ShoppGirl

When I was starting out and had alot of lumps and bumps to hide I really liked the Baleaf brand on Amazon. Since I have lost a little more I have gone with the gym People brand also on Amazon that are a little cheaper and have more color options but the material is not quite as nice as the Baleaf. They both are much better fabric than the ones you get like 4 or more in a pack in my opinion and they both have the pockets for your cell phone which I can’t live without now but of course in terms of fit that will vary from person to person. The good thing about Amazon is that you can easily return if you don’t like them but the Baleaf ones unless they are just too long or short or something I don’t think you will want to return. They are real soft and I had two pair in each size as I lost Navy And Black So they were washed every two days and the color never faded and they didn’t get the pills between the thighs. . Of course it was only a couple of months but that’s still like 30 washes and they still looked new. I suggested a clothing swap at my irl bariatric support group and I saved them because I know someone will be thrilled to get them as they are losing.

Well everyone’s loss is different. I looked back at my logs and I only lost 20 pounds I that first months and I had a more aggressive surgery and I was exercising (not sure if you are). Also, some people do have a stall early out so try to trust the process and stick with it. I mean when before have you lost four pounds a week pre surgery? The surgery is obviously working just maybe not as quick as you would like. Your a relatively low BMI so your not likely to lose as fast as someone who started with a higher one. About the scale, Do you have a followup appt at one month with your surgeon. I bet the scale recalibrated or it could just be that you sat it back In a little Different spot. I know I have wood laminate floors and they must be just the tiniest bit off level because when I move my scale around it weighs a bit different. When you go to your surgeon and he or she tells you what your weight is and your kiss by their scale you can figure how many pounds your scale is off from theirs and go from there. Honestly it Doesn’t usually really matter if it was accurate before or now so long as you are measuring with the same scale because accurate or not it will still reflect your lost. But if it is that far off from what it was before I can see how it would be confusing. Maybe even if you don’t have an appt you can ask to go in and just weigh yourself using the dr scale. I cant imagine why that would be a big deal. That way you can sorta estimate how many pounds your scale is off from theirs.

I am by no means a fitness expert but I think so long as it is a pretty intense workout for you now it’s still giving you the same benefits as what you had worked up to before In terms of cardio. I assume your heart rate is just as high as it was before when you were doing more 🤷‍♀️. Regardless, you will be back to your pre surgery activity soon enough. The fact that you started back is what’s most important in my opinion. You’re still in the habit of doing it. That’s the most important thing. Although I totally get it. I am immunocompromised because of chemo and a simple cold landed me septic and neutropenic in the hospital for 10 days and I’m home now but still recovering from pneumonia and a sinus infection with very low red blood cells and my white blood cells keep dropping every few days after I get the shot to bring them back uo. Anyways, I haven’t been able to do much either. I am back to walking very slowly like a quarter mile a few times a day But, I’m still trying and to me that’s how I know that I will get back to it just as soon as my body is able. I haven’t broken the habit and you haven’t either. I’m glad to hear you were finally cleared to get started.

For me it has been a life changer. I had the sleeve and lost weight but not as much as I had hoped and then I gained it right back plus some. Never did have the metabolic changes or the changes that made it a little easier to eat healthy so when I got done with my SADI revision I know right away that it was going to be different this time. I mean I still want pizza and burgers but I don’t hate chicken and fish now either so it makes it a little easier to make the healthy choice most of the time. I also exercise a lot and I think that has made all the difference in my commitment to my new lifestyle as well as My mood and overall health. Obviously I can’t say I know if it would have been better or worse with the Bypass but statistically as a revision the SADi does provide more loss and a more durable loss. Of course it is never so not as much long term research has been done and bypass is the tried and true gold standard but as a revision the loss is statistically less than as a virgin surgery. I think for me it was a perfect fit but you will want to keep in mind that you need to understand your surgery well enough to explain it or call your surgeon and ask them to when it is appropriate. Most of my doctors have never heard of it and when I was about to get an endoscopy/ colonoscopy done and the dr hadn’t heard of it I called my surgeon to see if that was okay and he called to explain my anatomy to them. Another thing to consider is whether you surgeon is resleeving your stomach. Mine did not. He said the difference in weight loss was not significant amount to take the risks that come with reducing the pouch. Something to do a bit of research on to decide if it’s worth it to you. If you have any specific questions about my experience let me know.

