OutsideMatchInside

I get my B-12 from Sam's club but my multivitamin needs to be high quality and the brand I like isn't sold at big box stores.

I'm going to offer different advice. If you are going to snack, snack on Protein. Protein Bars (they make chocolate), Quest protein chips, pork rinds, Jerky, etc. Most of us need to eat lots of "meals" to get our protein in. You just need to make sure that you are eating things that work with you, no against you. Get protein replacements for your favorite Snacks. Going on a liquid diet that far out from surgery is going to be useless. You will be starving. If you feel you need to do something drastic to break bad habits, then eat dense protein. Steak, pork chops, chicken breasts, ONLY. Just dense protein. You will feel your restriction and be satisfied for a long time with dense protein. Also Track all of your food and weigh it. I have a portable scale I use at work.

@Proud2BeMe Nice to see you posting again! I'm glad you worked out your alcohol issues, we were worried. I think that those of us that were super morbidly obese and lose to normal or close to normal size really face special issues. Most of the people that post here now are not and have not been super morbidly obese They start in the 200s if that. So their opinions to me don't carry that much weight (ha!) There are very few people that are in the situation that people like you and I are in. People can't and don't understand. It is a really huge mental trip, and most people will never experience it. I would normally say seek counseling but I am going to be honest, it isn't going to be very useful. Not many of them are going to have experience with what you are going through. You have to really just work through your feelings and emotions in your own way on your own path. I would rather see you abusing carbs than alcohol, but the fact you feel the need to go overboard on anything is an issue. I think time to adjust to yourself is the best and only realistic solution. I eat keto/low carb (less than 25G per day) because it keeps me upbeat and my moods balanced. I enjoy it and it is healthy. You should eat in a manner that makes you feel good and is healthy for you. You probably just lost weight because you upped your calories, not the carbs. So just eat more protein. I'm going to PM you.

I would lower carbs, up Protein, and up your calories. 1200 calories of pure protein for a week

I lost 7lbs. Liquid diet was a complete waste of time for weight loss.

A lot of people flat out had bad nutritional advice or ignored the advice given to them. The people that maintain easily long termine, raise their calories and get them to a normal level 1200 or above asap. Keeping your calories at 8000 to 1000 for a year pretty much guarantees you are going to ruin your metabolism. The best way not to gain post op is to eat dense protein first and not to introduce carbs.

The 5 day pouch test is basically a fad diet and people push it all the time. If people just ate dense Protein first, they could avoid all these issues.

They remove the Gherlin by removing most of the stomach, that is what the surgery is. And the Gherlin part only lasts for so long, your levels go back up eventually, not to what they were pre-op but they go up. By not having the full procedure, you are basically handicapping yourself. It is like buying 3 tires for a car. It is pointless. A well formed sleeve, once you heal has more capacity, eventually for some people up to 2 cups. If you have even less removed than other people you are going to end up with almost a full sized stomach in the end. You will just stretch the stretchy part out with over eating. With a sleeve you don't have that stretchy part left at all, that is how the restriction works. If your biggest concern is being able to eat large meals post-op, then surgery isn't a good option for you. You aren't in the right mental place for it. You should be more concerned about your health than if you can eat a lot on family holidays. Think about what really matters to you long term.

That would be pointless. That still leave most of the stretchy part of the stomach. You can still enjoy family meals. You can only eat small amounts for a short time. I'm a year and a half out. I eat with people and no one can tell I had surgery. No I am not downing a 12 ounce steak but I can make a decent dent in my plate. Also as time goes on you learn what you can eat more of. The amount of time you can only eat a few ounces of food is just a few months. You can eat more at 3, 6, 9, 12, and onward.

There are a lot of people that post these great loses on forums but they don't post how they are getting them. There is a poster, that used to post here, I haven't seen her in while. Yeah she lost a ton of weight in very beginning but she did because she was not getting any protein in. She was living off like water and gatorade. She was posting all the time how she was starving. Then 6 months later she was posting about her great loses and her new life, she she left out the part where she didn't have any nutrition the first 6 weeks. People that were new were patting her on the back and congratulating her on her great loss, not knowing how she got there. Follow your program and you will lose. You are not going to lose as fast as you did, when you were 400 lbs. I lost my first 100 lbs very fast. That last 100 is much slower but still fast compared to people who have not had surgery. This is a life long thing. Not a sprint. Keep your eyes on the long term goals, which is good health, not just dropping weight as fast as possible.

