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TW: Mention of ED I’m about 4 weeks out from having this gastric sleeve surgery. Right now I am on the soft foods stage. I have one week of it left. When I was on the liquid diet I was craving food watching food videos and just could not wait to eat again. Now suddenly I am disgusted by all foods, and I do mean all foods even my “favorites.” I look in my fridge and most days I’m just like “I would rather not” and I have to force myself to eat but normally halfway through I’m like I can’t do this anymore. Ive also been experiencing a “twisting” feeling in my stomach when eating or drinking which is very discouraging trying to get the food down. I’ve even been doing this thing where I’ll chew something up only to spit it out. I struggled with binge eating disorder pre surgery and got treatment for it & what is making me nervous is that I heard a lot of people with anorexia/bulimia explaining their eating disorders and some of the things I’m experiencing are red flags for anorexia and I’m just afraid of going from one spectrum of eating disorders to the next. Did anyone else have this same repulsion with food? I am currently seeing a therapist and am planning to tell her all of this so I can get the help that I need. Sorry this isn’t so positive but I am just wondering if anyone else experienced this and if they had any advice or if it got better? Thank you!!

Mine would if it wasn't so saggy now! "Has the Dr given any explanation? Any advice? My dietitian keeps telling me we are losing inches not necessarily pounds. I call BS. All I know is I have 17 more pounds to lose to get new knees. After that I hope to lose another 60 so my hubby can buy me a face lift (he doesn't know it yet) SURPRISE DEAR LOL" I see my doctor next month for my 6 month check in and in two weeks my blood tests. It will be with the dietician, to be honest she's seemed kinda pointless. Just says you're eating as you should...perhaps add some fruit, to which I explained again when I eat carbs my heart races and fruit is high in fructose soooo. Then she'll suggest something like those nasty palm heart noodles, boy those were a mistake..again texture issues. It was like eating a bowl of slimy rubber bands. She gave me a G7 to monitor my blood sugars after the fruit discussion oh joy! I agree with the inches vs. pounds being BS. Last time I checked fat or "inches" weigh something. You can't lose inches without weight - unless I'm packing on muscle (weighs 7 times more than fat) but I assure you that's NOT it! Lolol "surprise dear" face lift, I love it! 😆😂😆 17 lbs should go quick for you and you'll have new knees soon enough! Thank you for the laugh, at this point it is well appreciated!

Today is 11 days post op and I’ve had serious cravings over the past two days. I started having a protein shake again which also helps the leg and foot cramps, then added a 4th meal a day. I also had a cup of broth in case I just needed salt. Yesterday it got so bad and I realized that I’ve been eating only yogurt and puréed cottage cheese so I got some smoked salmon and ate one ounce of it, that has set me back to rights again. Woke up feeling so much better this morning. It’s been an adventure, we live in the Midwest and lost power Friday evening, we’ve been in a hotel since Saturday. I brought my scale and a small container so I could portion out yogurt or cottage cheese but didn’t have any meat or fish. i don’t really feel hungry in my belly anymore, just a vague feeling of alarm that I need something. Most of the time I can just reassure myself but yesterday I knew it was hunger and that I needed something more substantial. The smoked salmon is very soft and I chewed it for forever, and I loved every moment of it🙂. (Note: I’ve been on purées since the day after surgery, tomorrow is my 2 week post op appointment, and I would have blitzed the salmon but I’m just making do the best I can with the snowy adventures. I also ate scrambled egg at Denny’s, I measured out 2 ounces and just fork squished the heck out of it and that went well too.)

I had my surgery July 4th and the good news is that I am down 60lbs but the bad news is that I ended up between July 3rd and Nov 1st spending 12.5 weeks in hospital with complications following the surgery. I had pancreatitis and then also got infections as the surgery didn't completely close my stomach so I ended up with a small hole. Ended up having a number of gastroscopes, tubes fitted to my stomach and back to drain the infection and now have an internal tube fitted in my stomach, which will eventually (I hope) make its own way out as my stomach heals. Had really bad reflux until about two weeks ago when I started taking tablets with simeticone so it has eased considerably. Still in pain often, feels like my stomach is either bruised or pulled muscles. It is great to have lost the weight, especially as the hospital had me on feeding tubes with nutrients etc., but at the present time I feel like I would not recommend this surgery to anyone unless it was life or death. I lost the last few months of my life basically and know that the trauma is effecting me, can't sleep much (partly due to the pain and partly due to not being able to shift the hours the nurses would wake me), feel exhausted and also feel a bit weepy at times.

