Cape Crooner

I haven't been here in five years, but I thought I should share what I've learned on this journey... 1. My sleeve was a very minor surgery. Less than 30 minutes passed between being knocked out and the recovery room. Quite frankly, I think this option should be more widely available for marginally obese people. Unlike the other bariatric surgeries - which change your plumbing, this is simply the removal of the stretchy part of the stomach. 2. Think long and hard about who you tell. I told a handful of family members and I think that was a mistake. I suggest you either tell everyone, or just the absolute minimum (spouse or care giver). Within the first year I was sure everyone knew and I felt I was being dishonest. 3. The honeymoon is real. For 18 months it's virtually impossible to gain weight, but after that, you most certainly can. My smaller stomach can hold 8-10 ounces of food and get refilled after about an hour. If you fill it with sugar or fat and keep refilling it, you can certainly get back all your weight. I initially lost about 90 pounds and that was too much. People kept asking me if I had cancer. I've since put 25 pounds back on and while I wish it was 15, it's fine. My weight is what it was when I was an athlete in college. I have used my reduced weight and energy to excercise and I think that has helped. I generally do 100,000 steps a week. Again, eating/drinking the wrong stuff and not exercising would surely lead to more weight gain. 4. I no longer count calories, but I do have a few tricks to keep things in check. I have designed a menu with a lot of 200-500 calorie meals and I have 3-4 of these every day. I burn enough EXTRA calories a day exercising to offset the calories I drink (I only drink 100 calorie cocktails - nothing sugary). 5. There's a lot of good and bad information on alcohol on this site. I waited 6 weeks (the European guideline) and the eased in with weak cocktails and wine. I don't think it hits me harder, but since I'm likely to have less food in my stomach, the effect is to be hit harder. I can see no reason to wait 6 months or a year other than minimizing caloric intake. The Sleeve is a timeout from your bad lifestyle, but it's not a permanent timeout. At some point you'll create a new lifestyle that will include birthday cakes, pizza, French fries and booze. You need to manage around all of these risky consumables. You should think about it ll as you enter your journey, never stop reevaluating, and constantly adjust. I hope this helps someone...

Sleeve 2 years ago today. 281 HW 197 CW. Pretty much no more hunger suppression. 90-100,000 steps a week.

This has been a topic of misunderstanding in other posts. When I say "burn 2500 calories a day", I'm talking about what my fitness tracker reports. I think I burn 1800 by just being alive. I do cycle 5-6 days a week for and hour to an hour and a half. I average 90,000 steps a week.

Pouches and sleeves are different. The pouch is created from the soft tissue esophagus. The sleeve is what remains of the stomach after the stretchy section is removed. I don't anything more about pouches, but I know sleeves aren't stretched by bubbles. All that said, I believe diet soda is a "consume in moderation" food. The same as Chrystal Light.

Thanks Sara and good luck, but I was asking@arringtonc49

How long ago were you sleeved? I tried it after about 9 months. I can't drink much, but other than that, it's just another drink with artificial sweetener. If you think it's bad - don't drink it!

Not true

I agree. I big part of this process is "forgetting" all our old bad habits and building new ones as we emerge from a successful weight loss. Time is the only way to do this. Truth be told, the post op through goal attainment point diet is much easier than maintenance. The more time that passes between your old eating habits and your new eating habits,?the better!

I don't buy that processed and fast foods are poison. No evidence (other than cheap movies) suggests that to be true. My mother and mother-in-law are both well into their 90's and both drink diet soda daily. That said, we are what we eat. I try to make most of my meals out of Whole Foods. I don't waste money on so-called organic foods. I do enjoy 1-2 In N Out burgers a year and 12 ounces of diet soda a week. We do not know that Type 2 diabetes is generally linked to obesity - not processed food unless that's all you eat. No own knows what causes cancer, but most of the women I knew who had breast cancer, were on birth control; lung cancer and smoking, liver cancer and alcoholism. Remember that the worst poisons on earth occur naturally; plan your diet, count your calories, and major in Whole Foods. You'll be fine!

