theother_onefoot

It might have been a grape for me. And I found the skin made it much more difficult to eat even though I thought it would be so thin. So watch out for all fruit skins too.

@@sleevedup - hello again! I know we've talked previously, but just wanted to add my input here to add to @@VSGAnn2014 's post. I can't give you the specific answer you're looking for since I'm only a couple months out, but I did have the exact same procedure with the exact same doctor, so if you get an answer I'd be happy to know it as well.. "Single incision" doesn't end up being one actual incision, by the way. I've got four scars total. Two very thin, very small ones mid-tummy, one very small but slightly thicker scar at the top of my belly button, and the "largest and thickest" (it isn't even an inch in length) scar to my left side of my belly button. So I partially agree with VSGAnn that it doesn't really matter having one over the other, but everyone's bodies are different, so my scars are fairly small and heal very well and quickly -- they're still a little pink right now but I bet I won't be able to see them in 14 months either with luck! Anyway, I think the appeal is just keeping the scars to a minimum and by the navel so they could potentially be removed in a TT? I was just wanting as few slices in me as necessary, though, haha

219.8 this morning. I'm soo close!

@@sarahbethemails - yes, I started eating them when I hit the solid phase about a month and a half out. If I had still been able to handle Protein shakes then I might have waited a little longer, but it was a successful trade-off. @@red37 - I have to agree that I've found the Mint chocolate Chunk Quest bar to be the only one I liked enough to be worried about eating it too often! But the others fall in a category of edible, but not delicious enough to want to eat all the time. For me anyway, haha

I cast my vote for the Quest Bars too. They're great! I ordered a variety pack of the old and new flavors off amazon to go through them and find which ones I liked best; it was an interesting process! And I would totally enjoy eating some of these compared to the protein shakes, too. My body pretty much rejects every shake attempt now, lol

This question isn't about myself, but I just honestly want to know what to expect or how I can be supportive. My boyfriend had his lap band done a handful of years ago at a time in between when we were together, so I don't know what it was like for him in the very beginning, and I don't think we got back together when he was at his lowest weight ever, but since then he's always kind of maintained whatever weight he's at. He's miserable with his band. And he will typically eat junk food more than healthier foods because he says it's actually easier for the bad food to go and stay down. He says that he wants his band out with no revision to a different WLS, and that his band makes it impossible for him to eat the healthy foods so once he has it out, he'll actually be able to eat his salads and grilled chicken breasts, etc. I hate to be skeptical and I really do want to support him in feeling better, but this is what I see: 1) he isn't making great food choices with his band, how can I think that will really change without any restriction? 2) he got up to his highest weight to need the band in the first place, 3) as far as I am aware, I've never seen him eat to accommodate his band (Protein shakes, smoothies, etc) despite it being clear it's too tight. So if he gets his band removed, is it still possible for him to lose weight? Have other ex-banders been able to have success without a revision surgery? Were y'all really able to eat better once the band was removed? What kind of support did y'all need from significant others? What can I say to be supportive without sounding like I'm just trying to criticize? I love him very much and would really like a future and family with him, but I'm afraid of him re-gaining weight to a point of detriment. I've been with him at his heaviest and loved him just the same while wanting him to be healthier. Please be clear this isn't a "I won't love him anymore if he gets fat" situation. I just want to be prepared for what he might go through and how we can get through it. Thanks

I really didn't mean any harm or anything negative at all.. I may not be a veteran like some of the others, so I might not be as care-free when someone seems to attack my responses, but I'm still a person who was genuinely trying to reply to your question and be supportive. I never actually said you didn't trust your surgeon. But because you had heard something from them that seems to be different from what most other people have heard of, I was just trying to encourage you to not be worried about such things. -- I feel like I have to justify that statement as well. NO, I'm not actually saying you are worried about the bougie in an anxious or stressed sense, I just meant you were curious or concerned enough about it to go to the forums. So. Despite backlash from both sides, I hope you got enough replies to what you were looking for.

