Dairymary

If you are just five weeks out and you are already off track, it doesn't sound like you ever had focus in the first place. Are you seeing a therapist to help you with your food addictions? If not, you really need to. These first 6-12 months are the easiest ones you will ever have. Bad habits will only get worse if you don't get help. Believe me, I could not have lost all my weight and I definitely couldn't have kept it off for 5+ years if it weren't for the psychological changes I made. The hour or so I spent on the operating table would have been a complete waste if it weren't for the hundreds of hours spent with my therapist and in group support meetings. Getting to the truth behind my dysfunctional eating habits and learning new ways to cope with life's stresses has been far more beneficial than WLS itself. Our smaller stomachs are a just a small part of successful weight loss. The mental part is far more important .....and far tougher to fix. Good luck!

Collagen protein can be low quality...not very well digested or absorbed. (With the exception of the more expensive pre digested hydrolyzed collagen products) If you are going to use protein supplements, look for 100% whey isolate. Syntrax Nectar are usually well tolerated, taste decent and have dozens of flavors to choose from. But at three months and on normal food you should be able to get most of your protein from real food.....eggs,chicken, beef, pork, seafood, fish, turkey, tofu, Greek yogurt (but read labels carefully since many have more carbs than protein), beans, etc.. Have you tried protein bars? Quest and OH Yeah One have good nutritional profiles and can help curb your carb craving since they basically taste like candy bars. If you are already eating 1000 calories then make it 1000 calories of protein and you're golden. if you are having a hard time with water then try herbal teas (iced and hot), almond milk, low cal sports drinks, vitamin water, lifewater, infused water, etc.

Collagen protein is very low quality...not very well digested or absorbed. If you are going to use protein supplements, look for 100% whey isolate. Syntrax Nectar are usually well tolerated, taste decent and have dozens of flavors to choose from. But at three months and on normal food you should be able to get most of your protein from real food.....eggs,chicken, beef, pork, seafood, fish, turkey, tofu, Greek yogurt (but read labels carefully since many have more carbs than protein), beans, etc.. Have you tried protein bars? Quest and OH Yeah One have good nutritional profiles and can help curb your carb craving since they basically taste like candy bars. If you are already eating 1000 calories then make it 1000 calories of protein and you're golden. if you are having a hard time with water then try herbal teas (iced and hot), almond milk, low cal sports drinks, vitamin water, lifewater, infused water, etc.

Still at my low weight (give or take a couple pounds). Surgery and losing the weight was the easy part. I also put my time in tracking and measuring every bite, learning all I could about nutrition, attended local support groups, and saw a therapist for 3 years. These are my key to long term success.

I had my surgery over six years ago and have never taken a single bariatric vitamin. Just regular multi, calcium, iron, D3 and sublingual B12. I have annual bloodwork done and my levels have been nothing but perfect.

Mashed beans, lentils and tofu are all soft foods. Basically, if you can cut it easily with a fork, it is considered a soft food. In fact, other than raw veggies, I can't think of anything vegetarian that wouldn't be considered a soft food. I was actually eating tofu, hummus and refried beans in my pureed stage. However, I'd stay away from the mashed potatoes unless you are adding unflavored protein powder to them. Otherwise they are just empty carbs. and feel free to continue drinking protein shakes if you need to in order to get your 60-80g of protein in. I drank them regularly for several years.

You are sabotaging yourself by reverting back to liquids and lowering your calories. You're putting your body into starvation mode and teaching it how to survive on less and less calories. This is unhealthy and certainly not conducive to weightloss and especially long term maintenance. Not sure what kind of expectations you had, but 9 pounds in one month is a good rate of loss. Plus you are right about where most people experience the infamous "three week stall". Do a search and you will find hundreds of posts on it. Totally normal and part of the process, as is gaining a few pounds along the way. You say you drink water till you're nauseous. How much are you drinking? It should be 1/2 your body weight in ounces. If you are having a hard time with water (I couldn't drink plain water for over 6 months), you can try herbal tea, sports drinks, water flavor drops, infused water, milk, or any other non carbonated, low cal beverage. How about protein? Every program is different, but 80+ g/day works for me. just stick with the program and stay off the scale for a month if you need to. Gauge your progress with NSVs and how your clothes fit.