Rebecca I think you quoted the wrong person.

This is some of the worst post op nutritional advice I have seen in print and they had the nerve to put it in a table. This plan is guaranteed to ruin your metabolism and have you on starvation rations for the rest of your life. I don't even understand that first week information. I had more than 200 calories in the hospital before they would discharge me. I had a Protein shake, broth and Jello within 24 hours of my surgery. I had 3 Protein shakes a day for the first week, hitting 90 grams of protein a day. I'm 19 months out and I eat about 1500 calories a day and I am still losing. I never or very rarely go over 25g of carbs a day. And I'm not active beyond walking. OP keep your carbs under 25 and increase your protein to 100. How are you hitting 40 carbs anyway on those calories?

If you aren't sure then you shouldn't have surgery. You should have a clear idea that surgery is for you, it is your best option and it is going to save your life. Knowing that surgery is your best and only option makes getting through the hard times easier. It makes resisting food easier. You will have fewer regrets in the long run. You posted you are emotionally attached to food, you need to work that out before surgery or once you can't self medicate/comfort with food you will be miserable. It is like going cold turkey off heroin. You can't self soothe with food post-op at least not immediately and if you are not in a good mental space with food you will be tempted to advance your food stages and put yourself in danger or you will just be miserable and full of regret.

How many calories are you eating? I eat 4 to 6 times a day to meet my Protein goals. I had to especially early on when I did not have a lot of capacity. I know a lot of doctors say 3 meals a day and no Snacks but that seems completely unrealistic for WLS patients. There is no way to meet your protein goals on 3 meals a day with real food. I am 19 months post-op and I can't meet my protein goals on 3 meals a day (granted my protein goal is higher than most people, but I would still struggle to hit 60 on 3 meals a day). How many grams of protein are you able to get in like that I doubt you are getting the bare minimum of 60? You are basically starving, no wonder you are having head hunger cravings. I would add to additional meals of pure dense protein. Crackers and hummus are counter productive to your weight loss goals.

What is your BMI before plastics?

Only if you have really bad rashes and infections and even that is going to vary. And all they will do it chop the skin off, it won't be plastic surgery.

Because I wear them to workout/walk and I take them off, I don't wear them all day. I can't workout in a skirt, I'm not Amish (not that there is anything wrong with being Amish). Once I lost so much weight, I have to wear high compression leggings to hold my loose skin when I'm active. So like I said, the only pants I would have bought the whole time were compression leggings for working out. Buying jeans when you are losing weight rapidly is like setting money on fire.

What do you need to tell them? You aren't going to come back looking different. You don't have surgery and drop 100 pounds over night. They are all going to see you eating less and losing weight. you don't need to explain anything.

I was supposed to buy myself some diamond earrings for getting under 200 pounds, but I have been under 200 pounds for 2 months, and I still haven't done it. I am all shopped out after shopping constantly for 1.5 years. Right now I am leaning towards a mantra bracelet.

