LittleLizzieLilliput

Don't fret, this will end the moment you put the pureed foods in. lol! So right now you are drinking liquid. Your stomach is a swollen, banana shaped organ now. You have about 2 or 3 straw widths worth of space right now. The liquid will slide RIGHT down, whooosh! But the moment you move to pureed your swollen stomach will now be receiving a lot of mass that it will then have to start to breakdown and digests. That's when you will find out just how much your stomach can handle. You may start out trying to get in 4 ozs but find you can't even get in two. Don't worry about how much you can ingest right now when all you are doing is putting in liquid. The real fun begins with "food". Also...please don't "test" your stomach. It's dangerous. When you get to pureed stage just follow your protocol, don't try to see if your stomach really had 80% of it removed. It's dangerous, can cause tearing and leaks which can cause really bad things. If you find you can eat all 4 ozs without any issues or sense of fullness - call your surgeons office, don't try to eat more to test.

As someone who's aperated my stomach acid on several occasions and slept at an angle for 10 years, I myself now experience that dreamist of sleeps as well, yay!!!!!!!!!! It's SOOO awesome. I'm still on proton pump inhibitors but it' so much better now!! I haven't aspirated/ie: almost drowned in my own stomach acid since the surgery!

how wonderful!!!!! I'm so happy for you, I bet you sleep AMAZING right now!! Congratulations!

I just did my 10k steps a day till I was walking and jogging 7 - 12 miles a day. That took about 7 months. Then I moved on to Yoga and walking each day. After 6 months of slowly increasing the difficulty I am now doing this crazy boot camp yoga. Just kept needing more intensity as my fitness improves. I didn’t intend it to go this way, it’s just how it played out.

OMG such a great point!!!! YES!! She should be SOOOOOOOO proud of herself for that. She's lost 82 lbs. That's AMAZING!! I don't care that you've gained some back. Life happens, it's what we do with these issues that helps us see how strong we are.

I'm sorry you had so many life issue that created stumbling blocks for you. Please don't beat yourself up, mostly because self-hate and self-loathing is the fast road to the refrigerator. At least for me. What I've seen people do is contact their surgeons office to make an appointment, recommit to the process they recommend. Making drastic food changes such as going to veganism might make this harder for you, but it might actually help you recommit as it will give you a whole new plan and project! Could be great for you! Although I do agree that low carb is definitely a good idea. My surgeon actually yelled out his office as I left after my 1st post surgical appointment "And stay away from carbs, they will ruin everything!" And he was right. The moment I introduce simple carbs back into my diet I gain at least a pound in 3 days. at least. So...that person might be giving you really bad advice but I can't find a fault in the idea of cutting out all your simple carbs.

You won't know for sure. What you need to do is let go of that worry and understand what all your body is going through right now. You had 80% of your stomach removed. Ok, think about it like this. Think about the hardest you've ever fell or been hit by something. Think of the deep bone level bruise you got. How long does it take to fully surface? A week? 10 days? Well, that's internal bleeding, coagulation, blood rising to the surface, your white blood cells flooding to the area, more blood to begin healing, the area is hot for weeks! The bruise will raise and take weeks to slowly heal and go away. Can be 6 weeks before the bruise disappears. And that's just from a blunt force trauma. Now imagine you have 80% of your stomach removed, you have hundreds of sutures/staples in there, you have 5-7 incisions points - each the equivalent to being stabbed by a knife. Now think about all the swelling and healing that requires? Think about all the processes in the body, the shock, the attempts to heal itself. Our bodies will retain water, send blood and fluid to the areas that need to heal, it will slow down the metabolism in order to promote healing and prevent weight loss as that is a primal process in our bodies. There is a lot of science behind why people don't lose or gain in the first few weeks post surgery and most of it is related to how the body behaves as it's healing. Don't waste another thought or worry on this!!!!!!!! Just focus on meeting your goals, I PROMISE you, you will begin dropping weight like crazy if you follow your post surgical stages and protocols. You are doing great, it's so hard and scary, I had a ton of these types of questions and only learned these answers from asking. I am so proud of all of us, TBH, we are SUCH badasses for doing this. You are gonna do great and you are totally OK.

