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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.

Around October last year I fractured my tibial plateau badly, along with damage to my ACL, PCL and meniscus and was bed-ridden in a locked leg brace for seven weeks. I was over a year post-op at the time, so weight loss was way slower and the chances of me snacking over my calorie limit was high, particularly with the boredom of forced bed rest. Still dropped two kilograms over that time, despite thinking that I was for sure going to put a bit back on. At ten weeks, your surgery will still be at its strongest, so if you stick to the plan you'll be fine. Sore, but fine. (I also broke a rib just before Christmas. I'm apparently collecting broken bones now 🙃)

I don't see myself as "skinny" per se, but I've blown past my goal weight, so I guess that's what I am now. I'm also short, which means that shopping for clothes is super fun now...I'm a 40 year old cisgender woman and I have way more clothes from the little boys' department than I care to say LOL. I even have to wear kids GLASSES. It kinda sucks sometimes. (When does clothes shopping get to be easy for me? When I was at my HW I was in that dreaded gap between the plus sizes and straight sizes and now I'm in a different gap entirely, and don't even get me started on what it's like to buy motorcycle gear as a 4'10" woman who wears a size 0-2). My tailbone and pelvis are constantly causing me problems when I sleep; I don't get out of bed because I'm done sleeping I get out of bed because I'm in pain. I'm also really skeeved out by the attention I receive from men now, too. I am very happily married and do not want that kind of attention at all, and when I spent my entire adult life until now completely invisible to these thirsty dudes, it's just like...I wish I could zip my fat back on when I go out sometimes so I could go back to being invisible! and it's not like I dress "sexy"...as I said above, I dress like a little boy so who knows?!

So, here I am... 3 months into this stall. Still 265 today. I feel pretty good. I did have a couple bouts of arrhythmia earlier in the month that I can't explain, but pretty good since. Clothes fitting looser, weights getting heavier, but the weight not moving. My doctor is not going to be happy with me if I don't make some progress between now and my May 15 check up. I have not been good about my tracking lately. I need to cut out the alcohol too... week days are good, weekends get me. I'm still good about getting to the gym 4 to 5 times per week and my diet is not horrible. I just need to figure out what to do to break through.

That's what I've been doing! Trying to occupy my mind with positive stories on weight loss stories and sleeve journeys on TikTok and YouTube. Seeing those make me feel better about all the outcomes and yeah, each day is another day to smile in my head. I'm only postop day 5 but I'm getting there. Congrats on surpassing it! [emoji3590] [emoji170] *~☆AnxiousMommy☆~*

I did have anxiety over what might happen after surgery. Truth be told apart from the very bad pain I had that took a very long time to go I have had a brilliant run. No dramas no nasty little surprises. I kinda buried myself in Dr Google and weight loss stories on you tube after surgery. Time has passed now and I am focusing on being health and eating well. The pendulum will swing in another direction. Focus on your new future. Life after WLS.

I had "buyer's remorse" the first couple of weeks. It's common - and people usually get over that pretty quickly. a lot of women notice crazy hormones the first few weeks or months of surgery (weird menstrual cycles and emotions all over the place). It's because estrogen is stored in fat cells, and it's released during rapid weight loss. It'll stabilize once your weight loss slows down.

I can tell based on your posts this is of great preoccupation. It might be beneficial to discuss these feelings with a therapist. Did/Do you have the same anxiety about the health risks associated with being overweight? Heart failure, blood clots among them as well. If you’re looking at the studies you’ve also surely seen the risk of complication is extremely low when looked at as a percentage of all patients who have weight loss surgery. Remember that the Quantitative data is much more reliable. Im sure your surgery center has given you specific care and nutritional instruction including daily active minutes, grams of Protein, Oz of Water. All those instructions are tailored specifically to help you avoid complications. Other than speaking with a therapist the other thing you can do is channel this anxious into following their nutritional and care instructions to the letter to set yourself up for greatest success. And do make sure your sleeping and not googling all night. Rest is essential to healing. It’s normal to have some anxiety but don’t let it consume you. 

Does anyone else have health anxiety regarding this surgery? --- I'm so worried about developing stenosis, blood clots, or sudden heart failure! I made the mistake of looking into the death statistics and the most common deaths from gastric and how it mostly happens up to 4 weeks after surgery due to those causes. Age range 32-54 and weight 285-400+ -- Likely overreacting, but it's a huge worry of mine. I'm constantly checking my incisions and moving just to avoid it. I read we're high risk up to 3 months post op. -- I had surgery Feb 2nd 2023 *~☆AnxiousMommy☆~*

I feel your pain on this, I stopped using BC because of the gain and mood change, I couldn't deal with it.

Did your doctor say you should expect to feel less hungry? If there was no alteration of your stomach it’s unsurprising you have same hunger level. Removal of gherlin producing section is what is the biggest impact on hunger (likely done during your first surgery) and your pouch restriction would change. Unless your doctor told you to expect otherwise it seems like weight loss associated with a revision to the intestine & focusing on malabsoptive effects would result from the malabsorption itself and any reduction in intake would be a secondary result from behavioral conditioning associated with the malabsorptive effect and changes in dumping.

When I was running into similar problems - not specifically light headedness, but an energy wall - after about an hour in the pool, my RD at the time suggested that a common recommendation for pre workout is something that his relatively high in complex carbohydrate, moderate in protein, and low to moderate in fats. Extra protein ahead of time did not do much by my experimenting, but that bit of extra complex carb did - it allowed me to break through that wall. It seems that with the complex carb, you will get that extra bit of insulin lift an hour or two after consumption, so that helps to fill in the energy gap you get at that time; at least it worked for me. I also didn't find that I needed it on days that I was only doing weight work, even when that lasted 90 min or so, only on swimming days. YMMV. For convenience, I ultimately settled on a small meat and cheese sandwich, with a good quality multigrain bread (or toasted.) That may or may not fit with your needs at two months out (I was about four months out when I was playing with this.) IIRC, my now RD nephew used to use some of the original CLIF bars that had a similar profile for this, so that may be something to look into. But that rough macro profile seemed to be the main trick - more fat or protein didn't do much for me, but the complex carb did (and I was never agonizingly low carb to begin with.) Calorically, it was mostly just a reshuffling of what I was already consuming, just rescheduled. Your plan at this time is somewhat limiting, but maybe some high fiber fruit - berries or the like - as the complex carb may do it, Talk to your RD, as you may get some adjustments to your allowance to accommodate your needs - this would not be unusual for those who are more active than average, as the plans are written with the averages in mind. Good luck, and have fun, but also don't overdo it - it's easy to do, particularly with trainers!