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For those who just got it done how was it I'm scheduled for the bypass on Monday 9/18//23 and not going to lie I'm second guessing it right now I'm 35 years old is this what I want for my life Im only 320 pounds yes the weight sucks and my quality of life sucks but I don't know if I'm ready for all the medications vitamins etc idk I'm just thinking. Any input

Tomorrow will be my 1 year anniversary since my gastric bypass surgery. I have lost 86 pounds. I’m not going to lie, I honestly thought I would have lost more by now. Although weight loss has slowed down tremendously, I have yet to see a gain on the scale so I take that as a win. I would like to lose at least another 50 pounds so I have to remember this surgery is not a cure-all, it’s simply a tool. I’ve been extremely lucky and have had no complications whatsoever. I don’t experience dumping syndrome at all (well I did once when I ate some ice cream and have steered clear ever since) but other than that there really isn’t anything I can’t eat, I just eat a whole lot less. I can definitely be better about my diet, like always, but one thing I’ve incorporated into my life that has stuck is exercise. I don’t feel good unless I exercise so it’s become addicting (in a good way). Anybody who is reading this and contemplating this surgery, or is in recent post op and struggling, I have absolutely no regrets about having this surgery. The first 2 months were rough, but I got through it and so will you!

Gastric sleeve on 01/06/23, Loss a significant amount of weight the first few months but only about 12 lbs in the last 2 months. I have less then 30 lbs to get to goal but I feel like this may take awhile. Any suggestions besides the obvious (consuming recommended protein, drinking water, counting calories, weighing/measuring food, exercise, etc.)

I'm going to Planet Fitness today for the first time to lift some weights. But if my fat cells scream it might set off the lunker alarm. It goes off if anyone is making too much noise. Banging weights, grunting or in this case screaming. LOL too funny!!!

I had my VSG back on 3/3/23, with a heavy weight of 195. (Im 5’2”). Surgery day, I weighed in at 184 after a two week liver shrinking diet- two shakes a day/one meal. Yesterday I had my 6 month check up, an things are going really well. Weighed in at 129- and BMI in healthy range. Hair loss has been significant, but hoping that turns around soon… fingers crossed. Since I had my surgery in Mexico, this was my first meeting with Bariatrician and he says that im having really nice success- and that 8-10 months is about how long someone would expect to see results from VSG. (I’d heard longer). He also took labs, and all seems to be in good range- saw the results this morning. First two pics from today, last pic is before (I hated having picture made and can’t find one really near that time except this one. My goal this next few months is to take up a more structured exercise routine to build some muscle— so much of the pain I was having pre-surgery is gone. So glad to have taken this step for my health!

I never really had any pain at all. In fact, I wondered if they'd actually done the surgery! I was groggy that first day, but that's about it. if you do have pain, let them know (some people do, but most of us do not). I had a lot of pain after two of my skin removal surgeries, but they took care of that right away (put something in my IV line). most people experience little to no pain with weight loss surgeries, though.

I worked with a dietitian for six months. She had me gradually make changes so my eating looked more and more like how I would be eating post-surgery (not like you're eating the first couple of months post-surgery, but after that, when you can eat more types of food). We started off with having me stick to 2300 calories a day (that in itself was kind of a challenge since I'd probably been eating 3000 or more to maintain my weight). I gradually moved to eating more protein and fewer carbs. Three meals a day, plus two snacks. More fruits and vegetables. Less processed stuff and low-nutrient stuff. More fluids. Getting some exercise most days of the week - even walking was fine - but I also did water aerobics a couple of times a week. I lost about 40 lbs in that six months (knowing I'd have to meet with her once a month and get weighed (by her) helped, too - accountability!). Then I lost another 17 lbs in my two-week pre-surgery liquid diet (although that would have been mostly water, of course) . So down 57 lbs by the time they rolled me into surgery. the point of this is that they want to see if you can stick to a diet long-term, not so much how much weight you can lose (although they may be giving you the 10% goal since that's the only way they can objectively tell if you've been sticking to a diet or not). And unfortunately you WILL have to monitor your eating after surgery, too - as people say, it's just a tool. You do your part, the surgery does its part, and you'll succeed. It's not much different than being on a diet (although having a smaller stomach and losing your hunger (as most of us do) for a few months definitely helps!). The difference is, this time your effort will pay off. I could never lose more than 50 or 60 lbs on my own. This time I lost over 200, and have managed to keep most of it off for eight years. Never would have happened without surgery. P.S. and you will have to monitor your eating for the rest of your life. If I slack off for more than a handful of days, it shows up on the scale. But honestly, this is no different than a lot of my never-been-obese women friends. A lot of them have to watch what they eat, too, unfortunately. There aren't many people who can eat what they want and as much as they want and never gain weight.

