Dave in SoCal

Lost 114. But I discovered I'm not 5'11" like I used to be. I've shrunk to 5'10" (sniff). So I'll probably need to readjust my goal weight. Also, after thinking I had dropped into the overweight category and left obese behind forever, my new height sent me back to obese (double sniff). I'm thankfully, back to overweight now (barely) and am still losing on average 10 lbs a month. Even with my bureaucratic snafu setback, I'm still very happy. I'm down to a 36 pants size from 48! I have also noticed a pattern of weight loss where I tend to do all my weight loss in 3-4 days followed by a week of stagnation/small gains.

I am not the poster child for bariatric surgery. I'll be 6 months post-op in 5 days and am down 113 lbs (80% of the way to goal) so the success is there. But, I have not followed the rules in doing so. The truth is everyone is different, and how your body responds to drinking while eating may be severe and it may be nothing at all. For me, it doesn't seem to have any effect. Since the surgery, I've avoided my addiction calories (soda, chips and other empty calories) and focused hard on Proteins, fruits and vegetables. I've also really increased my activity getting (and using) a gym membership and trying to get 100% or more on my activity tracker each day. Other than that, I have chucked the rule book out the window. Again, everyone is different. The key is to let your body (and your scale) tell you what you should and shouldn't be doing.

Congrats all you guys! I've lost 103 lbs -- 36 more to go. This last week I started being able to run on a soft track again without my knees hurting--first time since high school. Ran 2 miles without a break! My birthday is in early July so not going to get to my goal by then, but maybe below 200. I am starting to not recognize myself in the mirror.

@@thisfathasgot2go It's generally 3 months after you first meet with your surgeon, so if you're in a hurry get the consult scheduled with your surgeon as soon as they'll let you. There are 3 support groups near you. The Hollywood group meets once a month on the third Tuesday, the Pasadena group meets once a month on the 2nd Monday. The Playa Vista group meets twice a month on the 2nd Monday and last Wednesday of the month. These are post-op support groups, but pre-ops with questions/jitters are welcome and often come. If any non-Kaiser SoCal folks are reading this, these free groups are actually open to anyone who want to come. You don't even have to be a KP member. As for your lowish BMI, you're above 40 so that qualifies you. The fact that you're very little above 40, and hopefully below after you've lost the required 10% over the next 3 months will only help you. It will greatly reduce the risk of complications. You're welcome!

I had surgery in West LA Medical center with Dr. Benjamin Kim last December. My surgery went perfect. The pain was almost nonexistent. The results have so far been fantastic. I've talked with a number of others at the Hollywood Kaiser Bariatric Surgery Support group, and they have had similar feelings with their surgeons at West LA. I recommend you come to the support group. It's walk-in, free and great place to get your questions answered from other sleevers and the medical professionals that run the group. The next one is: When: June 16th, 5:30pm (every third Tuesday) Where: Conference rooms at 1515 N Vermont Ave, L.A., CA 90027 (probably the same place you're doing your Options classes) PS: expect a long (at least 3-months) wait. The doctors in West LA do sleeves and bypasses all day every day, but still have a very long waiting period.

So I've gotten the exercise bug recently and have been curating a playlist of songs that are good for working out to. Really just about anything with a fast beat will do it, but I have my own personal preferences. I grew in the 80s and 90s listening to The Clash, Tom Petty, They Might Be Giants, and Nirvana so that's where I'm coming from. I thought it might be fun to have a thread where people can post the favorite workout mixtape--i.e. 8 to 12 songs that get them motivated in the gym. So here's mine to start: Nirvana Breed Hamilton Leithauser Alexandra Tom Petty Fault Lines Gary Clarke Jr. Don't Owe You a Thing Yeah Yeah Yeahs Tick Franz Ferdinand Come on Home Iggy Pop Lust for Life Ozomatli Como Ves The New Pornagraphers Twin Cinema They Might Be Giants Damn Good Times Kings of Leon Taper Jean Girl Vampire Weekend A-Punk Bully Milkman Ramones California Sun The Clash Safe European Home While these might not be the most famous songs, they are the ones that help me get my heart rate into the 150s. These are my favorites from my Spotify playlist. Any other Spotify users who want to see the full list (200 songs and growing) can find it here.

