summerset

It might be the case because that term "healthy food choices" is very, very vague. Because what exactly are "healthy food choices"? I feel it depends on what dietary approach you're following. What one approach calls healthy might be the worst food from hell when it comes to another dietary approach.

Sounds weird maybe but I wish I had known that I'm obviously a patient who's prone to develop internal scar tissue.

You might be interested in the books of Joel Fuhrman as well. My favorite is "Super Immunity" so far.

Why do you already plan on not following your plan? What makes you so sure, the American plan is better than the UK one?

Reminds me that this book is still on my reading list. Got it quite cheap when amazon ran a promo last year (only 1,27 Euro).

Surgical instruments are more modern these days as well. They might use some electricity and one should put these metal piercings out.

Same here. I put my eyebrow and tragus piercing in a day after surgery. Nobody cared.

I needed surgery because of adhesions last week and I decided to attend the education class for the immediately post-op patients again. I wanted to know if there was something "new" or "different". I'm still surprised how different the advice is from country to country, from hospital to hospital. The hospital I had surgery at are very against strict rules with the exceptions of a few general ones, some applying only to the first 4 weeks after surgery. The only "long-term rules" still seem to be: eat enough protein, take your supplements, drink your water, no high calorie beverages, don't drink 30 min before/after your meals. Otherwise it's about this "balanced diet" that you can read about in every health magazine. No calorie-limits, no carb-limits, no low-fat this or skim milk that. No calorie or point or whatever counting. What surprises me a bit is that quite a few patients seem to long for more guidance, for exact meal plans to follow, for calorie limits, for strict rules to follow, for exact advice what supplements to buy and take. I remember I felt free and so did others, however, there were also patients who felt more intimidated and/or overwhelmed by this "freedom". "Follow your program?" I think you should and IMO exactly that makes discussion about "the program" so very difficult because there simply is no "standard program" to follow as it seems. I sometimes think some patient's/user's interpretation of that sentence is more like "I'm following my program until it doesn't fit my view of the world anymore and if you're following your program but it doesn't fit my view of the world I'm going to lash out at you." I think if you really can follow your program without much problems and making it a full-time job, everything's fine and dandy. However, if you're struggling or being not successful or your new job is being a bariatric patient who had surgery - it might be time for a change.

Things are handled very differently. The anesthesiologist told me it's ok to eat until midnight and to drink until 6 am (means being allowed to have clear liquids like water or tea for up to 2 h before surgery). A sip of water to take the pre-op meds immediately before surgery is also common if you're prescribed some.

This. Makes me sad to see the OP beat herself up because she's not at a normal BMI yet.

Cronometer is best. Tracks your micronutrients as well.

To be honest I kind of wonder why your surgeon didn't revise you to bypass in the first place.

We do because almost everyone on a diet falls off the wagon - that's why diets usually don't work in the long run. And that is why I think it's sad that so many WLS patients don't stop the restrictive dieting after surgery. On the contrary, some even top their former dieting by adopting even stricter rules, believing that "this time it will surely work".

Any soy protein isolate should fit your criteria. There are plenty of them out there. Try several to find your favorite. I use Powerstar. VEGA is a great choice, too, when it comes to the ingredients. (However, it's very pricy and I think it's very sweet).

People hear the term "intuitive eating" and have that reflex gut reaction of "oh, that means stuffing my face with all the crap I can find" (and that's simply not true). Restricted eating doesn't work long term for that many people. We see it all the time on the boards as well: "HELP! I started eating "crap" again"!!!!!! (on this board that usually means eating something containing carbohydrates). People make the same mistakes they made before WLS: going on a restrictive diet, wanting to be 110% perfect, having great success and then finally burning out, not being able to follow the diet anymore. All that "educated eating" got you in the place of needing WLS in the end. At least I don't think that the pre- and post-WLS diet was your first shot at "educated eating". If so, you had WLS way too early when it comes to the opinion of the so-called experts. However, I know that I'm quite (luckily not entirely) alone with this opinion.

You go!

When I got my band in 2001, nobody talked much about bypasses in Germany, especially not in young women, so the band was the way to go. Some years later I wouldn't have chosen the band again and I'm glad I was converted to MGB after the band started to erode into my stomach.

It depends on what you eat. And lets face it: poop usually doesn't smell good anyway.

Reflux can happen at any time. I had my band removed because of reflux and esophagus issues. Still having some problems, but it's a 1000% better than with the band (that was completely unfilled for a year, btw).

It sounds like reflux which can cause esophagitis. Have it checked out.

Good ones do that. The bad ones could be replaced by a little high-gloss booklet without missing any information. Could save a lot of money.

When you experience dumping. Otherwise I wouldn't worry about "carbs". IMO using some basic common sense is enough, e. g. not gorging yourself on isolated sugars but getting the majority of carbs out of whole foods.

Yes, but I'm saying this is the easy way out - so I'm one of these people as well. The difference is: I don't think it's wrong to go this way, on the contrary I think it's perfectly fine to arrive at a point where one considers WLS the next logical step.

Ok, so I'm full of crap and I am going to f**k myself and someone loves this. I took the easy way out and I don't care if someone has a problem with that.

Jokes aside. I guess one really can't win in this "moral battle" when it comes to losing weight with WLS. My own impression is that people think we're not "deserving" of a weight loss method that makes things actually easier than conventional weight loss and this is not necessarily about vanity. "Fat" has become a moral issue long ago. We must suffer to make up for the sin of becoming obese, therefore we don't deserve WLS.