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Pretty common sense stuff, but I thought this was a good distillation of a lot of common themes from threads across Bariatric Pal. http://www.everydayhealth.com/news/ways-avoid-weight-gain-after-bariatric-surgery/

I only met my surgeon once before the day of surgery, and it was early in the process. I thought he was a bit of a cold fish and very intimidating, but I also believe that his beside manner is beside the point. I was unconscious for the most important part of our relationship. He just needs to be good at cutting me; the rest of the team can look after my emotional well-being. So I stuck with him because he's the head of the program (which is a Center of Excellence and all that) and is in his third decade as a bariatric surgeon who's done this literally hundreds (thousands?) of times. I'm really glad I did, as I have warmed to him considerably since the day of surgery and through the aftercare. Also, the nutritionist, nurse practitioners, aides, and support coordinator are all stellar and I have felt very comfortable with them all along. Having said all that, you should definitely challenge the team on the choice of surgery between sleeve and bypass. If your reflux is as bad as it sounds, sleeve is most likely the wrong choice and it's not too late to change course if that's the right thing for you long-term. Good luck!

Aw, this really takes me back. My first big diet was following the instructions in The Sweet Dreams Body Book. I was 12, which is about how old you have to be to follow nutrition advice from a publisher of teen romance books. My next-silliest was Deal-A-Meal. I think Richard Simmons is delightful, and the concept was brilliant, but I couldn't follow that diet to save my life.

I track everything in MFP, but not always to the exact quantities. I cook a lot from scratch, and cook by "feel" rather than recipe, so it can be a challenge at times. In the 6 months since my surgery, I've done slightly more measuring than usual, just to make sure I'm cooking like I think I'm cooking, if that makes any sense. I think it matters on the big things - big carby / starchy stuff, butter and other fats, etc - the ones that really "move the needle" from the okay range into the danger zone. All that really matters is that my Proteins stack up at the end of the day and my fats and carbs don't get too out of hand, so I try to keep that in mind when I start to obsess. I use my kitchen scale to weigh everything at home, especially when I am making food on the weekend and packaging it up for lunches for the week. I keep reasonably good track of what's going into the recipe, then monitor portion size more closely as that's where I always used to get into trouble. I've gotten pretty good at eyeballing things that are hard to measure (condiments, shredded cheese), but will still weigh them on occasion just to make sure I don't drift too much. I'm from Wisconsin, so cheese is my kryptonite and has a tendency to creep up if I don't watch it closely.

I saw my nutritionist more than everyone else in the office combined. They take a team approach, so you can see any one of them for your mandatory 6-month supervised weight loss thing, and for whatever reason I picked her. She tried every trick in her book to get me on track, but it never really stuck. I knew she was making sense and knew what she was talking about, but it didn't change my behavior. She was a nice enough person and very earnest, but I just wasn't ready to hear any of what she was laying out there. I didn't lose a single pound during that process, until the last 2 weeks before surgery when I suddenly managed to squeak out the expected 5% reduction for liver-shrinkage. Immediately pre- and post-surgery, I would just schedule appointments when I felt like I needed it. When I was about to go on my first business trip or first vacation post-surgery, I'd schedule a session and just talk about how to navigate those situations. And when I transitioned from one food phase to another, I'd schedule an appointment to talk about what was OK / not OK on the new plan. At the end of the day, I must have been taking in what she was saying on some level, because the more time passes the more I'm following the instructions she gave me more than a year ago. I'm almost six months post-surgery and haven't seen her for three months and don't have any appointments planned, but I still feel like she set me up for success even when I wasn't really taking any action yet.

My stalls are frequent, but generally short. It's not uncommon for them to last many weeks, but if you're doing all the right things the scale will move again eventually. As soon as I notice the scale getting stuck, I decrease the frequency of weighing myself. I usually weigh in every day, but it's easy to get obsessive during a stall and it's important to fight it. As far as stall-busting, I suggest changing your behavior for a couple of days. If you're exercising every day, take a couple of days off. If you're not exercising much, hit it hard for a couple of days. If you're in a food routine / rut, try something different for a few days. And always try increasing your Water intake. If you're drinking 60 oz, try for 80; if you're drinking 80 oz, try for 100. Additional water almost always helps with whatever isn't working. At the end of the day, whether these actually break the stall or just give you something else to think about and take your mind off it for a few days, doesn't matter. Either way, they do seem to work. Good luck!

