Search the Community

I don't believe in the concept of "willpower" as well. White knuckling something doesn't work long term, doesn't matter if we're talking weight loss/maintenance or something else. At some point it needs a certain vigilance about portions or food choices - however, I practically don't know a person my age and above who doesn't need that vigilance and it shows. I know quite a few people (usually guys) who started gaining weight in their mid thirties, early forties at the latest so this is not a WLS specific problem. It's a people problem. That much seems to be willpower-related. However, a lot of stuff in our lives is willpower related to a certain point (like getting up early to go to work despite you being tired because you didn't get enough sleep). Reframing definitely does help. People might not even be aware of the fact that they're reframing but they're doing it anyway. However, I guess what should be mentioned as well is the fact that patients seem to have very different caloric needs in regards to maintaining their weight and that seems to be at least partly by shear luck and not (only) by copious amounts of exercise.

That will be the anaesthetic coupled with the stress of the surgery itself. Many find their hair temporarily changes texture (more coarse, finer, etc.) after any surgery not just weight loss. Then add in the reduced diet with our diet, our natural hair loss cycle is accelerated. Double hair whammy. 😁. I wondered if that would happen too as the extension is attached to your hair which is more likely to fall out after our surgery. Tape extensions may be better???

I don’t believe will power plays a long term major role in your success either.. I have decades of evidence that my stubbornness & pig headedness meant I could stick to any diet & lose weight. But I always put weight back on because i always went back to eating exactly the same way. Sound familiar? I never dealt with the why I ate. I never permanently changed my relationship with food. My will power couldn’t compete with those old, strong habits & thinking. Many of the benefits of the surgery don’t last. Your hunger comes back. Your restriction isn’t as strong. You can physically eat more, etc. (People can & do eat out around their restriction & their smaller tummy.) What the surgery does is give you time. Time to lose weight. Time to examine what, why & how you eat. Time to change your relationship with food, to establish new habits & routines around eating. Time to do the head work. The surgery alone doesn’t do all the work for you. If you think it will you won’t be as successful. Reframing the problem, as @SpartanMaker suggested, certainly worked for me. For many years I managed my reflux through dietary choices. Cut out daily carbonated drinks. (Limited how much soda or tonic water or champagne I’d had when socialising.) I cut out caffeine (except green tea). No spicy food (helped I had a sensitivity to chilli). Avoided rich, creamy, fatty, oily food. If I ate/drank them I would experience severe hiccups & other reflux symptoms. It became it didn’t matter how much enjoyment/ pleasure/comfort I got from eating/drinking them, they made me sick so it wasn’t worth it. I approached my post surgical weight loss & the way I eat now the same way. I’ve put my health & well being above any emotional benefits I got from eating. I feel so much better by not eating in my old way. I don’t get bloated & windy everyday. I don’t have those little white pimply bumps on my arms & they aren’t dry & scaly either. My thighs don’t rub together so no more heat rashes. I sleep better. My feet don’t ache when I wear heels or stand for any length of time. I have more energy. I didn’t have any comorbidities before my surgery so I can’t claim I don’t have those anymore but my chance of developing them is extremely low. I’m maintaining my weight. And so on. Initially it was my physical well being that motivated the change of thinking but now there’s also a emotional & mental well being component. And yes, part of that is vanity. The old maxim of eating to live not living to eat resonates strongly with me. I’m trying to apply this thinking to the stretching exercises I do now. (I really don’t enjoy exercising.) I feel better & body parts are looking leaner & more defined. Sorry for the long post.

I was sleeved in 2019 and developed Gastroparesis. I went from 240 to 125 but the vomiting is relentless. Now I am scheduled for a complete bypass 4/24 in hopes that it will relieve the symptoms. Would love to hear if revision had helped anyone else with Gastroparesis. My upcoming surgery is not for weight loss and strictly to relieve the vomiting and reflux but a tiny part of me is scared that I’ll gain weight once I heal.

I got sleeved on my 50th birthday! I'm 11 months post-op and at goal. Everything worked well for me, no complications and the weight came off quickly. I have lost 99% of my excess weight... normal BMI, diabetes in remission, sleep apnea gone, tons of energy, and I look so much better. It's never too late!