You will be able to eat more. As long as you stick to healthy options you will be fine. There isn’t a huge calorie difference between a half a cup of broccoli and even two cups of it. Now if it’s rice or pasta you’re gonna be eating more. Stick to eating extra veggies with your meal or a dry salad (if you like them) before your meal to fill your belly. Also, we don’t have to eat until we are stuffed. We can instead just eat until we are satisfied. Like if you stopped now, would you be full until your next meal or snack? If not you need a low calorie filler.

Well there is never a 100% guarantee because we are all different but I would say that your response so far makes it very likely that you will be a success story based on my personal experience and the knowledge that I have of others experience who have lost and kept it off vs those who have regained a significant amount. I had my sleeve surgery 3/9/2021 so I have been on these boards since then and I have been going to in person support groups since a couple of months prior to my revision and my personal experience and learned experience is that one of two four things happen to cause regain. 1: the person never really does change what they eat. This is a problem when the anatomical changes control portion of less nutritious foods for a while so they lose some but then as the stomach stretches they can eat more and they regain or they are able to have just a taste of things in the beginning but when appetite comes back that changes (note that some people can have just one bite of a brownie forever but that didn’t work for me so we just have to be mindful of how our body reacts and stop doing it if we can’t stop ourselves at a small portion). 2: the surgery was never a good fit. I know that this was part of problem with the sleeve for me because I never did feel ANY metabolic changes. I still absolutely hated healthy foods that I didn’t like before and I did not have any additional energy or motivation after the surgery. Basically I think for me the surgery was probably like Wegovy would be. The hunger hormones went away for a while and I was able to eat less until that came back. But nothing else changed for me. I never felt a change in energy and I was never about to get start r with exercise and healthy food options did not appeal to me in the slightest. I ate alot of chicken breast and a few veggies that I don’t mind in the beginning but there was no variety so like most diets I couldn’t sustain it when the hunger came back and I wasn’t moving my body to help my physical and mental health to keep it going. 3: This would be a combo of the two which would be where i would actually say that I fell with my sleeve. Because I didn’t like enough of the healthy food even a little bit I started having less ideal foods far more often. I mean i wasn’t eating McDonald’s ever and I wasn’t having poor choices all the time but I would have like a quarter of a frozen pizza or a lean cheeseburger with a roll several nights a week thinking it was okay because calorie wise it wasn’t much worse if that was all ate. The problem was the other macros and the fact that for me they were slippery slope foods and they made me crave more. I wasn’t gaining on that but carbs make me crave carbs so that little devil voice took over and I tested the waters a bit more by having just a few fries or a bit of cake with that but it was way too often and far too early out for me to know my limits. Then, to make matters worse, my mental health issues kicked in where I had not only stopped losing but gained 20 pounds and when I couldn’t reverse it even when I tried my hardest to rein it in (because I was now craving the carbs again bad) i just considered that I was a complete failure and they didn’t say it but i could see it that my friends and family felt that way too and I just slowly just quit trying. This is when the support of people who get it would’ve been sooooooooooo very important. Never been obese people are never going to be able to get it or be able to help. Reach out to your bariatric support if you struggle. Even if your disgusted. They get it and never judge. 4: Some people even though the surgery is a success and they make all the lifestyle changes and everything is working lose sight of their lifelong goal for one reason or another and let bad habits slowly slip back in and they gain. I think this is probate going to be the hardest one for me. To not take my eye off the prize 5 years down the road. But we can do it. I think that staying active in these support groups and checking in with my team is going to be key for me. I am going to ask to have my follow ups a couple times a year even when I’m a ways out just to keep me in check. I know that I am able to gain a lot of weight in a year!! I never did the In person support groups at all after my sleeve and I stopped posting here for a while and didn’t go to my follow up appointments when things were out of control and I needed the help the most. Basically for me the sleeve was just one of my longer and more successful diets that started with the curved appetite and a lot of hope that it would work this time but slowly ended when the hunger came back, bad habits slipped back in, the cravings got unbearable and my all or nothing thinking finally got the best of me. I think I probably would have leveled out somewhere between my starting and my low weight if I had not given up but since I started at a relatively low BMI to begin with that did not seem like a success to me at the time. 89 pounds later I only wished I had been back to that weight though. I learned a lot from the sleeve experience though and I think that knowledge is helping me now. Hopefully, it helps others too. I try to let my experience be a cautionary tale without scaring anyone too much. Anyways, based on your nutrition changes, steady loss and your activity I do not think you are like me with the sleeve or others who I’ve seen who never even tried to eat differently or exercise so I don’t think your surgery was a bad fit at all or that your just expecting the surgery to do all the work. I think that your surgery is doing what it was designed to do for you and so as long as you keep doing your part you should get your where your body needs to be. Just don’t get caught up in a certain number and let your brain get the best of you like I did. That last 10 or 15 pounds may feel like a lot but your already so much healthier and happier that you were before. Keep striving for that goal but don’t let it be the only thing that matters. To me it will be icing on the cake to what is already a success story Your body will have its own idea of what is an ideal size for you and you may have to just accept that it may not be exactly what you have in mind (it could be lower but it could also be a bit higher. It may be a sorry to accept where your body is happy and healthy if you don’t want to be really working hard at this forever. Honestly, I imagine we will have to work at it for the rest of our lives to some degree. By that I mean that we will probably never have it as easy as someone who has never been obese. You are doing so incredibly well, though, making actual lifestyle changes and I have listened to anyone who is willing to share whether they were successful or not and that seems to be the biggest piece of advice. This is not a diet it is a lifestyle. Your surgery is working for you and you are working hard for you as well. Those two things are key to this journey long term. Just keep it up and I really believe you will reach all of your goals. ❤️

