BlackBerryJuice

Nasty fried food smell makes me nauseous. I've always hated fried food, but now I feel sick just walking by a McDonalds and catching a whiff.

I wouldn't worry about it. 4.5 months out, I can eat quite a bit. There's still an occasional meal where I, for whatever reason, can't eat more than 3-4 bites (last night's chicken lasagna is an example), but there are many times where I eat a modest-sized meal - enough that people wouldn't wonder if I dislike the food or have anorexia or something like that. Today for lunch, I had about a cup of burrito mix with beef, a honey mandarin, and 2 small Cookies (1 inch in diameter or so). With this quantity of food, I actually have to make sure I don't have a snack too soon, because you can end up eating quite a bit in one day. It takes some time for the swelling in your stomach to subside, 3 weeks definitely isn't enough. And after several months, your sleeve will also stretch out a bit, accomodating more food.

Some meds will dissolve in a drink. There may also be a chewable or injectable option you can use until you're cleared to swallow pills. I'd call your local pharmacy and ask about each of your meds. Some meds shouldn't be crushed or dissolved (usually, the slow-release capsules), so it's best to run it by your pharmacist to make sure you are not ruining your medications.

Done!

Buy dress pants....I've avoided buying things that can't be tailored easily and cost a lot until I've maintained my weight for at least a month! My boyfriend and I are going to Hawaii at the end of February, I should be around goal by then, so I guess that's one thing I'll be doing. I'm treating myself to some windsurfing lessons there!

For comedy, I love the old favorite - "Naked Gun." Especially in the wake of Leslie Nielsen's recent passing. If you are not religious, you will probably enjoy "The Invention of Lying," I thought it was a very clever movie. Most Woody Allen movies are a safe bet. I don't know how heavy you like your movies....I personally loved "The Road," but it's kind of depressing. "Pan's Labyrinth" is a very good movie, but it can also make someone uncomfortable - there's definitely a fair bit of violence, as the movie juxtaposes this child's magic world with the reality of the Spanish Civil War going on around her.

I think you need to get a couple of consults from both bariatric surgeons and psychiatrists (ideally those who work with bariatric patients), it's not something that you alone can decide, because it could turn out to be a disaster. I remember one of Dr. Aceves' coordinators told me a story about a patient of theirs who got a pass to go to the mall with another pt the day after his VSG and ate an ENTIRE BIG MAC while he was there. His sleeve burst and Dr. Aceves had to perform open abdominal surgery on him to clean everything up and ensure he didn't die from sepsis. Obviously, this person had some sort of unadressed mental health issues to go and do something like that - and without the psych evals that happen if you go through insurance, he slipped through the cracks. You have to consult doctors who are experienced with Aspergers AND WLS to make sure something like that doesn't happen with your son. And if you go to Dr. Aceves for the actual procedure, I'd absolutely notify him of your son's condition so he's aware that your son may be in need of special care post-op.

