Stacy160

A word of caution though: Weighing yourself daily, you WILL see your weight bounce up and down, sometimes by as much as a couple of pounds from day to day. Don't automatically assume that you're doing anything wrong or that you're gaining, or not losing... the amount of Fluid your body holds on to can fluctuate wildly and what you see on the scale may not be entirely accurate (the low numbers will be... no faking those! ). Also, I don't know how far out you are, but almost everyone's guaranteed to stall occasionally. Don't let it freak you out... you're still losing fat but the body hangs on to extra Water now and then in an effort to balance itself out. Just keep doing what you're doing with the KNOWLEDGE that when your body decides it's OK to let go of that water, the scale will move quickly again.

Welcome Clive! You've found a great source of information and support here. Congrats on taking the first steps toward a new life, you won't regret it!

Hi Kristy, and welcome! First, congratulations on making the decision to go with VSG. Second, double-congrats on choosing anything but the lap-band! You'll see so many horror stories here, and people having their band removed to revise to the sleeve. This is a wonderful tool, and you're in for a whirlwind of a ride with it! Stick around, this is a great board.

Incredible!! Such an amazing difference, way to go!

I've only gone to one. There were only two other WLS patients there, one spouse, one grandchild, one prospective patient. It was not very well led or organized, the gal who led it was waaaaaay spacy, and it was just boring. Plus the office is 45 minutes away (speeding), the meetings are at 6:00 on my days off... just got better things to do. I hang around here and OH to keep my head in the game.

Wow....seriously? I mean--damn. Better just to be quiet now. WOW.

It's the same in that you get to the point where you don't even want another bite, just in much less time with MUCH less food. What is different for me is the full feeling itself. Before, you eat and eat and your stomach expands and expands further and further into your abdomen, putting pressure on everything and making you feel all bloated and thankful for those elastic-waisted pants. Now, it's much more centered and up high...the fullness tends to happen upwards, making you feel like you want to burp, or like there's pressure on the esophagus. It's weird at first, but you get used to it and eventually it's just as normal a feeling as it was before.

Interesting that you should post this today, since I was just talking about it last night. I had LASIK 13 years ago with great results. They told me then that I may start getting the "old-age" farsightedness a little earlier than I would have otherwise because of the surgery, and I have been needing to wear the drugstore granny glasses for reading for the last year. At the same time, my distance vision, which was corrected with the LASIK, should have gotten even slightly sharper... BUT, over the last few months, it's gotten noticeably WORSE! Unless I'm in really bright light, like sunlight, everything's blurry. I'm kinda bummed, although at the time I said if I got 5 years without glasses or contacts, it'd be worth it. I'm gonna have to do something about it though, cause my vision indoors and at night is really getting sucky.

My reasons for having the surgery include a 25-year history of weight-loss failure, losing some, gaining more, etc. Medical issues were starting to crop up (Acid Reflux which had been present for 20+ years, joint problems, mild sleep apnea, blood pressure creeping up), and family medical history staring me in the eye: Arthritis, HBP, cancer, and my brother had a heart attack right out of the blue in May of '09 at age FORTY. I was 44 when I had the surgery. Anyway, here's my list of goals, copied and pasted from a similar thread I participated in about a month post-op. It's neat to see how many of these things I can check off now! - To not feel like I have an inner tube around my neck and around the middle of me. CHECK! - To be able to sit for more than 15 minutes without my tailbone hurting because of the weight on it. CHECK! - To be able to breathe when I bend over to tie my shoes. CHECK! - I want my feet not to hurt after working all day (in good supportive athletic shoes). CHECK! - To be able to go up and down a flight of stairs without every step hurting my knees. CHECK! - To not have to take Pepcid every night so I don't wake up choking on stomach acid. CHECK! - To sleep through the night without waking five or more times either with acid, having to pee, or just being uncomfortable. CHECK! - To not have to worry about developing high blood pressure or diabetes. CHECK! - To not have to worry about my stomach or thighs getting in the way of things when I'm under the sheets with my hubby. CHECK! - To move freely and unencumbered. CHECK! - I want to run at least a 5k by this fall. CHECK...YAY!! - To wear a nice pair of jeans and have people notice my butt--not because it's the size of a barn, but because it's peachy! CHECK! - To have a bigger variety of shoes that don't cost a fortune to fit my current size 7 4Es. (They're wide, but now they're extra extra wide) CHECK! - I want one pair of those shoes to be a really slutty-looking pair of heels, to be worn with the nice jeans. CHECK! - To be able to get into my husband's pants... literally. CHECK! - To be able to get into our backyard pool without watching out the windows for 5 minutes first to make sure none of the neighbors are outside or at their windows to see me. CHECK! - I want to wear a cute bikini top with a pair of board shorts ('cause these thighs ain't ever gonna be pretty). kinda..short tankini top and board shorts, bikini top next summer! - Mostly I just want to be free and comfortable with myself! CHECK!! HOLY CRAP!! That really helps put things into perspective...I'm 14 lbs from my original goal (still want to go another 25-30) but still don't feel thin, and there are days when I still feel fat and gross. But dang....to some extent at least, I can cross off every single thing I listed there eight months ago. I'm kind of amazed by that!