Who cares what the scale number is or what some chart says? Just set your goal at a size where you feel good, are healthy, and like the way you look.

Yep, that's about where I was....800-1000 calories mostly protein, quite a bit of fat and very low carb (in the form of veggies). Better to get your calories up so you don't trash your metabolism. It makes maintenance easier. Unfortunately so many of us already have trashed metabolisms from decades of crash/yo-yo dieting.

Ditto For those of you fresh out of surgery and doing well on the patches, just be aware that you will likely not develop deficiencies within the first few months anyways, with or without supplements. Make sure you follow up with labs annually forever....it can take years for problems to arise.

You are starting at a relatively low BMI so you shouldn't be looking for huge numbers or fast rate of loss. You have lost 10% of your entire body weight in just 10 weeks...2.4 pounds per week, which is actually great. Just keep doing what you're doing. Hit your protein and water goals, take your vitamins, eat a healthy, balanced diet and stay off the scale if it's going to stress you out. BTW, I lost over 160 pounds and was never in ketosis. Some plans call for ketosis, but IMHO that's just setting you up for failure with an unsustainable fad diet. You should be learning new eating habits that will carry you through not only weight loss, but also weight maintenance.

As a nurse, I've always been sceptical about the vitamin patch efficacy because of the reasons listed above. Our skin is simply too good of a barrier to allow certain compounds to penetrate. In the end, the only way to really know if you are getting proper nutrition whether through oral, sublingual, injectable or transdermal routes is to verify with annual blood work. Make sure you are getting a CBC, metabolic panel, D3, iron/ferritin, B12, and folate checked every year. A Dexa or bone density scan is the only way to really check calcium levels.

Find a new PCP. Life is too short to deal with ignorant, small minded people. My daughter is a gastroenterologist and she's the one who actually set up my surgery with Dr. Ortiz in Tijuana. VSG was still considered experimental in the US when I had mine done, so she got recommendations from her colleagues in the international bariatric community. And as an RN myself, I certainly recognize quality medical care. It's just too bad so many US trained doctors think they are better than everyone else (believe me, I worked for several of them). But there are also many out there that aren't bigots and care about their patients. Find one of them.

Unflavored protein powders like from isopure and Unjury are going to be the "purest" form of protein supplements you can find. Anything flavored will obviously have other stuff.....there's no way around the sweeteners and flavor ingredients. Syntrax nectar naturals arent too bad...."whey protein isolate, erythritol, natural flavors, silicone dioxide, soy lecithin, salt, stevia and monk fruit concentrate". Where do you live? I live in Wisconsin and many of the local cheese factories are now offering the whey product they produce from the cheese making process. I think Mullins Cheese even sells it online. Doesn't get any better than straight from the source......

Prednisone is a steroid notorious for causing weight gain. I've been on it several times since my VSG and have not experienced any regain. Bottom line is, no matter what medication you are taking, its still comes down to what you eat that causes regain. (And I don't count water weight because it's not "real" weight) You may just have to be a little more diligent about your diet plan if you are taking these types of medications.

Sure, go ahead and ignore your doctor's instructions. There aren't nearly enough posts in the complications forum. And even if you progress through without doing serious damage to your delicate stomach incision, being held together only by a tiny row of staples, at least you wil be well on your way to feeling comfortable breaking the other rules that actually allow you to achieve and maintain your weight loss goals.