It took me 2 long weeks! Pretty sure I took Colace and still had to strain when going. Then another 2 weeks. It was still hard at the time to go, but soon after things went back to normal. I did have to try a home enema, but what worked best was glycerine suppositories, also Prunelax cleared me out the last time I was backed up. So much so I've been regular since.

Hello everyone - checking in and feeling kind of lousy post morning routine - as I seem to sometimes feel for about an hour after every 'meal'. I'm sure this will get easier with time; I hate this puree stage though and I hate not being able to drink 30 mins before and after meals! Everything wants to stick on its way down. Ugh. So - #1 - Protein powder! My nutritionist suggested an unflavored protein powder called Genepro. It's even lactose, GMO, and gluten free. I ordered it on Amazon this morning. The description states it can even be used in place of flour and that it should be mixed with room temperature fluids before being added to other items. So - I'm going to give it a try. It's only 11g of protein per serving but if coupled with protein rich foods like ricotta, low fat cottage cheese, or zero sugar yogurt I think it just might do the trick to help me meet my protein goals. Here's hoping! @draikaina8503 - Oh my gosh, my heart goes out to you and your sweet, confused furbaby! That sounds absolutely AWFUL. I'm so terribly sorry you ended up in that pain as a result of an overly eager, loving pup. I hope you managed to bring it back down to a tolerable level and that no long term damage was done! I know that I slept terribly last night between two doses of Milk of Magnesia working their way through my system, having heartburn, and the tugging/sharp pain that would shoot up from my left side in a brief flare when I moved wrong. I did some research and I'm pretty sure what I'm experiencing is from the stitch they used to keep my stomach 'in place' and that it will loosen some over time. I'm trying to work on posture and wanted to let you know I got to thinking of what other people have mentioned on here and thought of that pillow you talked about being given! I hugged my own round support pillow against my abdomen at one point finally and *poof* relief. So, thank you, again!! So today is surgery day, I believe, for @Averdra and @caseyash30 - Bidding you both the best of experiences and hopefully minimally painful recoveries! Remember, walk walk walk, ask for ice, and sip SO slowly. Be cautious about laying at any kind of incline until after you've had a good burp or two, or at least 'feel' the fluid trickle down! The posture you're in when you sip can make a HUGE difference - try to put your shoulders back and keep your spine as straight as you can manage - it helps! I strongly suggest staying ahead of your pain, and also staying ahead of constipation! If you get to day TWO with no bowel movement, take a dose of Milk of Magnesia - especially if you're also taking narcotics! (Obviously with doctor's ok! ) Also, your date must be coming up, @Ladygrey, I'm guessing? Sorry if I missed you posting the date! How are you doing, @Justarwaxx ? You're about a week out now, I believe? @Farhad - Also sending you the best and wonder if you're at purees yet? (I may have missed a post!) I also wanted to toss a message out there to @Mandalynne ! Maybe I've missed your posts, but you had your surgery on the 14th, right?? How you doing over there? I hope the Finch is still helping you out! I have my water goals on there and also assigned myself the task 3x day to do my Baritastic app entries, as well as take my vitamins (separate from also taking my Calcium since I can't take the Iron & Calcium together) I would absolutely be at a loss without that app and am SO grateful it's free. Let me know if you want to add me on there - it doesn't share personal information but lets your added 'Friends' send and receive cute little good vibes from your Birb. Only mentioning in case you didn't know, a friend had to tell me and once I started interacting with friends my dopamine boosts went up tremendously because I wanted to be able to dress up my Birb to go visit others. I'm so sorry if I missed responding to you in the chaos - I'm curious how your pain management is going and if you found an alternative to narcotics for your recovery? I'm in a limbo state myself with pain management right now - I have chronic pain conditions that were previously treated with an opioid by my primary care doctor but even though I stretched what was given to me by my surgeon I'm having trouble managing my chronic pain plus recovery. I thought of you and your question as I'm trying to mainly handle things with Tylenol myself right now, and lots of ice packs. It's rough and I agree - this is probably one of the hardest things I've EVER done. Welcome, @RRenaeL23, and congratulations on your surgery! How are you doing now? Are you still on liquids? How goes the pain / protein / fluid goals? Good job on denying yourself the fruit - you might pick up some sugar free popsicles to help when those cravings hit in case you don't always feel up for a walk! Also - I haven't taken the time to update my tag in quite a while, either, and I really need to. Oh well, limited chair time still for me! I'll get to it! That's all from me for now - thinking of you all, whether I tagged you here or not! I tried to do another recap of the thread from top to bottom and apologize for not having taken the time in this post to respond to everyone I've missed along the way. I'm working on it!

