teacupnosaucer

definitely track your food. it's very hard to see places to make changes or for people to give you advice without food tracking. just for example, many people think they are doing super well with their eating but it turns out that their "healthy protein bars" they're having as snacks add up to 500+ calories in a day, or that they're eating much more often than they should be and veering into grazing etc. food journalling will really help you see patterns and trends and understand your eating better. measuring your food is also a very good idea. over- AND under-estimating your portions is common and can lead to you having a distorted understanding of what you're truly eating. I will almost always eat about three times the recommended portion of nuts, just for example, if I don't take the time to actually measure the portion. with calorie dense foods like nuts that kind of mistake really adds up, and fast! there are lots of really great apps out there that make it relatively painless. you can even have them send you reminders if you forget to track, so you can get into the habit! my personal oopsie is almost always eating out. I'll think I've been doing really well, then look at my tracker and discover I've eaten out 6 times in two weeks or something similar. even a sleeved belly is no match for that much restaurant food LOL! as to how much protein you require, my RD came up with my number based on a formula that took into account my sex, height, weight etc. as a 5'3" woman I need significantly less protein than a 6'0" man, so it's hard for any of us to tell you what your protein goal should be. my recommendation is that you advocate for yourself and ask your dietician to give you a protein goal. even if they don't normally do it, they should be able to come up with one for you. protein is so important to your healing and retaining muscle mass! seems completely bizarre to me that you wouldn't have even a general idea of what to aim for.

Oh and other preparations I can recommend: an electric heating pad (so amazing for pain and gas post-op). That thing was a friggin' life saver! I also had one of those microwaveable rice bag things to put in the small of my back, which was hurting quite often too. High waisted leggings were the only pants I could wear. Anything that sat below my belly button and especially my jeans were incredibly uncomfortable. You may be quite swollen after surgery too, so something with a decent amount of stretch is a good idea. (I looked about 7 months pregnant after mine, oof! thank god for stretchy costco sweatpants!) I also recommend some kind of compression garment. Some people get actual post-surgical compression band things like people wear after a c-section, but I just had some nice compression athletic wear. I felt a lot more comfortable with the tightness against my belly holding me in. for the first week or so I felt like my organs were going to fall out every time I stood up and walked. (they most certainly did not do that, everything was COMPLETELY FINE.) the compression against my belly helped me feel a little more secure and comfortable.

I had a lot of those cartons of creamed soup post-op, which I often added milk and unflavored protein powder to. I also used a lot of protein powder (both unflavored and sugar-free flavored varieties) and smooth greek yogurt. I bought oatmeal but discovered I could only stand the unsweetened stuff immediately post op, the normal stuff was WAYYYYY too sweet for me to tolerate. High protein milk (Fairlife in the USA, Natrel in Canada) was a great way to get in some more protein and a hundred or so more calories a day, as well as upping my fluids when water was weirdly awful to drink. I think I had some unsweetened applesauce, but not often. Basically my rule for myself was if it wasn't a source of protein, I didn't eat it those first couple weeks. There was just so little room in my tummy or will to eat, I needed to make every single bite "count". I think the biggest surprise was how much sweetened stuff in general disgusted me and tasted bad though. Pudding cups, popsicles, protein shakes, oatmeal... I had absolutely zero interest in sweet things. I lived off of savoury for at least a week before introducing limited amounts of sweeter foods. (AKA going from plain oatmeal to plain oatmeal with half a teaspoon of raspberry jam VS the high protein maple brown sugar oatmeal I'd been suggested to buy). I know some surgeons include baby food in their post-op diet plans, but I can't imagine myself eating that post-op. If it's not specifically recommended for you, I would like to say it really isn't required. I was kind of emotional and crotchety after surgery and was even resentful of the pureed soups, so I can only imagine how crabby I'd have been to be eating food meant for a baby LOL. Your mileage may vary on that one. I think my biggest piece of advice from one planner to another though... is DON'T OVERBUY. I was totally like "oh yeah I'm gonna stock up on all this stuff and it'll be perfect!" and then things I stocked up on... I ended up not wanting to eat and not liking. Stuff like said high protein oatmeal which I had always enjoyed before suddenly tasted terrible and now I was stuck with four stupid boxes of the stuff. Buy enough for a few days so you're not stuck with stuff your new belly/tastebuds aren't digging. Yes it means you're a little less prepared for the post-surgery apocalypse, but there's always online shopping and grocery delivery if you don't have enough of something. Post bariatric surgery is the one time I'd actually advocate "better to need it and not have it than have it and not need it". Also, I really looked forward to grocery shopping post op because it was a great way to get out of the house and do some limited walking

I'm 2.5 months out. I swim 3x a week, go dancing, and then do the occasional walk. Hoping to incorporate some strength training as well but for now I'm happy with my routine!