I was actually curious about this and I asked my doctor what size bougie he'd be using during my Pre-Op appointment and he said, "a size 34 bougie, which is pretty standard". After hearing that, a 26 does sound small..but hopefully you feel you can trust your doctor!

Same weight this morning as it was last week's weigh-in. 224

I checked the sheet and this weigh in wasn't on there, so I just wanted to remind Steph it was here. Weighing in at 224.0 this morning. (:

Sorry for the double post. I need to go through and find my 9/28 weigh in

I completely forgot to post on Monday, but I weighed in at 229.2 - finally got below the 230s stall!

Please tell me some projections on when this feeling will get better... Tonight I had my first physics exam ever, this year has been my first dedicated physics class, and I found out that I understand much better in lecture than I do on the exam. I drove home feeling physically ill and hurting because I am having such a hard time understanding all of the concepts, and this is the first time in a long time I have felt so incapable of understanding something. But as I cried to my mom to vent the frustration, a different issue reared its ugly head. Tonight has been my first night since surgery, since the preop liquid diet even, that I have gotten to the point I felt upset I didn't have food as an outlet. Am I hungry right now? Yes. It's my dinnertime. But the whole drive home my brain fed me pictures of KFC mashed potatoes or macaroni and tried to justify the idea by adding some Protein powder to it so it at least wouldn't be empty calories. Getting home, my mom told me there were leftover refried Beans from Gringo's in the fridge, and I started crying again about how I don't want to eat beans, I want to eat meat! How I'm frustrated I feel like I'm constantly eating the same things and most of my protein seems to be coming from dairy sources. She offered me her leftover fajita meat to try, but I said that wasn't the point. She tried to comfort me, but when I told her that it would have been so much easier or "made me feel better" to go into the kitchen and eat the two or three leftover tortillas instead of continuing to think about physics, but that I no longer had food to go to as that mind-numbing, brainless indulgence for some kind of illogically made-up comfort, she felt bad that she didn't know what to say to me. I'm sure I will find other, better outlets to help me cope eventually... But this first run-in with my demons has left me completely wounded. How long did it take everyone else to realize they were no longer looking to food as a crutch? And does it really get better with not wanting food or do you just find enough other things to distract from wanting it?

Weigh in today: 230.8

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Since I joined pretty much the day before this started, I'd say I was the same weight for the 9/14 weigh-in. I need to print off that sheet so I remember when to post!

@@VanessaVSGforme - Hey there. I'm taking the same Vitamin (Celebrate Multi with iron), and so far I've been about 50/50 with it. I had tried it Pre-Op and liked it fine, but since I've had it post op.... The first morning I took it, it was less than 5 minutes before I was throwing it right back up. I thought maybe it was because I took it on an empty stomach. Day two, I tried it shortly after eating a scrambled egg and it stayed down. Day three I tried the exact same thing, but it didn't stay down. Since it was the only thing coming up, I thought maybe I waited too long after the egg. So lately I've tried taking it with a 1 cup glass of Fairlife fat free milk. I'll have my scrambled egg, wait half an hour for liquids, then take the vitamin with the milk and so far it's staying down. The milk also helps cut the vitamin flavor that seems to be much stronger now. At my 2 week post appointment, my doctor said I may have to try the capsules if I can't consistently handle the chewable.

Not specifically. I was just told not to drive as long as I was on pain medication -- which for me was one week.

I'm 24 days out and I've already talked to my surgeon and the NUT about how I can get most of my Water in a day or I can get most of my Protein in a day, but I can't get both right now and they agree that's fine. But as I'm working to increase both of those, I find I'm getting hungry about every two hours or so, and I'm not sure if that's too frequent? I have the Bariatric Timer app on my phone and use it to remind me when to drink water after I eat, and it has a preset timer for every two hours that will actually say "you need to eat!" if I let the app keep running, so it makes me think that maybe every couple of hours is pretty standard to have the next meal or snack of protein, but I'm honestly not sure. Since I'm still not technically getting enough of the protein I'm supposed to be eating in a day, I don't feel like I'm grazing since I'm not eating anything that isn't benefiting my body...but at the same time, I'm not used to being hungry so often even if it only takes a quarter cup of refried Beans, for example, to hold me over for the next two hours. ETA: I saw a post about eating frequency in the Band forums but not the Sleeve, and it just isn't quite the same info base!

