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Tenatively December 4th or 13th! I started back in June. I asked my primary about bariatric surgery and he gave me the refferal and was in my bariatric consult within 5 day. They set up all my nutrition and psychologist appts the same day. Got the all clear from my nutritionist and psych and they have submitted to insurance for approval. From the start I downloaded a food tracking app. Started tracking my food again since I'd stopped doing it years ago. Even taught my nutritionist about macros and modified body builder diets. And started upping my excerise. So far I've lost over 40 lbs going back on a modified style body builder diet and interested to see what I'll lose on my pre-op. The last couple weeks I've been pushing my protein more as well so hitting about 50% protein (around 100-110g) daily. Also calories are running around 650 - 900 daily and thats even a struggle. Slowly getting my husband on board now and started trying out all differing kind of recipes, protein powder and supplements. So far the Syntrax aren't bad (like the lemon tea and caribean cooler best), And I started following a handful of other baratric patients online (one had a DS, two had sleeves), and started aksing my friends who have undergone bariatric surgeries. Built bars will by my travel go to as well as CleanSimpleEats greens. Learning all tips and trick as well on how to get my protein in and make sure it works for my husband as well. Also, I never carry a purse, only a wrist wallet. So to help me be successful I bought a nice tote/laptop bag that will be the bag I grab when ever we go out (errands/travel/etc.) This way I will always have snacks, drinks, protein and water enhancers on hand and I don't have to settle for something not great. Also got a nice large shaker cup and it even has a pocket for my water bottle. So for my preop its 3 weeks and with my tenative date of Dec 4th, I won't be able to partake of thanksgiving unless it gets moved to Dec 13 and then I can have one thanksgiving dinner early in the week before I start pre-op. I'm actually getting more excited for the adventures my husband and I have planned and not having to think about how my weight will impact those.

Well I’m 1.5 weeks into my 4 week preop diet and things have smoothed out a bit thank goodness. I’ve got a preop appointment tomorrow for testing and other fun things. My work has also cleared me to be out essentially through the rest of the year. Positive thoughts for you all with your Nov. 1 dates!

Agreeing with the others, stick with the plan. The first couple months you definitely do not want to put pressure on those staples and risk a leak. That's a rough surgery compared to what you just had. Infections from that can get nasty and lead to sepsis. I struggled with overdoing it myself early on, but had to remind myself that its to prevent burst staples, and that I can give it 30-60 minutes and resume eating to give it room. I've noticed I can do 8 fl oz easily if I'm not careful before my stomach starts pushing back. As for the hunger, I'm one of the unlucky few that still has the obsessive head-hunger. It takes practice, but look for signs that your stomach and body are telling you that you are full, despite part of you saying "I have to keep eating!" It took a lifetime to train that reflex, and it won't go away overnight. I'm still fighting mine daily. I've noticed I'll feel a little pressure if I'm approaching the limit, but if I keep going, I start to get a runny nose, which is my final warning before making myself sick. My goal is to prevent it from getting to that point. One thing I did to throttle my eating speed is to get disposable mini / baby spoons and forks from amazon. They're only like 1/4 of a teaspoon so you get a smaller portion per bite, which helped me a lot! It takes longer to eat, which gives your stomach more time to send the full response to the rest of your body, since that is delayed. I've had to use the disposable ones since its mentally easier for me to walk away from the food if I throw the little cheap spoon in the trash. I'd rather use the reusable ones, but I know the limits on my discipline haha. This is just anecdotal, but as a recovering Type 2 diabetic, I have to be careful with sugar and starch hidden in foods. I've eaten some over the holidays, which tasted great, but realized it made me crave more. If I went a meal without it, I would get actually angry, and I'm sure I wasn't any fun to be around. Eating desserts over Christmas would send me into constant snack cravings for 2-3 days. I told my doctor, and he said you have to power through those couple of days, but by focussing on low carb (not necessarily keto) and prioritize protein, unsaturated fats and water, those cravings go way down. I've had to use "filler foods" to hold me over between meals. My wife says its gross, but I've been eating Fage plain greek yogurt to hold me over. Single Digit carbs and 17g of Protein per serving and its more savory rather than sweet. Mentally, I've used it as a substitute for cheese, mayo, sour cream, and other things to just pretend that its a more substantial food. That and it does seem to fill me up as long as I don't have anything sweet with it. Similar with 2% fat cottage cheese. Also, some artificial sweeteners can set off a sugar craving or insulin response, which just compounds the cravings. I'm not sure which ones do, but I know the ones in the Fairlife brand protein shakes do not set it off for me, while MuscleMilk does make me crave it. Fairlife has Monk Fruit, Stevia, and Sucralose, and don't seem to set that off for me. You may want to experiment to see which ones may bother you.

