catwoman7

yep - totally normal. Just keep sticking to your plan...

I'm not particularly carb sensitive, but I know from some of those who ARE that if you can go really low-carb for a few days, the cravings for carbs eventually stop. You have to white knuckle it in the mean time, though - I've heard it's hard to get through!!!

yep it's annoying - but it eventually stops. Most people I run into now have either already seen me at a normal weight, or they never knew me as obese. Still, a couple times a year I'll run into someone who hasn't seen me in several years - but at least it's rare now!

wow - that was a really quick surgery time for all of that. He must have had an assistant. and yes - you constantly feel like you have to pee when you have a catheter in you. It's annoying as hell! But be glad you have it- getting in and out of bed is really painful for a few days!! btw - my LBL was pretty painful. Breast lift wasn't that bad.

dumping usually happens pretty quickly after you eat. It happens when sugar hits your small intestine. Plus it's pretty rare in sleeve patients - it's a lot more common in bypass patients. Reactive hypoglycemia is sometimes referred to as "late dumping", but from what I understand, that typically happens a couple of hours after eating. And again, sugar is usually the culprit - it's caused by your blood sugar surging and then crashing. not sure what you had - maybe a bug? Or maybe some fluke? I guess I'd say just monitor it and let your surgeon know if it becomes a pattern.

I assume you're joking here - if not, YIKES! If you need to increase calories, do it with healthy foods - protein or healthy fats are good choices.

you should still be able to lose weight - but unfortunately, you may have to cut calories or bump up your exercise to do it. I was trying to maintain in the 130s for awhile, but it was too hard to sustain. I could have, but evidently, it wasn't important enough to me to do what I needed to do to stay there.

yes - I hit several stalls on my journey. They seemed to last longer the further out I got. There were a couple of times I thought, "well, this is it...", but then my weight loss would start up again.

this is definitely true of a lot of us the first year or so. It was of me. After the first year, I switched to calorie counting (although I still count protein as well). Reason being, you can eat a lot more as time goes on, so I can't rely just on protein counting. I have to keep my calories within a maintenance range, too.

lactose intolerance after surgery is common, but sometimes people are able to tolerate dairy again once they get a few months out. I know a lot of long-timers who still can't tolerate pasta even years later - but it's not a great nutritional choice, so it's just as well. Eggs are also something that a lot of people can't handle the first few months (but most can eventually tolerate them again once they're a little ways out...) at 4.5 years out, I can't eat a lot of greasy food at one sitting. I can eat *some* fried food, but not much. Like I could probably eat one egg roll, but that's it. I used to go out for fish fries a lot pre-surgery, but there's no way I could do that anymore. I'd feel like hell afterward! Or Reuben sandwiches - I was super sick after eating one and don't even try anymore - TOO MUCH FAT! Raw vegetables still occasionally irritate my stomach, but not always. But sometimes I eat them exactly for that reason - in hopes they'll irritate my stomach so I'll stop mindless snacking (if I was snacking on the raw veggies, of course, it wouldn't matter - but I meant snacking on junk. I'll sometimes switch to raw vegetables because they'll sometimes irritate my stomach enough that there's no way I want to eat anything else....). I also can't eat a ton of sugar at one sitting - but something like a cookie works (not a good choice, of course, but they don't bother my system). If I eat too much sugar, I don't feel well. I don't dump, but I just feel like crap if I overdo sugar.

that really varies a lot between people. I'm pretty active on another site and we talk about this a lot. We have people who can only eat 1000 and others who can eat 2000 (all women). I would say most are in the 1200-1600 range.

I've never been away of my remnant stomach at all since surgery, so I'm not sure how to answer this. There'd never be any food any it, so you wouldn't be vomiting up food. I'm guessing any other contents would just go into the small intestine.

vomiting is way less unpleasant after surgery - with both sleeve and bypass. First of all, you have a much smaller stomach, so there's a lot less contents to vomit. Secondly, there's not nearly as much acid in your stomach, so you don't get that awful vomit taste. I don't dread it nearly as much as I did pre-surgery.

I never made two meals. My husband and I would eat the same thing - only he'd eat a lot more of it, and in addition I'd give him some kind of starch like potatoes, rice, or pasta.

nope. It's a pretty short surgery. Also, they want you up and walking around a lot. Having to go to the bathroom is a good way of getting you out of bed and walking!

hard to say. I lost about 3 lbs with my first procedure, and GAINED about that much with the second! Depends on how much they take off, if they do any lipo, how much swelling there is... you're right about the loss of appetite the first few days vs. not being as active. I think those two probably balance each other out.

blood test. My prealbumin level was consistently low, so my dietitian recommended I increase my protein level to 100 g a day (the usual recommendation my clinic makes is 60-80). Increasing it to 100g seems to have done the trick - my prealbumin level has been normal for the past 3 or 4 years (I have labs done every year at minimum)

I agree with AZHiker. That far out, that's going to be a very individual thing. I can eat 1500-1700 calories and maintain my weight, but I know others who have to eat quite a bit less than that - like 1000-1200 (to maintain), for example. It depends on so many factors - height, weight, activity level, metabolic rate - it's really just trial & error to find your "sweet spot" I average 100 g a day of protein, but that's because I malabsorb it (we discovered this during my first year post-op. I may have malabsorbed it even prior to surgery, but we'll never know because they didn't do a protein "baseline") I used to count carbs when I was in the losing stage, but I don't anymore. i've never counted fats. again, all of this is really individual, so I'm not sure how helpful it's going to be... I'm 4.5 years out

hormone issues are pretty common in the early weeks or even months after surgery. From what I understand, estrogen is stored in fat cells, so during rapid weight loss, it's released and floods your body. A lot of menstruating women complain about extreme moodiness and irregular periods in the early weeks or months (I was post-menopausal when I had surgery, so this wasn't my experience). It does level out eventually, though.

800-1000 is pretty common for bariatric patients who are in the weight loss phase (some people eat even fewer - more like 600-800), but do whatever your bariatric team suggests. Yes it's low for a "normal" person, but you're doing it under medical supervision and are taking supplements. Once you hit goal and go into maintenance mode, your calorie intake will increase. I eat 1500-1700 now that I'm in maintenance (YMMV). But I was probably at 800-1000 when I was where you are....

it's not uncommon with VSG, but if it just happened that one time, it may just have been a fluke.

yes, I am a normal BMI. I started with a BMI of around 60.

Yep! Most people (not all - but most) lose their sense of hunger for a few months. Mine came back at month 5. For others, it's up to a year. Really take advantage of that - it's so much easier to stick to your plan when you're never hungry! Things get tougher when your hunger returns...

since you're a bypass patient, you're not going to absorb the B12 that's in the multi. I'd probably just cut back on the extra B12 supplement a bit and see if your level comes down. For example, if you're currently taking the extra B12 supplement every day, cut back to every other day. I take a megadose of it. I used to take it once a week - I now take it every other week. My level was also over 2000 but now hovers around 1000-1200-ish. My bariatric clinic was never concerned about the 2000 level, though. They just said my body didn't need as much B12 as I was taking, so it was OK to cut back.

it was close to a week for me...