I was sleeved a year and a half ago. There is nothing I can't eat that I ate before. Oh yeah, I cannot eat more than 8 ounces of anything! You'll never be deprived of a "taste", so there's no reason for a food funeral. Now, if you're wanting a pig out overeatingathon - what good will that do?

I don't dispute that most programs say no soda during the weight loss period. It contains acid which is to be avoided during healing. It also leaves you bloated for the first 6 months. That is not the myth. The myth is that it somehow stretches your sleeve, it does not. Go spend an hour or two on google and look for any research that disputes this fact, you won't find it because it does not exist. That said, I don't I'll ever drink more than 6/8 ounces at one sitting. It simply doesn't go down as fast as flat liquids.

I agree with smg. I'd also suggest a fitness tracker and a food logging app. Between the two of them, you'll be able enjoy the efforts of your hard work before it shows up on the scale. Burn 2500 calories a day and eat 1200 low carb/high protein and those 70 pounds will melt away!

I asked my surgeon and she said it had a lot of acid in it. Bad early on before your stitches heal. Potentially bad if you have or develop acid reflux. I took 6 months off and drink 2 cups in the morning and an ice coffee every day.

Don't let it get you down. I was forced to attend two as well. The pre surgery folks said almost nothing. The meeting was dominated by post surgery folks who had no life before WLS and have been reborn thru the process. I'm guessing that they had become insignificant obese "faces in a crowd" before and now they're filled with confidence - which is great, but now they're persona as a "WLS success story" defines who they are. I'm not saying we don't have to eat healthy post sleeve, I'm just saying it's much easier to do when you can barely eat 8 ounces of solid food at one sitting and you can exercise without lugging the weight of a small person on your back. WLS has its own social world. If you want it or need it, it'll be there for you. If you don't, it'll be in your life's rear view mirror before you know it! #zeroregrets

Interesting, I have researched this extensively and it's simply no true. The sleeve procedure removed the stretchy part of your stomach. There is absolutely no medical research that suggests a post vsg stomach can be stretched by a few bubbles. In fact, if you overeat (which is how our original stomach got stretched in the first place), it still won't stretch, you'll just throw up!

You must be pretty tall, you don't look like you weigh 176!

I was sleeved in 2015 and I no longer track. I did track for close to a year and developed an arsenal of healthy 100-200 calorie meals and snacks. I strive to eat from this arsenal 85% of the time. My issue comes during vacations and heavy party times (like the holidays). I had almost a month of "no scale" eating and drinking. I ended up about 5 lbs over, but 4 days back on track, I'm almost back to where I want to be. I still use a fitness tracker and exceed my goal of 70,000 steps/week. If I ever start to go out of control again, I'll start logging again. I use Loseit. It's very good and it makes it easy to create your own recipes. The biggest advantage of both is that you can't fool yourself!

I had a bad experience with this. I told a handful of people and my 94 old mother. Everyone respected my privacy, but my mother didn't really understand how private it was. She told friends who I never would have told. I have told no one else, but my wife is afraid the word got out (6 degrees of separation). My advice would be to tell no one, or pretty much anyone you consider a friend. In 6-12 months, you'll be down 100 lbs and everyone you know will want to know "how'd you do it". And that's all anyone will want to talk about for 18 months. Prepare NOW for how you want to answer that question!

