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My apologies that they cannot see past their own messed up logic to support you in making your life better. Do you have any close friends or other family members who are supportive?

I wish I knew how amazing I would feel just a short time post-op. That, and how easy it is to get constipated. But that probably isn't the answer you were looking for.

Had it earlier. Seriously, life post-op, for me, has been so amazing. Not one thing I would change.

Its up to you how much effort you are willing to put into trying to change their opinion. I personally would not try to verbally communicate with them, as a means to change their opinion. I would rather not talk about it with them and then make sure I started making the changes I need to and start eating better and exercising regularly once you are able to. Next thing you know, you'll want to talk to them about how much healthier you are, how much better you feel. How much you need to buy new, smaller clothes and how hot you look. Then they'll be all crickets…. Let them do them, you do you. That said, I can't only imagine how much easier it would be if they supported you. since they don't, blow them away with your actions and results!

I also had heard about Biotin for hair loss and b12 for energy (from someone on the St. John Weightloss Facebook Group) so I added those, along with the recommended: 2 x daily Chewable Multi-Vitamin (Kroger Brand Childrens Complete Multi is what I use) 1 x daily D3 (Small tablet, but I also found a chewable at Vitamin Shoppe) 3 x daily calcium citrate Chew (I bought the strawberry and lemon Bariatric Advantage from the pharmacy at the Madison Heights St John) Just make sure you get the 500mg ones, so you only need 3 a day, if you get the 250mg ones, you need 6 1 x daily B Complex Gummy (I use this one from Vitamin Shoppe: http://www.vitaminshoppe.com/p/nutrition-now-b-complex-gummy-70-gummies/nn-3014#.VmnL_Ok6NUM) After my 6week followup, the nutritionist in Dr. Katz office told me not to take the B12 or the Biotin, until after my first 90 day labs, and only if I was deficient. I just got a call from them with my lab results and everything looks perfect so I will not start taking the Biotin or B12 again. Ultimately its up to you as far as what kinds or brands. Some are very expensive. also, check the Weight Loss center there in Madison Heights, they have samples and sell some as well. Oh, and I should note, Dr. Katz literature said no gummy multi Vitamins, as they are not a "complete" multi vitamin. I did use the Chewable B Complex wafers for the first 2 months, then switched to the gummies I listed above. I don't think we can use the gummies at first.

That is one suggestion I made to my weight loss center. They have a great support system for nutrition, but nothing as far as exercising or physical fitness. They said they are working on finding a certified trainer to work with their patients. Its amazing how broad and general the surgeons are about physical activity.

Walking only for first 4 weeks. I got clearance for weights and other exercise at my 1 month post-op follow up. I had no issues getting into weight lifting. I did make sure I had enough protein (100-110g) and liquids. I was already at about 1000 calories per day anyway. I never felt weak or under nourished, but I did ease into it. Within a couple weeks I was doing a lot more weight and longer on the elliptical. There are some good threads on exercise in the Exercise area of the forum as well. They are worth reading through if you have time.

Week 4 post op, I am outside in my driveway cleaning the interior of my car and I stand up to get out of the car and my pants just fall right down. Belt and all. It was pretty funny and I am glad not many people were outside. These are always funny stories, good for you for taking it in stride.

Oh my you get to eat more than i do. I only can have Protein shakes sugar free popsicles Jello and chicken broth thats it. Funny thing. I was just at our once a month support group meeting the other night and the nutritionist from the weight loss center asked how I felt about the pre-op diet. I told her it was ok, I followed it because I was scared to fail. She told me that a lot of people are getting dehydrated just before surgery because they feel too restricted on the pre-op diet. The practice is actually talking about adding more foods to the pre-op diet to try to counter act that. Keep with your plan, sorry it is more restrictive. I would rather be more restricted than try to break off of the plan and find out I had to delay or start again.

Everyones is different. I attached a pic of my pre-op diet from my book they gave me. My weight loss center uses a 7 day program, but I did it for 12 days. I wanted some wiggle room incase I fell off the wagon and needed to recover and still shrink my liver enough. I was worried that they would get in there and my liver didn't shrink enough. I did fine on the diet, I did however fall off the wagon one time. 5 days before surgery I cheated and had a double cheeseburger from McDonalds. I of course quickly regretted it and stuck to the plan the rest of the 5 days. I ended up dropping 25 pounds on that pre-op diet. My surgeon said the liver had shrunk nice and there was hardly and bleeding. Good luck to you, follow your plan and if you stumble, get back up and finish strong.

