lizonaplane

I have heard that the restriction doesn't kick in right away, but call your surgery center and ask if it's normal, and double check what you should be eating at this stage. Make sure it's not "head hunger" too!

My doctor also said I could expect to lose only about 70lbs with surgery. Since I started off at 280, that would put me at 210!! I've already lost 27 and my surgery won't be for a few months yet due to insurance hoops. I'm still working on losing weight because 1) I want to practice the healthy habits I will need after surgery, 2) any weight I lose now is weight I don't have to lose after surgery, and 3) surgery is easier on your body (and easier for the surgeon) when you weigh less. I'm hoping to lose more than the "average". I just recently had a huge success: I went on vacation with my parents and we ate out 3 meals a day and I didn't gain any weight. I shared meals with my mom at many meals and we exercised A LOT - hiking, walking, and swimming most days. Usually when I go on vacation I would gain 5-10 pounds in a week! It was really hard but totally worth it. And of course, the day after I got home, my cousin had a pizza party, but even though I was exhausted, I had only one piece of pizza and filled up on salad and veggies (I did have a bit of dessert; I'm not perfect!). If I was throwing "food funerals," like some people, I could be gaining weight which would put me farther from goal...

I won't have a liquid diet, just a low fat, low carb diet, but even so, it will shrink the liver. I would agree with everyone who says to follow the advice of your surgery center. The liver is pretty good at healing itself unless there is cirrhosis (scaring) and I don't think a glass of wine every night plus a bad diet would do that unless you've been having a really bad diet for like 30-50 years and then I think they might want to get an MRI of your liver, if it was a possibility. Given that your BMI is only 35, it doesn't sound likely. My BMI was 50 when I started and they didn't think I needed imaging (but I'm only 41).

I'm pre-surgery, but I will say that you've only given it one test. When my brother was little, we thought he might be allergic to dairy, so we did a few dairy free trials, and the first two or three times we reintroduced dairy he got sick - turns out it was just a coincidence (good thing; he's a cheese fiend!). I would wait a week or two and try again. When you are near a toilet... Also, it could just be sensitive right now and you'll be fine once you're fully healed. I hope so, because I don't want to have to give up hot stuff after my surgery!

I would ask the doctor what it means. Don't try to figure it out through google. I work in oncology research and I look at medical charts all day and the only thing I won't try to interpret is imaging (MRI/CT/ECHO/etc). I leave that for the MDs. If your doctor doesn't think it's worth bringing up with you then almost certainly it's not clinically significant (meaning it's nothing to worry about). This happens all the time - patients have "abnormal" findings in an organ that are perfectly harmless and just part of normal variations of the body. But don't be afraid to ask your doctor; that's why they get paid the big bucks!

When I met with the nutritionist we went through the weight loss attempts I had made before - I had done weight watchers twice, lost a lot of weight through diet and exercise on my own, done intermittent fasting. Nothing had been medically supervised, except for taking a doctor prescribed weight loss medication (I lost weight with everything except the pills), but it all apparently counted. I have BC/BS but each state and each plan is slightly different. I still have to do their 4 months of group nutrition classes, and I've done two months of those. I think it's good that you've done the documentation. You might also consider signing up for Weight Watchers, because they seemed to love that I had done that, even thought I lost more weight on my own. But that might just have been my surgery center.

I don't know if this is normal, but it doesn't surprise me. You are getting probably fewer calories than you're used to. Many people talk about feeling really terrible with headaches and other symptoms when they start the liver shrink diet due to "keto flu." I know when I first started eating only 1200-1400 calories in preparation for surgery I started being cold and tired all the time, but that is pretty normal for me when I'm eating less. Also, I wanted to go to bed early because I didn't want to eat any more. I don't have trouble getting up in the morning because I'm a morning person, but that's just me. I would give it a few days and see if it gets better, then maybe call your surgery center to see if they have any recommendations. The good news is that most people say they have loads more energy a few months after surgery (once their body recovers!) than they did before surgery.

I found Dr. Vuong very abrasive and unpleasant. I like Erin Branscom's videos on you tube (My Level 10 Life). I don't agree with everything she says, but I like her style for the most part. She also has a private Facebook group I've found very supportive. She focuses a little more on VSG than RNY, but most of it applies to both. I agree with Matthew Weiner.

Thanks for sharing your story. I hope my surgery will go as smoothly!

OMG! I went to Walgreens where I'm on vacation and I picked up 3 boxes of strawberry and one of cherry and they are amazing!!! Yeah I live near Boston and there's a Family Dollar a few towns over but it's hard to park there. I can go to Dollar General when I visit my friend in NC next month. There's a Walmart about a half hour away from where I live but I don't usually make the trek out there. The Walgreens is about 10 minutes away. I don't usually go there since there are 2 CVSs in walking distance, but it's worth it since these are sooo good. I told my friend about them and she was intrigued too!

