MerryHearted

Might be salt having you gain Water. Might be poop. Hard to tell. Our bodies are fickle on the day to day weight loss; we need to look at it over time. I've been at a stall too, and gained 2 lbs from where I was 1/2 week ago. You need to eat your daily Protein requirement and get in your fluids. The fluids are super important! And if you don't get in your protein, your body is going to start consuming your lean muscle mass. You want it to be using up your fat stores -- the muscle is what keeps your metabolism up so you burn more calories. Stick with the diet your dietician/nutritionist gave you at your surgery center, and if they didn't give you one you can certainly get that advice here from those going through it. Protein and fluids, fluids and protein!

I had a drain for a week and a half after surgery -- that's pretty much what the Fluid looked like. Had to put on dressings -- cotton pads and tape, changed them every time they were soaked through, a few times a day. But that was the point of the drain, to collect the fluid until the output was low enough. If it doesn't clear up in a few days, probably want to call your surgeon's office and see if a nurse will take a look at it for you to see if you need to be stitched up.

Generally your surgery center will provide guidelines on what they want you taking after surgery. I'm on: Celebrate Multi (2x daily) chewable, Celebrate Iron+C chewable (because my multi doesn't have iron), and daily sublingual B12. At 5 weeks I add in a daily Calcium chew. I have a bunch of samples from my dietician to try that I'm going to use before picking one. Additionally: a stool softener. They suggested Milk of Magnesia and/or Miralax as needed. I needed it at first, right now I don't. I'm going to add a probiotic here this week though, as I've been having diarrhea issues (TMI, I know). It's helped in the past with that sort of thing. I prefer the kind you stir into a bit of Water or yogurt rather than capsules, so I have to go buy in person as they are refrigerated and not generally available to buy online. Our first blood panel is at 6 months to check for deficiencies, at which point I'll know if I need to supplement with Vit D or something else.

In my forum posts, under 'rank' it says Surgery 8/31/05. Is that changeable? What are the rankings and how are they determined? The '05 surgery was my LapBand; my current surgery is RNY, so it seems weird to have my old surgery date as my rank. Is it changeable somewhere?

I mostly ate pureed soups: black bean, split pea, tomato, navy bean... I wasn't allowed cream Soups or I would have gone for those. unjury shakes for Protein, plus I put some unflavored Protein powder in with the soups. I was so happy to move on to the soft food stage after eating so much pureed soup!!

That's a long stall! Are you weighing/measuring all your food and tracking it in an app to ensure you are getting in all your Protein and keeping carbs fairly low? How's your exercise looking? I know people do have stalls, so it might just be your body adjusting, but it's good to take a look at food & exercise to be sure.

For me it was the stacking up of issues: tired all the time, high blood pressure, diabetes and Metformin wasn't getting my blood sugar under control which started to cause issues, high cholesterol, sleep apnea... in the fall I started taking more pills for these things and I decided it was time to get things under control. I was 46, almost 47 and didn't want to start having heart issues or problems from the diabetes quite so soon!

Weird! I like the Celebrate vitamins; out of all the ones I tried they tasted the best. I use the regular Multi, the B12 sublingual and the Iron+C from them. No sharp pains that I've noticed.

Dieting is hard. If it were easy, we'd all be thin without needing surgery! Just do your best and keep at it. I'm the type of person that has to stay away from the junk altogether -- trying to have sugar in moderation just doesn't work for me. Others can schedule dessert once a week and go the rest of the week not having it, and for them it's not a problem. You know yourself best -- are you able to schedule a treat in for once in awhile as a way of sticking to your diet the rest of the time? Are you someone who likes challenges? Maybe you can join a diet or fitness challenge (either on here, or check out DietBet). Otherwise just keep trucking along. If you mess up, don't write the day off, or the diet off: just pick right back up and keep going.

Good job on your weightloss so far! I would just drink some extra Water to wash out the salt and immediately return to the liquid diet.

I'd avoid the Pasta, rice, bread, etc so soon and focus on getting in your Protein through food. If you are getting in all your protein and still have room, start adding some non-starchy veggies, well cooked at first (if you plan allows it) That said, how fast you lose depends on a bunch of factors: how heavy you are to begin with, if you lost a lot pre-op, your age, metabolism, etc. I'm at my one month mark and have lost 15 lbs this first month.

Was a couple weeks for me. I was able to sleep on my side but yeah, it felt like everything was sloshing around in there. I tried using a folded towel for a little extra tummy support but it wasn't super helpful. I'm glad that sloshy feeling finally went away!

My surgery was Feb 1st and I'm stalled as well since last week. It's normal; I'm just hanging in there figuring the scale will start moving again in a few days. I'm tracking everything so I know it's not because I'm eating too much. We'll get there!

Feb 1st here. Can't believe tomorrow is my one month surgaversary already! Hope everyone is doing well. I've not had any issues with my pouch not liking certain foods, but I'm still on the soft stage for another 1.5 weeks. Down 15 lbs as of last week from the surgery day, but then had the 3rd-week-stall that so many do. The scale will start moving again this week, I can feel it! Other Feb folks want to check in and let us know how you are doing?