I battle with boredom eating more so than cravings for junk food - thankfully, because while I have the time to be bored and/or eat mindlessly while studying, 6 months from now I won't have that luxury! With boredom eating, drinking tea helps me most - I've got all kinds of flavors, I just add splenda and sometimes milk. If that doesn't do it, I just try to choose healthier things - I've got some baby carrots, persimmons, and honey mandarins in the fridge, and they generally hit the spot. If I eat and still have head anger, I try to get out of the house and go for a walk. I have what I'd define as a "bad day" on occasion - I don't think I've ever felt out of control with a particular food since the VSG - but sometimes I'll just eat all day, or should I say, all evening. Today I had one of these non-stop eating days, I suspect my difficult morning workout played a role - lifting weights always makes me hungry later in the day! Plus I was freezing in the blizzard this morning and got a latte from Starbucks - a short one, but it still had 370 calories! I also automatically bought a pastry with my coffee, it was almost a knee-jerk reflex. I only ate half of it and threw the other way and didn't finish the offending beverage, but still, I didn't need either. I tried to follow my basic steps today - I did the tea thing, I did the fruit thing, AND I went for a walk in the evening - and I still felt like I inhaled pounds upon pounds of food. So I decided to see the extent of the damage and logged everything, down to the one piece of curry beef, and to my surprise, even with the sugary coffee and pastry, I had about 1700 calories (on the upside, almost 100 g protein! lol). Seems like a lot, but then I remembered that pre-VSG, I would consider that a good day, and I did do an hour-long workout that left me drenched in sweat with wobbly legs. If I hadn't had the coffee + pastry, I would've been at 1200, which is the top end of my normal range, so in the end this "bad day" just came down to one impulse buy. It's amazing how you get used to eating like a bird and what would've been a good diet day to a non-sleeved person seems like a catastrophe until you look at it more closely! I feel bad about eating that pastry and drinking the latte, but I gave myself a pat on the back for trying all of my overeating solutions rather than just giving up and moved on. I don't think ANY PERSON eats perfectly EVERY SINGLE DAY. I've been seeing a psychologist since the surgery and when he first asked me what my goal was for the therapy, I said "to be completely free of cravings and mindless eating." He told me that he didn't think anyone could ever achieve that, so we decided that we'd start with having more good days than bad days. Thankfully, my good days outnumber my bad days probably 15:1 and I consider that to be awesome. Pre-surgery, it was probably 1:1. I guess it's always a work in progress and setbacks are unavoidable. And if anything I've experienced so far is true, I'm probably gonna be another pound down tomorrow - it seems that anytime I have dessert, I end up losing weight the next day!

On a side note, does anyone know how that "excess weight" is calculated? Is it just all the weight in excess of 24.9 BMI? Because then I've already lost 90+% of my excess weight, and I'm just over 4 months out. It would've sucked to only lose 65% - I lost more than that last year on my own!

Ah, good point. I checked and it's carbonate. Sometimes I take it with meals, sometimes on its own....I quit my PPI about 2 months ago, though, so I thought I'd be producing enough acid by now.

Anyone considering (or know anyone who has!) a thigh lift? Lots of people seem to be talking about boobs, but as I'm sitting here procrastinating, I'm pondering the fate of my inner thighs. I definitely still have some fat in there, but I'm also starting to see loose skin - when I grab a handful, there's obvious wrinkling. I carry most of my excess weight in this area and it doesn't seem to look much better than it was pre-surgery - smaller, but still very flabby. It's gross, I have rock-hard quads but as you get closer to my groin, it's like a down pillow. I was doing jump squats in front of a mirror at the gym the other day, and while everything else looked fine, I could literally see my inner thigh flab bouncing up and down with every jump! For those of you who are at or near goal and are more pear-shaped, how have your inner thighs fared? How many months until I'd have to give up on this area ever tightening naturally? As far as the thigh lift surgery, does anyone have first-hand or word-of-mouth experience with it? I imagine the recovery is more difficult than with a VSG, getting around would probably be difficult for a while. Is it easy to rip the stitches open and ruin everything by just tripping or twisting funny? Just wondering in case I ever need to resort to surgery - if this doesn't improve, I might have to do it later, as I'm only 25, so a good 25 years of shorts are still ahead!

Holy crap, 5000 mcg/day? My pills are only 250 mcg each! That'd be a lot of pills to get stuck in my throat, hehe. I don't watch my fat intake and with going out for meals daily, I'm sure I get enough fat when I have a curry, salmon sashimi, or a salad with avocado, etc. Low fat intake definitely isn't a problem here. I rarely measure my Protein intake because of eating out, which makes it complicated to log your meals, but when I've done it, 60-70 grams a day seems to be my normal amount. I have a Protein Bar or shake every day and go for protein-heavy food choices when I eat out (sashimi, roast chicken, grilled fish, etc). I guess if I REALLY applied myself, maybe I could add an extra 20 grams a day with another Protein Shake, but I can only handle so many disgusting supplements. For calcium/vit. D, I use Caltrate chews, the package says 1-2 chews per day for adults and I take 2, so I was hoping it'd be enough. I don't consume very much dairy, though, just skim milk in my tea and some sort of cheese when we eat out on occasion. Should I take more Caltrate?

