MzB

I am in again! The last one really helped motivate me. ???? I am going for 3 hours/week.

I have dropped a whole shoe size in 8 months. I was on a biz trip to Chicago and couldn't walk anywhere hardly because I was coming out of my heels. Haha! New shoes for me. I was surprised when I was a whole size smaller.

So what your saying is without coffee you're essentially a zombie. Haha! Me too ????

@@IrishGermanRN I am assuming you can find it in Wal-Mart even on the West Coast. It is with the specialty milks. (I think...)

My surgeon is fine with caffeine but wanted me to hold it down right after surgery to no more than a cup a day. I actually him told giving up caffeine it might be a deal breaker before surgery. Now it is all good but I usually stick to no more than 2 cups per day. My coffee routine is to make a latte at home. I make a double espresso and add it to 10 oz. of frothed FairLife Skim milk (80 cal/cup). I make it in a grande size paper cup with lid and off to work I go.... Love it and I am saving a TON by skipping going to Starbucks! I even add hazelnut SF syrup to make it as much like SBs as I can. Also, since it is FairLife I get the extra Protein without the extra calories so I count it as my Protein Drink in the mornings. Side note: The extra protein in the FairLife makes it really frothy so using skim isn't a problem! Interesting note on the Fairlife skim milk: I can only find it at Wal-Mart. Everywhere else it is just the 2% version which is higher calories.

@@RNYDawn I use EasiPart 12" Human hair. I did this for two reasons. 1) I wanted to be able to add low lights to better match my current hair color and 2) I thought it would look more natural. Just a word of caution, HH does take more work. I have to wash and deep condition my topper each week which takes about 20 minutes, but I think that the results are worth the effort. I have been wearing this topper since late August and NO ONE can tell! They all think I got highlights and my hair looks awesome. At this point I have lost about 50% of my hair so it is rather thin at the bottom but is starting to come back in on top. I may just keep wearing this even after my hair comes back in. I will see if I can post a pic so you can see.

I am in for this one. I am starting at 170.5 Goal: 163 Thanks for doing this Sarah!

I was told by my PA that I was getting too much Protein at the 4 month mark. I was totally floored! All anyone seemed to say was Protein, Protein, Protein... LOL, turns out you can get too much! I had noticed that one of my kidneys was really starting to hurt and I thought I might be getting a kidney stone. I just backed off the protein a little (70-80 grams max) at her suggestion and everything settled down nicely. Some days I do still get as much as 90+ grams of protein (especially if I do a Protein Drink in the morning) but I have not been having any issues lately. I have learned that you really have to just listen to your body. Some people need more protein, other less. I think Inner Surfer Girl typically tries for 100/day and that works well for her. I am one that does better if I stick to less than 80/day.

Yep, Biotin won't stop the loss, nothing really seems to if you are one who ends up with hair loss. Biotin will help promote new growth which means your hair may recover more quickly. I typically take 7500-10,000/day. Hair still fell out from months 3-6 but is starting to come back in. I personally was expecting it because my hair seems to be looking for reasons to jump ship anyway. Just be sure you are getting your Protein in so that the hair follicles are healthy for the regrowth. Good Luck!

Congratulations on starting this journey. I agree with you, this is a marathon not a sprint, even after surgery. I was partially self pay so I didn't have the pre-surgery wait but I think the following advise is still something I would love to have been told! Focus on Protein and Water now! It will help with the pre-sugery diet hunger. Also, really try to track your food. Even when you mess up and eat poorly. Put it down! It will help with the choices you make the next day. This is something you REALLY have do after surgery but starting before is a great way to get in good habits now. Tracking what you eat is something you have to commit to! (don't I know it!) Surgery isn't a cure for our weight, it is just a big tool to help us lose it. Someone once called it dieting with bumper lanes (like bowling). You still have to learn how to eat/exercise so you don't NEED the bumper lanes as much. The tracking, getting in your protein and fluids is really a mental thing you have to work at. Oh, and yes,exercise too, but you will find that easier once you have lost some weight. Hence the "marathon" feeling! All of this can start now. Maybe it is all the Star Wars stuff I have been seeing, but the following Yoda quote comes to mind... “Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda

I am just over 7 months out. I didn't start working out until 4 months post-op. No good reason except for the fact that I was so out of shape the thought of exercise just seemed daunting. I eased into my workout routine. At first it was short walks around our neighborhood with the dog. Typically about 20 minutes. I then doubled the distance and started doing 40 minutes. When the weather started to turn cold I got a cheap gym membership so I could use the treadmill there. I then started doing 30 minutes of walking, and slowly added in running. My goal is to run a 5K by May so I am not pushing it too hard. I still like to keep it to just over 30 minutes so I am increasing my speed rather than the length of time I am working out.

