NickelChip

The pre-op diet is probably the hardest thing you will do for the next 10-12 months. It's honestly so difficult, but you can get through it! Once surgery was done, 400-500 calories per day felt totally normal to me for months. A few things that helped me were sugar free jello, sugar free popsicles, and the Millie's sipping broth. Almost no calories in any of these, but you get sort of the feeling of eating, which helps combat the head hunger. Is it perfect? No. But it kind of helps. Also, sugar free gum might help. And if you're truly hungry, ask if you can add more non-starchy veggies throughout the day. I wasn't allowed any meals or veg, just liquid, but since you are, the difference between 2 cups of broccoli and 3 cups, calorie wise, is pretty much nothing. You can eat a whole cucumber for barely any calories, or a salad with baby spinach, cucumbers, shredded carrots, and balsamic vinegar (no oil).

I was wearing a 42DD pre-surgery at 251 pounds, and at 165 pounds, I am in a 38DD. If I lose the last 10-15 pounds I hope to lose, I doubt I will change band size, honestly. The reason I say this is I run my hands around the area where the bra bad goes and I have almost no pinch-able fat left. I could see dropping to a D cup because the breasts themselves still have plenty of room to get smaller, but the band size is limited by the size of my ribcage, which I can feel prominently in that area. In the past few months, I dropped more than an inch from my bust and less than 0.25 inch from my band. In an ideal world, I think I would like to wear a 38C, but that's just my preference. And I am so amazed by how well you are taking all of this. I'm really wishing you the best with the cancer treatment and hoping you are well again soon!

My surgery-induced hair loss has only just started to turn around, so I know what you are going through and how distressing it can be. I have done two things to help. One is using minoxidil every night before bed. I found a 3-pack on Amazon of a spray (not a foam, which I find too messy) that is so easy to use and costs under $40. For a woman's dose (4 squirts per day), each bottle is supposed to last 60 days. I find it doesn't last quite that long, but I probably get about 6 weeks out of each bottle, making it cost maybe $2.50 a week. I've been using it about 14 weeks and I am seeing tons of regrowth, I would say definitely beyond what I lost. The hair is all short right now, a couple inches in length, but by the summer I hope it will be closer to my above the shoulder hair length. Which beings me to my second trick: hats. I live in a cold weather climate and I bought a bunch of hats, although I had some wide fabric headbands and crocheted bandanas in the fall when it was warmer that also got the job done. Not sure if you are male or female, but for women's styles, try searching for either "slouch caps" or "chemo headwear" online for some lighter weight hats that can help you hide the thinning until it reverses and that are comfortable indoors. Once your weight loss slows, the hair should regrow even on a maintenance dose of Zepbound. It just takes time, way longer than you think! Oh, I should say I had my surgery in Feb 2024, so in terms of when my major weight loss was happening, I'm betting we're at kind of the same stage with the hair loss. And I'm almost 51, so ditto on the age-related issues. But the minoxidil is a game changer.

It's valid to feel scared about this new experience and really good that you can express your fears to other people. My first thought as I'm reading this, though, is that your size is thoroughly unremarkable. It may not be where you want to it be, and you're doing great taking control of that and changing your life through having gastric bypass. But at your height and weight, surrounded by adults as you will be in college (and not middle school bullies), your weight simply isn't going to be a thing people notice about you all that much. I had my surgery when I was just slightly under where you are now, and I honestly had a friend (who is average weight/skinny) express total shock at my choice because she thought I was "only a little overweight" (while I thought I looked like a Macy's Thanksgiving parade balloon on two legs). Other people do not see us the way we see ourselves. In your mind, you seem to see yourself as worthy of being judged poorly and disliked for your appearance. I would ask, is this how you look at other people? Do you only befriend skinny people? Do you think fat people are terrible? Because if you do, that's a serious personality flaw that I would be way more concerned about fixing than my weight. And if you don't...neither do most people. Also, if they do? See my point about it being a serious personality flaw. Don't give that kind of person power over you. Your existence, exactly the way you are at any point in time, is not the problem. A person who is judging you for existing is demonstrating that their opinion is not worth considering. Most people don't notice weight first, unless maybe when someone is truly remarkable in size. Most people remember a person's confidence, humor, and overall disposition. They might remember a beautiful smile or a charming laugh, or maybe how you wore your hair or a colorful scarf. They want to be friends because they feel a connection to your personality, not because you have the "correct" size tag in your jeans. Again, if this is not the case, ask yourself why this is someone you want to concern yourself with. The person you want to be is not just a "skinny" person. At least, I really hope not. I would encourage you to make a list of 10 qualities right now that you want people around you to see and remember about you, and none of them can be about your weight or similar societal measure of physical attractiveness. Focus on that list. Do you want people to see you as smart? Kind? Funny? You can be all of those things today. You probably are all those things right now, if you let yourself believe that it's true. You don't have to lose a single ounce to make that happen. Do you want to be someone who takes care of your health? You're already doing it. Who eats right? Who exercises? You're that person now. Focus on the things you have control over. You don't get to choose your weight. None of us do. But you can make food and activity choices every day that promote a lower weight. You can't make a specific person or group like you. But you can be the kind of person many people will like. I wish you the very best of luck. I really wish I had known 30 years ago how absolutely, perfectly fine I was without changing anything, and how little other people's judgement actually mattered. It would have made so many things so much easier.

