beachgal2935

@@The Candidate - Don't worry, I'm pre-op just like you! Now if someone could share with me ... how do you put one of those cute little weight loss count down tickers on here??? @@Kathy812 - what mushies are you eating? Sorry to hear about your "return from the basement" and praying your pain will subside. The weight loss was AWESOME!!!

I just love all this helpful information, so thanks! I will be having my surgery at Mayo where all the rooms are private, so at least there will be no roommate issues, whew. I'm definitely going to ask about the binder and the shower.

I just love reading all of this good news. Been praying for VSGlady and happy for the progress Kathy812 is making. I went yesterday for my Bariatrician visit and 2nd official weigh in yesterday. I was so happy to hear "Wow, you've lost 6 lbs. since your visit last week". Yay - my diet I started last Wednesday is working! This doctor was just full of info. He explained to me, like the Psychologist had last week, how years of dieting resets your body's weight set point and no matter how much weight you lose on your own, your body will fight you to regain it back to where you started. This is why WLS is such a viable answer. He also asked me if I had any friends who could eat pretty much anything and not gain weight. When I said yes, he explained why. The duodenum, first part of the small intestine, which receives partially digested food from the stomach and begins the absorption of nutrients, i.e. calories play a major role in who gains weight and who doesn't. In naturally thin people the absorption rate is around 60% whereas us lucky people it's 90%. Now listen, I'm not saying that we haven't had our share of donuts, cakes, chips and ribs, but if any of you are like me, this makes so much sense. I have dieted aka starved and exercised to lose weight and when the results slowed or stopped, I'd throw in the towel and it would slowly creep back up on me. I truly believe THIS TIME I can lose it and FINALLY keep it OFF!!! Sorry to ramble. For my birthday last Friday I got a Jawbone UP24. Does anyone else have one? It is AWESOME!!! It's a fitness wristband that tracks your steps, meals and sleep with an app on your phone. I love it! Check it out ... You, in the moment UP24 is always connected, providing real-time feedback so that you can stay motivated and live better. Notifications and nudges help you understand your progress throughout the day, while the home screen serves as your daily dashboard to check overall progress and see what your friends are up to. Designed For Everyday Life UP24 was designed to fit seamlessly in people's lives. Real life. It's a thoughtful combination of engineering and design, custom-made for how we live—an intelligent computer wrapped around your wrist. Connect With Apps You Love Complement your UP experience and connect to your favorite apps — or discover new ones — within UP. Track your weight, map your bike rides, access extensive food libraries and more, and that data will be seamlessly integrated into your UP feed, lifeline and trends.

I'm so happy for your successful surgery and thankful for your honesty. How could it not hurt when your organs are being manipulated and stapled during a 90 minute procedure?! Not to mention the after-gas pains from the air they pump into your abdomen. Maybe, like childbirth, those memories fade when you look in the mirror 6 months from now and don't recognize the slim new you At least that's what I'm hoping for! Please keep us posted with your progress and know that we're all here to support you.

I lost a lot of weight back in 2008 and suffered the same problem. Here's some relief ... it's called a coccyx cushion. The lease expensive place I've found to buy one is Walgreens.com and they're only $19.99. The specific name of this one is Duro-Med Sloping Coccyx CushionDO NOT go to the store because they only sell them online. I have 3 of them one in the car, kitchen chair and desk. They are WONDERFUL! Hope this helps

I'm 5'2" and amazed by you women. I'm a pre-op newbie and excited to get this going

Hi & welcome Candidate! I'm a "newbie" too. This is day 4 of my pre-op diet. I'm having my surgery at Mayo hospital and both they nor my insurance company require me to lose weight, I just can't gain any while going through the 3 months it's going to take Mayo to pick, prob and put me through their battery of tests - LOL! I've been told if I follow the post-surgery protocol, with a beginning weight of 250, I will lose 60 lbs. with the sleeve and 85 with the bypass by the end of 12 months. That is all my body will want to release before resetting my set-point. It's based on percentages and I will confirm this when I meet with the surgeon next Tuesday. That is why I want to lose as much as I can before my surgery. I can't believe I started my diet the week of my birthday. I went out to eat Thursday, Friday, today and I'm going out tomorrow and Monday. I've looked up and logged EVERYTHING I've eaten and so far so good. I can't wait to see what the scale says when I step on it at Mayo Tuesday

#9grammy - Congrats on the weight loss! I'm on day 3 of my 1200 calorie diet and have stayed within the parameters even with it being my birthday - whew! Now if I'm being totally honest, between lunch and dinner and then again around 10:30 p.m. I feel that stupid ghrelin or as I call him gremlin hard at work and I'm starving! At least I feel like I am. I know the first week on any diet is usually the worst so I will push through. I'm going to try and get as much weight off as I possibly can pre-surgery Sure hope Kathy812's surgery went well

LanieG - my pre-op is 1200 calories, 150 carbs, 40 fat, 60 protein, 2000 sodium & 45 sugar for the day. I'm using MyFitnessPal so it deducts every time I enter anything and gives me extras in each category for exercise. I don't have a surgery date yet. My first appt was this past Tuesday. Next Tuesday I meet with the surgeon. I thought I wanted the sleeve, but now I'm thinking I may do the bypass. I'll know more after next Tuesday's appt. My 53rd birthday is tomorrow and I started celebrating today. My mom and cousin took me to Olive Garden for lunch. I had dry salad, well lettuce with purple cabbage, and their low fat dressing with a bowl of soup. No croutons, no breadsticks Tomorrow another cousin is taking me to breakfast so I just finished looking up all the calories, etc. online so I can make the most informed decision there. Saturday my parents, husband, son, brother and others will all take me out again. Do you see a pattern here - LOL? No wonder I'm overweight! I laugh it off because I know what to eat and what NOT to eat. I just have chosen to eat all the wrong things and in the wrong portions. No more ... I'm done!

