Angry Banana

I love beer and still do, just not the 20 or so I could pound down with pizza and wings pre-surgery. I'm a little over 6 months out and can drink a few beers, but not with food. Once food hits the pie hole, then beer won't fit until an hour or two later. If I feel like getting a bit of a buzz. I'll have some Protein snack or nuts with a couple of beers or have a few beers before I eat. I still love pizza also only have it once in a while but like mentioned, if I have a couple of beers, then I might be able to fit a half a slice.. With no beers, 3/4 or a whole slice. I never order apps anymore, just no room. I know having a few beers causes a stall with weight loss however, but have to enjoy something once in a while. Mark

Hi all, just back from a week long cruise. Left for the trip at day 26 post op and was pretty nervous about eating, flying, etc. Came back and gained .5 lbs but had a great time. I didn't expect to lose any weight on this trip and was pretty happy that I didn't have a big weight gain. I searched and searched for some advice about taking a cruise so soon after surgery and didn't find much so thought I'd share my experience for others about my trip on Carnival Cruse Lines. This is definitely not advice and don't recommend anyone does this but what I found: Buffet: Limited Breakfast selections that worked for me. Scrambled eggs, some luncheon meats, scoop of tuna from the deli, maybe a sausage link (only had them one day), milk. The yogurt they had was only 3 grams of Protein and loaded with sugar so avoided that. I did order a Guy's Hamburger and had a couple of bites of the burger with a fork and not too bad. There was some other stuff that looked edible for dinner but never ended up eating dinner at the buffet. Dining Room: There was usually a Soup every night but found most of the chilled Soups seemed to me to be very high in sugar so I avoided them unless there was no other option. Entries were limited to eat because of being carb/pata heavy or tougher meats. They always had flat Iron steak which was tender and I was able to eat so got that a few nights and most other nights got chicken or something like that. Got a tofu steak one night and it was bogus . Had to cover it with hot sauce to make it edible. Sorry tofu lovers... Only one night did they have a no sugar added desert that was something I was able to eat and it was a key lime mousse. Most the other nights, the no sugar added desert was cake or bread based. I usually couldn't fit desert anyway so didn't deal with it too much. Islands, Beaches: Most serve typical beach stuff. Burgers, fried foods, etc but there was usually something that you could order if you wanted. I'd usually get something simple like a club sandwich and just eat the meats. Had a fry here and there also. Alcohol: Talked my doc prior to cruising and although he did recommend being very careful with alcohol, he said it wouldn't damage my sleeve or anything like that. This is definitely not medical advice and just sharing my experience. So a couple of the days, on the beach and here and there, I had a pina colada's or daiquiri's and maybe a beer here and there. The first couple of beers I had, I would put my finger in the top and shake them a few times to let out the carbonation and to be honest, flat beer, even when cold wasn't that great. On our last beach day, someone bought me a Heineken and I didn't shake it up but drank it right from the bottle, carbonation and all and it went down okay, no pain or anything but waited a little bit before eating or drinking everything else. The buzz if definitely different.. About mid week, I went wild and had two Frozen banana daiquiris (with a dark rum floater) in about a half hour time span and got a good buzz but the buzz was gone within an hour at most. I really enjoyed the cruise but found that having some soft-ish Protein Bars were definitely beneficial for those times that I didn't want eat breakfast at the buffet or beach food. I enjoyed the cruise tremendously and found there was always something to eat but you definitely had to plan a bit due to buffet hours/selection and choices in the dining room. Keep in mind, I was just starting soft foods so had some limitations. With all that said, I'd do it again in a second.. m

This was normal for me if I tried to swallow to big of a bite, the wrong foods or ate too fast. Gotta go slow and make sure anything you eat is chewed to mush before swallowing. I really found that using a blender on a lot of stuff helped as it controlled the urge to swallow too big of pieces of food. m

Thanks, wish my schedule went differently but booked the cruise last January 2015 for December 2015 and then all the sleeve talk came from my doc and before I knew it, it was either wait until after the cruise or do it before the cruise. Always had in mind to hit the beach 20 lbs lighter but was at 40 lbs lighter and it felt great. m

I'm back on track and really feel the only thing I had that was questionable was alcohol and a couple of fries. Everything else was on my plan. I brought a ton of Protein mix, bars and stuff with me but only used the bars, with out nuts, seeds or lumps and they are on my plan. No regrets about what I did and not making a habit out of any of it, was just scared to go, but glad i did and thought I'd share that it was a survivable experience. m