I swim as a workout! I do 3km a week of laps. I'm two months out and lose an average of 3lb a week (with a surgery day BMI of 36). Swimming is great for me because it's very calming, it doesn't cause my body pain and I could do it at any weight, I don't feel like a sweaty overheated mess, and I'm able to measure my successes/growth. the best workout post surgery is the one you can enjoy and stick with. ANY form of exercise is going to be incredibly beneficial to your progress, overall health and quality of life, and your ability to maintain weight loss.

Suicidal thoughts and actions are surprisingly common post-surgery for a variety of reasons. (http://www.webmd.com/diet/obesity/news/20151007/suicide-risk-may-rise-for-some-after-weight-loss-surgery#1) What you are going through is common, but you don't/shouldn't have to suffer through it alone without support. PLEASE reach out for help, either to your clinic psychologist if you have one, or to a suicide hotline if you don't. Here's a list of numbers that includes many countries and states. http://www.yourlifecounts.org/need-help/crisis-lines

I got myself a new pandora charm for every 25 lbs lost!

My life has improved ten fold since surgery! I get to shop where I want, I joined a dance class and go to social dances where people actually ask me to dance with them (!!!), I joined a soccer team, I'm way better at swimming now and have better endurance, strangers are nicer to me now, I have a great new group of friends who are also surgery sisters and we are all committed to trying new things together and putting ourselves out there, I have less day-to-day pain and fatigue... My quality of life has improved in ways I couldn't have envisioned or predicted. I am SO HAPPY! The quality of my life used to be measured by what food I could eat and how much downtime I had. I thought I was doing okay... but this new normal has taught me what I was truly missing out on! So not only do I "still" enjoy life, I actually enjoy life MORE, and in ways I never thought possible!

I think seeking support is a very good first step. A psychologist or therapist, but a support group, too. It's proven that people who regularly attend support groups have greater long term success. Getting an accountability buddy might also help a lot. Other than that, maybe try coming up with some goals for yourself? One realistic, measurable goal at a time. "I will re-commit to my exercise routine at least three days a week for the next month" or "I will track my food for two weeks straight". I'm there with you. I haven't regained because I'm still in my honeymoon phase, but I have gotten less consistent about tracking because of a bunch of life stresses recently. my first goal is to get back to tracking on MFP consistently and building up my "days tracked in a row" again!

Yes and no... yes because I'd have loved to be living the lifestyle I have now earlier than this... No because in my 20s I don't think I would have been emotionally or mentally ready to make these big changes and commitments. I am in a VERY different place now at 31 than at 25. But if you're ready, you're ready! Don't wait for an arbitrary reason like age. It's the mindset that matters.

I joined my husband's work soccer team and am not afraid of being unable to keep up with everyone else! I'm not at my goal weight but I *know* I am way fitter than I was. I feel like I can participate and make new friends and not drag everyone else down or have them all wishing I wasn't there! It's not just my increased fitness level at this smaller size that's my NSV... it's the confidence to put myself out there!

I was getting increasingly depressed and isolated at the size I was, and my health was starting to deteriorate. But I think that singular ENOUGH IS ENOUGH moment was the day I took my daughter to the public health nurse for her one year checkup and shots, and she is in the 97th percentile for height and weight... and the nurse because of MY size assumed I wasn't feeding her properly and didn't know about portion control or basic nutrition. she acted like because I was fat I must give my baby chocolate milk and soda in her bottle and feed her mcdonalds three times a day! I was so humiliated that she would make those kinds of assumptions about my parenting.

Yep, my anxiety ramped up pretty hardcore in the weeks coming up to surgery. Seems logical to me because it is a serious operation and an irreversible life change basically! I kept busy the night before surgery, and the morning of, I requested an ativan to get me through. walked into the OR as cheerful as walking into a damn theme park LOL.