You're looking amazing! Great job!

I'm going to preface this by saying I am not a doctor and definitely in no position to give healthcare advice, but the most recent studies seem to indicate that very occasional ibuprofen use after a bypass does not significantly increase your risk of ulcers. Not all doctors are up on the research and some just don't want to change their advice on the off chance a patient has an issue, but some doctors will outright say that if you take an ibuprofen or two for a really bad headache or that one time you have an unusual pain, it's fine. You just don't want to exceed maybe once in a week or a few times in a month. The study I read looked at outcomes for thousands of bypass and sleeve patients in Denmark who had been prescribed daily NSAIDs for less than 30 days or more than 30 days, and then looked at how many developed ulcers. Only the bypass patients who took them for more than 30 days had an incidence rate higher than the general population.

Another factor is insurance. For example, I know my insurance would happily (as happily as they do anything) cover sleeve or bypass. Meet the requirements and you could have either one of those, no questions asked. Everything else was considered "experimental" and was not covered. Based on my brother's experience of significant regain after sleeve, plus not wanting to risk GERD and the possibility of a revision, I opted for bypass right out of the gate. I felt like that would be a one-and-done surgery, and I have zero regrets. A few key differences to consider are bypass is a stronger metabolic surgery, so you tend to get more durable weight loss if you look at 5-10 years post-op. But weight regain after sleeve can be managed with GLP-1 meds (if you have coverage or can pay out of pocket). If you have reflux or diabetes/pre-diabetes, seriously consider a bypass as this surgery is great for reducing or eliminating these conditions. If you smoke or require a lot of pain meds, seriously consider sleeve because your risk of ulcers with bypass is elevated by smoking and NSAID use, and the ulcers are very hard to cure. Dumping can be unpleasant but managed through dietary choices. I have had a couple very minor instances of dumping. Once after eating too much sugar (I absolutely knew better when I did it), and once after a few bites of a very rich, very fat-filled Thanksgiving side dish (this one surprised me). In both cases, my heart raced for about 15 minutes to the point my Fitbit thought I was exercising and awarded me "zone minutes." For me, that was the extent of it and nothing I couldn't handle. I'll just avoid that green bean dish next time. Some people do get worse responses. A lot of people never dump at all. One thing to consider if choosing a less-known surgery in the US is your doctors outside the surgeon who performs it may not be very familiar with it. Everyone should know what a bypass or a sleeve is. Hospitals or EMTs might not know much about your anatomy with a MGB or a DS, and that could cause delays in treatment, which in an emergency might become an issue. Not to say don't get those if they're right for you, but you may have to spend more time educating yourself and your healthcare team if you do.

My understanding is sleeve is more prevalent as a first time surgery, but a not-insignificant number of people have revision from sleeve to bypass down the road because of GERD or insufficient weight loss. There are reasons you may choose one over the other, and you want a surgeon who is just as comfortable with either. If he is suggesting one because he's better at it (sleeve is a much easier surgery to perform) then he is not the surgeon for you! This video has some good information on both surgeries from a doctor who does both:

If it puts your mind at ease, the only way to gain 10 lbs of fat in 5 days is to eat 7,000 extra calories per day (in addition to your usual maintenance calories). If you ate like 8,500 calories per day, 5 days in a row, you would remember. Swelling, on the other hand, is an easy way to gain fluid weight really fast. Hope you heal quickly and start feeling back to normal really soon! Once you get through the awkward first several weeks, I'm sure you're going to be thrilled with the results.

