anaxila

Third weigh-in of how many?

My interpretation is that want to have a copy of your medical chart, and that your medical chart must include a note on your progress each month for six months straight. I do not interpret it to say that you need to visit the dietician every month, just that dietician consult should be part of the overall plan you're following. Given how specific they are about "for a period of 6 consecutive months by the attending physician.", I would think that they would say "for a period of 6 consecutive months by the supervising dietitian" if that's what they wanted.

@@foodfighter78, congratulations on your decision! I know how scary and strange it is. I'm just 5 weeks post-op and I'm already thrilled with the decision and how it's turning out for me.

I was not very "clean" at all during the months running up to surgery. I focused on trying to change 1 habit at a time (now stop eating out all the time, now stop carbonated soda, now stop coffee, etc.) but I was pretty lax overall. And, big surprise, my weight was more or less stable throughout the 6-month weight loss window. I got mostly serious in the 2 weeks before surgery, when I finally started holding myself accountable for breaking all those habits for real, once and for all. I weighed 305 at my first appointment with the surgeon, and he asked me to get down to 290 before surgery. I made it to 291.5 by pulling out all the last-minute tricks I could think of, and then the b*stard didn't even weigh me on surgery day. LOL. My nutritionist reminded me a couple of times that pre-surgery weight loss is not at all correlated with post-surgery weight loss. Even though I didn't take the run-up to surgery very seriously, the messages were actually getting through and I've had no issues at all with holding myself accountable to making good choices since surgery.

@@Cupcake, you give me hope! I'm also in my 40s and my starting BMI was similar to yours, and I'm working out 6 days/week. I am nervous about excess skin and am trying to be realistic - I am fairly sure there are batwings in my future! - but it's good to hear that frequent regular exercise has made a difference for you.

My surgeon starts us on purees from Day 1, so my rate may be different from yours. At 10 days post-op, I was eating about 650-750 calories per day, which I think is somewhat higher than average due to the amount I was working out and burning off. For Breakfast, I'd have a scrambled egg and 1/2 serving of Dannon Light & Fit Greek Yogurt. For lunch, I'd have 1/4 cup of pureed taco meat and 1/4 cup of refried Beans. For dinner, I'd have1/4 cup of egg salad, the other half of the yogurt cup, and/or some PB2 on a spoon. These meals took me about 45 minutes to consume due to the volume of food going in. Over the course of the day, I'd also usually have some chicken broth and some fortified milk mixed (both included in my Water counts) to get enough Protein in. Hope this helps!

I hit mine right on schedule too. Even knowing what to expect and knowing they are NBD, I was still completely anxious about it at first. Reading the board called called "Don't Sweat the Stall Stuff" (I think it's under General WLS) has been hugely helpful in keeping me sane. I have been weighing myself every day. Just yesterday I finally forced myself to put the scale away, and I am enjoying today not knowing what the scale says. I'm going for a weekly Monday check-in myself.

I had two food dreams the first week after surgery. One was about a pizza Hut sausage-and-extra-cheese stuffed crust pizza, and the other was about a big gooey cheeseburger from the restaurant near our house. No subtext at all, no surgery thoughts or concerns while dreaming, just luxuriating in the juicy fatty meaty carby goodness. Last week I had another pizza dream, but this time I was aware that I was post-surgery and was wrestling with the pizza urge something fierce. I still caved in and ate the dream pizza, but I still think this version counts as progress.

Melatonin is good, but when I used to take it I had terrible daytime sedation - much worse than any prescription sleep aid I've ever used. Also, Nyquil has a ton of sugar - 13g per dose. I believe they may have a sugar-free version, but you definitely want to look at the labels. The nurse practitioner on my surgical team suggested Benadryl for sleep for bariatric patients.

I eat a ton of refried Beans and cheese: 1/4c vegetarian refried beans plus 2T reduced-fat mexican cheese equals 3g of fat and 7g of Protein. I don't puree them, just heat them up in the microwave and stir the melted cheese into the beans. The beans are soft enough that they break down easily with chewing and I haven't had a problem from not-pureeing. I also make chicken taco meat and puree it with a 50/50 mix of taco meat and salsa. 1/4c of the taco meat plus 2T reduced-fat mexican cheese equals 2g of fat and 14g of protein. I personally puree the salsa because the kind I use includes onions and I want them to be as tiny as possible in order to go down easily.