Hi! I'm 31, HW 227lbs at 5'3", surgery weight was 196, so a BMI of 35-36. I'm two months post op now and freakin' loving life! oh and I'm a teacher turned SAHM too!

this is a GREAT idea! I found it really helped me too. sometimes we get hung up on the things surgery forces us to "give up" (I almost didn't have my surgery because I thought I couldn't give up diet pepsi!)... but it's true we have so much to GAIN!!! yes I can likely never have pepsi again... but without this surgery, I'd have never worn a size 12 pair of shorts again, or played soccer again... or or or. keep this list handy! tape it to your mirror, put it on your fridge... it will help you get through the harder days.

Be honest. I was scared too because I have a lot of mental health issues... but it turned out fine. The psychologist wanted to know that I 1. Was honest with myself about my limitations, my successes, and what I needed to work on pre- and post- surgery. 2. That I had a realistic attitude toward surgery and what it could and couldn't do for me. 3. That I understood what I was getting into wrt permanent lifestyle changes and potential for side effects etc. 4. That I was doing my best to fix whatever problems I had and was in treatment for my various disorders. Having depression and anxiety and ADHD wasn't a dealbreaker, it was if I wasn't treating them to the best of my ability that might have posed problems for my long term success. Hard to stick to a long term, complex diet plan if your ADHD has you unable to focus or organize squat. Lying might jump you through the hoops faster, no question about that, but it also means that you might be shooting yourself in the foot. Think of it this way: just GETTING surgery is not the ultimate goal.. having a successful lifetime POST surgery is. The surgery won't mean **** for you if a month later you're binge eating or abusing alcohol or eating fast food six times a week or, or, or, which is essentially what the psychologist is trying to screen for. Wanting to be prepared is understandable, though, so here's what I did. Since I knew I'd probably forget half of what I wanted to say, I made a series of lists before my appointment that I could refer to or show the psychologist: 1. my successes so far with regards to lifestyle changes (not eating in front of screens, limiting eating out) 2. things I thought I still needed to work on (get better at meal planning) 3. what I was hoping to get out of surgery (opportunity to be more active, avoid type 2 diabetes) Not only did it give me guidance on what I wanted to say to her and not forget important things, it also showed that I was already engaging in goal setting, self-reflection, and that I was the kind of person to plan and prepare. I think it DEFINITELY helped my case. she was very impressed by how organized I was and how much work I'd done already.

I think your nutritionist is misinterpreting the data. It's not that the bypass is NECESSARILY more effective long term, only that we have more EVIDENCE of it being effective long term. The sleeve as an individual operation is a relatively new procedure, so we just don't have as much long term data either way vs the RNY. But the info we do have is very promising. I've done a lot of reading and from my (layman's) understanding, the bypass will help you lose weight faster (6mo to a year) vs the sleeve where you typically lose slowly over a period of 18 months. The typical difference between loss I think is often 10% of your weight ON AVERAGE, which may or may not be a big deal to you. (It wasn't to me, which is why I went with the sleeve.) Regain typically comes down to compliancy post-op more than what procedure you get. The average losses comes from the people who lose 150 lbs and completely overhaul their life and the people who eat around their surgery and lose less than ten or go on to gain past their original weight, so honestly I really didn't take it much into account when I was picking my procedure. I was much more concerned about the life I'd be living post op with both procedures and about my individual comfort level with the concept of the procedures themselves. Sleeve fit my vision for my future, so that's what I chose even though my surgeon was more in favour of the RNY as the "gold standard". It is true the RNY is more invasive and also produces more restriction both in terms of volume of food AND type of foods you can eat. A lot of the things I can very easily eat post-op with my sleeve could make your average RNY patient very sick. some people see this as a pro to the RNY, others a con. There are good reasons to pick either procedure, and sticking to the plan long term will bring success with EITHER procedure. After that it comes down to other factors: if you have GERD, if you have type 2 diabetes, how much weight you have to lose, how comfortable you are with malabsorption of nutrients, the speed you want the weight loss to be, whether you'd prefer the proven track record of the RNY, whether you want the ability to revise down the line, etc. There's a lot to consider here, so definitely stick around and do some reading, but don't let the nutritionist tell you that you HAVE to get the RNY just because "after 5 years the sleeve stops working" and accept that as gospel or use it as the only deciding factor in your choice. Any surgery can result in weight regain, just as any surgery can result in stunning lifelong success. The specific surgery itself isn't nearly so important as the lifestyle changes you implement alongside your chosen procedure.