I've always taken a multivitamin.....even years before WLS. took Source of Life Gold chewables for years. After surgery, I no longer cared for the taste of the chewables so I switched to capsules/tablets as soon as allowed by my surgeon. I currently take Vitamin Code for Women 50 and Wiser every day, Vitamin Code Raw D3 5000 IU 4x week, My Kind Organic Plant Calcium 3x/day and Source Naturals B12 1mg 3x/week. All but the last are Garden of Life products. They don't make a sublingual B12 so I went with Source Naturals. The important part of B12 is to make sure it is Methylcobalamin, not cyanocobalamin. You can do injections if you can't find a suitable sublingual for yourself. Iron supplementation is usually recommended as well, but my ferritin/iron levels are always high so I don't. If I did, it would be Vitamin Code Healthy Blood. (And no, I'm not a paid spokesperson for Garden of Life )

Check out Source of Life and Garden of Life / My Kind lines of supplements. Not bariatric specific but whole food based. It's all I've taken and my bloodwork remains perfect 6+ years postop.

Yes, 5 pounds was negligible at 200+ pounds. It was annoying when the thin folks would wail about the 5 pounds they gained on vacation. Now I get it. At lower weights, 5 pounds can be the a whole pant size difference depending on where it goes.

You already know the answer....cut out the snacking, sweets, etc.. A therapist could help with the mental struggles you are having. A PPI or antacid could help with your hunger. Drinking more is always a good thing......I aim for 100 ounces every day. With your workout routine You should be getting even more than that. have you had bloodwork done, including hormones? From a medical standpoint, that's where I would start. Thyroid levels, estrogen, progesterone and definitely insist on testosterone levels. Low testosterone in women is very under diagnosed and could be responsible for slow weight loss and low libido. Good luck.

Ask your surgeon when it's safe to eat popcorn. I was told no nuts/seeds for 3 months. I waited 6 months to be super safe. These days I eat popcorn a couple times/month. If my hubby is around we pop a big bag and share. If I'm alone I stick with the mini bags because yes, I can and do eat the the whole thing. But hell, it's only 100 calories....half as many as a Quest bar.

I'm a little over 6 years out and have been maintaining within 5 pounds of my lowest weight since I reached it at 18 months. I weighed once about every 3-4 weeks in the beginning. After reaching goal I would step on the scale weekly but that got boring.....just the same old numbers. For the last two years I might step on the scale once/month or if I perceive my pants are getting snug or even loose. After all this time I can how much I weigh within a couple pounds just by how my clothes fit. Guess I never worried too much about what the scale said. I measured my progress with NSVS and account for maintenance by how I feel and what I see in the mirror.

I had my surgery over six years ago, but the resources I utilized are all still relevant for anyone having WLS today. The only exception is probably how I chose my surgeon. At the time, VSG was still considered experimental in the US and my insurance would not cover it. My daughter is a gastroenterologist and did not want me to get a Lapband or bypass because of the complications she sees. As an RN myself, I wasn't too keen on either of those procedures, either. She consulted with colleagues in the bariatric community and they recommended VSG with Dr. Ariel Ortiz in TJ. Made for an easy decision, was a great experience and I had an easy, pain free recovery. After surgery, my main support came through emails with my surgeon, my daughter, my friends, husband, local bariatric support groups and a therapist. I was the only VSG patient in the support groups for a long time, but for the most part the struggles are the same no matter what surgery you have. My friends and DH helped smooth the way and My therapist was instrumental in my long term success since most obesity issues are psychological, not physical. i saw my therapist for about 3 years and attended group support for 5+ years. Due to personality incompatibilities within the group I quit attending and turned to online forums like this one only recently. Glad I had "real life" support when I was a newbie, but the online community provides me a rather interesting touchstone to the bariatric world at this point.

I did Atkins several times prior to WLS. I always lost weight, but would pile it back on once I started eating "normally" again. Just like every other fad diet out there. My suggestion for post WLS success is to create habits and an eating pattern that you can follow for the rest of your life. If the Atkins lifestyle is something that appeals to you then great! But if not, then work on developing your own plan that gets you to your goal and allows you to stay there.

Sounds like a normal gain/stall to me and it likely won't be your last. And if your nut says it's OK then it must be so you can probably just keep doing what you're doing. Personally I counted everything and would up my Water and Protein and watch the carbs, but I'm not the one getting paid to give you advice.