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As a licensed Christian minister, here would be my response to them. In Matthew 5:29-30, Jesus said "If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell." Jesus clearly endorsed the idea that you need self-control by almost any means necessary. He said that if your hand leads you to sin, be willing to cut it off. If your eye continually leads you to sin, be willing to gouge it out. So if your stomach leads you to the sin of gluttony, shouldn't you be equally willing to have it surgically altered to prevent such a sin?

The first three days are pretty awful. It gets easier after that. During those first three days, be constantly drinking anything that you are allowed to drink. And eat so many popsicles. You want to do everything you can to avoid feeling hungry.

If you have any protein powders on hand, consider mixing them into Greek yogurt. Also, Sams Club sells the Protein2o waters, which have 15g protein per bottle (taste is roughly similar to a Vitamin Water Zero).

I will put in a plug for buying a Ninja Creami machine. With that machine, you can turn a Protein shake into ice cream. It was a total game changer for me.

Are you looking for just protein or do you want all of the vitamins/minerals that typically come with most protein drinks? If you just want the protein, buy unflavored whey protein concentrate on Amazon (I buy the Bulk Supplements brand). I add it to my morning coffee -- tastes like a very weak skim milk. If you mix it with anything that has any kind of strong flavor, you won't notice the taste. If you want something unflavored that has the vitamins/minerals, buy Keto Chow Base Powder. It doesn't have the protein (mixing it with the Bulk Supplements whey would solve that problem), but it has a ton of necessary vitamins/minerals.

You are going to find that your restriction does not kick in equally on all foods. Saltines seem to go right through me and rarely restrict, but I feel it much more with veggies. This part of you learning how to live with your new stomach. You are going to have more "oh, this is how it will be" moments as you recover and progress. When you have foods that don't seem to have restrictions, you learn how to eat carefully. One thing to do is pair those foods with foods that do bring about restriction, like dipping a piece of chicken into a bit of hummus (to use your example). Or knowing that you are probably full after two chicken drumsticks. Or making sure you have a healthy "filling" side dish on nights when you eat chicken. This doesn't mean the surgery failed, just that you are learning and adjusting.

I have trouble with plain water. My go-to drinks, non-Protein edition: Vitamin Water Zeros. (My personal flavor ranking is: Gutsy, Shine, XXX, Squeezed, Power C, Look, Ice.... Ice is the only one I won't drink). I will mix a Lemonade flavored one with a Peach Iced Tea -flavored Crystal Light/Great Value packet to make an Arnold Palmer. I like that each flavor has a different vitamin/mineral profile, so drinking a variety of them helps me with any vitamin absorption issues. Nature's Twist Strawberry Lemonade sugar-free drink (find it at Sams) For Texas people, the H-E-B Multi-Fit waters are very good. After my daily walk, I drink a Propel water. Has a high sodium content, so it is a good way to replenish after sweating so much.

This may sound like a weird question, but which scale did you use to determine your starting weight? Here is what I mean: if the 251 mark is based on your home scale and your home scale is off by 15 pounds, doesn't that mean you started at 266 on the work scale?

I have gone from wearing 6xl shirts to 2xl/3xl. Every time I go to put on a shirt, I think to myself, "There is no way this is going to fit." So every morning is a pleasant surprise when it does. This is VERY common. If all I had to go on was the mirror (as opposed to people's comments or measurements or how my clothes fit), I would think I had only lost 20 pounds instead of 180 pounds.

I ate a lot of avocado. Tons of healthy fats, very easy to mash up.

I had a similar issue with some stewed beef about 6-8 weeks out from surgery. I could tell immediately that my body wanted nothing to do with it. I am sure that I could eat it now.

I had bypass and I've never had true dumping, the way other people describe it. A friend who had bypass said that it is basically like having all day diarrhea. The closest that I come to a slider food is saltines. I try to combat it by making sure that I always eat saltines with something (cheese, canned fish, etc) that will help fill me up. So if you do discover a slider food, try to pair with other foods. Yes. You slowly increase, be careful, do your best, learn and respond. My surgeon's PA, once I was fully healed, said, "You need to safely find your limits. Don't gorge, don't go crazy. But try different foods and see how your body responds."

Like other bypass patients, I went from watery stools post-surgery to constipation. One thing that helps prevent constipation is taking a daily high quality probiotic (look for something with at least 5 billion CFU and multiple probiotic strains). When I routinely take one, I don't get constipated. Then I ran out and went a few days without taking it and I was backed up like a Friday afternoon freeway after a car accident.

Yes, change it back to 180. You are generally happy at this weight and you fit into normal size clothing. If setting the goal weight at 180 will allow you to celebrate your success instead of feeling like a failure and help you stay at 179-180, then do it.

As soon as I could walk in the hospital, I did. It was baby steps while using my IV stand as a cane, but I did. And the nurses were very complimentary because they usually had to prod patients to do it. And I did my blood thinner injections. If you do what you outlined -- keep losing weight, walk as soon and as much as you can, take the blood thinning injections -- you will have given yourself a great chance to avoid any complications. And as a guy who knows what it feels like to be that big... post-surgery life is pretty amazing. I've never had this level of energy. It's great to go on a 3 mile walk and not have my knees throb and ache after. I've posted this before: weight loss surgery is a bet on yourself. It's a bet that you have more willpower and discipline than your physique currently reflects and that if you were truly given a second chance, you would succeed. Like any bet, it carries risks. But are you willing to take that bet.

