vikingbeast

I started drinking coffee about 3 weeks post-op with no issues. BUT... I drink a tiny espresso, I don't and can't drink gallons of American sock water.

I hate eating breakfast first thing. I get up at 0530, have espresso with a little sugar and some water to swallow my supplements, and go to the gym. When I get back around 0745, I have a protein shake and then shower and get dressed for the day. I don't eat anything solid until around 1000.

I take L-carnitine and caffeine beforehand, and then just protein with BCAAs after.

I'm not going to pee on your leg and tell you it's raining. You have to change your approach to food. It's vital. If you don't change your "old eating style", you will not succeed. It doesn't mean eliminate things, it means WAY smaller portions, sometimes to the point where it's not worth buying, say, separate steaks for you and your partner. At three months post-surgery, I literally could not finish a 28 ounce lobster tail before it went bad. If I'm REALLY lucky and my stomach is 100 percent empty, I can get 4-5 ounces of protein down before my restriction kicks in, and then it's hours before I want to eat again. Yesterday I made a pound of ground turkey breast into burgers, intending to eat half in one meal and half in another. I made it through four ounces of the stuff and was vaguely nauseated all day. You will have to eat your protein first, then your vegetables, then your starches. No exceptions. So if you get surf-n-turf, you might get two ounces of lobster and an ounce or so of wagyu down (I have trouble eating much steak, which is a shame given that steak is what I do), and you MIGHT have room for a few bites of vegetables, and MAYBE a bite or two of baked potato. And I mean little bites. If I get 2 oz. of rice or potato down, it's a lot. And I eat much more than your typical bariatric post-op patient because of how active I am. You also are going to have to give up, at least temporarily, drinking anything with dinner except maybe a sip or two of water to help drier proteins go down. That means no wine with dinner. Once you're used to how to eat, and once you're cleared for alcohol, a sip or two isn't going to kill you, but you simply won't have room for both wine and food even if you drink the wine first. I nursed a glass of Barolo for almost three hours in Vegas. tl;dr you can eat kind of whatever, but because you have so little room, you must prioritize your eating so you don't get sick, weak, or anæmic.

It's been freezing cold here in SoCal (don't laugh, our homes are built to vent heat, not retain it, so 33 is truly cold). I went to the outlet mall and saw massive markdowns in Hollister. I kind of laughed, because that store is basically aimed at teenage lacrosse players whose bodies turn calories into inches and muscle without even really trying, and because pre-op I would never have fit in anything at all. Well, I found a pair of joggers that looked warm and fuzzy and wonderful, and automatically grabbed an XXL, the largest size... and they looked like clown pants on me. Waaaaaves of fabric. I ended up buying a large and could theoretically have made a medium work! You could have knocked me over with an economy-size feather.

Some people are just slow losers. But everybody and every body is bound by the CICO (calories in calories out) equation. If you are eating in a caloric deficit, which literally every post-op bariatric patient (regardless of surgery) is, you are going to lose weight. It just may not be leaps and bounds. And for those who lost a ton of weight quickly, a lot of that is water weight and many of us stalled after our body recalculated its hydration needs, whereas many slow losers lose steadily. It. Will. Come. Off.

It absolutely, a hundred thousand percent, is worth it. Within a month I was completely off my blood pressure medication. Within six weeks I didn't need my inhaler anymore and could run for the first time in forever. I'm off my antidepressant. My CPAP is next to go. Do I get tired? Yeah. I do. Still working on getting that protein up given how physically active my life is. Would I take the 105 lbs. I've lost back? ABSOLUTELY NEVER.

Nearly all of my stuff was in the two weeks prior to surgery, so don't fret. I had: - clearance from a psychologue - EKG - one meeting with a dietitian - one support group meeting - blood tests - final clearance from my normal family doctor

The Baritastic app isn't available worldwide due to privacy regulations in various countries. (If the app won't certify to following that country's privacy laws, the app stores remove it for residents of that country.)

I had some serious energy issues and after my PCP tested, I found I was slighty anaemic. I started taking an iron supplement in addition to the iron within my bari multi, and within a week I felt better. I still get exhausted by 9 p.m. though, and of course iron causes constipation, so there's that whole thing too.

I use MyMacros+. I think it cost US$2.99.