After the seminar, at my first apt. with the Surgeon, I spoke to a nurse first, who explained what would happen that day and who I would see. The whole appointment was about an hour and I met the nurse first, then the ins. person who handles all the paperwork and approval, etc., then I spoke to the surgeon directly, with a med student present. We went over options and what the dr. thought the best option would be for me. Then they explained what paperwork I would be required to fill out, what other procedures I would need to do before approval. This is where I found out what type of psych eval I needed and other requirements I had to meet both for my ins. co. as well as the surgeons requirements. Best of luck!

I think it is referring to the Liver Shrink Diet, but I liked it better when I thought she dropped acid.

Funny, when I was fat and people told me they felt so much better after working out. I would try and feel so tired and in pain. After dropping a little weight and then working out, I feel that feeling now. I don't feel tired or in pain. I also think that something happens when we drop all that weight between the pro-op and first 2 weeks post op. I have read that your body may see a boost in testosterone that is released from the fat you burn up in that sudden burst of weight loss during the first initial few weeks to a month. I am not a doctor but that seemed to make sense to me, as I was so full of energy and felt like a teenager again. It has sense slowed down a little but It was amazing to feel that vibrance.

I was a little worried about this but for nothing. I followed the plan, fell off the wagon one time and then kept on the plan again for the last 5 days and I dropped 25lbs. Everyone is different just do what you are supposed to and if you stumble, keep going.

Best of luck on the recovery. I hope you get healed up quickly. We started in a very similar place. Hopefully you will have a fairly easy go of it through the different food phases. It helps a lot once you can start eating scrambled eggs and stuff. You may already be there, if not, you are probably looking forward to it.

I got the all clear 4 weeks post op. I started with some easy lifting. I found this article and it helped me make a routine that was both physically challenging, yet safe in a way that allowed me to gain strength and stability without much risk for injury. The Ultimate Weight Training Workout Routine After reading through a lot of this, I realized that there were a few things I needed to do to ensure I wouldn't over exert myself. I landed on doing two different workouts and alternating them. Workout A on Monday, Workout B on Wednesday, Workout A again on Friday. B the next Monday and so on. Each workout was what could be considered full body, as I didm;t focus specifically on legs or arms or shoulders, etc. I downloaded a cool little app on my iPhone called Fitlist. It allowed me to make routines and add the number of reps and weight for each rep so I could pick up where I left off from the previous workout, and allowed me to bump up the weight and/or number of reps once that became easier to do. Within a couple weeks I upped the weight a little and a couple weeks after that I upped the reps from 8 to 10. I now do most exercises at 3 sets of 10 reps. I figured out how much weight to do by doing a set of 8 and making sure the weight was just right so that I could only do those 8 reps. Meaning I didm;t have any additional strength to do another rep, but I wasn't failing at 7 reps either. The only thing I did to my diet was make sure I was taking in enough Protein. I was already up to 1000 calories per day and went from 80g protein to about 100g protein. I take in about 200 cal and 20g protein before my workout in the AM and another 150-200cal and 15-20g protein within a half hour after working out. Then Breakfast which is usually eggs around 1 1/2 hr after my workout. I also started doing the elliptical at the same time as the weights. I went from 8 minutes to 10 minutes in a couple weeks and now do over 2 miles in 20 minutes before my sets of weights. I also have started trying yoga. Its amazing how out of shape my core is. Just a simple plank for 30 seconds makes me want to throw up sometimes. I found a cool app for that too called Swork It. It has stretching, exercises and yoga instructional videos. Now that I have longer endurance and am down some significant weight, my next endeavor is going to be 9round. I think that will help me burn a lot of fat. Best of luck @@BrandonKea, it is a huge game changer once you start working out. I stalled for 3 weeks but still dropped size. I went from 5xl to now shopping for 2, sometimes 3xl. Take it easy and only do what you can. Your body will adjust quickly and soon you will be amazed at what you can do. My gym has an assisted pull up/dip machine. I have never done pull ups before. I can do 5 pull ups on that machine because it helps offset your weight. Huge confidence booster and big time motivator!