Glad to hear that you are not left with that forever. I never had clumps of hair coming out but starting at 3 months I had a pretty good amount left on my comb. And I use a wide tooth comb. Never pull or ripped at it even in the past to avoid split ends. Never a brush since it tends to pull out all my curls. Now at almost 8 months out from surgery I notice the hair loss is finally slowing down. I would suggest some trying a wide tooth comb and combing out from the ends up avoiding tugging hairs out at the scalp with a brush. Also washing too often can strip hair of its natural oils and dries out the scalp. Sorry to hear this. Maybe find a good quality protein drink that you can stomach during those times you can't eat? I know most say taking extra supplements don't help with WLS hair loss, but in your case It couldn't hurt. On the bright side, there are a lot of really good, cute short hairstyles out there. I bet you rock it

Birth control pills and eventually menopause took care of the PCOS for me. I went into vitamin and weightlifting mode in my 30’s to also manage symptoms and preserve child bearing abilities, and that was somewhat successful for me (I did have one child, yeah!) Others definitely have more serious issues and other solutions so there is only encouragement for you to live your best life. I was very undecided about sleeve or bypass but further testing in me confirmed severe GERD. Bypass was the only solution my insurance would cover. In a perfect world I would have chosen DS or mini bypass as a more reliable alternative for more permanent weight loss. I still keep an eye on how my clothes feel, and how my skin looks. I do not lift weights with the vigilance I used to, just a couple days a week to beat age related decomp. I still track vitamins because it’s easy to forget iron or the B’s, or proteins, then my hair falls out (not again!). I think of the changes and tracking I would have to do as a full blown diabetic verses now, and I chose the surgery and health every day. I am so grateful for bypass every, single, day! 2+ years now

Commenting in case anyone stumbles upon this thread in the future, as I'm guessing OP may have already finished their liquid diet! I've had good luck with ramen packets. Yes, the little powdered flavor packets that come basically welded to your 99 cent packets of cheap ol' ramen noodles. Definitely avoid these if you can't have much sodium 😂, but I was able to add Isopure unflavored protein powder to some boiled water with the ramen flavor packet and it was pretty darn good! Chicken and Soy have been my favorites so far. I didn't like the smell of the Beef flavor very much, but it tasted fine. My program allows us one 8oz cup of V8 per day as well (...or 3 dill pickles...so random, but love those electrolytes!), so I heated that up and mixed in the unflavored Isopure - it tasted a lot like a creamy tomato soup, and was great for breaking up the sweet-flavor overload from the protein shakes. I thought I hated V8 prior to the LRD, so I'm glad I gave it a try - it's not bad at all. I'm hoping I can find some basil in my spice cabinet and make a faux tomato basil soup! Finally, in the USA at least, there are these little "jars" of Better Than Boullion. Add a teaspoon of whatever flavor tickles you into some hot hot water until it dissolves, add unflavored protein powder if you want, add some pepper or other seasonings if it makes you happy, and you've got yourself a delightful protein "soup". 😁 Other items that are awesome are sugar-free Bomb Pop popsicles and sugar-free Tropical Popsicles, sugar-free Jell-O, Propel and Gatorade Zero, Crystal Light mix-ins for your water, Protein2O water, and there's even Gatorade Zero w/Protein these days - I found a pack of the mix-in sticks on Amazon! Most bone broth I've tried makes me want to gag, with the exception of the LonoLife mix-in sticks (found some at my local grocery store, but found more flavors on Amazon). Anyhoot, good luck to everyone doing their liver reducing diets, whatever your requirements may be! Mine's all liquid (and those 3 pickles...lol), I'm on day 6 of 14, and honestly it hasn't been all that bad. Just make sure you get enough protein spread out through the day, enough water, and get some electrolytes in (especially if you get leg cramps, nausea, headaches, or dizziness).

Amazing work! My six month was November 1st. I'm down 91 lbs (171). I too changed my goal from 160 down to 150. I'm in a US size 10, which I'm to the point that I need to wash them so they'll fit. I'm expecting to be in an 8 in a few weeks. The loose skin is a minimum, which I'm so happy about. All in all everything this going beautifully and I couldn't be happier.