I'm still dropping sizes over 1.5 years later. I went from a 30 to a 10/8 currently. I went from a 50DD bra to a 36G I had a friend that lost about 200 pounds on her own without surgery and she told me as soon as you drop a size get rid of all the old clothes, so you can't go back and so you can see your weight loss. She was right. If you wear clothes that are too big, clothes with stretch, you don't see your losses. If you are losing inches and no pounds, it makes it seem like you are going no where. DUMP CLOTHES ASAP Don't wear stretchy clothes. Leggings are the devil, clothes like that are what are helping people over eat into obesity, no need to undo a button if your clothes are growing with you. Stretchy clothes don't keep your mindful of your eating. They help you over eat, yes you can over eat with a sleeve. They keep you feeling fat. And they will show weight loss faster (sagging in the butt) or slower, just because they might stretch less but still fit it might seem like you are standing still. I have never worn a cheap bra in my life, and losing weight I wasn't going to punish myself with one. Undergarments can make a whole outfit, it is not a place to cut corners. Plus if you hav big boobs, cheap bras are not an option. I bought new bra as needed, I bought them snug fitting on the first hooks and moved them in as I lost weight. I only purchased one bra at a time which I would never advise anyone to do because you aren't supposed to wear the same bra 2 days in a row (they need a day to recover and reshape). Since I was buying a new bra every 3-4 weeks, only having one I wore every day was not a big deal. I also purchased one underwire sports bra. An underwire sports bra can really last a long time. A lot longer than a normal underwire bra because of their construction, you won't have as much gapping etc. I have been a 36G for a few months now, so I have lots of bras in this size. I don't have much upper back fat to lose so I expect to be here at this size unless I drop another 20 pounds. I was buying jeans every 3 weeks. I am not buying anymore jeans until I am in maintenance. It is such an annoyance and a waste of time and money. They are all sized differently and fit differently, and its 2-3 hours trying on jeans to find a pair that fits. They show weight loss the fastest. If I had it all to do over again, I would have never purchased jeans or any pants besides workout leggings. Skirts and dresses last a lot longer. When a dress gets a little big you can put a belt on it, or layer it with something like a sweater or a button down. When you are losing fast, buy everything a little tight, it will fit okay in a week or 2. That is better than buying things that fit perfectly only to have them not fit in 5 days. The smaller you get the faster you drop sizes. 5-10 pounds is size for me now. When I was plus sized it was like 20-40 pounds a size. I take all my old bras to Soma, they donate them to women in shelters.

I drink with straws, lots of us do. As long as you are smart about it and aren't sucking in air, it isn't an issue. Never been a gum chewer, ever.

I wouldn't get the DS unless I was so obese I could hardly move. Like 600lb life obese. I was diabetic, I got the sleeve. I'm not diabetic anymore and haven't been since like the 3 or 4 month mark. My diabetes was controlled with pills prior to surgery.

Well bypass isn't guaranteed to change how you eat. The person I know that had bypass, doesn't dump and eats everything under the sun, never got to goal. Sleeve also changes how you eat. It is a lot more than just a smaller stomach. It removed most of the stretchy part of your stomach, so unlike bypass, you don't end up with a lot of increased capactiy down the road. It also removes the hunger hormone. So not only do you have less capacity, you have less desire (if you take your PPI and don't have GERD issues). Sleeve also changes how you eat by pushing you towards dense Protein. If you want any kind of fullness or satisfaction after a meal, then dense protein is going to give you that. Once you are healed everything else is easy to process or a slider. Also are you really eating proper portions? Just because you aren't an over-eater by your or American standards (assuming you are American you have no info filled out..) does not mean you are eating proper portions. As a sleever I can eat a proper portion of meat 3-4 ounces and actually feel satisfied and full. That is the portion of meat everyone is supposed to be eating. Yet, most restaurants start steaks at 6 ounces with a lot of people eat 12 ounce steaks etc and considering that the norm. Most people are over eating even if they are not binge eating. If you are active and healthy with no co-morbids, then the sleeve is going to offer you less long term issues and more bang for you buck. You can control your weight loss easier, no malabsoprtion long term, you can save money taking normal Vitamins and supplements etc. My Dr told my that RNY was for older sedentary people, and that younger people (I was a couple yeards older than you when I had surgery), do well with the sleeve. I have lost more with my sleeve than most people lose with RNY, so it is kind of up to you which one you want. You can eat around any surgery. People choosing RY because they think they are going to dump, usually end up learning that isn't the case. Most people don't dump, even most RNY patients don't dump. Even if you do dump early on, long term once your body adjusts to surgery it is unlikely you will continue to dump.

I never got a goal weight from my doctor. We talked about what I weighed in HS, and he thought I could back there. I still weigh a little more than I did in HS but I I am physically smaller. Not sure how much more I want to lose. I'm not sure I want to end up a size 6.

Until you can cut back on junk food, at least change your junk for to protein junk food. GNC and Walmart have quest protein chips. Switch to protein bars The thing is post op it is so much easier to restrict your food because of limited capacity. I can't even imagine trying to cut back with a normal stomach. It would be so hard.