Dub

"I try different foods frequently and have found that everything has changed. I just don't like food anymore. I know that eventually I might be able to eat more and better, but I am unsure that I will ever regain an interest in food." I felt that way for several months after my surgery and have been very grateful for it. Liking food was a huge contributor to my morbid obesity. Not liking food so much is a benefit for me. Just being honest. I'm sorry that you now feel that wls was a mistake. That is a tough place to be in. Like I said, though....it's early in the game and there are many dynamics at play. I can almost guarantee that the whole outlook, ability, capacity, likes, etc is dynamic and remains so. Post-op life comes in phases that are loosely marked by time periods out from surgery date.

"Of course you can have salads again", is what my surgeon told me during one of the last appointments. He simply cautioned me to eat the chicken or steak from the salad first....then the eggs and then onto the crunchy salad vegetables on it. I believe this was at my 6 month appointment.

Foods that I want nothing to do with: Everything on your list plus most crunchy foods. Peanut butter is one of the top avoidance foods for me, too. Total slider food, anything I'd put it on other than celery is also a slider combo, poor choice for me as a guy who is on a diet. If I were at maintenance living.....then sure....peanut butter makes sense....but not during weight loss mode. It's simply a bad choice for me. Potatoes, rice and bread.....absolute avoidance. No nutritional benefit for me while on a diet. Ice cream and yogurt.....same idea....not for me while trying to lose weight. I know there are various yogurts that are on approved lists....but for me, they are slider foods and I simply avoid them. Down the road when I'm in maintenance.....sure....not now, though. Canned soups......yup.....I'm avoiding that stuff, too. Many soups are bigtime slider foods that are loaded with carb calories and sodium. Not relevant for my weight loss goals. And the Cream of Whatever soups that are on many approved lists were always something I stayed well away from. Acceptable foods for me are meats, chicken, fish, seafood, non-starch vegetables and low-carb Protein powders. This is plenty of variety. I honestly don't want to be sitting around pining for wide ranging menu options and thinking about food all the time. I simply want to eat what I need to fuel myself and continue to lose. It will not be like this forever as I'll be opening up the menu slightly as I ease into maintenance in the future. Now, however, it's weight loss time frame and food is something that is not what I want my thoughts on. Losing the food focus is one of the tools I'm glad was drilled into me early on by the liquid diet and simple menu options. Large and expansive menu thoughts just muddy the waters for me.

A couple things really hit home from your original post. First is that you did a tremendous amount of research pre-op and put a lot of time and effort into making this decision. It certainly was well thought out. The second thing that really struck a similar chord with me is your comment, "I myself am only 9 weeks post op and have had complications so I can't know what my future holds." I want to really key in on this. I didn't really feel alive and vibrant until somewhere between my 2nd and 3rd month. Prior to that the diarrhea, rumbling stomach, weird feels overall, dropping blood pressure and baggy clothes had me feeling strange and uncertain. Then....I found my stride. I found that life was normal. I was eating hearty cuts of succulent Protein........and then I was given the go ahead to have coffee.....blessed coffee. Things began getting back to normal....a new normal that was much better than any I'd known in decades. It continues to get better each week, too. Now....if I want, I can have the diet Dews and diet Cokes that I used to love.....and yes...I can even have them with some mixed nuts & cheese (one of my all time favorite snacks) so long as I stay within my daily calorie goals. I've yet to have the diet sodas simply because I have been without them for the better part of a year and don't miss them. I'm good with Water and coffee and an occasional diet Snapple or similar. I ask that you trust in your pre-op homework and demonstrated diligence. You put in tremendous thought into this back then. You've been through a major series of changes since and are truly at the infant stages of your post-op living. You are only 9 weeks out. I'll wager that in a few months you'll resist this thread with an update and I hope that it's one where you've found that things have normalized and everything is falling into place. Hang in there and thanks for being open, supportive and honest. That's the only way to roll.

Can it be from sitting for long periods of time ? I can remember those first three weeks found me running on low energy and sitting around more than normal.

The gym....i suppose, is not unlike Church. When seated the pews.....if we look around....we'll see a congregation comprised of sinners. The gym......is filled with folks that need to be there for different reasons. We all work on what we feel are our areas of need. Both are places where I find myself making headway when I stay focused on making my own improvements and not worry about the affairs of others.....and I hope that others there do the same.