Love it! This is a very reasonable menu for the day. I like that it relies mostly on real food and supplies a lot of nutrition from veg, fruit, and beans. My dietician would be thrilled with the macros. If you wanted to avoid the protein shake, you could maybe add 3oz of ground turkey to the chili to make up the protein. I'm 10 months post-op and this would be a manageable/very filling amount of food for the day.

So, I never had lapband, but I was exactly your starting weight and height last year and chose gastric bypass after 7 years of nutrition work and trying Saxenda and Wegovy with varying degrees of effectiveness but too high a cost and too hard to get with shortages. I was 250 in 2016. I got down as low as 205 in 2018. I slowly regained until I was back to 250, despite my best efforts. I'm now 11 lbs away from being back to a normal BMI for the first time since I was 18 years old! What I can tell you from my experience is obesity is a disease that never goes away, even if you lose weight. Your body will always want to be bigger without constant intervention. Surgery is the strongest intervention you can give yourself. Personally, I chose gastric bypass because I didn't like the idea of completely removing my stomach. It's still there, hanging out, not doing much. All my intestines are still there, just in a slightly different configuration. Plus, I know that bypass offers a somewhat stronger and more durable metabolic response, making it less likely to need GLP-1 meds in the future to maintain weight. If you have the lapband removed and do nothing else, realistically, you will probably be back to 250 within a few years and never be much lighter than that again FOREVER. If you continue meds, you might stay where you are or lose a little more as long as you keep taking the meds FOREVER. If you get surgery, you can reasonably expect to get down to 160 or less and maintain that for a very long time with reasonably good nutrition and exercise, hopefully with no other interventions needed (although you may eventually need meds). But no matter how you look at it, the struggle with obesity is forever, so you have to choose the option you are most comfortable with in the longterm.

Happy new year! My goal this year is not so much focused on "losing weight" as it has been in previous years. I don't really have a number of pounds I want/need to lose thanks to surgery. Instead, I would like to: 1. Improve my nutrition by relying less on processed foods and incorporating more veggies and beans. I also want to be more consistent with meal planning and prep to reduce my stress around food. 2. Improve my total daily step average. Fitbit tells me I averaged 5622 steps per day last year, so I'd like to see that number go up. In reality, that was several months of either not exercising (pre-surgery) or not wearing my tracker, coupled with several months of 10k steps per day. So if I can just keep to going for walks most days, that should be an easy improvement. 3. Clean my office! I work from home and would like it not to feel so chaotic.

This happens now for me, too. It's definitely normal/inevitable. When people are in maintenance (or just people who are not doing anything to lose or gain weight who have not had surgery), weight fluctuates by a few pounds up or down based on all sorts of factors that are not fat-related. When we're losing weight rapidly those first several months, we don't see it because we're losing way more than that small fluctuation. At most, we see that we lose less some weeks than others. But when you get to 6+ months out from surgery, weight loss usually slows enough that you'll start seeing those fluctuations. It could be anything. Going to the gym, eating more sodium yesterday, the time of the month, not having pooped yet... I went up 4 lbs in 4 days last week, and yes, it was right after Christmas and I'd had some sweets, but I'm fairly confident I did not eat almost 20,000 calories in 4 days, so it wasn't from gaining fat. Now that I'm back to my normal foods, the weight is dropping almost as quickly.

I have a few questions for you. The first is, how is your hunger level right now? Are you ravenous, totally uninterested in food, or somewhere in between? Second, how much preparation of fresh food do you do compared to eating of premade or processed foods? I have some ideas that might help, but a lot depends on how hungry you get and how open you are to preparing your own foods from scratch. Also, if you could give us an idea of what your current eating routine is, that might help. Like, how often do you eat each day, and what does a typical menu look like for you? Are there any foods you absolutely love or hate?

Does your insurance have specific guidelines for qualifying? For example, mine required a BMI over 40 or over 35 plus a certain number of comorbidities from a specific list that they provided ( I can't remember the specifics now, but I do know they were spelled out clearly in writing). They required 6 months of regular appointments, including weigh-ins, with the team of dietician/surgeon/behavioral health specialists. They required a panel of blood tests, as well as a letter from the primary care physician in support of the surgery. Once those requirements were fulfilled, approval was a formality. We knew before the request was submitted that it would be approved. The actual approval took maybe 2 weeks to process and I was able to find the information by logging into my insurance portal and looking under the section for authorizations. Your surgeon's office should have someone on staff who is an expert at dealing with insurance who can tell you exactly how the process is expected to go. My office submitted my paperwork a standard number of weeks before the surgery, something like 3 or 4 weeks, I think.

