MacMadame

You are beating yourself up over eating ONE EGG?! That's 1/4 of a cup of food! You feel fine because you are hardly eating anything... overeating would be eating 2 or 3 eggs early out and more when you are farther out. Does your program have a counselor or a nutritionist who can guide you? Wanting to be punished for eating less than normal amounts of food concerns me. Btw, chili is a slider food... you'll be able to eat a lot of it. Cheese sticks are considered a soft too so some people can eat a lot of them. But most people can eat one even early out. I can eat 3 now but not always so mostly I just eat two so I don't feel uncomfortable. But sometimes I eat 2 and wish I had another one...

Yeah, I felt that way, but intellectually I knew it was crazy. I've been dieting since I was 13! How many times can you do the same thing over and over expecting different results? I had to give myself a break... yeah 1-5% of people are able to lose 50 lb. or more and keep it off for 5 years, but 95-99% aren't. I had to ask myself why I was beating myself up for being in the 95-99% and I had no good answers. Now I'm just happy I did it.

That's great, Daisy! I didn't realize you had lost a husband and a fiance. That must be rough.

I already scare small children! Fatty Fights Back: My body scares small children

I think WLS is like getting married or having kids. You can do what you can to prepare but nothing really prepares you until you do it.

If it's after eating stuff with fat in it... might be the gallbladder.

The staple line is at most risk in the first two weeks. That's why 99% of the programs have you on some sort of liquid for at least two weeks. Then, people tend to do what you do, so you go to softs because those don't need to be so well-chewed. So, by the time you are on regular food, the staple line should be pretty well healed. No one can say exactly how long as it's going to be different for everyone, but the longer out you are, the more it's going to take to give you a leak. Most people's staple line is completely healed by 4-6 weeks. Also, leaks happen less than 1% of the time. If it was that easy to cause a leak (just eating too fast), they'd happen way more often than that because we *all* do it eventually and most of us do it a lot in the beginning.

While I think the "danger" of bullets is overstated. :001_tt2: Let's put it this way, hospitals use a product called Protinex for their patients who can't eat to help them maintain their albumin levels while on IVs. This product is *all* collagen. And it works. Bullets, OTOH, have *some* whey protein isolate in them. So they should work even better.

I didn't have any gas pains at all, let alone intense ones. Most of the gas pains come from the CO2 they pump you up with. My doc sucks out as much as he can and that helps and so does walking. I walked A LOT because I was afraid of blood clots. The hiatal hernia is on your esphosogus so it won't cause surgery to have to be done open. But prior abdominal surgeries might. My two c-sections and my open gallbladder surgery didn't require an open procedure and I haven't heard from anyone who had those surgeries who had to go open. (And those are VERY common surgeries!) I don't know about your prior hernia repair though. But your surgeon will tell you what he thinks your chances are, if you ask him.

I know what you mean about posting stuff online. But you can always post something and then take it down 24 hours later. There is less chance of something happening that way.

Just because something sounds gross, doesn't mean it's bad for us though.

I had a tankini but it flaps in the jacuzzi. And even in the pool sometimes it would turn into a balloon.

Well shoot. There is one with just stevia. People have talked about it on OH. I just didn't remember the name because I didn't care. :smile1: (I'll use any artificial sweetener - they don't bother me.)

I started getting ready for surgery months beforehand. I started out just tracking my food, then drinking more Water, then increasing my Protein and lowering my carbs, then limiting my portion sizes, then taking the Vitamins I would need to take post-op. These are all things (except the journalling) that you need to do post-op and you need to for the rest of your life and you might as well get in the habit now.

I didn't like the Lean Dessert either. I get my Chike from ExpressMetabolics.com and it's around $38-40 a tub. But I just noticed that the Chike web site is selling it for $27. Well, shoot. I just bought a bunch at the higher price too. Yeah, Splenda is sucralose. Yesterday I got "Erythritol" at the store. It has no calories. I think it's a sugar alcohol though so that means it will give some people gas. I'm working on an Energy Bar recipe that calls for almost a cup of Karo Syrup and I'm looking for other things I can use instead to get the carbs and sugar down. I figure I'll use some of that and some of my whey Low and maybe some stuff that is already sweet and gooey like Peanut Butter.

There is a tutorial with pictures in the section of this site where you go for technical help.

I ordered the Ironman last night! Our scale got wet and the LCDs were too faint to read easily so that pushed me over the edge to get it. Then our scale came back to life. :confused1:

I haven't seen any unsweetened protein powders, but there is at least one out there that is sweetened with stevia. I think it's Jay Robb.

Most places have you on NPO after midnight so that there is no food in your gut and intestines during surgery. After that, they vary in their protocols. Some have you on a few days of clears prior, some just one day. Some have you take something to clear you out the day before. I had to be on clears for the day before and take Milk of Magnesia (or some alternative whose name I can't remember) the evening before. Then NPO from midnight on. I would talk to the surgeon about it and why they have the protocols they do, rather than deciding that a certain course of action will have a certain benefit without actually knowing that it will.

Boiled cow's hide? This isn't a bullet! :confused1: Chike is made from the same sort of things as all the other Protein shakes. Whey and/or soy protein, Vitamins, (sometimes) amino acids, sweeteners (natural and/or artificial) and flavorings (natural and/or artificial). Some protein powders use egg for the protein as well, but that's unusual. In particular, Chike uses whey protein and soy. (A lot just use one or the other, but I like the powders that use both.) It's sweeteners are maltodextrin, polydextrose, dextrose and sucralose. It does have "natural and artificial flavors". It doesn't have aspartame, which is important to some people, but it does have sucralose, which some people don't like.

I'm 52 and have a bikini. Two pieces are just easier to pee in. :confused1: You should talk to your doctor about your pain. It might be gallbladder and be something you can put off but it might be something else.

If it eroded once, it will erode again, IMO. I would never put in another band after an erosion. I would only do it if the band developed a mechanical problem -- like a leak in the bladder or tubing.

There are good reasons to get a band, but I don't think the "reservable" aspect is one of them. First of all, you have to go into this with the idea that it's permanent. Bands have to stay in forever if you want to keep your weight off. Plus, they can make permanent changes to your anatomy, in terms of scar tissue and such. But also, the only reason people remove their bands is that their bands turn on them. (Slippage, erosion, esophageal problems.) It's not like with RnY where you get mysterious illnesses that are probably related to the surgery but no one can say for sure. That just doesn't happen with the band, that I've seen. That's a by-product of malabsorption and not getting some micronutrient that we don't know enough about yet to even know you need it. In terms of the sleeve, the idea of cutting off most of your stomach is freaky for many at first. It sure was for me. But our stomachs are much bigger than they need to be and people live with partial gastrectomies all the time with little to no side-effects. You can even live without a stomach, if you need to.

There are several things going on. You have a heightened taste and smell, too. So, you are really going to notice it when you eat stuff. But some people complain about having bad breath all the time as well. I didn't have it too badly, thank goodness.

The hiatal hernia repair *definitely* can slow your progress. Because of mine, my surgeon had me wait a couple of extra weeks to try solids.