This is another reason you should be going back to your surgeon's office. The only people who decided when you've reached your goal is you and your doctor. You can thank the people for their input but this is your process, your journey and you should be working with your surgeon on deciding when you are to move to maintenance. The thing is people have a lot of opinions, and lots of them are motivated by personal feelings and their own experiences or issues. It's OK to hear them out if you love them and want to listen, but they aren't the experts. It's you and your doc. So get back into that office and talk with your team. They can help you!! I've told some people I don't care to talk about my weightloss, my progress or any of that. Not everyone, I'm actually very open. But when people start telling me I'm a different person or that I've lost too much or need to lose more or telling me what I should do...I cut them off, I thank them and then I tell them that this process is very personal for me, nothing has changed about me except others perception of me and who I am. I try to be nice but firm in the "Don't project your own issues and thoughts onto me and my journey" message. Honestly, the MOST upsetting thing I hear is that I am a different or new person. No, I'm not, I am EXACTLY the same and the more you treat me differently the more I know you didn't treat me fairly before. Because the thing is, while our bodies are changing it's other people who change more. The way they see us, the way the treat us, the way they talk about or to us. When that happens it's very upsetting and I still feel the pain and rejections as my fat self. I'm still me. If you talk about how bad I looked before or say how fat I was, well guess what? That same person is standing in front of you even if you can't recognize that. And you know the #1 person I had to do that with several times? My mother. lol!

Three weeks? I bet it's water weight. Out stomachs swell, we retain water, there is still swelling in your body. It's perfectly normal and natural.

A majority of the people who have the surgery are trouble free. The loudest of us are those few who are suffering post surgical complications. You are gonna do great!!!

Due to you being hyper focused on the scale and you are tying your feelings of success to the numbers on the scale, I completely agree with her. You are torturing yourself emotionally and mentally. Everytime you step on that scale you are kind of waterboarding yourself. Weighing 3 times a day?? Why? As you eat and drink water through the day, put on clothes, go to the bathroom, your weight will fluctuate. It's a totally non-logical thing to weigh yourself and judge your success off of those numbers. There are SO many more ways to measure your progress: Measure your head, biceps, wrist, breasts, waist, hips, thighs, calves, ankles and the remeasure once a month. Create a donation pile of all the clothes that no longer fit, watch it grow for 8 weeks and then donate. Then go out and try on some new cheap shirt and jeans at walmart or something and revel in wearing a smaller size. Run your hands over your body each day, feel the skin loosening up, feel the bones slowly reveal themselves to you. When you go on one of your walks make sure to put on some really peppy music and enjoy the speed in which you can move now, the way there is less pressure on your joints and body, the joy that moving now brings you. There are so many ways to measure and enjoy your progress, but you are sabotaging yourself and this process if you focus so intently on just the number on the scale. It sounds like you are obsessing. Let's get you obsessing about working out!! lol! I've lost over 225 lbs so far, I've worked hard for a long time. It was funny when people told me "it's happening so fast!" and all I would think was "Yeah, only took 43 year, hundreds of diets, gallons of tears, mountains of self-loathing, years of sacrifice and hours, days, months of working out, working hard and working towards this goal. But yes...SOOO fast." lol! What we perceive as "slow" is because of all the second of our lives we've wished to be skinny. All the minutes in front of the mirror in sadness. All the hours we ate and then hated ourselves. All the years we wished we were different. It will NEVER be fast enough for us, but if you are committed it's going to go by very quickly.

Go back to your post surgical stage 3 protocol. Protein, water, vitamins and your 10K steps. You need to refocus, recommit and start eating correctly again. You know your portions, you know the process, you just need to commit to it, and to yourself again! I know it's so hard, but you can do this!! Also, you might want to schedule an appointment with your surgeon and see what they can suggest. You might feel embarrassed but you only have a 10lb gain right now. What if it's 20? You will be even MORE averse to going to see your surgeon. So try to recommit to the process, reconnect with your surgeon and their team and try to remember that once this ball gets rolling it's easy to keep it rolling, you can do this!!!!

lol! Right?? I can barely eat 4 4oz of food a day, of course we are kidding, it would be very hard to shove that amount of food in one day unless you just slowly eat non-stop by putting food in your mouth like every 5 minutes or something. And still I'd die from my food sickness. lol!

It’s really important for people to realize that the scale is only part of the story. Keep measuring your body keep looking at you shrinking your clothes, your body hasn’t stop changing, so stop only listening to your scale. You’re doing amazing! Keep up with your protocol get your protein water vitamins and 10 k steps in each day. This will work for you! Hang in there!

I could only eat seafood or chicken that had been simmered or grilled with the skin on. Still can’t eat beef, though pork and chicken are the best proteins besides seafood for me. It took me to 14 weeks before I could eat solid protein well. Some people just take longer. My doctor said keep going back to the previous stage protocol for a day or two and then try again. That’s what I did. Tuna and crab were my savior’s. LOL

Check to see how much sodium you’re taking in, make sure to take benefiber or some sort of supplement to help regulate your bowel movements. I’d guess this is water weight - unless you had a massive binge day, did you? You might be able to put in 5 pounds of food if you try really really hard. LOL