You're looking so good! Not to give TMI, but I would love a reduction as well because I am constantly getting rashes now, especially underneath one breast, from the loose skin. Having my doctor document the issues for maybe insurance to cover it someday. And I'm so sorry about your grandma. That's so hard, and right at the holidays, too.

You're looking so good! Not to give TMI, but I would love a reduction as well because I am constantly getting rashes now, especially underneath one breast, from the loose skin. Having my doctor document the issues for maybe insurance to cover it someday. And I'm so sorry about your grandma. That's so hard, and right at the holidays, too.

Fingers crossed the lump turns out not to be a concern. I had to have a biopsy earlier in the year for a suspicious finding on my mammogram but so far so good, they just plan to monitor it. Best to get everything checked, but I do wonder if weight loss can lead to some of these irregular findings. I'm a little stressed with Christmas just around the corner. Not quite ready for it and it's gotten so cold I don't want to do anything for the next few days except sit under an electric blanket! Got to get the motivation up for wrapping gifts tomorrow.

My program also only counted protein and suggested "low carb" with roughly 40% of calories coming from protein, 30% carb, and 30% fat. If you eat 1000 calories (to make the math easier, but you won't probably hit 1000 calories for a while, at least a few months), that would be 100g protein, 75g carb, and 33g fat. As time goes on and calorie intake goes up, my dietician says the percentage of protein might decrease and carb might increase, but it's about finding what works for you. Also, I was told not to worry about hitting these numbers perfectly every single day, but to look at the weekly average for a better idea of how you're doing.

I was in the hospital 2 nights and was on toradol via IV. The 2nd night was because I had a minor issue during surgery that made my doctor concerned about a leak. It turned out to be fine, but he was cautious and wanted me to wait until I had imaging done before I was allowed to have anything by mouth. That delayed some of the milestones I needed to complete before I could be discharged, so they kept me the extra night just in case. When I got home, I was only on liquid Tylenol. I took it the first couple of days and then didn't need anything.

Oh, yes. I forgot about the natural sugar in dairy. That's fine, too. Natural sources of sugar behave differently in our bodies than added refined sugars. I know that when I went to my dietician a few months ago, I complained that my hair felt like straw no matter how much conditioner I used and she suggested adding an omega-3 supplement. With no oil or butter in cooking and everything low or non-fat, it's easy to actually not get enough healthy fat in your diet (olive oil, fish, nuts and seeds).

Unless your program has given you an extremely restrictive carb limit, your carb intake is perfectly fine with a reasonable calorie intake for early on and most of your calories coming from protein. The only thing I would question is if your sugar intake is natural sugar or added sugar. If it's fruit, great. If it's added sugar in your coffee, not so good. You don't seem to be getting more than 3g of fat right now, which you may want to ask your program about just to make sure that's not too low.

Personally? Yes, I would have the surgery. Why? Because losing weight is only half the battle. Obesity is a disease. The vast majority of people will gain back all the weight they lose through diet and exercise alone within 5 years. Weight loss surgery changes your metabolism so that it works with you instead of against you. I knew from too many attempts to lose in the past that I would not be one of the lucky ones to lose and maintain on my own. Every time I lost weight, I gained it back, plus a few pounds. To address a few of your fears, I can say from my experience that my pain lasted about 5 days. I never took anything stronger than Tylenol once I was discharged from the hospital. My tastes have changed in that I now find certain foods are less pleasant to eat. More than a small piece of bread gives me an unpleasant heavy feeling in my belly. Very fatty foods will make my heart race a bit so I avoid them. Certain sweets like cake frosting and cheaper milk chocolates seem much too sweet and I don't want more than a bite or two. The adjustment period in terms of learning what you can eat lasts about 3 months, at least it did for me. Even after the first month, I was able to eat in restaurants. I just chose to split a meal with a companion and stuck with simply prepared items like a grilled chicken salad. I've gone on road trips, spent a few weeks away from home in hotels, and did just fine. I eat mostly healthy foods, I don't count calories, I get reasonable exercise but don't go out of my way for it. And at 50 years old and not quite 10 months out from surgery, after a lifetime of struggling with my weight, I am back to the size I was my first year of college and still slowly losing. I would do it again in a heartbeat.