I had the same concerns as you, and spent some time reading research on the ASMBS site. There are actual metabolic changes that take place with the RNY procedure that do affect the long-term outcome compared to regular dieting. One example is our metabolic rate: through normal dieting, our metabolism slows down. But with RNY, it doesn't slow down as we drop weight -- it may even increase for some time. There's also some malabsorption for awhile. I'm not sure what the role is of malabsorption in early weightloss, as it doesn't seem like a terribly lot that's malabsorbed, but even 10-20% would have an impact. The stats on weight regain with RNY compared to just diet & exercise at the 5 year mark suggest that there is definitely a difference between having the surgery and not. My lapband did not work long term and caused various problems for me. I've got more hope for the RNY, even if I don't get down as far as I'd like to with it.

Your surgery center might have guidelines. I think ours was a certain amount of Protein per serving, with < 5g sugar per serving. That said, unjury worked well for me. I went through a phase post-surgery for about a week where I couldn't stand the taste of any of it, but had to gag it down anyway for the protein. Then went back to it tasting fine. I hear really good things about Syntrax Fuzzy Navel; I keep meaning to try it.

I imagine this has been asked before but I've been hunting through posts and there are so many! My insurance specifically calls out that it does not cover WLS of any kind, and my doctor's office said if that's the case then it's unlikely I'd get anywhere appealing that. So... just curious what the wait time is normally between initial appointment and actually having surgery when you don't have all the insurance hoops to jump through? I already have a bi-pap for my sleep apnea, so I doubt I'd need to go through another sleep study. I just had blood and urine run through my regular dr.s office -- I'm diabetic, high blood pressure, high cholesterol... yay! I'm hearing some of you saying you have to wait 6 months -- is that a requirement of your surgeon's office? The insurance?

This is my plan too, just waiting for the consult with the doctor to discuss it. Hoping it works better long-term than my band. I got that in 2005 and lost a good amount of weight initially but gained quite a bit back after.

Awesome job, you are looking great!

It's not always just the company but sometimes which policy that your employer uses. Premera Blue Cross is what I have, but the policy doesn't cover it. At my last employer I also had Premera Blue Cross but the policy covered a lot more, including WLS.

Wow, that's quite a negative experience with the band. Good luck with your appointment this week! Let us know how it goes!

a) 70 gm of protein is not horribly excessive but it's more than the daily recommendation, which is around 46 to 50 gms. The center I went to recommends NO SHAKES (once you get past the liquid/soft stage right after surgery and are eating normally, that is). Liquid calories, except for up to 16 oz of milk a day, are just out, period. My guess about the morning shake, and you can ask your doctor about this, is that many bandsters are super tight in the morning; too tight to eat solid food without getting stuck or horking. That varies from person to person though, so you'd want to eat solids if you are able. The protein + veggies recommendation sounds standard. It's your life though. You choose. I think the saying is, if you follow 80% of the guidelines, 80% of the time, you'll be successful. i.e. most people don't give up dessert forever, rather they choose to have a small amount once in awhile. Same with bread (which a lot of people get stuck on), or alcohol Best wishes on your sugery and new lifestyle!!

metformin - Pill Identification Wizard | Drugs.com Are they the round ones, or the oval? They look to be the same dose, so if it's one shape that's getting stuck, can you check w/your pcp to see if they can prescribe the other shape (maybe just a few pills to try it), or if there's another pill that does the same thing but has a smaller pill or can be broken? I'm not too tight, but I am tighter than I was when I last replied to this thread, and I do have issues from time to time. Hot Water or tea sure helps, both before and after, and not lying down right after taking something (let gravity help). Hope you are able to work it out without having to get an unfill.

OK August 05 Bandsters. Come out, come out, wherever you are! :smile: I want to hear from you if you are successful! I want to hear from you if you are struggling, too! I feel a whole lot better with the weight I've lost so far. It's certainly nothing to sneeze at. I stalled for almost a year -- my fault, I should have gone in for another fill but didn't, then we adopted our son and that was a stressful time. Just got adjusted to that and then he had surgery, more stress. And then it was time for the holidays... anyway, I made lots of bad eating choices in the past year. Well, I got my fill and I'm doing a LOT better now. Eating the way I should, working my way through The Beck Diet Solution (highly recommended if you are struggling - it's not a diet, it's coping strategies for people trying to lose or maintain their weight). Anyway, I wish I were here to be an example for people just getting banded of how it's so easy to get to goal and stay there, but sorry, you're out of luck. I'll have to settle for being an example of how you need to stay on top of getting fills, exercise and work on the head stuff. And hopefully, an example of how the band is always there when you're ready! There's no "window of opportunity" that says you have to lose all your weight in one straight shot. Anyone out there from Aug 2005? How ya doin? :biggrin: