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My son was 9 when I had my surgery in July. He is 10 now. I was honest with him. I told him that I had liver disease caused by being so overweight, and also how much I didn't like not being able to do things with him (he is skinny and very active.), and I wanted a chance to live as long as possible for him. I have him a chance to express any concerns and questions and he has probably been my biggest supporter and cheerleader from the beginning. I'm lucky, because he's a wonderful kid (no, I'm not biased at all lol), but he really handled all of it well, especially since he couldn't see me in the hospital because of COVID. I think most kids are able to understand and it's just best to explain it at their age level. I'm an RN and I've worked with pediatrics a lot, so I just kind of took the same approach I did in the ER when I had to explain things to my pediatric patients. Sent from my Nokia 7.2 using BariatricPal mobile app

I gained 10 lbs after surgery - they pumped me full of fluids and it’s the trauma on the body. It will come off within the first couple of weeks (along with other weight). Stick with it - it will be fine!

Good day all Misty from singapore here. Glad to have found this forum because 12/10 ppl around me have been super discouraging. So on 11 May I'm going to go through this life transformation on my own [emoji4][emoji123] Sent from my SM-N975F using BariatricPal mobile app

that's not uncommon. A lot of people gain weight while in the hospital because of the IV fluids - some people gain up to 10 lbs from them. But of course, it's not a true gain - it's all water (and it also has sodium in it - which makes some people retain it for awhile...). It takes a few days to work its way out of your system. I'd just stay off the scale for a few days if it's messing with your head.

Thanks, yeah I’m down to 12 stone 5 pounds and would like to get around the 10 stone mark.

I had surgery April 27th gastric bypass..Down 10 pounds so far.

Hi ... surgery 5/10!!! So excited!!!!

I was warned by a Bypass patient that she would be feeling the effects very quickly and had very low tolerance for alcohol. She also told me that in 45 minutes “I’m sober as a judge.” She is >10 years out and suggested no drinking. I was craving soda too. Bought a small can of Diet Pepsi and shook it enough to get all of the carbonation out. I drank it and realized...not the same...the craving went away and flat pop...😞.

I'm 5 days before surgery and have been on the pre-op for 10 days now. I know I'm getting plenty of protein, I drink a ton of water, and I feel tired all the time, with a low-grade headache. It wasn't like this initially; in fact I was kind of buzzed at first. Now I just don't seem to have any energy. I started taking the bariatric iron and multi I bought for after surgery, thinking it may be a lack of micro-nutrients, but sheesh I'd sure love to feel well rested, especially going into a month or more of super low calorie, liquid intake after surgery. Anyone else feeling like this?

I went for my pre-op this morning… it’s finally hitting me…June 2nd is near. I scheduled my COVID 19 test today(you have to get a COVID 19 test done two days before surgery), got blood work and urine sample done. Those were the last things I had to get done…WHOOOOHOOO!!

Let me start this off by saying this: I made a mistake, learned from my mistake, I won't do it again.... so please don't judge or lecture me. OKAY, now. Last night I was exhausted and just wanted to go to bed, but I hadn't eaten supper yet. I heated up some leftover shrimp and veggies and I only heated up an appropriate amount for the stage I am at. I normally put my fork down for 2 minutes after every bite, but the food was going down fine and I was so stinking tired and I really slacked on putting my fork down like I should (huge mistake). About 10 minutes after I finished, I felt super sick and threw most of it up. I felt better after throwing it up. So, I won't be doing anything stupid like that again, but I am wondering: is this a common response for eating too quickly? Thanks for reading!

Did your surgeon clear your for strength training yet? I haven't had surgery yet, but I've seen online that heavy exercise isn't recommended too soon after surgery until you are eating more calories. Having said that, 10 lbs a month is a LOT. Unless you are the size of the people on My 600 LB life you will not lose a ton of weight each month. Someone in a FB group posted a Bariatric Surgery Averages and for people in your weight category, the average lost in the first six week is 15-25 lbs, so if you've lost 20 lbs since surgery, you're smack dab in the middle of that!

I guess I'm just venting. Before surgery, I would read people's comments/concerns of "what if it doesn't work for me? what if I can't lose?" and think... of course you're going to lose! You've had your stomach mostly or entirely removed and you're eating a small fraction of what you used to! But now, I get it... I'm about 5.5 weeks post op - in total I've lost almost 40 pounds, but that includes close to 20 pounds in the pre-op liquid diet. In the last 30 days I have only lost about 10 pounds. I never expected to lose 20 pounds a week (I was only about 100 pounds overweight going into surgery) but I did expect to lose more than this. I get more than my daily water intake, all of my protein, take my vitamins, I eat a variety of foods and usually hover around 500-600 cals a day, low to no carb... I do the peloton now that I can exercise 3-4 times a week with strength training and I walk 10,000+ steps a day. Over the last week I have gained 1 pound. I know I know I know that its not based on the scale, to look at my NSVs, and to keep my eyes on the prize long term. But I also feel like I have been able to lose more weight than this on my own in the past. I know it wasn't long term and I couldn't sustain it, but when I think about all of the prep I did, how sick I was, the sacrifices that I have made and how hard I have worked and am working, its easy to feel defeated. I expected to lose at least 15+ pounds a month for the first few months at least, not just hover on these constant plateaus. I'm worried about when I am finally going to stop losing altogether since people say it drops faster in the beginning and then really slows down... I'm already super slow.

If you are concerned about eating habits and behaviors it might benefit you to be evaluated. An eating disorder diagnosis is best made by a mental health professional. Your Primary can provide you with a referral to a licensed psychologist (PhD / PsyD) who specializes in eating disorders, or a bariatric psychologist. Can a therapist help with what you described? Yes. Be honest about what is going on and find someone you feel like you can connect with. This is so crucial because if you can't be open about what's going on they may be less able to help you. I was in therapy for a long time with a therapist who specialized in eating disorders. The main focus was dealing with the stressors that led me to overeat. Whenever stress increased, so did my eating. I was the peacekeeping type who struggled to say when my feelings were hurt or when I felt bulldozed. I was walking on eggshells in my relationships to keep the peace. The process can be emotionally draining. It forces you to deeply evaluate your behavior and there can be some uncomfortable truths. There were times I would dread going because I knew it would be a lot of work. At the time I thought, "This is hard but I'm trying to get myself better." With hindsight, I can see why my therapist pushed me, asked the tough questions, and made me accountable to my goals. I'm so much better now and I don't regret going. These are some of the things we worked on: Improving mood Self-care Cognitive restructuring/ CBT--changes the way you cope and react to stress Mindful eating- eating at the dinner table, 30-45 minutes, smell food first, one small bite at a time, eat slowly, identify flavors and textures Identified vulnerabilities Identified triggers--that negatively impact mental health Negative self-talk--challenge the truth behind the talk Identified emotions Behavior patterns Full/ not full/ beyond full Beliefs surrounding weightloss Urge control--resist the urge to eat by distracting yourself for 1, 5, 10 mins I kept a food and mood log. For a few weeks, I wrote down everything I ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I would rate my stress and hunger level from 1-10 and emotions/feelings--happy, stressed, sad, tired at each mealtime. If important, I would document a bit about my day like had a fun time with friends or had a fight with my husband. Like I said, every time I had a rough day, I skipped meals or overate. Not only did therapy give me clarity about what I was doing, but it also gave me tools to deal with it and improve. I'm not cured, but the pull to eat, eat, eat is quieter and the behavior/thoughts are less constant. Another benefit is my therapist had my back even when friends and family didn't. She could point out some of their crazy-making behavior and confirm it wasn't always me which made me feel better. Good luck, I hope you get some peace. ❤️