There’s always a chance of a side effect, but you know it’s a pretty sure bet? if you don’t have it done you will most likely suffer much worse complications from obesity. I had my surgery and for six weeks I was in misery. Absolute misery, I was in pain it was hard for me to move around it’s very difficult for me to eat I was also going through a bit of relationship food change depression. I’m now six months postop and happier than I’ve been in my 43 years. I would never trade how great I feel now, how good I look, how successful I’ve been? I’d never trade that to save myself from six weeks of misery. Just remember to keep things in perspective. Almost all the side effects that you’ve read about people suffering are short term. The weight loss, feeling great about yourself when you follow the protocol, being successful, those are long-term and life-changing side effects. It’s OK to be scared, It means you’re paying attention. But don’t forget the long-haul and don’t forget the life you’d be trying to change. Don’t let other people’s experiences determine what yours will be. Allow your process and journey to be your own. I wish I’d had this done 20 years ago, not that it was around then. And I have a daily side effect, I get a pretty bad dumping syndrome ( except mine can happen with protein, with vegetables, starches, mine is not limited to just sugar). Which means it any point in time I could just suddenly have to go lay down and crash out for a while. I don’t care, I just make sure not to eat those foods and pay attention to what I’m doing and be careful. Because wearing a size 8 Jean, rocking a striped shirt with a tank top underneath and boots with heels and getting hit on four times yesterday, I’ll take that any day Over wearing a size 36 jeans, being admitted to the hospital and in ICU for seven days and hating every square inch of my 375 lb body. I really hope that you see more positive than negative when searching through here, because in the end I believe there’s way more positive than negative to having the surgery.

I reintegrated Diet Coke into my diet after a year. I'm glad I waited that long!! It's impossible to eat and drink carbonation without the food being pushed back up my esophagus. But DAMN do I love that cold chemical in my mouth and stomach! lol! Had to get a handle on my eating and triggers first though. A year was just enough. Now when I have a D Coke I don't crave salty or sweet, it's not a trigger to eat other foods. But I can't say that would be true if I had tried 6 months post surgery.

I think that's one of the things you need to let go of... The process of weight-loss is not on a set timeline/weight dropping schedule. It's gonna be fast slow fast slow nothing for 8 weeks then fast then nothing for weeks again then drop a few then 1/2 a day then nothing for weeks. What you really want to focus on is meeting all of your goals: protein, water, vitamins and 10K steps per day. This process takes between 8 and 18 months for most of us depending on how much you have to lose. If you focus on "not losing too fast" than I'd guess you would do things that are a bad idea to shove more calories in. That's not a good plan either. Work with your nutritionist. But, just an FYI, the whole point of this is to lose weight quickly, permanently change how much food/relationship with food and get your life back on track. You should really discuss with your surgeon and nutritionist (maybe with your psych consultant as well) again prior to surgery because losing weight too quickly should not be one of your main concerns. You will lose weight quickly if you do this right and if your doctor does his part right. It's the nature of this procedure. Those that don't lose weight after the first 8 weeks tend to be eating the wrong foods and don't really lose much weight at all. This is a permanent life long commitment. Not trying to scare you or upset you, it's just that your being worried about losing too fast has me concerned that you might need to talk to your support folks again to get a better understanding of what you are electing to do.

oh fantastic!!!!!!!!!!! Great news, so happy for you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Chances are changes have occurred in your diet that you aren't cognisant of, which is why the food tracking in my fitness pal or something like that is good. Also talk to your doctors office. And finally, go back to your stage 3 post surgical diet protocol. That's my strongest suggestion. Oh, and rather than going to the gym extra, just go for an extra 10 minute walk each day. That will be 70 minutes a week and it is a huge add on.

I was in horrific pain, I was miserable, I had 3 major procedures done and did not get the sleeve voluntarily. I couldn't get in and out of bed by myself, I was scared, tired, in a lot of pain. I had a breakdown by week 4 and didn't stop crying for 7 days. Scale of 1-10, well I didn't have to go back into the hospital of complications so I'll say a 3. It was miserable and horrible and not a positive thing for me. 15 months later and life is great, I wish I had had the surgery 20 years ago had it existed. But my first weeks were horrible and I resented all the people who were like "Everything is great!" because I could barely walk. Then there were the folks here that shamed anyone who expressed regret so when I posted my situation I get attacked by a few posters who are now banned. But at the time it was a HUGE blow, I felt like not only am I an obese failure but I am apparently even worse than my peers because it went great for them and apparently by expressing regret I'm pushing others from getting the surgery. It was really rough. It's why I try to really support those expressing post or pre surgery fears and regrets. It's OK, we'll get through it!

I had to restrain myself from finishing this so I could take a picture. God I love my bacon!

The gas pains are rough, just keep walking and it will work itself out. Congratulations!!

Pinky: Gee, Brain. What are we going to eat this morning? The Brain: The same thing we eat every morning, Pinky. BACON. I eat a low carb english muffin with a slice of chemical American "cheese" and 6-8 slices of bacon. (My cholesterol is fantastic folks, no worries! My doc loves my numbers...) God I love my breakfast... <3 *Spins with joy*