So I eat 4200 calories a day. Long story short. 456 pounds at age 19 had DS 39 now and I weigh 178 pounds I've been working out 3x a week for two years. Lifting weights. At first I lost muscle, because I was eating 2200 calories most days maybe 60 grams of protein. I now I eat 4200 a day and get 250 grams of protein easy but even with gaining muscle I don't gain weight on the scale yet. I've gained in the past but once I started lifting weights I stopped. I just stay at 178ish.. my doctor wants me to take enzymes but I want to be able to gain weight with food... It's annoying to me I can't even gain a pound. I'm slowly raising calories 200 at a time. I wait a month then I'll raise it again but does anyone know how many calories I probably need and can anyone tell me for sure how many calories I absorb and how much fat, carbs, protein I absorb? My doctor says he can't tell me because everyone is different but... I need answers. I find myself scared every day I'll lose weight.. it's crazy to me im eating so much but my doctor's kinda not cool.. so I don't trust him last time I took enzymes I ended up getting up to 240 pounds on accident and the idea of gaining that much weight scares me.. I prefer to do it normally I just wonder what the calorie number is need. What works for you

I can relate to the feeling of I'll never get there...... my number that had me raging was 210. I could NOT get past that number no matter what I did. I swore I could be dead for 2 weeks and still weigh 210. That was the number that drove me to have VSG. My new demon is 190. I've been stalled at that number now for 2 and a half months ! Those damn numbers will drive us crazy !!!!!

I know it's so hard with kids, but I suggest getting rid of everything in the house that could be a temptation. This summer, I stopped replacing the snacks as they ran out. I stopped buying candy and cookies. We started making "nice cream" from frozen fruit. I have just under 4 weeks to go and I'd say about 90% of the stuff is gone, replaced with salted nuts and apple sauce cups. Luckily, my girls are 12 and 15, so they understand why, and I can let them have candy for themselves when the time comes and they'll know not to have it anywhere near me. But don't feel guilty! It's a learning experience, that's all. Now you know you have to be extra mindful when food is around.

I'm a week out from surgery but have been having rib to back pain (maybe spasms). At first, it was if I had sipped too much liquid, but now it comes and goes on its own. Has anybody else experienced this? Is this normal? Sent from my SM-S908U using Tapatalk

Yeah, I was not told to count carbs either. Just was told to avoid pasta, bread & rice, like we usually all are, & to keep carbs lowish. I still keep my carbs lowish & still don’t eat bread, pasta or rice. I look to multi or whole grains & mostly those that are low processed (which will give you extra fibre) like traditional oats. Remember your vegetables & fruit have fibre which will compensate for having fewer carbs because you have to count whole carbs. Our bodies have different needs which is why someone may lose weight following one way of eating & someone else can’t. Low carb may work for you or may not in the long term. Now you are getting closer to your goal you can start to work out what your body needs in regards to nutrients to function effectively. What you discover can be quite interesting. I discovered I feel better with lowish carbs & very low sugar. I also feel better if I eat breakfast a little later (around 9am) after years of not eating breakfast or feeling blah if I did. Oh, yeah, you can’t break a stall. It’s a natural & important part of your weight loss. The stall will break when your body is ready & has adjusted (digestive hormones, metabolism, etc.) to meet your new needs. You’ve been putting it through a lot. Best thing is not to make changes which will stress your body more.

