Daisee68

Wow! How cool! And you just gave me a great thing to look forward to!! My favorite concert I have been to is Kenny Chesney and I just heard this week he is coming here on June 4 of next year which happens to be my 1 year surgiversary! And girl, thanks to you, I am going to make sure I can buy and wear a concert t-shirt! I have never been able to do that before! And what a cool idea about your quilt!

So I think I remember my NUT saying less than 5g per serving. Here is my suggestion - how about using a smaller or half serving of the Pumpkin Spice one and then use something like an unflavored or even vanilla powder to mix with it that you know meets the nutrition requirements? I use Precision Engineered whey Isolate in Vanilla and it even SMELLS yummy. It only has 1g of fat per scoop (1g of carb and 30 g protein). I HIGHLY recommend this brand.

Oh my dear @bellabloom. I am so sad and so happy for you at the same time. I hope you have come back and read all these supportive posts. I have worried about you often from many of your posts over the last month or so and I am so incredibly proud of the decision you have made to get treatment - for you and for your children. I hope you know you are not alone. I think many WLS patients deal with anorexia/bulimia whether you hear about it or not. While I have not been formally "diagnosed" with binge eating or compulsive eating, I am absolutely certain I am afflicted with this and anorexia / bulimia is just the flip side of it and all to close to those of us who deal with an eating disorder. I will absolutely be praying for you and that you will finally be freed from this and be released to live a wonderfully healthy life.

Welcome. I am about 6 weeks behind you and won't be quite as far along in my journey as you. Seriously - great job! Any tips?

Let me make you feel better .... I felt fine in the hospital and then got home and I kept thinking, man this gas is no joke. I mean the hydrocodone was not touching the pain. I finally called the on call doctor and got a different med (though that didn't help either) and after a few hours I realized mine was not just gas, I was passing a kidney stone. I very large one... I have a long history with kidney stones but man I sure didn't expect to pass one then. SMH... Can you imagine a worst time? I survived though and the gas pains still stuck with me but they weren't near as bad! LOL. The yoga / child's pose helped a lot but just be sure no one else is the in room with you

You look fantastic! And congrats on the better health! Great job!

Great job!!

Heating pad and Gas-x. Try a yoga pose called "child's pose" - basically kneel down with your stomach pressed against your knews, bum up in the air and arms stretched out front. It will sometimes help release the gas. Walking does help, so take a pain pill and see if you can get past the discomfort enough to be able to walk. Otherwise, you just have to wait it out and it is awful! Take heart though. It should be gone in another day or tow.

@@Dajones - Curious if you made any decisions on this. I have been having pain on my right side (which is sometimes up higher and sometimes lower and sometimes moves around to my back) off and on for months. CT scan and ultrasound were normal. Going for a HIDA scan tomorrow but GI dr says he doesn't think it is gallbladder but said it could just be adhesion or something from by bypass.

@@MarciaN - I am so glad you reached a place of peace with your decision. That is what is most important. I did not respond to you earlier this week, but I have been thinking about your post yesterday and today and just thought I would share why. I saw my therapist yesterday (which I highly recommend if you are not currently doing this) and we were discussing how this does feel different to me this time. But the reason it is different (and mind you I am only 5 months out next week) is that this time it is not out of sheer willpower. It is truly out of the inability and thus lack of desire (for the most part) to eat too much. The surgery is a tool (as you have read here many times before) and what that means to me is that it gives me the ability to lose the weight rather quickly WHILE I am learning and developing good habits. Ideally, by the time I get to goal weight, these habits will be engrained and I will be a new healthier eater. You have a head start on most of us going in to this because you have been doing so well for 8 months! You will do so great at this having already laid the foundation work. Best of luck and keep us posted!!

Wow! Congrats! That's incredible!

Too soon for you but yes, I am able to eat spicy foods now. You really need to be gentle on your new stomach.

Woo-hoo!! Congrats!!

You could find one of those portable arm bikes so you can sit and get movement that way. Maybe even some small weights to use doing some arm work? There are some exercise videos all done from chairs. Check out collagevideo.com. they have lots of those.

Takes a few days. Keep walking. Try a heating pad and Gas-X.

Wow! Sounds like a great idea! I have sometimes walked with the idea than an average song is around 3 minutes (in my world) but I never really had a specific track. I just listened to random music. I want to try your way now! Thanks for the idea and keep it up!

Lots of people here have Cigna - including me. Not all of their plans cover WLS. It will depend on the plan. If your plan does cover WLS, then yes, they have a 3 month supervised diet - 4 visits (the 1st visit starts the first month). Visits 28-30 days apart. Also requires a letter of recommendation from a doctor other than your WLS surgeon. There is a link to their requirements but I cannot get it to paste here for some reason. I will find it and post it in a few minutes.

What they said! Try this (it is the only thing that helped me) - set a timer on your phone for 1 1/2 minutes and only take a bite when that timer goes off. Don't eat past 30 minutes either. Good luck! You will get used to it! (Though at 4 1/2 months, I still deal with it occasionally if I am not careful!)

Woohoo!!! Congrats! What a great feeling! I think it depends a lot on how your surgeon submits and who in the approval dept you get. Mine was submitted on a Friday at noon and I got a call from surgeon's office Monday morning at 10! There are a few others on this board having trouble getting approved by Cigna.... Your new life will be here before you know it!!

Wow that seems a bit harsh, BUT my NUT does want me to limit the fruit for sure because of the sugar and I didn't do it until more than 2 months out. It definitely isn't a primary part of my diet (and the skins on many of the fruits can be difficult to digest - apples and grapes specifically). I think the key is to eat it with a Protein - i.e. apples with Peanut Butter or apples with cheese stick, etc. Having said that, we all preach that you should do what your doctor says, so at the very least keep it out of your diet for a while.

All that is great! It made me think that I know some furniture stores actually will do design consult for free when you buy your furniture there. Not sure where you are but look and see if you have a Bassets Furniture. Great transitional stuff and free design. My house is mostly transitional. I redid with muted blues, greens and tans and some white mixed in.

I used 1 oz of banana in my shakes. Then I tried frozen berries in my shake. Not sure those count for what you are looking for. My first just plain raw vegetable was cucumber (no skin). I eat it nearly every day and have no issues (though some do). My NUT said they are mostly Water so not that much nutritional value really but I sure like them and their freshness! I have also had small bites of iceberg lettuce with no problems. Apples have worked well - again as long as you remove the skin. (You can see I haven't progressed much in this area, so looking forward to others answers.) I really miss grapes but I don't want to peel them....

WOW! Congrats on your rededication and taking control! (I actually wondered if that is what your earlier status update was.) Your post is firing me up! I had make some crap choices last week (albeit better than I have made in the past while at the same conference), so I am joining you! Great post!

@@lauraellen80 - I agree that BMI chart seems off. I don't know what the doctors will say if I don't get to the top of the "healthy" range, but I will worry about it when I get there. @@winklie gave SUCH a good example of that! I posted about this earlier this week because I had a conversation with my NUT about it. She said (and this is the first time I heard this) that if you have loose skin (and let's be honest - most of us do), then they say to aim for 27 BMI (instead of 24.9 which is high end of "normal") before plastics due to the excess skin. I thought this made a lot of sense and made me feel a bit better about goal. I am trying desperately not to focus on a number, but I do know that is hard. I like what @@winklie said about when your body gets to a point in 18 months and stops, then that is where you should be if you feel good at that number. (Of course, you have to worry about Body image issues and not overestimating what you actually look like.) Also a great post by @@VSGAnn2014!