Also the food choices I eat are nutrient-dense for example lunch or dinner is two slices of Daves Killer thin slice bread, toasted with hummus, sprouts, avocado, tomato and either 4 slices of turkey bacon or vegan bacon. I might eat rice with shrimp and asparagus, with strawberries. Breakfast is something like one thin slice of Dave's Killer bread, avocado, egg, and everything bagel seasoning. I found that I have a McDonald's egg McMuffin breakfast with coffee and no ham and it does not negatively affect my weight. I also on the advice of my bariatric nurse, who also had the surgery eat one big meal every once in a while, it helps me drop a couple of pounds by the next day.

TL;DR - more cardio, no snacking, eat on schedule 3 times a day. I had to do this, I have not had my surgery, I am just waiting to be scheduled. The surgeon has gone over all my labs and tests and approved me for surgery. I had to lose 5% of my body weight and keep it off while I wait for everything. I struggled like no other to do this, which was wild because in the past, and as recently as the last fall I had dropped at least 30lbs super quick. Basically, I changed my eating, but this time I wanted to learn how to eat food without being on some kind of restriction, like no carbs, or low fat, no sweets ever, cabbage only, two shakes a day, and a sandwich for dinner, type thing. I knew I did not want to live the rest of my life after surgery struggling with continued "diets". I started seeing a nutritionist, who was not much help, but she did get me on scheduled eating, having a meal within one hour of waking and then eating every 4 hours for a total of 3 times a day. I was already drinking 96 oz of water a day, but I bumped it up to 150oz a day. I lost 10lbs in 2 weeks doing that. Then it stopped losing and I still had not met the 5% goal. So I added exercise, I started weightlifting and swimming, 1 hour of weights, 1-hour swim and my weight did not change. However, my clothes started getting loose, but I needed to meet that weight goal. So I stopped swimming and just focused on weights for 45 min and 20 minutes of walking. still my weight stalled, but my clothes got looser. I had a week before my final weigh-in and I stopped exercising, drank less water, took laxatives and water pills, and basically ate air. I made the weight goal. After that I was like okay what is going on? I started back with weights and eating my weight went up 5 lbs. Finally, I learned that I was more than likely gaining muscle ( I was getting stronger) The muscle gain weight-wise was canceling out the fat loss, so my weight remained the same but my clothing was loose. This is great, but not so much when you need to be at a certain number in a certain time frame. I switched things up to 30 minutes of elliptical x mode and 30 minutes of stationary bike, put 30 min. dumbells for arms and my weight started dropping again. I am currently 10lbs below the approval goal I needed to be at and I have kept it off during the 2 months the incompetent office lady lost my paperwork, I would have already had surgery two months ago if it wasn't for her. So I have lost 9% of my starting weight. After surgery, I plan on resuming weightlifting since muscle creates a metabolism change.

I have my first consultation next Tuesday, and if my surgeon's office holds to the same rules as when I went in five years ago, they require you to lose 10% of your body weight prior to surgery. I'm really frustrated by this because I feel like I'm doing the surgery because I CAN'T lose weight by diet and exercise. If I could, why would I do it? How did you pull it off for those of you who had this requirement? I have to admit, it feels fairly impossible right now.

My partner had anxiety about my face pre-op. They were afraid that I would look like someone that they didn't know once I lost a lot of weight, and they even shed tears. Was this a subtle way to try to talk me out of surgery? I'm not sure; they really weren't behind my decision at first, but they at least saw that I was not going to be deterred by their nor anyone else's opinion. This is about ME. We haven't spent a lot of time together since one week post-op, because of travel commitments that they had. I do wonder if the relationship will change once we spend more time together.

Just because your surgeon (or dietician) told you do something, doesn't mean that it's actually possible. They usually don't think about their guidelines that hard. You kind of have to work through it yourself. To meet these requirements, you need to get 80 g of protein in 12 oz of food max, but realistically more like 9 oz to accommodate the volume of your veggies. You need protein food with at least 8.9 grams of protein per oz. If you go for the most protein dense solid foods, you can do it, barely. 3 oz of chicken breast or egg white (not the whole egg!) has 27 grams of protein. So you eat 3 oz of egg whites for breakfast with 1 oz of veg, and 3 oz chicken breast + 1 oz veg for lunch and dinner. You can't really afford to eat protein foods that are less dense (like shrimp, tuna, lean beef) unless you give up on the veg, so chicken breast and egg white are pretty much your only options. (If y'all know of another food with 27 g of protein per 3 oz, please let me know!) If you cut back to a half an oz of veggies per meal, you might be able to get away with some of them. Does this sound absolutely awful to me? 100% But if you want to follow your surgeon's recommendations, this is, mathematically, pretty much the only option. And you can do a lot with cooking methods, spices, and mixing up the veggies to make this a little more tolerable. It is unlikely that the surgeon has thought through the practical requirements of their recommendation and done the math. (Less than 350 cals per day at over 3 months out seems a little severe, even to me.) It's unlikely that they expect you to actually follow their recommendations. It's much more likely, imo, that they think that protein shakes equals processed and processed equals bad, that they had a patient once who liked cheese who didn't lose weight after surgery, and that they expect you to eat utter garbage at least 25% of the time so a strict, highly restrictive diet the remaining 75% of the time you're compliant is the only way to succeed.