I started with walking. I use a heart rate monitor along with MapMyFitness (smartphone app) to keep track of all the calories I've burned. This is a huge motivator for me. If you have a newer smartphone the Polar H7 heart rate strap is great. Nothing better than adding a thousand calories (which I try not to use) to my daily allotment. After using it for 3 months I've ramped up to 5-days a week gym workouts. My favorite activities are swimming and elliptical (jogging minus impact). My wife is big into Zumba.

For Protein powder I have been using the Isopure Low Carb Dutch chocolate. You get 25g protein at just 110 calories. It melts pretty good into cold water/crushed ice in a shaker cup and appeals to my kid-like desire for chocolate milk. They estimate it has about 42 1-scoop servings (for the 3lb container), so for $43 on Amazon that works out to about a buck a shake and that appeals to me too. It does have artificial sweeteners which I am not a big fan of, but nothing will be perfect. The only other powder I have tried are samples of Bariatric Advantage (chocolate, orange cream, and strawberry) powder that were given out a support group meeting I attended. Their version of chocolate was richer, creamier and had a very faint aftertaste. I could see why people might like this more, but I still prefer the lighter taste of the Isopure.

So far, so (very) good. I'm down 84 lbs, 54 since surgery. I know I'm only supposed to check my weight once a week, but I just can't help myself. I check almost every day, and update MyFitnessPal. Below is a chart that shows my progress. Because it's updated every day you can really see the ups, downs and stalls. Sometimes it's discouraging to see the gains, but having this tool allows me to quickly remember that it's happened before and it's always been followed by weight loss.

I also had my surgery through Kaiser. It was something like a $250 copay on the day of the procedure, which for practical purposes is free. It sounds like this was a passing freakout, but let me give you some ammunition against potential future doubts. I went through the same dread about fatal complications. It took me nine months after I completed my Kaiser class to finally get the surgery. My thinking in the end, was that this surgery had no more risk than the risk my wife took each time she gave birth to our two girls. VSG would greatly increase my odds of seeing my girls grow up. And while there are no shortage of horror stories, my story is much more common. I woke up after the surgery with a mild pain in my stomach. My initial thoughts were, "really, is that it?" I didn't even need pain meds after the first 2 days. I had to resist the urge to do heavy exercise the first few weeks because I felt all better. After almost 3 months, I'm down a total of 80 lbs (30 before / 50 after). I have 60 more to go, and already feel like a new man.

I have discovered that when you actively do something to fix yourself, others who need some major fixes themselves (weight or otherwise) may start to be sarcastic and/or distant. Your success reminds them that they are not powerless to improve themself and that pisses them off.

juice, even freshly prepared, is not recommended as it tends to deliver too high of a sugar payload in a form that your smaller stomach can handle (i.e it goes too-quickly through your new system). Juicing also eliminates a lot of the benefits of fruit and vegetables. Your doctor should be the primary source of your post-surgery diet, but here are some typical recommendations. 1. Early on you should be drinking Protein drinks that get 100% of their calories from protein. 2. After a few days to a week you'll be allowed to have creamed Soups (blended and strained) and plain yogurt (low-carb). 3. After about a month you'll be able to start introducing solids back in. Always eat Proteins first, carbs (whole grains only) last. Throughout all of this, you'll want to eat foods that deliver the greatest feeling of fullness, the most vitamins/nutrients with the least calories. Juice does not adhere to those principals.

My soda substitute has been Vitamin Water Zero and the occasional diet Snapple. Three months ago I was addicted to Coke Zero and soda in general. I don't feel that way now, and I don't want to risk a relapse. I did however look up carbonation (I would like an occasional beer) and it's been discussed in much length on this board and others. One of the best responses I've seen is from a competing website: "Great question! The conventional wisdom is that carbonated beverages should be avoided after gastric bypass and vertical sleeve gastrectomy. Reasons stated include potential stretching of the pouch or sleeve and uncomfortable bloating caused by the expanding gas. These reasons make common sense, but to the best of my knowledge have never been tested in an objective manner. I suppose one would have to have half of a randomized group drink sodas for five or ten years and the other not. So you can see that that's just not going to happen. The question "do sodas stretch the pouch" will remain unanswered. Another reason that surgeons advise against sodas is the possibility that drinking calorie free sodas will pave the way to drinking sugary sodas. Again, I don't know if that's likely or not, but drinking sugar sodas is the kiss of death to successful weight loss maintenance after bariatric surgery. Really drinking any calorie containing beverages including juice bar drinks, vegetable juice, sodas, sports drinks, kids sugar drinks, ice tea containing sugar, coffee with milk, and beer will lead to intake than more calories than needed and weight gain. Now does that mean No Milk, No Juice.....? Well not really. It just means that if you drink liquid calories, you have to figure it into your daily calorie allotment and eat less of other foods. Since many calorie containing liquids have little nourishment other than sugar, that means eating less healthy stuff. A bad trade off. To summarize, if you do drink calorie containing liquids, make sure they are nutritious and include the calories in your daily calorie allotment. If they are of little nutritious value, make them small, occasional, a real treat. So have that glass of orange juice or glass of milk or glass of wine, but remember that they contain about 100 - 120 calories so skip something else and keep your calorie budget intact. Drink your calories responsibly." Dr. Charles Callery

