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I had my 2 week follow up with my surgeon yesterday! Incisions are healing well, tummy is doing better, he cleared me to move to purees and said if I wanted to I could even try fish or eggs prepared soft since they both are relatively soft on the digestive system, though some don't do well on eggs. I had yogurt yesterday and it went down well, so last night I had some tuna fish and it was fine too!! No more awful twisting pains, just a dull ache if I eat or drink too fast. I'm so thankful I took that two weeks on fluids, I wouldn't have done as well if it was only one week. I needed the extra week to heal and let some swelling go down. I officially have lost 15 lbs since surgery. That's 29 lbs since my highest weight! The last time I lost 30 lbs was 20 years ago. I'm so amazed. I'm not losing super fast but that's okay, I'm good with slow as long as it is steady... I had enough energy to go through the grocery store yesterday!! I haven't been able to do that in a few years. It was just 45 minutes of walking and standing but it is such an improvement. I'm really grateful for all this. So glad I had the surgery...

I've been a lot more careful with my eating since July, but last week I had a business trip to Las Vegas. I didn't go completely crazy, but I was eating in restaurants every day and the food was so salty. Plus flying, which always causes me some water retention. I weighed myself Sunday, the day after I got home, and I was up 10 lbs! But I know this was almost all water because I weighed today and I'm back down to where I was before the trip. A big, salty Thanksgiving meal and a couple days of leftovers would probably do the trick!

Okay, so you bulk up before your weigh in with food, fluid, heavy clothing or shoes, or weighing down your pockets. I would worry that you go the second time without this additional bulk & you weigh a lot less & they think wow you’ve lost a lot of weight great. But the third time your weight has slowed a lot to what would be appropriate for your real weight. Plus the more you weigh the more they may want you to lose before surgery. Be careful, besides taking off my shoes I’ve been asked to remove a heavier skirt before my weigh in so they’d get a more accurate result. (Didn’t wear it on purpose just because I liked it.) My friend was told she was a couple of kilos short of meeting the BMI requirement. I remember who saying oh well a couple of weeks until Christmas & I always put on weight then so I’ll make another appointment for January. She did & she met the requirement. You have Thanksgiving soon so it may be a moot point.

There are some people who continue to feel hunger after the surgery. Be careful you’re not confusing real hunger & head hunger. Real hunger feels different. I feel like something is wrong & restless. I never want a specific food, favour or texture. And there is a reason why I feel hungry - like I haven’t eaten for a few hours. It does take time to work out your cues for real hunger. The other issue to consider is you’re still healing. Someone recently posted their surgeon said it can take 8 weeks or more to fully heal internally after a sleeve. This includes your nerves which were cut which is why our messages for hunger, satiety, etc, aren’t accurately felt, or in the case if your restriction not felt at all during this recovery period. It’s why we have to be careful of how much we eat & drink. I always say all because you can doesn’t mean you should. You may be able to eat a portion larger than you’ve been told or drink more but the signals telling you stop or warning you of danger aren’t working properly. Go slowly making small changes. Best not to push to see how much you think you can do. There’s lots of little things to learn about post surgery, consider & most importantly learn about yourself. But you’ll get there. All the best with your recovery.

My surgery date is December 20th as well! My Preop Appointment is November 27th. I start my 2 week liver shrink diet on 12/6. Two weeks of one protein shake for breakfast, one for lunch and a high protein low calorie dinner consisting of 6 oz or less of a nonfried meat and unlimited nonstarchy veggies. Unlimited clear fluids, aiming for at least of 64 ounces per day. Let's do this y'all!

I had my VSG on October 2nd. I started real food this past Monday. I'm losing an average of 3 pounds per week. My problem is that not only am I hungry, I seem to be able to eat more than what I should be. It feels like I still have my entire stomach. Anyone else experiencing this? My surgeon says I'm doing great, but I'm not so sure.

Things are still very swollen inside at the moment, so sometimes it can feel like fluid backs up. I'm two weeks out and still get a bloated feeling from drinking fluids sometimes! But the awful twisting pains have eased a lot, now I'm more likely to just get this dull ache. Good luck with the protein drinks, I can get them down now!!

Have you recently weighed in a little higher, like at your doctor's office for a physical? That may be good enough. When I was still in the nonsurgical program at my hospital, I weighed in at a BMI of just over 40. At that point, my doctor suggested I look into surgery. I was pretty shaken by hitting that number and I immediately made some changes, so 2 weeks later when I came back for my first appointment on the surgical side, I was around 39.8. They said it was fine, that they go by the highest weight for qualifying. And yes, I wore my heaviest shoes that time, just in case! I know that usually they will deduct a couple pounds for clothing, but they didn't for that highest weight, I think just to be safe. I do have a comorbidity, though, so I would qualify anyway. You might try a few days of salty foods before your next appointment, too.

Yup! You've got to walk it out. Walk as much and as often as you can. Gas-x sometimes helps a little for some but walking and time are the only cure. 💚I'm two weeks post op.

Well said, @NickelChip. I agree that we need radical change from our policy makers at the highest levels, and some real nutritional education. Part of my journey is that I have finally gotten very angry about the marketing/indoctrination and policy lobbying that the for-profit "food" industries have been allowed to get away with, at the expense of our health in the USA. I'm old enough to recall that the first food pyramid from the USDA said to eat 6-11 servings of bread, rice, cereal, or pasta every day. As a young person, I thought I was practicing healthy eating when I would have two servings of cereal for breakfast, then two sandwiches for lunch, and three servings of rice for supper. 9 servings was totally within the guidelines, so why was I gaining weight??? Thank you for sharing the article, @GreenTealael. I felt like I was reading about myself! Body size, obesity, health and their places in society and the science of medicine seem to get more complicated every day. I found the short history lesson on BMI quite fascinating.

Hi everyone! This is my first post on the boards. I had my surgery on 10/23. I'm feeling pretty good but I'm nervous about going back to work. I know I still need to have my protein shakes throughout the day. But I guess I'm just nervous about being tempted by the things people bring in. Going back to work next week so wish me luck!

I went on a trip this week..and I knew I'd be doing a lot of walking so I took my most comfortable furry sketcher clogs. They've always been comfortable for long days, well since I've lost weight they're now lose and as a result they flopped around and I have two huge blisters on the balls of each foot! So good problem with bad results...but still good!

Just this week I took a trip and I actually had extra in my seatbelt on the plane (it used to he maxed)! (shhh don't tell my bariatric surgeon we're not supposed to travel for a minimum of 90 days per his office - I was a week short).

I had gastric bypass on October 17th. I had a lot of complications. I woke up in extreme pain immediately and was vomiting blood. After 2 days in ICU and 2 days in a regular hospital room, I ended up being discharged from the hospital. A little over a week later, I ended back up in the ER and another week in the hospital. I was unable to keep any fluids down (not even thinking about food). I would vomit immediately and I became so extremely dehydrated that I started having heart papilations. It was very scary. Come to find out, my stoma to empy the stomach into my intestine was so severly inflammed (and also sewn extremly tight) that my stomach was not emptying causing nausea and vomiting. Also a lot of fluid was pooling around my esophagus. I had to get fluids in me, potassium IVs and a banana bag of nutrients and I was unable to eat or drink anything during my hospital stay. I am not trying to scare anyone from having surgery--just sharing my experience. I am feeling much better now, I am home and I am down 40 pounds! I am holding down liquids and starting to eat soft foods like pudding and mashed potatoes.

And you would have. I realized this past week while going thru years of stuff that I'm finally cleaning out, how long I actually struggled with dieting and weight loss. I found journals and food diaries and counting calorie lists, diet books and recipes etc. It made me sad. I could have avoided a lot of that if I had decided to get the surgery sooner. But I'm a firm believer that everything happens for a reason and am happy with where I am now, I can honestly say, and I've said it before...my only regret is not getting the WLS sooner.

@Arendiva we are surgery date twins! How is it going so far? I did experience the 3 week stall, but the scale is moving again. I'm feeling pretty good, overall. I have thrown up a couple of times - either when something didn't sit right or I overate.

Don't worry, it will resume. It's your body panicking because of such a drastic change in a short amount of time. The week 3 stall can last for 3 weeks itself, or sometimes more. During that time, your body can still be burning fat, but its retaining fluid to keep around because it thinks you're in a starvation situation and wants to preserve space to replenish the fat cells. It won't let go of that excess fluid and old cells until it knows you're safe, which it eventually will, and it will establish a new baseline weight as long as you stick to it. You got this!

