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I am sure you will see after talking to a bunch of us. That having a bariatric surgery is but only one part of your whole weight loss journey. You still have to exercise, eat right, and get plenty of rest. Just like most people here say...the surgery is just one tool in your weight loss goals. For me over a 10 year period, I gained weight and lost it more than 4 times, and all the way down to like 200 lbs from 280. I never had trouble losing weight, its just that I could not maintain that weight loss long term, unless I was on a very strict diet. I am hoping that the Gastric Sleeve I got will help me be able to maintain the weight of 185 lbs this time. So I just don't agree with what some people say, that surgery is the easy way out. There is still a lot to losing weight and even going through the whole process of committing to the surgery and recovery. I think most of us were all crazy dieters before we decided on surgery...its just now we have another tool and we got some extra help we need.

So what is everyone doing while playing the waiting game??? I'm eating reasonably, definitely indulging in ice cream a bit more than usual as I'm going to be saying goodbye to that for a long while 🤣. Getting a ton of riding in as well, taking advantage of some nice weather! Holding off on any weight training, I'll plan to start that after I get cleared after surgery. Mentally, I'm ready. Still have some lingering fear and remorse that I need to make a permanent change to my body to finish losing the weight. Hope everyone is doing well!!

I am getting my procedure at So. San Fran. I took my initial class in Nov, and had to wait about 6 weeks to have the 1st psych appt. After that it it was a month to my MD consult. My 1st procedure was finally sched in May, after jumping through all the hoops (including weight loss goal from MD). Unfortunately, I had an insurance change so it was delayed to June. Then I caught COVID at a family wedding and was delayed to next week. Kaiser requires a 6-week wait after a COVID diagnosis. Once you are accepted for surgery, be very careful about exposure. Covid is rough (even with Paxlovid), and the long delay for surgery makes it more depressing. Mask up until surgery. I just had my 3rd pre-op visit with the MD today, and he is happy with my continued weight loss, so we are now a "Go". Yay!

It depends on your insurance. For me, I did not even get to see the surgeon until after I did everything my insurance wanted (6 months with a total of 12 dietician visits, exercising at least 30 min a day, sleep study, psychosocial visit, a total of 10 doctor-supervised weight checks and weight loss of at least 5%). After that, I met the surgeon ( at this point my insurance had approved me for surgery). The surgeon is part of a bariatric team and my guidance now comes from them. I had to get a set of labs, a gallbladder ultrasound, and an EKG. I passed all of those and now I am simply waiting to be scheduled. That was all finished by July 11th, 2023.

It depends on your insurance. For me, I did not even get to see the surgeon until after I did everything my insurance wanted (6 months with a total of 12 dietician visits, exercising at least 30 min a day, sleep study, psychosocial visit, a total of 10 doctor-supervised weight checks and weight loss of at least 5%). After that, I met the surgeon ( at this point my insurance had approved me for surgery). The surgeon is part of a bariatric team and my guidance now comes from them. I had to get a set of labs, a gallbladder ultrasound, and an EKG. I passed all of those and now I am simply waiting to be scheduled. That was all finished by July 11th, 2023.

There have been reports of people using it for weight loss developing gastroparesis. One patient realized she was vomiting food she had eaten 4 days prior. It makes me very glad my insurance denied it and my doctor and I pursued weight loss surgery instead.

My initial consultation was in March (don't remember the day), I got the revision surgery June 19th. BCBS will only pay for "one weight loss surgery per lifetime." I was told by some doctor's offices that since it was a revision, my insurance wouldn't cover. I called my insurance and spoke to a fantastic lady who really helped me out. I made the point that in 2009, when I got sleeved, BCBS for my school district wasn't covering WLS yet. It was private pay for me, and I had it done in Mexico (no hoops to jump through). So, technically, BCBS had never covered a WLS surgery me. She agreed. It was approved. Edit: I did have to follow a diet plan to lose weight before the surgery, I had to have an endoscopy, a barium swallow (to check for acid reflux), blood work, see a cardiologist, have a psyche eval (on the phone), and talk to a nut (on the phone). It was a little easier than virgin surgeries because it wasn't my first rodeo.

From what I'm reading about the Ozempic and Mounjaro injections, once you stop taking them, their appetite suppressant effects wear off and the weight comes back. I have a friend who takes one, but she takes it because she's diabetic. She has lost weight, but she'll most likely need it the rest of her life due to the diabetes anyway. She's told me that at times, she won't inject herself if she goes on a trip (for example) so that she can indulge in alcohol and decadent food without feeling nauseated/vomiting/cramps/diarrhea. But again, she doesn't take it for weight loss. If they're being used solely for weight loss, they will help, but I guess it all depends on how long you're willing to take them. It's possible you can use the injections until you reach your goal. After that, however, it would be up to your self-discipline to continue to foster the modifications that the injections provided. I imagine you'd also have to consider insurance coverage, personal expense, and what short-term and long-term side effects they'll have on you, and whether those effects are cohesive with your lifestyle.