I just started the process. I still have tests to finish. Baritastic is an app they suggested for me to use, use it and track everything. As I said I just started the journey 4 weeks ago. I've lost 27 pounds just by keeping track. My first dietician visit is in a few days. Track everything. You will be surprised on how much it helps. You can do it.

This is so true! Before VSG I would always have the mindset of "starting tomorrow". If I messed up, I would say "Okay I'll try again next week". Consistency isn't about being perfect, it's about being able to stick with something long-term. I, like everyone, have my days. Sometimes I just gotta have a Snickers bar after an exhausting long day. But I sure as hell don't eat one every day after that for a week! The quicker you can learn to pick up where you left off without starting over, the easier lifestyle changes become. Wishing you the best on your journey. Don't hesitate to reach out if you ever need anything.

Hi all! I had gastric sleeve on November 6th and am just now getting the required liquids in. It has been kind of rough. I didn’t have a pre-op diet so I guess I wasn’t as prepared as I thought I was. Only thing that I wanted to eat was crushed ice but I’ve finally moved to protein water, protein shakes and broth. I’m so glad I found this app. I had to go get IV fluids and a steroid today and will repeat Monday at my week check in appointment. Anyway, just saying hi! Good luck to all!

Today's the big day for some of you!!! 💜I am so excited for y'all - may you have uneventful, routine surgeries with no complications and fantastic recoveries, and may you achieve all the health goals you set for yourselves! Definitely keep the rest of us posted on how you're feeling and how things go, what you find does/doesn't work for you, etc.! Someone asked earlier about good water bottles without straws - I like my Nalgene 32oz bottles. I have one of the smaller-mouthed bottles and one of the larger-mouthed bottles (with a little insert that helps me not pour the whole darn thing down my top). I also have a ~70oz "Juggy" water bottle that came with a straw, but it can be removed. I like how, with the Nalgenes, I know that if I fill & drink them twice, then I've at least gotten the minimum 64oz of water per day that my program recommends. The Juggy is HUGE, but really useful for the days where I'm either running around or not able to fill multiple times, or if I'm being lazy and don't want to wander downstairs to the fridge for filtered water multiple times. 😂 As for leave, I'm unfortunately not eligible for FMLA at my job just yet as my one-year anniversary is the end of January. I did fill out similar paperwork "just in case", though. I do have an absolutely insane amount of vacation/sick PTO, so I will be using that to get paid for my 1.5 weeks completely off of work (a Wednesday through the next Friday; my surgery is the day before Thanksgiving here in the USA). I plan on working from home the 2nd full week, and then will likely return to my hybrid schedule (3 days in office, 2 days from home) after that. I'm lucky that I have a desk job that really just requires some walking. I've been extremely open with my HR person and immediate supervisor, so they both know what's going on! We've had at least one other person in my unit have WLS, so it's nice to not be the "guinea pig" for all this (and to have someone just upstairs that I can "talk shop" with).

I'm so happy to report that I have an appointment January 2 with the director of the new practice. When I spoke with the administrative person to make the appointment, she did make it sound likely that I would not have a lot of extra stuff to do since I was right at the end of the process before it got cancelled, just needing the routine pre-surgery tests and my insurance approval. I'm so sorry your insurance is being a pain about your in-network coverage. The whole in or out of network coverage is total BS. If they're a licensed doctor, they should be covered. Period. I have to say, the relief I felt when the HR person sent over the insurance benefit packet and I saw the logo of a very widely accepted insurance that is known to have good coverage is almost impossible to describe. This is sort of a long-term consulting gig for my husband, and I had nightmares that the consulting firm would be using crappy companies I'd never heard of to save some cash. Financially, I may end up coming out of this a little bit ahead, maybe $1500 less out of pocket. But I swear I'll spend that on hair dye to cover all the gray hair this ordeal is giving me! And I'm self-employed, so I can't just request a few weeks of vacation when the time comes. I'll need to do some major reworking of my schedule to accommodate the new date. As you said, is the head of the old hospital losing sleep over this? No, he is not. But it will work out, and this time next year I will be looking back on it and laughing. In that awkward way you laugh over things that are so not funny.