You need to schedule and appointment with your surgeon (or his or her NP or PA) if you really are weighing and measuring every little Thing and only getting 800 calories you shouldn’t be gaining but something is getting missed. It could Be medical or you may be missing something in your count. Either way it sounds like this dietician had already made her mind up that there is only one possibility and she probably isn’t going to be the one to help you get to the bottom of things. Make an appointment with your team and start taking pics of all of your food so you can show them exactly what you’re eating everyday. Make an album with all the food pics and hand them your phone so they can scroll through and see for themselves. When I regained after my sleeve. I was embarrassed to go back to team and thought they were going to be so hard on me and when I went back, I realized I couldn’t have been further from the truth. They were so open and compassionate and understanding and all they wanted to do was help. Obesity is complex and they realize it. They go in this field for a reason. They may not get to the bottom of it in one visit. It may even take a few, but trust me it’s worth.It. Don’t give up.

Congratulations on your loss. I was a savory girl Lee bariatric world and post sleeve I became a sweet girl too. Then post SAFI that went away but has started to come back. I think MAYBE it’s just our bodies wanting carbs and sweet food is usually the absolute highest in carbs so the quickest way to get them. I did not have the bypass but I don’t think your friend is correct about eating whatever you want. I know that was for sure not true for the me with the sleeve. I started at 235, lost down to 168 then gained it all back plus some to 258 and was still gaining when I started the preop diet for my revision. I have also heard plenty of regain stories on here about the bypass. Now, does it malabsorb some of your food, absolutely. So if you were like 900 pounds before it’s possible you would stay a bit smaller just because you pretty much already ate all you wanted volume and calories wise before and the malabsorption would in theory make you weight a bit less if you ate the same exact food, but it would only be a bit less anyways and who of us wants that. . As far as a more common starting weight I really don’t think so because even at our high weights we still weren’t eating absolutely all we would have liked to or we could have and if we ate any and everything we wanted, even with some calories not absorbing that’s still probably giving our bodies more than we were eating before. I do know from experience that what fuel I put into my body changed how I feel, though, so even if I could get away with eating anything I wanted cosmetically, I know that I wouldn’t feel as good as I do when I eat a balanced diet and keep up my activity. That processed junk that most of us used to eat all the time is not good for us and it doesn’t give your bodies what it needs to run efficiently. Another thing to keep in mind is that we are still pretty early out to be relaxing too much. Most people have a 10–15 pound bounce back even if they keep working at it. I don’t know about you but I’ve still got more that I want to lost. I definitely don’t want to be bouncing back!! for the sweet cravings try the sugar free popsicles again. They can trick my brain sometimes and others i Have fruit. I figure calorie wise they may be more calories but at least it’s not added sugar. I try to avoid that as much as possible because that makes me have more cravings the next day and for like a week.

