's room to avoid this sort of response. My primary question was about how others' relationships have changed. I completely disagree with your response. At the beginning I felt she was pushing me towards surgery. She doesn't think she needs it. She agreed with me that she didn't want us to be the same size and said she was going to lose weight. I have done everything I can to help her. Cooking healthy meals, making sure she has time to get away and exercise like she said she wants to. Fair or not, frustration is what I am feeling. I do feel as though frustration is a valid response. I worry about becoming bitter. I do not want to be bitter. I did not post this topic to be lectured for how I feel. I posted it because I am sure others have had relationship issues arise after surgery and hoped for input on how they handled them. I also posted this in what is supposed to be a "safe" place for men to communicate with men about such sensitive issues. I would politely ask that it be respected.

I posted something similar on a different forum and was crucified. I will spare you the lectures I got. I too felt that something was wrong because I could eat exactly what my nut told me to be eating plus some if I wanted. Actually, I did eat a bit more because I could tolerate it and wanted it. I figured out that it is mostly mental. When you're used to eating a whole rack of ribs, bread, potato, corn and Beans, a 1/2 cup of canned tuna is mentally unsatisfying even if it is physically satisfying. Doing some research on my own, I learned it takes months for your stomach to heal. Right now it is probable the nerve endings in your stomach have not healed enough to send "full signals" to your brain. Overeating could be dangerous right now. You have to measure your food and eat slowly. The new stomach will stretch just like your old one did if you put too much in it regularly. I learned that the second I feel a little bit of pressure that I should stop eating. I hated it because sometimes I was not through the tiny meal I set out for myself and mentally I felt like I was not ready to stop eating. Guess what? I didn't need to eat for hours. Don't listen to the "size of the bougie" people. My surgeon told me the differences are a matter of millimeters. Follow all the rules and address the mental aspect of food and you will be fine.

I am a little over a month out. Before surgery I ate a ton. I would have bags of microwave popcorn and/or most of a box of Cereal in the evening as a snack. On the pre-op diet I was constantly hungry. It got better in the second week but I was still hungry. The surgery is supposed to take away real hunger but will not change mental hunger. Since my surgery when my wife and son eat something like pizza or candy I still want some. However, I realize 1. I can't physically eat it right now and 2. I don't need it. I no longer get that mouth watering, stomach churning uncontrollable need for it. I used to smoke cigarettes and I equate that feeling with wanting a cigarette. I still feel head hunger in the evenings when I used to snack the most. I have a greek yogurt, sugar free pudding or popsicles and I am fine. The restriction allows me to feel full with much less intake, I plan for an evening snack in my daily intake. I also think that I feel hungry before meal times. I have read that this is probably acid and/or mental hunger. I am not sure. It is different than before surgery but it seems like real hunger to me. Honestly, at times I wonder if they got all of the part of the stomach that produces the hunger hormone on me. I think everyone is different. I know that many of these forums have bummed me out. I read about people only being able to eat 2oz of food at a time and I think something is wrong with me. I eat 2 eggs for Breakfast with no problem. I usually only have a shake for lunch and for dinner I have been eating between 1/2 cup and 3/4 cup of food such as canned tuna for dinner. I eat between 550 and 800 cals per day and have lost about 40lbs since my surgery in early July.

I am torn on this women posting thing. On the one hand it bugs me that some don't seem to think the rules apply to them. On the other hand, I think it is rather naive to think that women aren't going to read threads from this room so what does it matter if they post as well.

I am about a month out. I had an out of town event last weekend where I wanted to drink and got permission from my doctor to have a drink. I was quite nervous as I have read many forum posts indicating that I would have no tolerance. I have also read studies that say alcoholism rates are higher for bariatric patients than the general public. Before surgery I drank once or twice per week at most. I mostly drank martinis and scotch. Well the first night of my trip I had white wine. I put it over ice. I drank about 2/3 of the bottle over a few hours. I couldn't tell for sure what I felt. One moment I thought I was starting to feel something and then it went away. The next night I had vodka and crystal light. I had about 2-3 drinks again over a couple hours. I got a nice buzz from them - more than I probably would have felt before surgery but I didn't get stumbling drunk or anything. It seemed to wear off quickly though. The next night I had a scotch on the rocks. I definitely felt that. A nice warm buzz and again didn't get super drunk from it. Again, it seemed to wear off quickly.

It could be energy. It could be something unrelated to surgery. I am 5 weeks out and have not had a loss in sex drive. In fact, mine has increased. I get harder and it seems bigger than before and I seem to recover more quickly.