Very similar results with two different steroid meds I was taking for back injury during my pre-op. I told my surgeon and NUT about the meds and they understood. I don't remember what the gains were.....but I was surprised. At the time I didn't know what to attribute it to as I'd been losing at a steady rate......changed nothing other than begining another cycle of these meds and the scale showed gains. It was odd, too, because I was sleepless for a lot of the time on those meds....figured I'd be burning more calories then and see loses......only I didn't. Within a week of completing the cycle, I noticed the gains stopping. Within 2 more weeks it began to drop again.

Yup....it's referring to their bariatric nutritionist......who I thought......worked hand in hand with their surgeon. They did on the first bariatric center that I began with in June 2015. Great service by the NUT. Detailed one-on-one sessions with me that dialed it for me. I wound up switching to another bariatric center after 2.5 months in order to speed up the process with self funding. The new surgeon was/is awesome. The NUT that worked with me never did a one-on-one session with me in the two months leading up to my surgery.....or after. I basically got a printed out sheet of bullet points that contained the diet as it was from surgery day out to one year. It was very basic, but in all fairness, so is the post op diet, in theory. The surgeon was much more specific than his NUT. Simple and straightforward but more specific.

The only one I can say I had a problem with was unjury-strawberry flavor. It was the third flavor of theirs I'd tried. I liked the vanilla and chocolate just fine........but the strawberry almost made me hurl. I did notice that some of the shakes didn't appeal to me immediately post op as well as the did pre-op. I believe the reason was that post-op i was sipping very slowly. The flavor of things really had time to be noticed. Any type of aftertaste was not appreciated. I found I liked Chike powder and Premier pre-mixed the absolute best. Once I began foods again it was the same way. I couldn't stand then or now anything that is greasy, overly sweet or any type of contrived flavor that lingers around. Sorta hard to describe. I've tried some fried food since then and it tasted horrible.

At 5 days post-OP, you should already be losing weight. Call your doctor and see if he can see you about this. I disagree. You are swollen and healing and we're pumped full of IV fluids at the hospital. Stay off the scale. Unless you have pain or complications, your first follow-up appointment is soon enough to see your doctor. Just follow your program and focus on getting in all of your fluids and Protein. You need both to heal. The weight loss will come. Total agreement with you. I came home from the hospital 11 pounds heavier than I was the morning I went in for surgery.....using the same scales at home. All I could do was laugh because all I'd ingested over my stay was a total of 10 oz of Premier Protein-vanilla the day after surgery before they released me. The inflammation and IV fluids really did a number. I seem to remember it being gone 7 days later. My surgeon told me during that first appointment on my 7th day that he doesn't look at the scale the first two weeks anyway. I kidded with him and said that would have been some nice info to disclose to me ahead of time, lol.

scale is moving in the right direction at a good rate.....so I'd say you are doing well. The key, though.......is how you feel about it. You know what the answers are to the questions: are you adhering to your plan ? Are you making the most of this ? Do you have plans to active once you are safely able to do so and feel the energy (the energy will get much better really soon, too) ?

Carbonation & sugar to name a couple Great time to contact your nutritionist and get a real clearcut understanding of permissible items and the rationale.

That's awesome !!

How far post-op are you ? When I was discharged I was told that it's not uncommon to have pain in shoulders, back and abdomen from the gas that was used during the surgery and it would work it's way out. I never experienced it. I did, however, have those types of pains after a prior hernia surgery. Both shoulders were aching bad. Sorry you are having this occur.

That's pretty wild. I'm intrigued by what my labs will show in October at the one year point. I'd assumed cholesterol and other stuff would be in good ranges......but don't really have anything to base that on other than the weight loss. I wonder if it's due to a higher percentage of our food intake is meat and there isn't much in the way of vegetables to buffer this ???? It'll be interesting to see.

I'm positive that there is.....I just don't know the limit. I'm sure that some of the bodybuilder types probably push those Protein limits. Doubtful that I ever have. I see folks refer to our new diet as a high protein diet. I think of it as more of a low carb diet. The way I see it......I can take a normal meal from my prior life....eliminate the sides and Desserts......and leave the meaty entree. In doing so, I haven't really added any protein amount to the meal....just cut out all the other stuff. To more accurately reply to your question, I was told to have 3-4 of those same 30gr protein shakes as my pre-op diet the 14 days leading up to my surgery and 2-3 of them per day in the weeks after. My surgeon is the one who told me this. I hope this helps.