Getting excited for those of you pre-op approaching your dates!! For those in the pre-op diet, it seems so slow but you WILL get through it! Keep going!! For those post surgery, how are things feeling now?? I'm officially one week post op today! I continue to have the weird stomach cramping when I try to drink anything other than water. I'm hitting my fluid goals every day but of course not my protein since my stomach won't have it! I'm still pretty sore and napping in the afternoon. My incisions have decided they hate the surgical glue and today flared into a red rash so I sent a message to the surgeon, hopefully they can suggest something. I weighed myself today (I weigh only once a week) and according to my scale I am down 10 lbs from surgery day!! I freaked out, shrieked, weighed myself again, then went and tried the other scale which thinks I'm 7 lbs down. Either way I'm officially below 300!! I haven't been that way in years. I'm so, so excited. I was really worried this wasn't going to work for me because I only lost 6 lbs on the pre-op diet. I feel a little better now. LOL

First congratulations on your life changes and healthy goal achievements! I very much enjoy working out and being active too. Just don’t trust whole heartedly what sport devices say word for word. They are really tracking trends and general steps. They tend to overstate actual calories burned. They also don’t account for older-than-50 bodies that burn calories far more efficiently. Several things could be at play so you will still have to do your detective work. Try talking with your dietitian or nutritionist. You may need more protein. You might be triggering your body into starvation mode too, and need to slightly increase your food intake. Make sure you aren’t coming down with a cold that increases inflammation like Covid. Are you getting 7 hours of sleep per night regularly? Is your bloodwork good? Taking probiotics? I stalled at the same time and found my bloodwork was off. But, I also talked with my surgeon who “walks his talk.” He suggested switching up my workouts. I used to live for the weightlifting high, but only lift 2 days a week now. I do more outdoor activities like rowing, biking, and hiking. Walking with poles burns far more calories. I’ve rediscovered walking with all my daily water in a backpack ups my morning walk too. Two years out I’m still finding my balance of food to exercise and still loosing weight. You’ll find it too.

I would say it’s a combination of fluid retention from the Ringer’s Lactate or Saline if you received an I.V, any meds you were given and the stress from illness itself. I know it’s easier said than done but try to hold off weighing yourself for a while. 10 weeks post op is still fairly early on and you have many more months of progress to look forward to. Good luck ❤️

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.

Check with your team as to whether 1/4-1/3 cup is appropriate for you. Some do encourage people to eat more than that. Slowing down can be difficult at first until you establish a sort of eating routine. Little things like putting my cutlery down between bites, sitting back from the table, if with people not taking a bite while someone’s sneaking all helped slow down my eating (& the mindless shovelling of food in my mouth). I also used a teaspoon and then buffet forks (sporks) & dipped them in my food versus scooping spoonfuls.

Crazy to think that surgery was 4 weeks ago. Finally started on solid foods, I return to work next week (thank god I wfh) and I'm nervous but excited to get back into a routine. Also thinking of buying a mini stepper to get my steps in now that my days will be consumed with work.

Hi All, I had a sleeve revision to mini bypass 4 weeks ago. I had a brief period of relief from the acid reflux (due to GERD) but now it is back. I am taking a PPI every PM and find I wake in the middle of the night with a burning bile sensation. I chew a few tums. Also during the day, I don’t have much of an appetite (yay) but I find that if I don’t eat every 3 hours or so, the burning returns and I can taste bile. Has anyone had this? I had really hoped this revision would be the end all for this issue and I was so optimistic but now I’m almost worse off than before the surgery…….

First congratulations on your life changes and healthy goal achievements! I very much enjoy working out and being active too. Just don’t trust whole heartedly what sport devices say word for word. They are really tracking trends and general steps. They tend to overstate actual calories burned. They also don’t account for older-than-50 bodies that burn calories far more efficiently. Several things could be at play so you will still have to do your detective work. Try talking with your dietitian or nutritionist. You may need more protein. You might be triggering your body into starvation mode too, and need to slightly increase your food intake. Make sure you aren’t coming down with a cold that increases inflammation like Covid. Are you getting 7 hours of sleep per night regularly? Is your bloodwork good? Taking probiotics? I stalled at the same time and found my bloodwork was off. But, I also talked with my surgeon who “walks his talk.” He suggested switching up my workouts. I used to live for the weightlifting high, but only lift 2 days a week now. I do more outdoor activities like rowing, biking, and hiking. Walking with poles burns far more calories. I’ve rediscovered walking with all my daily water in a backpack ups my morning walk too. Two years out I’m still finding my balance of food to exercise and still loosing weight. You’ll find it too.