This sounds like a perfect first-time challenge to try! CW 232.8 Ideally, I'd love to work my butt off (literally!) to 200...but I'll say: GW 215 Maybe I'll surprise myself. (:

I know you posted this in a bypass forum and I've had the sleeve, but before surgery my doctor explained that VSG patients can have this happen sometimes too. So when it's happened to me, it really has been almost immediate. Sudden feeling of unwell, needing to go lie down, fast pulse.. Yuck

I didn't expect the weird noises that would constantly come from my throat and chest from anything I ate or drank. I guess they're just air bubbles, but it can be so embarrassing when they happen in a quiet classroom.. People say if I could make myself burp it might help, but I can't figure it out! I was off pain meds after a week. But the pain near my bellybutton (the strange pulling feeling) didn't go away for another week or so after that. I missed sleeping on my stomach beyond anything else and pushed myself a bit just to be able to do it when I was still pretty sore

@@Proud2BMe - I'm not trying to eat as many calories as I want... I eat as much as I'm able to eat when I'm hungry. Yesterday my dinner ended up being only half of the quarter cup of Beans I was going to eat. That's not enough to sustain a person as an actual meal no matter how small their stomach is. Yes it's filling, but for only those couple of hours. If I only had three meals like that a day I wouldn't even be up to 100 calories and I'd probably pass out... How far out are you? How many grams of Protein are you getting a day? How many ounces of food are you eating per meal? How many calories are you getting in a day with your three meals? I have to agree with @@AngelaWilliamsMD - if I were able to eat full meals that satisfied all of my protein needs, that would be one thing, compared to trying to eat six whole meals a day verses a couple spoonfuls of a protein-rich food six times a day.

@@_Kate_ - I'm still allowed to drink Protein drinks, yes, though the NUT does want me weaned off of them when I'm able to eat actual food since she explained drinking the shakes despite their high protein won't actually continue to register in your brain that you've eaten. Actually being able to still get through a shake without feeling nauseous is a totally different matter.. And I've also been told the premier shakes don't count towards my fluids because they aren't a clear liquid. As opposed to trying one of the Isopure drinks. @@Folly - So as I'm able to eat more, I'll be able to go longer without getting hungry. Makes sense! Thanks! @ - My body feels like it's physically starting to reject the Protein Shakes and smoothies I make... I can't drink them without feeling ill now. So I drink my Water and stick to soft foods and yogurt. @@Sharon1964 - I could understand doing it this way when I can eat more, but I've figured out my body's difference between head and real hunger and right now I'm feeling real hunger every two hours. Though I do hope to get to this eating pattern when I'm able. Thank you! @@AngelaWilliamsMD - I'm glad I'm not alone in this. I'm still eating less than 500 calories a day even with high protein micro-meals, and I know I'm at that phase where my body may be going through a stall and/or is readjusting to actually getting real food instead of straight up liquids. @@Inner Surfer Girl - Like I mentioned earlier, my NUT told me the shakes don't count towards the Fluid goal anymore since they aren't a clear liquid.. As it is, I can get about 40oz of water in and up to about 40~50g of protein altogether in a good day. Sans the protein shakes. Do you think that's still okay? @@Niki15 - I was trying to do something like this, but now that it takes me SO long to get through a Protein Shake because they don't make me feel well, I believe that's why I've supplemented with the high protein micro-meals every few hours instead (varying by class schedule during the week). Thanks for all of the replies so far!

@@toasty - thanks for the info! I did Google it a bit more and on information about mouth ulcers, it does say that certain OTC pain relievers can cause them.. My boyfriend has had a lap band for a few years and he gets mouth ulcers all the time. I used to think maybe it was just stress, but thinking back about how he says he has a headache all the time and ONLY takes Advil ever, it makes me wonder if the two are now connected. Never would have thought about this without your post!