Dub

Did you do weight training and Pilates at any point before surgery? Does it seem like a good idea to jump into these 3 weeks after surgery? What does your doctor say about this?

When you go to church.......do you sit there and feel like you are a sinner and shouldn't be there? Of course not, everyone in there is a sinner. You all are better for being in there. Most that are going to the gym are in there to better themselves, too. Assume that they have the same agenda as you.....pop your earbuds on and get to work. Nobody cares if you are large. They do care if you don't follow proper gym etiquette, though: do not sit on equipment between sets....get your set in and wipe down the gear and move. Do not park your butt there. Make sure to always......always use the supplied wipes to clean up your gear as soon as you are done. Also keep in mind that not everyone is using their own iPods and just listening to the gym's piped in music.....they don't want to hear you sing.....enjoy your music silently. If you feel compelled to carry on conversations....then go to the gym's lounge area. Do not hold other folks up by camping out around gear and chatting. It's not that folks don't care what you have to say.....they just don't care when they are working out. Stick and move........stick and move........stick and move.........and wipe down you gear every time you get off it. Nobody is judging you in the gym......unless you break etiquette rules....then expect some rudeness to occur. It's nothing personal.....it's not that you may or may not be large.....it's simply that you've done one of the above items an incurred the wrath of others. It's like golfers who play slowly.......they are holding up the entire course. If they are beginner golfers...then they shouldn't be playing during primetime hours.....but getting their practice rounds in at non-peak times. If you feel that you are going to be slow or self conscious then consider going to the gym during non-peak hours a few times until you get into the swing of it. I will admit that there is a social thing that is undercurrent at all gyms.....at certain times of day. It's just the regulars acknowledging each other. Don't get torqued up about it you aren't part of it.....just keep going in there and doing your work and you'll be benefitting hugely.

Howdy folks. I hope you are all doing well. I will officially join your ranks in a few months when I have my bypass. Until then I'm trying to get ready as much as I can. I didn't want to intrude into anyone's thread so I figured I'd ask here and hope people joined in. I've been warned not to stock up too much on powders, bars and such as things may taste different later. I'll just have a variety of stuff here but not big quantities of anything. Some Chike Protein, Oikos Triple Greek Yogurt and Quest bars for starters. We always have chicken breast and tuna on hand. Anything else that you recommend having around those first several weeks? I'm concerned about comments concerning difficulty drinking the required amounts of Water. I've always just gulped down what I needed.....when convenient. I suppose now I need to get used to having a water bottle close by all day long for sipping. Kinda freaked about this because I enjoy drinking water and maintaining that good well-hydrated feeling. I'm planning on taking two weeks off work for the surgery. Interested to hear what your experience was on time off and how you did going back. I can minimize or maximize the amount of walking I do on the job. I already keep packs of tuna, powder & shaker bottles, sugar-free drink mix and quest bars in my desk. I only have a couple meeting-lunches at work each month. I'll deal with those as they arise. No control over the menu. I can always just say I've already eaten and sit there sipping my water. Clothes? Did you already have clothes ready for the shrinking new you? I have some smaller sized stuff that will most likely see me through until surgery, but then it's going to be hard to gauge what to do. What has your level of exercise been post-op compared to the months before? What's been the biggest surprise to you after having the surgery? What do you wish you'd done differently in the months leading up to it? I've got a ton of random questions. Hope you don't mind chiming in. Thank you !!!

The math of your schedule isn't working out for me.....but then again, I suck at math. Hope it all does come together on time for you.

I've got some serious questions to pose to my nutritionist next week. There is no way in hell it can be healthy for me to live at a daily deficit of 1,500+ calories......which is where I'd be on 400 calories eaten, working 13+ hour shifts and exercising on my days off. Dangerous for vital organs. I want to lose weight but do so safely.

Thanks. I'm not talking about anything crazy......just preserving as much muscle as I can and lifting to enhance it. I know energy will be low at first....just hoping I can get my Protein and Water down each day with no trouble.

Not only are we all different.......we are all different from our own selves, it seems. For example......five years ago I decided to get rid of my excess weight. At first my knees were the limiting factor. I could only get 1/2 mile of walking before one would lock up. Awkward when you are 1/2 mile away from home....... I then started using the gym only. Treadmills with hand rails.......adding incline. Remained disciplined in the kitchen, too. Weight came off over the next 8 months. Huge amounts. I reached the point where I was using elliptical machines for an hour at the time with little pain. Addicted to the weight loss and great new feels. Started lifting weights and really became addicted. Stupid me, though, though I could just jump in and start lifting like I did for high school football & wrestling. My calorie intake swooped upward.....mainly additional Protein.....but calorie dense stuff, too. Wound up making killer muscle gains, but created several injuries that are still needing repair. A double umbilical hernia ended things. Surgery took me out of the gym (lifting wise). I could have gone back to walking.....but had burned myself out. It had become lifting or nothing. The injuries kept me from lifting........so the "nothing" option was what happened. Fast forward four years of "nothing" along with poor kitchen discipline and most of the 125 lbs had come back. No problem, right? I'd just burn it off again over the next year......... Great plan.....but some new health problems showed up and derailed my plans to exercise. All I could do was cut calorie intake while being inactive during healing. This proved harder than I thought.....inactive and trying to lose weight. During six weeks of being knocked out of work.....sidelined......considering my future.......I decided to pull out all the stops and employ ever tool I could. It was then that I've chosen bypass surgery and proceeded with getting in a program. I'm still limited on exercise......but am losing small amounts. After the first 30 came off I can see a big difference in the end of day swelling in feet and ankles. Knee pain is much improved. As I make small gains with back issues I am able to walk more at work and short sessions on treadmill on days off. I remember how hard it was on the knees just 5 years ago. I can do a little more now...at the beginning stages than I could then. Limited only by back......which is improving slowly. I know that when my bypass surgery comes, I'll be trying to kill it during the honeymoon first year, too. The key is that I have to do it on a way that works for me......working safely with whatever my current limitations are at that time. I can't compare myself to others.....and really not to myself either. It's what I can do at the moment that matters. I truly hope the bypass will provide a lasting tool that will help me in a great way......not just to reach my goal weight......but to live at the goal weight for the second half of my longer life. Best of luck to us all.