My nurse practitioner said that sleep disruption is very common in the first month following surgery but should lessen with time. She suggested Benadryl, but since I have a prescription for Ambien I've been using that.

I think mine sounds like a creaky pirate ship, so I have taken to speaking like a pirate when things get rolling. Avast, ye scurvy dogs!

There's a ton of people across the site that use the app and the website - me among them! To find more friends, check out this thread: http://www.bariatricpal.com/topic/193680-official-myfitnesspal-friend-add-thread/

Just to clarify, is this granulated Spenda or packets? I understand the granulated is much less concentrated, so want to make sure I'm using the right product. Sounds delicious!

I had surgery on a Tuesday at 1pm and was discharged Wednesday at 7pm. The current plan is to have four weeks off from my (office) job, though it may stretch to six weeks. I'm in week three now, and won't know about back-to-work clearance until I see the surgeon on Feb 2. At this point there's no pain keeping me from working - just a lack of stamina and amount of effort on learning to eat and exercise and manage the new digestive system. I think you'll get a different answer to this question from every person you ask. Our answers vary based on each person's healing and health and level of physical effort in our jobs, of course, but also on our financial and employment situations. I have full 100% pay on short-term disability leave for up to 3 months, so the only things pressuring me to get back to the grind are my darn midwestern work ethic and the fact that I love my job.

@@ambernamber, I strongly recommend packing a pillow for the ride home. You'll feel every pebble that your car drives over, and having a pillow to clutch to your belly will make the ride home easier. I was feeling great when I left the hospital, but a 30-minute ride home on freeways and county roads had me gasping. I didn't listen to the advice to pack a pillow, and regretted it.

I am looking forward to my husband figuring this out as well. I'm three weeks post-op and he's still tiptoeing around me about eating anything he thinks I will be jealous of. I keep saying I don't care and it doesn't bother me and I have no interest in it myself, but he's apparently a slow learner.

That's funny! I've never had couscous or quinoa, though I know the latter is very trendy right now. I have had risotto and it's delicious when properly made. Was your nutritionist recommending them? I can see why couscous and quinoa would be recommended, but am surprised by risotto. I would think the fat content would be too high. But it you're having it recommended to you, I will ask my nutritionist as well - I love that stuff!

Thanks for sharing! "So by chalking up a person’s entire weight loss to their surgery, you’re actually robbing them of everything they’ve put themselves through, which is the fight of surgery, the pain, the courage it took to get there, and all the diet and exercise they’ve completed post-surgery" Preach it, Dr. Smith!

There's nothing you can do about comments from other people, especially if you are well-known at work and active in your community or circle of friends. You need to prepare yourself for how to deal with them, because they will come whether you're ready for them or not. And they will continue coming until after you've hit your goal and seen every person who knew you before WLS. That's probably a lot of people. Many more people will be silently wondering than those who dare to ask. Take a cue from the person who asked if it was a good thing. People will worry if you have cancer or another life-threatening illness, as those can also cause dramatic weight loss; they will especially wonder if it's known that you were out of the office for undisclosed medical reasons. You don't need to disclose exactly what you've done. Just smile and say it's very good news and the result of tremendous hard work and transformed habits. All of those statements are entirely truthful, and hopefully word will get around after that.

I am on the pill and am currently enjoying my third period in six weeks. I talked about this with my surgical team, and they said it was not unusual. It's the usual story for most weird things that happen at this stage: body reeling from the trauma of surgery, hormones and toxins being released willy nilly, should only be temporary, yadda yadda. All I can say is that the bleeding is getting really really old. But then again, since that's the worst that's happened to me so far, I am still immensely grateful.

My surgeon told me the earliest I should think about plastics is 18 months after surgery. That's the earliest point when weight is stable and you have a sense of how much your skin is going to bounce back. It was a 15-second exchange at most, so I don't know more than that. I'm just 3 weeks post-RNY so I filed it away for future reference.