Has anyone tried doing the weight loss shots? My surgery was just over a year ago and I still haven’t lost 50lbs. I started out with a lower BMI. So my surgeons are ok with where I’m at but I’m not. So I’m looking into the shots to help me a long. Just wondering if anyone else has had any luck

It's too bad that people don't view Bariatric surgery for what it is, a medical intervention. Nothing is easy about it except that the tool we are given causes all our efforts to finally actually work for us. People are plain ignorant about the medical reasons behind weight gain. After all the years of working out and dieting with no results, I say we deserve this. But it's easier for them to think we chose surgery over doing the work. No one has said anything negative to me yet, but if they do, I guess I'll have to school them. LOL

Updating now that I'm 3 months out. 1. Basics: GENDER, AGE, HEIGHT Female, 50, 5 feet 0 inches 2. Total Weight lost in the 6 months BEFORE surgery (if any) 6.4 kilos or 14 pounds 3. Weight on DAY OF SURGERY. 148.6 kilos or 327 pounds 4. Weight at 1 MONTH POST surgery 137.6 kilos or 302 pounds 5. Weight at 3 MONTHs POST surgery 127.8 kilograms or 281 pounds 6. Weight at 6 MONTHs POST surgery 7. Weight at 12 MONTHs POST surgery

Hi, All! I am scheduled for gastric sleeve surgery next week (8/16/23)! Kaiser has prepped me to the extent that I feel comfortable with the whole process. I am a bit worried about pain post-op, as I am going home same day. However, doc says gabapentin will be good enough, and he will call me the next day to be sure. I don't expect much after 3 days, though. I wish us all good luck, a speedy recovery, and all the weight loss we are hoping for. 🙂 Happy trails, Marian

Yes, I was like this. I was 53 when I had RNY. I had been period free since age 49 so yippee, then 4 months after surgery I got a “fake” period. I was concerned about the normal concerns, but the Gyn and surgical doctors told me it happens sometimes due to the estrogens being released from fat during weight loss. I was reexperiencing hot flashes and more brain fog. I was experiencing peri menopause all over again for a whole year until my weight mostly settled. I used to get anemic from periods and fibroids, now it’s malabsorption. Weird fact, if you leave the fibroids alone, they eventually calcify. You can see them when you get scanned at the airport for a flight. They make it look like I’m packing bombs and I get flagged for a very thorough search. At least if you can tell the person they are fibroids they don’t freak out over your stomach so much. The women “get it.”

This is exactly why I didn’t tell anyone other than my husband and mom before my surgery and I still won’t say anything unless the person asking me is also obese. Skinny people will never understand. They think it is a laziness problem and if we would just exercise and eat less then maybe we could lose. Okay. Right. Like I haven’t tried that since I was 10. I’ve abused my body and treated it so harshly to lose weight all so people like that would accept me until I got to the point where their opinions and acceptance no longer matter. This was MY choice. I did it for ME and my children. I did it so I can see them grow up and have kids of their own. I don’t need anyone’s negativity ruining my mental health and progress. Brush it off and do you! Who cares what anyone else has to say about it.

I don't worry about women being good to me, I worry about ME being good to me. Someone will always have something to say. I love the progress I'm making, but I've had some tell me I look sickly, or like I have "Ozempic face" (I didn't even know what that means until my cousin told me...I've never taken any kind of shot or med for weight loss), or that I took the easy way out, or that I ruined any chance I have to just live a normal life and eat what I want. But you know what? They don't live in my body, they don't pay my bills, they don't live my life, and they don't cut me a check every 2 weeks. So what they say or think is irrelevant. I'm happy, I'm healthy, I'm finally starting to live my best life, and I really don't care what anyone else thinks about how I got here. The point is, I'm here.

I had my surgery June 12th. I just started getting my energy back the last 2 weeks. I did have to increase my calories though. 500-600 calories wasn't doing it. I was trying to exercise but I was exhausted all the time. I Increased my cals to about 1000. It gives me enough energy to exercise but it has slowed the weight loss. But I'd rather lose slower and feel better.