Have tried sushi and sashimi and am loving that it's now affordable. Next up, Spanish tapas.

I am not measuring my meals anymore. I eat until I am full, and it happens pretty fast. If I were to guess, it is still around 5oz. When I sit down for dinner with my family, each time I try to eat a little slower, but I still always finish way before everyone else. It's a work in progress. But everyone is used to the way I eat now, and it is not a big deal. Family time not centered around eating has seen an incredible improvement. I'm running all around our local park playing soccer with our 6 year old. I'm much more likely to have energy and be wide awake in the middle of the day. My wife and I plan active dates. We go walking a lot. The other day we went to a local bar because it had a ping pong table. I'm less embarrassed to go swimming with my kids now.

So a lot of what the doctor (may have a been a nutritionist) said is true. I do think she could have taken a less discouraging approach to it. Lapband The biggest drawback in my opinion to the lapband is that it just has the highest failure rate as defined by the percentage of people who gain all their weight back. Our instructor in Hollywood Kaiser said that Lapband is an option, but Kaiser no longer performed the surgeries, so if you elected it you would have to go out of network and pay a percentage of the procedure. There were 2 people in our class that had failed with the Lapband and were getting either the sleeve or bypass. Loose Skin Yes, if you have a BMI over 40 you're going to have loose skin when you get down close to your ideal weight. If you want to get an idea of what this looks like, just look at enough before and after pictures on this site. Some people it bothers more then others. If you do want a tummy tuck by a plastic surgeon it will be your own dime, and will set you back a few thousand. Risk of Complications/Death As is the case with any surgery there are risks of complications and death. This bothered me a lot, and caused me to wait almost 9 months after my class ended to get my surgery. I have 2 kids and the idea of the worst happening and leaving them without a dad was hard to deal with. In the end, I decided the risk was greater to do nothing. I told myself that the risk was similar to the risk my wife took each time she gave birth to our 2 children. 1200 Calories the rest of your life Hmmm, not sure about this one. This was never brought up in our class. I have learned that once you reach a BMI over 40, the way your body processes food changes. Essentially, your body thinks you're in a feast or famine cycle and starts telling you you're hungry all the time, and when you do eat it is much more efficient processing the food. The efficiency part will likely never change now, even if you reach your goal. So, you will need to eat less than a typical person your size to maintain your weight. The good news is that you'll be far less hungry. When you reduce the size of your stomach, it will impair your stomach's ability to produce a hormone that signals to your brain that you're hungry. I haven't felt hungry since my surgery 2 months ago. I am now 1lb away from halfway to my goal. I eat 1000 to 1200 calories a day, but because I'm not hungry that isn't hard. I know there are a lot of things going through your head right now. I know because I thought those same things. But, think about this: you have the chance at 21 to change the rest of your life. I wish I did it when I was 21. When I was 21 (19 years ago) this wasn't even an option. Now at 40, I feel like I am finally becoming the person I always wanted to be.

Kaiser's Options literature is pretty outdated and seems much more geared toward bypass candidates. 2 recs: get the book The Sleeved Life. It's better than Options and is an easy read. Come to a Kaiser weight loss surgery support group. They met once a month in various locations. These groups are free and open to everyone. You don't even have to belong to Kaiser.

Also had mine on 12/17. I had high hopes, but it has gone way better then I anticipated. I waited 9 months after the pre-op diet. Hw 320 Sw 290 Cw 255 I'll be writing up a full 'tell your story' when i get half way to goal, but just wanted to chime in on your post. I'm feeling normal. I literally feel exactly the same except I have a smaller stomach. I've been really motivated to exercise and have been averaging 4 miles a day on walking/cardio machine workouts. I'm throwing out/donating fat clothes. To say I don't regret my decision is a huge understatement. Couldn't be happier.