I definitely still like food and embark on occasional culinary adventures, as well as look forward to going out to dinner for specific things. Yesterday I was in the mood for Indian food, and tonight I'm pretty excited about going out for sashimi. The difference is that I care about sweets a lot less - on occasion I'll still want a shortbread cookie or a few dark chocolate almonds, but I never have out-of-control cravings for these things anymore - and I seem to be a bit pickier about food. E.g. my friends and I always scavenge for free food at school, and we used to load up on these hospital cafeteria sandwiches at catering events, but now as soon as I put one in my mouth, I get grossed out by that cheap deli meat, butter on the bread, and overabundance of mayo. After spitting out a couple, I learned to limit myself to the fruit and veggie trays with my scavenging, lol. I've noticed that with a lot of foods that I'd eat before even if I didn't find them to be particularly good per se - now I can't handle crappy, low quality food, it grosses me out even when other people think it's edible. But I still enjoy some raw oysters, a nice spicy beef curry, or ripe, good quality fruit! I'm definitely still a foodie post-surgery.

I wanted to make it to healthy BMI, for sure. I'm big-boned and knew that my happy weight would be on the higher end. I weighed 145 at some point as a teenager and was a bit overweight, maybe 10 lbs, but back then I had no muscle mass to speak of. I've been lifting weights for a decade now, so I knew I'd end up with a much lower bodyfat at 145 this time around. So I figure it'll be a good maintenance weight for me. I think that'd be put me at a BMI of 24. I'm looking at the range of 140-145, not really looking to drop below 140.

From Access Medicine, "Medical Oncology."

I agree, ask for an ultrasound and ask why your PCP is so confident it's a false positive - rather than a legit positive. The pregnancy test measures beta-hCG, which is a hormone produced by the placenta. However, many tumors produce hormones, and some tumors, including some cancerous ones, will produce beta-hCG. So I think that even if your PCP is 100% sure you're not pregnant, you should get a more thorough work-up. I did a quick search on lupus and beta-hCG both on Google and a medical textbook database (Access Medicine) and I didn't see anything that said lupus would ever cause your beta-hCG to be positive on its own.

Did they do a blood or urine test both times? Blood tests are more accurate. Both can show up with false positives, but 2 in a row? The odds are almost 0. Did your PCP explain why s/he thinks you are not pregnant in spite of the positive pregnancy test? I'm no expert on this, but having covered ob-gyn in school already, I don't know how you can say someone's NOT pregnant when you've got 2 positive pregnancy tests - unless you do imaging.

Nice!

Jealous! I was there in June. We flew into Miami, stayed there for 2 or 3 days, then rented a car to drive down to Key West, with a few stops. There are some cute little family-owned motels on the islands, check them out if you haven't booked a hotel yet; many will be right on the shore, so you can bathe and kayak in peace without being bothered by other people. Some of them have lots of character, I think people just buy them out after retiring and pretty much treat the property as their home - we stayed at one that had giant cages with exotic animals in them all over the property! Oh, and to add to the above info re: Everglades - we went there, as well, and I'd recommend paying an extra $10 or whatever it is for the airboat ride. My boyfriend and I had never been on an airboat before, and he still won't shut up about it 6 months later! LOL. We also had some fried gator at one of the roadside shacks there, it's not as expensive as you'd expect, but it's very good and then you get bragging rights - not many people have had gator meat, unless they live on the Gulf Coast! And yeah, I'd definitely load up on Cuban food while you still can. Since I went to Miami before my surgery, it was all fried plantains all the time for me.

I had a couple of really weird ones in the first week. My first night at the hospital, I had some dream about how my surgeon and the rest of his staff wheeled our beds into the basement and conducted some crazy ritual where they all spun us in our beds until we passed out - I'm pretty sure having read Rosemary's Baby only a few months before the surgery played a part in that one. Then when I got home, I had a super-creepy experience where I dreamt a burglar broke into my house and was standing over my bed....then I opened my eyes and he was THERE - it was an actual hallucination that lasted a good 3-4 seconds. I was SO scared. I stopped taking my bedtime painkiller after THAT night!