This is more so just a rant I guess, ever since I began this weight loss journey and trying to get to my final goal of gastric bypass I have had countless people tell me surgery is the easy way out and I've had people pretty much judge my worth based off of how fat or skinny I am. I had someone at work tell me how I would look better once I lost the weight which I agree but she went into detail about my face and how fat it was. How my eye lids have too much skin on them which I'm not sure what she's talking about because my eyes look normal? She then proceeded to tell me how going to the gym and eating better and drinking water would help me. I've been following my dietician, I've been drinking more than 64 oz of water a day and doing my workouts and she just said "oh". Mind you she weighs 110 lbs telling me all this with her fast metabolism. I guess I'm just extra self-conscious now and I wish women especially were more empowering.

I’m sorry to hear this. If the burning is in the stomach region (not the oesophagus) this sounds like exactly what I had. Here is my long story: I was sleeved June 19 and I had this!! I had 2 ER visits and was re admitted to hospital. I referred myself to a gastroenterologist in the end. That is what you need. My pain was only at night too! Here is my long story and I hope it helps you. Please know I am feeling better now. You’ve had complications but there is hope. Here is what I posted last night in another thread. Hi everyone! I was sleeved on 19/6 (Australian date format lol). My experience was no smooth sailing and I developed severe complications despite seeing the best surgeon at the best hospital. I’ve felt really scared, alone and isolated so I am delighted to find this forum. my weight was only 92 pre op and I guess I was considered a healthy young woman. 5 days post op I developed a severe burning pain deep inside my stomach. After numerous emergency visits and tests, it was determine I did not have a gastric leak. I had to be re admitted to hospital to manage the most severe pain of my life, for another 5 days and they still didn’t know what was wrong. Long story short, I had to self refer myself to a gastroenterologist who immediately knew what was wrong. I had developed bile reflux from my bowel into my freshly cut stomach which was causing the searing pain, severe inflammatory gastritis of my stomach lining, which then caused pancreatitis and severe spasms of my actual stomach. Because of all of this I could not even get Water down and my throat was burning and mouth dried up from bile damage. He put me on a bunch of new intense meds and nearly 8 weeks post op now I am starting to feel normal. It’s been a really scary rough ride and emotional and I haven’t known if I’ve made the right decision. I can eat about 1/4 cup soft foods now which I am grateful for. I also ended up seeing a second surgeon who has done thousands of sleeves and said bile reflux and severe gastritis which causes severe sharp pain / burning pain is possible and he has seen it. Basically everything is inflamed and unhappy and this can also cause pancreatitis pain. How my new gastroenterologist helped me and I finally started getting better 2 weeks after surgery was medication to stop the bile called cholestyramine, as well as upping the PPis to twice a day plus adding on a drug called famotidine at night with physically reduced the volume of stomach acid you produce (ppis just neutralise it). Plus I had to take metaclopramide as it pushes things down instead of up, including bile, 3 times a day. I am finally better now nearly 8 weeks out. I was desperate and hopeless and felt like my original surgeon could not help me / did not believe it. Generally for me my severe pain was only at night time when I was meant to sleep! You need to see a gastroenterologist stat. Good luck.

I can't believe its almost been a year already! I hit my 1st major goal of 155 which is what I have been trying to hit for over 20 years but then I of course have been in a stall and have been going up and down the same 3 lbs and haven't hit it again since. So I'm hoping this stall will break soon and that I can keep going. Its so sad to not really feel happy about hitting that goal because I gained the next time I weighed myself and so I can't count it in my head yet. I'm close though so I'm happy about that. Once I hit 152 I'll have lost 80 lbs which is my next goal lol. I'm scared because I seem to have to be very strict with my calories to be able to lose and not gain. I have to be under 1200 and over 800 and I have to exercise. If I don't exercise then even with that range of calories I start to gain or stall. Which means I might be stuck at 1200 and under for life which is depressing because my hunger is really coming back and I've never had a great restriction so every day is a harder battle. I'm using veggies to fill in the hunger gaps and water too but its scary. I was hoping that after this amount of time that eating less and eating better would be natural and normal for me so that it wouldn't feel like a diet. For awhile it was like that but now with the hunger back I can easily eat too much and my brain still thinks I should be eating bigger portions. I'm still working on it though and I'm still hoping to reach more goals so I hope I don't fail this close to the finish line. One day at a time

I think that’s a pretty great loss too. We all lose at our own rate & there’s no really wrong or right rate of loss just what’s best for us & our body. If your team is happy with your loss you’re doing fine. Remember it took a long time to put all your weight on so it’s going to take time to lose it too. It’s not over yet. I reached my goal at 6 months but kept losing for almost another 12 months. In that additional year I lost another around 11kgs (24lbs). Yes it was very, very slow but it brought my total loss to 42kgs+/- (90lbs). My starting weight was on the lower which affected my rate of loss. What was your starting weight?