Update 4 weeks post op: I am not eating much just drinking my protein and hitting fluid goals. Weight lose down 34 pounds. Pain none. Still get nauseous when drinking but it not to bad. How everyone else doing? Still losing or stalled?

I'm officially right on the edge of being back into the 200's for the first time in about a decade, I'm also now closer to my goal than I am my heaviest weight, so that's pretty exciting. I've been slowly learning to take smaller bites, way more chewing, and taking more time with meals. I know that we're not supposed to be eating fast food, but I had a regular McDonalds cheeseburger a couple days ago. It was the first burger I've had in four months, and even though it was from McDonalds, it tasted great and I was able to finish the whole thing over the course of about 30 minutes. I'd say that's progress. At one point, my surgeon had told me that it was okay to start incorporating lunch meats and I tried boars head roast beef and it made me so sick that I swore I'd never even try beef again, but I did and it seemed to work out. Most days, I see myself mostly eating string cheese and various nuts. This has definitely been an interesting journey so far.

Well I had a interesting experience recently. I had to have an abdominal CT (nothing to do with my surgery) & my doctor told me the scan was somewhat inconclusive. It seems I don’t have enough fat around my abdomen for them to see any inflammation & to get accurate images of my intestinal area. I mean … what??? I had to undergo some other testing as a result. I never expected losing weight would result in this sort of problem.

I've had a few days of 4-5 BMs a day but on the average 2-3. Thankfully I've never had problems with constipation post-op except during week one. That usually comes with weight stalls. I was told pale stools was caused from the fat loss especially if it floats so.... I'm happy to go often. I figure I'm flushing fat and pounds down the toilet. 😌 Downside, I sometimes worry about being out somewhere and too far away from a bathroom. So I plan carefully. But I know at some point it will slow down. GL

It's funny you should mention this ! I'm a side sleeper, but every once in a while i'll find myself sleeping on my back ! I NEVER slept on my back before. I don't think I snore though -my husband would make sure to tell me LOL I think the reason I can sleep on my back now is because I must have lost weight in my butt and I can lay flatter rather than have that big rear end make my back arch ! It's funny the odd little things we notice after surgery.

This is so true about starvation mode. I too was afraid to up my calories and in effect put myself into starvation mode and my weight loss stalled. As soon as i upped the calories, the weight started coming off again!!!

That is excellent, Summerseeker! I honestly think we're just so hard-wired from years of obesity to expect the worst when it comes to scales, even when there's no need. And I agree with Catwoman, I think on holiday the activity portion is way higher than our day-to-day activity, and because it's on holiday, you don't notice because you're so distracted by fun stuff. I know I came back from a week at an interstate festival that felt like I'd eaten loads and was prepared for the scales to show it... and yeah, rather than gaining I'd lost a little more. It's wild!

Keto rash is a new one to me so I did google it. Does your rash look like the keto rash (prurigo pigmentosa)? Certainly the surgery, change of diet, weight loss, etc. are very stressful & it does seem logical that it might unfortunately set off a flare of your eczema especially if that is a known trigger for you. Have they taken you off the Prilosec & offered you an alternative to see if that is the cause? Good luck with the biopsy. Hope they find an answer soon.

I can relate to that mindset. I used to kid people pre-op that all I had to do was look at food and gain weight. And it was kind of true. But now after your WLS and sticking to the doc's plan, you will see the results on the scale. Fears will subside. Mine did. GL going forward.

Revision weight loss is definitely slower than the original weight loss. I'm almost 11 weeks out from my revision and I've only lost 23 pounds. But at this time when I had my original surgery, I had lost 70 pounds. It's just the nature of things. I had my revision because of complications, not for additional weight loss.

I rarely gain weight anymore when I travel, or if I do, it's one or two pounds which is gone in a few days (likely water weight or excess "material" in my intestines). I think it's because I do a lot of walking when I'm on vacation - which I wouldn't have done back when I weighed over 300 lbs..