Hi! I had a BMI of 40 at my highest weight, but managed to get down to a BMI of 36 pre-surgery. Had my sleeve on March 22nd and am now down a further 25lbs. Nearly out of the obese BMI category all together! woohoo!

It's not a sure thing. I had a sleeve and DO get hungry. Sometimes it's fake hunger with excess acid when I forget to take my pantoloc, yes, but then there are times when I'm 3 hours past my last time eating and I am genuinely HUNGRY. there's also head hunger when I see a commercial for a cheeseburger and it's all I can think about. But am I LESS hungry than before? yes absolutely. there are days I don't think about eating at all. and even if I do get hungry, my hunger is satisfied with less food. Ultimately the sleeve is only a tool. You will always have to exercise your will power and good sense about when and how you eat.

I pack myself a Japanese bento box (aka a SMALL bento, not the oversized ones they sell here) full of snacks every day. In one compartment I will have a measured single portion of either nuts, seeds, parmesan cheese crisps, or jerky, and then in the second compartment I have a cheese portion and some whole grain crackers, or a cheese portion and some berries/apple slices, or dried coconut. (Unlike many here, my dietician is 100% against me eating low carb LOL). I have to have measured portions of whatever I eat, pretty much. I definitely couldn't have like, my costco sized tub of nuts sitting in my desk. I need to get out the scale and measure into my bento box every day. Protein bars I typically use for meal replacements vs. as snacks since at 200+ calories a bar they are outside my guidelines for an appropriate "snack" serving, which is 150 calories for me. cutting them in half would probably work though I suppose!

You're 100% right. Good for you for keeping that perspective. I'm the same way... I keep being really positive and happy about my surgery in the hopes my father will come to the idea of looking into it himself... but on his own terms and as his own idea LOL.

my sympathies, my mom deals with this same thing. she works really hard to stay healthy but my dad (who is obese like me) just keeps buying sooooo muuuuuuch junk food. I'm glad they're at least attempting to meet you halfway, even if they're not willing to stop bringing it into the house 100%. Hopefully some other strategies will help you so that having it around isn't quite such a landmine for you.

I'm six weeks out and have not vomited even once, not even when I ate things I really shouldn't have. Which is good because I have emetophobia and get a panic attack every time I puke lmao. It's luck of the draw, from what I understand.

It's definitely not easy, I totally get you. I have two kids and a husband so I know how you feel not wanting to police what they eat. I try to buy things for them that I know I won't eat. My husband loves strawberry ice cream, I hate it, so it's pretty easy to have ice cream on hand for him. The other thing to consider is (depending on your living situation obviously!) is that just because you don't have something in the house and on hand doesn't mean you're controlling if other people eat it. We don't have pop in the house but my husband is still free to go to McDonalds and buy himself a large coke. I'm not controlling what he eats, only what's in my immediate environment. Obviously this strategy is significantly less useful if you live with adult roommates who buy their own groceries or with someone not willing to compromise the food they bring into the house to help you achieve your goals. But don't assume it won't work prematurely, I guess? Like, if you ask someone might be completely on board and say yes, even if you think they won't. They might surprise you. (They also might not, in which case obviously it's much harder to control your food environment.) Head hunger vs. physiological hunger is hard to decipher. I try to do to myself what I do with my kids. "You're hungry? Do you want an apple? If you're not hungry for an apple you're not really hungry." (Substitute whatever healthy choice you like.) Basically, physiological hunger wants to be fed. Head/heart/mouth hunger are very very specific. Like if I'm thinking "oh I could go for some chips" but I eat some beef jerky and feel satisfied, then that's probably stomach hunger. If I'm thinking "I want chips and I don't want to eat anything else IT HAS TO BE CHIPS"... then to me that is a sure sign it's not physical hunger. The other thing I learned in my emotional eating class is to delay cravings, like physically set a timer for 20 minutes. Make a deal with yourself that if you still want something after 20 minutes, then eat it (within reason obviously) but if you don't... well then, crisis averted lol. Waiting 20 minutes to eat won't alleviate physiological hunger, but delaying a craving may cause the intensity of it to subside, in which case you have your answer. I should find out what the workbook I used is called, maybe you can get it on Amazon or something... it was really helpful to me.