Berry78

Everyone retains fluid from the IVs at the hospital. You might have gained as much as 10 pounds while there! It comes off gradually over the first couple weeks. Put the scale away for another week, then you'll likely see some change.

Hey, if you lose no weight from the surgery, then doctors should be beating down your door to meet the "wonder woman". So there's always an up side to anything!

Ok, the OP is 121lbs and over 5'8. She IS underweight, according to the BMI calculator. Nut butters isn't "crap advice" at all. It's excellent advice. A single ounce of nuts (small handful) has almost 200 calories. Eating 4 handfuls of nuts a day will add almost 800 calories! They also have some protein and carbs (and tons of vitamins and minerals). Absolute powerhouse. I recommend mixing it up because each type has different nutrient profiles. Cheese is also a dense caloric bonanza. Dried fruit is too. Ice cream doesn't have the nutrition we should all be seeking. Possible meal plan: Breakfast: 1 cup oats cooked into oatmeal with 1oz raisins and 1oz chopped pecans, 2T. heavy cream, and 2T molasses. (800cal) Lunch: 4oz hamburger patty with tomato pasta sauce (500cal) Snack: Banana with 1oz peanut butter (300 cal) Dinner: 4 oz Salmon with cream sauce (300 cal) After dinner snack: 6oz potato or sweet potato with 1T butter (250 cals) This is 2150 calories with just food. Drink some calories too (2 quarts of whole milk has 1200 calories). It takes a surprising number of calories to begin gaining weight.. read some articles on re-feeding anorexics. Of course you're not an anorexic.. but the concept is the same. If you notice, I didn't put any processed grains or sugar into the diet. You don't need junk food. Your body needs nutrition (vitamins, minerals, proteins, complex carbohydrates, and healthy fats) to get all the building blocks with which to BUILD you up. Not knowing exactly how much you can physically eat at a time, I kinda guessed based on how much I can eat. Don't hesitate to go back and "finish" a meal an hour later. If you can eat more, by all means, do so! What is missing is veggies. They have so few calories, that it's hard to squeeze them in. Salad dressing, although full of calories, doesn't have much nutrition itself... the veggies have nutrition, but it takes SOOO much of them, that it's hard to justify salads. To clarify what I mean: A single large fresh tomato will fill you up. It has about 25 calories. Even if you add 100 calories worth of ranch dressing, you are still only getting the nutrition of 1 tomato for 125 calories. But, if you turn the tomato into pasta sauce, then you get 3 tomatoes squeezed into 1/2 cup sauce, 75 calories. Add some fat, and suddenly it has the nutrition of 3 whole tomatoes, plus the added fat, 175 calories, and it's only 1/2 cup, so you can pour it onto some meat for more calories and protein. Since we are working with limited space, we have to squeeze as much goodness into that space as possible.

Weight loss does seem to help the little guys come out of their hidey-holes....

I was too young to remember...

I use both laptop and phone, and its true that that stuff doesn't show up on the phone. I have to click on peeps' handles to get their info... and I do do that all tbe time to help give recommendations... I would like to see a change with the tickers. It is frequently hard to tell the goal weight from the current weight when people get really close to, or even past, goal. On my ticker I hopefully solved that by having starting weight in red, current weight in yellow, (matching my turtle), and goal weight in green, (matching the tree). Stop lights can never be wrong, eh? When I reach goal, I'll probably have to do something different...

I live in Cumberland, can practically toss a ball into WV, and head to Morgantown halfway regularly. Excellent medical system with WVU. It is one of my back up choices if I were to need bariatric-related assistance.

Sure, all those myth debunking statements SOUND nice.. but how do we actually put any of it into practice? We are so fortunate that we live in an era/area in which people can expect to live 70+ years. Grocery stores are FULL of foods of every sort. Before about 1910, people only lived about half as long, and food availability was spotty, at best. We ate what was available, when available, and were happy for it. Only in times if abundance do we stop to ask, "what SHOULD I eat?" With only 100 years of science actively asking this question, it's no wonder we haven't gotten it all figured out yet. People get impatient with the process ("but they keep changing their story! First cholesterol is bad, now it doesn't matter!" etc.) But no one seems to realize that scientists are working with brand new data, trying to sort through it, and with additional new data coming in all the time, of course the picture always changes. Pollan is recommending to cut off the science from dinner decisions, and that's fair. Let the scientists do their thing while you eat what YOU want to eat. I do disagree that we needn't count or pay attention. Our food sources are the furthest thing from "natural" as one can get. Doesn't matter that much if you are eating an artificial-sugar laden protein bar or a modern cut of corn-fed beef or skim milk or ear of sweet corn. Everything we eat has been highly modified from what it would have been 1000 years ago. And, don't forget, even if we did eat the same way as our ancestors.. they only lived for 40 years. Maybe that wasn't such a great time either! Human beings are wonderfully adaptive. We can eat almost anything and do quite well... as a species. Individually, we do see lots of instances of malnutrition pop up. Personally I've been short on vit. A and D. Others on this board are short on protein and iron. My MIL is short on Vit. D and Iron. My hubby has low vit. D and low HDL cholesterol. In fact, I'd love to hear from anyone inside or outside the bariatric community that has had all their levels tested and weren't short on anything, and didn't take supplements. THOSE are the people whose diets we should all follow! Lol! (Doctors don't test healthy people for most vitamins, so that individual might be hard to find).