My feet have always been wide, even as a normal size child, so for me, that won't change, but it seems a lot of other people do go from a wide to a regular width when they lose weight. I'm still a wide because that's just my normal feet, but I went from a 10 back to my original 8.5 or 9 like when I was young, so I'm happy! And my already wide feet were definitely even wider when I weighed more, so it is MUCH easier to find shoes now. Sent from my Nokia 7.2 using BariatricPal mobile app

I am 1 week post op today and I can say im down almost 10 pounds. I am drinking the different protein premium drinks, sugar free Gatorade and water. Trust me when I say its a struggle at times getting 64 oz in if I dont start drinking by 6am. But what I hate so far is this nauseous feeling. Also I hate these muxed berry chewable vitamins by bariatric advantage. They are nasty as hell and makes me want to puke. The wild cherry chewable calcium citrate vitamins not too bad. I call myself getting bariatric specific so i want have to take alot of pills. Im thinking now I probably have should went with the flintstone vitamins.

I would just wear baggy pants, preferable with a drawstring. I wore a hospital gown literally until 10 minutes before I was discharged. With IVs you can't really wear regular clothes easily. A long gown can be a pain if it gets stuck under you butt in the bed and you slide down on the plastic mattress causing the neck to choke you; then you have to wrestle with it with your arm attached to an IV. If you have a button up shirt I would wear that since its easier to put on and if you didn't want to wear a hospital gown at least any IV or wires for a monitor can go thru the shirt holes if needed. You can also just take one arm out if needed for a quick blood pressure check.

Shan.... as much as I want to tell you that all your friends will be at your side.... The ugly truth is, they won't. It is a great thing that you have not told anyone. Is your mom a good "secret keeper"? I hope so. I learned the hard way the first time around with the band. I only told select people I thought I could trust... turned out no one was. It got out and that when the unsolicited advice started and questions... and the judgmental looks....The, you took the easy way out snickers. I regretted telling anyone, that's for sure. This time with the sleeve, only my husband knows...... 100000% better. Everyone knew I was doing crossfit to try to lose weight before my wedding, so I started laying the groundwork..... told everyone that i had a hernia (which was true Hiatel) and I needed to get it fixed. They also knew I was dieting for the wedding, so when the weight started to come off, no one gave it a second thought. After about 5ish months out when the weight loss was more noticeable, I got a few.... "how much weight you lost".... and "how are you losing"....... So I told them.. Not enough... hehe... and dieting. It's now been 1 year and about 8-9 months (8/28/19) and no one says anything. I went from 173lbs to 120-125lbs..... My advice............. DON'T TELL ANYONE EVER........... even after it's done.

Really sinking in now. Booked the time off work afterwards and revisited my hospital bag (so far earplugs, eye mask, lip balm, mouth wash, face wipes..) Found out today the LRD will 'only' be 10 days for me, not sure what yet - milk or just restricted calories. I've only told one friend I'm going in for this so easy to feel like it's not really real.. she's been equal parts supportive and overbearing bless her. Glad to find a community here.

I’m so happy to hear you’re doing well. Today I’m 10 days post op and I’m fine. I’m walking and climbing on to my extremely tall bed lol. It was horrible in the beginning but I think it helped me relax the incisions/stitch tightness. If I laugh or sneeze then I have a bit of pain but I just place a pillow across my tummy. 😋. I don’t know many people who had surgery around our time, I was wondering how is your diet going? Are you on full liquids? I don’t think my dietician is very good... I had my surgery done in India so the foods recommended are all Indian cuisine haha. Could ya share a bit about your food diet please ? thanks so much