This seemed like a better place to post than in post surgery questions.. So today is 3 weeks for me. I've got a cruise scheduled for this coming Saturday and pre-surgery was pretty nervous about it.. I'm feeling pretty comfortable with it now and I'll be at day 26 when we leave.. I'm not saying I don't have some nervousness about it but I sit on my ass programming all day long already so not much of a change, just a different locale.. It's going to be challenging walking on the ship and not being drunk though.. I'll have no natural balance. I haven't had any booze for 5 weeks now and not that I'm not interested but my stomach is constantly busy.. Either full of Water or gurgling away at some food. The gurgling is always fun at meetings Plus a little too soon for any booze. I bought some wine (I hate wine), to try out at home, just a little bit, but lost the urge and decided that I just won't have any yummy rum punch on the beach, no welcome aboard pina colada with a dark rum floater, no bucket of caribe with dirty ice on the pool deck, no miller lite before dinner, no after dinner desert drink with souvenir cup, no late night cucumber martini's, no drink of the day, in souvenir cup of course and no morning bloody mary's .. just saying that I won't have any of those, not that I've been thinking about them at all. We've had this cruise scheduled from Jan of 2015 and although it was close to surgery day, I've hoped for the best and had this dream of hitting the beach without a bra or at least 20 lbs down, never expecting to be 36 lbs down.. Everything I have is falling off and looks stupid but it's so comfortable to not have the waist band flip over on a pair of jeans or shorts, or not having them riding into my ass crack.. My kids are bummed because my bathing suit doesn't stick into my ass crack anymore after walking.. I didn't think about it much, but I was hairy and fat, now just hairy, fat, pale and have a half shaved torso.. They shaved my stomach at the hospital for surgery and while I was hoping it'd grow back in time for shirtless time, it hasn't and now the dilemma, to make the rest match or not care.. Old, grey and hairy on top with a pale pinkish white looking bottom half. Anyway, down a total of 36 lbs since pre-op diet and at first, I didn't considered pre-op diet as part of the journey, but it definitely was. I stayed on Protein shakes and water for pretty much 2 weeks pre op and then first week post-op. Cheated once or twice post op with yogurt, cottage cheese type stuff but not until about day 4 or 5.. It was the '7 days and I want food thread' that kicked off my cheating .. When I saw the doc on week 1 follow up, he said it was okay to ease into pureed foods, which was great but there's only so much appeal to pureed swedish meatballs, eventually, other than a different shade of tan, everything looks the same when it comes out of the blender.. and for the most part, tastes the same.. I find now, I stay with soft stuff still but maybe leave a little texture in it when pureeing and chew as much as possible until the habit of my tongue shoveling it back can't be overcome anymore... I still love Protein Shakes though even though I didn't have one today yet.. I've venture into soft foods a bit and some chewing recently though as I need to learn how to eat that stuff for the cruise and won't be able to bring my bass-o-matic with me.. Got the go ahead from doc for softies.. I think I've learned my lesson last week when I thought I had soft foods down, was late for a meeting and had some leftover fish from the night before that was microwaved and a bit chewy.. Figure I'd chew chew chew and yikes, I had the worst pie hole blockage ever.. The pain was amazing and unrelenting.. Thought I would hurl but couldn't.. I never realized that when you have a blob of food stuck in your throat that the body makes mucous and saliva to help it go down but with nowhere for that stuff to go, it all piles up on top of the bad choices and makes it worse.. foamies? I had to walk for about 40 minutes, in pain and mouth watering non stop.. Went to the meeting and thankfully the watering mouth stopped but it took a while for that one to go away and I did it to myself a couple more times by not paying attention and drinking before or after and things like that.. Just stupid mistakes by being distracted.. I will have to say though that my actual stomach has never had any pain, just the long journey down the pie hole pipe has.. Live and learn I guess.. I think I'm at the point where I almost realize my limits and what and when I should eat or stop eating something.. It was a tough 4 or 5 days on week two though and had to try new things and adjust old habits.. Like instead of taking pills first thing in the morning, wait until after you've topped off the tank. Couple of other things that I've learned.. Constipation is a real pain in the ass.. lol. Nothing seems to help yet so I'm going with the flow and trying to get more Fiber in. Probiotics seemed like a good idea so took one and it got stuck right in the pie hole again and killed.. I figured I'd see if one dissolved in my water and would be of any value but it stuck to the side of the bottle and didn't dissolve or budge for hours.. Not taking those for a while. I'm out of excitement, full of **** and have bored you long enough.. So.. See ya and best wishes to y'all.. M

Hmmm.. Let's see.. Friday night ritual used to be.. Come home from work and have a beer or 3 or 4.. Go down the street to the pizza joint where we'd order apps and a main.. I'd eat a few fried raviolis, couple jalapeno poppers, 5 or 6 wings and if the main were pizza, would eat 3 or 4 slices or regular crust stuff. Let's not forget the bucket of beers at dinner (4 miller lites for me, 2 blue moon for the wife).. Then I'd come home and have 8 or 10 more beers before strapping on the leftover feedbag before hitting the sack.

