2goldengirl

Congratulations! It all seems a lot more real once you have a date, doesn't it? Don't let the nerves throw you. After so long prepping, the idea of actually DOING the surgery can scare you. My personal theory is that after months of chasing down specialist appointments and testing and this and that, there is nowhere for all that energy to go except to escape into anxious-land. Breathe. Do some nice things for yourself - go for a walk, have a pedi, go through your clothes and sort the sheep from the goats - I'm sure there are things in all of our closets that we've outgrown. Sort them by size and you'll have an idea of what you have as backup as you shrink. I did some batch cooking ahead so Huz would have something to eat while I was on liquids. hang in there, you're in the home stretch!

What you are clearly not hearing from us is that what you know as your reality now - what foods you most enjoy, for example - may change dramatically postop. The foods you think you can't live without may be foods that simply don't interest you postop. You can't base your decision about surgery on that. Instead, I'm going to challenge you on something. You mentioned that your wife has reached her goal, and now that she has, she would like for you to have surgery so you can both have a healthier life. Think of this. Your wife has no doubt, radically changed her relationship with food, if for no other reason than having to account for foods that no longer agree with her post-GBP. And she lives with a husband who at the age of 45 is seriouly obese and who shows more interest in hanging on to his wings and pizza than he does in investing in your mutual future. When your health fails due to your obesity, who do you think will be left taking care of you? She will. WLS changes relationships. some for the better, some for the worse. Maybe what you need to listen to is why she wants you to conquer your food issues. Leave the word "surgery" out of it if you like, but understand that the imbalance between you is growing, and in your hands.

Yup. It's hard. But it's worth it. FWIW, physical hunger subsides, it comes and goes. Head hunger, on the other hand, does a number on your head. That's what this sounds like to me.

So, what's next? You must feel like a million!

Y'all are making me very impatient to get to the place where my sleeve will tolerate raw veg and fruit, as well as to the place where I could eat more than 1/4 of the teeny plate.

I need to correct a couple misconceptions here. I've only been on these boards for six months, but I can tell you that "looking good in a pair of jeans again" is not the driver for most of us. Do we enjoy it once we get there? You bet we do. But the jeans are the least of it. It's regaining our health, and regaining control over our eating, which had felt so out of control for so long. It's gaining perhaps for the first time a sense of self-respect and self-love. As for your assertion that surgery is "the easiest way to lose weight", I assure you, choosing surgery is anything but "easy". If you haven't gotten far eough in your research to know that, you've got more work to do.

That depends entirely on the reason you've identified for your failure, doesn't it? There is lot of help and support available here, but we need a little more to go on here.

@@Kindle, while I appreciate your caution, please know that for me, anyway, I'm fully aware that hunger may return in time. But that in no way diminishes the value of being free from hunger right now. I'm taking each day as it comes, and enjoying the way things change. For the OP, hunger is a major issue for him. I'm sure the idea of being free from hunger (for whatever period of time) is pretty hard to grasp.

I would find it very unusual for a sleever to have the capacity to eat 5-10 wings, especially after a month or two. But here's the thing: when you aren't driven by hunger, having even ONE wing becomes an exercise not just in fueling your body, but in knowing that the first wing tastes the best. It's very hard to describe the reality of having no hunger when hunger is a big driver for so many of us. We can't imagine being without it. I can honestly say I haven't had a single moment of hunger in the 6-1/2 weeks since my surgery. And yet I have enjoyed the food I've eaten immensely. I can't tell you how wonderful it is to eat a few bites of something I really enjoy, and not to "have" to keep eating because I'm still hungry. Losing the hunger hasn't meant losing my enjoyment of my food. If anything, it's heightened it, because I no longer have the warring voices in my head "you need to stop, you've had enough...but I'm hungry and it tastes so good". I ate my first artichoke of the season today. I live close to the artichoke-growing capitol of the world, and I always look forward to the season. I had a half of one, and I loved every single bite. I knew yesterday that my sleeve was ready for some vegetables (which I love, and didn't miss when my sleeve wasn't ready for them yet, it's funny how that works). Because I have to eat more slowly, I am able to savor each bite more.

The humane way to decaffeinate yourself is over a week or so. This works whether you make coffee at home or go somewhere that you serve your own. Replace part of your mug of high-test caffeinated coffee with a little decaf. A little more decaf the next day. And the next day...in a week or so, you're on to straight decaf. No headache required.

The sleeve is a much less intense surgery than the GBP. Only your stomach is involved. There is no rerouting of the intestines, no removal of either the esophageal or pyloric sphincters. No postop malabsorption of nutrients. And with rare exception, no dumping. But yes, about 80% of the stomach is stapled off and removed. I find that a lot less scary than rerouting my intestines.

At 15 days, you aren't in a stall, you're following a normal postop course. Remember that while your primary goal may be losing as much weight as possible as fast as possible, your body's primary goal is to heal from the insult of surgery. And your body needs to heal. It needs rest, fluids, nutrition such as your new swollen and tender tummy can handle, and that you do some walking or other gentle exercise. I can't answer your question about fish or eggs, as I don't know whether you're still on full liquids now - I was on Day 15. I had soft boiled eggs at the pureed stage, and fish not long after that. I'm still on softs at Week 6. I hope this helps. Put away the scale for now, it will only make you crazy.