Day #1 on my pre-surgery diet. I just wanted to say that this is a lot of work looking everything up and adding it to "My Fitness Pal" but I'm excited to lose as much as I can before my surgery or as I now want to call it "My do-over"! So excited for you Kathy812 and will be thinking of and praying for you tomorrow

Will definitely be praying for you Kathy. Friday will be a lucky day because it's my birthday!

Hi everyone! Well today was my first day at Mayo. After stepping on the scale and having my height measured, I turned in the inch thick stack of paperwork I had to fill out. They are so organized at that place it’s amazing. They’d Fed-ex’d everything to me last week so I could fill it out on my own time. There were even 3 pages of questions the poor guy at my Blue Cross insurance had to answer, including over 10 medical codes he needed to check for me to see if I was covered. He was super sweet but I kinda felt for him. OK, so apparently I have awesome insurance because everything is 100% covered. As of 6/14/14, they no longer require a 6 or even 3 month weight loss program in order to be approved – YAY! Mayo also doesn’t require you to lose weight before surgery. That being said, I WANT to lose as much on my own as possible before having the procedure and I’ll tell you why. Most of you probably already know this, but I was quite surprised. My first appointment was with the psychologist. She asked me which procedure I was leaning towards and I told her the sleeve. She’d gone over my medical history and shared with me that I might want to reconsider and have the roux-en-Y gastric bypass (RYGB) instead because I’ve had type 2 diabetes for more than 10 years. I didn’t realize they could do the bypass with laparoscopic surgery now. She also shared with me I could lose more weight and I’d lose it quicker with the RYGB. Now here’s what stuck in my mind more than anything … she pulled up a chart and showed with me the difference in dieting vs WLS. Everything dieting does to your body, WLS does the opposite. I wish I’d asked her to print me a copy. I will get one when I meet with the surgeon next Tuesday and post it here. Yoyo dieting keeps resetting your set point and however much weight you lose, your body fights to get it back. That’s why I’ve lost and gained 100’s of pounds over and over again. Can anyone else relate? Having WLS resets your set-point back to start. It’s like you get a do-over once and for all – yippee!!! Anyways she said with RYGB I could expect to lose 66% of my body weight by the end of 12 months. Now here’s the tricky part … that’s where my body will want to stay. I can continue to diet but it will be like dieting pre-WLS and the yoyo could begin again back and forth to that 66% pound mark. This is why it is IMPERATIVE to lose as much weight as you can BEFORE your WLS procedure. It makes complete sense and that’s my #1 goal right now. I’m going to use My Fitness Pal and see how well I can do. She told me it takes about 3 months at Mayo to get in all the pre-op labs, tests and procedures. I really wish they could have gotten it all taken care of before the end of this year as my $500 deductible and $1,700 out of pocket max have already been met, but oh well. At least at Mayo you never pay upfront as they bill you and you can pay whatever you want monthly. My 2nd appointment was an hour with the nutritionist. She printed out some menus, told me about My Fitness Pal and gave me her phone number and email if I needed her for anything. She also went ahead and gave me the booklet of nutritional guidelines for RYGB surgery. I see her again in a month. Sorry to ramble, but I promised to share.

Hi everyone! I'm a 52 (53 on the 17th) year old Newbie and was so excited to see this group I don't even have my first appointment until next Tuesday, October 14th. After I meet with my coordinator and go through the paperwork, I will see the nutritionist for an hour then the therapist for an hour. The following Tuesday, I meet with the surgeon. It all seems so fast. I'm glad I'm having the procedure done at Mayo Hospital here in Jacksonville where I live. I feel so blessed that my insurance pays for this and all of my doctors are at Mayo. I have had the BEST care anyone could ask for and am holding their Bariatric Center to the same high standards! I've been reading through a few of the different forums here and the information and support seems to be just wonderful. I'm really excited to start this journey and it's great to know I'll have others with me along the way. Congrats to everyone for chosing to make a change!

Here are the stats. I'm a Newbie but a planner as well, so I can relate. I've read the reviews and they have all been positive as far as taste and compared to regular chips quite tasty. If anyone has tried them, please let us know.

I start my journey next Tuesday, October 14th. I'm lucky enough to be having it done at the Mayo Hospital in Jacksonville, FL where I live and my insurance pays for it . After my coordinator meeting to go over all the paperwork, I will meet with the nutristionist for an hour then the therapist for an hour. The following Tuesday, I meet with the surgeon. I'm really excited and ready to get this ball a rollin'!

I go for my first appointment next Tuesday, October 14, 2014. Seeing the coordinator for paperwork, the nutrionist for an hour and then the therapist for an hour. The surgeon visit will be the following Tuesday.