Hi Guys and Gals, Mark here and 4 days post op.. Is that right, surgery on Monday the 23rd at 9 am and today is the 26th? Does surgery day count as day 1 or is the day after surgery day 1? Feeling pretty good, mostly restriction pain when swallowing and having to get used to it and some gas pain. One thing I've found is that Water hurts more going down than Protein shakes or milk. Anyone else experience that? I woke up early and had about 12 ounces of water and then half hour later, had a EAS Carb control Protein shake for Breakfast, my real first attempt at created a schedule. I'm okayed for Protein Shakes and stuff as long as they aren't too thick. Been sticking with pre-made for now mostly. Anyway, this eas drink was 11 ounces and it went down smoothly and pain free in about 10 minutes. I thought with the "angry banana" only holding 3 or 4 ounces that I wouldn't be able to get it all in but no problem. Sips of water a half hour later hurt going down. Sound right to you guys? Hope everyone has a great thanksgiving! Mark

I've been a board ho.. Reading and ignoring my family. it's so addicting sometimes that I've found myself sucked into feeling what people are describing. Just the other day there was a post about someone being hungry and then food suggestions and I searched high and low for justification for me to advanced my stages on my own.. Despite finding enough willing participants, I did find the strength to stop reading food related posts and stick with my plan. As for me, things went pretty well this week, I'm including surgery day as day 1 because it was hell and I think it deserves to be included in the post surgery day count. I saved some of the swabs for when I go back to work and if anyone says anything, I'm going to make them use nothing but swabs in a glass of cloudy Water for the entire day as their liquid. Try rubbing one of those sponges across your teeth just so they aren't sticking to your lips for a second. Generally the week went pretty smoothly, I had some general pain the first couple of days and it hurt a little bit every time I swallowed a golf ball but that was to be expected I guess. Interesting to find out that prior to surgery and with a normal functioning food processing internals, I'd take a few gulps of milk here and there and it never bothered me. Once the kids left for college, we very rarely had any milk in the house, so I never drank any. During my pre-op, when I was stocking up on my list of acceptable fluids for post-op, one of them was milk. Figured why not and bought some 1% organic in a really cool looking packaging. I'm not sure about you guys but a cold glass of milk tastes damn good and I decided to make it a part of my daily routine and 2 o'clock-ish was milk time.. 3 o'clock-ish was bloating time. Took me 5 days to figure out why my abdomen would push the boundaries of elastics stretch-ability and extend out past my loose in the morning and now digging into my waist shorts! I was so wrapped up in looking for symptoms of other things that this one slipped through as normal post op swelling until I noticed the pattern. No milk yesterday and bloating went down and today it's even better. I went from a .2 lb gain on day 5 to a 2.2 lb loss today by stopping milk. oh and having 2/3'rds of my stomach removed. minor detail.. Other than that and worrying about bursting staple line, blood clots, strictures, dehydration and incision infections, it's been a pretty stress free week My doc's office allows milk, Protein shakes, protein mix post-op but not full liquids for first 10 days. Opti-fat 800 is what I had to do for 2 weeks pre-op. What I find funny about this is that one of the recommendations post op is that you can continue using opti-fast as your protein of choice. Opti-fast 800 contains 20 grams of sugar per 8 ounces, with only 14 grams of protein. If I used just opti-fast, I would have consumed 140 grams of pure sugar to get to 90 grams protein per day. But per their guidelines, If i buy my own protein, it has to be under 5 grams of sugar per 8 ounce serving. My Dr and staff have been terrific but I think oversights like this are unacceptable and need to be mentioned. and I just did. There's too much other important stuff to get done in the short visit I'll have with the doc than b***h about too much sugar in the product that they are recommending for optimal health and beneficial healing General observations and my opinion: It is so difficult to strain Soup and look at the good parts you are going to toss out. Gave up on that. Isopure clear drinks, while having zero carbs and 40 grams of protein, taste like ass, what is that soap taste exactly? Protein based soups=bogus, especially opti-fast garden tomato.. Instant decaffeinated coffee=bogus You'd think that a tangy Powerade zero followed by a creamy Protein shake would equal instant heartburn or stomach turning but it doesn't for me. EAS Advantage carb control shakes with 2 grams of carbs and 17 grams of protein have been my fav so far. Final observation, family- I never realized how much my life revolved around food and drink. My wife, son and daughter are all slim. While my kids are slim because they're young still and they have the potential to fatten up, my wife is old like me and I hate her. Just kidding but really.. She eats everything, drinks beer, Snacks, etc and gets slimmer with every bite. She probably weighs about 125 I'm guessing. She's been great with me this week though, cooking all my favorites, leaving an extra cold beer on the counter, buying yodels and cosmic brownies for the kids,etc.. ahh just kidding.. she's been so supportive as the rest of my family has been except for doing all the stuff I mentioned lol.. Since Wednesday when the kids and their significant others arrived home, they've gotten take out only twice- chinese food and pizza and went to dinner every night except for thanksgiving. But I'm okay with it and encourage it. It's what they do and I have to do what I have to do. I've decided that until my follow up appointment, I'm going to stick with Protein Shakes, water and powerade. I may try soup again.. and at my follow up appointment if my Dr doesn't advance me to full and then pureed, I'm going to eat one of the fish in the tank in his waiting room. m