I wrote about this in 2015 when I was sleeved. It's a hot topic and I got a lot of grief from others. 1. The big issue is babying your WLS post surgery. Not all surgeries are equal. Sleeves are the most minimally invasive and based on reviewing guidelines worldwide, I found them ranging from no wait (in England) to 1 year in most major US programs. I went with two months, but eased in very delicately. Speaking to doctors, I learned that the sleeve is pretty much healed after 6 weeks. I have also heard that a Gastric Bypass is less tolerant since you're no longer using the tough stomach tissue to process the food you eat. 2. The next big issue is your liver. When you are losing a lot of weight in a hurry (like most WLS patients), your liver is working overtime. I waited until I was close to reaching my goal and drank extra Water before and after my very weak drinks. 3. Beyond those two major health considerations, the biggest is your weight loss success. Alcohol is empty calories and when we drink, we make bad food choices. I always counted the calories in my drinks, which kept me on distilled alcohol and water. I also always planned what I was going to eat BEFORE drinking and stuck to it. 4. Although not a risk for everyone, transfer addiction is a real risk for people who may have been addicted to overeating or anything else. I have read many stories from people who never drank before WLS, but were addicted to eating or soda and became alcoholics after. 5. The carbonation myth has no basis in medical research. I researched it extensively and found zero long term issue from any doctors. I also observed that many obese people drank sugary soda all day long, which is why most programs tell us not to drink it. It should be avoided until tolerated following your surgery. I tried it after 6 months and it upset my stomach. Today, I can drink a little, but not much (12 ounces over a few hour timespan). Of course if you were addicted to soda or beer before WLS, be very careful. These are the biggies, let me know if you have any further questions...

I have migrated to different meat and vegetable combinations. I think a hot meal is emotionally more filling, so I've created a bunch of dishes that are dietetically more like hot salads without lettuce. Kung Poa - I found this Panda Express Kung Poa sauce that's only about 25 calories per tablespoon. If you cut it with soy sauce and rice wine vinegar, you can create a very tasty Chinese dish. I stir fry celery, carrots, and peppers. Add some peanuts and beef, chicken, or shrimp and I have a great 250 calorie, protein rich dinner. Broccoli "Pasta" - Create Classic protein oriented pasta dishes using broccoli instead of pasta. Chicken with garlic, capers, tomatoes in evoo tossed with a little Parmesan. Again, a great protein rich 250 hot dinner. Chicken Sausage, Pepper, and Onions - Grill them like a street sub, but leave out the roll. Melt a little provolone on top and voila. I still eat salads, but only as a garnish with my hot meal...

Diet Coke is no different than any food group that's less than healthy. A little now and then wouldn't hurt, but anything approaching addictive consumption should be taken as a red flag and be quickly curtailed. As mentioned, I probably had one 20 ounce Diet Coke a day pre WLS. I was not addicted, just preferred it over ice water with lunch. I was fairly addicted to nuts (after decades of low carb dieting). I have zero concern about drinking 8-16 ounces of Diet Coke a week, but I am very cautious when it comes to nuts. After WLS each of us happily discover things that once caused us to overeat are no longer a threat. We also discover new risks that never concerned us in the past. I do agree that carbonation is a mild form of acid, but I think labeling it as toxic is not backed up by any real science. I know plenty of very old people (over 90) who drink it many times a day and have not had cancer or any stomach problems - but these people were never obese. I do question the whole science behind zero calorie anything - and I know that post WLS, we can still drink thousands of calories a day. That's what concerns me...

I think you'll change your mind once you find out how little your stomach holds. If you're only eating 6 ounces, why not just eat meat and eggs? Major roughage like chopped lettuce takes up all your stomach capacity in a few bites. As obese people "trying to eat right", we loved salads because people told us they were healthy and they filled us up. Post vsg, healthy means something different and getting full is no longer an issue. A month ago, I went to Rubios and ordered a chopped chicken salad with salsa dressing. Tastes great and low in calories. Lotsa chopped romaine. I was able to eat 8 bites - the salad bowl still looked full after I finished eating!

Occasionally, I'll order a Diet Coke with lunch. When I leave the table 3/4's of it is still left!

I'm 19 months out and I eat 8 ounces of dense food. I can eat 2 cups of skinny pop if I'm drinking! I just don't find iceberg lettuce to be worth my stomach space. I do eat a lot of arugula on my low cal pastrami sandwiches.

I do low cal dressings or make my own, but what's the point if you're only eating 2 ounces and getting no Protein?