Please be careful. Your calorie intake is so low that you are likely losing more muscle mass than you'd want to be losing. This can only escalate with the calories burned from exercise. I can only pause and wonder what I'd look like if I'd been walking 8 miles each day like you were while keeping my calorie intake to 1,800/day. I'd be at my goal weight........without the surgery. Your drive is impressive. Hopefully you'll find a way to up your Protein intake and find balance with all things. No doubt you are really dropping some serious weight.

Well done. Best of luck to you. Keep us posted as you can. You are going to burn through that weight loss quickly.

I keep it simple and buy my music from iTunes. I have a nice collection that is frequently synced to the iPod Classic in my glovebox and to my iPhone.

Awesome ! I hope you do great. This is my plan. Always a bottle at hand.

At the recommended ratios.....is it really thin or more thick and rich?

Prayers sent. Hit a home run tomorrow!!!

@@SlimTiff , Thank you so much for your insight. You have a great attitude towards this and will clearly get excellent results. It's evident.

A couple umbilical hernia surgeries within the past 10 years. Shouldn't impact the upcoming bypass.

No date yet....the surgeon's group will be submitting all my documentation to the insurance company for approval in the second week of December. It's going to be a tight window to hope for a 2015 date.

I felt better in the first day or two from using the CPAP. Outstanding results.

Thanks. When I get time tomorrow, I'm going to try to reschedule and see if a better date is available. Also there are different locations I may get this done....sure would like to have it done at the office very close to the house if possible.

I have been instructed that my upper endoscopy is scheduled in a month. No firm surgery date....tentative date is end of December 2015 or January 2015. The date they've set up for my endoscopy is on a morning following my last night on night shift. I'll have the weekend off, but am concerned over some instructions that came in their info packet today. Specifically, no eating or drinking after midnight which is the last night of work. Eating is fine....but no drinking Water for the last 6 hours of work is going to suck. I could try to reschedule the deal....but it really does work well enough with my work schedule that it doesn't require me to take time off from work. How big of a deal is the no drinking thing going to be in your opinion ? I do have options for rescheduling if I really need to.

Howdy. I felt (and feel) the same way. I went into this thinking that a sleeve was what I wanted. Sleeve seemed less obtrusive....full run of piping afterwards.....would be able to absorb all the nutrition that I needed from foods....etc....etc. I was really pretty much decided. Went to the first seminar.....and then to another session where prospective patients could talk to folks who've had WLS and hear their input. I also spoke with the program nurse......who is 2 years out from her sleeve. She said she wished she'd done bypass and gave me a number of reasons....many of which I share the same thoughts about. I changed my opinion firmly. Bypass is the procedure I want. First.....I do have reflux on occasion. Normally I don't have symptoms.....but when I do it sucks outright. I've been warned that it's magnified hugely with the sleeve. The bypass is reversible in the future.....if ever needed for some reason. I'm not going into this with this thought.....but it's nice to know. My sister has lived the last 15 years post-bypass with excellent results. She avoided diabetes, lost her significant weight and has absolutely kept it off this entire time. There are benefits either way.

I guess I'll try their starter pack. Chike Nutrition has been fairly good to me, too.

Great question. I'm 5+ months out and wondering the same. I'm having full throttle freshly ground coffee, stevia & sugar free CoffeeMate creamer. I'll be switching over to regular/decaf blend soon. Figured at 2 months out I'd go 75/25, then at one month it would be 50/50 and then down to full decaf. One thing that did work just fine for me was using a premixed bottle of vanilla Protein shake for creamer. Worked great. The only reason I stopped is I didn't care to leave partial shake bottles in fridge for the time frame it would take to consume in coffee. In the future, I'll use it for creamer and simply down the rest as a protein. Works just fine. I've had some vanilla and chocolate powders work okay.....some clumped up, though.

Dogs are the greatest !!! You'll find they are with you through it all. I've had German Schauzers since I was a little kid. Great dogs. The only thing better than one is two. They keep each other out of trouble and play hard together, sleep together, come and go together. They seem even happier than when we just had one. Our's are both female. Much easier to train than the males we've had. Not that the males were hard to work with......the females were just easier. Very intuitive. The oldest has been through three surgeries with me. Great little sidekick. Looking forward to her getting me through the bypass & hernia repair. You'll love having a dog. Lot of responsibility but they return every bit of the effort 300%. Be very, very selective about finding a proper breeder. Only go with one that can provide documented health history of the parents. Hopefully you'll even be able to speak with their vet. Sounds like a lot of work.....but doing so will go a long way to help you avoid future health issues that will be devastating. Great list item.

Great news. I know you'll do really well. Hope the walking really helps make things more comfortable soon.

I could be wrong.....but I believe the Quest bars use nuts as a component. There are so many flavors of them that I really hope that I can always find a flavor I like when I"m post-op. They are about the best tasting Protein bars I've tried. Hopefully you can get some good suggestions from your nutritionist.