Sometimes when the surgery's done, everything's stapled shut and sewn up, Fluid will still seep into the abdominal cavity. It's not thick red blood exactly, more like the thin watery stuff that separates from it. If necessary, to drain it off instead of leaving it sitting in there, the surgeon will leave a little hose in, which comes out through a small opening on your belly and attaches to a bulb syringe. You squeeze the bulb and then cap it, which creates a vacuum to pull that fluid out, and once in awhile you have to empty the bulb. Sounds gross, but it's not that bad, and not everyone goes home with a drain. Mine only collected a little bit of fluid for 3-4 days (maybe a tablespoon a day?). When it came out after a week, I didn't feel a thing and didn't even know he'd removed it until I saw it in his hand. It doesn't hurt, but it can tug uncomfortably where it comes through the skin. I couldn't sleep in bed until it was out. It's more annoying than anything, having this hose and bulb hanging off the front of you LOL...and bulky and very noticeable under your clothes, but truly no big deal.

Well first, dear girl, you don't have to deal with it... HE does. It'll only be weird for the first six or eight weeks or so...you'll still cook, and cook the same things, you'll just focus on the Protein and veggies and leave the noodles and potatoes alone. My hubby and I go out to eat a lot, and I always just count on taking a doggy bag home. His only complaint (which he was joking about anyway) was that he was going to start gaining all the weight I was losing if I kept passing my half-empty plate to him to finish off LOL. Really... after awhile, he'll forget anything's really different at all (well, except for when he looks at you and sees how HOT you're becoming! )

Bump it back up to 800-900 calories a day (which is still extremely low) and see what happens.... bet ya anything the weight starts coming off again.

You should just leave the comment "Why do you think that's funny?" and make him/her think about it.

Seriously. WTF are you talking about?? [edit] Never mind....I see what you're about.

Soooooo, mine did not turn out well at all, although it did taste good, and I know what I did wrong. The recipe calls for cooked or uncooked cauliflower. I thought well... might as well cook it first, so I steamed it. But that makes it too mushy to grate... it just falls apart. So I measured out a cup to put in the Ninja with the egg (twice, it was a double-batch). Unthinkingly, I smushed as much into a cup as I could, forgetting that the recipe calls for loose cups. So, not only did I end up using too-moist cauliflower, I used WAY too much. The top browned really pretty, but it stayed soggy in the middle and stuck to the pizza pan. Next time I'll grate it and use it raw, use a stone instead of a pizza pan, and let the oven cook it. And next time too, I think I'll use chicken, mushrooms, red peppers and Alfredo sauce. (This one was the standard tomato sauce with ham and pepperoni.)

I do think so! Back when I was heavy (heh... "heavy" *snort*) into Atkins, in the early 2000's, I frequented a low-carb forum and very often people would talk about how much better they were sleeping, off the carbs. I know I did too!

Oh. My. GOD. Stretching? Your "pouch"?? (Which she apparently doesn't understand you don't even have?) I've said it a dozen times and I believe it more strongly all the time, hearing things like this (and Globetrotter's issues): I'm firmly convinced that these so-called "nutritionists" are a bunch of freaking morons.

I've never been a really hard sleeper, but I do sleep soooooooo much better now. I still roll over and change positions several times a night, but I no longer have the body aches, snoring, and acid reflux waking me up. (Well, except my stupid right shoulder, but that's totally unrelated.)

I bought all the stuff yesterday to day make it tomorrow, and can't wait to try it out on the family!

