ShelterDog64

@@madisunshine1 Girl, you are HARD on yourself. First, by my handy dandy calendar, you aren't even 2.5 mos out...you have another 3 weeks till you hit 3 mos! And really, you've lost 36.5 in less than that because you've been stuck for a month. Being sick can really derail your weight loss and this is a typical time of the year for getting sick. All of our kids go back to school (aka the Petri dish) and start bringing home the virus du jour, plus we're easing into flu season as well. I had shoulder surgery last month and my loss has slowed dramatically, since my body is busy doing something else...so is your's when you're sick. Have you been able to track your food and Water intake? I can't remember if you have access to a dietitian or a nutritionist, but if you do, have you been able to meet with them and talk about this? I tend to lose in little clumps right now...I'll go 3 or 4 days at exactly the same weight, then it bumps down half a pound or maybe more. Others here seem to be losing at a faster rate, but I know I'm following plan so I'm pretty chill about it. I don't know or know of ANYONE who had the surgery and stayed on plan that didn't reach their goal or darned close to it. Hang in there...like you said, it's 36.5 lbs you wouldn't have lost otherwise and I KNOW there's more weight loss in your future

In general, 'clear liquids' means just that...liquids that you can see through. 'Full liquids' is the step beyond, to opaque, pourable foods. Baylor Health has their bariatric post-op food guidelines online and they do a great job of giving examples: http://www.baylorhealth.com/SpecialtiesServices/WeightManagement/ChefDave/DietaryProgression/Pages/Stage1.aspx

@@mallnut Clear liquids would not include true milk products, no. Clear is literal here...you need to be able to see through it. Full liquids include Soups and Protein drinks, and still must be of a pourable consistency. sugar free popsicles are okay on a clear liquid diet, but not fudge pops. I had my surgery in June and I'm still in love with sugar free popsicles

@@Shell Renewed There is a vets forum, but it's dead as a doornail. Just waiting until I can post there! :-D

Great job! You deserve a new suit for all that hard work

This is almost certainly the problem...when I came off HCTZ, my weight shot up, my rings got tight(er), etc. When your meds come, you should lose the water weight pretty quickly. Make sure you tell your surgery team about this, too. Good luck!

@@mallnut No, I don't think it's okay to have ice cream cake while you're on liquids. I'd consider a bite or 2 of ice cream cake once I'm in maintenance and not a day before. Honestly, this is about changing the way you relate to food. Eating can't continue to be a knee-jerk reaction to the desire to celebrate and we have to find new ways to spend social time with friends and family. It's hard...most of us have spent our lives equating food with happiness, or sadness, or celebrations, or all of the above. But if we're going to spend the money and take the risk to have this surgery, we owe it to ourselves to finish the job by changing our habits, too. That said, I hope you have a very happy and healthy birthday!

@@overthemoon444 Have you tried the lemonade flavored Isopure? It was the only one I could stand, and you can't beat the Protein load in those drinks. Post-op I was taking liquid tylenol w/codeine and liquid potassium, so the Isopure seemed like a treat, if you can wrap your head around THAT :-P I hated the fruit punch and whatever the blue flavor is, but the lemonade was okay. Good luck with your surgery!

@@chycky Thank you for posting! I just got 3 bras, a pair of leggings and a cute top for $170

I can't agree with @@suzzzzz enough on this...SO MUCH of getting through this initial post-op period has been the mental challenge, and things like not being able to eat tons of food needs to be framed as a positive, not a negative. We, all of us, knew going into this that our portions were going to be drastically reduced and to continue to see that as an undesirable thing is just self-destructive, IMO. The holidays, for me, are going to be the first time in years that I WON'T gain weight, that I'll be able to pass up the candy/cake/eggnog parade and be satisfied. I've got a tool that will help me control my body's response to seeing all those carbohydrate nightmares and will help me stay on the track I need to be on. Embrace this!

Do you have a good therapist? Have you talked this through with a professional who works with people with eating disorders? to be honest i went through therapy couple years back but it did not help. I have not talked this through with a professional who specifically deals with eating disorders. but trust me, i did EVERYTHING that i could think of doing to try to solve my eating problem with no avail. Saying that the vsg is my choice of last resort is an understatement. VSG is NOT the choice of last resort if you haven't seen a professional who deals with eating disorders. You haven't even used the choice of FIRST resort to solve an eating disorder. This whole thread is just beyond belief: you're young enough to still be covered on your parents' insurance, have had a lap-band without the knowledge of one of your parents, fly back and forth to Korea regularly (but not regularly enough to have your lap-band filled/maintained), had an overnight hospital stay that your father (who is apparently in the dark about everything) has no knowledge of but claimed it on his insurance. Now, although you claim and acknowledge that you have a binge eating disorder, you're going to have a SECOND surgical procedure to hopefully eliminate the binge eating without treating your disorder. Do you understand how sketchy this all sounds? I'm not even sure what you're looking for here? "Hi, I'm thin but I eat too much healthy food, so I'm going to have a second weight loss surgery so that I don't eat an entire watermelon at a time." Does that not seem, pardon the expression, crazy as HELL? You're either a gifted, if naive, storyteller or you need a great deal of psychiatric help. So, please, for yourself and us, do one of the following: 1) Take a fictional writing course to learn how to flesh out your story lines with more believable details or 2) Get yourself to a psychiatrist who deals SPECIFICALLY with eating disorders. Immediately. Don't do the following: 1) Have a SECOND weight-loss surgery, while still under age 23, to correct an eating disorder. Good luck to you in whichever of the prior is your situation.