I have been on the road to getting Gastric Bypass, I even got my approval! But of course, I was waiting for my insurance, then they were not getting back to me so I switched insurance companies which will save me lots of money. Once I got my new insurance in place, I contacted my Surgeon's Financial Advisor to see if I needed to redo the process or if I am still good to move forward. Tell me why I didn't hear from her for a couple of months (usually she replies quickly). I emailed her one more time explaining that I am paying lots of money for this insurance plan just for this surgery, she immediately contacted me. She told me that the hospital is closing the practice, but she reassured me that they are moving to a different hospital, and he won't see clients until the second week of January. I am finally happy that I have some answers, but I am still worried that now that my surgeon isn't at this hospital, will my insurance plan still cover me? I have been waiting for what seems like forever for this surgery, but I know it will be worth it in the long run.

My weight loss has stalled since November 5th. I know this is normal since loads of other people have mentioned experiencing a week 3 stall, but it is still disheartening to lose nothing for 11 days when I know I'm following the diet, focusing on protein, drinking fluids and keeping my portion sizes appropriately small. I hope this plateau breaks soon because it is demoralizing.

Hello @New To This23 thank you so much! My current loss includes preop diet as well. I was only required to do a 3 day preop diet. I agree about the stalls or slow moving scales! I plan to only weigh once a month. I already was getting in a habit of weighing everyday...I don't feel that's mentally healthy. Anyways I feel good about the holidays. I current cook several times a week for my family and have already meal prepped my "bariatric portions". I may still make old favorites for family dinner... but there no pressure to do so. I may even try a little of normal food... but won't push it.

Apologies for the novel I'm about to write, and thanks in advance if you bother to read it all! 😂 TL;DR it took me ~7 months total to go from first appointments to surgery. I went through my local university's health system and am using insurance, so my timeline will likely differ from those who are self-pay or outside the USA! My program is roughly 5-6 months, with 4 group classes and two check-ins with Nutrition & Psychology where they determine if you're approved to move to the next part of the program (or send you for additional counseling or nutrition, if not approved). I also had to do 2 extra appointments with Nutrition & Psych to keep insurance happy, as mine requires that you have some sort of contact or follow-up every month until you get surgery. Here's what my personal timeline looked like: April 27th, 2023 - First appointments with Dietitian, Psychology, Surgeon May 2nd - First group class May 16th - Second group class June 6th - Psych check-in June 15th - Nutrition check-in July 5th - Third group class July 27th - Fourth group class August 1st - Nutrition check-in August 10th - Psych check-in **CALLED IN LATE AUGUST TO SCHEDULE! (see below) September 19th - extra Nutrition & Psych check-ins to keep insurance happy October 3rd - GP visit for physical and approval for EGD (the hospital mandated this due to high BMI requiring monitored anesthesia for the EGD) October 4th - EGD (scope of esophagus, stomach, upper bowel) November 8th - Started 2-week liquid only liver-reducing diet (LRD) November 9th - Pre-op Readiness Visits (basically meeting w/surgeon again, nurse practitioner, coordinator, etc. to make sure I have all the pre-op information, etc.) November 22nd, 2023 - SURGERY DATE! **So, they DID call me in late August to schedule my surgery. At my initial appointment with my surgeon, he wanted me to get an EGD to make sure I don't have silent reflux or anything funky going on, as I get occasional reflux with certain foods. When I scheduled my EGD back in April, they were scheduling out into OCTOBER 🙃, so I scheduled it for October 4th. In late August (after finishing all my classes and check-ins), my surgeon's office called to let me know the surgeon reviewed my file and was fine with skipping the EGD since I don't have a history of chronic GERD and asked if I wanted a date in September. Well, at this point I was used to the idea of having surgery towards the end of the year, AND I already had a big ol' wedding planned for October and wanted to be able to at least eat solid food for that and have my dress fit properly, so I told them I was fine with keeping the EGD appointment just to be safe and that I'd prefer a date in late November, as I had a HUGE thing scheduled at my work for this week (11/13-11/16) where I pretty much had to be there. They had no problem scheduling me out that far, so if you need a particular timeframe and need to push back for life reasons, I've heard the majority of programs have absolutely no problem doing so. Just know that your insurance (if you aren't self-pay) might want you to make an extra check-in visit or two so you have some kind of contact monthly.

I had the switch too! Nov. 1st. How are you feeling?? I should be able to finally move from fluids to purees tomorrow when I see my surgeon for my 2 week post op appointment. I can't wait! I'm so tired of liquids, though I do think they help the healing process...

I take it no more than once a week. Tylenol just doesn't work on certain kinds of pain. If I were to develop new acid reflux or stomach discomfort I would discontinue them but I haven't yet had an issue because of how infrequently I take 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 🤮