Didjit

Just has my sleeve yesterday and everything went well. But today I feel awful! The worst part is the crampiness. I think it's gas but it's not moving. Is this common? Suggestions?

Thanks all. Yeah, I'm pretty sure it's just gas, and since I've passed nothing for two days you can imagine the discomfort. But I do feel/hear some movement starting so hopefully I'm at the end. Oddly, it seemed to be the liquid Tylenol that woke things up.

Just curious how much weight people lost on the pre-op diet. I've lost 20 lbs. but I don't know how much my surgeon expects/wants. The nurse said not to worry, just lose as much as you can. I go in on Monday. Yikes! Am I really doing this? Looks like I am!

@blizair09: Wow! @Cander: Awesome! @illailla: Lol! @Travelher: Way to go!

I was in my twenties when I lost about 50 pounds. It took an extreme amount of exercise and an extremely restricted diet. 10 years later when my knees wore out from running, the weight started to come back on. Since then I've gained double what I lost. So, what I have learned, contrary to popular belief, is that while you may be able to force your weight down with diet and exercise, it is very difficult to keep it there. In fact exercise can be a form of a bulimia. Diet and exercise, while very important for a healthy life, are not always the solution for long-term weight loss.

I'm a 50yo male, shy of 300lbs. and 6ft. I've been approved for the vertical sleeve and will meet with the surgeon on Wednesday. But I'm doubting whether this is the right thing for me or whether I'm setting myself up for a big disappointment and medical troubles. In particular, my husband works in an OR and says he sees lots of re-dos after people failed to stick with the plan. And that the surgeons know there's a high failure rate. In his opinion I'm "just fat, not obese" (BMI:42), and so the surgery isn't appropriate and I "don't have the discipline to stick with it". It's incredibly disheartening to know my main support doesn't support me in this. I could really use some input from people, men in particular, who have been through this. Aside from the obvious (being slimmer, smaller meals, regular exercise) what were the unexpected changes you had to make? Any regrets?

Lol, not even close. Software engineer. But the sensitive kind. :-D Sent from my SM-G900V using the BariatricPal App

Thanks, everyone, for all the great responses and perspectives. I'm clear that this decision is 100% mine to make. And that neither my husband's support or even the surgery itself will make a difference if I'm not committed to the change myself. The ironic thing is that years ago I had been committed to the change. I'd dropped 70lbs from 250 and thought I'd made it. But I found it hard to hold onto that, and then when I met my now-husband... well, we're both foodies and he's a fantastic Italian cook. My environment was no longer as strictly controlled as I'd been keeping it, and so the pounds poured on. So in the beginning I was fit and pretty thin, then we both gained lots of weight but I really excelled at it. Now he's been trimming down and I've been feeling hopelessly beyond the point of no return. I think his opposition to WLS is mostly due to the fact that his experience with WLS is based on failed patients and surgical complications. It's just made me wonder whether I've been focusing on only the success stories. So, again, thanks everyone for the support and feedback. @@Fredbear, that was pretty harsh, but not inaccurate. Thanks for the reality dose. @@elisa5150 & @@LittleBill, your simple suggestions were elegant and helped put my doubts in perspective. @@blizair09 & @@OutsideMatchInside, thank you for sharing your experience, and @@WLSResources/ClothingExch & @@Aggiemae, thank you for your advice and support. And to the women, I hope you didn't feel slighted by my request for feedback from the men in particular. I just wanted to encourage their voices as we seem to be a minority here.

We're all trying to lose weight right? And we're all trying to break bad habits, like attachments to candy and Desserts, right? So then why are most of the Protein powders and drinks things like "luscious chocolate" and "creamy vanilla"? I suppose "boiled broccoli" would be gross, but even apple becomes apple pie, and lemon becomes lemon sorbet. Isn't this just reinforcing bad habits? Do our stomach-brains know there's a difference between a Protein Drink and a malted chocolate ice cream frappe? Seems like it'd be better to stick to unflavored supplements in Water or milk, things like Orange that aren't Orange Chiffon. Anyone find they've become addicted to chocolate milk shakes for lunch everyday? Or that the jump to a "real" milk shake becomes more tempting?

It all just strikes me as a bad idea. You'd never market Water to an alcoholic that "tastes just like whiskey!" but here's a whole industry built around selling candy-ish bars to people struggling with weight as healthy food. That said, I'm planning on picking up a bunch of different powders and drinks later this week so I can taste-test before I begin the pre/post-op diets.