This is similar to what I wear to the pool. I'm pre-surgery and very self-conscious about how I look in a bathing suit. But I do aquatic therapy and it has been way more effective than land exercises! I wear a swim tank with an actual bra built into it and the capri pants along with water shoes. I can't wear the layered tops because they float up during therapy but the snug tank works well! The pool I go to has water aerobics where people of all ages are wearing similar outfits. I've seen people of all shapes, sizes and weights and it has helped me be much less self conscious about my own body in the pool. And the water feels so good!!

So I posted on Saturday about how I was having second thoughts, not about having weight loss surgery, but about whether I was in good hands with my current provider, after they have literally cancelled and rescheduled every single appointment, including my surgery date, which I've ever had with them. Several of you replied validating my concerns, which I so appreciate. Speaking up about my concerns caused my surgery to be cancelled! Can you even believe it?!?! I'm calming down now but I literally had a full blown panic attack at work. I was hysterically sobbing. I'm on a liquid diet, have been off my anti inflammatory meds for 6 days, cancelled my vacation I'd planned since last November after they rescheduled my surgery from July, and now this? I would never have seen this coming, even after all the prior chaos. After expressing concerns about things up to this point I was told, among other things, that I am "rehashing" the past and that because of this they do not feel I will comply with post op care, because these same scheduling issues will probably continue to occur post op to. So since I expressed these concerns, despite this being my entire point that I wanted to be sure I was in good hands post op so that I could get the proper post op care, they have determined that I won't comply with post op care? I am attaching my reply back to them from the patient portal. The nurse did say she MAY be able to meet with the team and get my surgery date reinstated however. What a day! What a joke!

1. Basics: Female, 35, 5’7”, Hawaiian, RNY 2. Pre-op weight lost: 40 lbs 3. Day of weight: 355 lbs 4. 1 month post-op: 321 lbs 5. 3 months post-op: 284.8 lbs 6. 6 months post-op: 250 lbs 7. 12 months post-op: 199.8 lbs

im almost 5 years out and lost 115-120 lbs (depending on the day, lol) pre-surgery, i was only slighty active...not because i didn't want to be, but because i tired out easily. i would do fun cardio-intensive activities every once in while, but wouldn't last long, and would take a few days to recover. immediately post-surgery i did a couple laps of walking the hospital halls, once home, forced myself to walk around my kitchen island several times a day. graduated to walking around the block a few times a day, to walking several times at once around that block, to walking around that block for at least an hour, often times much more. by 5-6 months post op, i was RUNNING around the block and neighborhood for min 5km sometimes more 5-6 times a week. i also started exploring other things to do around 3 months post. i tried hot yoga, tap, zumba, bouldering, salsa, weight training. only yoga and zumba stuck. i did force myself to do some sort of strength training 4-5 times a week (body weight only) because i hate strength training but i also know it does wonders for how one body LOOKS. i was pretty religious about all this exercise for about 2.5 years. then i hurt my foot which sidelined me for 2-3 months and i didn't go back to my regularity of exercise since. i probably only run a 5k twice a week now. i do notice the difference in how my body looks now vs then. i was much firmer then and also had more energy. my arms are a faded memory of their once awesome glory lol. i keep telling myself to pick it up but alas im super lazy. its way hard to start up again once u stop, so my advise here would be: dont stop! as others have alluded to above, exercise isn't really a main factor in weight loss, it more for health and "body presentation" lol. u mean i weigh pretty much the same as i did in my exercise heyday, but i dont look nearly as good (body wise). another piece of advice i would dole out here is find something u actually like to di, as u have a better chance of doing it long term. good luck! ❤️

I started strength training back in October for 2 months before I entered the program. Personal issues and how I chose to handle them stopped my progress. I restarted weight lifting and swimming in March. I focused more on weights (6 days a week) and swam 2-3 days a week about 3 hours total. I eventually dropped swimming, since I swim at a public facility and the kids are out of school, and for some reason overtake the indoor area instead of staying outside where the slides and water features are. I have been lifting 6 days a week, at least an hour a day, I have greatly improved my strength, and I have been told I look slimmer, but I do not see it in my clothes or on the scale. I am still waiting on my surgery date, my Insurance told me it will likely be in September, so I am trying to get as much off as I can beforehand, It has been great to become stronger but disheartening to see the scale barely move. On Friday I decided I would focus on cardio only for 2 weeks to see how that goes. After surgery I was thinking I could get back into weights, I prefer doing that to the treadmill, stationary bike, recumbent bike, and elliptical. I plan to swim again once the kids are back in school. I appreciate your comment as I have been having a hard time with not seeing the scale move. It upsets me a little that none of the medical professionals I have seen have suggested focusing more on cardio, just to get more weight off for now.