I certainly understand why you'd say that, however I do worry that you and others are beating yourselves up over this concept of "willpower", when self control/willpower isn't actually what separates those that are successful at weight loss and those that aren't successful. I mean, I get it. We've been told this over and over again, but there is a growing body of research that shows it's not self control that's actually at work here. In reality, your ability to resist that tempting food is no different than successful dieters, or even people that have never had a weight issue at all. What those folks do differently is reframe the problem. For example, instead of thinking resisting a particular food comes down to "being strong", they might mentally tell themselves that it actually tastes bad, or maybe they visualize the lousy feeling they tell themselves they'll feel after eating it. Over time, these sorts of approaches help them develop new habits that replace the old unhealthy ones. It's not an instant process, but it is something that anyone can do. For those that need the help, this is something a qualified therapist can assist with. I mention all this, because beating yourself up for being "weak" is counter productive and just makes the problem worse. Obese people are not weak or lacking in self control. Some of us just lack good strategies for replacing bad habits with good ones.

This is a tough surgery, its so difficult to believe we will ever eat normally again. I know from this forum that we will be able to eat take away foods in the future but just not to the extent that we could before. Yes I have felt loss and early on real regret because I had it tough. I personally am getting used to eating Chinese and Thai foods without the delicious rice and noodles. It just is not the same as before. If I had the choice of big stomach back or keep my weight loss then in a heartbeat I would say I love the new me so 'meh' to the carbs

I think everyone probably goes through a mourning period of sorts. But it gets better. I won't lie and say I don't miss ice cream some times. but when the weight starts falling off, its all worth it.

Whilst I agree ... The majority of us get the surgery because we're not able to have the die-hard willpower to not overeat. We're sold by surgeons our stomach will stop us from over eating so it's fair to say that's what we would expect I'm experiencing the same issue but I've had to really focus and remind myself this is the honeymoon phase of weight loss. Doesn't make it any less difficult when you're not as strong as others with willpower Sent from my Pixel 6 Pro using BariatricPal mobile app

My VSG surgery is March 1st i weigh 237 my doctor to me I don't need a pre op diet I am the perfect weight. Is there any advice to give me before surgery? I have only been eating in small portions. Sent from my moto g power (2022) using BariatricPal mobile app

My weight is 237 I don't remember my BMI Sent from my moto g power (2022) using BariatricPal mobile app

My numbers were a little off. My fat free 0% body weight is 206.... I was forgetting bone mass. I got on the scale today and initially was bummed because I went up a pound.... only to realize that I gained a pound of lean muscle this week. Lol. This is why you can't always just trust a normal scale. I'm including a screenshot to show everything my scale measures. Have a good day!

@Quetta89 that’s awesome! My surgery is in a few months. What is your weight\BMI? I’m hoping my surgeon tell me the same thing 😩😩😩

Hey just found this app my VSG surgery is 3/1 can't wait. What should I do leading up to my surgery date? My doctor said I'm at the perfect weight I don't need a liquid diet before surgery. Any advice? Sent from my moto g power (2022) using BariatricPal mobile app

I had my sleeve 12 years ago - I will be 67 next month - so I was 55 ! I started my pre op diet at 320 lbs. got to 175. Gained some over 8 years then took it back off and then some. Now weigh 162. From a plus size 30 to a petite size 14. Saggy ? Yes. More surgery ? Nope. Happy ? Yes ! Loving it. Wish I had done it sooner !

Same. I eat alot of junky "meals", and sometimes i post them (i'm looking at you cheese popcorn dinners!), but i am afraid sometimes that posting these junky meals may be triggering for some people and may not be appreciated (or get judged: i drink alot of alcohol) i dunno.... It's true that i don't eat much in volume, but i do get up there in calories (like 2K a day) like @GreenTealael proposed, i'll try to show more varied examples of what i eat (fair warning: they may not be pretty!) i agree that the more people post what they eat, we all get a better idea of how varied we all are, and hopefully gain some acceptance and recognition that there are a whole host of ways to be...and that's ok. ❤️

Spinoza, firstly, I would like to really thank you for creating this conversation and keeping our November 2021 cohort together! Truly, you are the best! It really helps us to see where we are and compare our own progress to others! Kudos to you! And I am soooo happy to hear about your progress!!! I saw your numbers, and they are so incredible! In my case, I am still only 8 pounds from my goal weight, and believe or not, I can’t get it in the last 8 months. On a positive side - I am not really restricting myself on anything. I was relying on my usual smaller portions thinking that’s enough. I am not gaining any weight, but I still didn’t get my goal. Honestly, I know that if I be more strict on my diet, I will get there easily. But I think I am not ready of another “dieting”, I am still tired of it from my previous life! Nevertheless, I am soooo extremely happy with my current life!!! So far, this surgery was one of the best decision of my life! I look great and I feel great! I really hope that all of our buddies share such happiness!

