Mattymatt

I read that Gastric Bypass patients lose an average of 75% of their excess body weight. At the time of surgery, I weighed 346 and my ideal body weight by BMI is approximately 190 pounds. So, that means I am carrying an excess weight of 156 pounds. 75% of 156 pounds is 117 pounds. So that means if I lost 75% of my excess weight, I would be a relatively svelt 229 pounds. Crunching the numbers is interesting. 229 seems like an impossibly long way off but I'm only going to take it day by day.

Guys, have you noticed your beards growing a lot slower post-op? I used to get the 5 o'clock shadow very quickly. Now I can almost go a day without shaving. I heard of people losing head hair but that isn't a problem for me because I've been bald since I was 25. I am just amused that my goatee grows back really slowly now, same with the rest of my face.

I got the results of a repeat sleep study today and I no longer have sleep apnea. The sleep doctor said that my average apneas per hour was 2.3 which is well below the threshold for obstructive sleep apnea. This is the third benefit that I've realized post-op. The first two were off of blood sugar control and blood pressure medicines. Tonight, I am going to try to sleep without the CPAP machine. The sleep doctor actually told me that continuing to use the machine may actually cause problems at this point. I shall see how I feel tomorrow morning!

6 months is considered the time frame to being fully healed from surgery! You should be just fine.

Sweet! You'll be on the loser's bench in no time!

I guess in some ways I am extremely fortunate because the surgery changed my digestive and metabolic system in very drastic and noticeable ways. I physically am unable to tolerate the foods that I used to be able to eat huge amounts of. Most of my pre-surgery foods make me incredibly sick. Fried chicken and pizza aren't soft enough and no matter how much I chew or take small bites, I cannot eat them. I end up throwing them up. I even have difficulty with steak. I have to cut it into very tiny pieces and chew the flavor out of it. I don't really like steak anymore - I prefer chicken and turkey. I used to love Tortilla Chips (especially the Sweet Chili variety) but they physically hurt my stomach now. I cannot even do wraps. Wraps are so fiberous that my stomach just cannot process them.

Hi Meg! Congrats on being two weeks post-op. If it helps any, I was the same way. I can promise you that it does get easier. You're in a kind of mourning phase; mourning the loss of being able to eat as a form of medicine. Ultimately, you will find your relationship to food changes for the better. I now really like eating to live versus living to eat. I like how food no longer makes me feel better - it forces me to deal with the realities of life on life's terms. This is ultimately healthier for the psyche. It used to be that eating would make me feel elated or relaxed. Now it's just eating. I've had to find other things to do to fill my time because so much of my days used to be spent around food. Since I have had so much free time (and being out of work due to a long, hard recovery), I picked up a new hobby. I've always wanted to do Amateur Radio so I took the time, studied, and passed all three tests at once. There are three levels of Amateur (Ham) Radio: Technician, General, and Extra. I did a marathon study and became an Extra. I started blogging again because I love to write. Now, I will be able to go back to work full time next week. It's amazing how much of my life was wasted due to food and sometimes it saddens me because time is something you cannot recapture. But, you can always start anew, here and now.

Stalls are very frustrating. Just be patient and work through it. The stall will eventually break!

Gastric bypass is irreversible. But it works like gangbusters. I am down 72 pounds and losing.

And in no time, you will be back to your active self! Just remember to be patient and gentle on yourself! :-)

I decided not to do before photos this time. I did them on the previous two weight loss attempts. I want nothing to remind me of where I was. My past belongs in the past and I don't ever want to look at pictures of myself at 366 pounds again. I like living in the present and love watching my clothes get steadily too big for me. This is more rewarding than a photo ever will be. I am going to keep one pair of jeans from my heaviest so that when I feel down about life I can out them on and realize that I am a success.

This is my uneducated opinion but I really think a goodly number of us got to where we were because we had an unhealthy relationship to food, i.e. an addiction. Speaking for myself, I definitely had an an unhealthy relationship to food. Being super strict about eating is as bad as overeating as it's swinging the pendulum in the opposite direction. We have lived our lives between two extremes: extreme dieting and extreme overeating. @Creekimp13 is quite correct about learning to live a life in balance.

Start tracking your intake again and maybe make an appointment with your dietitian so you can do some "troubleshooting."

The three week stall is very common. I'll bet you're losing inches though

Watered down apple juice may still be too much for you. How about sticking to simple water at room temperature. I am just over 4 months post-op and I still prefer water at room temperature. Sometimes really cold liquids bother me. Also remember to slowly sip. Drinking too fast, even for me now, will cause discomfort.

This is going to sound strange but are you drinking enough water? I had some pre-surgery edema in my ankles which subsided when I upped my fluid intake. My doctor said that due to my excess weight, I needed to drink more water. She said sometimes not drinking enough can cause overweight bodies to hold on to water. Perhaps you want to have a discussion with your doctor?

I use OptiSource Post-Bariatric Surgery cheweables. They taste great and are generally gentle on the stomach. Take 4 per day.

You should not experience dumping on full liquids. Dumping is caused by eating sugary foods. You could get it if you drink full sugar gatorade, lemonade, etc.

I had no problems with drinking either. The problems I had all came when I started eating again. My first 3.5 weeks post-op were smooth as silk. Then the next 4 were abject misery. But even with that, I am so glad I did this!

In an ideal world, a person's weight should not matter in a relationship as we should really love someone for the entirety of the person. However, in the United States at least, physical attraction plays too large a role. I am now at the weight I was at when I graduated high school back in 1997 so clearly weight has been a lifelong struggle of mine yet I refused to see beauty in overweight women. I spent so much of my life in the shallow end of life's swimming pool that it wasn't until I began addressing my weight from a serious and sober perspective, i.e. this weight loss surgery journey, that I found myself looking honestly past physical imperfections. Something in me clicked and I realized physical beauty can be found in anyone! Where I am working, there is a beautiful dispatcher. She's overweight but has a beautiful face and striking eyes. Man, the old me would have totally missed this and I would've missed a very nice person. She's too young for me as she's only 22, but by all accounts, she's very beautiful. I kind of wish I was a younger man (with my present accumulated wisdom) because she would be in trouble

Most likely they will once you lose about 70+ pounds.

Losing inches is almost better than weight ... at least I think so.