I suspect that your surgeon was using some form of trying to scare you straight. But lets also be honest, those risk factors are the exact reasons you were approved for surgery! A successful weight loss surgery will see your BMI go down, and your sleep apnea and blood pressure would be reduced. It's a bit like telling someone, "I am about to do surgery on your heart to repair a defect, but the defect makes the surgery risky." Thanks, Dr. Sherlock. I would try to schedule a follow up visit and pin him down on the risks he foresees -- you understand that you have risk factors, but how would those risk factors play out in practice? Does he think you are going to bleed out on the table? Does he think you are going to have a stroke? Right now, your mind is imagining all of the terrible things that could happen -- make him get specific. And if he talks about something specific, like the risk of stroke, then ask him, "What can I do, both before and after the surgery, that would meaningfully reduce that risk?" If he was just trying to get you to see that the surgery isn't risk-free and won't be all rainbows and sunshine during the recovery, then feel free to realize that your doctor is an arrogant, but well-meaning, jerk, and not let him keep you from the surgery.

When I had the surgery, I was 41, 6'1", HW of 505, CW 490, surgery day weight of 460. I had sleep apnea, prehypertension and a BMI of ~60. I also had to take blood thinning injections post-surgery. I also had bypass surgery (which has a higher risk of complications). So you and I are/were in roughly the same ballpark. I came through the surgery fine. Definitely sore. But it drastically improved my life and I would make the same decision in a heartbeat. Heck, I was able to look down today and see my toes, instead of them being covered by stomach. I've gotten to experience stepping on a scale and having the first number be a 2. I am approaching the nine-month mark and I weigh 295 and wear 2xl/3xl shirts (I'm like a 2.5xl at this point, I was a solid 6xl pre-surgery). Do you have risk factors? Yeah. But here is what I noticed from that list: you don't have a major condition that will obviously cause complications (like some disease that makes it difficult for your blood to clot or something like that). Do you have a higher potential for complications than someone who only weighed 400 pounds? Yeah. But its a generalized risk, not a specific risk. My recommendation, if you are still interested in the surgery, is to determine right now that you are going to follow your surgeon's post-surgery advice to the letter. If you need 28 days of injections, decide right now that you will do all 28 days. Whatever meds or vitamins he tells you take, take them. Commit right now, "I am not going to disobey my surgeon in a way that increases my risks." You cannot eliminate the risks entirely and if I am being honest, those risks will come to mind when you are being wheeled around on the gurney. You have no guarantees about what the other side of the surgery will look like and feel like. And you will wake up from the surgery in pain. But if you decide that you will do everything you can control to minimize the risks, I think you will be happy with a decision to have the surgery.

...maybe skip the room service, unless it offers protein shakes

My only thought is that if your hormone issues are associated with obesity/PCOS, they will likely disappear as you lose weight. You don't want to have to wait until they fall to try to catch up. I would take the iron-based vitamins.

The magnesium citrate bottles that my surgeon gave me were lemon/lime flavored. But it is an odd mix of sweet/sour, like if the people who made Warheads tried making a Sprite flavor. Honestly, my gag reflex is starting to kick in just thinking about it. I tried really hard to be 100% obedient to my surgeon's instructions, but I couldn't finish the second bottle (I also knew that the first bottle had worked REALLY well).

I had to do two rounds of magnesium citrate, which tastes like Sprite brewed in hell. I didn't even finish the second bottle. I also couldn't have anything after midnight, even water. It was like 1 am, I had fluids evacuating through my anus, but couldn't replenish myself. I was absolutely miserable.

Oh man, the night before surgery was terrible for me. My surgeon had me taking so many laxatives that I was pooping food I hadn't even eaten yet. And I couldn't sleep because I was constantly on the john. I should have treated myself to high quality toilet paper.

I am about 8.5 months out past bypass surgery. At the beginning, you really can barely eat without feeling full. Five saltines would fill me up. I remember that once of my first trips out to eat after I was cleared to eat solid foods was to Cracker Barrel for breakfast with my wife. I ordered a small bowl of grits and two scrambled eggs and did not finish either one. As you heal, you begin to be able to handle more food. Right now, if I go out to eat, I'll find grilled chicken or fish on the menu and order it with veggie sides. I can usually finish the chicken/fish, unless the entree is huge. But I don't finish the sides. The restriction hasn't gone away by any means, but I could never eat the same amount of food in one sitting that I did pre-surgery. For the first six months after surgery, I don't think I felt hunger, which was a nice change of pace. At this point, I occasionally feel hunger, but it doesn't feel nearly as strong as it did pre-surgery. To give an example... I drink protein shakes as my lunch/snack at work (drink one on the way to work, one for lunch, one on my way home from work). One day about a month ago, I forgot my shakes at home and had only water/tea to drink at work all day. Pre-surgery, I would have either ordered a massive lunch off DoorDash or hit a drive-thru hard on the way home. I probably would have had a massive headache too. On that day, I drank my water/tea, felt fine all day, drove home and had some tuna fish and saltines when I got home. It really is life-changing.

This, this, this. I needed the cane for about a week, mostly for going from sitting to standing. It's really nice to have something sturdy to push off of. Go to Walgreens and get an extra sturdy cane. I also needed to sleep in the recliner for about 3 months after surgery. I am a stomach sleeper, so it wasn't until I was completely healed that sleeping felt comfortable. A comfortable recliner was a necessity. For most other things, play it by ear. You don't want to stock up too much on foods because a lot of people experience a change in their taste buds after surgery, so you don't want to have a fridge full of protein shakes that you hate.

I use canned red salmon way more than I use tuna for that recipe.