Less body mass Ah, of course. How could I forget, it's the whole point of WLS. So if you loose 30% then you get drunk 30% faster or with a 30% smaller drink. I've been thinking, and I suspect the stomach acts as a "holding tank", releasing its contents (alcohol) slowly over time, and that with a smaller stomach the alcohol now hits the small intestine faster at a higher concentration. So the liver hits its max faster and the brain gets hit with the difference. Thanks for indulging a nerd.

Nerdy question here... Can someone explain why there's a change in alcohol's effect? Your liver is the same or even healthier, so it shouldn't take longer to metabolize. Alcohol's mostly absorbed in the small intestine. A smaller stomach may mean less is absorbed there and so more is absorbed in the small intestine, but again it's your liver that breaks it down. Based on the stories of how much more sensitive people become it's almost like the stomach becomes a lot more efficient at absorbing alcohol, but that doesn't make sense to me.

Thanks, @@The New Kel. It's a relief to hear about your experience. I hope it continues for you and that my experience is similar. Thanks for the support!

Hi All, I just joined the site, and I'm hoping for some honest insight. I'm just shy of 50 and I'm at my heaviest ever. I thought I had "won" the battle years ago when I dropped from 250 to 180 (and even 165 for a bit) with lots of exercise and dieting. But after 10 years I couldn't keep up that level of intensity (running 40 mi/wk, gym 8+ hrs/wk, no oil/fat/sugar) -- I was willing to do it to get thin but I never expected I'd have to continue like that for the rest of my life! And when running became physically impossible (bad knees & accident) I found my weight creeping up. Frankly, I've lost hope, feeling like only an insane level of diet and exercise would stave off obesity. So, the story I tell myself is that I can't succeed with just diet, exercise, and willpower; and that I need something "external". Sleeve gastrectomy makes sense to me -- no re-routing, just shrinking the stomach and reducing hunger hormones. And given my sedentary job and a busy schedule, less food makes sense. Ah, but the here's the rub. Like many here, I expect, I love food. I've come to face the fact that it's an addiction or at least an obsession. I love dining out, I love trying new restaurants. If there's food in front of me, I can't ignore it and it's hard to recognize when I'm full and stop. And even after a heavy meal, a few hours later I'm hungry again. I don't binge, per se, and I generally eat healthfully. But it's hard to turn down an opportunity for dessert or a second helping. I've come to realize that all my intense workout schedule had been a form of bulimia -- enjoy a plate of Pasta, feel guilty, run five miles. My hope is that the gastrectomy will reduce hunger pangs and the urge to eat. At the very least, it will limit what I can take in, but I'm worried about stretching out the pouch and relapsing. So I'm also hoping to use this as an opportunity to retrain myself on portions. And I'm also hoping that I can avoid the pitfalls, being more emotionally aware and grounded than my younger days. But my biggest fear is that I'm deluding myself and rationalizing why I failed before and why "this time will be different". I'm interested what others who have been through the surgery have found. Does hunger lessen in intensity? Does food loose it's importance? Have you been able to retrain yourself, or are you constantly having to control your behavior? Sorry for the long post. Thanks for reading, and thanks for any input.

My husband works in the OR at a top Hospital. He's against me having the surgery because he sees a lot of return patients who are getting revisions after having gained back the weight, and he doesn't think I have the discipline to stick with the plan. This last part is hard to hear. I feel like I do, and that in the past I have stuck with "the plan", but that "the plan" wasn't enough for me -- that I would need "the extreme plan". And I did stick to "the extreme plan" for most of a decade, but I can't maintain that intensity anymore. I feel like my stomach is too big and too loud for the amounts I should be consuming, and that WLS would correct that. Unfortunately, I don't think I can ever get my husband away from thinking "if only you had enough will power" and that WLS is cheating or avoiding personal responsibility.

Thanks for the reply, @@Bufflehead! It's helpful (& hopeful) to hear about your experience. I'm trying to keep my expectations realistic, and I'm trying to enter this as self-honestly as I can. I'm not expecting a magic pill (or scalpel), but the effort and commitment has to be realistic as well. It sounds like your experience is what I'm hoping for: regular moderate exercise and a realistic healthy diet to maintain a trim healthy body.