Part of this is a cut and paste from a post I made about a month after surgery. This was my first major surgery, first time under general anesthesia. I had some slight anxiety for a couple of days after I scheduled the surgery. It wasn't a scared-kind of anxiety, it was more the anxiety you get over any major life-change, like getting married or having your first baby...knowing what's going to happen, but not understanding how it'll BE. I had bloodwork and medical clearance from my family doctor prior to seeing the surgeon. I was self-pay, so from the time I first met with him to the day of surgery was only twelve days. He didn't require a pre-op diet (don't know if that was because I had slightly below a 40 bmi or if that's standard for him), just that I not gain weight before surgery. I did put myself on a very low-carb diet four days beforehand to get rid of the glycogen and shrink my liver a little, and the day before surgery I did have to restrict intake to Clear liquids only. Leading up to the surgery, I was surprised to find that I was just more and more excited, and not nervous at ALL. I half expected to cry when my husband and son walked out of pre-op. But I was totally relaxed, completely into paying attention to what the nurses were doing, how the whole process went, talking and laughing with them... I found it really interesting. My husband and son had already been back to pre-op to see me beforehand, and after they went out my parents came in. While they were there, the nurse slipped the happy juice into my IV, and within 4-5 minutes I started feeling reeeeally sleepy. I vaguely remember my surgeon coming in but don't remember a thing he said. I remember my parents leaving and asking if I wanted them to send my husband back in one more time, saying yes, but I'm not sure if I remember seeing him again, or if I'm just imagining that LOL. After that--I was completely out of it. Don't remember a thing, not being wheeled off to surgery, just nothing at all. What felt like 5 minutes later, they were waking me up in recovery. Waking up, I had to PEE like a racehorse, which brought about my first experience with a bedpan. Which I was privileged enough to have to use twice while in there LOL.... they pump a lot of Fluid into you!! After they got me to my room, my family came in and visited for awhile. I learned that my surgeon actually showed my husband my removed stomach! He was good with it, he was a Navy corpsman in the first Gulf War, and was at Oakland Naval Hospital when the big earthquake hit in '89, so he's seen a LOT. Anyway, after they left I started using the bathroom about every 2-3 hours (morning AND night). Lying still there was no pain at all... I felt bloated but wasn't having any gas pains yet. Sitting up in the bed, there was some mild-moderate pain at the main incision, and my stomach muscles felt like I'd done a thousand situps and then got beat with a baseball bat LOL.... all of which were completely gone within 6 days. They'll want you to get up every once in awhile and walk, and they'll come in at all hours wanting to test your oxygen, take your blood pressure, change your IV, add stuff to it, but it's all good... When you're not up walking or peeing you're pretty much gonna want to lay still and sleep anyway. I thought the whole experience was pretty neat! THINGS I TOOK THAT I NEEDED: - chap stick - cell phone - GasX strips - Listerine strips - sugar free Ricola drops...you're dryer than the Sahara in there - a book - toothbrush THINGS I TOOK THAT I DID NOT NEED: - robe - slippers - ipod (just wanted to sleep) - makeup for the next morning (who cares? LOL) Day two, the first day home, I was still pretty sleepy and sore. Hubby and son were great about grabbing things for me and just letting me chill. I had a drain and could not get comfortable in bed with it pulling on me, so for the first week until it came out, I slept either on the loveseat on my back or side, or in the recliner. Day three I was already feeling better, and went for a ride with the boys to go visit my parents for awhile. Day four I went shopping by myself to Sam's.... by the time the drain came out a week later, unless I specifically pushed around the main incision site, I literally could not tell I'd had anything done. Other than the fact that I could only drink small amounts of liquids, I felt 100% normal, if maybe a little...lazy? Not fatigued really. Day 10 and 11 I went back to work for a couple of trial 6-hour shifts (had planned on 2 weeks off if necessary), with no problem, and beginning Day 15 life went back to normal, with the obvious exception of how I was eating. And needless to say, what's "normal" since then has only gotten better and better!

Yeah, you don't go bald or anything, but a lot of people get thin enough that they can see through the really thin spots. I lost a ton of hair between 3-7 months, but it never showed because I had a ton of hair to begin with. At 7 months it gradually started slowing down and now at almost 9 months, I'm back to shedding just the usual amount.

Well.... I was going to post and answer, but Tiffy pretty much said everything I'd have said anyway! But I will add: With your BMI starting as low as it is already, for ME the risks of the bypass wouldn't be worth it.

Sadly, I don't have one. Wish I couldn't tolerate the crap foods but unfortunately, they go down and stay down all too easily! The only thing I might have a problem with is broccoli (which I love). Both times I've had it since surgery, I've thrown it back up about 20 minutes later... just the broccoli, not the steak I had with it. I keep meaning to try it alone and see what happens, to see if it really was the broccoli that was the problem, but never remember to!