What about asking your employer? if you were willing to sign something saying you would stay there for a certain amount of time and make less money to make up for it would they be willing to pay for your certification? Enjoy your hike and true crime. I’ve heard a lot of people talk about that show.

Wow that was alot of typos. I woke up and I thought I was wide awake but apparently not. lol. I was trying to say that my husband joked about me being all peppy and positive when I got into my groove with exercising because I was feeling so good but now I’m still the same way it’s just that he’s used to it. It’s really how I was when he met me and before I got overweight and out of shape and wasn’t moving my body it’s just that it had been so long overtime. I guess I got cranky and he got used to it. 😂 My thought was what if you could do something for like an hour at night instead of dedicated exercise something that would make you a little bit of money like dog walking or going around the neighborhood and dragging people’s trash cans in or something like that. Even washing cars or mowing laws if you can handle that physically (I know I couldn’t handle the heat but they are just random ideas). You may be able to think of something that would work for you. I mean, it wouldn’t be a ton of money for a few hours, but it would be moving your body and making a little extra at the same time to put towards your goal. My friend is a single mom and she cleans offices at night for extra cash and says that’s actually a pretty good workout because she gets paid by the job so she moves her butt to get it done. 🤷‍♀️

Good. Glad to hear that you are starting to get moving. That should really help. My husband jumped about me being Miss rainbows and sunshine when I first started to exercise daily. I think I am still more positive but it’s just that now he is used to it and before he was used to miss ba hum big. The movement really should help lift your mood and give you time to reflect and maybe come up with some ideas of how to reach your goal. Perhaps something that requires a lot of activity but also makes some extra money that you can do just an hour or two a night or on the weekends. It may take a while but you could get your exercise and o ur name money away towards your next step for your career.

That definitely sounds like depression to me. If it’s not impacting your daily living significantly (I mean it’s not the end of the world if you have a bad hair day but if your not doing other basic hygiene for days then that could become a medical issue). If you are safe and not suicidal or anything you could try to just ride it out giving yourself permission to just give into it for a few days or a week if that’s what it takes to get through it. In Dialectical Behavioral Therapy they call it “riding the wave” and I spent a lot of time and money in an intense outpatient therapy program to learn that the technique is as simple as it sounds and it truly does work for me sometimes. If giving yourself permission to feel all of your feelings and do as little or as much as you gotta do (anything not harmful to yourself or anyone else of course) doesn’t work then you may need to seek professional help. Talk therapy can be quite helpful but a prescribing physician may also give you something temporary to help you feel up to taking better care of yourself if that’s what is necessary. Before my bipolar manifested and I was put on permanent meds, I had situational depression when I lost my grandfather and they put me on a low dose antidepressant for a short time because I didn’t cope very well. Just try to remember that depression is temporary and that you will feel more like yourself again even if you need to reach out for help getting there. ❤️

This coming Friday is my 6 month “surgiversary” and I’m 174 today (down 84 pounds from 258 pre-pre op diet so technically 6.5 months next week I guess). I totally thrilled with my loss so far. I feel good and I’m relatively happy with the way I look, but the anniversary is making me look at the numbers. Does anyone know when they calculate BMI if we should go by our young adult BMI or our current one. I mean our bones still weigh the same as our tallest height I would assume but I have shrunk at least an inch. I am just curious to know when I will reach a “normal” BMI. I went from 40.4 to 27.3. I’m getting close 🎉

Loving all of these NSV. We covered this topic at my in person support group the other night and I mentioned how many amazing ones I have heard on this thread and that I think it’s a great place for people that are nervous about surgery to hear about the pros of the surgery and I noticed one lady wrote down the site that is pre surgery. It’s one thing to say I lost 30 pounds or even 150 or more but to talk about that real life changes is so much more powerful. These surgeries are so life changing.