Don't worry too much about it. I just had a trip to visit a friend who is a real gourmand. He loves good food, and has excellent taste in restaurants. So we went as a group and ordered "family style" and I just ate little bites. The food was very rich, but I was still able to enjoy it, just not as much. I had surgery about three months ago. I have had sushi since then. It can be a lot of rice so I will order a little sashimi and then just one or two pieces of nigiri sushi. You can do this. And you won't have the same problem we in the US do, because portions are not ridiculously huge in Finland like they are here. Onnea ja jatka eteenpäin sisulla 💪

Most people can eat nearly anything, albeit in small quantities, after healing. As an example, I'm just short of three months out. I had a long road trip yesterday, on roads that do not go through many towns (in six hours I went through three places with ANY population at all—Nevada is a very remote place). One town had a McDonald's. I had most of a Chicken McDeadlet kid's meal with milk (drank the milk later). Another one literally only had a pizza place. I had half a slice of pizza. I survived. You learn to prioritize protein and let the rest happen as it can (vegetables next, then starches). Bariatric multivitamins aren't actually much different that regular multivitamins; they may be in more easily digestible forms, but most patients don't need that after a few months out. Iron, B12, and calcium are the usual things we need more than others, and those are not so hard to find (and you can get them from food if you truly need to).

At six weeks out I was around 800 calories a day (I know this because my former NUT blew a gasket at how much I was eating...). Now at twelve weeks out I am eating around 1400.

The other thing is that immediately post-op, you are still producing a lot of stomach acid... and not eating solid food for that acid to act on. So you get these wrenching "starving" feelings that aren't actually hunger, they're idle stomach acid. Mine went away right around when my incisions stopped itching, so 3-4 weeks, just as I graduated to purées. Now I never have those feelings.

The 1 oz. over 15 minutes is really just for right after surgery. As your stomach heals you can drink more. I am almost 3 months out and I can drink an entire 500 ml bottle of water in 10 minutes.

A few things. 1. You won't really feel the restriction you have until you get to real, solid food. And some foods will make you feel full faster than others. I ate part of a pancake and felt full for hours. Pork makes me feel fuller than chicken or beef. Everybody is different, and every body is different. 2. I had hunger after and discovered, thanks to my surgeon, that what I think is "hunger" is actually reflux/heartburn. It doesn't happen often but yesterday I had a bit of pizza (options were extremely limited) and felt "hungry". I took a Pepcid per my doctor and suddenly didn't feel hungry any more. 3. Not everyone loses their hunger. Most people feel it 'blunted' at first, but some people just don't. 4. Two weeks after surgery, your body is still producing the same amount of stomach acid it did when you had the larger stomach. It takes some time to stop doing that, and in the meantime not only did my stomach growl, I made the most horrible personal noises! It went away around the time my incisions stopped itching, so 3-4 weeks post-op. Stick to your plan. It will help you, and it WILL get better.

What a difference!!

Keeping your skin taut and trying to stave off too much loose skin.

I just upgraded my Apple Watch and had to use the sm-edium band. I am absolutely floored. Also, now multiple people I know well have walked right past me and not recognized me. I don't think I look *completely* different but apparently I do!

I use some dark chocolate and blackberry flavored powder I found at Sprouts. No tolerance issue. It tastes weird is all.

My nutritionist b----ed me out for overeating, too. I was eating a whopping 800 calories and stalling hard. She told me that I needed to be eating 400-500 calories a day and that's why I wasn't losing weight. I told her that the week I tracked my food before starting on this journey, I was maintaining my old weight on 3800 calories a day and there's no freaking way I was bumping out of a caloric deficit with an intake of 800 calories. So she said I was non-compliant and then huffed, "I guess if you want to gain it all back, it's up to you." I fired her. Loudly. I posted about it elsewhere on this site. And I went and found a nutrition group that focuses on flexible nutrition and who have nutritionists and RDs who are familiar with bariatric patients. My nutritionist put me on 1200 cal a day to start and has been encouraging me to eat more—this week has been more like 1400. I am very active, though, and burn calories both working and working out (I'm not a "walker"... I run, I do CrossFit, I do ranch work.) I'm twelve weeks out and still losing 3-4 pounds a week. I do track everything I eat and self-discipline is hard but necessary. I figure this surgery gave me 6-12 months to re-evaluate my relationship with food, and that's plenty of time to develop new habits that are just second nature.

If you have GERD now, then you should opt for a gastric bypass (Roux-en-Y, always abbreviated RNY here). It's literally the solution for GERD and sometimes when vertical gastric sleeve (VSG) patients get GERD post-op, they revise the surgery to RNY. So let me ask you this: what's worse for your health? Having to monitor your blood levels of vitamins and supplement, or being obese and developing comorbidities? You'll find a LOT of people think that surgery is somehow a way of "cheating". Don't listen to those idiots, who've never looked into it.

It truly does get easier. Just grit your teeth and get through the first few days.

Everyone is different with regards to de-liver-ization 😁 The no-carbs thing varies program by program. I am not on a low-carb diet and still am shrinking. But some programs do require it. Frankly, though, it's hard to meet my carb macro target because I do eat all my protein first, then the vegetables (which are carbs, of course, but are lower than starches). And then I frankly don't have room for starches.