I'm so sorry you are going through this @Ashley Amari!! That is a LOT of hair loss. It is so shocking the things our bodies do when under stress. When I was in my early 20s I had an autoimmune flare and lost over 1/3 of the density of my hair. I've always had fine hair but a lot of it, that's no longer the case. In time some of it came back, but I kept having autoimmune flares and with each one I'd lose more and more. It has stabilized now that I'm on a biologic to stop the flares, and it is growing back now though I don't think it'll ever be as thick. But I am DREADING the shed from surgery. I had one after having a hysterectomy. It has all come back from that, it wasn't any worse than the autoimmune triggered ones, but at least it all came back from that! I have high hopes for you that while you have lost a lot for now, it should come back, and often comes back even healthier than before, probably because of all those vitamins we are taking! LOL There is *nothing* we can do to avoid this shed cycle, it is natural after a major surgery and serious weight loss, so don't worry it is something you did. It isn't. It will come back in its own sweet time and until then I bet you'll rock the hell out of that wig!! ❤️

Oh man what I wouldn’t give to be able to chew anything lol my program is strictly liquids and doesn’t allow any fruits or veggies so I’m SOL congratulations you’re one day closer to surgery 🎉🎉🎉 I had my pre-op testing today and can’t believe I’m only a week away from surgery. Praying for a safe procedure for all the pre-ops still in waiting and a speedy recovery for all those post-op’s… 2024 is going to look much healthier for us all ❤️

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.

Holy crap. Ok, so a few things. First, just because you CAN eat these foods, doesn't mean you SHOULD. You're not even close to healed. You still have numbness from nerves being cut. You could be doing damage you can't even feel yet. There's a reason we're supposed to increase our eating in stages. Second, the amount you eat is more of a head thing than a physical thing. You cannot fit the same amount of food into your new stomach that you used to, and you shouldn't be trying to. Your pouch is only so big, and you have to remember that and start working on your head hunger and your relationship with food. Third, talk to your nutritionist about how you're eating and how to get back on track with your bariatric eating plan, because if you aren't compliant now, you'll never be able to be later on. In no way should you have been eating actual, solid foods 1 week after surgery. So before you do damage that has to be surgically fixed, reach out to a bariatric therapist to help you with your relationship with food and learning the difference between real hunger and head hunger, and your nutritionist to figure out how to map out an actual way to get on track and a realistic meal plan. You might also want to talk to a nurse practitioner about what possible damage you might have done and if there's a way to kind of fix it before it gets to a surgical level.

Courtnay, I am so sorry you had such an awful experience... I had some nurses that really irritated me and treated me poorly but an orderly found me crying because I was in so much pain and stressed by the nurse and so she reported the nurse, which was uncomfortable in the moment because I had to talk to a bunch of people, but really made them treat me decently the rest of the time! You can definitely have the bypass later once the sleeve takes off some weight. This happens sometimes with DS surgeries where they end up doing the sleeve first and then the intestinal part later once some abdominal fat is lost. Livers can be really tricky. Mine was still "plump" during the surgery, I just happen to have an extremely skilled surgeon who was able to work around it, but he told me sometimes that isn't possible. And I really want to say this, what happened to you IS NOT YOUR FAULT!! I'd find a therapist that deals with trauma, specifically medical trauma if possible, to help process this experience. Later down the road if your weight loss isn't stable you can consider converting to bypass or DS, you have options now with the sleeve! I know it isn't what you wanted, and I don't understand why the doctor didn't just close you up and try again later if you felt so strongly about it, but hindsight is always 20/20 and the good thing is that the sleeve DOES take off weight and that weight loss will help you feel a lot better. You should be on a good PPI with your heartburn, twice a day if needed. Omeprazole was always useless to me, so I use pantaprazole in the morning and Dexilant in the evening, both are prescription and they work wonderfully, no food triggers at all. You don't have to suffer with heartburn and reflux, they really should sort your meds out for that. It will make nausea and eating a lot easier. Oh and a few weeks out my digestive system was very testy. I had IBS before and it was grumpy post surgery. Fairlife shakes make me run to the bathroom for days for some reason! I like the Syntrax Nectar fruit flavors, they are like juice. Seeq is also good, it is like juice too, they are water based protein drinks, not creamy milk ones, and my digestive system handles them both better. You can get samples of Syntrax from Bariatric Pal and samples of Seeq from their website. Sending you lots of love... I hope things ease up soon and those hormones calm down, they are really rough after surgery! ❤️