My Costco keeps running out of Fairlife. I’ve been ordering from them online but it is a little bit more to have it shipped. I’ll have to try the cafe latte. I’ve been off Ozempic for a few weeks. Good news is that I haven’t thrown up for over a week a the bad news is that some of my hunger is coming back here at the end. I’m trying to drink water and remind myself I’m already down 30 pounds from this month of preop (my wife and others have made comments about looking skinnier). I’m still trying to mentally prepare for Monday. I actually read a few of the papers my surgeon wrote about bariatric surgeries and his view on the process. It was interesting. Tomorrow is my last day of work and I just want to get to it.

I’ve had the gastric sleeve January of 2015, gained a good amount of my weight back. Decided to take another approach and do it RIGHT this time around. 2 week pre op was tough but possible.. Now I’m post op 11/9/23 I had the switch. Thanks god everything went well! Just here with some pain and anxious to start my next phase :puréed 🤮

Did my shopping for my 2 week post-op diet today. Surgery is on Friday and I am so excited to get to have creamy soups after two weeks of nothing but protein shakes and jello.

Did my shopping for my 2 week post-op diet today. Surgery is on Friday and I am so excited to get to have creamy Soups after two weeks of nothing but Protein Shakes and Jello.

My dietician always writes on my record "unknowledgable about eating correctly".... LOL It used to get me mad,but now I just laugh at it. Maybe she does it for insurance purposes or to justify her job ...who knows. She makes me write down everything I eat ,which has gotten to be a pain ,but I do it . It does help me keep up with my protein intake. I see her on Oct.25 of this month . I've written everything down and I've been at a stall for 3 and a half months now .I'm anxious to see what she'll say .

@newbegining2024 Hi All! I can't believe how fast time has gone! I will be going to my 6 mth check up tomorrow 2/20/24. Everything is a lot better! As of today I am 173lbs, I'll update my ticker it's still at 183. I am able to eat more varieties that I cook at home. Can't tolerate beef to well but I was never a big red meat person. I am still on the fence with salads/raw vegs though I can tolerate raw onions and tomatoes. I am not doing too well with my multi because I purchased capsules that I open to put in my smoothies which I don't take every day anymore. I just purchase the multi-vitamin pack from the bariatric store, I'll update you on that later My food is mostly a diet consistency of pescatarian due to the low cal/high protein and the ease of my system digesting the food. I would occassionally eat chicken as well (ground, poached breast etc), turkey hardly ever because the meat is not as soft as chicken. My veggies are fine steamed, some legumes & beans (occasional), as far as grains or potatoes etc I try to not do carbs at all or keep them at a bare minimum with an occasional meal...I've really gotten into sweet potatoes as I didn't eat them a lot before. Swelling is gone, skin is good, and I can visually see the difference in pounds and inches loss especially from a side view lol. I still have work to do (vitamins, eat more) and I am working on it. BTW!!!! I am back in the health & wellness field as I start my new position next week. I took a pause last summer. Now as I am on my health journey I'll be helping my patients with weight loss and adopting healthier lifestyles. My goal is to lose 13 more lbs and as you all know after running so long and you can see the finish line in sight....your legs get weary and that last sprint is the hardest. Let me know how you all are doing! (this will be posted in a new thread as well)

You and I are about the same stats!! I’m 5’1. My heaviest was 234 but I lost a fair amount then started gaining again and at 213 I decided it was time! With my 2 week pre-op liquid diet I weighed in at 197 this morning. 5 more days until my surgery. Scared but eager to see where this takes us!! We got this!! Let me tell you!! I’m really noticing my habits around food now that I can’t eat anything… and I’ve been having dreams of eating food and ruining my pre op plan for surgery. I just have to laugh at myself for that though. Because I know I want this.