There's a lot to unpack here. Let's start with why we're told to eat slowly: First of all, recognize that you had a bunch of nerves cut. There are multiple ways your digestive system signals your brain that your are full, but these nerves are the immediate feedback mechanism. Unfortunately, that immediate feedback mechanism is basically broken for a while after surgery. The other signals that you should stop eating are mostly hormonal, but these take a lot longer to activate. (20 minutes is often thrown around, but this is dependent on lots of factors like what and how much you ate.) Bottom line, if you eat faster, it's easy to eat enough to make yourself really sick before you ever get the signal to stop. Obviously this is problematic partly because your stomach is smaller and will fill up faster than it used to, but you also need to remember that early on after surgery, your stomach is also really swollen and inflamed. An inflamed stomach can't stretch like it's supposed to, so there's not a lot of difference between empty and over-full. Taken together, the eat slow recommendation is primarily to keep you from making yourself sick. A secondary consideration is that your team wants you to learn "mindful eating" where you're much more aware of everything that you consume. Being mindful of your consumption is correlated with better outcomes for bariatric patients. Hopefully that answers your original question. I want to touch on something else that's a bit of a personal pet peeve: you mentioned, and I hear a lot of others worrying about "stretching their new stomach". There's more myth than fact here and this idea really needs to die out. The truth is that stomachs are designed to work like a balloon. They stretch out as needed, but when empty, they return back to their original size. Can you make it stretch it out to the point it allows you to eat more over time? Yes, and that's exactly what should happen! This is one of the reasons every bariatric plan I've ever seen allows you to slowly increase how much you eat the further away you get from surgery. You need this to happen so that as you get to maintenance, you'll be able to eat enough calories to maintain your new healthy weight. What you're not going to do is somehow "ruin" your new smaller stomach just because you overate once or twice. It would take overeating a lot over time for excessive stretching to happen. I think what sometimes happens is the inflammation starts going down and people find that they can eat more than expected. Remember, the stomach stretches as needed (up to a point), so they start to panic. That does not mean there's a problem. It actually means that things are progressing like they should. If this is you, just stick to plan and you'll be fine.

Thank God I found this post. I’ve been feeling guilty for wondering why my weight loss has stopped. My revision date was January 11 and have been stalled since January 31. The doc told me that the weight loss will be slower this time around and honestly, im feeling good health wise. Im not complaining but good to know its a bit common.

Definitely a stall and they are annoying. I think I've hit one every 3 months. I get off the scale for a week, really look at my food journal to see where I am with protein and water intake, and maybe change up my exercise. I've gotten pissed with myself because the scale did not budge for three weeks but in the meantime, I had dropped a full dress size because I built muscle from adding weight lifting. To shift your mind and relax your body, I recommend yoga for stress and relaxation. Namaste.

I'm getting revision surgery along with repair of my hiatal hernia withFlagstaff Surgery Associates. Dr. Berger and another surgeon there are weight loss surgery specialists. I have Medicare and a supplement, and I expect to be approved even though I have a low BMI because of my Barrett's esophagus and GERD issues.

Officially 11 weeks, so excited for my upcoming 3 month appointment, I know the Doc goes over important info for going forward and expectations. Yesterday was a day that I was having lots of head hunger, my hormones are going nuts having a period every 12 to 14 days, I'm not going to weight myself until the day before my appointment since I tend to get swollen ankles when having pms. I guess having multiple periods is better than going 8+ months without one [emoji57] Sent from my SM-G960U1 using BariatricPal mobile app

When I had the sleeve I couldn't tolerate carbonation. I found a way around it, as I learned to pour the beer rapidly into a large mug or cup which released the carbonation into foam and allowed me to drink the beer when the foam settled. Unfortunately this little discovery was the single biggest reason I didn't hit my goal weight. I had a revision to bypass a year ago, and strangely now even though my pouch is supposedly smaller than my sleeve I can tolerate carbonation better. I still don't drink a lot of carbonated drinks, but on the occasion I try it seems to be better now.

It about has to be something you're eating. I don't think this is necessarily related to your weight loss surgery, but it's possible I suppose. If you haven't talked to your surgical team, I'd recommend at least asking about it. That said, I'd be looking first at a food insensitivity. There are lots of things people can have issues with, but some of the more common ones are dairy, histamines and gluten. You can try an "elimination diet" to see if what you're eating is causing the problem. Google it if you're not familiar with the idea. Something else to consider is adding probiotics to your daily regimen. When your gut bacteria are out of kilter, it can cause a lot of gut issues including bad gas. Good luck.