Sometimes, this cuts both ways. Hardly anyone at my work ever comments on my weight loss - over 100 pounds and still going - and I actually find it kind of unnerving. I interact with tons of people across many different groups, and I've known most of them for many years. We're all on friendly terms, but only the (very!) few people closest to me ever say anything. Before surgery I was terrified of people noticing my weight loss and shining a spotlight on what I was doing, almost to the point where it was a barrier to getting surgery at all. But now I'm like "COME ON! Do you not SEE this? WHERE'S THE LOVE?" It's like all of their other friendliness and stories of kids and family and non-work activities doesn't mean as much if they can't recognize this amazing transformation I'm going through and be at least a little bit curious. EDITED TO SAY: I think my reaction to this is probably a product of where I am in the process. I'm just a few months post-surgery still rapidly losing, so of course I expect people to notice. Heck, *I* notice it being different from one day to the next. But once I'm at goal and have been at goal for a long time and my transformation is no longer shiny and new, I can see how it would become an unwelcome reminder of something that's firmly in the past.

I don't have a single regret. I don't even regret not doing it sooner, as I don't think I was in the right head space until recently. And trust me, this is a mental game at least as much as a physical one. I am less than 5.5 months post-surgery, and have lost over 100 pounds. And I'm just three pounds from the mythical place I never thought I'd see again: ONEderland. In the 5.5 months since surgery... ... I've discovered running. I completed couch-to-5k (thank you, "C25K Free" app!!) and then two 5k races, and have more scheduled every weekend for the next 6 weeks. Before surgery, I couldn't run half a block to catch a bus if my life depended on it. I definitely would've been the first one down in the zombie apocalypse. ... I've discovered bicycling. I rode 25 miles in a benefit event, including up a freeway ramp and across a big high bridge near Lake Michigan. And I did it without stopping. Before surgery, I hadn't been on a bike for 20+ years. ... I've discovered gardening. There was a large area of my property that used to be a garden and I always wanted to reclaim it. But the weeds were waist-high and the one time I tried to clear them out I could only manage a 2-foot square and that was even while sitting on a bucket. Now I'm growing 46 different crops and I have fresh strawberries every morning. ... I've vacationed like a fiend. I planned a big bucket-list vacation for my mom to Peru for 4 months post-surgery, and I conquered Machu Picchu like I was born to do it (see my icon). When I was in China a year ago, I could barley explore any of the Great Wall and mostly sat on a bench while watching others break out. ... I've kicked medical issues to the curb. I've beat diabetes (last A1C was 5.0 with no meds and no monitoring), high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. My knees don't hurt. My back doesn't hurt. I don't get headaches anymore. The past 5.5 months have felt miraculous and magical and transformative on every level. I catch myself getting excited about sneaking carrot sticks into the movie theater for a special treat during the show, and I hardly recognize myself. So, no... no regrets.

Ninja!

I used to buy it when I was doing Atkins. It is, basically low carb bisquick that you can use in anything. It was great. Haven't tried it since surgery though, so I can't speak to whether it would disagree with me like basically all breads do now. Sorry I don't have more recent info.

While on vacation in Peru, I hit the halfway point in my WLS journey. 80 pounds lost, 80 pounds to go. I celebrated at the top of Machu Picchu, which involved 16,000 steps and 208 flights of stairs (presumably 104 up and 104 down). This was something I could never ever in a million years done before surgery gave me back my life. I am just 3.5 months post-RNY and have never been so thankful for anything in my life.

I just got around to looking at the progress pictures I took a couple of weeks ago, and I can't believe what I see. First picture in each was taken 10 days before surgery. Second picture in each pair was taken on my 3-month surgiversary. This is an excellent reminder to me to TAKE pictures and LOOK at them, or my mind will never catch up with my body. I still have a long way to go, but I'm happier than ever with this decision!