7 pounds is good! Everyone loses at a different rate so try not to compare yourself to others, even if that's difficult to do. And honestly? Some of us have stall issues, myself included. Holy hell, but I stall a LOT! In the beginning of my journey I didn't have stall issues. But then the third month of my journey came and I stalled for 23 days and... after that stalls that last 3-4 weeks are the norm now (I'm 15 months post op. Though it's hilarious that stall was in April of last year and the worst stall of my journey happened in April of THIS year... I think the month of April HATES me!). Hell, I literally came out of my biggest stall of my journey (lost a pound on March 29th and then didn't lose anything until April 29th. I lost a pound.) only to hit a HUGE milestone and the past few days I've just added to that by somehow making up for the worst weight loss month of my journey and losing 5 pounds in a week. My trick? I cut my sodium this week. That was it. Apparently that was all I needed to do lol. Anyway, enjoy every little victory on the journey. I always try and set a weight loss goal for the month. It used to be 10 pounds and then I realized THAT wasn't going to happen anymore and lowered that to 5 pounds a month which worked until December (I lose 2 pounds then same in January. Met the goal in February and March, but lost 1 pound in April. But 4 so far in May). You're doing great. Slow and steady wins the race!

Things like veggie burgers, tuna and some other seafood items (usually start out with tuna salad or other mushified or lubed up version,) refried beans, etc. were on our first month diet, so it's not that far out of line - dietary progressions do seem to be accelerating some over time as different programs learn what people can actually tolerate - it's a lot more art and experience than science. Doc was adding more veg into my diet at day 10 as my protein intake was more than adequate. It's a big YMMV thing, which is why we see some programs that may still have their patients on liquids while others have theirs on steak. A bit of surgeon's personal philosophy in there as well, I suspect, as some may treat everyone cookie cutter style, forcing all to work to the lowest common denominator (one patient had problems with soiidish food at four weeks, so all must avoid that until everyone can progress together) while others are content and confident enough to allow more individuality, recognizing that patients' tolerances can vary widely. So, if you are working within your program's boundaries, all is good as long as your are tolerating things well. A couple ounces of the softish meats that are permitted at this point is not unreasonable - some may not be able to have that much yet, and others will have no problems. Likewise the veg, half a cup may or may not be too much depending upon what it is and how an individual gets along with that. Some things are more slider-ish than others, and go through with little problem, I suspect that what is considered to be "soft" even if we perceive them to be fairly solid, like a veggie burger, has more to do with how it is processed in the stomach (or not needing much processing) than how "solid" it may seem before we eat it. Most of the things in this 'soft" phase are things that usually go through fairly easily; this also means that we may be able to eat a bit more of them than we would "real" solid food like a tougher steak or pork that has to sit in the stomach for a while being processed before it is let through.

WAY TO GO! Its like I was talking to myself! I am the same always getting down to 230's but never in the 220s for 10 years I am 3 pounds away from being under 230. Do not get discouraged slow and steady is the best why so you are not losing muscle mass with the fat. You are doing great keep up the good work!

Thanks @kristieshannon! That's what I'm thinking as well! I wanted to be averaging like 10 lbs (at least at the beginning) but that's not my journey it seems. Lol. Im a HUGE Greys Anatomy fan and they seem to punish patients that lose weight too fast all the time. Lol! So I guess it OK...

Today is day 14 of my pre-op liver shrink diet. Tomorrow is full liquids and Friday is the big day. I’m a ball of nerves. I was allowed 3 protein shakes per day, unlimited no calorie clear liquids, and 4 oz of lean protein and 2 cups of raw or 1 cup of raw veggies per day. I did not cheat. Not one time. I am so proud of myself for making it. It was not easy. Lots of ups and downs emotionally but I survived. I know I can do this now! I’m down 12 pounds since I began the liver shrink diet. That makes my total loss pre surgery at 50 (!) pounds. I am shocked and honestly didn’t think I would lose much during the last 6 months. About 10 years ago I went through the entire bariatric program and backed out at the last minute. The reason was beyond my control but I’m so glad it happened. I am certain I would have not been successful because my heart wasn’t in it back then. My heart is fully engaged in changing my life to a permanent healthy lifestyle. I proved that to myself over these past two weeks. I hope those reading this don’t think I am sharing to brag or to make anyone feel bad about themselves. That is not my intent. I’ve been a lurker for the last 8 months and I found comfort in stories of those who worked really had and had success. While I’m not there yet, I think I’m on the right path. HW 280 ish CW 227 5’8”