Good for you for trying so many new things. It’s amazing to see you taking this opportunity for change and running with it. That hasn’t happened to me yet but, it does release a lot of pent up emotions so I’m not at all surprised. I bet you just needed a good cry.. I hope it made you feel good afterwards. I can’t tell you haw much I love my yoga. I’m dealing with so many doctors appointments right now and I get so bummed when the only time they can get me In interferes with my yoga mornings 😂 At firsr I would say I will have to miss my yoga thinking it’s a doctors office and Yoga is good for me so they would get it, but the front desk girls had such little empathy for that so now I just say I have another appointment to try to avoid that time. I’m so glad to hear you will go again. I am still not super flexible either but I am getting a little more than I was. Honestly that’s all that matters. Yoga has been so amazing for me. It is Like a mini vacation from all the stress in the world. I hope you love it as much as I do. I think it’s good for our mental health as well as our physical health and where else can you get all of that in such as short time.

Great ideas above but if that doesn’t work for you or for others reading this later, What if you were to just divide your alloyed macros or calories into meals/snacks. Like if you were allowed 1200 a day you do meals around 300 calories and 3 100 calorie snacks. For macros just don’t routinely eat any food over X grams of fat or added sugar. You can break it up differently. I did a protein shake for breakfast so I could have what felt like a little more substantial lunch and dinner. It should’ve be as hard forever. Once you figure out a handful meals that are within this plan you most likely will just sorta remember what meals work. I know I did and I live my life by alarms and reminders. Sometimes I joke that if my alarm didn’t tell me to wake up one day I just may not…ever. That’s how reliant I am on them. Anyways, I have a handful of my common meals that I know will work if I don’t have time to think about things. And if I’m having a less ideal lunch then I already know it’s chicken breast of fish for dinner with a veggie. Every meal for me has protein unless it’s a real odd day out and then I do my best to make up for it with a Greek yogurt or shake for snack. Another option would be to do the guess work the night before and pre plan what you eat the next day. You can play around with options and log it all into Baritastic or another calorie tracker app and know if it fits you plan and then just eat what’s on your list the next day. That may actually take a little stress out of it as well just having the decisions already made the day before. The meal prep mentioned before seems like a great way to achieve this as well. I know that I have single serve meals like that in the freezer. My regular and chicken chili are really great because they can even be defrosted in the microwave so they are good for days with zero planning or time.

I agree with the previous poster also keep in mind that it may be an option to just get IV fluids outpatient. I didn’t need them after my safety because they didn’t operate on my stomach. I was a revision but after my sleeve I did and it was just like an office co-pay basically for me to get my fluids. It was that in the hospital, but in the different part of the hospital and you just sit in a recliner and get your bag of fluid and then leave.

Glad to hear warm water worked. Popsicles were a good way to get in some fluids as well. I’m not really sure how you log it, maybe melt one to see how many ounces of liquid it is 🤷‍♀️ I’ve also known two people who never even had bariatric surgery that say cold water hurts their stomach and they drink it room temp. I guess it really does make a difference for some peoples stomachs. I also really like Fiji water. It is certainly not cheap since it’s just water but it really does taste better. It’s also supposedly has more natural electrolytes in it than other leading brands. It could just be that the bottle is really pretty too but it makes me drink more. 😂

That’s awesome. When I got my implants done years ago I was young and invincible and they never even told me that I should be concerned about a leak. Now I’m hearing from the breast surgeon and cosmetic doctor that I will need to get routine MRI’s. Maybe there are more forthcoming with that information because I pretty much have no choice but to get the cancer out and most women are going to do reconstruction afterwards as opposed to “going flat” whereas the doctors may lose money if they scare you out of a purely cosmetic procedure. I’m not trying to scare you. I just wanted to be sure they made you aware that most silicone implants do require replacement after a certain number of years and some require routine scans to check for leaks. That lady in my craft group said hers were in there for almost 35 years and she is pretty sure they have been slowly leaking for a while causing her issues. She said she had no idea. Her doctor didn’t tell her either that she needed to scan for leaks. 🤷‍♀️

Is that the roller thing? If so I don’t like it but many women in my class say it’s amazing.