@aleja908.. sucks that you're having difficulties. Hopefully they'll find some resolution for you today so you can continue on to the path of greatness. best wishes. m

I've took a few whole Tylenol and on day 2 or 3 but nothing since. I got the melting kind of Vitamins and while they're not very tasty, they work I guess as I've yet to develop scurvy m

@@MrsKarenC2008, looks like you've done great with weight loss, congrats! Has that helped your arthritis at all? m

dang..lucky.. just looking at the suggestions is making my mouth Water. I'm off to the grocery store to get some stuff. I'm post op day 5 and only have shakes, some bullion and opti-fast chicken Soup which is not cutting it anymore. Gonna check out some clearish Soups. m

I'm only 1 day ahead of you and I have some pain leftover but for the most part it's pain that I cause by drinking too quickly or too much. Tylenol works great and for me causes less nasuea than some of the other stuff. Things get better each day as long as we treat ourselves right.. best wishes.. Mark

Thanks all for the responses.. I hope good things continue for all of us on this path. I've only taken Tylenol so far since the percocet make my mouth Water.. Almost like to much booze. lol.. @turbomom22.. yeah, same thing here. I love the eas carb control shakes and like you, my morning starts off great, then a bit of churning and winds down and ends up pretty good by bedtime. My worst day was definitely surgery day. The anesthesia and no water thing in the hospital was a killer and those swabs did nothing but cause frustration. I felt like I had the worst hangover ever and could not find the cat that crapped in my mouth while I was out.. I'm still amazed that I went through with the surgery and never thought I'd be on the losers bench despite being a full time loser Typically today I would have started off with a couple of big coffees followed some type of breakfast.. Then a full day of picking before strapping on the feed bag for the turkey extravaganza. Let's not forget boozing and football. Would probably be about 20 beers deep by now.. Oh and the next game is starting, so might as well eat again and then some desert. BUT my big treat today was a sugar free popsicle and some Optifast chicken Soup. I'm still pretty satisfied with Protein shakes and some type of water even though the dogs look a bit tasty, especially that little chubby one..lol..No wait, that would have been pre-banana. Think I'll have a glass of milk and hopefully I can produce an outburst of throat/mouth gurgles that make my family crack up. Glad I can be of some benefit for their enjoyment. M

My PCP has been recommending VSG for a couple of years and had it done himself. For me, even at 275ish and 5' 8", I never really felt fat, just lacked energy and enthusiasm for doing anything. I thought I knew I was a touch overweight but with the gradual increase over the years, I never had myself pegged as being the fat guy. There's this guy at my work who is really big, so big that I thought, he's probably the fattest person I know and much fatter than me. He's on all kinds of meds also for diabetes, hbp, etc and is about 12 years younger than me. I thought for sure with his weight, health issues and meds that he would surely not have a good outcome unless he changed his ways. Well, we had to go into the lab at work and had to put on a lab coat, hoodies, booties etc. We both put the same size on and his fit, mine didn't. I couldn't button up the lab coat. Finally what my doc had told me about climbing a1c, cholesterol, being morbidly obese-- I HEARD the ding ding ding bell moment in my head and realized that the fat guy was me and my on and off dieting or skipping lunch was not the solution for a long healthy life. I owe it to my family to try my best at being around for them.