Hi KyahRose! I just had the DS surgery on November 1st. I considered SADI-S, Bypass, and DS when deciding on which surgery to go with. In the end I picked DS even though it is the scariest of the surgeries, because I wanted the benefit of my co-morbidities going into remission which the other two surgeries can do, but the DS does best. Plus I wanted a surgery that has a lot of studies behind it going out years, and while the bypass does have that, the SADI does not. I didn't want to have an experimental surgery, enough of my medical care is experimental. LOL The DS has a proven track record and is safe for the vast majority of people who have it. That being said, it IS a serious surgery. You can make yourself very ill if you don't follow the protein and vitamin recommendations, and even the vitamin recommendations from the docs are often not enough. I highly recommend going over to bariatricfacts.com and joining the forum there to talk to the DS vets. I'm over there as Shrinkingmytiara. These are people who have had the surgery 10+ years. They will tell you the good, bad, and ugly and make sure you understand the ugly and what you are getting yourself into. There is a wealth of info on that site about DS and some about the SADI. On FB there is a Duodenal Switch SUPPORT Group (there are a number of them, but I'm in that one) which also has a lot of vets in it. It has people with DS and with SADI. You'll read a lot of complaint posts from people who are having issues (common for any support group) but it'll give you an idea of what some of the challenges are post surgery. Again, your odds of having complications are quite low (though a little higher than the other surgeries), but it is still worth seeing what others are experiencing. I'm sure you could find the same for Bypass. I have had no major complications with my surgery so far. I had a lot of nausea and ended up in the hospital an extra night while we stabilized that and my pain levels. Once I came home I've only needed my nausea meds a handful of times and I didn't need pain meds. I wasn't able to ingest whey protein drinks for the first two weeks but my surgeon told me the body has stores for 3 weeks, so to focus on water and the rest would come. He was right! I can drink them now and am getting protein in what I eat now that I'm on soft foods. I've met my fluid goals every day, some days are harder than others. I've had some diarrhea on and off but my system tends that way even pre-surgery. I could drink lactose free milk and bone broth the first week so those are what kept me going. I actually feel more energy now most days than I did before surgery which is strange to me! I do tire out a little easy though because I'm still healing. My stomach did these spasms while feeling like it was turning in cartwheels inside me for about 2 weeks. They finally faded like the surgeon said they would. I'm diabetic. My fasting blood sugar now sits at 87 which is stellar. They told me to stop the diabetes meds. I had high blood pressure but they took me off those in the hospital and my blood pressure is normal! 105/76 when checked at my 2 week follow up!! I've lost 21 lbs in 3 weeks post surgery, for a total of 35 lbs from my highest weight. I can't wrap my head around that, it happened so quickly! I had a moment post surgery when I panicked over permanently altering my body in such a drastic way, but then I reminded myself that the way my body was pre-surgery was killing me, this was the only path forward to health that I could see. I don't regret it at all. I'm happy to talk with you more about it if you want, and you can feel free to message me if you want to keep in touch! There aren't very many DSers around here active anymore!

It sounds like you're doing fine. Congrats on your weight loss victories!!! Part of the reason they leaned in heavy on it was because they want you to succeed, but also to a degree, they're covering their own liability and don't want to be sued for not giving you the proper advice. I would try to increase both the best you can, but don't beat yourself up if you come up shy one day. Look for more protein-dense foods and shakes to make up the difference if you can. I like the Fairlife protein shakes that have either 30g or 42g, depending on which is available. One of those can be half your protein content for a day, plus its 11-12oz of fluids! Too little protein can cause your body to run a deficit, in which it will burn off muscle rather than fat, which is not a good thing. The more muscle you can maintain, the more fat calories your body will burn to feed them, which helps with the weight loss. The increased water intake is to keep you hydrated, but it also helps you flush out the waste from what your body is breaking down during your weight loss, preventing it from backing up in your kidneys and leading to problems. But keep up the good work! Sounds like you're getting through the "regret" phase, which I'm convinced we all go through that first month or so haha. It looks like my surgery was a week before yours, and I'm already feeling much better. Hope you are too!

