Arthur Dent

Has anyone experienced any issues staying asleep after surgery? I fall asleep pretty quickly, thanks to an Ambien, but I tend to wake up several times a night and need to listen to music or something to help me fall back asleep. Before surgery, I had problems falling asleep but then slept pretty soundly. The sleep interruptions make it very difficult to wake up, and then I'm tired all day. Any advice? I don't know if this is related to WLS, but I'm five weeks out and I don't know if my body is changing too quickly which makes it uncomfortable at night. Just thought I'd ask.

I'm five weeks out, and just moved to soft mechanical foods. Ground beef is good for me, but ground turkey makes me feel sick.

I was sleeved a month ago, and up until a few days ago I was losing weight pretty well. I had lost 25 pounds ... and then the weight loss just stopped. I have been stalled at this weight. I don't know if it's because I have been moved to mechanical solids (small bites, but real food) from the puree stage, or if it's just a natural thing. Do I have to wait for this to end, or is there a way to kickstart more weight loss?

THANK YOU EVERYONE! I'm back home, we have electricity, and most of all we're safe. These tips really helped me out.

Hello all. I am from the Tampa Bay area, and I have been forced to evacuate. However, this location is all but certain to lose power and I expect to have zero electricity for days or weeks when I return home. I'm still in the puree stage, which means nearly everything I need to eat has to be refrigerated. Does anyone know: 1. If I can't keep milk cold, can I make my Unjury shakes with water? I have both chocolate and vanilla flavors. 2. If I have time, can I make the shakes in advance and put them in the freezer so they will stay cold longer? 3. If worse comes to worst, and I can't puree my foods, do you think something chunked like canned tuna or chicken would be OK for my stomach? I would chew it very well. 4. Do I need to keep eggs refrigerated? I know they don't refrigerate them in Europe, but there might be a difference between American and European eggs. If they're not refrigerated, I can scramble them using a skillet on the propane grill. 5. Any other advice? I need answers as quickly as possible. If the power and cell service goes out, I will have no way of checking this website.

Another question: If I find Premier Protein shakes, can I drink them without refrigeration?

Hello all. I'm two weeks post-op and I've just started the pureed stage. I'm wondering if I'm going to be able to get all my protein in now that I'm consuming more real food and fewer protein shakes. The foods I'm supposed to eat -- like pureed chicken and pureed egg salad -- doesn't have nearly as much protein as the shakes do. Has anyone else dealt with this? What should I do?

I'm August 17, and I'm here in Florida too.

Ha ha ha ha ha!

Last week, my surgeon told me that pills wouldn't be a problem. Just don't take them the morning of surgery.

Have you tried adding PB2 (powdered peanut butter) to a vanilla or chocolate shake? I do it with the Unjury shakes.

I just got my date yesterday. I'll be having my surgery on Thursday, Aug. 17. I started my pre-surgery diet today.

I had this question for my nutritionist, and she told me that I'll be able to take pills normally after the surgery. This doesn't seem right to me, so I'm going to check my with primary care doctor. Also, I'm meeting my surgeon tomorrow, and this is on my list of questions to ask him. One of my prescriptions has withdrawal symptoms, so I really need to continue taking it. The others ones I should do fine without.

I did the DC march with my husband. Absolutely incredible feeling of power and connectedness. I'll be getting a sleeve soon (still don't have surgery date) which will allow me to do more things like this, I hope.

Hi there Richard! I just friended you on Facebook. I would like to be added to the group too.

I don't have a surgery date yet, but I'm meeting again with my surgeon next week and I'm told that I will be assigned a date then. In the meantime, I'm wondering what I need to buy when I start my two-week pre-operation diet. I've been instructed to get five canisters of Unjury protein, which will last for the pre-op diet with enough leftover for after surgery. What did other people buy in addition to these things? Is there something you wish you had bought, but didn't? Or, conversely, is there anything you wish in hindsight you had bought?

What exercises should I be doing now to prevent skin sagging later? Are there any supplements I should be taking as well?

I don't have a date yet, but I will be scheduled early next month so I'm hoping for September.

I feel your pain. I have a weigh-in tomorrow and I fear I haven't lost enough weight since my last weigh-in. I've been very good with my eating habits, with a few slip-ups. My scale says I'm down significantly, but their scale (as I've learned last time) seems to add pounds on. I was really hoping to get a date for August, but perhaps it needs to be pushed back to September.

I have a big international trip scheduled for about six months after surgery. But I will probably take a few weekend trips (here in the US) before then, and I plan to take powdered protein mix packets and my shaker bottle. Those will probably be two days each, which I believe will be manageable. It seems to me that you should have surgery after the vacation, as you'll be able to experience the food properly, which is always the best part about visiting another part of the world. You should probably concentrate on sensible meals. One thing I've noticed in Europe is that people tend to eat at a slower pace. No one is rushed out of restaurants. So this might be an ideal opportunity to practice slower eating, putting down utensils every couple of bites, and so on. PS. Where in Spain? If you're going to be in Madrid, there's a great bullet train that takes you to Toledo in no time at all. Toledo is a great day trip! That's the advice I give everyone who travels there.

Hello, all! According to my scale, I've dropped about six pounds in the past month. However, I just went to the nutritionist yesterday afternoon and her scale only says I have lost one pound. My original appointment with her was in the morning, and this appointment was in the afternoon, but could that account for the wide difference? I'm doing everything right with my eating, except for one or two meals I couldn't calculate so I didn't record. (One was Ethiopian food. The other way Uyghur food.) However, the thought of eating well and only losing one pound made me very upset with myself, and so I started bingeing a little last night and also ate two snack cakes on my way into work this morning. I know this is bad, especially as it demonstrates that disappointments trigger bad eating patterns. Curious to know what everyone thinks about this.

Can anyone recommend YouTube videos for entry-level strength training. After meeting with the fitness expert for my evaluations, I bought 10-pound and 20-pound dumbbells. I just have no idea what to do with them. And there's so much information on YouTube -- it's hard to figure out what's good and what's not.

I'd like to get everyone's thoughts about the best apps for recording food and water intake. I'm currently using the free version of MyFitnessPal, which works perfectly with the Apple Health app on my iPhone. The reason I like using the Apple Health app is that it pulls in a lot of data from a lot of sources — it collects all of the nutrition information MyFitnessPal, all of my weight recordings from my Withings scale, and all of my activity data from my phone and watch. I've heard about Bariastic, which seems to have a lot of great post-surgery tools, but I don't know if it works seamlessly with Apple Health. Also, I don't know if the additional features make it worthwhile to switch over. What app (or apps) do you use, and what do you like most about them? What are your recommendations?

Question for people who have gone through the surgery: How soon afterwards were you able to get a sleep study done and (hopefully) get off the CPAP machine?

If you use two apps, what do you use them each for? I am thinking that since MyFitnessPal doesn't have a very sophisticated water tracking app, I might use Bariastic for that.