The easiest way to stick to a strict diet is to figure it out ONCE and then eat the same exact thing every day. Boring? Sure. But it's good training for the boring, restricted diet postop. Sample menu: Breakfast: 1 cup full fat cottage cheese and 1 small fruit (320 cal) Lunch: 2 eggs and 1 cup pinto beans with 2 T. Salsa (400 cal) Dinner: 1 4oz skinless chicken thigh, 1.5 cups green beans, 5oz sweet potato (426 cal) you can add a total of 1 teaspoon of butter if you want for an additional 34 calories. There you go. Salt, pepper, cinnamon, and herbs are all ok. Each meal features protein, carbs, and fat. No snacks (if you MUST have a snack, save the fruit from breakfast and don't add butter at dinner. Now you can put a teaspoon of peanut butter with your fruit.) Chicken thigh is 206 calories, can switch out for other equal-calorie meats or fish.

Just keep on doing what you're doing. As long as things are coming out and you aren't in pain, everything is probably ok. The miralax is probably causing the diarrhea, rather than any potential blockage.

Since you are a DS patient, your protein needs have been much higher than most, all along. My local surgeon recommends 120g protein for DS patients. Before you saw the doc, how much protein were you consuming? You said your levels had been fine, but now they aren't. Did your diet change? I'm trying to see if what you have been doing changed, or if it's your body that changed. If you went vegan, then it's probably malnutrition and increasing your protein is the fix. But if you didn't change anything and were keeping up with your intake.. then keep looking for the reason. Meanwhile, increasing your protein shouldn't hurt and hopefully will help.

I agree that this sounds like a real problem brewing. Were your legs so swollen when you were seen? Your doc needs to not focus on any one problem and get a full picture of what is going on. Go back in. If he doesn't start talking about putting the puzzle pieces together, then you may need to get seen by someone else.

Woo hoo!!! Congrats!!!

No, you shouldn't feel this way forever. Try and taste a bunch of different things to see if you can find something you can tolerate. I suspect some people, when in ketosis, get such a bad taste in their mouth that it makes everything taste even worse. So the cure for them is to increase carbs to get out of ketosis. I recommend milk as the first thing to try (not everyone can tolerate it postop). It has fluid, protein, and carbs, so works great if you can stand it.

I'm 6 months out and don't see a problem with an occasional glass of wine. Daily isn't a good idea for weight loss or liver health (the liver works overtime processing our fat).

Stalls of up to a week will happen regularly. Sometimes up to 3 weeks long. You start getting concerned when you are the same weight and size (take regular measurements) for over a month.

Hey, why are y'all talkin' bout me??? (Just kidding.. haven't made my meeting for a couple months... bet they all breathe sighs of relief! Lol!)

I looked into the patch preop, and signs point to "no". The skin isn't designed to absorb all that stuff.

36 is not so very old. A year won't make a significant difference to your ova. You want to get through the year of rapid weight loss because: 1. You don't want to be actively losing weight during the pregnancy.. it might hinder the baby's ability to get enough nurishment. 2. If you stop losing weight, then the surgery was for nothing. Your new set point will be messed up and you won't make goal. 3. While you are losing weight, there is "hormone dumping" happening, and you don't want to expose the baby to all those excess hormones. 4. An enlarged uterus creates a high pressure environment in the abdomen. Excess fat creates a high pressure environment. The sleeve is a high pressure procedure. The potential for debilitating GERD is astronomical. Lose your excess fat weight, and at least that's one less thing to cause heartburn. I could come up with more, but I think you get the gist.

Ok, what I'm hearing is you used to be able to eat enough, now you can only eat a tiny bit. Yes, this is absolutely a major problem, and you need to keep getting looked at.

The hair loss postop is almost always due to the shock of the surgery its self. Not due to nutrient deficiencies. Most people get thinning evenly over the head, so hopefully you won't have completely bald patches. *Fingers crossed!*

If you can drink, then you can drink all your meals and begin to stabilize your health. (2-3 quarts of whole milk a day would get you started.. if you can tolerate milk!) I'm assuming the weight loss is due directly to not eating, rather than some other underlying condition like diabetes or cancer that results in weight loss. But yes, you sound like you need a second opinion. A bariatric surgeon might be able to undo your bypass or figure out something else that could be helpful. I just don't quite understand why you can't eat. Maybe describe what happens when you take a bite...

I don't know what you mean by the runs coming out of the front... Many people get sick from milk after the surgery.. can't tolerate it.

Ulcer, gallbladder, constipation.. there are several common causes of abdominal pain that could be related to the surgery. Hope it's a simple fix!

Sounds like fun! I hope to meet some if y'all one day...