I think that when it gets to a certain point, you know if you have to leave or not. That said though, I just want to play devils advocate for a second. You may have thought about this or talked about this with others, or maybe not. Our significant others are going through this change too. I can understand them maybe fearing the change in us for reasons such as our added confidence, more attention from the opposite sex, possibly the desire to stray. I think that as long as you have discussions about these things and do a little to try to calm that fear in them, the rest is on them. If they still continue to belittle or sabotage or act other than supportive in anyway, after you have voiced your displeasure and reassured them that you are still in love with them, then you can be sure of their intentions. If after that they still act out, then drop the hammer on them. As much as I try to give the benefit of the doubt, we are in the middle of a life changing thing. The last thing we need is a negative spouse or SO that doesn't want to play nice for fear or jealousy. We lost how many years hiding behind layers of self doubt, embarrassment, the weight of a society that shames people because of their weight or looks. Time to make adjustments in our life. Either they are on board or not. Best of luck to you as well! I hope it works out however is best.

It seems to me that his conversation is turning towards more of an attempt for our approval for you doing something drastic to wake up or otherwise jolt your relationship. You don't need our approval for that. If you are seeking a response that empowers you to act, then I would say this: If you are serious about arriving at a decision of weather to stay and work it out or leave, you need to prepare for the worst case either way. As for the joint account, I would start by having your paycheck deposited into a personal account only you have access to and then transfer money into the joint when needed. If you need to make a move and he has a grip on your account, it will be hard to get away from that without his approval. We only get one side here so I am taking your side by default in this instance. From what you have said in the previous posts, he seems like the type that is cheating on you and while showing no signs of affection or love towards you, he probably won't think twice about making it impossible for you to leave easily. Make sure you look out for you and arrange things in the background before pulling the pin to see if it will end or not. That way you are prepared for either case.

Agreed. I would fear not knowing what might have been much more than the fear of being made to look like a fool if it doesn't work.

That right there ^ is probably the best response and course of action. Either way you look at it, You have to do all you can to survive, just like on our weight loss journey, the same can be said in your relationship.

Thats a tough decision. On one hand, you could call his bluff and pay for it, hell, pay for all of it if you want. I wonder if there suddenly becomes a different reason as to why he can't do counseling? On the other hand, if he is only committed to the marriage so much that he should only contribute some of the cost (knowing that you don't have means to pay the other half) then you are also dealing with a spouse who likes to use money as a tool for abuse. It might not be physical abuse, but mental and financial abuse like this are still abuse. Again, sorry about your situation. You are seriously in a no win. Unless you ultimately decide to leave and that you and your kids lives are worth more than a couple hundred dollars spent on a counselor. I don't believe he actually wants to go to counseling. And that is sad. You deserve better. You're stronger than that.

Keep in mind that I am not a medical professional. When the Dr. cleared you, did you ask them if you would lose that much? It is my understanding that how much you lose depends on how much your body can stand to lose. So if you are not a super high BMI, you don't have as much to lose. Did you look into the requirements for your ins. to pay for it, since your BMI is so low?

Any reason not to get another band, since it seemed to be successful the first time? I am surprised that they would sign off on a drastic surgery like the sleeve for a 23 pound gain. Seems like taking a bazooka to a knife fight. That said, I think you would be hard pressed to lose 50 pounds, even with the sleeve. You would only lose what excess your body didn't need around. You may go under 150 temporarily until you recover from the first 2 months and start working out, but I can't see you losing 50 pounds and maintaining that kind of loss at 173lbs.

I am not a psychologist, nor have I had experience like this, but I wanted to speculate a possible cause. I had a friend who was dating a woman who decided to have this surgery not long after I told them I was having it. He was never supportive of it to me or her. He flat out said he didn't believe in it and that he would never even entertain the idea for him. A few weeks later he broke up with her after 2 years of dating and almost moving in with her. I never brought this up to him, but I wondered if it had anything to do with a fear of what would happen after she lost weight? Would she suddenly be attractive to other men and would she like the attention she would get enough to stray from him? Also, would others expect him to follow suit and have the surgery, or would he feel pressure to lose weight and make changes he wasn't ready for on his own? Taking this one step further then, could your husband not only have those fears, but also start projecting his fear of an inevitable outcome by starting up an affair with someone else, figuring you would do it to him? (which is probably not the case but he may have already made that up in his mind) I am sorry you have to go through this. This should be your time to shine. You put in the effort to become healthier and whoever you share your life with should choose to support that even if they wouldn't go through that themselves or even if they "don't believe in that". Best of luck!