There is a tasty looking recipe here for bariatric mozzarella sticks: http://bariatricfoodie.blogspot.com/2011/02/wls-friendly-mozzarella-sticks.html?m=1 I just plugged it into My Fitness Pal, and it came out to the following or stick (each stick is 1/2 string cheese plus breading): Calories: 68 Fat: 3.3g Carbs: 2.8g Protein: 5.8g Let us know how they turn out if you try them. I've always been very curious! Good luck!

I was eating a lot of chicken taco meat (cook it at home and throw it in the blender with spicy salsa for a good kick), refried beans, Greek yogurt, and scrambled eggs.

I reward myself a lot! It was important to me to not just reward myself for losing pounds, but also for medical milestones like comorbidities beaten and achievements like a perfect workout week or running a 5k. When I made the decision to have surgery, I bought a Pandora bracelet for Essence collection charms, with the plan to add a charm to the bracelet each time I achieved a milestone or goal. The charms are all named after virtues or ideals such as ""Hope", "Optimism", Health", "Wellness", "Balance", "Joy", "Happiness", "Faith", "Stability", etc. so they each felt very meaningful to me. So far, I have earned 8 charms and I an't wait to get the next one!

I change mine up a LOT. My current schedule is a bit weird because I'm doing the Couch to 5k (C25K) training at the expected rate of 3x/week, but the training sessions lumped oddly together because I have classes and and other commitments on certain days that I don't want to give up. Before C25K, I was usually doing 60min cardio (15min each on bike, treadmill, rowing machine, and arc trainer) on those days. Anyway, here's what I currently do: Sun: 30min C25K and 45-60min strength training Mon: 30min C25K and 45-60min strength training Tue: 60min Water Pump class Wed: 60min with personal trainer (usually strength training) Thu: day off or 60 min cardio (15 min bike, 15min treadmill, 15min rowing, 15min arc trainer) Frid: 30min C25K and 45-60min strength training Sat: 60min Water Pump class plus 45-60min strength training I'm happy to share the details of the strength training sessions if anyone's interested.

Has anyone here ever done the Warrior Dash? I've set a goal to do the one in my area on August 1st. It feels like an extremely ambitious goal, in that there's no way on earth I could do it today, and I'll need to train like the devil to make it. I like to set stretch goals, and this definitely qualifies. If you've done it before, what did you think? Did you use the App to train? If so, did it set your expectations appropriately? Any input would be most appreciated!

I didn't lose a thing during my 6 months of nutritional counseling. I only started to lose weight during the 2-week countdown to surgery. My surgeon wants all of his patients to lose 5% of their body weight prior to surgery: in my case, 15 pounds. I managed to burn off 13 pounds in a last-ditch effort in the 2 weeks pre-op diet, and then they didn't even weigh me that day. D'oh! My nutritionist worked hard to motivate me, but at the end she shifted gears towards shoring up my resolve and plan for post-op rather than trying to get me to lose pre-op. The team told me repeatedly that there is absolutely zero relationship between pre-op weight loss and post-op success. The ability to lose weight during pre-op has no predictive value to how you will do post-op, according to the scientific literature. @@KarenLoh, I'd dig a little deeper into the psych eval that concluded you would have low projected ability to stick with the program post-op. Were there any suggestions on how to address that, or any particular areas of concern you can deal with or education elements you could correct? It seems like that might be fertile ground for further investigation. This is a great time to adjust your habits in small ways. Tackle one habit at a time, and take time to really nail it before moving on to the next one. My weakness is eating out, with particular risk of fast food drive-thru. I limited my stops to a certain number per week, then cut it lower and lower until it was gone. Same with Diet Coke (my kryptonite!). I switched to Diet Pepsi (blech!) to consume less diet soda right away, then limited it to certain times of the day, certain quantities overall, and then gone completely. Don't feel like you need to tackle every bad habit at the same time, or you will struggle like we all do with every other "cold turkey" approach to dieting. Good luck!