170.5. I am pleased to get through Christmas with no gain and I may even reach my goal by the end of this. Yea!

Rebecca, This challenge has helped me stay motivated to work out since we started. So a BIG thank you! I did 2,25 hours last week. I am good with keeping things going but I know it is extra work for you. MzB

Welcome! Best of luck on your journey and approval process. Feel free to ask questions of the group as you go along. Also, there are a lot of questions that you might have which have already been asked and answered. My best advise is to learn how the search on this site works. It isn't super intuitive... I find you typically have to change it to search all forums, not just the topic you are on. But this is the way I found some great advise on stalls, slimeing, Protein in-take, hair-loss and more. It is great way to dig through all the great discussions that have come before.

Agree with McButterpants... Focus on the fluids and Protein and don't worry about the scale. Your body is probably just holding on to excess Water to help it heal.

Take it as a blessing. Some people are the lucky ones with no pain or nausea. Good luck on the rest of your journey.

171.9 ..No change this week.

If your are still close to your surgery date, I think the repulsion response is probably pretty typical. Your body is still adjusting to the new smaller stomach and your hormones are adjusting too. I remember that sensation of watching others load a plate and thinking "wow! how on earth?". But then I recall that when I had the same response when I had the flu or a cold, the thought of eating anything major was sort of sickening. this thought reminded me that we just did major surgery and our body is healing. Our bodies natural signals to our brain will be "don't you dare feed me!" This can translate to how we view all food, even that which is consumed by others. I liked @@HopeandAgony 's response as well. When watching others it is good to remember that this was us only a short time ago. Something I noticed about myself was that I was a little too self-righteous about my ability to turn down food those first few months. Something I had always struggled to do now became soooo easy. "No, I am fine and don't want a cookie", "Thank you, but I am going to pass on the chips", "No alcohol for me, thanks anyway...." Mentally, I was saying to myself. "You go girl, you are rocking this!" Just be aware that the further out you get the more that turning food offers down and sitting there while everyone has cake and ice cream gets much harder. I have to remind myself that they don't mean to sabotage me, they are just being nice. Such a different perspective now. I think it was at about 4 months head hunger really kicked in for me. Thankfully I had read things on these forums that helped me be somewhat prepared, but my self-righteous attitude went out the door and now I find that I have to work at setting myself up for the tough moments when someone offers me something. I also learned not to beat myself up too badly when I give in and say yes. I just remind myself to be careful or only take a small portion. But that is my journey, each person can be different.

Fantastic! You look great.

Not much you can do to stop it. If you are one who has loss it wasn't something big you did or didn't do. It just is. A majority of us lose hair, I would say 75-80%. While everyone is different most see the largest loss in months 3-6. I just hit month 7 and it is finally stopped coming out. Many opt for a shorter haircut. I went the wig route with a topper and no one has noticed my hair loss but me of course. ????

I did a liquid Centrum multi-Vitamin for my first 6 weeks. I had to add Iron but other than that it was great and my labs came back perfect. I now do a capsule once a day and LOVE it.

I don't think it is dumping syndrome exactly, but it certainly sounds like your sleeve didn't like the milk right before bed. Dumping seems to be when a large amount of unprocessed sugary foods hit the lower intestines without the pre-digestion that usually happens earlier up in the digestive system. Since sleeves don't really bypass the digestion it may not be "true" dumping syndrome, but it still sucks! I had a similar experience with some Halo Top ice cream recently. I have eaten it before and was fine, but this time I just had a 4th of the pint and was miserable for the hour and 1/2. Dry heaves, slimes and stomach ache that nearly doubled me over. I will obviously be staying away from that for a while.... But milk (and the by-products) are a big part of our diet now. Might try it not at night to see if that helps.

It won't ever go back to the size it was before. However, my understanding is that it does relax and as you get further out from surgery the more you can consume. This is why getting those good habits set early is important. A lot of people assume that the super small portions they can fit right after surgery is the true size of their new stomach, when a lot of that restriction is due to swelling and your stomach getting over the major trauma. I find that at about 6-7 months I can eat a lot more than I could at months 1-3. Some of this is also the stomach relaxing a little bit and maybe a small bit of stretching but that is apparently normal. There are lots of post on this from people who are further out in their journey. Hope this helps.

any time! I had your very same fears and some wonderful people here answered my questions too. Just remember to pay it forward when you see someone ask this same question when your a ways down the road on your journey. It will happen! I am 7 months out and life is going great, but the first few weeks were tough. Hang in there. Oh, and I found an abdominal brace really helped so the abs weren't having to do all the lifting on there own. ????