I hope you are home from hospital and recovering well. Keep posting here if you have questions. This site is a great source of support and people willing to share their experience

I totally get that a five pound gain messes with your head. My weight fluctuates by like 10 pounds through out each cycle with the chemo. I shoots up almost immediately on treatment day and then goes up and down until it gets mostly out of my system. Since I am still in the honeymoon period from my surgery and don’t really even want to eat apart from cravings it is sooooo hard to not just starve myself when I see the numbers go up. I know it’s not the exact same as your situation but I imagine the mental shock of the number is very similar. Hang in there. You should be able to get back to the majority of your routine soon and be back to your old self before you know it. I will probably be on here asking what worked for you this summer and fall because Im having a bilateral mastectomy with expanders in early May and then a reconstruction with implants planned after radiation. Although I’m trying to get in for a consult with that Dr to find out about that fat transfer option. Im not sure if its new or not but the surgeon I met with did not offer that option. Did your surgeon tell you to get routine MRI’s to monitor for leaks. (You said you got silicone, right?). I’m sure your surgeon went over the risks with implants in general but there is something I just learned about the other day from a lady at my craft group called Breast Implant Illness that’s worth looking into. It’s not a formal medical diagnosis but it’s a collection of issues that people commonly have after implants that often go away immediately once they are removed. There is the surgeon in Florida that she is going to that people go to from all around the world just to have their implants removed and he can do this procedure if you want them replaced where they transfer a fat from another area of your body. I am trying to get into him to see if it’s possible for me to have that instead of an implant for my reconstruction. They are very selective with who they give appointments to, though. I guess his surgeries are booked like a year out Anyways, not to scare you but there are also lots of more researched issues that a silicone leak can cause as well to include a very rare type of cancer even. I am not sure how much your surgeon went over all of that with you but to me it’s definitely worth being aware of and monitoring routinely. Your surgeon should be able to tell you how often to scan and what to watch for just to be safe. Best of luck with your recovery and I can’t wait to hear about your being all healed up and getting to finally take them girls out on the town. 😂

You know, @AmberFL, part of your gain could just be inflammation from your surgery. Has your weight gone down any?? I would say that the implants are probably only like a pound or two themselves, but mostly I bet it’s inflammation. Not sure why I didn’t think of that before.

I wasn’t sure whether to laugh or say congrats but I guess I’ll do both. Sounds like you’re doing great. Keep it up.

I’m certainly not trying to be argumentative either. The reason that I went out of my way to state that it was from AI to begin with is so that the OP would be aware of that fact and take it as they may. Then I added that I was able to see the original articles and they could too if they did the research themselves and I suggested that they ask their doctor if it applies to them specifically. Also if you’re speaking specifically about the part that was talking about their rule of thumb for number of calories per pound, that was not from AI at all. That was from hss.edu and I referenced that above so that one can find and read the article for themselves and determine if it is applicable. It was all intended as food for thought and something to look into. Not medical advice as I am not a doctor Personally, if I have a question I gather data from a lot of sources to include chats and AI summaries as well as medical journal articles or friends and then I ask a professional to decipher the medical jargon, tell me what out of the chat and less reputable sites or word of mouth is true and what applies to my specific situation. In my opinion though, what it boils down to is that our metabolism while recovering from surgery or something else is going to be different than the same person when they were feeling fine just trying to lose weight and we should at least be aware of that and ask the right people the right questions if we care about weight, muscle loss, recovery time etc. I can only ever speak accurately about my personal opinion or experience and that experience is that the oncology dietitians’ advice worked for me and it was basically if you’re craving a cookie then no, don’t have it but if you’re craving fruit or vegetables or something otherwise nutritious then your body probably needs them and you should listen to that when your recovering from something. Basically don’t just be counting calories and starving yourself during recovery, nourish your healing body. Of course my situation is different so that’s why you should always consult with your doctor.