I don't have a dollar general or a walmart near me, but there's a walgreens pretty close. I'm on vacation right now so I'll see if I can find one here! Thanks!

That looks amazing! I have never seen it. I will have to try a different store next time I go shopping. I love pink starburst

I think you should at least go to an urgent care center or your doctor, if not an ER. If you are curled in a ball in bed that doesn't sound good. I hope you feel better soon!

My surgery center said no patches or gummies. I guess they don't work as well? Ask your surgery center how they feel about them. I think most people tend to need to take more than one pill.

It could just be a stomach bug or the pizza just didn't agree with you, but you could call your surgery center to be sure. Maybe the sauce is too acidic for your new stomach.

I take meds that cause cravings for sweets and carbs and I find that the best thing is to avoid sweets completely, and then I crave them less. I had to increase the meds recently and I find this is the first time in my life I haven't be eating every sweet and carby thing in the house, because I've been just not starting on them. (I haven't had surgery yet so I know it's not that the surgery made me lose my taste for sweets/carbs.) I still eat fruit and artificial sugar drinks.

I weigh in every morning. I don't get upset if it's up a bit. I look at trends not outliers. If I see it up a few days or more, I think about what behaviors I need to think about changing. If it's down for a few days, I think about what's working for me. If I only weigh in once a week, a drop or a gain might just be a fluke and then you're already set in whatever behaviors could be problematic. Also, I travel a lot and so I try to weigh every day that I'm home or at my parents' house (our scales are within 0.1lbs of the same). I don't worry about the first weight when I get home from traveling because airplanes can cause different fluctuations. I am trying to eat well on the road, but it's early days.

Yes, feeling cold is common if you're not eating. I did intermittent fasting and that was the worst thing about it. I was always cold during fast days. And the headache is common too. You'll come through it! Drink some hot tea if you can, or broth. Maybe go for a brisk (short) walk to warm up.

I don't know the calories/carbs on the sugar free syrups but they're probably fine. I know people here talk about the Jordan's syrups, so it's probably similar. So many of those drinks have enough calories to be a meal! It's basically a milkshake lol.

I make a pot of coffee at home then put it in a carafe in the fridge to make iced coffee. Then I add fairlife skim protein milk and splenda. I don't like Starbucks because it's very bitter, but if you just get plain hot or iced coffee with milk and fake sure it's not too bad for you. You just don't want to add the syrups and the whipped cream and everything. They have the calorie counts available.

Yeah, even if you're a perfect candidate I think the only way to get surgery quickly is to go to Mexico. And even then, it's not TOMORROW. I wish my surgery process wasn't taking as long as it is; I am so frustrated right now! But every time I say this people who have had their surgery tell me it will fly by and then the efforts I'm putting in now to make the necessary brain changes are super important.

You can watch some great YouTube videos by Erin Branscom (My Level 10 Life) about the process. I liked them so much I joined her facebook group, and I never do stuff like that (I don't agree with everything she says). I have never heard of anyone coming home on oxygen. Mostly for sleeve gastrectomy or gastric bypass (the most common WLSurgeries) they are done with small incisions, and I can't imagine why you would need to come home on oxygen unless you required oxygen before surgery. At the consult the surgeon will probably take a medical/surgical history and talk to you about the various procedures. I haven't had surgery yet so I can't answer most of your questions.

I have bipolar disorder and some history of eating issues but only for brief periods of time (maybe 15 incidences of vomiting and a few months of restrictive eating). I can't think of anyone who hasn't yo-yo dieted: I have once lost 50 lbs and another time lost 100, but gained it back. I'm not sure what you mean by "hiding extra food from others". I have no history of addiction, but I know that can be a concern for WLS because cross addition especially alcoholism is a problem after WLS. For me, the weight center (also a major academic medical center) is requiring that my psychiatrist speak to their psychologist and clear me for surgery. Did you see the bariatric psychologist?

I am pretty happy with most aspects of my life, and my mental health is good most of the time, I just can't seem to lose weight and keep it off, which is definitely something that upsets me if I'm already depressed - like for about 10 years I only ever considered WLS when I was really depressed, because I was convinced it would kill me. It wasn't until during COVID, I had become sedentary and was in even worse shape that I realized the weight was making it impossible for me to do what I love, which was enjoy travel. Now I'm still a little scared of the surgery, but mostly I'm excited.

Don't worry about wasting food. We were all given horrible advice when we were told to "clean our plates because there were starving children in XXX country". It doesn't help starving children if we get fat. Better to throw out food or save it for another meal than ruin your new stomach, make yourself sick, when you worked so hard and probably spent a fair amount of money to have the surgery. You will have to learn to accept that you won't eat as much as other people: most people in our country eat far too much; and right now, you will be eating like a baby. Eventually, you will eat a healthy amount - still less than most people in this country eat. I've traveled a LOT and when I am in other countries I notice the portions are just so much smaller than here in the US. Don't feel embarrassed; feel proud of taking care of your health!