Hi Carrielee - welcome! I had VSG surgery just about a week before my 40th birthday this past November. I had sworn in the years leading up to it that I would NEVER have any kind of WLS, but here I am! If I could have done it on my own, I would have - I needed help to improve my life, because nothing I tried on my own was working, and I tried it all. I had sleep apnea, insulin resistance, and bp that bounced back and forth between hypertensive and high-normal. I felt like I was going to die after climbing up a flight of stairs, and I was passing up good opportunities at my job because I didn't want to walk 5-10 minutes to another building and get all sweaty. I had never had surgery of any kind before (other than getting my wisdom teeth out, but it's not like I was intubated for that), so the thought of getting put under and having my innards poked at was rather intimidating. I would do it over again in a heartbeat. Like @catwoman7 said, I'd do it every year if I had to! I never needed to use my prescription pain meds post-op. I actually take the "long way" to my car at the end of my workdays now. My husband and I routinely walk to the front of our neighborhood and back, whereas previously, I hated just walking the 0.10 mile to our mailbox. My blood pressure has actually been almost LOW ever since waking up from surgery, my IBS-D has essentially disappeared (and I had days where I couldn't be too far from a restroom before), and I'm a little less sweaty. My knees feel INFINITELY better, and they're a little less noisy when I bend down. Now, you do have some health conditions that could make any surgery a little more risky (fatty liver, history of PE especially), but your doctor will review your history and will probably have you do quite a few tests and things to make sure it's safe for you to have surgery. I had some weird, random heart palpitations for darn near 20 years that were dismissed as "nothing major", but my doctor insisted that I do a 48-hour Holter monitor just to be sure. When that didn't show anything, they had me do a monitor for a whole month! They actually figured out the cause (occasional premature atrial contractions, or PACs, which apparently darn near everybody has at some point - some of us just feel them more than others), and cleared me for surgery. Ask your surgeon all the questions you can think of. I watched YouTube videos for months leading up to my surgery just to see what others' experiences were. I crawled through this forum extensively. I read the binder my program gave me over and over and over. I started following tons of WLS accounts on Insta. Do whatever you need to do to ease your mind a bit, and know that there is a large community to back you up! Trust your gut and go with what you know you need to do, be that surgery or something else. No matter what you choose, we'll be here for you.

Dec 19th DS. I'd gotten everything done right before the end of summer break but had to wait on the ok from insurance. Now I get to spend the holidays recovering. :) I had my last consult with my surgeon yesterday, and I get to start the liver shrinking diet tomorrow. Last meal was pizza and hot wings tonight. I'm stocked up on protein drinks and water and have my subscribe and save set from Amazon, but I guess it's time to start looking into other things once I get with my dietician. (She has COVID, so the meeting yesterday will now be a Zoom meeting Friday). Excited and a touch nervous. 3 weeks!

You need some electrolyte powders to mix in your water. Look for one with a good amount of potassium and magnesium. It stops the "keto flu" symptoms like fatigue and headaches! A lot of people underestimate them. I did 3 weeks of a pre-op diet with no headaches or muscle cramps after the first day because I started taking those handy little powders! They help post-op too.

Hi everyone, my name is Charlie and I had gastric sleeve on 10/03/23. Prior to surgery I was weighing in at 227. I am 5'6" and have high BP as well as high cholesterol and sleep apnea. I am 6 weeks post op now and weigh 197 and my BP is back to 120/80 today with no meds.

You have a great reason to get to your goal. Have the IVF team said you need to be at 175lbs ? Huge congratulations on your progress so far. You need to have a little patience now. The easy part has ended and the work begins for you. I started at a similar weight to you almost 2 years ago. I have just upped my cals from 1200 to 1500 a day. I am still loosing but at a micro pace. I had a 3.5 month stall, a stone ago. I keep thinking I am done and then chunk ! the scales go down again. If I am truly honest with myself, I love the continued weight losses but my family and friends are saying whoa stop.