This would have been a part of my pre-op pathway if I hadn't demonstrated the ability to do moderate exercise prior to surgery. The term 'medically optimized' means that all of your physical findings are consistent with being basically healthy...for instance, in order for me to meet medical optimization, I had to have a colonoscopy prior to surgery because I was due for one. The same with a pap smear and mammogram. They're looking for you to demonstrate that you have a heart that's healthy enough for surgery and/or following a post-op exercise plan. Like Suzzzzz said, it's a good thing to have to do this What is your exercise prescription like? Will you be able to do it?

It's an abdominal binder, it's used to support your abdominal wall so you don't get any painful pulling as your incisions heal. Mine was optional, and I hated it so I took it off as soon as I got home. You won't heal any better/worse whether you wear it or not, so it's your choice as to whether you continue to use it.

I had that same feeling every single time I took a sip of Fluid for the first 2 weeks. Now that I'm several months out, I know that was NOT the 'full' signal. You won't really feel your restriction with fluids only, and you really need to be sipping on something pretty much the whole time you're awake to get your Protein and fluids. Fluids move very quickly through your stomach, and you will have to work to get all of what you need in during the first few weeks. Don't let that feeling stop you, my doc said it was just my pyloric valve spasming when fluid hit it. It will ease up over the next week or so, most likely.

I didn't have to give up coffee pre-op, and my lovely PCA pump with morphine took care of any withdrawal headache I might have had post-op. I gave it up for about a month afterward, to give my stomach some healing time. Now, I drink 1-2 cups in the morning, with a GENEPRO, Fairlife milk and half and half concoction and some monkfruit sweetener.

I went in for my surgery taking a lisinopril/hydrochlorothiazide combo...haven't needed one since day of surgery. I also quit taking Celebrex and am having no joint pain, and my fibromyalgia symptoms have all subsided. I'm still taking a low dose of amitriptyline but my PCM plans to wean me off it by Christmas to see if the fibro stays at bay. I'm very hopeful

Your psychologist has neither the training nor the expertise to recommend one surgery over another. That's a decision for you to make with your surgeon.

@@nsunga Are they swollen, red around the areas or hot? If they're just sore, that's okay, mine hurt for at least a week. If you really think they're infected, you should call your surgeon and be seen immediately.

I think I'd lose the whole grain crackers and try to replace that with Protein...14 of them, even if they're wheat thin sized, takes up a lot of space that you could give to protein. And like LL said, switch the cashews for almonds or at least mix them. Cashews are yummy, but have more saturated fat than almonds. That's another place where you can swap in a different protein, like a dairy, if you skip the nuts entirely...I still look at saturated fats as a less-desirable option. A handful of cashews is roughly 150 cals/15 g. fat/5 g. protein. You could substitute a container of Oikos Triple Zero greek yogurt and get 150 cals/0 fat/15 g. protein.

I got a scopolamine patch in the pre-op area, it did the job and is a very cheap option.

30 lbs a month would be fantastic, right? But it probably won't happen when you start with a BMI around 40 or lower For perspective, I'm now almost 3.5 months out and I just hit 56 lbs lost...my goal was 50 in 3 months and I squeezed in just before the last day! I feel VERY successful, plus my doc, dietitian and case manager have all discussed my goals with me and they feel they're realistic and attainable. I don't lose every day, I usually lose .5 or a pound, stay the same for a day or 2, then lose a little again. I like to weigh myself daily, but it seems like maybe it stresses you out? Could you go to every other day, every third or even better, weekly? I like it for accountability, but I don't stress about those days I don't lose. I've even had a couple where I gained...I just looked at what I was doing, made sure the boxes were all checked and kept on doing what I was doing. Your Protein intake seems low, I'm supposed to get between 90 and 110 grams daily, along with the 64 oz of Water on your plan. And are you exercising? I do MUCH better if I walk a few miles daily. Hang in there...you're really doing great, you just don't realize it!

I've been using the PatchMD Patches since just after my surgery. I'll have labs done this month so I'll see how my numbers are. I feel great, the patches are very easy to use, and they don't upset my stomach

@@punchcake Is your IRL name Jenny McCarthy?