Not sure about your hospital....mine made me wear their no-slip socks. I took stuff and didn't need it, but the gear that I was really glad to have: 1) Post-op pain med prescription filled for the ride home 2) pillow to hold against abdomen on the ride home 3) iphone 4) remote charger

It's an understandable fear. Most of us had the same concerns. Here's the thing.....It's likely gonna seem way more significant of an issue to you now....pre-op. Once you've had the surgery and are losing at an accelerated rate......everything seems to fall into place. You can decide then what to do. It's a done deal then. Telling them ahead of time will give them time to each weigh in, pun intended, and talk you out of it....or give you a list of horror stories that their cousin's best friend's neighbor's uncle's car salesmen's wife had with her wls. You've already told the folks that matter to you....the ones that you've planned this with. Everyone else will be reactionary after the fact. You'll be feeling so much better about everything by then that you'l decide with ease what say. For me, it was easy. I started at a high BMI. I lost 55 on the work up to surgery.....and took 3 weeks off due to healing time for an abdominal hernia repair along with my VSG. I forget how much I'd lost that 3 weeks after work....but it was enough that folks were noticing and commenting. I planned on losing 200+ pounds in this first year and it was easy for me to be honest with them in stating that I had wls and was following a low carb diet. All of my coworkers knew of my back problems and understood why I was motivated to have the surgery. I've received nothing but positive comments and questions about the surgery. I've had several conversations with people who are very interested in the surgery for their own personal reasons. 3 of them are now entering my surgeon's bariatric program. One guy's daughter, another guy's wife and a young man is going in himself. I can't wait to see their relief once they take a seat on The Loser's Bench.

You asked what we thought.....here it is: Don't do it. Don't gain. It's very doubtful that such a plan would even work out like you'd want it to. You'd be making yourself miserable in the process. I read testimonies like the one recently posted by @@LowBMISleever explaining her experience with Dr Ortiz and I bang my head in the wall. I kick myself, too. The reason is that I wish I'd taken those steps so long ago. Well done. That would be my recommendation. Keep losing....save up some money and schedule when you are ready.

Yeah, hoping someone would catch my sarcasm, Lol .... On another note, just looked back over your progress and your story. Very impressive! What are your stats now? Still losing? You've worked hard. I hope to grow up and be you .. Well, except I'm not a man. Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App Thank you. Still got a good bit to lose and have been in a holding pattern the past few weeks. Been nursing some knee issues and zero cardio outside of my job. It's been a good life change for me and I'm very glad to have made the move. It's been very straightforward. You're gonna do great with this.

Outstanding. You look great.....healthy......fit.......outstanding !!!!!

I've honestly never given it much thought. It is so easy to get Water in that I no longer track it.......120 oz is a breeze.

I had minimal pain from the sleeve surgery. I had an abdominal hernia repaired at same time and that was really the only source of pain. I was up walking an hour or so after waking up in the recovery room.....and up every 3-4 hours throughout the first 48 hours. I've had two knee surgeries, an ankle tendon repair, two prior hernia repairs, tonsils removed and some other minor stuff. I felt way more pain doing the back-to-back MRI scans (awkward/painful positions) on my ankle than I ever did with my sleeve surgery. I would go through the sleeve surgery again without hesitation.

And I truly believe that your rationale and meaning in that original post were solid. The phrase gets tossed around on here quite a bit by folks who seem to take it is a warm blanket of complacency and simply keep on doing what they have been doing (which wasn't getting the results they wanted). It's mistakenly used as a validation to keep on keeping on as they have been when what would be best deliver the results they say they seek....would be to more closely track their caloric intake, increase their exercise and to use a scale with some degree of consistency (same time every day or same day/s every week). Just my opinion on the matter and I am sure as hell no authority on weight loss. Weight gain, maybe. I should be awarded an honorary doctorate degree in weight gain. Weight loss, I'm learning.....has no magic.....just good old fashioned discipline and effort.

I'll bet it is, man. I'll bet it is. Hoping they hurry things up for you. Great job on the weight loss thus far !!!!