Seriously, you really need to let go of any expectations of amount of weight loss in the first month to six weeks when your body's primary goal is to heal from the insult of surgery. Second, put away the damned scale. Follow your postop instructions. Get in your Fluid and your Protein. Avoid exercising too much at this point, remember that your body is still stressed from healing. You won't be getting in enough calories to support much in the way of exercise. What I personally found was that my weight loss ramped up after Week 4. I lost before that, certainly, but my surgeon has me increasing calories gradually, and it wasn't until I got to 700-800 calories/day that the losses were consistent. I'll move toward solids (from softs) heading to Week 8, and from Week 8-12 she wants me to increase to 900-1200 calories/day and keep it there. Keep doing what you're doing, except the worrying. You can dropkick that. You aren't the first person who has wondered "but what if I'm the only person out there who will fail at WLS?" You won't be. We promise.

I didn't tell a thing, you don't have to. You file your FMLA paperwork, your surgeon says you need to be off from Y to X, and you're done. Even your HR dept. doesn't need to know what you're having done. That said, I did tell my supervisor and my manager, because of the preop appts. I had to do. They haven't told anyone else, they can't. It's the law. When people asked why I was going to be out, I just said "I have a little something that needs taking care of".

That's absolute nonsense. Bypass patients (who don't have a pylorus, the spincter muscle between the stomach and the small intestine) may have issues with things getting stuck, but with a sleeve, the same thing happens as it does for those who've never had WLS: you pass it out your intestine unless you break it down in the intestines first.

Just look at that smile in your "during"!

She sure did. No postop gas pain from inflation. Only incisional pain was from where they took out the stomach. Never anything stronger than Tylenol once I was home.

Honestly, whether you are fully aware of it or not, you're afraid of making permanent changes in your life. @@FrankiesGirl is spt on in her assessment. She's much further out from surgery than I am, and I don't mean to put myself out there as someone who is a surgical veteran after six weeks with a sleeve. That said, I know resistance to change when I see it. You don't mention your age, how your weight affects your life, nor how much you need to lose. Successful WLS is for those who are fully committed to making permanent changes in the way they live their lives around food. Each of us had barriers such as you describe about things we didn't want to give up. I didn't want to give up meal sized salads or face the idea of not being able to eat a (whole) deli sandwich, for example. But in the end, each of us wanted to give up the extra baggage in our lives that staying overweight, that avoiding permanent changes, meant: chronic illness, pain both emotional and physical, and a host of other personal demons. When you get to that place, the idea of avoiding diet soda or hot sauce for a while will seem a pittance of a price to pay.

I've got a load of chicken thighs in the pressure cooker, seasoned with taco seasoning and cooked in picante sauce. Took all of three minutes to put together, and that was skinning the chicken, sprinkling the seasoning, and dumping on a jar of sauce. That will be yummy for me as-is, and Huz can put some in his burrito bowls/tacos/what-have-you. 12 minutes in the pressure cooker. A friend at work brought a lot of this in this past week for a lunch meeting, along with taco fixings. There was plenty leftover, so I had a little with a chunk of avocado. She'd used breasts, and the meat was actually kinda tough, even though she'd used a slow cooker. Tasty, though!

You really need to be in touch with your surgeon about this NOW. This is not normal. You may need some diagnostic testing to determine what the problem is.

One consideration in the US, at least, is that the three procedures most commomly covered by insurance are the lap-band, the sleeve, and GBP. Not the plication.

Something I learned yesterday is that eating more slowly and monitoring the difference between "just enough" and "too much" is harder when I'm eating with others. I went to a conference and to a Seder yesterday. lunch at the conference was at a table of ten colleagues. I had a little salmon and took a couple bites of cooked veg. This was the first meal in six weeks where I wasn't able to weigh my portion. The salmon was just delicious, but I either ate too fast, or a bite or two too much, and I was very, very uncomfortable afterwards. The Seder was easier - because of the way the story is read, I had breaks in between courses. I was nervous about the charoset, it had nuts and raw fruit in it, but I only had a bite of it, the matzoh I wasn't so worried about. I had one slice of brisket, which was somewhere between 2 and 3 oz. It took a half hour to eat it, but I wasn't uncomfortable afterwards.

I agree, start with a very small piece. have ONE bite, and wait ten minutes to see how it goes. I've found the "ten minute wait" really helps when I'm trying something new. Happy birthday to your daughter. I surely understand why you want to share her cake with her.

Six minutes is for soaked black beans. I'm not adding the time it takes for the cooker to come up to pressure and cool down, but it's still a whale of a lot faster than any other method I've done. And the beans don't fall apart, either. Pinto beans are ten minutes, though if I'm making refried's I'll cook them a little longer, say 12 minutes.

Seconding the refried Beans. First, I'm not a fan of sweet. Second, it's a dandy source of Fiber, which is lacking at this stage. I'm on soft foods now, and I still make sure I get in a 1/2 cup of refrieds each day, with a pinch of cheese on top.